In the four gospels Jesus makes a number of direct statements about why he came. I have wanted to investigate and compare all these statements for a few months, and since it is mildly relevant to a paper I am writing this semester I went ahead and made a list of them all. I tried to group them by theme at first, but that didn’t work very well. They are listed here in order of canonical appearance, with passages that parallel one another grouped together. Enjoy…
Matthew 5:17 – “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Matthew 9:13 – “But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:17 – On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Luke 5:32 – “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Matthew 10:34-35 – “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law”
Luke 12:51 – “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”
Matthew 20:28 – “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45 – “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 1:38 – Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come."
Luke 4:43 – But he said, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent."
Luke 4:18-19 – “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
Luke 12:49 – “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”
Luke 19:10 – “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
John 3:17 – “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 6:38 – “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”
John 6:51 – “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
John 9:39 – “Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 12:27-28 – “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
John 12:46-47 – “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.”
John 18:37 - "You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Blue Like... Not Jazz?
Today Mark Coppenger did a lecture on Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz. I found it very interesting and entertaining, so I am posting my notes from the lecture for all to see here. Keep in mind that I have not read this book, and that these notes may not be written exactly the way Coppenger would have wanted me to write them...
10 Things That Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz Is Blue Like That Are Not Jazz:
1. Blue like blue states--Miller says that he doesn't like it when Christians are political, but he takes relentless jabs at Republicans.
2. Blue like the Blue Light Special--Miller is big on marketing and getting people to hear you. His main marketing tactic is self defacement, which is not the same thing as authenticity.
3. Blue like blue blood--Miller displays an elitist attitude in that he looks down on big-haired evangelists, people who pass out tracts at bus stops, etc.
4. Blue like Berry Blue Jello--He's like nailing Jello to a wall; he'll hack on people who are political in one way but then himself be political in another way; he says judgmentalism isn't cool, but then he says it was cool when John the Baptist called the Pharisees snakes. Etc.
5. Blue like Blue Oyster Cult--The book is a sort of throw-back to the 60's. Just like we look back on the hippies now and say they were kind of silly, we'll probably look back to this line of thought some day the same way.
6. Blue like black and blue--Miller likes to show off his wounds and sound abused. He shows everyone how he's gotten hurt in traditional Christian settings. He doesn't recognize that we've all been hurt and most of us keep going.
7. Blue like working blue--Miller gets little thrills from his readers by throwing in profanity and acting like a bad boy. It's a lot like comedians who get a cheap laugh with vulgarity when they can't come up with better material.
8. Blue like Pabst Blue Ribbon--Miller promotes beer with such light-hearted ease that one would be led to forget that it's a killer.
9. Blue like blue ice--Miller loves dropping blue ice on things that are sacred. Most notably, he dismisses Christian doctrine as mathematical and dull. Russell Moore has said that he's like Schleiermacher with a soul patch. Just like Schleiermacher (the "father of Protestant Liberalism"), he reduces Christianity to feeling and experience. He is following the pattern of old-line Liberalism by trying to update Christianity for modern times. If we follow what he says and just "lighten up" with regard to theology, we are destroying a legacy that the heroes of the faith fought for.
10. Blue like a blue screen--There's a smoke-and-mirrors aspect to Blue Like Jazz. Miller claims that his ideas are designed to reach people, but everything he says we need to do is whatever he wants to do. He hasn't backed up his claims with evidence of having brought more people to the Lord by doing what he does. Not only that, but he dismisses the preferences of people who aren't like him as the wrong way to do things, especially bus-stop tract distributors and door-to-door evangelists and the like.
Coppenger ended by saying this (I'm not sure if I have the last sentence right): "Winston Churchill said, 'Before you're 30 if you're not liberal you have no heart. After you're 30 if you're not conservative you have no brains.' Donald is 31 now. [It's time to turn around.]"
In the Q&A time at the end Don Whitney also made a comment that Miller didn't even make any attempt at all to use Scripture to back up his arguments. Coppenger said that doing so would make Miller guilty of "doing math".
The End.
I know some people won't like this post, but so many of us younger Christians have become Miller disciples that I thought it could be helpful to hear a different opinion.
10 Things That Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz Is Blue Like That Are Not Jazz:
1. Blue like blue states--Miller says that he doesn't like it when Christians are political, but he takes relentless jabs at Republicans.
2. Blue like the Blue Light Special--Miller is big on marketing and getting people to hear you. His main marketing tactic is self defacement, which is not the same thing as authenticity.
3. Blue like blue blood--Miller displays an elitist attitude in that he looks down on big-haired evangelists, people who pass out tracts at bus stops, etc.
4. Blue like Berry Blue Jello--He's like nailing Jello to a wall; he'll hack on people who are political in one way but then himself be political in another way; he says judgmentalism isn't cool, but then he says it was cool when John the Baptist called the Pharisees snakes. Etc.
5. Blue like Blue Oyster Cult--The book is a sort of throw-back to the 60's. Just like we look back on the hippies now and say they were kind of silly, we'll probably look back to this line of thought some day the same way.
