For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.It’s the cross, which of course is shorthand for Jesus’ death and resurrection- God's work in Christ, to which we Christians go and from which we live, and on which is our hope for the world. Nothing more and nothing less.
For it is written:"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Showing posts with label salvation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salvation. Show all posts
Monday, July 13, 2009
the cross
Here is a good example of Paul’s ministry to the intellectual elite of his day. And note these words of Paul:
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
it's not about us
Too often as God's people we fall into the same mistake as Israel of old. They turned all of God's promises in on themselves. It was all about God blessing them, when God was blessing them, according to the promise made to Abraham, in order that he might bless the world. They were actually to be a blessing to the world!
We are blessed by God in Christ, to be a blessing to others. It's not about us, or what we get out of it. Yes, we do receive salvation through Jesus Christ, but it's a salvation that is meant to save us from ourselves. For God, and for others.
That is surely where we find life, true and abundant life. And no where else! I have to keep being reminded of that, reminding myself. I forget easily, as I'm naturally attuned to looking out for myself, and seeing everything in terms of my own interests, rather than my Father's interests. And God's interests ends up being the true, lasting good for everyone.
What might you add here?
We are blessed by God in Christ, to be a blessing to others. It's not about us, or what we get out of it. Yes, we do receive salvation through Jesus Christ, but it's a salvation that is meant to save us from ourselves. For God, and for others.
That is surely where we find life, true and abundant life. And no where else! I have to keep being reminded of that, reminding myself. I forget easily, as I'm naturally attuned to looking out for myself, and seeing everything in terms of my own interests, rather than my Father's interests. And God's interests ends up being the true, lasting good for everyone.
What might you add here?
Friday, June 19, 2009
salvation's focus
Tom Wright in his latest book now coming to me in the mail points out how our theological thinking, even among the Reformed* who profess a God-centered theology, is man-centered, orbiting around man. As important as humanity is, and humanity is at the pinnacle of God's creation, God is at the center, and we along with all else, revolve around God.
That in itself is not the radical point Wright is trying to make in what little I've read of that book so far. Rather, when it's all about our/my justification, our/my salvation, our/my sanctification, our/my home someday in "heaven", then we've lost our way. Such a view is a misreading and often truncated view of Scripture, might be the thought here. God's salvation in Christ is much bigger, and our lives and sense of mission should reflect that.
God's salvation in Christ is for the entire creation in the new creation which begins now through God's saving of people and through those people to others and to God's world. Not to lose sight of our salvation because that's important and essential. But not to make that the end all, because through it God sets us in motion by the Spirit in his new creation work, both in sharing the gospel and in fulfilling his creation mandate for humanity.
This for me makes my tuning in to keep up on something of the news important. While never letting go of the primacy of the gospel, but also realizing its scope is bigger than we think. That it's not only about me and God, (or even us and God). To think it is, suggests Wright, is to hear the serpent's whisper, and not God's voice.**
What do you think on this? What thought would you like to share?
*To be fair, the Reformed do emphasize God's glory, but in their exegesis and telling of Scripture, it's all too often about how that relates to man's salvation, so that the glory given to God is in reference to that and then fails to see the bigger picture that Scripture itself presents, I believe.
**To be fair to Tom Wright, I think his reference to the serpent's whisper is the thinking that God's salvation is all about me, so that it's what I can get out of it, the serpent's pitch in the garden in its lie to Eve.
That in itself is not the radical point Wright is trying to make in what little I've read of that book so far. Rather, when it's all about our/my justification, our/my salvation, our/my sanctification, our/my home someday in "heaven", then we've lost our way. Such a view is a misreading and often truncated view of Scripture, might be the thought here. God's salvation in Christ is much bigger, and our lives and sense of mission should reflect that.
God's salvation in Christ is for the entire creation in the new creation which begins now through God's saving of people and through those people to others and to God's world. Not to lose sight of our salvation because that's important and essential. But not to make that the end all, because through it God sets us in motion by the Spirit in his new creation work, both in sharing the gospel and in fulfilling his creation mandate for humanity.
This for me makes my tuning in to keep up on something of the news important. While never letting go of the primacy of the gospel, but also realizing its scope is bigger than we think. That it's not only about me and God, (or even us and God). To think it is, suggests Wright, is to hear the serpent's whisper, and not God's voice.**
What do you think on this? What thought would you like to share?
*To be fair, the Reformed do emphasize God's glory, but in their exegesis and telling of Scripture, it's all too often about how that relates to man's salvation, so that the glory given to God is in reference to that and then fails to see the bigger picture that Scripture itself presents, I believe.
**To be fair to Tom Wright, I think his reference to the serpent's whisper is the thinking that God's salvation is all about me, so that it's what I can get out of it, the serpent's pitch in the garden in its lie to Eve.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
need is needed
We need a sense of need. Jesus came, not as the means by which we save ourselves, but as our Savior. But we need to have the sense and conviction that we need salvation, that for some reason we need to be saved.
We see faith in Jesus come alive at the point of need in a man who had leprosy. And Jesus pointed out that he did not come to save those who were righteous, but sinners. The self-righteous have no sense that they need salvation, but those who know they are sinners and condemned, as well as not able to change themselves, are in a position to see Jesus as the one who can save them.
Not only we ourselves, but this world is in need of a savior. Jesus and the kingdom of God coming in him, is the answer, which begins now through us, his people. We need to help others see their need of Jesus, and we need to understand that Jesus as Savior extends to the needs of all the world, in every system and domain. So that what we do now, in his name, matters. And someday will be taken up into the completion of the new creation, in Jesus.
I'm glad for a sense of need in my own life, and more glad that Jesus meets that need. Every day, as salvation in Scripture is not only glorious past tense, but present. As well as future. We have much to look forward to, in Jesus, which can help us move forward in anticipation of that great, final salvation in him!
What would you like to add to this?
We see faith in Jesus come alive at the point of need in a man who had leprosy. And Jesus pointed out that he did not come to save those who were righteous, but sinners. The self-righteous have no sense that they need salvation, but those who know they are sinners and condemned, as well as not able to change themselves, are in a position to see Jesus as the one who can save them.
Not only we ourselves, but this world is in need of a savior. Jesus and the kingdom of God coming in him, is the answer, which begins now through us, his people. We need to help others see their need of Jesus, and we need to understand that Jesus as Savior extends to the needs of all the world, in every system and domain. So that what we do now, in his name, matters. And someday will be taken up into the completion of the new creation, in Jesus.
I'm glad for a sense of need in my own life, and more glad that Jesus meets that need. Every day, as salvation in Scripture is not only glorious past tense, but present. As well as future. We have much to look forward to, in Jesus, which can help us move forward in anticipation of that great, final salvation in him!
What would you like to add to this?
