Theology Blog

“Discipleship is not a contract in which if we break our part of the agreement He is free to break His; it is a covenant in which He established the conditions and guarantees the results. . . All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.” Eugene Peterson

I found this quote from Eugene Peterson in a devotional of his material that I read to be very helpful, powerful and succinct. I have been thinking a lot about discipleship lately and I think his words here are very helpful. We still have a works based understanding of God in many ways whether its under the guise of favor or punishment. It’s the karma mentality that is not at all consistent with the grace of God and God’s covenant with us. God has shown us what the life of a disciple looks like. Its not complicated to understand, but it is hard to live out. Our journey is the discipleship journey, to become more like Christ each and ever day. Regardless of our success and failures in that effort, we are secure in Christ. Trust is the essence of faith and perhaps the greatest act of trust in our relationship with God is to trust that God is sure of us and that we are God’s beloved regardless of performance, personality or circumstance.

Often in my life I have thoughts that while I am deeply passionate about, I have a hard time explaining. As I ponder and share these thoughts, it is often those around me (the many who are much smarter than I) who help me find words for these thoughts. This has been the case recently as I continue to wrestle with the complex world in which we live while thinking about the nature, state of and role of the church in the world. While the world is dramatically different than it has been, there are no new things under the sun. While the world has grown increasingly complex, most things are much more simple than we realize.

That said, the answers to the complex problems of the world and the church are very simple. Simple to explain, simple to name, simple to understand. While these things are incredibly simple to understand, they are very difficult to live out and apply. In fact, as one friend and colleague pointed out, its easy stuff, but it will take you a lifetime to live out. This is the nature of discipleship and following Jesus. Its all very simple. Love God, others and yourself with all that you have and all that you are. Go and make disciples. Go after Jesus, take up suffering and follow him. All these things are very simple to understand and explain. The difficult part is to live them out. Loving and following Jesus while loving yourself and serving others, being a disciple who makes disciples is a difficult call. It is going to take my lifetime for me to live out these short instructions, but its where life is found and it’s the answer to all the challenges we face.

Mike Breen is an author that I have been enjoying immensely, especially this past month. His book, Covenant and Kingdom is my favorite of all his work. He speaks of these two concepts in a powerful way. Below is a summary of what he has to say:

“Covenant is the way in which the Bible describes and defines relationship: first our relationship with God and then our relationship with everyone else.”

“Kingdom is the way in which the Bible describes and defines our responsibility: first, our responsibility to represent God to the people we know and then to everyone else.”

I find these two realities as described by Breen to be helpful, life-giving and challenging. I have long wrestled with the tension of being versus doing. I have spent time in both church and educational settings that focused primarily (or even solely) on personal piety or social justice. These settings have been a gift as they have helped me grown in each of these areas, but have also been frustrating as I have always seen both of great and perhaps equal value. In some ways the two camps have felt much like our political system; democrats vs. republicans, conservatives vs. liberals. Jesus was never a person who spoke of or lived in balance. Its not an easy of balancing these two camps; personal piety/devotion/character/covenant/relationship and social justice/service/competency/kingdom/works. All are of great value and there is no balancing the two. To be a disciple means to be fully immersed in personal piety and devotion along with covenant and relationship as well as being fully immersed in social justice and service along with the kingdom and works. We have an identity and relationship with Jesus Christ and also have a responsibility to this world. Works and faith cannot be separated. Both covenant and kingdom matter.

One of my professors from my undergraduate program wrote this on the trinity: “We have no realities within creation that can describe such a mysterious communion.” Chris Hall was absolutely correct in this succinct and powerful statement. Its in our human nature to want to understand. The scientific revolution has created an expectation in us that we must be able to explain and comprehend all things. I like many others have fallen into this temptation when it comes to God. If I reflect I realize that if all things about God were explainable and understandable, then at least two things would result: God is not that big and powerful after all, I am on the same level as God. Both of these notions are more than frightening to me, yet neither of them has prevented the temptation to try to understand, explain and know all things about. Seeking God, both to know and understand God is natural. We were created to seek God. Mystery is a reality of faith, especially when we are thinking about the trinity. I sincerely love the mystery that comes with the triune God, even though there are moments where it creates a discomfort in me that would indicate otherwise. If God were limited to the realities of this world, then the world as it has been, is and will be would be all there is to life. I am thankful that is not the case and I am thankful for a big, powerful, loving and deeply mysterious triune God.

When I worked at a church in Indiana, we did a series on the Lord’s Prayer that was really very well done. As a part of that, we were encouraged to re-write the Lord’s Prayer in our own words. Ever since that time I ask my confirmation students to do this every year as they think about what the Lord’s Prayer means to them. Below is my Lord’s Prayer Re-write back from 2004 or 2005.

Abba daddy above,

You are holiness,

and I pray for your presence.

Do with your creation as you will,

help me be your instrument.

Lord, give me everything I need to serve you

and help me be patient when getting what I need

is not all that I want.

Forgive me, as only you can,

and give me the strength to forgive myself,

humble me so I can forgive those around me.

Help me experience and understand your grace,

so that I can dispense it to others.

Protect me O Lord,

rule in my heart.

Save me from evil.

For you are everything I need

and I give my life to you.

Without you I am nothing.

May your Kingdom reign;

all glory is yours forever.

