Thoughts and Amusings

The idea of suffering as part of the Christian faith is not that popular. In fact as a new Christian when I found out that martyrdom was a 'spiritual gift' that some Christians were 'blessed' to have in one of those 'find your gifting courses' I was incredibly reassured by a line that said that veryt few people in Gods family were 'blessed' with this gift. All joking aside, Modern day Western Christianity often has a hard time fitting suffering into its theology. Due to the incredible uprise of the Prosperity gospel it is seen as necessary for one to have 'health, wealth and success' in order for one to be a successful Christian.

Jesus clearly taught that his followers would endure suffering most obviously his sacrifice but also read through the sermon on the mount, this was part of his call of being an obedient follower of Christ (Matthew 5)

I wonder if Western Christians are a bit like the reciepients of the book of Hebrews.

Some of the things the reciepients of the Hebrews had were a great liking for the Old testament ( a bit like prosperity followers) and also some deep seated conscience issues to follow the 'right way' even though had a very skewed idea on what this was (even though it was well supported with some out of context bible verses) .

They had lost how suffering fitted into Faith and got side tracked into a whole lot of frivalous stuff (some of it with the best of intentions) that they thought would take them closer to God.

This led the author of the book to say this to them and I think they are very good words to ponder:

Hebrews 10
32Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
35So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. 38But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him 39But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

I wonder when was the last time you ever heard a sermon on suffering / read an article on it?

Have we disconnected suffering from our contemporary theology or do we only speak about it on special occasions? If suffering is a daily occasion for the persecuted church, how come we hear very little of it in the western church?

A combination of factors have had me thinking about Christianity and leadership lately.

For one the recent debacle over the Christian Party or the lack of one and a rather interesting sermon that I listened to on Sunday that I disagreed with! However a conversation I had with a very good friend made me think that maybe the issue of where we go wrong as Christians and leadership actually goes back to the fact that many Christians are just down right (hold your breath here) idiotic.

This particular friend told me that at his church the previous youth pastor had a policy that youth leaders were not allowed to be in leadership unless they were from a Christian home. Yes folks you heard right. Evidently they ‘made the best leaders’ Goodness help us if the apostle Paul had wanted to be a leader at his church. I really have no idea what exegesis of what Biblical passage this particular belief is held on. It obviously wasn’t anything from Galatians anyway.

Anyway I think Paul is actually a good example of a leader for Christians in a secular environment in anytype of ministry or mission (hence all of us) to emanate.

* Paul constantly reflected back to Jesus and that true wisdom came from here (1 Corinthians 1-4)
*Paul took risks for the sake of the gospel
* Paul persevered through incredible trials
* Paul invested in future leaders and in christian communities
* Paul was not afraid to pull people up (Galatians, 2 Thess, Colossians) or conversely answer criticism in a loving way (2 Corinthians)
* Paul invested in those who others thought could not be leaders (Gentiles, those with mixed heritage, women) and conversely understood the liberating principle that regardless of our cultural standing or past we are all one in Christ Jesus.
* Where Paul was under attack or made a mistake he went back and sort to rectify it (Corinthians)
* Paul was knowledgeable about the cultures he was in ( cf Speech at Athenian Areopagus Acts 17 to Acts 28 where he is speaking to Jews)
* Paul was willing to invest time into his charges – note the amount of time he spent with his churches – 3 years in Ephesus on one of his Journeys.
* Paul was not a user of people (skills /talents) but was genuinely interested in the person and people, see the extended greetings in the letters and his heart felt pleas .
* Paul was open about his feelings, this was not seen as a sign of weakness but was genuinely appreciated in the Christian communities in which he worked (see Corinthians)

This week in class (and when I say in class i mean via online class) we have been discussing the book of Galatians and whether the book was written to a legalist or nomist situation.

This post is not on that. (I hear a sigh of belief from many people who were afraid they were going to have to find out what nomist meant :P )

However it has made me ponder this:

1. Is the gospel we live a gospel with additives. Thus, we say you accept Jesus by faith, but then after becoming a Christian there are certain things one is expected to do to 'stay' Christian, or to be accepted as a christian, or to become 'more christian'. By this I mean, what cultural expectations do we implicitly or explicitly put on ourselves and other believers. For example:

* A true christian reads their bible every day?
* A true christian must go to church every week?
* A true christian doesn't drink
* A true christian must only...........

Have you or do you experience any of these additivies? Where did they come from? Do you think they are cultural add ons? Or are they necessary to make a healthy church community?

I have recently started my New Testament B paper at BCNZ paper by CDL (centre for distance learning) I am really enjoying it so far.

New Test B looks at Acts through to Revelation but focuses mostly on Acts. I am really excited about this as I have never really read through the book of Acts before, except for the odd bit of chapter 2 that gets quoted at Pentecost and other odd times to make some point about the Holy Spirits power. However in reading Acts one learns that the Holy Spirit is a lot more than a once in a life time experience (not that I had been assuming otherwise) anyway….. I have been learning a heap over the last couple of weeks.

A couple of revelations and thinking points:

· In the Gospels Jesus told the disciples to go out…. the disciples were okay with this as long as it was only to people within there comfort zone…i.e. Jews. Peter made a mighty huge call in eating with people and preaching the gospel to those outside this cultural and religious group i.e. Gentiles. Because he did this he could never be leader of the Jerusalem church because he was not ‘conservative ‘ enough……. Who are we putting labels on? Are we willing to do something crazy for God if he calls us to do this , even if it looks crazy to others at our church?
· Secondly I was really convicted by a note in my notes from my lesson on Acts 1-6 on chapter 6 where it said regarding Acts 6:1-7 . ‘that we need to be very wary of the insecurity and need for power of those who want to do it all themselves’ . This has been a great learning and reflection point for me over the past couple of weeks not just in my churchy stuff but in my other work stuff too.
· Thirdly – as fantastic and utopian as collective ownership may seem in the form of Marxism this is not a form of social justice to cure the worlds ills. The common purse as shown in Acts 2 and Acts 4 is an example of a community that volunteered to do so out of a common belief. This again comes back to the beatitudes that say blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God (see my earlier post on this – type in Chris Marshall)