What do we mean when we pray in the Disciple's Prayer, "And lead us not into temptation..."
Ramey asks me to comment on an article.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Christ and Bodies
This from George Arnold ...
As we approach Pentecost Sunday and the beginning series on the Holy Spirit this devotional piece seemd especially appropriate. Hope you enjoy reading it.
Christ and Bodies
The question at the time caught me a bit off guard. I was used to being asked to defend and explain my theology, but this was something different. I had been talking to someone about some old fears, explaining that what had helped me to move past them was largely due to faith that gave me hope in a world beyond them. His response pulled me down from my seemingly ascended place. "What is your theology of the body?" he asked. "How does God speak to your physical existence right now?" I didn't know how to respond.
The physical isn't a matter the spiritual often consider. What does it mean that Christ came in the flesh, with sinew and marrow? What does it mean that he lived and breathed, died, and was raised as a body? Perhaps more importantly, what does it mean that the risen Christ today, as a corporal being, is ascended and sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven? What does Christ's wounded body have to do with our own? What of his ascended body?
The modern divorce of the spiritual and the physical, heaven and earth, what is now and what will be, has made these difficult questions to consider. But the promise of the Christian is union with none other than Christ himself. In faith and by the Spirit, we are united to the same body that was on the cross and was in the tomb, which is now also in heaven. We are united with a body who is very much a living, immense, and physical promise. "Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
The biblical depiction of salvation and sanctification is far more "earthy" than some of us entertain, whether its critics or lauders. No matter how privatized, removed, irrelevant, or other-worldly we might describe Christianity, it is unavoidably a faith that intends us to encounter and experience both King and kingdom in the here-and-now,
everyday, hand-dirtying occurrences of life.
In an unapologetically corporeal account, the book of Acts describes the risen Christ among his disciples: "After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While eating with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father... And when he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:3-4). When the two men in white robes appeared and interrupted the disciples' stupor, their question was as pointed as the one that stumped me: "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you, will return in the same way as you saw him go forth" (Acts 1:11, emphasis mine).
It is no small promise that Christ came as a body, was wounded as a body, and now sits as a real and living body in heaven until the
day he will return and wipe every tear from our eyes. The ascended body of Christ represents something more fully human, more real than ourselves, and it is this reality that he lifts us toward, transforms us into, and advocates on our behalf. Our union with Christ and communion with the Trinity add a certain and heavenly dimension to our lives, and it is indeed one that correctly and profoundly orients us here and now, in real bodies, to the world around us.
Beyond a subject for another time or place, how might God speak to your physical existence now? In these weeks from the physical shock of Easter to the corporal gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, consider in your answer the Christ who walked among the world as a risen body, who invited Thomas to physically put his hands in scars that still mark pain, who ascended as one fully human after sharing a meal with those he loved, and who sent the Holy Spirit to live powerfully among us. Consider the body of Christ, who now sits at
the right hand of the Father as advocate, offering his body for the sake of yours, calling you to physically come further into the kingdom now.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
The question at the time caught me a bit off guard. I was used to being asked to defend and explain my theology, but this was something different. I had been talking to someone about some old fears, explaining that what had helped me to move past them was largely due to faith that gave me hope in a world beyond them. His response pulled me down from my seemingly ascended place. "What is your theology of the body?" he asked. "How does God speak to your physical existence right now?" I didn't know how to respond.
The physical isn't a matter the spiritual often consider. What does it mean that Christ came in the flesh, with sinew and marrow? What does it mean that he lived and breathed, died, and was raised as a body? Perhaps more importantly, what does it mean that the risen Christ today, as a corporal being, is ascended and sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven? What does Christ's wounded body have to do with our own? What of his ascended body?
The modern divorce of the spiritual and the physical, heaven and earth, what is now and what will be, has made these difficult questions to consider. But the promise of the Christian is union with none other than Christ himself. In faith and by the Spirit, we are united to the same body that was on the cross and was in the tomb, which is now also in heaven. We are united with a body who is very much a living, immense, and physical promise. "Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
The biblical depiction of salvation and sanctification is far more "earthy" than some of us entertain, whether its critics or lauders. No matter how privatized, removed, irrelevant, or other-worldly we might describe Christianity, it is unavoidably a faith that intends us to encounter and experience both King and kingdom in the here-and-now,
everyday, hand-dirtying occurrences of life.
In an unapologetically corporeal account, the book of Acts describes the risen Christ among his disciples: "After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While eating with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father... And when he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:3-4). When the two men in white robes appeared and interrupted the disciples' stupor, their question was as pointed as the one that stumped me: "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you, will return in the same way as you saw him go forth" (Acts 1:11, emphasis mine).
It is no small promise that Christ came as a body, was wounded as a body, and now sits as a real and living body in heaven until the
day he will return and wipe every tear from our eyes. The ascended body of Christ represents something more fully human, more real than ourselves, and it is this reality that he lifts us toward, transforms us into, and advocates on our behalf. Our union with Christ and communion with the Trinity add a certain and heavenly dimension to our lives, and it is indeed one that correctly and profoundly orients us here and now, in real bodies, to the world around us.
Beyond a subject for another time or place, how might God speak to your physical existence now? In these weeks from the physical shock of Easter to the corporal gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, consider in your answer the Christ who walked among the world as a risen body, who invited Thomas to physically put his hands in scars that still mark pain, who ascended as one fully human after sharing a meal with those he loved, and who sent the Holy Spirit to live powerfully among us. Consider the body of Christ, who now sits at
the right hand of the Father as advocate, offering his body for the sake of yours, calling you to physically come further into the kingdom now.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
When The Holy Spirit and Not Man Makes a Church
At our first Granbury Gathering we looked at what we can expect within our house fellowship when we trust the Holy Spirit to create a gathering. How appropriate as we approach Pentecost this coming week -- the commemoration of those events in Jerusalem in 28AD that saw the beginning of the New Testament church.
