Consider Your Calling

by Frank Turk

So last time: I asked the question whether the folks who turned out for Passion2013 turned out for Jesus or Religion, and I gave one answer: a Jesus-event (from the Bible) which looks like this one looks turns out people who experience a revival and not just an emotional high.  It might look like religion if what we see instead is a superficial change, a temporary emotional sweetness which, let's face it, is not self-sustaining.

How else could we tell if this was about Jesus and not merely religion?

How about this one:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

You know: that fellow Paul is an interesting case study -- because when we think of him, somehow we think of a mash-up of Carl Trueman and Charleton Heston.  He's God's man after all, and he should be smart but not unreachable, grandfatherly in his gravitas, good-looking, and compelling.  And we think -- this is a group "we" here, not just a shot across the bow at the new young and hip crowd -- that this is how God reached the ancient world.  He sent a guy with 1st-century media saavy to write the NT and appear in live shows to get the word out.

But you know something?  That's not Paul at all.  In fact: he spends a good deal of time telling the Corinthians that one of the problems they are facing is that they want their own clever and good-looking fellows to take his place.  I mean seriously: that is exactly what they wanted, and Paul says, "well, God has already made all that stuff foolish.  You can tell because he sent me to preach to save those who believe."

Now, I know what the Passionistas accidentally reading this post are about to say: "Hey dude: we had Piper there.  Are you saying that Piper is not a good preacher?"

No dude: I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that the kid in my hypothetical example went to a rock concert -- and the headliners were the all-star talkers.  S/he went to see men (and women, right?) of huge reputation, and also some headliner bands in order to feel a certain way about his/her endorsement of Jesus -- but no human will boast in the presence of God.  And the proof, if I might say so, of what actually happened there is what is happening now, since he or she came home.

A lot of people hate it when I do this, but I'm doing it anyway: 60,000 people were there.  If we randomly distributed 60,000 loaded guns into the places all these people just came from -- just sent them back in the QTYs these people came from those places -- I'll bet you something would change in those communities.  If we sent out 60,000 lunchboxes full of $20's into those communities in the same way, I'll bet something would change -- maybe something small, but something.  If we sent 60,000 bullhorns out into those communities and just laid them down on the ground there, something would change.

In this hypothetical case, 60,000 hypothetical people are coming home to some fraction of 60,000 local churches.  Let me be as clear as possible: they are coming home to what we hope are a corresponding number of local churches.  If they are anything like their parents, they may not have a local church at all.  But if past performance is any indication of future results, they will not have the same scope of impact as 60,000 handguns or lunchboxes or bullhorns.  The show will be over.  Somehow, for them, being in the local church -- which is God's plan for the believer -- is not the same as going to an event with headliners.  Paul says that, somehow, the local church ought to be better than that -- and it seems to me that here we can see that it is not.

A year ago, Jeff Bethke said, "Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrum - See one's the work of God, but one's a man made invention - See one is the cure, but the other's the infection."  At the end of it, it is not our intention which makes something Holy: it is God's intention. And it's God's intention that the Gospel be proclaimed not from a concert stage in an arena intended for entertaining spectacles: it's his intention that it be declared from the local church.

That's why Paul also said this:

For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

Think of the plea Paul is making here to the Corinthians: the ones who are really bringing the message of Christ to the world have become like trash, like the muddy part you scrape off in a bath -- and all of you Corinthians think that you are better than that.  This is something someone like Judah Smith ought to spend a few years contemplating before he continues in the family business, but it is especially something people seeking a Cotton-Bowl sized event ought to consider fully before continuing to endorse and expand such a thing.

The problem is not that God doesn't love large churches, or doesn't want large churches.  The problem is not that God doesn't want us to glorify God and enjoy Him now, which is the starting terminal point of forever.  The problem is that when we imagine that the best way -- or even a co-equal way -- of knowing God and glorifying him and enjoying him is by the means of the world, and not the means of the Spirit, we have inverted God's plan for us.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," objects the hypothetical example, "How is it that suddenly TeamPyro is so concerned about the means of the Spirit, and who are you to judge the way the Spirit moved in Georgia?  Aren't you biased against moves of the Spirit?  I mean: I was there. I saw it.  I felt it.  I know it was the means of the Spirit."

Well, I think I have already given 3 Biblical reasons why that's (at least) backwards reasoning: there was no revival, there was a backwards system of values driving the event, and it creates and elevates the wrong people the wrong way when it is all said and done.  But: the problem is, at the end of the day, a Holy Spirit problem.

