{"id":100,"date":"2007-07-08T03:01:33","date_gmt":"2007-07-08T03:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/markdroberts\/2007\/07\/my-agenda-driven-story.html"},"modified":"2007-07-08T03:01:33","modified_gmt":"2007-07-08T03:01:33","slug":"my-agenda-driven-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/2007\/07\/my-agenda-driven-story.html","title":{"rendered":"My Agenda-Driven Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John<\/em><\/a>.
\nMy theological agenda also motivates me to be truthful when I\u2019m telling a story from my own life. Here\u2019s an example of a story I\u2019ve used in a sermon:
\nWhen I was a sophomore in college, I wanted to share my Christian faith with others. But, as an introverted person, I wasn\u2019t likely to walk up to a stranger or even a friend and get into a conversation about God. So I decided to pray and ask the Lord to help me.
\nOne brisk Saturday evening in October, I decided to go down to Harvard Square and see if I could share my faith with somebody. The Square was filled with students from all over the Boston area, and it seemed a likely place for God to drop a seeker into my lap. I prayed earnestly for God to guide me to someone with whom I could talk openly about Christianity. \u201cLord,\u201d I prayed, \u201cyou know I\u2019m pretty shy about this. So it would be great if you would work a little miracle here, and find me somebody with whom I could share. And if you could make it obvious, that would be really helpful.\u201d With this prayer in my heart, I set off for the Square.
\nI wandered around for a while, wondering where \u201cmy person\u201d was. \u201cLord,\u201d I kept on praying, \u201cplease bring me somebody who wants to learn about you.\u201d Still nothing happened. After a half hour or so I began to feel both discouraged and silly.
\nJust then, two young women approached me. \u201cWe\u2019re going to a party at Dunster House,\u201d they explained, \u201cbut we don\u2019t know how to get there. Could you help us?\u201d
\n\u201cSure,\u201d I said. \u201cGlad to.\u201d Meanwhile I thought to myself, \u201cThis is great. Not only has God brought these people into \u00a0my life so I can talk to them about my faith, but they happen to be two attractive women. God, you\u2019ve outdone yourself this time!\u201d Dunster House was about a ten-minute walk from Harvard Square, so I figured this would be plenty of time to engage these women in a conversation about God.
\nOn the walk down to Dunster, I kept bringing up subjects that I felt sure would lead to a conversation about God. \u201cI\u2019m majoring in philosophy,\u201d I said, \u201cAre you interested in philosophy?\u201d
\nThey weren\u2019t.
\n\u201cSometimes I wonder why we\u2019re here on this earth. Do you ever think about this?\u201d
\nThey didn\u2019t.
\nBasically, they wanted to party at Dunster House, not reflect on the meaning of life with their overly earnest tour guide. For ten minutes I tried everything I could think of to get the women to talk about God. Nothing doing. Of the thousands of students in Cambridge that night, they were the least interested in God. (Picture to the right: Dunster House at night)
\nWhen we got to Dunster House, I walked them to the door. They thanked me and left. I felt like a complete idiot. \u201cOkay, God,\u201d I prayed, \u201cI get the point. You\u2019ve probably had a good chuckle over my silliness. Well, that\u2019s enough. I\u2019m going home. This was a stupid idea.\u201d I left the entrance to Dunster House and headed back to my dorm.
\nJust then I passed a student I recognized as being a friend of a friend. He said \u201cHi\u201d so I returned the greeting as we went off in opposite directions. All of a sudden he stopped, turned around, and called to me, \u201cHey, are you Mark Roberts?\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said, surprised that he knew my name.
\n\u201cWell, I\u2019m Matt. I\u2019m a friend of your roommate Bob.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, yeah. Hello, Matt,\u201d I said.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to talk to you,\u201d Matt said.
\n\u201cMe?\u201d I asked incredulously. \u201cWhy me?\u201d
\n\u201cBecause I hear you\u2019re a Christian. I need to talk to you about God.\u201d
\nAnd so began a conversation that lasted well into the night. That conversation turned into a weekly Bible study, as Matt and I looked into the Gospels to find out about Jesus. When we finished, Matt wasn\u2019t ready to give his life to Christ. But he was closer than he had been on that strange night when we met on the walk outside of Dunster House. End of story.
\nTo the best of my forty-nine-year-old memory, I have faithfully related the essence of this story: my desire to share my faith and my prayer for divine help; my meeting with the two women; our Dunster House destination; my \u201cchance\u201d meeting with Mike and his words to me. When I used this story in a sermon, my theological \u201cagenda\u201d motivated me to get the basic facts right. But it also helped me shape the telling of the story, choosing which facts were important and which were not. I did not, for example, say anything about how the women I escorted were dressed (in preppy sweaters) or where they went to school (Wellesley College), because these tidbits didn\u2019t contribute to the point of the story.
\nNow, I must confess, I did include a few \u201cfacts\u201d that I\u2019m not completely sure of. I said this happened on a \u201cbrisk Saturday evening in October.\u201d In truth, I don\u2019t remember if it was a Friday or a Saturday, and I\u2019m not sure if it was in October or November. It was quite cool, this I remember, and I\u2019m positive it was in the fall.
