I’ve been following with interest Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, where he’s recently begun working through the rather contentious book: The Evangelical Universalist. Since it’s such a controversial theological issue, but also one which often sparks huge interest, I thought I’d draw your attention to Scot’s discussion of the book’s main arguments.
How does the image of mission as healing affect the way we understand the mission of God?
So, after a long sabbatical it’s time to resume our Missional Viewpoints series. I almost let this series go, but I still think it’s something worth continuing so it’s time to revisit it and press on further. Just to jog your memory, here’s what I wrote as the brief for this series last Summer:
Caught up in the Christian understanding of mission and particularly evangelism, is this concept of salvation and what it means. In recent times, the Church’s understanding of salvation has been fairly straightforward and in some ways quite a shallow image. Will a deeper image of salvation help to propel us towards a deeper understanding of the mission of God?
Over July and August, on the blog I’ll be going through a series looking at our definition of mission, and particularly some specific keywords that inform our understanding.
With university work finally out of the way after the final push to get everything finished, and with The Lab beginning to quieten down for the summer, I thought it was about time to get back into blogging. So, in order to become more focused, and to get myself “back into shape” in terms of blogging, I thought it’d be good to work through a fairly simple, but quite interesting summer series.
With essays done and out of the way, felt like time to get back to some blogging… coupled with a huge discussion I had last night with some of the guys from the Lab about money. Will try to get down a quick update on what I’ve been up to later in the week but for now it’s reflection time, whilst my mind is still hot with thoughts.
Our discussion centred around the story of the rich young man in Luke, and the question: is it okay for a man, in this age, to be rich and follow Jesus?
The passage in Matthew 19 is here, although it also appears in Mark. It seems strange to be attempting an answer rather than just asking questions but here goes…
I think that we can interpret this passage and other similar passages – and probably the whole gospel – through two lenses or viewpoints. I think we can often end up with two different versions of the same gospel – the gospel of grace or salvation and the gospel of justice or works.
The gospel of grace says that we are assured of eternal life, not through our own works, but through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. It dictates that the path to righteousness is through trusting God’s grace, worshipping him and prayer – through the process of being made holy or sanctification. And it is absolutely true.
The gospel of justice says that we follow Jesus through challenging injustice and changing the world we live in – bringing about the kingdom of God. This gospel says that prayer, worship and bible reading isn’t enough – if we are to follow Jesus we need to live lives that bring God’s justice to a world of injustice – through works. And I believe that it is also totally true.
What we often seem to do as Western Christians is to emphasise the grace factor and often neglect the theme of justice – often because any discussion of justice and judgement often leads us too close to salvation by works for our likings – something the evangelical church in particular seems to be petrified of.
I believe the twin gospels of grace and justice are intertwined in the gospel that Jesus teaches.
The grace gospel says that the rich young man was serving two masters (as Jesus talks about in Matthew 6), and his hope was in both God and money. So for sanctification to take place, Jesus tells the individual to give up everything he owns. If he does this, then he can fully serve God. Therefore, it is not money that is the root of evil, but the love of money – and we can live with material wealth as long as we ensure we serve only one master.
What is also important is that Jesus makes the point that the man cannot inherit the kingdom of God on his own – but only with God "everything is possible".
The justice gospel – which we often neglect – says first that the rich young man is asking the wrong question. He asks for eternal life, but Jesus shows him the way into the kingdom of God. Jesus says that in order to live in the Kingdom, we must work to bring about God’s justice – by giving everything to the poor, by fighting for the marginalised and against injustice. How can a rich man inherit the kingdom?
How can the kingdom of God reign in his life – if he is not using all he has to fight injustice?
We can see how these two viewpoints could contradict – how they could be presented in opposition. But I believe the truth is that they are intertwined. They are like the double helix that works through the gospel. We should neglect neither – we should never seek eternal life through works alone, but we should also never pursue eternal life so much that we forget the poor and the marginalised and the broken. If we are to truly follow Jesus we are playing for keeps – we must give everything to pursue the kingdom of God on earth.
And that means our wealth.
