Comments on: From the iMonk Archives: Gospel Relevance=Gospel Application

By: Christopher Albee

Christopher Albee — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:57:19 +0000

fws, your invitation is gracious. Thank you.

By: Dr. Baines

Dr. Baines — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:29:34 +0000

Chaplin Mike,
Thank you for the refreshing post. I strongly agree that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about transformative application. As enthusiastic as I believe Christian worship should be, it is lacking, if it doesn’t move the believers to respond to the needs of those around them. Consequently, in my context, which is known for poverty, unemployment, lack of coordination among service providers, we find ourselves involved in improving these areas. We have a long ways to go. But we are at least conscious of the right path and crawling up it. Thanks.

By: fws

fws — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:54:36 +0000

christopher, my response to you was unreasonably long, and so the moderator respectfully deleted it. we can continue this offline by email if you like. email fwsonnek@gmail.com. by the way I feel your comments are both thoughtful and right on point.

By: Matthew Johnston

Matthew Johnston — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:00:39 +0000

The crux is, and always has been, contextualisation.

Incorrect or correct – that is the question.

Too many in the name of relevance and seeker sensitivity often incorrectly contextualise.

Mark Driscoll and many of the ‘latest’ Emerging guys all are a perfect example. [Though Mark is certainly a mixed bag]

“Preach the Word!”

By: fws

fws — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:14:24 +0000

Dear sister martha,

Your comments are not use-ful to me. They cannot be used to help me improve if you do not cite the specific place where you disagree with me.

Could you help a brother out and show me some love? thanks!

I want to agree and say amen to something you said dear martha:

The Gospel = Christ. You are so very right. it is so very much more than intellectual assent or even belief in a set of propositions. even the devil assents to and believes ALL the historical facts about the Gospel doesnÂ´t he?

So you are so right! The “Gospel” IS Christ incarnate and trust in that Christ. Who He is, what He did, and why De did it.

By: fws

fws — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:10:08 +0000

MOD: FWSâ€”Comments this long are unacceptable. If you want to communicate with another commenter to this extent, email or post your own blog. Stick to responding to the topic, please.

By: fws

fws — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:57:28 +0000

Dear Christopher,

How do you feel Saint James would argue with the definition I provided? as follows:

TRUE Outward righteousness : selfdiscipline + love for neighbor. love being actions that make our neighbors earthly life better. As St James says very correctly: God loves this stuff!
Yet Romans 8 tells us that it will perish with the earth along with those who seek to live here.

How do you feel st James would argue with this “strenuously” dear friend?

Can you tell me just one outward visible thing you do as a christian that a pagan would never do? Testimony needs to be visible in a way that differentiates yes? What do you do as a christian that looks in any way different from what any pagan can do?

Then there is The Righteousness of faith: Christ. it will never perish, nor will those who live in this righteousness. We should seek this Christ as Savior whom we cannot do withhout and once we have him, we will also love the Christ as Example, as one more Moses and James, to guide us in what is very necessary to do to truly Love our neighbor and so be righteous and pleasing to God in our outward actions.

” By your words of love and kindness toward the author of todayâ€™s article?” I donÂ´t see anywhere where I addressed the author in his person as you are saying , anywhere in what I wrote. I addressed what he wrote, and tried to answer the questions he raised from the perspective of what I believe is the truth.

If I lacked charity, love or kindness in any of that, then I DO need to repent of that. How do you feel that your comment, not pointing to any specific can help me come to that repentence? It canÂ´t. So yours is a use-less comment. Therefore it is the opposite of true love towards me.

By: RonP

RonP — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:29:20 +0000

How can we keep our application of the gospel from manipulation by those with agendas that are not Christ-centered?
That can be difficult — especially when you consider that all of us have our own collection of personal agendas, and, in that sense, we need to first defend our applications of the gospel from ourselves. And that involves the painful process of trying to distinguish between those things that we want to do for our own reasons and those things that God woud have us do for His reasons. If you’re lucky or blessed enough to discover an activity in which God’s and your own agendas converge, then you just might have found a life-long ministry to pursue. But don’t fall into the trap of equating your agendas and desires with God’s will. Sooner or later, He calls all of us to do things we don’t want to do — or even stop doing something we like to do. How else can we learn obedience?
When it comes to group applications and missional activities, I think a plurality of leadership can help to prevent the thing from becoming one person’s crusade to change the world. Even with plural leadership, a type A personality in overdrive can still manipulate the others into line with his or her personal agendas. And sometimes it’s not even intentional. Some people just don’t know how to be involved in something without also being in charge of it. Be loving and patient with such people, but be firm also. Stand firm with the others in denying absolute control to such people, giving that person the choice of either learning to be a team player or moving on. Usually, control freaks with no intent of changing will leave such a situation and look for one they can control.
In the case of outreach activities in the community, I think everyone involved should agree from the get-go that there will be absolutely no advertising for a particular church or denomination. Whether it’s a real underlying motive or not, people will percieve it as such and write off your good works as just another ploy to suck more people and their money into your religious group. Just do what you came to do in Jesus’s name, don’t be preachy, and leave it at that. If your good work does open an invitation to share the gospel, then, by all means, do so — but don’t just invite someone to your church and hope the preacher will take care of that for you. And keep in mind that in order to bring people into a relationship with Him, Christ often calls upon us to enter into a relationship with them first.
In this age of consumerist Christianity with heavy-handed Christian agendas saturating the airwaves, I think more discreet, non-showy applications of the gospel are sorely needed — along with a more personal, Christlike touch.

By: Christiane

Christiane — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:46:32 +0000

Hi THY PEACE,
We are ‘commanded’ to be transformed and to be of service to others.

If you go to the seventh chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, verse 29,
there is mention that Jesus taught ‘as if one having authority’.
Perhaps it is the same today: people will only listen to the message if they feel that the messenger ‘has authority’ (?)
We have all seen the difference here where people sometimes argue a doctrinal point;
and then the same person on another occasion, will speak ‘from the heart’ in a way that ‘connects’ or ‘resonates’ with something in our own souls.
The ‘believability factor’ may lie in the degree of commitment that the speaker has to his/her message which enables the Holy Spirit to act through him.
Is the listener hearing just another intellectual doctrinal argument set forth in arrogance and pride?

Or is the listener permitted to witness the humble sharing of a deeply-held vision of Christ which has transformed and illuminated the speaker’s life ?
‘Deep calls to deep’ and the Voice of the Spirit is able to speak through a humble and thankful believer to another person’s spirit. It’s not just the that words one ‘says’ that communicates Christ to others. It is so much more than that.

By: Clay

Clay — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:50:09 +0000

Maybe the proper motivation question comes down to not so much intense thankfulness (although that certainly should be a motivation, but not necessarily a condition we must wait for before acting), but rather a recognition that our good works are only meaningful within the context of Christ’s overall redemption of creation. We have faith that Christ will bring His kingdom and somehow incorporate our meager efforts into His work of renewal. N.T. Wright says this is what Paul was getting at in 1 Cor. 15 where he ends a passage expounding on the resurrection with the exhortation to “give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain”.