What does a life that bears witness to the gospel look like?
How would we have to live before people would ask us the reason for our hope?
These seem like crucial questions to me. I've heard so many sermon applications - and I dare say preached a few - which just don't appreciate the enormous difficulty here. Be honest and don't fiddle your expenses at work. Who do you think I'm working with, that this would set me apart in any way? Care for your family, love your spouse, be selfless, treat your kids well. Sounds good, but will just make me like 90% of the people I know. Folks are good, moral, decent - on the whole. They have their struggles and their moral failings, but I'm going to find it hard to outperform them morally - and if I do, how will that point to Jesus?
Should there perhaps be a fullness to the Christian life? That must be part of it. It must look different to do all the normal things of life but filled with the Holy Spirit. That's why I have taken to praying, every morning, that the Spirit might fill me, my family, the members of my church. The presence of God will inevitably make a difference, right? Of course, the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ; he will make our lives cruciform, self-sacrificial, in ways that are distinctly uncomfortable. But also, fullness. A life that doesn't wear out or get thin. There's something here about being able to see the beauty in everyday things. Might people not notice that?
But then I wonder whether we might not need a degree of emptiness as well?
Imagine you're walking through empty countryside. Coming over the brow of a hill, you see a tower - but a tower that is unlike anything you've ever seen before. At the ground floor, the walls seem barely to touch the earth. The first and second floors have only one wall each. At the third storey, a turret juts out improbably; is it even attached? And up and up it goes. Walking around the base of the tower looking up, it's hard to see how this works. How is this tower standing? And then more careful observation reveals that the tower is... twisted, somehow. As if it were built around something, something you can't see. Intrigued you investigate further, trying to trace out the shape of this apparently absent something. It seems to have a regularity to it; there is a curious solidity to the absence. And so the question changes, from 'how is this tower standing?' to 'what is holding this tower up?'
I wonder whether people ought not to be looking at us and wondering what is holding this life up? I wonder if our lives should be so built around the reality of the gospel that it is just impossible for anyone who doesn't take the active presence of Christ into account to see how or why we keep going.
That might mean deliberate emptiness. If we structure our lives as everyone else does - around family, career, home - how will they tell that we are sustained by Christ? If we just assume that we'll get married and have kids like everyone else; if we assume that it will be right to follow career wherever it leads; if we plan to keep on upgrading our homes much as everyone else does - why would anyone ask questions about a life like that? Where are we deliberately - and visibly - leaning into the reality of the Lord?
Was this perhaps why all those hermits fled into the desert? When it became easy to be a Christian, when the persecution stopped, when the simple act of believing stopped not making sense to unbelievers - then they started to deny themselves things which they themselves confessed to be entirely legitimate, in order to demonstrate that it was the Lord who upheld them. Where are the examples of that today?
I feel deeply privileged to have a number of friends who are seeking to live faithfully to Christ whilst wrestling with same-sex attraction. I think I see in them an example to us of what this life would look like. A life which foregoes some of the things which those around us imagine to be the very heart and meaning of life - to show that in fact the heart and meaning of life is Jesus. I feel rebuked by their example, to be honest. What have I given up for the Lord? Where are my dreams different from those who don't know him?
Where is my life so shaped around the gospel that it looks impossible from the outside?
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Vision, leadership, service
“There is such an emphasis on ‘vision’ that if you have issues with that then you are encouraged to leave."
As another evangelical leader is removed from positions of authority amid allegations of bullying and manipulation, these words from a former member of his church (reported in Christianity Today) seem to be really important. I don't know the ins and outs of this particular situation, but that one sentence seems to me to get to the heart of many of our leadership issues in evangelicalism.
What is leadership? Isn't it primarily setting out a vision, rallying people to that vision? But then might there not need to be some policing of the vision? How might we treat people who aren't 100% on board with the vision?
'Vision' in this sort of discourse so easily becomes short-hand for 'the leader's personal sense of calling'. And although we typically separate between 'beliefs' and 'vision' - although we would maintain that our unity is built on the truth of the gospel and not any particular vision statement - it seems from experience that there is no stopping 'vision' from gradually occupying the central place. After all, programme is driven by vision. What we do together is only indirectly motivated by the Word of God as testified in Holy Scripture; the vision mediates everything. And then the conflation between gospel and vision becomes inevitable, and if you don't quite agree with the leader's sense of vision you are anti-gospel.
"I am among you", said the Lord, "as one who serves." Maybe it would be helpful for us to reflect on those words, spoken at the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed. He was there amongst his disciples as one who serves. He is here amongst his people as one who serves. Can ministers of the Word be 'leaders', when the Word of God is amongst us as one who serves?
What is my job, if not to lead?
Isn't it just this: to serve the Word? In the sense of being a servant of the Word, and in the sense of being a server of the Word - that is what I am meant to be. As a servant of the Word, I must spend most of my time in the Scriptures, reading, reflecting, meditating - making sure I am hearing the Word. As a server of the Word, I must simply dish out that Word - in one to one conversations, from the pulpit, at the Table. If there are disagreements, discord, how do I react? By ministering the Word.