You remember Yesterday's post, yes?  I hope so.  I quoted the end of Acts 2 in that post to show what ought to happen when there is actual revival, but there's a funny part at the beginning of Acts 2 which maybe we should review since I have dragged the Holy Spirit into this discussion:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

You know: as we say in theses here parts, "Aha!"

Look: at the end of the day, it was the Holy Spirit which made the events in Acts 2 happen.  What that means, in the least, is this: If the means of the Holy Spirit are used, the consequences the Spirit intends will result.  And the consequences -- the necessary consequences -- of the means of the Holy Spirit will be the salvation of men, and the formation of a local church*.  In the worst case, if a local church is not formed, the very least will be that the local church will be edified or fortified or in some way improved.

The means of the Spirit are not the things which make us feel good and seem right in our own eyes -- even though they are never found or hinted at in the Bible.  They are certainly not the things which, when we see them in the Bible, an Apostle expressly condemns.  They are also not the things which, when we see them, we can rejigger into something we enjoy a little more.

So: consider your calling, hypothetical example.  Consider what it is exactly the preaching of God's word and the singing of His praises ought to do to you and for you.  I will be willing, for the sake of not consuming your whole day, to stipulate that every word spoken at Passion2013 was worth hearing**.  If it was, what are you doing with it?  Why was the experience more important than the consequences?

I leave it for your consideration, and your own edification   Be with the Lord's people in the Lord's house on the Lord's day this weekend -- because that's where the real means of the Spirit will greet you.

__________
*You know: or else, the condemnation of men and the hardening of their hearts into reprobation.
**Chris Rosebrough has some other thoughts on that, which I commend to you.

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Those Who Received His Word

by Frank Turk

Welcome back, especially you, One Star Hater.

Yesterday, I told the story of one hypothetical kid who went to Passion 2013, got very fired up about something he could stake his life on, and who agreed with Jefferson Bethke about the event.  But then I went and spoiled the whole thing by asking a pretty simple (and it seems to me: obvious) question about the whole thing:

@jeffersonbethke How do we know they are there for Jesus and not religion, Jeff?
— Frank Turk (@Frank_Turk) January 2, 2013

I don't think it's a very tricky question, either -- it's not a no-win question.  For example, one response could be:

@frank_turk every night, kids were so moved by the preaching & worship that they were preaching and ministering in the streets.
— Gil Louigio (@GilGaMashup) January 7, 2013

Or maybe another one could be:

@frank_turk - I'm convicted on my sin, and I'm going home to discuss a new accountability plan with my pastor.
— Gil Louigio (@GilGaMashup) January 7, 2013

Or here's one:

@frank_turk - I know it was Jesus because I got convicted on my religion. I have a very middle-class view of things which Jesus exposed.
— Gil Louigio (@GilGaMashup) January 7, 2013

Something like that would have answered my question and, if possible, actually shut the mouth of the complaint.  That is: it would speak to the centerpiece of the complaint, which is Jeff Bethke's definition of a serious problem, and my reference to it.  Seriously now: are old people the only ones with a religion problem?  If you think so, I think I probably shouldn't say another word until you reconsider your answer.

The problem of religion vs. faith is a serious problem.  It manifests itself in a LOT of ways.  For example, as a blogger, I am guilty of religion when I expect that God owes me an audience of readers when I have been such a faithful blogger for lo nigh unto a decade.  I am guilty of religion when I expect even that other bloggers ought to respect me.  I am guilty of religion when I hope that I am famous, or can become famous by being a certain kind of voice in the wildness.

Right?  You can recognize my faults.  You can see them because they are so obvious.  It's a good thing you're righteous and not the kind of sinner that blogger centuri0n is over there.

So look: I think we owe it to ourselves to ask this question when we do something that looks a LOT like what the world does when it is doing what it does in the place of worshiping the true God of heaven, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the savior of the guilty and hopeless.  You know: we can really "get it" that the Cotton Bowl is a false religion for some people, or that status at work or in the community is a false religion for some people, or that emotional voyeurism in reality TV or in concerts or in roles one plays to get the attention of others is a false religion for some people.  But can we "get it" that if we are doing any or all of these things and just putting a Jesus t-shirt on it, or tweeting it with Jesus' name, or calling it "worship" instead of "entertainment" our alleged intentions do not sanctify what's actually happening?



