The Gospel of Signs, Sageness, and Success

Tim Keller shows us that Paul preached one gospel but it was distributed in two different forms to two different audiences. This helps us think through what form of the gospel America needs to hear the gospel in.

“So yes, there must be one gospel, yet there are clearly different forms in which that one gospel can be expressed... After [Paul] insisted there is only one gospel (Gal. 1:8), he then speaks of being entrusted with "the gospel of the uncircumcised [Greeks]" as opposed to the "gospel of the circumcised [Jews]" (Gal. 2:7). When Paul spoke to Greeks, he confronted their culture's idol of speculation and philosophy with the "foolishness" of the cross, and then presented Christ's salvation as true wisdom. When he spoke to Jews, he confronted their culture's idol of power and accomplishment with the "weakness" of the cross, and then presented the gospel as true power (1 Cor. 1:22-25).”

Paul appealed with the “gospel of signs” (my phrase) to his fellow Jews. They desired to experience God's power through miraculous signs. But they totally missed the biggest sign of all when Jesus showed up on the scene and accomplished the biggest miracle the world had ever seen.

Paul appealed with the “gospel of sageness” (my phrase) to the Greeks. They desired to be wise through reflection and experience. But they totally rejected Jesus, the wisest person to ever walk the planet.

The gospel confronted both audiences while... rebuking their earthly desires to have power and wisdom while at the same time offering them the opportunity to have heavenly power and wisdom by clinging to the person and work of Jesus.

I think that today we as Americans desire success more than anything. We desire high-paying jobs, big ministries, mega-churches, super-athlete kids, big retirement packages, and anything else that sets us apart as being important or on top.

But the gospel of success confronts these idols because true biblical success does not always match up with earthly success. What if God calls you to give up your high-paying job to raise your own salary and work with a non-profit instead? What if God doesn't give you a super-athlete kid but rather gives you a kid with a birth defect? What if he calls you to give away your retirement savings before you get to retirement for the sake of advancing His Kingdom on earth?

When we think of success as preaching watered-down messages to get more people into our churches, skipping church to take our kids to ball games so that they'll become heroes in high school, creating Christian business directories to increase the success of only those inside the church, I think we start missing godly success altogether.

Yes, the gospel of success confronts our culture's idols but it also gives us the opportunity to cling to Jesus and have true success – that which isn't always measured in dollars, numbers, or prestige. It gives us the chance to leave a real legacy here on the earth – one that glorifies God and helps us to be set free from our bondages to sin so that we can enjoy God more and experience Him more deeply.

The gospel of [true] success needs to be distributed to all Americans.

Works-boasting Is Wrong But Faith-boasting Isn't?

Just last week a student's grandma came with her to a bible study I was leading. When one of the other students started to go in the direction of earning our salvation through good works, the grandma immediately turned to Ephesians 2:8-9 to correct the heretical student. Every good protestant knows these verses: “For it is by grace you have been saved, not by works; it is a gift of God so that no one can boast.” Salvation comes from Jesus' merit alone, not ours.

So far so good.

But the problem I have noticed is that this group of anti-boasters has become well – boastful. Not boastful in the sense that they slip into a works-righteous mentality too, but that they become boastful of the fact that they “believed in faith” and everyone else hasn't. They start thinking that this “work of the heart” in turning around and trusting in Christ was their doing, not God's.

When we talk about when we decided to “trust in Christ” isn't there always a hint of “I looked at the options and the facts from the bible and made a good logical decision?” Don't we tend to think that we came to God and not that God came to us?

Why does this matter?

If we start to think that we came to faith in Christ through our own intelligent decision-making process, then we will start to judge others and make war against non-Christians. We will begin to feel self-righteous since we made a “duh” decision to follow God and that everyone else needs to follow in our footsteps.

The problem is that yelling at a blind person won't make them see. However, if we walk up to the blind, take a hold of their hand, and pray to God with all our might that He would open their eyes, then I think we'll start to reach the world as God intended. Realizing that God is the only one who can make the blind see (us included) is the only way to true humility.

Hopefully, as faith-boasting Christians begin to boast in Jesus and not in their “decision for Christ” we'll start to have more compassion on those around us and in the culture at large. I'm pretty tired of seeing “faith-boasters” wage war against the culture. They need a dose of their own depravity.