Always Room For Spiritual Growth

We visited with Alexander and Irena last night, and I used that time as an opportunity to quiz Alexander briefly about the spiritual state of the church here. Like Masha, he speaks Russian and English, and he was one of the first Russians to start attending Bible studies in Nizhny Novgorod in 1993.

Alexander, now 43, freely acknowledges that he became a student of Americans Charles and Kay Gant for linguistic reasons rather than spiritual ones. "I was looking to practice my English," Alexander said. "I came to listen." But he soon came to realize he needed religious understanding as well.

Alexander's father is Russian Orthodox and taught his son from a young age to adhere to God. "But he could not give me information, he could not teach me the Bible, because he himself was not educated." His father bought Alexander his first Bible in 1977 (he still has it and proudly showed it to me), but Alexander still struggled to learn. He said he read the Bible but did not understand it because he had little guidance from leaders within the Orthodox church, who focus more on ritual than Bible study.

After meeting Charles and Kay, Alexander began to see some of the Orthodox teachings as wrong, particularly the concept of infant baptism. (Alexander was sprinkled when he was 12 months old.) He came to understand the Bible truth that a person must be aware of his sinful condition when he is immersed in water for remission of those sins and must be able to vow himself as a slave to righteousness.

He did not gain that knowledge immediately, however. He wasn't baptized for about two years after he began studying with Charles and others, and when he neared that point, he first made a trip to the headquarters of the Orthodox church to discuss the concept of baptism with a leader there. "I listened to his argument, and I knew the argument of Charlie," Alexander said. "And then I compared things and made my decision."

About a decade later, Alexander still sees room for growth among the Christians in Nizhny. When I asked him to think about the descriptions of the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 2-3 and how Christ might describe the church here, he said this: "We have to be stronger because if we were strong enough, we would have the ability to attract more people" to the gospel.

Alexander went further by applying that belief to himself. He lamented that he does not personally have the "gift" to influence people to do what he right, noting in particular his lack of success earlier this year in convincing an erring sister to return to serving God. He said he lacks the "wits" to be persuasive.

At that point, I asked Alexander to read the first few verses of James 1, where talks about how we can gain wisdom, the equivalent of wits. The answer: prayer without doubt. Alexander has such a good heart that he saw the passage as a confirmation of his belief that his faith is weak. In other words, if his faith were strong enough, he would have no doubts and God would grant him the wisdom he needs.

I couldn't disagree more. Alexander's faith is obviously strong -- precisely because he knows it can become stronger. And just because his efforts to persuade an erring Christian to repent failed in one case does not mean he lacks wisdom. Some people simply want to sin. They want to pursue the pleasures of this life, and nothing that the omnipotent and omniscient God or mere mortal man says will soften their hardened hearts.

But I can tell you now that every time I think I am strong, I will think of Alexander. And I will think of Paul's words: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."