A classic IM post by Michael Spencer (4/07), presented by Chaplain Mike.

Every time I feel like I have lost my way in the Christian life, I find myself back looking at monasticism, and the lessons I learned in two decades of reading Thomas Merton.

I’m not attracted to Catholicism, but I am very much attracted to the tradition of self-conscious, disciplined spiritual formation into a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is a great failing of our side of the church.

As much as we Protestants talk about being shaped by the Bible alone, most evangelicals are thoroughly formed and shaped by the communities where the Bible is handled, taught and practiced according to a “rule” or accepted authority, and by the media that supports and communicates the values of that community.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most appealing and positive aspects of Catholicism that it is self-conscious about its “rules” and authorities for spiritual formation. (Rule as in “way,” as in The Rule of Benedict.) It surely must be humorous to knowledgeable catholics to look at the various sects, denominations and varieties of evangelicalism and fundamentalism, all claiming to “just read the Bible.”

For a large portion of my recent evangelical journey, I have found myself wandering between three varieties of evangelicalism:

1) Southern Baptist fundamentalism
2) Evangelical Calvinism
3) Generic contemporary evangelical revivalism

All of these communities could be characterized as shaping the spiritualities of believers according to largely unwritten rules and authorities.

The closest thing you get to self-conscious spiritual formation among most evangelicals: Jabez, PDL, or an evangelism course. Or a cruise.

It’s occurred to me that at least two of these streams have done much to shape me in the belief that pursuing polemic argument is a primary expression of discipleship. I have been affected by this kind of spiritual “rule,” and when I step away from it, the effects are very obvious.

Lots of time is taken up in finding error, pointing out error, justifying the seriousness of the error (even if it is in a non-essential area), and responding to the error with the proper arrangement of Biblical material.

It’s amazing how many Christians conceive of almost the entirety of discipleship in terms of argumentation. This is seen in the pastoral models they choose, the books/blogs they write and the spiritual activities they value most (debate and classroom lecture.)

These largely unarticulated forms of spiritual formation can be seen in what is not important. I note with interest that one simply cannot say enough bad about most kinds of contemplative prayer, and any sort of silence among many of the reformed particularly. Any kind of intentional approach to spiritual formation, and any kind of intentional approach to discipleship (Dallas Willard, for example) is undertaken amidst a barrage of criticism. If the imagination is mentioned, all fire alarms are pulled and a search for Oprah Winfrey ensues.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.

The “fully formed” Christian in these traditions is not a person of silence, but of much talking, talking and more talking. Worship is lecture, a rally, or an emotion-centered event. The primary encounter with the Bible is exposition and lecture. Correcting theological error, moral error and ecclesiastical error is the main business of the church.

In other forms of evangelicalism spiritual formation is done under the guise of church growth and using ones “gifts” to grow the church. Or perhaps in the cause of righteous, upright living in the culture war. Again, the kinds of prayer, worship, community life and worship that are generated by these priorities are obvious to most observers, but largely invisible to the participants.

In all the years I was reading Merton’s spiritual direction writings, I can’t recall anything I would call polemic of any kind. He simply didn’t waste his life arguing with others. He read scripture constantly, but as the stuff of prayer, liturgy and meditation, not as the raw material for debate. He went through the “political years” when he was critical of his church for not living up to his standards of peacemaking and justice, but in the end it was the ancient life, the deep life of monastic rhythms that sustained Merton and made him a man and a monk. He worked on himself for a lifetime. Some will say because he didn’t believe in the reformation doctrine of justification. Perhaps. Maybe, however, the path of personal spiritual formation isn’t as instant, passive or automatic as we’ve been told.

I’m not holding Merton up as an ideal. Far from it. I’m simply saying that when one’s spirituality is formed by the pronouncements of pastors who are constantly chasing church growth, the culture war or the latest challenge to Calvinism, you are going to get one result, and when you go back to the sources, find the value of the ancient paths of formation, value silence, read, meditate, contemplate and seek to grow in love, you will get another result.

I can’t help but think there is an “internet Christian” spirituality as well. Formed by reading blogs. Expressing itself in writing. Concerned with all the perceptions of reality that run rampant on the net. I’m sure this isn’t a good thing either.

Spiritual formation happens in the real world. It’s not just reading, but it’s discussion and asking questions of those further down the road. It’s having leaders who are humble before the Word, and not leaders who take the word and become the pictures of arrogance. It’s seeing your sin in the light of holiness, not excusing your sin in the light of the latest crisis.

Much evangelical spirituality has become like fantasy baseball. We have our own league, our own team, our own statistics, our own insulated world in which all of this matters. We can give great speeches and write long posts (and I am the chief of sinners here) on what doesn’t matter much at all. These days, we don’t all get our 15 minutes of fame, but we can all worship a pastor, go to a winning church, opine on a blog, imagine our arguments are significant in the world.

Meanwhile, we start to look and act more like a fantasy league junky, and fewer and fewer people have any idea what we are talking about.

Here’s where I have come out on this:

Get the devotional books out. The old ones.

Read Peterson, and Nouwen, and Groeshel, and Bonhoeffer and Whitney. With a group of others who care about the same things.

Turn it all off for a couple of hours every day.

Find the silence.

Chew up, meditate over, digest the scriptures.

Repent of living in the community of unaware evangelicals who devalue spirituality and overvalue polemic, argument and debate.

