Worship is all of life right? Romans 12:1 right?
Well ok. But try telling your spouse, "We don't need to set aside special time for each other, marriage is all of life.'
No, no, no. Church is date-night. (My Sunday night sermon).
.
Tag: church
Church as ‘Date-night’
Worship is all of life right? Romans 12:1 right?
Well ok. But try telling your spouse, "We don't need to set aside special time for each other, marriage is all of life.'
No, no, no. Church is date-night. (My Sunday night sermon).
.
Life Together founded on our alien righteousness
Lest you think I've taken a disastrous turn towards the self, here's Bonhoeffer on the only basis for Christian community - the alien righteousness of Christ. There is here a whole theology of salvation, of church, of pastoral care and of preaching:
The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God's Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: Our righteousness is an 'alien righteousness' a righteousness that comes outside of us (extra nos). They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him. The Christian lives wholly by the truth of God's Word in Jesus Christ. If someone asks him, Where is your salvation, your righteousness? he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ, which assures him salvation and righteousness. He is as alert as possible to this Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily desires the redeeming Word. And it can come only from the outside. In himself he is destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
But God has put this Word in the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother, his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure
And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. As such, God permits them to meet together and gives them community. Their fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus Christ and this 'alien righteousness'. All we can say therefore is: the community of Christians springs solely from the biblical and Reformation message of the justification of man through grace alone; this alone is the basis of the longing of Christians for one another. (Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, SCM Press, 1954, p11-12)
A theology of mission 3
In the last post, we saw the deepest continuity between God's mission and ours.
But now we must highlight the discontinuity.
Continuity and Discontinuity
Perhaps the Matthean Great Commission will show both the continuity and discontinuity points:
'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go 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 I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.' (Matt 28:18-20).
Here at the resurrection of Christ we see the very consummation of the missio Dei declared decisively in history. And incredibly Christ says 'therefore', and with that connector He lays bare a profound continuity between God's mission and ours. The Gospel-mission of God is handed to the Church.
Yet precisely because our mission comes from the hand of the risen Christ it must not be confused with His. Here is where the discontinuity comes in. Our marching orders do not come from a hopeful Commander, trusting us to win victory. Emphatically our commission comes from the Victor. All authority is His. The risen Christ has established the kingdom. Sin is atoned for, wrath is averted, Satan is vanquished, death is defeated, heaven and earth are reconciled, Man stands on the earth as King under God. And where this Head has come, His body will most certainly follow. What can the church, His body, add to such an accomplishment? All we can do is point to this King and this kingdom.
Christ's command is simply to 'go' with His resurrection power and presence in a baptizing and teaching ministry that realizes in advance of His return that obedience in the nations which Easter has already won.
Our part in the missio Dei is, therefore, very different to Christ's, yet, on the basis of His completed work we are called to extend His mission to the world.
Consequences of this Continuity and Discontinuity
Now that we've seen both the continuity and discontinuity between God's mission and ours we can elaborate on some consequences.
Firstly, because of the discontinuity point, we see that faithfulness to the completed missio Dei in the resurrection of Christ requires witnesses not activists. We do not bring redemption to the world, we bring Christ to the world as One who has already accomplished our redemption.
We betray our gospel-mission the minute we think we can establish Christ's kingdom. We do not save the world. In the risen Christ it is already saved. We are not the do-ers - we are witnesses to His ultimate and all-encompassing Doing. We 'go' as heralds not mini-saviours.
Secondly, because of the continuity point, we can learn much about the nature of our mission by enquiring as to the nature of the missio Dei. Let us ask, does God's mission have a centre and goal? And what is it?
We can answer this with confidence. The purposes of the Father from all ages have been exclusively focussed on His Son.[1] In the power of the Spirit, His word has been the agent for all divine activity in creation and redemption.[2] In the Incarnation of the Word, the Father gives to Jesus His word,[3] which accomplished all that Jesus does,[4] and it is this word that Jesus entrusts to his followers.[5] The Church has inherited a Gospel mission for the world, i.e. the Father's mission to the exalt His Son in His Spirit-empowered word.