Here we have case history #1 of how the proclamation of the Word creates faith in the hearers God has chosen to belong to himself. At the end of Peter's sermon, the people whom the Holy Spirit had regenerated asked, "What do we do?" Peter answered, "Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the authority (name) of Jesus Messiah for sin forgiveness, and you will receive the Holy Spirit."
Now this doesn't entirely square with what we learn later in the New Testament from Paul, but the Bible must be read and interpreted in its entirety because it's real history. Things happen in sequence. Peter hasn't studied Christian theology. He's still thinking like a Jew. He's still thinking like John the Baptist. You received the Holy Spirit from water baptism. Those who teach baptismal regeneration today are like Apollos who came to Paul in Acts 18:25 fervent for the Lord but who knew only of the baptism of John. So, we must do as Pricscilla and Aquila did, explain regeneration more correctly in the light of the progressive revelation of God.
Three thousand people responded to Peter's invitation. We're told the first churches met in homes, going from house to house (Acts 2:46). Why did they do this? Most people respond as several did at our gathering -- to avoid persecution. But that doesn't begin until years later. It was perfectly legal to be a Jew in the Roman Empire and Christians were considered Jews. The Jews had not yet begun persecuting the followers of Jesus. So why did they meet in homes?
In homes you can open up to each other. In someone's house, you are drawn into their lives and family. Meeting in houses probably meant everyone had to get involved in the care of the group and hospitality, not just an elected board. If you look at the four things that characterize their fellowship, it's difficult imagining this happening in some formal worship space.
First, they devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching. Where is the apostle's teaching preserved for us? In the Scriptures of the New Testament. Notice that the historical record does not say they devoted themselves to the Scriptures. If it did, that would mean they were studying the Old Testament with an eye toward understanding the New. But that's not how Jesus taught his apostles in the 40 days before his ascension. Jesus started with Himself and re-interpreted the Jewish Scriptures as to how they all testified of Him. This is the principle of interpretation in congregations put together by the Holy Spirit. The New Testament is primary; the Old Testament is a shadow of the progressive revelation of God to its utter completeness in Christ Jesus.
The second thing the Spirit-assembled assembly did and still does is experience the presence of Jesus in the breaking of the bread. These Jews knew they were now living in a different economy than the covenant of works that had preoccupied Judaism. The breaking of the bread was not a sorrowful, somber sacrament, but a joyful, celebration of the presence of Jesus and his ultimate victory over sin and death, and the expectant hope of his coming again. Acts 2:46 describes authentic Christian fellowship as overflowing with gladness and simplicity, not weighed down with complicated language and formality.
The third characteristic of a fellowship created by the Holy Spirit is that they devoted themselves to prayer. Although almost certainly they relied on recited Jewish prayers, they did not rely only on formulaic words. Their way of praying was patterned on the way Jesus taught his disciples. The Lord's Prayer was not designed to be mindlessly repeated by rote. Jesus didn't write out the prayer and had it to his followers and make it part of a litany. It was simple. It was direct. It was specific. Jesus gave them that prayer as a model for spontaneous prayer. This is how the new believers were to learn to pray.
The fourth characteristic of genuine spiritual fellowship is captured in the single Greek word, koinonia. The idea of fellowship in most man-made churches has been watered down to something like socializing with a prayer thrown in. To understand it's original context we look at verse 44: "All the believers had all things in common..." The word for common is the same word from which koinonia is derived. This was not an early form of communism as some liberal scholars contend. Verse 45 describes it clearly: "They would sell their property and possessions and distribute to all who had a need." These believers weren't part of a social club, but a cooperative, a community that was committed to helping each other financially as well as spiritually. In this fellowship you wouldn't be alone. You wouldn't go without. Someone had your back.
What happened to these fellowships? First we're told they experienced awe (Acts 2:43). It was literally awesome to see what God was doing in people lives. Signs and wonders abounded through the ministry of the apostles. In our fellowships today where the apostles speak to us through the New Testament, we need not think merely int terms of miracles (suspension of natural laws), but happenings in every day life that clearly bear the imprint of God.
Second, they continued to worship corporately at the Temple. The house fellowship is not a substitute for the corporate worship of God's people. We are not starting a church. That's what men do. We are starting a fellowship and we continue to worship in various churches in our community. But Acts 2:46 clearly qualifies this experience as believers remaining of one mind. There was going to be a disconnect between what they knew and what many worshipers in the Temple knew. They wouldn't agree with what the Temple authorities did and taught. But they hung in. They weren't shaken if they heard a teaching that contradicted the apostles. They stayed of one mind.
Finally, these fellowships grew. They didn't create focus groups and media campaigns to determine how to make Jesus more palatable. They kept their focus on the four essentials and the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. It's God's responsibility to bring people to faith. It's not people's decisions to shop around for a fellowship like some consumer religion. God saves; God adds. And notice that the additions happen "day by day." Not just on Sunday, not just on Sabbath Saturday, not just when the Bishop came to town. How do people get connected day by day? When believers share the glories of God, the awe of changed lives, the release from guilt and shame and bondage to habits in their daily walk. When the Holy Spirit puts together a fellowship and not man, lives change, people find gladness and simplicity and saving grace to a life worth living together.
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