The New Testament in Seven Sentences by Gary M. Burge

Author:Gary M. Burge
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Bible, intro to new testament, new testament introduction, new testament for beginners, new testament theology, new testament 101, introduction to new testament, New Testament, new testament textbook, jesus in the new testament, new testament themes, bible introduction, how to read the new testament, seven sentences, new testament basics
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2019-09-04T06:39:33+00:00

REDISCOVERING GRACE

Grace is one of the constant themes throughout the entire New Testament. We can march through almost every one of Paul’s letters and find it (Romans 3:24; 1 Corinthians 15:10; 2 Corinthians 8:9; Galatians 2:20-21; Ephesians 2:5; Colossians 1:6, etc.). But it is important to remember that Paul is not introducing anything new in this. He is reinforcing an idea that many had lost. Paul’s Jewish world took the law seriously and viewed it as a way to express obedience to God for his overtures of goodness. However, in places where obedience is stressed as a hallmark of discipleship, it is a short step from there to making obedience a prerequisite of discipleship. This happens in the church as frequently as it did in first-century Judaism. Fervent believers want to promote lives of righteousness and then begin to impose it on their communities. Paul is shielding the Gentiles from this pattern. He wants to challenge his Jewish audiences that recovering the grace of God is the only means to flourish personally and find your way back to the spiritual life God had begun since Abraham.

The same is true today. Societies that are driven by high performance expectations where success is measured by achievement will always struggle to understand the grace of God. For twenty-five years I served on the faculty of Wheaton College. These are exceptional professors whose talents were inspiring and humbling. And with us lived twenty-five hundred students from throughout the United States. These were exceptional students in every respect: bright, ambitious, hard working. And they were as serious about their spiritual formation as they were about their academic achievements.

But all of this came with a price: placing twenty-five hundred earnest students on a campus with two hundred earnest faculty meant that performance could suddenly become the measure of self-worth. Anxiety was as common as achievement. In 2010 Wheaton hired a new president (Dr. Philip Ryken), who said in one of his opening chapel messages something that surprised us: Wheaton needed to rediscover the grace of God. This struck us as remarkable. Most of these students came from thriving churches. God’s grace is taught in required classes. Chapel is required, and our chaplain champions this grace. But something was missing.

There is a difference between the experience of grace and recognizing it as a primary Christian (or Jewish) doctrine. The New Testament—from Jesus to Paul—wants to press us to return to first principles: that God has been working on our behalf throughout history and that this has been seen with pristine clarity in the arrival of Jesus.

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