An Uppity Jesus

While we are poking at Gods sovereignty and the million dollar "Says Who?" question. Lets establish that most Christians don’t want an uppity Jesus, we like him in our hearts, softly telling us he loves us and everything is gonna be ok. Just pick me up and carry me across the beach Jesus, I don’t think I can make it. Footprints you know.

We can just freak out at the thought that he actually might want his will known and acted upon by us all the time. This last part can really cramp our "liberty" in the Lord. We can be so taken in by our Americana and "no one can tell me what to do" and "I did it my way." American individualism has way more to do with how modern churchs and the vast majority of believers function than anything from Gods word. We cannot imagine that God is very much concerned about anything besides.......us. Getting people saved.

But God doesnt see his creation as a dixie cup to be thrown away, as of no real interest to him, nor does he view the governments on this planet as so many "free range" chickens that can just run willy nilly and claim authority over whatever they want...."time for flu shots everyone"....

So to help pick out the lay of the land I want to pass on some salient points I read

last Sunday. I read this article From Douglas Wilson, from his Credenda Agenda magazine. It is available to view online for free. "Cruciform Politics" by Douglas Wilson from volume19 issue 1: Thema Wilsons statements will be in blue, its four pages long so im gonna leave out a lot except for what might help us see that God has no intention of staying behind the pulpit.

So does Gods word show he wants to be Lord over all......

....When St. Paul came to the Corinthians,...He resolved to know nothing among them except Christ and Him crucified (v. 1). But this does not mean what individualistic moderns assume it to mean. We assume it means that he limited his message to a few bare doctrinal fundamentals, and for the remainder he left the kingdoms of men to govern themselves according to their own customs. In short, this confusion places "Christ and Him crucified" over here, and all the other subjects are over there. But this is almost directly opposite of the point the apostle Paul is making here....

..So what does the phrase "nothing but Christ and Him crucified" actually mean?..." Does this mean that all we are supposed to talk about is the fourth page of a six-page tract, the page that has a picture of a cross going across a chasm between God and man?

Most modern believers are still trapped by the Sacred / Secular disitinction idea from Greek thinking. It is ingrained in western thought.

...But note how St. Paul approaches this. This message is a message that topples the princes of this world and every thing that previously had been under their jurisdiction—meaning arts, politics, economics, exploration, scientific investigation, cooking, playing hacky-sack, and anything else that men might do. Rightly understood, preaching Christ and Him crucified is as broad as the world. Our desire is to bring every thought captive, bringing it into submission to Christ (2 Cor. 10:1-4).

Peter Leithart identifies a common problem we have with this kind of totalism: "Unfortunately, many Christians mentally adjust the astonishing claims of the New Testament and in so doing weaken it beyond recognition. Paul's words, it is thought, must apply to `spiritual' realities or to `salvation history,' but not to the actual history of humanity" (Deep Comedy, p. 26). In short, we slip away from what the New Testament actually says by spiritualizing or internalizing it....

Been there done that...

...This being the case, we should recognize that there are two different ways to get this whole enterprise wrong. The first is to deny what the Bible teaches about the public authority of Jesus Christ over all things. But Jesus said that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him. We should therefore go and disciple the nations. The reason given for the preaching of the gospel is this all-encompassing authority of Christ....

...Given how confused everything has gotten, we frequently find private Christians who are public secularists. They do not want the authority of Jesus Christ to be recognized in the public square.....

...a true cruciform politics will be iconoclastic—it will always challenge the idols. The idols of the age are always decked out in respectable clothing, and people who attack them are always dismissed (initially) as crazed nutjobs and disturbers of the peace. In our day, one of the central idols is the the swollen state. In other words, the political aparatus over which Jesus will be Lord needs to be about 100 times smaller than it currently is...

For most Americans they do see the State as a god, when something is wrong who is cried out to? Who is offered up a as having a solution to any problem? We as Chrisitans must first see it and forsake this view or truly our nation is lost. We need to first be open to Him as being truly Lord over all, before we will see it in the Word.

God bless. Proclaiming the whole gospel,