There are various assumptions at work that lie behind this legal reading of the New Testament.  One of those readings is the binding nature of silence among scripture which I have already written about in a post called The Silence of Scripture or Freedom in Christ?.  But another assumption, perhaps the biggest, is that the New Testament is to be read as though it is a law from God, one that replaces the Torah or Mosaic Law of the Old Testament.  Under such assumption, the New Testament is treated as though it is a constitution or instruction manual for following the assumed (yes, another assumption) one single pattern of Christianity called the New Testament Church.

This legal reading of the New Testament is wrong and it needs to be explained why because in the end it only produces legalism (see the video below).  Think with me for a moment.  The apostle Paul said this to say about the Law in Romans 7:12-13:

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  Did that which is good, then, become death to me?  By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Do you see what Paul is saying about the Law and humanity?  The problem of sin is not and has never been the Law.  Rather the problem with sin is and has always been humanity, you and I.  By the grace of God, that problem is rectified in Christ.  But here is the big question that must be asked which pertains to the issue of reading the New Testament as a new Law: If God’s aim or purpose in the gospel is to keep humanity living under a written law, why would God just not have us following the written Law of the Old Testament since it is already “holy, righteous, and good” law?  A secondary question: Assuming the New Testament is a new written Law, what makes us think we can faithfully keep that Law if we could not faithfully keep the written Law of the Old Testament?

The fact of the matter is that if God’s intention for redeeming humanity in Christ was to bind them to a covenant that requires following any written law, then God already had a perfect—a holy and righteous—Law established for this purpose.  Yet any cursory reading of the New Testament and the apostle Paul’s instruction to Gentile Christians is suffice to show that this was not God’s intent.  This is not to say that there are no commands for Christians to obey or that Christians can live a “lawless” lifestyle.  Loving God and neighbor (cf. Mk 12:29-31) are still the greatest commands that Christians are to obey; living by the Spirit (cf. Gal 6:13ff) is still a non-negotiable practice for all who profess the name of Christ.  But obeying the two great commands and living by the Spirit is one thing, it is quite another matter to turn the New Testament into a legal code that prescribes how every local church must worship, organize itself, and regulate its practice of ministry.

In Christ, we have been set free.  May we use that freedom responsibly and with integrity but may we also enjoy that freedom rather than being shackled by our own misunderstanding of the gospel and New Testament.

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I have posted this video before of Rick Atchley, Preaching Minister of The Hills Church of Christ in Fort Worth, TX but I am posting it again because illustrates well the legalism that is produced by reading the New Testament as a law.

We also find this intent implied in when Paul speaks of us as “new creation” in Christ where the old has been replaced with the new (2 Cor 5:17).  In Christ, we are no longer what we once were but have become new people who belong to the new world is redemptively restoring.  Interestingly, the New English Bible translates 2 Corinthians 5:17 as follows: “If anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (italics mine).

The more I read and study about the gospel as well as the Christian doctrines of Incarnation and Eschatology, the more I become convicted of this ecclesiological identity.  Then in doing some reading for an upcoming doctoral seminar, I came across these words of John Howard Yoder from his small book Body Politics:

The message is that Christ has begun a new phase of world history.  The primary characterization of that newness is that now within history there is a group of people whom it is not exaggerating to call a “new world” or a “new humanity.”  We know the new world has come because its formation breaches the previously followed boundaries that had been fixed by the orders of creation and providence.

I think Yoder gets it right and while we recognize that we will never perfectly be this new world or new humanity until Jesus returns, I wonder…  Do our non-Christian neighbors see a good dosage of the new world in us or do they just see the same old world they are living in?

