Gospel vid

I'll be trying to get a chance to do a review of this soon.  What do you reckon?
321 from Jeremy Poyner on Vimeo.

The problem with envy and jealousy...

... is that they take a dissatisfaction with God and the circumstances that he's placed you in and project them onto a (often innocent) third party.

They turn love to hate. (Genesis 4, 1 Sam 18:6-9)
They distract disciples from following. (John 21:18-22)

Cain's problem wasn't Abel, Saul's problem wasn't David and Peter's problem wasn't John. Their problem was with God, and simply focussed on someone else.

Nasty, nasty stuff that, by the above definition, crouches at the door just when you're most down.

Summary of the 3-part gospel cure:

1. When we're dissatisfied or in trouble, the gospel says come to God directly to lodge your complaint. Let God have it (in both senses), don't take it out on someone else.
2. The gospel teaches us that God owes us nothing, but has given us grace upon grace upon grace. He doesn't owe us, he owns us.
3. The gospel is the message of a pearl more valuable than anything you've ever known. A person you'd sell everything you own in order to know. In a heartbeat and with a smile on your face.
   
   If you know Jesus, you've got the pearl. Why be jealous of someone holding a bag of rubbish? (Philippians 3:7-8)

Facebook status comment

I was discussing the recent publicity stunt/crude joke by Belinda Heggen on Facebook today when Peter B posted a link to it. One of the comments, by a certain gentleman (worthy of the title) named Francis, went like this:

remember those reporters had an affair, and one critisised their spouse on air, they got the sack, about 3 years ago?

on anther note; Kutz, what would you say is the biggest division, between the conservative calvanist right wing Church and the lefty hyppie emerging church. ( I use generalizations here, many people fit in between, no offence to anybody) AND, how would you bridge these two communities.

The shift in topic surprised and to certain degree fascinated me. Being me, I could hardly resist the opportunity to gives my (entirely off the cuff) thoughts when asked.

Kutz Kutuzov ‎@Francis: Dude. So you want me to have a crack at that in an off-topic comment on Facebook? Sure. Afterwards I'll send you a text with the solution to the problems faced by indigenous Australian communities. (smiley face demonstrating that my tongue is in my cheek and joking without implying that the aforementioned is a laughing matter. You know, that kind of face.)

Seriously though, if you asked me to have a guess, I'd go for something like:
Post-modernism rejects the idea of an over-arching metanarrative due to its view of truth claims as means of controlling people. I can understand why this is, particularly from the perspective of those who've suffered hurt from churches where this has been the case. Most of the major leaders of the emergent church movement have come out of fundamentalist churches, often the minister's son.

Certain conservatives (remembering the massive generalisation stuff you were referring to earlier) have left behind their Christology and theology of the incarnation, forgetting that the truth was a person and personal (even before he become a human person) and want to defend abstract truths without reference to the person to which they testify. As a result, phariseeism and a lack of love can result, with little resemblance to Jesus' habit of connecting with the 'sinners'.

For me, the challenge for the emergent guys is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don't throw out objective truth claims simply because these have been abused by some. Even if that abuse hurt you. I want to be there for you in that hurt and to be a part of the healing and growth that comes from being a part of the body of Christ.

In this, though, I don't want you to think that someone's abuse of the Word of God makes God's word always harmful. It's not the fault of the truth, it's the fault of those who used Scripture to control and get power for themselves. (I'm preaching on John 5 tomorrow where Jesus tells the Jews they're using the Scriptures to get glory for self, not to love God. That didn't make the truth wrong, it meant that they were abusing the truth instead of believing in it.)

So my plea to my emergent brothers and sisters is to love in both word and deed, not deed only. Because it's by speaking that we know each other, and by God's speaking to us that we know about the loving thing he did for us on the cross. God doesn't just love us, he wants us to know we're loved.

My plea to my conservative brothers and sisters would be not to take yourselves or your religion too seriously, but instead be willing to love people enough to give up your culture of religion so that people from other cultures will be able to connect with Christ as people from their own culture. They need to convert to Christ, not to middle-class anglo-saxon norms.

Well, that was all shooting from the hip. What do you reckon, bro? Not sure I solved any problems there, just outlining a few of the things I've seen happening. Did that even make sense?

Gary Millar in a nutshell

What did he say?

1. Look at, nut out, understand and sit under the text.
2. Preach the gospel that it testifies to.

'nuff said.

Gary pushed the centrality, supremacy and potency of the gospel in a way which I'm not sure that I've heard since the early days of unichurch or the last time I was hanging around Graeme Goldsworthy. Not even in good churches have I heard someone speak this way. An enlivening and rebuking experience. It took me back to some heady days.

Aha!

I've worked out what was wrong with my sermon on Sunday.

The gospel wasn't worked out through the text rightly. Details to follow.

What did a faithful Israelite believe?

My favourite 2-hour period of the week is the 2 hours on a Tuesday when I translate a chapter or so of John's gospel. Not least because it means I feel good about my ability to translate when it's really because John is the easiest thing in the world to translate!

Now, on to another cool discovery.

John 5:46(ESV)
For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

However, the word 'believe' is both times in the imperfect tense. (ἐπιστεύετε) This means it is talking about a continuous action that happened in the past. The following translation would bring this out more:

For if you were believing Moses, then you were believing in me.

I reckon this is a fascinating little saying of Jesus. Is he essentially saying here that a faithful Israelite who was trusting in the testimony of the OT that pointed to Christ was in effect trusting in Him?

Very cool.

Where to go?

This is a topic which was touched on here, but not directly.

How do you decide where to go in ministry?


Some of the factors I hear bandied around are:

Need: Where have people not yet heard the gospel? Where are they the most downtrodden and in need of Jesus' transformative power? How can they believe if they have never heard? And how can they hear without a preacher?

Gifting: I should find out my 'gift-mix' and work out what the best utilisation of my unique combination of strengths and weaknesses is. Where can my particular abilities be put to the most use?

Passion: Shouldn't I just do what I'm passionate about? Surely that means I'll do it better, and have a greater impact for the kingdom, as well as fulfilling those ends that God gave me the desire to achieve?

A 'call': Clearly I should only do what I've felt and inner calling from God about. Otherwise I could find myself working at cross-purposes to God.

'Strategicness': Tim Keller would say we need to reach the cities and then let the gospel work its way out from there, just like Paul did. Should strategy be the key factor in our decision on where to do ministry?

Personal/Family 'fit': How much of a part should my 'fit' into a type of ministry as a person and a family come into it? If my kids like the city, does that mean I shouldn't go overseas or go country? What if they've got medical issues?

Now some of these are as much paradigms for decision-making as much as they are factors for decision making. Please feel free to reject or pick apart all the paradigms/dichotomies/ that you want! What are the strengths and weaknesses of using each of these?