1 Month To Meet Jesus

The Modern Search for the Historical Jesus

2010-08-04T17:17:00.000+10:00

Some time ago at a conference we both attended, Robert Crotty gave me the hardcopy ms of a book he’d just written. Its title: The Modern Search for the Historical Jesus. It was later published by HarperCollins in 1996 as The Jesus Question: the Historical Search.

Thoughtful laypeople and Theology 101 students will find it enthralling. I
couldn’t put it down.

Crotty’s aim is to introduce us to the best modern scholarship about ‘who
Jesus really was’ (or ‘might have been’}, put their findings or hypotheses
side by side, and allow us to come to our own conclusions. His chapters
range over scholars from the radical Barbara Thiering to the conservative
John Maier, with Crossan and Borg in between. The material on the
historical, sociological, and manuscript backgrounds to the Gospels I found
particularly helpful.

To whet your appetite, here are some jottings I took as I read. I’ll leave
opinion-formation to you!

* Who is right and who is to decide? The scholars tend to presuppose a great deal of their audiences. The result is uncritical acceptance of unfounded theories and uncritical rejection of well-argued theories (5).

* One of the ‘greats’ in the field of biblical research in the mid-twentieth
century was G E Wright, who wrote that ‘history is the chief medium of
revelation’ (God Who Acts p. 13). Certainly mainstream Buddhists and Muslims do not engage in anything similar as regards their founders…. For
Christians it has become vitally important that Jesus really did exist and
really did do, more or less, what has been said of him. Some regard the
gospels as fully reliable history: any contradictions are harmonized by such
devotees even if it takes a veritable feat of mental gymnastics. Others
maintain that the quest for an historical Jesus is impossible since the
sources are too fragmentary and the faith of the early Christians has
distorted any historical value in the gospels. (7). And disconcertingly the
gap between the historical Jesus and the Jesus worshipped in Christian
churches has grown (8).

* Traditional accounts accepted supernatural elements such as miracles. But this did not sit well with Newtonian science which operated by a mechanical system of cause and effect. And the authority of church teaching has lessened over modern times (16)

* David Strauss (1808-1874) reckoned much of the gospels were ‘myth’ ie.
something that had not actually happened: they might have been broadly
historical fact but were very much embellished by the faith of the early
Christians. Between 1800 and 1900 some 60,000 lives of Jesus were written! (17)

* How do errors arise in ancient manuscripts? Imagine a monastery where
manuscripts are mass-produced with one monk reading the text aloud and
several copyists taking it down. One writes ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’ (nikos); another ‘Death has been swallowed up in conflict’
(neikos). The words nikos and neikos would have sounded the same. Then
further copyists would have continued the mistake… Or a pious scribe
writes in the margin of Matthew’s Lord’s Prayer the comment ‘For thine is
the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever’ which
subsequently another scribe added into the text. (44)

* Jewish high priest/king Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE) – supported by
Sadducees – slaughtered 6000 people in the Temple courtyard, and later had 800 Pharisees crucified, forced to watch as their wives and children were slaughtered in front of them (68)

* Jesus (Matthew 5:43): ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love
your neighbour and hate your enemy”. But I say to you, “Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you’. Nowhere does the Hebrew Bible speak of hating enemies. However Qumran’s Community Rule exhorted the monks to ‘hate all the sons of darkness’ and ‘to hate everyone whom God has rejected.’ (85)

* Re the Dead Sea Scrolls: There is no reason and no evidence to suggest
that there was ever a ‘Vatican Plot’ to stifle research into the scrolls.
Any suggested conspiracy theory is ludicrous. (86).

* Two peasant farmers in upper Egypt – Nag Hammadi – discovered some ancient texts. But some were lost forever, because the mother used some of the papyrus sheets as fire-starters! (91)

* Jesus was a carpenter (‘tekton’). The tekton in first century Galilee
would have been marginalized, a step down from a subsistence farmer who
still had land. A tekton would have come from a family that had lost its
land (103).

Shalom!/Salaam!/Pax!

Rowland Croucher

THE REAL JESUS

2010-02-24T07:22:00.001+11:00

Harvested from a friend's Facebook quotes:

"Besides Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters." ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The church is measured by Christ: more Christ, more church; less Christ, less church." ~T. Austin Sparks

"...you and I will never be Christians, or servants of the Lord, in real spiritual life and effectiveness beyond the measure of our inward apprehension of the Lord Jesus." ~T. Austin Sparks

"Jesus is either the flesh-and-blood individual who walked and talked, and lived and died, in first-century Palestine, or he is merely a creature of our own imagination, able to be manipulated this way and that." ~N.T. Wright

"It is not only possible, but actually highly likely, that the church has distorted the real Jesus, and needs to repent of this and rediscover who its Lord actually is." ~N.T. Wright

"A spiritual life without prayer is like the Gospel without Christ." ~Henri Nouwen

Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

More here...

THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

2009-12-31T11:05:00.003+11:00

Excerpts from an Expository Times article by Rev. Selwyn Dawson (Auckland NZ) December 1975. Google for the full article...

*****

* For some 'the faith' is clearly set out in the Scriptures, as 'containing all things necessary for salvation'. How true - yet how specious. It is rather like saying 'All of Shakespeare is to be found in the Concise Oxford Dictionary'.

* The creeds are not sufficient [either]. There is the great gap in the Apostles' Creed between the Birth and the Passion - which seems to say that the earthly life, teaching and ministry of Jesus are of no account. There is the omission of any ethical implications of belief, the absence of any apparent concern for the world for which Christ died - these make the Apostle's Creed quite inadequate to sum up for a sensitive modern the essence of the Faith... [It's like] interpreting a living, breathing man [Jesus] only in terms of a skeleton. Many an impeccable theology has done this.

* How then can I, a modern man, define the essence of Christianity, without using the traditional terms of creeds fashioned in and for a long vanished age? My answer, however tentative, would go something like this:

The essence of Christianity consists in building one's life upon a living relationship of love, trust and obedience in Jesus Christ in whom the invisible God has chosen to reveal himself to our human race.

If this on its own should seem too individualistic a definition, one must go on to say that:

In doing so, one becomes a part of that living fellowship, the Church, in which Jesus has chosen to manifest himself - and within whose fellowship and testimony, faith is born, and sustained.

* The familiar words of Herbert Butterfield: 'We can do worse than remember a principle which both gives us a firm rock, and leaves us the maximum elasticity for our minds; the principle 'Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted' (Christianity and History, 1950, p. 146).

More articles like this here.

