Without This There Is No Church

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church, church planting, conversion, crucifixion, gospel, jesus, new testament, old testament, paul, salvation, theology

In the last post we highlighted the importance of defining the church properly by exploring the claim that what we believe about the church determines how we coordinate its life together. Today we’re going to dig further into the definition of the church rooted in teachings by the fine folks at Missio: The church is a networked family of gospel communities on mission. 

This definition requires further definition if it’s going to be helpful. What is the gospel? What is community? What is mission? Today we start with the gospel.

Introduction to my new book “Jesus in 3D”

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crucifixion, gospel, Gospels, jesus, Jesus in 3D, new testament, real life church

The following is the introduction from my book Jesus in 3D which came out this past month. (The Amazon search feature only gives half of the intro, so I figured I’d offer it here in full.) Of course I’d love for you to buy it, read it, and let me know what you think. (And if you like it, post a favorable review there on Amazon!)

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My Favorite Books on Christian Pacifism / Nonviolence / Peacemaking

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christendom, discipleship, gospel, jesus, new testament, nonviolence, pacifism, politics, quakers

The following are my favorite books on Christian pacifism. As always, I don’t (and couldn’t) agree with everything in them but I have found them supremely helpful. Labels are a bit overrated, but I do consider myself a Christian pacifist, which means that I believe discipleship to Jesus means renouncing killing and violence and seeking to overcome conflict (even in the form of attack) using peaceful means. Two clarifications are needed: (1) Pacifism is not the same as being passive. That the two words are so similar is an accident of the English language. Pacifism is about “pacifying” situations of conflict without resorting to violence. (2) There is a huge difference between Christian pacifism and what we might call “liberal” pacifism. The latter argues on the basis of effectiveness: We refuse to kill because that will work better to resolve conflicts than killing. Many also claim that liberal pacifism is based on a naive optimism regarding human nature. Whether this or the opposite is true, I can’t say (because I don’t know and I’m sure it depends on the person). But Christian pacifism is rooted in the good news of salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the call to follow him as Lord in life or in death in anticipation of the resurrection to come. Obviously most Christians — many of whom are more faithful than me! — don’t hold to this position, but all of us would agree that we cannot ignore Jesus’ commands to love our enemies and “turn the other cheek,” even if those directives need to be interpreted for specific situations. Anyhow, in this post I’m not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, but merely pointing to some resources that will help one think through the many complex related issues and questions.

My Favorite Books on the Church / Ministry

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american culture, church, church planting, discipleship, new testament, real life church, small groups

As a follow-up to yesterday’s list of my favorite books on Jesus, here are my favorites on the church and ministry. Once again, I very much welcome your thoughts and especially your own favorites. These are the ones that have shaped me and that keep me on my toes.

1.  Jesus and Community by Gerhard Lohfink. I talked about this book in the Jesus list, but I wanted to include it here as well, mainly because (as I mentioned) it confirmed my conviction that the church was not an afterthought to the coming of Jesus the Messiah. On the contrary, core to Jesus’ ministry was the gathering of a body of people to continue God’s mission in the world. This book provides an excellent exegetically based theology of the church as just this very thing. Given that the church is full of sinful people (including me!) and can therefore be pretty frustrating at times, it has proved invaluable for me to remember that you can’t have Jesus without it. Or as William Willimon puts it, “The church may be a whore but she’s also your mother.” (Joey says Lohfink’s Does God Need the Church? is rockin too, and it’ll probably supplant this one when I do read it.)

My Favorite Books on Jesus

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Gospels, jesus, new testament

Sometimes, to the amusement of my wife, I just decide to “do” things, such as make lists of my favorite books on a given subject. No idea why I’ve been doing this lately, except that it’s fun for me and I find it very helpful when others do it (like here). So I’m making four such lists, and this is the first. I hope you’ll not only benefit from this but make your own list on whatever you like to read about!! I decided to start with my list of books on Jesus. Now this shouldn’t need to be said, but I certainly don’t (actually, I couldn’t) agree with all of what these authors say, but these are the ones I have found most helpful. I’ll try to put them in an order in which I’d suggest reading them.