Look for the sins that grow in this mess, and root them up.

You know it. The last day. The final judgment. The Son of Man seated on his throne in judgment. All nations gathered before him. Sheep and goats. Left hand, right hand. Those who inherit the kingdom. Those who hear the most horrifying words, “depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”.

What makes the difference?

“…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

When did we do this?

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:35-40)

And so, as the pastor exhorted us this morning, Christians must have a “least of these” mindset. Like Jesus, who came to proclaim good news to the poor, release to prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18), even so his followers must humble themselves to reach out to the neediest of our neighbors and serve them with the Savior’s love.

This passage is so stirring, so stimulating to the imagination, so sobering in its implications, that one cannot help but pause to take stock of one’s own life in its light.

Except…

Except that I am convinced we have it all wrong.

I assert that, when we look beneath the common interpretation of Matthew 25:31-46, we find a classic case of assuming what the Bible says, just because we have been told this is what it means, over and over again. Because of an ingrained traditional reading, we have become inoculated against reading the text as it is.

What is Jesus saying in Matthew 25:31-46?

Matthew has placed this passage at the end of Jesus’ “Olivet Discourse” about things to come until the “end of the age” (Matthew 24-25). The “sheep and goats” story is the last of three parables that Matthew attaches to the end of this “sermon”. These parables form the “conclusion” to Jesus’ message and drive home some practical messages he wants the disciples to glean from his teaching.

It is important to read this in the context of the entire Gospel and where it is going. Christ is about to leave his disciples’ presence, and in the interim between his ascension and return, he will leave them with his “Great Commission” in Matthew 28:18-20. This passage shares some things in common with the parable of the sheep and goats.

And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

From Jesus’ ascension to the “end of the age,” Jesus’ disciples are commanded to go to the “nations,” making disciples and receiving them into the community of faith.

Another passage that provides insight into Matt. 25 is Matthew 10, which gives a preview of the disciples’ mission. Here the author shows Jesus sending the disciples on an interim outreach to “the lost sheep of Israel.” In addition to instructing them on where they are to go and what they are to do, the majority of Jesus’ mission discourse is devoted to describing the various reactions they should expect, as well as the reward and punishments that will be doled out to those who either welcome or reject their ministry.

For some—“it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

For others—“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Most Bible scholars understand the teachings of this passage to go beyond the immediate context of the specific events in Jesus’ ministry to which they are attached. They are meant to be read by the church as instructions for our mission today as well.

With this context from Matthew in mind, let’s go back and read Matthew 25:31-46.

Who is being called before the Son of Man on his throne?

The nations.

On what basis does he evaluate them?

On how they treated him. But not on how they treated him personally. Rather, on how they treated, “the least of these who are members of my family” (lit. my brothers). Jesus said (as he did in ch.10) that, as you treated them, so you treated me.

The “least of these” are Jesus’ family members who have gone into the world between his ascension and the end of the age to take his good news and love to the nations.

As Paul said, the “least of these” are those who are “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” (2Cor 4:10-12)

If I am a believer in Jesus, a member of his family, I am one of the “least of these.” Same for you. The nations will be judged on the basis of how they receive us and the message we bring.

Some might say that reading Matthew 25 like this will take away our motivation to serve the poor and needy. In fact, I find this to be a much more challenging and convicting reading of this passage than the traditional one. Far from removing our motivation to love and serve others, it challenges us to find our identity in Jesus alone and to be willing to sacrifice anything and everything else in order to be his people in the world.

And ultimately, this passage assures us that Jesus has our back in the end. He is not unaware of how his people (the least of these) are being treated in the world, and one day there will be a just accounting from all nations.

Have I known such people? Many of us would say that we have, but I wonder how many of us would also say that those with the evident presence and life of Jesus shared other characteristics as well?

This can become a “chicken or egg” conversation because we know that God works in a synergy of gracious beginnings and loving responses, but his choices of where to begin this process can’t be mapped or anticipated. In my own life I cannot help but see how many of those who came to have the tantalizing reality of Jesus in undeniable ways had been brought to places few of us would choose from life’s menu.

One of the most evident Christians I ever knew was a man named Pat. For most of two years, I spent time with Pat every week, was able to observe his life and see into his soul. Pat was an extrovert who never lacked a word of testimony. He could be quite a handful in a room where no one was supposed to get that excited about Jesus.

Pat had been through years- decades- of heart problems and the surrounding health problems. Serious and severe. He’d lost business success and a marriage. He knew about failure. Alcoholism had robbed him of many good years. Yet he had no regrets. Every day was about the reality of God’s love in the present. Pat was not content until the fact and experience of God’s love came into the day and filled it. No matter what else might be happening, this was his peace and reward.

Christians like Pat “live well,” not because they are successful, but because they are not. Having so much taken from them in the failures of life, they are like empty cups. Gospel faith holds up the empty cup- again and again- to be filled. There is no end to the desire for God’s love or the living experience of that love.

In that same church, there were men who were chosen as leaders by the congregation. They were successful and responsible. They were role models for the community. They believed, but their devotion for Jesus was, for the most part, ordinary, without any danger of being contagious.

Pat, who would never be chosen to teach a class or be a leader because of divorce and a history of substance abuse, is one person who immediately comes to mind as one of Lewis’s “new men.” God’s love had broken the allures and possibilities of the world in Pat’s life. When he came to know Jesus, Jesus filled up a broken, humbled life with love from the Holy Spirit. He was a holy mess praying daily for a flood of the reality of the Holy Spirit.

