Missional-Life

Today I was rereading part of Terry Virgo’s book ‘A People Prepared’. I came across a quote by R. C. Sproul which I just had to post.

“It is both foolish and wicked to suppose that we will make much progress in sanctification if we isolate ourselves from the visible church. Indeed it is commonplace to hear people declare that they don’t need to unite with a church to be a Christian. They claim that their devotion is personal and private, not institutional or corporate. This is not the testimony of the great saints of history; it is the confession of fools.” (R. C. Sproul, The Soul’d Quest for God, Tyndale House, 1992)

This youtube click was circulated on facebook a couple of weeks ago, but for those of you who missed it–it’s amazing!

What a great promo DVD!

Have you ever tried to articulate the metanarrative or big story of the Bible? Last night at SUMO, the emerging leaders group that I’m running at Nene Family Church, we did just that. I asked the guys to try and articulate in a few sentences what the Bible was all about.

Here’s my attempt at summing up the metanarrative of the Bible:

The overall metanarrative of the Bible is of a missionary God, so committed to the rescue of sinful and hostile enemies that He was willing to incarnate that passion in human flesh and have cruel nails driven through His hands and a spear driven into His side to create a beachhead for his grace and salvation to be unleashed in enemy territory. Ephesians 2 is a classic example; hostile but enslaved enemies being released by God’s sovereign rescuing activity.

Following Christ’s resurrection and ascension; speaking as ‘the’ great missionary or pioneer to those who would follow after him in his footsteps, He said, “as the father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21, ESV). Suddenly this metanarrative takes on a new surge of energy as the Spirit of mission is poured out upon the church so that we get caught up in Christ’s great rescue mission!

Over the past few years John Piper and N. T. Wright have become the figureheads in the growing debate called the ‘new perspective on Paul’. Christianity today has helpfully published a pdf document that summarises the major differences between Piper and what many would call the traditional reformed perspective and N.T Wright and the New perspective. I would really encourage you to have a read and think about the issues raised in this document, because both of these figures are ‘heavy weights’ in the theological world and the issues that they are discussing are not small or insignificant!

Click here to download the document (please note it may take a few seconds at the document is 4.5 mb)