A Rideshare Discussion

TITLE: A Rideshare Discussion

The USA is wholesome and productive?

produced by static force llc sometimes things don't change.

Transcript

TITLE: A Rideshare Discussion

SUBTITLE: The USA is wholesome and productive?

MARKETING: Don’t Serve Mammon.

#GospelAccordingToTheRock

A Rideshare Discussion

by Eric Engelmann

All content © 2025 Static Force, LLC

In March of 2025 I took a trip by air. 

My party landed in an airport and we took a rideshare to our next destination.

While we were driving, I asked a few probing questions and discovered our driver's accent came from Nigeria. His mother is from one of the larger people groups I recognize.

We had a good trip and our driver was not bashful about his opinions and his knowledge of many countries in the world.

Our driver’s take on his home country is that Africa is largely corrupt. I'm impressed that he has such a high opinion of American righteousness. 

Our driver likes the United States. He feels that compared to Africa, the United States is wholesome and productive. The church in Africa spends too much time thinking about money. "They serve Mammon", he said. We got along well with only one disagreement to be included in our conversation.

As our conversation progressed, our driver felt freer to share his opinion about religion, especially in Africa. 

He knew how long the trip would take, so he knew how to pace himself and get his important points across before we reached our next destination. The conversation went something like this:

“The churches in Nigeria will claim that the Bible is the Word of God. But it's not the word of God. It contains the words of God. It contains the words of men. It contains the words of angels. It's not just the word of God.”

My guess is that having relieved himself of the burden of talking about the Bible, he went on to play some other kind of game.

He complained about the idea that God is portrayed as someone who punishes. "A loving father would not punish his children."

With that I think I could tell he's lost interest in a lot of the benefits of the cross of Jesus. He might think that it's *guilt* that brings people to serve Jesus who died for them – instead of *love*. And from his lifetime of observations, he may have a lengthy case. That could be why he sees the churches as hypocrites.

But I think our driver friend exudes undue confidence about his understanding of sin, punishment and what the Bible is about.

I also knew we were close to our destination, and it was time to interrupt our honorable driver who had shared so much with me in so little time.

I said, "But the Bible talks about covenants." To me that's an important point. I believe My driver friend had tried to dispose of the Bible with that word game saying it's not the Words of God, it's also the Words of man and the words of angels." 

You can't have a covenant without at least two parties talking. Of course the Bible contains the words of God and the words of angels and the words of humans. How else will you have records of a covenant that brings heaven and earth together? But I digress...

Reminding him that the Bible talks about covenants brings a new light into what the Bible is about -- and it's not so easily disposed of in a quick conversation. Our conversation did need to come to an end. My driver said that I had misunderstood his argument. That might be so. I'm sure we could have lengthened the conversation for many minutes more.

We got out of the rideshare and we did leave our driver a tip. I respect our driver. I would let him drive us again. He is competent, very informative and a good conversationalist. I hope we have a lot of time in the future to get to know each other in Jesus' name. Before that, I hope we all learn more about the benefits of Jesus' suffering on the cross.

All content © 2025 Static Force, LLC