I believe in grace, but I wonder what what must happen in my life before I have the appetite for the goodness, sweetness and joy of the Gospel? I am not talking about the joy of straight theological lines or the manipulated joy of the big show at the local megachurch. I am talking about the joy of the Gospel that lives in the hearts of the poor, the dispossessed, the disowned and the disenfranchised of the world. What will move me away from all the misplaced happiness I pursue and toward a thirst for living water and the one who is the ever-ending fountain.

I have been enjoying Bob Bennett’s Christmas CD, with his second outstanding arrangement of a song from the late 1700’s, “Jesus Christ The Apple Tree.”

The tree of life my soul hath seen, 
Laden with fruit, and always green 
The trees of nature fruitless be 
Compared to Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought, 
And pleasure dearly I have bought: 
I missed of all; but now I see 
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile;
Under the shadow I will be, 
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive, 
It keeps my dying faith alive; 
Which makes my soul in haste to be 
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

I contemplate this season of waiting, knowing that God’s grace comes to me each day in Jesus. But I wonder if I can receive it well, like my friend Pat, or if it comes to me as “mere religion,” not as “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.”

Most of my folks live right around the adjacent blocks, some within walking distance. Last Lord’s day, two older ladies arrived together, having walked from just around the corner.

“Yes,” one said, “we had a conversation with the girl that’s moved in across the street. We invited her to church and she said she might come. But she wanted to know if she brought her boyfriend, would she have to leave.”

For a moment, I was puzzled, but then it began to be clear to me.

“I’m guessing she lives with her boyfriend, right?” Both ladies nodded with a bit of embarrassment. Co-habitation is hardly an unusual situation in southeastern Kentucky, but it’s still not a frequent topic with your minister.

The other lady- who has been listening to my preaching at this church for most of 13 years- looked at me and said “They wouldn’t have to leave, would they?”

“No,” I said, “they wouldn’t have to leave. Tell her we’d be happy to have them worship, pray and share a meal with us. It would be our privilege.”

She nodded and we started talking about something else, but on the way home and the rest of the week, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I know there is a good lecture out there on social stigma and the value of marriage in a community. I’m old school. Co-habitation makes me a little less nervous than your grandmother, but not significantly.

I know the pastoral problems co-habitation brings to a church and an extended family. I hear you when you say “What do we tell the kids?”

But I also hear that line: “Will we have to leave?” There’s a story there and I think you can probably get most of it without a lot of help.

Maybe it was mom, or grandma, or an opinionated aunt. Or the preacher. In the little family-dominated churches here in the mountains, everyone knows everyone’s business, and it won’t be long before that business will show up in the sermon. It won’t be long before you’re told that you and your boyfriend aren’t welcome at church.

And when you’re gone, and you’re telling yourself that you want nothing to do with a God like that, the folks at church will be feeling good about themselves.

Nothing really works in this situation. People are broken and looking for something to glue themselves together. Religious people are accumulating morality points and abandoning the Gospel. The possibilities of a community of Christians to show what it means to love people as Jesus did and in their own weakness get lost in drawing lines and pretending there is such a think as justification by having never co-habitated.

The possibility of seeing someone repent of sin, come to Christ and move toward true gifts of forgiveness and marriage is apparently less appealing than the Pharisaic joys of letting sinners know they aren’t welcome with us or the God we worship until they clean up their mess.

This is hard stuff. Christians believe some things very deeply, but they don’t always see things clearly or express them with Gospel wisdom. When they forget the Gospel, they forget who they are and start finding ways to be justified in comparison to “real sinners.” There’s nothing about the Kingdom of God in a snarky morality club, but too many people don’t know the difference. They usher people out as if they are the angels gathering the elect at the last day, not signs pointing every person, no matter what their sin of the day, to the savior and the wedding feast at the end of the world.

There are some churches who welcome the cohabitating and aren’t sure what to do with them once they have them. I hope that whatever else we do, we teach, preach, sing and explain the Gospel. Let’s make it gently and lovingly clear that there’s no compromise on what is and is not marriage and even less compromise on what it means to be a broken and fallen human being saved by Christ and his righteousness alone.

Somehow I wish that the presence of a cohabitating couple in the midst of a church could be a reminder that while our fellowship is with Christ, our human reality is the predictable human mess and the movement Jesus gave us is a constant, but uneven, journey by real sinners towards the Kingdom of God. We’re a stopping place for pilgrims who are at lots of different places in the journey. Our commonality is going after Christ. We all have some things to learn and a lot of Gospel to apply.

“Will we have to leave?” That’s usually spoken by people who have already left. And spoken to people who, without the Gospel, are too sure of the wrong answer.

This morning at evangel, Joe Carter voiced some of his frustration at the way the “law/Gospel” distinction sounds to his ears. I’ve wrestled with this myself on this site. Then, in the comments, Carter responded to Jared Wilson- and quoted him- in regard to the relation of the Gospel and sanctification, which he described as “behavior change.” (Quote follows)

Indeed, you did and I think you did a good job. But I also think you added in some stuff that leads to the very problem I’m referring to. For example:

Then, why, for the love of God, do we preach all manner of behavior modification, none of which could save a single one of us, when only the gospel saves.

