Posts filed under 'spiritual'
- In our postmodern culture, Christians no longer speak the same language, science does not mean the same thing to everyone, and words only make sense inhabited in a way of life.
- What kinds of people have we been? unChristian shows the shocking stats of how we’re perceived by those outside the church.
- Contrasts between evangelism and witness: apologetics vs. tell a story, universal story vs. personalized story, strategic vs. everyday life, depends on me vs. depends on God, detached vs. embodied in community, “I win” vs. “epistemic crisis” (the story is so compelling, it throws all other stories into lack).
- Greek kerygma is preaching gospel in a church; marturia is testimony of whole life (martyr), inseparable from character
- A witness is not a prosecutor, judge, or jury, simply one who testifies to what they’ve experienced, completely non-coercive, not aiming at a preconceived outcome.
- The premier task is to shepherd communities of character that can embody witness of who we are in Christ within the world.
- What kinds of people are we producing? Phil 1:27. Belief + Practice = Culture.
- Icons of Christianity: dispassionate/distant (Worldcom’s Bernie Ebers and Ken Lay embezzled money while teaching Sunday school), coercive/violent/arrogant (George Bush believes God is on his side and can do no wrong), and morally duplicitous (Jessica Simpson presents a sexy virginity without redemption of desire).
- The gospel has been subverted by market capitalism’s impetus of fear: fear of strangers, fear of death, fear of being poor, fear of loss of freedom. “The basis of any true society is our mutual fear of one another.” - Thomas Hobbes
- Doing isolated acts of charity (sending money, going on mission trips, helping in the downtown soup kitchen) is always easier than inviting the poor into our own house to be wholly redeemed.
- Churches have become economically, socially, racially homogeneous because it helps maintain our isolation from those we fear.
- The Acts church rejected privacy (not necessarily private ownership) of resources. They visited the sick, cared for widows/orphans/aged/incarcerated, ministered grace to strangers, and were hospitable to all.
- Pluralism (from Babel) was for the clarification of the gospel by having to relate it through all cultures and languages.
- Are we confident that we are right or are we making sure of it by our insistence on inerrancy, perspicuity, individual inductive Bible study, expository preaching, and apologetics?
- The gospel is conveyed by a canon, carried by a people. Sustain the hermeneutic of peoplehood.
- Quit explaining and start proclaiming; scripture is a drama, not a textbook; quit the application and go for the liturgical response right then, not as homework. Liturgical response it responding to the reality of the gospel in that moment: silence, repentance, proclamation of truth.
- The act of preaching can only be the tip of the communal iceberg.
- Fund the imagination.
- You can’t dissect a story: you must enter in or reject it. The word of God enlivened by the Holy Spirit in our hearts changes us—pushing for application is not as important as we’ve come to think.
- How do we call the immoral to reorder desire when we don’t know how either? There’s often no sense that desire is being directed toward anything but itself. The world successfully shapes our desire but the church fails at this. There is a vacuous gap in our way of sanctification.
- Salvation has become transactional: I pray X, you give me Y, distances us from God. Like a marriage deal: you take care of house/kids, I’ll pay the bills. Where’s the mutual love in a transaction?
- Cartesian mindset: pastor/Bible tells mind what is right, mind understands, mind tells body how to behave.
- We are not invited into a transaction but a life of reciprocity.
- Luther overprotected against works by putting a separation between salvation and sanctification, but the two are inextricable. Each sin is an opportunity for grace and transformation. Salvation is participation in the reciprocal life of God. (2 Cor 5:16-21)
- Justification is beween Christ and us. Justiceification is between us and mankind.
- Practice triads: reading scripture, silence, confession, submission to God, affirmation of truth, discernment and prayer, service to poor.
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