Understanding ourselves as new creation is changes the rules of the game, so to speak.  It should shape the way we participate in God’s mission.  That is, we’re not just trying to get individuals to make a personal decision for Christ but to demonstrate for them this new life as we invite to partake new life they too are called for.  It should also change the way we ethically respond to the challenges we encounter.  Rather than continuing with utilitarian reasoning, we live by the character of this new life (taught to us by Jesus) not because it will always work for us among people of the old world that’s passing but because it demonstrates to them what the new world is like and who we are as new creation.  Finally, as new creation, it should stir our imaginations to the celebrative and creative possibilities for the way we interact as a gathered church.  That is, apart from the times when we do grieve, our life as church should be fun and full of joyous occasions inspired by the Spirit-guided use of our freedom in Christ to party as only new creation in Christ can do.

I wasn’t the studious sort of student growing up in school.  I didn’t do well academically at all.  My parents made me repeat the sixth grade to see if that would help.  It didn’t.  In the seventh grade I had to do a bunch of testing and get a lot of tutoring to help with my math and reading comprehension.  It didn’t help either.  By the eighth grade I was placed into remedial reading and math classes in the special education department.

So I was in a remedial reading class on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s and in my regular reading class on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  Back then being a part of a special education class came with an unwanted stigma of be retarded.  I know that word is not very PC but that was how we thought of special education classes when I was growing up in school.  Consequently, I didn’t want my peers to know I was in one of those classes.  My eighth grade teacher, who was just a mean teacher, had other plans.

It was a Thursday and my teacher was passing back the tests that were taken on the Tuesday before.  She handed back all the tests to every student, every student except me.  Instead of handing me my test, my teacher called me to the front of the room.  Once I was standing in the front of the room, my teacher told the class that I was the only person to get an “F” on the test.  But it’s what she said next that…  Well, she said to the class, “Rex can’t help it.  He’s retarded and that’s why he’s been placed in the retarded class on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s.”

Needless to say, that was a humiliating experience.  The other students laughed while I ran out of class.  I never wanted to go back.  I hated school.  I hated every bit of it and told my parents that I wouldn’t ever go back.  Obviously I did but something else happened that turned this terrible story something beautiful.

I went to bed that night pretty angry but that next morning when I woke up there was a letter on my bed from my mom.  I don’t have the letter any more but I really wish I did.  I remember the gist of what it said.  In it my mother told me how proud she was to call me her son and then she listed off a hundred reasons why she was proud of me.*

I’ve often wondered how long it would take to write out a hundred reasons why I’m proud of my own children.  What I can tell you is that growing up, there were a lot of questions I had but one question I never had was the question of whether my mom loved me.  I knew my mom loved me not just because she told me so but because of what she did, such as what she did in the story told above.

The is what the scripture says in 1 John 4:9, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.”  The scripture doesn’t just tell us that God loves us, it tells us what God did. God sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to give us life and that is why we can know that God loves us.

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I shared this story with the Columbia Church of Christ this past Sunday as part of my message “Christianity 101″ from 1 John 4:7-18.  I’ve uploaded that message here, if you are interested in listening to it.

But what happens when, in prayer, we open ourselves to the creative and redemptive presence of God…to surrender with a “your will be done” posture?  Since biblical faith knows that God’s end/goal (telos) is victory for both himself and his people (cf. 1 Cor 15), we need not to fear being open to the creative and redemptive presence of God…right?

That’s a big question that I don’t want to answer in haste.  For I know the struggle I went through with trusting God in this way after the death of my son and younger brother and sometimes still encounter.  Donavan tells the story of Jesus’ own struggle and openness in prayer, relating why prayer is a dangerous thing:

Jesus not only taught us how to say that prayer [The Lord’s Prayer].  He said it himself on the darkest night of his life.  At that terrible moment, when he fully realized just what it was he was being called to, he once again prayed to that “Abba” of his.  He asked for his daily bread, which in this case was to have that cup, that cup of poison, taken away from him.  And then instead of asking a remote God to work his miracle “over there somewhere’ far away from him, he spoke that word which cost him dearly – “fiat.”  Thy will be done.  And by that word he opened himself up to the creating, redeeming power of God within him, and God’s powerful work would be done, not outside him but in him, and he himself would be part of and involved in that deadly answer to his prayer.

