The gospel is simplicity in a complex world

I love this photograph of oranges. It reminds me of the oranges I use to eat when I was growing up. Filled with juice that would squirt half way across the room when you bite into them and trickle around my taste buds... I can close my eyes and taste it now.

The problem is... this picture is not a picture. It's a painting in a new style called hyperrealism.

We live in a world where paintings can be confused with photographs. There's no need for imagination any more because we can find a picture or go to youtube and see a video of the impossible being done. In movies, we have seen people fly, we have seen the destruction of the world, we have seen artificial limbs in futuristic movies look just like real ones.

In reality, we have seen doctors perform amazing surgery, we have seen scientists look inside sells and at actual DNA. We have seen actual pictures of what other planets look like.

We have seen all these advances, but still - we believe in God. The rest of the world wants to believe in what they can see.. but what you can see... cannot always be trusted.

So, with all these advances, how do we share the gospel with a world that is desperately in need of a savior?

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the wold did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For the Jews demanded signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Cor 1:18-25

Despite the thinking of this present age, God has not changed. The simplicity of the gospel... that man needs a savior still resonates in the heart of man.

This week, let us struggle to share the gospel in its simplicity.