CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Over the past few weeks, I heard a very frank discussion from a local church leader. The bottom line: the church’s job training program, which tries to find employment for addicts, has a low success rate. So does the church’s prison bible study. Convicts are more open to the word of God at their low point behind bars, but revert to their old ways once they’re out.
The church itself needs more money in the offering plate. The percentage of the congregation who gives faithfully week-after-week is small.
But running a church, or saving souls, is not a mathematical exercise. We shouldn’t stop the jobs program because only 15-percent of those who enroll will keep working. We shouldn’t stop bringing the Gospel into the jail because when most inmates are out in their old environment, they’ll return to their old vices.
I’ve never been told that Jesus died for our sins. He died for my sins, and for yours. Singular. The stories of the Bible are about Christ’s interactions with individuals. The cured leper, the woman at the well, the rich son, the man possessed by demons, restoring sight to the blind man, Lazarus, sisters Mary and Martha.
The Hebrew Talmud says whoever saves just one life saves the world entire. There is wisdom in that. May we never reduce what we do for others to a mathematical calculation. When just one person is brought to Christ, isn’t their entire world different?
Chris Conley
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