Here an interesting passage from Dan Edelen on discipleship, riffing off of an N.T Wright book-
To me, what cripples modern Christians more than anything else, even when they embody those worthy virtues Wright espouses, is a complete lack of understanding as to what it means to live by the Spirit. The key differentiator between the righteous people of the OT and the righteous people of the NT is that the NT folks now have the Spirit of God living in them always. Say what you will about the Church, but its defining characteristic is that God now resides in men. No other reality trumps this.
That Wright writes almost nothing in his 307-page tome about how to live by the Spirit pretty much renders his entire book useless. Christian virtues are critical, but Wright’s advocacy of a drilled Christian ethic resembles building a Lamborghini and then leaving out the engine.
I'm not sure if it's the engine that got dropped, but the cell-phone. Folks without the Spirit in the mix have a fast, nimble car, but have no back-up in case they get lost. Having a way to double-check with the Boss as to what He wants you to do is vital; otherwise, you are on your own as to how to manage things.
The cars in the video game I linked to yesterday have a lot of horsepower, but not a whole lot of brain-power running it, so the muscle cars get used to drift their way through town and take out a few newspaper and mail boxes in the process. Having someone on the other end of the line to say, "Maybe it's best not to play follow-the-leader at 100MPH through downtown" would be a wise move.
Recent Comments