Steve Smallman Interview: The Walk
I have been so impressed with Stephen Smallman’s book, The Walk: Steps for New and Renewed Followers of Jesus, that I decided to interview Steve here on the blog. I hope this brief interview persuades you to buy Steve’s book. I’m preparing to plant a church right now and I’ve decided that Steve’s book will be part of the backbone of reading we do as a core team as we learn to be disciples and make disciples.
Here is Tim Keller’s endorsement for the book:
This is the fruit of a lifetime of experience in ministry. I recommend this warm, practical, gospel-centered, and very useful manual on discipleship.
Steve has served for over forty years in pastoral ministry and has served as executive director for World Harvest Mission. He currently teaches for CityNet Ministries of Philadelphia. You can learn more about Steve at his website, Birthline Ministries.
Q Why did you write The Walk?
P&R Publishing asked me to write a book for new believers. They had already published some things I had written for “beginners” and thought I would enjoy taking on this project. They were right. I started with a typical list of things new Christians should know, but, with P&R’s encouragement, the book gradually took on the “Dummies” approach that I then tried to follow. I think most of our churches have people with a genuine interest in following Jesus but who have much less understanding of what that means that we realize. They nod when we use our fancy terms, and may even use the evangelical vocabulary themselves, but at a heart level there are many, many questions. So I started to write for “new followers of Jesus,” not assuming any prior knowledge, but soon added the idea of “renewed followers” because I think there are lots of “old believers” around who would like a chance at a fresh start.
The other major idea behind the book was a desire to spell out as basically as possible what it means to apply the gospel to those who already believe it. I think the idea that we are to “preach the gospel to ourselves” seems to have taken firm hold in many evangelical circles. But most of what I have seen is that “preaching the gospel to ourselves” means essentially repeating over and over the great truths of justification. Without question that is the rock of our salvation, but the gospel is the revelation of God’s grace in all of it’s truth–all of the riches we have in Christ (Col 1:6). I don’t know if the four steps I outline are the final word on that topic, but I feel it was a step in that direction.
Q How do you envision pastors and church planters making use of The Walk in their churches?
First of all, I hope those who are “making disciples,” whether pastors, church planters or others, will take the time to understand and embrace the more “process” approach to working with people that is at the core of the book. This is explained more in Appendix C (which should be studied in preparation for any use of the book) or in my book Spiritual Birthline. It is remarkable how people are freed up to just walk along with others as the Spirit does the real work, once they move away from the mindset of need to find the “moment” for the big “decision for Jesus.”
There are a number of approaches going on right now, so it is too early to suggest the best “model” for how to use the book. But I want to see it used in a setting where a leader (who is still a learner–not one with all the answers) spends quality time, say one evening a month, with 2-4 others who are willing to read the chapter and do the suggested projects. I think a chapter a week is to too fast, and I have learned from experience that the typical Sunday School class is not the kind of environment where real discipling can take place.
In a few weeks I’m going to make a presentation at a men’s breakfast in a church where the pastor wants to have his elders begin by studying the book with one another as a preparation for each of them taking several newer people through it. I will be anxious to see how this works. I hope people will do a quick read of the book and then pray about how it can be put to use.
Q How did you grow through writing The Walk?
For one thing, I fell in love with the Gospel of Mark. I say in the Preface of The Walk that I couldn’t escape the force of those first words: “The beginning of the gospel …”. The gospel is a story whose central character is none other than Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. And that story can be told in a hundred ways as long as it always points the way to him. I think as obvious as that truth should be, it can keep us on track if we keep it in front of us. Even in the great issue of discipleship, it is amazing to see how quickly the discussion can move to techniques and programs, and suddenly the essential mission of following Jesus himself gets obscured. Mark relentlessly keeps us on that path.
I also think the writing of the book has opened the larger question of how discipleship is so much greater than a book or a program. Isn’t discipleship just another way of speaking about being a Christian? and if that is the case, we need to view the whole life and ministry of our churches in terms of how we are “making disciples.” This is how I would define a “missional church.” I’m pleased and honored that you and others are finding The Walk a useful resource–but it can only be one part of a larger vision for a church that views itself as a community of disciples of Jesus, called to make disciples even as they grow as disciples themselves. And our communities are one small part of the great kingdom our Lord is building among all the nations.
Commit: Tullian Tchividjian Interview, Part 2
Here’s part 2 of the latest Commit interview with Tullian Tchividjian.