Sunday, April 05, 2009
quote for the week: John R. W. Stott on the centrality of the cross
There is then, it is safe to say, no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus.John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ, 68 from Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement, 61
Monday, March 02, 2009
more on repentance
Byard taught and reminded us well, yesterday, concerning repentance as he and Shalini his wife, gave us some helpful teaching related to Lent. Byard mentioned that the elements of true repentance are contritition (sorrow over our sin), confession and remuneration- can't recall the word he used here (making it right where we can, as Zaccheus did).
What I especially liked was the simple teaching that repentance is essentially a 180 degree turn of going from one direction in sin, to the opposite direction toward God. And that through Jesus Christ. A true message of repentance always leaves one with good news, the gospel. And never with a sense of condemnation. The good news being that Jesus became one of us in the Incarnation- God became human, lived the life we are to live before God but cannot, and died for us to take our place for our sins. And that he rose, and that by faith we die and rise with him, to a new life, which begins now, and someday is completed at the resurrection.
I wonder what our experiences of hearing repentance preached have been like. Have they left us with a deep sense of guilt and condemnation, with no answers? I remember when I was ten years of age, I went down to the men's restroom at our "church" and cried out in a loud voice to God over my sins. I found out later that others could hear me, even though they were upstairs and behind closed doors.
But did that acknowledgment by me do any good? Not at all. Because there was no gospel, no good news in it. I needed to understand that my salvation was not in my confession or repentance, but in Christ. Through Jesus I could then truly repent and begin a new life. But that was not to come until some seven years later.
What about you? Would any of you like to share from your own lives on this, or any thoughts?
Monday, February 23, 2009
saved into a community
When we are converted to Christ, we become members not only of Christ, but of his body the church. Our experience from Christ is not only in terms of our own relationship to God, but it comes as well, through our relationship with others. As Byard taught us yesterday, salvation while personal is not a private affair. But it is into relationships in Christ. Into a body, a supernatural family. And in that family we begin to experience Christ's care through and to us from others. So that hurts suffered in our natural families can begin to be healed from this family.
And this community is not made up of people we'd naturally hang out with. Or with those who agree with us in everything. God puts unlikely people together in the body, people we often are not comfortable with. The oneness we have is in Christ and by the Spirit, not over a common, club-like kind of existence and fellowship. One that is part of a new fellowship found in God through Christ by the Spirit.
I find this week after week in our church gathering. Yesterday I went largely out of duty, and found the testimony time (a different service) as well as the time in God's word in the class referred to, afterward, just what I needed. Christ was present with us, and was touching us through others and our time there.
To these few scattered thoughts, what might you like to add?
Monday, February 09, 2009
overwhelming, mysterious love
In a class going through the book of Ephesians, Byard Bennett (an award he won and I easily understand why- though I don't understand why different faculty come up on the award page!) is helping us see, both in ways known to the original hearers of the letter, as well as for us today, just what this book along with related writings from Paul is telling us, about our life in God through Jesus Christ.
Yesterday Byard helped us see how though we're involved in salvation, it's really not about a decision we make or anything we do, that's not what Paul is getting at at all. After all, we're dead in our trespasses (falling aside). So that we have no desire for God at all. Along with that we're set on our own ways, ways that lash out against God and God's will. (Unfortunately I don't take notes anymore, and Byard expressed it better, I go on memory here). There is no way we will turn to God ourselves; we are as good as dead.
Without believing in double predestination, the teaching that God simply chooses some of the human race for salvation through Christ, and lets the rest go to deserved eternal damnation, no, Byard and I reject that, Byard does not believe this is in Paul's thinking at all, neither here nor in the Romans 9-11 passage, Paul is teaching that God's love through Christ comes over those who believe in a mysterious way, which brings about salvation. Yes, the sinner is involved in it, but Paul makes no mention of that in the Ephesians passage (so far our track in the class: a "dense" passage, a lot in it). It's truly like through this love we end up overwhelmed and won over to God through Christ by the Spirit (who is not mentioned in that context of salvation, yet is mentioned in a different yet related context later).
God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that all would repent and live. There is something mysterious about this salvation, not to be solved by any theologians. Yet we know the ground of it, Jesus Christ, his person, word, life and work for us, and the result of that work. So that all who hear the good news of Jesus, and in repentance believe in both an accepting and submissive trust, are saved. In Ephesians God's great love for the dead is seen to bring new life in Jesus.
This great love continues on in our lives. God doesn't just abandon us after salvation. It's ongoing, as truly our salvation in Scripture is: present tense. That's a good thing. Left to myself I would drift away. I would not work through the issues in my life as I need to. I would go back to what I was before Christ. Although it is said that in Christ we are a new creation. So something in our lives is different now in Jesus.
I wish each of you could have heard the great teaching (and the service and sermon were powerful yesterday, but the message is not up on our church's website yet). I try to replicate something of it here. Life changing. Byard played a clip for us from one of the renditions/movies of the Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing in which Benedick and Beatrice try to hold out to the end, denying any love for each other in the public setting. But when letters they had written for each other yet held on to, are brought to the intended recipient right there, they end up giving in and having to acknowledge that their hearts are changed and that they do actually love each other. And they end up embracing that love and each other. A picture of how our hearts are changed towards God through Christ.
What might you like to add to this?
Yesterday Byard helped us see how though we're involved in salvation, it's really not about a decision we make or anything we do, that's not what Paul is getting at at all. After all, we're dead in our trespasses (falling aside). So that we have no desire for God at all. Along with that we're set on our own ways, ways that lash out against God and God's will. (Unfortunately I don't take notes anymore, and Byard expressed it better, I go on memory here). There is no way we will turn to God ourselves; we are as good as dead.
Without believing in double predestination, the teaching that God simply chooses some of the human race for salvation through Christ, and lets the rest go to deserved eternal damnation, no, Byard and I reject that, Byard does not believe this is in Paul's thinking at all, neither here nor in the Romans 9-11 passage, Paul is teaching that God's love through Christ comes over those who believe in a mysterious way, which brings about salvation. Yes, the sinner is involved in it, but Paul makes no mention of that in the Ephesians passage (so far our track in the class: a "dense" passage, a lot in it). It's truly like through this love we end up overwhelmed and won over to God through Christ by the Spirit (who is not mentioned in that context of salvation, yet is mentioned in a different yet related context later).
God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that all would repent and live. There is something mysterious about this salvation, not to be solved by any theologians. Yet we know the ground of it, Jesus Christ, his person, word, life and work for us, and the result of that work. So that all who hear the good news of Jesus, and in repentance believe in both an accepting and submissive trust, are saved. In Ephesians God's great love for the dead is seen to bring new life in Jesus.
