Before I post what it is that shapes our lives, the motivations & beliefs that our foundational to the lives we live, and the way we love others, I wanted to post this article by Brownson as an introduction:
When Jesus speaks about the Gospel, he uses the term primarily to refer to the kingdom of God or the reign of God. When the rest of the New Testament writers speak about the Gospel, they use the term primarily to refer to what God has done in Jesus. There are times, of course, when the New Testament speaks about the Gospel in terms of its saving impact upon this world, but that is not the primary accent in the Biblical materials. The primary emphasis in the use of the term “gospel” is on a narrative that announces what God has done in Christ.
The Gospel is first of all about God’s faithfulness, about God’s triumph over death, and about God’s new purposes for the world that are revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. These Biblical patterns distinguish themselves in subtle but important ways from our North American ways of speaking about the Gospel. Whereas we tend to speak about the Gospel in terms of its impact upon our lives, the Bible tends to speak of the Gospel as a revelation of who God is and what God is doing and has done in the world.
The difference envisioned here is substantial. It involves the basic change from viewing salvation as something we receive (or, to use the dominant North American metaphor, something we consume), to viewing salvation as something in which we participate. When the Bible speaks about the Gospel, it speaks primarily about who God is and what God is doing, because salvation in the full Biblical sense means participating in God’s saving purpose for the whole world. First Peter 2:9 expresses this reality succinctly: “But you are a chosen race, aroyal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” The people of God are a chosen race, so that they may proclaim God’s mighty acts, so that they may join the celebration, rejoicing in and announcing to others what God has done in Christ. The Bible does not regard the Church as a vendor of religious services to be received by religious consumers, but as a body of people sent on God’s mission to the world.
In the final analysis, the Biblical understanding of salvation is not merely that our lives and our world finally will be set right again. The Biblical understanding of salvation is that our lives become swept up into something larger and greater than ourselves, into God’s purposes for the world. In other words, the receiving of salvation and the call to mission are not to be conceived sequentially, as if one followed the other (first salvation, then grateful obedience). They are instead to be understood as two sides of the same coin. To receive salvation is to be called into something larger and greater than us, to be invited to participate in God’s saving purpose and plan for the world. That is why the Gospel is primarily about God and only secondarily about us.
But our culture is pernicious in its capacity to twist the Biblical, understanding of the Gospel into a consumerist one. The tragic result has been the proliferation in Canada of passively oriented churches, preoccupied with their own survival and the care of their own members, and struggling to discover a sense of transcendence and the presence of God. By contrast, the Gospel calls into existence churches whose fundamental identity is that of a people called to participate in God’s mission, caught up into a reality greater than themselves, invited to bear witness to the world of a new way of being human in God’s presence.
James V. Brownson of Holland, Michigan
No comments:
Post a Comment