Tag Archives: gospel

On Message

Anthropology, Church, Missiology, Texas Culture, , , , , , ,

As I talk with people about our Wycliffe ministry, I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, which makes me feel something like a politician. So to make my speech more clearly above board (for my conscience, but also for anyone else who might ask), I thought it good to lay out my “message” here. As I consider this, I see that I have three basic things to say these days, to three different audiences:

To the World

Sin, death, and hell are real, as are righteousness, repentance, forgiveness, and heaven. Trust Jesus to get you from the first to the second. I’m astounded how much these things need to be said, but in this age of increasingly divisive politics, I think it helps to remind ourselves of what is truly important for all humanity, and to focus on that.

To the Church

God’s plan for us is that we would work through local churches to build and grow the universal Church, which is composed of everyone united by the blood of Jesus: all ethnic groups, languages, tribes. Spiritual maturity includes (at least) the desire to work together with all types of Christians to accomplish this mission, which is given to us by God. I’m amazed how often I hear a christian disparage either the local or universal church. If we care about the local fellowship of believers, we should be committed to it (tithe and all). And if we care about the fellowship in Christ, then whether someone is in Christ should be more important to us than all the many other things that divide people these days (e.g., socioeconomics, ethnicity, nationality, race), and we should take joy in finding Christian brothers and sisters unlike us in these other ways, and we should mourn with them when they mourn (e.g., watch/read international news, pray for churches in other places).

To our Friends

We believe our part of God’s mission is to help African people groups develop writing systems for their languages, such that they may have powerful Bible translations which will transform their cultures and churches into the likeness of Christ. While this has been our mission for some time, some of our friends are only recently hearing more about it, and it is as true now as ever. But more specifically:

We hope to take the next step in this mission by moving to Cameron in June, after a short reconnaissance trip in March. To do this, we need your help; we need your partnership in our Wycliffe ministry, through prayer, personal assistance and encouragement, and finances.

Maybe you’ve heard this from us already, face to face. If not, or if you’d like more information about this agenda, please just let us know. :-)

Romans 6:15-23

Romans, , , , , , , , , , ,

Here is my mindmap for Romans 6:15-23:

Here is the scrolls for this week, and here are some more questions of my own:

  1. What does the rhetorical question in v15 mean? And the answer?
  2. What is the relationship between slavery and obedience?
  3. Does the Gospel make us no longer slaves?
  4. Is it better to be a slave to sin, or to the law? Why?
  5. What is freedom in this passage?
  6. What is the result of working for (or slavery to) sin?
  7. What is the result of God’s gift? How is it different?
  8. Which do you want? How can you get it?
  9. Spend some time discussing the last verse, as a concise summary summary of the gospel in the first six chapters of Romans (and in Next Step Discipleship, pp40-41)

Introduction: Romans 1:1-7 thoughts

Church, Romans, Thoughts, , , , , , , , ,

Introductions are somewhat like genealogies to many of us; we have a tendency to just blow them off, and skip to “the good stuff”. But this introduction has plenty of Good stuff in it. It introduces Paul, the Gospel, Jesus, and the Christian, all of which are very relevant to us today, and which will be relevant as we go through the rest of this book.

Paul is a servant, yet also an apostle. How is one sent in authority also a servant? Yet this reflects Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10:42-45 (ESV):

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.43But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servantd, 44and whoever would be first among you must be slavee of all. 45For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Paul is also set apart for the Gospel, to the end of the “obedience of faith”. Interesting that those who are in Rome (v7) are “called to be saints”; holiness is also essentially being set apart. So the one is set apart to preach the gospel, and the others are set apart to live it.

These verses also pack in a lot about Jesus, the point of the Gospel (and of everything else, truth be told).  Jesus in the gospel fulfills promises made by men who spoke for God, whose words were written down and kept for us to read.

The gospel is about Jesus, the Son of God (putting together vv1-3: the gospel of God, which [God] promised beforehand … concerning his Son), but it is also about Jesus the Son of David (v3). But He is also Jesus, the Son of God in power… by his resurrection (v4), and finally, Jesus is the source of both grace and apostleship (v5).

This last one I find interesting, given the bilateral nature of lordship. That is, a Lord and a subject have a two way relationship, the one providing protection and other resources necessary for life, and the other providing service and fealty. In the same way, Jesus provides us Grace, which we need for (eternal and any other) life, but he also gives us a job, to represent him before a fallen world.

Rephrasing the above, in five short verses we see Jesus as the eternal Son of God, the human Son of Man, the glorified Son of God, and the Son our Lord.

These verses also talk about what it means to be a Christian. That is, the purpose of the Gospel is to bring about the obedience of faith (v5), and that purpose is to be fulfilled in the readers (v6). Some have argued about the meaning of “obedience of faith”, given the linguistic ambiguity of the construction. Does it mean that faith is obedience? or that obedience that comes from faith (e.g., NIV)? Or obedience that is in some other way characterized by faith? My understanding of the construction is that it doesn’t require or exclude any of these, and that we must interpret it from the larger context.

Why is this question important? One conversation I had recently asked whether Paul here is talking about a single act of faith, which produces justification (as will be treated at length later in Romans), which is thus itself obedience, but not intrinsically tied to any other obedience? Or is Paul talking about obedience that flows from faith, i.e., sanctification, the act of Christians being made more holy subsequent to their trusting Jesus. And most critically, is it possible to have the one and not the other? Is it possible to trust Jesus, then never produce any concrete life change?

