Who? Me? God, Are You Talking To Me? - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Have you ever wondered why God explained the marvels of his love in the New Testament from the pen of the disciple John, a son of thunder who asked Jesus to call down God’s wrath on the Samaritans? Have you ever wondered why God chose Saul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees to bring the gospel to the Gentiles and argue eloquently for why there was no Jew or Gentile in Christ? Have you ever wondered why God chose a prince of Egypt reared in the halls of power to be a refugee in Midian for 40 years, then return to Pharoah’s court to advocate for God’s people against the rulers and gods of Egypt? If you can make sense of these paradoxes, then you are ready to consider the story you are about to read: a salesman from 5th Avenue in New York is challenged by visiting missionaries to his church and subsequently called to one of the most primitive areas of the Amazon basin. Just as with the above biographies of contrasts, he is then called to the cultured areas of South Brazil, where God uses both extremes in his earlier life experiences to minister effectively in an urban Brazilian environment. The irony continues as he moves from reaching large groups of people to a growing emphasis on one-on-one ministry of discipleship/ counseling. This book is structured as a flashback. Beginning the story with a flashback is like a hinge on which the rest of the story turns. Now we can all understand how a mountaintop experience provides a hinge to begin a great missionary story. A typical account: “We all sat around the campfire, sang hymns of the faith, threw our sticks into the fire, were consecrated for ministry and left on tiptoes with joy.” But what if that hinge is a valley, . . . a valley of the shadow of death? Missionary careers often end in just such a way, with a sudden move back to the States. But this hinge served to steel the Moores’ resolve to plunge forward to the work ahead. Origen of Alexandria wrote “...the sun, by one and the same power of its heat, melts wax indeed, but dries up and hardens mud.” So why do some missionaries give place to despair and return to a predictable life in their home culture, while others rise to the occasion, work amidst their tears and go on to do great things for God? We don’t know, but we are glad that Bill and Nancy pressed on! This autobiography spans a lifetime, but it is more than the sum of its parts. We might wrongly assume the life of a missionary to begin with a childhood and adolescence of unceasing devotion to God with adults prophesying “someday Bill you will be a missionary.” But it may encourage the reader that instead we read about an ordinary, precocious teen just like the young man down the street from you, in fact maybe just like you. The title’s questions “Who? Me?” are answered not in the unique worthiness of Bill but in the extraordinary worthiness of our God who commissioned him and remade him in Christ’s image. Such questions were probably asked by all of the twelve disciples at the call of Jesus. After all, they were fisherman, tax collector, zealot, skeptic, visionary, etc, chosen not due to innate greatness, but due to transformation. As you read this book, you too may hear the call and utter the questions “Who? Me?”

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