We begin our second week of Lenten study based on Scot McKnight's The Jesus Creed. If this is your first time looking, it's not too late to join us (actually, it's never too late). Our middle and high school youth are using The Jesus Creed for Students while the adults are using 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed.
When Jesus was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?", he said:
"‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” [Mark 12:29-31]
Scot McKnight calls that "The Jesus Creed." Last week our Middle School youth created their own Shema, writing these commandments on a note card to carry with them throughout the week. In our house, we wrote these down on a sheet of paper and put it on the door so we see it whenever we leave the house. One of last week's activities was to recite the Jesus Creed each day throughout the day. Has it made a difference in the way you go through your day?
Here are this week’s (4/24) Questions for Discussion:
(Things to talk about with your family)
- Does it make a difference if we follow Jesus?
- How does following Jesus make a difference in your life?
- In what way(s) can you draw closer to Jesus?
And here are this Week’s (4/24) Suggested Follow-up Activities:
(Additional actions you can try if you feel led… or adventuresome)
- Continue reciting the Jesus Creed each day.
- Decide on a charity that you (or your family together) will regularly volunteer to support. Don't let other people know you're doing this.
- Commit to helping this charity for a period of time (suggestion: 4-6 months).
- Thank God for the opportunity.
Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.
At the beginning of the year, Pastor Jay mentioned an article in the Christian Century in which theologians and others were asked to summarize the Gospel in seven words or less. After reading some of the responses (click on the link above to see them), he asked us to give it a try. I was interested in the range of responses: Some focused on God’s love through Jesus; others on Jesus dying for our sins; some saw Jesus as a personal savior; others saw Jesus’ call to be a part of God’s work now; some saw reconciliation of all of God’s creation in the Gospel.
I got a few things out of this. One, it’s hard to distill the good news down to a single sound bite. The good news is about Jesus’ ministry on earth. Not just his death on the cross and resurrection but also his life, teachings, and actions. It’s also about God’s continuing acts that span from the beginning to a new beginning. It’s about our sinful nature, a broken relationship, and God’s acts to bring about reconciliation not just with each of us but with all of creation. It is grace – what God has done for us through Jesus – and not about what we have or can do ourselves. But it is also a call to participate, not because we have to but because we can’t help but respond to this gift of love. And you can probably add to that.
Another thing I got out of this is that the good news means different things to different people. That’s not to say some are right and some are wrong. Maybe God’s acts are bigger than any one group of people can fully comprehend. Maybe we miss part of the richness of God when we cling only to our preferred understanding of the Gospel. The good news is not only difficult to distill into short sound bites, but it’s also bigger than any single person or group can understand. The good news calls us to listen and watch for the ways God is working not just through us but through others.
There have been recent books by N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, and others that question whether some Christians have emphasized personal salvation to the exclusion of a broader reconciliation of all creation. Of course, there are evangelicals who insist that this “broader reconciliation” dilutes the gospel of salvation. I looked up scripture passages on the gospel and found a link on the Jesus Creed blog about efforts to explore the different gospel messages that are often encountered and to come up with a more expansive gospel that encompasses them (Elephant in the Room: Gospel).
But other parts of life kept getting in the way and I ran out of time. So, I’m simply going to ask some questions and ask you to fill in the missing pieces.
If someone asked you, “What is the Gospel?”, what would you say? Where would you start and where would you go from there?
Do you agree that the Gospel can mean different things to different people?
Is the Gospel first and foremost about personal salvation or is it about reconciliation of all of creation?
If the Gospel begins with "Jesus died for our sins...", what was Jesus saying when he went through the countryside preaching the gospel?
What does the Gospel have to do with our everyday lives?
Is it about life beyond this one or is it about God’s actions in the world now? What difference does that make in the way we live?
I’m looking forward to a lively discussion!
Welcome to Grace’s exploration of the Jesus Creed! For this Lent, we are taking on something new: our Middle and High School youth classes and our adult education classes will be exploring Scott McKnight's The Jesus Creed.
What is the Jesus Creed? It's simply what Jesus described as the greatest commandments:
Jesus said, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
Each week youth and adults will explore how these two simple, yet challenging, commands are woven into the fabric of the Bible, the church, and our lives.
