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Four years ago, 4.69 billion of people around the world, representing 68 percent of the 6.9 billion world population, have no knowledge of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ (Harper, n. p.), whom He sent to reconcile with Him. Still the hunger for God is in their hearts, the God they already adore with knowing Him unambiguously. Thus, after 20 centuries, the world still contains people, like that of Athens in the time of Paul, who kept an altar in their hearts wherein inscribed the cry: “To An Unknown God” (Luke 200; Acts 17:23). Among these numbers though are those who, awed and subjugated by the accomplishments of the human mind, have lost the sense of God. Among these numbers, a division by injustice; not only by personal but also institutionalized injustice that are built into the economic, social and political structures that dominate the life of all nations and of the global community. More than ever, the call to the promotion of faith and justice becomes more urgent. And that call is not one of the fragmented kinds like an allocation of money to a charitable cause. It is a call that asks of Christians to commit their own lives to be in mission where they live and raise their families.
The Promotion of Faith
Commitment to the promotion of faith must be founded in the person’s personal relationship with Christ, the imperative center of all that every Christian do in life wherein the advancement of faith is an important part because “a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself; but must remain part of the vine” (John 179; Jn. 15:4). It is the call of each Christian to be living witnesses to the love of Christ and to lead others to a personal encounter with Him. It is a Christian’s missions to strengthen the faith of those who already believe in Christ, considering the formidable forces active in the present time that tend to undermine that faith. Moreover, it is a Christian’s mission to bring the Gospel to the unbelievers through the witness of a life lived in total obedience to the will of God, struggling in a spiritual and a worldly battle but never alone. The mission is to show Jesus Christ to all men and women that they recognize Him whose delight had ever been to be with the sons and daughters of men and to take an active part in their history as a community and in their individual lives as persons that He knows by name.
The Promotion of Justice
Commitment to the promotion of justice means entering into solidarity with the voiceless, the powerless, and the poor. This commitment involves getting closely acquainted with their complex problems to make it a personal responsibility to help them through. It is about sharing more closely the lot of families who are of modest means in the proximate community of residence and work. It is about keeping closely connected to the Christian community where the people mutually help and support each other. However, this commitment to promote justice will cost the person something. That person’s cheerful readiness to pay the price will separate the Christians of today from the social philanthropists of all time; will make the Christians truly children of God and their “brothers’ guardian” (Genesis 19; Gen. 4:9).
The commitment to promote faith and justice in the spirit of the Gospels involves not a part of a person’s time and energy, but his whole being as a child of a living God, the God who “cause his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike” (cf. Matthew 23; Matt. 5:45). The challenge of the Christian of today is let himself be the channel of His love to others.
Work Cited
Genesis. In: Jones, A. (Ed.). The Jerusalem Bible: The New Testament. London, England:
Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966; 15-77. Print
Harper, J. “84 Percent of the World Population Has Faith; A Third Are Christian.” Washington
Times 23 December 2012. Web
John. The Gospel According to Saint John, In: Jones, A. (Ed.). The Jerusalem Bible: The New
Testament. London, England: Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966; 146-191. Print
Luke. The Acts of the Apostles, In: Jones, A. (Ed.). The Jerusalem Bible: The New Testament.
London, England: Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966; 90-145. Print
Matthew. The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, In: Jones, A. (Ed.). The Jerusalem Bible: The
New Testament. London, England: Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966; 15-64. Print
