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Online Evangelism Tactics
Hello,
I greet thee fellow Christian as a brother greets a sibling. I believe I have information that all Christians with the Internet should possess. Whether you are using the information I provide for your own personal gain, or if you are just reading to enlighten yourself, this information is critical to witnessing online. I realize this article is of use because I have been evangelizing online for over nine years now, and it has proven effective in conveying the message of the Bible on multiple mediums. There have been many rapid changes in communication, and social media has opened a lot of opportunities for spreading the gospel, yet the Pope himself just recently tweeted for the first time this past week. Why isn't the church actively evangelizing online? Shouldn't they have been on the Internet since the mid-1990s like I was? There are a lot of ways to reach people, but the Internet is a place where you can reach multitudes without leaving your house. Information on the Internet isn't just a feed like television or a magazine, but the people on the Internet can discuss the feed among themselves, and dissect the discussions. There is much to be said for the connected world we live in as opposed to the old world where information was a one way street. I'm writing this article because I realize big organizations like the church or corporations don't move with agility. If the Pope is just tweeting for the first time, how much tech knowledge does the guy have in all the other areas of online evangelism? I have a sound knowledge of online evangelism, I'm on the cutting edge in this sphere because I have utilized it day in and day out for the past nine years. I would hope you read this article to learn some of my ideas and methods that have worked for me.
The first thing I want to do is encourage you. You'd be surprised at how far you can go for Jesus even if your theological background isn't solid. Before you go telling the world that God loves them, Jesus is LORD, your first order of business is to read the Bible. Proverbs 19:2 GNT Enthusiasm without knowledge is not good; impatience will get you into trouble. The proverb is true, it indicates that if you go out trying to evangelize to the world without knowing the basics of the Bible, God will probably stop you such that you don't spread heresy in your eagerness. Misinformation can do more harm than good, so it is better to concede that you do not know something rather than pretend to understand it completely. God loves you, and wants what is best for you, but if you don't read the Bible before evangelizing, God could be against you. Lest you tell others falsehoods about God that you invented or heard from false teachers, God can stand in your way. So the first order of business is to read the Bible. If you haven't read the Bible, go do so now immediately and come back to this article once you're finished. If you have read the Bible,"Good News, that is all you need to do in order to evangelize." Of course I'd want you to read on for tactics and strategize on how to maximize your witnessing so that you can become an effective vessel of truth. Just be encouraged that you do not need 4 years of seminary, or 10 years of studying theology on your own. You don't need to know everything about God in order to tell people,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone."
The next thing I want to do is encourage you. Luke 9:26 If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Don't you think the opposite is true then also? If you're bold about Jesus in this life, he should be bold to speak to the angels about you. Let us see where being bold about Jesus is praiseworthy: Acts 4:13 GNT The members of the Council were amazed to see how bold Peter and John were and to learn that they were ordinary men of no education. They realized then that they had been companions of Jesus. The first apostles were told to be quiet and to stop talking to others about Jesus by the people in charge, but they refused and continued to do so anyway! I'll tell you right now that if you will start telling everyone that Jesus loves them, you're going to find people who tell you to shut up. It is almost guaranteed if you do it for any amount of time. Don't ask me what people have against Jesus or why they don't like to know God loves them, but there will be people who take issue with you just like people took issue with the first apostles. Keep telling the world about Jesus though. Hebrews 13:6 GNT Let us be bold, then, and say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" There is scripture that says paraphrased(*v1) do not be worried about your food or clothes because God knows what you need to get by and he will supply your needs as long as you seek first to do the mission of the kingdom of God. In a nutshell if your life consists of telling the world about Jesus, working for a living, and helping the poor, you're serving God with all you have.
