Thin Gospel = Thin Ecclesiology?
Anyone who’s read this blog more than twice knows I’m big on a big gospel. Another way of saying it is that I disagree with reduced modern usages of the term “gospel” or “salvation” that are significantly narrower in scope than the usage of that term in the scriptures. I’ve said it before and I say again, the gospel of the New Testament is more than “God forgives/justifies sinners.” Likewise, ”salvation” in the New Testament, let alone the whole bible, is more than forgiveness and justification; just do a New Testament word study on the greek word “sozo” to see what the NT writers think when they think about Jesus “saving” people.
So here’s what I’m wondering: When we narrow the concept of “salvation” to a smaller concept than the biblical one, how does that also narrow our ecclesiology, our ideas of what a church is and is called to be? How does our idea of “gospel” shape our idea of “church?” How would a more robust gospel change our idea of church and our practice of it?
Jesus is Lord – the core pt. 2
Here’s proof of my genius: Christianity is about Jesus. 
It’s not a movement led or inspired by me, or you, or the Pope, or even Billy Graham. Nope. Christianity is a Jesus-centered, Jesus-shaped, Jesus-led movement for the benefit of all the universe.
Or at least it’s supposed to be. And that’s the first, most obvious and wonderful reminder of the statement that ”Jesus is Lord.” Christianity is well known for its exclusivist claims about Jesus. We quote Jesus’ statement that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except by him. Unfortunately, we tend to use this as if it was merely a statement by Jesus that no one goes to heaven when they die apart from Jesus. While that’s true, I wish Christianity was better known for the larger exclusivity claimed for Jesus in that quote and in the statement that “Jesus is Lord.” When we say that “Jesus is Lord” we’re not just saying Jesus has the exclusive power to give life after death. We’re saying he has all authority over everything, everywhere, which is more in line with what the gospels seem intent on trying to tell us about him. He has power over wine and weather, forgiveness and fish, sin and sickness, demons and death. This larger authority is a far, far better and more natural reason for us to become his disciples in this life, than authority over the afterlife alone (which likely why the great commission is phrased like it is). Who better to follow than the Man with all power and authority over every facet of life? Really. Got a better suggestion? Who and why exactly?
When someone runs for president of the United States and is expected to have a decent shot at winning, the whole world wants to know what this person is about: what’s their past; what formed them; what are their passions; what does their life’s work so far tell us about them? What we want to know is this: what is this person going to do with the power and title of the presidency of the United States? A perfectly reasonable thing to want to know in light of the power of that office to affect so many. If a U.S. president wants to address the nation, television stations will, in mass, interrupt their typical programs to cover every line. Why? Because this person has power to affect many. His or her intentions are news.
Let me suggest that this is precisely what the gospels do for us, only the office in question is not the presidency of the United States. The office in question is the throne of David, God’s Messiah, who will lead the whole world with God’s own agenda and power, and whose reign will never end. Jesus’ ideas of good will cover the earth. His idea of what’s right is the basis for his judgment. That’s why the gospels don’t often self-describe themselves as “the good news about justification” or something similar. Rather, they routinely self identify as the good news about Jesus, the Christ (annointed king). The atonement, thank God, is part of this king’s great deeds, even his greatest, but also thanks to God, it’s not all there is to the ‘gospel’ of Jesus and the government he’s now leading and calling us to receive and enter on the earth. Because of the power of this government, everything about Jesus, the one Christ-ened with power by God to lead and transform, is news. The specifics of what he does with God’s power and what he commands and empowers us to do is what makes the news good.
I’ll leave you to the gospels, to Acts, to the letters to find out what all is in this king’s agenda and regular activities. It’s good, good stuff, though, I’ll tell you that right now. To quote a favorite hymn, “When Love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?” Jesus is Lord. More to come.