And, each week, we’ll be able to carry this exploration into the week. We have prepared suggested discussion questions to talk with your family. And, if you’re feeling adventuresome, there are some suggested follow-up activities to try.
Here are this week’s Questions for Discussion:
(Things to talk about with your family)
- What does it mean to love God with everything? How do we do that?
- What is the difference between being happy and being blessed?
- Do you think love is more of a feeling or more of an action?
And hear are this week’s suggested Follow-up Activities:
(Additional actions you can try if you feel led… or adventuresome)
- Commit to saying the Jesus Creed each day throughout Lent. Repeat it when you get up, go to work/school, go to bed, other times.
- Share your day with your family at dinner or at night.
- Write and post it somewhere in your home or office where you will see it regularly.
- Did the Jesus Creed change the way you approached or handled things during the day?
Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.
Predestination is one of those Calvin things I’ve never fully grasped or been comfortable with (yeah, I know, that could be the point of it). In fact, when I first returned to church, I wondered if I could even become a Presbyterian if I didn’t buy into predestination. I still wonder that.
If you’re not familiar with it, here’s a description of what Presbyterians believe about predestination (my emphasis added):
Calvin defines predestination as "God's eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each [person]. For ... eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others." So predestination is an act of God's will through which God elects or chooses those whom God calls to faith and thus to eternal life, and through which God chooses those who will not receive faith.
There’s a Biblical basis behind Calvin’s interpretation – Romans 9-11 – but, like a lot of Paul’s writings, it’s not so simple. Paul, making a case that we are called by God’s actions and not our efforts, says things like:
So then he [God] has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. [Romans 9:18]
For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all. [Romans 11:32]
Is that a rationale for exclusion or inclusion? Is the intent to condemn or to be merciful? Does that mean we don’t have free will after all?
The church has wrestled with the concept of election and predestination since, well, at least since the time the early church realized the gospel had been opened to Gentiles as well as Jews in Acts. According to What do Presbyterians believe about predestination?, theologians like Augustine, Luther (yes, him, too) and Calvin saw predestination as an essential component of justification by grace alone (as opposed to works). Later Calvinists put more emphasis on it than Calvin himself did (so maybe it wasn’t all Calvin’s doing).
A couple of recent posts, coming from an evangelical perspective, highlight some of the questions many people still have about the implications of predestination.
Ed Cyzewski, in Did God Do That?, asked
Once you start believing in a God who predestines the course of your life, sin becomes a really big problem. Did God want me to sin? Did God harden my heart like Pharaoh so that he could teach others about the perils of sin?
If we assume that God has already chosen who is saved and who isn’t, or that God uses the disobedience of some to show God’s mercy, are we really responsible for our sins? Or did we sin because God willed it?
Zach Hunt (Let’s Talk About Predestination) carried this further:
If God has already chosen who will go to heaven, what is the point of evangelism and/or missionary work?
He sees a conflict between predestination and Jesus’ great commission. If God has already determined who is saved and who isn’t (I’ll leave the question about what it means to be “saved” for another day), then why would Jesus tell his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations?.
I’ll add another “problem” to the mix: I’ve heard some Christians use the doctrine of predestination to write off whole groups or races of people by saying, “They’re not part of God’s elect.” Unfortunately, some have used this as justification for dismissing concerns about justice or injustice in some parts of the world (Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, for example). I have trouble resolving that mind set with Jesus’ gospel as I understand it.
If you have a chance, read Zach Hunt’s questions. I’ve only read some of the responses but found one by Ben Irwin to be particularly interesting (my emphasis added):
No one individual and/or group of people is ever chosen as an end unto itself. People in the Bible are chosen/predestined/elected for the benefit of others...i.e. the "outsiders." Abraham is "elected" to become a blessing to all nations on earth. Israel is "elected" to serve as priest to the nations, pointing the way to God. Even if salvation starts with the election of some, it never, ever stops there. It's just the beginning.
I have more questions than answers about predestination and I’m not sure it means what many say it means. What do you think?
Does predestination mean that, even if we have free will, we ultimately don’t? Are our sins the result of our choices or God’s will?
Does predestination mean that we shouldn’t worry about who receives the gospel and who doesn’t?
How do we explain both predestination and free will?
