Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Innocent or not?

Sometimes I stumble across a verse in the bible that completely blows me over. Yesterday once such occurrence happened. I've been reading through the book of Acts lately and trying to really pay attention to what is said, believing the things described and said in the book of Acts is a real example of how we as Christians should live in the context of the church and not just some amazing things that happened in the life of the early church. 

So in the context of really paying attention I ran across this verse:

"Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of your blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole council of God." - 20:26,27

And then it hit me - if Paul was innocent of their blood because he had been faithful to preach the gospel, aren't we going to be held accountable for those to whom we did not preach the gospel? 

Maybe it's easy to think that this accountability only applies to preachers or teachers. I mean Paul was quoting Ezekiel who meant the verse to apply to prophets, right? Well yes but I think when we learned that there is now a "priesthood of the saints" that the communication of the gospel became all of our responsibility. It's probably true that not all of us have the same number of people we're responsible to communicate the gospel to but I'm quite sure we all have a responsibility. 

So the question we need to ask is are we innocent of the blood of those we're going to be held accountable for? I'm sure I have more people I need to share the whole gospel with.

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