Let me put this another way: I think that it's wise to let the Bible -- especially the New Testament, but not exclusively there -- pour over our moments of emotional exuberance and find out if we are actually loving God and serving him, or if we are actually doing what seems right in our own eyes and then calling that God's will for us and God's work among us.

The first stop on that journey is Acts 2.  I go there because it's a big-tent revival -- it's a place where God  wasn't afraid of a crowd, and wasn't afraid of using men to preach, and people were literally cut to the heart by what happened there.  It looks like what we are told just happened at the Georgia Dome.  I go there because it dismantles the idea that I think somehow the church can only exist in small pieces.

See on that very day, 3000 people were added to the church.  They didn't start a discipleship program or nod a head to some slactivism video about a problem bigger than donations can resolve.  Here's what it says happened after that show -- in which Peter was so compelling and loud that at first they thought he was drunk, and he literally spoke with words that every person could understand, in every language -- when the lights came up:

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

I know, I know: it's very quaint, and sort of mundane.  But it speaks to us about what happens when the word of God is actually preached in a place -- because this is the first time, after the resurrection of Christ, that the word of God is actually preached in a place.

See: the first thing that happens is that sinners repent of sin.  In Evangelical parlance, revival breaks out.  If what happened in the Georgia Dome was not merely an entertainment event but some kind of God's presence pouring out, revival would have been breaking out.

A lot of people hate it when I do this, but I'm doing it anyway: 60,000 people were there.  If we randomly distributed 60,000 loaded guns into the places all these people just came from -- just sent them back in the QTYs these people came from those places -- I'll bet you something would change in those communities.  If we sent out 60,000 lunchboxes full of $20's into those communities in the same way, I'll bet something would change -- maybe something small, but something.  If we sent 60,000 bullhorns out into those communities and just laid them down on the ground there, something would change.

But here we have people who feel like they just stood in the presence of God, and somehow: nothing will change.  Let's be as fair as possible to say that, frankly, I'm using past performance to predict future results -- but I doubt that adding a young fellow who inherited his father's prosperity-gospel church to the preaching roster will improve the net outflow of the Holy Spirit this year as opposed to last year.

Something changes when God is presented and is truly-present in a large crowd of people.  My first suggestion about Passion 2013 is that nothing, sadly, has changed.  And this is what worries me: somehow that result is being represented as being "blown away by God's presence. Shattered and rebuilt by His Word. Challenged to the core. Repaired. Wrapped in love. Awakened to raise our voices for those who have no voice."  It seems to me that the first hallmark of religion (as opposed to Jesus) -- if we take Jefferson Bethke at face value, and we magnify his complaint by looking at the real thing in Scripture -- is that the problem with religion is it never gets to the core; it's just behavior modification, like a long list of chores.  Including, if I can say this in a sobering way, the emotional chores of event-driven experiences.

More tomorrow.

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Stake Their Lives On It

by Frank Turk

So last week, I did some house-cleaning and said that I could only post once a week in 2013, and now this week I have found myself with almost 10 pages on the subject at hand and have given Dan the week off. Go Figure.

To avoid any unpleasantry today (that comes tomorrow), I'm only going to speak hypothetically -- I'm not going to speak about anyone in particular, but about someone you probably know. I'm imagining a young person either in college or college-aged, and this person spent last week in the Georgia Dome with about 60,000 other young people his or her age. Now, when you mentally conjure this person up, I suspect you think of someone who looks like Rupert Grint, or Matt Chandler, or Angus Jones, or Elle Fanning, or Jennifer Lawrence, or Emma Stone. Not a lot of you imagining single mothers, or young adults with learning disabilities, or lower-middle-class kids who had to take a week off from work to come. Which, let's face it: that's how we want to imagine the church to be. We want the church to be full of people who are the aspirational versions of ourselves, and in some sense that is actually a good thing. It means we haven't stopped believing that the church, somehow, is supposed to be better than real life.

But this kid I'm hypothetically speaking of: he's like 90% of the guys his age on the inside regardless of what's on the outside. He's mostly-empty. I mean: if the average life expectancy of a person in America is roughly 80 years, he's only finished about 25% of the game -- and all of that under the right-minded protection and benefit of his parents. He probably doesn't understand what it means to have some skin in the game (namely: his own).  Or else she's like 90% of the girls her age -- who look like they are women, but they simply have no idea what it means to be a woman. She may have been convinced by somebody someplace that what it means to be a woman is that you have to make sure that you don't think there are any men who can do something you can't do -- even if she is self-aware enough to know that there are certainly things that women can do that men can't do.