“Jesus is Lord” – The core, pt. 1
Years ago, N. T. Wright and a review of the biblical texts convinced me that “Jesus is Lord” was the irreducible core of the gospel message; it is the centerpiece of what the Church believes and has to tell the world (whether we all realize it or not!). (This isn’t going to be a post or series to prove that, fyi; if you’re interested in that find some N.T. Wright to read and also read all the ways that Jesus and the NT generally talk about gospel, and try to synthesize them.) Many others have noted this, along with the idea that the phrase was also the first “creed” of Christianity. I’ve also used the phrase personally as a meditation, as a defense to temptation, as worship, etc., etc. and with much, much benefit.
Alan (see the link above) makes a very interesting point about creeds: namely that while “Jesus is Lord” initially served to unite Christians and be the dividing line b/n those who were and were not part of Christ’s ekklesia/church, the more current (and longer) creeds were used to distinguish Christians from other Christians. I’m not sure if Alan is right, or that things are quite that clean, but I do know that creeds have tended to get longer as more and more doctrines have been added by this or that group to the supposed “essentials of the faith” with corresponding heresies being catalogued.
While I agree with all of the ancient creeds, I can’t help but think every time someone says we need to use the Nicene or some other ancient creed more often in worship or as a basic confession (essential for membership) in our churches, that we lose something, that we distort Jesus and his own emphases somehow. For example, I believe that Jesus was born to a virgin. I find it unhelpful, though, that this point gets included as “an essential” while the teachings that Jesus said summed up all the law and the prophets (Love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind & strength, and one’s neighbor as oneself) gets no mention. Do the creeds create a different set of “essentials” than what Jesus taught? If so, is everybody okay with that? I keep thinking that the shorter, “Jesus is Lord” would better serve; that it would focus us on the Man himself and his priorities; that in this case, less really is more. How about you? I’m going to post a little on each word of that creed and see where it leads.
By the way, for those looking for another Vineyard post, I’d also credit the Vineyard for this holistic Jesus-focus in my life. I credit my S. Baptist upbringing for telling me that the Bible is God’s word and we do well to treat (all of) it accordingly. But when it came to Jesus and the good news about him, they really only gave me the last third/half of the gospels as “gospel.” Only Jesus’ death was gospel, when push came to shove, because that was the act of substitution, that’s what allowed me to go to heaven, and that was the good news. It was the Vineyard’s influence that started me wondering if everything else in “the gospels” was also good news, that Christianity was about more than surviving judgment, though that was pretty darn good. Thanks significantly to the Vineyard, I started to see that Jesus was talking about the gospel in terms of God’s reign coming to earth, and that Jesus was the embodiment, in word and deed, of what God had in mind to do as the rightful King of the world. Good news, folks: “Jesus is Lord (over everything threatening humanity, within and without).” More to come.
“I believe; help my unbelief!”
When I discuss healing and prophecy and the miraculous with Christians who have hesitations about those practices, one of the recurring objections is the concern that people who are sick or handicapped or the like not be blamed for not being healed, usually for lacking faith. This morning I was reminded of that as I was thinking through a few of the stories in which Jesus rebuked the disciples for having little faith in him. The first thing that leapt out at me as I thought about such stories was that when it came to the miraculous, it was so often his disciples – the insiders, the co-workers with him – whom he rebuked for lack of faith, not the needy folks coming to be healed. As I thought of the many times and ways Jesus did this, including when the disciples failed to cast a demon out of a person during his transfiguration, it dawned on me that Jesus does rebuke his apprentices for lack of faith (evidenced in a variety of ways), but never does he rebuke a person acutely aware of their need for healing. With those that are hurting or on the outside–the bruised reeds, the smoldering wicks–he may still discuss their faith, but he is much more gentle, even commending or praising the faith that he finds in such people. Think of the interchange which climaxes in the now famous “I believe; help my unbelief!” That’s as close as Jesus gets to correcting the faith of someone in a felt need. Of course, that interchange is so non-condemning, so honestly helpful, that it rivals if not outstrips his dealings with Thomas as the most loved among us doubters.
