The Gospel Coalition

If you were financially independent and had no need of a salary from your church, would you pastor differently?

So far, everyone I have asked that question has told me, “yes.” Each pastor has admitted, after some careful thought, that the pressure to provide financially for his family affects the way he leads.

Whenever I ask the question, I get responses like:

• “If I didn’t rely on the church for my income, I would try this… or that… or this…”
• Or: “Sometimes, I’d rather be bi-vocational.”
• Or: “I’d like to be an intentional interim somewhere. Get in there. Do what needs to be done. Walk away.”

Perhaps an actual research study would reveal different conclusion. But I have a hunch that many – if not most – pastors and staff members make decisions that are affected in some measure by job security.

I’m wondering: is this situation healthy or unhealthy?

In a best-case scenario, a congregation that controls the purse strings may be able to keep a pastor from leading in a reckless way. The opportunity for authority to be abused long-term is diminished.

In a worst-case scenario, a congregation uses the salary to chain the pastor to the status quo, keeping him from making good changes that might initially rock the boat. It’s no wonder we then see mediocre attempts at discipleship and mission.

What do you think? Does salary make a difference in how you lead? Should it? How does the gospel influence the way we think about this issue?

The Writer as Madman and Mystic:

While I do think God cares about the works we create, I believe that God is more interested in the process and its effect upon us. God is in the dying – the struggle and the wounds and the agony, just as much as he is in the rising – the gleaming product at the end. Out of the chaos of the writing life, God is forming us to be people who are humbled, disciplined, persevering, surprised, grateful. And if, through the writing process, we allow ourselves to be shaped into new kinds of people, then perhaps writers will come to be known for more than just being crazy.

The Gospel and the Commands of Scripture:

If I just preached the Gospel, they said, people would naturally do what they were supposed to do and I wouldn’t have to urge them to do anything. Is that true? Are all commandments really anti-Gospel legalism? Or, put another way, is there a legitimate role for commandments, rituals, and spiritual disciplines in the Christian life?

USA Today – More Protestant churches feel economic pain:

More than a third of churches surveyed said donations dropped in 2010, and overall donations were down 3%, according to LifeWay Research, a Nashville-based religion research organization. That’s a turnaround from the past two years, when churches had been mostly recession-proof, said Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay.

It’s not about you – even if you’re a student:

Most students already believe they’re special, incredible, unique, amazing world-changers. Most upper middle class students at Christian schools don’t need help seeing that. They need help embracing the ordinary, admitting their limitations, and setting realistic expectations. I don’t expect an advertisement like this to sell these virtues, but it doesn’t have to undermine them.

The December issue of Christianity Today features a cover story from Scot McKnight called “Jesus vs. Paul”.

In the article, Scot seeks to help evangelicals resolve a common dilemma – how to reconcile and integrate the different emphases we find in the teachings of Jesus (Kingdom of God) and the letters of Paul (justification by faith). Scot’s solution is to center the gospel in neither justification nor kingdom but in Christology. Paul and Jesus are united because they are both centered on Jesus – who he is and what he has done.

Scot is stopping by the blog today to answer a few of my lingering questions. I encourage you to read the article, read these follow-up questions and then discuss in the comments section.

Trevin Wax: Scot, in your article, you write: “It is not exaggerating to say that evangelicalism is facing a crisis about the relationship of Jesus to Paul, and that many today are choosing sides.” Why do you think evangelicals feel the need to choose sides in this discussion?

Scot McKnight: You ask a genuinely interesting question and I wish I could give an answer to the “why?” question.

Instead, I see an issue here of hermeneutical inevitability. We are driven by the way we think to synthesize (or systematize) or to harmonize or to compartmentalize. These sorts of actions are inherent to how our brains work, especially for people who read the Bible as believers and who believe it is God’s Word and genuinely makes utter sense.

