:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I returned to our cozy little neighborhood this afternoon with the relief and gratitude of someone who had just escaped a zombie apocalypse. I didn’t exactly escape a brush with death, but I did face the one thing that Americans hate almost as much missing American Idol: the inconvenience of the suburbs.

While my wife worked on her final papers for grad school, I took over shopping duties and ran about thirty seven errands in the suburban strip. I had to leave my comfortable little bubble in town, venturing to the edge of civilization where engine exhaust makes baby bunnies nested outside condos weep.

It didn’t take long to get angry at people.

There was the lady who didn’t look until after she almost backed her car into me. Some guy in a sporty SUV wouldn’t let me merge onto the highway and then tailed me before roaring around me close enough that I could have lit a cigarette for his passenger.

There was traffic jammed in the parking lots. Lines in every story. People who jumped in front of me in line. People who went back to for one more thing when they should have been paying!

The chicken in the cooler started to warm up. My car started to overheat. The freckle-faced kid at Rita’s told me they didn’t have root beer water ice. The world was out to get me. Inconvenience!!!

When I travel out to the suburbs for these rare shopping trips, it’s like I’ve gone to a different nation where I don’t fit in because my car is over 10 years old and has rust. The hustle and hurry grabs me and I dutifully go along with it, as if I don’t have a choice. As people become obstacles in my way or take risks that put me in danger, I begin to seethe at them. We’re SO different…

Shifting gears from suburban shopper to urban gardener when I returned home, I set to work with clumps of dirt, compost, garden borders, and a few blackberry bushes. When I had a chance to feel like myself, I began to ask, “What just happened to me?”

We could say a lot of things about the suburban shopping experience and what we each bring to it, but today I saw that I’d been looking for reasons to separate myself from people. It’s like I craved conflict. I wanted to be in the right, and in order to tap into that, I had to direct my aggression at the people who crossed me in any way.

By dividing myself from others, I was trying to build myself up or to give myself fulfillment in some twisted way.

Conflict can be a good thing that drives a story forward. However, the right kind of conflict brings liberation and fulfillment—as in that moment at church today when our prayer ministers prayed for those going through tough times. Conflict can be misused to tear people down and it leaves neither us nor anyone else better off. All we get is a conflict buzz from fighting someone a little bit.

The Gospel restores and heals relationships. It accepts that lady in the parking lot who was careless for a moment but who may be the most caring person in her family. That guy in the SUV who almost hit me may live in fear of stopping or of facing who he truly is. So he drives a sporty SUV as fast as legally possible and never stops to ask why he’s taking sleeping pills to fall asleep each night.

The Gospel welcomes these people and many more into our Christian communities—even into my own where I secretly hope aggressive and negligent drivers aren’t allowed. There’s no place for these frivolous divisions in God’s Kingdom.

Even more so, the Gospel welcomes big government liberals and small government conservatives. The Gospel reaches people who like country, alternative rock, and maybe even jazz (does anyone “like” jazz for real?). The Gospel belongs to the hip, the straight-laced, the disheveled.

If it works right, the Gospel should ruin our neat little divisions we create, trashing every us vs. them narrative. Even my suburban angst narrative needs to go.

Rather than permitting me to perpetuate my little farce where I’m the hero who overcomes conflict to get what I want, the Gospel turns God into the hero who wants everyone and who is even willing to overcome conflict with a grumpy urban gardener to reach the people he loves.

Years of being blessed with a low checking account balance forced me to rethink my approach to Christmas. Those were not easy years as I tried to tell myself that Christmas isn’t all about the presents, while fearing that my family would consider me cheap or inconsiderate.

A budget gift is a budget gift.

In a happy case of irony, my focus on gift-giving lead me back to a better conception of Christmas.

If art thrives on limitation, gift-giving followed suit. If I only had ten dollars to spend on each person, I had to ask very different questions for gift-giving, the most important being: “What would this person never buy for himself/herself?”

This lead to a series of time-consuming projects such as homemade applesauce, unique jams, hot sauce, and framed photographs. Everything was tailored to the specific needs of each person and in most cases kept us within our budget.

The first time I gave my grandmother a jar of homemade applesauce, she opened it right away and burst into tears at the first taste. She hadn’t eaten homemade applesauce since the last time her mother had made it. My mom guards her jar of blueberry jam, while my in-laws don’t miss a meal without their hot sauce.

