Tag: Great Commission

Thoughts on the Great Commission: Our Finite Tendency to Miss What God is Doing in Our Time

What are we missing? What dogmatic understanding have we clung to that is correct in some aspect, but not completely accurate?

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Go into all the world and tell the gospel to all creation

‭As I read through the New Testament this year as part of my daily reading plan, I have finished the Gospels, and I am well into the Book of Acts. As I read through the Gospels, I was mindful of the context in location, time period, and the history of the area and the people of Israel, surrounding nations, and the Greco-Roman world leading up to the time that Jesus walked the earth. I have also been mindful of the sweep of this history as it has played out since that time to the present day.

As a believer in the story of God revealing himself to human beings in this history that we continue to live into, I am also mindful that this time was pivotal. God becoming incarnate (taking on human form and fully living into His own creation), is the centerpiece of our story. It ties the story together from the beginning to the end that will play out into the future fulfillment of God’s ultimate plans.

Abraham and his descendants have been the focus of this story from the time that he heard God encouraging him to leave his family and homeland and strike out to a land God would show him, full of the promise descendants as numerous as the sands of the shores of the sea and the stars in the sky. But the story has taken an unexpected turn – unexpected, at least, for those descendants who have been living into this story for millennia by the time of Christ.

But it shouldn’t have been unexpected. That original promise to Abraham included blessing for all the nations of the earth. This was God’s plan from the beginning – from the creation of Adam and Eve and the command to “be fruitful and multiply.”

The covenant God made with Moses with those descendants of Abraham, however, took on a life of its own – at least as far as they perceived it. They were (more or less) faithful to that covenant. At least, they clung to that story despite their failings to be faithful and despite their myopic view of what God was doing.

It was myopic because they lost sight of God’s intention to bless the nations of the earth through them. This blessing was embedded into the original promise to Abraham, and it was always intended to be part of the story. Yet, they had lost that thread.

Thus, when God entered into the story to move it along and begin to work out the thread of His ultimate plan, they didn’t recognize Him. The people God chose through whom He would work out this plan unwittingly resisted it.

Yet, God in His sovereignty was not surprised by this. He used their resistance to move the story forward. Jesus knew this when he read from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown synagogue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Luke 4:18-19

When Jesus told them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”, they were not ready to receive it, though the fulfillment of it was long-awaited by them. Jesus knew their rejection of him would be the catalyst God would use to unfold the rest of the story:

“Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

Luke 4:23

Jesus, the fullness of God in human form (Col. 2:9), knew he would die at the insistence of his own people, but this was meant to be.

“And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!”

Pjilippians 2:8

God worked through this people He chose to prepare for the time He would enter the story, and their rejection of Him would be the turning point.

Continue reading “Thoughts on the Great Commission: Our Finite Tendency to Miss What God is Doing in Our Time” →

The Problem with Christian Nationalism

As finite human beings, we all have a deficiency of perspective.

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I was listening to the podcast, Apollos Watered hosted by Travis Michael Fleming, recently when NT Wright made a very simple, but poignant, statement:

“One of the most fundamental things about Christianity is that it is for everyone.”

NT Wright, of course, is from the UK. He just authored and published a book with Michael F. Bird, that is called JESUS AND THE POWERS, Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror & Dysfunctional Democracies.

The context in which he made this comment was a discussion on Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is currently a hot topic in the United States, though we are hardly the first nation that has religious, nationalist tendencies. England had such a period in its history.

The nation of Israel had arguably the most provenance to think that way. After all, Israel was a nation of “God’s chosen people”. God became incarnate in Jesus in the 1st Century, and He “came to His own” – His chosen people. Before moving on to the point I am inspired to write about today, I want to focus on how God’s chosen people reacted to God becoming flesh and walking among them.

The Apostle, John, tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel that they, tragically, “did not receive him!” (John 1:1-11) They did not recognize God who had become flesh and was standing right in front of them!

That stunning fact should cause us to ask, “Why?” How is it that God became flesh, and He walked among the very people He chose, and they didn’t recognize Him?