This great love continues on in our lives. God doesn't just abandon us after salvation. It's ongoing, as truly our salvation in Scripture is: present tense. That's a good thing. Left to myself I would drift away. I would not work through the issues in my life as I need to. I would go back to what I was before Christ. Although it is said that in Christ we are a new creation. So something in our lives is different now in Jesus.
I wish each of you could have heard the great teaching (and the service and sermon were powerful yesterday, but the message is not up on our church's website yet). I try to replicate something of it here. Life changing. Byard played a clip for us from one of the renditions/movies of the Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing in which Benedick and Beatrice try to hold out to the end, denying any love for each other in the public setting. But when letters they had written for each other yet held on to, are brought to the intended recipient right there, they end up giving in and having to acknowledge that their hearts are changed and that they do actually love each other. And they end up embracing that love and each other. A picture of how our hearts are changed towards God through Christ.
What might you like to add to this?
Friday, January 16, 2009
our great salvation
Yesterday in listening to Lamentations from The Bible Experience, I was hit at just how great the suffering in Jerusalem was due to God's judgment. Well acted in spoken word, and I was caught in the grip of it. Yes, I could identify to an extent. Both personally, as God has had to put his hand on my life in some loving, firm, hard discipline for my good. And knowing that Scripture teaches God's sure judgment to come, and already present in some ways against those who resist the truth and do evil. So as the actor played her role well, I was surely weeping as I reflected on my own life and some of the difficulties we bear.
God does need to give us a sense of who we are, and who God is. We then come to realize that we are worthy of God's judgment. But the fact is that Jesus took on himself God's judgment against humankind at the cross. In other words God took the judgment on himself/God's self. We need to rest assured on that, certainly knowing by faith what this great salvation can do and has done for us. And living in that reality in Jesus as forgiven and reconciled to God and potentially to all humankind through Jesus and the cross.
Lamentations and our lives can help us catch a glimpse of the great salvation that is offered to all in Jesus, as we see how great is our need. In Jesus' death for us, and in his resurrection to bring us into this new life in him. May we have broken hearts over our own sin, and over the sins of others. And may we have this as we contemplate, seek to live in view of, and proclaim this great and wondrous salvation we have in Jesus our Lord.
Any thoughts you'd like to share here?
God does need to give us a sense of who we are, and who God is. We then come to realize that we are worthy of God's judgment. But the fact is that Jesus took on himself God's judgment against humankind at the cross. In other words God took the judgment on himself/God's self. We need to rest assured on that, certainly knowing by faith what this great salvation can do and has done for us. And living in that reality in Jesus as forgiven and reconciled to God and potentially to all humankind through Jesus and the cross.
Lamentations and our lives can help us catch a glimpse of the great salvation that is offered to all in Jesus, as we see how great is our need. In Jesus' death for us, and in his resurrection to bring us into this new life in him. May we have broken hearts over our own sin, and over the sins of others. And may we have this as we contemplate, seek to live in view of, and proclaim this great and wondrous salvation we have in Jesus our Lord.
Any thoughts you'd like to share here?
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
when on the brink
There are times in our lives when it seems all is crowding in on us and we're about ready to be thrown over some kind of cliff. Yesterday for a time that seemed to be the case for me. By faith I hung in there, and soon was experiencing the consolation and help of the Lord, and the word was alive on the pages of the psalms, specifically Psalm 139.
Too often during my life I've tried to manage living on the brink. Trying somehow to get myself out of it, but failing in the process to really trust the Lord. I think we need to learn to take baby steps of faith, committing ourselves into the Lord's hands by prayer and by waiting on him. And as we learn to trust the Lord, we can end up both being a witness as people of faith, as well as growing through the trial ourselves. Of course quite often a large part of our trials come from our own struggles (sometimes sinful) within. God permits the difficulties to come so that we can learn to trust him in them and find his salvation in those places. But we must beware of thinking we'll ever be above encountering such trials in this life. Yet at the same time we can be assured that God will make us stronger through them.
What about trials in your life? What do you do when you feel like your on the brink or the edge?
Too often during my life I've tried to manage living on the brink. Trying somehow to get myself out of it, but failing in the process to really trust the Lord. I think we need to learn to take baby steps of faith, committing ourselves into the Lord's hands by prayer and by waiting on him. And as we learn to trust the Lord, we can end up both being a witness as people of faith, as well as growing through the trial ourselves. Of course quite often a large part of our trials come from our own struggles (sometimes sinful) within. God permits the difficulties to come so that we can learn to trust him in them and find his salvation in those places. But we must beware of thinking we'll ever be above encountering such trials in this life. Yet at the same time we can be assured that God will make us stronger through them.
What about trials in your life? What do you do when you feel like your on the brink or the edge?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
being taken over
I like the thought that the new life in Christ is not something we must live out by doing this and not doing that, even though properly understood there's truth in that thought. But it's something which more and more in Jesus, takes us over. This means more of what the Spirit puts in us, and less of our old selves.
I can see this in myself more and more in a growing love for God and for others, as well as a renewed desire to be more thankful. We still live in our unredeemed bodies, and God's good work in us in Jesus is not yet complete. Therefore I still struggle at times with anxiety, and at times still respond to people who I think are wrong, or have wronged me, in something less than love, even if that response is bottled up in me. And my wife can tell you and knows first hand, I've been known to look at as well as dwell on the dark side of things. Though usually every day now I don't live there for long, and even a good number of days it seems like that's gone, with maybe just remnants hanging on at times.
But it's good to be taken over by the resurrection life of Jesus even in this world. The new creation in Jesus breaking into the old. And anticipating in hope as well as actually realizing (see last verse of passage in its context) in some sort of way in all kinds of works done in God, the day when God makes all things new and all creation shares in that newness in Jesus.
What thoughts might you like to share here?
I can see this in myself more and more in a growing love for God and for others, as well as a renewed desire to be more thankful. We still live in our unredeemed bodies, and God's good work in us in Jesus is not yet complete. Therefore I still struggle at times with anxiety, and at times still respond to people who I think are wrong, or have wronged me, in something less than love, even if that response is bottled up in me. And my wife can tell you and knows first hand, I've been known to look at as well as dwell on the dark side of things. Though usually every day now I don't live there for long, and even a good number of days it seems like that's gone, with maybe just remnants hanging on at times.
But it's good to be taken over by the resurrection life of Jesus even in this world. The new creation in Jesus breaking into the old. And anticipating in hope as well as actually realizing (see last verse of passage in its context) in some sort of way in all kinds of works done in God, the day when God makes all things new and all creation shares in that newness in Jesus.
What thoughts might you like to share here?
Monday, November 10, 2008
predestination and election
I am not one anymore who cares to get into theological debates, and I find any debate among Christians on predestination and election particularly tiring in that it tends to be divisive, with little or nothing to show for its efforts. Though I suppose it has its place.
