Welcoming Sinners

Here I need to address in detail one of the issues that many Christians reading this book will find most challenging. We are to imitate Jesus by being intentional about developing intimate fellow- ship with sinners. This means that we are to make the effort to build such close relationships with unbelievers, regardless of their beliefs or way of life, that we delight to eat and drink at one another’s tables and visit joyfully in one another’s homes. This will mean that we are going to get to know people who are considered by some of our churches to be sinners—the kind of people that God-fearing people should despise. 

Why should we welcome sinners and unbelievers joyfully, and why should they welcome us joyfully? Every day of our lives Jesus comes to each of us in our rebellion, moral failures, lack of love, and our reluctance to honor him. Even though we have cold hearts, every day he asks us to welcome him into our lives and into our homes. Every day he says to each one of us: 

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev. 3:20) \

How poorly we understand the gospel and the grace of God to us when we think we ought not to have “sinners” in our homes, or that we ought to keep ourselves and our children away from the homes of obvious sinners. Fellowship with sinners is the gospel. There is no other gospel of Christ.

- Jerram Barrs, Learning Evangelism from Jesus, p. 92, 93

The Power of a New Affection

But Jesus was a different kind of holy man and teacher. We have already seen that Jesus did not seek to keep apart from sinners. He also did not turn sinners away. Jesus did not abuse sinners, single them out for condemnation, or avoid them. Rather, he was a teacher who spoke words of comfort and grace to them, a teacher who showed them such respect, honor, and love that many of them responded by happily turning away from their sin. This, of course, was what happened in the life of Zacchaeus. Grace and mercy are a far more effective means of creating love and devotion than condemnation. A new affection for Christ has a much greater power to drive out sin and bring lasting repentance than any sermon on moral improvement, or any program for straightening out one’s life.

- Jerram Barrs, Learning Evangelism from Jesus, p. 102

What are people learning about the character of God from our lives?

Do we think of God as one who likes to “haul sinners over the coals”? Do we think of the Lord as one who likes to list our sins for us and force us to “eat humble pie”? How we see God’s character will deter- mine how we reveal God to others, so what kind of a picture of God are we communicating to people? Is “our God” always angry, never truly satisfied, constantly carping and criticizing, or is he the gracious and amazingly merciful God of these parables? To bring this ques- tion down to the daily reality of our lives: how do our children see God in us, and hear about God from us? How do unbelievers in our workplace, school, or neighborhood see and hear about God through us? In our lives, are we communicating a portrait of a truly gracious God? Or are we communicating a portrait of our heavenly Father as a slave master? 

This past year one of my students shared in class a most painful story about his son putting a gun in his own mouth and threatening to blow off his head. He said with tears that he had failed as a father to communicate graciousness to his son in the demands he made and in the way he treated him. Many fathers are like this. I will never forget one of my sons saying to me, “Dad, what have you got against me?” His words shocked me deeply, and I said to him with tears, “Son, I have nothing against you. I love you!” I couldn’t believe I had made him feel that I was unhappy with him, or dissatisfied with who he was. We need to remember that no one has ever seen God; what they know of God’s love is what they see in us. So, again, what are people learning about the character of God from our lives?

- Jerram Barrs, Learning Evangelism from Jesus, p. 122, 123

The Upside-Down World of Jesus

Many of us in our churches think of ourselves as living upright and outstanding lives as faithful Christian women and solid Christian men, and that, therefore, God is going to accept us. He will not! All of us need to hear the law of God, taught frequently and powerfully, so that we may be convicted of sin and come to understand our continuing need for Christ. 

Jesus preaches the gospel of forgiveness to those who seem farthest away from God: the prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors, and Samaritans. Today, our equivalent would be perhaps prostitutes, drug addicts, gang members, homosexuals, adulterers, corrupt business people and politicians, and any others whom we think of as being hopelessly wrong in their beliefs and lifestyles. These people have already graduated from the school of sin, and are often deeply aware of their need and shame. It is to the people who seem farthest from truth and righteousness that Jesus preaches the good news of salvation with the utmost grace and gentleness. 

