Tag Archives: discipleship

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A Generous Disciple

8:40 AM My reading this morning was in what is probably my favorite letter in the New Testament. Perhaps no human being is less into writings that are too wordy, but the author of Hebrews doesn’t waste a single syllable. His point in the final chapters of his message (a letter, true, but more of a transcript of a sermon spoken to a group of Christians audibly) is that the way we love each other, serve each other, and live our lives with each other really matters. It’s a big deal to Jesus. One little snippet jumped out at me:

Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have with those in need, for such sacrifices are very pleasing to him (TLB).

This reminds me very much of Rom. 12:13 (which, by the way, is my life verse):

When God’s children are in need, you be the one to help them out (TLB).

Generosity ranks terribly high on Jesus’ list of required attributes for His followers. Back to Hebrews for a moment:

Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never, never fail you nor forsake you” (TLB). 

The Greek here seems to be even stronger: “I will never, ever leave you, nor will I ever, ever forsake you” (5 negatives). But the promise is tied to the command: Be satisfied with what you have. Once again, I can’t help but think about Paul: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6).

You know, friends, a person may have an abundance of things without an abundance of life. We can be poor in the midst of plenty. Has there ever been a generation who surrounded themselves with more things to make their lives enjoyable only to be the most bored and unhappy generation of all time? I remember watching the kids of rural Ethiopia playing with their toys. No, these gadgets didn’t come from Wal-Mart. The kids would find scraps of discarded plastic or metal and fashion toys for themselves. These kids had practically nothing yet were the happiest kids I think I’ve ever seen.

Here’s what I’m learning. Dave, life does not consist in the presence or absence of things. You are rich and have an abundance beyond the fluctuations of the stock market. “We have nothing and yet possess everything” wrote Paul (2 Cor. 6:10). I am both a pauper and a plutocrat! I have nothing because it all belongs to God and I am only its steward. I have everything because I am a joint-heir with Christ. I have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of being both poor and rich.

Believe me, I’m still working on this generosity thingy. I am hardly immune to the feverish selfishness of this age. Yet the earliest Christians “had everything in common” and “gave to anyone as they had a need” (Acts 2:44-25). I’ve been reading a book by an author whose church gives more than half of its income to the needy. “We won’t spend more on ourselves than on our poor neighbor” were the author’s words. Think about that while looking at your church’s budget! Bottom line: Generosity has always been a characteristic of the society of Jesus. That’s because God is a generous God. And His Holy Spirit gives His people a tender conscience for the needy.

This is the kind of kingdom man I want to be and the kind of kingdom students I want to raise up. The extent of our generosity is but a whisper of our devotion to God.

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Obeying the Law of Christ

(Friday March 29) 6:12 AM This morning I opened my eyes and, before getting out of bed, grabbed my favorite Bible translation of all time. It’s the Bible I used when, at the age of 16, I “fell in love” with the Scriptures for the first time. (Remember when that happened to you?) The Good News Bible had just come out. Three things about this translation struck me. It was readable. It had nifty line drawings (I’ve always enjoyed good art). And it had a glossary of terms.

My text this morning was Galatians 6, and here I saw an interesting connection between v. 2 and v. 9. See it?

When we help each other, we obey the law of Christ. And when we do good (for others), we reap the harvest of eternal life. In Basel, theology was divided into two parts: dogmatics and ethics. The Germans might say Glaubenslehre and Sittenlehre, what we believe and how we live. Christianity involves knowing the good, but it always involves more than knowing. Ethical theory is quite worthless without ethical practice. The Christian life involves knowledge and action. Can Jesus be Savior and not be Lord? Those who think so need not bother themselves with ethics.

God’s Word is a songbook. Did you know that? His mandates are melodies. Today’s church suffers from a double malady. Some of us have the statutes without the song. Others of us have the song without the statutes. But we must have both words and music. Joe Aldrich used to tell his evangelism students at Biola, “Don’t say the words without playing the music.” I grew up in a church that prided itself on its strict orthodoxy. But it didn’t sing. The joy of one’s salvation, the first love, the sacrificial caring for others — these were scarcely evident. There were statutes but no songs. Other churches in Kailua tried to sing the song without the words. To be sure, they could whip up a synthetic joy, a simulated happiness, but it wasn’t grounded in God’s Word. After all, truth doesn’t matter as long as we feel good, right?

