From Worship to Mission

“When the church is seen to move straight from worship of the God we see in Jesus to making a difference and effecting much-needed change in the real world; when it becomes clear that the people who feast at Jesus’s table are the ones in the forefront of work to eliminate hunger and famine; when people realize that those who pray for the Spirit to work in and through them in caring for those whose lives are damaged, bruised, and shamed, then it is not only natural to speak of Jesus himself and to encourage others to worship him for themselves and find out what belonging to his family is all about but it is also natural for people, however irreligious they may think of themselves as being, to recognize that something is going on that they want to be part of.” (Surprised by Hope, p. 267, N.T. Wright)

Wright on the Bible

It’s a big book, full of big stories with big characters. They have big ideas (not least about themselves) and make big mistakes. It’s about God and greed and grace; about life, lust, laughter, and loneliness. It’s about birth, beginnings, and betrayal; about siblings, squabbles, and sex; about power and prayer and prison and passion.

And that’s only Genesis.

-N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, p.173

Luther on Revelation

[T]hey are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it.

-Martin Luther

Fridays with Wright

The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it."

— N.T. Wright

Bread Breaking

If the bread-breaking is one of the key moments when the thin partition between heaven and earth becomes transparent, it is also one of the key moments when God’s future comes rushing into the present. Like the children of Israel still in the wilderness, tasting food which the spies had brought back from their secret trip to the Promised Land, in the bread-breaking we are tasting God’s new creation—the new creation whose prototype and origin is Jesus himself.

N.T. Wright - Simply Christian, p. 154

Communion: A Meal That is Symbolic

Most all modern evangelicals experience the Lord's Supper purely as a symbolic act in their church service. They eat a piece of bread and take a sip of grape juice or wine. But the first Christians had a fuller experience of the Lord's Supper as an embedded element of a total meal eaten together. The Lord's Supper was, after all, an adaption of the Passover meal, also an entire meal eaten in its fullness as a sacramental experience, not a solitary symbolic gesture. In a way, evangelicals have wrested the symbolic act of communion from its more incarnate image of a full meal. We have turned a meal that is symbolic into a symbol that is meal like. Why? Because word is more important to us than image. We tend to think that what is most important is the abstract idea not the concrete experience, so why not reduce the idea of communion to its simplest symbolic act? And thus we build a version of Christianity that is more modernist than biblical.

Brian Godawa: Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story & Imagination

New Birth

The new birth does not simply install a new "religious" program over the existing operating system. It installs a new operating system.

Peter Leithart, Against Christianity

Against the Seperation of Theology and Practice

Transformation of life, including social and political life, is not an "implication" of the gospel. That would suggest that the gospel is over "here," and that it has implications for life that are over "there." It would mean that the gospel is on the left hand, and that we can draw out the moral implications of the gospel on the right hand. This separation of "theology" and "practice" is common, but is not biblical.

Transformation of life is not an implication of the gospel, but inherent in the gospel, because the good news is about transformation of life.

We might be tempted to say that the message of the gospel is true, whether or not there are any apparent affects when it is preached. "Of course" we think, "we must make every effort to ensure that our lives are consistent with that truth, but even if we are inconsistent, it is still true." However, this kind of thinking is muddled at best. It reduces the gospel to a philosophical viewpoint, another belief system that is tested by logical coherence.

This is not an option Paul allowed. Paul did not agree that the gospel would be true even if no one lived out of the gospel. Paul's gospel had an empirical test built into it; if no one was transformed, then the message that announced the transformation could not possibly be true. The first and chief defense of the gospel, the first "letter of recommendation" is not an argument, but the life of the church conformed to Christ.

How Otherwordly Should We Be?

Another thought provoking blog by John H. Armstrong.

It seems to me that much of the emphasis of evangelicals on piety and Christian living is rooted in a false dichotomy, or dualism. Spirituality, at least the way I learned about it, meant to withdraw from the world. And devotional life, or quiet time as we call it, means to get my battery charged so I can function in the world without being overwhelmed by it. The image is much like that of a modern battery-powered car. You plug it in overnight and then it runs for so many miles during the day. If you want to go the distance you need to charge the batteries all the more, thus spend more time away from the world. There is almost an equation here: the more time you spend alone the further your car runs in the real world. I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard the quote from Luther that he had a busy day before him so he would spend “three hours in prayer” that morning. Honestly, that has created more than a fair share of guilt for me for a long time.

I have a quiet place where I pray. I even have a place to kneel and reminders to help me. I use books, written prayers, my Bible, etc. But I still find I run down. Does this mean I need more time charging the battery in my car?

Behind this view is the idea that “true” Christian living consists of so-called “spiritual moments.” The busyness of real life is anti-spiritual and drains me. Time alone charges me. This means that time with people, working in the world, etc. is a threat to my spiritual well-being.

Lesslie Newbigin called this view the “Pilgrim’s Progress Model.” The emphasis, as many of you know from Bunyan’s classic, is on a decisive break with the world and a flight away from the “wicked city.”

In this model to be saved means to be saved from this world; spirituality means other-worldliness. But there are two major problems here and these problems are missed by modern evangelicals very badly. It is docetic to its core. It is rooted in the idea that matter is evil and spirit is essentially good. It is also Monophysite since the Christ of this form of spirituality has only one nature, the divine. Both of these heretical impulses have far ranging impact on modern evangelical versions of spiritual growth and life. Lesslie Newbigin suggests that this model needs to be supplemented by the “Jonah Model” of spirituality. In this model fleeing from the city is not the emphasis but rather we are “sent” to the city by a God whose heart is for the city and all its turmoil. We are not, in other words, called to escape the world but to live in it and to love it.

David J. Bosch is correct when he concludes, “It is not a case of one model supplementing the other, for the two are absolutely indivisible. The involvement in this world should lead to a deepening of our relationship with and dependence on God, and the deepening of this relationship should lead to increasing involvement in the world” (A Spirituality of the Road, 13). Bosch suggested that Mother Teresa was a shining example of the indivisibility of these two models. By touching the poorest of the poor she was touching Christ and his body. Pouring out our love in our own context in the world is a prayer. We never stop doing one thing in order to do the other. Says Bosch, “Spirituality is all-pervading”

Those Perplexing Artifacts

If the story we tell is only the story of sinners whose souls are alienated from God, then preaching the gospel is nothing more, and nothing less, than urging people to put their faith in Jesus’ death on their behalf. Such a story has one conflict to resolve: the conflict of sin and guilt as it stands in the way of the relationship between God and humanity. And, if that is the extent of our story, we are left with a rather perplexing collection of Christian artifacts known as “the Gospels,” which do not actually contain much of the gospel at all.

Tuesday Humor

Many people want to serve God, but only as advisors.

What Inerrancy is Not

We all have seen many definitions of the inerrancy of scripture. But, sometimes it is just as important to explain what inerrancy is not. In The New Dictionary of Theology (IVP 1988) J.I. Packer gives a succinct one paragraph summary of all that inerrancy can mistakenly entail.

Some evangelicals who affirm that Scripture is infallible, never misinforming or misleading us, will not call it inerrant because they think that word tainted by association. They see it as committing its users to: 1. rationalistic apologetics that seek to base trust in the Bible on proof of its truth rather than on divine testimony to it; 2. a docetic view of Scripture that obscures its humanity; 3. unscholarly exegesis that lacks semantic soundness and historical precision; 4. unplausible harmonizing, and unscientific guesswork about textual corruption where inconsistencies seem to appear; 5. a theology preoccupied with peripheral details and thus distracted from Christ, who is the Bible’s focal centre. (338)

I would hope that all who hold to some definition of inerrancy can say amen to this caveat. But, why is it that most people I know who affirm inerrancy fall into one of one or more of the categories listed by Packer?

Paul as an Ambassador for the New King

Paul’s missionary work must be conceived not simply in terms of a traveling evangelist offering people a new religious experience, but of an ambassador for a king-in-waiting, establishing cells of people loyal to this new king, and ordering their lives according to his story, his symbols, and his praxis, and their minds according to his truth.

N.T. Wright

The Church Proclaims and Performs the Gospel

The key question for communities that embrace the gospel is this: Does our church practice what it preaches? Do we perform “grace”? Whether we like it or not – and the truth is often hard to bear – it is the life of the church that truly manifests (or fundamentally denies) the gospel we embrace. Scot McKnight sums it up well:

A church always performs the gospel it proclaims because its performance is its proclamation. If you look at a church and what it does and how it operates you will see the gospel of that church. The important point to make here is that the deepest indicator of that church’s gospel cannot be limited to the pastor’s sermons, or the Sunday school teachers’ teaching, or the doctrinal statement’s affirmations, or the summer camp offerings, or the aesthetic expressions. The sure indicator of the gospel in a local community is how those Christians live.

