People to seem to love Jesus, but not so much Christ. Darrell Bock recently spoke at a church and C Michael Patton noted some of the high points. I heard Bock say similar things when he spoke at New Life

“Jesusanity is an attempt to have a high view of Jesus without having a unique view of Jesus.” [From Jesusanity vs. Christianity]

Tim Keller’s great post on the gospel

Simon Gathercole distills a three-point outline that both Paul and the Synoptic writers held in common. (See “The Gospel of Paul and the Gospel of the Kingdom” in God’s Power to Save, ed. Chris Green Apollos/Inter-Varsity Press, UK, 2006.) He writes that Paul’s good news was, first, that Jesus was the promised Messianic King and Son of God come to earth as a servant, in human form. (Rom. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:4ff.)

Second, by his death and resurrection, Jesus atoned for our sin and secured our justification by grace, not by our works (1 Cor. 15:3ff.) Third, on the cross Jesus broke the dominion of sin and evil over us (Col. 2:13-15) and at his return he will complete what he began by the renewal of the entire material creation and the resurrection of our bodies (Rom 8:18ff.)

Gathercole then traces these same three aspects in the Synoptics’ teaching that Jesus, the Messiah, is the divine Son of God (Mark 1:1) who died as a substitutionary ransom for the many (Mark 10:45), who has conquered the demonic present age with its sin and evil (Mark 1:14-2:10) and will return to regenerate the material world (Matt. 19:28.)

If I had to put this outline in a single statement, I might do it like this: Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.

One of these elements was at the heart of the older gospel messages, namely, salvation is by grace not works. It was the last element that was usually missing, namely that grace restores nature, as the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck put it. When the third, “eschatological” element is left out, Christians get the impression that nothing much about this world matters. Theoretically, grasping the full outline should make Christians interested in both evangelistic conversions as well as service to our neighbor and working for peace and justice in the world. [From The Gospel in All its Forms | LeadershipJournal.net]

Quote from Os Guinness’ Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance as quoted in C.J. Mahaney’s most recent blog post

By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant. (p. 11) [From The Idol of Relevance]

How can pastors guard their time with their families?

One of the things we do at Bethlehem to try to protect our families and to nurture our wives and make them feel cared for is divide the week up into twenty-one blocks of time (modules). We get that by identifying three modules a day—morning to lunch, lunch to supper, and supper to bedtime—for the seven days of the week.

Then we tell our staff to take seven of those modules off. And three of them have to be in a row, equaling at least one full day off. So you have a day off and then four more modules to work with. It could be four evenings. And if you have to be out in the evenings, then you don’t come in in the mornings. [From How can pastors guard their time with their families? :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library]

HT: Jonathan Leeman