Ephesians 1.1 – Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus…

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church, discipleship, ephesians, jesus, new testament, paul, politics

Okay, so I’m not making any promises but I’m going to start blogging through the book of Ephesians verse-by-verse. I’ve actually been thinking about doing this for over a year now and started studying Ephesians in depth earlier this year. Then in his Wheaton Chapel Message, N. T. Wright challenged the students to memorize Ephesians by studying and committing to memory one verse a day. The idea is that if you learn what a verse means it will be easier to memorize, and if you memorize and meditate on it, what it means will actually take root in your life. Well, I’m going for it and we’ll see. Each day I’ll provide the TNIV translation of the verse, walk through it bit-by-bit (with moderate attention to detail), and then I’ll offer my own translation (which is meant to work alongside, never to replace, other translations).

Ephesians 1.1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (TNIV)

There is so much packed into this little verse. A year ago I decided to start blogging through Ephesians but when I approached this verse and saw how much would need to be said, I gave up!

C&C 001.5 // Live Impossibly (repost)

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discipleship, jesus, new testament

In the last post I wrote about Justin’s conversion as part of our quest to investigate the nature of conversion in the early church. Our suspicion is that things have drastically changed over time – the church today doesn’t look a whole lot like the church then – and we’re asking why. One of the details of Justin’s story that stuck out to me was how he dealt with the seeming impossibility of Jesus’ teachings. For the sake of being specific, let’s think of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. It’s no secret that there are some very hard teachings here. (It’s kind of funny that we make the OT out to be tough and Jesus soft, because Jesus actually raises the bar here rather than lowering it.) In fact, through much of the church’s history, and in much of the church today, people claim that Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 5-7 are not meant to be fully obeyed today.

Naming the Beast (Rev 13)

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american culture, apocalyptic, daniel, hermeneutics, new testament, politics, Revelation

Reflecting on the text (Revelation 13)

One of the most notable features of the book of Revelation is “the beast” in Revelation 13 (actually there are two of them). Since the beast is a central aspect of John’s work, we’re going to spend two days discussing it.

The first day will be Reflecting on the Text, focusing on meaning of Revelation 13. The second day will be Living What We Learn, focusing on the application of Revelation 13.

Another way of looking it is that today we’ll be discussing who or what John has in mind when he talks about the beast. Later we’ll explore what John reveals about the beast, and how it applies to us.

Because the beast is such a controversial topic, we need to start by laying out some guidelines for an answer. If we are going to have the right explanation, it must fit certain criteria. More specifically, our answer must correspond to the genres of Revelation.

Do you remember the three genres of Revelation? They are letter, prophecy, and apocalypse (see Rev 1.1-6).

New Series – Conversion and Christendom (repost)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, conversion, new testament, salvation

[I started this series some time ago but never completed it. I think it is more than worthy of returning to, so I'm going to repost what I posted back then and then pick up where it leaves off.]

Over the next bit, I’ll be blogging through a little book called The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom by Alan Kreider. Here Kreider aims to better understand the changes that took place in the church during the fourth century (when the Christian faith was legalized and standardized by Constantine and his heirs) by examining their practice of conversion. If we look at how the process of becoming a Christian changed throughout early church history, especially with the beginning of the period called “Christendom,” perhaps we will better understand the larger transformation of the church during this time. (And, by extension, we will gain wisdom for our own time of transition back out of a “Christendom” situation.)

In the Introduction, Kreider lays out three goals:

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (4 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, crucifixion, discipleship, gospel, jesus, martyrdom, new testament, old testament, politics, salvation

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is my final post offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the very strange story in Daniel 3. See previous posts here,  here and here. So far I have claimed from this story that (1) Politics is a question of idolatry – that is, competing claims for allegiance; (2) Obedience to God sometimes requires disobedience to the government; (3) This “theo-political” showdown is often fought on the battlefield of symbolic ritual; (4) In the ancient world God’s people faced persecution due to their position as a minority outsider in an imperial world; (5) Loyal servants of idolatrous political powers often die needlessly and tragically; (6) Sometimes governments do acknowledge God’s superior power to save; (7) The “political idolatry problem” does not rule out participation in political affairs. Below are the final two of my nine reflections (the last one is my favorite!).