What I find is that many evangelicals came to faith through a Pauline-anchored set of categories. In many ways it was about the gospel of the Romans Road, and if that understanding of the gospel is repeated often enough (and just listen and you will hear it all the time) it becomes reflexive. This is the context of most evangelicals, and that context is fundamentally hermeneutical.

An analogy: the Judaizing opponents of Paul in Galatians knew how to read the Bible through a Moses lens, and Paul was teaching them to read the Bible (or Israel’s Story) through an Abraham lens. The Judaizing opponents couldn’t make sense of what Paul was saying, and that led them to say “Why then did God even give the Law?”

I see the same thing going on today. Evangelicals have grown up with a gospel, and that gospel has become their hermeneutic, and that hermeneutic is essentially derived from a specific way of reading Paul, and by that I mean a soteriological reading of Romans 1-8. It is the way we (or most of us) think.

The minute a kingdom hermeneutic comes up, one either abandons the Pauline hermeneutic or one synthesizes or — and I think this is most common — one colonizes Jesus’ kingdom hermeneutic by a justification hermeneutic. That is, we make Jesus talk Paul. Or, we colonize Paul with Jesus’ kingdom hermeneutic and make Paul talk Jesus.

Evangelicals are worried that if we colonize Paul with Jesus’ kingdom hermeneutic we will lose a Pauline soteriology. There are plenty of cases where that very thing happened. But I think many are doing the very same thing by colonizing Jesus with Paul.

What I suggest in my article is that both of these approaches fails to find the essential continuity between Jesus and Paul. Kingdom doesn’t lead to justification and justification doesn’t lead to kingdom. The unity is found through christology, not through kingdom or justification.

Trevin Wax: You mention that we are driven by the way we think to systematize what we find in the Bible. Some downplay the benefit of this kind of systematization of theology. But any time we try to hold the Bible, we are engaging in a systematic framework – at least at some level. Of course, there are problems in doing systematic theology, as well as benefits too. What do you think? Is it a good impulse to want to connect the dots and put the Bible together?

Scot McKnight: Putting the Bible together and doing systematics are two different things for me. Systematic theology has many definitions, and the only one that concerns me is when folks let their system overwhelm what the texts actually say. The further we let our categories stray from the fundamental story line one finds in the Apostles’ Creed or Nicene Creed or Regula Fidei, that is the fundamental story line of the Bible (creation, covenant, community, Christ, church, consummation), the further we are getting from having a true biblical unity.

I think the systematized versions of Calvinism and Arminianism stray too far from this narrative line in their essential set of categories. I’m nervous about teaching theology through the classical topoi, and prefer that we teach it through the lens of the Bible’s fundamental narrative.

Trevin Wax: What are the problems we face when we try to fit justification into Jesus’ vision of the kingdom or Jesus’ kingdom theology into Paul’s theology of justification?

Scot McKnight: This could be a book or a brief answer, I choose the latter.

Fundamentally, these are two different (and mostly) parallel language games: the gospel of the kingdom is a way of saying the good news is that God’s promises for Israel are now coming to pass in Jesus himself; the gospel of justification (which isn’t a biblical expression) is a way of saying that the good news is that in Jesus Christ we have been declared (and made) right with God, right with ourselves, right with others and right with the world. It is forensic declaration.

Thus, the two are talking about two different things. Asking if what Jesus meant by kingdom is the same as what Paul meant by justification is like asking if a putter is a driver.

Trevin Wax: I thought your linking John Piper to Joachim Jeremias was interesting, particularly in the way that both scholars seek (albeit in different ways) to show how justification is present in Jesus’ teaching. When you say that Paul and Jesus taught different things, you are speaking of emphasis – not that they had different (i.e. contradictory) visions at the fundamental level, right?

Scot McKnight: You are right. It’s emphasis – not different things. As the previous question showed, they are parallel lines but complementary lines.