The triune God - the God who is Sender, Sent and Perfector - is not concerned in a general glorification of Himself nor of the world. His mission has never been an abstract betterment of the creation. Rather, the purposes of this Gospel God have always been to create and redeem a people - to reach out and to draw in a bride for the Son, an inheritance for the Heir, a body for the Head. The goal of God has always been the glorification of the Son through the inclusion of His people by the Spirit so that all may participate in the triune life.
To put it more plainly, from beginning to end God's mission is wholly and thoroughly evangelistic. Both creation and redemption find their place within this evangelistic economy.
Next time we will see the implications of this for our mission. In particular we will argue that since God's mission is thoroughly evangelistic, so must ours be.
[1] Psalm 2:1-12; Psalm 110:1; Daniel 7:13,14; Romans 8:29; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:15f
[2] 2 Peter 3:5-7; Hebrews 1:3; 1 Peter 1:23; John 1:1-3; 5:24; 6:63,68;
[3] John 8:55; 14:24;
[4] John 14:10; Mark 4:41; Luke 4:43; John 5:24; 12:48; 17:17
[5] John 15:20; 17:6,14,20
.
A theology of mission 2 – The Missio Dei
When Karl Barth addressed the Brandenburg Missionary Conference in 1932 he introduced a missiological perspective which has determined the shape of mission theology in every part of the Church.
"Must not even the most faithful missionary, the most convinced friend of missions, have reason to reflect that the term missio was in the ancient Church an expression of the doctrine of the Trinity-namely the expression of the divine sending forth of self, the sending of the Son and Holy Spirit to the world? Can we indeed claim that we do it any other way?"
Barth cuts through soteriological or eschatological consideration to bring us right back to the Source of mission. It is not that 'Salvation is like this therefore mission should be like that.' It is not that 'The End will be like this, so mission should be like that.' No, the real argument is that 'God's being is like this, therefore mission should be like that!' There are missions because of the missio Dei - because God is a sending God. In Himself, in eternity, God's being is a being of outgoing love. This is the Fountainhead for mission.
David Bosch has memorably put it like this:
To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God's love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love.
This insight has been picked up by all wings of the Church, from the conciliar to the Anabaptist, from the Roman Catholic to the evangelical.
More important than all this consensus however is the bible's own testimony.
Consider the Johannine 'great commission':
As the Father has sent me I am sending you. (John 20:21; cf 17:18).
We ought to take that little word 'as' with full seriousness. In the same way that the Father sends the Son, so the Son sends His church. Let us ask, how has the Father sent the Son?
Lest we be Arians we must acknowledge that the Son's generation from the Father is not a mere product of the Father's will in time. It is rather an eternal begetting that is of the very essence of the eternal Godhead. There is not a God and then a sending. There has only ever been a sending God - the missio Dei. Both Father and Son are eternally constituted in these relations of Sending and Sent.
The Son's being and act is a being and act found and expressed in the Father's sending. The Son's own life is a life in mission. This has always been true in eternity and it was made manifest in incarnation.
Christ's most common self-identification in John is as the One sent from the Father. And His most common articulation of His mission was always to do the will of His Father - a will expressed in thoroughly evangelistic terms - e.g. John 3:16; 4:23; 6:29; 6:38-40. Christ is sent as the world's Saviour, the One who seeks worshippers for the Father, who glorifies the Father in His saving death and only then says 'it is finished' (John 19:30).
Therefore, because Christ's being is a missionary being, so His activity is a missionary activity.
On the cross, the true being and glory of the Son was manifested, and in Him the glory of the triune God (e.g. John 13:32; 17:5). Here was demonstrated Christ's obedience to the Father and, at one and the same time, His love for the world. Christ's being and act are laid bare at Golgotha, and shown to be a missionary being and act.
