基督教信仰入門 8 (下)

基督教信仰入門第八課(下)

第八課：認識教會(下)

教會存在的目的和使命

 

a. 敬拜 Worship (上達事工 Upward Ministry)

         i.   被呼召出來 Calling out

1.  教會的希臘文 “ekklesia”:有呼召和召出的意思，「其意義不僅是稱呼眾人，更是呼召眾人，有邀請及呼召他們前來的意義。」[1]

a.  脫離 (liberated from)

b.  建立 (liberated for)

        ii.   敬拜的意義

1.  上帝是配得我們的敬拜。“Worship” is a contraction of “Worth-ship.”[2]

2.  敬拜是一種跪拜（或拜倒）。

a.  “prostrate” (Gk. proskynein)—a compound of pro (‘towards’) and kynein (‘to kiss’).[3]

                                      i.   太2:2

                                    ii.   太4:10

      iii.   我們敬拜的是誰？

1.  啟示錄 4-5

a.  坐在寶座上的 （啟4）

b.  羔羊（啟5）

1.  以弗所書1:3-14

a.  三一上帝

                                      i.   上帝是創造的主

                                    ii.   耶穌基督是救贖的主

                                   iii.   聖靈是成聖的主

        iv.   啟示與回應 Revelation and Response

1.  真正的敬拜一定先是上帝的啟示、然後才是人的回應。在敬拜上，人是沒有主動權的。人只能回應上帝恩典的啟示。

2.  以賽亞書6:1-13

a.  背景Setting (6:1a)

b.  啟示與回應 (6:1b-13)

                                      i.   聖潔的上帝The Holy God (6:1b-4, 5-7)

                                    ii.   差遣的上帝The Sending God (6:8a, 8b)

                                   iii.   公義的上帝The Righteous God (6:9-10, 11-13)

3.  申命記 29：29

         v.   所以，基督教的敬拜一定以上帝的啟示—聖經—為中心的。

1.  講道的重要性

b. 門徒訓練 Discipleship (內存事工 Inward Ministry)

         i.   門徒訓練的基礎The Foundation of Nurture

1.  「使萬民作我的門徒」（太28:19-20）

        ii.   門徒訓練的目標The Goal of Nurture

1.  更像基督Being like Christ

a.  加4:19

b.  約翰一書 3:2

2.  與基督同在Being with Christ

a.  可3:14

b.  約15:5

      iii.   門徒訓練的方法

1.  生命影響生命

a.  神的生命影響我的生命

b.  我的生命影響別人的生命

2.  敬拜

3.  基督教教育

4.  禱告

5.  閱讀和研讀聖經

6.  相交和一同服事

 

c. 宣教佈道 Evangelism/Mission (外展事工 Outward Ministry)

         i.   基礎

1.  「太初有道，道與神同在，道就是神。。。道成了肉身，住在我們中間。。。」（約1:1,14）

2.  腓2:5-11

        ii.   對象

1.  「人子來，為要尋找拯救失喪的人。」（路19：10）

      iii.   命令

1.  「所以 ， 你們要去，使萬民作我的門徒，奉父、子、聖靈的名給他們施洗（或作：給他們施洗，歸於父、子、聖靈的名）。凡我所吩咐你們的，都教訓他們遵守，我就常與你們同在，直到世界的末了。」（太28-19-20）

        iv.   能力

1.  「但聖靈降臨在你們身上，你們就必得著能力，並要在耶路撒冷、猶太全地，和撒瑪利亞，直到地極，作我的見證。」（徒1:8）

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[1] 楊慶球：《會遇系統神學:真理與信仰體驗的整理》,二版(香港:中國神學研究院, 2001), 頁233.

[2] J. I. Packer, Knowing Christianity (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1995), 頁135. In other words, to worship God is to acknowledge the worthiness of God.

[3] “The compound originally referred to a kiss of respect or adoration blown towards one of a higher rank.” David Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 頁57.

Evangelism and Education

Evangelism and education do not function separately. They go hand in hand to present everyone mature in Christ. Those who are called to share the gospel often have no concept of education behind their proclamation. Those who are called to teach don’t want to proclaim the gospel to non-believers. In Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), Robert E. Webber laments the superficiality of the church in today’s world, saying:

This loss of evangelism in education as well as the loss of education in evangelism is one of the root causes of superficiality in evangelism today. The message of Christianity is a historical message with content.

