How NT Wright Stole Christmas » Peter Leithart | A First Things Blog

Christmas is an interesting time of year with most people revelling in the sentimentality of the season. But Jesus himself was not sentimental at all. Peter Leithart makes the point that so much of what we see and hear about Jesus in popular culture, Christmas hymns, movies and even Christian ethos is not really that much like the real Jesus of the scriptures.

In particular he makes reference to the excellent NT theologian NT Wright and some of the deeply challenging things he has written that force us back to the gospels to find the Jesus we've often missed. Often Wright has 'spoiled' our commonly held ideas of Jesus - but he has replaced them with far deeper, more truthful and powerful themes from the scriptures.

Liethart makes the following observation:

Several years ago, when The Passion of the Christ was making headlines, I realized that N. T. Wright has spoiled every Jesus film. Once you’ve read Wright, you realize that none of the movies get Jesus right. Pharisees and scribes are reduced stock villains with caricatured Jewish features. Pilate has to make an appearance, and Herod, but we are given no sense that first-century Israel was the powder keg that it actually was.

No film ever gives us what Wright says we should be looking for: a “crucifiable” Jesus, a Jesus who does something so provocative to make the Jews murderously hostile. In the movies, Jesus is a hippy peace-child, a delicate flower of a man, a dew-eyed first-century Jewish Gandhi. Why would anyone want to hurt Him? Maybe because He’s so annoyingly precious; but that’s not the story of the gospels.

It's an interesting comment and in many ways true. So much of what we believe about Jesus is more flavoured by culture rather than scripture. May we keep turning back to the text of the gospels this season to allow our preconceived ideas of Jesus to be undone, that this Christmas we may again meet the saviour of the world and not simply an empty caricature.

Liethart's full article is here: How NT Wright Stole Christmas 

Ten signs of a healthy team

This is wirth reading whether you lead a church, a business or even a family.

Ten Signs of a Healthy Team

Inclusive/exclusive

One of the common accusations by those outside the faith against Christianity is our claim to exclusiveness. Our claim that we have the only means by which people might be saved: Jesus. Of course this is not simply something we've pushed on to Jesus, he made the claim himself repeatedly and so Jesus church is simply working within the boundaries of being saved that Jesus himself gave to us.

There is one way to come to the father - Jesus.

Of course those kinds of statements are politically incorrect.

But they are not all of the story. Whilst Jesus makes the claim to exclusivley be the door to everything of God's kingdom, his call to people to come to him is deeply inclusive. More so than any other offer we might find in this life. Jesus calls all people to himself that he might save them, redeem them and draw them into the kingdom of God.

“The angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’”Luke 2:10–11

The angel reminds us of this good news from the very beginning of Jesus coming. Good news. Great Joy. for all the people. Jesus calls people to come to him irrespective of ethnicity, culture, language or background. It matters little whether you have a long history of dark sin or whether you've been mostly good all your life. Jesus does not care whether you are immensely wealthy or desperately poor. He cares little whether you come from a Christian home or are an atheist. It does not bother him whether you have multiple degrees behind your name or a basic primary school education.  Jesus calls all people to come to him and to find rest for their souls a profoundly unique, exclusive call but extensively inclusive in its breadth. This is why we're called to tell people the good news - because there is life and Jesus wants all to find it.

This is a challenge to the church. The challenge is that we'd be a community that has that kind of heart for the world, that we'd call all people irrespective of who they are to come follow him. That we'd not draw inwards in holy huddles but that we'd take the unbelievable and liberating news of Jesus into the world.

Because Christmas is the season of good news for all people.

How shall we live?

Over the past two Sundays, Brent preached two powerful sermons which should have made us all sit up and take notice. He spoke about how we were saved from our previous way of life and how we made a decision to follow Jesus and how we are now looking forward to eternal life with him.

But what about the time in between? How are we going to live our new life in the present, in the here and now when we have received such a gift of grace? So I went and read again Col 3:1-17 and together with it Matt 25:32-46, and asked myself 'What is God’s will for me in 2013?”

The question however, is not 'What is God’s will?' It is rather this 'will we obey God’s will?' The Bible tells us in so many places what God's will for us is. Jesus said 'whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it.' Jesus clearly acknowledged that following him involves taking lots of risks, but in the end leads to a great reward. This begs a question from each of us; do we believe the reward found in Jesus is worth the risk of following him? The changes in our lives will always increase in proportion to the depth of our relationship with Jesus.

We need to commit to believe whatever Jesus says in the scriptures but as importantly we need to commit to obey what we have heard (Jas 1:22-25).

The gospel does not merely prompt us to reflection. Instead the gospel calls us to respond.  In the process of hearing Jesus, we are compelled to take an honest look at our lives, our families, our church and not just ask “What is he saying?” but also “What shall I do?”

So, when we draw up our list of resolutions for 2013, let’s keep Sunday’s challenge in mind.

-Leon Huisamen

Worshipping Jesus this Christmas

Well proud of our team leading at a community carols event!

Unto us a saviour has been born, a saviour whose kingdom knows no end. May we never forget the reason for the season.

Understanding Sin

Tim Keller pastor and preacher at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan has written some outstanding books and is one of the great thinkers of our day in terms of helping those outside the faith understand Jesus.

Our aim is to be on gospel centred mission - but what does that mission look like, and how do we explain gospel to someone who does not understand anything about Jesus. So often Christians assume others understand what sin is, how Jesus saves us and how the Holy Spirit transforms us. Sadly most people are very ignorant about these things and often assume we are saying things that we are not.

Keller has written an good article on sin and how to understand in ways that are very helpful. You can see it here. He makes some really good points on how properly understanding sin will make us humble:

The biblical teaching on sin shows us the complete
pervasiveness of sin and the ultimate impossibility
of dividing the world neatly into sinful people and
good people. It eliminates our attitudes of superiority
toward others and our practices of shunning or
excluding those with whom we differ.