A Conversation with Myself as an Introduction
Well Steve, this time you have really bitten off more than you can chew. The meaning of life! Why not pick a more difficult topic! Softening it by locating that preposition in the front won’t help. Who do you think you are? Augustine?
Well Steve, it doesn’t matter who I am as long as I am an honest person. That thing that matters is what I have seen and heard – what I’ve experienced. I can only discover what is already there. If life has meaning, it is not up to me to determine that meaning. So who I am is not the point.
But how can you say that? You can only say what it means to you. Meaning is not a fact that all can verify, it is a value judgment – that’s all. Life just is.
Seems like all the folks who write and edit dictionaries would want to quibble with you. Words mean things. Signs mean things. Actions mean things. If a plant dies it means something. It may mean that there is a lack of water, too much sun, or not the right soil – it is for the searcher to discover the meaning, not arbitrarily determine what is the meaning. Meaning is not created, it is found.
If I am an artist, the painting I make or may not have one meaning for me, and still have yet another meaning for those who contemplate it. That is the beauty of life. It is like a diamond that refracts and reflects light back and forth between its facets. Life without a multiplicity of viewpoints – the reflection and refraction – would be without beauty. And like beauty, meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Another way to say it is like when 6 blind folks met something in their path. One said it was a wall, another a tree, another a rope, still another a fan, another a snake, and yet another a spear. It took all of these disparate views together to understand that what they found was an elephant. So too what one person understands is only relatively true. It can never be the whole.
Your own examples betray you. Only an objective viewer could tell it was a jewel or an elephant. Those within the examples could never know if there were yet more unknown views which would modify their understanding of the whole. Only an objective view of reality can provide meaning for the whole and thereby meaning for the individual observers. You are right in that we, as individual observers, cannot have that objective view. I am only saying that I have met the “storyteller” and have been taught the meaning of the whole.
To say that your experience, and thereby your individual viewpoint, is the one, true, objective view is the height of arrogance!
You misunderstand me. I am not saying that I have the true, objective viewpoint. I am as blind as the next guy. I am saying that I have met the one who is the creator, the architect of life, and that this is the one and only one who has the right to determine the meaning of life. I can only relate to you what I have learned, what I have seen and heard, from this one who made it all. You can see for yourself how faithfully or not faithfully I have relayed the meaning of life by learning from the same one I have learned.
So I invite you to look over my shoulder and see if I have interpreted what I have seen and heard correctly.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CROSS
When I was a kid I loved to play baseball. We didn’t need an official team, we played whenever we could get 4 or 5 guys together. Since there was very little traffic on our street, we’d play there yelling “Car!” when necessary.
One day I was at bat and I hit that hardball on a line drive to left field. But the ball kept going and going. It went through our neighbors picture window at the front of their house and came to rest after bouncing off of and breaking their TV set.
I did not have the wherewithal to make it right with them. I had no money, no skills, nothing. My dad stepped in and made it right with them for me. He took the responsibility for my actions and bought them a new picture window and TV. This would have been impossible for me.
In the same way Jesus took the responsibility of the sins of the whole world. Some might say well and good, after all, He made us, he had to do it. But like in the story with my dad, my dad could have said, “Steve, you blew it. I’m going to teach you a lesson here. You make it right with the neighbors and buy them a TV and a new window.” In an earlier era, I could have been sold into slavery to pay off the debt. My dad was not obligated to solve my debt for me, and it was not his fault. Neither was it Jesus’. It was for love that he became responsible for our actions and paid our debt.
Our debt was to justice. We have a loving God who made a moral universe. The day will come when judgment will happen to all.
One day I was at bat and I hit that hardball on a line drive to left field. But the ball kept going and going. It went through our neighbors picture window at the front of their house and came to rest after bouncing off of and breaking their TV set.
I did not have the wherewithal to make it right with them. I had no money, no skills, nothing. My dad stepped in and made it right with them for me. He took the responsibility for my actions and bought them a new picture window and TV. This would have been impossible for me.
