I am rereading a book that I bought back in 2005; The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience; written by Ron Sider. Ron has an ability to cut through all of the noise that we sometimes create in our faith journeys and bring us back to the basic tenets of the faith – the very same tenets that we must attend to if we have any hope of having an authentic expression of being a Christ follower.
So that you get the feel for what Ron is brining forward in the book – here is an excerpt from one of the chapters to which I felt a very keen affinity.
“Jesus’s gospel of the kingdom included both vertical and horizontal aspects. Yes, one enters this kingdom by sheer grace because God gladly forgives prodigal sons and daughters who repent. This is the vertical part. But equally central to Jesus’s words and actions was the new horizontal community of disciples, forgiven sinners all, who began to imitate Jesus in living according to the norms of the dawning kingdom – a kingdom where the poor would receive justice, and peace would prevail. Jesus and his followers healed the sick, cared for the poor, and welcomed the marginalized into their fellowship. That is why Paul says in Ephesians 2-3 that the very existence of a new multiethnic body of believers, where hostile groups of Jews and Gentiles are becoming harmoniously united, is part of the gospel. This is the mystery-the gospel-that Paul preaches: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body.” (Eph. 3:6)
How did Jesus announce his gospel? By word and deed.
When Christians today reduce the gospel to forgiveness of sins, they are offering a one-sided, heretical message that is flatly unfaithful to the Jesus they worship as Lord and God. Only if we recover Jesus’s gospel of the kingdom and allow its power to so transform our sinful selves that our Christian congregations (always imperfect to be sure) become visible holy signs of the dawning kingdom we will be faithful to Jesus. Only then will our evangelistic words recover integrity and power.”
I hope that this short remotion from the whole of the text was as helpful to you as it has been to me in realigning my focus. Blessings!
