God offers salvation to us out of His love for us rather than anything we could do. Have you accepted that gift from Him? Has that changed your life and are you expressing your thanks through your life?Feel free to continue the conversation here. Also, if you've got more to talk about beyond these two points, by all means go for it...
Unfortunately, the behavior of Christians can still create walls between God’s people. If we are truly Jesus’ followers, we should strive to make God’s temple—which is our very selves—open to everyone. We need to develop attitudes and actions that show God’s love to others each and every day. Do your actions make it easy or hard for people to experience God? Are you building walls around yourself or tearing them down?
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Ephesians 2
Here are our discussion points that we used as a "jumping off" point. We didn't fully talk about these so much tonight b/c the conversation went a slightly different directions, but here they are for further discussion...
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5 comments:
The grace passage here is all about te story of salvation. My question is, what are we being saved from? So often we think of salvation as something that will happen later-- getting saved from eternal damnation. I took a theology class from Alex Sider last year, and he mentioned something about many references to salvation in the Bible happen in a time when people were asking to be saved from some physical oppression in the present time. When people asked God to save them, they were asking God to save their butts right then.
So again, my question is what do we need saved from today?
Perhaps what we need saved from is ourselves-- from our own misleading comfort, from the idols that we put before God, from our unwillingness to drop everything to follow Christ.
I sometimes hate sermons on the grace passages of the Bible because they often make salvation seem so easy. Being saved becomes as easy as taking a cookie out of the cosmic cookie jar. Where is the work in that? My recent thought processes have focused a lot on the vocation of Justice for the oppressed and Community living as a christian way of life. I still struggle to find how the works fit in to the grace story.
So again I get back to salvation. What does salvation even look like. Perhaps it is less cosmic than sunday school taught me to believe. Maybe the gift of Grace is tangible communion with Christ-- the kind you start to see when believers show love to each other and ultimately become the imminant Christ to themselves in the rest of the world, the kind you start to see in the eyes of the "least of these" when you actually start to give a damn about what is happening in our oppressive, consumeristic society.
Maybe, just maybe, Dietrich bonhoeffer was on to something when he wrote about costly grace from the nazi prisons.
I like to think that there is hope beyond telling someone Jesus loves them but not showing them, and I like to think that hope is found in Jesus words when he said "come, follow me."
Kyle I think this shows some great thought. I would want to push you on the point that you made considering the 'ease' of salvation or the 'work' it entails.
Let's not forget that God offers us grace as a free gift. I don't think that acceptance is the hard part. I would argue that it's the working out of our salvation 'with fear and trembling.' Herein lies the work, I think.
Now, I agree that we may not do a great job of explaining the breadth and depth of what it means to live a life with Christ and for Christ. But in all fairness, how would you explain the 'work' that the Jesus journey entails before one is exposed to the freedom and peace that is the grace of God?
What frustrates me are the issues and attributes that are taught as the ones that come across as the one's that matter to God the most. When issues like poverty and social justice that seem to central to the gospel get trumped by issues that are easily divisive and easy to take a stance on relatively speaking...
Where's the work in that?
Ryan, I agree that a life in Christ is a gift given to us, and that gift is where Christian life starts. As my buddy mark said in class today, thats the place that the rest of our Christian lives start from. The thing I get so frustrated with though, is the way that grace is portrayed as something that is easy and doesn't cost us anything. To me, becoming a true follower of Christ means completely denying yourself, giving up everything and giving it all to Christ. When you do that, you empty yourself so that you can be filled with Christ. You become one with him. Christ becomes imminent because we can begin to see him in those around us, and they can start to see him in us. That is what grace is all about-- becoming Christ... the perfect communion.
I think too often grace theology falls short when it becomes just about sins. Grace is a holistic gift. It affects every part of our lives.
thanks for the reply.
I haven't heard the talk yet, but I am intrigued by this conversation. I am reading Brennan Manning's the importance of being foolish.
It has given me much to think about.
He talks about Western Christianity. This troubles me, as I am a part of Western Christianity. The gospel of love is being replaced with the gospel of oppress the poor. I find this troubling, because that is not what Jesus said.
But Jesus troubles me more. (Ha, isn't that strange.) I've accepted the gift, and I'm frustrated by my lack of Christlikeness... Maybe it's more correct to say that I am troubled by me, not by Jesus.
I liked what you said, Kyle, about grace being holistic. In theory, it's supposed to, but in the end, we make it part of our church life. Grace is in the church box, only used on sunday, or wednesday, or even tuesday at small group. Hmm. Too often Christ is not my center. Too often me is my center.
That's all for now. I might ponder more, and come back.
Megan-
I love how you said, "maybe it's more correct to say that I am troubled by me, rather than by Jesus."
In that statement I think is the subtlety of a transformed life. It's a pretty major thing to be able to say that you get in the way of Jesus is doing versus Jesus getting in the way of you're doing.
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