Because the church both proclaims and performs the gospel, the goal of church life is “the formation of a community that embodies the gospel” To accomplish this, the church must inhabit the story of grace that unfolds in the sacred Scriptures.

Jesus: One Scene in a Larger Story

Jesus as we meet him on the pages of the Gospels is not living out a self-contained story, but is acting out a final, climactic scene in the on-going drama of Israel that stretches back to creation itself.

In Paul’s letters as well, the story of the church is only intelligible as the continuation of the story of Israel. Paul is not merely making arguments, he is narrating the story of Israel with his gentile churches as full participants in the story. Paul is a narrative theologian, striving to help his Jesus-following churches understand a new past, present, and future that are all-determinative for their identity now that they are followers of Jesus. To understand who they are in Christ, Paul’s gentile churches no less than we ourselves required a comprehensive reframing of their story, what Richard Hays refers to as a “conversion of the imagination."

The Lens Through Which We Read the Bible

Our worldview affects how we read the Bible as much as the Bible affects our worldview. In fact, I’d say that how we interpret the Bible (or how we “pick and choose”) says as much about us as it says about God.

The Eight Marks of a Robust Gospel

Our problems are not small. The most cursory glance at the newspaper will remind us of global crises like AIDS, local catastrophes of senseless violence, family failures, ecological threats, and church skirmishes. These problems resist easy solutions. They are robust—powerful, pervasive, and systemic.

Do we have a gospel big enough for these problems? Do we have the confidence to declare that these robust problems, all of which begin with sin against God and then creep into the world like cancer, have been conquered by a robust gospel? When I read the Gospels, I see a Lion of Judah who roared with a kingdom gospel that challenged both Israel's and Rome's mighty men, gathered up the sick and dying and made them whole, and united the purity-obsessed "clean" and the shame-laden "unclean" around one table. When I read the apostle Paul, I see a man who carried a gospel that he believed could save as well as unite Gentiles and barbarians with Abraham's sacred descendants. I do not think their gospel was too small.

I sometimes worry we have settled for a little gospel, a miniaturized version that cannot address the robust problems of our world. But as close to us as the pages of a nearby Bible, we can find the Bible's robust gospel, a gospel that is much bigger than many of us have dared to believe:

The gospel is the story of the work of the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) to completely restore broken image-bearers (Gen. 1:26–27) in the context of the community of faith (Israel, Kingdom, and Church) through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Pentecostal Spirit, to union with God and communion with others for the good of the world.

The gospel may be bigger than this description, but it is certainly not smaller. And as we declare this robust gospel in the face of our real, robust problems, we will rediscover just how different it is from the small gospel we sometimes have believed and proclaimed.

1. The robust gospel is a story. Jesus didn't drop out of the heavens one snowy night in Bethlehem to a world hushed for Advent. Instead, Jesus' birth came in the midst of a story with a beginning, a problem, and a lengthy history. When Jesus stood up to announce the "gospel of the kingdom" (Matt. 4:23), the first thing his hearers would have focused on was not the word gospel but the word kingdom—the climax of Israel's story and its yearning for the eternal messianic reign. Gospel-preaching for Jesus had the same hope and vision one finds in Mary's Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), Zechariah's Benedictus (1:68–79), Simeon's Nunc dimittis (2:29–32), and John the Baptist's summons to a new way of life (3:10–14)—namely, the fulfillment of the whole story's hope, the kingdom of God. This is why Paul defines gospel after its first mention in Romans 1:1 with this: "which he promised beforehand through his prophets, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David" (NRSV). To preach the gospel and to believe the gospel is to offer and enter into a story.

2. The robust gospel places transactions in the context of persons. When the gospel is reduced to a legal transaction shifting our guilt to Christ and Christ's righteousness to us, the gospel focuses too narrowly on a transaction and becomes too impersonal. We dare not deny transaction or what's called double imputation, but the gospel is more than the transactions of imputation. The robust gospel of the Bible is personal—it is about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. It is about you and me as persons encountering that personal, three-personed God.

Indeed, more often than not in the New Testament, the gospel is linked explicitly to a person. It is the "gospel of Christ" or the "gospel of God." Jesus calls people to lose their life "for my sake" and, to say the same thing differently, "for the sake of the gospel" (Mark 8:35; 10:29). Paul preached the "gospel of God" (1 Thess. 2:9) and the "gospel of Christ" (3:2) and "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim. 1:11). Paul tells us that the gospel is the glorious power of God's Spirit to transform broken image-bearers into the glory of God that can be seen in the face of the perfect image-bearer, Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18–4:6). In our proclamation, too, the focus of the gospel must be on God as person and our encountering that personal God in the face of Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit.

3. The robust gospel deals with a robust problem. Genesis 1–3 teaches us that humans are made in God's image and likeness. These image-bearers were in utter union with God, at home with themselves, in communion with one another, and in harmony with the world around them. When Eve, with her husband in tow, chose to eat of the wrong tree, the image was cracked in each of those four directions: God-alienation, self-shame, other-blame, and Eden-expulsion. Sin results not only in alienation from God, which is paramount, but also in shame of the self, blame and antagonism toward others, and banishment from the world as God made it to be.

The proportions of the biblical problem are not small; the problems are so robust that a robust gospel is needed. The rest of the Bible, from Genesis 4 to Revelation 22, is about these cracked image-bearers being restored to union with God, freed from shame, placed in communion with others, and offered to the world. Any gospel that does not expand the "problem" of Genesis 3 to these cosmic dimensions is not robust enough.

4. A robust gospel has a grand vision. The little gospel promises me personal salvation and eternal life. But the robust gospel doesn't stop there. It also promises a new society and a new creation. When Jesus stood up to read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue at Nazareth, then sat down and declared that this prophetic vision was now coming to pass through him, there was more than personal redemption at work. God's kingdom, the society where God's will is established and lived, was now officially at work in his followers. That society was overturning the injustices and exclusions of the empire and establishing an inclusive and just alternative. We find this in Jesus' opening words (Luke 4:18–19), the Beatitudes (6:20–26), and in his response to John (Mark 7:22–23). This vision for a just society led to the radical practices of generosity and hospitality in the Jerusalem churches (Acts 2:42–47). Any gospel that is not announcing a new society at work in the world, what the apostle Paul called the church, is simply not a robust gospel.

5. A robust gospel includes the life of Jesus as well as his resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit alongside Good Friday. Paul said he preached "Christ crucified," but the crucified Christ Paul preached was an empty-cross Christ and an empty-grave Christ. That same gospel of Christ crucified was rooted in an incarnate life. And that same Christ crucified, after his 40 days of appearances and ascension, sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in order to empower his followers to become the church as a new creation.

If our only problem is individual guilt, the solution can be reduced to Good Friday. But as we acknowledge our problem in its true biblical proportions, we need more than Good Friday: we need Christmas as Incarnation, Good Friday as Substitution and Paradigm and the stripping of systemic powers from their illegitimate thrones, Easter as New Creation, and Pentecost as Empowerment. The robust gospel incorporates us into the life of Jesus Christ, into his death with us, for us, and instead of us, into the Resurrection that justifies and creates new life, and the Pentecostal Spirit that empowers us to live together, as image-bearers of God, in such a way that we glow with the glory of the blessed God.

6. A robust gospel demands not only faith but everything. Inherent in the robust, biblical view of the gospel is a view of faith that involves repentance, trust, surrender, commitment, and obedience. Paul warns of those who do not "obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 1:8). Paul can say that his intent in preaching the gospel is to bring about the "obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:5). Jesus' gospel can be found in Mark 1:14–15: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.' " And he called his disciples to surrender themselves to him in self-denial so they could follow him (Mark 8:34–38). A robust gospel summons each of us to respond in repentance, trust, surrender, commitment, and obedience. Indeed, whole-hearted response to God is what the Jesus Creed, the double commandment to love God and to love others, is all about (Mark 12:29–31). The robust gospel calls for a robust response of a robust person.

7. A robust gospel includes the robust Spirit of God. How often do we hear about the Spirit of God in our gospel preaching? To our shame, the Spirit has been defined out of the gospel. But notice these words from the New Testament's most notorious gospeler, Paul: "For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ" (Rom. 15:18–19). For Paul, the gospel, the power of God unto salvation (1:16), was also the "power of the Spirit of God." Again, "In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:13–14). Jesus, too, said, "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you" (Matt. 12:28). The gospel is animated by God's powerful Spirit, and its result is Spirit-empowerment for new living.