Trevin Wax: Your solution to this dilemma is to take 1 Corinthians 15 as primarily a statement about Jesus – who he is and what he has done. By emphasizing the centrality of Christ’s person and work, you bring Paul and Jesus together. Both Paul and Jesus were all about Jesus, particularly his fulfillment of the Old Testament story. Once you’ve made the shift, how do kingdom and justification relate to the gospel?

Scot McKnight: 1 Cor 15 is the gospel. Flat out simple. Paul defines it there; or he states it there. Every time Paul says “gospel” he means what he says in 1 Cor 15. That gospel is the narration of the Story of Jesus as Messiah (and Lord over all) as that Story that completes or fulfills the Story of Israel, and brings that Story to its goal. That Story is about Jesus and Jesus, who is Savior, saves through what he did — his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection.

Now, we’re back to this kingdom and justification thing again. The first way to state in the gospel in the NT, of course, is kingdom. That’s how Jesus said it. He was saying the Story has now come to its completion/realization in him. When Paul talks about justification he is talking about the effects, and I prefer to say only way of speaking of those effects (others include reconciliation, redemption, etc). He’s talking about the forensic-shaped effects of the Saving-ness of the Story of Jesus. To gospel is to declare this Story as the saving/justifiying Story.

A problem we need to work on more is the problem: we (evangelicals) tend to think the only problem is the personal sin, personal guilt problem. Fair enough. But frankly if “Jesus is the Messiah” or “Jesus is the Lord” is the solution, then we need to reframe or expand the problem because the problem for the Story of Israel is that it is yearning for completion in God’s sending of the Messiah. Messiah, then, is a Solution to a slightly different (way of expressing the) problem.

Trevin Wax: Would it be right to say that a church without any kingdom vision or a church that denies justification by faith has – in some sense – a deficient gospel? If we say so, does it mean that there’s a problem with the Christology that is then leading out to a failure to grasp kingdom or justification?

Scot McKnight: If there is a deficiency, I want to begin with where Paul and Peter and Jesus do: with the Story of Jesus fulfilling the Story of Israel. If we don’t start with Jesus (christology) we will be deficient, and I find both kingdom and justification to be tempted far too often to make christology deficient. How odd, and how tragic, but so true: we get so focused on kingdom we end up thinking only of justice, and then we think so much in terms of justification we get lost in transaction, and in both cases we aren’t focusing on telling the Story of Jesus.

Trevin Wax: Thanks, Scot, for stopping by to discuss your CT article.

Related to today’s interview with Scot McKnight, Walt Kaiser responds to McKnight’s CT cover story:

The case for the Unity of the Bible grows as scholarship catches up with Biblical revelation. Instead of seeing Paul as the one responsible for founding a new offshoot of the Jesus movement or even as the alleged founder of Chriistianity, we take him at his word: he was a servant of Jesus Christ!

A federal judge says that the individual mandate for health care is unconstitutional. The battle begins…

Hudson, in today’s ruling, said the Obama Administration had “the weaker hand” in its argument that “requiring advance purchase of insurance based on a future contingency in an activity that will inevitably affect interstate commerce.” ”…the same reasoning could apply to transportation, housing, or nutritional decisions,” Hudson wrote. In other words, the Affordable Care Act is an over-reach.

Tony Reinke lists the 30 best books he read in 2010:

By God’s grace, I still managed to read a fair number of books this year and—thanks to your kind prodding—I was encouraged to recount the books I read and assemble my favorites into this list. So I scoured my shelves and heaped my favorites into a bloggable pile… My list is pretty haphazard, as you have come to expect. Here’s my list, broken down categorically and in no particular order.

The iBand from North Point Community Church. Very cool video.

Prince Caspian was a better movie than The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I know I’m in the minority when I say so, but there are several reasons why the second movie was better than the third.

Caspian may have had a lackluster performance at the box office. It may have botched a few things (like Aslan and Lucy’s conversation – “every year you grow, so shall I” and the rebellious streak the writers gave Peter), but the movie stayed true to the storyline and intent of Lewis. The additional scenes creatively enhanced and explored the hints that Lewis himself had placed in the book.