Again I want to encourage you back with the first thing I encouraged you with: You only need to have read the Bible in order to witness. Extra knowledge will help fine tune your witnessing though, so I'm not against getting extra knowledge. It is good to educate yourself of the LORD: Proverbs 15:33 GNT Reverence for the Lord is an education in itself. You must be humble before you can ever receive honors. With extra knowledge you'll be better to serve and follow the scripture: Colossians 4:6 GNT Your speech should always be pleasant and interesting, and you should know how to give the right answer to everyone. and 1 Peter 3:15 GNT But have reverence for Christ in your hearts, and honor him as Lord. Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you,. Here is the trick though: The correct question to a difficult theological question, or a gotcha isn't the answer they're hoping for. The people who will give you the hardest time in evangelism are the people who aren't interested in learning about God, but people who are just interested in making things miserable for you. Remember this. The people who will give you the hardest time aren't the people who struggle with the problem they ask, but just people are interested in giving you a hard time.
I can't say for certain why people want to give you a hard time for telling the world that we should live in love. Even without God, a person must concede that if everyone on Earth loved each other, we'd have no more wars. Love is a good thing for society in general. So when you preach about love, you are not threatening any economic or governmental authorities Romans 13:1 GNT Everyone must obey state authorities, because no authority exists without God's permission, and the existing authorities have been put there by God. So I have no idea why anyone would want to give you a hard time about spreading love. I can hazard a guess that the people who think Christians are brainwashed actually are brainwashed themselves against Christians. It just blows my mind people would be against love, but so so many people are. Be prepared for it. One of the best things you can do is ignore the people trying to curse you and give you a hard time. Remember God says curses don't light on you unless you deserve them. So just ignore the people giving you a hard time. Even if you answer them correctly they'll keep on arguing with you and use dirty tactics to try and win the argument. Remember people who want to argue with you aren't there to learn about the truth, they just want to win an argument. There's a lot of people out there who just want to win an argument for the sake of being right. I realize this and go to the wisdom of Monty Python and offer to charge for arguments. Once I find someone isn't interested in learn and just want to argue, I either ignore them or tell them,"For an argument I charge 1$ a minute or 50$ per hour. Payment in advance." Proverbs 26:5 GNT Give a silly answer to a silly question, and the one who asked it will realize that he's not as smart as he thinks. So it is a Biblical move to say that you charge for an argument. It is a silly answer to the silly notion that arguing for the sake of arguing gets anywhere. There's another place that arguing and debating is looked down upon too: see *v2 Proverbs 26:4 GNT If you answer a silly question, you are just as silly as the person who asked it. This proverb shows that we should not answer silly questions. Once silly questions and what ifs are explored, then an onlooker cannot tell who is the fool. When I first started Internet Evangelism, I reasoned that if I answered everyone's questions, they'd be satisfied and maybe come to Jesus. So people would ask silly questions, and I'd answer them, and it wouldn't help anyone. It wouldn't help the person asking and didn't help onlookers either. If someone asks a question that seems like a rabbit hole, just ignore them and help others. A rabbit hole is there to take you down a line of questioning that is supposed to make you look foolish. A foolish evangelist is of no use to God at the time of being foolish. But an evangelist that can hold his tongue and ignore baited questions is of great use.
There is Biblical precedence for allowing someone to be a "temporary lost cause". Matthew 10: 11 "When you come to a town or village, go in and look for someone who is willing to welcome you, and stay with him until you leave that place. 12 When you go into a house, say, "Peace be with you.' 13 If the people in that house welcome you, let your greeting of peace remain; but if they do not welcome you, then take back your greeting. 14 And if some home or town will not welcome you or listen to you, then leave that place and shake the dust off your feet. 15 I assure you that on the Judgment Day God will show more mercy to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than to the people of that town! 16 "Listen! I am sending you out just like sheep to a pack of wolves. You must be as cautious as snakes and as gentle as doves. Entering a place on the Internet where people are talking is like entering a town. And when people don't welcome you, you can ignore them individually as you have left their presence and focus instead on those who care to hear from you. Just because you can't get through to someone doesn't mean they will not come to Jesus in their life. Someone else might convince them, or other events could lead to future consideration of what you said. In fact they might be acting jerkish towards you, but you might have planted a seed of faith in them, especially if you don't seem foolish by answering foolish questions. Finally you cannot say or type the name of every human being on the planet once before you die. By moving away from the resistant and going to others, you are maximizing your time on Earth for evangelizing. So I conclude this paragraph by saying it is okay if you can't get through to someone. It isn't our job to force someone else's will to bend. God gave everyone free will, and in this they have free will to rebel against God or us. Your best bet is to ignore them as many online chat rooms have an ignore function and continue on to others.
