So maybe Jesus has lots of nice stories for different people in different contexts. But after his death and resurrection, it all comes together, right? There is now a clear gospel message, and the disciple's marching orders are to go and make disciples in the fullness of what they now know about Jesus' work and message.
But as you read Acts, it's clear again that the message is always a variation on the same theme. Peter's sermon at Pentecost and Stephen's sermon before he gets stoned before the Jewish religious leaders and Paul talking with Greeks...there's one gospel and it's all contextualized. Again at no point do we get a mathematical or philosophical formula laid neatly out for us. At no point do they simply "preach the gospel" as if it were a disembodied thing or set of value statements and then let the chips fall where they may.
In fact, read through all the epistles in the NT and we find that there is no such thing as a de-contextualized gospel. Every letter in the NT is written applying the gospel to the situations at hand: chaos during worship in Corinth, Judaizers in Galatia, multi-ethnic ministry in Ephesus. The work of theology is done 'along the way' and the ink is barely dry on a suppositional statement (i.e. "He is the head of the body which is the church") before it is applied to the mess that is going on in the community being addressed.
This is not to say that there are not truths that are consistently laid out. There is always the same gospel and the clear articulation of those truths is to be found as we read the breadth of the NT. But the glory of this gospel is that it is large enough to capture up all of our stories, every single aspect of all of our stories, and bring them together under one head, "even Christ."
This is always the work of the church: transformation is the goal and incarnation throughout church history has been the means to that end.
2 comments:
amen, alex! good points on contextualization. so simple and obviously true, and so often fought against. i suppose not everyone loves college minsitry as much as we do. haha. thanks for continuing to offer me insights, even from 3 hours away. can't wait to come and visit the newest kirk (whenever she gets here...), and see the love of my life, little davis.
OK, I hear you, bro, and for the most part I agree, and I may reveal my ignorance (or at least the brevity with which I read this), but I will say that we may want to define "incarnational ministry" a bit here. Diane and I are living "incarnationally" in Glenwood, but we have not adopted all the language/style of the culture around us. I did not read the CT article very critically, but I am wondering if he is arguing against tayloring our message/presentation to fit a certain demographic, which may lead us to sacrifice some authenticity. Diane and I can learn to love our neighbors well, but we need to do that while we remain authentically who we are and bring what we bring to the table and allow them to bring themselves authentically ot the table, where we all meet Jesus. I don't mean this to say that we (in ministry) don't make efforts to change or make openings for other expressions to be made known. Of course we do. But I think that sometimes we can get swept away in trying to be relevant to the culture we are trying to reach and miss preaching the gospel well (see Paul in one of the Corinthian letters where he said I resolved to know NOTHING when I was with you except Christ and Him crucified). OK, have at me everyone! :)
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