He was more blunt, corrective or even confrontational not only with his own students, but also with those who had more official training in the Jewish faith that didn’t believe, and with those communities who personally witnessed him doing signs and wonders but still didn’t believe him as “Christ.” The latter folks are given not mere correction but “Woes” and warning. But you never see Jesus being short or harsh with those who are about to lose their daughter, or just lost their brother, or in some other way are, in that moment, in the middle of experiencing some the real poverty of the human experience, even if their faith in him is weak. With them he is more gentle, even if still urging them, pulling them, to believe. It seems he is even more gentle with his disciples when they are personally experiencing loss (look at the Lazarus incident). Therefore, I think it is safe to say and teach that a practice of the miraculous that is modeled after Christ is not going to create any blame or burden for those who personally need healing or rescue from one of life’s tragedies. We might call this the “smoldering wick” principle and it seems to extend even to Christ’s disciples when he might otherwise be more blunt about their lack of faith.
But this led me to a second, related thought especially concerning his disciples. Clearly, Jesus wanted everyone he encountered, even the smoldering wicks and especially his disciples, to “believe” in him, and, what’s more, he expected their faith in him to include his power over death, over demons, over disease, over nature (and rebuked them for lacking it). And it goes farther still: he even commanded them to do the same things on his behalf and rebuked them and occasionally seemed exasperated when they lacked the faith to do it. But my question is this: Can we effectively argue (or should we even try) that Jesus wants us to have a materially different faith than that which he obviously sought to instill not only in the disciples, but in everyone he encountered? Can we read Jesus’ rebukes to the disciples and to the religious community of the day and exempt ourselves if we lack in our faith what they lacked in theirs? When Jesus tells someone in the NT that they have little faith or great faith, what exactly is the content of that faith that they lack and should ours be different?
It is obvious from the NT that Jesus wanted his disciples to have faith that went well beyond whether or not he forgave them (and whether they could forgive on his behalf). Yes, he does want us to know that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” and that “if [we] forgive anyone, they are forgiven.” But if Jesus himself or the gospel writers are to be believed, God seemed at least equally concerned that Jesus’ disciples knew that he had authority on earth [and they through him] over diseases, demons, death, and over nature, as well as forgiving sins. He wasn’t happy with their “faith” when it didn’t include any one of these things and when they lacked the faith to do the same things on his behalf. He summed it up in his final great commission to them: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore, make disciples . . . [.] His authority over everything (as God’s anointed, the “Christ”) as richly demonstrated in the gospels, is the basis of the Great Commission. Our “faith”, according to Jesus, needs to include not only his authority and willingness to forgive, but his authority over all things in heaven and earth, and in our authority from him to do the same things he did, as he said that anyone who believed in him would do. If our faith in him, and the actions that flow from it, should be markedly different than what he was so insistent on his first followers having, what’s the basis? I really don’t think that’s a search with a happy ending. We’d be better off, I believe, to let the gospels transform our faith and practice than justify our own. I’ll be posting the content of an upcoming local training on that topic soon.
Is it “believe in Jesus” or “believe in the atonement”?
Scot McKnight asks this question in his second post discussing Greg Boyd’s new book, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution
How central to the gospel and to the Christian faith is following Jesus? Is a Christian someone who follows Jesus? Or, would you define “Christian” in another way? How would you define it?
Go by Scot’s blog to read and comment on those and some other great questions posed by Scot about Boyd’s book. Here’s my comment:
On the first set of questions, yes, following Jesus is central to the Christian (little Christ) faith and to the gospel, IMO. Are we called to trust the atonement? Yes. But that is only one facet of trusting Jesus, which is the focus of the New Testament. Putting our faith in him simultaneously includes trusting his atonement, his resurrection, his promises, his teachings, his plan for overcoming evil, his Spirit, his ongoing leadership, joining his people, etc. The gospel is at the core, the proclamation of a person, the “Christ”-ened King, and his great deeds and plan for the world. This gospel calls us to quit working against him (because of what we all naturally trust and love) and start trusting, loving and following him above all.
