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DIR Return to: BIBLE STUDY - From The Late Lori Bolinger
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#Post#: 15025--------------------------------------------------
Philosophical or formational approach to Biblical study?
By: guest24 Date: July 11, 2020, 1:30 pm
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James 3:13...Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them
show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that
comes from wisdom.
Twice now I have been told that I differ from a couple of
posters because they take a philosophical approach when I take a
formational approach, how can we study scripture without trying
to see how it should shape our lives?
#Post#: 15528--------------------------------------------------
Re: Philosophical or formational approach to Biblical study?
By: patrick jane Date: July 24, 2020, 7:57 am
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[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/118566.jpg?w=940[/img]
HTML https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/july-web-only/jon-tyson-beautiful-resistance-joy-conviction-culture.html
I’m Awash in Christian ‘Content.’ But Am I Living Like Christ?
Jon Tyson’s celebration of joyful, countercultural faith offers
a convicting heart check.
What voices are loudest in my life?
Last fall, I wrote this question on a sticky note and posted it
near my desk as a reminder to examine who I’m listening to and
what I’m being formed by. Between the endless streams of social
media posts, the cacophony of podcasts and playlists, and the
ever-expanding pile of books on my nightstand, I had no shortage
of distractions from the voice of God in my life.
What we listen to forms us. The most persistent voices—including
the quiet ones whispering lies we’re too distracted to
notice—can indelibly shape who we are, changing our thoughts,
attitudes, and actions. We can say all the right words on
Sundays and in small-group settings, but when the explicit
spiritual agenda has been lifted, how do we live? Are we being
shaped into the image of Christ or the image of the world?
In Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of
Compromise, Jon Tyson, pastor of Church of the City New York,
challenges believers—particularly those in the United States and
other Western contexts—to resist the cultural syncretism of our
age. Identifying heart postures, attitudes, and actions that our
culture drives us toward, he leads us back to the
countercultural, higher call of Christ.
What does it look like to live as a Christian in the world? What
does it look like to model the way of Christ, moving beyond
spiritual talk to actually walking as one shaped by the gospel?
These are the underlying questions Tyson poses.
A Stirring Gospel
I came to Beautiful Resistance familiar with Tyson’s teaching. I
listen to Church of the City’s sermon podcast on a near-weekly
basis, and I appreciate how Tyson relates the gospel to our
current moment, especially as it bears on New York City, where
he lives and serves. He deftly weaves together scriptural truth
with revival history, current events, and a spiritual hunger to
see God launch fresh waves of faith. Tyson doesn’t teach an
overly individualistic self-help Christianity or a sleepy
moralism that quotes Scripture but lives as if the Holy Spirit
is no longer active. Rather, he preaches a stirring gospel, true
to its source and confident that God is at work in the world
today.
Beautiful Resistance exemplifies this sort of teaching.
Developed from a series of sermons Tyson preached in 2018, the
book is a call to counteract the discipleship of our culture
with a deep spiritual formation founded in the way of Jesus.
It’s a call to devote ourselves to the way of Christ—through
worship, rest, fasting, hospitality, honor, love, sacrifice, and
celebration—so that the church can shine like a city on a hill.
Tyson frames his book with the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
whose commitment to Christ compelled him to boldly oppose Hitler
and the Nazis—the dominant forces of his day. As Bonhoeffer
witnessed German churches capitulating to Nazi powers, he
determined that believers needed a deeper discipleship, one that
cultivated what Tyson describes as an “unflinching loyalty to
the cross.”
Tyson doesn’t draw direct parallels between Nazi Germany and the
United States, and he doesn’t explicitly name any recent
controversies involving evangelicalism and partisan politics,
but he is clearly concerned with how such compromises harm the
church that God loves. And he’s concerned that our culture is
doing a better job discipling us than the church is.
As the world becomes more polarized, the church seems to become
more polarized with it. As the world lashes out in contempt and
vitriol toward political and cultural opponents, the church does
the same—despite the fact, Tyson reminds us, that Jesus taught
his disciples to love their enemies. As the world embraces fear
and hate and stubbornly clings to any power it can grab, the
church too easily and too often follows suit.
