Week 7

Buddhism

Buddhism was started by a man named Siddhartha Gautama, who later changed his name to Buddha. He was born in India, around where Napal is today. He was born into a Hindu family around 560 BC. When he was young, a seer said that he would be the greatest ruler ever and if he saw four things: sickness, old age, death and a monk that renounced the world, he would discover a way of salvation for everyone. To protect him, his father built a palace to shelter him from all this. The story goes that one day when he was 29 he did see all these things. He saw a man with sores, an old guy, a dead person being carried to his grave, and a begging monk who appeared peaceful and happy. So he left his family and ran away.

He shaved his head, put on a yellow robe and tried to find salvation by self-denial. When starving himself didn’t work, he sat under a tree for 40 days. There he experienced nirvana which means the “blowing out” of the flame of desire and the negation of suffering. It was here that he clamed that he found salvation and then changed his name to Buddha.

They believe that suffering is universal and nirvana will release you from that cycle, because you will be reincarnated until you are released. This suffering is because of our craving and selfish desires. To reach this state a person must overcome ignorance and eliminate these cravings. The way they say to do this is to suppress the cravings by the eightfold path: right viewpoint, right aspiration, right speech, right behavior, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

Buddha clamed he knew how to get to nirvana, but what is was like when you got there he didn’t know. Buddha claimed to have found the way but Jesus said that He is the way (John 14:6). Buddha said that suffering comes from cravings and all desire was bad. Christianity says that suffering is caused by sin (Romans 8:18-23) and that we can have good desires like the desire to glorify and give glory to God (see Ps. 27:4, Matt 6:33). It all comes down to work, like all the other religions we’ve studied. People do have a “selfish desire”, a desire to save themselves and glorify our own deads. We can't save ourselves it is only God through Jesus Christ that can save and He should get the glory not us.

Our Visit

We had a scheduled visit to a family at the school. We never found that address but ended up close to a customer and friend of mine. This is a lady that has visited the church before and her son actually invited us the first time to victory. We had a great visit with her and invited her to Sunday school and a church. We prayed with her before we left.

Prayer Request

Pray for all our FAITH teams. Pray for a lady that the gospel was presented to and she accepted the gift of salvation. Thank God for moving in her life and allowing one of the team be involved.

Week 6

Hinduism

This week we have been studying the religion of Hinduism. So far, this has been the hardest one to grasp. With Catholic, Islam, and Orthodox, they a least had something in common with Christianity. Hinduism, on the other hand, is totally different. Right off, a big difference is their belief in God. A follower of Hinduism can believe in one god, no god or many gods. Hinduism is said to have 330 million gods.

There are two core beliefs in Hinduism that differ from Christianity: reincarnation and karma. Reincarnation is the belief that a persons soul comes back in different bodies. These bodies don’t have to be human. They don’t even have to be animate objects. This uncreated and eternal soul is totally different than the view in the Bible where were we are created being. The bible also says it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Heb. 9.27). Once we are dead that is it. We have one shot at this life.

Karma, which means action, is a process of cause and effect. If you are good, good things happen to you. If you are bad, bad thing will happen. This karma can even affect you status when you are reincarnated.

Regarding Jesus, Hinduism would believe that He is not God, but one of the many incarnations, or avatars of Vishnu, their supreme god. Remember they have 330 million gods that they can worship, so Jesus could be just one to them. This was a problem with missionaries. They would go into a highly Hindu region and a lot of people would make a decision for Christ. Their thinking is “we’ll accept Christ; we’ll put him with our other gods. When talking with Hindus we need to be careful. They need to understand that God has became incarnate only once (John 1:14) and that he is the only way to God (John 14:6)

Another point that we disagree with in Hinduism is their view on sin and salvation. Sin to them is an ‘utter illusion”. Everything including sin is just an illusion and not real. They seek the endless cycle of being reincarnated, by mediation, devotion, good works and self control. This will put them at one with Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. Christians see ourselves as sinners (Romans 3:23). Because of that sin we can not received eternal life and heaven. God didn’t want that and did a wonderful thing for us. While we were sinners, He came to earth as a man to pay for our sins(Romans 5:8). So that if we turn from our sins (Acts 3:19) and put our trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we will be saved (Romans 10:9)

