The Musclecturer

Hello everyone

I was on my way home from work this evening and waiting at Monument Tube station for the connecting train, reading Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s book called 45 Master Characters. There were two trains coming through, a couple of minutes apart. The first arrived, and although I wasn’t going that far, I decided not to board. It was too packed. The other one arrived and I chose the second carriage from the front.

Shortly after boarding, I became aware of a young woman’s voice, exhorting us to give our lives to Jesus. Something burned within me. All those years of being in the Church came back to me and I felt I had to say something. This woman had a lot of zeal, but (seemingly) no real knowledge except for the verses of Scripture she was quoting back-to-back. When she said she took her Bible literally, I could hold back no longer.

“Question (not even, excuse me). What makes you think that this God you speak of is any different from any of us on this Tube?” She didn’t seem to understand the question and I repeated it, adding “you speak of this God as if He were separate or different from us”.

“Well, we are in the image of God,” she replied. I think she meant to go on but I interrupted, because I felt I needed to. And I needed to get off the Tube soon.

“Yes, we are and we have inherited who and what He is. What justification do you have for saying we are any different or separate from Him? We are the same substance, the same energy.”

Instead of answering, she got off the Tube and immediately ran into the front carriage. I had to get off anyway, so I did…

I wasn’t trying to get at her or embarrass her. Though, I did want her to shut up and think for herself, and at least give me an answer if she could. I guess she chose not to.

Even if she had quoted some verse like ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of god’, I would have asked her: ” What does that mean? What is sin?”

I was on that Tube and in that carriage for a reason. I do not believe in coincidence for its own sake. Why? In this case, when Christians in this country go out to try to convert people to their religion, it is always during the summer. It was almost refreshing to see someone doing it out of season, so to speak. But I was also getting further confirmation that the Church as a spiritual body has not grown, or is seriously defective in some parts and thus hindering overall growth of the spiritual body and for that I am truly disappointed.

I sat at home whilst preparing this blog asking myself: what was her motivation? Why did she feel the need to try and convert anyone? I hope to see her again. Life has a way of bringing people together and I hope she will have an answer for me. Even if it is “I don’t know, I only know what the Bible tells me, but I will look into it”. And we can move on from there…

Peace…Fx

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 11:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.