8. A robust gospel emerges from and leads others to the church. The little gospel creates individuals who volunteer to attend church on the basis of their preferences in worship, friendships, sermons, and programs. The robust gospel knows that God's work, from the very beginning, has revolved around three words: Israel, Kingdom, and Church. Again, the words of Paul make this abundantly clear: "In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Eph. 3:5–6). The mystery of the gospel is that Gentiles have become fellow heirs with Jews in the promise of Christ Jesus. The gospel's intent, in fact its substance, is the creation of God's new society with Jesus on the throne. The robust gospel emerges out of the church with good news and calls others into that same church.

For 13 years I have been teaching a survey of the Bible at North Park University. I eventually learned that we cannot skip from Genesis 3 to either John 3 or Romans 3. We cannot skip from the Fall to the Cross. God chose, instead of sending his Son to redeem Adam and Eve in Genesis 4, to wait. And what God did between the time of Adam and Eve and Jesus Christ was to work redemption in the form of community. The Old Testament is about Israel; the New Testament is about Jesus and the church. The Bible is about God's people, the community of faith. The church is not an institution that provides benefits for individual Christians so they can carry on their personal relationship with God until that church can no longer provide what they need. Instead, the church is the focus of God's redemptive work on earth in the present age.

So "joining the church" isn't an option for Christians. How often do we preach entering into the community of faith, the church, as inherent to what the gospel work of God is all about? The little gospel gives the new believer the choice about the local church; the robust biblical gospel offers the new believer the church along with its Lord. Because ultimately, only a redeemed community is robust enough to do justice to the problems we confront—and the gospel we proclaim.

My physician tells me that the way I live during this decade will shape the way I live in the next decade. Likewise, the way we preach the gospel in this decade will shape the church of the next. A more robust gospel now will mean a more robust church for the next generation.

Scot McKnight, The Christian Vision Project

The Church and Modernity

I was recently listening to a speaker at a Christian conference outline the dangers of post-modernity for the Church. He smugly concluded that the Church shouldn't be influenced by the philosophical systems or worldviews of our culture, but should "stick to the bible." Obviously, this well meaning brother didn't realize that the church has been shaped by modernity for so long that "biblical thought" isn't recognizable outside of this context. Our beliefs are so ingrained in the prevailing worldview that we are unaware how entrenched we really are.

Modernism was a worldview launched during the Enlightenment in the 1700s. From that time on we have been governed by reason, intelligence, and scientific orientation. Knowledge is king and people believe that through scientific discovery and reason they can know everything or at least figure it out. Modernism is marked by extreme confidence in human ability, respect of authority, clear rights and wrongs, and individual rights. Other hallmarks of modernism include:

• More education creates a moral society.
• We make decisions if they make logical sense.
• All knowledge is reachable with our minds.
• People can only trust what is proven through observation and experimentation.
• The needs of the individual supersede the needs of the community.
• Modernity deeply values security and protection.

These themes have affected the church in many ways:

• We understand Christianity through factual research, based on the unshakable foundation of absolute truth.
• Apologetics is a primary tool for evangelism. This tactic can be employed without any relational context.
• Christianity is about "Jesus and me." He is my "personal Lord and Savior." I accept him while everyone's head is bowed and I can raise my hand in private. Community involvement is optional because this is a personal decision.
• We come to Christ through a logical, measurable decision: "I decided to accept Jesus after hearing the facts and making the choice."
• The modern value of security is deeply rooted in minimizing risk, pulling our kids and families completely out of their cultural context, avoiding a missional lifestyle.

Sound familiar? Most churches uphold a modern worldview. And, because of their resistance to cultural influence, many still function with modern values in a society that no longer agrees with the basic tenets of that paradigm. And therein lies the problem. As the surrounding culture has undergone a transformation to post-modernity, we are increasingly communicating Christ in ways that do not make sense to our neighbors.

Churches that are effectively reaching our post-modern culture are doing so after re-thinking their methods of communication and the way they "do church." Some examples of the adjustments churches are making in their thinking include:

• Scripture is applied in the context of the needs of the community.
• Relationships are of utmost importance.
• Post-moderns more frequently seek God in community rather than alone. They might belong before they believe.
• Discipleship occurs over years in community and not in a classroom.
• Authenticity is everything. The appearance of being slick, packaged, or overproduced is suspect.
• Evangelism no longer emphasizes the rational linear decision an individual makes at a specific point. It is a process, a journey, a story.
• Postmoderns guard against consumerism and its effect on church.
• How genuinely a church engages relief work and the care of the poor is everything to a postmodern.

In order to make this shift, churches must first realize that what they think is the "biblical way" of communicating, is really modernism. Only then will they be free to communicate Jesus to our culture in ways they will understand.

Worldviews

It's not that I don't believe there is a valid Biblical Worldview. I'm just skeptical of most everything I've seen that is called a "biblical worldview." More often than not, what is proffered as "biblical" is merely someone's personal worldview with some bible verses attached. Take the latest version to sweep American churches, "The Truth Project." Although there were certainly parts of it that were very good, it was very hard to distinguish the worldview it presented from the platform of the Republican party.

The question we have to wrestle with when it comes to worldviews is why the "biblical" worldview of a Christian who is a Democrat (emphasizing social justice and creation care) can differ so much with the "biblical" view of a Christian who is a Republican. Would the "biblical" worldview of a Christian in Uganda look the same as a Christian in the U.S.? How about a believer in the 14th century? If the answer to each of these is "no", we need to think through how, and in what way, any of these can be considered "biblical."

What I have found is that most of the views expounded with the adjective "biblical", such as biblical communication, biblical counseling, biblical dating, and biblical finance, are merely the views of a particular author or group pushing their own agenda. Calling their views "biblical" is not only an attempt to legitimize the view, but also inadvertantly implies that embracing the bible as truth requires embracing one interpretation of it.

Maybe there is a biblical worldview. However, it is so difficult to keep our cultural, ethnic and political biases from influencing the formulation of such a view, that we will never have one that all Christians agree upon.

Sola Scriptura

As naturalism continues to attack the very foundations of the Christian faith, we need to draw a clear line in the sand. Christian apologists have been great at defending the faith in some areas, such as creation, but weak in many others. This has allowed the scientific worldview of our society to make huge inroads into our thinking in modern times. Let me give you two examples.

The first example is in regards to our cosmology. If we truly believe in Sola Scriptura then we will also reject the modern scientific idea that the earth revolves around the sun. If Scripture is our sole authority regarding all things, including the cosmos, we need to return to the Scriptural view that clearly says that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. (Ecclesiastes
1:5)

yet their voice goes out through the eart, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamberand like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat. (Psalms 19:4-6)

On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon." and the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengence on their enemies. Is it not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. (Joshua 10:12-13

The Scriptural teaching that the Sun revolved around the earth was universally believed by Christians until the 16th Century when scientists put forward the theory of a heliocentric universe. The church, led by Luther, Calvin and others vigorously fought this new view as contrary to the clear teachings of Scripture. Unfortunately, the church eventually gave in to the consensus of the scientists, not because they found new evidenced in Scripture, but merely due to man’s wisdom. If our only information about the Cosmos is from Scripture, there is no other view than geocentrism.

The second example concerns physiology. Modern science has conditioned us to believe that our thinking processes occur in our brain. Yet, God makes it very clear in Scripture that thinking occurs in our kidneys and intestines. Whenever you see the modern English translation “mind” in the Old Testament, the word being translated is either kidneys or other internal organ.

I the Lord test the kidneys (mind) and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings. (Jeremiah 17:10)

Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and kidneys (mind). (Psalms 26:2)

This is also evident even in the very last book of the Bible. In Revelation 2:23, Jesus said:

And all the churches will kjnow that I am the one who searches kidneys (mind) and hearts, and will give to each of you as your works deserve.

The only reason we believe that the brain is where our thoughts occur is due to modern science. However, when God clearly says otherwise, we need to reject man’s wisdom and affirm what Scripture says. Our mind is our kidneys, and not the brain.

If we say we believe in Sola Scriptura, we need to mean it and reject any views that contradict God’s Word.

The Bible and Taxes

So, what percentage of the income of an Old Testament believer was taken from his pocket in by way of direct taxes and how much by indirect taxes? Most Christians would answer 10%, since that is what has been preached from pulpits for several generations. But, is that actually the case? Various scholars from a variety of theological backgrounds have tried, at different times, to calculate what the actual expected rate of giving was. After taking everything into consideration, the result is a tax rate in the range of 25 to 40%. Here is how they arrived at this figure.

10% was the Temple tax. Additional fees were charged for the firstborn, for special offerings, etc.
The religious requirement that the corners of your field not be harvested but rather left for the poor was itself a type of tax.

