(I haven’t posted here in a while, but decided it’s time to get back into it.)
Over the past decade, in my quest to understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, so I can learn how to make disciples, I experienced a radical shift in my understanding of who God is and what it means to be faithful to God.
Like Paul, I was once very concerned with following the rules, so I completely understand the perspective of those who hold views similar to what I previously believed, but I’m not going back.
Like Paul, I absolutely believe it was an encounter with the risen Christ that changed me. Mine didn’t involve a horse, a bright light, or a single moment, rather a series of encounters with Scripture filtered through Tradition, Experience and Reason.
Like Paul, I have found myself needing to defend my new beliefs and explain over and again that yes, I still confess the faith as found in the Old and New Testaments, but there’s so much more to life in Jesus than three stanzas of “I believes.”
As we near the end of our time with Paul, I think that’s what I hear him saying: “the Law is fine. The Law is good. You will not be condemned for following the Law. But. My dear friends, but. There is so much more.”
Like Paul, I’ve come to believe that choosing love, choosing radical hospitality, supersedes the rules. Radical hospitality, for Paul, meant that if you’re in a community that circumcises, you circumcise; if you’re not in such a community, you don’t pull out your knife and bring everyone up to code.
Our job is not to bring everyone up to code; our job is to love them.
That’s what discipleship is all about.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
Journey Through Scripture 