The Challenge of Jesus: The Traditional Evangelical Paradigm
The world is a fallen place. Satan is the ruler of this world. Because of Adam’s sin, all of us are born sinners, destined for a place called Hell in the afterlife – the second death. But the good news is that there is a way out. God has provided that way, by sending His Son to die on our behalf. That was why Jesus came – to die for our sins. He took our place on the cross. Good works cannot save us. We are only saved by God’s amazing grace, through faith. Salvation comes when we personally acknowledge that we are sinners, repent of our sins, and accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord of our lives. It is a personal commitment and decision. Once we’ve done that, we are assured of an eternity with God in Heaven. But that is not all. Once we’ve accepted Christ, we become part of the Church of God. We need the church to encourage one another and build each other up in the faith. But we also have a mission. God wants as many souls to be saved as possible, so we need to share this good news with our friends. We need to make full use of our time here on earth to save as many souls as possible before Jesus comes again. The world will turn to chaos. God will destroy it along with all the evil in it during the end times.
It sounds very much like what most Christians here in Malaysia believe. Is there anything wrong here? There are a few problems with this way of looking at things.
If this is the good news, then Jesus either never or very seldom preached it. The gospels contain accounts of Jesus going around to preach the good news. But nowhere do they record Jesus preaching this version of the gospel. If this is meant to be the message that we are to proclaim as Christians, the crux of our faith, why didn’t the gospel writers give more attention to it?
It gives us the license to become irresponsible stewards. If the world is full of evil, and everything in it is only temporary; if we’re all going to Heaven after we die; then there is no need for us to care about what happens to earth. We can exploit nature and do what we want with it. We can forget about everything on earth except the souls we are supposed to save. It’s all going down the drain anyway, so let’s grab as many souls as we can.
It encourages dichotomies in the Christian life. It’s all about saving souls. The soul and everything ‘spiritual’ matters. The physical and social are not as important. Hence, sharing the gospel with someone to save his soul is more important than helping the sick and poor. Attending to the spiritual needs of another person becomes more important than attending to his physical needs. Engineering, information technology and most other disciplines have no value in themselves. The only reason we get involved in such fields is so that we can be testimonies for God in the workplace. The only reason we get involved in social work is so that the people we help will eventually accept Christ through our actions.
The only reason for good character and good works is so that we can be good testimonies to attract others into the faith. We are placed and called into the marketplaces and workplaces so that we can be a light by holding onto high moral principles, loving others and caring for others. The main reason for this is so that others will be touched and will want to become Christians too. Thus, more people can be saved.
Very often, the good news becomes more like bad news. When people we have come to love and care about do not accept Jesus as their personal Savior, we assume that they have rejected God’s offer of salvation. We then assume that she is not saved and will end up in Hell.
Is this what following Christ is all about?
It sounds very much like what most Christians here in Malaysia believe. Is there anything wrong here? There are a few problems with this way of looking at things.
If this is the good news, then Jesus either never or very seldom preached it. The gospels contain accounts of Jesus going around to preach the good news. But nowhere do they record Jesus preaching this version of the gospel. If this is meant to be the message that we are to proclaim as Christians, the crux of our faith, why didn’t the gospel writers give more attention to it?
It gives us the license to become irresponsible stewards. If the world is full of evil, and everything in it is only temporary; if we’re all going to Heaven after we die; then there is no need for us to care about what happens to earth. We can exploit nature and do what we want with it. We can forget about everything on earth except the souls we are supposed to save. It’s all going down the drain anyway, so let’s grab as many souls as we can.
It encourages dichotomies in the Christian life. It’s all about saving souls. The soul and everything ‘spiritual’ matters. The physical and social are not as important. Hence, sharing the gospel with someone to save his soul is more important than helping the sick and poor. Attending to the spiritual needs of another person becomes more important than attending to his physical needs. Engineering, information technology and most other disciplines have no value in themselves. The only reason we get involved in such fields is so that we can be testimonies for God in the workplace. The only reason we get involved in social work is so that the people we help will eventually accept Christ through our actions.
The only reason for good character and good works is so that we can be good testimonies to attract others into the faith. We are placed and called into the marketplaces and workplaces so that we can be a light by holding onto high moral principles, loving others and caring for others. The main reason for this is so that others will be touched and will want to become Christians too. Thus, more people can be saved.
Very often, the good news becomes more like bad news. When people we have come to love and care about do not accept Jesus as their personal Savior, we assume that they have rejected God’s offer of salvation. We then assume that she is not saved and will end up in Hell.
Is this what following Christ is all about?
posted by sojourner @ Friday, September 23, 2005
3 comments
3 Comments:
IMHO, this is not the 'traditional evangelical paradigm'...
It is the 'contemporary evangelical paradigm' which combines Tim Lahaye eschatology, Charles Finney approach of evangelism, Bill Hybels type of church, Benny Hinn type of preaching... :)
We have forgotten what "the traditional evangelical paradigm" looks like in Malaysia...
I think it is the combination of "every inch is Christ's" type of Abraham Kuyper engagement, John Wesley type of evangelism (and social activism), Martyn Lloyd Jones' type of preaching, John Stott's type of vision for mission and Francis Schaeffer type of apologetics...
This type of evangelical is very, very different from more popular caricature easily dismantled by criticisms above...
I think the future belongs to those who walk in this path :)
I agree with you on everything, except one premise - "If this is the good news, then Jesus either never or very seldom preached it."
Actually I think this is a misunderstanding – Jesus had a very different role than the apostles. The apostles spent their time with him in their locality, training and understanding their teacher and messiah, but later, after his death, resurrection and ascension, he would instruct them to go out and preach to all. If we take Jesus’ ministry as being prescriptive of what a church should do in all entirety (and don’t supplement it with the acts of the apostles) then we would have a Jewish church, since Jesus really didn’t strain himself to reach the gentiles (he would have made a debut in Rome if that was his mission) – but he limits his outreach to persistent gentiles that made it to him.
But in Paul, the one Jesus choose to continue his work to a greater and more far reaching scale, would do so. There are many other areas where we must differentiate the person, role and works of Jesus from the Apostles. Also, from there, we must also differentiate the differences between the Apostolic authority and works and us – if not, there really is no real workable model for the completion of the cannon.
Hedonese: oops.. my mistake! I guess the name I chose is not correct then! So much for all these modernist 'categories'!!! hahaha... kidding. :)
jacksons: well... for me, I'm looking at people like N. T. Wright and learning a lot from their way of interpreting the apostles, especially Paul - in light of Jesus' message, rather than looking at it as different perspectives. I agree with you that Paul was sent specifically to the Gentiles, thus his message did skew more towards that context. But for me, Paul and Jesus did preach the same message, but to different people.
Thanks to people like N. T. Wright, maybe we can learn to see that maybe this 'modern evangelical paradigm' message was not what Paul and the apostles really taught either - especially the part about being saved from Hell to go to heaven by accepting Jesus as our personal Savior. :P Of course... I'm still learning.. hehe.. not to say that I agree with eveything Wright says... I'm still very new into exploration into his fresh, historical perspectives!
Post a Comment
<< Home