This may seem completely wrong to us, a kind of upside-down world. Think of attitudes in our society as well as our attitudes often found within the church: “Condemn the poor, the weak, the sinners! Commend the rich, the powerful, the upright!” Jesus, however, does precisely the opposite.

- Jerram Barrs, Learning Evangelism from Jesus, p. 146

Attacking Legalism

The problem we face is this: “When could it ever be appropriate for us to speak to people with the severity of Jesus?” This is a very difficult question to answer, for unlike him, each one of us has a Pharisee in our own heart, a Pharisee who needs regular rebukes. This sad reality of our own inner lives should mean that our severity to the self-righteous and to the legalists around us must always be tempered by compassion borne of our own failings in these matters. Our severity should also always be tempered by the agonized prayer of the tax collector whom Jesus quoted: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Is our denunciation of self-righteousness and legalism motivated by our own pride that “we are not like the self-righteous Pharisees of our time, and we are not legalists”? Or is our denunciation of these obstacles to the gospel motivated by a passion for truth and by compassion for the Pharisees?

Having made these necessary qualifications, we still must sit at Jesus’ feet and recognize that legalism is an implacable enemy of the gospel of grace. And we need to be prepared to fight against it, rather than bow to it or allow it to govern the life and outreach of our churches. Indeed, we may regard it as a principle: the more legalistic a church is, the less genuine outreach there will be.

Attacking legalism is necessary to bring about the salvation of the legalists themselves by humbling them before the Lord, before his truth, and before his grace. Attacking legalism is also necessary in setting people free from the rules that the legalists impose upon them. We are to proclaim liberty: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). This proclamation of liberty from legalism is one of the great friends of true proclamation of the gospel, both to the church and to the world.

- Jerram Barrs, Learning Evangelism from Jesus, p. 177

Should All Believers Take Part in Evangelism?

Simply by being a member of the church of Jesus Christ each Christian has a responsibility to be involved in the missionary call of the whole church. We should all be praying, all giving, all sending.

There are two particular passages in which the apostles call all believers to be involved in the work of evangelism. First a passage from Paul (Colossians 4:5-6), and then one from Peter (1 Peter 3:15-16).

The words of the Lord through His apostles are clear. Evangelism is not simply the task of church leaders, pastors, and evangelists who are specially called and gifted. (Though the New Testament does recognize the particular responsibility of leaders and pastors in this task and teaches us that God does indeed gift some for this work with special abilities; see, for example,Ephesians 4:7-12 and 2 Timothy 4:1-5.) But it is not only the teachers and evangelists who have this task set before them; rather, every believer is called to be ready “to give the reason for the hope that you have” and to “make the most of every opportunity.”

This is how we are to think about our own lives. We are always on trial for Christ; our faith is always on trial. In our homes before our children and spouses; in our schools and colleges before our teachers, students, friends, and classmates; in our workplaces before our colleagues, bosses, employees, and customers; when we are playing or relaxing; whatever we are engaged in, wherever we find ourselves, we are put there by God for “the defense of the gospel (Philippians 1:7).”

As Francis Schaeffer used to say often: “We live before a watching world.” It is incumbent, then, on us to remember that our behavior, our words, our manner of speech, and our attitudes of heart are always being judged by non-Christians. Unbelievers are drawing conclusions about Christ and about the truth of Christianity from everything we say and do.

Jerram Barrs, The Heart of Evangelism 

Why Rejecting The Best New Hymn of the Last 50 Years is Unloving

Michael Horton:

The majority on the PCUSA hymnal committee apparently favor the subjective or moral theory of the atonement: Christ died on the cross to show us how much God loves us.  Surely this display would persuade us to repentance.  To illustrate this view, Leon Morris used the analogy of a person responding to a drowning friend by jumping into the river and drowning himself. The demonstration might express one’s love, but it doesn’t do anything to actually save the friend. 

