After a colleague (Mr Nice Guy) and I booed another colleague for quoting the bible out of context, I turned to him and ask:
Me: Despite being a Buddhist, you seemed to know the bible very well. Have people been quoting the bible out of context to you?
Mr Nice Guy: Yah man.
Me: Wah, very uncomfortable hor. What were some of the things they had quoted out of context to you?
Mr Nice Guy: That all non-Christians are destined to go to hell...
Me: [Pretending to be distracted by work on my laptop]
I can imagine that I must appear to be really indifferent to your pain when I was "distracted". Frankly, deep down inside, I'm really disturbed and I don't know how to show that to you. I'm disturbed because the bible has written unequivocally that our rightful place is to be condemned and I don't want to strain our friendship because I'm the messenger of that truth.
Rom. 3:10, "As it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one...'"
Rom. 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Rom. 5:12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."
Rom. 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Rom. 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Rom. 10:9-10, "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
Rom. 10:13, "For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved."
From Four Spiritual Laws in CARM website
That's not to say that Christians are better than other people (although we should be, but alot of times, we fail in the standards set by our Creator, who knows our weaknesses but saves us in His love nontheless.) True Christians (that's not all self-professing Christians) are simply people whom God has forgiven in Christ.Mr Nice Guy, I love you (as a friend), I really do. And I think it is this desire to maintain a good relationship with you that kept my mouth shut when I should have said that that was not a concept that was spoken out of context. It is really written in the bible.
If after reading this passage, you would like to discuss what the bible says, feel free to talk. I cannot say I know everything there, but we can look at the passages together. I pray though, our friendship is not strained...
