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Going To The World vs. Going Into All The World
Are churches experiencing their own “Rumspringa”? Amish and Mennonite societies have their children, roughly from ages 16-21, leave their communities to experience the outside world. This is partly to solidify their decision to either leave or stay within their religious culture. This explanation of Rumspringa is an oversimplication, but let me rephrase for the purpose of this “warning” – Rumspringa is “Going to the world and being preached to by the created the “gospel” of the created”.
That is not the Great Commission of Mark 16:15 which says, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Listen carefully. What comes before is essential to what comes afterwards. To confuse the two leads to spiritual disaster.
Before Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15), Jesus had prayed concerning his disciples, “I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” (CSB’17 John 17:15-18).
Notice what Jesus did and what we need:
1. Before we can go into the world, we must not be of world.
2. Before we can be not of this world, we must be sanctified or made holy by God’s truth.
3. Before we go into the world we need people’s prayers.
4. Before we go into the world, we will not have all the answers (Mark 16:14).
The lesson is essential:
• Believers are not tasked with going to the world to experience and experiment with other beliefs. Too many are leaving good churches because they want the freedom to live and worship how they want. This is going into all the world for the wrong reasons.
• Believers are to take the belief of Jesus and His lifestyle to the world.
Don’t practice your own damaging Rumspringa. Have conversations and Bible studies with people you can trust. You might be surprised to learn these people had some of the same questions and doubts you have. Then put Jesus’s prayer into action so you too can go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Save yourself the heartaches of the world so you can teach Jesus who saves the world.
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