Whenever Christianity is preached without its history or content, it is reduced to a social or psychological panacea, or worse, a manipulation of feelings…On the other hand, whenever the content of Christianity is presented as factual or intellectual data without an accompanying call to commitment and change of life, Christian education loses its power to form character in the convert. Clearly, evangelism and education must stand together. There must be content in preaching and proclamation in teaching (p. 153).

“Go… and teaching them what I have commanded you…” (Matt. 28:19-20) is a biblical command that we often obey partially. I am not denying the fact that some are called to be evangelists, and some are called to be educators. But what is unacceptable is that we over-emphasize the one over the other in our beliefs. Such imbalance of understanding the Great Commission in Matthew’s gospel leads to what we now call the situation of the church: growth without depth. Converted Christians are born again. But they have no root. It sounds good to tell the church that Mr. B believed in Jesus and has decided to follow him. It is good news. However, unless we continue to help Mr. B to grow with the Good News, Mr. B would end up swimming on the surface and miss the depth of the sea. In Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2010), J. I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett write:

As we contemplate today’s complex concerns, hopes, dreams, and ventures of Christian renewal, discipleship impresses us as the key present-day issue, and catechesis as the key present-day element of discipleship, all the world over. The Christian faith must be both well and wisely taught and well and truly learned! A far-reaching change of mindset about this is called for, without which such well-worn dictums as “American Christianity is three thousand miles wide and half an inch deep” will continue, sadly, to be verified. Recovery of the educational-devotional discipline that we are advocating cannot, to our mind, come a moment too soon (p. 17).

不可或缺的教會

這本書比我想像中的好。第二部分的內容「不可或缺的教會怎樣關上後門」已值回書價。若教會不想持續流失基督徒，特別是年輕的一代（書中特別針對18至22歳的青年），必須留意四個重點：簡化：正確的結構；深化：正確的內容；期望：正確的態度和倍增：正確的行動。作者對這四點有很好的論述，我特別喜歡「簡化」和「深化」這兩章。

在探討教會缺乏深度教導問題上，作者寫到：「超過一半從教會流失（52%）離開教會，是因為對教會的宗教、倫理或政治信念有不同意見或感到不確定。這個問題至少有部分可以直接歸因於教會膚淺的聖經教導和講道。一個脫離教會的人表示他以前的教會的教義教導只是『零碎的基督教』」（頁147）。

A Gospel Culture

In The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), Scot McKnight argues that the church has been dominated by the salvation culture in which the gospel is understood only in relation to Jesus’ saving purpose for humanity and its consumer-oriented outcome—going to heaven after death. The church should be very aware of this salvation culture because such a culture tends to reduce God’s salvation in Christ to personal forgiveness. It is what Dallas Willard calls the gospel of sin management [see Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), chapter 2].

The gospel of Jesus Christ is more than the gospel of sin management. The gospel is not just about Jesus as our personal Savior.  But most importantly, Jesus is the Lord of all and the promised Messiah for Israel. When we are called to follow Jesus, not only are we called to believe Him as the Savior, but also to center our lives on the lordship of Jesus. When we know that the gospel of Jesus is the completion of the story of Israel, we don’t privatize our faith as if there were nothing else between me and Jesus.

Scot McKnight writes:

But we would be mistaken to reduce these themes to nothing more than individualism. Peter’s summary in Acts 5:29-32 sees forgiveness for “Israel.” God is at work in his people and therefore in individuals, and we need to see that one of the problems is the people of God who need to become the true people of God. The New Testament expresses this new people of God in the word church (p. 136).

We enter into the story of Jesus by gracious invitation. We are also part of Israel’s story. We are part of something that is bigger than our personal stories. We are part of God’s saving story in which we represent God as kingly priests just as Israel functions as a kingdom of priests in the Old Testament. To know that we belong to this marco-Story helps us place our micro-stories into perspective. In other words, it helps us place the plan of salvation in the story of Jesus, which is the telos of Israel’s story.

Scot McKnight suggests that in order to fight against the salvation culture in the church, we must guard against it by creating a gospel culture. Two of his suggestions are that we need to become people of the story and immerse ourselves even more into the story of Jesus. “To become a gospel culture we’ve got to begin with becoming people of the Book, but not just as a Book but as the story that shapes us…We need to soak ourselves in the Story of Jesus by reading, pondering, digesting, and mulling over in our heads and hearts…” (p. 153).

Evangelism, what is it? To “evangelize” or to “gospel” is to tell the Story of Jesus as a saving story that completes Israel’s Story. What is the best way to evangelize today? (p. 112)

This kind of evangelism does not just lead to decision, but discipleship. But the prerequisite is that we must constantly immerse ourselves into the Story.  

