Greg Beale in A New Testament Biblical Theology (Baker, 2011) —
Jesus’ life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already-not yet new-creational reign, bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving, unto the triune God’s glory. (163)
Great insight from Alan Hirsch.
I think the weekly corporate gathering of the church, i.e., the church service, has been overemphasized. For many, at least in the American South [my majority experience], the Sunday gathering is the totality of the Christian life. Sunday and Wednesday nights are bonus points. And even for those who would check the right answer when asked, the church service can still be an event that drains energy, subtly eases the conscience about Christian activity, and inadvertently distracts from mission to our neighbors.
The simple adjustment (at least in words) is to make the corporate gathering a sabbath. Make it the weekly culmination and commissioning of the church’s calling to the world. It’s very important, just not the be-all, end-all of Christian existence.
With this qualifier in place, I love what Bifrost Arts are saying and doing. . .
(HT: JT on the video)
From 2006 —
You are growing a passion to live on mission with Jesus: to bring gospel intentionality into your everyday as one who is “sent” or to cross a culture and take the gospel to the unreached. Yes! Now, what do we do next? Where do we go from here?
See this new post from David Mathis via David Platt.
As Moses is leading the people from Sinai there is an inclusion of him pleading with “Hobab the Son of Reuel the Midianite” to join them (Num. 10:29-32). Part of Moses’ persuasion for Hobab to join Israel is that “the LORD has promised good to Israel” (10:29). Moreover, in his second attempt to persuade, Moses says, “And if you do go with us, whatever good the LORD will do us, the same will he do to you” (10:32).
There are two significant messages to point out in this little narrative: 1) Moses is evangelizing the nations; and 2) Moses is preaching the gospel by the Abrahamic Covenant.
It is important to note what we are told about the man invited to join Moses. Hobab is a Midianite, a Gentile. Moses’ persuasion for him to join Israel is a invitation for a Gentile to inherit all the promises that God has given to them.
This invitation is directly connected to God’s promise to Abraham. In his offspring will all the peoples of the earth be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). Moses is himself exemplifying faith in the promise. By his faith in the promise to Abraham, he is calling on a Gentile (and the reader) to follow him in the same faith.
“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham ”(Gal. 3:7)
Love involves my acknowledgement that I am obliged by my neighbor as a reality given to me by God, a reality which I would often like to evade but which encounters me with a transcendent imperative force. Why is this ‘transcendent’ ground for works of human fellowship theologically decisive? Because thereby my neighbour, the one with whom I stand in relation, is given to me, forming part of my destiny in the company of the saints. My neighbour is a summons to fellowship, because in him or her I find a claim on me that is not causal or fortuitous (and thereby dispensable) but rather precedes my will and requires that I act in my neighbour’s regard. Without a sense that fellowship is (God-) given, my neighbour would not present a sufficiently strong claim to disturb me out of complacency and indifference into active, initiative-taking regard… My neighbour obliges me because he or she is the presence to me of the appointment and vocation of the holy God. Without givenness, without fellowship as more than a contingent fact, without the neighbour as a divine call, there is only my will. But, if fellowship is a condition and not merely one possibility for my ironic self to entertain, then in building common life– in culture, politics and ethics– I resist the relationlessness of sin into which I may drift, and, sanctified by Christ and Spirit, I realize my nature as one created for holiness.
John Webster, Holiness, 97
This is one of the best paragraphs that has ever been written in the history of mankind.
Recently I was skyping with a close friend who is entering the final stint of two years’ UPG work in Asia. We talked about gospel resources and the growing accessibility for “every tongue” to read books written by Western authors. I sent him some translated books as if I were launching a missile of love to the other side of the world. However, after flipping through the pages he noticed the Western conceptual framework that is assumed of the reader. There are certain things that he has reiterated to ad nauseum that the book just figured the reader easily understood (and rightly so).
Now I think that we should translate, translate, translate. I think that we should pump out as many Christ-exalting resources as possible in the world. But at the same time we should remember that translations of Western books do not necessarily constitute international resources. To be clear, this does not mean that guilt-based books are no good in a shame-based world. Call it guilt, shame, or fear–they are really just various expressions of the same problem. A robust grasp of the universal human condition helps us while at the same time we recognize the divergence of social identities.
In light of all this and in blog post style, I offer a few points:
[1] Andrew Walls, The Translation Principle in Christian History, “The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith,” (New York: Orbis, 1996), 27.
Here’s one for identity.
Verse 6 of Romans 1 is staggering. Paul begins, “through him.” That is, through the one for whose name’s sake Paul had received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations (v. 5). That is, Jesus Christ our Lord, the one who was declared the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead (v. 4). That is, the one who was begotten out of the seed of King David according to the flesh (v. 3). That is, the Son of God who was promised beforehand by God through his prophets in the Holy Scripture (v. 2). That is, the one to whom Paul belongs as a bondservant (v. 1).
It is through this one, Jesus Christ–through him, the Romans are told that they exist as part of those from the nations who respond to the gospel in the obedience of faith. The deep and amazing Christological identity that Paul describes in vv. 1-4 comes to mission by verse 5. The Roman Christians, through Christ, are the product of such mission. Again, the mission that flows directly from the reality of Jesus.
Paul says: A. This is Jesus, B. Jesus gave me a mission, C. through Jesus you exist as the result of this mission.
Now the point that I want to feel is that the en hois este kai humeis kletoi Iesou Christou, the “including you who are called to belong Jesus Christ,” doesn’t apply only to the Romans. That is a sentence for the model reader. Paul wrote that as much for us who embrace the gospel as he did for the First Century Romans who received this letter on papyri (or whatever it was originally written on).
It occurred to me that my identity is the same. I am part of those from among the nations who through Jesus Christ exists as the product of the mission that he gave the Apostle Paul. I trace my hearing the gospel back to that “grace and apostleship” that Paul received from Jesus. Put that one on your resumé. Isn’t it amazing? Paul’s words are for us. I believe the gospel right now, this very moment, because Jesus is who he is and because he gave Paul a mission.
Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. What else do we say? What else can we do but shut our mouths and bow our heads and pray hard to feel what this means! Grace. Grace. Grace.
Daniel Marguerat in The First Christian Historian highlights a unifying mechanism within narratives called a “narrative chain” (p. 52 ff). He points out the chain of centurions in Luke-Acts and comments on their significance.
Marguerat notes that these centurions all have exemplary faith that is underlined in the text (see Luke 7:9b; 23:47; Acts 10:2). He writes, “The narrator has linked these three soldiers together by the common theme of the astonishing grace accorded to faith” (53).
For its significance on the level of narrative, he writes:
(a) it creates the continuity between the meeting of Peter and Cornelius and an action of Jesus
(b) it legitimizes the favour of God towards Cornelius by the positive construction of the character of the ‘centurion’
(c) it prepares for the shock of the opening up of salvation to the Gentiles