Strictly speaking, Christ’s death has no significance for God according to this view.  He loves and accepts people regardless of their guilt. God has no enemies.  We may need to be reconciled to God, but God does not need to be reconciled to us.  We simply need to be reminded how much God loves us.  Thus, the death of Christ could only serve as an object lesson.  And what a cruel one indeed!  After all, if Christ’s death was unnecessary for satisfying God’s righteous law, then it is the symbol of senseless slaughter. 

The Apostle Paul says that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom 5:8-9).  Christ’s death manifests God’s love for sinners only because it actually propitiates God’s wrath.  He took our place— fulfilling the law, bearing our sentence for violating his law—and thereby removed every legal basis for our condemnation.  It is this point that the committee voted to omit, and yet it is precisely what makes the cross the manifestation of God’s amazing love. 

In other words, God’s love is manifested and magnified in Christ’s death only if it is more than a demonstration or object lesson.  Christ’s cross can be a demonstration of God’s love only because in it God reconciled enemies to himself forever.  “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom 5:10). Now that’s good news!

Read the rest.  

12 Myths About Calvinism

Michael Patton has a helpful article here.  Click over for the explanations.  His twelve points:

• Calvinism is not system of theology that denies God’s universal love.
• Calvinism is not a belief where God creates people in order to send them to hell.
• Calvinism is not belief that God is the author of evil.
• Calvinism is not a belief in fatalism.
• Calvinism is not a denial of freedom.
• Calvinism is not a belief that God forces people to become Christians against their will.
• Calvinism is not a belief that you should only evangelize the elect.
• Calvinism is not a belief that God arbitrarily chooses people to be saved.
• Calvinism is not a system of thought that follows a man, John Calvin.
• Calvinism is not a system that has to ignore or reinterpret passages of Scripture concerning human responsibility.
• Calvinists do not believe that no one can do any good thing at all.
• Calvinists do not necessarily believe that God predestines (wills) everything, including the color of socks I chose this morning.

New Free eBook From Desiring God

A new free eBook from Desiring God, Doctrine Matters: Ten Theological Trademarks from a Lifetime of Preaching:

This book, in many ways, is the distillation of John Piper’s 1,200-plus sermons online into one theological recap. It’s sort of like a systematic theology text in its structure, but then it differs because it is preached theology — it is doctrine heralded to real people in real situations. 

Our hope is that making it available in multiple formats will encourage you to read it — whether electronically or paperback in hand — and that in reading it you will be drawn into the unfolding drama of God’s glory in this world. Our prayer, for you and for ourselves, is that we would know and love Jesus more, and be compelled to dream bigger and risk more in his name. May this little book be one small means.

Get a hardcopy here.

A Neighborhood Strategy for Mission

Tim Brister:

What will it take for me to go deep into the unengaged sections of my city to make disciples of Jesus? How can I measure missional advance and impact? To help answer those questions, I have developed this city and neighborhood strategy: 

» Strangers need to become Neighbors through missional intentionality.
» Neighbors need to become Acquaintances through incarnational integrity.
» Acquaintances need to become Friends through relational investment.
» Friends need to become Family through evangelical invitation.
» Family needs to become Missionaries through practical instruction. 

When I begin, everyone outside of my church family are strangers to me. But when movement takes place, some will become neighbors. Over a period of time, and as deeper engagement takes place, more and more neighbors will become acquaintances, then friends, and then fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are trained to repeat the process. All of this, in my opinion, is discipleship. 

Moving Downward for Gospel Advance 

If we are going to make disciples of Jesus Christ, we have to go after “strangers.” Strangers, those far from God, will not be attracted to our Churches attractional efforts or events. We must go to where they are by pursuing them. This begins by having an intentional approach to ordinary living. If we are threads for kingdom fabric, we are to be woven into the heart of the city with everyday rhythms and networking strategies that introduce you to strangers and invite them to become neighbors. These rhythms include where you eat, when you play, how you shop, etc. The networking strategies have to do with purposeful attempts to connect with people on a repeated basis. (I will tease this out more in a follow up post). 

