Monday, October 13, 2008
Facets
In one fell swoop, Glenn Lucke manages to take on the to extremes of the current Christian spectrum:
This really is a superb post, read the whole thing. I want to talk about his concluding sentence:
It means first approaching it with the attitude that we can never master it. In other words - humility. Secondly, it means we approach it hungrily - always looking for the next morsel.
Blogging has brought something back to my life that I had long since let slide. The joy of being a student. Of discovering in what I learn how much I still have to learn and then seeking it out. For the last several decades I worked on my knowledge base, but that was a utilitarian sort of thing - "I need to know this, so I can do that, so I can get paid." That's not what I am talking about.
I am talking about the sheer joy of the hunt if you will. And how, slowly, subtly, it changes you. As when I was an actual student, you tend to grow up more, just by virtue of the process.
Makes me wonder, perhaps it is less about what you know, and more about learning.
We always seem to want to find the end of something, but being a Christian can never be an accomplishment - it does not end. It s a process the only end of which arrives when we, at least as far as this existence is concerned, end.
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The Gospel does not only get one "in the game," after which people walk out their faith animated by discipline and obedience. Rather, the Gospel gets one in the game and is the game and is what brings a believer all the way Home. The discipline and obedience practiced by Christians flow from the Gospel, not as distinct-from-the-Gospel human work that engineers the favor of the Lord.WHAM, take that "Evangelicals." Then:
Naturally, it’s not appropriate to disclose in public the specific ways the Lord has applied the Gospel to individuals in our Austin small group. Generally, though, I can report that most of us have been changed, and at least one in our midst has experienced dramatic transformation. Here’s what we’re learning—the Gospel is multi-faceted. It is not merely Four Spiritual Laws. In fact, the Four Laws communicate only one half of one facet of the Gospel.
There is no one passage of Scripture that details all facets of the Gospel. Our understanding of the Gospel comes from disclosures in multiple sections of Scripture. When TR ‘experts’ make lists of all the components of the Gospel that they claim are essential, they cannot point to Jesus, or Paul or Peter or anyone who actually communicates their (the TR’s) composite Gospel in one instance in Scripture.BOOM! There go the "truly reformed." Now, if he had only taken a swipe at Pentecostals the man would have a hat trick on his hands.
Let me say that again in another way. What TRs claim is the pure Gospel message appears no where in its ideal form in Scripture. It is a composite from multiple passages of Scripture. It's not technically, literally, "biblical" but rather a theological formulation based on many passages of the Bible.
To say this again in still another way, I'll ask a question. Did Jesus ever in recorded Scripture articulate the Gospel that the TRs say is the Gospel? Did Paul ever say it verbally to another or write in a letter? Did Peter?
Answer: we have no biblical evidence for this. Is it strange that TRs will vitiate a brother in Christ like pastor Tim Keller or singer/songwriter Derek Webb for not articulating the theological formulation of the Gospel in every instance the way the TRs do? By the standards of the TRs, Jesus, Paul and Peter are liberals or heretics.
This really is a superb post, read the whole thing. I want to talk about his concluding sentence:
The Gospel is multi-faceted. It is Justification, and Redemption, and Adoption, and rule and reign of God in His Kingdom, and more.The Gospel is MORE - it is always MORE! Meaning the converse is also true - WE DO NOT KNOW THE WHOLE GOSPEL. In fact, I would argue that we cannot ever, in this life, know the whole gospel. So, what does that say about how we approach being a Christian?
It means first approaching it with the attitude that we can never master it. In other words - humility. Secondly, it means we approach it hungrily - always looking for the next morsel.
Blogging has brought something back to my life that I had long since let slide. The joy of being a student. Of discovering in what I learn how much I still have to learn and then seeking it out. For the last several decades I worked on my knowledge base, but that was a utilitarian sort of thing - "I need to know this, so I can do that, so I can get paid." That's not what I am talking about.
I am talking about the sheer joy of the hunt if you will. And how, slowly, subtly, it changes you. As when I was an actual student, you tend to grow up more, just by virtue of the process.
Makes me wonder, perhaps it is less about what you know, and more about learning.
We always seem to want to find the end of something, but being a Christian can never be an accomplishment - it does not end. It s a process the only end of which arrives when we, at least as far as this existence is concerned, end.
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