3. What are some of the dangers you’ve seen show up in Christian community when the gospel is not understood, believed, and applied together?
Segregation is the biggest danger that shows up inside the church when the gospel is not grasped. Since the gospel is the good news that God reconciles us not only to himself but also to one another, the church should be breaking down barriers, not erecting them. God intends the church to be demonstrating for the watching world what community looks like when the reconciling power of the gospel is at work. Sadly, however, segregation seems to be as fashionable inside the church as outside.
Most churches would agree that any segregation arising from racial or economic bigotry runs contrary to the nature of the gospel and should not be tolerated. But there’s another segregation, perhaps more subtle, that many churches today have embraced. Following the lead of the advertising world, many churches and worship services target specific age groups to the exclusion of others. They forget that, according to the Bible, the church is an all-age community, and instead they organize themselves around distinctives dividing the generations: Busters, Boomers, Millennials, generations X, Y, and Z.
I understand the good intentions behind these seemingly harmless efforts, but they evidence a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the gospel. We’re not only feeding toxic tribalism; we’re also saying the gospel can’t successfully bring different groups together. It’s a declaration of doubt about the unifying power of God’s gospel. Generational appeal in worship, for instance, is an unintentional admission that the gospel is powerless to join together what man has separated.
Building the church on stylistic preferences or age appeal (whether old or young) is just as contrary to the reconciling effect of the gospel as building it on class, race, or gender distinctions.
In The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis mentions two friends, Ronald and Charles. After one of them died, Lewis realized there was no consolation to be found in the possibility that he and the surviving friend might now actually “get” more of each other as a result. “Far from having more of Ronald, having him ‘to myself’ now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.” He would never again, for example, observe Ronald’s unique reaction to one of Charles’s jokes. Lewis notes, “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I need other lights than my own to show all his facets.”
The soul-shrinking byproduct of segregation is that it prevents us from knowing God deeply because the only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself. This means the great tragedy of segregation isn’t so much that we see less of each other but that in separating from each other we see less of God. All of us need other lights than our own to see more of his facets.
4. Why have you given your life to pastor a local church?
I realized many years ago that God has only oath-bound his blessing to one institution—the church. And while the church is universal in nature, it’s local in expression. Therefore, if I wanted to be where the gospel-action is, I needed to give my life to the local church.
I really believe a central component to my calling is to help a new generation understand the beauty and necessity of the local church. A few years ago I was in Starbucks with our music director, Brandon. As we waited in line to get our afternoon caffeine kick, the young barista behind the counter overheard us talking about our church, which at that point was only a year old, and we started chatting. Brandon soon invited her to visit our church one Sunday. She responded in typical postmodern fashion, saying, “I’m into spirituality, but I’m not really into organized religion.” Brandon, who has a wonderfully quick wit, replied, “Don’t worry, we’re really not that organized.”
The barista’s statement illustrates what many people believe today, namely that they can have a meaningful relationship with God without being connected to a local church. But it’s just not possible to have Christ the head without Christ the body—his church (Ephesians 1:22–23; Colossians 1:18). The two are inseparable. Christians do not worship a decapitated Jesus. The Bible does not drive a wedge between Christ and his body. To neglect the body of Christ is to neglect Christ. Just as no one can survive without air, so Christians can’t survive without the church. Without the church, Christians suffocate.
The best place for me to help people understand this is in the role of local pastor.
I’m doing what I am. I can’t doing anything else–thank God!
Commit: Tullian Tchividjian Interview, Part I
For the latest issue of Commit Magazine I interviewed my friend, Tullian Tchividjian. Here’s part 1 of the interview. Tomorrow I’ll post the second half of the interview. To order a copy of Commit, go here.
1. Why is understanding and taking part in Christian community especially important in today’s cultural climate?
I’m convinced that one of the reasons the church is not having a greater impact in our world is because, like the world around us, Christians have succumbed to individualism.
Individualism is a fundamentally worldly way of understanding what it means to be human. Stamped into the fabric of our modern society is the idea that the individual is the primary center of reality, the ultimate standard of value. We live in a culture where there are no longer any obligations to others. The locus of all authority is squarely fixed on the individual self. This approach devalues the role of “the many” in favor of “the one.” Togetherness and community are radically diminished. It’s all about “me,” not “we.”