But Luther defined “gospel”, despite the much larger NT usage, as “properly nothing else” than our justification. (Very odd for a founder of the ‘sola scriptura’ movement.) Our idea of God’s “salvation” has also been similarly whittled down from the much larger biblical usage of that term to our legal status alone. Our “orthodoxy”, our ‘right teaching’ or ‘right belief’ of Christianity only includes facts about Jesus, generally speaking, but no teachings of Jesus. I think it is hard to understate how thoroughly, at least in its core concepts and our mental mapping of the faith, that we have divorced being a Christian from becoming a little Christ. Kudos to Boyd and the many others that point this out.
Evangelicalism’s gospel
The following quote is from Scot McKnight, from the opening post discussing Greg Boyd’s new book: The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution. Hear, O evangelical church:
The reason there are Greg Boyds in this world is because American evangelicalism has been a thin remix of Romans, a religion shaped too much by a simplistic gospel and too rarely shaped by the robust kingdom vision of Jesus that itself gave rise to a much more robust gospel in Paul. (Emphasis added)
Scot goes on to ask some great questions. Feel free to join the conversation.
Christian leaders: commanding leaders, or persuasive servants?
No time for a full post on how best for all concerned to view leaders in a church, but I will firmly say that this bit of biblical study (make sure you read all the biblical uses towards the end) and this bit speak volumes (that often go unsaid . . . I wonder why?). Let’s hear what these biblical words are often saying and then listen to Jesus again (and again) and let it all simmer for several hours, maybe even weeks and years. Then maybe even think about good marriages you know: do husbands (or wives, for that matter) lead by command and exercise authority over their spouses, or by service, by putting the other family members first and by persuasion based on their demonstrated character? I know, it ain’t rocket science. I’m glad someone is finally getting the word out that the bible’s own language says the same thing that we all acknowledge in healthy marriages.
Lutheran Confessions – Would the real gospel please stand up
At the recommendation of a Lutheran brother and for my own edification, I am reading through the Lutheran Confessions (not necessarily in order). [Brief disclaimer: While I'm not a fan of several distinctives of reformed or Lutheran theology which will be clear here, I am, more importantly, a fan of folks in those camps. I've been raised in the camps spawned by the reformation and still enjoy their company. This is not a venue to bash such folks; it is a venue to discuss ideas that shape our thinking and practice.]
Part V of the Large Catechism of the Lutheran Confessions is titled “Of the Law and the Gospel.” It only consists of 11 paragraphs (for which I am very grateful), the first of which lays out the issue of:
Whether the preaching of the Holy Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace, which announces the forgiveness of sins, but also a preaching of repentance and reproof, rebuking unbelief, which, they say, is rebuked not in the Law, but alone through the Gospel. (Emphasis added.)
Right off the bat, we can see a difficulty that never really leaves reformed theology, namely, where does the announcement that the government of God has come near (which dominates the gospels and continues in Acts as “good news”) fit in response to that question? Unfortunately, it doesn’t really fit. The gospel issue as framed by Luther only concerns itself with sinning. Specifically, according to Luther, the issue is whether forgiveness of sin alone is “gospel” or whether the oft accompanying reproof of and call to repentance from sin is also “gospel.” That’s it; it’s ”A” or “B”. This “gospel” question is already too narrow to include the much fuller and richer ”gospel” usage of the NT that includes God’s revelation of Jesus’ lordship and his government’s agenda for re-creating the earth and the people and activities within it according to God’s desire to redeem and his sense of justice and love. From Luther’s question, one can genuinely wonder whether the larger revelation and movement of God’s reign (which Jesus and the apostles clearly called “good news”) is ”properly” called “Gospel” in the Lutheran view.