As we’ve reached greater financial security, we’ve been able to spend more money on gifts, but our question remains the same. Oddly enough, the homemade gifts are still a big hit. In addition, we’ve begun to keep our Christmas spending under control by joining together with family members to buy one large gift that someone would never purchase on his/her.

I organized some pretty epic purchases that both met a relative’s need and ensured a minimum investment—the biggest ticket item being a computer for my wife before she entered graduate school. I’d share some examples from this year, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone.

Ironically, the more I’ve thought about my gift-giving strategy, the more I’ve been drawn away from focusing on giving gifts and pondering the power of God. Isn’t Christmas all about the power of God to do for us what we could never do for ourselves?

I love the promise that Gabriel made to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

God overshadows us. He breaks into our gift-giving madness to remind us that our iPads will one day break, our E-readers will be replaced, our shirts will unravel, and even our jams will go rotten. We can’t beat greed, materialism, and selfishness on our own. We’ll keep thinking that these bits of technology and clothing are what we really need.

God knows that we need to overshadowed. We need him to overcome every competing desire in our life. Only he can overshadow every idol that tries to replace those quiet moments where we sense that the loving touch of God is what we were made to experience, even if we think we’ll be fulfilled by touching what we have made.

There is incredible joy in giving someone a gift that he could never acquire on his own. In fact, meeting a real need is the best kind of gift giving. God knew that when he overshadowed Mary with his power and sent us a Savior as the greatest gift—doing something we could never accomplish on our own.

May we find that joy both in our relationships with God and with one another. May we find what only God can give and meet needs that would otherwise remain.

This post is part of World Vision’s 12 Blogs of Christmas Project about the true spirit of Christmas. In order to learn more real needs that you can meet this Christmas season, check out the World Vision Catalogue.

Do you have your own story about the true spirit of Christmas? Share it today at the World Vision blog.

These two men were responsible. They had business to take care of, and they were not idle in addressing it. One was fixing his nets along the shore of Galilee, the other had to take care of his father’s burial.

Culturally speaking, the man tasked with burying his father was especially living in careful observance of the law. He was in the right place, doing what mattered.

The difference between the two men came when Jesus called, saying, “Follow me.” This wasn’t something that could be delayed. Jesus literally wanted them to drop what they were doing and to reorient their lives around him.

One man knew when to stop, dropping the lower priorities for the person who mattered most.

The other man asked for time so that he could wrap up his obligations and still follow Jesus.

Learning how to stop is difficult, especially when you think you’re doing everything right. Other priorities can interfere when the most important call comes to us.

Can we stop?

Are we cultivating practices that help us stop daily to hear God’s voice?

Are we ready to stop and respond when the call comes?

The other day I flipped through a bunch of pictures on Facebook that were posted by The Simple Way, a Christian group in the inner city of Philadelphia that ministers alongside the urban poor. Some have called them neo-monastic, but this isn’t a post about labels.

This is a post about serving others.

The crew at the Simple Way put together 500 backpacks loaded up with school supplies and handed them out while throwing a huge block party with juggling, dancing, and who knows what else.

That’s just a small picture of what The Simple Way is up to.

Today I received the following e-mail from a relative whose brother spent a year in India assisting local lawyers in the fight against sex trafficking. Here’s what the e-mail said:

Today I committed to call my Members of Congress as part of International Justice Mission’s National Call-in Day to Pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). Will you join me?

The TVPRA is critical, bi-partisan legislation that supports U.S. anti-trafficking efforts at home and overseas. At the end of September, the bill will expire. Abolitionists around the country are committing to call their elected policy-makers on Thursday, September 8th to urge them to support the bill.

This is yet another picture of Christians working to serve others. It fits with the story of Jesus. His ministry aimed to set captives free, welcomed little children, and served those in need.

These ministries look like the ministry of Jesus. They make sense as part of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit from the New Testament into today.

Over the past week or so, I haven’t heard too much about Christians committing themselves to helping poor children start the school year on the right foot or demanding that our government renew legislation that will help the most vulnerable. I’ve heard and read a hell of a lot about a few religious leaders from various denominations who feel jilted because they can’t pray at the 9-11 memorial.

If it weren’t so tragic that a non-story has trumped the many good stories about the spread of the Gospel, I could spend an entire post on the delicious irony of religious leaders complaining about “government prejudice” against religion while they freely plan worship services and prayer services in their tax-free churches.