We might excuse them on the basis that we have the Holy Spirit, and they didn’t. We might be tempted to think that we would respond differently today because of that advantage. But then again, they had God in human flesh!

We might assume that having the Holy Spirit makes us different than them. Perhaps, that is true. Theoretically, a person who actually has the Holy Spirit and who actually lives by and listens to the Holy Spirit does seem to have advantage.

Of those who have the Holy Spirit, do we actually live by and listen to the Holy Spirit? All of the time? Even most of the time? I can’t answer that question for you, but I think it is a question worth asking ourselves.

NT Wright is a prolific and influential theologian. He has written key works on Paul and Romans. His insights are particularly relevant and poignant as such an expert who has no dog in the political and cultural “war” that rages in the United States of America.

Such a simple statement: “Christianity is for everyone.” Who would not agree with that statement? Jesus said he came for everyone who believes. Paul said there is no Jew nor Gentile; and we are all one in Christ.

In the 1st Century Jewish world, only two groups of people existed: Jews and everyone else. The Jews called everyone else Gentiles. What Paul means, therefore, is that everyone in the world is unified in Jesus Christ. This should be our reality as Christians, right?

Paul said that Jesus tore down the wall that divided the two groups of people in the world, and he made the two groups one. He reconciled all people to himself through the cross. (Ephesians 2:14-16)

The danger of Christian nationalism in the United States (or anywhere) is that some Christians may see themselves as uniquely Christian, uniquely privileged by God, and they may conclude that their own nation that they consider to be Christian is uniquely, divinely authorized by God. That attitude can lead to us to see other people as less uniquely blessed and less divinely privileged.

This is dangerous because we are tempted to view ourselves as better than others. We may even excuse some of our ungodly behavior because we are a Christian nation that has divine authority in the world.

This attitude can hinder us from seeing our own faults and weaknesses that are unique to our culture. We are apt not to see the planks in our own eyes while we focus our attention on the specs in others’ eyes, assuming ourselves to be better than others.

We might also tend to focus on maintaining our privileged position we believe God has given us to the exclusion of other people. We might be tempted to focus on our own good while we should be focusing on helping our neighbors, including our foreign neighbors – and even our enemies.

Jewish people in the 1st Century had this kind of attitude, and it blinded them from seeing who Jesus was – the Messiah they had been waiting for – because they thought he was only their Messiah, and he would liberate only them. They weren’t prepared for a Messiah who came to liberate the whole world!

Though “God’s own” didn’t receive Him, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God….” (John 1:12) We might be so familiar with the following verse that we miss the scope of God’s focus:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

John 3:16-17

God’s focus is the world – the whole world. He even gives us a sneak peak at His end game through the same Apostle, John:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Revelation 7:9

With Christian nationalism, however we might define it, our perspective is too narrow. The danger is that we focus too much on us when God is focused on the world.

Religious people wanted to kill Jesus in his hometown because he challenged their views as God’s privileged people. They became angry with Jesus when he talked about Elijah visiting and blessing the Canaanite woman in Sidon to the exclusion of all the widows in Israel. They were enraged when Jesus said that Elisha healed the Samaritan war general of leprosy rather than people in Israel who had leprosy. They were so incensed by Jesus pointing these things out that they tried to throw him off a cliff! (Luke 4:24-29)

Christian nationalism of any kind flirts with unhealthy pride in national identity. Pride and identity associated with anything other than Christ has a tendency to warp us inwardly and to diminish our sense of primary identity in Christ. Thus, Christian nationalism can lead us to diminish our love for God, as well as our love for our neighbors.

When we think too highly of ourselves, we value our own culture and ways of looking at and doing things more than we should.  When we think too highly of ourselves and value our own ways too much, we also tend to devalue others and the ways of other people. Thus, Christian nationalism can lead us to diminish our love for others.

As finite human beings, we all have a deficiency of perspective. Each individual and cultural perspective is limited, which is why Isaiah said:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

In short, we do not have the perspective of God. His perspective is far greater than ours. This is true individually, of course, but it’s also true of humankind. It is equally true of people groups, cultures, and nations.