The Bible is clear that it is wise to ignore insults. Proverbs 12:16 GNT When a fool is annoyed, he quickly lets it be known. Smart people will ignore an insult. So if you ignore the person insulting you, that can be even better :) It is good to have peace of mind when evangelizing. It helps you not to cultivate anxiety before evangelizing. If you can tune out the naysayers quickly, you can focus on helping the needy more.
I am all about encouraging you to evangelize because you'll get countless people nay saying you. You need to tune them out. Evangelism is one of the best things you can do on Earth for your life. Look at Rocky, or Karate Kid, or any sports figures who are esteemed by people on Earth. 1 Corinthians 9:25 GNT Every athlete in training submits to strict discipline, in order to be crowned with a wreath that will not last; but we do it for one that will last forever. What I am teaching you in evangelism and helping the poor are the biggest things you can do in life. Service towards the LORD will be rewarded in the next life with rewards that last for eternity. Even if the reward was thankful spirits you helped loving you more, that is more close love you have with other beings in Heaven where no one will need help again. God can do anything, God can create anything for you, God can create any experience you want. It is good to give God lots of reasons to reward you. And God is better than getting wishes granted because God even knows what you want more than what you know what you want! This is why it is good to say,"God your will be done, not mine." God has bigger things planned than you can.
So think about any encouraging endeavors where you can imagine someone trains to be a great star and master in that field. Evangelism is the ultimate thing to train for and work with. If you evangelize right, you bring some people closer to God, you raise everyone's faith, you do the world a service by encouraging more love. An Evangelist can be compared to a super hero, in the sense that with their power of faith, they give others faith and hope! Also when you help the poor, you can help people would would otherwise perish with money that otherwise has little to no other eternal use anyway. So if you're thinking is along the lines of, "I'm a dedicated person, but I never got into sports when I should have. I'd love to be a pro football player, or a pro hockey player, or a pro soccer player. If I knew what I knew now when I was younger, I could be a threat. But since I can't go back, there's no way to show the world my dedication." For all of you, I am here to give you hope: "God can have anything happen in Heaven. Even if you're on death's door right now, God has hope for you because Heaven is assured. And if you're not close to death, and you can help others, that is the most awesome thing you could be doing." We should all be helping and loving others. This is the message of Jesus. The thing that goes along with this is giving people this hope and mission by evangelizing. There is no dream or aspiration that is higher than serving God. There is no worldly prize that can be compared with eternal prizes awarded by God who can create anything. There is nothing in this world you can do that is better than evangelizing or helping the poor. So if you're someone with lost dreams, I give you a new one,"Train to become an online evangelist, and continually do it and become better at it." It is the dream of dreams to live the life of ordinary servitude knowing your future has the God of dreams to allow anything your dream become reality!
So again we look back to the original word of encouragement that you need only read the Bible to evangelize. It is possible to make mistakes, but if you're trying at all, you're helping. So contemplate the ideas and scripture references in this article and then you can prayerfully consider where you think you can help and start doing so. It helps to have a strategic mind, but enthusiasm, time, and Internet is all you really need to do social media witnessing. If you've read the Bible, you're looking forward to a lifetime of service of the king. Jesus is the only king worthy of worship. Jesus is the only deserving King of Glory. Because Jesus loves his followers so much he died for them, he is worthy of servitude and complete dedication. It is a noble thing to be in the service of a king, and even if people insult you, there are more rewards for you. Matthew 5:11-12 GNT "Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers.12 Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted. " So God will reward you if you bring people to him, and he'll reward you if people are jerks to you too! If Jesus doesn't encourage you from this, what will?