In the following couple of paragraphs, after naming the issue as Luther sees it, he briefly describes the now famous reformed distinction between “Law” and “Gospel.” Next, in what is perhaps the strangest paragraph of this section, Luther admits that the term “Gospel” is used differently and more broadly in the New Testament (by comparison to his Law-Gospel usage) and is recommended as such by Jesus himself and the apostles:
But since the term “Gospel” is not used in one and the same sense in the Holy Scriptures, on account of which this dissension originally arose, we believe, teach, and confess that if by the term “Gospel” is understood the entire doctrine of Christ which He proposed in His ministry, as also did His apostles (in which sense it is employed, Mark 1, 15; Acts 20, 21), it is correctly said and written that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and of the forgiveness of sins. (Emphasis added.)
I am in complete agreement with that. In fact, Let me add that “if” we use the term “Gospel” in the broader, more common way that “[Jesus] proposed in his ministry as also did his apostles”, we will “correctly” say not only that the “Gospel” is an announcement of repentance and forgiveness as Luther suggests, but also an announcement of everything that God has done and has purposed to do through his Servant, the now revealed Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus. In other words, to proclaim “the Gospel” according to the New Testament is to announce the identity, purpose, actions, and agenda of God’s chosen Lord of heaven and earth, namely Jesus. And preachers, or announcers of this Jesus and the good news of what God is doing through him will call everyone, in light of this full, and amazing plan in Christ (which includes but goes well beyond forgiveness), to repent and trust this good news, this King.
But that’s not the way Luther continues, which is odd for a guy that is big on “sola scriptura.” Rather, he says, despite the larger usage of “gospel” in the scriptures by Jesus and the apostles, we get a different, preferable, view of “gospel” if we compare Luther’s own smaller concept of ”Gospel” to his (arguably larger) concept of ”Law” (for reasons he doesn’t really state in this section anyway):
But if the Law and the Gospel, likewise also Moses himself [as] a teacher of the Law and Christ as a preacher of the Gospel are contrasted with one another, we believe, teach, and confess that the Gospel is not a preaching of repentance or reproof, but properly nothing else than a preaching of consolation, and a joyful message which does not reprove or terrify, but comforts consciences against the terrors of the Law, points alone to the merit of Christ, and raises them up again by the lovely preaching of the grace and favor of God, obtained through Christ’s merit. (Emphasis added.)
I hope it is by now obvious where a significant problem may lie, aside from any circular reasoning Luther used: The Holy Scriptures (including Jesus and the apostles) talk about “Gospel” in a large, full way, Luther says, which led to “dissension” (as well as the birth of the Church, to be fair). But if we take one particular component of that larger scriptural concept of good news, namely, the forgiveness of sins, and compare it alone with Luther’s very broad definition of “Law” (which would include not only the Mosaic law, but Jesus’ own teachings and example), then “the Gospel is properly nothing else than a preaching of consolation,” by which he means forgiveness, or justification, or not being condemned for one’s sins.
Think about what just happened there. Luther states that only a part of the usage by Jesus and the apostles of the term “Gospel” is “properly” called Gospel based on Lutheran systematics, namely the Law/Gospel comparitive approach.
This creates the following situation, then: Certainly what Lutherans declare as gospel is gospel (since it is a subset of what the New Testatment calls “gospel”). But, unfortunately, much of what the NT would also unequivocally call “gospel,” Lutherans and many reformed would hesitate upon or even dispute, saying such announcements of God’s will and plan for earth should be called “Law.” This results in a downgrading of everything in God’s plan, God’s dream for the world, that goes beyond forgiveness and justification from “Gospel” to “Law.” I can’t help but see the logical connection between that theology and the silliness of “weak on sanctification” t-shirts, the idea that we are disciples of the gospel (of justification) as opposed to disciples of Jesus, and the large scale phenonmenon of what Dallas Willard has called ”bar-code faith.”
Rather than trying to live from a concept of “gospel” that is smaller than that which Christ and his apostles announced, let’s look at the all that God has done and wants to do through Christ and start soaking in it. Let’s take it all in as good news. We might find that God’s love and his “gospel” go way, way beyond just forgiving us, which is really good news.