Therefore, returning to John 20:21, we see the continuity of Christ's mission with ours. Just as Christ has His being in sent-ness for the world's salvation, so does the church. We have received a commission that was passed from the Father to the Son in the depths of eternity. Our missionary activity finds its origin not in any human enthusiasm for witness but in the being of God. And our sent-ness for the salvation of the world is not only our activity. It is, like God's own missio, constitutive of our very life.
'The Christian community is not sent into the world haphazardly or at random, but with a very definite task. It does not exist before its task and later acquire it. Nor does it exist apart from it, so that there can be no question whether or not it might have or execute it. It exists for the world. Its task constitutes and fashions it from the very outset. If it had not been given it, it would not have come into being. If it were to lose it, it would not continue. It is not then a kind of imparted dignity. It exists only as it has it, or rather only as the task has it. Nor is it a kind of burden laid upon it. It is the inalienable foundation which bears it. Every moment of its history it is measured by it. It stands or falls with it in all its expressions, in all its action or abstention. It either understands itself in the light of its task or not at all.' (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, p796.)
'[The task of the Church] is no less, no more and no other than the ministry of witness required of it and constituting it.' (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3, p834))
.
A theology of mission 1
This began life as an essay I wrote for post-ordination training.
Typically 'mission' is understood as an activity that the church undertakes. On this understanding, the church, alongside its other duties, is also a sender and supporter of gospel workers.
In this paradigm a church may seek to enlarge their "sending arrow" greatly. They may tirelessly champion missionary work, hold constant prayer meetings for overseas workers, schedule regular missions' Sundays with special fundraising efforts. They could receive constant visits and prayer-letters from missionaries. They may even have a missions or outreach committee with a significant budget to support the work. Such churches may be used wonderfully by the Lord. And they would undoubtedly gain a reputation for being a 'sending church'.
But what should we make of this?
Certainly such an ethos is far superior to the sleepy church that thinks of nothing but maintaining its own buildings and ageing congregation. We might think - better to have one arrow among many than none at all! And that would be true.
Yet even such an activist church has missed something foundational to a theology of mission. Namely this: Mission is not something the local church does. Church is not the sender of gospel witnesses. The church is the body that is sent.
We are the missionaries - the church as a whole. Our very existence is an existence on mission. We have our being as church in the commission which is laid upon the whole body to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Mission is not what we do, it is who we are.
As a friend from Crosslinks recently remarked, the ultimate missionary movement is not "West to the rest" nor is it "The rest to the west." The ultimate missionary movement is always Heaven to Earth. We are not senders so much as sent. As members of Christ's missionary body we find ourselves, wherever we are, as His ambassadors, God making His appeal through us. This is not a function that we resolve to undertake (whether poorly or eagerly), it is the very nature of our life together.
Such thinking is radical, yet it is the necessary outcome of a theology of mission grounded in the Missio Dei.
More on this in the next post...
.
Personality, temperament, gifts, huh?
Codepoke made this comment on my last post on "personality types"
Still conflicted. :-)
If the Spirit has gifted you as a pastor and you torture yourself trying to prophecy, you have not benefited anyone. Some are eyes and some are feet. When the eye tries to do its part in the body by being walked on, good things do not happen to the eye or to the body. Taking guidance from a foot, savoring our food with our hands, and balancing the checkbook with our tongues would all be egalitarian but not spiritual.
Yes it’s possible to err with the personality message, but it’s possible to err with spiritual gifts too. It makes no more sense to throw the one out than the other.
If Jesus made the evergreen and the deciduous tree, should the deciduous tree feel guilty for not being always green? And if Jesus made one man an NF and the other an SJ will He iconoclastically make both into the “perfect” neutral personality?
Good points!
