What is the Gospel – An Open Forum

As an evangelical the term ‘gospel’ is an absolutely crucial concept for me. Today however there’s a whole lot of confusion over the exact definition of the term (although I’m pretty sure there’s often been confusion – throughout church history). This post is an attempt to open dialogue over the term. I’ll start by giving my definition and it would be great if you readers would chip in with your own definitions and interact with mine – as the title suggests its an open forum. I just ask that any discussion that might stem from this be done in a civil manner – by all means disagree but please substantiate your comments. Oh and no essay comments please – try not to make them too long, it kind of kills the dialogue.

Well here’s my definition:

The Gospel is the historic act of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ through which God reconciles a people to himself. (I take my cue from here).

Right, now you peeps have a go…

A Call to Die – Mark’s Gospel and Me

Tonight we’re going to wrap up Mark’s gospel at our study group. We finished going through the text last week and this week we want to draw out some of the big ideas so that they stick in the minds of those in the group for future readings of Mark. It’s a fascinating ride starting as Mark develops a picture of the Messiah king in the chapters leading up to 8:29 and Peter’s great confession. Then he turns the narrative a bit to show us a second identity to which Jesus claims fulfillment – that of the Suffering Servant. Leading up to the cross and including the cross narrative the text is absolutely littered with references to Isaiah and not only to the traditional ‘servant songs’ but also to numerous passages dealing with both judgment of Israel and the restoration of Israel which also marks the occasion when the gentiles will come streaming in. Its a masterful narrative that in one sense is fairly simple to understand, so much so that some have often summarized Mark’s gospel to teach ‘who Jesus is and what he came to do’. Yet it also has so much depth and will keep you wondering for days as to why Mark chose to arrange the material the way he did. Its a gospel that calls for deep reflection and life evaluation.

As a Christian reader of Mark’s gospel, as one who has acknowledged the atonement to which the narrative points I was really overwhelmed by one giant challenge that Mark throws at those who would follow Christ – the call to die to self, to take up ones cross daily (8:34-36). If there is one application the Christian community needs to grab hold of it is that – we, as those having been cleansed by the atonement, are called by God himself to die to our own wants, needs, desires, motives, attitudes and passions and live for the wants, needs, desires, motives, attitudes and passions of Christ, which means crucifixion every single day. It’s a hard call and without the atonement it would be an impossible call to even attempt to respond to. However, in light of God’s mercy we must respond – we must die.

Commentaries – Too Big – Brain – Too Small

I completely agree with Michael’s assessment of current trends in the world of commentaries on the Biblical text. My small brain hurts even thinking about it.

Kimball on Hell

Dan Kimball has some very astute words regarding the subject of ‘hell’ which he preached on three times this last Sunday. He’s definitely worth a read and perhaps a decent, humble and thoughtful corrective to some emerging theologies that are preparing for Christianity without hell.

The Wealth of a Student

I’m the 1,149,766,905 richest person on earth! Discover how rich you are! >>

I don’t know how accurate this little website is but it’s pretty sobering.

 

Links at the End of a Slow Weekend

I’ve had a very relaxing weekend, Arsenal won and Man Utd lost so all is good in the world of football (and that’s not that weird sport that you Americans play where the ball barely ever touches your foot). Amongst the lazy happenings of this weekend there were a few links that caught my eye:

John Piper responds to what I thought were some silly comments by Ben Witherington.

Tim Chester is telling stories for a non-book culture.

Spirituality is being discussed at Emergent Africa. The definitions of spirituality being tossed around seem somewhat undefined to me, don’t you think?

Perspective from a different angle: An atheist shares about how his atheism has given him new found respect for nature. I found this fascinating yet I was also deeply saddened by it as I thought about the numerous Psalms penned about the glory of God revealed in nature.

Total Church on Ministry to the Poor

‘…in any Christian ministry, including ministry to the poor, proclaiming and teaching the word of God must be central. And that is because the greatest need of the poor, as for us all, is to be reconciled to God and so escape his wrath. What makes Christian social involvement distinctly Christian is a commitment to reconciling the poor to God through the proclamation of the gospel.