For many Christians, their view on the biblical teaching of predestination and election marks them as to where they are, on the Christian theological divides. For me, I wish we'd get beyond all of that, I guess- hopefully not sounding like I'm above it or them. I for one have been on several sides. Once I would have counted myself as a moderate Calvinist, now I might say I side more with the Arminian side. But all in all, I'm not sure the Bible lines up with either side.
God's election of Israel in Scripture is culminated with God's election of his Son. We all know that the Son, Jesus, did not have to be elected for salvation. The election, then is for something else. For us who need Jesus and his redemptive work as Savior, this election certainly includes salvation. But it's a salvation not just to save people, but to get them into God's mission and his works. Whatever God is doing now on the face of the earth in Jesus in the new creation in God's kingdom, is what God's saved ones are to be doing.
Israel's error was to suppose that it was all about them and their salvation and that for others to join and be elected, they'd have to get into this exclusive club. I think Christians can promote the same error, and that even theologies on both sides (Calvinist and Arminian) tend to promote this error. Especially when their teaching on predestination and election is up front and at the fore center of their faith and actions in the world.
Of course to have predestination and election as an important part of one's belief and actions in itself, I don't believe is off. But the church is chosen to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In other words the church, in Jesus, is chosen to be in mission. Certainly salvation is part of that, and it's important, and we must never lose sight of it. But we're missing the point if we simply stop there. Jesus brought the great salvation and redemption in his coming and once for all work for us on the cross. The resurrection in Jesus begins now (Romans 6, while in Romans 8 we still await the resurrection of our bodies, of course), and those of us in Jesus who participate in it begin to see the new creation in all our works in Jesus. Somehow each new work will find it's place in the new creation in Jesus, forever.
I write this under the influence of N. T. Wright's latest book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Of course while N. T. Wright has influenced me, I seek to base all of my belief and practice on Scripture. I think we can learn alot from him and others of course, but just like any other human, we have to judge his words from and by Scripture. I have found him quite helpful myself. The Challenge of Jesus, which I read around eight years ago, shook my theological world and was important towards fulfilling my theological paradigm, and I've remained convinced that there is much there that is helpful.
Do you agree or disagree, and why? Or what might you like to add here? And by the way, I won't be drawn into any long debates here. :)
For many Christians, their view on the biblical teaching of predestination and election marks them as to where they are, on the Christian theological divides. For me, I wish we'd get beyond all of that, I guess- hopefully not sounding like I'm above it or them. I for one have been on several sides. Once I would have counted myself as a moderate Calvinist, now I might say I side more with the Arminian side. But all in all, I'm not sure the Bible lines up with either side.
God's election of Israel in Scripture is culminated with God's election of his Son. We all know that the Son, Jesus, did not have to be elected for salvation. The election, then is for something else. For us who need Jesus and his redemptive work as Savior, this election certainly includes salvation. But it's a salvation not just to save people, but to get them into God's mission and his works. Whatever God is doing now on the face of the earth in Jesus in the new creation in God's kingdom, is what God's saved ones are to be doing.
Israel's error was to suppose that it was all about them and their salvation and that for others to join and be elected, they'd have to get into this exclusive club. I think Christians can promote the same error, and that even theologies on both sides (Calvinist and Arminian) tend to promote this error. Especially when their teaching on predestination and election is up front and at the fore center of their faith and actions in the world.
Of course to have predestination and election as an important part of one's belief and actions in itself, I don't believe is off. But the church is chosen to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In other words the church, in Jesus, is chosen to be in mission. Certainly salvation is part of that, and it's important, and we must never lose sight of it. But we're missing the point if we simply stop there. Jesus brought the great salvation and redemption in his coming and once for all work for us on the cross. The resurrection in Jesus begins now (Romans 6, while in Romans 8 we still await the resurrection of our bodies, of course), and those of us in Jesus who participate in it begin to see the new creation in all our works in Jesus. Somehow each new work will find it's place in the new creation in Jesus, forever.
I write this under the influence of N. T. Wright's latest book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Of course while N. T. Wright has influenced me, I seek to base all of my belief and practice on Scripture. I think we can learn alot from him and others of course, but just like any other human, we have to judge his words from and by Scripture. I have found him quite helpful myself. The Challenge of Jesus, which I read around eight years ago, shook my theological world and was important towards fulfilling my theological paradigm, and I've remained convinced that there is much there that is helpful.
Do you agree or disagree, and why? Or what might you like to add here? And by the way, I won't be drawn into any long debates here. :)
Thursday, September 11, 2008
witness and authenticity
In our witness for Jesus are our lives important? Of course they are, we would agree. If the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, it's salvation from what? Basically from sin and its results. Although the unfolding of that can take a lifetime, and is not really completed until the resurrection when the new creation in Jesus is complete in the new heaven and new earth. And this is not just for us as individuals but for all of creation.
It's interesting that those who spoke the word of God to God's people (in the Old Testament) were called men of God. They were supposed to live out their message, and sometimes with explicit directions, as in the cases of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
I get a sense of God's salvation working in my life nearly everyday. If I don't, I think I'm in trouble. Why? Because I need it everyday. Salvation in the New Testament is set in past, present and future tenses. But mostly present tense. Salvation is God's ongoing work for us in Jesus by the Spirit. It is communal in that God's people are in it together; it's not supposed to be just a "God and I" endeavor. And it's missional, meant to replicate itself in showing to the world the power of God for salvation in our own lives so that others can find this salvation themselves.
This does mean that people need to see that we are real, and that the Jesus we proclaim to them is real as well. And because salvation is present tense (as well as past and future) we can have a fresh sense of both our need and of God's saving work in our own lives daily, as we trust in God and in his word to us in Jesus.
What would you like to add to these thoughts?
It's interesting that those who spoke the word of God to God's people (in the Old Testament) were called men of God. They were supposed to live out their message, and sometimes with explicit directions, as in the cases of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
I get a sense of God's salvation working in my life nearly everyday. If I don't, I think I'm in trouble. Why? Because I need it everyday. Salvation in the New Testament is set in past, present and future tenses. But mostly present tense. Salvation is God's ongoing work for us in Jesus by the Spirit. It is communal in that God's people are in it together; it's not supposed to be just a "God and I" endeavor. And it's missional, meant to replicate itself in showing to the world the power of God for salvation in our own lives so that others can find this salvation themselves.
This does mean that people need to see that we are real, and that the Jesus we proclaim to them is real as well. And because salvation is present tense (as well as past and future) we can have a fresh sense of both our need and of God's saving work in our own lives daily, as we trust in God and in his word to us in Jesus.
What would you like to add to these thoughts?
