Podcast Download: Episode 12 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 3
Download: Podcast Episode 12 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 3
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.
The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 3 - The Heart of it All - Jesus is Lord
All Christian movements involve at their spiritual ground zero a living encounter with the One True God "through whom all things came and through whom we live" (1 Cor 8:6). A god who in the very moment of redeeming us cleaims us as his own through Jesus our Savior. If we fail to apprehend this spiritual center and circumfrence of the Jesus movements, we can never fully understand them nor reinvoke the power that infused their lives and communities. Addison, in his exhaustive study of Christian movements, is right to conclude that they are maintained throughout by what he calls "white hot faith" brought about by a rediscovery of the place and importance of Jesus. -- p 84
So at the heart of all great movements is a recovery of a simple Christology (essential conceptions of who Jesus is and what he does), one that accurately reflects the Jesus of New Testament faith -- they are in a very literal sense Jesus movements. -- p 85-86
Freed from the philosophical density of the academy and from dependence on the professional cleric, the gospel becomes profoundly "sneezable." -- p 86
But in order to distill the message in our context, we need to once again appreciate its core, namely, that of the primary theme of the Bible: God's redemptive claim over our lives. -- p 86
As we have seen, the "gift" that persecution bestows on the people of God is the clarification of the central message of the church. -- p 86
One verse deals with the Israelites approach to God in the temple. The very next verse deals with what one does when one's donkey falls into a pit. The next might well deal with the mildew in the kitchen, the next with the female menstrual cycle. It seems to be radically discontinuous and generally lacks the sequential reason that we look for in a text. What is going on here? How can we comprehend the meaning of this?
There is actually a rather profound if somewhat nonlinear "logic" in the Torah, a logic that trains us to relate all aspects of life to God. The implications of folloing the Torah faithfully will be to connect all things in life directly to Yahweh, whether it be the mildew or the temple worship and everything in between. Therefore, everything -- one's work, one's domestic life, one's health, one's worship -- has significance to God. He is concerned with every aspect of the believer's life, not just the so-called spiritual dimensions.
While in the Western spiritual tradition we have tended to see the "religious" as one category of life among many (we even call nuns and monks the "religious"), the Hebrew mind has no such distinction about a purely "religious" existence but is concerned with all of life... All of life is sacred when it is placed in relationship to the living God. -- pp 90-91
By setting up a place we call "sacred" because of the lighting, the incense, and the religious feel, what are we thereby saying about the rest of life? Is it not sacred? We cannot escape the conclusion that by setting up so called sacred spaces we, by implication, make all else "not-sacred," thereby assigning a large aspect of life in a non-God or secular area. -- p 95
If we fail to do this, then whilst we might be confessing monotheists, we might end up practicing polytheists. Dualistic expressions of faith always result in practical polytheism. There will be different gods that rule the different spheres of our lives, and the God of the church in this view is largely impotent outside of the privatized religious sphere. -- p 97
What does all this practically mean for those seeking to recover Apostolic Genius in the life of the community of God? For one, it will involve (re)engaging directly the central confession of "Jesus is Lord" and attempting to reorient the church around this life-orienting claim. It will also mean simplifying our core messages, uncluttering our overly complex theologies, and thoroughly evaluating the tradtional templates that so shape our behaviors and dominate our consciousness. I ahve become absolutely convinced that it is Christology, and in particular the primitive, unencumbered Christology of the NT church, that lies at the heart of the renewal of the church at all times and in every age. -- p 99
posted by Brian at 2:54 PM
1 Comments:
This post has me thinking about something somewhat related. If we would develop different "characters" within the emerging story, what would the descriptions look like? [Perhaps someone has already done this, if so, that location would be insightful.]
In my mind there are two major categories of characters, the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders are those who consider themselves inside the emerging camp and who either embrace the movement or those who sympathetically question it.
The Outsiders are those who distance themselves from the emerging camp either intentionally or unintentionally. If intentionally, these Outsiders ridicule or criticize the emerging movement. But some Outsiders may not even be aware of the movement and therefore are on the outside as well.
A simple break-down:
Insiders: Embrace or Question
Outsiders: Ridicule/Criticize or Ignore
I would probably put myself in the Questioner category. I don't fully embrace the ideals, but I am in agreement with many of the underlying factors that drive the movement.
Where do you fit?
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