In the Bible, however, we discover that while we’re called by God as individuals, we’re called into his new community, the church. One of my all-time favorite quotes about the church comes from an excellent little book entitled Total Christianity by Frank Colquhoun. He writes, “The fellowship of the church is part of God’s good news to men. It imparts to the gospel one of its most thrilling notes—that when Christ saves a man he not only saves him from his sin, he saves him from his solitude.”
In our day the word church tends to make us think of buildings and institutions; we assume it refers exclusively to a particular structure or establishment. In the Bible, however, the word for church literally means “the called-out ones”—those individuals who have been called out of darkness and called together into the light, thus forming God’s new community (what the early church fathers called the communio sanctorum, or the communion of saints). Therefore the church is first about community, not construction; about people, not programs.
This means there’s no such thing as Christian individualism; it’s an oxymoron. The church is meant to be a God-formed community of people who have abandoned the notion that life can and should be lived in isolation. Christians are connected people—connected to each other by God the Father, through God the Son, in God the Spirit.
One of my goals as a senior pastor is to lead our pastoral staff to embody gospel-centered community so that we serve as a model to the rest of our church. We strive to laugh with one another, cry with one another, love one another, serve one another, exhort one another, and forbear with one another. We pray together, read the Bible together, and serve together. We share in one another’s pleasures and pains. And we try, by God’s grace, to “stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). We work hard at becoming the kind of community we want our church to become.
Not surprisingly, our commitment to demonstrate gospel-centered community has spread throughout our church, and our church has increasingly become what we long for our surrounding area to become. As this continues to happen, our church models what human life and community can look like when fueled by the gospel. I think it’s really important to remember that God’s great evangelistic tool is the church—this new, counter-cultural community in which the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit comes to expression in the unity, community, and joy of God’s people. As we live together in a way that’s consistent with who we’ve been remade to be, we become a blessing to the world by showing them how sweet life can be in a community of individuals who love one another, care for one another, defer to one another, are patient with one another, and serve one another. The world will take notice of a community of men and women who refreshingly and joyfully bear one another’s burdens and who actively look to lay down their lives for others in need because Jesus laid down his life for them. When the world sees that Christians want to help people because God has helped them, they’ll begin to ask what makes us so different. A faithful presentation of the gospel to our world, in other words, requires Christian community on full display.
2. How should the gospel shape what Christian community looks like?
The gospel turns everything upside down. It defines success in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-protection; going to the back, not getting to the front. It shows that we win by losing, we triumph through defeat, we achieve power through service, and we become rich by giving ourselves away. In fact, gospel-centered living means we follow Jesus in laying down our lives for others; serving instead of being served, seeking last place, not first.
Well, all of this ought to mold and shape the church at every point and in every way. For instance, when you understand that if you have Christ you have nothing to lose, it enables you to live a life of great sacrifice and generosity. Gospel-centered people are those who love giving up their place for others, not guarding in their place from others, because their value and worth is found in Christ, not their place. When you understand that your significance and identity is anchored in Christ, you don’t have to win—you’re free to lose. In Christ, my identity and significance is secure which frees me to give everything I have because in Christ I have everything I need.
To live a gospel-centered life is to treat others horizontally the way God has treated us in Christ vertically. The gospel motivates us to treat people right by reminding us that God in Christ has treated us right. We’re to be kind and tenderhearted and forgiving because God in Christ has been kind and tenderhearted and forgiving toward us. We serve those around us because God in Christ has served us. We forgive those who wrong us because we who have wronged God have been forgiven by God in Christ.
Let me give you another example. While I may enjoy kindness from Kim (my wife), I don’t “need” it. In Jesus I receive all the kindness I need. This enables me to be kind to her without the fear that she might not return the favor. I get to revel in her enjoyment of my kindness without needing that kindness to be reciprocated. I get kindness from Christ so that I can give kindness to her.
When you multiply that freedom across every relationship you have, you’re liberated to lay down your life for others without needing anything from them in return, because in Christ you’ve been given everything you need. Living out this reality would transform our relationships with our spouse, kids, neighbors, coworkers—everyone. As the church increasingly becomes a community that devotes itself to being kind and tenderhearted and forgiving, we warm up this cold world, making it more livable for everyone. We show this world how freeing, safe, warm, and secure life can be when it’s marked by tenderheartedness and kindness and forgiveness—when it’s marked by the gospel.