You seem to be implying that “behavior modification” (i.e., sanctification) is not important. Now I know that this is not what you are saying. But how should other people who may think this statement is to be taken quite literally, be expected to respond? You are creating what could be considered a false dichotomy. Yes, only the gospel saves. But does that mean that Christians are not required to modify their behavior?

When I read this comment this morning, I immediately returned in my mind to my last visit to a church near me, a church I often attend when I am not preaching elsewhere. One thing about this church is predictable: I will hear about the necessity that my behavior must change. I must attend church more. I must do more church-related work. I must give more and witness more (and this despite that I am a full time missionary teacher working with mostly non-Christian teenagers.) I must support the church more. It is a constant example of the “church shaped spirituality” you’ll be hearing about in my book. Everything is about behavior. Behavior that must change. What I must feel. What God requires of me.

When I leave I am, literally, beaten down. The Gospel is a past tense matter and its time to get down to “application.” (Not a bad thing, but something that requires careful gardening.) The over-riding present tense concern is behavior, and I feel it. My behavior is not what the preacher believes it ought to be. And will I hear the “comfortable words” of the Gospel? Unlikely. Somewhere in the relationship between the evangel we proclaim, the offer to the broken and the demands of behavior change we make of the saved, there has been a disconnect. Readers of this site know this language. It is what, as I will say this fall, drives thousands of people away from the church for the sake of their own integrity to the gracious message of Jesus.

We’re on dangerous ground here, friends. Getting the Gospel of justification- a glad announcement of Good News- balanced with reality of Spirit-produced, Jesus-shaped “behavior” change is not just a matter of lining up arguments. It’s a matter of despair or confident assurance in God’s love. Say “required behavior modification,” and I am on the verge of despair, as are many, many others whose journey through evangelicalism has left them hungry for a place to stop and say “Here I know that God loves me, now, with no demands at all.” If you don’t think the sacramental presence view of the eucharist doesn’t touch many of us deeply at that point, you aren’t paying attention.

Why dangerous ground? Because we are talking about two hearts: the heart of the Gospel and the heart of every believer, that heart from which all true Gospel produced, God honoring, Jesus shaped change must flow. Behavior change is small change in the Kingdom if it is not a living garden growing out of soil saturated with the blood and body of Christ.

In my own journey to understand and clarify these issues, there are two resources I have linked more than any other in my blogging since the year 2000.

The first is an address by Dr. Rod Rosenbladt on “Reclaiming the Doctrine of Justification.” It’s in the Modern Reformation archive and should be regular reading for every Christian. In plain language, Dr. Rosenbladt explains the difference between the “law” and the “Gospel.”

Let me assure you this is life-changing help for the Christian who has been told that the Gospel includes “behavior change. The Gospel is an announcement that God has done, in Jesus, all things necessary for our salvation. The announcement has implications for behavior, but the word “required” is not there. The closest thing the Gospel has to a requirement would be the same requirement a drowning man has in stopping trying to swim and stopping resisting the lifeguard and simply resting.

Often, if someone is dying, we say he is “entirely in God’s hands.” This is not just a pastoral expression. It’s the essence of understanding the position of reformation faith. We rest. We stop. We are not involved in required works or required behavior change. We are, hopefully, deeply involved in lives that are in union with Christ and will bear fruit in ways that may be appreciated by others or that are measurable or ways that only God can see.

The second resource is J.C. Ryle’s little essay on The Difference Between Justification and Sanctification. Now some of you may find some statements from Ryle in this article that sound as if he is giving sanctification a place I would not, but a close reading of Ryle will make several things clear:

1) justification and sanctification are separate and not to be confused. 2) Both flow from the same faith resting entirely on Christ. 3) Sanctification is NEVER such a pressing matter that our salvation is cast into question because of our lack of progress in it. 4) The “necessity” of sanctification isn’t a necessity to justification, but a promise that one does flow and grow from the other. So a very imperfectly sanctified man who places his hope in Christ’s righteousness, not in his own, is by Ryle’s understanding “fit for heaven,” not by his works or efforts, but by Christ, through a faith more practiced and much deepened through the battles of sanctification.

The real concern for me is when connections to the Gospel are replaced by the sort of evangelical shorthand that sounds remarkably similar to certain smiling prosperity preachers. Calling sanctification “behavior change” is like calling marriage “washing dishes.” Saying Christians are “required” to modify their behavior turns something that is driven by a mighty and powerful promise- being dead to sin and alive to God- into the category of a “requirement.”

The Christian life is, as someone has called it, “The Promise Driven Life,” not the requirement driven life. The “requirements” of the law- Paul’s word, not mine- do one thing: they kill us. Change, whether in behavior, motivation or any other area of the Christian life, comes by faith in Christ and living communion with Christ in the new creation.

Evangelicals rightly pause at Roman Catholic ideas that grace enables us to do good works, which all adds up to faith. The RC system conflates justification and sanctification without flinching. Would that a few more evangelicals would flinch when our discussion of “behavior change” and the “requirement to modify behavior” begin sounding like the Reformation distinctives are merely semantics.

These aren’t simple issues and Christians reading this site have considered them many times over. Before I close let me mention that hundreds of IM readers have been encouraged in this area by a simple mp3 from New Reformation Press, The Gospel for Those Broken By The Church. If you have never listened to this presentation, purchase it and do so. It will be a real help to you on these issues.