So lets explore tactics and strategies for spreading the love of Jesus online. I'll start with the obvious: Find a place online where you can communicate with one or more people, and tell them,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone." Even if you ninja this by saying it and leaving the chat area immediately, it is a good thing to do by itself. But of course it is much better to stay around and talk with people who seem genuinely interested in learning more. It takes skilled discernment to know who wants to know more and who is just trying to argue with you. But the more you engage them, the more you can tell which way they are. Remember when people want to argue with you, you are typically better off kicking the dust off your feet and ignoring them so that you can move on to dialoguing with people who are more receptive. It is important not to argue. It is a waste of time you could evangelize to good soil(*v3). This is why "ninjaing" (hit and run evangelism) as many places as you can has some merit. Everyone deserves to know,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone." It also takes no skill to hit and run because you're not sticking around for the Q&A session so it is something good to start with if you don't think you make good Q&A yet.
Lets go to the next obvious question that poses itself: Where are places online where I can meet people in groups or one on one. Well I'll list places I can think of:
*Twitter
*Facebook
*Online Video Games
*IRC
*Online Forums
*Email
Basically if you go to these places and say,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone.", you're doing the LORD a service. Now let us explore them individually.
The thing to remember is that you toss some societal and politically correct norms out the window when you do this. People will try and tell you,"You have no right to communicate to me.", but we do have the right to communicate to others. In a country where free speech is protected, you're allowed to do this. If you don't live in a country with free speech your options are limited, maybe consider leaving. You might disagree with me because you'd put a societal norm above what I teach here. So do your best then, okay? Don't just give up because you're not willing to take the bold approaches that I advocate that you consider.
Twitter as of now in 2012 is currently one of the best ways to evangelize. I run a twitter account at www.twitter.com/@faithclubdotnet. I'm hoping I get 1 million tweets within the next year, and I hope if Twitter stays around that someday I'll get 10 million tweets. On Twitter, you should do the following: 1) Say scripture and praise to Jesus 2) Follow people who tweet about Jesus and then retweet things they say. 3) Look at what is trending, and say something positive about Jesus with the trend.
The more you say on Twitter, the more chance someone might see it. This is obvious, right? And if you're talking constantly about Jesus up to your tweet limit, then you're maximizing the chance someone reads what you say about Jesus. Even if people don't follow you at the start, people can read your tweets through Twitter search. So that's about it, if you don't have twitter, sign up for it, and constantly praise and tweet about Jesus and how much he deserves our love. Get creative, but don't go outside of scripture. Stay within scripture and constantly tweet about Jesus. It is real easy. I find it humorous that the site many people say is useless is very helpful to many people's faith.
A final note about Twitter is this: Online forums normally get a troll becoming vocal and being annoying to the point of distracting other people's writings. With twitter, the trolls get defeated because you can block them, and you normally won't see what they say because you never follow them. As such, Twitter is a great place for Christian affirmation online. If you follow people who are constantly tweeting about Jesus, you'll get a good feed for yourself. For those of us who've read the Bible several times, it is of value to have people saying creatively good praise for our Savior Jesus Christ.
Facebook is a bit different than Twitter. On Facebook you don't want to write a lot of notes about Jesus. Proverbs 25:17 GNT Don't visit your neighbors too often; they may get tired of you and come to hate you. Just post something about Jesus once daily or weekly, and that is fine. The main thing you should be doing on Facebook is loving others on a personal level. Remember Facebook is highly scanned by others, so never say offensive or politically charged things on it. I think of all the frat boys doing frat boy things and posting them on Facebook, who later desire to run for public office, are going to have a lot more to explain than those who refrain from doing so. The same goes true for us, we'll have to give an account for everything we say, and with Facebook it might be for future employers, and not just God. Be careful what you post on Facebook.
Online video games are a great place to evangelize too. I normally say in chat,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. I know. So love everyone." The chat sometimes lights up with debates and arguments, but I avoid getting into them much. I just want to get it out that God loves everyone. Just like Facebook, you don't want to spam it up in chat or people will get upset with you just for that fact alone. So I say it once in the morning and once in the evening on my online video games and it works easy. Don't be afraid of being banned by saying this. If you do this, you're being weak for the kingdom. Wouldn't it be worth hundreds of hours of work if you brought even just one person to faith? Besides, I've never been banned in any video game for saying,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. I know. So love everyone." Why would I get banned for telling the world it should show more love? If you get caught up in the arguments and you don't hold your tongue, you could get banned, yes, but if you just use /ignore player, you're set.
