I believe that we, Christians, should look at those people with different beliefs from us as our neighbors and we ought to be neighbors to them also. We ought to see them as people who were created in the image of God and whom Christ had also sacrificed His own life for. The Crusades that happened during The Dark Ages showed the opposite of this. As I was watching that video I felt very sorry for the people who was tortured and died. Those actions of the so called Christians then were not right for those were not how Christ taught us on how to treat people. But with those happening I still can affirm the sovereignty of God for He can and did really use any situations, suffering, persecution, martyrdom, to advance His mission here on earth.
As a servant of Christ who is desiring to become a missionary I learned two important traits from the Dark Ages in the aspect of how to deal or live with the people with different beliefs: to be loving yet being wise.
" We are called to be gentle, but not naive; to be discerning and not gullible; to be alert to whatever threats we may face, but not ruled by fear" (www.lausanne.org/ctcommitment).
I believe that God is calling me to immerse in different people groups. In immerse I mean to live with them in about how many years, learn their culture, and " . . . to influence them as Christ's aroma with the fragrance of God's grace in which they smell Chirst " (www.lausanne.org/ctcommitment). To be able to do this I need to continually ask for God's love to be overflown in me for that will motivate me everyday in ministering to them and His wisdom that will guide me in everything that I do and I speak . Always remembering that I am bringing Christ's name with me.
