Dr.Nolte continues that Jesus said “come and you will see”, Andrew brought Peter to Jesus, and Philip told Nathanael “ Just come and see for yourself.” People will sometimes counter a gospel invitation with a timid response like “I don’t know if I believe in Jesus.” or “Jesus is okay but its Christians that I’m not comfortable with.” Philip just said to come and check it out for yourself. This is the beauty of Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lord and Savior of the world, and Master communicator of the kingdom of Heaven; He can take care of Himself. Lead people to Jesus and the Good Shepherd will do fine. An evangelical extension of the plan of the gospel is to get people who do not kn0w the Lord to Jesus and the body of Christ (His church of Believers), the Gospel will speak for itself. That is why this very simple construct of watching the Master at work is so important. Especially, after its safe and we are now allowed to come out of our houses and do things again, excited to be back together again; they are ready. One of the things that the 2020 pandemic pointed out was how desperately we need relationships.
We are created for interpersonal interaction. Teleconferencing, Zoom Chats and FaceTime calls are a temporary alternative, but people really miss being together. The church is called “the body” for a reason. The Christian church is exactly what the world needs in relational community and fellowship of Believers sharing life together because that is who we are. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts”, so the world knows it too. As those who are following the Master, it is so important now that we simply do not complicate the opportunity to initiate and invite people to come and see by experience for themselves who Jesus is, what he did for them and what He continues to do in their lives. No burdensome requirement; come as you are.
After all the years of learning, reading, studying, pastoring and preaching, I’ve discovered that the absolute, most effect answer when someone asks you a ready hard question about Theology or the Bible and you don’t know the answer or handle it is say that you do not know. We know where to go find the answer in the Bible (the Word of God) and where to get resources, but we get ourselves all mentally bent out of shape by worry that someone will ask us something that we cannot answer. Nathanael responses, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Thinking that one place is better than another is just negative, distractions the enemy uses to keep people away from Jesus. Philip said “I don’t know about Nazareth, but I met Jesus, found the Messiah and decided to take His invitation and follow Him. You should come and see for yourself.” It is basic, honest, on point and important to initiate and invite.
Here is the thing, Jesus gives us disciples an example in find the Master and do what He did; find people, initiate and invite them to follow the Master also; disciples make disciples that make disciples. A disciple is defined as: 1. A learner or student; a scholar; one who receives or professes to receive instruction from another. 2. A follower; an adherent to the doctrines of another. Hence the constant attendants of Christ were called his disciples; and hence all Christians are called his disciples, as they profess to learn and receive his doctrines and precepts. But, this begs a couple of questions. (A) Who should I initiate and invite? (B) How should I initiate and invite? The Bible passage text helps answer the “who” question as the new disciples went to somebody that they already knew; family, friends, neighbors, classmates and co-workers.
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