Our Visit

Our scheduled visit was not home. While trying to find the address at an apartment complex, we saw a lady getting out of her car. We initially asked her about the address we where trying to find. When we got back, with no luck, she was still trying to get her two kids, a suitcase and a backpack out of the car and up the stairs. Joanna got out to give her a bible and noticed that she needed help. So both Joanna and Sherri helped her upstairs. This was a great time to talk to here about the gospel. We asked the key question “What do you understand that it takes for a person to go to heaven” and she had no idea. We explained to her what it took by using what we learned in FAITH class. We had a good talk with here and prayed with her before we left.

Prayer Request

Pray for Brother Harris. He is out sick. Pray that he will have a speedy recovery. We also have had a scheduling conflict and I’ll be losing a very good team member in FAITH. Pray that God will find a replacement. Joanna had a chance for a long talk with someone about Jesus. Pray that this person will chew on the things that were said.

Week 5

Islam

This week before going on our visits we studied about Islam. Islam is one of the youngest and one of the fastest growing of the major religions. It is estimated there are 1 billion followers in the world. This would mean that 1 in 6 people on this planet is a Muslim. Muslim, meaning one who lives his life according to God’s will, is the name for those who follow this religion.

Islam means submission. This is the submission to Allah, the God of Mohammed. He was born in 570 A.D. He came from a well-to-do family, which had a lot of tradigy strike when he was very young. His dad died a few days before he was born. His mom died when he was six. He was grandfather raised him until he died when Mohammed was nine. The rest of this raising was spent with his uncle where he herded flocks.

Most of his Ideas and exposure to religion was by spending time in the caravan trade where he took trips with his uncle to Syria and Persia. It is believed that he draws a lot of influence from the Jews inspiration from the Talmud. He also came in contact with the Monophysites and the Nestorians. The Monophysites believe that Christ was fully divine without a being human. The Nestorians believed that Christ did have two natures but they were separate from each other. Keeping all this in mind you can see how the structure and beliefs about Chirst in Islam was built from these three influences.

Their Holy Book is the Koran. It is said that Mohammed received this from the Angel Gabriel. Since Mohammed couldn’t read or write, the Koran was dictated partly by Mohammed and written down by followers who remembered his teachings. With this in mind they believe the Koran is the only correct book with the original, written in Arabic, in heaven. The bible, theTalmud and other books of Judaism are said by Islam to have been corrupted. They also have an extra teachings in the Sunnah, meaning path. This Sunnah was gathered into a book called the Hadith. Doesn’t this sound real close on how the Talmud supplements the Hebrew Bible. They also have there teaching on the law which they call Shariah, meaning “law.

The main part of their faith is the 5 pillars which they must keep to be a “good Muslim”.

Statement of belief; they must recite “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah”.

Prayer; they must pray 5 time a day in the right position and facing the city of Mecca.

Alms; They must give 2.5% to widows, orphans, and the sick.

Ramadan; the ninth month on their calendar. They must fast during daylight hours and stay away from forbidden activities.

Pilgrimage to Mecca; at least once in their lifetime, if possible, they are required to make a trip to Mecca. If they can’t go they can send someone in their place.

It all come down to without the shedding of blood we can not have the forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). I doesn’t matter if we think we are a good Muslim or a good person the bible says that there is none good no not one (Psalm 14:3) and all of us are sinner (Romans 3:23). There has to be a payment for our sins and I am glad Jesus did that. Ephesians 1:7 says that we are redeemed through the blood of Jesus. We must repent and turn away from our sins and our self-reliance of our good work to save us and put our trust in Jesus to save us.

Our Visit

My teams visit ended up not being home and since it was far out, we didn’t get a chance to make another one. We had a great time in fellowship and talking discussing our testimonies. There were some other great visits by other teams. The gospel was presented by one group and the girl that was saved last week was visited and baptism was discussed.

Prayer Request

Pray for the people that were killed in the auto accident the night of FAITH. Some of our teams were delayed getting to the church because of this. Pray for their families. Pray for our Missionary Glen Knight. Great work is going on in the newly renamed village of Bethany.