In the same way Jesus took the responsibility of the sins of the whole world. Some might say well and good, after all, He made us, he had to do it. But like in the story with my dad, my dad could have said, “Steve, you blew it. I’m going to teach you a lesson here. You make it right with the neighbors and buy them a TV and a new window.” In an earlier era, I could have been sold into slavery to pay off the debt. My dad was not obligated to solve my debt for me, and it was not his fault. Neither was it Jesus’. It was for love that he became responsible for our actions and paid our debt.
Our debt was to justice. We have a loving God who made a moral universe. The day will come when judgment will happen to all.
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Earth Is Not What It Seams, by Eva Hernandez - age 8
My Song:
Title: The Earth is not what it Seams
The Earth is very special And Everybody Thinks they know a lot about Earth But they Don't!
Because a bunny Does not hop because it is the way it moves. It's hops expres it's Joy
A Horse Does not galip because it's the way it goes fast They galip because it shos the oner that The horse Loves the oner.
A Dalfon Does not Jump over water only to get air. It Jumps over water to have a party with its friends.
a Snake Does not hisss because it is a warning other anmails that it's comming thew it hiss because it Likes to show off!
a camealan Does not Camoflosh because it needs to hiDe. a comealin comofloshises Because it likes to play hide and seek!
a turtle Does not go inside it's shell because it's scared * A Turtle goes inside its shell Because it likes it's home and it likes to dootle around.
AND
A Person Does not talk because it is the way it comutecats. It talks because it is how it makes friends each & every Day.
Concloushin
as you can See the Earth is not what it seems!
THE END!
Eva
Title: The Earth is not what it Seams
The Earth is very special And Everybody Thinks they know a lot about Earth But they Don't!
Because a bunny Does not hop because it is the way it moves. It's hops expres it's Joy
A Horse Does not galip because it's the way it goes fast They galip because it shos the oner that The horse Loves the oner.
A Dalfon Does not Jump over water only to get air. It Jumps over water to have a party with its friends.
a Snake Does not hisss because it is a warning other anmails that it's comming thew it hiss because it Likes to show off!
a camealan Does not Camoflosh because it needs to hiDe. a comealin comofloshises Because it likes to play hide and seek!
a turtle Does not go inside it's shell because it's scared * A Turtle goes inside its shell Because it likes it's home and it likes to dootle around.
AND
A Person Does not talk because it is the way it comutecats. It talks because it is how it makes friends each & every Day.
Concloushin
as you can See the Earth is not what it seems!
THE END!
Eva
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Fruit, Worship, and the Cross, part 2
On the last post I ended with the thought that God was looking for supernatural fruit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit working in us. The Holy Spirit is the one who interacts within us to teach us how to love God and others. As Paul wrote "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. " Gal 5:6 NIV This is the fruit our Lord is looking for.
The apostle John wrote about a time when Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a well. Jesus initiates a conversation with her resulting in her asking him some questions about proper worship. Jesus tells her that "Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know … him, for salvation comes through the Jews.
But the time is coming—indeed it's here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:21-24 NLT
In this passage Jesus teaches us that God is seeking worshippers. Note it is not worship, but worshippers. There is a big difference. God is not needy or egotistical, but God is who he is. The creator of all, the one who made up all the physical laws, who made matter by his all-powerful word. The one who brought life into the universe. This same God wants our love, but does not need it. So God gives us a choice to love or not. To believe him or not. To trust his word and thereby love him, or not.
Those who love God and believe him are those whom our Lord seeks. Worship of God is the logical response – our "reasonable worship" – to seeing him as he is. So many times in the prophets we see the prophets encountering the Lord Himself and their only response is to fall on their faces and worship. The Lord is worthy of such worship. God wants to be loved by those who see him as he is. These worshippers are the ones he seeks.
Note also that the worshippers must worship in (S)spirit and truth. This is the context or place where the worship of God is to take place. It is contrasted with the physical locations of "this mountain" and "Jerusalem". No longer could places be deemed intrinsically holy. This is because that would inconsistent with God's nature – his mode of being. It is in the Spirit and in Truth that our Lord dwells. This is where we can find him and this is the environment within which we can truly worship.
It is this close identification with the nature of God that leads us into worship. This nature is most clearly seen in the way Jesus responded when incarnated – he took on the nature of a servant and became obedient, even to dying on a cross. As worship is the only logical response to seeing the deity as he is, so serving God in loving obedience is the only logical response of humanity in relation to God. After all, he is the one who made it all and knows the end from the beginning, who has demonstrated his love for us in the strongest of terms, shall we not love and serve him? If we willingly take advice from an expert friend whom we trust, how much more should we believe the word of the one who is the source of all expertise, all wisdom, and all knowledge?
