Cheap grace or costly discipleship?

We are only days away from the 80th anniversary of  death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's.  I knew nothing of him as I grew up in post war Britain and attended a Baptist church and Sunday School.  I heard of Livingstone, Chalmers and many other heroes of the faith, but not of Bonhoeffer.  It was only towards the end of the last century that it became a familiar name.  He was an outstanding example of how to live the Christian life within a world where compromise comes all too easy.

Disdaining the notion of 'cheap grace', he taught instead, 'costly discipleship'. In Bonhoeffer's day it was all too easy to accept Naziism, as many Christians and churches did.  Speaking out against it was to ask for exclusion and criticism from Christians that were expected to be supportive.   Recently I have watched two programmes about the use of BSL as a language for the deaf.  The second programme was a film called Reunion which drives home how deaf people can become marginalised.

Grace is not cheap.  Yes, I believe that the gospel calls all into a living and loving relationship with himself free from rules and regulations.  Access is by faith.  One of my critics has said that in teaching that living under the New Covenant which has no rules, like 'cheap grace'.  By that, I think he meant I was trivialising grace.  But, I believe that God's wonderful offer of free salvation came at the enormous cost of the cross.  As a recipient of such love I sing with Isaac Watts,

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small.
Love, so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life my all.

I do not believe that anyone who has come to see that it is through what Christ endured that we are offered salvation, that such a person could look at the cross and decide to live selfishly.  My Jesus, spoke about those who would follow him, taking up their cross.  For Bonhoeffer it meant ultimately dying for the things he believed in: treating Jews and black people with love and dignity.  But, in many ways, he had already laid down his life years before his death.

We are called to love God wholeheartedly, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.  I have become deeply concerned about how unkind so many of us are towards those whose sexuality is different from ours.  If we proclaim a God of love who has open arms, but marginalise and even ostracise those whose natural sexual attraction differs from what we call normal, our actions betray our profession of faith.  Love is more than a smile and a handshake at the door, it welcomes others as we would want to be welcomed.  It offers them the best place at the table and the best seat in the house.

Over a million people in the UK have found the courage to confess themselves different, but that does not make them less, or dangerous.  I am not one of them, and I wonder would I be able to face the loss of friends and family, and a place in church.

Which Covenant are you Under?

 One of the things that saddens and surprises me is that many Christians who read their Bibles regularly often seem not to live under the New Covenant that God has made with humankind.

The Bible contains several covenants (binding agreements), but there are two in particular that I would like to mention.  Incidentally the names given to the two major divisions of the Bible reflect these two covenants.  There being no exact equivalent in Greek for the concept of covenant within the Hebrew Scriptures, the alternative, diatheke, translated "Testament" is used.  The difference between Covenant and Testament is interesting.  Covenants are made between two or more parties having power during the lifetime of the maker of the Covenants.  But, Testaments are agreements that only have power after the death of the testator. Se...

"In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died." (Hebrews 8:16,17, NIV)

The 'Old Covenant' was made by God with the people of Israel.  It is conditional.  The Old Covenant came with a raft of rules and regulations.  These declared that some things were not allowed, and are therefore called sinful.  Alongside these, God provided a system of sacrifices for forgiveness.   While God cannot be anything other than faithful, sadly, Israel repeatedly became an unfaithful partner.

By contrast, the 'New Covenant' is made by God with all of humankind.  It is unconditional, based upon grace and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  He has paid it all for all people of all times, and access into this relationship is simply by believing (i.e. accepting our need and what Jesus has made possible through his death, so trusting him for salvation).  It comes without any of the rules and regulations.  The only thing that God asks is that we love him wholeheartedly and our neighbours as ourselves.  We may fall short but, as John tells us, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us when we acknowledge out fault.  It is God's free provision at his own cost.

The problem that follows is that many people seem not to be happy with a 'no rules' relationship.

So it was that some of the Jewish converts to Christianity taught that circumcision and obedience to the Law was still required.  The death of Christ was not enough.  The apostle, Paul (himself a pharisee) received his understanding of the gospel direct from God, and saw these law keepers as contradicting the gospel.  Hence his journey to Jerusalem and the Council recorded in Acts 15.  This Council determined that there were no rules, though some advice was passed on to the gentile Christians.

But that was still not enough for some, and early Bible teachers continued to insist that the Law had to be kept.  Fortunately for us, Paul addresses this particular problem in his letter to the churches in Galatia.  In it, he makes Palin that to mix Old Covenant pathways to righteousness with grace is to make grace ineffective.  Those whom Christ had made free were not to get entangled again.

