When a movement has lost its way, the best way to recover the right path is to retrace its steps to its most formative principles and voices.
Christianity has lost its way. To recover it, we should go back to its earliest expressions and manifestations. The earliest books of the New Testament that were written were some of Paul's epistles. They predated the writing of the first gospel, the Gospel of Mark, which was probably written between 65-70 CE, after Paul's death.
In Paul's earliest letters, particularly I Thessalonians and Philippians, Paul articulates the vision and purpose of the growing movement that arose out of the life and ministry of Christ. God was revealed in Christ to serve us. The role of the movement was to create a community of believers who would imitate Christ by serving others and the world. Then, those outside the community would see those within the community and imitate them. The goal of the community was for everyone to imitate Christ, which would bring salvation and redemption to the world and real God's Kingdom.
Supporting the work and mission of Caney Spring United Methodist Church and Berlin United Methodist Church, two churches partnered in the ministry of making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world, located in Marshall County, Tennessee.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Sunday, October 1, 2017
The Foundation of Discipleship
Repentance is the foundation of discipleship. The significance of repentance is not the act of seeking forgiveness itself: it is the self-awareness that the act of seeking forgiveness evidences. If repentance is genuine, it reveals that we are cognizant of ourselves as sinners; deeply flawed people who are unworthy on our own merit to enter God's Kingdom.
Without this self-awareness, every step that comes after; baptism, confession of faith, participation in the means of grace, means absolutely nothing because we do not participate in these acts with an understanding of who we are and who God is. We remain, perpetually, sinners in need of repentance. Discipleship and God's covenant community, the Church, must be grounded in an awareness of who we are.
Jesus told the Pharisees (in modern terms, those who were deemed holy) that a tax collector (in modern terms, a crook) who is conscious of himself as a sinner in need of repentance, is further along in his journey towards living as a Pharisee than one who closely follows the law, observes the Sabbath, and spends his life studying the Torah
Without this self-awareness, every step that comes after; baptism, confession of faith, participation in the means of grace, means absolutely nothing because we do not participate in these acts with an understanding of who we are and who God is. We remain, perpetually, sinners in need of repentance. Discipleship and God's covenant community, the Church, must be grounded in an awareness of who we are.
Jesus told the Pharisees (in modern terms, those who were deemed holy) that a tax collector (in modern terms, a crook) who is conscious of himself as a sinner in need of repentance, is further along in his journey towards living as a Pharisee than one who closely follows the law, observes the Sabbath, and spends his life studying the Torah
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