Off and on over the last past few years I have been thinking about the different metaphors used in the Bible to describe why Jesus came to walk among humanity, died, rose again and etc. (the fancy theological word for this is the “atonement”). Interestingly enough I’m not the only person thinking about this issue as modern Jesus followers re-discover of the mystery of the atonement. Folks such as N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, John Piper, Al Mohler and Brian McLaren are all offering their opinions on the subject – not to mention those from the mainline Protestant churches, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church.
A big part of the reason why the atonement is such a big deal today is due to the increasing rift between neo- Calvinists evangelicals (John Piper, Al Mohler et al.) and the progressive evangelicals (N.T. Wright, Roger Olson, et al.). Add to this fire the growth of post-modern and post-post-modern Jesus followers who are looking at Christianity through different glasses/worldviews than their predecessor (Brian McLaren, David Fitch, Scot McKnight, et al.).
Knowing all this, I have every excited when I heard that Tony Jones had published an ebook on the atonement, “A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin”. Tony, for those who don’t know, was a driving force in the emerging church movement of the past few decades and the author of the book “The New Christians: Dispatches From The Emergent Frontier”, which I thoroughly enjoyed. He is also an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Theological School – meaning that he is a post-modern theologian scholar who, I was hoping, could bring some fresh air to the conversation.
And, to a certain extent, he does deliver – even though I disagree with his final conclusion, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
The outline of the book is fairly simple with the first part being more biographical in the sense that Tony shares with the reader why he started on the journey of questioning the predominant Protestant view of the atonement (i.e. penal substitutionary atonement or PSA). After the ground work is laid, Tony shifts gears into laying out all the views of the atonement the church has held since the time of Jesus (all quotes are from Tony’s ebook):
We pick the story of Jesus in Luke 4:31 right after he has announced his mission statement to the people of Nazareth:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Lk 4:18-19)
Having been kicked out of Nazareth, Jesus goes to Capernaum, which is located on the northwest shores of the Sea of Galilee. It is there that Jesus sets up his ‘home base’ to reach the nation.
One of the first things that Jesus does after reaching Capernaum is to go into the local synagogue and starts teaching. The people become “amazed” as Jesus teaches with authority of the Holy Father instead of simply repeating words taught to him by this person or another. Think about it – Jesus didn’t have a seminary degree or any “formal” education – but he did have the Holy Spirit!
Amazingly enough, we, as followers of Jesus, have the same Holy Spirit dwelling inside us. Furthermore, Jesus told us that it would be the Holy Spirit that would “guide [us] into all truth” (John 16:13). Practically this means that we must rely on the Holy Spirit for all that we teach – regardless of our intellect, degrees, or lack thereof. No one who follows Jesus has any excuse for not teaching and sharing the Good News of Jesus. We all simply say what the Father is telling us to say at that moment via the power and authority of the Holy Spirit and the Name of Jesus.
We also have to back up our words with actions. In returning to the Gospel of Luke we see Jesus casting out demons in the synagogue right after he teaches. Furthermore, he then goes into St. Peter’s home and heals his mother-in-law , then a whole bunch of folks later that night.
The Words of Jesus were backed up by the Deeds of Jesus. The words and works. One without the other is worthless!!
When a horse is hooked up to a plow or a wagon, the farmer will place a blinder over the head of the animal, blocking the side view and forcing the horse to look forward. This helps the horse focus on the task at hand and keep it from getting distracted by events happening on either side.
Sometimes in life it is good to have blinders on – for example, it is good to keep ourselves focused on Jesus rather than getting distracted by things of this world (i.e. wealth, fame, pride, food, etc.). However – and this is a HUGE “however” – most of the time blinders are bad.
They are bad because they are basically blind spots in our lives – places or areas that we a) either don’t know about or b) are unwilling to address.
The solution to these blinders is to have someone call out the blind spots and make them known. The “someone” could be the Holy Spirit, a friend, pastor, mentor, parent, spouse, child, family member or a stranger. In my experience it is usually a combination of all of the above…
The main question, though, is not who calls out the blind spots – the question is what we are going to do with the information.Are we going put the blinders back on and pretend that we didn’t ‘see’ anything? Ignorance, they say, is bliss.
Yet, to do this is to essentially ignore our King. We are to live in the light of Jesus and not walk around in the darkness of our own blinders and ignorance.
Beginning in 1727 the Moravian Church has published and distributed daily devotional Bible readings throughout the world. While I’ve obviously haven’t been around that long, I have been receiving their daily devotional via email every day for past few months. At first I was testing the waters a bit as there are many devotional emails out there); now however, I have to say that they have now become a welcome part of my mornings.
Today’s devotional really hit me and, as such, I wanted to share it with you all as well as give you all a chance to sign up.
Holy One, sometimes we are sinners because it is simply the easiest way
to live, doing what those around us do. Empower us to see and to live
another way, the way we see in Jesus. Amen.
FYI – the below is a screen shot of the email sent out each day to give you an idea of what in included in the Daily Text.
o It is a messianic passage written by Isaiah pointing towards the day when the rule of God would break into this evil world and destroy sin and death
o Jesus says that it was fulfilled through him.
o It becomes Jesus’ “vision statement” for the rest of his ministry
o It should be ours…
• “God’s Community Center” => on the forefront of what God is doing worldwide
o It is a pioneering ministry.
o Free food, free clothes, free prayer, and free hugs
o A center that can be used to teach people how to break the cycle of poverty and spiritual bondage as well as a place to belong
• Anger at giving mercy to the wrong people
o Nazareth => settlers town of conservative Jewish people
* Jesus grew up in Nazareth and would have known the folks and the mindset
o Left out portions of Isaiah 61
* Jesus only read the first few lines
* Left out
• Vengeance of God upon the Gentiles
• Israel will be called oaks of the Lord
• Ruins rebuilt to former glory
• Gentiles will work their fields and take care of their animals
• All of Israel will be priests => no work, just study and worship God
• Gentiles wealth will belong to the Israel
• Israel will have a double portion and glory instead of shame
One of the things that God convicted me of while I was in Montana was that I was I was spending way too much time praying for folks IN the church and not enough time praying for folks OUTSIDE the church. As a lot of folks can testify, it is easy to slide into a routine focused around one’s church family without really noticing it…
To help break this complacency, I decided was told by Jesus to start going down to God’s Community Pantry and praying for folks at least once a month if not more. Not wanting to wait too long (i.e. the Holy Spirit was on my case), I showed up at the pantry this past Saturday and volunteered to pray with folks, carry boxes or whatever else they needed to have done.
