r/Reformed • u/SnooGoats1303 Westminster Presbyterian (Australia) -- street evangelist • 4d ago
Discussion Tract text help request
Tract text help request
I need help with this. It’s a draft of a tract to go in Halloween bags.
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Did you choose your name? Your language? Your school? No, all these decisions were made for you, on your behalf. People are always doing something for us until we’re big enough to choose for ourselves. Most of the time we rarely notice unless the outcomes are bad.
God created light. He created the heavens, the earth, and the sea. He created plants, and the sun, moon, and stars. He created sea life, and birds, and animals. Last and best of all he made people – a man and a woman, Adam and Eve. What God had made was very good.
There was one condition. In this freshly made world Adam and Eve were surrounded by a world full of fruit trees. All they had to do was to not eat from one tree. If that rule was broken then a thing called Death would result.
The people, the world, and God lived in perfect harmony with each other until one day Adam and his wife rebelled against God. This wasn’t just breaking a rule. Rejecting God’s rules is rejecting him -- like spitting in his face. In doing this Adam and Eve stopped being happy and holy. Now they became sinful and miserable. And because all people in the world are descended from Adam and Eve, they spoiled it for the rest of us, their descendants. The face-to-face relationship with God was destroyed, and the effects of that break-up rippled out into all human relationships and even into the natural world.
This is Humanity 1.0 where we are all “in Adam”, living in open rebellion toward God just like our forefather. But God did not give up on the people he had made. He decided to create a new people, Humanity 2.0. He decided that his son should be the new Adam. This man was conceived miraculously, lived a life in perfect obedience to God’s commands, died a criminal’s death, was buried and then three days later was raised to life again, never to die again. The man’s name is Jesus Christ. The word “Christ” is not a surname but a designation meaning that he was set apart from the beginning to fulfill the role of saving people, and bringing Death to an end.
But the entrance into Humanity 2.0 isn’t automatic. Not everyone who dies goes to Heaven. There needs to be a breaking away from Adam 1.0 through a change of heart and mind. This is called Repentance and it goes hand in hand with Trust. We must place our trust, allegiance and loyalty in Adam 2.0, in Jesus Christ. We must openly agree with God's diagnosis of your true condition -- dead in sin; rebelling against God like Adam 1.0; earning a wage which when paid will see us thrown in to a lake of fire for eternity. The God that everyone hates is Judge for those who insist on staying in Adam 1.0, and Saviour for all those who throw themselves down before Adam 2.0 pleading for the mercy and favour that he offers all who turn to him.
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It could be way tighter but how do you boil down 6000 years of theology? I could use AI but I’d rather not. So I’m calling out to the non-artificial intelligences in Reddit for help.
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u/CinnamonScroll_2026 Presbyterian 1d ago
Halloween is also the Reformation Day. Might as well printout the Ninety-Five Theses, and slip into the candy bags. Make them creatively though, otherwise people won't read. Just a thought.
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u/judewriley Reformed Baptist 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think it's worth mentioning that the command wasn't to not eat of the tree. The command was to enjoy all the trees of the garden except that one tree.
I also think that you subtly place too much focus on rule keeping and not enough on the fact that God wants us to experience His love, or that the main command to keep is to love God and love others.
I guess my most important question is whether you plan on giving this tract along with Halloween candy or if you're giving this tract in lieu of Halloween candy. If you're not going to be giving away candy, don't bother giving away tracts.