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SaltAndLight
SaltAndLight
However much we'd like not to think about it, it's clear that people's idea of what it means to be a Christian is going to be influenced by us, if we say we're Christians. As I wondered on the discussion board, how can we be "authentically", positively and constructively distinctive as Christians, rather than being cheesy or cringeworthy? Here are some bits from the Bible to start the ball rolling. Can you see yourself in any of these descriptions??
John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.'
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'
But wisdom is proved right by all her children. (Jesus in Luke 7)
You are the light of the world.
A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before other people, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Jesus in Matt 5)
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (Paul in 2 Cor 5)
When we are cursed, we bless;
when we are persecuted, we endure it;
when we are slandered, we answer kindly.
Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. (Paul in 1 Cor 4)
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,
that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (Peter in 1 Peter 2)
One thing that strikes me about the Bible's descriptions (and other ones like 2 Cor 2 about 'the stench of death' and 'the fragrance of life', and Phil 2) is that they don't expect Christians to be popular and liked by everyone. We should be so distinctive that many people will reject us, both 'religious' and 'anti-religious' people. On the other hand there should be other people who are drawn to us and even become Christians because they can see some holy and Christ-like character in us.
My temptation in life is to want to be accepted and for other people to be happy to have me around - which means I worry about rocking the boat by appearing to be holy. (It's even hard to use that word without it sounding pious, but I think we need to reclaim it as a good solid word that means we're dedicated to God, who is Holy, perfect, powerful and awesome.) On the other hand there are people who do very well at standing out as Christians but tend to repel the kind of people Jesus hung out with, because they're insensitive and grace-less.
But how can I be distinctively Christian without turning people off? That's what I always wonder. I think one answer is that it should be natural - although we need to make an effort to grow in our character and holiness and dedication to God, our actions should flow naturally out of the character we have rather than being contrived. Our sins and temptations arise quite naturally out of our old sinful nature. In the same way, the more we get closer to the Holy Spirit and to having the attitude of Christ, the more we'll naturally act in a holy way.
But although our character is a foundation and a starting point, it's not easy on the spur of the moment to decide what to do. I went to a party last Saturday night (as the song goes), and as I went I wondered how holy and distinctive I would be. Most of the guests were women's rugby players, who can be quite intimidating, and so were the couple who were hosting it. There were a few other people too. But apart from a few bits of conversation, the whole tone was so 'foreign' to me - about people's sexual experiences and hedonistic remarks about getting the most pleasure out of life now and not caring about the future - that I couldn't really contribute. I took the easy and safe line and kept my mouth shut, while wearing an interested face. The only time I felt I had an opportunity to acknowledge that I was a Christian, I felt too afraid to do it.
What should I have done? What would Jesus have done? On the one hand, I can't expect everyone to respond positively to me being who I am - and each of us has their individual personality which means we can relate more easily to different kinds of people - the Christian rugby players I know of would be better placed to be 'salt and light' to them, maybe. And I can't expect everyone to realise I'm different just cos I meet them once.
On the other hand, I shouldn't assume they can't respond positively - that behind all the showing off facade in front of each other, someone might possibly look at me and think "He seems to have something I haven't got."
OK, I'm going to break the golden rule and start adding messages at the bottom - maybe the original poster would like to edit this all together when there's a bit more here? - Yes, that's my plan. I think wiki's more amenable to flexible discussion than the noticeboards (too linear) and the articles (too tree-like). I might get my friend, "the original Greek" to lend a hand too.
I just wanted to say that the most noticeable thing about Jesus was that he came along and upset all of _his_own_people_ by telling them they were all wrong and hypocritical. Who are our own people? Christians.
They weren't all wrong and hypocritical tho were they? Only the 'religious' ones. I'm sure he had a good time with dedicated followers of God (like Anna and Simeon in Luke 2 for example) as well as with the outcasts. BTW maybe this fits better under the other half of the discussion, about being honest and real among people in church. That came up under the article about friendships in church, but maybe we should set up another wiki page specifically about honesty / hypocrisy? This page I planned more for discussing how/whether we should be any different from the non-Christians around us (and I don't think pointing out to them that Christians are all hypocrites is one of those ways!) In summary, we have the two themes - how we relate (particularly as sinners and imperfect people) to the church, and how we relate (particularly as God's people) to the world.
I don't think we can separate the two. Especially if we are looking at Jesus as an example, he hardly met any non-Jews, so all the being different he did was being different from the established religious dogma, which is what I think we really lack in the 21st Century.
So are you saying that all the Jews were hypocritical? Are you saying that all Christians are hypocritical? Not sure I understand that.
But I agree that Jesus challenged the religious assumptions of the time - which bits were what God really wanted and which were just human accretions - and so should we. Jesus certainly put the wind up the 'religious' people of the time, and I think it's not too hard to do that today - though we have to think very hard about what is God's idea and what is just human. It'd be good to discuss more about how we can do that.
