An Interesting Read

I've been wanting to blog this for a long time and finally have a little time to do it. It's from my Folk Religion book.

"What would humans want to know if they could know the unknown?"

"How should Christians respond to the problem of the unknown, and the human desire to know? What answers do the Scriptures give regarding the way God guides human lives? When new converts ask when they should go to hunt for much needed game - should they go tomorrow or the next day, and should they go north or east - how should missionaries respond? If we ask them where they got game last time, or tell them to take their chances, we inform them we have no religious answers. They will go back to their practitioners who cast bones and tell them to go tomorrow and to go east. Christians must provide better answers to the real questions people ask about life.
Before looking at biblical principles regarding God's guidance, a few preliminary remakrs are in order. First, Christians as leaders must model for the people concrete ways of seeking to know God's will. We need a theology of guidance that informs human actions, but theology alone is not enough. It must be made real in everyday life. Like other spiritual disciplines, learning to know God's guidance is as much a matter of mentoring as instructing."

"It is interesting that Jesus in his parable spoke of stewards, not accountants. There is an important difference. Accountants are human calculating machines who keep track of every cent to mkae sure it is properly recorded. They do not make decisions regarding investments based on risk and return. Stewards, on the other hand, are given resources and entrusted with using them for the gain of the master. They have many options open to them, and must make wise decisions. God calls Christians to be stewards. He has provided gifts, and sound minds to use them. He gives wisdom when asked, but allows freedom to use these gifts for his glory. When asked, he guards against wasting these gifts, and he helps believers grow to maturity by empowering them to use what he has given in ways that provide meaning and purpose in a multitude of culturally appropriate ways. Too often missionaries have had an accounting rather than a stewardship approach when they give resources to young churches."

"Churches in the West face another danger. They are deeply unfluenced bythe engineering mentality of their world, and believe that if they know how things work and do the right things, they can control the future and uncover the past. Consequently, planning, budgeting, measuring, evaluating and replanning often constitute the heart of church business meetings. The same can be said of many Western Christians who believe they can control their lives with science. Like Christians everywhere, Westerners need to learn again dependence on God, and a need to seek his leading, and not to trust their own efforts."