If you don't know anything about Brad Ziegler then you're probably in the majority. Brad is a relief pitcher for the As who broke the record a few years ago for consecutive scoreless innings to start a career. This feat was especially cool considering that his submarine style of pitching induces a lot of groundballs (which means he has to rely on his defense for outs) and the fact that he was not a highly regarded prospect (he was asked to switch to the submarine style after pitching coaches came to the conclusion he probably wouldn't be very good overhand.) These facts combined together make it so that only a few people ask for Brad Ziegler's autograph--the big As fans and the underdog lovers mostly. When Brad signs an autograph, he also writes down the phrase "1 John 5:5."This is normally the part of the blog where I quote the verse in italics, but I'm not going to do that. Brad says that he writes the verse down partially because he loves the verse, but also because most people will have to go look it up. Brad uses this as a way to redirect people's praise for him back towards God and the Bible. I love this tactic for a few reasons; he lets the people choose if they want to read it or not, he leaves them with a permanent sign of his faith, and he picks a powerful verse which summarizes the entire gospel.
The moral here is that if you're not sure how to interpret the Bible for others, or if you don't necessarily want to screw things up, then just let the Bible speak for itself. If folks come to you with questions about Christianity and your belief, just go straight to the word and let God do his work. God gave us his word so that we could use it for ourselves as well as let it shine to the Earth as the good news. Don't be ashamed of the word; let God's magnificent deeds do for others what it has done for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment