“The contemporary church loves to paint Jesus as gentle, meek…nice. But…Mark Galli intoduces us to a different sort of savior- one who often makes other people feel decidedly uncomfortable.”
I started reading Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God last month, but finished up today. It’s fitting that many of the themes of the book coincided with Pastor Zeb’s message this weekend about Jesus’s knack for entering our offense zones.
Honestly, I was attracted to book because it seemed to directly contradict a lot of the popular Christian books out there today. Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today, pursues the love of God through the “meanness” of Jesus by examining thirteen different accounts in the Gospels.
Galli gets right to his point with the opening sentence of the book: “God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life.” An alternate title for the book could be Tough Love, because I think that’s a pretty accurate, albeit two word, description of what Galli is talking about.
For example, in Chapter One, Galli notes that immediately after his baptism, Jesus is immediately relegated to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:11-12). No friends. No home. No moral support. No pampering. But it was a necessary precursor for His ministry on Earth. “Suffering is our preparation for ministry in a world of suffering,” Galli writes.
Along with specific Scripture passages, Galli also asks broader questions that demand answers. “If Jesus was merely loving, compassionate, and kind- if Jesus was only nice- why did both Jews and Romans feel compelled to murder him?”
The book is set up with discussion questions for each chapter and could be used in a small group setting, but I think it also prescribes some concepts to be applied to any Christian community.
Galli talks about all of us having people with whom we “sacrifice truthfulness on the altar of niceness.” The author notes that when Jesus is “not nice” its because he’s trying to get people to do the right thing, not just because He wants to be mean. As Christians, we should be seeking deeper relationships so we can bluntly speak truth into each other’s lives when necessary. “The person who is always nice, always decorous, always even-keeled is likely a person who ultimately does not care about what God cares about,” according to Galli, “But true love is robust. It includes compassion and confrontation, empathy and truth-telling, kindness and sternness.”
There is a lot more in the book worth gleaning, but this entry is becoming its own book. You can read Chapter 11: Mercifully Irrelevant on the Christianity Today website for a better example, although the bulk of the book focuses more on our individual relationship with God, rather than a semi-critique of some of today’s churches.
Overall, the book definitely got me thinking and helped put some things in a better context for me. “As exhausting as it is to be a good churchman, it’s infinitely easier than the demands Jesus would make on my life,” wrote Galli. This was pretty convicting for me. I’m involved in lots of things at NCC. Things I enjoy that also happen to take a good chunk of time. But I have a feeling that Galli is right. If I were face-to-face with Jesus, He would ask a whole lot more of me than I am willing to give right now.
In an effort to generate some discussion, feel free to comment on what this quote (from the book) but from Dietrich Bonhoeffer means to you in your experience as a small group leader:
“He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”
Nathan you have great taste in books. Actually on Chapter 5 and hoping it won’t take me a month to get through…
Thanks for sharing for the whole lot of us.
Jonathan
August 7th, 2006
Over at Pastor Mark’s blog, he left a little discussion topic:
http://www.evotional.com/2006/08/galapagos-islands.html
No Jesus Know Fear. Know Jesus No Fear.
I think part of what Galli is trying to say in his book is:
Know Jesus Know Fear.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10). The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life (Proverbs 14:27). And the coming Messiah is one whose “delight shall be in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:3)
Know Jesus Know Fear.
nathan.
August 7th, 2006
I struggled with Chapter 11 of the book that was published in last month’s CT.
I don’t understand the correlation between Peter’s rebuking Jesus and intentionally creating a relevant atmosphere in the church. This is the premise by which he ties ‘relevant’ and ’satanic’ together. If one of these relevant pastors sensed God saying replace the keyboard with a pipe organ and refused because he didn’t think it would work Miller might have an argument. I tend to assume that both relevant and irrelevant (I guess that is the only other option) pastors believe that they are doing God’s will.
Next I would argue that his first church out of seminary was a relevant church. It was at least relevant to those to whom they intended to communicate God’s message. A quick search on dictionary.com give the meaning of relevant as “having a bearing on or connection with the matter at hand.” So when the people are connecting with the message I assume that we are being relevant. When pastors say they want to plant a relevant church they usually mean that they want to start a church that will be relevant to its community as opposed to one that is relevant to its membership.
That brings me to my final comment. Churches that place a high priority on relevance are often missional churches. They do what they do in order to fulfill the great commission, not to be successful. Being relevant does not have to do with a personal image of an ideal church. That would not be relevant. A relevant church will continue to adapt and change the way they communicate the unchanging message of the Gospel.
Ken
August 7th, 2006
“Being a Christian Without Being an Idiot” would be up your alley. I have this book, just need to pick it up and finish it!
Keith
November 1st, 2006