6. Blue like black and blue--Miller likes to show off his wounds and sound abused. He shows everyone how he's gotten hurt in traditional Christian settings. He doesn't recognize that we've all been hurt and most of us keep going.
7. Blue like working blue--Miller gets little thrills from his readers by throwing in profanity and acting like a bad boy. It's a lot like comedians who get a cheap laugh with vulgarity when they can't come up with better material.
8. Blue like Pabst Blue Ribbon--Miller promotes beer with such light-hearted ease that one would be led to forget that it's a killer.
9. Blue like blue ice--Miller loves dropping blue ice on things that are sacred. Most notably, he dismisses Christian doctrine as mathematical and dull. Russell Moore has said that he's like Schleiermacher with a soul patch. Just like Schleiermacher (the "father of Protestant Liberalism"), he reduces Christianity to feeling and experience. He is following the pattern of old-line Liberalism by trying to update Christianity for modern times. If we follow what he says and just "lighten up" with regard to theology, we are destroying a legacy that the heroes of the faith fought for.
10. Blue like a blue screen--There's a smoke-and-mirrors aspect to Blue Like Jazz. Miller claims that his ideas are designed to reach people, but everything he says we need to do is whatever he wants to do. He hasn't backed up his claims with evidence of having brought more people to the Lord by doing what he does. Not only that, but he dismisses the preferences of people who aren't like him as the wrong way to do things, especially bus-stop tract distributors and door-to-door evangelists and the like.
Coppenger ended by saying this (I'm not sure if I have the last sentence right): "Winston Churchill said, 'Before you're 30 if you're not liberal you have no heart. After you're 30 if you're not conservative you have no brains.' Donald is 31 now. [It's time to turn around.]"
In the Q&A time at the end Don Whitney also made a comment that Miller didn't even make any attempt at all to use Scripture to back up his arguments. Coppenger said that doing so would make Miller guilty of "doing math".
The End.
I know some people won't like this post, but so many of us younger Christians have become Miller disciples that I thought it could be helpful to hear a different opinion.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Our Attitude Toward God's Word
The other day in Hershael York's preaching class he told us something that Bruce Ware said that struck him when Ware was being interviewed for a faculty position at Southern. It seemed pretty great to me, too, so I'm going to say it here...
If there is any portion of the Bible that we don't love, then our attitude is not in line with God's will. Those of us who are "conservative" claim that every word of Scripture is God-breathed, but too often there are portions of it that we simply tolerate instead of embracing them whole-heartedly. It's too easy for our attitude about some of its claims to become, "I don't like it, but since it's God's Word I'll accept it and live by it." If we don't like it, the problem is not with the Bible but with us. Either we don't understand it properly or our own sinful presuppositions are hindering our ability to believe, and it's more likely the latter.
One example that I think many of us can relate to is that of the Bible's multiple claims that men and women have different roles in the family and the church. It says very unambiguously that men are to be the leaders in both of those institutions. For a long time I had an attitude that this didn't really make any sense, but that I would grudgingly go along with it because that's what the Bible says. You know what that attitude is? It's pharisaism, and Jesus had something to say about it: "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.'" I want not only to honor God by saying that He's right in what he wrote about men and women, but to draw my heart close to Him and love every word He has said about the matter. I want to get rid of every worldly influence that has crept into my mind about gender's meaninglessness and replace it with an admiration of God's glorious plan in distinguishing the two halves of humanity from one another. I want to embrace the beauty of marriage as a picture of Christ giving himself up out of love for the church. I want to see how our distinct gender roles reflect those within the Trinity, with the Father as the head and the Son and Spirit in perfect submission. In short, I want what God has said about men and women to make me love Him more. Any hint of disbelief is my problem, not His.
Of course this applies not just to gender role passages but to everything that in Scripture that makes us uncomfortable. We must not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
If there is any portion of the Bible that we don't love, then our attitude is not in line with God's will. Those of us who are "conservative" claim that every word of Scripture is God-breathed, but too often there are portions of it that we simply tolerate instead of embracing them whole-heartedly. It's too easy for our attitude about some of its claims to become, "I don't like it, but since it's God's Word I'll accept it and live by it." If we don't like it, the problem is not with the Bible but with us. Either we don't understand it properly or our own sinful presuppositions are hindering our ability to believe, and it's more likely the latter.
One example that I think many of us can relate to is that of the Bible's multiple claims that men and women have different roles in the family and the church. It says very unambiguously that men are to be the leaders in both of those institutions. For a long time I had an attitude that this didn't really make any sense, but that I would grudgingly go along with it because that's what the Bible says. You know what that attitude is? It's pharisaism, and Jesus had something to say about it: "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.'" I want not only to honor God by saying that He's right in what he wrote about men and women, but to draw my heart close to Him and love every word He has said about the matter. I want to get rid of every worldly influence that has crept into my mind about gender's meaninglessness and replace it with an admiration of God's glorious plan in distinguishing the two halves of humanity from one another. I want to embrace the beauty of marriage as a picture of Christ giving himself up out of love for the church. I want to see how our distinct gender roles reflect those within the Trinity, with the Father as the head and the Son and Spirit in perfect submission. In short, I want what God has said about men and women to make me love Him more. Any hint of disbelief is my problem, not His.
