Ahoy and welcome to the first published edition of The Contrary Disciple. The website is still in beta but I'm excited to roll it out for your consumption.
As stated, the goal of this website and blog are to reach out to a greater audience and attempt to provide practical insights from scripture. I think we have isolated ourselves too much as Christians and thereby insulated ourselves from the world. My goal is to cast off the artificial boundaries we have created and instead for all of us together to grow into better people by modeling our lives after that of Christ ( a man who spent his time among the people and himself shunned the constraints of uptight religion.) I intend to share my insights on how we can do that in our present era and I look forward to your responses as well.
This week we continue our study of Paul's Letters to the Churches with Galatians 2. In this chapter I think Paul is driving two central points:
We should live consistently regardless of who is 'watching'
Christianity is not about achieving perfection but about accepting grace
To those points, Paul lays out some excellent examples. Illustrating the first point, Paul describes an interaction he has with Peter (the guys Jesus left in charge of the church):
“Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here’s the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.”
Here is the problem: Peter knew it was ok to spend time with his non-christian / non-Jewish friends (again this is where we often found Jesus.) However, Peter estranged himself to these same people when the religious leaders were around so that he wouldn't draw any attention to himself. This is where Paul illustrates what I see as a central tenant of being 'a contrary disciple' by not clouding his thoughts with contemporary religious perspective. Paul is calling out Peter because he prioritized his own standing over his friendships and affiliations. As I see it, the Church has two goals: to reach out to people and to provide fellowship to it's members.
Paul then shifts topics to again tackle a religious platitude that is still very much alive today:
“We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good”
The religion outlined in the old testament is one of extensive rules (have you read Numbers?!). The Pharisees then further constrained the lives of the people and subjugated them to even more rules so they wouldn't come close to the original ones. Jesus showed up and turned the whole system on its head. A synopsis of His message would read: Yes, living the right way is important, however regardless of how well you do that, you will always come up short and need my grace to get you that final inch or more likely mile. And what a freeing thought! I don't have to be perfect, buy a sweater vest and completely change who I am. What I really need to do is accept God's grace.
Takeaways:
Be consistently you. Don't worry about who is watching, but live the way you know is right, unashamed of your affiliations.
Accept that 'rule following' will never be enough and accept the grace offered
I hope you all have a great week and I look forward to your responses and commentary. Please send me suggestions and feedback on the site. Thanks!
-the contrary disciple