Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 6: The Oikos Factor • 143

I can remember when I believed in the Good News of Christ for salvation. I was deeply involved in the drug culture, having made my living for some time through the sale of illicit drugs. After a time of soul searching and study (even for a brief turbulent stint with a friend and his Jehovah’s Witnesses contacts), I discovered through reading a Barnes New Testament commentary on the Book of Revelation that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Son of God. It was the turning point of my life! My first inclination to my new found faith was to go to my drug buddies and my family members and tell them of my new discovery. I took the only Bible I owned (my father’s huge family Bible with pictures and places for family notes on marriage, kids, and what not!), visited my friends, and shared with them the news of my transformation, by belief in the Gospel, and its offer to them. It was poor evangelism strategy to share the Gospel to my druggie friends, while they smoked marijuana blunts and drank forty-ounce liquor bottles. They were not in either physical or spiritual condition to repent and believe. To say the least, none showed interest in my new faith. As a matter of fact, one of them, Stephen, perhaps my dearest friend among them, expressed his discouragement with my change. He said something to the effect, “Don, I feel for you that you have become a Jesus freak. But, brotha’, you wearin’ us out! This is the last time I want you comin’ ‘roun’ here sharing all that religious stuff. I’m sooner to believe in Batman and Robin than that. Just know, if you come around here sayin’ that stuff again, me and the boys are going to put a whoop down on you. Period.” I took this response as “No, I’m not interested in the Gospel!” I lost contact with him and the others for about a year.

Remarkably, a year or so later, my friend Stephen phoned me to apologize! He told me that he had not only repented and