\nI also supplied a fair amount of dialogue in this story. Honestly, I don\u2019t remember the exact words (ipsissima verba<\/em>) with which I prayed, or the exact questions I asked the women as I escorted them to Dunster House. I\u2019ve truly captured the basic sense of those conversations (ipsissima vox<\/em>), but most of the words have long since escaped my memory. On the contrary, what Matt said to me is burned into my memory. I can still hear him say, \u201cI need to talk to you about God.\u201d This was, as you can imagine, one of the most surprising and wonderful things I had ever heard. It was like a dream come true, as God answered my prayer so specifically and obviously.
\nI should add that \u201cMatt\u201d is not the name of the student I ran into outside of Dunster. I remember his real name, but when I tell stories like this, I often change names to protect the confidentiality of those involved. In this particular case I could safely have used \u201cMatt\u2019s\u201d real name, of course, but usually I need to be careful. My congregation understands that I change names sometimes.
\nIn conclusion, did my theological agenda lead me to tell this story in a sermon? Yes. Did my agenda help me choose what to include and what to exclude from this story? Yes. Did my agenda preclude me from being a good historian? Decidedly not. I\u2019m quite certain that this event happened in more or less the way I\u2019ve narrated it (with the exceptions I\u2019ve mentioned above). In fact, my agenda as a preacher motivated me to tell this story, to tell it in a certain way, and to make sure that the essential elements were absolutely truthful. My theology led me to be a trustworthy historian.
\nIf you were to discover that, in fact, my story of the miraculous encounter with Matt was just a nice little piece of religious fiction, then the power of the story would vanish. After all, what makes it so compelling is the fact that, after I had prayed to share my faith with someone, a virtual stranger said to me, \u201cI need to talk with you about God.\u201d This is either a fabrication, an incredible coincidence, or a miracle of God. I vote for miracle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. My theological agenda also motivates me to be truthful when I\u2019m telling a story from my own life. Here\u2019s an example of a story I\u2019ve used…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-can-we-trust-the-gospels"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Agenda-Driven Story - Mark D. 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Roberts","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f2d\/f2ddf5f080861f66ea230384f9d1bab2x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f2d\/f2ddf5f080861f66ea230384f9d1bab2x96.jpg","caption":"Mark D. Roberts"},"description":"The Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts is a pastor, author, retreat leader, speaker, and blogger. Since October 2007 he has been the Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge, a multifaceted ministry in the Hill Country of Texas. Before coming to Laity Lodge, he was for sixteen years the Senior Pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church in Irvine, California (a city in Orange County about forty miles south of Los Angeles). Before his time at Irvine Pres, Mark served on the staff of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood as Associate Pastor of Education. (Thanks to Janel Pahl for taking the photo to the right.) Mark studied at Harvard University, receiving a B.A. in Philosophy, an M.A. in the Study of Religion, and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins. He has taught classes in New Testament for Fuller Theological Seminary and San Francisco Theological Seminary. Mark has written several books, including No Holds Barred: Wrestling with God in Prayer (WaterBrook, 2005), Dare to Be True (WaterBrook, 2003), Jesus Revealed (WaterBrook, 2002), After \"I Believe\" (Baker, 2002), and Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (Word, 1993). His most recent book is Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (Crossway, 2007). He is currently working on a commentary on Ephesians that will be published by Zondervan in 2014. Mark writes a devotional for The High Calling of Our Daily Work, a website associated with Laity Lodge. His \"Daily Reflections\" can be viewed online or sent as a daily email. If you wish to receive this email, just visit TheHighCalling.org and sign up. Mark serves on the editorial board of Worship Leader magazine, where he publishes articles and reviews, including his regular column \"Lyrical Poetry.\" Additionally, he has published dozens of articles in leading magazines and journals. He often speaks for churches and other Christian groups, and has been interviewed on over seventy-five radio programs nationwide. Mark is married to Linda, who is a Marriage and Family Therapist, a Spiritual Director, and a retreat speaker. They have two children, Nathan and Kara.For Publicity Photos and Bio Statements for Mark, please check here. Mark's Dossier Professional History: Senior Director and Scholar-in Residence, Laity Lodge, October 2007 to present. Senior Pastor Irvine Presbyterian Church, June 1991 to September 2007 Adjunct Assistant Professor Fuller Theological Seminary, 1994 to 2007. Courses: New Testament Theology and Exegesis. Adjunct Instructor San Francisco Theological Seminary, 1995 to 2001. Courses: New Testament Greek and Exegesis Associate Pastor of Education First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, 1987-1991 Teaching Fellow Harvard University, 1980-1983 Education: Ph.D. in the Study of Religion. Harvard University, 1992. Area: New Testament and Christian Origins M.A. in the Study of Religion Harvard University, 1984. A.B. magna cum laude in Philosophy Harvard University, 1979. Phi Beta Kappa; Danforth Fellowship Books: Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Crossway, 2007 No Holds Barred: Wrestling with God in Prayer. WaterBrook, 2005 Dare to Be True: Living in the Freedom of Complete Honesty. WaterBrook, 2003. Jesus Revealed: Know Him Better to Love Him Better. WaterBrook, 2002. After \"I Believe\": Experiencing Authentic Christian Living. Baker, 2002. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther in the Communicator's Commentary Series. Word, 1993. Contacting Mark: You can reach Mark at: E-mail: mark@markdroberts.com mroberts@laitylodge.org Phone: Laity Lodge: (830) 792-1216 Address: Laity Lodge 719 Earl Garrett Kerrville, TX 78028","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/author\/mroberts"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/markdroberts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}