Strangers become neighbors when they know who you are and you know who they are. But the knowledge at this point is very superficial. A neighbor becomes an acquaintance when you begin to have a shared life through the integrity of your incarnational efforts. By that, I mean the sincerity of your words and consistency of your actions create a plausibility to neighbors that gives permission to share life through regular greetings, short conversations, etc. 

Acquaintances become friends when you make an intentional investment so that the rhythms of life with other people sync up so that a shared life is more than a casual conversation. You are in their homes, and they are in your home. You connect on a regular basis. They open up to you in ways that you understand the story of their lives, and as a good listener, learn how the story of the gospel can find redemptive bridges to cross into their world. 

Friends become family when you naturally share with your friends who you are and what is most important to you. You tell them your story and how God has made you new. And through the relationship investment, your friend feels safe asking questions and bringing up objections knowing they are not a project to fix or a sale to make. By seeing the impact of the gospel in your life and sharing the good news in everyday evangelistic conversations, friends are invited to brothers and sisters through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. 

Family members become missionaries when they walk with you through life-on-life practical instruction on what it means to follow Jesus. They become fluent in the gospel and shaped by the reign of Christ when seeking first the kingdom of God. And they wrestle with the struggles and share in the successes together with you while joining you as a missionary in their neighborhood and city.

Read the rest.  

"Internet pornography is probably the number one pastoral problem in the world today."

Carl Trueman:

I have never been convinced by the Madonna-Paglia argument that pornography liberates and empowers women; but one does not have to agree with that argument to see that pornography has been normalized in society. When one reflects on this, it is hardly surprising: the detachment of sexual gratification from committed, monogamous heterosexual relationships happened a long time ago. We are now at a point where someone who does believe that sex is exclusively reserved for such a context is portrayed as sexually repressed and socially retarded in popular culture and decried as a hate-filled bigot by the political media. Further, there has been a radical abolition of the distinction between the public and the private, fuelled by everything from twitter to reality television. If sex is primarily for personal pleasure and there is no boundary between the public and private, then the acceptance of pornography as normal, harmless diversion is hardly an unexpected development. Indeed, those Christians who feel a compulsive need to tweet their every private thought and to live their lives as a public performance might do well to reflect on the possibility of a connection between that type of behaviour and the growing social acceptance of pornography.

Internet pornography is probably the number one pastoral problem in the world today. I wonder if it is set to become yet more so: as the social shame dimension passes away, it will be harder to maintain discipline on this issue. The Christian church is currently mesmerized by developments relative to sexuality, not least because these development are couched in the rhetoric of civil rights and have serious legal implications. I wonder if a more serious and lethal internal issue for the church will actually turn out to be pornography. Holding the line on this will probably not come with direct legal and financial penalties attached; but when even The Spectator carries not one but two articles in a single week which assume the harmless normality of porn consumption, the pastoral challenge of preaching and maintaining basic sexual purity in the church is set to escalate beyond our wildest nightmares.

Read the rest.

In my experience, I tend to agree, especially in terms of the scope of the pastoral problem this raises for our churches. I would guess that every single (not married) guy in my church is incapable of handling any sort of internet device with sexual purity without some serious and intentional restraints and structured protections.  The poisoning of our minds creates zombies that are incapable of spiritual sensitivity.  It's tragic.


Books by Carl Trueman:

• Fools Rush in Where Monkeys Fear to Tread: Taking Aim at Everyone
• The Creedal Imperative
• The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
• Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative
• Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tommorrow
• Histories and Fallacies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History
• Minority Report: Unpopular thoughts on Everything from Ancient Christianity to Zen Calvinism (Sent to Save)
• The Wages Of Spin: Critical Writings on Historical and Contemporary Evangelicalism

Pharisees Today

The religious elite had created a sys- tem of moral respectability that only the wealthy could ever hope to maintain. Only the rich had the time and money to do all the required ritual cleansing. You can’t be ritually clean in a slum. This was bourgeois spirituality. We can do this too. Our expectations of clothing, behavior, literacy, and punctuality can exclude the poor. These verses also speak to a professionalized church ministry—a life seen as the epitome of godliness, but all but impossible for those not in full-time ministry. 