Week 4

Judaism

This week we are studying Judaism. It is unique in that it is both a nationality and a religion. We have, what we call, the Old Testament in common with them. They pay particular attention to the first five books, called the Torah. They also have teaching of their rabbis, which mean master or teacher, written down in a book called the Mishnah. Another book that they use is the Talmud. This is about 36 Volumes and is based on the Mishnah with more material added.

Without going into a lot of detail about this religion, the main difference in Christianity and Judaism is Christ. Christianity has its roots in Judaism. Most of our favorite bible characters were Jews. Even Christ was a Jew. They would have followed some of the same practices and rituals as today’s Jewish people.

Like us they believe in one God and it is the same God we worship, the God of Abraham. They don’t believe in the Godhead being in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The especially don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God. Some Jews accept Him as a good teacher. Their belief in salvation comes from commitment to the one true God and through moral living. As Christians we know it is through Jesus only. We understand that we don’t live a moral life. We know that all have sinned and that there is none good. For this reason we need a savior, someone to pay that debt that we have and to redeem us. We are saved thought faith in Jesus (Romans 3:24).

Our Visit

One of my team members had to be out this week so my prayer partner stepped in and came with us. We had a couple scheduled visits. These were a couple families from the Victory Baptist School. The first one was a family that had a couple kids at the school with the oldest one being in 6th grade. This family has been at the school for 7 years. It was dinner time so we had a quick visit at the door. We stated the purpose of the visit and asked how everything was going and if there was anything the church could help with. Before leaving we had a prayer with the family. Or second visit was not home so we left a church brochure at the door.

On the way back to the chruch, Joanna gave a bible to a police officer and she had a short conversation with him. He was asking questions about Satan. As we were pulling off there were some young men at the liquor store, so we gave a couple bibles to them.

Prayer Request

There as been a lot of children in the church and school asking question about salvation and a few the visits were geared toward them. There was even one saved last night on a FAITH visit. Please pray for each of these children and that God will continue to show them of there need for Jesus.

Week 3

Greek Orthodox
This week we are studying the Greek Orthodox Church. They are a little similar to the Catholic Church, which they split from in 1054 A.D. The reason from the split is they wanted to keep the church the same as it was the first century.

The main difference in the two churches is the Orthodox Church doesn’t have a Pope. Even though they don’t have a Pope, they still have a succession from the original apostles to today’s archbishops sometimes called patriarchs or metropolitans. The Catholic Church is a succession from Peter to the Pope, but the Orthodox Church is from each of the apostles.

Like the Catholic Church, the Church has authority over scripture. This is because of their understanding of the bible. We understand the bible is the inspired Word of God. This Word has always existed and gave life to the Church. Their understanding is that the Church wrote the bible so that they have supremacy over it.

This picture above is the an example of an Icon that they pray to.

Our Visit

Our plan was to visit a family that attends Victory Baptist School. That family wasn’t home so we visited their neighbor. I remembered the neighbor form a few weeks ago. I meet them at another Church member’s house which lived across the street. Before the visit, I felt that I didn’t go their with the right attitude or heart, but God quickly showed me that he planned this visit. This family of two boys and a mother just lost their father/mother. We were able to share God’s word and pray with the mother before we left. Also before we left we arranged for another group to visit that would be better suited to minister to her needs and would be the Sunday school that she’d attend.

On the way back to the Church I gave my Bible to a lady at a carwash. She seemed very thankful to receive it.

Prayer Request
Pray for the family that we visited that the love and comfort of God will show through our Church in this time of need. Pray for a guy that I went to school with that heard the gospel last Sunday. Pray that he will realize his need for a savior and that he will “accept this free gift”.