While I don’t want to underemphasize the importance of prayers for peace, for the healing of victims, and for reconciliation with our enemies at this time, I think it’s worth pausing for a moment to look at the many relevant and powerful ways in which God’s Kingdom is spreading. Rather than focusing on the foolishness of denominational leaders at this time of national mourning, I hope that we can focus instead on the many ways that the Gospel is bringing hope, reconciliation, and healing to our world.

The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that starts small and grows without too much notice. There are seeds all around us. We just need to know where to look for them.

I pray that we will seek out the places where God’s Kingdom is growing and jump fully into it with mind, heart, and spirit. May the Good News triumph over the Non News.

One last thing: Here’s a link to the IJM page to support legislation that will help the victims of trafficking.

I learned that the Gospel wasn’t just good news. It was bad news first, then good news, and the good news was so good because the bad news was so bad.

Or something like that.

I used to share the Gospel like this:

“The bad news is that your sin has separated you from God and destined you to eternity separated from him in hell. The good news is that Jesus has paid for your sin with his death and now clears the way for you to go to heaven.”

We could say a lot about this version of the Gospel, and I certainly don’t want to slam it necessarily. Heck, this was how I found Jesus, so it wasn’t all that bad!

However, there’s something about this version of the Gospel that hasn’t been sitting all that well with me: must the bad news come first? I don’t want to go soft on what the Bible says, but I also wasn’t sure about beginning with the bad news. I generally found that the bad news alienated people from the get go, and I never got to the good news, which is sort of counterproductive.

Did the Bible have anything to say about this?

I looked in the book of Acts. Acts documents the mission of the church and the spread of the Gospel, but the word hell doesn’t come into play. Peter mentions the “grave” in Acts 2, which is the word “hades” that is sometimes translated as hell, but otherwise, we don’t have a record in Acts of hell being used as a prompt to believe the Gospel.

While Acts presents a rather abridged version of the Gospel, I’m still shocked to read that something so basic and elemental for my own understanding of the Gospel wasn’t included. The closest we come to a concept of hell is Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 7 where he mentions that God will judge all people some day.

The concept of judgment is very well developed in the Bible and consistent between the two testaments. Paul, the author of Hebrews, Peter, and John all mention judgment in their letters. However, the message of judgment isn’t necessarily what the early Christian missionaries used as their “leading point” when sharing the Gospel. They instead explained the person of Jesus in relation to the people they were speaking to and then calling them to repent of their sins and to follow Jesus.

This reveals a tension in the Bible. On one hand, I think folks in my end of the Christian camp, the evangelicals especially, have tended to overemphasize the concept of hell. While we can speak of God’s judgment one day, we don’t actually know what will happen to those who reject God. Hell is a very slippery subject since two different words are used in reference to hell and the passages in the Gospels where they show up aren’t necessarily about the “bad news” of being cast into eternal, conscious torment. It’s just not as clear as we’ve thought.

In addition, any mention of hell in the book of Revelation doesn’t help us all that much, since Christians are notorious for not understanding that book.

We actually don’t know too much about hell. We know that people will most likely be separated from God in some way if they reject his offer of forgiveness and salvation, but the details become murky after that.

Christians have not been unanimous historically about hell, and even some church fathers believed that God would continue to reach out to the unbelievers after death—something based on Bible passages by the way. My handy Christian Theology reader documents several Christian views on hell and punishment in the historic church.

Our task today is to faithfully preach the message of God’s love and saving work without going too far toward the details of hell and avoiding a counter-swing away from any notion of God’s judgment. There will be judgment, but we don’t know too much about the punishment.

Before we run off to preach about God’s judgment though, a word of caution is in order. Many of the warnings of Jesus about hell and judgment were directed at the religious leaders and his own disciples. In fact, just glancing at “Gehenna”in my Greek concordance, I don’t think I see one instance of Jesus reaching out to an unbeliever with a message about hell. He’s speaking to his followers or the Pharisees in each scenario.

I’m not saying we should avoid speaking of God’s judgment. However, we should we wary about letting the message of judgment trump the Good News that is supposed to ring out loud and clear.

Perhaps I’ve watched a little too much Dr. Who, but I thought I’d close out my posts this week on Christian unity by reaching out with a letter to the most difficult, judgmental Christian I know: myself from 15 years ago.