The teachers of the law created a system that allowed them to feel superior, and then lifted not one finger to help others. Think how this might play out today. Today’s Pharisees might condemn the poor for their dysfunctional families, but lift not one finger to help. Today’s Pharisees might condemn the poor for their excessive drinking, but lift not one finger to ease their pain. Today’s Pharisees might condemn the poor for their laziness, but lift not one finger to provide employment. Today’s Pharisees might condemn the poor for their abortions, but lift not one finger to adopt unwanted children. I’m not defending dysfunctional families, drunkenness, and so on. But we can’t condemn these things at a distance. That’s legalism. We must come alongside, proclaiming and demonstrating the transforming grace of God.

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table, p. 22

Everyone, Christian or Non-Christian, is Trying to Find Salvation

Everyone is trying to find salvation. They might not ask, “What must I do to be saved?” But everyone has some sense of what it is that would make them satisfied, fulfilled, and accepted: success in business, the admiration of men, a beautiful home, a liberated homeland, a secure future, the worship of women, a great body, wealth and prosperity, the acceptance of friends, a happy family, a dream vacation. 

Think about the people you know. Think about yourself. 

1. How do they define salvation? How will they know they’ve
arrived? “I’ll be happy, fulfilled, accepted if . . .”  

2. What must they do to be saved? What law or rules must they follow? “To achieve this I’ve got to...”  

3. How do they view people who don’t measure up to this law?
“People who don’t fit in are...” 

4. What happens when they don’t measure up? “When I don’t
achieve, then...” 

For the Pharisees it went like this: Salvation is national renewal. This will be achieved by personal purity. Those who don’t measure up, like tax collectors, sinners, and the poor, must be ostracized. 

Every version of salvation involves a principle, a rule, a law. If your idea of salvation is to have friends accept you, then your first commandment will be: “Thou shalt not be uncool.” And uncool people must be avoided at all costs. If your idea of salvation is a beautiful home, then your prophet will be Martha Stewart. Your rule will be antique pine, tiled floors, and distressed paint. Or maybe clean lines, white walls, and no clutter. Your first commandment will be: “Thou shalt not be untidy.” 

If other people don’t measure up, then we despise or avoid them. Yet, like the Pharisees, we need them so we can feel good about ourselves. And if we don’t measure up, then our “god” turns on us and condemns us. Life is seen as a race, and you’re a loser if you’re not successful, wealthy, or attractive. 

But self-salvation doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, because none of these versions of salvation deliver. They don’t bring satisfaction, identity, or joy, because we were made to know God and glorify him. Anything less is a cheap substitute. They’re not salvation!
And self-salvation doesn’t work because we can’t measure up. If you want to be admired by blokes, but you’re not blokey enough, then you’re condemned. Even on a good day you’ll worry what others think of you. If you want security and prosperity, and you lose your job, then you’re condemned. Even when you have a job, you’ll be anxious, over-busy, and unable to say no. “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ ...” (Gal. 2:16). 

The good news is that Jesus has not come “to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” 

He offers true salvation: being welcomed to God’s feast. And when we don’t measure up, we’re not condemned. Instead of condemning us, our God is condemned in our place. So salvation is found not through obeying any kind of law, but “through faith in Jesus.”

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (Re:Lit), 27, 28

Difficult People Expose Our Own Hearts

 

[36] One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. [37] And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, [38] and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. [39] Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”(Luke 7:36-39 ESV)

Simon’s attitude to this woman exposes his heart. It’s always like that. Problem people, difficult people, different people have a habit of exposing our hearts. Behavior always comes from the desires of the heart—Jesus says as much in the previous chapter (Luke 6:43–45). When a fellow ministry leader and I faced a difficult situation, he said, “What I find most disappointing is what it has revealed about my own heart. It’s shown me again that I still need people’s approval, because I fear them more than I fear God.” When someone is difficult, disappointing, or disrespectful, your reaction reveals your own heart. If you react with anger or bitterness, then your “need” for control or respect or success is exposed. If you’re trusting God’s sovereignty rather than your own abilities, and if you’re concerned for God’s glory rather than your own reputation, then it will be a different story. When you discover that someone in your church has fallen into sin, your own heart will be exposed. You may discover grace in your heart from God. But you may also discover pride and self-righteousness.

