“But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” – Paul (Acts 20:24)
So I teach this men’s Bible study. Today we covered way too much material and I felt a little overwhelmed… but then in reflecting back on the “lesson” I realize my inability to synthesize everything and hand it out in neatly packaged bite-sized pieces is in itself a microcosm of what we are studying.
In other words, my floundering is exactly the point.
Let me explain. We were at that grouping of chapters 18-21 in the Acts story where Paul is in the middle of his second journey, returns, then immediately sets off on his third. This all goes on for probably six or seven years of “next verse same as the first” until he lands back in Jerusalem.
So we talked a lot about Paul’s essential message and why that made him such a controversial figure – especially because the Jesus story tends to throw a wrench in the works of the status quo.
What’s telling is this relationship between words and behavior. The message of Jesus is more than an interesting theology, it invites people to live differently; the result of knowing Jesus is necessarily more generosity, compassion, kindness, grace, decency, love, peace, mercy, sharing and healing.
The preaching-the-message part is vitally important, because people’s lives are not transformed in this way simply by osmosis. Paul’s invitation for people to know Jesus is the critical starting point because Christianity is not a social movement it is a realignment of the heart and soul.
Christianity is not a social movement it is a realignment of the heart and soul.
Okay. That’s a good place to land. I think this is where too much of 21st Century Christianity misses the mark; the Bible teaches that when Jesus gets a hold of our heart and our soul then the evidence is always generosity, compassion, kindness, grace, decency, love, peace, mercy, sharing and healing.
Because Jesus does not endorse your social movement, Jesus ignites his. – DEREK