By Jon
” For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves “ 1 Colossians 1:13
When we were in full-time language learning, I went through a module on sharing the Gospel in Thai.
While a good starting foundation, as we start to present the Gospel more often around our village, we came to a realization that the gap between the Buddhist and Christian understanding is wider than we thought.
Translated Christian terms such as “sin” and “salvation”, while helpful in understanding, often does not seem to touch the heartstrings of those listening.
However, we found that the usage of Buddhist terms which, adapted appropriately, may clearly express concepts to the Thai Buddhist ears.
One of such cases was during a recent training conference when the speaker explained on the communication of Jesus’ redemption of humanity’s sins.
He proposed to present Jesus as having great merit due to his status as the Son of God and, in view of His mercy, imparting that merit unto those who submit under His Lordship. This merit allows those who trust in Him to leave the cycle of causation and rebirth, uniting with God in heaven after they die.
The speaker’s explanation stuck with me for a long while after the conference, allowing me to see Jesus as the Great Merit Giver.
Through the emptying of all merit from Himself by dying on the Cross and giving that merit to us, humanity no longer has to make merit to avoid the fear of present danger and future rebirth, but are able to freely receive His merit that to be children of God and co-heirs with Christ.
While this may seem like a foreign way to understand the Gospel, I am reminded that we too were once people in darkness whom the light of Christ into the world seemed all too foreign and illogical (John 1:10).
In the end, our hope remains the same that, through words or otherwise, we would be faithful witnesses to the Gospel that we have heard and experienced in our lives to the community around us.
Jon and Phoebe's thetomyumkongs journey. 