“It’s the question that drives us.”
While talking with my good friend, Berry, the other day, I think I found a great way to express some of what I’ve been thinking about the importance of which questions, which prayers, we routinely ask. Point #2 in Scot’s post today reminded me of it. I hope this will help evangelicals such as myself shift our focus. I’m of the opinion that the question that has shaped evangelicalism more than any other (on the basis of how often and emphatically it is asked relative to others) is “if you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” or something very similar. I base that on the number of repititions and on the climactic positioning of the question.
Now imagine a married couple. Imagine further that one of the two people — the husband or the wife — were routinely asking the question of themselves and maybe of their spouse as well, “How can I keep my spouse from divorcing me or be sure they won’t?” If this question was constantly or even routinely in this person’s mind so that it became the lens through which that person viewed their interactions with their spouse, what kind of marriage, what kind of relationship will the couple have? Take a moment think about it.
I personally don’t think the marriage will be very good or healthy or nearly as enjoyable as it should be. Unfortunately, I believe that the constant asking of “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” or its equivalent has exactly the same effect. Our most often repeated question concerns our legal status with God, and it has shaped our paradigm for all that we do and all that we think about.
We would hope that spouses would be dominated by the questions of how they can serve their spouse, love their spouse, join with their spouse in their worthy goals. We would hope the same of children regarding their parents or friends regarding friends. Not surprisingly, the prayer Jesus teaches us to pray has this kind of focus regarding God, asking above all that God’s noble dreams would become reality and his desires be fulfilled. Now of course, admitting wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness is necessary for any good relationship, and it is also a component in the Lord’s prayer. But mere forgiveness, mere justification, cannot remain the central focus over time; it cannot be our driving question, our most common prayer, to ask that we not be thrown out. At least for me, the perrenial question of my legal status with God created in me a near constant sense of a relationship in crisis. What’s more, the gospel I was given that focused only on the same issue of justification (whether from a free grace or more exacting perspective) reinforced this focus on my legal status. Others’ experience with this may be different. Mine, though, was marked by a backdrop of paranoia, denial, and the idea that God’s will and gospel basically equalled people getting justified before God.
Again, it is no surprise, that Jesus announced and embodied a gospel that concerned God’s larger intentions regarding the world and not just our legal status being repaired. It appears from the gospels that Jesus didn’t just want to forgive the world, but also include people in the work of healing one another and the larger creation as his apprentices and co-workers. God’s government was coming through him not just to forgive, but to restore shalom on the earth, to do “all that Jesus began to do and teach.” This is our husband’s vision. This is his good news. This is what we are to seek, to think about, to trust, to announce, and to pray for. Our driving question should not be about our forgiveness or minimum legal status, necessary as that will be in our life together with him. Our most often repeated question and prayer–the one that should most mark our individual and corporate lives–should be for his dreams for earth to become reality, for his will (the will revealed by Jesus’ actions and ideas) to be done more through us and others. This is more like the prayer he taught us to pray, the question he taught us to ask, the good news he announced and embodied. That focus will lead to a more fruitful and more joyful and healthy relationship as well as a better world. Asking for God’s dream, his will, is to ask for our forgiveness and so much more as well.
Kingdom Living 2 – Healing & Love
Well, now that I’ve really outed myself as a person who believes that God’s mission is in no small part about healing, I want to clarify a few things and connect this thinking with some other, larger themes that are common for me.
First, I think the best way to understand healing or any of the spiritual gifts, is as a subset of love in action from an all powerful God and creator. As the New Testament makes abundantly clear, love is primary. Healing is merely a particular form of grace, or love, from a God who has the power to do it towards a world that needs it. It’s really not complicated. Have you ever loved someone that was suffering? So has God. He still does. The difference, of course, is that God has more power to do something about it (not a particularly bold claim to make about God, right?). Even people outside of the Church think that healing is a natural (expected?) thing for anyone named “God” to do. What really trips them, and us, up isn’t that God heals, it’s all the occasions that he doesn’t heal but supposedly could, without being asked, if he’s so loving, powerful and aware. That’s honestly, though, a topic for its own post. The point for now is that if we ascribe both love and power to God (the anchor of Christian theology?), then saying that he heals people is easier than adding 2 and 2.
