First Sermon

And he came to Nazareth
where he had been brought up: 
and, 
as his custom was, 
he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, 
and stood up for to read.
And there was delivered
unto him the book 
of the prophet Esaias. 
And when 
he had opened the book, 
he found the place 
where it was written,
The Spirit 
of the Lord 
is upon me, 
because he hath 
anointed me 
to preach 
the gospel 
to the poor; 
he hath sent me 
to heal 
the brokenhearted,
to preach 
deliverance 
to the captives, 
and recovering of sight 
to the blind, 
to set at liberty 
them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed 
the book, 
and he gave it again 
to the minister, 
and sat down. 
And the eyes of all them 
that were in the synagogue 
were fastened on him.
And he began 
to say unto them, 
This day 
is this scripture fulfilled 
in your ears.

--Luke 4.16-21, King James Version

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4 thoughts on “First Sermon”

  1. If we confuse the gospel with response to the gospel, we will drift from
    what keeps the gospel on the ground, what makes it clear and personal,
    and the next thing you know, we will be doing a bunch of different
    things that actually obscure the gospel, not reveal it. At the end of
    the day, our hope is not that all the poor on earth will be fed. That’s
    simply not going to happen. I’m not saying we shouldn’t feed and rescue
    the poor; I’m saying that salvation isn’t having a full belly or a
    college education or whatever. Making people comfortable on earth before
    an eternity in hell is wasteful.

    from Matt Chandler's The Explicit Gospel

    This bothers me in that I somehow see it contrary to the scripture you posted. Am I wrong? Should I be bothered?

  2. I don't think you are wrong to be bothered. I don't know Chandler's book so I can't comment on his position. But the sentiment of his quote doesn't seem to jibe with Jesus. Is that a problem for a Christian? I'd think so.

    The root problem is what we might mean by "salvation." If salvation is about avoiding hell then Chandler has a point. A full belly doesn't save you from hellfire.

    But if salvation is "Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven" then we're frying some bigger fish with "full bellys" being very much about salvation and empty bellys being very much about hell.

  3. Well, Matt should hear the words of Christ himself.  What is fulfilled?  A mechanism for stamping the soul's passport to heaven or the announcement of the favor of the Lord to the those living in the margins and the call to all creation to partner with God in Jubilee?  The gospel is about what we do with our bodies and not just saving disembodied souls.  That's the point of "Unclean" and other books like Warren Brown/Nancey Murphy's "What Happened to the Soul?"  Feeding the poor, visiting the imprisoned, comforting the sick...these are not gospel after thoughts that we eventually get around to after we've reminded people that they're going to hell.  These ARE the gospel.  The kingdom has already come and been announced.  The words of Christ are calling us to jump in and put skin and bones on it. 

  4. "Feeding the poor, visiting the imprisoned, comforting the sick...these
    are not gospel after thoughts that we eventually get around to after
    we've reminded people that they're going to hell."  Greg, if we can't do the former, then we sure as heck shouldn't presume to "share" the latter.  I did by the way look up Matt Chandler and his church (The Village Church in TX).  Not for me, to put it mildly.

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