Friday, August 22, 2008
scaring the hell out of us
You may not like the title of my post (I don't like it either, really) or the subject matter (I'll agree with you there, to a large extent at least), or the tone of some of my posts recently (okay, I don't either), or in the past (to some extent I'll agree there, also). But I believe this is important because it's a part of Scripture, and I believe Scripture is the word of God speaking the message and Story of God to us. Which ultimately comes to us, in Jesus, God's final word to us.
I was raised Mennonite, but after my conversion at the beginning of my senior year in high school, I was soon influenced by my uncle who taught at the school and is a pastor, and I by and by embraced a Baptist doctrine, leaving my Mennonite beliefs behind. Of course eternal security was part of that teaching, and since I felt insecure, I found it helpful and liberating for me. And indeed, it is essential to know just how important and foundational God's keeping of us in Jesus is.
At the same time, I think what I understand Scot McKnight in a recent comment at Jesus Creed, to have said, is true. Many Baptists who believe in eternal security, once saved always saved, really do not believe in perseverance, that is that true Christians will persevere faithfully in God's will till the end, not perfectly, but they'll always come back and be saved in the end. I do think most Baptists believe we're to live holy lives, and only a few think that when you are saved you don't have to concern yourself with that.
But inherent in their position is the belief that once you're saved you'll always be saved. In light of the book of Hebrews, and in light of Jesus' strong warnings to his disciples, I think such a position takes the teeth out of such passages. The idea is that no matter what you do, you can't lose your salvation. That may be true. For example I knew a good young pastor years ago, at that time a youth pastor who believed that one would forfeit their salvation if they committed suicide. There is no way I believe that. Though at the same time I wouldn't want to fall into such a sin with all the awful ramifications and no opportunity in this life to repent of it.
What sinning can do for us is harden our hearts since sin is deceitful. We can drift away from the message of Christ and the gospel. Not just for those who have yet to taste and see that the Lord is good, but for those who already have. We are told in Scripture to make our calling and election sure. There are other arguments on this side, as well as on the other side. Good Christians will disagree on it.
My plea though is to take seriously the warning passages, and not somehow skirt what they're actually saying so as to take the teeth out of them. By faith we're kept by the power of God for salvation, but though we can't earn our salvation, we can walk away from it, at first perhaps not deliberately, but in the end no longer caring, hardened in heart and devoted to other things (idols) rather than God in Christ.
So I think we need to listen to the word of God and take to heart all that is written in it. We need to continue to rest in the grace of God for us in Jesus, trusting God for his good work in us, and working that out with fear and trembling.
Just some scattered and incomplete thoughts on this, this morning. One part of Scripture which is not pleasant, but is for our good.
What would you like to add to this, or say here?
I was raised Mennonite, but after my conversion at the beginning of my senior year in high school, I was soon influenced by my uncle who taught at the school and is a pastor, and I by and by embraced a Baptist doctrine, leaving my Mennonite beliefs behind. Of course eternal security was part of that teaching, and since I felt insecure, I found it helpful and liberating for me. And indeed, it is essential to know just how important and foundational God's keeping of us in Jesus is.
At the same time, I think what I understand Scot McKnight in a recent comment at Jesus Creed, to have said, is true. Many Baptists who believe in eternal security, once saved always saved, really do not believe in perseverance, that is that true Christians will persevere faithfully in God's will till the end, not perfectly, but they'll always come back and be saved in the end. I do think most Baptists believe we're to live holy lives, and only a few think that when you are saved you don't have to concern yourself with that.
But inherent in their position is the belief that once you're saved you'll always be saved. In light of the book of Hebrews, and in light of Jesus' strong warnings to his disciples, I think such a position takes the teeth out of such passages. The idea is that no matter what you do, you can't lose your salvation. That may be true. For example I knew a good young pastor years ago, at that time a youth pastor who believed that one would forfeit their salvation if they committed suicide. There is no way I believe that. Though at the same time I wouldn't want to fall into such a sin with all the awful ramifications and no opportunity in this life to repent of it.
What sinning can do for us is harden our hearts since sin is deceitful. We can drift away from the message of Christ and the gospel. Not just for those who have yet to taste and see that the Lord is good, but for those who already have. We are told in Scripture to make our calling and election sure. There are other arguments on this side, as well as on the other side. Good Christians will disagree on it.
My plea though is to take seriously the warning passages, and not somehow skirt what they're actually saying so as to take the teeth out of them. By faith we're kept by the power of God for salvation, but though we can't earn our salvation, we can walk away from it, at first perhaps not deliberately, but in the end no longer caring, hardened in heart and devoted to other things (idols) rather than God in Christ.
So I think we need to listen to the word of God and take to heart all that is written in it. We need to continue to rest in the grace of God for us in Jesus, trusting God for his good work in us, and working that out with fear and trembling.
Just some scattered and incomplete thoughts on this, this morning. One part of Scripture which is not pleasant, but is for our good.
What would you like to add to this, or say here?
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
"Seedstone - healing" from L.L. Barkat
From L.L. Barkat, Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places
Living in a fallen world and part of the fall ourselves, we all are in need of healing. In fact salvation itself in Scripture is likened to or called healing. This is to begin in Jesus for us now, but someday will be completed in the resurrection and consummation of all things in the new creation in Jesus. Then our healing will be complete.
Until then however, L.L.'s chapter helps us understand that God takes even the hard, broken things of our lives and in Jesus remakes them and gives them new life. Again L.L.'s frankness about her own brokenness is encouraging for all the rest of us broken Eikons (transliterated from the Greek New Testament word eikon, translated "image," with reference to humankind created in the image of God, and in Jesus being created anew in God's image, as the brokenness is being restored).
For myself, along with L.L., I'm realizing that the healing I need is not just in regard to the effects of sin in my past or of living in a broken down, fallen world. But also because I sin in the present (remember sins of omission as well as commission), even while righteous in Christ and practicing righteousness. I therefore need healing now. This gives hope as we know it's all by grace, that we are ever undeserving, that our only hope is in the Lord.
This chapter was good for me because I tend to look at healing as only for those who somehow have something together. But healing is for those who in themselves have nothing together. And like the man born blind, we must go by faith in our brokeness in obedience to God's word to us in Jesus, and walk by faith, not by sight, and through that begin to receive our healing in this life.
Again, this chapter was written in a way in which only L.L. can and does write! And if you want a book which just gives you 2+2=4 and puts everything down in a neat little bundle or formula for you to carry out, this book is not for you. But if you want a book which like the best books, and supremely like the Book, makes you realize anew your dependence on God and his great and full salvation in Jesus, then this is a most excellent book to help venture forth in that direction.