A true Christian will always have the right music and the right words. Evangelicals who care about social justice aren’t becoming liberals. They’re simply trying to be faithful to their biblical heritage. A frustrating thing about God’s character is that He always expects us to act on what we know fairly quickly. He first captures our hearts, but soon after He captures our hands, as James puts it. You see a need? You can’t just say “Best of luck!” Roughly two-thirds of unchurched adults were formerly churched. They’re not necessary anti-church. They just see the church as irrelevant to the real, hurting world in which they live.

Please hear me. I’m not saying “Go Right!” or “Go Left!” Today, American politics is utterly bankrupt. And it always nets zero converts. Did you read the news this morning? I did. Our politicians are willing to kill with words and insults. I came to Christ at the age of 8 not only because of the truth of the Gospel but because a man named Rudy Ulrich was willing to lay down his life for me. No one cared about me more than my pastor. As for me, I’m going to gamble on the fact that Jesus is calling me to do the same. Yes, I’m a truth-lover. I’ve even written a few books about the Bible. But if I’m going to err, I’ll err on the side of mercy and let Jesus sort it all out on that Day.

Maybe it’s because I grew up at the bottom (socially, economically, emotionally) that I have a bias toward people at the bottom. In his book Simplicity, Richard Rohr says “We cannot think our way into a new kind of living. We must live our way into a new kind of thinking.” Too many of us have become hyphenated Christians who build a false wedge between evangelism and social action. James makes it unmistakable that if a person is a Christian he or she will be something else too. We’re not talking about perfect Christians. There are no such Christians, but there can be no avoiding our responsibility to the least of these.

I think it was F. F. Bruce who conjectured that the word “Christians” was derived, not from Christos (Christ) but rather from the very similar-sounding chrestos, “good/kind.” (Both words may have been pronounced identically in the first century.) Followers of Jesus were known (and mocked) for being “Goody-goodies.” This is how serious the Gospel challenge is. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me” (Matt. 25:40). If our God could set aside privilege and power for the love of humanity, can’t we?

I truly believe that the evangelical church can stand on truth and at the same time share the Good News of Jesus Christ with a hurting world regardless of social status, political affiliation, and ethnicity. The unchurched want both the words and the music. 

Thank you, Father, for all those who have shared good with me so sacrificially through the years. Thank you especially for those special friends, loved ones, and family members who give without question or hesitation. Please help me to do the same. Amen.

(Featured image credit: Openclipart.org.)

discipleship

The Goal of Our Instruction Is Love

(From Dave Black Online, June 27, 2017. Used by permission.)

8:12 AM Did you know that students at the College of Charleston can take a class called Sport Physiology and Marathon Training? Bet you’ll never guess what the final exam is. You guessed exactly right. Running a marathon. I ask you humbly: How can students take “New Testament” and remain overfed, arrogant, and unconcerned? The U.S. spends more on trash bags than almost half the world spends on all goods combined. This helps me better understand Paul’s teaching in 1 Tim. 1:5: “The goal of our instruction is love.” I like how The Message puts it: “The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love — love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God.”

I’m finally beginning to connect the dots. As an old Scottish proverb puts it: “Greek, Hebrew, and Latin have their proper place, but it’s not at head of the cross where Pilate put them, but at the foot of the cross in humble service to Jesus.” God is requiring from our New Testament students obedience. Not the kind that is little more than an hour of inconvenience on Sunday morning. The next time there’s a Run for Nepal — a 5K race in Morrisville, NC dedicated to raising funds to rebuild that country after its devastating 2013 earthquake — I hope hundreds of born-again Jesus freaks will sign up with me. “Broken and poured out for you” is the way Jesus, I think, would put it. Jesus left heaven to come to the foulest place in the universe only to be betrayed by His own. When His followers are asked to do the same thing, they can only hear and obey (hearken). I once asked God to send me to a closed country. I knew it was a dangerous prayer. But I meant it. And He answered. At the very same time, it was glaringly obvious to anyone who took the time to notice that my stateside priorities were far more about me and my scholarly reputation than about God and other people. Richard Rohr writes that “… power, prestige, and possessions are the three things that prevent us from recognizing the reign of God….” (Simplicity, p. 56). The pattern of ascent is so ingrained in our circles that it may be physically painful for some of us to reject it. But if I am to “take the lowest place” (Luke 14:10), I’ll need to get off my high horse.