Perhaps more importantly, seeing healing as a subset of God’s love & ability puts it in its proper context, both relative to love and relative to all the other expressions of love. And as a few folks rightly pointed out in the discussion at Jesus Creed, healing the physical body shouldn’t be our only or even primary focus. There’s all kinds of “healing” and love is bigger than healing. Amen. Christ-shaped love should be our highest goal. And such love will inevitably lead us to work for the good of others and cooperate with God in all (literally all) sorts of life-building, life affirming and healing ways–absolutely not limited in any way, shape or form to physical healing, or to nonretaliation to evil people, or to generosity to friend and foe, or to preaching the good news, or to hospitality to strangers, etc., etc. We tend to like some of these expressions more than others; some are riskier, physically, socially or financially than others. They tend to be avoided for those reasons. But if Jesus-shaped love is our goal, if he’s the one showing and telling us what God’s mission of love is and what shape that will take, if it’s his mission which we enter as his apprentices, how many of the expressions and forms I mentioned do we leave out, and if so, on what basis? If it is Jesus’ mission we’re joining, if “discipleship” means anything, we need to seriously think about and pray about and discuss the expressions of love and mission which were particularly central to Jesus’ own life and that of his apprentices. How prominently does healing, of all kinds, fit within the mission of God as revealed by Jesus?
Missionally Doin’ the Stuff (at Jesus Creed)
I’ve got a guest post today at Jesus Creed, the blog of my friend and croc provider, Scot McKnight. Here’s an excerpt:
People familiar with John Wimber and/or the Vineyard will know what “Doin’ the stuff” refers to. And if you want a good intro to ‘missional’ thinking, go here or here. But what does “missional” have to do with “doin’ the stuff” that Jesus was known for? Towards that question I want to throw a few ideas for folks in both camps to think about, because I think that the missional movement and doin’ the stuff could be a match made in heaven–and earth. It’s also why I have Wimber’s Prayer Model as a tab on this blog, because I think routinely praying for people who are sick, both with the compassion of Jesus and the power and insight of the Spirit, is a pretty missional habit to pick up.
Stop by for what should be a good conversation.
How to let Him know you don’t care
In downtown West Palm Beach, everybody’s saved. The community is full of Christians, just not ‘little Christs.’ I wish this story wasn’t epidemic, but it is. Just as Julie Clawson has described, the Jesus to admire, even adore, (but not listen to or follow) is still quite popular, thanks to some very selective reading of Jesus by the people who teach and represent him.
Here’s the guts of a story I told to our highschool bible study a while back, based mostly on 1st John, though several teachings of Jesus say the same thing:
“You guys know I have two daughters, Ruby who is 4, and Brooke who’s 1. Now, imagine for a second that I had to go do some things and leave them here with you guys. Now, when I come back, let’s say it comes out that yall have been mean to one or both of them–teasing them, picking on them. If you tell me then and there how much you love me, will I believe you? (I pause to let them answer, “No.”) Of course, any fool would know you don’t care for me. If you had loved me at all, you would have been kind to my daughters, or at least not been mean to them.
That’s exactly how Jesus talks about being kind to other people. He loves all people more than I love my girls. But what good is it to tell him how much we love him and not be kind to those people? About as worthwhile as telling me you love me and being unkind to my daughters. If your idea of ‘loving God’ doesn’t include being kind to those that he loves, which is everybody, you need to wake up now or be in for the worst kind of surprise later. Worship is kindness. Worship is kindness.”
I realize that worship of God includes things other than how we treat others, but what are the arguments from Jesus’ own teachings that he cares as much about those things as how we treat others for his sake? I don’t think they’re there.
