Week 43—Wednesday Acts 14:1-3
Acts 14:1-3
LAY WITNESSING THE CENTER OF OUR FAITH
If the very nature of the Christian faith is the Word become flesh, then the very nature of the expression of that faith is witnessing—the Word become flesh. But almost the whole of the Christian expression is on preaching—the Word become word. This points to the fact that in a major change, the emphasis must be on the part the laity plays in the Christian movement. Lay witnessing must be the major emphasis. For ministers, priests, missionaries, and evangelists like myself will never win this world for Christ. And if we could it would not be good, for the lay people of the churches would be denied the growth and development which comes from sharing their faith and winning others.
The fact is that the Christian faith is a lay movement. Jesus was a layman. The religious system of the day gave him no license or credentials. His call was from God and not from other people. He was not ordained in the ordinary sense of laying on of hands. When the religious leaders asked Jesus for his credentials, he pointed to the changed people around him—credentials in flesh and blood. Nor were his disciples ordained by the laying on of hands. They were ordained: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you” (John 15:16, KJV). The Divine choice was the ordination. So if there is an “apostolic succession” by the laying on of hands, the apostles were not in it. But the apostles began to be possessive of the movement, began to argue who was first in the movement, forbade others from casting out devils because “they followed not us,” wanted to call down fire on those who would not receive them. Instead of the movement possessing them, they began to possess the movement. So Jesus had to reemphasize the lay emphasis in the movement by appointing the seventy laymen to whom he gave the same commission he gave the Twelve. He was immediately behind them, to reject them was to reject him, to receive them was to receive him.
O Jesus, Savior and Leader, lead us back to your original purposes, back to your mind. For if we are outside your mind we are outside your power. And without your power we are fruitless. And we would be fruitful. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: When I am witnessing I am not witnessing to myself, a ransomed sinner; I’m witnessing to a ransoming Savior.