Thursday is for Discipleship
I am away at a conference training church planters this week and have zero time or energy to write a new piece today. But there is a piece that I wrote not too long ago titled, Jesus is not your Savior, that was more controversial than the comment stream indicated. I would love to get some of the newest guests to the blog (but also some of you long-timers) to interact with one another over this post.
Am I right or wrong? Why or why not? How should what I have written be nuanced in another way? What other Scripture should be considered in the discussion?
Here’s the link. I will check back in over the weekend, probably on Sunday, and drink from your combined wisdom. Discuss all for the glory of Jesus.
ChosenRebel's Blog 
In one of the referenced posts you wrote,
“If we fail to understand where Jesus ALWAYS began his process of discipleship we will not understand the best process of discipleship. The Church does many good things, and we should keep doing many of them, but the task is to MAKE DISCIPLES (Mt. 28), and if we are to do that we must, all of us, not just the gifted ones, become better at proclaiming the gospel.”
I agree. The question then becomes what gospel did Jesus proclaim. There are different gospels in the church, some more nuanced than others. What is the gospel of Jesus (the gospel of the kingdom)? It it solely about the atonement? Is it narrow, comprehensive, nuanced? Is it primarily appeasement or love based? Is it primarily a legal or relational arrangement? Our understanding of the gospel affects the how, what, and why of our disciple making.
If my understanding of reality and the gospel is…
Everyone of us are evil sinners worthy of death. God is holy and hates sin. We could never be with God in our sinful condition. But God is also love and loves evil sinners. To reconcile the situation God became a man and took the death penalty for us. Now, if we believe that gospel, we can go to heaven when we die. Otherwise we go to hell and suffer the eternal torment we justly deserve.
…my disciple making will look one way.
If my understanding of reality and the gospel is…
God is a triune community of Father, Son, and Spirit bound in love. His creation (which was good) found evil within it. In wanting to become more than a creature, man rejected God and was subject to evil and death. In love God became a man and subjected himself to our death to demonstrate his love, a substitutionary offering of himself on our behalf so that we could live in him and from him.
…my disciple making will look another way.
Those are two boiled down views of the nature of reality and the gospel. There are more, and within each people will lean toward one emphasis or another.
LikeLike