This sounded like a good discussion topic when I came across this article on Wednesday and needed to come up with something to put in Grace’s bulletin:
Is the Bible Immoral? Messiah College Professor Says Yes, Sometimes
Eric Seibert, an Old Testament professor at Messiah College, is quoted as saying: "Not everything in the 'good book' is either good, or good for us." He says that Christians have a moral obligation to critique the Bible and condemn immoral passages.
My first thoughts were: Can we wrestle with passages in the Bible – such as those on violence and slavery – without declaring the Bible immoral? Can we disagree with interpretations of some who use the passages to keep women out of leadership positions or to keep gays out of the church without saying we think God got that wrong? I hope so, because that’s kind of what we've been doing for a while: wrestling with hard questions about the Bible, not claiming the Bible is immoral or God is wrong.
When I looked more into it, it got ugly. One side called it a “shameful piece” and said the professor should be dismissed (Can a Messiah College OT Professor Really Teach the Bible’s “Immoral”?). The other side responded in a “there they go again stifling questions” tone (White evangelical gatekeeping: A particularly ugly example in real time). It’s possible that Seibert himself is being provocative in order to sell one of his books.
Call it the hazards of asking questions about the Bible. While some have no problem asking questions, others are tentative in voicing questions or doubts they have about faith or God or Jesus or…. Sometimes you might get a thoughtful response. Sometimes you might get words of reassurance that not only are you not a heretic for asking those questions, but others also struggle with them. You might find others who invite you to struggle with them – a community of people who believe in God, who follow Jesus, and who don’t claim to have all the answers or dismiss your questions.*
But I’ve found it’s at least as likely that your question will be seen as threatening and you’ll be accused of some sort of blasphemy for daring to ask. If you’re in a larger group with a diverse background, someone else might jump in and disagree. And then, while the debate rages, usually on points that have little to do with your original question, you walk away, still plagued with the question but pretty sure you’re not going to get anywhere with these church folk.**
What exactly did Eric Seibert say was immoral and why? He wrote a series of articles (linked below) on passages in the Bible that appear to sanction violence, a topic we wrestled with earlier (see Does the Bible justify violence and retaliation? and How do we resolve Old Testament commands on violence and vengeance with Jesus’ commands to love your enemies and turn the other cheek?).
When the “Good Book” Is Bad: Challenging the Bible’s Violent Portrayals of God
When the Bible Sanctions Violence, Must We?
Learning to Read the Bible Nonviolently
Those posts are a good follow up to the earlier discussions here. I’m still not comfortable with some of the Old Testament passages where it seems like God is directing the destruction of whole villages. I’d like to ignore those passages altogether. I don’t know what happened, but I’d like to think that we’re reading these events from the perspective of the people who wrote about it. Maybe they believed this we what God directed them to do more than it was God commanding it. That’s a hard conclusion to make if you believe that every passage was dictated by God.
Seibert argues that critiquing those passages in the Bible that seem to make violence virtuous does not mean discounting them altogether. Instead, we need to wrestle with them in context and seek to use them in positive ways that affirm the dignity and well-being of all people. That’s not too different from what many of the responses in Christian Piatt’s Banned Questions about the Bible said.
But does questioning a passage, even arguing that it doesn't make sense with what else we know about God, mean we’re calling it immoral? One of the recurring themes in Banned Questions… suggests that, when we wrestle with some of these passages in the Bible, we’re joining in a dialogue (or even a debate in some cases) that spans time. Siebert encourages us to read these passages from the perspective of the victims so that we remain sensitized to the impacts of the violence. I haven't tried that but I've found different meanings to some of Jesus’ parables when I've considered the message from different characters in the story (the parable of the prodigal son, for instance).
How do you deal with the passages in the Old Testament that suggest that God sanctioned the violence? Do you accept it as something God deemed and we can’t fully understand because we don’t know God’s intent? Do you dismiss it because it reflects an Old Testament picture of God as vengeful and that’s all changed in the New Testament? Do you believe these passages reflect more of a human attempt to interpret God rather than God’s actual will? Do you agree with Seibert that passages such as these are immoral? Do you think that, even if they don’t reflect God’s actual will, these passages are there for a reason? Please share your thoughts in the comments below (and don't be afraid to disagree with me because this is one aspect I continue to struggle with).
* I grew up with enough of that kind of experience to know you can ask questions and I’m in church now because I found a place where that experience happens.