The first-fruits of the year was in addition to the 10%. The law enjoined that no fruit was to be gathered from newly-planted fruit-trees for the first three years, and that the first-fruits of the fourth year were to be consecrated to the Lord (Lev. 19:23-25). The first animal to break out of the womb of each of your animals was also to be offered to the Lord, so you “lost” that income. According to Jewish law, the corners of fields, wild areas, left-overs after harvesting (gleanings), and unowned crops were not subjected to (and could not be used as) the tithe of First Fruits. The first-fruits offering had to come from your regular crop.

I am sure that I have missed some “charges,” but the faithful Old Testament believer was taxed well beyond 10%.

Then the King would add his tax, which sometimes included both forced labor in times of peace and a form of the draft in times of war. According to the Book of Samuel, the King’s tax was an additional 10%, and those were not the only taxes levied. These taxes were in the form of both direct and indirect taxes. Here is a quote on that type of tax:

Indirect Taxes: These indirect taxes were of various types, such as custom duties or sales taxes. An excise tax on articles consumed was called “belo” in Hebrew, and a road toll or customs tax was termed “halakh.” In Ezra 4:20, these indirect taxes are termed “tribute” and “duty” respectively in the modern English version. Other words used in various places in the Old Testament were “mas” (forced labor) [I Kings 5:13; v. 27, Hebrew text], “massa” (burden) [II Chronicles 17:11], “mekhes” (measure) [Numbers 31:25-31], and “middah” (tribute) [Ezra 4:20]. These numerous terms were perhaps necessary because the Hebrew language had no general word corresponding to the English word “tax” [Orr, 1956, p. 2918].

In both the Old Testament (Joshua, Nehemiah, etc.) a per head poll tax on males is mentioned, as well as in the New Testament. Do you remember when Jesus, Peter, and the other disciples came to the city entrance and were asked whether they paid the Temple tax on people? That was a poll tax and Jesus sent Peter out to catch a fish, in whose mouth the coin required to pay that tax was found. This is a direct tax. Caesar is also recorded in Scripture as levying his own head tax on people which was different from the Temple poll tax..

Scripture expected additional free-will offerings on top of what I have enumerated thus far. However, I am not counting these since these were to be freely given.

So, next time someone tells you about how ancient Israel made the country run on only 10%, do not believe him/her.

What Would St. Augustine Say to Today's Young Earth Creationists?

St. Augustine, a church father of the 4th Century, is considered one of the greatest Christian theologians of all time. He spent many years of his life studying Genesis and puzzling over the meaning of the first two chapters. His advice to believers then, is just as appropriate for Christians today.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

We would do well to heed his advice today.

Christians and Good Works

Which is worse? The many Christians who believe that good works are necessary for salvation? Or the multitude who believe holy living is optional as long as they prayed the sinner's prayer and believe the right things?

Authentic Community

Every human wish or dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Parables Are Not Just Stories

Parables sometimes get a bum rap. For too many and for too long Christians have read the parables as illustrations of propositions found more clearly in other texts. So, it is argued, Jesus gives a parable about the pearl of great price -- a parable that seemingly tells his followers to give it all up for the value of that pearl. The story, so it is understood, is almost cute and surely it is clever, but if you want the real stuff, go to Luke 9:57-62 where Jesus tells people point-blank to follow him regardless of the cost.

In other word, parables are "just" stories. Just illustrations. The real stuff can be found in more didactic passages.

Not so. And this approach to parables is a serious blunder. Jesus told parable after parable, and the parables are not just illustrations. Parables are fictional stories depicting an alternative world. The essence of his parables probe into this mindset he wants from his followers: Imagine a world like this. The story, the parable, takes you into its world where you will encounter a short or a little longer sketch of a reality, of a world, of what the world could be -- if people were to live like this. The parable invites you into an imagined world.

In other words, perhaps the propositional statements of Jesus, like Luke 9:57-62, are the bare bones and the parables put flesh and bones and real world life on that outlined set of statements.

Hence a new series beginning today: Imagine a world (like this). If we have eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind to imagine, when we get into the world of Jesus' individual parables, we will be challenged to live in a world that is only beginning to come into existence in this world. That world is called "kingdom of God."
You know what it's like to enter into the fictional world of a novel, say To Kill a Mockingbird or The Help. Two things happen: you are engrossed by that world and that world engrosses you. You enter, it changes the one who enters, and you re-enter the world a new person with a new vision of what life can be.

Who's not had that happen by reading a novel or entering into the fictional world of a move or a song?

That's what happens in the parables of Jesus. We enter into the storied world of Jesus, we see the world through that story, and we come away with a new vision of what might be ... and we begin to live it out.

The secret to Jesus' "imagine a world" stories are that they are short and they do their work in a just a few lines. So we have to listen carefully and we have to imagine deeply. When we do, we come in touch with God's kingdom. We come in touch with Jesus. We come away changed.

Scot McKnight

Eleven Reasons Why the Reformed Theologian Did Not Cross the Road

11. A woman already crossed. We don’t follow women.

10. We don’t believe the road is safe. It wasn’t built between 1500-1700 A.D.

9. We believe that “road crossing” ceased with the death of the last Apostle or the completion of the New Testament.

8. The crossing guard was only helping people cross from one side to the other, so we are suspicious. Is this a denial of double pre-destination?

7. Neither Romans 9 or John 6 say anything about crossing roads. Therefore, it is unbiblical.

6. The “Walk” sign was gender neutral. It made us mad.

5. The road was called Tiber Ave.

4. John Wesley said that God’s prevenient grace would pave the way, but we have to take the steps ourselves. What a load!

3. We were not elected to cross before the foundation of the road.

2. Piper said that God is most glorified when we are most satisfied on our side of the road.

1. The pub is on this side of the road.

Another Gem from N.T. Wright: The Summons of the Gospel

Brian over at Near Emmaus has posted another gem from the writings of N.T. Wright:

The death and resurrection of the Messiah are, for Paul, the turning-point of history—Israel’s history, the world’s history, even (if we can speak like this, not least in the light of the incarnation of Jesus) God’s history. The gospel message, the proclamation of Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord, summons men, women and children –and, in a manner, the whole creation (see Colossians 1:23)! –to discover in Jesus, and in his messianic death for sins and new life to launch God’s new creation, the fulfillment of the single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world, the purpose through which, as a single act with a single act with a single meaning, sins are forgiven and people of every race are called into God’s single family. (Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, p. 106, emphasis added)

Love him or hate him, but N.T. Wright articulates the general move of redemptive history unlike any other contemporary author out there .

He gets it!

How Do I Discover My Spiritual Gift?

The question about discerning particular spiritual gifts is one I hear all the time. There are numerous "tests" you can take that purport to tell you what your gift is. However, I think these tests are generally a waste of time for two reasons. First, I think the lists of the gifts in scripture are representative, not exhaustive. Consequently, any spiritual gifts inventory will be limiting.

Second, once we have the "answer" from the test (”I have the gift of ___________.”), it will limit how, where and when we serve. For example, I may have the gift of administration, but that is not the limits of my service. Can you imagine if we were breaking down after a church potluck and other were moving tables and chairs, then asked me to assist them, but I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m THE administrator! That’s my spiritual gift; I don’t do tables and chairs.” That would not be Christian; it would not be helpful; and I would not blame the guys throwing a few chairs in my direction.

The best way to find your spiritual gift is not to take a test, but to find a place to serve. How?

1. First, find out what help the body needs. What are the needs of any body? There are, of course, word ministry needs (preaching, teaching, etc. – Ephesians 4:11). There are also serving needs: widows, orphans, elderly, parents, children, single mothers, etc. (1 Peter 4:10-11). Ask the leadership of your church to find out what specific needs exist.

2. Once you see and begin to understand the needs of the body, PRAY! Pray for the particular needs of the body (Ask the leadership how you can join them in praying for the needs of the body). Pray that the Lord of the harvest would raise up laborers. Pray that the leadership of the body would have wisdom in guiding these ministries. Then, ASK the Lord if He is calling you to serve in one of those areas.

3. Ask yourself, “What do I enjoy doing?” Why do we think that doing the Lord’s will has to be miserable? If the Spirit has gifted us, and if we are growing in grace, then we will enjoy serving the Lord and the body with these particular gifts. However, there may be areas of need that you may not be thrilled about (i.e., nursery) but that are important needs. The Lord may also have equipped you with certain capacities (i.e., accounting) that would serve the body well but which you may be reluctant to use because that is what you do all day, every day. Serve the body! Normally, it will be a delight!

4. Seek godly counsel – from elders (leaders), mentors, small group leaders, etc. Mature Christians with whom you spend much time will be observing you and caring for you. They will be a valuable asset in either confirming or denying whether or not you have particular gifts in certain areas. Listen to them wisely.

