Saturday, August 24, 2013
On Reading Well
A Meditation on C. S. Lewis’s
Experiment in Criticism, pages 100–101
A Meditation on C. S. Lewis’s
Experiment in Criticism, pages 100–101
Would you attain an author’s sense?
Or only what you see?
Perhaps your sight is beautiful,
And sees more truth than he.
Or only what you see?
Perhaps your sight is beautiful,
And sees more truth than he.
Or maybe not. How would you know,
Since you are blind to his?
You only pass the test you wrote,
And fail the author’s quiz.
Since you are blind to his?
You only pass the test you wrote,
And fail the author’s quiz.
Are you content with that? Just that?
To see and not to find,
To make a window on the world
A mirror of your mind?
To see and not to find,
To make a window on the world
A mirror of your mind?
How vain, how foolish this! How small!
Do you not live by growth?
What then? An author’s sense, or yours?
Will not the wise say, Both!
Do you not live by growth?
What then? An author’s sense, or yours?
Will not the wise say, Both!
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
I Wonder If Sunday School Is Destroying Our Kids
Several years ago I met with a woman distraught by her son’s rejection of Christianity.
She said, “I did everything I could to raise him right. I taught him to be like the ‘heroes of faith,’ with the faithfulness of Abraham, the goodness of Joseph, the pure heart of David, and the obedience of Esther.”
She wondered why he rejected Christianity.
I wondered why it took him so long.
Here is how we destroy the gospel message
Look at almost any Sunday school curriculum. You’ll find:
- Abraham was faithful, and God made him the father of a nation. So be faithful like Abraham.
- Joseph was a good little boy (unlike his “bad” brothers), and God made him Prime Minister of Egypt. So be good like Joseph.
- David had a pure heart (unlike his brothers), and God made him King of Israel. So have a pure heart like David.
- Esther was an obedient girl. God made her Queen of Persia and she saved God’s people. So be obedient like Esther.
- Finally, if we fail to be good, Jesus will forgive us (a “P.S.” tacked onto the end).
What’s so bad about these Sunday school lessons?
Nothing really. Except that they lie about God, they lie about these “heroes of the faith,” they lie about the Bible, and they lie about the gospel. Apart from that, they are pretty good. Oh, they also create “younger brother” rebels and “older brother” Pharisees.
Is the gospel our central theme, or is it a “PS” tacked onto the end?
The gospel storyline
The message of the gospel—the entire storyline of scripture—is God’s loving pursuit of people who run from him as fast as they can and who live lives unworthy of his love.
That’s why it’s called grace.
But our Sunday school lessons teach us to be good little boys and girls, and God will love us and use us. It’s the total opposite of the gospel. It’s a counterfeit of the worse kind.
The inside out of the gospel
The wonder of the gospel is not the love of the beautiful; it’s when Beauty kisses the Beast.
The Beast isn’t loved because he has changed; the Beast is changed when he is loved. Joy doesn’t come when he’s loved for his beauty; joy overwhelms him when he is loved in his hideousness.
If the Beast were loved for his beauty, it would be an unbearable burden. Any day he might be scarred, and soon he will certainly be a wrinkled old man.
So why do we burden our children with the unbearable load of “being good little boys and girls like the heroes in the Bible”? We wouldn’t load a pack mule with the burdens we place on our children.
There’s gotta be a better way
Let’s teach the wonder of the gospel. Let’s show our kids that God loves us … simply because he loves us. In our beastliness. That he loves us before we are good.
That his love isn’t vague sentimentality, but it cost him his most precious treasure to turn us into his prized possession; that the storyline of the Bible is God’s Search and Rescue mission to find the dying Beast and kiss him into joyous life.
- How Abraham was an idol worshiper and God loved him and pursued him;
- How Joseph was a narcissistic boy and God loved him and pursued him;
- How David was a murdering adulterer and God loved him and pursued him;
- How Esther had sex outside of marriage with a non-believer and God loved her and pursued her.
Our heroes weren’t loved because they were good; they were good because they were loved.
We may believe in the innocence of youth, but our children know better. They see the children in the schoolyard (and they see us at home!). They don’t need the counterfeit gospel of pack-mule-moralism; they need the kiss of the Beauty.
Maybe we do too. Besides, it’s what the Bible in fact teaches
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Why Follow Jesus?
By Jonathan K. Dodson
In today's culture, we are more pragmatic than reflective. Obsessed with knowing what works and how it works, we strive to repeat the formula. We are less concerned with why things work. Discipleship is no exception. Many have traded in the why for the how, motivation for the best practice. This is disconcerting. The reason for this is that practice can take us only so far. When hardship hits, practice needs motivation to continue.
What motivates you to follow Jesus? If this question isn't one you continually ponder and answer, you will walk away from Jesus rather than after Him.
The Pragmatic Disciple
Given our culture's pragmatic bent, the modern discipleship mantra is "make disciples who make disciples." This mantra is pragmatic and reproductive. Is pragmatic reproduction Jesus' chief concern? When He came proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, did He give an inspiring message and then move to three action points on how to make disciples? Certainly, He did model, instruct, and send (Luke 9-10). The kingdom of God is embedded with reproductive DNA (reflected in some of Jesus' agricultural parables). But the kingdom of God is also slow and deep. It stretches across arduous lifespans and into the depths of the human heart. The reign of Christ penetrates our DNA, continually motivating us.
Instead of focusing His training on the how, Jesus relentlessly got to the why. This is why so many of His sayings are unnerving. As a master teacher, He provoked reflection, not just action:
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." (Luke 9:57-58)
Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (vv. 62-63)
Jesus forces us to reflect on our motives for following Him. If we live for comfort and ease, we won't give up our beds, money, and entertainment to follow Him. If idyllic community is what motivates our decisions, we won't give up close friends and family members. Jesus is clear. If we want to be His disciples, we must be motivated by something greater than comfort and community. His kingdom must motivate us, and the kingdom comes with a cost.