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (Re:Lit), p.45

They Are Selling Us Hospitality

In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putman reveals that there’s been a 33 percent decrease in families eating together over the last three decades.  And more than half of those families are watching television as they eat together. Over the same period there’s been a 45 percent decline in entertaining friends. Growing up I would ask each Sunday, “Who’s coming for dinner today?” Not whether but who, because I knew my parents always would have invited someone. “In the typical American household, the average number of dinners eaten together is three per week, with the average length of dinner being 20 minutes.”  Many homes no longer even have a dining room. We protect ourselves from outsiders, but our security systems and garden gates are our prisons, cutting us off from community. Instead we get our community vicariously through soap operas. Friends is a television program or a Facebook number, not people with whom we eat and laugh and cry. 

Instead we’ve commercialized hospitality. In his history of Starbucks, Taylor Clark argues that the secret of Starbucks’s success is not in its coffee, but “the pull of the coffeehouse as a place.” When sociologist Roy Oldenburg coined the term “third place” to describe a neutral gathering spot that’s neither home or work, “the company,” Clark writes, “now had its philanthropic rallying cry: it wasn’t a coffee company, but a third place bringing people together through the social glue of coffee.” Starbucks’s research showed that people wanted “a cozy social atmosphere above all else. . . . For those seeking a refuge from the world, the cup of coffee they bought was really just the price of admission to partake of the coffeehouse scene.” Starbucks is selling us hospitality.

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table, 46, 47

No Time For Mission? Got Time to Eat?

People often complain that they lack time for mission. But we all have to eat. Three meals a day, seven days a week. That’s twenty- one opportunities for mission and community without adding any- thing to your schedule. You could meet up with another Christian for breakfast on the way to work—read the Bible together, offer accountability, pray for one another. You could meet up with colleagues at lunchtime. Put down this book and chat to the person across the table from you in the cafeteria. You could invite your neighbors over for a meal. Better still, invite them over with another family from church. That way you get to do mission and community at the same time; plus your unbelieving neighbors will get to see the way the gospel impacts our relationships as Christians ( John 13:34–35; 17:20–21). You could invite someone who lives alone to share your family meal and follow it with board games, giving your children an opportunity to serve others through their welcome. 

Francis Schaeffer says: 

Don’t start with a big program. Don’t suddenly think you can add to your church budget and begin. Start personally and start in your home. I dare you. I dare you in the name of Jesus Christ. Do what I am going to suggest. Begin by opening your home for community. . . . You don’t need a big program. You don’t have to convince your session or board. All you have to do is open your home and begin. And there is no place in God’s world where there are no people who will come and share a home as long as it is a real home.

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus, p. 92

Mission as Hospitality

Meals bring mission into the ordinary. But that’s where most people are—living in the ordinary. That’s where we need to go to reach them. We too readily think of mission as extraordinary. Perhaps that’s because we find it awkward to talk about Jesus outside a church gathering. Perhaps it’s because we think God moves through the spectacular rather than the witness of people like us. Perhaps it’s because we want to outsource mission to the professionals, so we invite people to guest services where an “expert” can do mission for us. But most people live in the ordinary, and most people will be reached by ordinary people. Even those who attend a special event will, for the most part, have first been befriended by a Christian. “For those looking to connect with people in the local community it isn’t that hard if you really want to. Just invite people round, let them know they can go home if they need to and then enjoy a meal together. You’re going to eat anyway, so why not do it with others!”  