The Decided vs. The Discipled

I am reading Scot McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011). In the book, McKnight attempts to show that the gospel of Jesus has been watered down in the church by the plan of salvation: Jesus merely comes to die for our sins and bring us to heaven. The plan of salvation gets people to make a decision. However, it usually fails to present the whole gospel. “Our focus on getting young people to make decisions—that is, ‘accepting Jesus into our hearts’—appears to distort spiritual formation” (p. 20). In other words, as McKnight comments,

Most of evangelism today is obsessed with getting someone to make a decision; the apostles, however, were obsessed with making disciples…Evangelism that focuses on decisions short circuits and—yes, the word is appropriate—aborts the design of the gospel, while evangelism that aims at disciples slows down to offer the full gospel of Jesus and the apostles (p. 18).

I wholeheartedly agree with his observation and critique.

The “the gospel” we have been sharing is not the full gospel of Jesus according to the Bible. To use N. T. Wright’s words, “I am perfectly comfortable with what people normally mean when they say ‘the gospel.’ I just don’t think it is what Paul means. In other words, I am not denying that the usual meanings are things that people ought to say, to preach about, to believe. I simply wouldn’t use the word ‘gospel’ to denote those things.” (Quoted by McKnight, p. 58).

I agree with McKnight that we should define the gospel by first referring to 1 Corinthians 15.

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain (vv. 1-2).

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve (vv. 3-5).

The earliest gospel is concerned about the four things/events in the life of Jesus Christ: Christ died, Christ was buried, Christ was raised, and Christ appeared. And the story of Jesus is not separated from the story of Israel, for the phrase according to the Scriptures indicates that the story of Jesus is the resolution of the problem of Israel’s story and the fulfillment of the story of Israel. To share the gospel is to share the story of Jesus as the fulfillment of the story of Israel.

The word gospel was used in the world of Jews at the time of the apostles to announce something, to declare something as good news—the word euangelion always means good news. “To gospel” is to herald, to proclaim, and to declare something about something. To put this together, the gospel is to announce good news about key events in the life of Jesus Christ. To gospel for Paul was to tell, announce, declare, and shout aloud the Story of Jesus Christ as the saving news of God (pp. 49-50).

One of the problems of the plan of salvation—Jesus dies on the cross, saves us from our sins, and leads us into heaven—is that it diminishes the story of Jesus as the apex of God’s saving story from creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. “Equating the Plan of Salvation with either the Story of Israel or the Story of Jesus distorts the gospel and at times even ruins the Story. It is customary in America to refer to the ‘gospel plan of salvation,’ by which we mean how an individual gets saved, what God has done for us, and how we are to respond if we want to get saved” (pp. 37-38). The plan of salvation is not the whole gospel story. It is only part of the saving story.

In regard with the woman who anointed Jesus with a jar of costly ointment before the passion of Jesus as a prophetical act for his burial, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her” (Mark 14:9). Scot McKnight writes:

Why? Because Jesus assumes the preaching of the gospel will mean telling stories about the life of Jesus, including this very story of the woman who had just poured oil on him. I have had Christian students tell me that they know the gospel well but have never heard this story, and whatever you think of their reading habits, what this “never-heard-of-it” says is that gospel and four Gospels are not connected tightly enough. We do know that in the earliest churches the leaders publicly read from the gospel weekly, something we need to revive once again in our churches. It was this constant immersion in the Gospel[s] that created the potential for a gospel culture (p. 91).

Mark 14:9 makes sense in my head the first time in the context of understanding the Gospel as the story of Jesus instead of the plan of salvation.

The Evangel before Evangelism

“Before there can be a mission, there has to be a message. Behind the sending of the church lies the Father’s sending of his Son and Spirit. Before we go, we must stop and hear—really hear—what has happened that we are to take to the world. The evangel comes before evangelism.”[1]

We often talk about mission, but we don’t talk much about the message. How much do we know about the wide and depth of the gospel? How long can we endure in the mission field if we don’t have a solid foundation in Scripture and theology? There is no guarantee that those who have thorough knowledge of Scripture and theology can endure and succeed in the field. But I can guarantee that none of us will survive without it. No matter where we are at, either at home or abroad, we are called to fulfill the Great Commission at a particular time and space. One of the ordained means to make disciples of all nations is through teaching: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.”