Dear Ed,

How’s it going? I’m writing you today because I think we have a lot in common, and I thought that perhaps I could offer you a few words of encouragement and wisdom to help you out.

I know you think you’re a pretty devout guy, and I will say that you have some good things going for you. However, I’m also a little concerned about some patterns that you’ve established, and I think you’ll have a much better time in life if you deal with them.

There’s no easy way to say this, but you see, you’re a bit up-tight and judgmental. No, you’re not as bad as the people who judge others for going to a movie theater or for having long hair, but still, you have a pretty narrow definition of Christianity and discipleship.

You’re always comparing yourselves to others, ranking the super-Christians above you and the backsliders below you. You don’t realize that there are guys you’ve placed in the backslider category who will one day become missionaries. Trust me, you won’t see it coming. But then, that’s the point. You don’t know what’s in the heart of the people around you, so stop trying to pick apart their theology or judge them based on what they did or didn’t do. Knowing what I know about you, there’s some plank extraction that needs to happen in your own life.

And then there’s this business with the Catholics. I know the Catholic church burned you. I know there were priests who told you the Bible was dangerous and who used intimidation and manipulation to press their views on you. However, they’re part of a much larger church that has many faithful followers of Jesus. Even one of your college roommates will one day convert to Catholicism and end up working in a classified position for the government—you’re on a need to know basis about the details, and you don’t need to know.

There are certain things I know you’re suspicious about, and though you don’t think you could be right, you actually are. Take evangelism for instance. In your heart you know that you shouldn’t befriend people with ulterior motives or treat the Gospel like a presentation.

You don’t think that fear of damnation in hell is a good reason to share the Gospel because the message of the Gospel is ultimately Good News, and you want to share it naturally out of the good things that God has done in your life. You’ve gotten a taste of this, and you’re willing to keep searching for answers. Keep seeking, because finding those answers will change your life.

You’re also taking time to pray because you want to meet God in a deep way. It’s going to be a long, frustrating haul, but hang in there. You will find more of God and his Holy Spirit some day. Though you have a lot of doubts about the Holy Spirit right now and you’d probably call me off base if I told you everything I have experienced and subsequently believe, patiently wait for God and you will see his salvation manifested in your daily life in new ways.

There are a lot of surprises waiting for you. You’ll find out that the church will let you down, that secular music isn’t evil, and that women really can teach men. Your worries over the rapture and evolution will pass away, and you’ll end up in a career that you won’t see coming but you should have seen all along.

And one more thing. I know it’s going to take a lot of faith to believe this, but trust me, I would never be so cruel as to dash your hopes with something like this… The Phillies will win the World Series before your 30th birthday. Perhaps that leaves you suspicious of my credibility, but it really will happen.

I wish I could say that same for the Flyers, but as of 2011, no dice.

Blessings,

Ed

For more posts on Christian unity, drop by the blog of Rachel Held Evans for the latest round up and don’t forget that part of the goal for the Restore Unity Rally is to provide clean drinking water for people who don’t have it.

I learned one important lesson about Christian unity from sailing and snow camping. Obviously, both were two very different occasions.

Sailing and snow camping are two activities that I do not enjoy.

Stick me in a kayak to bob around, and I’ll be happy. Strap some skis to my feet, and I’ll glide along for miles provided there’s a promise of hot tea and chocolate in my backpack. However, once you introduce the variables of gusting winds or freezing temperatures, there’s something that doesn’t quite click for me about sailing and snow camping.

Perhaps it doesn’t help that I was raised in the flat, warm climate of Philadelphia, never setting foot on a sailboat until I started dating my wife. You see, my wife’s family is totally into sailing, and my wife enjoys snow camping with her brothers—snowshoeing into the woods with a tent and sleeping bags strapped onto their backs.

They are rugged New Englanders.

I don’t join them. And unless someone from my wife’s family leaves an unexpected comment on this post, I’m still recognized as part of the family. Our unity as a family is based on something deeper, mysterious, and spiritual than shared activities or our agreements.

Almost nine years ago Julie and I were married, and that is the foundation that everything else flows from. While I still need to work on our marriage and maintain our unity, there is a lot of room for us to disagree on things like putting yourself at the mercy of high winds or making her watch the NHL playoffs with me.

