the Jesus threat

Todd Bumgarner posts an interesting quote from John Stott. what do you think about this?

The context is Stott talking about the first century Jewish people and their priests and how they reacted and responded to Jesus’ ministry:

“So they felt threatened by Jesus.  He undermined their prestige, their hold over the people, their own self-confidence and self-respect, while leaving his intact.  They were “envious” of him, and therefore determined to get rid of him.  It is significant that Matthew recounts two jealous plots to eliminate Jesus, the first by Herod the Great at the beginning of his life and the other by the priests at its end.  Both felt their authority under threat.  So both sought to “destroy” Jesus (Mt 2:13; 27:20 AV). However outwardly respectable the priests’ political and theological arguments may have appeared, it was envy which led them to “hand over” Jesus to Pilate to be destroyed (Mk 15:1, 10).

The same evil passion influences our own contemporary attitudes to Jesus.  He is still, as C. S. Lewis called him, “a transcendental interferer.” We resent his intrusions into our privacy, his demand for our homage, his expectation of our obedience. Why can’t he mind his own business, we ask petulantly, and leave us alone? To which he instantly replies that we are his business and that he will never leave us alone. So we too perceive him as a threatening rival who disturbs our peace, upsets our status quo, undermines our authority and diminishes our self-respect. We too want to get rid of him.”

–John Stott, The Cross of Christ. p58

self-righteousness is no respecter of persons

courtesy of vitamin z, I ran across Tullian Tchividjian’s excellent post on the double reach of the disease of self-righteousness. good stuff.

Now, it’s very interesting that in the Bible it’s always the immoral person that gets the Gospel before the moral person. It’s the prostitute who understands grace; it’s the Pharisee who doesn’t. It’s the unrighteous younger brother who gets it before the self-righteous older brother. Tim’s book points this out well.

There is, however, another (perhaps more subtle) side to self-righteousness that younger brother types need to be careful of. There’s an equally dangerous form of self-righteousness that plagues the unconventional, the liberal, and the non-religious types. We anti-legalists can become just as guilty of legalism in the opposite direction. What do I mean?

It’s simple: we can become self-righteous against those who are self-righteous. Many younger evangelicals today are reacting to their parents’ conservative, buttoned-down, rule-keeping flavor of “older brother religion” with a type of liberal, untucked, rule-breaking flavor of “younger brother irreligion” which screams, ”That’s right, I know I don’t have it all together and you think you do; I know I’m not good and you think you are. That makes me better than you.” See the irony?

go read the rest to see the cure.

word association

Thom S. Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway, did an experiment on Twitter regarding what people think of when they hear “southern baptist.” The admittedly unscientific results are not encouraging.

here are the first few responses. Go to the link above to see them all.

Legalism, Controlling
Fights, Legalists
Hellfire and brimstone, Pharisees
Fried chicken, Don’t drink
Women who can’t wear pants, Disney boycott
Cooperative Program, Banjos
Adrian Rogers, Fundamentalism
Passion, Missions
Conservative, Conservative
Strategic, Bickering
Disney boycott, Pharisees
Piano, organ, and robes, Irrelevant

also, Tony Kummer has posted a “wordle” picture of the responses. again, not pretty.

small reminder

from Jesse Phillips

“Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In fact, it seems that no other admonition is repeated more in the New Testament than to love and be loving to one another.

If this is true, why aren’t we known for this? Why do our kids and many adults think it’s “don’t lie”?

It seems like Christians are more known for not smoking, drinking or cussing, and trying to make non-Christians stop sinning, than for loving their neighbors.

No wonder our churches are shrinking, many of us are just like the Pharisees Jesus condemned.

Religiosity

I am often amazed at the difference between people’s perception of Jesus and the real Jesus revealed in the Bible. One of the reasons I enjoy Mark Driscoll is that he absolutely nails this distinction between popular conceptions of Jesus and Jesus in the New Testament.

Jesus was tender with the woman at the well in John 4, but relentlessly pushed her to realize her need for living water. Jesus was consistently short and sarcastic with only one group of folks. The religious leaders. He called them an evil and adulterous generation seeking after a sign when they asked him to perform a miracle in the heavens.

One of my favorite examples of Jesus tweaking the religious leaders is in John 9 when he healed the man blind from birth. Jesus reached down and got some dirt, spat on it and rubbed it together a second to make mud. then he rubbed the mud on the man’s eyes and told the man to go wash it off in the pool of Siloam. kind of weird. never healed any other blind person like that.

Why did he do this whole mud making thing? The answer is revealed in verse 14. “Now it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud….” Ah ha! He did it to reveal the heart of the pharisees! A tremendous miracle has occurred and sight has been restored. But the pharisees don’t give two cents about that. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the pharisees’ investigation of Jesus’ Sabbath breaking crime by “kneading”.

Jesus deliberately chose a method of healing to demonstrate for everyone the disconnect between what the pharisees thought was important versus what was truly life changing. He did it deliberately to tweak them. He did it deliberately to provoke them.

I love it. This Jesus from scripture hasn’t penetrated the popular conscious.

JD Greear has some thoughts about Jesus denunciation of the pharisees in Matthew 23. I also love this chapter because it is so much at odds with the popular picture of Jesus as some long haired glassy eyed hippy.

JD is wondering if Jesus isn’t also denouncing most of us. Ouch:

I can write about these things because they have described me so well. Not just in the past, but many of these are my own tendencies now.

My whole point is this: pharisaism is alive and well and at work in the church. Especially in Baptist churches.

go read the whole post. Then go read the comments to this post and tell me what you think.

religion v. redemption

While we are talking about Mark Driscoll, here is probably my most favorite ten minutes from him that I have yet heard. Just watch this (several times) and think about it.