The principle of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ accepted by faith is also taught in Romana and Ephesians, and elsewhere.  But time and again, otherwise earnest Bible-believing Christians keep adding rules.  Why?  It seems that some of us cannot live without rules, so we inject them into the message of salvation and in teaching about discipleship.

Jesus has paid it all.  He has fulfilled the requirement of the Law.  We do not have to try to do the impossible which is why we are free.

I come across this fault so often.  When I ask if simple faith is all we need, they usually reply "Yes, but...."

I am confident to say that both God and I want you to enjoy life in the Holy Spirit.  Revel in its freedom and produce fruit through that union, but not through effort!

If you haven't read Galatians for some time, do get up to date.  You will find it a blessing.  What could be better than "It was for freedom that Christ has set us free"?

I remain, yours under the shelter of God's wonderful grace,

Barry

Just an Ordinary Week

 Regular readers of my blog will know that last year I stepped aside (not down) from my key activity in rural mission.  That is the work of what we started as Rural Mission Solutions but is now more simply known as Rural Missions.  I hasten to say that Rural Missions still h\as plenty of great ideas to help village churches.  It is not without solutions!

Over more recent months I have also started reducing the amount of time I am able to give to promoting good church management, mission and evangelism.  However, reducing time does not mean reducing quality and value, so I looking at doing more while doing less.  After all, I am now 79 and have less energy but a lot more experience and wisdom.

Like many my age, I wonder where time goes.  It often feels as if someone has stolen hours out of a day and days out of a week, not to mention the loss of months in a year!  Do, what can be achieved in an ordinary week?

This week I have helped in planning an event for the block of retirement apartments in which I live alongside 43 other apartments.  The sixty or so people who live here only have two people who regularly attend a church.  Both my Baptist friend am I are keen to create opportunities to explain something about our faith to our close neighbours.  So, we have agreed a plan to hold a series of four discussion, looking at @How did we get the Bible and is it reliable?", "Who was Jesus and what did he teach?", "Why get so excited about Christmas and Easter?", and "Is there life after life, and can we be sure of heaven?".

If these do not get people talking I will eat my hat!  My friend has offered to host these in her apartment which is good as she is more tidy than me.  We are offering, tea of coffee or cold drink plus some scrumptious cake.  At least eight people have signed up, but there is a quiet buzz among others.  Watch out for more news.  I have prepared a take-away sheet for the first session as one of the things to do in an ordinary week!

The other night this week I sat up until 4.00am finishing the first draft of a booklet exploring what causes romantic and sexual attraction, and what does the Bible say about it.  Others are now checking the draft to see if it is as helpful as I hope it would be.  If you are up to speed with what God has been doing in my life, you will know that in 2024 I found God pressing me to research this issue, both from a scientific point of view as well as from the Bible.

What I discovered was quite disturbing.  I had not thought about the process of attraction before, but was not surprised that it is primarily to do with functions in our brains.  Neuroscience has demonstrated that people attracted to the same sex not only have brains that function differently to those e attracted to the opposite sex, but even the shape of the brain can be a determinator.  Simply, we cannot help how we were born.  It is not a matter of choice.

But I had to square this with what the Bible says.  To me, that seemed impossible, like squaring a circle.  So hours of Bible study followed, with the sense that for every question I had, God showed me his answer.  One by one, I found that all the arguments from scripture that opponents of same-sex relation raise, were not possible to substantiate.  At the end of 2024 I could no longer state that the Bible says that same-sex relation is wrong.  That does not mean that I promote same-sex relation; it means that I cannot condemn it because the Bible doesn't.  Now, that will be difficult for some Christians, and I have been accused of disobeying Go, but if you want to search the same scripture that I have searched, let me know and I will send you a free copy of my notes.

With over one million people in the UK who have gone public on being attracted to people of the same sex, and not attracted to the opposite sex.  This is a big issue.  In addition  there are over one million people in the UK who are born with sexual parts of their bodies neither exclusively male or female.  Dare we say they are not made in God's image because they do not fit the binary understanding that comes from our interpretation of what it means when the Bible says, "Male and female, created he them".  Is the Bible wrong or is it how we have chosen to interpret such passages?

All the above does not include the time given to play my part as part of the leadership and an active member of my church, and promoting support for Myanmar to alleviate problems caused by the earthquake.

So, it's been a pretty productive week, and so it is set to go on.  I vale your prayers and interest. Why not drop me a line to ruralbarry@gmail.com, and let me know how you are doing, please.