KNOWING JESUS (James Alison)

2009-02-17T11:03:00.004+11:00

Knowing Jesus (James Alison) S P C K 1998

What does it mean to 'know Jesus'? Conservative Christians answer with a formula - 'receiving Jesus as your personal Saviour, and witnessing for him in the world', or a dogma (Jesus is God) and/or as an experiential relationship (Alison calls this the 'intimist' approach, from the Spanish 'intimista' - a 'way of being spiritual to do with personal feelings'). Liberal Christians, says Rowan Williams in the forward, 'will dismiss all this as inappropriate, since our relation to Jesus is a pervasive (but rather elusive) one of being... enabled by his memory'.

James Alison urges us rather to view Jesus as the 'resurrected victim'. The world is essentially a mosaic of interlocking systems of oppression and 'victimage', reparation and/or settling scores. In contrast, the resurrection of Jesus frees us to engage in a lifestyle of forgiveness, equality and care for others - especially the oppressed.

This book is a brilliant application of the French critic and anthropologist Rene Girard's views (expounded especially in his 1972 'Violence and the Sacred' followed by 'Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World' 1978). Briefly: all archaic religions involve sacrifices of the innocent: from scapegoats to 'victim-gods'. Such sacrifices restore 'order' or 'peace'. Human society/culture continues at the expense of 'victims': whether victimized by humans or by the gods. We may not now offer bulls or lambs as sacrifices, and moderns have a sophisticated understanding of the 'victimage' of the oppressed, but wars are getting more ugly, more violent, and more widespread. Why is that?

James Alison's response is that we're all in great danger of 'missing the point'. Christianity (='knowing Jesus') is not essentially about dogmas (winning doctrinal battles) or mystical experiences (retreating to an inner peaceful world), but about imitating 'the self-giving victim'... 'drawn on by the intelligence of the victim which both sets us free to act gratuitously, reveals to us our and other people's outcasts... and empowers us to works of service, of solidarity with them...' Thus our whole person becomes formed by 'new desires' which is the only effective way to relate to a violent world with its 'rivalistic desires'.

'We become possessed by the crucified and risen one, by a slow process of entrancement... which has to pass through concrete acts of freedom and service' (p. 101).

This new 'understanding' begins with the resurrection of Jesus: it's only when disciples encounter the risen Jesus that they work backwards past the cross into his life and teaching that they finally 'get it'.

There's nothing here about the Jesus Seminar and other critical modern biblical scholarship. The inference from this, it seems to me, is that those people are also asking the wrong questions (like 'who actually said what to whom and when, for what purpose?'). The disciples did not invent a new 'theological schema' after they encountered the risen Jesus: rather they began to understand more clearly what Jesus 'was on about' from the very beginning of his public ministry.

James Alison has a unique adjective for Jesus - the 'intelligent' victim. This little descriptor is to be found on just about every page of this little (114-page) book. The idea here is that Jesus has a new perspective when he refutes the ways humans relate to one another (especially in destructive hierarchies) or solve problems (victimizing others so that their opposition to our schemes is supposedly neutralized).

James Alison is (was? - there is no clue here) a Dominican theologian and has lived and worked in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and the United States. He currently lives in his home-country England.

I can't wait to read his book about Original Sin - 'The Joy of Being Wrong'.

Rowland Croucher

February 2009.
--

SMore articles like this here.

RESURRECTION

2008-05-20T17:11:00.001+10:00

In his seminal work on Christology, Jesus - God and Man, Wolfhart Pannenberg emphasizes that the resurrection is the crucial event by which Jesus the man is attested to be also divine. Like Jurgen Moltmann (The Crucified God) Pannenberg sees the resurrection as absolutely vital to Christian faith - and this means the resurrection as, in some sense, a real historical event, and not simply a subjective vision or existential experience among the disciples, as 'demythologizers' would lead us to believe.

And here's another - Bishop N T Wright's - take on it -

DID JESUS EXIST?

2008-05-15T11:23:00.000+10:00

First, from the negative side:

It is easy to trawl atheist websites and come up with a conclusion like this, which I read somewhere on a Usenet newsgroup:

'More evidence that supports the fact that Jesus the Christ is pure myth and fable. For being considered the most influential person in all of history, it is strange that of the 29 first century historians who existed at the time of Jesus, none of them mention Jesus at all...

A learned friend responds:

1. Philo Judaeus

A philosopher, not a historian.

2. Apollonius of Tyana

Virtually no writings survive

3. Valerius Maximus

Not a historian - wrote a manual on "historical tales for rhetoricians" based largely on Roman history

4. Marcus Manilius

Not a historian - a poet and astrologer

5. Velleius Paterculus

A historian, but dead before the crucifixion (19 BC - 31 AD)

6. Quintus Curtius Rufus

Only surviving work is an autobiography of Alexander the Great. Oddly, Jesus doesn't appear.

7. Pomponius Mela

Not a historian - a geographer

8. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Not a historian - a very bright man, but not a historian

9. Petronius Arbiter

Not a historian - a satirist

10. C. Musonius Rufus

Not a historian -- a philosopher, none of whose works now exist.

11. Aulus Persius Flaccus

Not a historian - a poet and satirist

12. Marcus Annaeus Lucanus

Only surviving historical work concerns the Roman Civil War. Oddly, does not mention Jesus

13. Hero(n) of Alexandria

Not a historian - a mathematician and engineer

14. Geminus

Not a historian - a mathematician and astronomer

15. Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella

Not a historian -- a writer on agriculture.

16. Cleomedes

Not a historian - an astronomer

17. Phaedrus

Not a historian - a writer of fables in imitation of Aesop

18. Dioscorides

Not a historian - a physician and pharmacologist

19. Plutarch of Chaeronea

A historian whose only extant works in this field focus on Alexander, Pliny and Herodotus. Oddly, does not mention Jesus

20.Justus of Tiberias

A historian whose work is lost and is anyway described by Photius as very brief and largely fictitious.

21. Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus)

His history is lost; the surviving work is a National History, discussing drugs etc.

22. Dio Chrysostom (Cocceianus Dio)

Regarded as a historian by his contemporaries but no historical works survive

23. Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

Only extant work is a textbook on rhetoric

24. Publius Papinius

Publius Papinius **Statius**, you mean? A poet, not a historian.

25. Dio of Prusa

Same person as Dio Chrysostom!!!

26. Silius Italicus

Not a historian - a poet. Only surviving work an epic based on the Punic wars

27. Sextus Julius Frontinus

Not a historian - a soldier and administrator

28. Marcus Valerius Martialus

Not a historian - read his "Epigrams".

29. Hierocles of Alexandria

Writing in the 5th Century AD by which time Christianity was the official religion of the Empire!!!

Watch for more...

WAS JESUS GOD?

