Same Christmas Truth, Different Perspective
The Christmas story is one of the best known in all of human history. Most everything we know about that first Christmas we know because we read it in the Bible. What is interesting is that in the gospels, the early recorded histories of the life of Christ, each tells the story in a different manner. Why would God have done it that way?
Many today believe there is just one way to share the gospel of Christ, and if you don’t do it their way, using their language, then you are not sharing the full gospel or the correct gospel. We all know of churches or groups that believe they are the only ones going to heaven. I would love to see their faces when they do get to heaven, if they actually go, and they see all the “wrong” kind of folks there. Actually God including some of the “wrong” kind of people is an integral part of the Christmas story.
Some Christians believe that if you adapt or adjust your style to better fit those you are trying to reach you have compromised the gospel and God’s truth. Some even believe that God has already determined who will go to heaven and who will not so to adjust the message or style to communicate better to those seeking God is wasted time at best, or worse is compromising the gospel. What they don’t realize is that this practice is not only biblical; it is as old as the gospel itself.
In the New Testament we have four gospels that tell us the story of Jesus. Mark was written to the Gentiles, the Greeks, so you will read a lot about the actions of Jesus. They understood action. Mark starts with the ministry of John the Baptist and says nothing about the birth of Christ. Why? Because his audience was not impressed with Jewish history, so he left it out. This was not a compromise of the gospel; it was his being sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading as to what to share and what to leave out.
The gospel of John starts with the Word of God being eternal, and then goes to John the Baptist. Luke, also writing to a Gentile, begins with the birth announcement of John the Baptist and then goes into the birth of Christ. The gospel of Matthew takes a different approach. He starts with the genealogy of Jesus. He did this because Matthew was writing to the Jews and he knew this was of vital importance to them. Every Jewish boy and girl knew the Messiah was not only Jewish, but also the descendent of the greatest Jewish king who ever lived, King David. Matthew himself was a Jew although not a very good one. What is even more interesting is that Matthew records some of the “wrong” kind of people in this list, folks he might have skipped.
Each gospel is written with a different audience in mind. This is something we have to remember when we present truth to folks. It is biblical to be aware and sensitive to whom you are trying to reach. We must never change the truth, for the gospel is eternal. We must, however, always be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and adjust our presentation and message to the style and culture of those we are trying to reach. Missionaries have known this for centuries; now it is time for each of us to reach out to our neighbors in a way that best communicates with them. This is as old as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
