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Perennial Challenge for the Elect

The perennial challenge of the church is to relate productively to an economy of relational power in which it appears to be vulnerable.

If you read through the gospels we see a good bit of Jesus’ teaching is instructing his disciples on their use of their minority power in the world. Disciples are told to take the lesser seat. Disciples are told to forgive enemies. Disciples are told to turn the other cheek.

Many of Jesus’ adversaries similarly wanted Jesus to address issues of power thrust upon the Jewish community beneath the tyranny of Rome. Many flashpoints involving dietary laws, Sabbath observance and the like are actually discussions involving how a faithful people should live in an environment where they are not in charge.

Immoral Christians Make Christianity Unthinkable

The laundry list of the failures of Christian’s use of power continues to grow. Unfortunately what it tends to energize is self-righteousness of the opponents of Christianity. Perhaps this was what the Apostle Paul noted in terms of how the law brings death. Moralism within the human community seems to result in an endless cycle of finger pointing, blaming, criticism and defensiveness.

For many the list of Christian sins so undermines the possibility that the Gospel could be true, that they simply walk away from it with their snap judgment. They assume, as many Christians do, that the story of the Bible is simply a story of moralism.

What we begin to see in the story of Abraham (Abram) is that the interplay between election and morality is anything but simple. Right after Abram is chosen, called, and in fact responds, we find him failing morally even as compared with the pagans around him.

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