IRC or any online chat is a good place to evangelize. Go to a couple rooms once in the morning and once at night and tell them,"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone." Again we're just banking on the fact that there are people here at least, and everyone deserves to know God loves them. If you do nothing but hit and run(or ninja out) from the room after saying it, that is fine to start. When you're more advanced, sit around and chat it up with those interested. Just be aware there are lots of dynamics involved with group evangelism, so that is where experience will help over time. If you're not well versed in apologetics, it can be intimidating to address several different people that are throwing questions at you simultaneously.
Online forums are good to evangelize too. There are two types of forums. One forum is a Christian forum directly and you can contribute there. The other forum is specific to different hobbies and skill sets. It is best to not just jump in a hobby forum every day and post about Jesus. This will not be tolerated and normally will get you banned because it may manipulates searches and makes a mod unhappy. You need a different strategy. Change your signature to"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone." Then just go to the forum and post insightful things. Don't join forums where you have nothing to contribute for exposure. Instead just join what involves your own talents and interests so that you may be a good contributor for the topics at hand also. If people love you for what you do, you give glory to God because they might consider loving Jesus too.
Finally I get to the one where many people disagree with me. That is okay, if people don't agree with me, they don't need to do it, but I've sent hundreds of thousands of mass emails with a letter telling them of God's love. I'm a dude who was spoken to, and miracles happened to prove God existed to me. I believe I have the right to tell everyone about this. So while you might not like the connotation of spam, it isn't negative spam in the traditional sense because of two reasons. 1) There is no monetary gain for you to have 2) You are not scamming the people you're emailing. So if you want to mass mail people: 1) Write a page about why it is good to follow Jesus 2) Send this email to every email you find online. It is of positive gain. Someone can ignore your mail easy within seconds. I don't think I would blindly send text messages to people though because some people get charged for them, and it makes them upset. I don't think I'd phone call people because many people get upset at being distracted from their day to answer the phone and they might get a negative idea of Christians from this. The same reason is why I wouldn't come knocking at people's doors. I don't want to distract them from their day. Yes the message of Jesus is worth distracting people from much more than a few moments from their day! The problem is if they get a negative idea of your evangelizing, they might be put off. Trust me, while many will be upset at you for mass mailing them, the ratio to positive responses to negative is about the same for any other method. Just make sure your email about Jesus is very positive and not negative at all.
If mass email evangelism isn't your style, at least edit your mail signature"God loves you. Jesus is LORD. So love everyone." Some people who work at certain corporations might want to consider not doing this on their company address though. For the rest of us, we can hold email conversations with people, and it works the same way as a signature in your forum messages. Then the trick is the same for friend evangelism, Facebook evangelism, or forum evangelism, your messages and life of love will convince them that you're legit.
In the Bible, Jesus is condemning of Pharisees who cross long distances to win one convert and then don't convert people right*v4. We should be cautious to tell people to read the Bible and learn about God on their own without telling them false notions. But I think we can also take it as a caution that,"The people of old maybe had to travel for converts, but in our age, we can meet millions without leaving our rooms." So in our era, we should be more encouraged to evangelize and not be lazy. Like I said before, one of the best things you can do in life is to evangelize. Just do your best! You'll get better as you do it! This article is a guideline based on some of my own experience, if you find something better, email [email protected]
There's a radio station klove.com. And they're positive and encouraging. They do not bring hellfire and brimstone preaching with them. I think hellfire and brimstone preaching is counter intuitive. Why should we use the tools of the enemy: worry and fear? We should always be using the tools of God: Love and truth. Jesus is LORD of Heaven, Earth, Hell and anywhere else God created. We should let people know if they believe in Jesus they have the promise of eternal life. We don't need to put fear into them by saying unbelievers go to hell, I'm sure they've heard that before. I like to have people come to Jesus because of love, not because of fear. When evangelizing online, be sure to always be positive towards others. If you find yourself slipping and wanting to insult back at someone, or scare someone, you're very likely edging towards making mistakes. If you get too emotional and want to fire back, /ignore them, then ninja your way out the chat room. You can always come back at a later date. Remember Jesus didn't even enter the festival at Jerusalem the one time with his apostles, he picked the right time.