At first I was a tad nervous and a little bit out of my comfort zone (which was all the more reason why I needed to go down there!)…but as the day went on, I warmed up and had a great time hanging out with some awesome people and was totally blessed! In fact, I can’t wait to get back down there and say ‘hi’ to some of my new friends.
One cool experience I had that day involved a gentlemen whose had very little movement in his shoulder and was in constant pain. I prayed a real simple prayer over him, asking the Lord to embarrass him with His love while commanding the pain to be gone. Afterward I asked him how the pain was – as in, if the pain was at a 10 before we started praying, where was it after we prayed. He said it was at a 8 – which is great! The pain is going away…
The national office just released a map of the new regions for the Vineyard USA. I have to say that I am surprised that Northern California and Northern Nevada stayed with the Northwest Region as they have enough churches in the area for their own region… but then again I don’t know what criteria they used to split things up.
I was also surprised at first to see North and South Dakotas lumped into the Big Sky region..but when I looked closer I realized that there is only one church in the Dakotas (Custer, SD) – and it’s fairly close to two other Vineyard churches in Wyoming (Gillete and Pine Haven, WY) so that makes sense. (hmm..we need to find some church planters to send out into the Dakotas…)
As I watched this video I was struck close but far away all three of these men were in their views on the interactions of Christians with politics. All three were/are passionate about Jesus and living one’s faith in a way that tackled social injustices head on. However, each one of them at a slightly different take on HOW Jesus followers were to interact with the geopolitical structures and political parties.
Disclaimer: Of the three panelist, Chuck is the only one that I know the most about as I have read multiple of his books and found them full of Jesus. Shane I have heard of there and there…and Greg…well, to be honest, I don’t know much about him except that he is a huge Christus Victor atonement guy, which I like… I mention this because I’m sure there are other things at play behind the scenes of this video… I just don’t know them.
Chuck Colson was by-far the oldest of the three panelists (who were chosen BTW to represented three different generations of Christians in politics) and had a more favorable view on political parties and how Believers could work with them. Most likely part of this worldview I think came from Chuck’s time as a politician but more likely I think it came about because of his experience running a parachurch organization.
This past Sunday Reverend Justin Duckworth was officially elected as the Anglican Bishop of Wellington (New Zealand’s capital city).
What makes this appointment so amazing is that Justin is known for his pioneering work at the Ngatiawa contemporary monastery as well as with Urban Vision, a ministry that focuses on the “margins of mainstream society, and doing justice in the midst of urban poverty.”
In a lot of ways, this appointment is a statement to the world that the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is serious about following Jesus and loving those on the margins.
In fact as I was listening to Justin to the below interview, I was getting excited and pumped as this guy just oozes the compassion and mercy of Jesus coupled with the life giving power of the Word of God. I cannot wait to hear what King Jesus does in Wellington and the surrounding area!
Over the past fourteen days the PRV family has been seeking the Lord as a corporate body for direction as to where we are to go from here. Jesus has done some amazing things in and through us over the last six years that we have been walking after Him as a fellowship. For three of those years we have been operating a food pantry and free clothing ministry, breaking down the spiritual, emotional, and physical injustices that have bound people in non-so-good situations.
Sadly enough this ministry has flourished and grown over those years…I say “sadly” because in all honestly I wish the folks in our area had jobs to support their families… unfortunately though, 51% of our county is food insecure (meaning that they do not have enough money to buy the food they need) and 20% are under the poverty line. A few miles to east in another county with the same, if not greater, problem…
And so we love people with free food, free clothes, free prayer and free hugs as “who knows but that we were placed here for such a time as this?” (to paraphrase the words of Mordecai to Queen Esther centuries ago).
Practically though, there is a problem with the growth of need in the community. Namely we need a bigger location to better serve and love the people who visit us each week. To that end, we have been faithful praying and asking the Lord to provide as it is His ministry and ultimately His problem…
Well, today I am pleased to be able to tell you all that Jesus has open door and that He has granted us some property.
My name is Joshua Hopping and I am a Son of the Most High journeying through a foreign land following the Wild Goose (i.e. the Holy Spirit) one step at a time.
As I journey along the Way, I have the privilege of serving as the bi-vocational pastor of the Payette River Vineyard Christian Fellowship. I am also a voracious reader who loves studying church history, theology, and world missions.
This blog, "Requisite Danger", is a record of what God is teaching and showing me as I try to follow Him wherever He leads as well as occasional random thoughts. I pray that you will join me in this journey through online/offline interaction as this life is lived in community.
Off and on over the last past few years I have been thinking about the different metaphors used in the Bible to describe why Jesus came to walk among humanity, died, rose again and etc. (the fancy theological word for this is the “atonement”). Interestingly enough I’m not the only person thinking about this issue as modern Jesus followers re-discover of the mystery of the atonement. Folks such as N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, John Piper, Al Mohler and Brian McLaren are all offering their opinions on the subject – not to mention those from the mainline Protestant churches, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church.
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