2008-03-22T20:23:00.000+11:00

According to the respected New Testament scholar Raymond Brown:

When asked whether the NT calls Jesus God:

1. Three NT texts unmistakably do (Hebrews 1:8-9, John 1:1, 20:28)

2. Five others probably do (John 1:18, Titus 2:13, 1 John 5:20, Romans 9:5, 2 Peter 1:1)

3. And most, if not all, of these seem to spring from a context of worship. (Expository Times, June 1968, p. 258)

THE 'WORD OF GOD'

2008-03-06T11:40:00.000+11:00

The great 20th century theologian Karl Barth has taught us that when we think of the phrase 'the Word of God' we must think three ways:

The Eternal Logos (Christ)

The Written Word (Scripture)

The Preached Word.

(more to come)...

PRAYERS TO JESUS

2008-02-25T15:56:00.000+11:00

An online friend wrote: 'There are no prayers to Jesus in the Gospels.' I think he was wrong, and will post some material on that some time.

Meanwhile: at the close of the theatre production of Gospell the young players silently carried the corpse of Jesus from the stage. At that moment there's a pervasive feeling of despair - will this joyous production end with the triumph of the forces of evil?

Then all is transformed: the production ends with the caste back on stage joyously singing:

Day by day, for three things I pray -
to see Him more clearly, to love Him
more dearly, to follow Him more nearly,
Day by Day.

JESUS AND PAUL

2008-02-25T09:51:00.001+11:00

I heard a good sermon yesterday which suggested that part of the reason the Orthodox/conservative Western wing of the Church likes Paul (and often preaches from Paul more than from Jesus) is that Paul is discursive whereas the Jesus of the Gospels mostly uses narrative.

Figure this out, for example: why does Jesus never (never? can someone enlighten me?) use the term 'God' but descriptive terms like 'Father' in his prayers?

Another clue: why doesn't Paul cite any of Jesus' core narrative-based teachings/quotes in his letters (except perhaps for the Last Supper)?

We must remember that the apostles are to Jesus as Jupiter's moons are to the sun: multiple/different reflections of the Light of Christ. (I'm not an astronomer: but I presume Jupiter's moons give more light in total to that planet than our moon does to ours: does it?)

See my (developing) article: 'Did Paul Mess Up Jesus' Religion?'

Rowland Croucher

MEETING THE SAVIOUR

2007-12-22T22:40:00.001+11:00

Review: Meeting the Saviour: the Glory of Jesus in the Gospel of John by Derek Tidball (Bible Reading Fellowship 2007).

Here's a delightful, warm, devotional book which takes us on a journey through the Fourth Gospel. The theme is 'glory' - a strange idea for moderns, but common in the Old and New Testaments to describe God's being 'worthy of honour, esteem, worship'.

In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) Jesus' 'glory' is only associated with the Transfiguration, but in John his glory is 'manifested' time and time again.

Derek Tidball is a British Evangelical, currently principal of the London School of Theology. Here he offers us 26 devotional chapters on various stories in John. His scholarship is unquestioned, and he writes too as a pastor. Being Evangelical he has a 'high christology': 'Jesus was God's agent in bringing into being all that there is in our universe... There is no corner in the universe that does not have its origin in Jesus... The highest, widest and deepest are his creation... the DNA helix, the quasars and quarks were designed and produced by him...' That's in chapter one: so we know what we're in for in the rest of the series...

Jesus was truly human: he 'did not shoot down to earth as if he were some celestial politician arriving at the scene of a tragedy for a brief photo opportunity.'

A good way to get a feel for a writer's approach is to go first to the back and study the bibliography: it's probably a naughty habit, but I find it enlightening. Just about all of Tidball's quotes are from 'evangelical' authors: the broadest, theologically, being William Barclay and William Temple (both brilliant scholars and writers, in my view). How about this from Archbishop Temple (in the story of Jesus turning water into wine): 'The modest water saw its God and blushed.'

I loved the chapter on Jesus and the woman at the well. 'Here was a woman who was longing to be loved... she was probably a stigmatized woman in her village... but we shouldn't assume it was her fault.'
When an evangelical scholar writes pastorally like that (many don't) I want to read more.

Get someone to buy it for you, and spend a slow month walking prayerfully through it: these homilies will feed both your soul and your mind.

Finally a well-known quote, again from Temple: 'It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it; I can't. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live like that. Jesus could do it; I can't. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like that. And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live in me, then I could live a life like that.'

Review copy from Ridley Melbourne Bookshop - http://bookshop.ridley.unimelb.edu.au/bookweb/

Rowland Croucher
December 2007

More articles like this here.

THE CASE FOR THE REAL JESUS [1]

2007-10-25T15:21:00.001+10:00

In the next few blogs I want to sumarize the gist of Lee Strobel's new book, The Case for the Real Jesus (Zondervan 2007).

Like his other best-selling books, Strobel offers a readable, racy account of the pros and cons of current theological opinion about Jesus - his identity, resurrection, the literary sources, etc. He brings his investigative/journalistic skills to the various discussions with 'experts' (note the 'quotes': I'll explain later).

In my review of his well-known book The Case for Christ, I wrote: 'Strobel's methodology is a little contrived. Strobel acts as a skeptical devil's advocate with the experts he interviews. But he is then convinced at every point on every issue - so there's an 'a prioristic' flavour about the whole exercise. (It's cute how he sometimes comments on a scholar's opinion as being 'theologically sound'!).'

Here again he betrays his conservative evangelical bias, getting all upbeat when a 'top-rate scholar' affirms a belief in biblical inerrancy, or substitutionary atonement, for example. Strobel, in my opinion, is a better raconteur than theologian.

But he's done his research, and generally the various theological/textual experts respond to his hard questions with balance and fairness. A few issues are in the too-hard basket (which distinguishes this book's 'evangelical' approach from many written by fundamentalists).

So here's an all-too-simplified Q & A summary of the main issues in this interesting book, covering each of the six challenges:

[1] 'Scholars are uncovering a radically different Jesus in ancient documents just as credible as the Four Gospels'

[2] 'The Bible's portrait of Jesus can't be trusted because the Church tampered with the text'

[3] 'New explanations have refuted Jesus' resurrection'

[4] 'Christianity's beliefs were copied from pagan religions'

[5] 'Jesus was an imposter who failed to fulfill messianic prophecies'

[6] 'People should be free to pick and choose what to believe about Jesus'

Here's another review of this book.

More articles like this here.

THE UNIQUENESS OF JESUS

2007-10-24T15:42:00.000+10:00

Ernst Kasemann wrote a powerful book about Jesus - Jesus Means Freedom - in which he attacks our efforts to 'domesticate' Jesus, or turn him into an icon or 'make him bourgeois after our own image'. He recalls the apocryphal saying of Jesus 'He who is near me is near the fire' - the fire of judgment, an uncomfortable experience. The Sermon on the Mount does not consist of 'beautiful ideas' but is a terrifying examination of conscience...

