Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 1
The speaker proposes, “If God’s word is foreign to us…God must be foreign to us also.” What concrete experiences in his story (Amish upbringing, house church influences, sermon-on-the-radio drift) make that claim feel believable to him, and what parts of that claim might a modern Christian instinctively push back against?
Another way to ask: He says if God’s Word feels foreign to us, then God feels foreign too. What parts of his own story make that seem true to him, and why might many Christians today disagree with that idea?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the speaker’s teaching, his life shows a pattern: when God’s Word became distant or “explained away,” God Himself felt distant too, and obedience weakened. A modern Christian might push back by saying a believer can feel distant from certain commands yet still truly know God, but the speaker frames that as spiritually dangerous.
- He explicitly proposes: “if God’s word is foreign to us…God must be foreign to us also,” connecting Scripture-nearness with God’s nearness.
- In the house church, outside influences shaped preaching: people listened to “evangelical sermons on the radio,” and those ideas “came across the pulpit,” leading to questioning modesty and “women’s head covering.”
- He describes drift: “church was becoming foreign to me and not part of my life anymore…unless God does something supernatural.”
- He warns that when a command seems “foreign…so mysterious,” “seminaries or the Christian colleges start finding a way to explain that away…very dangerous.”
- He contrasts this with Deuteronomy 30: the command is “not too mysterious…not too far off…very near you…that you may do it.”