Asking the question, "what is the gospel?"

The church is struggling with the gospel. In these last few years of emerging revolution in the church, I have encountered church leaders struggling to re-understand the gospel. I use the word struggle in an intentional way, both in the sense of aggressive engagement and in the sense of frustrated grappling.

Serious engagement with the meaning and power of the gospel is nothing new to our century. One can hardly point to an era in church history when faithful men and women have not been simultaneously enraptured by the gospel's beauty and held fast by its convicting truth. And while many have come near to claiming they have at last divined the gospel's true meaning, the struggle continues unabated, often by those who once felt they had momentarily gained the better of its truth.

In our day, both seasoned saints and emerging radicals are struggling to comprehend and articulate the gospel even while they live within and out of its transformative power. This is a very good thing. Over time, I've found that my ears perk up when someone asks aloud the question "what is the gospel?" The answer one gives to such a question says as much about one's faith as it does about God and His redemptive work in the world. How one answers the question tends to have an enormous impact on the way one's faith is lived. To struggle with the gospel is ultimately to ask hard questions about whether or not we are living the fullness of the gospel as given us in Scripture.

The best part of the question, "what is the gospel?" is that it is a deceptively difficult question to answer. It is even more difficult to do so succinctly. Those of us trained to quote Scripture to such answers have an especially tough time doing so, since anything much shorter than the book of Mark leaves a lot of the gospel out of the answer. 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, comes close to a concise statement of the gospel. So does Titus 3:3-7. Hard pressed, one might also point to John 3:16-20. But a close look at these texts reveals a frustrating fact about our Scriptures: very often, the writers assume we know what the gospel is, and use the term more loosely than we would like. Sort of like the same writers do with the Kingdom of God. Even Jesus won't let himself be pinned down about such powerful ideas, preferring to illuminate them with a broad brush through parable and story. The question "what is the gospel?" is a tough one to answer.

That's why I have found myself collecting short versions of answers to this question as I have struggled with it myself. Here is one version I came across recently:

The gospel is the story of the work of the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) to completely restore broken image-bearers (Gen. 1:26–27) in the context of the community of faith (Israel, Kingdom, and Church) through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Pentecostal Spirit, to union with God and communion with others for the good of the world.

Dr. McKnight errs on the side of completeness over simplicity or comprehensibility. If you read the rest of his article (which is very good and every bit worth your time), you'll see that each phrase fragment stands in for a large and important theological concept that McKnight believes is central to the overarching story of the gospel.

In forthcoming posts, I'll share more gospel paraphrases that I've come across. For now, perhaps we can content ourselves with a little imaginative exercise: if you found yourself across the coffee table from someone sincerely asking the question, "what is the gospel?", what would you tell them given three minutes or less?

Cross-posted to sanctus.cross.

Synthesis in the age of specialization: McKnight's expert tour of scholarship's trends

It is a well known trend in all branches of scholarship that with deeper study comes a necessary narrowing in focus. This trend, after centuries of progression, has led to massive specialization in virtually every field. A brief scan of a seminary's course schedule will reveal this. A freshman in biblical studies will take "New Testament survey", an MDiv student will take a course on the Hellenistic influences on Pauline Christianity, and a PhD candidate will write a multi-year thesis titled "Purity and Impurity in the Gospel of Mark", referencing literally thousands of books and magazine articles in pursuit of a comprehensive treatment of the subject.

In an academic atmosphere like this, one of the most difficult of all achievements is the broad synthesis. A concise, readable work like The Writings of the New Testament by Luke Timothy Johnson is a monumental undertaking, one which purports to survey the state of understanding of all strands of New Testament scholarship and to provide a brief jumping-off point to pursue further study. Each 8-10 page chapter ends with a multi-page bibliography of 1000-page works for the student seeking deeper understanding.

Scholars like Luke Timothy Johnson are rare and immensely valuable to the life of the church, since people who can devote the majority of their time to teaching and preaching cannot possibly hope to know what these smart men and women are discovering and communicating. Another such man is the prolific Dr. Scot McKnight, whose blog I read often. Dr. McKnight is Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University in Chicago. He also may be a robot, given his ability to travel Europe, write books, speak intelligently to interested audiences on dozens of topics, and post to his blog multiple times, all in the same day.

Dr. McKnight has a tremendously valuable series of posts on his blog which aim to synthesize what's going on in the Society of Biblical Literature these days, and correspondingly, what scholars are studying and writing. Here is the current list of articles in the "thread":

• Knowing the currents 1
• Knowing the currents 2
• Knowing the currents 3
• Knowing the currents 4
  

Thanks to Dr. McKnight who can provide a vantage point tremendously valuable to those of us without his background and credentials.

All that stands before the gates of Hades

Overheard in a devotional recently: "You church planters need to understand that you are all that stand between your community and the gates of Hades."

His intention was to remind a group of tired men and women of the importance of their task and of the wonderful and terrible responsibility laid upon us by God.

