Jesus Says

February 6, 2008 | Filed Under books, way of Jesus | No Comments

frederick-buechnerd2.jpgIf the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party.

The world says, “Mind your own business,” and Jesus says, “There is no such thing as your own business.”

The world says, “Follow the wisest course and be a success,” and Jesus says, “Follow me and be crucified.”

The world says, “Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own”—and Jesus says, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The world says, “Law and order,” and Jesus says, “Love.”

The world says, “Get,” and Jesus says, “Give.”

In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.

The Faces of Jesus by Frederick Buechner

Sending Christology in John’s Gospel

January 25, 2008 | Filed Under books, missiology, missional, way of Jesus | No Comments

salvation-to-the-ends-of-the-earth.jpgHere is another great excerpt from Salvation to the Ends of the Earth where the authors encapsulate the sending theme found in the Gospel of John.

“In John’s sending christology, the sent one is to know the sender intimately (7:29; cf. 15:21; 17:8, 25); live in a close relationship with the sender (8:16, 18, 29; 16:32); bring glory and honour to the sender (5:23; 7:18); do the sender’s will (4:34; 5:30, 38; 6:38-39) and works (5:23; 9:4)); speak the senders’ words (3:34; 7:16; 12:49; 14:10b, 24); follow the sender’s example (13:16); be accountable to the sender (passim; cf. esp. ch. 17); bear witness to the sender (12:44-45; 13:20; 15:18-25); and exercise delegated authority (5:21-22, 27; 13:3; 17:2; 20:23).

John goes to great lengths to show that Jesus fulfilled all the functions of a sent one perfectly. He does so in part for the purpose of presenting Jesus as a model for his disciples to follow. When Jesus commissions his followers (20:21), he functions, for the first time in the Fourth Gospel, not as the sent one, but as one who sends others. Like Jesus, his disciples are to fulfill the manifold functions of one sent as outlined above.”

The Christmas Theme of Weakness

December 20, 2007 | Filed Under church, way of Jesus | 1 Comment

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Darryl Dash shares a provocative post on the Christmas theme of weakness. Here is a portion:

Jesus consistently taught about laying aside our rights, becoming weak like children, and rejoicing when we were under-appreciated. He identified with those who were outcasts and powerless. He taught that the tiniest of seeds becomes the haven of birds. His entire ministry was predicated upon God’s strength showing up in weakness. Yet I find myself consistently impressed with the strong. I do not naturally like the way of weakness.

I praise God for large and strong churches, but I worry that we often think that God needs powerful churches and important people to do his work. Scripture shows us that some of the most powerful and influential people in redemption’s history squandered their influence, while God has used humble nobodies to change the world.

On Christmas, as we think of the God who laid aside his strength, it’s important to remind ourselves of the strength of weakness. Perhaps God is most at work today in people and churches that will never be written up in books, and will never make the conference circuit. God’s strength still shows up most powerfully in weakness.

Searching For God Knows What IV

August 30, 2007 | Filed Under books, donald miller, gospel, scripture, way of Jesus | 2 Comments

searching-for-god-knows-what.jpgHere is another excellent excerpt from chapter 10 of Donald Miller’s “Searching For God Knows What.” The title of chapter 10 is “The Gospel of Jesus: It Never Was a Formula.”

Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that in order for a person to know Jesus they must get a kind of crush on Him. But what I am suggesting is that, not unlike any other relationship, a person might need to understand that Jesus is alive, that He exists, that He is God, that He is in authority, that we need to submit to Him, that He has the power to save, and so on and son on, all of which are ideas, but ideas entangled in a kind of relational dynamic. This seems more logical to me because if God made us, wants to know us, then this would require a more mysterious interaction than what would be required by following a kind of recipe.

