Just wrote this:
"What does this fact mean for us [the meaning of the gospel]? In his book, King Jesus Gospel, Scot McKnight argues that it means we not focus narrowly on just trying to “get people saved.” That is to say, some parts of American Christianity focus quite heavily on getting people to “pray the sinner’s prayer” or get baptized. Preaching the gospel comes to be preaching people to cross an initial threshold into Christianity, getting them converted.
"But if the gospel centers on the good news that Jesus is king, then Jesus is not just king for a day. He is king for the rest of eternity. Believing in the good news cannot thus be something you do for a moment and then walk away. Accepting someone as a Lord is never a matter of a true/false test. A Lord is a master. Someone is not your master unless you do whatever they tell you to do.
"So the person who receives the gospel is someone who becomes a lifelong servant and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. It may begin in a moment, but it never ends. Any narrow focus on the gospel as just salvation—let alone just how to get “saved”—deeply impoverishes it."
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4 comments:
Hallelujah and thank you for proclaiming the truth about what the Great Commission of Matt. 28:17-20 really says. It doesn't just say, "Get people to repent and come to me". Jesus also says, in essence, "Grow them and take care of them, too." Of course it goes without saying that without the Holy Spirit none of that would be possible.
In one of my favorite books, "Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change" Paul David Tripp describes being ambassadors for Christ as a 24/7 calling. My understanding is that we are to put on the mind of Christ every waking moment until we are glorified, not just for our one moment of initial salvation.
Jesus is the risen Lord King who is God, and we are heirs to His throne -to me that is the Good News!
Susan
P.S. I started taking a class at church in Catholicism. It's curious to me that Jesus seems to have submerged me in both the Catholic and Wesleyan churches. I learned today that holiness is central to both traditions. Also, I learned that the Sisters I have gotten to know and love are from the Order that emphasizes "Preaching and Evangelizing -Proclaiming the Good News."
Go figure...
:-)
Although no doubt some Wesleyans would be surprised to hear me say it, the Wesleyan tradition is historically more Catholic than other groups like Lutherans or Baptists. Wesley's understanding of holiness was impacted significantly, I believe, by his reading of some catholic authors.
Cool! I can't share my excitement with my Protestant friends because they equate Catholicism with worshiping angels, statues and the Pope. It's a process of educating them, and inviting them to fight their human will to be judgmental, and to seek their Godly will to just openly love people, anyway. I've invited them to attend a Mass (one at a time, to reduce mob mentality and to allow privacy for repentance and worship). They will be surprised to find 95% of the Mass comes straight from scriptures, songs included, and mostly the same scriptures that are in the Protestant Bible. The main doctrinal differences they don't seem to even know about!
I think, and I believe I have intent of scriptural truth in mind, when a soul does not grasp the truth of a lifelong commitment to Christ, they never really experience salvation and is of the crowd where the gospel seed lands elsewhere other than in good soil and salvation is only a passing commercial or bill board in their life. So the preaching the gospel must have the call of "follow me" or it is not the gospel message. "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Where is the stopping place of Jesus? There is none for he is eternal.
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