And that’s a real challenge to Western Christianity – because it means that nothing can stay the same. Everything is up for grabs.
I’m sure there is more that could be added – and other parts of the bible which support either side of the debate, and I’m sure that my reasoning is probably flawed at best – but I’m only human. And life and belief is an ongoing journey.
Since we’re all evangelicals could we discuss what the bible has to say about being judgemental?
"We support those Bishops who have said that under the present arrangements they cannot attend the Lambeth Conference. We invite those English dioceses who are twinned with dioceses and provinces overseas to consult with their companion dioceses about whether to attend the Lambeth Conference. We prayerfully counsel Church of England bishops to consider whether in the light of TEC?s response they may wish to absent themselves."
Or we could just take our ball and go play someplace else instead…
Wow… strange day. Had a really lazy morning – didn’t actually get out of bed until about 1, although I did still get some work down whilst I was in bed. Then this afternoon was in St Paul’s setting up everything for tomorrow’s Harvest Inspire service – the first of Justin’s new informal non-eucharistic (shock horror!) services. Then got a call from Micah inviting me to Newport City Church for their "Saturday Night Church", and on the way randomly some Lab guys on the way to the Welsh Open BBoy Championships who had a spare ticket and so headed up to meet them there afterwards. Phew…
Anyway, so at NCC, Rob the Pastor preached around these verses in Luke, which got me thinking a lot – mainly because I couldn’t help but disagree with what he was saying. Anyway, here’s the main verse:
"Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." – Luke 9:62 (NIV)
Rob said that this meant that in order to "be fit for the kingdom" we needed to three things (held together by the acronym QET):
Something about that whole thing just didn’t seem to ring true to the passage – to me one of the main points of the gospel is that Jesus came for the broken, the sinners, those who, by His own definition wouldn’t seem to be fit for the kingdom. I didn’t think God was interested in checking our eternal CVs before putting us on the service team?
Anyway, I really need to stop there I think – I really need to explore that passage and some of the others Rob used; it would be far more useful to present a re-construction rather than continue the de-construction of his thoughts. Oh, and I think that there was a really good point in what he said – and that’s that the gospel is not only about salvation (what?), Jesus talks a lot about what we do once we’ve got the "qualification" sorted.
We aren’t supposed to just sit around and wait for the second coming. There’s work to be done!
So, the breakdancing comp (that’s what this whole BBoy thing is about apparently lol) was pretty incredible. Felt a bit out of place being not really an urban guy but the crazy dance moves those guys were pulling off were insane – and I saw some of the guys and some other guys who were there already and Jon, who I met on the first uni weekend, who was busy getting paid to do cool camera stuff.
Had a long quiet walk home then afterwards, which is probably why this blog (seem to be posting loads recently, not sure it’s sustainable though). Had lots of time to think stuff through. Was also remembering last year and the International Careforce Volunteers – hope they’re all doing okay. Remembered how inspiring their passion and jus their total reliance on God was – one of the psalms they wouldn’t stop raving about was Psalm 121. I so often just let these words go over my head, but if you let them really sink into your mind then they’re incredible:
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
PS. Just had a read through this and realised it could come across quite harsh. So I just really want to say that I think that Newport City Church are great, and that they are really passionate about doing good stuff for Newport in the name of Jesus – and that Rob is a fantastic guy who is totally on fire for Jesus. Just because I didn’t agree with some of what he said doesn’t mean that I don’t totally support what he, and they, do. And I will continue to converse with them and to support their church by going to their events as much as I can. :-)
Welcome to the blog of James Henley. I'm a young church leader / youth worker and student based in Newport, South Wales.