And again, don't forget to look at and think through the "discussion questions" in the back, preferably with others- after all that's what "discussion" means. :)
Any thoughts on this here?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
8. Holding Pfaltzgraff - inclusion
9. Indiana Jones - fear
10. Old Stone Church - love
11. Goldworthy's Wall - sacrifice
12. Clefts of the Rock - responsibility
13. Olive Press - gratitude
14. Forest Star - humility
Next week: "Sugar Face - forgiveness"
Living in a fallen world and part of the fall ourselves, we all are in need of healing. In fact salvation itself in Scripture is likened to or called healing. This is to begin in Jesus for us now, but someday will be completed in the resurrection and consummation of all things in the new creation in Jesus. Then our healing will be complete.
Until then however, L.L.'s chapter helps us understand that God takes even the hard, broken things of our lives and in Jesus remakes them and gives them new life. Again L.L.'s frankness about her own brokenness is encouraging for all the rest of us broken Eikons (transliterated from the Greek New Testament word eikon, translated "image," with reference to humankind created in the image of God, and in Jesus being created anew in God's image, as the brokenness is being restored).
For myself, along with L.L., I'm realizing that the healing I need is not just in regard to the effects of sin in my past or of living in a broken down, fallen world. But also because I sin in the present (remember sins of omission as well as commission), even while righteous in Christ and practicing righteousness. I therefore need healing now. This gives hope as we know it's all by grace, that we are ever undeserving, that our only hope is in the Lord.
This chapter was good for me because I tend to look at healing as only for those who somehow have something together. But healing is for those who in themselves have nothing together. And like the man born blind, we must go by faith in our brokeness in obedience to God's word to us in Jesus, and walk by faith, not by sight, and through that begin to receive our healing in this life.
Again, this chapter was written in a way in which only L.L. can and does write! And if you want a book which just gives you 2+2=4 and puts everything down in a neat little bundle or formula for you to carry out, this book is not for you. But if you want a book which like the best books, and supremely like the Book, makes you realize anew your dependence on God and his great and full salvation in Jesus, then this is a most excellent book to help venture forth in that direction.
And again, don't forget to look at and think through the "discussion questions" in the back, preferably with others- after all that's what "discussion" means. :)
Any thoughts on this here?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
8. Holding Pfaltzgraff - inclusion
9. Indiana Jones - fear
10. Old Stone Church - love
11. Goldworthy's Wall - sacrifice
12. Clefts of the Rock - responsibility
13. Olive Press - gratitude
14. Forest Star - humility
Next week: "Sugar Face - forgiveness"
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
"Holding Pfaltzgraff - inclusion" from L.L. Barkat
Struggling to find a sense of belonging has long been a problem of mine from my childhood days of not quite fitting in with friends, or at school. And even left to myself I felt like an outsider or on the verge of it, much of the time. When I commited my life to God through Jesus, this opened up a new chapter in which I suddenly felt on the inside with God and other Christians. Though I've come to realize over the years that this can still be a struggle as a sort of exclusivism can wrap itself around us (some of that from the truth, but much of it from error), making it easy for us miss the point of why Jesus came, and why we in Jesus remain here in this world.
L.L. in this chapter helpfully unfolds for us this problem of exclusion which is part of sin and God's curse and scattering of humankind. And of God's answer for inclusion, back to his very heart. Continuing with her on her journey she recounts her days after college when she settled down in her own place and ate off her pfaltzgraff stone plates after which with delight she'd wash them in the suds in the sink. This was therapeutic for her in that she felt on the inside, contrary to what her stepfather had drummed into her that she was an outsider who couldn't do anything.
L.L. shares with us in a way I've never seen of God making his heart known to humankind through Israel in the form of the beautifully woven crimson, blue and purple of the tabernacle/tent pitched in the middle of the tribes of Israel as they traveled through the desert. Through the priestly sacrificial system God was making himself known, the high priest entering the Most Holy Place once a year in front of the ark of the covenant with the carved cherubim overshadowing it, the center of God's heart, to make atonement again and again, annually, for the people in forgiving their sins.
Jesus in the incarnation came as the Word became flesh and made his dwelling, or more literally pitched his tent or tabernacled among us. Jesus is the new tabernacle through whom access is given to God's very heart. No longer would the people of God just see it, but now through faith in Jesus they enter it for themselves, into the Most Holy Place through the blood of Jesus, meaning through his death.
Jesus' heart was broken in the process of making this true and open for all. He was treated in the most inhumane ways and even felt like his Father had turned his face away in excluding him as well. But he suffered this that we might be included again, back to God and with all peoples, in Jesus. In Jesus we become the place where God wants to bring other outsiders in.
L.L. reminds us that God gives to his people in the new covenant, a new heart, his very heart. It's a heart that is inclusive, that wants to bring all people in through Jesus and the message of the gospel. The question for us is how do we see this? Is this just for ourselves, or does it include others? This was a major issue Jesus had with the Pharisees and religious leaders of his day. Yet Jesus' example was just the opposite, reaching out to the outcasts in his day: the lepers, tax-collectors and sinners, and really to all, including those who excluded others. We in Jesus are to do the same, knowing that this inclusion we have found in Jesus is not just for ourselves, but for others.
It has taken me years to have a settled sense of inclusion in spite of all the ways I can feel excluded at times. God's heart for us in Jesus revealed to us by his Spirit and his word makes it clear that we are included and that God is inviting and welcoming home in Jesus, all who are outside. We are to live as those in Jesus before the world to help others find this same inclusion in Jesus.
Read this chapter (and book) slowly and enjoy.
What would you like to share in your thinking or from your life about what this means to you?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
Next week: Indiana Jones - fear
L.L. in this chapter helpfully unfolds for us this problem of exclusion which is part of sin and God's curse and scattering of humankind. And of God's answer for inclusion, back to his very heart. Continuing with her on her journey she recounts her days after college when she settled down in her own place and ate off her pfaltzgraff stone plates after which with delight she'd wash them in the suds in the sink. This was therapeutic for her in that she felt on the inside, contrary to what her stepfather had drummed into her that she was an outsider who couldn't do anything.
L.L. shares with us in a way I've never seen of God making his heart known to humankind through Israel in the form of the beautifully woven crimson, blue and purple of the tabernacle/tent pitched in the middle of the tribes of Israel as they traveled through the desert. Through the priestly sacrificial system God was making himself known, the high priest entering the Most Holy Place once a year in front of the ark of the covenant with the carved cherubim overshadowing it, the center of God's heart, to make atonement again and again, annually, for the people in forgiving their sins.
Jesus in the incarnation came as the Word became flesh and made his dwelling, or more literally pitched his tent or tabernacled among us. Jesus is the new tabernacle through whom access is given to God's very heart. No longer would the people of God just see it, but now through faith in Jesus they enter it for themselves, into the Most Holy Place through the blood of Jesus, meaning through his death.