For example, even if the attack on Miraz’s castle was invented, the writers added a moving vision of self-sacrifice, as one of the animals – in cruciform fashion – holds up the gate while everyone else escapes. Lewis would have been pleased, if not with the story departures, then surely with the intention and tone.

Not so with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Believe me, no one wanted to be a bigger cheerleader for this film than me. I wanted to love this film as much as I love the book. It pains me to speak critically of a movie that has so many things going for it. So first, let’s look at the positives.

What I Liked

Will Poulter plays the role of Eustace Scrubb precisely the way I have imagined this character to be.

Reepicheep is more valiant and honorable than ever, stealing the show in more ways than one.

The special effects are outstanding. (We watched the film in 3-D. Nothing is added by seeing the film in 3-D, but it is still a fine presentation.)

What Narnia-lover isn’t excited to see the Dufflepuds on the big screen, the Magician’s book, or the Dawn Treader itself? I couldn’t help but enjoy the movie – primarily because it’s based on a book I love. But I was disheartened by the changes in storyline, changes which ultimately mangle the theological vision of the book.

Eustace the Hero?

I was deeply disappointed in how the filmmakers handled Eustace’s time as dragon. In the book, Eustace becomes a dragon for a short period of time. Aslan does his work, and Eustace is transformed back into a boy.

In the movie, the writers decided that lengthening the time Eustace is a dragon would serve the plotline. Eustace becomes the movie’s hero. In fact, he goes from zero to hero within a half hour. Lewis would never have allowed such a move. Why? Because the point of Eustace’s time as dragon was to show his need for Aslan’s transformation – apart from anything he could do himself. The book shows Eustace as a loser who is shown mercy. The film shows Eustace as a hero getting his reward.

Another aspect related to this change irks me. In the book, redemption for Eustace looks remarkably ordinary. He becomes a crew member and takes his place on the ship with the others. He joins the team. There’s something distinctly Christian about Lewis’ vision of redemption that leads to an ordinary, common life among a community of redeemed individuals. Unfortunately, the filmmakers aren’t satisfied with the subtle redemption that leads to a mission-focused community. Eustace has to become the hero whose efforts bring salvation to the rest.

The Temptation Scenes

I don’t know where to start with the temptation scenes and the green mist. (Note to the creators of Lost: if you sued Fox for stealing your smoke monster idea, you’d win.)

I understand the need to give an episodic book like Dawn Treader a little more continuity. The added plot device of the seven swords was helpful to the film and not harmful to the book. But the temptation scenes are a disaster – not in how they are acted, but the message they send.

How in the world does Lucy’s temptation for beauty become a message that tells viewers, “Just be yourself.”? Yes, the film gets it right that “evil is inside you.” Glad to see that. But the film teaches that the resolution to the evil in you comes from being true to your deeper, better self. Willpower saves.

More than that, the way to overcome temptation is simply to know temptation is coming. When the time of testing comes, everyone thinks, “Gee, we’re being tested.” And once tested, you receive your reward… which leads to the worst misstep of all.

The Noble Shall Inherit the Kingdom of God

The final scene on the shore looks wonderful. Aslan is majestic. The special effects are extraordinary. And thankfully, the writers keep the words of Aslan to Lucy and Edmund – you shall know me by another name in your world. Chill bumps, anyone?

But my satisfaction was dashed when the rest of the scene turned upside down the entire theological vision of Lewis. “My country is made for those with noble hearts,” says Aslan. Really? In the context of the film, the message is: be true to yourself, become a hero, and then you can head into Aslan’s country. That this vision of salvation has C.S. Lewis’ name on it is a travesty.

Conclusion

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is well worth seeing. Despite its flaws, it’s a good movie. The filmmaking is outstanding. The casting is superb.