But the Bible implies we will be rejected by 'unreligious' people as well for belonging to God (e.g. 1 Peter 4:1-5), which I find much harder to imagine. For example, at the party I went to, I did very well at not acting like a hypocrite - I didn't condemn or reject anyone, and I didn't deny myself any pleasures for the sake of 'edifying' others. But that's the easy part. Surely there's more to "living such good lives" than that?
The aspect of a holy life (or 'not sinning') that occurs first to most people is self-control in obedience to God's rules. I find it hard to separate that from the worldly idea of being boring and denying myself pleasures, but the Bible talks about it in terms of liberation from sin into an abundant and satisfied life.
Another, more active, aspect is serving other people selflessly (1 John 3:16-18 & 23). This can lead to rejection both from 'religious' and 'unreligious' people, if it means loving the outcast, child abusers for example (see end of In Defence etc.). Less dramatically, people can laugh at you as a 'do-gooder' who should be enjoying yourself instead of trying to salve your conscience or gain admiration for what you're doing.
Another part of Jesus' mission was to say "Your sins are forgiven. Now go and don't sin any more". Of course we're not sinless like Jesus, but like the apostles, we should be calling people to turn from their sins and be forgiven. How can we do this?
Regarding whether we can divide all this up - I think it depends how we want to look at it. Jesus may have almost only met Jews (and Romans), but it's not true that we only meet Christians, is it (I hope)? And you could say Jesus met Nicodemus, the woman caught in adultery, the young ruler, the Samaritan women, Zacchaeus... all different. In terms of my own life I find that I have quite different problems regarding how to relate to Christians and how to relate to non-Christians, so it helps me to see it in terms of two questions. But feel free not to if you prefer.
>I just wanted to say that the most noticeable thing about Jesus was that he came along and upset all of _his_own_people_ by telling them they were all wrong and hypocritical. Who are our own people? Christians.
I agree that J would want us to shake up Christians, but the mission he's sent us on (Go and make disciples of all nations etc) means that one of our primary focuses will be on how we relate to (including how we unfortunately offend) non-Christians. I think the idea is to concentrate on that aspect on this page, as what they take offence at in our lives will usually be very different, in my experience, from Christians.
I agree. The quotes at the top of this page seem mostly to be v much orientated towards non-Christians.
> was being different from the established religious dogma, which is what I think we really lack in the 21st Century.
I'm sure we do lack a distinctiveness from dead dogma, but surely we also often lack distinctiveness from the people who aren't Christians around us?
Too right we do.
Distinctiveness is difficult. What's unnecessary distinctiveness from non-Christians, and what's necessary?
This year I want to think hard about my behaviour with people who don't yet have faith in Christ. I'll write any particular issues I notice on this board.
Good on you! I've just been talking to a Christian friend who's got a bit of a thing about 'holy' and 'Christian' people and how 'sad' she thinks a lot of them are. On the one hand I'm tempted to think "Well, I'd better make sure I'm not sad like that", but on the other hand I think "What should I care about that? I should just be myself, and 'sad' non-Christians should be free to just be themselves too." I shouldn't worry if the world looks down on me for being myself or being like Christ, but only if any merely human and dispensible ideas I have about being a Christian are a stumbling block to them. Or if the world doesn't look down on me at all but sees me as 'one of their own'!
I've just put something on a message board about this so I'd better say something similar here.
It's really difficult for me to express propoerly, but all I want to say is that this isn't a one-sided argument. We do need to make sure we don't just conform. Jesus' behaviour was completely unconforming and totally unexpected almost all the time even by his disciples. He was also branded sinful for refusing to conform to silly rules e.g. over-enforcement of the Sabbath.
I suppose we could say our primary aim is to be like Christ, rather than to be unlike anything else, but that that will then mean we contrast in various ways with people in general, and also contrast in other ways with the ideas both Christians and non-Christians may have of what it means to be a Christian, so we need to watch out that we're not conforming to any of those other things. If that makes sense.
Ironically, even on this website I feel tempted to project an image / attitude that conforms to what I think will make other people accept me... such as an attitude of non-conformity...
Here's one way to approach the question: What positive things about Christians or Christ have attracted you or other people to take what they believe seriously? Here's some things that spring to mind:
(Often I don't like thinking about whether there's anything attractively Christian about my life, just as I don't like thinking about my efforts at prayer etc. - because I just feel like a non-starter, a failure and guilty. But if we're Christians, there's no condemnation from God - He doesn't want us to be loaded with guilt - He wants us to be free to do what He wants us to do...)
How's everyone doing with this? (in whichever way you take it - being different from non-Christians or different from expectations of Christians)
No answers, I see. I've had a few more thoughts at LawGraceAndFreedom.