So what's unique about Jesus? All of these, according to Kasemann: his complete refusal to acknowledge barriers raised by race or skin-colour; his demand for the most scrupulous honesty in word and intent; his rejection of every form of retaliation; his refusal to approve of our worship of God unless we try to be reconciled to anyone we've wronged; his requirement of unconditional love of our neighbours and of forgiveness that outstrips every limit; his insistence that inhumanity to a fellow-human is a deep offence against God...

To which we can add Jesus' searching words about wealth and its power to undermine integrity and harden gentleness of spirit. How often do moderns and their sermons on money try to explain away what Jesus said on this touchy subject! (I've been reading and listening to Thomas Friedman recently: because the whole world wants goodies, we're wrecking the planet).

BECOMING MORE LIKE CHRIST

2007-08-22T11:37:00.000+10:00

Dr. John Stott: Sermon delivered at the Keswick Convention July 17th 2007.

I remember very vividly, some years ago, that the question which perplexed me as a younger Christian (and some of my friends as well) was this: what is God’s purpose for His people? Granted that we have been converted, granted that we have been saved and received new life in Jesus Christ, what comes next? Of course, we knew the famous statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever: we knew that, and we believed it. We also toyed with some briefer statements, like one of only five words – love God, love your neighbour. But somehow neither of these, nor some others that we could mention, seemed wholly satisfactory. So I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants His people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God.

So if that is true, I am proposing the following: first to lay down the biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness: secondly, to give some New Testament examples of this; thirdly, to draw some practical conclusions. And it all relates to becoming like Christ.

So first is the biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness. This basis is not a single text: the basis is more substantial than can be encapsulated in a single text. The basis consists rather of three texts which we would do well to hold together in our Christian thinking and living: Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18 and 1 John 3:2. Let's look at these three briefly.

Romans 8:29 reads that God has predestined His people to be conformed to the image of His Son: that is, to become like Jesus. We all know that when Adam fell he lost much – though not all – of the divine image in which he had been created. But God has restored it in Christ. Conformity to the image of God means to become like Jesus: Christlikeness is the eternal predestinating purpose of God.

My second text is 2 Corinthians 3:18: ‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ So it is by the indwelling Spirit Himself that we are being changed from glory to glory – it is a magnificent vision. In this second stage of becoming like Christ, you will notice that the perspective has changed from the past to the present, from God’s eternal predestination to His present transformation of us by the Holy Spirit. It has changed from God’s eternal purpose to make us like Christ, to His historical work by His Holy Spirit to transform us into the image of Jesus.

That brings me to my third text: 1 John 3:2. ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he appears, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ We don’t know in any detail what we shall be in the last day, but we do know that we will be like Christ. There is really no need for us to know any more than this. We are content with the glorious truth that we will be with Christ, like Christ, for ever.

Here are three perspectives – past, present and future. All of them are pointing in the same direction: there is God’s eternal purpose, we have been predestined; there is God’s historical purpose, we are being changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit; and there is God’s final or eschatalogical purpose, we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All three, the eternal, the historical and the eschatalogical, combine towards the same end of Christlikeness. This, I suggest, is the purpose of God for the people of God. That is the biblical basis for becoming like Christ: it is the purpose of God for the people of God.

I want to move on to illustrate this truth with a number of New Testament examples. First, I think it is important for us to make a general statement, as the apostle John does in 1 John 2:6: ‘he who says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way as he walked.’ In other words, if we claim to be a Christian, we must be Christlike. Here is the first New Testament example: we are to be like Christ in his Incarnation.

Some of you may immediately recoil in horror from such an idea. Surely, you will say to me, the Incarnation was an altogether unique event and cannot possibly be imitated in any way? My answer to that question is yes and no. Yes, it was unique, in the sense that the Son of God took our humanity to himself in Jesus of Nazareth, once and for all and forever, never to be repeated. That is true. But there is another sense in which the Incarnation was not unique: the amazing grace of God in the Incarnation of Christ is to be followed by all of us. The Incarnation, in that sense, was not unique but universal. We are all called to follow the example of His great humility in coming down from heaven to earth. So Paul could write in Philippians 2:5-8: ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God some thing to be grasped for his own selfish enjoyment, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.’ We are to be like Christ in his Incarnation in the amazing self-humbling which lies behind the Incarnation.

Secondly, we are to be like Christ in His service. We move on now from his Incarnation to His life of service; from His birth to His life, from the beginning to the end. Let me invite you to come with me to the upper room where Jesus spent his last evening with His disciples, recorded in John’s gospel chapter 13: ‘He took off his outer garments, he tied a towel round him, he poured water into a basin and washed his disciples’ feet. When he had finished, he resumed his place and said, “If then I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet, for I have given you an example’ – notice the word – ‘ that you should do as I have done to you.’

Some Christians take Jesus’ command literally and have a foot-washing ceremony in their Lord’s Supper once a month or on Maundy Thursday – and they may be right to do it. But I think most of us transpose Jesus’ command culturally: that is just as Jesus performed what in His culture was the work of a slave, so we in our cultures must regard no task too menial or degrading to undertake for each other.

Thirdly, we are to be like Christ in His love. I think particularly now of Ephesians 5:2 – ‘walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.’ Notice that the text is in two parts. The first part is walk in love, an injunction that all our behaviour should be characterised by love, but the second part of the verse says that He gave Himself for us, which is not a continuous thing but an aorist, a past tense, a clear reference to the cross. Paul is urging us to be like Christ in his death, to love with self-giving Calvary love. Notice what is developing: Paul is urging us to be like the Christ of the Incarnation, to be like the Christ of the foot washing and to be like the Christ of the cross. These three events of the life of Christ indicate clearly what Christlikeness means in practice.

Fourthly, we are to be like Christ in His patient endurance. In this next example we consider not the teaching of Paul but of Peter. Every chapter of the first letter of Peter contains an allusion to our suffering like Christ, for the background to the letter is the beginnings of persecution. In chapter 2 of 1 Peter in particular, Peter urges Christian slaves, if punished unjustly, to bear it and not to repay evil for evil. For, Peter goes on, you and we have been called to this because Christ also suffered, leaving us an example – there is that word again – so that we may follow in His steps. This call to Christlikeness in suffering unjustly may well become increasingly relevant as persecution increases in many cultures in the world today.