Jesus' heart was broken in the process of making this true and open for all. He was treated in the most inhumane ways and even felt like his Father had turned his face away in excluding him as well. But he suffered this that we might be included again, back to God and with all peoples, in Jesus. In Jesus we become the place where God wants to bring other outsiders in.
L.L. reminds us that God gives to his people in the new covenant, a new heart, his very heart. It's a heart that is inclusive, that wants to bring all people in through Jesus and the message of the gospel. The question for us is how do we see this? Is this just for ourselves, or does it include others? This was a major issue Jesus had with the Pharisees and religious leaders of his day. Yet Jesus' example was just the opposite, reaching out to the outcasts in his day: the lepers, tax-collectors and sinners, and really to all, including those who excluded others. We in Jesus are to do the same, knowing that this inclusion we have found in Jesus is not just for ourselves, but for others.
It has taken me years to have a settled sense of inclusion in spite of all the ways I can feel excluded at times. God's heart for us in Jesus revealed to us by his Spirit and his word makes it clear that we are included and that God is inviting and welcoming home in Jesus, all who are outside. We are to live as those in Jesus before the world to help others find this same inclusion in Jesus.
Read this chapter (and book) slowly and enjoy.
What would you like to share in your thinking or from your life about what this means to you?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
Next week: Indiana Jones - fear
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
"Howe's Cave - baptism" from L.L. Barkat
Continuing with L.L. on her journey in Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places we arrive to Howe's Cave with her grandmother, as she gets a feel for a darkness that is heavy and unpleasant in contrast to the sunlight that she loves. L.L. likens water baptism to having that element of darkness and with it a sense of dread: "a silent world of stalactite and stalagmite - forbidding swords of some dragon's lair that hang and rise." (p. 47)
L.L. was baptized as a baby in her mother's arms, and then later baptized as a teenager in the evangelical church they were attending. Neither meant anything to her in terms of what baptism meant to the early church, with those who submitted themselves to this ancient rite, beginning with John the Baptizer's ministry- from what we read in Scripture and know from Jewish tradition.
Water symbolizes or brings with it life and chaos, fear and death in Scripture. In the rite of baptism we have a symbol and reenactment of what happens to the believer through Jesus' descent into death and ascent into life by the resurrection. Someday to be completely and perfectly fulfilled, this begins in our lives even now in Jesus by faith. It is meant to be a marker for us, a reminder, indeed an enactment that we have crossed over from death to life, from the wilderness wandering to the promised land.
Baptism to the early Christians and tied to the Jewish rite of mikvah, meant a completely new life for the convert to Judaism, and it meant that one was marked for life, like dyed cloth through Jesus' death as "a worm crushed for crimson dye." (p 51)
Wouldn't it be nice if after our water baptism expressive of faith in Jesus and new life in him out of death, we would always live up to that and our new identity in him! In Jesus our lives are changed, but more like Jacob who wrestled with God. We still struggle and experience setback as if to bring us to that place which baptism so vividly pictures. Descent into death as we despair of ourselves, and ascent into life as we truly look to God and experience more of the resurrection life in Jesus. So that baptism is a picture not only of our entrance into the Christian life, but reminds us of what we're being saved from- our old self and sin, and what we're saved to- our real identity and life in Jesus. Yet our lives in this reality are hit with "struggle and setback". We must press on in the meaning of our baptism, daily. And an important ongoing part of that is our struggle and setback as we continue to put to death what belongs to our old life in Adam, and put on what belongs to our new life in Jesus.
Read this chapter (and book!!!). L.L. gets her point across wonderfully well, and it's one to remember and ponder as we live during this time in which our salvation is yet to be made entirely complete.
What about you? What does baptism mean to you? And what does that mean for your life today?
L.L. was baptized as a baby in her mother's arms, and then later baptized as a teenager in the evangelical church they were attending. Neither meant anything to her in terms of what baptism meant to the early church, with those who submitted themselves to this ancient rite, beginning with John the Baptizer's ministry- from what we read in Scripture and know from Jewish tradition.
Water symbolizes or brings with it life and chaos, fear and death in Scripture. In the rite of baptism we have a symbol and reenactment of what happens to the believer through Jesus' descent into death and ascent into life by the resurrection. Someday to be completely and perfectly fulfilled, this begins in our lives even now in Jesus by faith. It is meant to be a marker for us, a reminder, indeed an enactment that we have crossed over from death to life, from the wilderness wandering to the promised land.
In light of everything that water meant to these ancients, descending into its depths during baptism is like opening a door - inviting curious onlookers to peer into the chaos, hear the beating of a dragon heart, lament how the soul seems crushed by weight of darkness. In the same instant it's an invitation to expectation. A rescue is being played out. A creation is being enacted. The one who descends celebrates ascension to a re-created life that teems with lilies and peaches, eagles and red-eyed tree frogs. (p. 50)Like L.L., I too have been baptized twice. The first time in my church as a teenager after I went forward in an evangelistic meeting mainly to satisfy my mother and relieve the pressure to make a commitment, wondering if it would make a difference in my life, which ultimately it did not. I can hardly remember it, just that it happened. Later, after truly committing my life to Christ I was immersed in a baptistery in a Baptist church that was borrowed by the church I attended in college. It surely meant more to me then. But not as much as it would mean to me now. Though I believe we can look back on our baptisms and more appreciate their meaning for us later. Like L.L. reminds us, we understand better the meaning of what we do, often after we do it than when we do it.
Baptism to the early Christians and tied to the Jewish rite of mikvah, meant a completely new life for the convert to Judaism, and it meant that one was marked for life, like dyed cloth through Jesus' death as "a worm crushed for crimson dye." (p 51)
Wouldn't it be nice if after our water baptism expressive of faith in Jesus and new life in him out of death, we would always live up to that and our new identity in him! In Jesus our lives are changed, but more like Jacob who wrestled with God. We still struggle and experience setback as if to bring us to that place which baptism so vividly pictures. Descent into death as we despair of ourselves, and ascent into life as we truly look to God and experience more of the resurrection life in Jesus. So that baptism is a picture not only of our entrance into the Christian life, but reminds us of what we're being saved from- our old self and sin, and what we're saved to- our real identity and life in Jesus. Yet our lives in this reality are hit with "struggle and setback". We must press on in the meaning of our baptism, daily. And an important ongoing part of that is our struggle and setback as we continue to put to death what belongs to our old life in Adam, and put on what belongs to our new life in Jesus.
Read this chapter (and book!!!). L.L. gets her point across wonderfully well, and it's one to remember and ponder as we live during this time in which our salvation is yet to be made entirely complete.