5. Serve! Don’t just sit there, do something! Each of us is gifted for the common good; therefore, let us use our gifts (1 Peter 4:10-11). We don’t have to wait until we have discovered our gifts to serve. Serve the church! As you are serving, you may even discover that you really enjoy it; the leaders in your church may confirm what they see; and you will have discovered one of the areas where the Spirit has equipped you to build up the body in love. Imagine that! You discovered your gift(s) while serving. Don’t just sit there, do something! May the Lord deliver us from consumerism!

Loving My Invisible Neighbor

It’s easy for me to love my neighbor. It’s easy, that is, as long as my neighbor is invisible.

By that I mean to ask, have you noticed how abstract and ethereal so much of our Christian rhetoric is on virtually every topic?

Some Christians rattle on and on about “The Family” while neglecting their kids. Some Christians “fight” for “social justice” by “raising consciousness” about “The Poor” while judging their friends on how trendy their clothes are. Some Christians pontificate about “The Church” while rolling their eyes at the people in their actual congregations. Some Christians are dogmatic about “The Truth” while they’re self-deceived about their own slavery to sin.

I think that’s a tendency for most of us, in some way or another. We affirm all the right things, whether in Christian doctrine or Christian practice, even fight with one another about them. But it’s all just up there in the abstract. These things are “issues,” not persons.

“The Family” never shows up unexpected for Thanksgiving or criticizes your spouse or spills chocolate milk all over your carpet; only real families can do that. “The Poor” don’t show up drunk for the job interview you’ve scheduled or spend the money you’ve given them on lottery tickets or tell you they hate you; only real poor people can do that. “The Church” never votes down my position in a congregational business meeting or puts on an embarrassingly bad Easter musical or asks me to help clean toilets for Vacation Bible School next week; only real churches can do that. “The Truth” never overturns my ideas and expectations; only the revelation of God in Christ does that.

As long as “The Family” or “The Poor” or “The Church” or “The Truth” are abstract concepts, as long as my interaction is as distant as an argument or as policy, then they can be whoever I want them to be.

The Spirit warns us about this. Jesus lit into the Pharisees for “fighting for” the Law of God while ignoring their financial obligations to their parents, all under the guise of their religious advocacy (Mark 7:10-12).

And James, particularly, shows us the difference between “fighting” for a cause, and loving people. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15-16). “Be warmed and filled” is advocacy; “get in here” is love.

If our love is for invisible people, is it any wonder they’re dismissing an incredible gospel?


Russell Moore

Do Christians Need the Church?

I have spoken with many people who believe they are true Christians, and yet they see no need for the church. Once I probe a little deeper into their understanding of salvation. I find a truncated view of redemption that is highly individualistic (It's all about me and Jesus!")and often centered on the benefits of a heavenly afterlife (I've prayed the prayer and have my ticket to heaven.")

But once I analyze the gospel presentations that these people heard, I can hardly fault them. The disciples we produce are a direct result of the gospel we preach. If we proclaim a gospel that focuses only on the private experience of the individual and the heavenly benefits for the next life, we should not be surprised to see people dismissing the importance of good works in this life within the context of the church.

Never Read a Bible Verse

If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I’ve ever learned as a Christian?

Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That’s right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph at least.

Greg Koukl

Is It Time for a Moratorium on Missions from the West?

With every church on "every corner" USA sending their own missionaries out into the world, it is no wonder we have created problems. Consider the following perspective of a Christian on the ground in Kenya.

In the mythology of North American fundamentalism and Western Evangelicalism, we missionaries are the heroes. We've given up our comfortable lives and left family and friends and offered ourselves to bring the light of the gospel to benighted peoples across the globe. We of the missionary slide show/now powerpoint presentation, we of the missionary letters telling stories of our triumphs and sorrows, we of the frenetic furlough spent going from church to church giving our spiel and hoping that congregations and individuals will sign up and be on our financial support team. We have our special anecdotes that always produce the appropriate laugh or outburst of disgust. We always seem to be teetering on the brink of some ministry-threatening catastrophe, skillfully presented to elicit yet more prayer support. People regularly marvel at how we could have taken our children from here (land of milk and honey) and raised them there (the dangerous howling wilderness) and are astonished when they discover that our teenagers can carry on a meaningful conversation with adults.

And yes, in God's providence, he has seen fit to use a rather motley crew of men and women to communicate 'the gospel' in many if not most of the needy contexts of the world. But a case can be made (and indeed has been made at different times in the past fifty years) that while we missionaries have accomplished a lot that is 'good', the unintended consequences of the well-intentioned mistakes may actually be the undoing of meaningful Christianity in the lands that are trumpeted as our greatest success stories.

Let me acknowledge here that when, in Jesus' eyes, 'even a cup of cold water will do', the amount of mercy and compassion shown in missionary-founded and staffed clinics around the globe makes outside intervention more than worth it no matter how great the cost. The same for various relief programs and responses to the disasters that are always happening somewhere. As long as there is poverty, sickness, war, environmental depredation, etc, there will be opportunities for Christians to do what historically has always shown them at their best, that is, help the needy. If one has ever been a war refugee or lost everything in a disaster, than this sort of mercy and help makes a huge difference and an even bigger impression.

But we Western Christians have been less successful in our 'evangelism' and 'church planting.' More often than not, we have taken our own experience as the norm and sought to reproduce what we know in the context of the 'mission field' to which we have been sent. So if we have grown up in a church where 'salvation' comes when one responds to an altar call and accepts Jesus as one's personal savior and is thus 'saved', then is it surprising that we 'plant' 'churches' that impose as a necessity our own saving drama onto the experience of others. Never mind that 'personal savior' is meaningless in the new context, as is an 'altar call'. Not only that, but if we grew up thinking that Calvinists were devil's spawn (or that Calvinists really were the chosen and that Arminians were gospel-nullifying deceivers), or that teetotaling was the only real Christian stance with respect to alcohol, or that the pope, if not antichrist himself was at least his cousin, or that inerrancy is a fundamental Christian tenant or that one is not really a Christian if one hasn't been baptized by immersion as a believer, or fill in the blank with any manner of Western theological imports deemed necessary for the building of a God-pleasing church--in doing so we have succeeded in insisting on answers to questions that nobody 'over here' is really asking and assuming that our theological fights are the only fights worth fighting (never mind that no one here has any idea what the issue is all about!). The end result may be a local church that our sending organizations and supporters back home may be enthusiastic about, but it is a kind of Christianity that requires its converts to think like Westerners and then behave like Westerners before they can grasp the 'real' issues and make the 'right' decisions and thus become genuinely (according to Western standards) Christian. Now, multiply the number of local churches by the number of sending denominations or mission boards, each with their own 'doctrinal distinctives', and what one ends up with is a mess.

So whose 'gospel' are the poor benighted souls in my field of service supposed to believe? The Baptists? (Which of course begs the question 'Which sort of Baptist?') The Presbyterians? The Methodists? The Roman Catholics? The Eastern Orthodox? The Anglicans? The Africa Inland Church? The Pentecostals (all the way from the Swedish variety to the Joel Osteen wannabees)? This is the reality that almost never makes it back to the 'rev up the base' missions conferences or gets included in the 'onward to victory' newsletters.

We Western missionaries have all really meant well. I should know--I is one. But despite our best of intentions, one gets the impression that we have been our own worst enemy, sowing the seeds the ultimate undoing and destruction of the Christian enterprise here along with our noble efforts to 'sow the word'. We have ended up reproducing ourselves, and we refuse to acknowledge that that may not after all be a good thing. And now the crops we've sown are bearing their fruit. And we've got a bumper crop of different denominations, legalisms, health and prosperity entertainment centers. We've generated a lot of busyness, a lot of committees, a lot of 'ministry' programs, a lot of leadership training seminars, a lot of NGOs, a lot of 'support structures', a lot of theological education opportunities, a lot of church services (not to mention kept Toyota in business by buying a lot of land cruisers)--and to what end? Sadly most of us are so focused on our own little ministries that we neither notice nor care about the bigger picture.

A Kenyan friend of mine has just posted a litany of her own frustrations with us gospel do-gooders from the West that's well worth reading. If this is the best we can do, then, in my opinion, it's time to stop this madness and rethink the whole program. Perhaps a place to start is to realize that there is a bigger picture. Humility and repentance would help a lot, too.

Courtesy of William Black in his blog Onesimus Online.

What is the Gospel?

In this post we will look at the gospel as God’s work in the world for us vs. the gospel as what God has done for me. The latter I will call hyper-individualism, because that is exactly what it is. It operates, to borrow an image from Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, as if this world is a movie in which God has appointed me as the central actor (or actress). The former examines the work of God as a universal and cosmic thing in which we get to participate (to be sure as persons).

