The duty to ask

"It is the duty of the church to ask what those beliefs and commitments [of the 'secular' state] are and to expose them to the light of the gospel. There is no genuinely missionary encounter of the gospel with our culture unless this happens." (Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks p132)

I just wrote a post on closing the achievement gap that attempts to call precisely this question. As I wrote it, I realized just how often this needs to happen in our public discourse, and not just in conversations with those who already share our assumptions.

What is repentance?

In Peter's famous Pentecost sermon, the crowds were cut to the heart and asked him, "What shall we do?" and he replied, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins . . ." (Acts 3:38). From that time forward, the Church has called all people everywhere to repentance, faith and baptism. Yet the question must be asked, What is repentance?

John Piper, in a recent post, answered it well in a single sentence:

There is no clear dividing line between biblical repentance and Christ-exalting civic engagement.

In other words, the repentance required is to be lived out in the daily realities of families, vocation, communities and nations. It entails supreme allegiance to Jesus as King, not just as a theological doctrine, but in practical obedience. Hence Jesus' command, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," and John the Baptist's eminently practical counsel to those who asked what it meant to bear fruit in keeping with repentance:

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” (Luke 3:10-14)

For those of us who have inherited a 'separation of church and state' mentality, this is itself a call to repentance. An essential step in repentance is to recognize and repent of this assumption that the gospel is a private, personal, inward matter of faith in Christ, and not a public repentance in our civic engagement.

The way gospel entrepreneurs spread hope

At the Entrepreurship Forum this year I saw the relationship between hope, glory, and entrepreneurship in a way that I had never seen it before. Two texts came together in a remarkable way. First, Romans 5:2,

". . . we rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

That sounds very spiritual and otherworldly. It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that calls us to engage diligently in the daily responsibilities of life. How does that translate into life here and now?

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor 3:18).

Our business as entrepreneurs is to gaze on the glory of God in the face of Christ day after day, such that we rejoice in the hope of its fullness, we reflect to the world in our countenance the glory of God, and we sustain no illusions that what we see here is all there is.