Last sentence of the fourth chapter: Repentance, metanoia, does not mean feeling badly about one's sins, kicking or shaming oneself for one's wrongdoing. Instead, repentance means change, and without change, without deep thoroughgoing change, one could not enter and participate in the kingdom."
There are moments when I want to say, "Okay," and then I have to back off and ask, "but how can this be?" Yes, repentance does mean change. Yes, life change ought to accompany repentance, but how can life change accompany repentance without a change of heart? And how can any rebellious, faith less human being change his own heart? This entire chapter (actually beginning with his description of the "truer" Good News) leaves me with the idea that if we just stop rebelling and relate to God everything would be just fine. Let's do a little personal behavior modification and we'll all be happy in the kingdom. Camp seems to consistently deny that there is a "heart/spirit" component of kingdom life preparation that only God in his grace can accomplish and that as a matter of divine power recreating the human heart/spirit.
Am I missing something here? Can we become citizens of the kingdom because we want to. Is it really so simple that "Jesus dealt with your sins and opened the door. You don't worry about your sins and come on in?" Not likely, I think. What do you think?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Oh, that's how you do it!
I just figured out how to post a comment to the home page and not just as a comment to someone else's post. I feel quite fulfilled at having figured this out.
Here's what I taking away from this book so far: Culture imposed on Christianity. This is bad. Christianity doesn't recognize the imposition. This is bad. If we don't abandon all that we know and start over we'll never be the kingdom of God. This is bad.
I get the Constintinian contract thing, but why does he not go farther back into covenant history and address God's institutional intent in the tabernacle and the social development of national Israel? Those roots also affect the Christian sense of spiritual identity and place.
Okay, so we think we need to control everything, for instance. Where is the accounting of the creation commandment (pre-Law) that human beings are to have dominion. You have to define dominion, not ignore it, if you want to argue that it means something other than "be in charge of." He says, "Jesus called his disciples not to get hold of empire power . . . [but] to an altogether different route of bringing about the radical change of the kingdom of God--that of servanthood." Isn't true servanthood about honor and obeying the Father, which is what Jesus always did? Wouldn't the command to stewardship have an impact in the argument at this point.
I think I'm finding some of the argumentation in this book intriguing but insufficiently developed.
I love the idea (and the fact) that Christians should be like Christ at all times in all things. That that should be considered radical thinking in Christianity is certainly disappointing. Christians should think that was normal, I would think. I like the idea (and the fact) that we should be radically different than the world, living by radically different principles, values, hopes, expectations, and statutes. But does God actually expect the church to usher in the kingdom of God, or is that not His work, and we are to live within that which he establishes?
Here's what I taking away from this book so far: Culture imposed on Christianity. This is bad. Christianity doesn't recognize the imposition. This is bad. If we don't abandon all that we know and start over we'll never be the kingdom of God. This is bad.
I get the Constintinian contract thing, but why does he not go farther back into covenant history and address God's institutional intent in the tabernacle and the social development of national Israel? Those roots also affect the Christian sense of spiritual identity and place.
Okay, so we think we need to control everything, for instance. Where is the accounting of the creation commandment (pre-Law) that human beings are to have dominion. You have to define dominion, not ignore it, if you want to argue that it means something other than "be in charge of." He says, "Jesus called his disciples not to get hold of empire power . . . [but] to an altogether different route of bringing about the radical change of the kingdom of God--that of servanthood." Isn't true servanthood about honor and obeying the Father, which is what Jesus always did? Wouldn't the command to stewardship have an impact in the argument at this point.
I think I'm finding some of the argumentation in this book intriguing but insufficiently developed.
I love the idea (and the fact) that Christians should be like Christ at all times in all things. That that should be considered radical thinking in Christianity is certainly disappointing. Christians should think that was normal, I would think. I like the idea (and the fact) that we should be radically different than the world, living by radically different principles, values, hopes, expectations, and statutes. But does God actually expect the church to usher in the kingdom of God, or is that not His work, and we are to live within that which he establishes?
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