So this hypothetical person is in a peer group which decided to go to Passion last week.  Somehow s/he came up with the $219 plus another $200 for rooms plus another $200 for food and whatever it cost in transportation to get there. I mean: John Piper was going to be there. Francis Chan was going to be there. Christy Nockels was going to be there -- I'd go to Georgia to hear Christy Nickels sing. Lecrae and Crowder were going to be there. And this is how it was billed:

At the heart of it all, Passion exists to see a generation stake their lives on what matters most. For us, that's the fame of the One who rescues and restores, and the privilege we have to fully leverage our lives by amplifying His name in everything we do.

Last year, our US gathering drew more than 40,000 students and leaders from around the world to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. We were blown away by God's presence. Shattered and rebuilt by His Word. Challenged to the core. Repaired. Wrapped in love. Awakened to raise our voices for those who have no voice.

In January 2013, we are returning to The Dome. Honestly, we want to see the place filled. Not for the sake of numbers, but as a symbol of a new generation...a new wave of Jesus followers who are trading in small dreams for a place in the story God is writing around the globe.

And for a kid like the one I described, above, that sounds like a really great place to go to try to see what it is that could happen to me if I "trade in small dreams for a place in the story God is writing".  It's a pretty serious thing to "stake their lives on what matters most."

So this kid goes to Passion, and stays for a week, and receives a lot of encouragement and emotional enhancement which, if he's honest, he doesn't get at his local church. And he's with other kids who are getting the same thing -- that's what they all say, and there's no reason to doubt them. Some of them even Tweet stuff like this:

60,000 college students, representing 2,022 universities, from 54 countries worshipping the 1 true God. #Passion2013 twitter.com/TweetingThomas…
— Thomas West (@TweetingThomas_) January 4, 2013

I have tears in my eyes as I reflect on the power of God's presence in the Georgia dome tonite. #GloryofGod #Passion2013
— Kari Jobe (@karijobe) January 4, 2013

Tonight @lecrae is preaching and @johnpiper is rapping! You wont want to miss it! #passion2013 :)
— Frank Gil (@Pastor_Tank) January 3, 2013

Yeah, OK, maybe not as much on that last one, but you see my point: there's a very positive buzz about the things which mean a lot to this demographic -- and, if we are honest, to ourselves as well. We want whatever it is we are doing for Jesus' fame and Jesus' name to make us, if I may be so bold as to say it, feel something -- and not like we have the flu, either.

So this hypothetical young person goes to Passion, and gets a very real sense of his or her feeling that Jesus filled the Georgia Dome, and that Jesus is amazing when John Piper or Judah Smith talks about Him, and he or she comes home sincerely believing they had an experience which ought to change them.

This young person feels like what Jefferson Bethke tweeted the first night of the event:

Now look: I like Jeff Bethke. I like any clean-cut kid, but especially one who is sort of famous for being clean-cut in spite of hardships. And we all know how Jeff got famous, right?

No? Wow, the internet has a short memory.



See: Jeff got famous because he was trying to make a right-minded point about the distinction between "religion" and "Jesus" (or perhaps: right faith in Jesus) -- even if he had to walk some of the ill-considered stuff back in the two weeks after this video went thru the roof. And he was there, at Passion, with Lecrae and Piper and Crowder and Chan and 59,999 other people, and he made a tweet which, when the hypothetical kid I am talking about read it, caused a feeling of good tidings and great joy, if we can borrow the phrase.

So for this hypothetical young person, he or she came away from Passion with a rather broad feeling of being part of something larger than themselves. And to this feeling, they have attached a lot of words -- either because of the talks they heard, or because of the conversations afterward: "worship," "faith," "spirit," "movement," "unity," etc.

Now look: fair enough. I am willing to say that to some extent, something happened at the Georgia Dome that felt amazing to those present. It felt amazing for the week in which it happened.

But when I read Jeff's tweet back on New Year's Day, here's what I tweeted:

And I ask it for only one reason: Jeff is famous because he wanted to draw the thick black line between Jesus and Religion -- and I find myself in full agreement with that objective. I find myself fighting that fight in my own life on a daily basis.

It is a completely fair question -- and I think the answers are useful to all kinds of people, and not just the young person who found himself or herself filled with something which looks and feels pretty good.

