Lessons from preaching the "gospel" of Linux. 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." - Rom 1:16,17

It's commonly observed that young converts are usually the most enthusiastic about sharing the gospel. I was reminded of this by a recent experience.

I've just started using Ubuntu Linux, installing it onto a relatively old computer during National Day, so that I could set it up as a network server. Along the way I discovered that it gave brand new life to the old hardware, allowing it to run fancy graphics very smoothly, and making the whole computer experience a great pleasure. Something I have not experienced for a long time. I could even run my old legacy Windows programs on it using WINE, which is a Windows Emulator.

It was not long before I started "preaching" about how wonderful Linux is, and how I could not believe that something so fantastic could actually be available for free. I'm sure the parallels with sharing the gospel will not escape any Christian reading this.

In a particularly animated exchange with a long-time Mac afficionado, I had made a comment that "we both know we are convinced of our own positions", to which he had replied: "we are all sharing our user experiences, if you really look deep down."

He was absolutely correct. And so it is when we share the gospel. We should not seek to convince by debate and argument.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. - 1 Cor 2:4,5

We are merely to be witnesses to what we have seen God doing in our lives, or "sharing our user experiences", as it were.

But you shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you. And you shall be witnesses to Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the end of the earth. - Acts 1:8 

When we have been obedient, the power of the Holy Spirit will then be demonstrated in opening the hearts of our hearers:

And a certain woman named Lydia heard us, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God; whose heart the Lord opened, so that she attended to the things which were spoken by Paul. - Act 16:14 

So....

Anyway, here's why I like Linux (and yes, that's my Linux desktop):

1. It's free

2. It's efficient and compact - the code is very tight and makes the most of the hardware you have. And how!

3. It's user-friendly. Most things can be done with a graphical interface. Trust me, I've been a Linux user for less than a month. I always thought it was a geek's OS, where you needed to know obscure command line syntax. Not.

4. It's got a great community. Help is only a google away, and most of the time someone has experienced your issue and posted the cure.

5. It's highly customizable. You can make it look like the Mac or Windows Vista, or something out of this world. Your choice. There are many extensions and plug-ins available to customise your experience.

6. I can run my Windows programs! I'm not talking about BootCamp where you need to reboot, or Virtual PC, which you have to buy from Microsoft, and which does not work on Intel based Macs. I'm talking about running a Windows program virtually on a window within the desktop. This is done through the magic of WINE (Windows Emulator). I run Photoshop and e-Sword as windows concurrently with other Linux applications.

7. It's cutting-edge. Almost daily I get updates to Compiz with exciting and breath-taking new plugins to try. Not quite the same as getting security updates from Microsoft.

8. It's useful and productive. The desktop cube and switchers are not just eye-candy. They make it much easier and pleasurable to multi-task, because of the visual effect of switching from one window to another giving you a very definite idea of exactly what you are doing at any given moment. Something hard to describe. I often write while referring to a webpage as well as a Bible reference. With Ubuntu + Compiz, switching back and forth is much more intuitive than cycling through Alt-Tab in Windows. You know exactly where and how to find what you need at that moment.

9. It's about passion. Apple Inc nor Microsoft could never afford to hire the number of programmers simultaneously working on the various versions of Linux. And these people are working on it because they love it - not for a paycheck. And they don't have a boss to tell them "This is how I want it to be done." So the possibilities are endless. And it shows.

10. It's free. Did I mention that already?