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    Keeping the Main Thing: A Never-Changing Gospel in an Ever-Changing World
    Keeping the Main Thing: A Never-Changing Gospel in an Ever-Changing World
    Keeping the Main Thing: A Never-Changing Gospel in an Ever-Changing World
    Ebook70 pages1 hour

    Keeping the Main Thing: A Never-Changing Gospel in an Ever-Changing World

    By Timothy C. Tennent

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    Never-changing gospel. Ever-changing world. What gives?

    On the one hand, the gospel message does not change. Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross and raised from the dead to deliver condemned sinners like you and me. That basic message does not change. On the other hand, entering many churches today feels more like walking into a Starbucks or Panera Bread than entering a sanctuary of worship. And the truth? This is not a problem, until it is.

    Through this series of incisive scriptural reflections Timothy Tennent helps readers discern the challenges of living out an uncompromising gospel in an increasingly compromised culture.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeedbed
    Release dateNov 30, 2018
    ISBN9781628245769
    Keeping the Main Thing: A Never-Changing Gospel in an Ever-Changing World
    Author

    Timothy C. Tennent

    Timothy C. Tennent (PhD, University of Edinburgh, Scotland) is President, Professor of World Christianity at Asbury Theological Seminary.  He is the author of Building Christianity on Indian Foundations and Christianity at the Religious Roundtable. Dr. Tennent and wife, Julie, reside in Wilmore, Kentucky, with their two children, Jonathan and Bethany.

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      Book preview

      Keeping the Main Thing - Timothy C. Tennent

      Christ

      Introduction

      Do you remember the film Saving Mr. Banks? It was about the background to the making of the famous film Mary Poppins. The film brings us into the inside struggle between P. L. Travers, the author of the book Mary Poppins, and Walt Disney over the rights to turn the book into a full-fledged film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. In some ways, it is a classic tale of contextualization. How do you preserve the original message of the book while presenting it in a different format to a different generation? This is the form and function tension. Can Dick Van Dyke dancing between several animated penguins (a major point of contention between Travers and Disney) help preserve and communicate the book’s message for many generations, or does it cheapen and trivialize the message so that the substance of the book is lost? The book is about saving Mr. Banks. The film obscured that point quite a bit and ended rather weakly with Mr. Banks going out to fly a kite.

      I couldn’t help watching the film from the perspective of the challenge we face as communicators of the gospel. On the one hand, the gospel message does not change. Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross and raised from the dead to deliver condemned sinners like you and me. That basic message does not change. On the other hand, entering many churches today feels more like walking into a Starbucks or Panera Bread than entering a hushed sanctuary or an exalted cathedral. Pastors are sometimes asked to communicate their message between a bunch of dancing penguins. Of course, we shouldn’t forget that going to church in the first century was neither a Starbucks nor a cathedral-type experience. Both of those expressions are highly contextualized for their respective times. I am not one of those who stand against various moves to contextualize the gospel, though I have been critical of some aspects of the contemporary church. I have also spent many years as a professor of missions, teaching about the need for contextualization of the gospel.

      Yet, we must always be cautious when, in the name of contextualization, the substance of the gospel is forgotten or lost. I would never raise serious concerns about someone who put the Apostles’ Creed or prayers of repentance to a contemporary tune. But I have wondered why a church would drop the Apostles’ Creed or prayers of repentance because they are not seeker sensitive. I’m fine with dancing penguins on either side of Dick Van Dyke. The moment the film is no longer about saving Mr. Banks, but about how to fly a kite, then I think we need to step back and reevaluate if we have forgotten the whole purpose of contextualization. In the same way, we must rejoice and embrace all kinds of creative ways of bringing the gospel to a new generation. In the process, though, we must not lose sight of the central message.

      This book is a collection of meditations on various passages of Scripture from both the Old and New Testaments. Each passage has been carefully chosen to follow the great redemptive thread of the Bible, which points us to Jesus Christ. The three Old Testament passages demonstrate the expectations and longings for the Messiah that Christ fulfills. The next three passages focus on the ministry of Jesus, culminating in His crucifixion and resurrection. The last two passages help us to see more about how the church lives out the gospel under His lordship. In every case, each chapter is designed to reinforce or point to the central message of the Christian faith. The centrality of Christ is a message we must not neglect.

      Songs of Hope

      1 Samuel 2:1–10 and Luke 1:46–55

      Several years ago, someone submitted a newly released Christian book to be reviewed. The reviewer wrote the following shocking and yet memorable words about the book: A truly Christian book must contain three elements: color, fire, and music. Since this book contains neither color, nor fire, nor music, I must conclude that it is not even a Christian book. It was, of course, a devastating review. But it does point to a great insight about what happens when true Christianity touches anything, be it a person’s life, a church, or even a book—it gives it color, fire, and music.

      The two passages of Scripture we are meditating on are filled with color, fire, and music in many profound ways. These texts are normally used in the church during the season of Advent, when the church tries to recapture what the world was like before the Messiah first came into the world, as well as our own hope as we look for His glorious second coming at the climax of the ages.

      The two Scripture texts are songs sung at the two ends of the great prophetic stream. The Old Testament passage, from the lips of Hannah, is the first and earliest messianic song of expectation. The New Testament text, from the lips of Mary, is the final and culminating song at the point of fulfillment. Both songs pour forth from women, each at the end of the prophetic history of her age.

      We should envision this great stream of the prophets as a long rope

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