This means it is never enough to address people’s felt needs. Felt needs can be a good point to start because the gospel addresses the human condition in all its complexity. But people do not as a rule express God’s judgment as a felt need. People are blind to their true plight. They do not see their greatest need which is to be reconciled to God through the gospel. If we do not keep people’s eternal plight in mind, then immediate needs will force their way to the top of our agenda and we will betray the gospel and the people we profess to love. The most loving thing we can do for the poor is proclaim the good news of eternal salvation through Christ. It is by no means the only loving thing we can do for them, but it is the most loving thing we can do. It would be a crime of monumental proportions knowingly to withhold such good news.’ (Tim Chester and Steve Timmis: Total Church – p.75)

I think their emphasis on gospel proclamation as the most loving of activities is spot on. From what I’m picking up in my general reading on the subject and my experience of talking to those involved in mercy ministries here in South Africa is that we tend to err in one of two ways with regard to loving the poor. We either see gospel proclamation as simply one of many loving activities and not the most loving. Or we see gospel proclamation as the only truly loving activity and ignore the rest. Chester and Timmis bring sanity and balance to the whole question without downplaying the centrality of gospel proclamation.

Is Multi-Site Church Biblical?

J.D. Greear, with a whole lot of insight from John Piper, has a go at looking at the biblical evidence for multi-site/congregation churches.

(HT – Justin Buzzard)

Do Good to the Church do Good to All

“Therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” – Paul (Gal. 6:10)

I’ve written before about the apparent lack of exhortations in the New Testament Epistles calling on believers to help and care for those outside of the people of God. Here in Galatians is one of the few exceptions to that general trend – yet even here we see Paul put emphasis on the ‘family of believers’. Does this mean that Paul only had a secondary concern for those outside the church? I don’t think so. Rather I think that Paul knew that if we work hard at caring for those in the believing community when ‘we have opportunity’ then we will far more naturally care for those outside of the church when ‘we have opportunity’. The person who already doesn’t care within the believing community is never going to give a care for those outside. Similarly the person who’s always at work caring for the believers will naturally care for those outside too.

In this way I think the New Testament epistles presume we will be doing good and caring outside of the body if we’re already persevering in caring for those inside. With that taken into account we should be, along with Paul, urging the believers in our communities to really love and care for each other. Not only should we be urging but we should be modeling it too. If this mini-thesis is correct then the sooner we get at that the sooner we will get at actually caring for those outside and being instruments of transformation in the broader community.

Finishing Exams, the Gospel and Charles Wesley

I’m finished. And I feel so free! If you ever preach to a student congregation and you want to illustrate how the gospel frees us from sin there’s nothing better than using the example of completed exams – it reminds me of Charles Wesley’s words (I think it was him): ‘My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose went forth and followed thee’. Aaaaah…what a feeling!

How am I to Respond?

Dion has written a post on discouragement. In it he mentions that one of the things that has discouraged him recently is the response of the conservatives to Desmond Tutu’s statements earlier in the week (See Dion’s mention of those responses here). Now I am a conservative and I did respond to Tutu’s words. I don’t know if Dion had me in mind when he wrote those posts, I don’t even know if he read my post. He definitely didn’t mention me or my blog in either of his posts and so as I write this post I write it not in response to Dion, or even someone like Gus who commented on my post. I write rather as a kind of open question to anyone who is willing to propose an honest answer. Here is my dilemma/question:

I wish to know how I ought to respond to someone like Tutu when he makes the statements that he makes. I, along with many other evangelicals, believe that homosexual practice is sin in the eyes of God. I absolutely detest homophobia and hope that in my life and ministry it will be evident to all that I am as accepting of homosexuals as I am of anyone else on this planet. Yet I still stand with a prolific leader of the church in my country making statements that I am convinced to my core are not in accordance with Scripture. How should I respond? Do I ignore my convictions for the sake of a percieved unity when in my heart of hearts I know that God (if he truly has spoken by his scriptures) laments those statements of Tutu’s?

I desire to be beyond reproach in the way I use this blog as a mouth piece. I desire to be gracious and display humility at all times when interacting with those with whom I disagree. But I cannot ignore my convictions. So how should I respond?

Preaching Errors According to Manchester #4

Part #1

Part #2

Part #3

Here’s Simon Manchester’s final error – ‘Teaching beats learning’:

A final danger I would mention is the teaching-beats-learning syndrome. This is the style – often picked up by the pew more than the pulpit – that the message has had no effect on the communicator. When the word of God is passed from an unaffected preacher to some unaffected listeners, the result is unworthy of God and discouraging to people. We must cry to God to search us because if the word of God that is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16) does none of these things, who has the problem? There is an arrogance in some preaching that imagines that the preacher is ‘up there’ with the word of God, not ‘down there’ with the humble listener. To preach cold food every week (and not warm transforming food) is proof that something is wrong. May God help us.