Our worship of God follows the path that Jesus himself tread. Jesus himself said to his disciples "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Matthew 16:21, 24-25 NIV Thus God is seeking worshippers who will worship him in a manner consistent with God's own nature, in Spirit and Truth. This worship is expressed in our willingness to deny ourselves and follow Jesus, believing his word.
In part 3 I will look more deeply into the cross.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Fruit, Worship, and the Cross, part 1
I have always wondered about that part of scripture where Jesus curses the fig tree for not having fruit even though it was not the season for bearing fruit. Here is that passage of scripture
Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 NIV The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
What right did Jesus have to curse this fig tree? I’ve heard many different solutions to this problem. One says that the fig tree was a symbol of Israel and Jesus was looking for fruit from them but did not find any so He was going to take the kingdom from them and give it to someone else who will give God its fruit. True enough, but that doesn’t answer my question - what right did Jesus have to kill a plant with a curse that could not have had any fruit?
Maybe it was just a setup to show the power of believing? Since every time in the Gospels when this incident is recorded Jesus uses it to teach the power of faith, this would make sense. Except that it still doesn’t answer my question, what right did Jesus have to do this? Why was it right for him to expect fruit on a tree in the off season?
Psalm 92:12-15 gives us a clue
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord , they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, "The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."
In this passage the righteous old folks will still bear fruit and be fresh and green. Yet old age is not the normal time to bear fruit. Having children is for the young. Older folks begin to wither since God has bound all things over to decay. How do they do this? By proclaiming that the Lord is upright and that there is no wickedness in him.
How do they know this? They have lived a full life. They have seen good and evil. How did they prevent their hearts from bitterness from seeing all the evil that happens to people and that may even have happened to them? They knew God as their Rock. They have come to trust Him and His word. The confessed the truth about God in worship and praise.
Their fruit is a supernatural fruit that did not depend on the anything natural. So Jesus was looking for supernatural fruit. This is why, I think, that Jesus had a right to expect fruit. He wasn’t looking for naturally generated figs, but supernaturally generated figs.
The fruit God is looking for from us is not the kind we can produce on our own, but the fruit of the Spirit in us.
Next post will continue from here.
Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 NIV The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
What right did Jesus have to curse this fig tree? I’ve heard many different solutions to this problem. One says that the fig tree was a symbol of Israel and Jesus was looking for fruit from them but did not find any so He was going to take the kingdom from them and give it to someone else who will give God its fruit. True enough, but that doesn’t answer my question - what right did Jesus have to kill a plant with a curse that could not have had any fruit?
Maybe it was just a setup to show the power of believing? Since every time in the Gospels when this incident is recorded Jesus uses it to teach the power of faith, this would make sense. Except that it still doesn’t answer my question, what right did Jesus have to do this? Why was it right for him to expect fruit on a tree in the off season?
Psalm 92:12-15 gives us a clue
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord , they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, "The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."
In this passage the righteous old folks will still bear fruit and be fresh and green. Yet old age is not the normal time to bear fruit. Having children is for the young. Older folks begin to wither since God has bound all things over to decay. How do they do this? By proclaiming that the Lord is upright and that there is no wickedness in him.
How do they know this? They have lived a full life. They have seen good and evil. How did they prevent their hearts from bitterness from seeing all the evil that happens to people and that may even have happened to them? They knew God as their Rock. They have come to trust Him and His word. The confessed the truth about God in worship and praise.
Their fruit is a supernatural fruit that did not depend on the anything natural. So Jesus was looking for supernatural fruit. This is why, I think, that Jesus had a right to expect fruit. He wasn’t looking for naturally generated figs, but supernaturally generated figs.
The fruit God is looking for from us is not the kind we can produce on our own, but the fruit of the Spirit in us.
Next post will continue from here.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Essential Bible Companion to the Psalms by Brian Webster and David Beach
The subtitle to this book is "KEY INSIGHTS FOR READING GOD'S WORD". When I saw the title and subtitle I was very interested in reading this work. I don't know exactly what I envisioned reading, but it was very different than what I did read.
