So, I have not posted in a week. That seems a long time for me not to say what it is that I think. :)
Last week I did a paper on a topic that was interesting to me and something I have not studied at all. It was from the book of I Peter and involved what the death of Jesus meant in that book. Meaning, how did Peter interpret the death of Jesus for his audience, which were the Diaspora Gentiles living in various parts of the Mediterranean world. I came across a passage which made me start thinking about who the 'people of God' are and what these people do.
The language which the author uses illustrates that he believed the 'people of God' were designed as a 'new temple', using language such as "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation." (I Peter 2:9)
I was struck because we as the 'ekklesia', the church are 'a nation of priests, chosen by God.' I know this is a very Evangelical blog post for me, but this changed something about what we are called to do. This makes me more aware of the continuation of the story of Israel, brought to life in Christ, proclaimed to the world. That seems like "good news" to me.
I have often wondered if the message of the church is "good news" to those that are living in poverty, brokenness, abandonment, etc...because how does the gospel bring people into a "new community" where we can experience health, healing, liberation, and also are taught that we can "suffer" with people to bring above mentioned reconciliation.
I think that living as "a nation", which is defined by Peter as "a spiritual nation", and if you know me I struggle with the way we in the Western Church have defined that word, "spiritual"; but I believe that Peter did not think of it as something which did not possess physical characteristics, but only meta-physical or invisible qualities. Anyways, the "good news" of the gospel is that we can live as individuals in the midst of communities; sharing, laughing, crying, loving, and desiring to "know and be known."
Thanks for the time, I now have to write an 18 page paper by tomorrow. :)
2 comments:
You talk about "Spiritual" in America. Yesterday at church our pastor read a letter from the pastor of a church in India. It really touched me and i thought of you as he read it. I will try to get a copy and send it to you. He said, 'In American you pray for us because you feel that we are in poverty. In India, we pray for you because of your poverty of spirit. I have visited America and was struck by the differences in how we worship. Here, we will have a time of prayer and worship that will last 4, 5 and even 6 hours where in America you are looking at your watches after 1 hour. You rely on who is speaking to draw an audience and to get your numbers up where we never say who is going to be speaking because people are coming to hear what God has to say. We have had as many as 12,000 people come to a service with very little discussion about it where you rely heavily on promoting and advertising the slightest event that you have.' He continued but it would be better for me to get a copy of that letter. Anyway, it echoed a lot of what you are saying here, that in America we have it so good and don't even know it. Or, do we have it so good that we have gotten complacent and see Church as an event rather than, "let's seek God for hours or days on our knees and wait for him to answer"? i think that patience is severely lacking in American culture, and that is fine, but not when it creeps into our thinking on God and His timeline.
Hey, nice to see your responses again. :)
I think that the pastor in India is competely right about our poverty in so many areas, especially prayer. I did not say though about "Spiritual" in America. I think what Peter was saying was that he was seeing the Church, the body of Christ, the covenant people of God as a "spiritual nation", which for him did not mean that it was not fashioned as a real nation, but he probably also did not want to identify this new "spiritual nation" as like the Nations in which the people lived, which brought peace and prosperity through a sword.
What this pastor in India sees in America is consumerism and commercialism.
I agree with the statement that we see Church as an event, rather than a new community shaped and held together by the Spirit, in which we pray, play, live day to day (LOL)with each other, which is what people in India are so hungry for.
Christianity dismantles classes, and in the U.S. and India where classes form and shape us, people want something more.
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