Peter Jones Interview
Peter Jones is our keynote speaker for our The Gospel Coalition: Bay Area conference on March 18.
Below is an interview Mark Driscoll recently conducted with Peter Jones:
4 Questions with D.A. Carson
For our debut issue of Commit I interviewed D.A. Carson about the gospel, the upcoming generation, and doing ministry in unchurched regions like the San Francisco Bay Area. The interview is posted below. Go here to order a copy of, or get more information about, Commit (sorry, we’re still working on PayPal).
1. In a paragraph, what does it mean to be gospel-centered in one’s Christian life?
Some think of the gospel as so slender it does nothing more than get us into the kingdom. After that the real work of transformation begins. But a biblically-faithful understanding of the gospel shows that gospel to be rich, powerful, the wisdom of God and the power of God, all we need in Christ. It is the gospel that saves us, transforms us, conforms us to Christ, prepares us for the new heaven and the new earth, establishes our relations with fellow-believers, teaches us how to work and serve so as to bring glory to God, calls forth and edifies the church, and so forth. This gospel saves — and “salvation” means more than just “getting in,” but transformed wholeness. It would be easy to write many pages on how a gospel-centered ness affects all of life, but one must begin with a full-orbed understanding of what the gospel is and does.
2. What do you see happening with the gospel and my generation, the twentysomethings of the American church? Are you encouraged?
Cautiously, yes. It is still a day of relatively small things. But it is always encouraging to observe the substantial number of twentysomethings who want to learn what the Bible says, who are looking for faithful mentors, who are tired of the endless openness of some strands of postmodernism but who do not want to drift back into isolationism or privatized religion. Some from very culturally conservative Christian backgrounds are engaging in a pendulum swing toward “hip” stances that are barely orthodox, but they are winning almost no one except other people like themselves. In God’s grace, the future lies with that part of the younger generation that is passionate to understand, believe, and obey the truth, and who to that end are diligently studying the Word of God for themselves and learning lessons in contrition and joy, in humility and courage, in faith and obedience, that every generation of believers must learn.
3. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have a lot of work to do. This is a highly unchurched metropolitan area with great hostility to the gospel. What are a couple brief points of counsel you’d give to church leaders wanting to build (or re-build) a gospel ministry in a region like this?
Trust Christ; believe the power of the gospel; abandon short-term gimmicks; think big but start small and be faithful; meet with, work with, pray with, learn from, those who have a common set of commitments and vision.
4. What are a few key resources you recommend to your average church member who wants to better understand how the gospel is meant to drive the entirety of the Christian life?
Once again, the first step is to understand the gospel, for in doing so, its ties to all of life become luminous. Many of the sermons on thegospelcoalition.org treat such matters. At the risk of calling attention to individuals: (1) Not a few of the sermons of Tom Nelson (on the site) talk about how the believer serves God in the normal responsibilities and cycles of work. (2) Many of Tim Keller’s sermons do the same, with a greater emphasis on working in the arts, journalism, music, and so forth. (3) For a challenge across the field, read John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life. (4) To think through faithfulness in gospel proclamation and doing “deeds of mercy,” begin, perhaps, with a ten-page essay by Tim Keller in Themelios 33/3 (also on the site). (5) For those especially interested in Christianity and the arts, see the lovely 64-page booklet by Phil Ryken, Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts (2006). (6) For those interested in more global/political/theological analysis, try my Christ and Culture Revisited. (7) Similarly, it is worth reading Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling . (8) There are some workshops that were offered at both the 2007 and the 2009 Coalition conference that bear on these matters, and they are available as acoustic downloads. Some of them are quite moving.
This is but the merest introduction. What you must not do, however, is become so interested in questions about how the gospel should drive our entire life and impact every dimension of life, that one begins to neglect the study of the Bible itself, and remove one’s focus from Jesus, his cross and resurrection, his gospel.
Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something. Interview & Book Giveaway
For me, the best book I’ve read so far in 2009 is Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach To Finding God’s Will. I recently interviewed Kevin about Just Do Something, and I’ve been given 4 free copies of the book to give away.
In a paragraph, how would you summarize the message of Just Do Something?
The message of the book is 1 Thessalonians 4:3. This is the will of God: your sanctification. God wants us to be holy. He expects us to obey his Word, love Jesus and love others. That’s it. We should stop thinking passivity and inactivity are signs of spirituality. God’s will is not a maze or a magic 8-ball. He simply wants us to be obedient.