So, if we look at Romans 8:21 we see that it is the “creation itself” that also will be liberated; if we look at Col 1:15-20 we see that all things hang together in Christ and that Christ is to have the supremacy… and then we merely need to grab some images from Isaiah and tie these into Revelation to see that God’s work is designed to restore the cosmos into its perfected and intended order. The center of that concern of God’s work is humans, and that needs perhaps to be emphasized. But, still, the final visions include the cosmos.

So, let’s begin with the divine telos of it all: where everything finds its proper place before God. The gospel is the power of God to restore it all, it is the effective working power of God to restore it all, to make things new.

This is where we have to begin if we want to understand the gospel: we begin at the End. And, then we go right back to the beginning to see that God’s work was to take the swirling chaos and turn into pristine order (the “formlessness and void” was ordered). Then we see the Created Order as it ought to be (Gen 1-2), and then the Fall when the chaos begins to creep back into the order. With these two bookends: Telos and Creation/Fall, we see that the gospel is designed to restore the mess made of it all by the Fall. This is the big picture of the gospel and we are summoned by God to take part in this process.

Hyper-individualism is the most selfish thing we can do with the gospel. To turn what God is doing in this world exclusively into what he is doing for me is to turn God upside down and stand ourselves up in God’s place. The gospel is not about me, but about what God is doing — and the “me” comes in as part of what God is doing. This difference is not a little matter.

The gospel is the staged drama of God’s work and we get to take part; God is the central character and, to quote someone more famous than Donald Miller, “all the world’s God’s stage” (well, I fudged a bit). Hyper-individualism casts God from the Cast and writes in our name at the top.

Scot McKnight, Embracing Grace

What is the Gospel? Where Do We Start?

I have been impressed of late with this thought: how people define the gospel is determined by where they start or, even more interesting, where they end up. Put slightly differently, what is the problem being resolved by the gospel?

It is common to begin, rather abruptly, with the Fall and to see humans as sinners in need of forgiveness. I do not dispute either that we are sinners or that we all need forgiveness. Sometimes, so it seems to me, our sin is understood as little more than a legal standing or a judicial sentence against us, and that means that forgiveness follows in line: it, too, is understood as little more than a standing or judicially.

But, both of these problems — how we understand sin and how we understand forgiveness — are created by beginning at the wrong place.

Instead of beginning the gospel story with the Fall, I am suggesting we begin with the Creation of humans, both male and female, as Eikons of God. That is, as made in the image of God (imago Dei). The gospel begins, and only begins, because humans are Eikons of God.

Instead of seeing humans first and foremost as sinners, we need to see them as Eikons of God, created to relate to God, to relate to others, and to govern the world as Eikons. The Fall affects each of the previous: our relation to God, our relation to others, and our relation to the world. Humans, then, are cracked Eikons. There is all the difference in the world in depicting humans as simply sinners and seeing sinfulness as the condition and behavior of a cracked Eikon. Humans sin, but their sin is the sin of an Eikon. They can’t be defined by their sin until they are seen as Eikons.

The gospel, when it begins with Creation, is God’s work to restore and undo and recreate (whichever image you might prefer) what we were designed by God to be and to do. To begin here means the gospel is about restoring Eikons rather than just forgiving sinners. This gospel is bigger and it is bigger because the human condition is bigger than a Fallen condition.

Now, one brief comment as I end this post today: sin itself is more than judicial failings and more than offense against the Law. Sin is the disruption of the relationship of loving God, loving others, and governing our world. Which means, the gospel is designed to heal our love for God, our love for others, and our relationship to the world.

Scott McKnight, Embracing Grace

Salvation v. Discipleship

From Embracing Grace by Scot McKnight

For a long time in my teaching career I have worked with these two terms (salvation vs. discipleship), especially when it came to the teachings of Jesus on ethics. It permits good discussion about both the gospel and “the bottom line.” I’ve given up these two terms as a template through which I process the NT message of the gospel and redemption, for a variety of reasons.

Here’s a question that really gets it going: “What do you have when you’ve got it?” That is, when it comes to the gospel and redemption and salvation, “what do you have when you’ve got it?” The answer to this question (either one, actually) drives home the issue. Here are some things you’ve “got”.

1. Forgiveness
2. Reconciliation
3. Justification
4. Redemption
5. Sanctification

Notice that these are the big time terms for the Protestant gospel. None of which, at least in emphasis, is a word of importance to Jesus’ own teachings. I do think he used “forgiveness” often enough to weaken my point some, but the simple fact is that sometimes forgiveness for Jesus means healing and sometimes it refers to the nation’s forgiveness. So, grant me the basic point. If you do, I’ll make this point:

If we define what we “get” in bigger terms, we suddenly land in a gospel that is big enough to encompass the whole Bible and the whole design of God for us and our world. It becomes the gospel of the kingdom.

What if we add these?

Reconciliation with others until it turns into justice
Reconciliation with others until it turns into love for others
Reconciliation with God until it turns into peace and love of God
Reconciliation with other believers until it turns into the Church
Reconciliation with others until it becomes community
Reconciliation with the world enough until it becomes governance
Reconciliation with others enough until it fights against systemic injustices.

I use “reconciliation” here because I think God’s work is primarily relational.
What if we defined the gospel then not so much by what we “get” but we are summoned to? That the summons of God is to join him in his restoring and redeeming work. That the reason for the gospel is transform us to be the Eikons he made us to be.
God embraces us with his embracing grace so we can learn to embrace ourselves as his Eikons and so we can embrace others and the world.

Then, but maybe only then, we’d not need to posit salvation over against discipleship.

Being Biblical and Relevant

"It is not too difficult to be biblical if you don't care about being relevant; it is not too difficult to be relevant if you don't care about being biblical. But if you want to be both biblical and relevant in your teaching, it is a very difficult task indeed."

Howard Hendricks

God Through Word and Image

The Bible is rich with images in its theological method and worship of God. It is filled with imagination and word pictures, overflowing with poetic language and sensate imagery, dominated by narrative or story. In contrast, modern theology's emphasis on systematic and scientific discourse places it in danger of not merely inadequacy, but a serious misunderstanding of God, for the structure and method of theology affects the content of theology. If the Bible communicates God and truth(theology) primarily through story, image, symbol and metaphor, then a theology that neglects those methods is not being strictly biblical in its method. A scientific approach to God will ultimately depersonalize God through analysis and redefine Christianity through philosophical abstraction rather than embodying God's personal presence through lived-out stories.

Brian Godawa, Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination

Thought for the Day

Many people want to serve God, but only as advisers.

Salvation Is Not About Us

The Four Spiritual Laws have been a popular evangelistic tool for many years. The first law is that "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." There are two potential problems with this statement. First, God's "wonderful plan" for Christians may include times of suffering and persecution whereby we become more conformed to the image of Christ.

A second problem is that this first law starts out by proclaiming what God has in store for us personally. The better, more biblical place to begin is to affirm that "God has a wonderful plan, period." Salvation is not primarily about God's plan for my life, but about God's renewal of everything. It is only within the vision of the glorious new world that God has promised that we find the strength to cope with the fact that God may have a very difficult plan for our lives.

If you have ever looked at the back side of a quilt or tapestry, you can see that there seems to be no overall pattern or design. The tapestry looks strange, without purpose or direction. But, once you turn it over, you see how the individual patterns make up something that is beautiful.

Our lives do not always seem wonderful. But rather than trying to see what wonderful plan God has for giving us our best life now, Christians trust that the picture God is painting will be beautiful, so we look to experiencing our best life later. God has as wonderful plan, and because of his grace, we are part of that plan.

Trevin Wax, Holy Subversion

Who And What Are Forming You?

A classic post by Michael Spencer about spiritual formation.

I’m not attracted to Catholicism, but I am very much attracted to the tradition of self-conscious, disciplined spiritual formation into a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is a great failing of our side of the church.

As much as we Protestants talk about being shaped by the Bible alone, most evangelicals are thoroughly formed and shaped by the communities where the Bible is handled, taught and practiced according to a “rule” or accepted authority, and by the media that supports and communicates the values of that community.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most appealing and positive aspects of Catholicism that it is self-conscious about its “rules” and authorities for spiritual formation. (Rule as in “way,” as in The Rule of Benedict.) It surely must be humorous to knowledgeable catholics to look at the various sects, denominations and varieties of evangelicalism and fundamentalism, all claiming to “just read the Bible.”

