GospelDrivenLife

Gospel for our day

Recent conversations have provoked me with a question. Friends have been telling me of their time with people who are not in Christ and have no relationship to the church. These pictures of modern life helped me see what evangelism would look like today. We are called to make Christ known clearly in our day -- do we understand what the hard work of spiritual obstetrics and pediatrics looks like?

preaching to the choir, 1

I have been engaging in a discussion with a friend.  He was born and raised in a Christian home, attended Christian college, and is committed to Christ.  He is working in a place where there are people who respect him, and are asking him questions about Christianity.  Why do you go to church?  Why does the Bible say that sex is only for marriage? What meaning does Christianity have for you?  He says that the answers he was given in his Christian training do not make sense to these people.  He finds he has to rethink his apologetics.

He is discussing his experience with me and it is stirring many thoughts, ideas and observations laying dormant for years.  Here is the question: do we, as Christians in a very secular world, speak in ways that make sense to unbelieving people -- or are we preaching to the choir (speaking to people inside the tribe, who already know and understand)?

SOVEREIGN GRACE, ORANGE COUNTY?

If you live in Orange County (Part of Los Angeles)  or know folks who do so, this post is for you.

Stirring up some traffic

Since returning from vacation a few months back, I have focused my blogging on specific reflections on the Gospel and its application to life.  That was done deliberately, as previous months had engaged me in some discussion of blog slander, prejudicial judgments, and the like.  I find that when I mention someone like Mark Driscoll, traffic rises.  Just today I spent my once a week time catching up on my favorite blogs and noticed that wherever Driscoll is mentioned there is "piling on."  Hmm, I have continued to listen to him and find him to be a man who is growing in godliness and has the audacity to speak of the Gospel clearly -- sin, wrath, judgment -- in a very secular setting. 

Perhaps I am more sensitive to all this because I have journeyed in my convictions to this bizarre conflation of Reformed, charismatic, and Gospel-centered. People hear some of those words and judge without any further discussion or questionning . . . 

Faithfulness or Relevance, link

Ligon Duncan says,

But, as you note, all the problems don't lie with those discounting faithfulness for the sake of relevance. One problem is that we sometimes confuse faithfulness with something in the past that holds great meaning to us, but is not inherent to the faithfulness that the Bible requires for Gospel ministry. Thus, we judge holding fast to that uncommanded thing (or even some less important thing) as faithfulness in our day, and our relevance sinks. The problem in this case is not our desire to be faithful, but our confusion over what faithfulness entails. True faithfulness is never a hindrance to real relevance, only to false relevance.

For the rest of this excellent post see: Together for the Gospel

Relevance or Faithfulness, a weird example

Relevance is borne of relationship  . . .  and when we do not know lost people, we may do some pretty weird things . . .

Relevance or Faithfulness, 5

As you can tell by now -- I don't buy the distinction.  We are called to both: to be faithful and to earnestly contend for the faith -- we do that best by zealously pursuing the advance of the Gospel to the lost -- not by hermetically sealing the Gospel in our Christian ghettos. 

If we read our NT carefully we will see that this is what was at the heart of Paul's life.  Bringing the true Gospel to the Gentiles involved seeking ways to make it connect to their lives -- so, whether at Mars Hill in Acts 17, or discussing varied conscientious positions in Romans 14, Paul was careful to keep the Gospel pure from all cultural barnacles and to explain it understandably.  He was accused of compromise!

Seed is preserved by sowing -- store it long enough and it will rot.  Passionately pursuing an effective explanation of the truth is essential to evangelism -- that means "relevance." What does this look like?

Relevance or Faithfulness?, 4

Let me make it clear -- we can be faithful and passionate about communicating the truth to people of our day!

I had been looking for examples of this for years.  It was in the midst of this I discovered Tim Keller and was greatly relieved that there was a model of a man who was theologically faithful and who worked hard at communicating to his particular context with significant effect – by God’s grace. He linked me to other authors.

Relevance or Faithfulness?, 3

The question is what to do with issues of faithfulness or relevance when neither of the models present has a complete picture. Let me make it clear -- we can be faithful and passionate about communicating the truth to people of our day!

My help in this was that I was trained as a missionary (though we never served in this capacity full time). Our early adulthood included a sense of call to take the Gospel to Muslims – and with that call came the pursuit of the best training possible. It was during that training that I discovered an important truth – repeating biblical words is not communication. To take the Gospel to Muslims required a lot of reflection on how to state the Gospel in a way they could understand. I also spoke with people who served among Hindu’s and Buddhists – in those situations the complexity was multiplied.

Relevance or Faithfulness, 2

As noted yesterday, I have been following the debates in the blogosphere over relevance and faithfulness and find the same old songs being sung. So, I thought I would offer the same old additional perspective. As I said yesterday, we can, once again, make enemies of friends. We have created a false dichotomy. Relevance and faithfulness are not the real issues. I think the real issues are quite different.

Let me make it clear -- we can be faithful and passionate about communicating the truth to people of our day!