This work consists of a brief overview and introduction followed some comments amounting to a page per Psalm that are intended "to provide a basic orientation" and to "point out essential elements"(pg.11) for each Psalm. They hope that this book will help us as we endeavor to personalize these old and foreign Psalms in our relationship with our Lord. This personalization of the "Psalms involves several conversations: with self, with scripture, with community, and with God." (pg.25) By putting these ancient psalms on our lips when we pray, or sing, or read them, we will often compare our lives with what is written. By doing so we can begin to enter the thought world of these ancient writers and allow them to critique us, to encourage us, to guide our praise, and to help us draw closer to God.
With each Psalm comes a little bit of background. Here the indefinite words, may have, might have, probably, could have been, seem to, etc., are used. As one who is trying to get key insights into these Psalms, I find such ambiguity meaningless. Webster and Beach evidently feel that insight comes an understanding of background and of little understood terms. So they have given us the best they could in such a restricted format. But in so doing the soil they gave us to grow our insight is much too shallow. I would have hoped for more insight into the psalms as prophetic of Christ and the church.
For instance, in the their categorizing of the Psalms they have no place for messianic psalms. Although the back cover states that they treat various types of psalms such as messianic and prophetic, only prophetic is mentioned in the book itself. Those psalms that are, in my view, clearly messianic are allowed a reapplication to Jesus, maybe, and only if he actually quoted it. Psalm 16 is applied to Jesus only because "Peter and Paul extend this royal interpretation to Jesus, the ultimate Davidic heir in whom this psalm is fulfilled, not in preserving Jesus from death, but in his conquering death through the resurrection." (pg.52) I guess Peter's argument about David being a prophet didn't convince.
Additionally, those pesky imprecatory psalms, you know the ones that state that happy is the guy who kills the enemies children, are touched on. That is all, just touched on. No insight into the proper place for anger and vengeance. The relationship of this type of sentiment and the 2nd coming of Jesus in judgment would have been helpful.
So that sums up the problem I have with this book. It would make a somewhat decent survey of the Psalms. But to say that this book will provide essential key insights for reading God's word is much too much of a statement.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Review of Following Jesus, The Servant King
Review of Following Jesus, The Servant King
A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship
Written by Jonathan Lunde and published by Zondervan 2010
Many of you know that I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. I want to know what that would look like in my life. After all, if I teach this stuff I had better live it.
So when this book became available for review I snatched it up. The title made sense to me except the bit about “covenantal discipleship”. What was that? Discipleship by covenant? Discipleship appropriate to the New Covenant? Some other covenant? I guess I would just have to read it. And read it I did.
Lunde begins by wondering what Jesus meant by his words “follow me”. How we answer this question defines how we will live as Christians. And, how we live as Christians, heavily influences how the world sees Jesus.
So what did Jesus mean by asking those first disciples to follow him? Lunde points out that the Gospels clearly state that “when Jesus calls people to follow him, he summons them to a life of radical commitment to himself and his commands”. (pg.26) He could do this because he was king. By putting himself in this position, Jesus was declaring that he himself was Israel’s king, the divine messiah. And as such he had every right to demand such commitment.
But Jesus was also a servant. As servant, Jesus suffered and died for us. Jesus combines the role of king and servant in himself. So on one side Jesus as king demands total commitment and obedience, and on the other side Jesus dies to satisfy all our requirements before our forgiving Father.
So which is it? King or suffering servant? How can we relate to both roles of Jesus at the same time? In order to answer this question, Lunde asks three more questions (pg. 28-30):
1. Why should I be concerned to obey all of Jesus’ commands if I have been saved by grace?
2. What is it that Jesus demands of his disciples?
3. How can the disciple obey Jesus’ high demand, while experiencing his “yoke” as “light” and “easy”?
It seems evident from these questions, that Lunde deals with compromised or disaffected evangelicals on a regular basis. I would not have asked these questions from a why, what, and how paradigm. And because of this, for the first part of the book I felt that he was speaking carefully to someone next to me who had issues with Jesus’ lordship and subsequent obedience. Not that I don’t have questions about such issues or that my obedience has been perfected, it is simply that I have answered these questions for myself, and now I have other questions. So I listened to how he answered these questions in order to gain some insight in relating to those same questioning evangelicals. And there was insight aplenty.