Those who teach must first become learners. Before they teach, they learn and study. In the early church, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The early believers learned from the apostles who learned from Jesus while he was on earth. Jesus taught them. We must learn the message so that we can be effective in mission.

I think that it is very dangerous to mainly share the works of Christ in our lives in the mission field without systematically expounding the works of Christ to hearers. We don’t preach ourselves; we preach Christ crucified. What it means is that the story of Jesus precedes our stories. Our testimonies, which are real and yet only partially reflect the objective work of Christ, function as supporting materials to illustrate the wonderful grace of God in Christ through the Spirit in us. We are called to proclaim the gospel. “We need to hear the story, with Christ as the lead character. We need to have our character killed off again in this scene, raised with a new identity in Christ…We are transformed not by hearing more about ourselves and each other but by hearing more about God and his mighty acts of salvation throughout history.”[2] He is the beginning and the end (see Rev. 1:8, 17; 21:6; 22:13). We are only somewhere in between. He is the lead character in the Story. Somehow, we find our plots in this Story by grace through faith.

As Paul said, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. If we don’t have a thorough understanding of the word of Christ, how can we preach the word of Christ? If we preach poorly due to our lack of understanding, we will lead people astray. We who want to serve must learn. Learning invites us to re-prioritize our life. Re-priority of life requires sacrifices. Those who want to do mission must take up their cross to really get to know the message: the spirituality of the evangel determines the quality of evangelism.

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[1] Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011), p. 21.

[2] Ibid., pp. 274-276.

Jesus' Plan

Jesus’ plan of evangelism is not the type of evangelism that we have in mind. The way we understand evangelism is that we share the good news of Jesus Christ and invite people to accept Jesus as their personal Savior and Lord. It’s certainly part of Jesus’ plan of evangelism. But it fails to present the full picture.

“And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast our demons” (Mk. 3:13-15, ESV).

After going up and inquiring of the Father, Jesus calls the Twelve. In Mark 1:16-20, we know that when Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, John, and James, they immediately respond to his calling and follow him. Jesus calls; disciples convert. Thus, when Jesus calls and appoints them as apostles, some sort of converted experience is involved. They don’t just believe. They follow. In the calling of the Twelve, the purposes of calling are as follows: to be with Him, to preach, and to cast out demons with His authority. (In the West, can we replace “casting out demons” with healing?) In priority, the primary purpose of Jesus’ calling is to be with Jesus. Jesus’ plan of evangelism is more than mere conversion. It is an invitation to enter into a deep relationship with Him. In other words, being with Jesus is the primary purpose of being called. Being precedes doing (preaching, casting out demons, etc…).

In the 20^th century, the evangelical church in particular focused on the task of evangelism. Billy Graham and his crusades brought new credibility to evangelism as well as drawing large numbers of men and women to faith in Jesus. Furthermore, new methods of outreach were developed with an emphasis on finding ways to make it easy for people to come to faith. Commitment to Jesus became a matter of affirming belief in a few core doctrines and asking Jesus into one’s life. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of this simplification was that while many converts were produced, far fewer disciples were made…It can be argued that the unlinking of evangelism from spiritual formation in the 20^th century resulted in a church with little depth. In the 21^st century, new attention has been given to evangelism that contains a call to discipleship.[1]

The deepness of faith draws deeply from the deep well of Jesus. Christians are not called to believe Jesus. We are called to be with Him so that we know what it means to follow Him by doing what he asks us to. Jesus’ plan of evangelism always entails solid, lifelong discipleship. Ministry or mission is the fruit of this discipling relationship.

In my previous discipleship group, a small group of us studied the book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2010) by N. T. Wright. He notes:

Jesus’ call to follow him, to discover in the present time the habits of life which point forward to the coming kingdom and already, in a measure, share in its life, only makes sense when it is couched in the terms made famous by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Come and die.” Jesus didn’t say, as do some modern evangelists, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Nor did he say, “I accept you as you are, so you can now happily do whatever comes naturally.” He said, “If you want to become my followers, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34). He spoke of losing one’s life in order to gain it, as opposed to clinging to it and so losing it. He spoke of this in direct relation to himself and his own forthcoming humiliation and death, followed by resurrection and exaltation. (p. 115)

Jesus’ plan of evangelism is about growing in number as well as caring for its spiritual maturity:  to believe Christ, to follow Christ, to grow in Christ, and to proclaim Christ.

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[1] Richard V. Peace, “Evangelism,” in Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Edited by Glen G. Scorgie (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), p. 435.