William Carey said “THE impediments in the way of carrying the gospel among the heathen must arise, I think, from one or other of the following things; either their distance from us, their barbarious and savage manner of living, the danger of being killed by them, the difficulty of procuring the necessaries of life, or the unintelligibleness of their languages.”
Not much has changed since William Carey’s day with respect to why we do not go. In his statement is the pattern for why we also have failed to evangelize our neighbours.
- The Distance: It is obviously a long way to their house because we never have time to go there.
- They are barbarians: They are different in some way than us.
- We fear them: They might reject us or worse, make fun of us to others in the neighbourhood.
- Getting the necessaries of life becomes difficult: It may inconvenience me or alter my normal Sunday schedule.
- They are hard to understand: We have never mingled with them enough to learn their language.
This is so true as as we are to be witnesses around the world but we can’t go next door. Lord, help us to be faithful in our witness and what you’ve commanded us to do.