So how would we know?  We'll talk about that tomorrow.

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Not a Trade School or a Book Club

by Frank Turk

For those interested, the whole sunday morning lesson this series is based on can be found here.

We have been talking about this passage in 1Thes:

But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.  

9 For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. 11 For you know how, like a father with his children, 12 we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

And we have discussed that, in this passage, in Paul's view, the normal life of the local church has at least 3 components: Pastoral Care, Personal Affection, and Preaching the Gospel.  But there is a fourth component: Perfecting the Gospel.

4. Perfecting the Gospel

“walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory,” Paul said to the Thessalonians.

When Paul said this same thing to Titus at the end of his life, he said it this way, in Titus 2:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

He means that there are necessary consequences of the Gospel.  He says right above that section that they must “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”  That’s what “adorn” means: your wife may be beautiful in her own right, but there is something you can do for her which prefects her beauty.  You may “adorn” her with praise, or “adorn” her with honor, or better yet: “adorn” her with love.  You make what is already there perfect, complete, by doing the things which are necessary in order to show that they are true.

This is also what Paul sees as the ordinary life of the local church.  The fruit of the Spirit is there.  There’s a sense there that somehow, Jesus is coming and we must be ready for him, and that when we behave as if what we believe is actually true, being called to God’s Kingdom and Glory are worth it.  We must walk in a manner which is worthy of God, worthy of the calling into God’s Kingdom and God’s Glory.

So this is Paul’s ordinary instruction to the church:

For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. 11 For you know how, like a father with his children, 12 we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

It’s funny how Paul can pull the cover off the ordinary so quickly to reveal the extraordinary that is underneath it.  We get ourselves wrapped up in the idea that somehow, the big issues of the Christian life are wrapped up in big words and systematic theology.  We think that somehow God has decided that to follow him you need to get a whole new vocabulary which might not even be complete or adequate if you don’t know Greek and Hebrew and Latin.  But here, in this letter to people in a persecuted church, Paul doesn’t use any of those words at all.  He doesn’t resort to extraordinary language.  And he doesn’t appeal to an extraordinary experience – but he makes the point that somehow the Gospel makes us zealous for an ordinary life which is worthy of Himself, and His Kingdom.

This letter is written after Paul’s first visit to Thessalonica, yes?  But what Paul is describing here is what happened when he was in Thessalonica.  When he was done teaching, this is how Acts 17 describes the outcome:

But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

After the Thessalonians were taught by Paul, their whole city knew there was something different about them – and described it as turning the whole world upside down.  Yet somehow when we look at this letter, and Paul’s description of what he taught these people, somehow it looks utterly harmless.  It looks simple – maybe too simple, too obvious or boring.  But when it was first demonstrated, it was an event that changed the world.

• Pastoral Care.
• Personal Affection and concern.
• Proclamation of the Gospel.
• Perfecting the Gospel.

It’s a completely-ordinary thing – or it seems that way.  We are prone to take it for granted, to forget that this is not a social club or a trade school or a book club.  This is the place where the Kingdom of God is breaking into the world, and the victory of Jesus over sin and death is doing something that is not of this world.

I’m going to tell a story here to close up our time about my brother-in-law, David.  He tells a story about the first time he visited Boston. David's ex-military, and He says that he can remember all through school people told him about American history -- about the events that happened that caused us to be a country, the list of facts. But in Boston, he found himself out in the harbor looking down into the water, and when he looked into the water and out at the harbor he realized: "Wow. This is were they dropped the tea into the harbor." And at that moment, all those men and all the stories about them weren't just facts or true statements anymore: the real people became obvious to him, and it changed the way he thought about our country and his part in it.

It seems ridiculous – he lived his whole life in the United States, and walked around in it receiving all kinds of benefits from being a citizen.  But for him to really get it, to really understand that something happened to change the whole course of history, he had to do something as mundane as stand in front of the body of water where they threw some cargo into the ocean for the light bulb to go off.

But that’s what it seems to be about the local church – about Paul’s ordinary message to the Thessalonians.  In the same way that David finally got it, that THIS is where they threw the tea into the Harbor, Paul is telling us: show them the real Jesus.  Show them the Gospel of God not as a metaphor, not as a seminar on ancient literature.  Don’t just show them a nice time.  Show them that Jesus died for sin, and now the Glory of God and his Kingdom are coming into this world here, in the local church.  Show them the Gospel of God, the extraordinary thing under the ordinary life of the church.

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