Saving Your Skin? Or Being Transformed?

This coming Sunday, Jan. 19th, I will be preaching the second sermon in a 3-part series I'm doing on MarcusSpeaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power - AND HOW THEY CAN BE RESTORED.  It's an important and insight book exploring many of the key and oft-misunderstood terms (read "loaded terms") of the Christian faith and, as the title suggests, restoring the original meanings these terms once had - some of which are at considerable variance from the meanings they've acquired over time.
Borg's

Relying on Speaking Christian as our guide, last Sunday, we looked at what is behind the word "God" - that is, what it is that we believe (or don't believe) in when we say we believe (or don't believe) in God.  We then considered the character of God and how, as Christians, can see in Jesus all we need to see in order to know the character of God.  Finally, we explored the much broader meanings of the terms "belief" and "faith" - "beloving" God and cultivating a deep, personal connection with God through faithfulness and trust.

This coming Sunday, we'll be looking at two other very loaded terms or concepts: salvation and being born again.  Those terms carry such a lot of baggage, not only within Christian circles but in the surrounding culture, as well, that we will do well to recover their original sense - we'll find that they have much more to do with transformation than with "saving your skin for heaven".

I would also like to touch on the passage that gets in the way of many today, for good reason, and that is John 14:6, the well-known verse that establishes what some think as justification for Christian exclusivism.  Jesus is speaking and says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  Turns out there is a way to look at that that is truer to that statement's context that doesn't permit Christians to condemn every non-Christian to "hell".

This is also Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend, a fitting day to talk about transformation, on the personal level and on the societal level.

Hope to see you this Sunday,

Steve
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