Apprentice 2 Jesus

An Anglicostal Connecting to a Real World

Sin-Management and Getting Back to the Gospel

Dan

When we get more obsessed with what people do or don’t do, we’ve moved into the gospel of sin management. We are “white-knuckling” our way through life.

If you’ve ever been a bit afraid on that first huge hill the first time on a roller coaster, you understand “white-knuckling.” You grab onto the hand bar in front of you and hold on for dear life. Your knuckles turn white, you’re gripping so hard.

Too often that’s how we live our Christian lives. We’re holding on for dear life, hoping we haven’t committed the unpardonable sin. Or, we white knuckle it hoping we’ve done the right acts of compassion or treated someone in the proper way or voted for the right guy in office… We’re just hanging on.

Dallas Willard proposes three incredibly tough questions for me as a pastor:

1. Does the gospel I preach and teach have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it to become full-time students of Jesus?

2. Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural “next step”?

3. What can we reasonably expect would result from people actually believing the substance of my message?

Am I leading a life and proclaiming a life that leads to people actually looking at Jesus? Are we anxious to take up the teachings of Jesus, or are we more ready to try to figure out what Jesus might have said through Rob Bell or N T Wright or Karl Barth or someone else?

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8 responses to “Sin-Management and Getting Back to the Gospel”

  1. debbie Avatar
    debbie

    This part you wrote “Are we anxious to take up the teachings of Jesus, or are we more ready to try to figure out what Jesus might have said through Rob Bell or N T Wright or Karl Barth or someone else? ” is the bottom line. too many times we look outside the Word to give us answers, opinions, what the majority says about this or that, what even a denomination does or doesn’t do on certain things. some times we might even take Paul’s or Peter’s teachings as a doctrine before what christ said. sad.

    Reply
    1. Dan Avatar
      Dan

      For me, it’s not a matter of taking what Peter and Paul said “before Christ.” I use the counsel of Scripture to help me understand. Peter and Paul help me in this way. And, being part of the inspired Word of God, they are to me better aids than other great theologians.

      Reply
  2. Sports Dave Avatar
    Sports Dave

    I think I would want to reject the dichotomy here between taking up the teachings of Jesus and thinking about what the Spirit is saying through the Tradition of the Church (particularly the earlier Church Fathers, but if there is a Protestant Doctor of the Church, surely it must be Barth). Indeed, if studying the Tradition of the Church leads us to be unfaithful to Jesus, then let it be anathema! But I can’t think of a theologian who directs me back to Jesus the way that Barth does. How else will Christians remember that making cultural accomodations to the message of Jesus is always ideology and not-God if not from Barth? How else will Christians remember that what we think we freely choose is actually the very thing that enslaves us if we do not learn from Augustine?

    Yes, absolutely we must be attentive to Scripture. But can we really be attentive to Scripture without paying attention to how those saints before us have read Scripture? Can we really be attentive if we are not aware of the very currents that we have unknowingly imbibed which would keep us from hearing the words of Jesus that would condemn our own situations and lifestyles? It seems to me that we need these theologians to help the Word stay fresh and not grow stale and accomodated to our own lives.

    But that’s just my .02.

    Reply
    1. Dan Avatar
      Dan

      I definitely don’t want to create a dichotomy. What I am trying to say is too often we side up with some scholar and fail to even read what Jesus said.

      Reply
  3. Sports Dave Avatar
    Sports Dave

    Fair enough. I suppose I’m more worried about a naive biblicism which takes “sola scriptura” to mean that we don’t read anything else than I am about people not reading the gospels. I presume that Christians who take faith seriously are formed by the gospels. In Pentecostal circles, I far more often see a disparaging/dismissal of any theological thinking or reading than someone who doesn’t (at least in principle) take the words of Jesus seriously.

    Except when it comes to Jesus talking about non-violence…and the poor…and….hmmmm……maybe you’re right.

    Reply
    1. Dan Avatar
      Dan

      Without a doubt it’s a balance. We don’t disagree. I wouldn’t ever say, “It’s just me and the Bible. Don’t need no book larnin’!” 😉

      Reply
  4. Sports Dave Avatar
    Sports Dave

    Maybe it’s more that a disparaging of tradition and not really being formed by Scripture go together?

    I guess I don’t see a lot of people who take theological tradition seriously but don’t take Scripture seriously in evangelical circles. This certainly exists in more mainline settings, but I have not seen it often in evangelical/Pentecostal circles.

    Reply
    1. Dan Avatar
      Dan

      I think that’s Willard’s point as well. On the “right” there is one issue. On the “left” it’s another issue. I agree that people I see taking theological tradition seriously (and church tradition seriously as well) AND have a deep love for the written Word don’t stray into those extremes as much.

      Barth, Wright, and so many more do such a phenomenal job of pointing us to Christ. But they would also say, “PAY ATTENTION to Christ and what he says! Not just us!”

      Where we stray (to the right) is having such a high view of Scripture alone it ends up being our version of that interpretation. And to the left, it is a devaluing of the authority of Scripture and a heightening of works through social justice issues. I think that would be Willard’s point. Where he will draw us to is the phenomenal beauty of Christ and the duty to pay attention to what Christ says and does. He is the Master Teacher. We are the apprentices. (And I would say we would do well to follow other apprentices who have faithfully pointed us to Christ along the way.)

      On a side note, I am reading McGrath’s “Christianity’s Dangerous Idea” (a history of Protestantism) and one early point is the whole issue of church authority. With the Reformation we came up with a whole new set of problems. Yes, the believer can read the Scripture, but just WHO gets to say what is “means.” It’s a good read to this point.

      Reply

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