My fifth and last example from the New Testament is that we are to be like Christ in His mission. Having looked at the teaching of Paul and Peter, we come now to the teaching of Jesus recorded by John. In John 20:21, in prayer, Jesus said ‘As you, Father, have sent me into the world, so I send them into the world’ – that is us. And in his commissioning in John 17 he says ‘As the Father sent me into the world, so I send you.’ These words are immensely significant. This is not just the Johannine version of the Great Commission but it also an instruction that their mission in the world was to resemble Christ’s mission. In what respect? The key words in these texts are ’sent into the world’. As Christ had entered our world, so we are to enter other people’s worlds. It was eloquently explained by Archbishop Michael Ramsey some years ago: ‘We state and commend the faith only in so far as we go out and put ourselves with loving sympathy inside the doubts of the doubters, the questions of the questioners and the loneliness of those who have lost the way.’

This entering into other people’s worlds is exactly what we mean by incarnational evangelism. All authentic mission is incarnational mission. We are to be like Christ in his mission. These are the five main ways in which we are to be Christlike: in His Incarnation, in His service, in His love, in His endurance and in His mission.

Very briefly, I want to give you three practical consequences of Christlikeness.

Firstly, Christlikeness and the mystery of suffering. Suffering is a huge subject in itself and there are many ways in which Christians try to understand it. One way stands out: that suffering is part of God’s process of making us like Christ. Whether we suffer from a disappointment, a frustration or some other painful tragedy, we need to try to see this in the light of Romans 8:28-29. According to Romans 8:28, God is always working for the good of his people, and according to Romans 8:29, this good purpose is to make us like Christ.

Secondly, Christlikeness and the challenge of evangelism. Why is it, you must have asked, as I have, that in many situations our evangelistic efforts are often fraught with failure? Several reasons may be given and I do not want to over-simplify but one main reason is that we don’t look like the Christ we are proclaiming. John Poulton, who has written about this in a perceptive little book entitled A today sort of evangelism, wrote this:

‘The most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying. They are their message. Christians need to look like what they are talking about. It is people who communicate primarily, not words or ideas. Authenticity gets across. deep down in side people, what communicates now is basically personal authenticity.’

That is Christlikeness. Let me give you another example. There was a Hindu professor in India who once identified one of his students as a Christian and said to him: ‘If you Christians lived like Jesus Christ, India would be at your feet tomorrow.’ I think India would be at their feet today if we Christians lived like Christ. From the Islamic world, the Reverend Iskandar Jadeed, a former Arab Muslim, has said ‘If all Christians were Christians – that is, Christlike – there would be no more Islam today.’

That brings me to my third point – Christlikeness and the indwelling of the Spirit. I have spoken much tonight about Christlikeness but is it attainable? In our own strength it is clearly not attainable but God has given us his Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to change us from within. William Temple, Archbishop in the 1940s, used to illustrate this point from Shakespeare:

‘It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it – I can’t. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it – I can’t. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like this. And if the Spirit could come into me, then I could live a life like His.’

So I conclude, as a brief summary of what we have tried to say to one another: God’s purpose is to make us like Christ. God’s way to make us like Christ is to fill us with his Spirit. In other words, it is a Trinitarian conclusion, concerning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

http://www.langhampartnership.org/2007/08/06/john-stott-address-at-keswick/

IF GOD IS LIKE JESUS, NOTHING IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

2007-08-21T15:56:00.001+10:00

For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
'Look, the virgin shall conceive and
bear a son,
and they shall name him
Emmanuel,'
which means, 'God is with us.'

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I am the bread of life...

I am the light of the world...

I came from God and now I am here.

I did not come on my own, but he sent me.

I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved...

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd....

I know my own and my own know me... I lay down my life for the sheep.

The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son do es not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life. Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ... These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name... He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him.

God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

Isaiah 9:6; Matthew 1:23; John 14:6; John 6:35; John 8:12; John 8:42; John 10: 9-15; John 3:35,36; John 5:19-26; John 1:12,17; John 20:31; Colossians 1:15-16; Ephesians 1:20-21; Hebrews 13:8; John 11:27; John 14:23.

Ask almost anyone, anywhere, which individual has done most to change the course of history, and the answer will almost invariably be, 'Jesus of Nazareth.'

Who was this Jew from an ancient, frontier province of the Roman Empire who has left such an indelible mark upon the earth? Well, first let's get one thing straight: the man Jesus actually lived, and the histories describing his life (mainly the four gospels in the New Testament) are regarded by the overwhelming majority of scholars - Christian or not - as reliable.

And he was a real person: an extravert who enjoyed the company of others, but who also spent hours and days and weeks in solitary prayer; an angry man who would not tolerate hypocrisy and injustice, but also a tender, compassionate friend of the downtrodden; a brilliant teacher and debater, but also 'down-to-earth'; a man who was tempted in every way others are, but, his friends asserted, remained sinless; a man who was truly masculine (prepared to take the fight up to his enemies) and also in touch with the feminine in his personality (there is no woman in the Gospels who was ever his enemy).

But Jesus said he was more than a man: he claimed divinity. Now that's not odd: psychiatrists counsel many people who have delusions of grandeur. But this man was different: he was not a 'nut-case'. In fact, he comes across to his contemporaries and to us as a very-well-put- together person indeed.

Now if Jesus was God, a lot follows. He was God's Word that caused the cosmos to come into being; he is God's Life that holds everything together; he will the Resurrector and Judge of the living and the dead. He offers us eternal life, and a deep peace, and forgiveness of our sins, and trouble. You'd better not ignore him.

Athanasius, a great church father, said that when Jesus became one of us he did not subtract deity but rather added humanity. Jesus wasn't less than God, but became something in addition to God, a human being. Byron the poet put it succinctly: 'If ever a man were God or God were man, Jesus was both.'

What was he like? Artists depict him with a sad, pained expression, or with piercing eyes, or with a 'lean, hungry look' or as a wan, 'pale Galilean'. The gospels give us a picture of a sometimes joyful, sometimes weeping, sometimes compassionate, sometimes angry person, a brilliant debater with intellectuals but also down- to-earth, fearless in the company of the powerful, but tender with the down-trodden.

Jesus is Lord. What does that mean? For the first Christians, who lived under the rule of the Roman Empire, the statement 'Jesus is Lord' was a fast ticket to trouble. The empire already had one lord - Caesar - and he didn't want to share his sovereignty with some prophet from a far-off Eastern colony.

To say Jesus is Lord means he's the boss. He has the right to give orders. Your and my response is either to rebel or obey: we make that decision every hour of every day of our lives. So being a Christian isn't just doing what's right: it's doing what Jesus the Lord wants you to do.

'Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.' This old gospel song is still very meaningful. When you 'surrender' to Christ you do not cease to be a fully-functioning person. You are still fully active. You choose to do his will, not because you are forced to, but because you want to. You realize his will is 'good, pleasing and perfect' (Romans 12:2). Surrender to Christ is the only way to a complete, full life.