But – as I said in the title of this post – I believe The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be the last of the Narnia movies. It does not maintain enough of the original vision to captivate Narnia fans. Neither do the changes benefit the movie in a way that would attract new fans to the series. Ever since Prince Caspian, the franchise has been sinking. Dawn Treader, unfortunately, isn’t good enough to keep it afloat.

Not everyone took an approach as critical as mine. Other bloggers review The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

• Allen Yeh: Any changes in “Dawn Treader” were well within the limits of toleration, and some of them I thought were actually quite good calls.
• Richard Corliss of Time: In the Dawn Treader, that divine urgency is missing. Young people go on a sea trip and stuff happens, in fake 3-D. That’s nothing for audiences, devout or Narniagnostic, to believe in.
  
• Jeff Dunn: Edmund asks Caspian, “Why are we here?” It’s a question I asked myself over and over while watching this disaster.
• Doug Wilson: Since the movie is actually worth seeing (unlike Caspian), you might want to read this after you have seen it. Up to you.
• Ben Witherington: My advice to all Lewis lovers—- is get out and support this movie in droves.  These are creative Christian stories worthy to be retold on the big screen.
• Devin Brown: I am convinced that Lewis fans—young and old, new and longtime—are going to like it very much as well. As one of the countless readers who have been comforted, inspired, and challenged by Lewis over the years, I would like to offer my congratulations and my thanks.
• Gene Edward Veith: I thought the movie was good.  I enjoyed it.  I recommend it. And yet why do I feel so lukewarm about it?

Roger Nicole: 1915-2010

He was, by common consent, a theological giant. (See these brief reflections by Don Carson, Tim Keller, and Mark Dever.) But because he never wrote a book and didn’t travel the conference circuit, many evangelicals have not heard of him, to our detriment.

Imitate an accent if you want to understand it better:

Simply moving your mouth like other folks do allows you to intuit their potentially eccentric speech patterns, and get what they say.

The Last Romantic? Why Marriage Will Endure

Marriage will endure, because it is the only worthy response to real romantic love.

Come, Lord, and tarry not;
Bring the long looked for day;
O why these years of waiting here,
These ages of decay?

Come, for Thy saints still wait;
Daily ascends their sigh;
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come”;
Does Thou not hear the cry?

O come and make all things new!
Come and make all things new!
Build up this ruined earth
Come and make all things new.

Come, for creation groans,
Impatient of Thy stay,
Worn out with these long years of ill,
These ages of delay.

Come, for love waxes cold,
Its steps are faint and slow;
Faith now is lost in unbelief,
Hope’s lamp burns dim and low.

Come and make all things new;
Build up this ruined earth;
Restore our faded Paradise,
Creation’s second birth.

Come, and begin Thy reign
Of everlasting peace;
Come, take the kingdom to Thyself,
Great King of Righteousness.

- Horatius Bonar, adapted by Red Mountain Music

Yes, there is a mean, violent streak in the true Christian life! But violence against whom, or what? Not other people!

It’s a violence against all the impulses in us that would be violent to other people.

It’s a violence against all the impulses in our own selves that would make peace with our own sin and settle in with a peacetime mentality.

It’s a violence against all lust in ourselves and all enslaving desires

• for food
• or caffeine
• or sugar
• or chocolate
• or alcohol
• or pornography
• or money
• or the praise of men
• and the approval of others
• or power
• or fame.

It’s a violence against the impulses in our own soul toward racism and sluggish indifference to injustice and poverty and abortion.

Christianity is not a settle-in-and-live-at-peace-with-this-world-the-way-it-is kind of religion. When Jesus said, “the truth will set you free”, he didn’t mean without a battle. He meant that truth would win the war of liberation in the soul.

Christianity is war. It is a declaration of all-out combat against our own sinful impulses. The apostle Peter said, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul”. To become a Christian is to wake up to the reality that our soul – the eternal joy of our soul – is at stake. Therefore, Christianity is mortal combat for true and lasting joy.