I suppose this is the whole thing of preaching FOR change. It means hardcore personal wrestling with the text. In an allegorical sense, it means wrestling with the text until God blesses you through it (ala Jacob) and moves your heart by it so that others might be moved to change when you open it to them. I must admit that I have failed many times to wrestle sufficiently.

Manchester closes this section with the following words:

I write as someone on the road to a faithful sermon. I see some dangers and I see some answers. I have no lofty position on this, just a desire to escape from preaching errors and troubles, for the sake of changed lives and God’s honour.

Tutu Gay Rant

Today Desmond Tutu has had a go at the broader Anglican church for the amount of time and energy it is giving to the ‘gay’ issue – most notably in the States where this particular issue is tearing the Episcopal church apart. He was rather critical of Archbishop Rowan Williams for not displaying the attributes of a ‘welcoming God’. Tutu was adamant that he does not worship a homophobic God.

So what do I think? First off I should point out that I have often admired the stands that Tutu has taken on certain social issues even if I wouldn’t see eye to eye with him theologically. But this post is about theology. Now I’m glad he doesn’t worship a homophobic God, because neither do I. I do however worship a God who designed sexual intercourse for the confines of the marriage covenant between man and woman. Hence when men exchange sexual relationships with women for relationships with men (and vice versa) this God calls that ‘unnatural’. I worship a God who thinks that the practice of homosexuality is wrong and in rebellion to his created order. I worship a God who calls on his followers to turn from all rebellion and to be able to clearly identify what is and isn’t rebellion. I worship a God who calls on Christian leaders to call sin as it really is. I worship a God who is concerned about the purity of his church.

Am I a bigotted fundamentalist? Well before you make that judgment let me share some further beliefs of mine:

I believe that God calls me to love all people – that includes homosexuals. I believe God calls me to not judge those outside of the church. I believe that God detests homophobia which is as much a sin as homosexual practice. I believe that where I sin in my life in other ways those sins should be considered just as vile in the Lord’s sight as homosexual practice. I believe I have to be ever vigilant in my own life to guard myself against sin, and to repent when I stumble (which I do often). I believe that God offers freedom from the penalty of sin through his Son, Jesus Christ. I believe that the only way to truly reflect the attributes of a ‘welcoming God’ is by declaring the glorious Gospel of his son Jesus.

Archbishop Tutu makes this statement:  ”God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another” – I have no doubt that God weeps over many of the atrocities we commit against each other. I also have no doubt that the God of the Bible weeps over Tutu’s idea of a pure church.

NT Wright on Sola Scriptura

The following question was recently posed to NT Wright: How does the doctrine of sola Scriptura influence your work and your method?

This is his response:

Well, in terms of method, sola Scriptura is what I’ve always tried to do, basically. You could put it negatively… If you find yourself thinking down a track where you think, Oh, well, if I go there, that’ll mean ditching this bit of the Bible or that bit, then all sorts of warning lights flash and say, “You probably shouldn’t be going there!” It may be that you’ve misheard your own mind, as it were, and there may be a way through this because there are always puzzles that we hit, but basically, my aim has been to expound Scripture and to expound Scripture in such a way that I do not set one Scripture over against another.

However, I have to say, and my work on the authority of Scripture, which you probably know – a little book called The Last Word in America. Silly title, by the way. That was Harper’s folly to call it that. It wasn’t my idea. Fancy having a book called The Last Word! I mean… it’s very silly. If I was going to write a book called The Last Word it would be on Christology, not on Scripture. “In the last days, God has spoken to us by his Son…”

But I’ve been trying to stress that the risen Jesus does not say to the disciples, “All authority on heaven and earth is given to the books you chaps are going to go off and write.” He says, “All authority on heaven and earth is given to Me.” So that if we say that Scripture is authoritative, what we must actually mean is that the authority which is vested in Christ alone is mediated through Scripture.

