Monday, September 7, 2015

Bringing Christ to the World

From The Campion:
No longer do we have to obsess over protecting ourselves from an evil that lives outside of us. The Jews had not received the gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and so their fear of evil was certainly reasonable and justified. Jesus has defeated that evil and given us the power to overcome it. No longer do we wash our hands when we come home from the marketplace in order to purify ourselves. Rather, Jesus is calling us to be, in Him, a fount of purity for the cleansing of the secular marketplace. He wants us to imitate him and walk fearlessly into places (both physically and culturally) that contain evil influences with total confidence in His power to overcome. Judaism is inherently defensive in its posture to the rest of the world. Christianity puts holiness on offense. Christ wants to take over culture and he wants us to be the agents of this conquest.

I’m not saying that don’t have to know ourselves and be careful about near occasions of sin. What I am saying is that I think Jesus is challenging us to consider what our fundamental posture is to the world outside of ourselves: Is it defensive and fearful? Or is it confident and on the offense for the Kingdom? The Gates of Hell will not prevail against us, He told us (Matt 16). That’s an offensive statement. It means that the enemy will not be able to withstand our attack, not that we’ll be able to endure his (as most people strangely interpret that passage). The Church is an army on the march, not a fortified castle! (Read more.)
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