Of course this applies not just to gender role passages but to everything that in Scripture that makes us uncomfortable. We must not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Monday, February 06, 2006
20-Year-Old Junk Mail
Every youth minister knows what it's like to get a never-ending stream of junk mail addressed to former youth ministers. They can probably all relate to the little thrill I got when I found a newsletter waiting for me in the church office today with a name going further back in church history than ever before, addressed to a youth minister whom I understand hasn't served here in nearly 20 years. Much has changed in Baptist life since those days, and this particular piece of mail served to highlight those changes. Back then the church was run by a staff that had a very different way of looking at the Bible, and the Southern Baptist Convention was in turmoil over such issues.
What I got was the "Mainstream Baptist Network Journal." I knew that when I flipped through its 16 pages I would find plenty of snide remarks about my personal convictions about the Bible and the present leadership of the SBC--those didn't surprise me. What was most remarkable was that the two articles that were the most hateful toward "Fundamentalism" were written by a man that was friends with my parents those 20-some years ago at the church where my brother and I were baptized back in Texas. If I recall correctly, he was a pleasant fellow with a good demeanor about him. He was never one that I would have picked to write the following:
"[Fundamentalism] is a temporary movement brought about by the rapid societal changes that have occurred in America over the last 120 years that lead many people to embrace fear as their primary worldview. Their children are not scared of progress and growth. Fundamentalism in America will die out in two generations. It has no foundation in Scripture, despite all the Bible talk, and no grounding in the real world. It is a temporary, primarily-political movement."
The whole matter seems ironic to me when I put it into the perspective of my family's experience at First Baptist Abilene. Having spent three years now at what this guy would call a "Fundamentalist" seminary, I know that what he's fighting against is not a political movement but the beliefs and convictions about the Bible that my whole family has always held. In fact, the majority of that church held those same beliefs while its leadership flew to denominational meetings across the country to battle against them. How did they get away with it? Doublespeak. (See entry from 1/24/06 for more on this.) I have heard my dad say many times that the pastor "didn't sound like he believed a word he was saying" when he preached. Thankfully, my dad led us out of that church when he realized that he was "drying up" spiritually. It's not surprising that so many denominations have died away after rejecting the inerrancy and authority of God's written Word.
On a mildly-related and disconcerting note, the same guy who wrote the paragraph I quoted above also had this to say about Rick Warren's address to the Baptist World Alliance (?!): "[Warren] is not a fundamentalist in the slightest. Yes, he has taught '40 days of purpose' in some fundamentalist churches but there is nothing fundamentalist about what he is teaching." I'd really like to know what Warren said... this could be a new issue before we know it. That's a whole other matter, though.
P.S.-Jerry Sutton's book on the conservative resurgence is probably the best book out there on about the change in the SBC over the last 27 years for those of you who are interesting in knowing what all this is about.
What I got was the "Mainstream Baptist Network Journal." I knew that when I flipped through its 16 pages I would find plenty of snide remarks about my personal convictions about the Bible and the present leadership of the SBC--those didn't surprise me. What was most remarkable was that the two articles that were the most hateful toward "Fundamentalism" were written by a man that was friends with my parents those 20-some years ago at the church where my brother and I were baptized back in Texas. If I recall correctly, he was a pleasant fellow with a good demeanor about him. He was never one that I would have picked to write the following:
"[Fundamentalism] is a temporary movement brought about by the rapid societal changes that have occurred in America over the last 120 years that lead many people to embrace fear as their primary worldview. Their children are not scared of progress and growth. Fundamentalism in America will die out in two generations. It has no foundation in Scripture, despite all the Bible talk, and no grounding in the real world. It is a temporary, primarily-political movement."
The whole matter seems ironic to me when I put it into the perspective of my family's experience at First Baptist Abilene. Having spent three years now at what this guy would call a "Fundamentalist" seminary, I know that what he's fighting against is not a political movement but the beliefs and convictions about the Bible that my whole family has always held. In fact, the majority of that church held those same beliefs while its leadership flew to denominational meetings across the country to battle against them. How did they get away with it? Doublespeak. (See entry from 1/24/06 for more on this.) I have heard my dad say many times that the pastor "didn't sound like he believed a word he was saying" when he preached. Thankfully, my dad led us out of that church when he realized that he was "drying up" spiritually. It's not surprising that so many denominations have died away after rejecting the inerrancy and authority of God's written Word.
On a mildly-related and disconcerting note, the same guy who wrote the paragraph I quoted above also had this to say about Rick Warren's address to the Baptist World Alliance (?!): "[Warren] is not a fundamentalist in the slightest. Yes, he has taught '40 days of purpose' in some fundamentalist churches but there is nothing fundamentalist about what he is teaching." I'd really like to know what Warren said... this could be a new issue before we know it. That's a whole other matter, though.
P.S.-Jerry Sutton's book on the conservative resurgence is probably the best book out there on about the change in the SBC over the last 27 years for those of you who are interesting in knowing what all this is about.
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