Though it’s a helpful book for all Christians, Just Do Something is especially directed towards twentysomethings. Why is this?
In my personal experience and in my interactions with plenty of college students and twentysomethings, I’ve found that most younger Christians wrestle with trying to find God’s will. We have so many choices and opportunities that we don’t know what to do. So we end up flailing after God’s will. Choices are hard enough without thinking God has a hidden right answer for us.
Say a twenty-one year old recent college graduate catches this interview and decides to buy and read your book. What practical impact do you hope Just Do Something would make on such a person’s life?
I hope this book is freeing for young people. We are focused on houses and careers and cars and spouses instead of focusing on holiness, purity, integrity, and maturity. Following God’s moral will is harder to do, but also a lot simpler. If we seek first his kingdom and righteousness we will be in the middle of God’s will. I want young people to start making a difference now, start growing up now, instead of thinking they need an all-clear sign from God before taking a job or making a weighty decision.
What connection does the gospel have to the message of Just Do Something?
I see several connections to the gospel: 1) Christ died for our sins so we don’t have to live in fearful anxiety that we might screw up. 2) Christ has conquered death and the devil. God has won. So let’s go take some risks for God. The worst that can happen is we get to meet Jesus sooner. 3) The gospel fulfilled God’s plan, demonstrating God’s providential reign over all things. We don’t need to know the future, because know the One who holds it in his hand.
Did you grow up with this liberating understanding God’s will and decision making, or did this discovery come later for you?
I’m not sure where it came from, but I definitely had the traditional understanding of God’s will when I was younger. I remember at seminary hearing a sermon on a Sunday evening, with about 45 other people there, about how God didn’t expect us to divine his will by our impressions. This was a new concept for me, but made sense biblically, and sounded freeing. Since then I started reading some good books on the subject and have been happy to live with more of a ‘just do something’ attitude.
Or, if you’re among the first 4 people to get in touch with me and give me your contact information, I’ll send you a free copy.
18 Minutes with Kent Hughes
A few months ago at our CPC Men’s Retreat I conducted an 18 minute interview with Kent Hughes. In the interview Kent sketches his life story and answers questions about his favorite book of the Bible, the gospel, cabin building, book recommendations, and being a godly man in 2009.
What The People Who Live In Your Backyard Think About Jesus
Update: I can’t figure out why the video is asking for a password. I’ll try to fix this. In the meantime, here’s the password: cpc
Last week I interviewed strangers at a shopping area about one mile away from our church campus. I asked them about Jesus: "Who is Jesus?" "What do you know about Jesus?" The answers were sometimes encouraging, but often saddening.
We showed part 1 of this video yesterday as we kicked off a new sermon series on Hebrews, Jesus for Beat-up People.
Check out the video. It’s less than 2 minutes long.
Tim Keller Interview
This last week Colin Adams provided a great preaching interview with Tim Keller–a man who’s in my fab five.
Gerrit Scott Dawson Interview: The Ascension of Jesus
A few months ago I read a great book. A few months ago I read through Gerrit Scott Dawson’s book, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation. I was so encouraged and edified by Gerrit’s treatment of Christ’s Ascension, a doctrine that receives little air time in most pulpits and most Christian minds, that I decided to get in touch with Gerrit and interview him about why he devoted 5 years of his life to researching and pondering the Ascension and Continuing Incarnation of Christ. Here’s the interview (get ready–there’s some great nuggets in here):
Gerrit, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? What do you do? What are a few of the books that you’ve written?
After 13 years pastoring in North Carolina, we were called to the First Presbyterian Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2004. So, in my first year as pastor, we saw what the church was really made of as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered our state. God’s people were, and are, simply stunning in their compassion.
I’m continually trying to take people deeper into Jesus, into connecting with him in profound and transformative ways. My latest book is called Discovering Jesus: Awakening to God. It takes readers through a dozen encounters with Jesus. The whole point is to grow into deeper awareness of our union with Christ.
Jesus Ascended arose out of my passion to explore the riches of Christ, my thirst to know the deep reality of who Jesus is. I’m not one for visions or voices. One night, though, when I was awake and didn’t know why, I said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And the voice sounded inside my head: “I want you to write about my ascension.” That moment gave me the perseverance to plow through five years of research and writing.
