Andy Cornett | living in the new creation

endlessly captivated by the person and work of the resurrected Jesus

History-making

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It may not be Monday, but here is today’s quote of the week:

The mission of the church is not merely an interpretation of history: it is a history making force. It is that through which God brings history to its goal, and only because this is so does it provide the place where the goal of history can be understood.

– Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society

It is a truly humbling thought that history might be made this week as we share in Christ’s mission.
It’s why 1 Corinthians 15:58 seems ever before me these days.

Volf on suffering and identity

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Christians believe, however, that neither what we do nor what we suffer defines us at the deepest level. Though the way we think of and treat ourselves and the way others think of and treat us does shape our identity, no human being can make or unmake us. Instead of being defined by how human beings relate to us, we are defined by how God relates to us. We know that fundamentally we are who we are, as unique individuals standing in relation to our neighbors and broader culture, because God loves us – to such a great extent that on the cross Jesus Christ, God incarnate, shouldered our sin and tasted our suffering.

Even more, by opening ourselves to God’s love through faith, our bodies and souls become sanctified spaces, God’s “temples,” as the Apostle Paul puts it (1 Corinthians 6:19). The flame of God’s presence, which gives us a new identity, then burns in us inextinguishably. Though like buildings devastated by wind and flood, our bodies and souls may become ravaged, yet we continue to be God’s temple – at times a temple in ruins, but sacred space nonetheless. Absolutely nothing defines a Christian more that the abiding flame of God’s presence, and that flame bathes in a warm glow everything we do or suffer.

Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2006). 79.

Calvin on happiness

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“If God contains the fullness of all good things in himself like an inexhaustible fountain, nothing beyond him is to be sought by those who strive after the highest good and all the elements of happiness … If the Lord will share his glory, power, and righteousness with the elect – nay, will give himself to be enjoyed by them and, what is more excellent, will somehow make them to become one with himself, let us remember that every sort of happiness is included under this benefit.”

– John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religious, 3.XXV.10 (v2, p. 1005)

This is a staggering reality. Chew on it. Dwell in it.

don’t waste the time

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There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come. There are, of course, moments when the pressure of the excitement is so great that only superhuman self-control could resist it. They come both in war and peace. We must do the best we can.

CS Lewis – “Learning In War Time,” at St. Mary the Virgin, 22 October 1939, published in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses.

downward mobility

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“Too often I looked at being relevant, popular, and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. The truth, however, is that these are not vocations but temptations. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” Jesus sends us out to be shepheds, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to communal and mutual ministry, and from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us and our people.”

Henri Nouwen, “In The Name of Jesus.”

I have read this marvelous little book many times in the last 16 years. (Thank you, Gregg Okesson, for giving it to me). Take and read, friends: take and read.

Stott on church

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in context of a discussion on the church as the house/household of God in 1 Timothy 3:15:

But when we come together as the church (ekklesia, ‘assembly’) of the living God, every aspect of our common life is enriched by the knowledge of his presence in our midst. In our worship we bow down before the living God. Through the reading and exposition of his Word we hear his voice addressing us. We meet him at his table, when he makes himself known to us through the breaking of bread. In our fellowship we love each other as he loved us. And our witness become bolder and more urgent. Indeed, unbelievers coming in may confess that ‘God is really among you’ (1 Cor. 14:25).

John Stott, Guard the Truth: The Message of 1 Timothy and Titus, 104-05.

on the virtual war

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from William Russel Mead:

It turns out that humanity did to the info-world what we did to the Garden of Eden: we lost paradise because of the choices we made. Those who thought that the rise of the digital world would transform human nature missed the boat. Human nature made the digital world in its image. The newest realm of human creativity has demonstrated the oldest truths about who we are: divinely gifted and fatally flawed.

The information revolution is already turning out to be a much more powerful driver of change than the industrial revolution was, and the rise of the internet and the digital economy has sped things up even more. Very far reaching changes in the human condition seem possible in this new age but, so far, there doesn’t seem to be a software patch for Original Sin.

Read the whole article “Virtual War” on his “Via Meadia” blog.

On Biblical Literacy

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Biblical Literacy, though not sufficient, is indispensable. This literacy does not consist of historical, critical knowledge about the Bible. Nor does it consist of theological accounts, couched in non-biblical language, of the Bible’s teachings and meanings. Rather it is the patterns and details of its sagas and stories, its images and symbols, its syntax and grammar, which need to be internalized if one is to think scripturally. And when one proceeds to imagine and think scripturally, one may in fact use very little actual biblical terminology.

–George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine.