Adventures in Noodle Land: Thai Food and the Gospel
***Warning this is long. I’ll try to be shorter next-time***
The following post is rated H for the use of the word Hermeneutic. It is appropriate for all ages.
A few weeks back I had quite a conversation over lunch with a Jewish friend of mine who is not a believer but very spiritual. He’s a great, talented guy whom I’ve discussed religious stuff with before, but whom never had heard the Gospel. Going into the lunch I decided that if “spirituality” came up I was going to blast him with the gospel of Jesus Christ and really lay it on. On the way over I was scheming about what angle I’d take. I thought, “Ok. What tactics can I use to overpower his argument and prove to him that he’s wrong and I’m in the right? How can I win this argument?
We get to the restaurant. It was Thai food which made me very nervous because if its not chicken fingers and fries its foreign to me. Basically, whatever your 5 year old eats I’m into…well not everything, but in general. Almost immediately upon ordering, our food comes. A big HUGE plate with all this stuff on it; it scared me. I’m not generally a coward but delicious plates of unknown food and unidentifiable delectable treats make me quite perplexed.
We started to eat after I had prayed. It took me a few minutes but I figured out the bulk of this was thing was noodles. My friend began talking about how he was Jewish but believed in reincarnation and Buddhism as well and how he believed that NOBODY should force their beliefs upon another and how many paths lead to God or the higher power. This excited me because I couldn’t wait to tell him how wrong he was and I also felt pretty self righteous because I could identify this attitude as postmodern from all of my study; boy thank goodness I’m so smart. Mostly, though I tuned him out because I figured that after he finished yapping I’d hit him with a good old dosage of the gospel and prove him wrong. While I was pretending to listen I examined the depths of my plate (after lunch God by His Spirit had me examining the depths of my heart), which looked to me like something they scooped out of the bottom of the ocean.
It was like this
My Friend: “So Jesus seems to me to be one of many ways…blaaablaaawonkwonk
Me Thinking to Myself and examining my food (pretending to listen, occasional head nod): “What are these things I said to myself; I think they are called water chestnuts but I’m not positive. Oh they’re cucumbers…no not cucumbers those are green but these are white. They look like mini-flying saucers. Ooooooohh I found the chicken under the noodles. (Still pretending I’m listening) Man they kind of skimp on the chicken. Oh shoot, this one isn’t cooked that well. Its redish. My Mom would hate this place. I wonder what Tara is doing right now? Oh man, he just said that exact thing DA Carson was talking about that pluralistic thing. Ahhh a hermeneutic of pluralism. Silly unregenerate. I can’t wait to go to Seminary where I can learn how to be smarter and say big words like hermeneutic and realized eschatology. Should I tell him a piece of food is on the lower left side of his mouth? Oh. Wait I thing he’s done with his ridiculous syncrestic garbage. Ok gospel time baby.
Then I BLASTED him and man I was good. I really laid it on him. I told him about Jesus and the sinfulness of man. I laid out every systematic theological concept that I knew and articulated it well. I sounded way less artsy and stupid and aloof than I usually do. Nice!!!
We finished dinner and just as I was patting myself on the back for not wussing out on sharing the gospel in all its truth, he said something to me that I consider a great blessing. I literally wept the whole way home.
He said, “John, don’t take offense at this because I consider you my friend, but take it as advice because I can see that you are really into this theology and ministry stuff. You just told me pretty concisely and articulately what you believe, but I felt like you just spat out a bunch of facts that other people conveyed to you. Next time, I like to hear it from you. What does any of that have to do with me? You gave me a lecture, but I want a conversation.”
Man. Have you been there? I was immediately convicted by the Holy Spirit of my self-righteousness and my pride and my un-winsome attitude. I heard Driscoll talk of this once. Wanting so much to win the argument that it becomes the goal and not sharing the gospel. It becomes a match of wits. A pride thing. Instead of boasting in the Cross we boast in our own skill as presenters. Instead of sharing the truth out of love for Christ, we share the truth out of a love for the response of men to our knowledge. Instead of loving our neighbor and desiring to see them saved; we want to prove them wrong and show them how stupid they have been. Us vs. Them. Good Guy (me) Vs. Bad Guy (him). When it should be Bad Guy (me) and Bad Guy (him) = Made righteous by the Blood of Jesus. What I needed was to tell him the gospel and HOW it affected my life. Where I was before, where I am now, the joy of knowing Jesus. Yes, it must be grounded in truth, but I presented the gospel to him like a car salesman instead of a friend who desperately wanted to see his joy complete in the savior. I gave him a seminary lecture instead of a sincere discussion.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Correct theology is important. We can have spiritual conversations all the livelong day but it will just be babble without the truth of the gospel. But, this conversation seriously made me understand that ESPECIALLY here in New England and ESPECIALLY now, being missional gospel-centered followers of Christ requires more than just great theology. It requires way more than just spitting out theological stuff like a Bible Encyclopedia with a pulse or like a Christian version of C3P0 and then turning our back on people when they don’t sign a stupid card or start saying “Praise the Lord” after every sentence you tell them. What I need, what we need, is to deeply love God and deeply love people. Most of you are probably saying, yea we know that, but I thought I did too.
In closing, I thank God for breaking me and convicting me of the fact that I didn’t love people or the lost as much as I loved my intellect and my possession of the truth. I’m deeply grateful that God by His Spirit has used this situation to begin to redirect my love further and further away from self and more towards Him by manifesting itself in sacrificial love for the world. I’m far from there, but I the deeper and deeper I fall into Christ, the more and more I love the lost, and the less and less I focus on myself. I pray that God keeps pulling me away from the center of my life, that he helps me continually die to self, so that he can be my treasure and the center of my life. I feel like I’m daily watching looking back at a picture of myself and watching myself be pulled further and further from who I was and closer and closer to who God’s making me. When I look back I’m disgusted, when I look at myself now quite often I’m disgusted, but when I look forward I long to be made holy as he is holy. I’m finding myself weeping while I’m driving as I listen to some Christian radio programs point a finger at homosexuals with no urgency or longing to see them saved. God, I long to see them know Christ now. I long to see them too set free. To see they’re lives be conformed to the image of Christ and not just barked at without any hint of grace. I long for the wisdom and courage to confront people of all sexual orientations, religious backgrounds, tribes, tongues etc
I pray that we might walk with people as they wrestle with the truth, sharing life, loving unconditionally and letting the righteousness of Christ shine. May the Holy Spirit continually encourage, equip, direct, guide, strengthen, and most importantly humble us as we seek to walk in holiness amongst the lost. May the Lord our God, the creator of every spec of every iota of every atom of everything, correct us and orient us to Himself as our treasure as we seek to live out the Missio Dei in the context of this New England culture. And with Paul I pray that “Whatever we do whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks to God the Father through him.” With conviction, John
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