** But I've also been in that position before and walked away from church for many years because I was tired of being told why I was wrong for asking.
Earlier this week I was pulling together ideas for the next question when this post ran across my easily-distracted attention span:
I am damaged goods. by Sarah Bessey
Here’s how she led off:
I was nineteen years old and crazy in love with Jesus when that preacher told an auditorium I was “damaged goods” because of my sexual past. He was making every effort to encourage this crowd of young adults to “stay pure for marriage.” He was passionate, yes, well-intentioned, and he was a good speaker, very convincing indeed….
Oh, he didn’t call me up to the front and name me. But he stood up there and talked about me with such disgust, like I couldn't be in that real-life crowd of young people worshipping in that church. I felt spotlighted and singled out amongst the holy, surely my red face announced my guilt to every one.
She goes on to say:
In the face of our sexually-dysfunctional culture, the Church longs to stand as an outpost of God’s ways of love and marriage, purity and wholeness.
And yet we twist that until we treat someone like me – and, according to this research, 80% of you are like me – as if our value and worth was tied up in our virginity.
My first thought was this isn't how Jesus would have done it. True, Jesus didn't let the Samaritan woman at the well hide from the fact that she had 5 previous husbands and was living with someone else (John 4). But Jesus didn't shame her or lecture her on purity laws. He saw her as a human being, in need of love and nurturing, not scolding. He offered her spiritual nourishment. She left the well filled with a new spirit, not feeling like damaged goods.
My second thought was, if 80% of unmarried evangelicals have had premarital sex (compared to 88% of the general population… here’s the link to the study Sarah mentioned), then whatever we’re saying as a church about premarital sex isn't working very well. And it hasn't been working for a long time.
You can find a number of passages in the Bible on sexual immorality in general. Leviticus and Deuteronomy include laws regarding sexual relations. Paul’s letters (as well as those letters written in Paul’s name) include references to sexual immorality, often in a list with other sins. Jesus said we are guilty of sin if we so much as lust after another (Matthew 5:27-30).
But there’s no specific prohibition against sex between an unmarried couple. Sometimes the case is made by coupling the passages against sexual immorality with this quote from Jesus from his teaching on divorce (Matthew 19:1-12):
“Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
That passage has also been used to argue, among other things, that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation.
Sometimes Paul’s less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of marriage has been used:
“To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)
There are plenty of opinions on what’s wrong: Some folks say we’ve allowed our kids (and ourselves) to be influenced by the world. Some say that the difference in age between the onset of puberty and marriage has widened since biblical times so that, today, we have much more time to be tempted. Some say that the scripture passages on purity and sex outside of marriage are based on a society in which women and children were seen as property and, therefore, those passages don’t apply today.
Maybe we’re focusing on the wrong issue. We wave the Bible and spout rules against doing this or that and believe that’s all that needs to be done. Don’t have sex before marriage. Save yourself for your spouse.
There’s a parable by Jesus I’ve come to appreciate:
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.” (Matt. 12:43-45)
Christianity is more than rules for living. If all we offer is a list of rules and behaviors to avoid, then we’re no better than the Pharisees and have done nothing to nourish the soul. Following Jesus is about relationships, not rules. It’s about loving God and loving each other as genuine human beings. The love of God and of others will fill the emptiness and crowd out evil.
Here’s what has been evolving in my mind as I find ways to talk to my sons about sex: The issue isn’t about sex. It’s about valuing each other as individuals, as people loved by God, flaws and all. It’s about seeing past the physical attractions that get in the way of caring for the other as a person and not as someone to use (a dangerous idea that, at its worst, can lead to sexual abuse). Maybe the emphasis needs to be on how we treat each other as God’s loved ones – relationship! – and not on preserving virginity as a gift, which still has a vestige of viewing sex and our bodies as objects. Let’s build from there.
What do you think? Am I oversimplifying things? Admittedly, there are more practical aspects to flesh out. Am I missing something?
Here are some additional questions to ponder from Christian Piatt’s Banned Questions about the Bible:
Can you think of any healthy models of sexual expression in the Bible?
Do you think that sexual thoughts are as important as acting on them?
Can Christians advocate an alternate view (besides “prudish Victorianism” or “gratuitous hedonism”) based on the whole witness of scripture?