That’s a more complicated thing than simply having a book on the shelf, full of right answers that you can go and look up. It’s more a way of saying that when we read Scripture and determine to live under it, we are actually saying we want to live under the sovereign lordship of Jesus mediated through this book.

When you say it like that, then all sorts of other things happen as a result, like what is the sovereign lordship of Jesus all about? Is it simply to fill our heads with right answers to difficult questions? Well, right answers to difficult questions are better than wrong answers to difficult questions. But no, the authority of Jesus Christ is there to transform and heal and save the world, to make the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. So the question then is, how does the authority of Scripture serve that purpose?. And that’s actually much more interesting than simply using Scripture to settle or raise indeed doctrinal disputes within the church.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Preaching Errors According to Manchester #3

Part #1

Part #2

Simon Manchester’s third error – ‘System beats Text’:

Even more common than this manner-over-matter preaching is the system-beats-text preaching. This is the widespread danger of dragging every text through the grid of one doctrine that ignores the point of the original passage. For example, one overseas preacher seems to put every passage through the ‘justification by faith’ grid. He is clever and insightful and searching – you’re on the psychiatrist’s couch in no time! – but there is this sa/bad taste left in your mouth that the biblical book was in the service of an idea. ‘Bible-combing’ preaching also has its systematic strengths but often seems to neglect each biblical writer’s specific point in favour of the biblical overview. For example, if Jesus is teaching on people in prison (Matt 25:31-46), it is dangerous to start collecting ‘prison’ references and miss the point in the passage that Jesus will one day announce those who took his ‘brothers’ seriously. Much better to stay with the text in hand until the main point is clear.

My own view, for its worth, is that this is the single biggest problem in preaching in our ‘Reformed’ camp. I’ve often heard of it referred to as ‘the dreaded sack of knowledge’. The need to systematize everything just hinders us from seeing the point of each individual text. If God wanted us to have a systematics text book he would have given us one – but he didn’t, he gave us a story. We might find that certain doctrines would be better nuanced if we tried to avoid this trap even when we’re doing systematic theology. We need to preach the text, not our systems.

South African Urban Ministry Blog

A number of readers from outside of South Africa have from time to time asked me about ministry conditions in South Africa, but being a college student my experiences and stories have been somewhat limited. However I’m always keen to point you to other places where you might get other insights into ministry in South Africa. And so it was with interest that I checked out a blog on urban ministry taking place right here in Cape Town. Rev. Thomas Scarborough is the pastor of an urban church in Cape Town and for the last few months he has been chronicling the day to day life of urban ministry in South Africa. He briefly contacted me through email and pointed me to the blog having discovered that I too share an interest in urban ministry. Go and have a look.

Who’s Behind You?

moar funny pictures

Come here often? Prt 2

This is a follow up on some thoughts i have had after posting previously on visitors in our churches.  In those posts it was helpful to look at church services from the actual view point of the visitor, instead of trying to guess what they might think and feel about coming to church.  One theme of the two posts that i picked up on was the desire for the visitor not to embarrass themselves!  That really got me thinking because some of the horror stories coming out of the article about “hugging churches” made me cringe…a lot…a lot.  So in a sense it seems that for many, visiting a church means being unseen and yet also feeling welcomed.  For some of the journalists who had a good experience it boiled down to a sensitive Christian community that did not ignore them but made them feel welcome.  Easy, right?  Not quite, as i said before there is no formula because we are dealing with people and as much as humans exhibit the characteristics of the legendary lemmings, we cannot predict how people will react when they come into our meetings.

 Yet, i think we need to start with what i mentioned earlier, sensitivity to the visitor. This is key as i think for many churches we may have fallen into the trap that we are not expectant of the visitor, particularly the sceptical visitor.  Maybe we have stopped asking friends, maybe we have stopped listening to the world’s questions, or maybe we see services as times for Christians and should in no way should cater for the visitor.  For the Christian? Yes, first and foremost it is a time for us as Jesus’ disciples to meet together, encourage one another, hear from God’s Word, prayer together and generally fellowship.  But, our scheduled meetings are not some mystical time where God’s people are meant to meet “behind closed doors” ignoring the outside world.  Paul says to the Corinthians that there will be outsiders in their midst (cf. Paul’s assumption of the presence of unbelievers in the congregation in 1 Cor 14) and so as a church who meets together we need to be sensitive to this fact. Here’s an example that i know got me every time when i first started going to church meetings.  For instance, the service leader may tell the congregation that later we will “hear the Word of God” from the “preacher” who will come up and explain the Bible.  Now, try and put yourself in the visitors shoes and imagine what they might think of language like that? This takes us back to a questions i had in the previous post; What then is the purpose of our meetings?

