Gospel means simply "good news." Many of us have probably been asked whether we believe the gospel. The better question would be do we live it. Let me explain.
I belong to a Christian tradition -- Presbyterian -- that has equated gospel with the watch words of the 16th Protestant Reformation, namely "justification by grace through faith." Those are good watch words. They are true. They are right out of Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome. But they don't equate with the gospel.
According to Jesus, the gospel is embodied in his words "The kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus says these words repeatedly right before very important things happen in the gospels of the New Testament. In other words, the kingdom is in and through him. The kingdom announced by Jesus is a new way of life, that looks and sounds and feels like the life Jesus lived.
Affirming theological truths has its place, but it's only one patch on the quilt. Living in the way of Jesus, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, is the quilt's border that gives meaning to each and every patch within the quilt.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The God of the Bible
If we are candid, there are depictions of God in the Bible that are troublesome. God comes off as tribal and militaristic in places, even violent. It is difficult to reconcile such depictions with the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
Brian McLaren, as well others, suggest that we understand less than savory depictions of God in scripture as particular ways in which our ancestor perceived God in their given time in geography and place in history.
In A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren writes: ". . . [H]uman beings can't do better than their very best at any given moment to communicate about God as they understand God, and the Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestor's best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment."
Peace.
Brian McLaren, as well others, suggest that we understand less than savory depictions of God in scripture as particular ways in which our ancestor perceived God in their given time in geography and place in history.
In A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren writes: ". . . [H]uman beings can't do better than their very best at any given moment to communicate about God as they understand God, and the Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestor's best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment."
Peace.
Monday, August 9, 2010
The Bible's Story Line, III
In the previous post I called attention to the predominant way in which the Bible has been read, namely as an account of a perfected creation marred by human sinfulness but rescued by God that resulted in salvation/heaven or damnation/hell.
In this post, I wish to suggest another reading, a reading articulated by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christianity.
According to McLaren, the biblical narrative is "a story of human foolishness and God's faithfulness, the human turn toward rebellion and God's turn toward reconciliation, the human intention toward evil and God's intention to overcome evil with good. It begins with God creating a good world, continues with human beings creating evil, and concludes with God creating good outcomes that overcome human evil."
In this post, I wish to suggest another reading, a reading articulated by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christianity.
According to McLaren, the biblical narrative is "a story of human foolishness and God's faithfulness, the human turn toward rebellion and God's turn toward reconciliation, the human intention toward evil and God's intention to overcome evil with good. It begins with God creating a good world, continues with human beings creating evil, and concludes with God creating good outcomes that overcome human evil."
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