PUDDLE JUMPING

If they obey and serve him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment.

Job 36:11

Near the terminus of His physical presence on earth, Jesus said to those disciples who had been with Him - those He called, who had walked with Him, who had seen and heard His authority and love, who had rejected Him in Eden, abandoned Him in Gethsemane, witnessed His crucifixion, seen the stone to the tomb cast off, and witnessed Him resurrected - to them He said in Matthew 28:19, "Therefore, having been brought through,disciple all nations..."

When we look back on God’s unilateral covenant blessing to Abram in Genesis 12:3, “...and all the mis-pa-hot (families, clans, tribes) on earth will be blessed through you,” we see how Jesus and His Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 finds its fulfillment.

God’s transcendent gift of faith and Abraham’s fleeting moments of willful, obedient participation (e.g. Gen 12:3; 13:8-9; 22:5) became the literal manifestation of God’s providential blessing to all the families, clans, tribes on earth.

It was true for the original Disciples - before and after - witnessing Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (e.g. see Gal 2:11-21). The same is true of all Jesus’ disciples; those who lie, deny, flee, doubt and waver in faith. Just like with Abraham, there are fleeting moments of willful, obedient participation in God’s providential blessing for all the families, clans, tribes on earth.

Following the Babylonian conquest of the Southern Kingdom of Judah in 586 BC, the lingering remnant lost everything near-and-dear to them: the kingship, the temple, and their land.

Those externals (intended as God's blessings to ALL the families, clans, and tribes) were twisted into idols and symbols of national supremacy and prideful exclusivity.

God’s justice and punishment upon Israel were intended to be a divine wake-up call. They merely solidified Israel’s hardness of heart. In the midst of exile, Israel repeated their historic pattern of idolatry. They adopted the gods of Greek culture: rhetoric, philosophy, religion, art, and intellect. None inherently wrong or evil. All made so via humanity’s corruption and sin.

Israel chose to replace the temple (worship) with the synagogue (academics), divine appointment and calling for intellectual accolades (academy), politics, and pride (Sanhedrin), and divine revelation was supplanted by synthetic writings (Apocrypha) and oral traditions.

Not much has changed in 2,000 years. As Pastor David Tripp notes this short video (LINK HERE), the problem is one of culture and it is systemic. “We’ve constructed a pastoral culture that can’t work… Perhaps it begins in seminary where we’ve academized the faith… We call people into ministry we don’t know and we’re not interested in. We’re hiring knowledge, and experience, and skill… then we allow the pastor to live outside or above the Body of Christ…”

Consider how Pastor Tripp's comments echo the woefully idolatrous culture of Israel during exile - a culture of rhetoric, philosophy, religion, art, and intellect worship. Consider how church communities today are bereft of pastoral care because, as Tripp notes, WE construct and WE call.

In OUR construction of synthetic Christian culture, WE ignore divine appointment and the Gospel of our LORD Jesus Christ. WE approach salvation as a personal and private decision rather than a transcendent gift of altruistic love and ministry. WE call pastors. WE interview preachers. WE hire the most entertaining speakers. WE provide sensory overload with sugary snacks, skits, and popular music. WE hire and fire based on popularity and the ability to entertain rather than call, faithfulness, and abandonment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As Pastor Tripp notes, “Every pastor is a sinner in the middle of his own sanctification… Thousands of pastors are living with a huge disconnect between their public ministry personas and the details of their private lives.” That's reality.

WE don’t want reality. WE want sterling, peerless, anonymously disconnected messianic figures to lead our churches. Then, when they fall short, WE cast them out with all our transferred sins and projected guilt - just like Israel’s scapegoat (Lev 16:10).

WE’ve created a culture of decaying synthetic religion. It's not one of surrender to and the worship of our LORD Jesus Christ. Paul addressed this very notion 2,000 years ago when he wrote, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

WE’ve shifted the responsibility of living as authentic gospel communities. WE’ve transferred all the responsibilities of cultivating, nurturing, and watching-over to disposable professionals whom WE judge for their humanity from the safety of our armchairs. WE want figureheads to control via salaries, bonuses, and the authority to hire and fire when WE’re collectively dissatisfied, unimpressed, and insufficiently entertained. Yet we wonder why the American church is in decline.

As David Tripp notes, “We’ve constructed a pastoral culture that can’t work. It drives pastors into hiding.”

For this precise behavior, Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day, “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth...”

God never called Noah, Abram, David, Peter, Paul, me, or you because of our personal piety or inherent righteousness. He calls simply because of the value we have in Him. We were created by Him - in the image and likeness of our eternal God of Holy Trinity.

Rather than constructing and advancing lukewarm communities, rather than hiring professionals to do ministry (while WE go about the truly important stuff), rather than calling pastors based on academic prowess or experience, and rather than transferring, shifting, reassigning, and deferring our privilege of personally advancing God's mission and kingdom (and guilt for not doing so) - instead, let’s take His gift seriously in the way we live, laugh, love and worship.

Are you spending your days in the prosperity and contentment of Christ? Are you, like a child, joyfully jumping into the puddles of life exclusively by faith? Or is that privilege deferred whilst you go about things you’ve deemed more important?

Blessings,

-Kevin M. Kelley

aMostUnlikelyDisciple.com

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