A Cross-Shaped Gospel by Bryan Loritts

Author:Bryan Loritts [Loritts, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8024-8101-6
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Someone’s Child”

A gospel vision should not only focus us on heavenly things; it must compel us—and our children—to help humanity. We must restore an accurate biblical anthropology. What I mean by this is that until we see humanity the way God does, as being fearfully and wonderfully made in His image, we will not experience economic diversity in our churches and lives.

When I was a teenager I went with my father to Chicago. The years have faded my memory as to why we were there. The only thing I can remember is it being in the dead of winter. Winter in Chicago is nothing nice. The wind was howling this particular day as we walked down Michigan Avenue. I can still see the homeless man inadequately dressed, huddled against a corner of a building and trying desperately to shield himself from the wind. In his hand is a Styrofoam cup that he’s poking out begging for money. I walk past him thinking that he’s just going to hustle us, taking the money to inject some chemical substance in his body. My father, meanwhile, stops and places some money in the cup, encouraging him.

Dad then catches up to me, grabs me by the arm, and with tears welling up in his eyes he points back to the man and says, “Do you see him, Son? That man is someone’s child! Some woman birthed him. At some point he had an address.”

What my father was reminding me was that man was not some nameless, faceless, soulless person. That man is my brother!

A correct understanding of God and the Scriptures moves us toward compassion, forcing us to see the family of humanity—to see that all of us are bonded to one another, because all of us have been made in the image and likeness of God, regardless of our spiritual state. That man holding a sign at the busy intersection that says, “Will work for food,” is my brother. That single mother working two jobs trying to make ends meet is my sister! That high school dropout standing on the street corner so desperate that he takes to a life of crime is family. Lose that vision and we will never engage them.

“Do you see him, Son? That man is someone’s child! Some woman birthed him.”

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