While I don’t think life gets much better than the NHL playoffs (I mean, did you see the Caps/Lightning game last night?), Christian unity is pretty awesome. Here are a few thoughts about unity for the Rally to Restore Unity hosted by Rachel Held Evans this week:

We Don’t Have to Do Everything Together

Christians don’t have to read all of the same books and blogs. We don’t have to listen to the same preachers, sign the same statements, or go to the same conferences. We don’t have to swim in the same streams of tradition. Our unity is not based on doing all of the same things together.

We all have been given something from God. Some have moved from Catholicism to evangelicalism, while others have done the opposite. While there should be a family resemblance and some common points of unity in the work of the Spirit among us, there’s nothing wrong with Christians from different perspectives working parallel to one another.

Personal Unity Means More Than Unity on Paper

I’ve studied quite a bit of theology, and I’m less and less impressed these days with common doctrinal statements about what makes someone an evangelical, or whatever. I think truly useful unity is what we experience with the people we actually know, not what we can write up, post online, and then leave a comment on.

Commenting online is an inferior form of unity.

When I get together with my Reformed or Catholic friends and pray with them, I’m experiencing real unity that is far more powerful and meaningful than anything online or on paper. For people who serve an incarnate God, meaningful unity is also incarnate.

Whether or not someone signs a document doesn’t do much for unity. When we can pray for one another, share the Gospel with a  united front, and encourage one another to draw near to Jesus, we are practicing true Christian unity that trumps statements made by national leaders or people who seem important.

Unity Requires Faith

I don’t know why there are so many different branches of Christianity or why God shows up to certain people in certain ways, but that’s what requires faith. I was chatting one day with a guy who used to be Arminian who felt that the Bible finally made sense from the Reformed perspective of Calvinism.

I had the exact opposite experience.

We both need faith to trust that God is working in each us, revealing himself in ways that communicate with each person. There is a huge uncertainty gap, and perhaps we may sometimes find it unsettling that our theological views didn’t work for someone else. All I can say is that I trust where God has led me, and I trust that God will lead others as they require.

Unity Commits to a Larger Shared Purpose

What I like about the Rally to Restore Unity is that we’re not just sitting around trying to agree on “how” to be united. We’re stepping back from our bickering with a bit of humor and committing to raise $5,000 that will fund clean water for a community. Everyone needs water and God wants no one to die from a lack of clean water, and I think we can all agree on that.

Let’s all chip in to make this Kingdom work happen!

Make sure you swing by Rachel’s blog today for links to other posts and some hilarious pictures. Also check out the Twitter hashtag: #restoreunity.

When I began to dig into the world of biblical studies at a Christian college, I began to read commentaries. Some focused on the literary forms and cultural settings of each book. Others dug into what the books of the Bible meant.

Both had value, but neither provided particularly interesting reading. Sometimes I felt like they focused on the pieces of scripture to the detriment of the whole. While there is a place for commentaries that dig into the language and historical setting of the Bible, I longed for something that would help me read scripture with fresh eyes and do a better job of connecting its implications to everyday life.

It was as if I understood Jesus alright in his setting and found the Bible fascinating, but I was still reading scripture in a rather detached manner.

The books that tried to fill this need didn’t quite work for me.

Perhaps the NIV Application Commentary tried the hardest to bridge this divide, but it was still tough to dig into. Today NT Wright has produced a wonderfully accessible commentary series “For Everyone” that makes good scholarship accessible, but I still hadn’t found a commentary focused specifically on connecting the narrative scope of each biblical book with today, that is, until I learned about the Resonate commentary series that is edited by Paul Louis Metzger and David Sanford.

I write about Resonate as an endorser with a free copy by my nightstand, but I honestly dislike reviewing books so much that I would only put myself through it for a book that I truly enjoy and value. Metzger is a theologian who has successfully managed to engage culture without becoming captive to it, and he has given us a readable series of essays on John that make for great reading.

I’m a big fan of Metzger’s book Consuming Jesus, and after reading this commentary of John, When Love Comes to Town, I’m impressed with his approach. He describes his angle in the following way:

“The aim of the Resonate series is to provide spiritual nourishment that is biblically and theologically orthodox and culturally significant. The form each volume in the series will take is that of an extended essay” (12).

Resonate offers a big picture view of the biblical text, digs into some of the key points (remember, the goal is spiritual nourishment, not comprehensive explanations), and works readers through a reflective essay that seamlessly integrates the message with application to today. It doesn’t feel contrived or clunky, which is nothing short of a miracle if you’re familiar with books that try to do this.

