To the end of the earth

One never stops learning. Do you know that there is a German Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Kiev? I also only got to know about it today, when asked by a family from there whether I could send them a German Bible. I have also received such requests from other countries. The Gospel has spread to many countries and continents – and even in the German language.

Even when it is not always possible for us to take the Gospel to other countries as instructed by Jesus, we also have, in the meantime, many other nationalities living here in our country.

Whether or not we agree with it politically is another matter, however here we are given the opportunity to tell people, who haven’t heard the good news of Christ, about our faith. Just recently we had a baptism in our Church and one of the baptised people had first come to know of our faith here in our country. For him it was no longer an uncertain question of whether to turn away from Mohammed and lay down in the loving arms of Christ. We are praying that the rest of his family will also repent and come to Christ – because nothing is impossible with the Lord!

But in order to live this love of God, and to tell others about it, we need to read and study our Bibles again and again. I believe that most of us (not excluding myself) are still a long way off to knowing the Old Testament, for example as Paul did. He had no Bible-app to quickly look up, how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament, when talking about it in one of his sermons.

Although I already know a lot of the Bible, I would still love to know even in part what Paul and the others knew off by heart. Especially since the escalation of the Internet, the inundation of information which streams out at us has multiplied to such an extent that there is often not much capacity left over in us, or we utilise the capacity inadequately, rather than focusing on that which is important, namely concentrating on God’s Word and consuming it with a hunger.

However, when we take Jesus’ instruction seriously, we must reconsider and read and study the Bible more and more.

Are you prepared to become a learner and simultaneously a teacher, as Jesus expects of us?

I wish you a blessed day, overflowing with the Word of God!

Rainer Gigerich