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JUST THINKING V21.1 Web PDF
JUST THINKING V21.1 Web PDF
ORG
JUST THINKING
Learning
ToThink +
THE JOURNEY
OF SHEEP
Critically
PAGE 2
PAGE 14
COMPLETE TO
COMPLETE
PAGE 16
IF ONLY
PAGE 20
Just Thinking is a teaching
resource of Ravi Zacharias
International Ministries and
exists to engender thoughtful
engagement with apologetics,
Scripture, and the whole of life.
Danielle DuRant
Editor
WWW.RZIM.ORG
TA B L E of CONTENTS
VOLUME 21.1
DD: Youve already alluded to some of Heres what I want to say: I have to
the amazing opportunities that youve had be very careful. Sometimes I wish I could
recently to speak in the Middle East and give the whole nine yards in the first set-
with atheists in Europe. Would you tell us ting; theres nothing Id want to do than
about your invitation from the sheik? that. But as Christian apologists, we take
one step at a time. You have to earn the
RZ: I WAS IN B AHRAIN , D UBAI , and right to be heard. I did bring the gospel.
then in Abu Dhabi. In Bahrain I was I did present Jesus Christ. Would I have
asked to speak on Is Peace Possible? liked to have done more? Absolutely. I
and then in Abu Dhabi I was hosted by think the opportunity is coming as Ive
the sheikh who actually funded the whole been invited back.
event and came and sat in the front row. You open these doors very carefully
It was a phenomenal moment. In because you know youve not opened
Bahrain, when I finished speaking on the them, Gods opened them, and you have
possibility of peace, which I subtitled, to walk wisely. They have absolutely no
Our Way or Gods Way, the brigadier doubt what I believe, why I believe it.
from my table walked right up towards So we have to know there are genuine
the platform as I stepped down and gave seekers. Coming from India, I know
me a hug in his flowing robes. He said, exactly what all that means. I think
Please take this message to the rest of even of Elisha in 2 Kings 5. When
the world; we need it. In Abu Dhabi, the Naaman was healed of his leprosy, he
sheikh, who is a member of the royal asked Elisha, What do I do now? When
family, sat through my whole talk of 45 I go back and my master leans on my
minutes on Foundations for Living. He arm, by virtue of his weight on my arm
also walked up to the platform, embraced I have to bow before the Temple of
me, kissed me on both sides of the face, Rimmon. Elisha didnt tell him, Do it
and said, I hope this is the beginning of or Dont do it. Elisha said, Go in
a long friendship. Then he had me visit peace. That is, Go, and God will be
their university the next day and to speak with you. I think it is interesting that he
at their national library. said essentially that at the right time, you
will know exactly what to do and God
will give you strength.
s
Complete To Complete
by Cameron McAllister
P
collaborate to make us who If, on the other hand, we live only for
we are. Few would debate the present, we risk forgetting where we
that both the past and the came from and where we are going. The
present play a crucial role in question then becomes: How do we lead
our personal formation. We lives that are complete examples of what
can discount neither where we came God has not yet completed?
from nor where we are when we consider Eugene Peterson acknowledges,
who we are. But the question becomes I was a pastor long before I knew I was
more enigmatic when we turn to things a pastor; I just never had a name for it.2
that havent yet happened. Is it possible His recent memoir is a marvel of seem-
that our future somehow influences who ingly unrelated events, ranging from a job
we are even now? If so, what might that in his fathers butcher shop to a bloody
mean for us? Strange as it may sound, I confrontation with the neighborhood
want to suggest that traces of your future bully, converging to shape both his identity
exist in the present but that the best way and his vocation as a pastor. In other
to see those traces is by looking through words, Peterson reads the traces of his
the lens of the past. future by the light of his past. This is why
The theologian J.R. Daniel Kirk it is now possible for him to revisit these
identifies Romans 6 as one of the key childhood scenes and see a little boy who
place[s] to look for the intrusion of was somehow already Pastor Pete even
Christs resurrection into our current as he wielded his first butchers knife or
lives.1 Kirk insists on the word intru- found himself locked in hand-to-hand
sion because the complete implications combat with his local nemesis. Only now
of Christs death and resurrection have is it possible for Peterson to look back
yet to be fully realized. As Christian men and to see the future transform a first job
and women, however, we strive to faith- and a fistfight into an apprenticeship.
fully embody the conviction that the Speaking personally, one of my own
consummation of Christs redemptive encounters with the future took place my
work on the cross does indeed intrude senior year of high school. I was an
into our day-to-day lives. Specifically, unpromising student with no academic
Romans 6:4 epitomizes the convergence aspirations whatsoever. The sixth period
of immanence and imminence on display in bell had rung, and we commenced with
our faithful behavior: Therefore we have the usual uproar with which we punished
been buried with Him through baptism substitutes for disrupting our regular
into death, so that as Christ was raised from routine. In walked a wild haired man
the dead through the glory of the Father, with a stack of books in each hand, and a
so we too might walk in newness of life. sweater that might have been stolen from
Far from being lofty and abstract Bill Cosby. Instead of taking the bait,
sentiment, what this actually means is however, our sub countered our rude
that as servants of the living God, our commotion with famous first sentences,
lives are simultaneously reflective of beginning with Moby Dick and ending
Gods past, present, and future work. with the King James Bible. The passion
Nevertheless, Christian faith remains a with which he spoke was fierce and mag-
delicate balance of anticipation and netic, and by the time he got to Genesis 1:1
fulfillment. If we nurture a premature his voice was no more than a whisper, and
focus on Gods future work to the our class leaned in hungrily as though his
exclusion of present concerns, we risk words were the very bread of life.
If Only
by Jill Carattini
Warm Regards,
Ravi
WWW.RZIM.ORG