The following is an actual conversation I had with a man today. He came into my office and requested to sing some songs he wrote in the next church service.

“Possibly,” I said. “I would like to read them first.”

“Read them?” he asked. “Why?”

“Just to see what they say, what they teach, what the content is.”

“Oh. Well, they don’t really have any content. They’re more like choruses — just one sentence sung over and over.”

“Ah.” Alarm bells are going off in my head. “If you don’t have any written down, give me an example of one of these sentences.”

“Well, my favorite is, ‘Resting on the bosom of Jesus.'”

“… Yeah… we’re probably not going to sing that.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know what a ‘bosom’ is?”

“Yes. It means ‘chest.'”

“Right. And while I know that the KJV sometimes uses ‘bosom’ to refer to men’s chests, the way the word is used today, it primarily refers to women’s chests.”

He looked at me blankly.

“You know,” I explained, “breasts.”

“But Jesus is a man. He doesn’t have breasts.”

“Right. And since that is what the word ‘bosom’ means in most people’s minds, we don’t want to sing about the bosom of Jesus. It’s confusing. But more than that, even if people understand that Jesus is a man and doesn’t have breasts, we would still be singing about resting on his chest, I don’t think this is a song most men want to sing. Most men do not want to sing about resting on the chest of Jesus. We don’t want to feel his breath on our cheek, we don’t want to sit on his lap, and we don’t want to rest our heads on his chest.”

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As a follow-up to my post about some door-to-door evangelists that came to our house, Sam Riviera wrote this fantastic guest post. As with everything Sam writes, I think that this approach to door-to-door evangelism is loving and kind, and helps us represent Jesus to those who come to our door trying to convert us to their religion.

Visits from Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and others can be an opportunity to show them the love of Jesus.

Many years ago I was in the grocery store. A woman approached me.

“Remember me?” she asked.

“You look very familiar, but I haven’t seen you recently, have I?”

“No, you haven’t. I was one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who came to your door several times. I remember you because you were the only Christian I met who was nice to me. I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness anymore and want nothing to do with religion, especially Christians. They were mean to me. I won’t even talk to them.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“Yes, I’ll talk to you. You were nice to me and talked to me about me and my family.”

We continued talking for about fifteen minutes, and then parted ways.

Showing the Love of Jesus

I grew up next door to a Kingdom Hall. I know that many people cycle through the JW movement, and many end up burned on religion, both the JW religion and especially the Christian religion (mostly because of the reception they received when they knocked on the door of people who said they were Christians). I view having these folks show up at my front door as an opportunity to show the love of Jesus to someone who is showing me that they are searching for answers.

There are techniques that usually work in dealing with these folks, both the “newbies” and the “dyed-in-the wool” fanatics, techniques which allow us to show them Jesus’ love. I usually find these folks easier to deal with than some “Christians” who are extremely certain of (their understanding of/their “version” of) Christianity and the Bible.

Talk to People

When “evangelists” for any religion show up unannounced at my door, I never invite them into my home. Having worked in law enforcement, I know that some people are not who they claim to be and are not associated with the group of which they claim they are a part. However, I have seating on my porch, and a table and chairs on the patio by my front door where I can talk to people I do not know.

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…if you don’t “Like” this post, it must be because you hate God.

I am kidding, of course. But every so often I see these sorts of posts come through Facebook and Twitter. “Retweet this if you love Jesus!” “Love God? Like this!”

So I laughed when I saw this comic.

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When I learned Greek and Hebrew, I found it helpful to use mnemonic devices to memorize vocabulary. I would take what the Hebrew or Greek word sounded like, and take the English translation of the word, and then try to come up with a sentence that included both.

So, for example, the Greek word speiro sounds like “sparrow” and it means “to sow.” The mnemonic device I used was “I sow seeds the sparrows eat.” Another example is with the Greek preposition epi. It sounds somewhat close to “I pee” and means “upon, on, at, by” and so I used the mnemonic device “I pee upon, on, at, or by the tree.” It’s crude humor, but it worked for me!

One Greek word I always thought was somewhat ironic was the Greek word allelon. It means “one another.” The device I used to memorize this word is “all alone with one another.” I found this device ironic because you would think that no one can be all alone when they are with other people, but the truth is that some people are never more alone than when they are with others.

Some of the most lonely people I know are those who have the most friends and go to the most parties. They party as an attempt to fight back the encroaching loneliness that threatens to choke them every minute of every day. Their nearly manic efforts to always be with people and around other people are all because they feel loneliness taking over their lives. Though they are with people all the time, they are all alone most of that time.

The reason behind this is that although such people might be with others all the time, very few of those others actually know the person.

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