“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”
John C. Maxwell
This is a quote I’ve heard a lot of times and one that I fully agree with, or at least I think I do. As I’m sure the case is with many people a one liner can be catchy and powerful, even if it is not used to mean what it originally did. I am not familiar with any work of Maxwell or any of his own religious convictions except for what can be seen above. To be honest I thought it was quite hard to understand this idea in more than one way when it is talking about Christians wanting to tell others the story of Jesus, you have to show that you care about them before you can start sharing what your beliefs are, if you didn’t show you cared why would/should they listen?
This post is going to have to come in two parts as I think there’s a lot that I want to write. Let’s start a bit before this, why on earth are Christians going out and telling people the story that they believe? An answer that a lot of people will give to this is of course because Jesus tells us to, this can be found in Matthew 28, which reads,
Then Jesus came to them and said,“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
A great passage telling Christians to share what they know and believe, but, I wholeheartedly believe that this is not the reason why Christians should “do mission”. I don’t feel that as Christians we do things simply because we are told to do so. I’ll try and explain fully what I personally believe. In order to do this another passage from the Bible may help, this one is a little more obscure than The Great Commision but I feel that it is just as important.
“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos 5:21-24
In this passage from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) the Israelites are being rebuked for following the commandments they were given to follow with regard to sacrifices and worship. They were doing all of the rituals and practices to the letter but God was not pleased with their offerings. They were doing the right things for the wrong reasons and this displeased God, their worship and actions were not heartfelt, they were merely hollow offerings. When Christians focus upon a command as their reason for doing something, they can lose sight of the real reason for doing an action. I believe this can happen in doing mission, it becomes a command to be obeyed and has moved away from what it really is and should be.
So why should Christians go out and spread the Gospel if it isn’t because they’re told to? Kirk in his book What is Mission writes,
“God’s intention for the world is that in every respect it should show forth the way he is – love, community, equality, diversity, mercy, compassion and justice”.
Mission should not be seen as something that we have to do but don’t want to. In striving to become more like Christ we need to develop our love of others, a love that will provoke us to act to help those in need, both physically and spiritually and care about and for all we meet. We shouldn’t do mission because we are told to, we should do mission because we are compelled to through the love we have for others and the desire we have to enable them to have life to the full.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:16-18
