Pulpit Messages Christianity and Life

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22582, 10 March 1948, Page 3

Pulpit Messages Christianity and Life

(Contributed by Ministers’ Association.) ———

TEXT “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."—Galatios G. 7. Spreading Good News speaking in the Baptist labcrnacle on Sunday morning of the amazing growth of the Christian Church in its earliest centuries, the Rev. A. L. Silcock said; “If the Church today desires to grow, she must return to First Century methods of evangelism. The First Century method was ‘Every Christian a missionary.’ The Eighth Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles tells of a persecution by which the Church at Jerusalem was broken up and scattered abroad with this result.—‘And they that were 1 scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.’ The record goes out of its way to make it clear that the Apostles (the official ministry) remained in Jerusalem. So the Church spread through the witnessing of the rank-and-file of the Church membership. “Here is the secret of the amazing growth of the Church which in three centuries grew from an obscure handful in Jerusalem till it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Slave told slave, slave told master and mistress, merchant told customer and customer told merchant, tradesman told fellow tradesmen, scholar told scholar, housewife told housewife, men meeting upon the highway exchanged the good news, travellers took it with them wherever they went. This is the way that Christ intended that men should be captivated by his Gospel. Nothing is so convincing as a sincere personal testimony. If the early Church had depended for its growth solely upon its official ministry, it would have died before it walked. It will die today unless Christians get rid of the erroneous idea. Christ said: ‘Ye are my witnesses.’ And we must be if we are to be true Christians and effective Church members.”

Christian Witness Speaking on the subject of “Childishness,” the Rev. H. Dyson, of Knox and St. David’s Presbyterian Churches, said: “Although we like to think we are grown up, there is still a tremendous amount of childishness in most of us, and just aS children like to dress up and play at ‘grown-ups ; that is what many people do with their religion. They are content to play at the real thing. A great number of Church members have never grown up or developed spiritually. They are at the same spiritual station as they were 10, 20 or 30 years ago. “The Christian religion and Christian Witness today is no child’s play; it calls for a manly and Four-square attitude towards all the problems of life. “St. Paul counselled the Corinthian Christians to ‘quit themselves like men’, and that is what the Church and the world needs today—not a band of shallow, faithless, spineless, childish Church members, but groups of active, strong and faithful Christians, men and women, who, in the assurance of their faith, will ‘quit themselves like men; knowing that nothing testifies to the greatness of their religion and commends it to the world like a manly witness to the saving truth and the reality of the Christian faith.”