First, there is the level of scriptural definition. While I can answer the question “What is the Gospel?” it is the Biblical material that should form my definition. Before I give some simple Gospel articulations, what are the Biblical sources of Gospel definition?

Does the Bible give a definition of the Gospel? Or is the Gospel a theme that connects alll of scripture, yielding definitional material and language, but also context, meaning and significance for many other things?

Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Then in Paul’s Letters

I Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

In Galatians…

Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

The introduction to the entire book of Romans is…

Romans 1:15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Paul sees his entire life wrapped up in the Gospel.

2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

Many passages seem to be talking about the Gospel, but do not specifically say they are doing so. For example:

Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There are other sources, especially in John, that we should include.

If we look at the categories of foundational content and necessary consequence, the Gospel is foundational content. It may be stated in different because it is a thread making its way through the entire tapestry of the Biblical story, but the Gospel- the Good News- is what the scriptures exist to tell us. There are many voices telling the Gospel at different places in the Biblical story. It may seem strange to say that the Gospel was preached to Abraham without mentioning Jesus, that Jesus preached the Gospel as he came proclaiming the Kingdom and Paul heard the Gospel in the tradition of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But this is the case. The Gospel is the foundational content of the message the Bible is announcing all the way through.

As the Bible tells the Gospel, it tells it to each one of us. We are the hearers and responders. We are the nations that are blessed. We are those called to repent and believe. We are the ones asked to believe the testimony of the Apostles. We are the ones who will be willing to suffer and/or experience the power of the Gospel once we have heard and believed it.

Going back to the Gospel-less, often Christ-less content of much evangelicalism, there is the possibility that the Gospel is assumed and we have now passed from foundational content to application.

I do not believe this is the case, because the resulting application and articulation does not build on the Gospel, but on a foundation that often qualifies for Paul’s Galatians 1 warning of “another Gospel, which is no Gospel at all.” Does application always rest on some articulation of the Gospel, or is the Gospel assumed?

New Testament scholars often point out that the basic rhythm of Paul’s letters is explanation of the Gospel- or some emphasis within the Gospel- followed by specific application of the Gospel. If this is the basic movement of the great apostle as he communicated with the early churches, is it outlandish to see this as a kind of healthy example of how Gospel articulation and application should generally co-exist in a healthy Christian experience?

From these scriptures, I believe our Gospel articulation should include:

The Gospel as announcement of what God has done
The Gospel of God
The Gospel as a message about Jesus
The Gospel as the message of Jesus/The Kingdom
The Gospel as God’s redemption of his broken world (covenant story)
The Gospel as the foundation on which our responses- worship, missions, obedience, etc. – exist.

Next, I will build some specific articulations of the Gospel on these various levels.

When I was in my Master’s program at seminary, I remember a full-on debate between one of our theology professors and a visiting big-dog regarding what scripture meant when it says “He emptied himself.” No one solved the question, but it left me with the clear impression that both sides had a strong case.

A bit of theological reading- even on the internets- will fully validate that observation. God became a man and in his human nature, Jesus was like us in every way, but without sin. But after that….it’s a free for all in regard to a whole basket of questions.

What kind of questions?

1. How did Jesus’ brain develop? Did the development of his brain impact his understanding of himself and his world?

2. Jesus lived in the social thought-world of the ancient near east. Did he transcend that thought world or did his incarnation place him completely in the boundaries of that thought world?

3. Did Jesus miss any questions on the test? Did he have to study?

4. Did Jesus use tools to measure in his carpentry work? Or did he just know what to do?

5. Did Jesus, in his incarnation, know things about biology, astronomy and cosmology that were completely ahead of his time? For instance, did Jesus know that the sun did not orbit the earth?

6. Did Jesus understand diseases and conditions from within the understanding of a first century man or did he know the actual medical/biological nature of diseases and conditions that were commonly blamed on demons or God’s punishment?

7. Did Jesus know about viruses and contagious disease? Did he know the nature of mental illnesses like schizophrenia? Did he understand brain tumors, etc? If so, did he explain these things or did he respond to them within a first century understanding?

8. Were Jesus questions real questions? Or were they all rhetorical?

9. If Jesus did not have exhaustive divine knowledge as a human being, does this impact our view of him as God incarnate?

10. If the Father reveals to Jesus some things that other men did not know, does this mean that Jesus had, available at any time, exhaustive knowledge of the future, science, geography, etc?

“My passion isn’t to build up my church. My passion is for God’s Kingdom.”

Ever heard someone say that? I have. It sounds large-hearted, but it’s wrong. It can even be destructive.

Suppose I said, “My passion isn’t to build up my marriage. My passion is for Marriage. I want the institution of Marriage to be revered again. I’ll work for that. I’ll pray for that. I’ll sacrifice for that. But don’t expect me to hunker down in the humble daily realities of building a great marriage with my wife Jani. I’m aiming at something grander.”

If I said that, would you think, “Wow, Ray is so committed”? Or would you wonder if I had lost my mind?

If you care about the Kingdom, be the kind of person who can be counted on in your own church. Join your church, pray for your church, tithe to your church, participate in your church every Sunday with wholehearted passion.

We build great churches the same way we build great marriages — real commitment that makes a positive difference every day.

