i've started reading some Christian biographies. i think it's a good think to do. for many reasons. i've read some other biographies in my time, but there's obviously something unique about seeing how someone else lives out their faith.
i read a great online one on Martyn Lloyd-Jones (the Doctor), probably most well known for spending over a decade teaching through Romans, nigh on a decade preaching Ephesians.
a book i've been getting right into is Brother Andrew: God's Smuggler, a Dutch guy who smuggled Bibles into East-Bloc countries behind the curtain.
also, my class History of Christian Mission is essentially just ripping yarns about inspirational, ground-breaking, role-models.
i'm starting to see a few parallels between some of these people (apart from their whole-hearted devotion to preaching the crucified Christ to all nations). one of them is the idea that i've been chatting to a friend about lately - the idea of 'surrender'. both Brother Andrew and Hudson Taylor (founder of the China Inland Mission) talk about the pivotal moment in their Christian lives, the day when they, although already Christians, had an emphatic point of surrender. i'm not quite sure what this is, in that, i'm not quite sure how this is different to when anyone becomes a follower of Christ.
i don't know if other people have thought about this idea of surrender secondary to conversion. i think i need to think some more about what that means.
3 comments:
I figure the whole idea of 'surrender' is just putting into practice the reality of Jesus being the Lord of your life. When you become a Christian you give your life to Jesus. When you go into a hostile place with the gospel I guess you're letting Jesus cash in that blank cheque. Its not a second conversion, its an affirmation of the first.
i think my confusion is over the differing understandings of the term 'surrender' - are there nuances in people's understanding that would mean things we wouldn't say it means?
i guess i'm thinking of the muslim conception of the term - although i'm not sure of the nuances, i don't know if it has the same connotations. also some Christians use it, i feel, in a way that i'm not quite comfortable with, perhaps including neglect of certain aspects of their God-given personalities or other things. perhaps the nuance i'm trying to explain is not surrendering for God, but to God. that is, do some see it as a work - look God, what i've surrendered for you - now let's get going with plan B for my life - which would explain why some think it is appropriate to abandon the families God has put under them 'for the gospel' - which seems nothing less than a contradiction of the gospel.
have you come across this sort of understanding of surrender before?
Thanks for stopping by. I fixed my freudian typo. Thanks.
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