Trash Bread

Recently while visiting Taipei, Taiwan, I was introduced to trash bread. That's not the actual name for it; it has a Chinese name and an English equivalent, but no one I could find knew what it was. A friend told us it was delicious.

Basically, it is bread filled with meat and vegetables, cooked in a barrel (that, in fact, does look something like a trash can). Biting into the bread reveals a clump of brown substance – the meat and filling. Having accidentally eaten some squid and chicken neck the day before, I had to be convinced the clump wasn't hiding something I didn't want. It wasn't. In fact, it was delicious.

Enjoying my trash bread, I realized this was how many feel when approached with the gospel. They have heard so many disappointing messages before, they think the Good News is something like that, that there is something hiding inside that will leave them feeling empty. That's why it is so crucial for those who know the Lord to give testimony to the fact that this is a message like no other. I would have missed trash bread without a friend to tell me. How much more tragic it is for anyone to miss Christ because no one tells them.

Romans 10:14 (NIV)
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?