Paul has one goal for for the public gathering of believers: to build one another up.  As Christians do this in love, it becomes a massive witness to the outsider.  However, what ever we do in our meetings needs to be intelligible and helpful for the outsider in order for them to simply understand what is going on.  This seems pretty obvious…until you think through the various practices we have at our Church meetings that we understand, but for outsider is completely irrelevant. 

Which leads us to the question: how much should the outsider’s perspective shape the way we do our church services? (or do church as a whole?) Is it just an issue of the language we use? or does it go even further to mindsets?

Here’s my take for what it is worth: sensitivity means understanding that there will be outsiders in our midst.  The cultural and perspectival gap between the believers and non-believers will be massive, that gap needs to be lessened.  So yes, the outsider should have a definite say as to how we do our meetings in order to make it relevant, fresh and missional.  If it becomes a “locals” club for Christians with only their preferences then how are going to connect with the unbeliever?

Lets try and be sensitive to the outsider and purposeful in bringing them in!

Last Day…Ever!

Today is my last day of undergraduate theology lectures ever! I’ve been a registered undergraduate student for over 8 years now in various disciplines (for those of you in the States – we don’t have the MDiv. type degree here in South Africa – if you’ve got an undergraduate in something else and you want to train for the ministry you have to another undergraduate in theology). One more year of postgrad next year and then its time to stop collecting letters after my name and start working!

Why I don’t Stone People

A Friend of mine asked me to respond to the following piece of writing from the book ‘The End of Faith’ by Sam Harris:

…we must decide what it means to be a religious “moderate” in the twenty first century. Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern world…The first thing to observe about the moderates’ retreat from scriptural literalism is that it draws its inspiration not from scripture but from cultural developments that have rendered many of God’s utterances difficult to accept as written. In America, religious moderation is further enforced by the fact that most Christians and Jews do not read the Bible in its entirety and consequently have no idea just how vigorously the God of Abraham wants heresy expunged. One look at Deuteronomy reveals that he has something very specific in mind should you son or daughter return from yoga class advocating the worship of Krishna:

Deuteronomy 13:6-11
“6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9 You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.”

While the stoning of children has fallen out of fashion in this country, you will not hear a moderate Christian or Jew arguing for a “symbolic” reading of a passage of this sort. (In fact one seems to be explicitly blocked by God himself…

Deuteronomy 12:32 (New International Version)
32 See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.

The above passage is as canonical as any in the bible, and it is only by ignoring such barbarisms that the Good Book can be reconciled with life in the modern world. This is a problem for “moderation” in religion: it has nothing underwriting it other than the unacknowledged neglect of the divine law.’

So the question i pose is ‘are religious moderates either ignorant or deliberately ignoring certain parts of the bible?’
‘is being uninformed a requirement for being religious in the modern world?’

Here’s my initial reply:

Context, context, context!!!

The Bible is an unfolding narrative of redemptive history.
Those laws were given to a group of people who lived in a theocratic state governed solely by God through the Mosaic law and his manifest presence in the Tabernacle.

So here’s my answer as to why I don’t obey that specific command:
1. I don’t live in an earthly theocracy.
2. The NT makes it abundantly clear that Christ both fulfills the law (I take that to be in a prophetic sense) and frees us from obeying the law slavishly.
3. Hence I interpret all of the Mosaic law (613 commandments) through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
4. Those laws were given for judgment inside the covenant community. According to Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5 we are to continue this internal judgment by expelling those who claim to be believers but refuse to repent of blatant sin – I still keep this law.
5. That same passage in 1 Corinthians 5 tells us not to judge those outside the church – and so I won’t stone people outside for idolatry.
6. The Gospel of Christ now judges people, I proclaim the message thereby bringing judgment on all who hear and refuse to repent and install Christ as king – and BTW this judgment is a hell of a lot worse than simply being stoned! Excuse the pun.

I could probably come up with more – but that’s a start.

I am NOT a Christian moderate – I am a radical, Jesus has called me to die to self and become a servant to all – in some ways its easier to stone someone then really obey that command.