Did the witers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - EYEWITNESS

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

Grace and community

Understanding and acceptance of the grace of God is the best possible foundation for developing intimate relationships, whether it be in the closest of all relationships, that of marriage, in ordinary family relationships, in friendships, in church fellowships, in the relationships between communities, or even in the relationships between races and nations.

The reason given by Peter for husbands being considerate towards their wives is that they are both “heirs…of the gracious gift of life”[literally: “the grace of life”] (1 Peter 3:7). Their equal value in God’s sight is based on the fact that they are both recipients of his undeserved goodness. And where relationships have failed, it is still grace that can provide healing and hope for future relationships. Rubel Shelley says in Divorce and Remarriage: a Redemptive Theology:

By grace, people who have failed at marriage and who have divorced for the worst or most trivial reasons may be redeemed from guilt. People who have destroyed marriages through their adulteries can be pardoned. People whose hearts and behaviours have been cold, hard, and unfeeling can be made whole. And this is by forgiveness and renewal from above—not through another divorce, not by the penance of celibacy, and not by unringing the bell of harm already done. What law cannot do, grace accomplishes. What law cannot undo, Christ’s blood forgives. What our legalistic interpretations have confused, the redemptive presence of the Holy Spirit can sanctify.

The gospel story, which emphasises that we are all flawed human beings and all potential recipients of his grace, puts us all on the same level. “There is no difference[1] between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24). Jerry Bridges, in Transforming Grace, uses the Grand Canyon to illustrate this theme of “no difference”:

The canyon averages about nine miles in width from rim to rim. Suppose one person could leap out about thirty feet from the edge while another can leap only six feet. What difference does it make? Sure, one person can leap five times as far as the other, but relative to nine miles (47,520 feet!), it makes no difference…Both leaps are absolutely worthless for crossing the canyon. And when God built a bridge across the “Grand Canyon” of our sin, He didn’t stop thirty feet or even six feet from our side. He built the bridge all the way.

[1] Italics mine.

As the saying goes, “The ground is level at the foot of the cross.”

If there is any place where the grace of God should be manifest, it is in the local Christian fellowship. Churches where the grace of God is proclaimed and practised, where loving, forgiving relationships are the order of the day, are likely to be growing churches where visitors feel welcome and at home. Walter Brueggeman, in his 1989 Lyman Beecher Lecture at Yale University, spoke of the church as a “space for grace” and called the church to be a people who “create poetry in a prose-flattened world”. One organisation from which we can learn something is Alcoholics Anonymous. Philip Yancey, in one of his insightful Back pages in Christianity Today, ‘Lessons from Rock Bottom’, tells how he was struck by an observation from an alcoholic friend of his, who said:

When I’m late to church, people turn around and stare at me with frowns of disapproval. I get the clear message that I’m not as responsible as they are. When I’m late to AA, the meeting comes to a halt and everyone jumps up to hug and welcome me. They realise that my lateness may be a sign that I almost didn’t make it. When I show up, it proves that my desperate need for them won over my desperate need for alcohol.

Two stories

In his book Grace Choices: Walking in Step with the God of Grace,[2] Jeff Lucas tells two delightful stories that wonderfully illustrate the transforming power of a community where the grace of God is proclaimed and practised.

[2] Authentic Media, 2004, ©. Used by permission.

They are as follows:

Are we building church where real humans—and thoroughly proficient sinners—are genuinely welcomed, and allowed to journey rather than instantly being fed into an ever churning discipleship machine? The church that I am privileged to be part of in Colorado had two opportunities to extend such a welcome.

Nicky was a stripper, a bright pre-law student who had discovered that men can be stupid enough—her words—to pay large sums of money to watch women undress. Over a period of months, the man who cut her hair and fixed her nails befriended her and never ‘made any moves’—something that surprised her and prompted her to ask why. Wasn’t he attracted to her? Larry, the hairdresser, gently let her know that he was a Christian and that his motives were honourable: would she like to go to a church meeting with him?

Nicky sat through her first service whispering and muttering behind cupped hands into the patient Larry’s ear. Apparently she thought that the speaker had been given advance notice that she was going to attend, seeing as he seemed to be speaking directly to her. How else was he to know what was going on in her life, and be able to speak so clearly into her situation? Larry whispered that it was probably God working overtime: no one had supplied the preacher with advance intelligence. At the end of the meeting she made a public response to Jesus Christ. She read the New Testament twice through that week, and eventually called the pastor, who was somewhat surprised to be getting a call from a stripper. She was about to change career.

“I’ve been reading that Corinthian book”, Nicky said over the phone. “Have you read that one?” The pastor affirmed that he had indeed read Paul’s first epistle to his friends at Corinth. “It says there that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. That means that Jesus doesn’t want me to work as a stripper, does he?” With a cough, the minister agreed: that would be right.

“I’ve also read that bit where it says that God will provide for all my needs in the Matthew book. So…he will take care of me if I stop stripping, won’t he, with my rent and student debts and all…”

The pastor assured Nicky that God would indeed honour her for making obedient choices, and God did: some years later she is still faithfully serving the Lord. Her baptism was interesting, in that around thirty of her friends from the club, including bra-less strippers in micro-skirts and some rather beefy bouncers walked down the centre aisle and parked themselves on the front row. Twelve of them came to Christ that night. One of the church people was unimpressed, made an appointment to see the pastor, and said, “You’ve ruined our church by allowing these people here.” I would have been tempted to floor her with a rebuke, but the pastor was wiser than I: “I know. I don’t know what to do. Will you help me to sort this all out?” The lady thought it over, and ended the meeting by saying, “Oh well, I suppose we are just going to have to love them.” And to her credit, she did just that. But notice that both sinners and saints—on their different journeys—were allowed space to grow and travel.

Then there was George, a huge, hard man who loved to fight. He had a well-earned reputation for foul language and mean behaviour, and so tattooed his life message on his knuckles: the left fist had a word that began with ‘f’, and the right hand concluded the message; ‘off’. He wore his message to the world, straight from the heart, on his hands. For some reason he decided to come to a church meeting, and sat with his fists under his chin, glowering at everybody. An older lady walked right over to him and said, “I don’t believe I’ve met you before. May I give you a hug?” Before he could answer, she threw her arms around this big bear of a man. He said nothing, and couldn’t because the tears just poured out of him, his muscled shoulders shaking as he wept like a baby.

A new Christian, he still had his unfortunate message on those gnarled knuckles, which usually only created an issue when he raised his hands in worship. But he was unable to find a job—no employer wanted to hire a man with those words scrawled in crude black ink upon his body. Finally George asked for help, and an offering was taken so that he could have laser surgery to eradicate that old message for good. On the day of his baptism, he held his hands high as he stood in the tank and, weeping again, he shouted, over and over, “I’m clean, I’m clean!” Neither of these true stories could have happened in a church that was committed to looking for a better class of sinner.