Day 5
Tim Keller proposes four basic models for cultural engagement. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, which means that perhaps we should not limit ourselves to one particular model, but self-consciously modify the one we most naturally lean to in order to combat its weaknesses.
Transformationalist - pursue your vocation from a Christian worldview with the goal of transforming it; sometim...es this worldview is too cognitive and not enough responding of the whole person to the whole creation, and it doesn't deal with the worship of the heart.
Relevance - Christian faith is fundamentally compatible with the surrounding culture - God has not abandoned the culture "out there;" sometimes the gospel is minimized or even forgotten and the distinctives of the church get blurred.
Counterculturalists - purpose is to show that the world is at enmity with God. In this worldview, there is no confusion or false hope about this world - our treasures are in heaven. Sometimes very pessimistic about social change, tends to demonize business, markets, and governments. It can also downplay justification and the atonement because "we're the good guys."
Two kingdoms - Christ and culture in paradox; Christ governs the church by his word, and the world by the sword. Puts a very high value on secular callings, and doesn't see merely one way of being a "Christian dentist." The state is there to give freedoms. It does seem to place more emphasis on "common grace" than even the Bible does. Christians can also be silent on social issues when they shouldn't be - for example, many pulpits were silent on slavery in the 1840's and 1850's.
After creation, God did not rest because he was tired, but he ceased from his creative activities - though he remains active in sustaining and redeeming creation - as an expression of his kingly sovereignty. This seventh Day has never ceased. The cycle of 6 days of work plus one day of rest for mankind anticipates entering God's rest, which will never end. Thus the command to set aside one day for rest is a breaking in of God's rest in on this fallen creation. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath rest as he inaugurates the Kingdom and enters the rest of God, which is why Christians moved the Sabbath to Sunday. With Christ's resurrection, the rest is not at the end of the week, but the already-not yet rest has begun. We enter God's rest not by works, but by resting in Him by faith.
Martin Luther had a law-gospel divide in viewing scripture in his early days. He saw God's Word as powerful and living, and that you preach law to slay self-righteousness, then the gospel when despairing of one's own efforts to lead to Christ. But by 1525, Luther sees a need for ethics and gets a more Pauline balance in his preaching and teaching. Good works are not to be done to earn salvation, but works to be done to delight God and for our fellow human beings in unconditional love. And by later in his life, he realized there was more to sanctification than merely the realization that you have been justified in Christ.
Tim Keller proposes four basic models for cultural engagement. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, which means that perhaps we should not limit ourselves to one particular model, but self-consciously modify the one we most naturally lean to in order to combat its weaknesses.
Transformationalist - pursue your vocation from a Christian worldview with the goal of transforming it; sometim...es this worldview is too cognitive and not enough responding of the whole person to the whole creation, and it doesn't deal with the worship of the heart.
Relevance - Christian faith is fundamentally compatible with the surrounding culture - God has not abandoned the culture "out there;" sometimes the gospel is minimized or even forgotten and the distinctives of the church get blurred.
Counterculturalists - purpose is to show that the world is at enmity with God. In this worldview, there is no confusion or false hope about this world - our treasures are in heaven. Sometimes very pessimistic about social change, tends to demonize business, markets, and governments. It can also downplay justification and the atonement because "we're the good guys."
Two kingdoms - Christ and culture in paradox; Christ governs the church by his word, and the world by the sword. Puts a very high value on secular callings, and doesn't see merely one way of being a "Christian dentist." The state is there to give freedoms. It does seem to place more emphasis on "common grace" than even the Bible does. Christians can also be silent on social issues when they shouldn't be - for example, many pulpits were silent on slavery in the 1840's and 1850's.
After creation, God did not rest because he was tired, but he ceased from his creative activities - though he remains active in sustaining and redeeming creation - as an expression of his kingly sovereignty. This seventh Day has never ceased. The cycle of 6 days of work plus one day of rest for mankind anticipates entering God's rest, which will never end. Thus the command to set aside one day for rest is a breaking in of God's rest in on this fallen creation. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath rest as he inaugurates the Kingdom and enters the rest of God, which is why Christians moved the Sabbath to Sunday. With Christ's resurrection, the rest is not at the end of the week, but the already-not yet rest has begun. We enter God's rest not by works, but by resting in Him by faith.
Martin Luther had a law-gospel divide in viewing scripture in his early days. He saw God's Word as powerful and living, and that you preach law to slay self-righteousness, then the gospel when despairing of one's own efforts to lead to Christ. But by 1525, Luther sees a need for ethics and gets a more Pauline balance in his preaching and teaching. Good works are not to be done to earn salvation, but works to be done to delight God and for our fellow human beings in unconditional love. And by later in his life, he realized there was more to sanctification than merely the realization that you have been justified in Christ.
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