Let me make a couple of clarifications:
1) The trinity tells me that difference in no way compromises one-ness / equality. One of my hobby horses is to allow the Persons to be considered in all their distinctiveness and not let them be dissolved into some common essence. Humanity made in the image of this God will wonderfully reflect these distinctions. Difference is not at all a bad thing!
2) There is definitely such a thing as natural temperament - ie a way that this Trinue God has made me. Pre-fall and post-return we will still be gloriously different from one another and should not bemoan this fact but rejoice in it. The 'perfect' personality is certainly not 'neutral.'
3) There are definitely different Spirit-given gifts that do not work against unity but are in fact an expression of our unity - even in all our distinctness. (cf 1 Cor 12)
Posts like this one have me banging the drum for all these points.
4) There are spiritual gifts that specially equip certain people to serve the body in particular ways.
5) Having said this, we all have certain responsibilities to uphold even if we don't have that gifting. Some have the gift of service (Rom 12:7) but all should serve. Some have the gift of 'contributing to the needs of others' (Rom 12:8) but all should give. Some have the gift of evangelism (Eph 4:11) but all should play their part in evangelism. Some have the gift of administation (1 Cor 12:28) but all have admin to do, etc.
6) I can bring my giftings and differentness to bear in a very rich way upon the tasks I'm called to do. I will serve differently to you, give differently, evangelise differently and administrate differently - all to the glory of God. And the church should definitely not seek to do those things in a monochrome way.
7) I recognize in myself advantages to being laid back when it comes (for instance) to admin. If my deadline is Friday and an emergency comes up Wednesday afternoon it does not phase me in the slightest. In fact I'm pretty cool when Thursday goes up in smoke too. I know that I can work close to the deadline and that does free me to serve elsewhere with less distraction / guilt / pressure earlier in the process. I also recognize that for larger projects those with the gift of administration can serve me by setting me mini-deadlines along the way and getting me to be more forward thinking. In this example we're all doing admin but we're doing it in line with our different giftings. Great!
But...
8) I'm not sure Jesus made me 'ENFP'. In fact I'm pretty sure He didn't. I've read school reports from Australia (where I lived until I was 15) and I was hard-working, diligent, organised, focussed etc etc. When I moved to the UK I found that I was ahead of the school curriculum by at least 18 months in every subject. I also found that it really, really was not cool to work hard in the UK. So I stopped. I then went to a tertiary institution whose unofficial motto was "Effortlessly superior." And that pretty much defined the personality idol that I sought. Throbbing behind ENFP for me is this counterfeit motto: 'Effortlessly superior.' I'm not purely and simply ENFP, I know in myself that I seek after such a persona, attempting to justify myself before this false god. (I am an appallingly sinful, proud young man and I'm aware that my experience will not be the same as others. But on the off chance that there are other who sin in these kinds of ways I offer these cautionary thoughts.)
9) I certainly had the experience (and I know others have as well) of filling out my Myers-Briggs test and being aware that my answers conformed as much to an ideal that I nurture as they did to genuine reality. This is what I mean about our personality types being aspirational. There's a big part of me that wants to say 'I'm not an admin person.' And this has nothing to do with my organizational abilities. It is purely a kind of snobbery that says 'Admin is not rock and roll.' Certain tasks do not conform to the image I have of myself. And so I let them drop and I justify it saying 'I am not...'
10) ENFP is not who I am. ENFP has a great deal to do with sinful choices I have made in order to navigate life according to false views of identity, justification, true life. I certainly do have a God-given temperament and I certainly do have particular spiritual gifts but I wouldn't equate that with my Myers-Briggs type. Not at all.
Your example, codepoke, of doing admin in a different way from your gifted daughter is pretty much the perfect example of what I'm wanting to say. You are well aware that just because Myers-Briggs calls you 'NFP' does not excuse you from being faithful in the tasks God has given you, rather your differentness gives you a distinct and valuable way of doing that. And it certainly will involve, at many points, handing off things to others in the body who are gifted for it.