Perhaps Americans and other Christians do not pray anymore because they are afraid to pray.  It is a dangerous undertaking (p. 102).*

In this respect, prayer is not only risky but it’s an essential step in spiritual transformation where we open ourselves to God unto the point of saying “your will be done.”  Thus Donovan goes on to say that the crucial question of prayer is “…whether we really open ourselves to him, open ourselves to his creating, saving presence” (p. 102).

Yes, this sort of prayer takes faith.  It takes faith, knowing that hope is preceded by suffering, perseverance, and character (cf. Rom 5.3-5).  It takes faith to continue on once we realize the great cost – the great grief and pain – that may be involved in allowing God to work creatively and redemptively within us rather than outside of us.  Some days I think I have this faith, other days I don’t’.  Some days I want this faith, other days I don’t…because I am afraid of what might happen.  As much as I preach to myself and others that fear has nothing to do with faith, fear is a reality that must be conquered daily within me.

The challenge of spiritual transformation is not just to pray but to have faith and to pray with faith…to pray with the faith that sees the victory God has sealed in the resurrected Jesus Christ.  “But thanks be for God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15.57, NRSV).

May we learn to pray in faith unto God… fiat!

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* The word fiat is Latin which means “let it be done.”

This post is a slightly revised version of a post of the same title published on March 10, 2013.  You can read the original post here.

Of course, Bradley is not the first to raise this concern with neo church movements.  A few years earlier, Jim Belcher raised a similar concern about the Emergent Church movement.  Observing the strong deconstructive critiques of the emergent church on traditional evangelicalism, Belcher wrote:

…this iconoclasm is not fair, and if not tempered it will handicap this reform movement, potentially leading it into a new kind of sectarianism, mimicking some of the same mistakes of the past—anti-intellectualism, anti-tradition, and tribalism (Deep Church, 48).

I blogged here about Belcher’s observation in relation to my own church tribe because this is the path that the Churches of Christ took.  The history of the Churches of Christ began as a non-sectarian unity movement that had mission stamped all over it but eventually the values of the movement resulted in an unwritten creed that turned us into sectarian legalists.  With little exception, we came to believe that we were the only Christians (fortunately that view is fading fast among us).  So I understand the concern that people have with new movements letting their critique morph into legalism tends to produce sectarianism and vise versa.

However, before we point fingers and issue warnings, I think we need to ask what we mean by “missional” and “radical” Christianity.  I’ve not read David Platt’s book Radical but I have read a fair amount of books on missional church, living, etc… (and I’m beginning a Doctor of Ministry cohort in missional leadership this June at Northern Seminary).  So I’m more familiar with the reforming call for Missional Christianity.  In his article, Bradley contrasts the missional and radical movements with “ordinary God and people lovers” to which I assume he means Ordinary Christianity.  That raises another question then: what do we mean by ordinary Christianity?

I don’t want to waste time by trying to define what is meant by Ordinary or Missional and Radical Christianity.  There are two things we must recognize though.  First, the term Christian is a very broad ranging term that can be used today to describe people with a very minimal faith/commitment to Christ.  So that almost always forces Christian leaders to find some adjective, such as Ordinary, Missional, or Radical (or Evangelical, Orthodox, etc…) to define what they mean by Christianity.  Second, like Jesus, none of the apostles ever called people to be Christians, rather they called them to become faithful believers who lived their lives as disciples of Jesus.  That is to say that they were not calling people to just a different religious identity but to a new way of believing and living that demanded uncompromising commitment.  So while I share the concern about the calls for Missional and Radical Christianity morphing into a new legalism, forgive me if I’m a little concerned about the idea of Ordinary Christianity among a post-Christian North American culture that has become very secularized.

The problem is that even though the Christian church is shaped and guided by scripture and tradition through the power of the Spirit, it is still comprised of people.  That is, the church is  one big jar of clay and made that way in order to show the “all-surpassing power” of God (cf. 2 Cor 4:7).  But that also means that in weakness, the church will always make mistakes, get off track, etc… and need leaders calling it back to Jesus and the kingdom way of life.  Jürgen Moltmann writes:

A Christianity that departs from its beginnings in order to adapt itself to the present-day state is bound to evoke the Christianity of reform.  A Christianity that surrenders its messianic hope is bound to evoke the Christianity of prophesy (The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 321).

