In his book, The Name, Franklin Graham tells an
intriguing story which was told to him by a missionary, Aileen Coleman, who
worked for years among the Bedouins. Two boys, Abdul and Mohammed, were
climbing the rocky terrain one day and wound up in a heated argument. A scuffle
ensued and one of the boys, Mohammad, was pushed off a cliff and died—a victim
of second degree murder.
In Bedouin society the
principle of “an eye for an eye” still prevails. Knowing the punishment would
be severe, Abdul ran into the tent of a tribal chief. The youth grabbed hold of
a tent peg and screamed for mercy. The young man began to confess his crime and
asked for protection. It is a Bedouin custom that if a fugitive grabs hold of a
tent peg and pleads for protection from the owner of the tent, if the owner
grants protection, he must lay down his life for the one on the run.
The sheik looked at the
frantic young man and vowed, “I give you my protection, now go inside the tent." A few hours later some eyewitnesses showed up at the sheik’s tent, pleading for
him to turn the boy over, “He’s a killer we saw the whole thing!” The old
Bedouin stood his ground and said, “I cannot give the boy over. I have vowed my
protection to him.”
“You don’t understand,”
the pursuers said, “This fugitive killed your son.” They produced the body of
the sheik’s son. The old man flinched as if a knife had pierced his heart. His
eyes filled with tears. There was a long silence. The old man’s knees weakened.
On the floor, Abdul closed his eyes and buried his face, awaiting the
inevitable retaliation. Surely this was the end.
After several tense
moments the sheik arose and said, “I am an old man. No amount of vengeance can
bring back my son to life.” He pointed to Abdul cowering in fear and said, “Because
this boy came to me in the right way, I will take him as my own son and raise
him. He will live in my tent and will be my heir. All that I have will be his.
He will bear my name.”
Franklin Graham wrote, “When
I heard this story, chills rushed through me. This is a picture of what God has
done for mankind through the death of One who bears the Name. Just as Abdul,
eternal life or death for each of us depends on our finding protection, refuge
and redemption through the shed blood of Jesus. As the Bible says, ‘Whoever
calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”[1]
That story was used by missionary
Aileen Coleman to help the Bedouins better understand the ideas of mercy and
justice as they relate to the Gospel. A story like that is an example of what
missionary Don Richardson called “a redemptive analogy”—the idea that cultures
have some story, ritual, or tradition that can be used to illustrate and apply
the Gospel message.
The challenge of the
missionary is to “connect-the-dots” for the people they are trying to reach
with the Gospel by taking the story or custom they are familiar with and
showing its link to Christ. These redemptive analogies hold the key to
unlocking the Gospel for tribes and cultures who have never had any exposure to
the stories of the Bible or the salvation message of Christ.
There are a couple of vivid
examples of this same thing happening in the New Testament. When Jesus met the Samaritan
woman at the well in John 4 he turned this woman’s daily task of drawing water
into a redemptive analogy. Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give
him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in
him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
In Acts 17 when Paul
ventured into the city of Athens he found that it was littered with idols. One
of the monuments in the city was an idol to “an unknown God.” Sitting among the
philosophers and intellectuals, Paul turned this into a transition to introduce
Christ, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For
as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an
altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship
as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-23).
As our culture grows more
and more secular and the Gospel becomes more foreign to the unchurched, I feel
that we are going to have to take a page from the missionary playbook in our evangelism.
Modern America is not far from ancient Athens morally and spiritually. We need
to keep our minds working and ask God for wisdom to see “the redemptive
analogies” that lay imbedded in our culture. We must creatively communicate the
Gospel to the lost in a way that will resonate with their heart so that they
will see the heart of the Savior who died for them.
-DM
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