- John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight For Joy, 102-103

Seven links for your weekend enjoyment:

1. The Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010 (My favorite is the Yoda Bat.)

2. Tim Keller: What We Owe the Poor

3. Andy Crouch on “Stonewashed Worship” and why churches are striving to appear “authentic” – just like the rest of consumer culture.

4. “Out of Egypt, I Called My Son“: Kevin DeYoung looks at the fulfillment of a puzzling prophecy

5. A Deadly Ritual: 5 Men Who Died from Shaving (I think I might grow a beard now…)

6. A provocative article from Owen Strachan that wonders about the violence inherent in football. “Football and the Limits of Conscience”

7. One year is as seven months to the preacher using the hallmark calendar

Today, I’d like to introduce a new Christian publisher, BorderStone Press. The president is Brian Mooney, and he has graciously stopped by the blog to answer a few questions about this new venture into providing quality Christian resources.

Trevin Wax: Brian, tell us a little about BorderStone Press, particularly the point of view represented by this publishing house.

Brian Mooney: Our goal is to print quality works which primarily reflect a conservative, biblical worldview. We hope the end result of our efforts will inspire Christians to live out their faith and produce good fruit in all aspects of life.

Trevin Wax: How do you determine what books to publish?

Brian Mooney: The guiding principal behind our editorial selection is to publish only those manuscripts and media that show highly developed writing or production skills as well as an accurate understanding of what the Scriptures require from those who seek God. This means you can expect to see manuscripts from Christian and Jewish authors that explore biblical history or analyze various biblical concepts.

We judge each manuscript as is, based on its quality, but will publish a work if we feel it adds to the historical, theological or literary commentary on Scripture, whether or not some minor points fit within our own personal theological understandings. So books are vetted with the concern that they are well-written and build up the Kingdom of God. It is our hope that everything we do is an exercise in Kingdom-building.

Trevin Wax: What are some of your more recent publications?

Brian Mooney: Our recent books have been authored or edited by leading scholars and pastors:

• The Empire of the Holy Spirit by Michael Haykin from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
• The Lost Sermons of Scottish Baptist Peter Grant edited by Terry Wilder at Southwestern Seminary
• Recovering Music Education as a Christian Liberal Art by Joshua Drake at Grove City College in Pennsylvania

We will soon be republishing G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday.

Trevin Wax: Who is part of your team?

Brian Mooney: Our Director of Acquisitions is Roger Duke. Roger also serves as an editor for a number of the manuscripts that we produce. He has a doctor of ministry from the University of the South, and an M.Div from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a prolific writer and teaches, or has taught, on the faculty of several Universities and Seminaries.

Our Director of Business Development is Bradley Mooney. He is a graduate of Southern Seminary and holds a degree summa cum laude in Spanish from Auburn University. He has an interest in developing non-profit companies that meet the needs of foreign missions and is working to expand the ministry of BorderStone Press by revamping the website and developing new projects for us.

Our Sales Representative is Elizabeth Wood. She is on staff at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and is a frequent contributor to the Baptist Press. Elizabeth holds a degree magna cum laude in public relations from Union University.

I’m the president of the company and I’m a licensed attorney.

Trevin Wax: I’m sure that some of my readers who have writing aspirations would like to know if you accept submissions from new writers.

Brian Mooney: Yes. We actively seek writers, but are committed to looking for new talent and fresh voices, regardless of denominational affiliation.

Trevin Wax: What’s the vision for BorderStone Press in the future?

Brian Mooney: We hope to innovate, bring surprises, and are actively seeking to work with unique content, particularly from overseas authors and publishers. We all love learning and serving and what we publish will reflect that love. Our website is slated to undergo some major changes, which should improve functionality and change the overall concept from an online store to a more relevant format. We are also actively planning some overseas adventure travel and will announce more on that to come.