Couldn't Help Noticing

Fatherhood extras

We've updated the Fatherhood page with some new material.

First, there's a link to a video review by Brisbane Bronco, Brad Thorn, as he reviews Fatherhood, and how it's affected him as a father. (Our thanks to Mitchelton Presbyterian Church and Brad for letting us link to this.)

Secondly, there's free seminar material available in order to help run a seminar for fathers at your own church. The material includes everything you'll need; leader's notes, handouts and Powerpoint slides.

Good question

On Sunday, I had the privilege of listening to a sermon on prayer, and, based on Paul's prayer in Colossians 1, what we should be praying for other Christians. The preacher reflected on how we should be growing in “spiritual wisdom and understanding” and “in the knowledge of God”, and how that should be reflected in terms of “bearing fruit in every good work” and “living a life worthy of the Lord”. And if we are going to pray this sort of prayer for other people, shouldn't we also desire to see that growth in godliness in ourselves?

But the diagnostic question that came next was the one that caused me to think hard. It was this:

Am I much different now to the person I was 12 months ago?

Has the truth of the Gospel continued transforming me? Or have I managed to hear the Word of God and be unaffected by it in any significant, ongoing way?

Obsessed evangelicals, part 2

For an evangelical, then, the gospel is where Christianity starts, and where it continues and where it ends. It's an obsession. Our lives are lived out in terms of this gospel, as we work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Our love for others is defined and motivated by the love of God in Christ that this gospel reveals. Our ministries are driven by a passion to prayerfully share this gospel message with each other and the world, that everyone might hear and respond. Our priorities and structures and programs are shaped by this gospel, not to mention our outlook on life now in this world. From a gospel viewpoint, evangelicals enjoy the creation and its gifts, while sitting lightly to it (since the gospel tells us of an imminent future judgement), and enduring with patience the sufferings that it brings.

This gospel obsession also explains why evangelicals are so strong on the Bible, and so keen to read, study and teach it. The biblical revelation is not only the one, true authoritative source of the gospel; it is also ‘gospel’ shaped in itself. The focus and theme and content of the Bible is that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all God's promises and purposes for the world, and that the gospel of his kingdom is the message that all mankind needs to hear and respond to in advance of the Last Day.

So, an ‘evangelical’ is someone for whom the supreme, central organizing principle for all theology and life is the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. Or to put it a little more pointedly: ‘someone obsessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ’.

Now, what's very useful about this little definition, apart from its shock value and its comprehensiveness, is that it highlights a vital and often overlooked aspect of evangelicalism. Evangelicals are not simply people who believe certain things about the gospel of Jesus Christ; they are people who believe that the gospel is central and determinative, and that everything else flows from it (including ethics, ecclesiology, hermeneutics, eschatology and most other things you can think of). The gospel ‘occupies our thoughts constantly and exclusively’. It's our abiding obsession, because we are convinced that it is God's obsession as well—that all his plans for this creation come together and are summed up under Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who reconciled all things in heaven and on earth to the Father.

So the test of whether a church or Christian movement is ‘evangelical’ or not is simple: Is it obsessed with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Is that what it talks about all the time? Are the constant themes of its preaching the biblical message of the cross, the resurrection, the judgement to come, repentance, forgiveness of sins, faith, hope and love? Does it constantly urge its members to a gospel-responsive life of repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, as we suffer the trials of discipleship this side of glory? Are its ministries shaped by and focused on proclaiming this gospel, seeing people respond to it, and nurturing them in a gospel lifestyle?

In the end, if the Hillsong movement, and others like it, do not deserve the label ‘evangelical’ it will be because of this: that their obsessions lie elsewhere than in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Obsessed evangelicals

As I suppose was predictable, letters and emails have been coming in over the past few days critical of one of my recent CHNs—the piece about the Colours conference run by Hillsong—in which I not only questioned Hillsong's status as an ‘evangelical’ movement, but cast aspersions on whether the message of the Colours conference (at least as represented by their advertising) could even be called ‘Christian’.

It's got me thinking again about labels, and in particular about the word ‘evangelical’. In one sense, it's hard to get very excited about a word, and how you define it, and who deserves to be able to wear the label. Then again, it's much easier to get excited about what genuine, straightforward, biblical Christianity is, which is what disputes about the word ‘evangelical’ are most often about.

It occurs to me a short handy definition of an ‘evangelical’ would be this: ‘someone obsessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ’.

To be obsessed by something is to have it “occupy one's thoughts constantly and exclusively” (as the dictionary puts it). I think that's what really distinguishes an ‘evangelical’ (i.e. a ‘gosp-elical’) from other groups within Christendom, and always has?our obsession with the gospel of Christ.

I suppose if you wanted to be pedantic about it you might say that evangelicals should be obsessed with Jesus Christ himself, rather than just his gospel. But to say that we're obsessed by the gospel of Christ is the same thing as saying we're obsessed by Christ himself, since it is only in the gospel that we have access to Christ. The gospel is where we meet him, and nowhere else. As we hear the message of him, of his atoning death and glorious resurrection, of his present rule as Lord and Christ, and his imminent return as Judge of all, we respond in faith and repentance as the Spirit of Christ works within us; and thusly (as the old doctrinal treatises might say), we come into sweet and personal relationship with him.

(This is why, it occurs to me in passing, that it is misguided to criticise people for speaking about the ‘gospel’ as if it indicates they have lost touch with the person of Jesus; for we know no other Jesus except the one who comes to us wrapped in the words of the gospel, and we can have no personal relationship with him at any point in our Christian lives except through that gospel. If ever we drive a wedge between our ‘personal encounter with Jesus’ and the gospel, we are in deep trouble.)

(Part 2 tomorrow)