If we're mature (like codepoke - I mean that!) we'll handle this with humility and joy! Humility because we confess that these things are great things to do but that I am desperately inadequate for them. Joy because I rejoice in the giftings of others and the Spirit-given unity we have in Christ's body.
If we're immature (like me!) we'll handle that with pride and/or despair. Pride because deep down I'm saying 'I'm not that kind of person (whose abilities I don't greatly value anyway).' Despair because I'd really like to be omnicompetent and not need help.
I'm sure I've overstated things in my usual soap-box style. But you'll be aware by now that these issues lie close to some pretty strong idols for me - hence the vigourous tone and lack of nuance. Correction and criticism always very welcome (he said in a very non-ENFP kind of way).
.
Church – Jacuzzi or Waterfall??
Is it a jacuzzi?
Cosy? Relaxing? A chance for you and your nearest and dearest to recharge the batteries?
Or is it...
A waterfall?
Scary? Exciting? Expansive? Never safe?
Or is it... and here's my new word for the week...
A jacuzzerfall
Here we see the blessings of our close fellowship in Christ flowing out and blessing the whole world.
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:9-12)
This is what church is like - a jacuzzerfall. (Now go and use the word this week)
And here's a sermon I preached on Sunday on the subject.
.
The Priesthood of all believers and Trinity 2
In previous posts I have discussed the priesthood of all believers and how this doctrine interacts with the doctrine of the trinity. In my last post on this I examined the connection from Trinity => church. In this post we'll go in the other direction: church => trinity (a much more perilous route!!). My question is:
Can 'different giftings united in one priesthood' be thought of as an analogy for the trinity?
If it can, then it would be ok to see different Persons of the Godhead differently gifted. This different gifting would imply no difference in divinity (just as differences in charismatic gifting implies no difference in priestliness). Instead we could affirm the differences we see in the economy as real and not apparent and yet in no way infer any ontological subordination.
To set this up, let me quote from Athanasius' Deposition of Arius
And if the Son is the “Word” and “Wisdom” of God, how was there “a time when He was not?” It is the same as if they should say that God was once without Word and without Wisdom.
Here we have, of course, a thought-experiment. But it is interesting to note exactly what thoughts are being had by Athanasius. The argument is basically this:
1. The Son is the Wisdom of the Father.
2. It is inconceivable to have the Father without wisdom.
3. The Father must have always had the Son.
Now it doesn't take much thought to imagine the Arian come-back to this. Surely you could just say that the Father has always had wisdom in Himself, i.e. considered apart from the Son. This was a move which Athanasius was unwilling to make. The logic of Athanasius' position (without which his argument fails) is that the Father must have the Son to have wisdom - He does not have it in Himself.
All this accords with verses like 1 Cor 2:10-11, where the wisdom of God is seen as an irreducibly inter-Personal knowledge. The Father is wise in the wisdom of the Son, known in the Spirit. Athanasius reveals in this argument that he did not conceive of the Persons as having divine attributes (like wisdom) complete in themselves. The attributes are not, on this conception, identical CV's repeated for each Person. Rather, each Person shares in the common divine life because they so belong to one another and inter-penetrate one another that Each has a complete share in the giftings of the Others. Yet those gifting (attributes) are properly unique to the Persons in their distinctive existences as Begettor, Begotten and Proceeding. The Son is the Wisdom of the Father. The Father is not wise in Himself but only in the Son and by the Spirit.
As we discussed the priesthood of all believers we were led to just these kinds of conclusions. I am priestly not by myself but only in and with you and your gifts. And because of you and your gifts - you and they belong to me (Rom 12:5). Is it not the same with God? The Son so belongs to the Father that He who is Wisdom eternally makes wise the Father in the Spirit, etc, etc.
Isn't it very suggestive that 1 Corinthians 11 tells us that Father and Son are Head and Body (v3) just before we read a whole chapter on the church also being like a body?? And isn't it interesting that the following chapter (13) discusses how the many are one - love!?