Continue reading “The Problem with Christian Nationalism” →

Are Christians Required to Evangelize? Are They Morally Wrong to Force Their Views on Others?

Evangelism should flow naturally out of relationship and community with God and His people. it should begin and end with community.

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These competing questions bookend the following statement I borrowed from a social media group that was a preface to some questions about evangelism:

“As I’ve been doubting my Christian faith one of the issues I’ve been wrestling with (and frankly have always been averse about) is the reality of forced proselytizing.
 
Those of us raised in a Christian (and specifically evangelical) churches are all too familiar with being shamed, guilted, and forced to have awkward conversations with friends and strangers in which we were expected to sell them our brand of Christianity.
 
This sell was to be aggressive. We could not take no for an answer and we were to continually pester and compel the person until they either converted or broke contact with us (for obvious reasons).
 
Given that the message of Jesus seems to be that we are to give up our lives and enjoyment of them for the kingdom, to wear ourselves out in serving the poor, all while carrying a heavy moral burden, it appears all the more immoral to compel this message on people and to be indignant when they don’t take it.
 
This is not even mentioning the threat of hellfire for the salesman and prospect.”

The truth is that many Christians have difficulty with the thought of doing evangelism. Many people in our culture today think that forcing one’s views on others is morally wrong, yet evangelism has long been something expected of Christians, especially in evangelical churches.

Before diving in, I need to make the point that we all have freedom of speech in a free country. Exercising that freedom is no more forcing one’s views on others than expressing the belief that forcing one’s views on others is morally wrong. We have equal rights to speak and equal rights to reject what others say.

Aside from that, I don’t believe that sharing the Gospel is morally wrong. If it is, then it is morally wrong for you to tell me that it is morally wrong to share the Gospel. I don’t share your views on that position, but I would never say you are being immoral or have no right to express your views or even to try to convince me of the truth of them.

With that said, I feel fortunate not to have grown up in a church tradition that is “aggressive” about evangelism and “forces” people to evangelize or risk hellfire and brimstone. Not that anyone is “forced” to do anything. We all have a choice in the matter.

More importantly, though, God doesn’t work that way. In fact, I maintain that such an attitude is exactly contrary to the will of God. No one can be forced into the kingdom of God. People do not enter the kingdom of god kicking and screaming.

Jesus didn’t forced people to be saved. He said:

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:9-13)

God became man, and He appeared to “His own people” – the ones with whom He established a close relationship characterized by great demonstrations of power in their favor for many years prior to the incarnation – and they didn’t even recognize Him. What did he do?

He didn’t rain down fire and brimstone. He also didn’t stop sharing the good news, but most of the people who were willing to listen to hi were the poor, the downtrodden, and the “sinners” who knew their own deficits.

People become children of God not by not by blood: not by being born into the right family line. People become children of God not by the will of the flesh: not by their own desire or wishing that it were so. People become children not by the will of man: not by decree, or force, or proclamation.

People who “receive him” (receive Jesus, believe on his name) are the ones to whom “he gave the right to become children of God”, and that is not of their doing, or of anyone else’s doing; it is God’s doing!

The key word here is “receive”. That is how we become God’s children: we receive him, which requires, first, that we believe him. The believing comes before the receiving. Believing is accepting what he is saying and trusting him so that we put our faith in him. Then we enter into relationship with him.

To receive him means more than simply believing, however. It means receiving him into our lives (into our “hearts”). It means not only trust, but commitment. It means entering into relationship with Him, but this is not of our own doing. The invitation is His, not ours!

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God….” (Eph. 2:8)

We simply have to receive it, accept it, and make “room” for him in our hearts and lives – as our Savior and Lord. We don’t do this on our terms, but on His terms.

Notice to the elite, religious leader, Nicodemus, Jesus said, “You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God”, but to the outcast woman at the well, Jesus said, “I will give you Living Water.” The invitation Jesus gives to everyone is ultimately the same (to receive Jesus), but people have to be willing to exchange what they have to receive him. Those are God’s terms.