Perhaps my greatest pet-peeve is the “Kids today!” approach to some Christian writers take in opposition to culture—as if the writer needs to attack everything suspect in the culture today with “solid biblical truth.” Metzger gives priority to the Bible and its controlling narrative for creation, while studying and interpreting culture in order to apply the Bible to culture. His approach is more conversational and ultimately more constructive.

The Gospel of John commentary in the Resonate series is readable and presents a fresh reading of scripture that is far more readable than a commentary, but still quite substantive. You won’t find insight into the language and history of the Bible, but then again, you can find that elsewhere—Resonate does not aim to offer those things because we’re practically buried in commentaries and dictionaries.

I mean, have you seen one of those Christian book catalogues???

This is a book that pastors and students can dig into when their eyes are crossing after parsing Greek verbs and reading primary source material from ancient times.

This is a book for the church-goer who won’t pick up a thick commentary, but still craves a thorough explanation and application of John’s Gospel.

I’m currently reading NT Wright’s commentary John for Everyone in my small group, and I think Wright and Metzger provide an excellent one-two punch—Wright offering some accessible background material and details, with Metzger tapping into the big picture of the story and some critical application points for today.

Reader be warned, this is a thick book with lots of text on each page, but it is quite readable and engaging. The pages go by pretty fast, the insights are helpful, and Metzger writes with a personal engagement and honesty that is lacking in many books in the biblical studies category.

For more info, swing by the IVP Resonate page or read a sample chapter.

My thanks to Paul, David, and IVP for the review copy!

Some days I wonder if I really understand Jesus. I read in the Bible about someone who was so threatening and disturbing that his enemies plotted to kill him as an insurrectionist. To be honest, I usually have a hard time imagining anyone wanting to do something so terrible to Jesus.

Perhaps the most helpful lesson I’ve learned from theologians and Bible scholars today is that our reading of the Bible must lead to a Jesus who was so dangerous and unsettling that some people either wanted him dead, while many others ignored him. The cost had to be so steep that his closest friends ran away from him.

While I think that Jesus does lead us to life, peace, and love, I also find him pointing me to another costly path of discipleship that involves sacrifice and the loss of comfort. Jesus isn’t necessarily out to make my current life better or to give me fulfillment.

If that’s all that Jesus offered, then why did some kill him and others ignore him? While he had plenty of crowds around for his miracles and sermons, those who actually followed him to Jerusalem were quite limited. Even fewer remained while he hung on the cross.

In addition, when some people say they like Jesus, but they don’t like Christians, I’m tempted to say, “I don’t think you’d like Jesus all that much either.”

I understand the sentiment such people voice, but I have to ask: Which Jesus do you like?

We may like the Jesus who was inclusive and gracious, but Jesus was also threatening, demanding, and exclusive. Jesus upset political/nationalistic aspirations, religious traditions, lifestyles, and social orders with his message about God’s coming Kingdom.

As we prepare to celebrate Good Friday and Easter this week, I want to look at some reasons why certain people in the Gospels found Jesus so threatening, while others found him easy to ignore and write off. I hope to look at the Gospel stories by digging into what the people were expecting from a Messiah, what they hoped for in their daily lives in general, and how they interacted with Jesus.

In the process, I hope we can ask tough questions about ourselves, the cost of discipleship, the scope of God’s Kingdom, and the Kingdom’s impact on every facet of our lives: family, work, politics, worship, and society.

I don’t want to assume that I would follow Jesus into the Garden and stand by his side while he hung on the cross. If I do, I may not be ready to count the cost of discipleship, confess my resistance, or receive the grace and forgiveness that he offers to those who repent.

Next Post: How Distractions Kept People from Jesus

I’m on my way to wrapping up some reflections on the Gospel that began with my response to a video about how universalism impacts discipleship and how the Christus Victor explanation for the atonement captures the full scope of the biblical story and its ramifications for disciples today. Today I’d like to ask, “What does fully committed discipleship look like?”

When we run into questions about how we are saved and what it means to commit ourselves to Christ, the natural question that follows is, “How do we follow him daily?” We aren’t saved just for a ticket out of here. We are saved from our sins in order to worship and love God, serving him as disciples.

I know that we all have to follow Jesus with integrity and respond to the ways God has spoken to us, but I think there are certain ways of perceiving Christianity that can drive us insane if we follow them to their logical conclusion. These perceptions are usually rooted in biblical concepts that are somehow misconstrued or lack balance from the full witness of scripture.