Someone is saying “You’re going to disagree with probably the most respected, spiritually passionate guy in the Christian blogosphere? You really are out in left field knocking down the fence.”

I am a big Ray Ortlund fan. I’m not on his level as a Christian or a minister, much less as a blogger. I’m not really here to disagree, but I want to respond to what is an important issue for me and many others in our pursuit of Jesus Shaped Spirituality.

1) A passion for a marriage is not at war with a passion for marriage. The two are related. A passion for the welfare of my family or the success of my vocation are derived from some larger, defining passion.

2) If my marriage should fail, would my faith in marriage vanish? If my children go astray, does my belief in the importance of parenting end? No. In both cases, I will find hope to move on, to encourage others, to garner wisdom and even to try again from love that is greater than even my love for my marriage or children.

3) If you care about the Kingdom, faithfully care for your church.I agree completely. But if your church ceases to preach the Gospel or compromises its purpose and mission for relevance and worldly success, what will be the larger framework that will allow you to know something is wrong? It will be a passion for Christ and his Kingdom, applied to a specific situation.

4) What concerns me is a tendency to sound like we are saying “the Kingdom (as far as you are concerned) = your local church and what it’s doing.” I do not believe this is the teaching of scripture, and I don’t believe sound local churches even leave this as an option. It is, to use Ortlund’s phrase, a destructive error.

5) I would go further. I don’t believe a Biblically sound church restricts service to the Kingdom to service/involvement in that particular local church. In my book, I’ll be calling this “church shaped spirituality,” and I’ll have quite a lot to say about it. Isn’t a church that is making disciples sending those disciples into the world? Isn’t the church the disciple-making, initiatory fellowship, but not the primary place where discipleship takes place?

6) Tithing to a local church, for example, is a practice that I can’t see being scripturally required in any new covenant sense. I was taught my entire life that God commanded me to tithe to my local church. Awareness of the larger needs of the Kingdom, of other ministries, of individuals and even of other causes supported by my church was always laundered through the “tithe to the local church” first rhetoric.

Shocker: I don’t trust many local churches to spend that much money in a kingdom-savvy way. Insurance. Utilities. Salaries. Facilities. With a percentage to “missions.” I can no longer believe that is how I, as a Christian, am to be a steward of my financial resources. My church should help me manage and spend that money by showing me many different ways I can make it count for the Kingdom and teaching me to be a Kingdom investor in all of life. They should teach me to see the world with Kingdom eyes and my resources through the priorities of Jesus, which include the local church but certainly isn’t restricted to it.

If an American church has 10,000 members, and they would all tithe, what would most of those churches do? Build bigger buildings and hire more staff to do more programs. Let’s support the church, but let’s not buy whiskey for proven alcoholics.

7) The Kingdom economy is one where the local church is a demonstration of the Kingdom, and the church prepares and equips Christians to live Kingdom-useful lives. That life can’t be restricted to a local church. The marriage analogy depends on an exclusive vow as the moral center of marriage. Only one relationship. That exclusive vow is with Christ, not with a local church.

Don’t accuse me of “either/or,” because I am not saying that in any way. Christians have responsibilities and commitments to their local churches, but that relationship is relative to 1) Christ, 2) the Kingdom of Christ and his purposes. The local church has a place and a role in the Kingdom, but that is relative to the ultimate claims of Jesus Christ and the call of all disciples to seek first the Kingdom.

9) The claim that “the church is the way disciples seek first the Kingdom” is a claim made by churches and church leaders. I think it has to be questioned, not because there aren’t great churches and pastors like Immanuel and Ortlund, but because there are worldly and compromised “churches” and “shepherds” as described in Revelation 2-3, Ezekiel, etc.

10) I greatly appreciate and affirm Ortlund’s words. There is a lot of wisdom there. I think he is expressing some things which many of us need to talk about in the context of our own rather different experience of church.

Agree?

Anyone remember a religious leader talking about the “heresy” of individual salvation lately? You might be surprised how difficult it can be to continue to affirm that Jesus is saving sinners as individuals, not dispensing salvation to a group through a church.

Agree that when an individual “chooses” Jesus and not the church it’s an “imaginary” Jesus? Agree that Christ’s way of being present in the world is the church? There’s plenty for this collective-resisting Protestant to talk about, but I’m mostly interested in the papal swing at the well-known fat pitch “Jesus, Yes; the Church, No.”

“Jesus, Yes; the Church, No” has been around for a long time. It makes a good sign. Sounds good as a cheer.

If you are a promoter of the church, you’re supposed to do like Benedict the 16th in the quote (sorry there those of you feeling envious) and say it’s just plain wrong.

But you don’t pay me to be an echo chamber for the pope, so I’m going to say “Maybe.”

It depends on the questions that precede the answer.

“Jesus, Yes; the Church, No” is a perfectly good answer to a lot of things, and a wrong answer to several others.

Who saves you? Jesus, Yes. The Church, No. B16 and I would probably have a second and third cup of coffee on that one, but I’m not budging. The church should proclaim Christ, but never get itself confused with Christ.

How does the Holy Spirit come to us? “Jesus? Yes. The Church? No.” At least not on tap.

What’s the message of the Gospel? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The Gospel is Jesus centered, and the church should be, too.

What is the whole Bible about? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The church is there, but it’s not the central message of the Bible.

To whom do I owe complete submission, loyalty and allegiance? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.”

