Monday, January 2, 2012

TKJG Chapter 10: Creating a Gospel Culture

In this chapter McKnight sketches the gospel, the Story of Jesus completing the Story of Israel, I would say the Story of Humanity. He begins with ‘In the beginning God’ and concludes with recreation and humans governing ‘on God’s behalf in the way of Jesus. Forever.’ You’d have to get a copy of the book to read the few pages for yourself. N.T Wright tells the story in a similar manner in his thesis of the big chapters of the bible. Goheen and Bartholomew tell a similar story in The Drama of Scripture. Gabe Lyons covers it a bit in The Next Christians. Sean Gladding has The Story of God, The Story of Us. The St Luke’swebsite has it though I need to update a couple of lines (but am having technical difficulties doing so) having read this book and some others. Each story is nuanced in slightly different ways.  They each tell the gospel. McKnight then encourages us to become people of the story, engage in the traditional church calendar as a way of engaging in the gospel story, realise the church is a continuation of the story, counter the stories of our contemporary context such as individualism and consumerism with the gospel story, embrace the story and be saved and transformed by Jesus as we respond to the story with faith, repentance and baptism. Bear witness to the story in serving others, love and compassion.

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