Most Christians don't understand the significance of Luther's understanding of God's grace:
In the righteousness of faith, we work nothing, we render nothing to God, but we only receive and allow another to work in us.
If Christians understood this basic Gospel fact, I mean really understood it, people would notice. Trust me, they would.
More from Newbigin, on the occasion of Easter:
The truths which Buddhism teaches would (as Buddhists understand them) be true whether or not Gautama had discovered and promulgated them. But the whole of Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were not real events in history but stories told to illustrate truths which are valid apart from these happenings. (the Gospel in a Pluralist Society)
The Christian message--what is radical about the Message of the Gospel--is that it is not, as with other faiths, other religions, about "truth for life." It is about Truth in History.
The Gospel is not a myth in the sense that it communicates principles or generic notions of truth. Newbigin shows that it is true in the sense that it relates to Events Which Took Place in History.
So, this connects to what a friend said to me yesterday: "I believe all people in all cultures are good." I agreed, and added: some people in some cultures are decidedly better than many professing Christians. Still, something else must be said: it isn't about whether or not I am good or not...or you are good or not.
It is about whether He was dead and rose again. That makes all the difference.
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The article itself reads long, and pits one side vs. the other. But, there are some startling statistics that emerge; brace yourself--here are a couple of the more disturbing claims:
Ten-year-old girls can slide their low-cut jeans over "eye-candy" panties. French maid costumes, garter belt included, are available in preteen sizes. Barbie now comes in a "bling-bling" style, replete with halter top and go-go boots. And it's not unusual for girls under 12 to sing, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"
and:
...in 2003, tweens -- that highly coveted marketing segment ranging from 7 to 12 -- spent $1.6 million on thong underwear, Time magazine reported.
David Kuo finds himself angry and dumbfounded after reading the piece. (Here is the link to the APA's original report.) As the daddy of four precious girls, I can't help but resonate with his initial reaction.
But then, as is always the case, there is a bright lining to this cloud. Statistics aren't people. And girls who are doing this respond to love and acceptance. The statistics sit there unmoved, but these girls blossom when they are welcomed into families where real beauty and strength are prized, not in a formula, or a home-brewed recipe, but in the grace-lived life of the Gospel.
He is risen! Resurrection power still has the last word.
Bryant L. Myers has an excellent book which I read last year. The book takes a wide look at how we serve and help transform poor communities for God's Kingdom. One key theme addressed is the similarity of the poor and the non-poor in possessing what he calls a "marred identity."
Myers argues that part of the marred identity of the poor relates to their spiritual viewpoint of (1) how they got poor and (2) what they're able to do to get out of it. But, he also shows that the non-poor have that same problems in relating to their wealth. Surprised?
What is Myers's solution? Pointing us, both poor and non-poor, to repent of "god complexes" and submit ourselves to the story of Scripture:
Another way to help the poor discover their identity is by encouraging them to "find themselves in [the Biblical] story." But we must also witness to the non-poor concerning their identity. We need to help the non-poor "explore and identify their own poverty, to get in touch with what happens when one confuses being with having, or serving with power and control. The non-poor also need to read their story against the story of the Bible. The Bible has good news for them, too, even though they tend to find this hard to believe. The problem for the non-poor is that the cost of being who they really are and doing what they were meant to do is too high. Surrendering god-complexes and using human skill, the power of position, and financial resources LIKE A SERVANT is very hard indeed. This is why the rich young man walked away (Mat. 19:16-22)." (emphasis mine)
Apparently we're hard-wired in original sin to value our own righteous stories above God's. Apparently God's story isn't good enough for us--or is the problem that it is too good?
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Reading the New Yorker recently, I came across a fantastic quote:
Doing a quick search online, I found that it is quoted nowhere else except here, by an actor and instructor of acting, on his blog. (Interesting blog, too.) I'd love to know the author of this quote, someone who is, apparently by the author of the article, a "philosopher."Without a killing, there is no feast.
But its significance to me goes beyond the field of acting or even philosophy.
Think for a moment: the Christian faith is compared to a feast. Themes of satisfaction, fullness of joy, and being filled (with the Holy Spirit, with grace, with love, etc.) abound.
What is remarkable is that this bounteous feast of grace has been prepared for us through the death (and resurrection) of Jesus. Even more remarkably, the one who prepared it, the Host, is the one whose death was required.