It’s maddening to think that everyone outside of the Christian fold could spend an eternity in hell.

If we really believe that, then I wonder why every Christian hasn’t sold his/her home in order to spend every waking hour preaching, traveling around the world, and warning everyone about this.

I’m serious. If the eternal destiny of everyone rests on affirming a simple creed and praying a salvation prayer, then we need to get moving.

We should be out on the streets with signs, bullhorns, and flyers. We should e-mail everyone we know, blanket the internet with warnings, and organize social media campaigns that sneak the Gospel message into funny little videos so that some may possibly be saved.

We need to be clear, concise, and efficient. There is no time to waste. Souls are perishing in the fires of hell.

Why aren’t we doing this?

Don’t we care?

These thoughts have kept me up at night, given me panic attacks, and plunged me into guilt and despair. I want to take the Bible seriously, and if this is what the Bible is all about, shouldn’t I act accordingly?

This approach to discipleship almost drove me insane.

If so much is really on the line, we need to match our actions with our theology.

The Mission of Jesus

I have one simple suggestion for the reason why we shouldn’t do this: Jesus didn’t advance the Kingdom of God like this.

The Kingdom wasn’t about passing along a simple and clear message all of the time—Jesus used parables.

The Kingdom advanced slowly, and it was sometimes hidden while in plain sight.

Jesus waited around for 30 years before starting his mission, traveled to a few neighboring territories, and then died on the cross at a relatively young age.

If saving thousands of souls throughout the world was so important, why didn’t he travel further and faster? Why did he speak in parables? What happened to the native peoples in North and South America? Did the gradual methods of Jesus inadvertently condemn thousands to hell?

I hope this rattles us a bit. We have made the driving force behind our discipleship this notion of eternal torment in hell for those who have not heard the Gospel, when in reality, that doesn’t seem to be what motivated the mission of Jesus or what he passed on to his disciples.

While we can’t deny the early church had a powerful sense of mission and a drive to see God’s Kingdom spread, were they motivated to save the masses from eternity in hell by passing along the basic information of salvation?

How the Kingdom Spreads

The Kingdom of God does not spread through guilt, obligation, or fear. Though God wants to extend his rule to all of creation and save people from their sins, his vision for restoration extends beyond saving souls from eternal torment. In fact, while Jesus makes it clear that some will be outside of the Kingdom and some even attack it, he doesn’t tell us all that much about those unreached by the Gospel.

In fact, Jesus seemed to care more about advancing the Kingdom effectively and thoroughly, letting it take root in his followers and empowering them to spread the holistic message of the Gospel throughout the world. There is urgency to preach and embody the Kingdom, but the details about those who haven’t heard it are limited.

The call to spread the Gospel did not come with a threat, “Preach or else the rest of the world gets it.” We don’t read about the Gospel being good news because it’s saving us from eternal torment in hell, but rather because God is coming to heal us, save us from our sins, and prepare us for an eternity with him.

It’s good because it tells us about God’s love and salvation. While it’s very possible to reject the Gospel, the driving force behind the mission of God isn’t a sense of impending doom.

We just don’t know what will become of those who haven’t heard the Gospel. However, if we can take any clues based on how God works in the Bible, he certainly doesn’t seem frantic about things. God didn’t send prophets to every nation throughout the Old Testament.

God chose to work through a tiny nation of former slaves that was bulldozed militarily by the neighboring nations on a regular basis.

The Kingdom of God that grew like a mustard seed with Jesus  spread gradually with Israel as well. I don’t think we need to go insane with preaching to everyone everywhere as fast as we can because that wasn’t God’s way either. He infects are daily lives and works through us where we are, moving us closer to his plan for us where we are, sometimes calling us to change things.

We are compelled by the love of God to give ourselves fully to him, to model his Kingdom, and to love everyone so that the greatest number of people can know God too.

The uncertain fate of those who don’t know the Gospel does not excuse us from sharing the Gospel in word and deed. In fact, I would hope that our experiences of God and his love would motivate us to preach the Gospel even more. However, I’d just rather we dropped the, “Hell is coming to all of you!” aspect of the message.

We don’t know. What we do know is that we don’t want to be separated from God. We should certainly mention that we can reject God’s love, but it’s not fear that drives us. Fear and guilt wrecks a Gospel message that is characterized by God’s love.