Lunde feels that in order to answer the first question we “need to explore the relationship between grace and demand”. (pg.29) In their efforts to not be seen as legalistic, too many evangelicals have lowered Jesus’ demands for discipleship to a “realistic” level and then count on God’s grace to cover them for the rest. After all, we are saved by grace. So this kind of discipleship makes few if no demands upon them. They have compromised with the world and are false witnesses of God. From their life people cannot see God as holy – but as a Santa that threatens to bring a lump of coal as a gift but never does.
The answer to this dilemma is to understand what it means to be in covenant with God. Lunde writes that “the fundamental contention of this book is that discipleship to Jesus is best understood in this covenantal context”. So he takes us through each covenant and demonstrates to us what being in covenant with God means and does not mean. For instance, being in covenant with God does not mean and has never meant that we can forsake God and God will keep on forgiving and overlook our sin. Even in covenant with God our relationship with God must be consistent with the nature of God. This is the God who demonstrated on the cross not only how much he loves us but also how much he hates sin.
As helpful as it was to see how our relation to God is defined by our covenant with God, I am not so sure that this is the best way to solve the problem of lukewarm ‘disciples’. Knowledge has its place as a motivator, but true belief trumps all. The covenantal context for discussing the issues surrounding the making of disciples is important, and very helpful, but there are many fine disciples of Jesus who haven’t a clue regarding their covenant with God. They simply love Jesus and follow him because he is God and they know his love by the power of the Holy Spirit. They pray and Jesus answers. They fear and the Holy Spirit gives them peace. God works in their life because they not only believe in Jesus, but they believe Jesus. The problem of weak discipleship is to my way of thinking not a crisis of faulty knowledge, but of a lack of belief in the love and power of the Holy Spirit.
I know that Lunde is basically in agreement with this statement. He says the something similar when he writes about Adam and Eve that “(t)heir obedience is grounded in their trust of God, and their failure is the result of their mistrust – their unbelief”. (pg.45) He makes clear that in every covenant our need to act towards God in faith and obedience is expected. God will not condone sin regardless of the covenant. But in Lunde’s view our relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is one of enablement for character development, the fruit of the Spirit, rather than faith development through knowing the power of the Holy Spirit. My view is not an either/or, but a both/and.
Lunde answers the first question of why we should be concerned about acting righteously by pointing out that the new covenant is continuous with and fulfills all earlier covenants. Reformed theology anyone? “This realization, then, helps us to avoid one common mistake right away – that of appealing to the gracious nature of the New Covenant to set it off from the prior covenants and seeking by this to excuse a negligence regarding righteousness.” (pg.111) Lunde really wants us to know that the new covenant not only does not absolve us of acting righteously, but that it also provides the way for us to be obedient . This is through the changed heart and endowment of the Holy Spirit that provides a “deeper enablement for righteousness”. (pg.113) Yet he also says that “it should also be clear by now that there is a sharp dissonance between what Jeremiah and the other prophets depict in their discussion of the New Covenant people and what is presently visible among the followers of Jesus”. (pg.113)That this is the case leads us eventually to his last question, the how of it all. Yet first he wants us to see what it is that is expected of us as disciples of Jesus.
What Jesus expects is very simple, really. Total commitment. “As David’s great heir who reigns faithfully as Yahweh’s Anointed King, then, Jesus appropriately summons us to an absolute discipleship.” (pg.123) And as king “his realm displays the contours of his nature”. (pg.123) It is, after all, the kingdom of God.
In Lunde’s view there are three ways in which the righteous demands of the previous covenants are fulfilled in Jesus and the present kingdom of God. First, Jesus acts as a filter, then a lens, and then a prism. Since the law is to be written on our hearts, what does that look like? We don’t go killing sheep anymore in our worship services. At least we are not supposed to. Jesus filters out such stuff from the law because he has fulfilled in himself the intent and goal of those ordinances. Jesus acts as a filter for us in that what the law says only comes to us through Jesus and not in a direct manner. Our obedience to the law is through obeying Jesus’ commands and teachings. “The result is not a lowering of the law’s demand for righteousness. In fact, the opposite is true.” (pg.140) He is saving the how until later.
