Christ’s love commands compassion for hurting & needy

Posted: 8/05/05

Christ's love commands
compassion for hurting & needy

By Marv Knox

Editor

BIRMINGHAM, England–Christ's love commands compassion for a world filled with suffering and pain, speaker after speaker told participants at the Baptist World Centenary Congress.

The Baptist World Alliance set aside an evening of its 100th anniversary celebration in Birmingham, England, to look beyond itself and examine the spiritual and physical needs of people around the globe.

A central element of that challenge is for Baptists to explain how Jesus' resurrection and life translates into good news for people, both as they live their lives and as they consider eternity, stressed keynote speaker Myra Blyth.

The world is increasingly narcissistic and self-centered, suggested Blyth, a lecturer in worship and ecumenical studies at Regents Park College, the Baptist component of Oxford College in the United Kingdom.

In contrast, snapshots of Jesus in the Gospel of John reveal his selfless willingness to follow God's plan and his unselfish concern for humanity, she said.

“Jesus' journey to the cross was no ego trip, but an outward journey pointing (people) to the one who sent him,” she insisted. “God's self-giving nature (in Jesus) is the very opposite of self-centeredness” because he pointed people to God the Father.

“We must take seriously what it means to be made in the image of God. … It is not pointing inward but pointing out. … The world needs redemption.”

Jesus' compassion for people means his action in their lives is good news in the moment as well as in eternity, Blyth told the global crowd of Baptists.

“Our calling is to be Easter people in a Good Friday world,” helping people to enjoy Christ's blessings in their lives today as well as to trust in his promise of life in eternity, she said.

As such, Christians have an important message about Jesus, she insisted: “Life is stronger than death. Goodness is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate.”

In a variety of ways, speakers pointed to practical and spiritual implications of Christian compassion for the whole world:

Through Baptist World Aid, the BWA's relief arm, Baptists “meet people at the time of their greatest need,” reported Paul Montacute, Baptist World Aid director.

The BWA ministered to victims of a volcano in Angola and the Congo, orphans and the ill in North Korea and survivors of the tsunami in Sri Lanka, he noted.

Baptists must not forget the “silent tsunamis” of poverty and hunger and disease that take lives around the globe every day, he urged.

“People are impoverished, not just one day a year (like a tsunami), but 365 days a year,” he said. Through Baptist World Aid, the alliance provides care in Jesus' name to people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion or geography.

In Latin America, Baptist women have followed their spiritual compassion and worked to rescue families from violence throughout the region, said Amparo de Medina of Colombia, a BWA vice president from 2000 to 2005.

The movement began as a meeting of 120 Baptist women in Panama in 2000, she recounted. Since then, many television and radio stations, as well as newspapers and magazines, have promoted the campaign to stop violence in families, both in Latin America and the United States.

“I have seen the hand of God working,” she said. “Women of Latin America have broken the silence. Baptists, who are known for their defense of human rights, cannot be silent. … There is no peace without justice.”

In Eastern Europe, Christian compassion for Marxists and communists is making a difference in their lives, noted seminary professor Parush Parushev, a former communist.

“Marxist socialism intellectually is very logical, but it is ethically deficient,” said Parushev, academic dean at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic.

However, the “holistic presence of God in lives” changes people like him, he said. “Communism lacks a moral dimension. Reason can give you law, but there is something beyond law–grace and compassion,” which only Christ can offer.

Latin American Baptists are strategizing to start an unprecedented number of churches, said Alberto Prokopchuk, the BWA's regional secretary for Latin America.

Noting less than 1 percent of the population is Baptist and millions have no relationship with Christ, new churches are needed to disciple new Christians, develop leaders and impact communities, he said, announcing Baptists in Latin America hope to start 5,000 churches in the next 10 years.

“This vision should be a world vision for Baptists,” he said, inviting Baptists from elsewhere to help Latin Baptists in their endeavor and offering for Latin Baptists to go elsewhere to help other Baptists start churches.