Imagined gospel backgrounds

Zane Hodges says the Gospel According to Saint John was written as an evangelistic book to help people start to believe in Jesus, and yet mentions faith but not repentance, and thus repentance is not required for eternal life. John MacArthur counters that John the Evangelist was writing after the Synoptic Gospels were written, so John assumed that readers had already learned about repentance from them, and so he decided to focus his gospel on the importance of faith.

While we are conjuring hidden backgrounds and motives to the gospel writers, a much more fun story is told by Dom Gregory Dix in his book The Shape of the Liturgy. Suddenly we see the practice of the eucharist in house-churches popping up behind the text everywhere in the New Testament, and it's lovely:

One remarkable feature of the N.T. allusions to the eucharist is the rich variety of meanings they already find within the single rite of the broken Bread and the blessed Cup. It is the solemn proclamation of the Lord’s death (1 Cor. 11:26); but it is also the familiar intercourse of Jesus abiding in the soul, as a friend who enters in and sups with a friend (Rev. 3:20). It fulfils all the past, as the ‘true’ (Jn. 6:52) and the ‘secret’ (Rev. 2:17) manna, the meaning of all sacrifice (Heb. 13:10), the truth of all Passovers (1 Cor. 5:7; Lk. 22:18). But it also looks forward to the future beyond the end of time, as a mysterious anticipation of the final judgement of God (1 Cor. 11:30-32), a foretaste of the eternal Messianic banquet of heaven (Lk. 22:30), a ‘tasting of the powers of the world to come.’ (Heb. 6:5) It foreshadowed the exultant welcome of His own at that Second Coming (1 Cor. 11:26), for which those who had first lost their hearts to Him in Galilee looked so wistfully all their years after, that the echoes of their longing murmured on in the eucharistic prayers of the church for centuries. By the time the New Testament came to be written the eucharist already illuminated everything concerning Jesus for His disciples—His Person, His Messianic office (Jn. 6:33, 35, 48), His miracles (the accounts of the feeding of the multitude are obviously 'coloured' by the eucharist), His death and the redemption that He brought (Jn. 6:51). It was the vehicle of the gift of His Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13b), the means of eternal life (Jn. 6:53-54), the cause of the unity of His church (1 Cor. 10:17). This is not an exhaustive analysis of New Testament teaching about the eucharist. Nor do I suggest that all these passages are intended to be directly about the eucharist (they are not) but that in all of them the experience of the eucharist is at least colouring and affecting the author’s presentation in some cases even of other matters, which is what is significant for our purpose. They shew that the church had found in the eucharist an entire epitome of ‘the Gospel’ before our four gospels had been written.

Later in his book, Dix goes on to suggest that the image in Revelation of God on his throne surrounded by the elders reflects how a bishop and presbyters would sit in the living room of a Roman villa where the house church would typically meet, taking the seats like the father and his family members. Again, I don't know how true it is, but it's fun to think about.

It's definitely more imaginative than the Hodges-MacArthur debate.

Paul Timothy Jones on Practicing the Discipline of Diversity

Timothy Paul Jones, Perspectives on Family Ministry: 3 Views, pages 218-221.

Practicing the Discipline of Diversity 

So how can we lead our churches to practice the discipline of diversity? I now serve as one of the pastors in an inner-city congregation where we have set our sights on pursuing kingdom diversity, and I can tell you from personal experience that the process is far from easy. It is painful and costly and complicated. Over the past several years in my context, the process has consisted primarily of four steps, repeated over and over and over: 

(1) Learn your place. Know the demographics of the neighborhoods around the places where your congregation gathers, and be aware of socioeconomic strata or ethnic groups that your ministries may be overlooking. 

(2) Listen to your place. Humbly hear the challenges that people in your neighborhood face; learn to see life from their perspective. Listen to them long enough to know the barriers that would keep them from feeling welcomed in your church. 

(3) Love your place. When you walk through your neighborhood, do you feel a surge of affection for these people? Do you become choked up as you recognize how much you want the people in this place to hear the gospel? When you look into people’s eyes as you pass by them, do you love these people? Stop wishing that your context looked more like someone else’s context. Quit whispering to yourself, If only we had this, then we could really do ministry well. God will provide all that is needed to accomplish the task that he has given to you in the place where you are. Love the people and the place where God has positioned you and your church. In a multiethnic context, that will mean developing multiethnic relationships. You cannot grow a multiethnic church while leading a mono-ethnic life. 

(4) Develop leadership that looks like your place. If you want to see older believers mentoring younger believers but everyone who leads your church is in their twenties or thirties, your church will struggle to gather mature men and women to disciple younger generations. If your context is multiethnic but your leadership isn’t, your congregation will remain mono-ethnic. Diversifying leadership doesn’t require your congregation to develop a large staff. What it requires is gospel-centered leaders who reflect the beautiful diversity of your community and who are placed in visible positions of authority. It means submitting yourself to their wisdom and making yourself accountable to them. In time, it will mean releasing your authority and giving it to people whose perspective and background may be quite different from your own. If you do not raise up diverse leadership, you will never move toward diverse fellowship. 