As a lens, Jesus focuses our attention onto the intent of the law. Its essence is distilled in Jesus’ teachings. “Jesus teaches that heart of the law’s intention is the expression of love to God and one’s neighbor.” (pg.142)
As a prism, Jesus elevates some commands of the law. One example is the prohibition of murder. Jesus sees the heart of the issue as anger and hatred and commands us to avoid this. It would be simpler just to avoid killing someone, but Jesus goes for the heart.
Jesus summons us to obey the heart of the law. He also calls us to fulfill the intent of the covenant given to Abraham. This mission to bless the nations will not be fulfilled with simple proclamation. How we as followers of Jesus behave ethically mediates this blessing to the nations. (pg.168-169) ”Jesus also instructs his disciples to go beyond mere proclamation. Since God’s kingdom was arriving in fulfillment of his historical actions of deliverance, Jesus’ disciples were to demonstrate its presence in tangible ways that image its presence. Proclamation and demonstration – these dimensions belong inextricably together. Without either of them present, God’s mission is only partially realized.” (pg.176)
A big part of demonstrating the kingdom is vulnerability. Since Jesus our king was vulnerable, so must we be. Lunde’s interpretation of Matthew 25 where the nations are judged on how they treated the least of Jesus’ brethren was excellent. Lunde sees the brethren of Jesus here as those Christian disciples who are sent into the world. This was the highlight of the book for me. I’ll let you read it for yourself to see how he maintains this view. I’ll say this: it is simple and elegant.
“Those who have submitted to Jesus’ reign are therefore commanded to participate in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise to bless all nations by proclaiming and demonstrating the presence of his kingdom.” (pg.183) This is what we are to do in response to the call to be a follower of Jesus. This is preaching the gospel of the kingdom and living under Jesus’ authority. The question remains, how are we to do this?
This question, how are we to do this, is the “crux of our dilemma”. (pg.185) Lunde reminds us “that we have seen that the all-encompassing demand of righteous fidelity to God was always to be encountered in the repeated remembrance and reception of God’s gracious deliverance and provisions.” (pg.208) And “In and through all of this, the New Covenant gift of the Spirit will be actively making Jesus’ grace present to us.” (pg.209) in the end, the gift of the Holy Spirit as God’s gracious presence in our lives makes it all doable.
For the Holy Spirit will remind us that Jesus has already fulfilled all our personal requirements of fidelity before God for us. Indeed, the Holy Spirit will show us that Jesus is our representative before God. This renews our faith. Additionally, the Holy Spirit will show us that Jesus is also our redeemer and restorer. He will also show us that Jesus is Lord. Our involvement with the Holy Spirit is what makes the difference. It is the presence of God in our lives through faith in Jesus that molds us into disciples.
I enjoyed how Lunde placed discipleship into a covenantal context. I also enjoyed how he wound up his discussion with the Holy Spirit. In my view righteousness is love. Love is developed in us through the believing Jesus and living in harmony with God’s Spirit. A loving person who is following Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit is a disciple. May we learn to be disciples of the one and only true God who has revealed himself in Jesus and come to live in us forever by His Holy Spirit.
A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship
Written by Jonathan Lunde and published by Zondervan 2010
Many of you know that I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. I want to know what that would look like in my life. After all, if I teach this stuff I had better live it.
So when this book became available for review I snatched it up. The title made sense to me except the bit about “covenantal discipleship”. What was that? Discipleship by covenant? Discipleship appropriate to the New Covenant? Some other covenant? I guess I would just have to read it. And read it I did.
Lunde begins by wondering what Jesus meant by his words “follow me”. How we answer this question defines how we will live as Christians. And, how we live as Christians, heavily influences how the world sees Jesus.
So what did Jesus mean by asking those first disciples to follow him? Lunde points out that the Gospels clearly state that “when Jesus calls people to follow him, he summons them to a life of radical commitment to himself and his commands”. (pg.26) He could do this because he was king. By putting himself in this position, Jesus was declaring that he himself was Israel’s king, the divine messiah. And as such he had every right to demand such commitment.