The Big Picture
Check out Ted Gossard’s quote of the week, by N. T. Wright:
Now do not misunderstand me…Salvation is hugely important. Of course it is! Knowing God for oneself, as opposed to merely knowing or thinking about him, is at the heart of Christian living. Discovering that God is gracious, rather than a distant bureaucrat or a dangerous tyrant, is the good news that constantly surprises and refreshes us. But we are not the center of the universe. God is not circling around us. We are circling around him. It may look, from our point of view, as though “me and my salvation” are the be-all and end-all of Christianity. Sadly, many people – many devout Chrisians! – have preached that way and lived that way. This problem is not peculiar to the churches of the Reformation. It goes back to the high Middle Ages in the Western church, and infects and affects Catholic and Protestant, liberal and conservative, high and low church alike. But a full reading of Scripture itself tells a different story.
God made humans for a purpose: not simply for themselves, not simply so that they could be in a relationship with him, but so that through them, as his image-bearers, he could bring his wise, glad, fruitful order to the world. And the closing scenes of Scripture, in the book of Revelation, are not about human beings going off to heaven to be in a close and intimate relationship with God, but about heaven coming to earth. The intimate relationship with God which is indeed promised and celebrated in that great scene of the New Jerusalem issues at once in an outflowing, a further healing creativity, the river of the water of life flowing out from the city and the tree of life springing up, with leaves that are for the healing of the nations.
If you don’t dig N. T. Wright’s summaries of the big picture, you may not have a pulse.
Kingdom Living pt. 1 – Introduction
A few years ago, Todd Hunter and Dallas Willard got together to do some seminars on “Kingdom Living.” I believe the subtitle was “Living in the Character and Power of God.” I never managed to attend one of these seminars, though I heard some of the recordings, and have studied what these guys have said a great deal. The twin goals mentioned in the subtitle has always struck a chord with me: the character of God & the power of God; the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit, so to speak. In fact, the only key aspects of ‘kingdom’, to me, that that I’d want to also be explicit about would be the ‘communal’ and ‘for the sake of others’ aspects, though one could certainly say that such are part of the triune ‘character’ of God as I know Dallas and Todd believe they are.
As we keep moving forward in planting Bow Down in West Palm, these four features of God’s kingdom–it’s character, power, and community for the sake of others–are firming up in my mind as important goals for us. What’s more, I see
- the 12 steps (as we’ve refraimed them for apprenticeship to Jesus),
- Wimber’s 5-step ministry model, and
- the micro-cells or workout groups as we call them,
as way-of-life practices of cooperation with God and of resistance to other would-be leaders, that can help us ‘enter’ or ‘receive’ these central aspects of the kingdom of God, and help others do the same. More to come on each and how they complement each other well. I see these practices as moving us toward living out a missional/incarnational theology of the kingdom of God. Thoughts?
Yes–more on the Kingdom
Imonk has just written 12 great observations on seeking the kingdom. Here’s the first:
You won’t get very far in following Jesus if you don’t have some idea of what “the Kingdom of God” means, because Jesus talks about it constantly, and commands you to seek it.
The rest are also worthy of a wide hearing (and, even more, wide action).
It (really) makes the world go ’round
When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. [Emphasis added.]
At our last Kingdom Workshop, each person was given the opportunity to talk about an instance of God being merciful to them that meant a lot to them personally. I highly recommend this practice. It builds the faith of everyone who hears and speaks, it endears people to one another, it calms people’s souls, and it’s not hard to do. It set the stage perfectly for us to talk about working with God in this world–being people who listen for ways to be agents of God’s Spirit, his mercy and power. The main ‘prayer’ that I believed God had given me for the workshop was for the growth of our faith in the bredth of God’s mercy. As we listened to these stories, my prayer was pretty much accomplished before half the room had shared. But the stories of God’s mercy kept coming, in wonderful variety. God’s grace is truly the most active energy at work in the world.
