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.

Matthean creeds and confessions

 In my personal Bible reading, I'm journaling through the Gospel of Matthew. Every morning, I copy a pericope (short section) and then write a summary explanation, application, and a response in the form of a prayer or action item. Last night, since I've been wrestling with the current evangelical understanding of the gospel, and exploring liturgical renewal, I asked ChatGPT to help me create some creeds and confessions based on Matthew. 

The results were eye-opening -- there is more focus on the continuing story of God with Israel according to the scriptures, continued with the church, bringing in his kingdom, and there is more on our part in continually repenting of hypocrisy and giving up everything to take hold of Jesus' mercy and join him in his covenant community. 

Things like strict definitions of the trinity and inerrancy of scripture and the timing of the second coming, or passive formulations of receiving grace through faith gave way to an active view of living as Jesus' apprentices. 

It's not that I disbelieve in receiving grace through faith, but I believe that our current American conception of this takes an overly passive (lazy) and transactional understanding of some of Paul's words, and uses them to misinterpret the rest of scripture, when we should actually understand each biblical writer on their own terms to fill out the whole picture, which, as Michael Gorman, Matthew Bates, and Volker Rabens argue, is one of active trust in union with Christ, leading to bodily expressions of allegiance in daily worship and ethical living, with a growing understanding that this trust and obedience is a response to God's gift of kindness, and that our growth in trust-obedience, though it takes all our striving, arises out of that union and our union with the saints.

May more and more congregations submit their traditions to the words of scripture, not only their favorite verses, but the favorite themes of each of the biblical writers in turn, and see their faith renewed.

• The Matthean Declaration of Faith revises the Evergreen Bible Church declaration of faith using only content found in the Gospel of Matthew.
• The creed, and a shorter call-and-response version, were generated based on this, for congregational recitation.
• The Confession and Renewal Commitment fills the style and structure of the prayers of confession in Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 9 with the content of Matthew's Gospel. (I got the inspiration from Mark Boda's Return to Me: A Biblical Theology of Repentance, as well as my experience in Anglican churches.)

Take a minute to browse through the four liturgies below, and then ponder the questions at the end.

1. The Matthean Declaration of Faith

We believe the Scriptures reveal the Word of God
We believe that what is written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms bears witness to the purposes of God, and that Jesus fulfills all that was written. We receive the Scriptures as true, enduring, and authoritative for the people of God. (Matt. 5:17–19; Matt. 22:29; Matt. 26:54–56)

We believe in the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
We believe in God, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We confess the name into which Jesus commands His disciples to be baptized: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Matt. 5:45; 11:25–27; 28:19)

We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God
We believe that Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, is Immanuel—God with us. He is the promised Messiah, the Son of David and Son of Abraham, who proclaims the kingdom of heaven, heals the sick, forgives sins, and lays down His life as a ransom for many. (Matt. 1:18–23; 16:16; 20:28; 26:28)

We believe that the Spirit of God is present and active
We believe that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism, led Him in His mission, and empowers the people of God. Blasphemy against the Spirit is the gravest of sins. (Matt. 3:16; 4:1; 12:28–32)

We believe that all people have sinned and must repent
We believe that all must repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Without repentance, there is no escape from judgment. Jesus calls His followers to turn from evil, seek righteousness, and become perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 5:48; 7:13–14)

We believe salvation is granted to those who trust and follow Jesus
We believe that those who come to Jesus, hear His words, and do them will enter the kingdom of heaven. Faithfulness to Jesus—shown in repentance, obedience, and perseverance—is necessary. Those who deny Him before others will be denied before the Father; those who endure to the end will be saved. (Matt. 7:21–27; 10:32–33; 24:13)

We believe in the resurrection of Jesus and the promise of His return
We believe that Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again on the third day. He is given all authority in heaven and on earth and will return as Judge and King. He will separate the righteous from the wicked, rewarding the faithful with eternal life and casting the lawless into eternal punishment. (Matt. 16:21; 28:5–7; 25:31–46)

