Thursday, April 06, 2006

Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll


Here are some excerpts from the book as promised:

The way to avoid sin is not to avoid sinners but to stick close to Jesus.

Anytime that Jesus is used as a means to an end, a false gospel has been introduced and the thing improperly focused on becomes a false god.

Reformission requires that every Christian and church realize that is about not something they do but something they are. We are all on mission with Jesus everyday, and we are either good missionaries or bad.

Reformission requires that in our increasingly individualistic, lonely, and depressed culture, we avoid proclaiming soley a personal relationship with Jesus. The gospel requires us to proclaim and embody the full work of Jesus' death and resurrection. Jesus has accomplished four things which people long for. First, Jesus takes away the sins that separate us from God so that we can be connected to God, which fills our spiritual longings. Second, Jesus takes away the sins that separate us from each other so that we can be reconciled to each other as the church, which fills our social longings. Third, Jesus forgives the sins we have committed, thereby cleansing us of filth, which fills our emotional longing for forgiveness. Fourth, Jesus cleanses us of defilement that has come upon us through the sins of others, which fulfills our psychological longing for healing, cleansing, and new life.

To be faithful in reformission, we must embed ourselves in a culture and develop friendships with lost people so that we can be informed and avoid making erroneous judgments.

Reformission is not about abstention; it is about redemption. We must throw ourselves into the culture so that all that God made good is taken back and used in a way that glorifies him. Our goal is not to avoid drinking, singing, working, playing, eating, lovemaking, and the like. Instead, our goal must be to redeem those things through the power of the gospel so that they are used rightly according to Scripture, bringing God glory and his people a satisfied joy.

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