Tuesday, July 10, 2007

A good read:This week I have really enjoyed: Real Sex: the naked truth about chastity by Lauren Winner. I honestly recommend everyone to read this book whether single or married. It is great on chastity but also great on a gospel understanding of married sex. The whole thing is great, but here is a quote that I think particulary pegs our false thinking.

"We are not sure whether bodies are good or bad: it follows that we are not sure whether sex is good or bad. The Christian view of bodies - that is, God's view of bodies - cannot be abstracted from the biblical account of creation. God created people with bodies, and God declared that they were good.... we've learned to reduce sex and everything else bodily, to something that has only utilitarian function."

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

choosing both

This last week in the Gathering we had a guest preacher, Matt Blackwell, who continued our series on Acts. I have always loved Acts 3 and the story of the lame beggar at the gate who was healed and went away leaping, jumping and worshiping God. It is such a beautiful picture of our response to salvation. When I think about how God intervened through Jesus when I had no hope - I want to leap, dance and worship too.

On Sunday night, I realized that Acts 3 is also the perfect combination of our call to gospel ministry: the creation mandate from Gen 1:26-28 and the disciple-making call from Matthew 28:19-20. My friend Jonathan Dodson has a great post on this to explain it further. When we truly understand the gospel, we see ourselves as the empty-handed beggar and want to tell other beggars about the love of Jesus -- the evangelism or disciple-making mandate. But also we have to see our ministry like that of the apostles who looked into the beggar's eyes and restored justice to his life -- the creation/restoration mandate. Both kinds of ministries have their foundation in the redemptive message of the gospel. Historically churches have either done really well at evangelism or social justice but rarely both.

It seems like the apostles saw both as part of their redemptive call from Jesus. Jana personalizes that struggle so well in the Gathering Blog and I have felt the same conviction as I walked the streets of Bangladesh or even today when I drive the streets of Austin. I recognize that I need to be intentional to live both mandates in order to have a full picture of the Gospel ministry of reconciliation.