"Jesus Loves Me, this I know," loudly sang one woman through the open window of her vehicle as she passed through the intersection twice.
That was just one of the many responses to two men holding four signs standing on opposite corners on Curtis Avenue and Lee Town Road. All four signs had paraphrases of Bible verses on each side.
• You must change for Christ to accept you (Matt. 4)
• Women are to be meek, quiet and modestly dressed (1 Peter 3, 1 Timothy 2)
• Jesus said: love your enemies. Resist not evil (Matt. 5)
• Christians never take up arms or sue people (Matt. 5)
• To marry a divorced woman is adultery (Jesus)
• Jesus said: to marry the divorced is adultery (Matt. 4, Mark 10)
People driving home from work through the south four-way stop-sign intersection looked, took pictures, yelled, honked and even stopped to talk to the men.
Wilbur Graybill and Lloyd Brubacker of the Church of Monett from Butterfield, Mo., were each holding two signs that displayed paraphrases of Bible verses. Standing there, beard-clad, shaded from the hot August sun by their straw hats, the two men turned their signs for drivers-by to see.
Soon, they were joined by Crystal and Shaun Landrus of Pea Ridge -- each holding poster boards, one hot pink, one bright green -- stating that the first two men were idiots. His sign said "Honk if you think these guys are idiots!"
"We follow Jesus," Graybill said, explaining that he doesn't believe in denominations. "We believe modern Christianity is not teaching Jesus' teachings as truth ... tell people to repent.
"We're just holding up the teachings of Jesus," Brubacker said, explaining that they go to different towns to hold the signs up for people to see. He said some people stop to talk about it.
"Everything they're saying offends me," Crystal Landrus said. "I'm not leaving until they do."
Rachel Rose of Washburn, Mo., works in Rogers. She was driving through town on her way home when she saw the signs and stopped to offer Mrs. Landrus a bottle of water. She said she didn't know her before that encounter.
"He's talking about me," she said, pointing to the sign about divorced women. In response, she picked up a pink sheet of paper off a cardboard box that was on the corner advertising a garage sale, turned it over and wrote: "I'm divorced and Jesus loves me." She stood there with Mrs. Landrus while holding her 3-year-old daughter, Addilea.
Jerome Todd of Pea Ridge said he is afraid that the message on the signs distorts the true message of the gospel.
"That puts out a message of condemnation... there is no condemnation," he said, adding that he stopped to talk to the two men to talk about the love of God and how Jesus came to earth to reconcile people to God "to the tune of the blood of Christ."
"He completely transforms us and makes us new creations," Todd said.
"I don't want people to get the wrong picture of Christ," he said.
Todd said the gospel message is that "And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people's sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
"My concern is that when people see such signs being held, it brings a message of condemnation rather than the message of reconciliation. People don't need another reason why God is mad at them and why they can not come to Him," Todd concluded.
General News on 08/27/2014