It's a Free Gift

This Sunday while playing out side an old school mate of mine saw me out and stopped by. During the conversation, I invited him to church. He got real defensive and didn’t want any part of that. We had a long talk about what he believed and what I believed. He has always been a loud person, and I was concerned about Katelyn getting scared. She might have thought we were arguing, which wasn’t the case. She ran in side at one point and when she came back out she had a piece of candy. She whispered in my ear “Give him some candy”. I was confused and was too involved in the conversation to think anything about, but gave him the candy anyway. When he said no thank you and didn’t take it, Katelyn whispered in my ear again “It is a free gift”. It click what she was doing. I was to hold out the candy and the offer was out there. All he had to do was take it. She related the gift of salvation to that candy and I was to let him know it available but he must take it. He did take the candy but did not the gift of salvation, but he heard the gospel and God does the saving. Pray that he will be convicted of his sins and turn to Jesus as that free gift.

Katelyn learned that from Mrs. Walker’s third grade class at Victory. They have been studying ways to share the gospel and have even made their own bible tracts to give out. This ministry of Victory Baptist Church is doing a great job reaching the lost and I think God for this school and the teachers.

Week 2

This is week 2 and I’m very excited about FAITH. During class time we talked about Roman Catholicism and how it is different then what the book calls “Protestant Christianity”. One of the biggest differences is how the bible is viewed. We believe in sola scriptura-“Scripture alone.” That the bible is all that we need (see 2 Tim 3:16). In the Catholic Church, they give equal weight to Scripture and traditions. They have what is called “Sacred Traditions”. The bishops have this special insight that is passed on from the apostles and then down from Bishop to Bishop. They also believe that the Pope is infallible when he speaks for the Church.

The way that they view the Bible is also very different. They see the bible as a “churched-based book.” They believe that the Church observed things and then wrote them down in a book. We believe again that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

Because of how they view the Bible and give so much weight on the traditions of men (Mark 7), it is easy for them to move away from the truth. I’m not going to go through every difference but just pull a few of the biggest ones out.

We are saved by faith (Eph. 2;8,9). Catholics believe that you are saved by faith plus works. That is it a life long process. You are baptized as a baby to wash away you original sin but your mortal and venial (easily forgiven) sins need to be confessed to a priest and taken care of by penance. Penance simply means to make amends for those sins. Penance can be anything from repeating by saying certain prayers to fasting.

Because they still can’t do enough in this short lifetime to make it to heaven, Catholics believe that you must go to Purgatory a special place to be cleansed of your sins and made fit for heaven.

There have been many tries to unit the Catholic Church with “Protestants”, but without any success. They keep trying to find some common ground that both sides agree on, but what should be done is just start at the beginning. Let’s see what scripture has to says. No agreement will ever be made when the rules keep being changed. If the Bishops and Pope hold equal weight to the Bible, then it will be easy to get off track. While looking at the different doctrines of the Catholic Church, you’ll see doctrines or rules referenced not by a scripture in the bible but a pope and a year. Take this example. We believe that Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). Catholics believe by the words of Pope Leo XIII in 1891: “[A]s no man goeth to the Father but by the Son, so no man goeth to Christ but by His mother.” That was added in 1891 and holds equal weight with the bible.

This is why we must always hold the scripture as Gods holy inspired word.

Our visit
We went door knocking tonight. We only made it to two house because each of them were fairly long visits. The first one was a couple that attended St. Luke’s. The wife gave a “Faith” answer to the key question on how a person gets to heaven. We had a good discussion about children and other ministries in our two churches. We prayed with them before leaving

It was getting dark and the neighbor’s house was dark so we skipped that one and went to the next house. It was a young woman and her daughter. The daughter attended Victory Baptist School and the Church in the past. I asked her the Key question and she gave a works answer, “live like Christ”. Before we could continue on with the gospel, she took over the conversation. She had some very informative things to say on her view of how the Church should to minister to a changing world of divorce families, drug use, and many societal problems. Josh talked about our Sunday school class and how it is not the typical “preach to you” style and that we talk about these everyday issues.

We left there late as usually for my team and we needed to find someone to give the bible to. We saw a fire truck at Taco Bell and figured these people would be perfect, but the firemen were inside and we didn’t have time for them to come out. We drove to Fitness 10 and there were two guys in the parking lot talking. Josh gave them each a bible and they said they were just talking about Church. By the way, Sherri ending up giving her bible to the firemen later as her team came in.

Prayer Request
Pray that God will show each of us opportunities to share Christ. Pray for all our ministries at the Church, our school and our missionaries.