The Gospel isn’t a dogma or propaganda to be enforced and forced on people who do not want to receive it. It is a gift that God offers, a “free” gift (Romans 6:3), but people must be willing to exchange what they have for it.

Though we have reason to believe that Nicodemus did ultimately receive Jesus and become a follower, the outcast woman at the well likely found it easier to receive Jesus than Nicodemus did. Nicodemus had most of what the first century world had to offer: power, position, prestige, wealth, reputation, etc. The outcast woman had little of it.

Perhaps, this is why Jesus presented a different way of looking at the offer to Nicodemus – you must be born again, you must be willing to give up what you think you have and start over. To the woman at the well, who had little to hold onto in this life, Jesus said, “I have Living Water to give you.”

Both of them had to give up what they had. There is a cost to the free gift of salvation that God offers, but some of us are unwilling to let go of what we have to receive it. We aren’t willing to make room.

How does this tie into the statements that prefaced the questions about “doing” evangelism?

We have to understand what evangelism is and why we might want to “do” it. We have to understand what it is that we are presenting when we do evangelism. We need to understand, ultimately, what God is offering and how people must receive it.

Continue reading “Are Christians Required to Evangelize? Are They Morally Wrong to Force Their Views on Others?” →

Putting the American Church into Perspective

Our perspective should be colored by God’s global and eternal purposes, not by the smaller, immediate “world” that we know.

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A recent article in Relevant Magazine online, Report: 8 in 10 Evangelicals Live in Asia, Africa and South America, was there to greet me this morning when I opened Facebook. The article title, and the concluding statement put things into perspective:

“[T]hese figures … underline an important point about the vast racial and ethnic diversity of the evangelical strain of Christianity — a diversity often neglected in American conversations about faith.”

Evangelicals make up a little over 25% of the Christians in the world, and only 14% of the Evangelicals in the world live in the United States. Let that sink in.

Let’s take another step back. Let’s gain a little perspective. Let’s look at American Evangelical Christianity for a moment from the larger perspective of the world.

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Ceding Earthly Kingdoms and Seeding the Kingdom

Entry into the kingdom of God is by way of the cross, and followers in that way are cross-bearers who walk in the way of Jesus and invite their enemies to join them.

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Tower of David in Jerusalem, Israel.

In a discussion with Canadians, Krish Kandiah and Tom Newman, on the unbelievable Podcast with Justin Brierley (Agnostic ‘trying on’ church talks to a Christian – Tom Newman & Krish Kandiah), the conversation turned to the fact that Christians are a minority in Canadian and British society. The agnostic, Tom Newman, discussed his “experiment” with Christianity that was the subject of his own podcast. He found that Christians bring value to society, because Christians are particularly motivated to do good things. This led to an interesting dialogue.

Krish Kandiah, a pastor, observed that the temptation of Christians as minorities in society is to go private, turn inward, and become cloistered. Doing that, however, is not How Jesus instructed Christians to act.  Jesus says you don’t light a candle to put it under a bushel. So, Krish Kandiah says,

“It becomes the obligation of the Christian minority to serve and bless the majority.”

What a difficult statement for an American Christian to hear! It almost doesn’t register. Did he really just say that? (I note that the interviewees ware both Canadian, and the host is British. Canada and Great Britain are decidedly post-Christian.)

The United States is heading that way too, though we don’t like to admit it.

Interestingly, Christianity is growing in other parts of the world like Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Muslim world, and Oceania. Christianity is noticeably declining in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the “western” world.

I think about these things in the context of the cultural wars that are raging in the United States. Christians are desperately fighting to hold on to a Christian consensus that was once called the “Moral Majority”, but Christians have been losing ground. American society is incrementally moving the other way, and the movement is gaining momentum despite the efforts of the most ardent culture warriors.

How do we deal with that? In a classic American Christian way, I wonder, “What would Jesus do?” More poignantly, I wonder what God is saying to us (American Christians) in this day and age?

Continue reading “Ceding Earthly Kingdoms and Seeding the Kingdom” →