Volume II, No. 6 Syndouloi April 4,
2001
The Periodical of the Pre-Sem Club (Spiritual Health Edition) Fellowservants of Christ
I could be totally wrong here (it wouldn’t
be the first time), but I think there is still some truth in what I have to
say.
I think we are great at preaching the
Gospel. I don’t think we hide that at all in our Church. However, I feel we
don’t do a great job of making disciples. We have plenty of people to fill the
pews, but a lot of them do not seem to really be committed to the Church or
even a specific church.
Case in point: my church at home has about
1500 members, but only 30-40 adults come to Bible study on a given Sunday.
People always comment that our church is open and the Spirit is alive and well,
but I wonder if those people that come to church leave their spiritual lives
there each Suday.
I fear becoming legalistic, but I think
that we do not talk about sin in our lives enough. We always come openly to
church for the confession and absolution, and no one has to know what we do in
our own time because God has forgotten it all.
How many unmarried couples that live together
attend your church? Does anyone say anything about it?
Paul wasn’t afraid of telling the young
churches of his day exactly what they were doing right and wrong, but we don’t
do such things as clearly it seems.
I was talking with a friend of mine over
spring break who was defending homosexuality in a number of different ways, but
said that it all boiled down to the commandment, “Love your neighbor as
yourself.”
To love one’s neighbor, however, does not
mean that we allow people to do whatever they want with their lives. If they
are in the Church, it is our duty to show them their sin as Mt. 18 states. It
may be harder to do, but it is what “love” is really about.
The only problem is that people avoid the
Gospel; they avoid the call of discipleship that comes in the great commission.
Challenge your mind: are you really a
Christian because you recite the Apostles’ Creed and know the Lord’s Prayer,
but still choose to download pornography on the Internet?
We do not want to admit that sin has a dominant
role in our lives. Yet we preach freedom from sin through Christ. Still, I
don’t think we help people from their sin if we do not actually try to help
them to live apart from it.
Relativism sneaks into our culture and we
let a lot of things slide, but I will be another Job, and will have a few words
to say to God on the Last Day if I am preaching the Gospel to a church of 1500
members and only 40 come to Bible study.
My point is that we need to call the Church
to be accountable once again. Luther had such an amazing view of the Gospel and
grace because he could never get away from the sin in his life. Thanks to him,
we know that our sins will not have the final word on judgment day.
Bonhoeffer wrote that Jesus’ call of
discipleship was a call to death. Indeed I believe this to be true. But do we
tell people that they have to die to the things of this earth? Do we tell them
that there are clear, absolute standards that God has given us?
I will be a radical and say that we do not
live Christian lives a lot of the time. But I will go even farther and say that
a lot of the time we don’t even desire to live Christian lives. We want
happiness, we want to treat people with respect, but we don’t want to abandon
everything to God. We don’t want to really admit that we have nothing in this
life except what God gives us. And that is one of life’s greatest tragedies: we
change God’s amazing grace into something common and cheap, something we can
live without.
Many people have said that the most influential book outside of
the Bible is The Imitation of Christ
by Thomas à Kempis. In it he includes
numerous exhortations and dialogues between Jesus and a Disciple that are meant
to help us understand more fully what it means to imitate Christ. While there
are some parts in it we may disagree with, there are also parts about which we
should think.
À Kempis uses Jesus to say, “My son, take care not to discuss lofty topics and God’s
secret judgments…. Why one is so highly exalted and another sorely afflicted.
All this is beyond the power of human understanding, and no amount of reasoning
or discussion can possibly fathom divine judgments.”
It is sometimes important to ask why, but it
is also important for us as creatures of the divine to realize that we cannot
know all things, though we always try. The beginning of our wisdom and
knowledge should always be found in the Person of Christ. When we aren’t sure
exactly what is right, we can find comfort in Him for he is not just the fount
for Wisdom and Truth; he is Wisdom
and Truth! Look always to God, in conflict and in peace and you will find
yourself at your feet in front of the Cross.
The Life of a Person
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had time to get all those things done, which you have always wanted to do? Wouldn’t it be nice if you never had to worry about getting enough sleep or eating all of the meals for the day, but instead you could concentrate wholly on one task?
During this time in the semester, we may all be shaking our heads emphatically: yes, that’s exactly what I want! But then we have to question our motives. What is our purpose in this world? Is it to do many things or to do just a few? Is it to become a world traveler or to simply be a permanent resident of one area?
We have already examined the call, but sometimes we forget the reality of the call. The truth is that we are called to be ministers today without a complete understanding of Greek and Hebrew and without a parish. Sometimes we like to imagine what it will be like when we are out of the Seminary and we can practice the Lord’s ministry.
I believe it is better to become focused in the here and now. It is similar to the parable of the talents. If you cannot use what you have now, you have not shown why you would all of a sudden be a wonderful steward of your resources if you had plenty.
That may sound harsh, but it is true. Examine your life. Know why you do the things you do and know why you don’t do other things. We do not have an endless supply of resources and time is limited. All that we have is from God and we can use all of that for his glory.
When you come back from break, focus on these ideas. Be a
servant to others. Live an active spiritual life. Be open to change, but at the
same time start focusing yourself. Realize we all have our own weaknesses, but
that we can strengthen those things as well.
· If you have any questions about the Pre-Sem Club or program
contact either: Pres. Dan Wing, 643-9574; V. Pres. Ryan Oakes, 8676; Sec./Treas.
Josh Lowe, 8563; Editor, Michael Hanel, 8596; or Sponsor, Prof. Block, 7442.
· The next meeting is Wed..
Apr. 4 at 9pm in the Pre-Sem Room,
Founders 203. If you haven’t caught on, our meetings are weekly on Wed.
nights. These one-hour meetings usually consist of free pop and cookies, a speaker or Bible study, and prayer. If you,
or someone you know, would like to lead one of our weekly meetings, please
contact Dan.
· If you know someone
who did not get a copy of Syndouloi,
but would like one, please send a note to the Editor or call him. One need not
be in the Pre-Sem program to participate in or just watch this exchange of
ideas.
A great little book that my pastor gave to
me to read over this previous summer called Where God Meets Man by
Gerhard Forde is the center of this discussion. I don’t want to add a lot of
commentary because I think the words that he uses are more important:
When we
begin to realize that on the cross Jesus was not playing theological games with
God but dying, being forsaken; when we begin to realize that for him too
there was no way out, then we begin to hear the real voice of the law. This
voice of the law, the preaching of the cross, puts the old Adam to death. It
puts to death in us the pious fraud, the man who thought there was some other
way out—even if that meant using the cross itself for his own “theology of
glory.” A theology of the cross puts an end to all that. For if there was no
way out for Jesus, how could there be a way out for us? That is the ultimate
crescendo of the law. The cross makes us face the truth. It destroys the old
Adam….
Such is
a theology of the cross. If you wish to be raised with him you must die with
him. This is to say that there is no way to appropriate the cross other than to
go through it. You can’t have it in theory, you have to try it. There is
nothing to do about death involved but to die it. Then something absolutely new
begins: the life of faith, the life of trusting God….
A
theologian of the cross knows that the only way to deal with such problems is,
as Luther said, to go every day to the cross, and begin again.
And there’s a lot more to be said from this
book, but that is a good start.
