What I am studying (besides the Bible)

Lately, I have been listening to lectures by a famous theologian and bishop of the Anglican Church in Durham, England.  N.T. (Tom) Wright. Bishop Wright is widely considered an expert on the letters of Paul and he is also on the Eames Commission, which is seeking to steer the Anglican Church through the difficult waters of dealing with the American ordination of gay priests and how the church as a whole will respond to that situation.

I am currently reading his recently released book, “Simply Christian, Why Christianity Makes Sense”.  In both his lectures and his book, Wright speaks about God “putting the world to rights”. He says “Resurrection doesn’t mean going to heaven when you die. It isn’t about life after death, it’s about life after ’life after death’”. He discusses the concept that the ultimate goal for a Christian isn’t getting to heaven, it’s about being in a relationship with God that announces to the world that the Kingdom of God is here, that through Jesus the powers that corrupt and bind the world have been conquered, and that by His Spirit and through His church, He will heal and restore it.

We are called to be agents of that purpose, and we are also called to model that healing to others, showing the world that through Christ we have been made whole. We are currently living in the darkness, but we are doing so by the light of Jesus. And we are called to be those change agents through community. We are a group of people who belong to each other because we belong to God in and through Jesus Christ.

Wright says that the two primary reasons the church exists are to worship God and to work for His Kingdom in the world. But we can’t do it alone, we need the community and the fellowship of the church in order to build one another up, teach one another, pray with and for each other, and to set examples for one another.  To live the Christian life means dying with Jesus to the old way of living, rising again with Him, and  following Him into His new world, the world that God is now in the process of  “putting to rights”.

There is much here to consider. How are we supposed to live as citizens of God’s Kingdom? What is God calling us to do? How do we preach the “Good News” to a lost and lonely world? I don’t believe that it is enough for us just to consider ourselves saved from our sin through Jesus and His sacrifice, we also need to go out into the world and live our lives as examples of that Good News. We need to be Christ to the world.

N.T. Wright will be speaking at the January Series of Calvin College event in Grand Rapids this January, for more information on that event click here.

To read more from and about N.T. Wright, or to download mp3 files of his lectures, visit the unofficial N.T. Wright webpage on the internet by clicking here.    

My Heroes

Our church, the Trenton Church of Christ, has several folks involved in missions throughout the world. A mission team just returned from building and encouraging the church in Honduras while another team from our congregation just came back from working with kids and teens in Finland. Another of our members, Beth Tunick, is spending a couple of years in Uganda working as a schoolteacher to the children of several missionaries there. She is also spending most of her spare time spreading the Word and love of Jesus to the people there. You can read about her missionary work on her blog at: http://bethinuganda.blogspot.com/

About 8 months ago, a good friend of mine decided to quit his job and go to Finland to bring the Gospel of Jesus to the post-Christian people of that country. Because of the way the laws in Finland work, Jim can only stay a few months and then he has to leave the country for a few months, then he gets to come back again for a few months. So off he went to Budapest to train for and earn his CELTA certificate (CELTA is a certificate for teaching the English language to others in Europe) which allows him to hopefully get a job in Finland enabling him to stay for a more extended period of time. He graduated the CELTA program, and will be headed back to Finland soon in search of work there. He will be joining Leanne, who will be in Finland for a few more weeks when he returns to Finland. You can read more about the work in Finland at: http://fmtampere.com/default.aspx

Jim, Beth, Leanne, and all of the others that go and work outside the safety and security of our country are an inpiration to me; their dedication to the Lord, the caring way that they treat people, and the love they have for those around them show the world so well that the power of the Spirit is working through them.

Jim, if you read this, your brothers from the Thursday night Zeteo group want you to know that we love you, we miss you, and we are proud of the work you our doing over there. May God bless you richly for your devotion to His Word! We are keeping you in our prayers daily.