We believe in baptism as a sign of repentance and allegiance to Jesus
We believe that baptism is the outward confession of repentance and commitment to follow Jesus. He commands His disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (Matt. 3:11; 3:13–17; 28:19)

We believe in the Lord’s Table as a remembrance of Jesus' covenant
We believe that Jesus instituted a meal with His disciples, giving bread and cup as signs of the new covenant in His blood, for the forgiveness of sins. We partake in remembrance of Him, awaiting the day we shall feast anew with Him in His Father’s kingdom. (Matt. 26:26–29)

2. The Matthean Creed

We believe in God, the Maker of heaven and earth,
the Father who is perfect and merciful.

We believe in Jesus the Christ,
the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,
born of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit,
God with us, the Teacher of truth,
the Healer of the sick,
the Shepherd of the lost.

He called us to repent,
to follow Him,
to take up our cross,
to lose our lives that we might find them.

He was handed over, crucified, and buried,
and on the third day He rose again.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
who empowers us to obey all that Jesus commanded.

We believe in baptism into the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

We believe in the forgiveness of sins
through the covenant of His blood.

We believe He will come again
to judge the living and the dead,
to gather the righteous into His kingdom,
and to cast out all evil forever.

Until He comes,
we watch and pray,
we make disciples of all nations,
and we walk the narrow road that leads to life.

Amen.

3. The Matthean Creed: Call and Response Format

Leader:
Do you believe in God, the Maker of heaven and earth,
the Father who is perfect and merciful?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe in Jesus the Christ,
the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,
born of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit,
God with us, our Teacher, our Lord?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe that He called us to repent,
to follow Him, to take up our cross,
and to walk the narrow road that leads to life?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe that He was handed over, crucified, and buried,
and that on the third day He rose again?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe that all authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to Him,
and that He reigns as King and Judge?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit,
who empowers us to obey all that Jesus commanded?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe in baptism into the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
as a sign of repentance and new life?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins
through the covenant of His blood,
and the promise of the kingdom to come?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Do you believe that Jesus will return
to gather the righteous into His kingdom
and to bring all things to their fulfillment?

Congregation:
We believe.

Leader:
Until that day, will you watch and pray,
make disciples of all nations,
and live as children of the light?

Congregation:
By His grace, we will.

All Together:
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

4. The Matthean Confession and Renewal Commitment

(in the style of Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 9)

O Lord, our God,
You are the Blessed One, the Father who sent Your Son, Emmanuel, to save Your people from their sins.
You revealed the kingdom of heaven and called us to repent, for the kingdom is at hand.
You taught us the way of righteousness, mercy, and faithfulness.

But we have been slow to hear and quick to stray.
We have honored You with our lips, but our hearts have been far from You.
We have loved the treasures of earth more than the treasures of heaven.
We have judged others while neglecting the log in our own eyes.
We have been like foolish builders who hear Your words but do not do them.
We have been like the unfaithful servant who buried the Master's gifts in the ground.
We have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

O Lord, we confess:
We have been like sheep without a shepherd.
We have stumbled over the stone the builders rejected.
We have hidden our light under a basket, rather than letting it shine before others.
We have heard Your call to take up our cross and follow You, but we have clung to our own lives.

Yet You, O merciful King, are full of compassion.
You invite all who labor and are heavy laden to come to You for rest.
You do not break the bruised reed or quench the smoldering wick.
You forgive sins, heal diseases, and call sinners into Your kingdom.

Therefore we turn again to You, our Lord and Redeemer.
We repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.
We lay aside all hypocrisy and deceit.
We seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
We will love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and we will love our neighbors as ourselves.
We will deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow You.

Blessed is the one who is not offended by You.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, forever and ever. Amen.

Questions

1. What combination of scriptural texts would you like to try, if you were going to make a liturgy?

2. What do you notice about the shape of each liturgy? How does it guide your imagination or your emotions?

3. What are your feelings about using AI to generate ideas for liturgies? Does it help you see old truths more creatively? Does it feel cheap and artificial? Or something else? What boundaries would you like to set on your use of AI in this area and why?