When the great theologian Karl Barth was asked 'What's the best thought you've ever had?' he would customarily reply, 'Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.' That's the best motivation of all for following Jesus. 'Jesus loves even me!'

Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centrepiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever have sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected human life upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life, Jesus of Nazareth.

Anon, quoted in Bill Bright, A Handbook for Christian Maturity, San Bernadino, California: Here's Life Publishers, 1982/1990, p. 28.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1960/1978, p. 56.

Deity is not an easy term to define... But it is not impossible to imagine a line which separates God from all God's creatures, so that on one side is God, and on the other is everything less than God. If we ask on which side of this line Jesus Christ is to be found, the answer given by all the New Testament writers is 'God's side'. They differin their terminology and their habits of thought. They are writing independently. They are not simply copying from one another... Nowhere in the New Testament do we find any such thought as that Jesus is like one of the angels, or that he can be fully explained in purely human terms. With one accord the New Testament writers insist that Jesus must be thought of as God in the fullest sense... This is all the more remarkable in view of their convinced monotheism.

At the same time the early church did not waver in its thought that Jesus was a man. It is not easy to hold this in conjunction with his deity... How these two... are related, or even how they could co-exist in one person, we do not know. The evidence does not indicate that Jesus was partly God and partly man, that he did some things as God and others as man. Rather he was one person, albeit a person with divine and human characteristics.

Leon Morris, The Lord from Heaven, London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1958, p. 109.

I say, the acknowledgement of God in Christ
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it.

Robert Browning, 'A Death in the Desert', quoted in Margaret Pepper (ed.) The Pan Dictionary of Quotations, London: Pan Books, 1989, p.76.

Apart from Christ we know neither what our life nor our death is; we do not know what God is nor what we ourselves are.

Blaise Pascal, Pensees, quoted in Margaret Pepper (ed.) The Pan Dictionary of Quotations, London: Pan Books, 1989, p.77.

The much-maligned doctrine of the Trinity is an assertion that, appearances to the contrary withstanding, there is only one God.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mean that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and the mystery within us are all the same mystery. Thus the Trinity is a way of saying something about us and the way we experience God.

Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, London, Collins, 1973, p.93.

After the severe storms and floods which Holland suffered in 1952... the dyke had to be strengthened one Sunday. The pastor... found himself is a religious defficulty. Should he call out the people of the parish... and set them to work if it meant profaning the sabbath? Should he, on the contrary, abandon them to destruction in order to honour the sabbath? He... summoned the church council to consult and decide. The discussion went as one might suppose: We live to carry out God's will. God, being omnipotent, can always perform a miracle with the win and waves. Our duty is obedience, whether in life or in death. The pastor tried one last argument, perhaps against his own conviction: Did not Jesus himself, on occasion, break the fourth commandment and declare that the Sabbath was made for [humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath]? Thereupon a venerable old man stood up: 'I have always been troubled, pastor, by something that I have never yet ventured to say publicly. Now I must say it. I have always had the feeling that our Lord Jesus was just a bit of a liberal.'

Ernst Kasemann, Jesus Means Freedom, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972, p. 16.

Jesus does not offer an opinion for he never uttered opinions. He never guessed; he knew, and he knows... To accept Christ is to know the meaning of the words 'as he is, so are we in this world.' We accept his friends as our friends, his enemies as our enemies, his ways as our ways, his rejection as our rejection, his cross as our cross, his life as our life and his future as our future....

A W Tozer, in Harry Verploegh (comp.), Signposts: A Collection of Sayings from A W Tozer, Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1988, pp. 23,25

Christianity began with an encounter. Some people, Jews, came into contact with Jesus of Nazareth. They were fascinated by him and stayed with him. This encounter and what took place in Jesus' life and in connection with his death gave their own lives meaning and significance. They felt that they were reborn, understood and cared for. Their new identity was expressed in a new enthusiasm for the kingdom of God and therefore in a special compassion for others... in a way that Jesus had already showed them. This change in the direction of their lives was the result of their real encounter with Jesus, since without him they would have remained as they were, as they told other people later (see 1 Corinthians 15:17). This was not something over which they had taken the initiative; it had happened to them.

This astonishing and amazing encounter which some people had with Jesus of Nazareth, a man from their own race and religion, becomes the starting point for the view of salvation found in the New Testament. This means that grace and salvation, redemption and religion, need not be expressed in strange, 'supernatural' terms; they can be put into ordinary human language, the language of encounter and experience, above the language of picture and image, testimony and story, never detached from a specific liberating event...

Edward Schillebeeckx, in Robert Schreiter (ed.), The Schillebeeckx Reader, New York: Crossroad, 1987, p. 129.

We have an interesting problem in Spanish with the word lord. Lord is senor (squiggle above n), the same word we use for mister. [So] Senor Lopez runs the gas station on the corner, Senor Rodriguez drives a city bus, and Senor Jesuscristo listens to your prayers.

The result in Spanish is that we have lost the 'lord' concept. To call Jesus the Lord (Senor) doesn't really say anything very strongly.
But since I have come among English-speaking people, I have found that you have the same problem, even though you have two separate words, mister and lord, in your language... The Bible presents Jesus as King, as Lord, as the maximum authority. Jesus is at the very centre.

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Disciple, Carol Stream, Ill.: Creation House, 1975, pp. 11,12.

A ship's captain was once guiding his vessel along a rocky coast on a cloudy night. He peered ahead and saw a faint light. He ordered his signalman to send this message by radio: 'Alter your course ten degrees south.'

Soon a message came back: 'Alter your course ten degrees north.'

The captain was a little disgusted. He sent a second message: 'The captain says, "Alter your course ten degrees south!"'

A second message message came back: 'Seaman Third Class Jones says, "Alter your course ten degrees north."'

The sent the captain into full-scale fuming. 'Alter your course ten degrees north; this is a battleship!' he thundered.

One more reply came back: 'Alter your course ten degrees north; this is the lighthouse.'

Our modern world is full of voices shouting orders into the night, telling others how to live, what to do, how to change. And there is one Voice whose directions seem opposite to the rest... He is the one voice who knows what he's talking about. He is the Light of the world. He is the authority on this treacherous coastline. He is Lord.

Dean Merrill, 'Jesus is Lord' LaVonne Neff et al (eds), Practical Christianity, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 1988, p. 139.

Picture a gloved hand. The glove is a limp piece of leather until the hand moves into the glove and begins to mobilize it. When the hand does something, the glove could say, 'I just picked up my coffee cup,' but it really is not the glove doing it. In a sense, Jesus' living in us is like the hand in the glove. Jesus Christ clothes himself and uses me for his purpose. I want to allow the indwelling Christ to mold me and use me and bend me any way he pleases as long as he accomplishes his will.