But Jesus was also a servant. As servant, Jesus suffered and died for us. Jesus combines the role of king and servant in himself. So on one side Jesus as king demands total commitment and obedience, and on the other side Jesus dies to satisfy all our requirements before our forgiving Father.
So which is it? King or suffering servant? How can we relate to both roles of Jesus at the same time? In order to answer this question, Lunde asks three more questions (pg. 28-30):
1. Why should I be concerned to obey all of Jesus’ commands if I have been saved by grace?
2. What is it that Jesus demands of his disciples?
3. How can the disciple obey Jesus’ high demand, while experiencing his “yoke” as “light” and “easy”?
It seems evident from these questions, that Lunde deals with compromised or disaffected evangelicals on a regular basis. I would not have asked these questions from a why, what, and how paradigm. And because of this, for the first part of the book I felt that he was speaking carefully to someone next to me who had issues with Jesus’ lordship and subsequent obedience. Not that I don’t have questions about such issues or that my obedience has been perfected, it is simply that I have answered these questions for myself, and now I have other questions. So I listened to how he answered these questions in order to gain some insight in relating to those same questioning evangelicals. And there was insight aplenty.
Lunde feels that in order to answer the first question we “need to explore the relationship between grace and demand”. (pg.29) In their efforts to not be seen as legalistic, too many evangelicals have lowered Jesus’ demands for discipleship to a “realistic” level and then count on God’s grace to cover them for the rest. After all, we are saved by grace. So this kind of discipleship makes few if no demands upon them. They have compromised with the world and are false witnesses of God. From their life people cannot see God as holy – but as a Santa that threatens to bring a lump of coal as a gift but never does.
The answer to this dilemma is to understand what it means to be in covenant with God. Lunde writes that “the fundamental contention of this book is that discipleship to Jesus is best understood in this covenantal context”. So he takes us through each covenant and demonstrates to us what being in covenant with God means and does not mean. For instance, being in covenant with God does not mean and has never meant that we can forsake God and God will keep on forgiving and overlook our sin. Even in covenant with God our relationship with God must be consistent with the nature of God. This is the God who demonstrated on the cross not only how much he loves us but also how much he hates sin.
As helpful as it was to see how our relation to God is defined by our covenant with God, I am not so sure that this is the best way to solve the problem of lukewarm ‘disciples’. Knowledge has its place as a motivator, but true belief trumps all. The covenantal context for discussing the issues surrounding the making of disciples is important, and very helpful, but there are many fine disciples of Jesus who haven’t a clue regarding their covenant with God. They simply love Jesus and follow him because he is God and they know his love by the power of the Holy Spirit. They pray and Jesus answers. They fear and the Holy Spirit gives them peace. God works in their life because they not only believe in Jesus, but they believe Jesus. The problem of weak discipleship is to my way of thinking not a crisis of faulty knowledge, but of a lack of belief in the love and power of the Holy Spirit.
I know that Lunde is basically in agreement with this statement. He says the something similar when he writes about Adam and Eve that “(t)heir obedience is grounded in their trust of God, and their failure is the result of their mistrust – their unbelief”. (pg.45) He makes clear that in every covenant our need to act towards God in faith and obedience is expected. God will not condone sin regardless of the covenant. But in Lunde’s view our relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is one of enablement for character development, the fruit of the Spirit, rather than faith development through knowing the power of the Holy Spirit. My view is not an either/or, but a both/and.
Lunde answers the first question of why we should be concerned about acting righteously by pointing out that the new covenant is continuous with and fulfills all earlier covenants. Reformed theology anyone? “This realization, then, helps us to avoid one common mistake right away – that of appealing to the gracious nature of the New Covenant to set it off from the prior covenants and seeking by this to excuse a negligence regarding righteousness.” (pg.111) Lunde really wants us to know that the new covenant not only does not absolve us of acting righteously, but that it also provides the way for us to be obedient . This is through the changed heart and endowment of the Holy Spirit that provides a “deeper enablement for righteousness”. (pg.113) Yet he also says that “it should also be clear by now that there is a sharp dissonance between what Jeremiah and the other prophets depict in their discussion of the New Covenant people and what is presently visible among the followers of Jesus”. (pg.113)That this is the case leads us eventually to his last question, the how of it all. Yet first he wants us to see what it is that is expected of us as disciples of Jesus.