Jesus’s command to invite the poor for dinner violates our notions of distance and detachment. Mission as hospitality undermines the professionalization of ministry. Mission isn’t something I can clock out from at the end of the day. The hospitality to which Jesus calls us can’t be institutionalized in programs and projects. Jesus challenges us to take mission home. It may be a surprise, given my emphasis on meals, but I loathe church lunches—those potluck suppers in draughty church halls. They’re institutionalized hospitality. Don’t start a hospitality ministry in your church: open your home.  

Much is said of engaging with culture—much that’s right and helpful. But we must never let engaging culture eclipse engaging with people. People are infinitely variable and rarely susceptible to our sociological categories. If you want to understand a person’s worldview, don’t read a book. Talk to them, hang out with them, eat with them.

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus, p. 91  (my emphasis)

Missional, Meals, and Mario

Remember, too, that we’re witnesses to grace, not to good works and certainly not to good catering. Jim Petersen tells the story of his friend Mario, with whom he had studied the Bible for four years before Mario became a Christian. The Bible studies reflected the fact that Mario was a Marxist intellectual who’d read all the leading Western philosophers. A couple of years after his conversion, Jim and Mario were reminiscing: “Do you know what it really was that made me decide to become a Christian?” Mario asked. Petersen thought of all their Bible studies and philosophical discussions. Mario’s reply took him by surprise. “Remember that first time I stopped by your house? We were on our way someplace together, and I had a bowl of soup with you and your family. As I sat there observing you, your wife, and your children, and how you related to each other, I asked myself, ‘When will I have a relationship like this with my fiancée?’ When I realized that the answer was ‘never,’ I concluded I had to become a Christian for the sake of my own survival.” Petersen did remember the occasion. He remembered his children behaving badly and his frustration at having to correct them in front of Mario. Yet Mario saw the grace of Christ binding that family together.

- Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus, p. 95

Apologetic Sound Bites: ‘How can you claim there’s only one true religion?’

Tim Chester:

"How can you claim there’s only one true religion?’ You may be asked this question as you’re at the photocopier at work or at the bar buying a round. Here’s the second part in the apologetics series that will give you some ideas of how to respond when you only have five minutes. 

1. People often liken religions to blind men encountering an elephant. The first blind man feels the stomach of the elephant and concludes it is a wall. The second feels the trunk and concludes it is a snake. The rest conclude it is a spear, tree, fan and rope, depending upon where they touch. The story purports to prove that all religions reflect the truth, but none grasps the whole truth. If people tell this story, ask them: ‘How do you know it’s an elephant?’ In other words, the story assumes the teller is as enlightened, objective observer. 

2. People may say: ‘If you were born in Iran, you’d be a Muslim not a Christian.’ But the same goes for the pluralist. ‘If you’d been born in Iran, you wouldn’t be a pluralist.’ In other words, your belief that all religions are equal (or misguided) is as culturally and social conditioned as my belief in Jesus (more so since going to church is now a minority activity in our society).  

3. Jesus claimed he was the only way to God (John 14:6). If all religious roads lead to God then Jesus was a liar and Christianity is false. In which case, not all religions lead to God. 

4. People sometimes ask if you fully investigated all religions before deciding to follow Christ. Two responses: (1) You don’t need comprehensive knowledge before you can be confident something is true. You don’t read every newspaper and interview multiple eye-witnesses before believing a sports result. (2) I didn’t decide Christianity was the best religion; Jesus laid claim to my life. 

5. Ask people to define religion. Jesus is not another religious figure, but the end or opposite of all religion. Religion is about an upwards movement of humanity towards God. Jesus represents of downward movement of God towards humanity. 

6. Because Jesus is God’s initiative towards humanity, the message of Jesus is a message of grace. It is not dependant on human achievement, but upon God’s gracious and completed work. So Jesus alone gives assurance of salvation. 

This material is adapted from a Porterbrook Learning module.

Some great books by Tim Chester that I would recommend:

• You Can Change
• A Meal with Jesus
• Total Church
• Close the Window 

Cheap eBook Alert

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