Luis Palau, 'The Indwelling Christ', Neff, pp. 149-150.

Arise, shine, for your light has come.
The glory of the Lord is risen upon us...

Great beyond all question is the mystery of our religion; Christ was manifested in the body, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels.

Christ was proclaimed among the nations, believed in throughout the world, glorified in heaven...

Jesus, you are the good shepherd, you are willing to die for the sheep.

You are the good shepherd; as the Father knows you and you know the Father, in the same way you know your sheep, and your sheep know you; you are willing to die for us.

The Father loves you because you are willing to give your life; no one takes your life from you; you give it up of your own free will; you are the good shepherd.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who understands our frailty, and knows each one of us by name.

A New Zealand Prayer Book, Auckland, Collins, 1989, pp.114, 107, 128-129.

Almighty ever-living God, our Father, you enlighten all who come into the world. You have given the human race Jesus Christ our Saviour: born of a woman and to die on a cross. In him we see you as you really are. Your Holy Spirit comes into our lives to confirm your reality and teach us your truth.

Jesus fulfilled your will; he was a model of humility; he loved us, even giving his life for us.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

Fill my heart with the light of your gospel, that my thoughts may please you, and my love be sincere.

Help me to bear witness to you by following Jesus' example of suffering and make me worthy to share in his resurrection.

Guide my mind by his truth and strengthen my life by the example of his death, that I may live in union with you in the kingdom of your promise.

Amen.

A Benediction: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:2).

Further reading: Bill Bright, A Handbook for Christian Maturity, Josh McDowell, The Resurrection Factor, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, More Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell and Bart Larson, Jesus, a Biblical Defense of his Deity (all published by Here's Life Publishers, Inc, San Bernadino, California).

Rowland Croucher, GROW! Meditations and Prayers for new Christians, JBCE, 1992, chapter 7

More articles like this here.

THANK YOU JESUS! (Keith Green)

2007-06-12T21:18:00.000+10:00

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

2007-06-08T11:05:00.000+10:00

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He never set foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.

While He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends deserted him. He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had - his coat.

When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure for much of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of people on this earth as powerfully as this "One Solitary Life."

- Anonymous

This famous piece about Jesus has been circulating for several decades, and is often heard in Christian preaching. If you want to chase its origins you're welcome, but I'd suggest you accept it as it stands as a thought-provoking introduction to an amazing, though solitary life!

