Accidental Herod: Becoming a Leader You Can Live With by David McNitzky

Author:David McNitzky [McNitzky, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Quarry Press
Published: 2014-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

As I have dared to unfold the fabric of my orphaned life in the presence of the loving Father, I have experienced the same reality as the seamstress: God has taken my orphaned life and heart and made it more beautiful than I could ever make it by my own efforts. In the words of the musical group Gungor, “You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things...you make beautiful things out of us.”

CHAPTER SIX

The Family Business

"Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good." Some attribute that quote to Oliver Wendell Holmes. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes a famous reply: "If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next…It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at heaven and you will get Earth thrown in: aim at Earth and you will get neither."

An interesting debate emerges in these famous quotes. I see evidence on both sides. I've seen dedicated Christians talk profusely about stories of heaven while standing idly by as the Earth seems to be going straight to hell in a hand basket; I have also seen people make great sacrifices for the betterment of the Earth while simultaneously anticipating their reward and rest in heaven. I would like to add another possibility: What if we focus not on heaven above or below but, rather, on heaven here on Earth? What if we saw our task as seeing through to completion the task Christ began in his life, death, and resurrection: creating God’s kingdom on the Earth as it is in heaven? If we took up this task, we would be joining our father in what N.T. Wright calls "the family business."

It strikes me that adoption theology has a distinct advantage over justification-by-faith in answering this most important question of “Now what?” The forensic emphasis of justification stresses our acquittal and offers few clues as to what else we are to do following acquittal other than hope that we won't behave so poorly again. Paul saw the danger of "double jeopardy"; if we have been acquitted once, are we not free to do more of the same behavior simply because we are now off the hook and will no longer receive our just punishment (Romans 6:1). The family aspect of the adoption theology seems to hint at an answer to the “Now what?” question: You are in the family, so go and act like a family member.

It is likely that Paul’s Jewish contemporaries had a better sense of this than we do. They did not have the wide range of vocational choices that we have today. They were expected to go into the family business. If your father was a carpenter (more accurately a ‘stonemason’...but we’ve discussed that before), then you are likely going to become a carpenter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.