Thesis: The Christian life consists of acts that are a response to the new identity given to human beings by the Father, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, performed in the world, in expectation of the renewal and judgment of all things.
Faith – the ground of the Christian life
1. hearing
2. testifying
3. watching
4. waiting
Prayer – the words of the Christian life
5. praising
6. confessing
7. thanksgiving
8. asking
Obedience – the works of the Christian life
9. leaving
10. living
11. loving
12. suffering
21 comments:
Very nice. I like it. Sounds like a good sermon series outline too for 3 sermons, with the sub-points given!
Perhaps another way of looking at it too could be 'faith, hope, and love' with faith being the ground of the Chirstian life, hope being the direction of the Christian life and love being the works (or manifestation) of the Christian life?
Mike,
I like this, and believe in the importance of saying clearly what we're shooting for.
I wonder if the notion of 'serving' also has some place.
And also, what is the effect of adding nouns to the end of these verbs. It will make it more specific, and therefore also open up more holes
'Serving' I was going to file under 'loving'... but I'll think about that again.
Adding nouns will make it sound less pretty!
What I plan to do is come up with a succinct thesis statement to go with each present continuous verb/gerund. This will provide more specificity and make me disciplined in my exposition of ecah.
Lots of potential here for talking about the *corporate* nature of the saved life - not just 'my life', but the shared life of a new humanity.
Well, yes - the course is divided into 'Doctrines of Grace' under which this bit falls and then 'the Church'. It follows roughly Calvin's organisation in the Institutes.. Grace being book III, and Church being book IV.
The danger in this section is to be individualistic of course. But I would want to keep 'church' as the proper context of the CHristian Life, along with 'world'.
the stuff in your second section aren't just words are they? Words might be the outward sign but it's not essential or even the essence of what you're talking about? Am I missing it?
I like it to, and second Stuart's comment as well. Since "thought experiments" are all the rage in this corner of the blogosphere, how many of your verbs/ gerunds still work as well if you add a to/with/for 'one another'to them??
e.g. 'hearing' might capture more of the communal context if modified to 'discerning' etc. etc..
Would it be too clunky to change your leading thesis from "acts" to "expressions of our relationships with God, the church and the world?"
Something like this has a better eschatalogical "always and already feel" about our situation in the world and that the Christian life is the perfection of creatureliness not some existential "creation-in-the-moment.'
Where would growing fit in? Should it fit in somewhere?
well - to answer both cyberp and sallyh - I like the word 'acts' because I can then describe prayer as a 'speech-act'.
Nick - I am never quite sure what to make of 'growing'. It is one of those concepts that sound scriptural but may just turn out not to be...
Mike, I guess it's texts like Eph 4.15 and 1 Pet 2.2 (and 2 Pet 3.18) that give energy to the concept of growing.
The thing I like about it is that it can be both positive about the present and oriented towards change in the future.
What is "growing"??
I guess we don't have this in my wing of the church...
'Growing'...I think perhaps they are referring to 'X'tn maturity'??
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Isn't that what the whole of this is about?
I'm sure it must mean more than that...
Yes...Well...I am 'scratching my head'...what is 'growing' trying to express...perhaps it is 'actually living and doing, and being disciplined, and persevering in the faith...actually being a heartfelt changed to the heart's core X'tn'??? What Paul says...being weaned off the 'spiritual milk'..
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It was a genuine question. I loved the initial thesis, because it is a binary - we live this way because we have a new identity. It is helpful and a great guard against works righteousness, as this new identity is fixed.
Colossians 3:10 is interesting. The primary motivator is we have put on a new self, as in Michael's thesis, but that new self "is being renewed", which suggests some continual change. I don't know any Greek so I might be misreading this. Response to the new self is still primary.
Hebrews 6 is another interesting verse, but that's probably a whole other can of worms.
You are 'touching' on the father's expression of 'theosis'- deification- 'union with God' and what it means to pursue holiness-
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I would have thought 'growing' would be included in the idea of sanctification, which is the big idea in this area of doctrine, but isn't on the list of topics?
It also seems a little "human" heavy, ie our response raher than God's work in us. "In the power of the HS" is in the thesis, but all your subtitles are things we do.
Anyway, good to see some time spent on prayer. This was not taught during my 4 years at MTC. Make sure you give some clear statement on the efficacy (sp?) of prayer too. This is something many Calvinists are not too clear on, me included.
Well, one of the big questions to explore is whether a progressive view of sanctification is sound...
This course does, at least outwardly, seem like it is focussing on human acts. But in context I don't think that is too bad. One of the things will be to show how these 'acts' are acts of God, of course.
If transformation is a better term for 'growth' rather than sanctification, where does the idea of communion with God come into play? We speak of union in Christ, but doesn't that take us to look at the idea of communing?
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