What am I proclaiming in evangelism? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The church has its place in evangelism, but not as the bread of life given for the world.

What is the church actually all about? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The church equips and nurtures disciples in their journey with Jesus. The church should promote Jesus to those who need to know and follow him. It shouldn’t confuse church activities with discipleship. (Buy my book.)

What is our complete hope in life and in death? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” Jesus is the hope of all Christians and the central hope of the church.

Who are we following? Whom are we serving in serving the poor or the oppressed? Whom are we imitating in suffering or generosity or compassion? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” We may be imitating those in the church who follow and imitate him, but it is Jesus whose footsteps we follow.

There are more questions; questions about the church itself and questions about what it means to say “Yes” and “No.”

It’s not a simple matter, but it is a matter on which we should settle and be stubborn. In an environment where Christianity is more and more defined by leaders to make themselves and their institutions essential and powerful, the Jesus shaped believer must maintain the importance of “Jesus- Yes, the Church, No” in the right ways and for the right questions.

There is a “Jesus, Yes; the Church, Yes too!” that can and should be spoken at the right ways and times, but I believe that “Yes” comes when we know how to distinguish it from the wrong kinds of yes’s or from saying yes to whatever leaders signal us to nod to.

We’re wrestling with the connection between Jesus and the church these days. I am going to contend that the church fulfills an important role in the missional movement that comes from Jesus through the Spirit into the world, but the church doesn’t ever take a place where a “church shaped” Christianity becomes the norm.

I’ve always been encouraged that there is so much discussion of the Gospel in the Christian blogosphere, but I’ve been disappointed where most of that discussion has focused. I’m sure there’s a great need to clarify the differences between Piper and Wright on the nature of justification, but I doubt that the church on the corner has many people walking in the doors who particularly care. (Oh, I know that the theologians among us can tell us why they should care, but the theological class has never suffered from a lack of confidence in the significance of their particular areas of interest, yours truly included.)

There are, however, areas of largely untouched Gospel proclamation and application that are walking into churches and sitting across from you at Panera Bread; areas and issues usually avoided and left unexplored. I rarely- never?- hear them addressed, which is what this blog is for, right?

I’m sure very few readers have failed to have I Corinthians 6:9-11 brought to their attention multiple times, mostly because it contains specific references to sexual sins and that those who “practice” and “indulge in” them will not inherit the Kingdom of God (one of Paul’s rare mentions of the Kingdom). If we could put aside for a moment the debate regarding exactly what sort of sexual sin Paul is describing or how we need to shout the sinfulness of sin louder than the world, there’s something else rather extraordinary about this passage, particularly given the portrait of the Corinthian church that emerges in the New Testament.

To the point, the Corinthian church, for all its lack of mature leadership, division, indulgence in the sins common in Greek culture and raucous abuse of the Lord’s Supper, must have, at least at some point, been a pretty good place to repent of serious sin and become an accepted part of the Christian community. As the NLT puts it, “Some of you were once like that,” “that” being the sins listed in that passage. “But now….” those same persons were in the Corinthian community hearing this letter.

In other words, repentance happens somewhere, if it happens, other than just in your head and heart. The Corinthian church appears to, at one time, have been one of those places.

This may shed some light on the situation in I Corinthians chapter 5, where Paul says the Corinthians are “proud of” their acceptance of a man living in a Jerry Springer-esque relationship with his step-mother. Acceptance of the sinner may have been the Corinthian’s strong suit if chapter 6 is any evidence, and their lack of discernment and leadership may have let them to sometimes tolerate too easily- even gladly- what they should have sometimes excluded as incompatible with belonging to Christ. In fact, a number of passages in these letters leave the impression that the Corinthians’ acceptance of real sinners and their patience in dealing with real sin may have gone off track without unified, mature leadership.

What I want you to see, however, is that their acceptance of sinful, repenting, in-the-process-of-changing new believers was a legitimate and importance application of the Gospel. We don’t just arrive at the destination; we travel the road and the road may be less than a straight line. The Christian community into which the Corinthians were all baptized as converts was, at any one moment, a community of persons moving from one kind of person to another; a community of persons acquiring in real time the inheritance and realities given them in their union with Christ in baptism and faith.

Our only other choice is to assume that the person who was “once” on the list in chapter 6 was excluded from the community until they became the new “you” of the same verses. There are Christians and communities that strive to be this very thing: communities where all transformation is instantaneous and the stated rules render the process of repentance and personal transformation unspeakable…unless it is finished. This, by the way, is the genius of Paul’s “sin lists,” which always counterbalance the “big” sins with what we would judge as more mundane sins, by human comparison. Of course you must exclude a persistent sexual sinner, but “greedy” people? We can work on that as we go along. No need to make a big deal about that sort of thing.

I’m not suggesting that Paul or any New Testament writer was advocating that anyone in leadership would be in the process of committing scandalous sin. The pastoral letters are clear on such matters. I am suggesting, with good evidence I think, that the Corinthian fellowship contained persons who entered into the Christian journey as they repented from real sins, and that such repentance was ongoing and, I’m certain, imperfect. That the church is to be a “hospital for sinners” and not a ward of healthy people telling stories of their former illnesses is a challenging calling.

