Sinclair Ferguson: NPP

Bill Streger (KaleoBill) has offered a very good quote from Sinclair Ferguson from his lectures on the New Perspective on Paul. 

I think it's written all over the way in which we do church today that we are far more interested in ourselves as individuals than in the life of the community. And if I were to spell out why I think that's true, I would lose friends. Everywhere. My own position is, I don't think a New Testament believer would begin to understand why we do church the way we do church instead of the way they did church. So, there are serious questions here. About the extent to which we are self-fascinated evangelicals - rather than God-centered and community-, fellowship-oriented. Has it never struck you that the New Testament almost nowhere tells you how to do evangelism? Almost nowhere tells you how to do evangelism. Why? Because it understood that being the church was to do evangelism. And our problem in our community - if I can explode for a moment - is that we don't do evangelism because we're not convinced at all - and often rightly we're not convinced - that our Christian community is really radically supernaturally different from the rest of the world. But they were so obviously radically supernaturally different from the rest of the world.

Comments

[James Paul]

My opinion on the evangelism question is that it is primarily a faith issue regarding Jesus Christ. If we really believed that Jesus was who He said He is we would be compelled to share the Gospel everywhere, all the time. I'm convinced that our faith in Christ isn't as strong as we think it is. We're self absorbed because we've settled for a weak, timid, impotent faith. I want more. I'm not talking about sensationalism here. I'm talking about what God has done at the core of who I am. The heart. The place where passion, motivation and ambition flow from. Who is Jesus in "there."

[SH]

What an amazing thing! I happened upon your blog just this week and have really enjoyed it. Now, you have a post of Sinclair Ferguson. I am on the pastoral search committee of First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, SC, who has just called Sinclair to be our pastor. We are ecstatic about him coming!

Plus, I am a huge Sufjan/Nickel Creek fan.

Keep up the good work!

Scott

[Paul]

That's a great quote!

[Caleb]

Ok, don't make me get started on "What is the Gospel?" again! I agree that the Bible doesn't give us a formula for doing evangelism. I guess I'd take it a little further and say that evengelism is something that happens, not something we do. Of course there's the whole "people don't do evangelism, God does." And that's true; but what I mean is that through sharing life with the people around us, people ought to be evangelized and discipled (if we must make a distinction.)

I see this as the difference between missional living and missionary living; that sharing the gospel means more than telling people about Jesus, it means "being" Him in their lives. Evangelism, can happen through every conversation because I love people and because my thoughts and opinions are so heavily influenced by my relationship with God.

So I agree when Sinclair says that we should be "radically different," but it doesn't mean that all we do is talk about the "Plan of Salvation." The radical difference should be that we are recognized by love in all we do.

[tom cottar]

Great post. It reminds me of Keith Miller's 'Scent of Love':
The early church grew “not because of the [spiritual gifts] of Christians – such as the gift of speaking in tongues – and not because Christianity was such a palatable doctrine (to the contrary, it is about the most unpalatable doctrine there is) but because they had discovered the secret of community. Generally they did not have to lift a finger to evangelize. Someone would be walking down a back alley in Corinth or Ephesus and would see a group of people sitting together talking about the strangest things – something about a man and a tree and an execution and an empty tomb. What they were talking about made no sense to the onlooker. But there was something about the way they spoke to one another, about the way they looked at one another, about the way they cried together, the way they laughed together, the way they touched one another that was strangely appealing. It gave off the scent of love. The onlooker would start to drift farther down the alley, only to be pulled back to this little group like a bee to a flower. He would listen some more, still not understanding, and start to drift away again. But again he would be pulled back, thinking, I don’t have the slightest idea what these people are talking about, but whatever it is, I want part of it.

[from The Signature of Jesus, pg. 107-108]

I want our ministry to have that aroma...

[Marcguyver]

Well clearly the early church did things quite differently than Western American Christianity so I agree with you there! Heck, I'm not sure they'd even recognize what we call church in most of our congregations today.

A few years back I actually did a study with my family just to see what we could come up with from the scriptures as to how we should be living and what we should be using as a model for meeting corporately as Christians. It was pretty clear to us that they met house to house, broke bread and fellowshipped, performed miracles, devoted themselves to prayer, the singing of songs, the disciples teaching and reading of scripture, sold everyhting they had, shared all in common, and were willing to face extreme persecution that included severe tortures and often cruel death.

Now, I don't see much of that going on today. I do see reading of scripture and singing of songs and even some prayer in most churches but I'm not sure the disciples would recognize all the 'essential' things that we seem to deem so 'necessary' in most 'Churches' i.e.: $4.00 per sq.ft. carpet and tile, $3,000 mahogany desks, Air conditioning, Big Screen Projectors and megga sound systems, $2,000 suits, $30,000,000.00 building projects, etc. In fact, most of the time pastors are lucky if they can get their congregations to sit still for more than 20 minutes just to listen to the preaching of the word (after they've provided enough 'entertainment' in the form of professional muscians doing worship and video clips showing the highlights of what's current in their ministry), and they start dancing a 'jig' when they can get 20-30% of 'em to show up for a 30 minute prayer session. (Did I just hear an 'Amen'?) :)

To my chagrin, I will admit this: The hardest part for me to implement, out of all that we studied, was (and still is) the part about selling everything they owned and sharing it all in common. I also haven't had God use me very often in performing 'actual' miracles either; although praise be to God there have been a couple!

Lastly, I think a major problem with Christianity and 'Church' in general is the fact that we seem to be meeting corporately in our 'houses of worship' to simply receive something for ourselves. Perhaps something along the lines of, "Well, I wonder what neat program or video, or song, or guest speaker will be here today. I hope they're good and it's not boring 'cause I don't want to waste another Sunday"

Whatever happened to going to the 'Temple' to meet with God? Whatever happened to showing up in 'God's House' with a sense of awe and wonder at being able to simply spend some time with the KING OF THE UNIVERSE? You know, maybe this time I'll just be grateful that I get to meet with God Almighty and He'll let me just sit at his feet for awhile and I'll keep my mouth shut and simply let him 'wash over me' with his Spirit and shower me with his grace. Oh yeah, and then after awhile I'll give him some adoration, praise, and thanksgiving for all that He's ALREADY done for me and then I'll start thinking about how great a privilege it's going to be to be able to do it all over again next week. And if I'm fortunate, He'll be pleased with my 'offering' and it will be a sweet savor to his nostrils.

Well, that's my take on it for now. Me? Heck, I'm still trying to be consistent with just meeting with Him everyday in prayer and in the reading of His word at home, let alone corporately. I think that what I do visibly with others ought to be something that I've first mastered in the 'secret place' and actually do when no one is looking. To me, being able to meet with God with other believers is quite simply just another PRIVILEGE that I don't deserve; but boy am I grateful.
I just wish that more of us would remember why we're getting together, and whom we are gathering to meet with. In the interim, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do about selling all my stuff.

[Laurie]

Marc:
You could try ebay. :-) It's been working well for us.