What Jesus expects is very simple, really. Total commitment. “As David’s great heir who reigns faithfully as Yahweh’s Anointed King, then, Jesus appropriately summons us to an absolute discipleship.” (pg.123) And as king “his realm displays the contours of his nature”. (pg.123) It is, after all, the kingdom of God.
In Lunde’s view there are three ways in which the righteous demands of the previous covenants are fulfilled in Jesus and the present kingdom of God. First, Jesus acts as a filter, then a lens, and then a prism. Since the law is to be written on our hearts, what does that look like? We don’t go killing sheep anymore in our worship services. At least we are not supposed to. Jesus filters out such stuff from the law because he has fulfilled in himself the intent and goal of those ordinances. Jesus acts as a filter for us in that what the law says only comes to us through Jesus and not in a direct manner. Our obedience to the law is through obeying Jesus’ commands and teachings. “The result is not a lowering of the law’s demand for righteousness. In fact, the opposite is true.” (pg.140) He is saving the how until later.
As a lens, Jesus focuses our attention onto the intent of the law. Its essence is distilled in Jesus’ teachings. “Jesus teaches that heart of the law’s intention is the expression of love to God and one’s neighbor.” (pg.142)
As a prism, Jesus elevates some commands of the law. One example is the prohibition of murder. Jesus sees the heart of the issue as anger and hatred and commands us to avoid this. It would be simpler just to avoid killing someone, but Jesus goes for the heart.
Jesus summons us to obey the heart of the law. He also calls us to fulfill the intent of the covenant given to Abraham. This mission to bless the nations will not be fulfilled with simple proclamation. How we as followers of Jesus behave ethically mediates this blessing to the nations. (pg.168-169) ”Jesus also instructs his disciples to go beyond mere proclamation. Since God’s kingdom was arriving in fulfillment of his historical actions of deliverance, Jesus’ disciples were to demonstrate its presence in tangible ways that image its presence. Proclamation and demonstration – these dimensions belong inextricably together. Without either of them present, God’s mission is only partially realized.” (pg.176)
A big part of demonstrating the kingdom is vulnerability. Since Jesus our king was vulnerable, so must we be. Lunde’s interpretation of Matthew 25 where the nations are judged on how they treated the least of Jesus’ brethren was excellent. Lunde sees the brethren of Jesus here as those Christian disciples who are sent into the world. This was the highlight of the book for me. I’ll let you read it for yourself to see how he maintains this view. I’ll say this: it is simple and elegant.
“Those who have submitted to Jesus’ reign are therefore commanded to participate in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise to bless all nations by proclaiming and demonstrating the presence of his kingdom.” (pg.183) This is what we are to do in response to the call to be a follower of Jesus. This is preaching the gospel of the kingdom and living under Jesus’ authority. The question remains, how are we to do this?
This question, how are we to do this, is the “crux of our dilemma”. (pg.185) Lunde reminds us “that we have seen that the all-encompassing demand of righteous fidelity to God was always to be encountered in the repeated remembrance and reception of God’s gracious deliverance and provisions.” (pg.208) And “In and through all of this, the New Covenant gift of the Spirit will be actively making Jesus’ grace present to us.” (pg.209) in the end, the gift of the Holy Spirit as God’s gracious presence in our lives makes it all doable.
For the Holy Spirit will remind us that Jesus has already fulfilled all our personal requirements of fidelity before God for us. Indeed, the Holy Spirit will show us that Jesus is our representative before God. This renews our faith. Additionally, the Holy Spirit will show us that Jesus is also our redeemer and restorer. He will also show us that Jesus is Lord. Our involvement with the Holy Spirit is what makes the difference. It is the presence of God in our lives through faith in Jesus that molds us into disciples.
I enjoyed how Lunde placed discipleship into a covenantal context. I also enjoyed how he wound up his discussion with the Holy Spirit. In my view righteousness is love. Love is developed in us through the believing Jesus and living in harmony with God’s Spirit. A loving person who is following Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit is a disciple. May we learn to be disciples of the one and only true God who has revealed himself in Jesus and come to live in us forever by His Holy Spirit.
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