Another thing I think is helpful is to not be eschatological in witnessing. The study of end things has a place and time. One thing is we do not know when the end will come, only Father does. Matthew 25:13 GNT And Jesus concluded, "Watch out, then, because you do not know the day or the hour. If God didn't give Jesus the knowledge of when the end comes, why would he give some random man it? It is best to just avoid end times predictions, but instead tell people that they should be good and loving in all that they do so they don't have anything to worry about. I think that is a big thing about the faith: When we're with God and working hard in what we do for God and with our talents, there's nothing to worry about. Faith kills worry. Let's live in faith. Let's bring the world to faith in Jesus.
Here's another general guideline. The Christian Evangelist runs a balancing act. We're to bring people to Jesus. Our goal isn't to tell them to stop a certain sin in order to accept Jesus. We should place no barrier to entry. Then at their own pace, Jesus will help change their lives. In my spiritual infancy, I once thought,"Who cares about people who would deny Jesus because they would favor pleasure of sin anyway. That denial is a sin in itself." But as I am growing in faith I want no barriers to entry of faith in Jesus. I now say,"We of mature faith should try our best to help those weak in faith because they need the help the most!" So I think if people ask you,"Do I need to stop sin X if I follow Jesus?" You can emphatically say,"No, anyone can accept Jesus. It is between them and God to stop whatever they're convicted of through reading the Bible and their maturity in their faith." It is a fact to tell someone that anyone can accept Jesus. In their spiritual walk, Jesus can open their eyes to their own sins, but it is not man's place to change others. We might not walk the full journey with them, but we should start them off right.
It helps a little to have a website in online evangelizing. If you do not have your own online website, you still want to direct new believers somewhere. Find a website you like if you don't have one yourself. You can use FatherSpiritSon.com if you wish, or GoodNewsJim.com if you wish, or maybe Biblestudytools.com. If you have a website to direct someone to, they can get more information later. It is much more important to direct them to a Bible to read. Give them your favorite version of Bible to read. My favorite Bible is the Good News Bible.
I've said a little story once before and I'll say it again. The world is like a puddle of water, and Jesus coming to Earth was like throwing a rock in that pool. The rock's coming was foretold by the prophets. When it finally hit the water, its influence went out like ripples. God might not do a lot of showy miracles because he wants the angels to see how Jesus changes the world and changes people's life towards love. Now we as evangelists might bring more people to Jesus, but those changes ultimately belong to Jesus because he is whom we preach about. If God was to do lots of showy miracles, they'd be noise that detracts from the natural ripples that Jesus caused in the pool. So if someone asks why God doesn't do a lot of showy miracles, you can tell him this story.
I also think in the process of Internet Witnessing it is good to debunk the notion that science and religion conflict. If a scientific theory goes against religious theology, either the science is wrong, the theology is wrong, or both. God is still in Heaven reigning even if some of us are wrong :) Science is actually Christianity's helper. Through science people find cures for diseases, ailments, and handicaps that Christians pray for healing. Science is how we find better farming in order to feed our population. Science is how we learn about infrastructure to transports goods to the less fortunate. So when someone thinks science and Christianity conflict, be sure to educate them. You can even direct them to my article Long Day Theory
In closing, I choose to give a silly answer to a silly question. Some might ask,"Can God make a rock so big he can't move it." And the answer is,"Yes" You'll typically get a weird reaction to this. When they say,"Well can he move it.", you also say,"Yes", and they might get more perturbed. When they ask,"How can this be?" The answer is found in *v5
-James Sager III
*v1 Matthew 6:24 "You cannot be a slave of two masters; you will hate one and love the other; you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 25 "This is why I tell you: do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn't life worth more than food? And isn't the body worth more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren't you worth much more than birds? 27 Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it? 28 "And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves. 29 But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers. 30 It is God who clothes the wild grass - grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have! 31 "So do not start worrying: "Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?' 32 (These are the things the pagans are always concerned about.) Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. 33 Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings.