True disciples will consider and embrace the cost over and over again. They will endure because, in finding the kingdom, they have found a King worthy of their sacrifice. Searching for the why of their existence, they discover a pearl of great price. Disciples motivated by pragmatism alone may consider the cost and embrace the cause of making disciples who make disciples, but when push comes to shove, they will walk away from Jesus, not after Him. We need more than the hows of fulfilling the Great Commission to get us through the adversity of seeking first the kingdom of God.
The Jesus Disciple
When Jesus gave His mountaintop commission, He loaded it with kingdom motivation. The main directive to make disciples is preceded by the image of a risen, radiant king, rippling with power and authority, in heaven and on earth (Dan. 7:9-14; Matt. 28:17). He is strong enough to depose nations and glorious enough to summon their worship. We are sent under this aegis. We are not sent in the authority of our own experience but in the authority of His lordship. Our story isn't sufficient to "make a disciple," but His story is. Why do we go? To baptize into His name, not ours. Making disciples of all nations is no personal cause; it is the redemptive agenda of God Himself. Our motivation, then, arises from being submerged in the grace of God, not from having others align with our way of doing things.
How do we continue to make disciples when wading neck deep in sin? We have to remember that the success of our mission requires not only the authority of the King but also the mercy of the Messiah. He is the Disciple who succeeds where we fail, in perfect obedience to God. We extend mercy from His mercies that are new every day.
But what if the mission field is too hard? Behold, He is with us always, even to the end of the age. We depend not only on the past obedience of the Faithful Disciple, but also on the present presence of the risen Lord. We make disciples in the authority of Jesus, submerged in the grace of Jesus, enduring in the mercy of Jesus, with the forever promise of the presence of King Jesus. Disciples need to recover a singular motivation to endure all the cost–the infinite sufficiency and splendor of our Lord.
Why do we follow Jesus? Because of who He is. If we have Jesus, we have more than enough to make disciples.
- Tabletalk, March 2013
In today's culture, we are more pragmatic than reflective. Obsessed with knowing what works and how it works, we strive to repeat the formula. We are less concerned with why things work. Discipleship is no exception. Many have traded in the why for the how, motivation for the best practice. This is disconcerting. The reason for this is that practice can take us only so far. When hardship hits, practice needs motivation to continue.
What motivates you to follow Jesus? If this question isn't one you continually ponder and answer, you will walk away from Jesus rather than after Him.
The Pragmatic Disciple
Given our culture's pragmatic bent, the modern discipleship mantra is "make disciples who make disciples." This mantra is pragmatic and reproductive. Is pragmatic reproduction Jesus' chief concern? When He came proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, did He give an inspiring message and then move to three action points on how to make disciples? Certainly, He did model, instruct, and send (Luke 9-10). The kingdom of God is embedded with reproductive DNA (reflected in some of Jesus' agricultural parables). But the kingdom of God is also slow and deep. It stretches across arduous lifespans and into the depths of the human heart. The reign of Christ penetrates our DNA, continually motivating us.
Instead of focusing His training on the how, Jesus relentlessly got to the why. This is why so many of His sayings are unnerving. As a master teacher, He provoked reflection, not just action:
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." (Luke 9:57-58)
Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (vv. 62-63)
Jesus forces us to reflect on our motives for following Him. If we live for comfort and ease, we won't give up our beds, money, and entertainment to follow Him. If idyllic community is what motivates our decisions, we won't give up close friends and family members. Jesus is clear. If we want to be His disciples, we must be motivated by something greater than comfort and community. His kingdom must motivate us, and the kingdom comes with a cost.
True disciples will consider and embrace the cost over and over again. They will endure because, in finding the kingdom, they have found a King worthy of their sacrifice. Searching for the why of their existence, they discover a pearl of great price. Disciples motivated by pragmatism alone may consider the cost and embrace the cause of making disciples who make disciples, but when push comes to shove, they will walk away from Jesus, not after Him. We need more than the hows of fulfilling the Great Commission to get us through the adversity of seeking first the kingdom of God.
The Jesus Disciple
When Jesus gave His mountaintop commission, He loaded it with kingdom motivation. The main directive to make disciples is preceded by the image of a risen, radiant king, rippling with power and authority, in heaven and on earth (Dan. 7:9-14; Matt. 28:17). He is strong enough to depose nations and glorious enough to summon their worship. We are sent under this aegis. We are not sent in the authority of our own experience but in the authority of His lordship. Our story isn't sufficient to "make a disciple," but His story is. Why do we go? To baptize into His name, not ours. Making disciples of all nations is no personal cause; it is the redemptive agenda of God Himself. Our motivation, then, arises from being submerged in the grace of God, not from having others align with our way of doing things.
How do we continue to make disciples when wading neck deep in sin? We have to remember that the success of our mission requires not only the authority of the King but also the mercy of the Messiah. He is the Disciple who succeeds where we fail, in perfect obedience to God. We extend mercy from His mercies that are new every day.
But what if the mission field is too hard? Behold, He is with us always, even to the end of the age. We depend not only on the past obedience of the Faithful Disciple, but also on the present presence of the risen Lord. We make disciples in the authority of Jesus, submerged in the grace of Jesus, enduring in the mercy of Jesus, with the forever promise of the presence of King Jesus. Disciples need to recover a singular motivation to endure all the cost–the infinite sufficiency and splendor of our Lord.
Why do we follow Jesus? Because of who He is. If we have Jesus, we have more than enough to make disciples.
- Tabletalk, March 2013
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