τὸ δὲ τέλος τῆς παραγγελίας ἐστὶν ἀγάπη.

I hate this kind of simplicity. I hate asking to be countercultural, even as an academic. But that’s where I am, folks. I am so over upward mobility. I’m ready to join to Jesus at the bottom. And ask my dear students to do the same.

discipleship

How Can You Go On?

From Dave Black Online:

9:55 AM This post is for anyone who is going through a tough time. Last night I finished reading Sears’ book Gettysburg. Again, I was dumbfounded when I read about Pickett’s Charge. How could soldiers make such a charge? What can propel a man forward against such great odds?

Take the struggle you’re currently facing. “How can I go on? How can I make it? Just look at the odds!”

Continue reading How Can You Go On? →

discipleship, Discussion

Christian America?

Andrew Thompson at GenXRising has written about the idea of Christian America and recent studies that suggest we’re becoming less Christian.

The post and the entire comment thread are worth reading, but let me quote the following:

The gist of it is this: There never was such a thing as ‘Christian America.’ And the Christians in America shouldn’t worry about that.

There cannot be such a ‘Christian America,’ in fact, because citizenship and discipleship can never be synonymous terms. Christians owe an allegiance to Jesus Christ above the allegiance to the nation. And that means that a Christian’s primary frame of social reference is not society at large but rather the church.

Dave Black, author of the forthcoming book for which this site is named, commented in the thread:

I’m enjoying this thread, Andrew. If I understand the New Testament correctly, the church is to take on a nonconformist and prophetic identity over against the structures of the world. This is not to say that I am unconcerned about politics or about the improvement of society through legislation. Such improvements are, however, questionable if they proceed from an assumption that they will issue in a Christian America. My concern is that the church be the church, and to do that it must proclaim victory not through a political agenda but through the Christian Gospel. The Christianity of the New Testament presents not simply a more demanding ethic but rather a cross that means the death of our desire for prosperity and power. I therefore view my participation in the culture wars not in terms of calling for a macro-political utopia but in terms of the church’s calling to be the conscience and critic of culture. I’ve tried to make this point in my forthcoming book, The Jesus Paradigm.

http://www.energionpubs.com/ep_detail.php?sku=1893729567

In our foreign policy America must use its military power reasonably and with a scrupulous concern for peace. A superpatriotism that calls for unfettered power is both un-American and un-Christian in my opinion.

I would in turn link this to my own post asking just how often our answer to any question or solution to any problem is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I certainly hope this discussion will grow in the blogosphere.

Discussion

Welcome and Open Discussion

The Jesus Paradigm web site is designed specifically to help carry out the mission of the book by the same name.

What do I mean when I say that this book has a mission?  It’s simple.  It’s author wrote it in fulfillment of the gospel commission.  I’m publishing it for the same reason.

There are many things that get written about a book as it is released.  There are press releases, a catalog page, reviews, and commentary.  But this site is different from all of them.  Everything here is about this book and what it means for Christians.  I believe that Dr. Black has presented some material that we, as Christians, need to hear.  I want it discussed.  I hope and pray that it will be lived as well.

So watch this space for more as we approach the release date of July 20, 2009.  You’ll see the theme change as the cover design matures.  You’ll see announcements about the advance copies.  I sincerely hope you’ll see challenging discussion of the concepts this book presents.

But you’ll only keep up if you check back regularly!

In the comment thread to this post, feel free to discuss this book openly, honestly, and courteously.

–Henry Neufeld, Energion Publications