Now I have more than a Bible study in mind this morning, and I want to get to the point. I think there are sins we virtually don’t talk about at all simply because we don’t want people in the process of repenting of those sins around us or our families, and so we fail to see that the church as community is, in many ways, much more like the moralistic, judgmental secular world than like the movement that grows from Jesus and his world-altering Gospel.

Consider the sin of domestic abuse, both emotional and physical. I believe it’s one of the great unmentioned sins in the church, because it is one of the great plagues of the culture. Christians don’t have a lot of verses on this one because the Bible was written in cultures that seldom defined abuse as we do today. Abuse of women and children- and occasionally men- is rampant, common and even accepted in many cultures. I am fairly certain I could walk- not drive- to the homes of several families I know that are dealing with this right now, including prominent families in churches.

Have you ever talked to a counselor- secular or Christian- about how they feel about abusive men? I have two books on emotional abuse on my bedroom shelves right now. Both say the emotional abuser will almost certainly never change and the victim/woman must divorce and leave such a man no matter what he says.

That is the message of the culture to the family that is struggling with emotional/verbal or physical abuse: no change possible. Get out. End it and start over. To do otherwise is the enable the abuser to continue the cycle of abuse.

Now I understand this, and I have advised many women to get out and have called social services on behalf of young people. I am not that guy who says “submit and take it,” so don’t write me with stories of how churches and pastors said stay and wait for him to change. I am basically on your side and I respect your pain and loss. I just have another problem.

I deeply disagree with the hopelessness of the typical scenario. I believe Christ and the Gospel can change the abuser. I believe it, I’ve seen it, and- hang on- I want every church to have some kind of niche in their community- aside from a professional counselors office- where such repentance can go on. I want support for the abused, and I want some community for the genuinely repenting abuser. If we say no abuser ever tries to repent, then we deny the Gospel, and that’s a big deal.

Maybe a Samson Society. Maybe a Celebrate Recovery relationship. Maybe a Promise Keeper’s small group. Maybe a healing prayer service. Maybe a prayer partner. Maybe a mentor or accountability group. Someplace where it can happen in the real world, with other men, and not just in a counselor’s office where it’s unlikely he’ll hear the Gospel.

If there isn’t such a place for that man who seeks to repent of his shabby and rotten treatment of his wife and family, then what business do we have preaching the Gospel to that man? What business do we have reading him I Corinthians 6:9-11?

Oh, I know. Your mind is already going where mine went long ago: the who catalog of sins that our culture has placed in the “pariah” file. Pornography addicts. Sexual abusers. Violent criminals. Sociopaths. Child molesters.

No fellowship of mere humans can create the community where everyone can repent openly. It’s just not possible. Some sins and their consequences are too controversial and dangerous, even in the process of sincere repentance. Most churches are too imperfect to love every sinner as they should be loved. No church can turn an eye to realities of risk and recurrence.

God bless those in prison ministry and those who can go to the men and women no church can allow in, but are there churches seeking to call out and equip those persons for that ministry? Even if it that ministry can never result in joining the church’s formal, 3-D fellowship? (By the way, once again, one can see certain advantages to the Catholic way of doing church. It may fall short, in some of our assessments, in the quality of “typical” community, but it also may be much more accommodating to the person who, truly, can only come to confession, receive the sacraments and then must leave, or to the person who can’t enter a fellowship at all.)

I wonder how many who hear preachers inveigh against viewing internet porn are also sitting in a fellowship where there is a place one can confess, experience acceptance and become accountable for such a struggle with sin? How many are sitting in a place where Paul could write I Corinthians 6:9 with a modern list of shocking sins, but no one can say “I was one of those, but thanks to the Gospel I heard and experienced here, I am that no more?”

This is a real challenge, because the world is full of bad things and as often as we are accused of being rigid and Puritanical, we are also accused of being sloppy and naive with forgiveness. (Listen when someone on death row claims to have been forgiven by Jesus.) As Jesus shaped, Gospel loving people, the scandal and shock of forgiving real sinners is one sign we are getting it right. If the Corinthians went over the line and into the ditch, I’m just glad they were on the right side of the road. For too many of us who claim to be Jesus’ followers, there is very little mercy for anything resembling the prodigal unless he comes home looking very good and sporting a nifty testimony. We don’t want to be in the business of cleaning that kid up.

In most of the churches I’ve served, someone has been convicted of a crime and gone to jail. Some of those persons were sitting in the church’s pews the weeks before. Paul Zahl says you would be very surprised to discover how many people you know have spent a night in jail.

You’d probably be more surprised to learn that the woman next to you at the gym is there because her husband verbally abuses her about her weight. Or what your best friend’s husband is doing on that work computer. Or who is on the sex offender’s registry because as a 22 year old public school coach they had consensual sex with a 17 year old student. Or who is addicted to prescription medications. Or who punched their 15 year old son in the jaw. Or who is paying the mortgage having sex with strangers off of Craig’s list. Or who is a three time convicted shoplifter. Or who was arrested for a DUI last month. Or who smokes pot every day.

Yes, most of us don’t want to think about it, because these are messy, life dominating sins, scattering trails of wreckage behind them that no one wants to become involved with. But we preach the Gospel to them when we preach it to anyone.

We have a Word to hear, an aisle to walk, water to be washed in and a table to come to, but do we have a people gathered around that Gospel who will strive to make a community of repentance possible?

NOTE: For those who are interested in this topic, the life’s work and especially the recent writing of Dr. Larry Crabb is invaluable.