Rowland Croucher

MEETING JESUS IN OUR WORSHIP

2007-05-22T10:14:00.001+10:00

An Introduction to WORSHIP

This is the first major post in this Blog. It is addressed to Christians. Soon I'll post some articles on Jesus: Did he exist? Was he divine? And many others. Our aim today is to open a window on to the big subject of worship. Our starting-point is chapter one of Richard Foster’s brilliant book Streams of Living Water. These notes formed the outline of a lecture offered to Urban Neighbours of Hope…

~~~

A good prayer to begin with: ‘Lord, please speak to me: your servant is listening…’

What is worship?

WORSHIP IS… ‘BLESSING THE LORD WITH ALL THAT IS WITHIN US – BLESSING HIS HOLY NAME!’ (Psalm 103: 1)

‘BLESSING’: WHAT’S THAT?
‘ALL THAT IS WITHIN ME’ - INCLUDES…

WORSHIP IS… ‘THE PRESENTING OF OUR WHOLE SELVES AS A LIVING SACRIFICE… HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE TO GOD… WHICH YOUR SPIRITUAL WORSHIP’ (Romans 12:1,2)

WORSHIP PARADIGMS

* Temple (God as ‘wholly other’)
* Synagogue (God as the source of truth)
* Home Group (meeting God in each other)
* Festival (God as father/parent)
* Desert (God within us)
* Work (God in daily life)
* All of Life (God as Lord/King)

WORSHIP TRADITIONS

• CONTEMPLATIVE
• HOLINESS
• CHARISMATIC
• SOCIAL JUSTICE
• EVANGELICAL
• INCARNATIONAL

• contemplative (prayer-filled life)
• holiness (virtuous life)
• charismatic (Spirit-empowered life)
• social justice (the compassionate life)
• evangelical (Word-centered life), and
• incarnational (sacramental life)

Jesus is the source of each tradition… his prayer and intimacy, purity of heart, life in the Spirit, advocacy of justice and shalom, proclamation of the evangel, and sacrament of the present moment.

"God is bringing together streams of life that have been isolated from one another for a very long time."

1. The Contemplative tradition

• Psalm 46:10, Be still and know that I am God…
• Psalm 62:5, For God alone my soul waits in silence…

Foster's chapter on the Contemplative tradition or the prayer-filled life is organized around Anthony of the Desert as the historical example, John the Beloved as the biblical expression of the movement, and Frank C. Laubach as the contemporary figure.

CONTEMPLATIVE WORSHIP INCLUDES…

Silence... 'the royal road to spiritual formation' (Nouwen) - not just the absence of noise, but an opportunity to listen to the still small voice of the Spirit.

Meditation... is a way for scripture to be internalized not merely (as in TM etc.) a technique to 'calm down'.

* Prayer divorced from noise and activity; from ‘head and mouth’
* ‘Practising the presence of God’ (Brother Lawrence)
* ‘Thirsting for God’ (Psalm 42:1,2)
* All our faculties – seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, feeling, perceiving: ‘Teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see (George Herbert)

* Seeing God in all things (‘nothing is profane for those who know how to see’ – Teilhard de Chardin)
* ‘Feeling’ God’s presence (‘I felt my heart strangely warmed’ – Wesley)
(‘Jesus the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast’ – Bernard of Clairvaux)
* ‘Reverent fear… sweetness and delight in Him… so that we cannot pray at all except that He moves us’ (Julian of Norwich)
* Total self-detachment (Meister Eckhart)
* Surrendering all: ‘all to him I freely give’ (evangelical hymn)
* ‘The heart… stretched through suffering and enlarged’ (Thomas Kelly)
* A love affair with ‘Lady Poverty’ (Francis of Assisi)
* ‘Dark night of the senses/Spirit/ soul (John of the Cross)
* Movement from love of self for self’s sake, through love of God for self’s sake and love of God for God’s sake to love of self for God’s sake (Bernard of Clairvaux)
* Longing and desire: ‘Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly’ (Wesley)
* Stages: from disciplined mental exercises (reason) to the heart’s ‘prayer of quiet’ (Teresa of Avila)

2. The Holiness tradition

Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18:9-14)

The Holiness tradition (eg the Wesleyan-Holiness movement) “holds before us the ultimate goal of the Christian life: an even deeper formation of the inner personality so as to reflect the glory and goodness of God; and ever more radiant conformity to the life and faith and desires and habits of Jesus . . .” (p. 85).

SEVEN DEADLY SINS: SLOTH LUST ANGER PRIDE ENVY GLUTTONY GREED

AVOIDANCE OF CONTEXTS WHERE YOU’RE LIKELY TO SIN/FAIL…

eg. Lust? Don’t watch certain TV/movies; be accountable to a community / confessor

Pride? Repeat the Jesus Prayer often (‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner’)

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT eg. John Stott – to build discipline and Christian character, repeats the ‘fruits of the Spirit’ slowly in his devotions each morning:

LOVE JOY PEACE PATIENCE KINDNESS GOODNESS FAITHFULNESS
GENTLENESS SELF-CONTROL

3. The Charismatic stream

If Contemplative worship includes a lot of silence…
Charismatic worship includes a lot of noise…!!!

CHARISMATIC WORSHIP

Where is it in the Bible?

4. The Social Justice stream

MAJORS ON ‘BLESSING THE LORD’ WHO IS POOR…
ALL OF JESUS’ MINISTRY
• Matthew 23:23, cf. Micah 6:8, Luke 11:42

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN:

• 1.1 billion out of 6 billion (including 50% of all Africans) live in extreme poverty ie. less than $1 a day – World Bank

• Every three seconds a child under 5 dies of preventable disease/hunger

• 8 million human beings loved by God die each year because they’re too poor to survive - Time Magazine 4/3/2005

• The U.S. spends $500 billion a year on the military, but only 1/30th of this amount - $16 billion, on alleviating poverty – 0.15% of U.S. income

The three dimensions of Jesus' ministry (and ours):

[1] JUSTICE/LOVE – addresses our ‘Deeper’ Needs

• Power/ ‘the powers’
• Fairness: strong helping the weak
• Why? Image of God / worth and dignity of every human being

[2] MERCY – ‘Immediate/presenting’ needs

• Survival / food, clothing, shelter / well-being

• Why? Where Jesus started his ministry

[3] FAITH – ‘Ultimate/salvation’ needs

• Relationship with God

• Ultimate Meaning – Love, guilt, death

5. The Evangelical stream

ASKS: ‘WHAT IS THE WORD OF GOD FOR US / FOR OUR WORLD?’

THE PHARISEES major on the Word of God as found in the Bible… They

• KNEW THEIR BIBLES OFF BY HEART
• WERE DISCIPLINED IN THEIR PRAYING
• ATTENDED ‘CHURCH’ REGULARLY
• FASTED TWICE A WEEK
• TITHED A THIRD OF THEIR INCOME
• WERE ‘GOOD’ PEOPLE
• WERE MARTYRS
• BELIEVED THE ‘RIGHT’ DOCTRINES
• WERE EVANGELISTIC

Note… It is still possible to know the Bible off by heart and miss the point!

6. The Incarnational stream

An old Christian cliché – ‘We come together to worship, and go out to serve…’

But ‘Worship’ is ‘service’…

Eg. Titus 2:1: ‘You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine…’

(What do you expect Paul to say next, as he explains ‘sound doctrine’?)
Titus 2:2ff.: ‘Teach the older men to be … self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in endurance…
‘Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live… to be self-controlled and pure…
‘Teach the young men to be self-controlled…
‘In your teaching show integrity, seriousness, soundness of speech…’

In other words:

‘ORTHOPRAXY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ORTHODOXY’

Worship should be linked with daily living. Baron Friedrich von Hugel's first suggestion to Evelyn Underhill when he was invited to be her spiritual director: visit the poor in inner-city London two days a week. God, says an ancient Latin hymn, is pater pauperum, 'father of the poor'.

The Incarnational tradition “focuses upon making present and visible the realm of the invisible spirit. This sacramental way of living addresses the crying need to experience God as manifest and active in daily life” (p. 237).

SO WHAT’S THE BEST FORM OF WORSHIP FOR ME?

Martha, preparing an elaborate meal, was irritated by the behavior of Mary, who sat at the feet of Jesus and listened…

Jesus commends Mary for listening, but his rebuke to Martha is not a disparagement of service – it follows the story of the Good Samaritan…

Some of us are naturally contemplative… Others, no less devoted to the Lord, prefer to be up and doing… Most Western Christians have a sneaking sympathy for Martha! But the best comment on this story has been made by St. Teresa. ‘To render our Lord a perfect hospitality, Martha and Mary must combine’… Mary and Martha must be combined in each of us. ‘Worship’ must find expression in service, contemplation in action, worship in work.

RESOURCES (BOOKS):

1. The Upper Room DICTIONARY OF CHRISTIAN SPIRITUAL FORMATION
2. The SPIRITUAL FORMATION BIBLE
(NIV, Zondervan)
3. RENOVARE SPIRITUAL FORMATION
BIBLE
4. CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE, STREAMS OF LIVING WATER, PRAYER, DEVOTIONAL CLASSICS (Richard Foster)
5. Conservative/Calvinist: Andrew Murray, Dallas Willard, John Piper
6. Evangelical: A W Tozer, W E Sangster
7. Mainline: Eugene Peterson

More articles like this here.

STRONG SON OF GOD IMMORTAL LOVE

2007-05-12T08:46:00.000+10:00

Here's one of the greatest hymns in the English language about Jesus (by the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1850). Why not say/sing it reverently? And memorize it!

Strong Son of God, immortal love,
Whom we, that have not seen Thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die:
And Thou hast made him: Thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, Thou.
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Ours wills are ours, to make them Thine.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from Thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before.

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock Thee when we do not fear;
But help Thy foolish ones to bear—
Help Thy vain worlds to bear Thy light.

If you'd like to sing it to a common tune, visit http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/s/t/strongso.htm and turn on your speakers

1 Month To Meet Jesus

2007-04-13T09:07:00.000+10:00

Dear friends,

This blog is an attempt to answer the most important 30 questions I've been asked about the person I consider the greatest in human history: Jesus Christ.

Other Blogs in this series:

1 Month to Meet the Baptists

1 Month of Books you should Read

1 Month to Learn About the Internet

1 Month to Understand your Local Church

1 Month of Answers to Tough Questions

1 Month of Devotions

1 Month to Change Your Life

1 Month to Meet Some Interesting People

1 Month to Become a Christian

Basic idea: you read one of the 30 posts each day and complete a 'mini-course' in a month. (I might even organize a certificate for those who complete the 300 units!)

Some of the material will be adapted from the 20,000 articles on the John Mark Ministries website. It's a big site, (although many of the 100,000+ unique visitors a month tell me it's easy to navigate).

I look forward to journeying with you!

Shalom/salaam!

Rowland Croucher