Thus as the church rests upon grace to the neglect of obedience, it will need leaders to call for more obedience.  Yet as the call for more obedience begins obscuring the grace upon which the church lives, it will need leaders who speak up for grace.

Let me say that whatever is meant by Ordinary or Missional and Radical Christianity, I am glad that there are reforming and prophetic leaders among Christianity calling American Christians back to the gospel.  Yet, as one of these voices—though certainly lesser known than others —I do agree Matthew Lee Anderson who said, “if the message is going to critique the American dream for the people in the pews, then we may need pastors willing to show us the path of downward mobility with their lives.”

While obedience apart from grace is legalism and often leads to sectarianism, from where I sit the grace without obedience that Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined as “cheap grace” seems to be the problem that must be contended with.  So whether we like or dislike adjectives such as Missional and Radical, let’s remember that we are called to be faithful believers who live as disciple of Jesus.

The theme this year was the book of Revelation.  The book was read as a message originally written to churches in the late first century facing the challenges of living faithfully amidst the threat of persecution and the temptation to assimilate into the Roman culture.  Everyone of the keynotes delivered as a message that both encouraged and challenged us and just so that we would have the right interpretation but so that we might have the right response to it’s prophetic word.  Thanks to Mike Cope and staff as well as to all the participants from around the world for making it a a great time or renewal and vision.  If you are interested, you can access many of the keynotes and classes for free on here.

The best keynote came from David Clayton and it’s not because he is any better of a preacher than the other keynote speakers and class teachers but because of the unique challenge he brings.  I don’t know David and only met him for the first time this year but I know that he is a church planter of the Ethos Church in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.  The Ethos Church, as I understand it, began as a small church meeting in a bar and now has grown to over 2,000 members.

Any ways, I think this gives David a stronger platform to speak from that many of us ministers have (including myself).  What I love is that the mission of Ethos Church is to “love God, love people, and awaken a movement” and it is that awakening a movement which gives David the strong platform to speak form because of the mission he is pursuing with the rest of the Ethos Church.  So here is the four prayers he challenged the Churches of Christ to begin praying which I plan to blog on but I wanted to share them with you right now.  So here they are:

1. Pray that God will help us become a movement desperate for Jesus again.
2. Prayer that God will help us trust his plans even when our circumstances don’t make sense.
3. Pray that God will give us the courage to sacrifice our lives for the sake of his mission.
4. Pray that God will make us true worshipers who worship him in spirit and truth.

So I say, let’s listen to this challenge and begin praying that this for our churches.

• Here is the PDF of the slide presentation: God’s Masterpiece – PBL 2013 Class
• Because I am not able to upload the audio recording of this class, I am uploading the original manuscript of my presentation.  Although I did not speak in the class from a manuscript, I write all sermons and presentations out in actual manuscript form.  So here is the link: God’s Masterpiece
  

This was my first time teaching at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures and it was a great experience as much as it was a learning experience.  The feedback I heard from some who attended the class was positive, that they understood what the aim of the message I was teaching.  So that is good.  As for me, I am my own worst critic.  One thing I realized was that I had way too much information for the 45 minute slot I was allotted.  The material I had would have been better broken up into two or three slots but if or when I am asked to teach again, I will know better how to prepare for whatever time I am limited too.

If you think this might be beneficial to your church or a group in your church and would like to plan it around a retreat, then please contact me.  As most of you know, I serve full-time with the Columbia Church of Christ and am committed to my ministry here so my availability would be limited but I am sure something can be worked out.  As this material has to do with missional living, it is a something I am passionate about.

All kidding aside, the Pepperdine Bible Lectures are always a great time of gathering among Churches of Christ.  Besides the great teaching, there is great fellowship as I catch up with many friends and colleagues and the time serves also as a small spiritual retreat for me.