Sometimes I do feel as though I carry a heavy burden, wondering if indeed there would be anyone else to take my place if I were KIA, victim to the schemes of the one who would isolate and devour every person in our community of South Salem. Even understanding that God is a sovereign King, more than able to accomplish all those things which He determines to do, there remains a certain responsibility which He has given to me and expects of me. A heavy burden indeed.

But I think again of the words of the devotion: we are "all that stand between the community and the gates of Hades" and I realize how easy it is to misunderstand Jesus' phrasing in that text of Matthew. The picture is not one of demonic forces spilling over Hades' gate and assaulting the scattered forces of Light wherever they can be found huddling pitifully together on the plain. Rather, Jesus has in mind the forces of Light storming the gates, a called out people who take the arms of Heaven and batter down the last refuge of our enemy's strength. The image is thus: the gates will not stand against those called by God. The captives will be freed, the poor fed and clothed, the essence and joy and peace of life restored to those who are beloved of God.

And in my more honest moments, I realize that I am all that stands between my community and the gates of Hades. If I do not obey the call of God in my life, if I ignore his outstretched hand beckoning me to partner with Him in restoring a corrupt community, then I am at best a stalling force, standing between south Salem and the battle for which they are called.

God will not go without me, or so I should think if He has so entrusted the gospel to the frail, limping church. What can the Incarnation mean but that each of us, in our weaknesses, is somehow essential to the task for which God called us, gifted according to His plan for a divine purpose in announcing freedom?

So He waits for me. Perhaps others may be called to a similar task, perhaps not. Far be it from me to stand between God and those He loves, may I not be a hindrance to His plans but rather a willing instrument in His hand.

South Salem's people await the call to storm the gates of Hades. Many of them currently languish in gloomy dungeons of spiritual death, waiting to be called, chosen by God. And they wait on me to announce (even if in uncertain tones) the call to freedom! And together with God, we will take the battle to the enemy, plunder his treasured captives, and triumphantly set them free into the glorious wonder of God's New Creation. Far be it from me to stand between my community and the gates of Hades.

Steeping Leadership Development in Prayer and the Scriptures

Leadership development in the church is one of the most important and challenging tasks that faces its current leadership. If at any given moment, a church is not actively working in partnership with the Lord to shape people for leading the church of the present and the future, then that is the moment when that church begins to die.

As a church planter, I find myself at the beginning of an important transition time as a group of strong leaders are winding down their involvement with Cascade Hills, preparing to move on to plant another new church to reach the lost in our city.

Not all of the leaders will be leaving, but now is a great and visible time to redouble my efforts in the area of developing future leaders at Cascade Hills. I have begun tapping a few folks on the shoulder, asking them to commit to pray seriously about the possibility of becoming more directly involved with the leadership of our faith community. Along with that time of prayer, I am inviting them to sit before the Scriptures, approaching them with a fresh set of eyes.

The commitment to prayer has the purpose of building trust in these new leaders (and in me), that God indeed is still capable of leading the growth of His church as willing people submit to Him in listening prayer. A strong sense of calling is critical to any leadership venture, and listening, searching prayer is a vital part of discerning that sense of calling.The commitment to Scripture takes the form of a one-on-one or small group Bible study with each of these potential leaders. In these Bible studies, we employ a missional hermeneutic: an approach to hearing the Scriptures that acknowledges and is ever responsive to God's missional purpose in the church. The two key components of this missional hermeneutic are thus:

• An understanding that the church is a sent people, called by God into active engagement with a fallen world and a part of God's gracious work to restore Creation. In Jesus, God decisively broke the power of sin and opened the way to new creation; through the Holy Spirit, God empowered God's people to represent His in-breaking reign by being its sign and foretaste (indicating by its own communal life the sort of community God is working to re-create in all of humanity) as well as God's agent and instrument in bringing about this reign (both actively and passively serving God's re-creative purposes through its words and actions).
• An understanding that the purpose of leadership in the church is to partner with God in the formation of a missional people that knows and lives out this missional calling.

In this early stage of leadership formation, my hope and prayer is all of us engaged in this study can be profoundly re-shaped by this missional reading of the Scriptures. We will need to fight at every turn an individualistic, personal, private reading of the Scriptures. Rather than asking, what does this Scripture mean for my (private, personal) life, asking instead how this Scripture shapes a people ready to accomplish His re-creative purposes? Rather than asking how ought my individual behaviors reflect the teaching of these Scriptures, we must instead ask, how ought our faith community live out these Scriptures as a witness to God's re-creative purposes coming to fruition in our midst?

My ultimate hope and prayer for these beginning steps of leadership formation is twofold:

• First, that we as leaders will begin to understand together the demands these Scriptures make on our communal discipleship, helping us to remain faithful and diligent in the activities that form the diverse people of Cascade Hills into a thoroughly missional community;
• And second, that this approach to Scripture will itself "trickle down" to the opportunities we have to go before the Scriptures with others at Cascade Hills, helping to turn the tide of individualistic and privatized spirituality in our culture.

We've a long road ahead of us, may the Father of Lights illumine our Way.