Are any of you familiar with him? Derek loaned me a copy of The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering who Jesus Was and Is yesterday and I've already finished it. I always feel like I'm standing on a precipice when I read N.T. Wright, like I'm about to discover something wonderful. Between that and the reading I've been doing for Church History I've been very much benefited and challenged over the last few days.
Here's something that is maybe not revolutionary but still just plain good stuff (in commenting on 1 Corinthians 3:10-15):
"If you build on the foundation in the present time with gold, silver, and precious stones, your work will last. In the Lord your labor is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that is soon going over a cliff. Nor, however, are you constructing the kingdom of God by your own efforts. You are following Jesus and shaping our world in the power of the Spirit; and when the final consummation comes, the work that you have done, whether in Bible study or biochemistry, whether in preaching or in pure mathematics, whether in digging ditches or in composing symphonies, will stand, will last." (80-81)
All the stuff we do matters. In Christ our work, whatever it might be, has eternal significance. The sacred and the secular are not separated: in Christ each one of us is a royal priest, period.
1 comment:
What reason is there to think that anything except ministry will last based on this verse? Other good things, such as marriage to one another, is not supposed to be eternal, so why should we believe any random thing we do is eternal? Or does he mean "last" in some fuzzy, "spiritual" way that has no discernable intended meaning (although we might think of various things that might fit)? Why does almost everthing written lack conspicuity in meaning? And why do people use words like "synergy" and "utilize" and "leverage" (I'm really starting to have "leverage")? And why don't we put our sentence punction at the beginning of the sentence? What possible good is there in know how something should be read after you just read it? And if you can tell before getting to the end, why have punction at all?
Please bring these questions to Wayne Grudem's attention at your earliest possible convenience. Thank you.
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