I realize it all sounds terribly sentimental, but imagine the other ideas popular today that we sometimes hold up as credible: We believe a person will gain access to heaven because he is knowledgeable about theology, because he can win at a game of religious trivia. And we may believe a person will find heaven because she is very spiritual and lights incense and candles and takes bubble baths and reads books that speak of centering her inner self; and some of us believe a person is a Christian because he believes five ideas that Jesus communicated here and there in Scripture, though never completely at one time and in one place; and some people believe they are Christians because they do good things and associate themselves with some kind of Christian morality; and some people believe they are Christians because they are Americans.

If any of these models are true, people who read the Bible before we systematically broke it down, and, for that matter, people who believed in Jesus before the printing press or before the birth of Western civilization, are at an extreme disadvantage. It makes you wonder if we have fashioned a gospel around our culture and technology and social economy rather than around the person of Christ.

- Donald Miller in Searching For God Knows What

Thomas a Kempis

August 27, 2007 | Filed Under spiritual formation, way of Jesus | 2 Comments

thomas-a-kempis-christ.jpgOld habits are hard to break, and no one is easily weaned from his own opinions; but if you rely on your own reasoning and ability rather than on the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will but seldom and slowly attain wisdom. For God wills that we become perfectly obedient to himself, and that we transcend mere reason on the wings of burning love for him.

- Thomas a Kempis

Missional Living

June 11, 2007 | Filed Under missional, way of Jesus | 1 Comment

simple-truths.jpgWhile this short video is produced by an inspirational, marketing business I think it has something to say about living each day with a missional perspective and the possible impact of doing so. (Thanks Brad M.)

Missional and Henri Nouwen

March 20, 2007 | Filed Under incarnational, missional, way of Jesus | 7 Comments

henri-nouwen.jpgMore and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them. 

-  Henri Nouwen

The Crusades & The Kingdom of God

February 15, 2007 | Filed Under church, gospel, kingdom of God, way of Jesus | 3 Comments

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Over the past several years I have had the wonderful opportunity to teach a course on the History of Christianity at a small college in Wichita. Just this last Saturday we dealt with “The Christian Middle Ages” which covers the time period from 590-1517. I was once again forced to struggle with the atrocities of this time period in the life of the church: the deep corruption within the church, the power grab between pope and emperor, and between pope and pope, the inquisition, and especially abhorrent the seven crusades. While in the past I usually tried to understand the misguided motivation behind the crusades by focusing on the corruption and power struggles that occurred as a result of the melding together of church and state, this time I reflected more on the misunderstanding that they (and we) sometimes have concerning the Kingdom of God.

There is no doubt that the reign, or Kingdom, of God was the central theme of Jesus’ preaching but this theme has been absent from the missionary message of the church for a very long time. There have been, and continue to be, many distortions and dilutions of this theme.  The most obvious, and applicable to the problems of the Middle Ages, was the idea that Christianized Western civilization from Constantine onward was, in fact, God’s Kingdom on earth. Therefore, to “extend” or “expand” the Kingdom by what ever means, made perfect sense to many. If the Kingdom is about physical, geographical reign then by all means “expand the borders.”

But has not that distortion of the Kingdom been replaced by more recent versions? Do we not sometimes understand the reign of God as a particular program of social or economic justice, which we are to “build” as God’s agents? But instead are we not called to “enter” and “receive” the Kingdom of God? (Those are the verbs that are used by Jesus when speaking about the Kingdom; never does He use “expand” or “build.”) We are called to enter into what God is doing in the world. We are called to participate in His activities. We are called to participate in God’s mission of setting things right in a broken, sinful world, and to restore it to what God has always intended for the world.

The Way of Jesus

February 8, 2007 | Filed Under way of Jesus | 3 Comments

A statement that has had a significant impact on my thoughts and actions the past year comes from Eugene Peterson.  

“The way of Jesus is always local and ordinary”

It is local in that we are to serve and love those who are local to us; in other words those who are right in front of us throughout the day.

And the way of Jesus is ordinary in that it does not have to be spectacular. It is simple. It is a cold Coke for the trash men. It is a good tip for the Sonic carhop. It is a sincere “thank you for serving us” to the flight attendant. It is taking the time to listen to the neighborhood kids. It is praying for those who God brings to the forefront of our minds throughout the day.