Joshua 24:15: Choose For Yourselves

Within my own experience, working for a company that is based out of Taiwan, there is a chasm between the concepts about spiritual life held by most of my colleagues and the concepts about spiritual life found in the Bible. This gap will not be bridged by a basic gospel presentation because the terms are not readily intelligible.

Many of the key ideas, such as God, sin, Jesus, repentance and faith are fading into the dim cultural awareness of those in the West. We must assume that to discuss these ideas, we must introduce them.

Sometimes we look at a quote from Joshua "...then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve" (Josh. 24:15) we focus on the "this day" aspect of the choice. However, we neglect the experience of Joshua's audience (Israelis) over the preceding years whereby he could make the appeal to them. "...choose...whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." They had a wealth of other spiritual alternatives they could choose from, all with ancient pedigrees, impressive achievements and persuasive prophets. But they also had been led across the Jordan River in Joshua's company. This was a process of small and large decisions in which they learned about God's story that led them to this point of decision.

We often neglect the years of process in our rush to the day of decision.

Tim Keller, in his book Center Church, says, "many people process from unbelief to faith through 'mini-decisions'." (p. 281) There is a moment of trust but also there are steps that typically bring an individual to a point of trust. In post-Christian and non-Christian cultures, the steps are often far apart in time.

Keller lists six typical steps or "mini-decisions:

1. Awareness: "I see it." They begin to clear the ground of stereotypes and learn to distinguish the gospel from legalism or liberalism, the core from the peripheral.
2. Relevance: "I need it." They begin to see the slavery of both religion and irreligion and are shown the transforming power of how the gospel works.
3. Credibility: "I need it because it's true." This is a reversal of the modern view that states, 'It's true if I need it." If people fail to see the reasonableness of the gospel, they will lack the endurance to persevere when their faith is challenged.
4. Trial: "I see what it would be like." They are involved in some sort of group life, in some type of service ministry, and are effectively trying Christianity on, often talking like a Christian-even defending the faith at times.
5. Commitment: "I take it" This may be the point of genuine conversion, or sometimes a person will realize that conversion already happened and they just didn't grasp it at the time.
6. Reinforcement: "Now I get it." Typically, this is the place where the penny drops and the gospel becomes even clearer and more real.

This is not a linear process, because relationships are not linear. But each mini-decision crosses a line where a person can imagine themselves as a Christian.

My question for myself is how to help my friends, neighbors and colleagues towards the next mini-decision. Some of it is the way I live my life. Some of it is the conversations we share. Some of it is the things we do together. All of it is intentional: Deliberately loving people.