For a large portion of my recent evangelical journey, I have found myself wandering between three varieties of evangelicalism:

1) Southern Baptist fundamentalism
2) Evangelical Calvinism
3) Generic contemporary evangelical revivalism

All of these communities could be characterized as shaping the spiritualities of believers according to largely unwritten rules and authorities.

The closest thing you get to self-conscious spiritual formation among most evangelicals: Jabez, PDL, or an evangelism course. Or a cruise.

It’s occurred to me that at least two of these streams have done much to shape me in the belief that pursuing polemic argument is a primary expression of discipleship. I have been affected by this kind of spiritual “rule,” and when I step away from it, the effects are very obvious.

Lots of time is taken up in finding error, pointing out error, justifying the seriousness of the error (even if it is in a non-essential area), and responding to the error with the proper arrangement of Biblical material.

It’s amazing how many Christians conceive of almost the entirety of discipleship in terms of argumentation. This is seen in the pastoral models they choose, the books/blogs they write and the spiritual activities they value most (debate and classroom lecture.)

These largely unarticulated forms of spiritual formation can be seen in what is not important. I note with interest that one simply cannot say enough bad about most kinds of contemplative prayer, and any sort of silence among many of the reformed particularly. Any kind of intentional approach to spiritual formation, and any kind of intentional approach to discipleship (Dallas Willard, for example) is undertaken amidst a barrage of criticism. If the imagination is mentioned, all fire alarms are pulled and a search for Oprah Winfrey ensues.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.

The “fully formed” Christian in these traditions is not a person of silence, but of much talking, talking and more talking. Worship is lecture, a rally, or an emotion-centered event. The primary encounter with the Bible is exposition and lecture. Correcting theological error, moral error and ecclesiastical error is the main business of the church.

In other forms of evangelicalism spiritual formation is done under the guise of church growth and using ones “gifts” to grow the church. Or perhaps in the cause of righteous, upright living in the culture war. Again, the kinds of prayer, worship, community life and worship that are generated by these priorities are obvious to most observers, but largely invisible to the participants.

In all the years I was reading Merton’s spiritual direction writings, I can’t recall anything I would call polemic of any kind. He simply didn’t waste his life arguing with others. He read scripture constantly, but as the stuff of prayer, liturgy and meditation, not as the raw material for debate. He went through the “political years” when he was critical of his church for not living up to his standards of peacemaking and justice, but in the end it was the ancient life, the deep life of monastic rhythms that sustained Merton and made him a man and a monk. He worked on himself for a lifetime. Some will say because he didn’t believe in the reformation doctrine of justification. Perhaps. Maybe, however, the path of personal spiritual formation isn’t as instant, passive or automatic as we’ve been told.

I’m not holding Merton up as an ideal. Far from it. I’m simply saying that when one’s spirituality is formed by the pronouncements of pastors who are constantly chasing church growth, the culture war or the latest challenge to Calvinism, you are going to get one result, and when you go back to the sources, find the value of the ancient paths of formation, value silence, read, meditate, contemplate and seek to grow in love, you will get another result.

I can’t help but think there is an “internet Christian” spirituality as well. Formed by reading blogs. Expressing itself in writing. Concerned with all the perceptions of reality that run rampant on the net. I’m sure this isn’t a good thing either.

Spiritual formation happens in the real world. It’s not just reading, but it’s discussion and asking questions of those further down the road. It’s having leaders who are humble before the Word, and not leaders who take the word and become the pictures of arrogance. It’s seeing your sin in the light of holiness, not excusing your sin in the light of the latest crisis.

Much evangelical spirituality has become like fantasy baseball. We have our own league, our own team, our own statistics, our own insulated world in which all of this matters. We can give great speeches and write long posts (and I am the chief of sinners here) on what doesn’t matter much at all. These days, we don’t all get our 15 minutes of fame, but we can all worship a pastor, go to a winning church, opine on a blog, imagine our arguments are significant in the world.

Meanwhile, we start to look and act more like a fantasy league junky, and fewer and fewer people have any idea what we are talking about.

Here’s where I have come out on this:

Get the devotional books out. The old ones.

Read Peterson, and Nouwen, and Groeshel, and Bonhoeffer and Whitney. With a group of others who care about the same things.

Turn it all off for a couple of hours every day.

Find the silence.

Chew up, meditate over, digest the scriptures.

Repent of living in the community of unaware evangelicals who devalue spirituality and overvalue polemic, argument and debate.

Look for the sins that grow in this mess, and root them up.

Thought of the Day

Quit griping about your church; if it was perfect, you couldn't belong.

"Christian" Is More Than a Label

Take a look at this thought provoking video by Scott Lenke. He raises some interesting questions that we should be discussing.

Two Kinds of Christians

I am currently reading Holy Subversion by Trevin Wax. This book is an excellent look at how the lives of Christians should subvert the reigning idols in our society, instead of being subverted by our culture. The book is also full of great quotes that I will be sharing here as I go through it. Here is the first.

There are two kinds of Christians. "Sink Christians" view salvation as they would a sink. The water of salvation flows into the sink so that Christians can soak up all the benefits: eternal life, assurance in the presence of God, and strength in times of trial. Those who adopt this mind-set concentrate soley on what the Bible says God has done and will do for them.

"Faucet Christians" view salvation differently. They look at the world as the sink and themselves as a faucet. The blessing of salvation flow to them in order to flow through them out to the wider world. They rightly see that the Bible describes salvation as something that God not only does for them, but also through them.

The Mystery of Dinosaur Extinction Solved

Called to Love, Not Tolerance

We are not merely called to tolerate those who disagree with us; we are called to love. The world’s idea of tolerance is a parody of the Christian understanding of love.

Tolerance is passive. Love is active.

Tolerance is a feeling of apathy. Love is accompanied by feelings of great affection.

Tolerance keeps people at arm’s length in hopes of not offending them. Love embraces people where they are and ‘hopes all things.’

Tolerance leaves people alone as individuals. Love ushers people into a community of generosity.
Tolerance keeps a safe distance between those in need. Love rolls up its sleeves in service even to those who may be unlikeable.

Tolerance avoids confrontation in order to maintain ‘peace.’ Love tells the truth boldly and graciously in order to bring about a deeper, more lasting peace.”

Excerpt from Holy Subversion , by Trevin Wax (pp 145-146)

Thought for the Day

It is easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live one.

Confession

Another classic from the Internet Monk.

Some Christians love to talk about the sins of Obama or gays or the mainstream media, but get really animated when I suggest we need to talk about our own, even if they are listed in the Bible dozens of times.

If the Gospel isn’t grabbing you by the real sins in your real life, just exactly what is the Gospel doing for you? Or you with it?

I don’t like the fact that I can give a really good talk on prayer when I rarely pray.

I don’t like it that I can read Matthew 5:23-24 and, as far as I can recall, never take a single step toward obeying it.

I don’t like that I can sin and then condemn someone else’s sin in almost the same breath.

I don’t like it that I’m convinced people need to understand me, but I take so little time to understand others.

I regret that I’ve spent so much of my life seeking to make myself happy in ways that never led to real happiness at all.

I don’t like it that I’ve accumulated so much stuff I don’t need, and I’m so reluctant to give it away.

It causes me real sorrow that I’ve said “I love you” far to little in my life, especially to the people I love the most.

I hate the difference between what I know and what I do.

I hate the fact that I can use words like “radical” describing what others should do in following Jesus when I’m the first one to want to play it safe.

I don’t like that part of me that thinks everyone should listen to what I say.

I wish I could see myself as God sees me, both in my sinfulness and in the Gospel of Jesus.

I regret using so little of my life’s time, energy and resources for worship and communion with God.

I despise that part of me that always finds fault, and uses that knowledge to put myself above others.

I am embarrassed by the words I use that come so easily from the tongue but have little root in the heart.

I regret taking so few risks in the cause of living a God-filled life.

I despise the shallowness of my repentance for sin that has caused hurt and pain for others.

I don’t like that part of me that can make up an excuse, even lie, almost endlessly in the cause of avoiding the truth and its consequences.

I don’t like that I can talk of heaven in a sermon or at a funeral, but very little of me wants to go there.

I regret that I have loved my arrogant self far than I’ve loved my self humbled in Christ.

I regret that so much good advice, good teaching and good example was wasted on me.

Football: The No Action Sport?

An NFL game is 60 minutes by the rulebook. It takes at least 3 hours on the air. How much of this time involves actual play on the field? A recent study says about 11 minutes.

According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there’s barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg. In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays.

So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps. In the four broadcasts The Journal studied, injured players got six more seconds of camera time than celebrating players. While the network announcers showed up on screen for just 30 seconds, shots of the head coaches and referees took up about 7% of the average show.

Americans love football. But there is actually very little of it during a game.

