Edison Has Left The Building

Tonight was our Old Testament Survey class – had a good number of guys show up. Also a couple of unbelievers joined us. That’s what happens when you give an open invitation. That’s okay – a great opportunity to preach the Gospel according to Ezekiel and Daniel! Which as I prepared for tonight’s class, I really began to think that Daniel is incredibly relevant for university students. Young people, away from home, trying to study hard, hoping to get a good position, in situations where it seems impossible to be a believer. We’re going to have to do a series on it in the future. We’ve been studying the books in chronological order, rather than the book order, so we’re almost done with the Old Testament. Then we’re going to jump right into a hermeneutics course.

On a less theological note, we got our T-shirts in today. One hundred Omega shirts with Romans 8:28 on the back. They don’t say “church” on them anywhere, so I don’t think it’ll cause any problems. The Christian bookstore here sells shirts and stuff, so it seems like it’s no big deal. Our shirts are admittedly much cooler, though, and that could be our downfall. We’re going to do a special Sunday about Romans 8:28 in a couple weeks and give a shirt to everyone in attendance. Cost us about $1.50 a piece, but a bunch of college students sporting our message all over their campuses is well worth the money. Hopefully, it’ll create lots of easy-to-find opportunities to talk about the church.

I had a great talk with one guy tonight. He’s been coming to church more and more regularly, and tonight he decided to come to the class. He’s always come with a friend, but this time he came by himself. Dude’s got a majorly Mufasa-esque voice – people about applaud for him after he reads a verse. He’s kind of a disconnected, here-for-the-spectacle kind of attitude. He came up to me after the class tonight to actually have a meaningful conversation, which blew me away.

I could tell it was serious because he used Chinese. A lot of dudes talk to me in English all the time, just for their own practice. But when a guy like this drops that whole deal, he’s usually got something actually worth talking about. His first question was why God was so concerned with His own name (a big theme of Ezekiel’s). Which led to talking about the glory of God, which led to the glory-seeking nature of man, which led to Jesus emptying Himself of glory for us, which led us to talking about how to receive His gift of eternal life. If I’ve ever seen it, that guy was going through some conviction. Just really expressed some genuine amazement at the beauty and simplicity of the grace of God.

He told me that he had gone to one of the big state churches and saw people worshipping, praying, and crying – and he was really blown away by that. Couldn’t understand it. He told me that he’d felt far away from God for a long time, but since he’s come to Omega, he’s starting to discover some real happiness. Not sure I know what that means, and I’m almost positive that he’s not a Christian, though he claims to be one.

Oh yeah, and the electricity went out tonight (apparently we owe money), so we had to study by candlelight which, as romantic as it sounds, just makes your eyes hurt.