Read more about me.
said…
lots
of the time its that evangelicals feel it necessary to help their
brothers and sisters to not wander from the faith. but they aren’t
always amazing at expressing that in the most loving terms, even when
actually, it is driven out of deeply loving motives (see James
4:19-20). evangelicals stand up for sound doctrine (as Paul instructs
Timothy to do in 2 Tim 4:1-4 etc) and as Paul himself does with Peter
over doctrinal matters(Galatians 2:11-14). why does Paul do that: its
for the good of the church. the motivation of evangelicals is just the
same. interestingly, in the church times the other week, a survey had
been carried out on why people left church. one of them was the
liberalisation of the church. liberal churches die. (rev 2:1-7)
on
judgementalism, i think the majority of the examples of jesus not
loving the sinner are centred on those who haven’t yet come to faith.
evangelicals tend to assume (quite rightly) that delegates to the
lambeth conference are all christians, and so want to live out lives of
worship in response to God’s salvation. and so to rebuke, train and
correct using the bible (see 2 Tim 3:16) is probably the most loving
thing we could possibly do. it can seem judgemental, but nothing
compared to Jesus high moral standards. (e.g. Matt 5-8).
you
might be thinking here ‘we’re under grace not under the law.’ and you
should be. you’re right on. but the law shows us our sin, leads us to
repentance. God using his word, the bible, to convict us is a work of
the Holy Spirit (see John 15:4-15) and helps us in becoming more
Christlike.
but rebuking has to be done in a way that
acknowledges that we’re all, including rebuker and rebukee total sinful
messes. often we’re not very good at making that clear.
given
the situation in the moment loving rebuke is very necessary. the
trouble is that sinful humans don’t really like that. thats why there’s
division.
and schism and ‘boycott’ is not the way foward. we do
need to keep coming, in great humility, acknowledging the planks in our
eyes to hear what God has already said in the Bible. and we need to
keep helping others who call themselves christians to do that.
10/17/2007 2:36 AM
jameshenley
said…
All
good points. You’ve got me thinking about rebuking from a leadership
point of view now – when is it right to rebuke? How to do it in love
rather than out of some sense of doctrinal honour or something?
In response to Jesus’ comments about judging only being for non-believers, I’d say that Matthew 7:1-7
seems to apply fairly generally to everyone and everything. The use of
brothers would apply to fellow Jews I suppose and so would be fairly
relevant to our brothers within the church – I was tempted to write our
"brothers in Christ".
Of course there is Matt 18:15-17, but I would want to draw attention to two little words in there: "If a brother sins against you…" – when we interpret its meaning.
Also, the bit in Matt 7 about planks and specks seems to be fairly relevant.
I also really like what Jude
has to say about the angel Michael not bringing a "slanderous
accusation" to the devil, but rather saying "the Lord rebuke you".
I
don’t know – all I do know is that God loves the church, and that
disunity and squabbling and taking sides doesn’t help anyone.
Finally
the word translated "rebuke" in 2 Tim 4, epitimao, has its origin in
the Greek "timao" which is usually translated "honour" – what a
thought: to rebuke in a way that brings you honour, or brings honour to
the other person.
I guess in hindsight my post actually was
pretty judgemental in itself (oh the irony). So I’m sorry about that.
Just really got me angry when I read that – probably not a "righteous
anger" either.
Thanks so much for the comment, its about time I had to answer to someone… ;-)
10/17/2007 9:43 PM
John Aveson
said…
sorry.
typo. taking a fairly broad sweep of the gospels, jesus shows love and
compassion to sinful people throughout his ministry. (alabaster jars
etc) but has very little time for religious hypocrasy. hope that
clarifies what i was getting at.
get you getting your greek NT
out! in context: at 2 Tim 4:2: "…reprove, rebuke and exhort, with
complete patience and teaching." (ESV). alot easier to do one half than
the other.
schism is a disaster. if luther could persuaded the
catholics to internally reform that would have been splendid. as
necessary as it was, it set a horrible precedent. generally, we should
stay in till we get kicked out. it takes guts.
Paul on his
rebuking of the Corinthian churches: 2 Cor 7:8-9. He’s gutted he’s got
to do it. Perhaps thats how we should feel? When we feel like that
maybe its right?
Although I think the bible does rebuking far
far better than we can. (2 Tim 3:16, Hebrews 4:12). As long as leaders,
we stay biblical, maybe we shouldn’t have to do too much of our own
rebuking as its God himself doing the rebuking through his word. and it
lets someone without a plank in their eye do the rebuking.
10/18/2007 1:01 AM