In eight of his nine chapters, Tyson identifies a worldly
posture or attitude that he sees the church easily falling into
and fleshes out the Christian alternative. His examples include
idolatry (both of religious moralism and of cultural values),
busyness, fear of those who are ethnically or culturally
different, and contempt for those with different beliefs. He
points out that unless we’re paying attention, we’ll naturally
follow the paths our culture is shepherding us down.
None of the attitudes or practices that Tyson recommends are new
to the teachings of Christianity, but setting them alongside
their worldly counterparts provides a convicting heart check.
How have I idolized morality or religiousness? How have I
drowned out God’s voice with constant busyness? How have I
harbored fear or contempt toward those different from me?
Christians in the West don’t lack Christian content. We have
plenty of resources for digging into doctrines like the Trinity,
the imago Dei, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and so on. But
ideas and doctrines, while essential, are not compelling apart
from lives that emulate Christ. The way we carry ourselves in
the world is just as important as the creeds we profess. As Paul
wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:2, “If I have the gift of prophecy and
can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge … but do not have
love, I am nothing.”
This gap—a lack of love, for God and for neighbor—is what
Beautiful Resistance seeks to address. And although it takes a
careful look at the way culture is forming and shaping us, it’s
not a book about what’s wrong out there. It’s about what’s wrong
or off-balance within the church. It’s a mirror to see the mote
in our own eye, a test to learn whether we are salt that’s lost
its flavor.
Before Tyson tackles the loves and loyalties that compete for
our devotion, he spends a chapter homing in on the church. He
writes briefly about the church’s failings in recent years, but
he doesn’t stay there for long. Instead, most of chapter one
focuses on the church’s three core identities as the bride of
Christ, the temple of God, and the body of Christ. This
grounding is crucial for readers in a culture that elevates all
manner of rival identities—professional, socioeconomic, sexual,
political, and everything in between. Digging into the church’s
true identity helps us define ourselves solely by our
relationship to God.
This realignment is the first step toward countering our
cultural formation. If we’re the people of God, if we’re his
church, then the way we live should reflect that.
A Shining Light
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus illustrates the
hypocrisy of the religious elite by presenting the Samaritan, an
outcast from Jewish society, as the one who best embodies the
command to love one’s neighbor. While the priest and Levite
cling to fear and self-preservation, the Samaritan risks his
safety to help the beaten-down traveler.
The blindness of the religious elite in this story should catch
our attention. Roads at the time were notoriously dangerous, and
there were strong cultural and contextual reasons for the priest
and Levite to avoid stopping to care for a stranger left for
dead. Their actions are logical. But they aren’t actually right.
Every culture has conventions and norms that shape default
attitudes and behaviors. Some of these norms develop in response
to legitimate fears and dangers. But what happens when they put
our own needs or desires at the center, rather than God and his
love for the least and the lost? What happens when cultural
norms take stronger root in the church than the call to “love
your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) and to love your
enemies? During his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks, “If you
love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even
the tax collectors doing that?” (Matt. 5:46).
There are parts of gospel living that sit well in our cultural
context, and those parts are important, but it’s the parts that
run counter to our culture that demand the firmest degree of
commitment. Where our culture holds those different from us at
arm’s length, we need to show hospitality and honor. Where our
culture drives us toward spiritual apathy and cynicism, we need
to foster a hunger to see (and celebrate) God’s work in the
world. Where our culture drives us to cling to power and
privilege, we need to sacrifice for the good of others.
Yes, these things are always important for Christians to do, but
in a cultural context that normalizes the opposite,
countercultural faithfulness is what enables the gospel to
shine.
Without ragging on the church or the culture, Beautiful
Resistance candidly confronts the ways God’s people are being
shaped for compromise, with or without their knowledge. Tyson’s
heart is clearly for God’s people to catch a vision of God’s
work, in and through us, as we joyfully devote ourselves to the
way of Christ in a world that desperately needs a shining light.
Meredith Sell is a freelance writer and editor living in Denver,
Colorado.
#Post#: 18301--------------------------------------------------
Re: Philosophical or formational approach to Biblical study?
By: patrick jane Date: October 2, 2020, 12:03 pm
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;)
#Post#: 30346--------------------------------------------------
Re: Philosophical or formational approach to Biblical study?
By: patrick jane Date: May 27, 2021, 5:18 pm
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[quote author=patrick jane link=topic=991.msg18301#msg18301
date=1601658182]
;)
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