*v2 1 Corinthians 1:17 Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to tell the Good News, and to tell it without using the language of human wisdom, in order to make sure that Christ's death on the cross is not robbed of its power. 18 For the message about Christ's death on the cross is nonsense to those who are being lost; but for us who are being saved it is God's power. 19 The scripture says, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the understanding of the scholars." 20 So then, where does that leave the wise? or the scholars? or the skillful debaters of this world? God has shown that this world's wisdom is foolishness! 21 For God in his wisdom made it impossible for people to know him by means of their own wisdom. Instead, by means of the so-called "foolish" message we preach, God decided to save those who believe. 22 Jews want miracles for proof, and Greeks look for wisdom. 23 As for us, we proclaim the crucified Christ, a message that is offensive to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles; 24 but for those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, this message is Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For what seems to be God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and what seems to be God's weakness is stronger than human strength. 26 Now remember what you were, my friends, when God called you. From the human point of view few of you were wise or powerful or of high social standing. 27 God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and he chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful. 28 He chose what the world looks down on and despises and thinks is nothing, in order to destroy what the world thinks is important. 29 This means that no one can boast in God's presence.
*v3 Mark 4:1 Again Jesus began to teach beside Lake Galilee. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it. The boat was out in the water, and the crowd stood on the shore at the water's edge. 2 He used parables to teach them many things, saying to them: 3 "Listen! Once there was a man who went out to sow grain. 4 As he scattered the seed in the field, some of it fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some of it fell on rocky ground, where there was little soil. The seeds soon sprouted, because the soil wasn't deep. 6 Then, when the sun came up, it burned the young plants; and because the roots had not grown deep enough, the plants soon dried up. 7 Some of the seed fell among thorn bushes, which grew up and choked the plants, and they didn't bear grain. 8 But some seeds fell in good soil, and the plants sprouted, grew, and bore grain: some had thirty grains, others sixty, and others one hundred." 9 And Jesus concluded, "Listen, then, if you have ears!" 10 When Jesus was alone, some of those who had heard him came to him with the twelve disciples and asked him to explain the parables. 11 "You have been given the secret of the Kingdom of God," Jesus answered. "But the others, who are on the outside, hear all things by means of parables, 12 so that, "They may look and look, yet not see; they may listen and listen, yet not understand. For if they did, they would turn to God, and he would forgive them.' " 13 Then Jesus asked them, "Don't you understand this parable? How, then, will you ever understand any parable? 14 The sower sows God's message. 15 Some people are like the seeds that fall along the path; as soon as they hear the message, Satan comes and takes it away. 16 Other people are like the seeds that fall on rocky ground. As soon as they hear the message, they receive it gladly. 17 But it does not sink deep into them, and they don't last long. So when trouble or persecution comes because of the message, they give up at once. 18 Other people are like the seeds sown among the thorn bushes. These are the ones who hear the message, 19 but the worries about this life, the love for riches, and all other kinds of desires crowd in and choke the message, and they don't bear fruit. 20 But other people are like seeds sown in good soil. They hear the message, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred." 21 Jesus continued, "Does anyone ever bring in a lamp and put it under a bowl or under the bed? Isn't it put on the lampstand? 22 Whatever is hidden away will be brought out into the open, and whatever is covered up will be uncovered.
*v4 Matthew 23:15 GNT "How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You sail the seas and cross whole countries to win one convert; and when you succeed, you make him twice as deserving of going to hell as you yourselves are!
*v5 God can limit his powers at any time. God limited himself to a human's body when he was on Jesus. But at any time, God can allow his powers to come back. So God can limit his powers so he can't move the rock. But when he wants to move the rock, he can give himself the power back.