| Original Message |
Johan (no login)
Posted Mar 29, 2004 12:33 PM
Joan, hello again! I'm very glad you're part of this conversation.
You said, "Too many of us Christians often forget the 'forgive those who trespass against us' part or the 'love your neighbour as yourself' part. They are, however, willing to acknowledge the central role of Christ. We need to be reminded of the implications of this."
Under the message topic, "Identity and evangelism," I argued that "people observably seem to need formation and models on the way to maturity in Christ." This is a way of saying that we need to be reminded concretely of the implications of the central role of Christ. To me, this is a crucial aspect of waking Friends up to the urgency of evangelism. We need to work on being prepared to greet newcomers with a coherent explanation of why we care, and a corporate life that lives up to the promises implied in our outreach message ... or else we evangelize in vain.
Not everyone agrees with me on this. One reader (whose permission I'm still awaiting to publish her full letter and name) wrote to me, "The living presence of Christ IN one is what changes a man and this only. If people need models to maturity in Christ, then Christ is not sufficient. Are you implying they are observing Christ IN those who are mature? Then can even an enemy copy behaviors and have no Light in him. As it is written, 'Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light'." Maybe this is true on some very theoretical level, but I believe it constitutes unhelpful spiritualizing of the matter. If we all automatically glowed attractively and winsomely and consistently as soon as we accepted Christ, why would there be the spiritual gifts of pastoring and teaching and exhortation? Why would Paul have written in Ephesians 4, "He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ" ...?
In my experience, we ALL "need to be reminded of the implications of this" more or less constantly. In fact, the whole reason for the existence of the Friends church is to be that gentle and constant reminder of the implications of the central role of Christ.
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