These steps are not flashy or fast; they are incremental and mundane. I do not pretend that following these steps provides a quick or easy solution to the problems of segmentation and segregation in the church. That is primarily because I do not believe there are any quick or easy solutions to these problems. 

Lasting transformation happens through tiny actions repeated over years and decades—through “liturgies,” in the best sense of the word—not through massive shifts that happen in moments or days or months. The most difficult aspect of implementing this process is simply staying focused on the same commitment for the long term. And yet, I do believe that, over time, these simple steps can multiply the diversity of our congregation and provide a more effective witness to the watching world. 

From time to time, someone with children or youth visits the church and asks one of the leaders, “What do you have for my children?” 

Typically, the leader’s response is a recitation of activities that the church offers for children and youth. This isn’t necessarily wrong, and it’s probably the response that the potential attender is expecting. And yet, here’s what I prayerfully envision: I long for a church culture in which the first response to this question is a sweeping glance across the entire congregation accompanied by the words, “All of this! We have all of this for your children—older people, younger people, places to serve, words that build them when they are broken, answers when they wonder, corrections when they wander. Here in this multitude of languages and ethnicities and generations and socioeconomic backgrounds, we have all this and more for your children. Oh, and here are some activities that might interest them as well . . .” 

Even if we don’t use these precise words as a response, this is the attitude that I long to see in every aspect of our discipleship as we learn to practice the discipline of diversity. 

Regardless of which model of family ministry God guides your church to follow, be certain to include practices in that model that prepare your people to pursue the discipline of diversity. 

Because of the reconciling work of Christ’s cross, unity in diversity is not so much a goal to be achieved as it is a gift to be received. God has already broken down the barriers between his people through the blood of Jesus Christ. 

Practicing the way of life that prepares you for the gift of unity expressed in diversity isn’t easy. And yet, whenever a church pursues this reality, the resulting kaleidoscope of colors and cultures shouts out the supernatural power of the gospel to the watching world. 

Through unity in diversity, the people of God testify visibly to the capacity of the gospel to accomplish a reality that the world cannot.

Holy love and other delicious virtue pairings

As I was visiting with my friend Jon last night, we got to talking about what it means that God is love, and yet his love doesn't squish him into whatever shape we want to imagine him to be. 

I was reminded of a lecture by Bill Mounce on the BiblicalTraining app, where he said that God's love is a holy love -- and, I'm not sure whether Mounce said it or I just thought it, but the implication is that God's holiness is a loving holiness. Or maybe I heard it on Michael Bird's lectures based on his book Evangelical Theology -- which says, "God’s glorious-holy-lovingness is the most definitive aspect of his character. In other words, God glorifies himself through the expression of his holy love." (p.201)

Anyway, this reminded me of how James Clear in Atomic Habits (p.102) said that the best French fries are the ones that are "golden brown and crunchy on the outside and light and smooth on the inside." He calls this dynamic contrast.

Things are just better when they are complex like that. Two things complementing each other. 

Holiness and love. See Psalm 85:10-11 below for more delicious virtue pairings. 

Psalms 85:1-13 NIV

[1] You, Lord, showed favor to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. 

[2] You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. 

[3] You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger. 

[4] Restore us again, God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us. 

[5] Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? 

[6] Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? 

[7] Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation. 

[8] I will listen to what God the Lord says; he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants— but let them not turn to folly. 

[9] Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. 

[10] Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. 

[11] Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. 

[12] The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. 

[13] Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.

https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.85.1-13.NIV 

Calvin on vocation

John Calvin draws the following inferences on vocation from Jesus's parable of the workers in the vineyard who were all paid the same even though they started at different times (Matthew 20:1-16):

- [M]en were created for activity and... each has his divinely appointed station, so that he shall not sink into laziness... 

- [O]ur whole life is useless and we are justly condemned of laziness until we frame our life to the command and calling of God.

- [T]hey labour in vain who thoughtlessly take up this or that kind of life and do not wait for God's calling.

- [O]nly they are pleasing to God who work for the advantage of their brethren.

Let me restate these in a positive way:

- We were created for activity

- We each have our divinely appointed station

- Our whole life becomes useful when we frame it to the command and calling of God

- We will not labor in vain if we thoughtfully wait for God's calling and then take up this or that kind of life that he calls us to

- We are pleasing to God when we work for the advantage of others

Source:

John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Volume 2, pp. 265-266. Translated by T.H.L. Parker. (Calvin's Commentaries.) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.