Gerrit, in your book Jesus Ascended, you say that there’s a major "episode" of the gospel story that’s been sorely neglected by the American church, the episode/doctrine of Jesus’ Ascension. How do you think this happened?
The Ascension of Jesus has always been difficult for us as human beings. It just seems too fantastic. Did a guy really rise up in the sky and then disappear? You can almost visualize a Monty Python cartoon of Jesus waving from the clouds. We worry that the ascension was about some kind of space travel. And that seems silly. Now nobody I read from the church fathers to the present actually thought that was the case. The church has always understood that Jesus did bodily ascend up from the disciples. But he entered the shekinah cloud of glory—he was taken into God’s presence, and thus removed from our sight. He was, in a sense, translated into heaven. He is in a realm to which we cannot travel by any human means. Is your brain scrambled yet? It’s hard to think about the mechanics of the ascension, so we ignore it.
Plus, I think most Christians were like I was—we figure Jesus slipped out of his skin suit just as soon as he could. He didn’t hang on to our humanity. After his work was done, we figure he got back to being the Son of God without the drag of our human nature. It boggles our minds to consider that he is still in skin, still bearing our humanity.
What are some of the consequences you’ve seen arise from the neglect of this pivotal episode in the gospel story?
The gospel has always created the scandal of particularity. It offends our sense of autonomy and spiritual quest and even American egalitarianism to recognize that in this one particular man, Jesus, the eternal Son of God stood among us. Thus, God is like Jesus, and not another way. Jesus is Lord of all and I am not lord of my own life anymore.
Now if you want to get away from the claiming, demanding pressure of that truth, you’ve got to get rid of the particularity of Jesus. You need to spiritualize the resurrection and the ascension. Let resurrection be about a principle of new life, the continuing influence of Jesus, but not something as scandalous as one dead man who got up.
The ascension takes the scandal even further. Jesus held onto our humanity. He has taken it into heaven. The future of our humanity is bound up in what he has done with us. Where he goes is where we are meant to go. What he becomes is what we will become. All my soul quests, all my spirituality, all my wanting a god on my own terms gets blown away by the God-Man who is in heaven, still in my skin, still insisting that he is the one with whom we all have to deal.
So, we sprititualize the ascension. We make it about how the idea of Jesus got made heavenly. But that is disastrous for us! Losing the ascension cuts us off from the present work of Christ as our priest and intercessor. It cuts us off from the power of our hope—that one day our feeble bodies will be like his glorious body. It cuts us off from the downward pressure of the imminent return of Jesus—the same Jesus who ascended will return as judge and king. When I forget that, I can lose hope in the future or I can think that my actions have no ultimate consequences, or that what we do in this world or to this earth is not really important.
Gerrit, what are a few practical ways that Christians can apply the doctrine of Jesus’ Ascension and continuing Incarnation to their daily lives?
The Ascension means that Jesus has wedded himself to our humanity forever. That means he has taken what we are into his eternal relationship with his Father. As we are in Christ, we are included in the Triune love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That offers remarkable joy and assurance.
Further, as one ancient father put it, that now “dust sits on the throne of heaven.” Human being has been taken into the life of God. Jesus did not drop us. He holds us in himself. We have a future. Who we are will not be lost—we will continue as Jesus does, as embodied creatures, transformed but still continuous with who we are. We will know each other. We will be us, only perfected, into eternity. That should put a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
More, the continuing incarnation reminds us that Jesus is still going to the Father in our name and on our behalf. He knows what it is to be human, he offers the worship, the obedience, the prayer that we should, but cannot, muster. As we open ourselves to union with Christ, by the Spirit, he lives his ascended life in us more and more. That’s where the power for Christian living comes from: Christ in me, the one who is God and still man, living his resurrected, ascended life through us.
Lastly, it means we can look at this world and realize God is not done with it yet. He didn’t drop our humanity, he didn’t drop this world. This is why we can go and “waste” time caring for the least and the lost. This is why we care for creation and seek to restore, not destroy the earth—it is, and remains, the field of God’s redemptive work.
Besides your own great book, are there any other books you’d recommend to those who’d like to study up on Jesus’ Ascension?
I’d recommend going to Abebooks.com and ordering a copy of H. B Swete’s The Ascended Christ. It’s 100 years old, but still remarkably clear. You can get it fairly cheaply and it’s an excellent introduction. I’d also keep my eye out for the forthcoming Ascension Theology by Douglas Farrow, a popular version of his massive scholarly work.