No vision statement necessary. No new and exciting ways of being (or worse, 'doing') church. Boring old ministry of the Word. Preach a little here, pray a little there. Dish out a little bread and wine. Look for the growth that comes slowly from God, look for the barely perceptible change that comes through grace.
I wonder whether the language of leadership just needs to disappear altogether amongst us.
What is leadership? Isn't it primarily setting out a vision, rallying people to that vision? But then might there not need to be some policing of the vision? How might we treat people who aren't 100% on board with the vision?
'Vision' in this sort of discourse so easily becomes short-hand for 'the leader's personal sense of calling'. And although we typically separate between 'beliefs' and 'vision' - although we would maintain that our unity is built on the truth of the gospel and not any particular vision statement - it seems from experience that there is no stopping 'vision' from gradually occupying the central place. After all, programme is driven by vision. What we do together is only indirectly motivated by the Word of God as testified in Holy Scripture; the vision mediates everything. And then the conflation between gospel and vision becomes inevitable, and if you don't quite agree with the leader's sense of vision you are anti-gospel.
"I am among you", said the Lord, "as one who serves." Maybe it would be helpful for us to reflect on those words, spoken at the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed. He was there amongst his disciples as one who serves. He is here amongst his people as one who serves. Can ministers of the Word be 'leaders', when the Word of God is amongst us as one who serves?
What is my job, if not to lead?
Isn't it just this: to serve the Word? In the sense of being a servant of the Word, and in the sense of being a server of the Word - that is what I am meant to be. As a servant of the Word, I must spend most of my time in the Scriptures, reading, reflecting, meditating - making sure I am hearing the Word. As a server of the Word, I must simply dish out that Word - in one to one conversations, from the pulpit, at the Table. If there are disagreements, discord, how do I react? By ministering the Word.
No vision statement necessary. No new and exciting ways of being (or worse, 'doing') church. Boring old ministry of the Word. Preach a little here, pray a little there. Dish out a little bread and wine. Look for the growth that comes slowly from God, look for the barely perceptible change that comes through grace.
I wonder whether the language of leadership just needs to disappear altogether amongst us.
Friday, February 07, 2020
Gospel, philosophies, cultures - disconnected thoughts
1. The only culture to which the gospel is bound is that of Israel, as that culture is created and witnessed through the Scriptures of the Old Testament. That the gospel is bound to this culture is no comment on the suitability of Israel per se, but relies on the fact that the Word of God has taken Jewish, Israelite flesh into personal union with himself in Christ Jesus. The pre-existence of Israel, before the coming of Christ, is already founded on his future incarnation. So the gospel is bound to the culture of Israel as expressed in the OT because God has bound that culture to himself in Christ.
2. No philosophical or cultural background other than OT Israel is inherently more suitable for receiving or expressing the gospel than another. The gospel has power to express itself in a variety of cultural and philosophical settings, but this power does not come from or depend on the cultural or philosophical milieu. The power is all in the gospel, in God's Word, to take conceptual, linguistic, and narrative worlds which are in themselves merely human (and therefore incapable of being vehicles for God's revelation) and use them to express divine truth. Or to put it another way, Jesus can speak many languages.
3. Every culture and philosophy - and I am not clear in my own mind whether this includes OT Israel or not! - has a tendency to distort the gospel. Maybe it's the tendency of classical philosophy towards freezing god; maybe it's the Hegelian tendency to bury god in the processes of history. Maybe it's the modernist assumption that salvation means progress; maybe its the postmodern assumption that salvation means individual liberation from all norms. Whatever it is, there is always a particular ditch, or several particular ditches, into which any cultural and philosophical framework threatens to drive the gospel. This does not prevent the Word of God from speaking into and even through those frameworks; nor does it imply that in all, or any, other respects those frameworks are inherently suitable for the gospel (see point 2 above). But we are not excused from trying to discern the weak points and the danger areas.
4. A philosophical or cultural framework can shift under prolonged 'pressure' from the gospel. Classical philosophical concepts, for example, end up being reshaped as Christian content is 'poured' into them. This can give the impression that here we have a 'Christian philosophy' or a 'Christian culture'. Better to say that we have a philosophy or culture which has been affected by Christianity, but which still in itself stands against the gospel and in need of constant correction.
5. Where the church has historically wrestled through particular theological issues using a conceptual and linguistic framework from the past, we may consider ourselves to be bound to their conclusions without being bound to that framework. For example, we may (and I think should) hold that the church made an irreversible decision and definition at the councils of Nicea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon; but we are also at liberty to express that same conclusion in a different philosophical framework, and indeed we may have an obligation to do so. In such cases, we can expect a degree of tough questioning as to whether we are really saying the same thing; and that is something to which we should be prepared to submit.