Reading elsewhere online, I came across this quote from Old Spurgeon, the famous 19th century Baptist pastor:
]]>Gospel joys are elevating, they make men like angels. As in the gospel God comes down to men, so by the gospel men go up to God. I might also have shown you how absolutely peerless are the provisions of grace. There is no feast like that of the gospel, no meat like the flesh of Jesus, no drink like his blood, no joys like that which crowns the gospel feast. (Spurgeon on Isaiah 25:6)
One business commentator I like, Dale Dauten, aka the Corporate Curmudgeon, wrote in his column this past week of the art and science of conversations.
What is Ryssdal's advice on how to have a great conversation? Stay away from "yes" or "no" questions and be persistent in keeping the conversation going.
Dauten at this point recalls a line from a 1974 movie, The Conversation, in which Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert whose job it is to listen in on conversations. I've not seen the film, but I like this quote.
"At one point," Dauten writes, "Harrison Ford's character tells him: 'I'm not following you, I'm looking for you. There's a big difference.'"
By analogy, I think, in evangelism, God calls us to not simply follow someone in a conversation. We need to know "Who is this person, how has God made them? What makes them tick?"
I believe this is the secret for relationship building and for finding opportunities to enter into people's spiritual lives to point them to Jesus. You must LOOK for the other person. When you find him or her, you're in a good position to show and tell them the good news.
Bryant L. Myers has an excellent book, not perfect, but very helpful, which I've just finished. One key theme in the book (which addresses how we serve and help transform poor communities for God's Kingdom) is the similarity of the poor and the non-poor in possessing what he calls a "marred identity."
Part of the marred identity of the poor relates to their spiritual viewpoint of how they got poor and what they're able to do to get out of it. The non-poor have that same problem about their wealth. An inappropriate and idolatrous confidence in "resources" and "money" is part of the marred identity of the non-poor.
Leaving a fuller treatment of the book for another time, I'll simply quote this passage about God's Story from the text, which I found to be compelling:
Another way to help the poor discover their identity is by encouraging them to "find themselves in [the Biblical] story." But we must also witness to the non-poor concerning their identity. We need to help the non-poor "explore and identify their own poverty, to get in touch with what happens when one confuses being with having, or serving with power and control. The non-poor also need to read their story against the story of the Bible. The Bible has good news for them, too, even though they tend to find this hard to believe. The problem for the non-poor is that the cost of being who they really are and doing what they were meant to do is too high. Surrendering god-complexes and using human skill, the power of position, and financial resources LIKE A SERVANT is very hard indeed. This is why the rich young man walked away (Mat. 19:16-22)." (emphasis mine)
Apparently we're hard-wired in original sin to esteem our own righteous stories above God's, whether we are poor or non-poor. What God calls us to do (finding ourselves in His story) is not what we want naturally; we rather fit God into our story.
There are days when I'm so busy working I don't take time to stop and eat lunch. Then, when 2:30pm or so rolls around, I find myself running on "fumes" as it were. As if in desperation, I stop, grab a bite (literally, "refuel") and I'm set for the rest of the afternoon.
One can't help but wonder, however, about this approach to bodily nutrition. Would not a better approach be to eat at a less urgent interval?
St. Paul, in exhorting the Corinthians on all manner of Christian practice, gives a marvelous picture of the complex nature of the pastorate in his two epistles to that famous ancient Greek church. Among his instructions are included these immortal words:
For it is written in the Law of Moses, “YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING.” (1 Corinthians 9:18).
The apostle quotes from the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 25:4) in saying this, and adds, in an explanatory tone, "God is not concerned about oxen, is He?"
Besides giving us an intriguing, if enigmatic, paradigm for Old Testament pentateuchal hermeneutics, we clearly are given an imperative regarding the material compensation of ministers of the Gospel. And, if that weren't clear from the context in Corinthians, he repeats the admonition in 1 Timothy 5:18--
For the Scripture says, “YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”
Returning to the theme of nutrition: if the ox is permitted to eat while in the process of threshing the wheat to which he is yoked, then the minister of the Gospel is permitted to be sustained materially and financially from his work in Gospel preaching and teaching (compare Galatians 6:6, "The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.").
Has it occurred to you, as it has to me, that the food to which the oxen is entitled may also, in fact, be the Gospel itself? That the minister of the Gospel, like the oxen, ought himself to feed upon the Gospel of God's free grace, as he works to grind and process it out of the ore of God's word in his preparations to feed God's people?
Too many ministers are too busy grinding away, smelting away, in their exegetical mines, to stop and sit amongst the golden bejewelled riches God is extracting all around them and simply enjoy them. Feed on them. Recline in their majestic shalom. May God have mercy to give us an appetite for the very heavenly manna we prepare for others.