Last Tuesday we read along with Tim Keller, who defines sin not simply as doing wrong, but also conforming and obeying from wrong motives. The author sees the elder brother in the parable as a moral conformist and the younger brother as following the way of self-discovery – He concludes that both want their father’s possessions, but not his heart. While both are estranged from him, the younger son returns in a story that certainly surprised (and insulted) Jesus’ religious listeners:
At the end of the story the lover of prostitutes is saved, but the man of moral rectitude is still lost.
Here are a few of the questions we considered:
- Would you agree that there is a stark division between “moral conformists” and “pioneers” in our culture? Do you think people who take these two approaches to life can find justification for their philosophy in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles?
- In what ways are the hearts of the younger and older brother alike?
- What is the radical alternative Tim Keller teases us with on page 33?
- What is the project that everyone is involved in, regardless of the approach to God?
- How is the gospel distinct from other ways that people seek to relate to God?
- Do you think, in the words of the author, we should “be there every time the church door opens?”
Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology is now available, all 52 chapters, as a podcast on iTunes. But, here’s the best part: it’s not a narrator reading the text, but Dr. Grudem instructing the course at his home church. Each session includes question and answers from participants. You can also download individual chapters or subscribe by going to feedburner.
This is probably the most widely used theology ever and the men at NCCF have gone through it a couple times on Sunday mornings over the past ten years. Now anyone can join us in the study and discussion. I know that this has been a valuable resource for a number of us, as we “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.”
Denise, Emma and I are vacationing in Maine, so that means we get to relax and do what we want to do for a week. For me, that means I can finish a book that’s been on my nightstand for over a year: The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God by Greg Beale.
It’s not light reading as the author takes the reader through a highly detailed description of the temple, it’s significance as the dwelling place of God’s presence and all that means to us, His people. Dr. Beale has served as a pastor and college professor most of his life, so his books never scale the ivory tower of intellectualism or tumble down the cliff of abstraction. While always challenging and deeply Biblical, particularly in his sweeping command of the Old Testament, he brings it right down to where you and I live. We are witnesses to the saving power of Jesus and the dwelling place of God’s presence in this fallen world.
I thought Dr. Beale’s purpose in writing The Temple and the Church’s Mission is appropriate for NCCF at this moment in our church’s life: He writes:
The main point of this book is that our task as the covenant community, the church, is to be God’s temple [Ephesians 2:19-22 & 1 Peter 2:4&5], so filled with his glorious presence that we expand and fill the earth with that presence until God finally accomplishes the goal completely at the end of time! This is our common mission.
In order to reach that goal:
We as individual Christians, as members of a local church and as part of Christ’s church throughout the world must not merely share our lives and God’s word with one another, but we need to get out of our little fishbowls and manifest the presence of Christ through our words and lives, so that the boundaries of the temple, the church, will grow until the whole earth is encompassed with and manifests the presence of God. Through us, God will fulfill his promise in Habakkuk 2:14, ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’
But, what does that look like and how can we experience the indwelling presence of God more fully? Dr. Beale puts it simply:
God’s presence grows among his priestly people by their knowing his word, believing it and by obeying it, and then they spread that presence to others by living their lives faithfully and prayerfully in the world… a persevering and joyous faith in the midst of trial is an amazingly priestly witness to the unbelieving world. It gets the world’s attention. Such a witness either sparks more persecution or it influences some who persecute to join the church. This is what ‘missions’ is all about.
So, let’s recap: God’s presence grows in us when we know His Word, we believe it and then we live faithfully and prayerfully. And, we need to remember that each one of us is on mission and want to be “so filled with his glorious presence that we expand and fill the earth with that presence until God finally accomplishes the goal completely at the end of time!”