I have heard this question debated ad nauseum, and I think it is important for scholars to wrestle with it, but I think here it is enough to say that even if it is possible to have faith without obedience, that would in no way be a good thing, and that in no way is the point of the Gospel. That is, for Paul (and I hope for us), we want to see lives changed because people trust Jesus (and thereby have a right relationship with God, and go to heaven, etc), but we also want to see lives changed here and now as people live more rightly (and thereby glorify God more in their bodies, here and now). If you’re promoting either one without the other, you’re cheating people, IMHO. And perhaps this is why Paul used an ambiguous phrase here. Perhaps the Gospel is there to make people obey by placing their faith in Jesus. Perhaps it is also there to make people more like Jesus, once they have placed their faith in him, and tasted and seen how good he is.

And this is affirmed in Paul’s description of hearers in v7: loved by God and called to be saints. We are not just loved, we are called to be holy. And we are not just called to be holy, but we are loved. This is a package deal, and we get it all in Jesus.

I was somewhat surprised to hear called to be saints this morning used in reference to unbelievers. I’m not sure if Paul meant it that way. But it does make sense, given that those whom he predestined he also called (8:30) is a part of the golden chain that predates conversion, and given that this predestination happened before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8 & 17:8). So while we who believe are called to be holy, it stands to reason that there are some who have not yet converted, but who are nonetheless also loved by God and called to be holy. If so, how does God show this love? And how does he call them to be holy? Paul tells us his thoughts on this in ch 10:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?c And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

So we share the Gospel, and that calls people out of darkness into the kingdom of Light, and it shows people the love of God, as they hear what meets their greatest need.

And this is why grace and peace (v7) are distinctively Christian greetings. We proclaim grace to one another, because we know that it is by grace that we live and breathe. And we proclaim peace to one another, because this is what God has accomplished for us.  And this is not just the sit-down-and-rest-awhile peace of a half time show; it is the complete fulfillment of all our needs in Jesus. It is peace with ourselves and peace with others because we have peace with the creator and sustainer of the universe –and everything else is secondary.

The Gospel in Romans

Thoughts, ,

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith”. (Rom 1:15-17 ESV)

Here we see what could be called a thesis statement for the book of Romans. If Romans is the explanation and defense of the Gospel as Paul preaches it, then this is the summary statement of how and why that happens. There are a number of things to notice in these verses:

  1. Paul is eager to preach the gospel to this audience. (v15) because
  2. Paul is not ashamed of the gospel. (v16) because
  3. the gospel is the power of God.
  4. the gospel brings salvation.
  5. that salvation is to everyone who believes.
  6. that salvation is for Jews, and
  7. that salvation is for Greeks/Gentiles/non-Jews. This is because
  8. The gospel is about the righteousness of God. (v17)
  9. That righteousness is revealed by means of faith (source).
  10. That righteousness is revealed for the purpose of faith (end/result). And finally,
  11. This centrality of faith is not new; it has backing in the Hebrew scriptures.

Looking at this verse another way, we can ask the following questions:

Who is the object of the gospel?

This passage is clear enough, I think, that the Gospel is aimed at and available to all nations, Jew and Gentile/non-Jew alike. Elsewhere in Romans, Paul lays out the evidence that neither all nor only the descendants of Abraham will receive the blessings promised to Abraham. That is, at least some Jews don’t obtain that blessing, and at least some non-Jews do. So the object of the gospel is not one particular ethnic group, but everyone who believes.

What is the basis of the gospel?

If the gospel is not a message to a particular people group, who is it for?  And how do we enter into it? I find it intriguing that “from faith to/for faith” is somewhat ambiguous. That is, does it mean something like from A to Z, meaning all-inclusive, or more like Alpha and Omega, which presumably doesn’t mean that Jesus is everything, but that He is the origin and purpose of everything else. Here the difference might be between saying that the righteousness of God in the Gospel is revealed entirely by faith — never by anything else, on the one hand, and on the other hand saying that the righteousness of God in the Gospel comes from/through faith (as its source),  but also aims at faith (as its goal). This second interpretation would mean that not only does God provide us with His righteousness by means of faith (as in Eph 2:8-9), but the purpose for doing that is to give us faith — that is, relationship with Himself. I find this intriguing because I don’t think these interpretations are incompatible, so maybe the ambiguity is intentional.  Maybe it is all about faith, AND provided by and for the purpose of faith. In any case, there is nothing else that provides this righteousness; faith is the only means by which we may enter into the blessings God offers us in the gospel.

What is the purpose of the gospel?

The purpose of the Gospel is addressed three times in this passage, though perhaps tangentially. First, Paul is not ashamed because the gospel is the power of God. Then in verse 17, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. And finally, as mentioned above, I think the whole point of the gospel is to magnify faith in God, making Him the primary mover and shaker, revealer and powerful One in all gospel work.  That is, the gospel is all about showing the Glory of God.

Summary

God in the Gospel does not hand out blessing to one people group and not another; rather, what He desires in us is, and has always been, faith. And the purpose and result of all this, is that we get to connect relationally with the glory of God.