MrsDrPoe: "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"

Good morning, all! This Theology Thursday, I invite you all to open up your Bibles with me as we look at the topic of pointing others to Christ.

Early last Sunday evening, a visiting preacher from Ireland was informing the congregation on how the small group that he works with evangelizes. Two of the three prongs to their three pronged approach were to hand out New Testaments and to place an add in the local papers inviting folks to study the Bible. This brother pointed out that these methods of sharing the gospel with others are not difficult, highly technical, or terribly expensive. He also, very humbly, stated that he sometimes doesn't know answers to questions addressed to him in Bible study and that he readily admits it when this is the case. He encouraged us to do the same and suggested further research on our part to help supply the person with an answer.

That discussion made me think about the fact that no one knows everything, but everyone knows something. And it's what we do with what we know that defines who we are. If you were a doctor and one of your patients had a condition that would kill them in the next two years without treatment, would you tell them? If you were an airplane mechanic and you knew one of the planes that you work on wouldn't survive another flight without being overhauled, would you tell your supervisor? Now you may be saying, "Of course I would! I don't want to get sued!" or "Sure! I could go to jail for negligence or manslaughter!" or "Yes! I don't want anyone's death on my hands!" or even "Duh! It's my job!"

Think about that for a minute. People around us are dying spiritually every day- our neighbors, our friends, our families...as Christians we know that. We also know the ONLY thing that can save them! "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." (Rom 1:16) It is our job to teach others: "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching." (2 Tim 4:2) Furthermore, we have been given the scriptures from God, and in order to be good stewards of this blessing, we must share it with others.


Mini Case Study: Apollos
In Acts 18:24-28, we are introduced to a man named Apollos. He is described as "an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures;" furthermore, we are also told that he "had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord." But, the scriptures also point out that he "only knew the baptism of John [the Baptist]." By this time, the One that John the Baptist was preparing the way for had already come, died on the cross, and ascended into heaven; thus, as this passage indicates, Apollos' knowledge of the plan of God for salvation is limited.

Instead of waiting till he knew 'everything,' he was preaching the word at the synagogue in Ephesus. Of course, Aquila and Priscilla (after hearing him) took him aside and "explained to him the way of God more accurately." Later, we see Apollos taking his heightened knowledge and using it to continue to "vigorously [refute] the Jews publicly, showing from the Scripture that Jesus is the Christ."


We can never know everything about the Bible; therefore, we should diligently continue to read and study throughout our entire physical lives. But the fact that our knowledge is limited should not keep us from telling people about the word...about Christ and how he died for us and for them. We may not have all the answers to all the questions that might be asked of us, but we can try to find someone who does when these questions arise. We have the word, and the word is power, and "with great power comes great responsibility."

MrsDrPoe: What's in a Word

For my next Reading Review, I present to you...What's in a Word by Webb Garrison.

I was provided a free copy of this book to read and review by the BookSneeze website. This book is essentially a collection of very brief histories of words and phrases that are common to the English language. It is organized into seventeen chapters, with each chapter hosting a group of related words (such as "Chapter 2: Sports and Recreation"). Accompanying the histories is the occasional picture to aid in visualization of certain words.

“What’s in a Word” was a very interesting book. While I am most definitely not an expert in the history of our language, the histories presented for the selected words seemed believable and accurate. I especially appreciated the way the book was divided up into manageable pieces – it was very easy to find an appropriate stopping point for any desired length of reading. The book would make a fantastic coffee table or bathroom book for house guests or a great gift for that person on your list who likes “different” books but may not have as much time to read as he/she would like.

As much as I liked this book, there are some things about it that are pseudo-negative. First, certain of the histories are extremely short and contain very little information. I realize that the point of this work was not to present an exhaustive history of each of the words presented, but a few histories were a bit disappointing. Also, a few of the words chosen for discussion seem to be outdated.