Can we not say by analogy with 1 Cor 12:15: "If the Father should say 'Because I am not Wisdom, I do not belong to the Godhead,' He would not for that reason cease to be part of the Godhead... " You see where I'm going with this. Just as the priesthood of all believers is the corporate priestliness of differently gifted believers so the equal divinity of the Three is the corporate divinity of differently gifted Persons. Yet these Persons so belong to each other that they are never without the gifts of the Other.
Now some think that Athanasius' famous affirmation opposes such a position:
'The Son is everything the Father is except Father...'
But I'm saying, if Athanasius is being true to his Deposition of Arius he must mean this in terms of ontological equality. That is the sense in which we must uphold these words. But it's very clear, viewed from another perspective, that the Son is many things the Father is not - Begotten, Mediator, Prophet, Priest, Prince, Sent One, etc, etc. So whatever the above affirmation means it does not mean that the Son's CV is the same as the Father's. Instead, just as my gifts are different to yours, so the particular attributes of the Persons are different. And just as your gifts belong to me in the unity of the church so the Person's attributes belong to one another in the unity of the Godhead.
We'll see why this is important shortly.
.
The Priesthood of all believers and Trinity 1
When discussing the priesthood of all believers I tried to highlight the corporate nature of our priestliness. I only find my priestliness in union with Christ and in union with others. Both are essential.
The priesthood of all believers is not a priestliness that is the private possession of each believer. If we argue like this then the very basis for the doctrine is undermined. If I claim priestliness in myself then I can be priestly without you. And if this is admitted then my different gifted-ness and the distinct exercise of my priestly gifts will easily appear as a different order of priestliness to yours. And once we say that we're a hop, skip and a jump from a priesthood of the few.
No - the priesthood of all believers upholds that, while having different gifts to you and while exercising them in different ways, I cannot be priestly without you. Yet with you I am both priestly and I have your gifts - for you in your giftedness belong to me, and I to you (Rom 12:5ff).
In thinking this through the connections with trinitarian theology suggest themselves pretty readily. In John 17, Christ prays for a priestly church unity. That is, He prays that the church be united as witness to the world. (see v18, 21, 23). In v21 and 23, Christ makes clear the proto-type for such priestly unity: the Father-Son union. So in thinking about Church and gifts, there seem to be some fruitful lines of enquiry into Trinity and attributes.
In this post I'll consider things from Trinity => church. In my next post I'll think of church =>Trinity.
As we consider things from Trinity => church. It seems like the major trinitarian heresies are easily seen in our understandings of church.
tritheism: a 'trinity' of separable Persons becomes, in church practice, separable priests - lone-ranger, hit and run evangelists divorced from the corporate life of the church.
modalism: a one-ness in which the Persons lose their distinctiveness becomes, in church practice, a forcing of church members into the same mould. Everyone must exercise every gift. Training in mission = making everyone do street-evangelism. That kind of thing.
subordinationism (Arianism): The ontological subordination of Son and Spirit becomes, in church practice, the suborination of the non-full-time Christian workers. It's the old two-tier way of life first espoused by Eusebius but replicated today. The 'perfect' are the priests (nowadays the 'full-time Christian workers'), the 'permitted' are the regular folk (nowadays those whose tithes support the 'full-time Christian workers').
The antidote must be to go back to the trinity and understand again how the many are one. Not competitively, not identically, not merely apparently. Rather the one-ness (of God and of church) is a unity of distinct Persons whose belongingness to one another makes them who they are.
I am - in all my differentness to you, in all my distinct gifting and role - one with you in the mission that constitutes both me and the church. Without you I have no mission, in fact I have no ecclesial being - that is, I am not a Christian. I have my life and being and we have our mission to the world only because we belong together at the very deepest level.
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23)
.
Rest of series: