Since my last post I’ve been thinking about this part of one of the paragraphs:

CS Lewis talks about us placing God in the dock of a court case, deciding whether we want him or not depending on the given evidence

Lewis’ point here is that the Gospel, the “Good News” is no longer “Good News”, but is just “News” and to many people it isn’t even that - they’ve heard it all before. Why was it _Good_ news before but not now, and what changed? The reason is that we don’t understand the great peril that we’re in: humanity don’t realise or accept that it is man in the dock awaiting judgement, we assume that we’re right to decide whether to accept God.  The awful term ‘accepting Jesus’ seems to be a symptom of this idea when what is meant is the point man commits to beginning the process of salvation & sanctification (which are two words for the same thing applied at different times).

I think about my approach to mission and how I might talk about what Jesus has done for me, and in the latter part of the above quote, what God can do for someone else. Don’t get me wrong, testimony is great, Revelation 12.11, and its great to talk about how strong & good our God is. What I’m trying to say is this: I now doubt the effectiveness of convincing someone to follow Christ using short-term benefit to self as a central argument considering that a central requirement of Salvation is a continuing repentance for, and death to, self. There is benefit, no doubt, but it is not the old-self that is the recipient.

Or again, if I were Eugene Peterson: Something totally sucked the day Salvation became totally about me.

Thinking about the day of Pentecost, (which, speaking in terms of ratio, has the largest increase of followers created on one day that I can find in the bible), Acts 2, Peter stood up and preached a message and then “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other disciples ‘What should we do?’. Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of Holy Spirit… With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation’.

Here Peter preaches a message of reality: he tells them why they were in the dock (because of their sin, in this case he focussed on the fact that they had just killed Jesus), the people are convicted (a miracle of the Holy Spirit), and realise their position. I think I’m quite suprised that the people believed Peter, but that is a work of the Holy Spirit. Peter then goes on to heal the crippled begger and then preach another message of repentance. An interesting model.

I wonder if we’ve goofed here when we talk about unchurched people not understanding the concept of repentance. Of course they do, there’s a million books, films and songs that sing about being saved from themselves, about being sorry and making a change, about being given 2nd chances. …and I’m not saying we shouldn’t use healing from sickness, stress or whatever else as an access point to the gospel, but if we avoid talking about the reality of awaiting judgement and about hell then we’re not challenging the assumption that they’re in the judges seat: the Good News becomes just news and we just hold our friend’s hands all the way to hell.

(Re Hell: There are lots of different interpretations of what hell is - the classic is Eternal Concious Punishment though I’m not sure who would be doing the punishing - I can’t see God doing it and we’re told Satan & his minions are going to be thrown into a lake of fire at some point - this is where my sympathy for annihilationism, though extra-biblical, comes in.  I would still define hell as a place where God is not, and Heaven is wherever God is manifest - and this simple understanding seems to fit inside all the different interpretations of hell too.  Our universe seems to fit somewhere in the middle - God is here but not manifest and so it is just a warground!)

So, to sum up, the Good News isn’t Good News unless people understand that they’re awaiting Judgement. Repentance is unavoidable, and just talking about benefits and having a better life in the here and now (God has done this or that for me and can make your life better too!) is going to require us to be salesmen in our mission, rather than communicators of reality. A communicator of reality I can be, mainly because my Ephesians 4 ministry is Teacher, but like I said before, a salesman I am not.

I’ve also been reading Asuza Street (a beginning strand of the Pentecostal movement which started just after the Welsh revival), and his main focus is on repentance (so that’s Peter and Asuza Street on focussing on repentance). Its a really great, hit the nail on the head, don’t mix your words story of what happenned. I love reading books like that. Though it does make me chuckle that he doesn’t ever name his wife - he just calls her ‘Wife’, ie: “Wife was one with me on this matter.”…

Yesterday in worship I found a certain sticking point in a few of the songs I was singing (in me, not the song). The Vineyard song Breath has the lyric “I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you.” and I felt a totally fed up of singing about me - about my desperation and my need. (”my supply… …all that I need…”, there too many songs to mention, etc). So I felt led to sing about Jesus instead, singing “You’re the great redeemer, seeker and saver”, and sensed God powerfully as I refused to focus on me & my weakness and need but only on God’s greatness and goodness, and knew that if I pressed in I was on the edge of a powerful encounter. But then the worship stopped… (it was short because it was a morning service). I’m just fed up of singing about me. True worship, P Barttelman from Asuza Street tells us is about pleasing God, not ourselves, and about giving to God, not to ourselves. I’ve heard teaching about worship that suggests that we worship so that God is in his rightful place so we can meet Him and He can affect change in our lives. How did we manage to twist something that is about bringing pleasure & giving to God around to benefiting us? What is it with us that means we won’t do something unless we somehow benefit? I’m sure it does benefit us, but true worship does not have that as its motivation.

Related posts
A Gospel of Power not of words
Hymns vs Choruses/Contemporary Songs
How not to do Matthew 18 accountability
Jesus born on Christmas day
Faith is spelt N.O.R.I.S.K.