As I mentioned last week on my blog, I’ll be teaching a class.  The class is titled God’s Masterpiece: The Church as the Magnum Opus of God.  The class will imagine what it means to live as as 21st century church in light of our missional identity and pulse from the text of Ephesians 2:1-10.  I’ll approach this subject and biblical text with an awareness that as the church, we are actors within God’s creative-redemptive story that’s centered in Jesus Christ and moving towards the coming of God’s reign.  If this interests you, the class will meet on Thursday, May 2nd at 1:30 PM in AC 286.  Below is the picture from the first slide on my Keynote presentation.

Of course!  And why not?  Who wants to be spoken of as a fool?  Who wants to be lusted after as an object rather than be regarded as a person?  Who wants to be deceived and lied to?  Who wants to be hated?  Who wants to be unfairly judged by double standards?  Not me!  And probably not anyone of us!  For that reason, we should treat others as we ourselves want to be treated.

Now I just want to remind Christians that this also applies to the way we treat our Muslim neighbors, including how we speak of them and speak to them.  In the wake of the latest act of terrorism in the Boston Marathon Bombings, perpetrated by a pair of self-professed Islamic Jihadist, questions about the beliefs of Islam are once again under the microscope.  That’s unfortunate because like us who are Christians, Muslims do not want the actions of one individual or small group to become the definition for what all Christians and Muslims believe.

So if we, who profess the Christian faith, are to take Jesus seriously, as we should, the “Golden rule” means…

• That we speak kindly and generously about Muslims rather than passing on half truths couched within condescending remarks and demeaning images, since we want them to do with regards to us.
• That we assume the best about every individual Muslim, especially those we do not know personally just as we want hope they will do with us.
• That we avoid making claims about what the Qur’an does and does not teach based on hearsay and decontextualized proof-texting since we would rather Muslims not do with the Bible.
• That we stop making judgments about Islam and all Muslims based on the evil actions of some professed Muslims since we don’t like to be judged and have Christianity judged based on the evil actions of some professed Christians (i.e., the Westboro Baptist Church).
• That whenever possible, we talk with our Muslim neighbors rather than just talk about them.

And remember that regardless of what any Muslim says or does, as Christians, we are to do what Jesus says and does!

May God bless us to be the ministers of reconciliation we have been called to be in Jesus Christ!

Do you know that this is what we, the church, are to be?  Ephesians 2:10 reads, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (italics mine).  The word “handiwork” in the Greek New Testament is poiēma which is where we also get the English word “poem” or “poetry” from.  In other words, we, the church, are God’s poetry.  Or as the New Jerusalem Bible reads, “We are God’s work of art…”

The gem is that we are God’s living artwork.  That is, as we live a life of good works we become living artwork rather than a static piece of art.  As this living artwork engaged in good works (ministering to others, proclaiming the gospel, etc…), we participate in the mission of God as we point to the glory of God and his coming reign.  As Jürgen Moltmann says, “The church in the power of the Spirit is not yet the kingdom of God, but it is its anticipation in history” (The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 196).

And this is an image worth thousands and thousands of words which needs little explaining, as it is the masterpiece of God!

Next week I’ll be teaching a class at the 2013 Pepperdine University Bible Lectures on this very idea of us, the church, as the living artwork of God titled God’s Masterpiece: The Church as the Magnum Opus of God.  The class will meet Thursday, May 2nd at 1:30 PM in AC 286.  If you are attending the lectures then perhaps this is a class for you (and yes, that was a shameless plugin).  Of course, there will be many other great classes, keynote addresses, worship and fellowship time too…and it’s in Malibu, California (another image that needs no further explanation).

Any ways, think about how much effort has been invested in Christian apologetics.  Sometimes apologetics are necessary and I’m thankful for those highly skilled in the field of Christian apologetics.  But I also think it needs to be said that perhaps the best apologetic we, the church, can offer is ourselves when we embrace our identity as the God’s living artwork.  What do you think?