2. No philosophical or cultural background other than OT Israel is inherently more suitable for receiving or expressing the gospel than another. The gospel has power to express itself in a variety of cultural and philosophical settings, but this power does not come from or depend on the cultural or philosophical milieu. The power is all in the gospel, in God's Word, to take conceptual, linguistic, and narrative worlds which are in themselves merely human (and therefore incapable of being vehicles for God's revelation) and use them to express divine truth. Or to put it another way, Jesus can speak many languages.
3. Every culture and philosophy - and I am not clear in my own mind whether this includes OT Israel or not! - has a tendency to distort the gospel. Maybe it's the tendency of classical philosophy towards freezing god; maybe it's the Hegelian tendency to bury god in the processes of history. Maybe it's the modernist assumption that salvation means progress; maybe its the postmodern assumption that salvation means individual liberation from all norms. Whatever it is, there is always a particular ditch, or several particular ditches, into which any cultural and philosophical framework threatens to drive the gospel. This does not prevent the Word of God from speaking into and even through those frameworks; nor does it imply that in all, or any, other respects those frameworks are inherently suitable for the gospel (see point 2 above). But we are not excused from trying to discern the weak points and the danger areas.
4. A philosophical or cultural framework can shift under prolonged 'pressure' from the gospel. Classical philosophical concepts, for example, end up being reshaped as Christian content is 'poured' into them. This can give the impression that here we have a 'Christian philosophy' or a 'Christian culture'. Better to say that we have a philosophy or culture which has been affected by Christianity, but which still in itself stands against the gospel and in need of constant correction.
5. Where the church has historically wrestled through particular theological issues using a conceptual and linguistic framework from the past, we may consider ourselves to be bound to their conclusions without being bound to that framework. For example, we may (and I think should) hold that the church made an irreversible decision and definition at the councils of Nicea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon; but we are also at liberty to express that same conclusion in a different philosophical framework, and indeed we may have an obligation to do so. In such cases, we can expect a degree of tough questioning as to whether we are really saying the same thing; and that is something to which we should be prepared to submit.
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
Praying for God
Preaching from Ephesians 3 on Sunday, I was particularly struck by the things that the apostle Paul prays for:
Big asks!
But also asking for things which to an extent they already have. They're Christians, which means they have the Spirit, they know Christ by faith, they have some experience of God's love, God already dwells in them and amongst them. They have all this; but Paul prays it for them anyway. Because God is inexhaustibly rich, because the love of Christ is a vast ocean that can never be fully charted, because the Holy Spirit is a never-ceasing fountain of grace - therefore, Paul prays for them, that they might have and enjoy what they already have and enjoy, more and more, through and through.
And notice that what he wants for them is God. This is God's will: to give himself to his people. The God who lacks nothing, and is rather the source of all goodness, wants to give his presence, his power, his own self, to his people. It is only because the gift is God himself that Paul can pray knowing that there is always more for them to receive, no matter how much they have already. God in his infinite bounty desires to spend eternity demonstrating just how bottomless is his grace.
Can you have more of God? If not, I don't know what Paul is about here in this prayer. Yes, there is more. Always more.
And might we not ask for that? For God? Remember that the good Father always gives the Holy Spirit to his children who ask him. Here is a thing he has promised to give in response to prayer, and moreover it is the best thing - himself! - and a thing we will never have finished praying for because there is always more. And yet our prayer meetings, and I would guess our personal prayer times, are full of prayers for other things, uncertain goods, finite ends.
Might we not pray for God?
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.He asks that God would give his Holy Spirit, so that the believers might be strengthened in their spiritual innards; he asks that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. He asks that they might know the love of Christ in all its unknowable immensity; he asks that they may be filled up with God in all his overflowing fullness.
Big asks!
But also asking for things which to an extent they already have. They're Christians, which means they have the Spirit, they know Christ by faith, they have some experience of God's love, God already dwells in them and amongst them. They have all this; but Paul prays it for them anyway. Because God is inexhaustibly rich, because the love of Christ is a vast ocean that can never be fully charted, because the Holy Spirit is a never-ceasing fountain of grace - therefore, Paul prays for them, that they might have and enjoy what they already have and enjoy, more and more, through and through.
And notice that what he wants for them is God. This is God's will: to give himself to his people. The God who lacks nothing, and is rather the source of all goodness, wants to give his presence, his power, his own self, to his people. It is only because the gift is God himself that Paul can pray knowing that there is always more for them to receive, no matter how much they have already. God in his infinite bounty desires to spend eternity demonstrating just how bottomless is his grace.
Can you have more of God? If not, I don't know what Paul is about here in this prayer. Yes, there is more. Always more.
And might we not ask for that? For God? Remember that the good Father always gives the Holy Spirit to his children who ask him. Here is a thing he has promised to give in response to prayer, and moreover it is the best thing - himself! - and a thing we will never have finished praying for because there is always more. And yet our prayer meetings, and I would guess our personal prayer times, are full of prayers for other things, uncertain goods, finite ends.
Might we not pray for God?
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