Hearing the story of John Allen Chau got me thinking, and eventually reading, about Jim Elliot again. I don’t know exactly what to think but I find it kind of sad that Chau is being mocked for trying to tell these people about Jesus, when that’s what Christians are called to do, and the number one thing people complain about with Christians is that they are hypocritical. Yet here’s a guy that, as far as I’ve seen so far, actually wanted to act out what he believed, and ultimately died doing so. I get that what he did was dangerous and to most reckless, but maybe it was because he actually believed in the miracles in the Bible. Could it be that he believed that a God that could do the miracles we see in the Bible, would surely be able to protect himself, and the tribe he tried to reach out to?
Maybe he was being foolish, acted completely out of God’s will while ignoring multiple warnings and signs set to halt his ambition. Or maybe he was truly convicted by the Holy Spirit and at the cost of his life set a plan in motion for the tribe to become modernized, receive medical care for their dying tribe (the estimates show that the tribes numbers are indeed dwindling), and ultimately teach them that a man named Jesus also died to free them from a painful life of sin. I have no idea what will happen but I respect him for actually living out his worldview. How many of us actually live like the worldview we claim to believe in? Honestly, most of us are living comfortably and don’t even have the courage to pursue the things we actually care about, let alone go do something that is dangerous, very unlikely to succeed, and possibly kill us, all to live out something we believe in. This young man looks foolish to most of the world, and if most Christians lived the life we were called to…like actually went out and even just attempted the things we read about being done in Acts for instance, we’d look pretty foolish too. Like John Wimber said: “I’m a fool for Christ, who’s fool are you?” Or as Jim Elliot said “He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”