What about you? What does baptism mean to you? And what does that mean for your life today?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
Next week: Palisade Cliffs - doubt
Sunday, June 08, 2008
quote of the week
But Paul does not mean that believers are not expected, indeed required to go on and live holy lives. Christ's unblemished sacrifice is not a substitute for the believer's sacrifice of a holy life but a means by which the believer can be sanctified and so present himself as a living sacrifice. Only Christ's sacrifice atones for human sin, and so the believer's sacrifice is not an atoning sacrifice, but it does involve holiness. Paul does not affirm the notion of purely imputed righteousness. Right standing is a gift of grace, but righteousness as a moral condition is the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer. The righteousness of Christ enables him to be the perfect sacrifice and to offer right standing to all as a gift of pure grace, but the unblemished condition of the believer which is reviewed at judgment is not a legal fiction but the product of progressive sanctification in the actual life of the believer.
A footnote on Colossians 1:22: "21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant."
Ben Witherington III from The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles, p. 140.
Friday, June 06, 2008
resilience
Resilience is built into humanity by God's good creation of us. But this trait and characteristic, like all of God's good gifts, can be sorely misused by us, and is. We're often resilient in doing what is evil or putting ourselves first over the good of others.
In Jesus there is a resilience which comes from God's working. This salvation we receive as a gift by faith, includes the work of the Spirit in our lives, so that time and time again, we bounce back from big and little problems or troubles, which by themselves would drag us down and out. I'm amazed at the resilience I have experienced from God, so that I can look at life with all the problems I carry around as fresh and new. Having a sense of a new day or new start.
This points to the new day in Jesus already here, but someday to take over so that all the old is gone. God in Jesus will make all things right and all things new in judgment and grace. This will be the just judgment of a kind Judge. One not out to get us, but out to help us and save us in Jesus. Jesus took on himself what each one of us richly deserves, so that we can be forgiven of our wrongs and changed to be what God intended in creating us.
I love the fact that in Jesus, no matter what we face, we can be resilient. I so much appreciate Scott Steiner and his testimony. In the face of incurable cancer (and his son-in-law as well), and on top of that, an ill-timed severe leg injury which complicated everything for him physically, and medically, I saw him the other day, and I could see the joy of the Lord in his face. But plenty of issues, and plenty of pain all the way around, I'm sure. Yet God is present for him and surely for all of us. We must count on and rely in that. God is faithful for us, in Jesus. God will see us through and make his joy to be our strength, through it all.
Resilience. Here for us in Jesus during this present life in which time and time again, we'll need it.
What would you like to add to this? How has this been true in your own life?
In Jesus there is a resilience which comes from God's working. This salvation we receive as a gift by faith, includes the work of the Spirit in our lives, so that time and time again, we bounce back from big and little problems or troubles, which by themselves would drag us down and out. I'm amazed at the resilience I have experienced from God, so that I can look at life with all the problems I carry around as fresh and new. Having a sense of a new day or new start.
This points to the new day in Jesus already here, but someday to take over so that all the old is gone. God in Jesus will make all things right and all things new in judgment and grace. This will be the just judgment of a kind Judge. One not out to get us, but out to help us and save us in Jesus. Jesus took on himself what each one of us richly deserves, so that we can be forgiven of our wrongs and changed to be what God intended in creating us.
I love the fact that in Jesus, no matter what we face, we can be resilient. I so much appreciate Scott Steiner and his testimony. In the face of incurable cancer (and his son-in-law as well), and on top of that, an ill-timed severe leg injury which complicated everything for him physically, and medically, I saw him the other day, and I could see the joy of the Lord in his face. But plenty of issues, and plenty of pain all the way around, I'm sure. Yet God is present for him and surely for all of us. We must count on and rely in that. God is faithful for us, in Jesus. God will see us through and make his joy to be our strength, through it all.
Resilience. Here for us in Jesus during this present life in which time and time again, we'll need it.
What would you like to add to this? How has this been true in your own life?
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
"Sword in the Stone: resistance" from L.L. Barkat
The fear factor looms larger than life sometimes, even for us in Jesus. I mean a being afraid out of our wits, or just an uneasy sense of fear- hard to pin down for sure as to its true meaning. I've been there more times than I can count as a Christian, for years constantly in and out of it. And now when it grips me, I can still be unnerved at the time. Though I've learned better how to resist the enemy behind it.
As L.L. continues to share from her journey in Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places, we find her, along with her mother and sister, being tracked down by her stepfather. This time he was hunting them, not the deer he had so commonly shot. And L.L. was sure that if they were found, he would shoot. She was gripped and shaken in fear. Some committed Christians from her little church came to their apartment and prayed for them, and over time those dark and threatening clouds dissipated, and L.L.'s fears were gone. She never heard from her stepfather again.
As those in Jesus, we're called to be strong in the Lord, put on the full armor of God and pray. As we resist the enemy, he is the one who flees because of God's ongoing salvation in Jesus. With a simple decision of faith (like Martin Luther when aware of the enemy's presence) or in prayer over time (like Daniel had to), we can see God take the sword from the stone, so that all the power of the enemy is as nothing. Jesus himself is praying for us (also here), so that even if the enemy's darts do get through to us, we can in faith recover, and stand against the devil's schemes.
L.L. in a memorable way, weaves her story in with the truth of God's word in Jesus, for us. You won't be sorry to get the book and read it for yourself. It is simply a wonderful telling of someone who is as real as you and I in her struggles and life, along with the God who in Jesus is present for us, to put all fear to flight.
What would you like to add to this from your own story, or any thoughts on this you'd like to share with us here?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
Next week: chapter 6: "Howe's Cave - baptism"
As L.L. continues to share from her journey in Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places, we find her, along with her mother and sister, being tracked down by her stepfather. This time he was hunting them, not the deer he had so commonly shot. And L.L. was sure that if they were found, he would shoot. She was gripped and shaken in fear. Some committed Christians from her little church came to their apartment and prayed for them, and over time those dark and threatening clouds dissipated, and L.L.'s fears were gone. She never heard from her stepfather again.
As those in Jesus, we're called to be strong in the Lord, put on the full armor of God and pray. As we resist the enemy, he is the one who flees because of God's ongoing salvation in Jesus. With a simple decision of faith (like Martin Luther when aware of the enemy's presence) or in prayer over time (like Daniel had to), we can see God take the sword from the stone, so that all the power of the enemy is as nothing. Jesus himself is praying for us (also here), so that even if the enemy's darts do get through to us, we can in faith recover, and stand against the devil's schemes.
L.L. in a memorable way, weaves her story in with the truth of God's word in Jesus, for us. You won't be sorry to get the book and read it for yourself. It is simply a wonderful telling of someone who is as real as you and I in her struggles and life, along with the God who in Jesus is present for us, to put all fear to flight.
What would you like to add to this from your own story, or any thoughts on this you'd like to share with us here?
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
Next week: chapter 6: "Howe's Cave - baptism"
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