Football—at least the American version—is the rare sport where it’s common for the clock to run for long periods of time while nothing is happening. After a routine play is whistled dead, the clock will continue to run, even as the players are peeling themselves off the turf and limping back to their huddles. The team on offense has a maximum of 40 seconds after one play ends to snap the ball again. A regulation NFL game consists of four quarters of 15 minutes each, but because the typical play only lasts about four seconds, the ratio of inaction to action is approximately 10 to 1.

So enjoy those 660 seconds, that 1/6 of an hour, that 1 moment of action for 10 moments of inaction. But while you are on the couch this weekend try to do something productive during the commercials.

False Dichotomies, Part Five

The final entry in Chris Wright's list of false dichotomies created by evangelicals is our tendency to separate evangelism from ecclesiology, and to prioritize the first. That is, when we talk about "the whole church bringing the whole gospel to the whole world", we see the church only as a delivery mechanism, a postman delivering a letter. It doesn’t really matter if the postman who delivers my letter was having an adulterous affair last night, so long as he does his job and I get the letter. We are concerned to get the maximum number of people into heaven – we even speak of it as a ‘task to get finished’ - but have not got a clear, strong and biblical affirmation of what the church is meant to be here and now. The church itself is the product of the gospel, and the living demonstration, embodiment of the gospel’s transformative, unifying power (as we have seen in Ephesians), as a community of reconciled sinners. Instead our ecclesiology has a ‘lifeboat church’ or a ‘container church’ picture - the church is just somewhere to keep all the evangelized together until we all get to heaven. This is very deficient and far below Paul’s understanding and teaching.

The bad result of this is that the church itself can be riddled with sin, idolatry, abuses, and disunity, but we don’t care very much, so long as evangelism carries on. This is why part of our purpose in Lausanne must be prophetic, in the biblical sense. The prophets most often addressed, not so much the nations outside and their sins (though they did, of course), but the people of God themselves and their idolatries. If we are to be good news and to preach good news, we must seek a greater humility, repentance and return to the Lord. If we are to introduce Christ to the world we must look like the Christ we represent. So the call for integrity, Christlikeness, unity, etc., within the church, as part of a more robust understanding of what the church is meant to be, is an essential part of our missional task.

False Dichotomies, Part Four

The fourth on Chris Wright's list of false dichotomies we create is our tendency to separate word and deed, or proclamation and demonstration, and to prioritize the first. But again, both are essential and integral to the presentation of the gospel, and to bringing about the obedience of faith among all nations. This is clear from Paul’s own practice: in Romans 15 he reflects on his whole missionary work and speaks of "what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the nations to obey God, by word and deed and by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. (Rom. 5:18-19).

In his letters he constantly emphasizes the evangelistic power of "doing good" (he mentions it 7 times in Titus, encouraging slaves in doing good so that they can "adorn the teaching about God our Saviour" - ie. Their good deeds make the evangelistic message more likely to be effective by being more attractive. Peter speaks about "doing good" 10 times in 1 Peter, and again links it to evangelistic effectiveness (e.g. for believing wives of unbelieving husbands). Jesus too speaks of the ‘light’ of good works, drawing people to God the Father.

The bad result of this separation is that our evangelistic efforts are sometimes derided by the world, because people discern the hypocrisy of those who talk a lot but whose lives don’t support what they say. Lack of integrity in this area has been identified by various researches as the major obstacle to the acceptance of the message of the gospel.

False Dichotomies, Part Three

The third on Chris Wright's list of false dichotomies created by evangelicals, is the tendency to separate believing from living the gospel, and to prioritize the first. That is, we seem to think that there can be a belief of faith separate from the life of faith, that people can be saved by something that goes on in their heads, without worrying too much about what happens in their lives. So long as they have prayed the right prayer and believed the right doctrine, nothing else ultimately matters, or at least, whatever happens next is secondary and distinct.

Yet, in the Bible faith and obedience are inseparable. Paul actually defines his missionary life’s work as bringing about "the obedience of faith among all nations" (Rom. 1:5; 15:18; 16:26). That is a combination that echoes Abraham, Jesus, Paul, and James. You can’t obey God’s word unless you believe it. But you can’t claim to believe God’s word unless you are obeying it. Faith without works is dead.

This is seen also in the way we tend to divide Paul’s letters into "doctrine" and "ethics", or "Gospel" and "implications", when Paul probably would not have made that kind of distinction. For example, the phrase ‘new humanity’ in Eph. 2 is exactly the same as ‘the new self’ in 4:24. What God has done in the Christ is to be fleshed out in the life of believers. The language of ‘unity’, ‘integrity’ runs through the whole letter. Faith and life are inseparable. Ethics is not something added to the gospel, but integral to it.

The bad result of this dichotomy is that we have people called believers and evangelicals, whose actual lives are indistinguishable from the culture around them –whether in terms of moral standards, or social and political attitudes and actual behaviour.

False Dichotomies, Part Two

The second on Chris Wright's list of false dichotomies created by evangelicals, is the tendency to separate the individual from the cosmic and corporate impact of the gospel, and to prioritize the first. That is, we put personal salvation and individual evangelism at the centre of all our efforts, (and of course individual evangelism is an essential part of our commitment.).

But Paul’s order of the gospel message in Ephesians, and Colossians 1:15-26, is Creation (all things in heaven and earth, created by Christ, sustained by Christ and redeemed by Christ), then:, church (with Christ as head), and then individual Gentile believers: ‘and you also’. All of this, says Paul, is ‘reconciled through the blood of Christ shed on the cross’. So we are not saved out of creation, but as part of creation that God has redeemed through Christ. The church is not just a container for souls till they get to heaven, but the living demonstration of the unity that is God’s intention for creation, in itself a ‘preaching’ to the principalities and powers because of what God has accomplished and proved in the creation of ‘one new humanity’ in Christ. All this we learn from Ephesians and Colossians, but we still tend to put all our emphasis on getting individuals saved.

The bad result of this weakened theology is that Christians evangelized by such a truncated version of the biblical gospel have little interest in the world, the public square, God’s plan for society and the nations, and even less understanding of God’s intention for creation itself. The scale of our mission efforts therefore is in danger of being a lot less than the scope of the mission of God.

False Dichotomies, Part One

Christopher Wright, author of several books, including The Mission of God, has some thought- provoking comments about how evangelicals tend to create false dichotomies, or to separate things that ought to be kept together (because the Bible holds them together) and then to give one priority over the other.

The first in his list of dichotomies is our tendency to separate evangelism and discipleship, and prioritize the first. In fact we speak of the Great Commission as an evagelistic mandate,(and of course it implies and includes the necessity of evangelism – for if people are to be baptized, they need to have responded to the proclamation of the good news)when in fact the primary explicit command is "Disciple all the nations". It has been said, the New Testament is written by disciples, for disciples, to make disciples. Yet our emphasis has often been on getting decisions and converts, making Christians. Actually the word Christian occurs 3 times in the New Testament, whereas the word ‘disciple’ occurs 269 times.

Evangelism is an utterly essential part of mission. But there is mission beyond evangelism. Paul clearly believed this. Had he stopped being a ‘missionary’ when he spent 3 years teaching the church in Ephesus the whole counsel of God? He affirmed the mission of Apollos, which was a teaching mission (Acts 18:24-27), and refused to allow that either was more important than the other – the one who planted or the one who watered (1 Cor. 3:5-9). Evangelism and teaching/discipling are integral and essential parts of our mission. Great Commission Line Three: "Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you." Paul told Timothy to "do the work of an evangelist", and also to teach sound doctrine, and to mentor others to teach others also. And he did not imply that one was more important than the other: they were all essential parts of the mission entrusted to Timothy.

The bad result of separating them and prioritizing the first is shallowness and immaturity and vulnerability to false teaching, church growth without depth, and rapid withering away (as Jesus warned in the parable of the sower). Our responsibility is to "bear witness to Jesus Christ and all his teaching."

Our Catholic Brothers and Sisters

All of the churches I have belonged to over the last 30 years have been very critical and almost dismissive toward Catholics as part of the Christian church. This is due in part to doctrinal differrences, and in part to misunderstanding. Evangelicals are proud of their doctrinal purity and deride Catholics for "works righteousness." (A charge that R.C. Sproul says is slanderous) Yet, I have known many Catholics over the years that love Jesus and show His love through serving others. As I have been pondering the difference between the churches' outlook on Catholics with my personal experience, I ran across this quote, from the 19th Century Dutch Reformed Theologian, Herman Bavinck, that is worth pondering:

We must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a Protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one's neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentance, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbor evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church.

Now, this doesn't mean there aren't real doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants. But, maybe we should start focusing on what we have common. Think about it.