Sublime

First, it should present a positive agenda, not just a tool of critique. It will not just analyze contemporary society but provide a vision for its future flourishing and renewal. Second, it will present a challenge to customary and fashionable of thinking. It will not merely take whatever happens to be the current flavor of the month in

Sometimes it’s the preacher who is “out of season.” If we are in places where we are not called, or if God has willed us to be in a place where others enjoy success while we suffer failures, even while preaching and leading faithfully, it is only because he wants to conform us more to the image of Christ, who was despised and rejected.

We ought not to settle for being Christians who happen to be artists, or lawyers who are simply “also” Christians. We should see our vocations as ways to pursue God himself—and, as Plantinga puts it, to do so with “integrity, independence, and Christian boldness.”

As the pastor saw it, the professing Christian with lukewarm faith seeks the outward things of religion and asks the church to serve them. The true Christian, however, takes joy not most in what the church does for them, but in what God is doing in and through the church.

John’s second and third letters are much shorter. You will spot the same themes of doctrine, love, and obedience. But these letters are written to more specific audiences and contain more practical and detailed instructions about how to walk in the truth of the gospel.

Incarnating True Christianity

“We submit joyfully to our leaders as our leaders serve us humbly.” There is the dance of mutual love in a gospel-centered—and therefore gospel-ordered—community. What have we done when we approach and receive each other this way? We have, as Peter says, clothed ourselves in humility. We sinful, broken Christians in messy community together are the