I continue to argue that the world has changed the church and not the other way around. As one of my college professors and mentors, Tony Campolo said ‘the church is the taillight of every social movement.’ The church reflects the world far more than it reflects the kingdom. One example of this is Christian celebrity. Whether it is a mega church pastor like Bill Hybels, a youth ministry superstar like Doug Fields, a sports star like Tim Tebow or any other celebrity in a religious or secular field; it is hard to discern the difference between how Christians approach these and other celebrities and those who are not Christ followers. As a church we tend to idolize, sermonize about and point to Christian celebrities. Pastors and other church staff desire to be known, speak, write several books and have large ministries. These dreams along with Christian celebrities have become idols. Looking at the Kingdom narrative and the life of Jesus, you do not see much value on these things. Surely Jesus attracted a crowd, but was that because he was a celebrity? Jesus’ church had 12 active members with many irregular and inactive members. Only once was Jesus afforded a celebration, on what we know as Palm Sunday. The disciples were not at all celebrities, most were common men with a few exceptions, and even those exceptions were not celebrities. One who had a lot of clout before following Jesus was the one who went on to betray him. While there is value in honoring and celebrating public figures who sincerely share and live out their faith, we have most certainly gone too far. Instead of seeking to be like Christ we compare ourselves to celebrities and others who seem to have been more successful around us. This is idol worship and it’s a distraction that Satan just loves to have his way with. At the end of the day, there is Christ and then there is everyone else who all happen to not be the Christ. Sure we must honor those who have had success, those who genuinely serve, those who work hard for the kingdom and many others, but in the end the things that matter the most is our love for God, others, and self and our ability to be faithful, not because of the results we hope to garner, but because we trust God with our whole lives.

“Everyone should be warned: ‘Give your life utterly to Christ and you will eventually suffer much more than you can now comprehend.’ But there is no way a man can communicate to daring young Christians the amount of suffering they will encounter in one lifetime.”

Suffering is one of those realities of life that we would much rather avoid. One of the great tragedies in our world today as it relates to suffering is that we do not have an adequate theology of suffering. It is much easier to simply avoid suffering, blame God for suffering, assume suffering is a punishment, make an assumption that Christians should suffer less or assume a variety of other narcissistic responses than it is to really wrestle with suffering theologically. We would much rather be an Easter people than a Good Friday people. Its true that we have victory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but that victory can only be seen in light of the cross. Suffering is a reality and its not a reality that we can fully be prepared for. We do not have to enjoy suffering, but we do have to wrestle with it. Following Christ means that we have chosen to embrace suffering, not avoid it, yet even the disciples who traveled with Jesus and lived out His story could never fully comprehend what that means.

“We must distinguish between the burden bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt but there are burdens places on us by God which He does not intend to lift off, He wants us to roll them back on Him. If we undertake work for God and get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility will be overwhelmingly crushing; but if we roll back on God that which He has put on us, He takes away the sense of responsibility but bringing the relaisation of Himself. Many worker have gone out with high courage and fine impulses, but with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, and before long they are crushed.” Oswald Chambers (Utmost for His Highest-classic edition, April 13).

This is a great piece by the brilliant Oswald Chambers that has caused continual reflection in me that has been very challenging. There is a lot of meat here, but the gist theologically that I wrestle with the most is the reminder of where our burdens belong. Some burdens should not even be considered burdens, they are just thrown away. Other burdens are more about our own needs and brokenness than they are actually burdens. These are the burdens of personality and choices not lead by God. Taking away the burdens I have described leaves only the burdens that God desires to carry for and with us. We will always be overwhelmed if we try to carry these (or really any burdens) on our own, we will be crushed. What does it mean theologically to give our burdens to God (or back to God as Chambers suggests)? What does it mean practically as Christ-followers? As leaders? I suspect that we often keep our burdens because we assume they are ours alone, or that we can handle them. We keep burdens because of our guilt, fear or need for control. If we are to give all the things that should truly be burdens to God, what does that leave us? It leaves us with nothing but ourselves, God’s creation and the Triune God Himself-not such a bad notion after all.

“At the sight of human sin, one wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide ‘I will combat it by humble love.’ If you resolve that once for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing like it.”–Kalistos Ware

I found this quote to be rather interesting. I cannot remember if I found it on a website, from an email, Facebook or something else, but it is well worth pondering. To recognize that we can combat anything and conquer the world (and our own personal worlds) through humble love is powerful. It is clearly something that it easier than done. The act of love and humility are very difficult tasks and impossible without the help of God in many cases. To demonstrate humble love to others, ourselves and the world is a great challenge, especially in a contemporary culture that values power, justice, entitlement, fairness, revenge and a wide range of other values that run contrary to the message of humble love. We are used to conquering through war, power, strategy, manipulation and other things that garner a quick resolution and center around control. To exercise humble love is to give up control, to give up our ‘rights’, to give up power and to trust. It is truly countercultural, but it is exactly what Christ did on the cross. This is a powerful quote worth wrestling with. When you hear these words, what does it stir in you?

During my time in California for my doctoral work, the professor talked a lot about Galatians 5. The main concepts related to Galatians 5 included trust, righteousness, the Holy Spirit and the notion of adoption. These are four very significant concepts that I continue to unpack as I start to study and wrestle with the passage myself. What is interesting to me is the way in which he talked about trust. His belief is that trust is our response to God and that by trusting God, the Holy Spirit takes our trust and uses it to build righteousness in us. This righteousness is indicated by the fruit of the spirit, the lack of trust in our lives for God is indicated by some of the sin discussed in Galatians 5. Its an interesting summary of the text and while I have not grappled with it in depth and come to my own understanding, conclusions and wording on the issue, I have to agree with his assessment. The more areas, aspects and ways in which we trust God in our lives, the more the Holy Spirit is given room to work in us and to truly make us righteous. It is trust, not action or belief that leads us to righteousness and the abundant life. What do you think about this concept of trust as a cornerstone of the Gospel? What do you make of this understanding of Galatians 5.