Afraid To Tell The Truth?
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This is from a Q & A session at the Ezra Institute's 'Runner Academy'. Jeff Durbin answers a question regarding how we can be faithful in the midst of a "Christian" culture that is afraid to tell the truth.
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- 00:00
- I live in Western Pennsylvania where it's a very German culture and everybody is very conservative and non -confrontational, but not
- 00:11
- Christian. So when people are so non -confrontational and when you're trying to share faith and they're saying things like, well that's wonderful, that's great for you, but don't want to confront any of the issues that you bring forth, how do you deal with that?
- 00:28
- That's a good question. I would say our responsibility, no matter the culture that we're in, is to continue to preach the truth, teach the truth, propagate the truth, promote the truth, always.
- 00:41
- But to make sure that we're doing it in a way, of course, that is glorifying to God, honoring to God, respectful, truthful, loving, but also is bold.
- 00:50
- The truth should be somewhat confrontational ultimately no matter what. It's going to confront error, right?
- 00:56
- We have the same kind of problem right now, similar problem, where we actually planted another church in Kauai.
- 01:04
- Very hard place to plant a church. I mean, it is very, very hard. At one time the Hawaiian islands were completely
- 01:10
- Christian kingdom, all the way up to their laws, and 20 years the missionaries converted the Hawaiian islands.
- 01:16
- Twenty years. Amazing. Puritan effort to convert the islands. Twenty years, and in their constitution it says, no laws of the
- 01:23
- Hawaiian kingdom shall be a variance of the laws of Jehovah God. That's a more Christian constitution than mine in the
- 01:30
- United States of America, naming the God of the Bible in their constitution. There are a lot of reasons why it's no longer the case, much to do with my own nation and what happened with taking away the sovereignty of the
- 01:39
- Hawaiian kingdom. But when you go to Hawaii now, it went from what was once a Christian culture to now it's scattered, but the one thing you can't do in Kauai, in any of the
- 01:50
- Hawaiian islands, is disrupt ohana. Ohana is family. Ohana is supreme. Ohana is
- 01:55
- God. Do not disrupt ohana. So you have locals in Hawaii that have the kind of situation where they'll basically say, on Monday they go to the
- 02:07
- Buddhist temple, on Tuesday they go to the Mormon ward, on Wednesday they go to the Jehovah's Witness kingdom hall, and on Sunday they will go to the
- 02:14
- Christian church. And it's all accepted as normal. Why? Because my auntie goes to the Buddhist thing, my uncle goes to the
- 02:20
- Jehovah's Witness, and I go to the Christian church, and we just don't disrupt this. Along comes Apologia Church coming into Kauai.
- 02:29
- And we're not coming in there abrasive, abusive, mean -spirited. We're coming in there saying, no, Jesus is the only way to salvation.
- 02:35
- Well, fairly recently, a lot of the locals discovered that we believe that. Jesus is the only way to God. And we've had, over the last couple of months, threats to burn down where we're worshiping.
- 02:45
- They're trying to get us kicked off the island. They're posting fake posts on Craigslist and local boards from Apologia Church saying that locals and islanders are from the devil.
- 02:57
- Like they're saying, this is Apologia Church posting, and they're just trying to get us kicked off the island because it's such a tight -knit community.
- 03:04
- Why? Not because we're mean -spirited, abusive, aggressive. It's because we believe
- 03:09
- Jesus is the only way to God. And we're telling people that, lovingly, graciously saying that in our teaching.
- 03:15
- And we're experiencing the consequences for it. What I would say is this, and I'm saying this to you in terms of,
- 03:20
- I don't want to say, just keep telling the truth and make sure that you're bold with it, and I don't have to experience that. We experience it all the time.
- 03:27
- There are churches in Phoenix that want nothing to do with Apologia Church. We believe everything they believe, but we want nothing to do with a church that will go out and do those sorts of things.
- 03:34
- We're experiencing trouble in Kauai because of the very thing. I would say, keep telling the truth. And like I said last night, if you take a beating for Jesus, praise
- 03:43
- God. Just make sure you're not taking a beating for Jesus because of your behavior. Because that's not