TK Chapter 16 :: Living Among

The question that seems to be at the heart of living incarnational in our culture today is a question of holiness.  Grace is good and the freedom that Christ provided in his death and resurrection is real, but what about holiness?  Doesn't the bible say that we are to be holy, even as He is holy?  Aren't we supposed to come out and "be ye separate"?

Holiness is absolutely a requirement of Scripture for the one who stakes their claim in following Jesus.  The question is not whether holiness is required, but "What is holiness?"  Jesus came and embodied perfection...he was holiness in the flesh.  The interesting thing about Jesus is that he did many things that were considered "unholy" by the religious elite of his day.

For whatever reason, the church at large has theologized the idea of personal holiness to exclude normal interaction with the world. (p136)

We write the mission of our church in bold letters on placards in the halls of our buildings that we want to be like Jesus, but few of us (Christians) are actually willing to step out and live like Jesus.  We are imposing rules and calling them "convictions" all in the name of protecting, or really controlling, our children.  In so doing, we develop a lifestyle that actually grows to look less and less like that of Jesus, rather than increasingly looking more like his live in this world.  In living like this our lives become defined more by what we do not do than who we are.  This "theology of 'extraction' creates a peer pressure to move away from the world in all its forms." p(136)

But if we remove all of the "don'ts" then that just leaves us to do whatever we want...no matter.  Well, sort of, but not exactly.  We have to align our "incarnational theology" around our mission as a people of God.  Paul clearly opens up a door to freedom previously inexperienced in the faith community of his day, but he does not allow freedom cart blanche.  As followers of Christ, we are limited only by what Christ would or wouldn't have done.  This produces incredible freedom, but also requires a measure of discipline and self-control that seems to be lacking in our culture.

Living among means participating in the natural activities of the culture around you, with whimsical holiness. (p136)

This kind of incarnational living is going to require that we be willing to integrate our families into the fabric of our society.  This involves knowing our society.  As mentioned in the previous chapter, the way we get to know our culture is to listen to it.  This does not mean that we adopt a family model that fits in Seattle, WA, if we live in League City, Texas.  Incarnational living is much more intentional than copying some form of living from one area and dropping it into a new area.  We have to listen to the people we live and work with in order to gain an understanding of what Halter calls "the natural activities of the culture around us."

I Corinthians 9 and 10 give us a peek into Paul's approach to this issue:

To become like those without the law meant that Paul could overlook rules and regulations that would have otherwise governed his life under Jewish law.  If they aren’t an issue to the pagans, Paul could participate freely as long as he didn’t transgress clear sin issues or his own personal conscience. (p137)

Incarnational life requires that we contextualize all the “warnings” found in the epistles with the larger context of the life of Jesus as recorded in the gospels.  In other words, we’re going to have to learn all the things we can do instead of limiting ourselves based on a few things we’re warned to avoid. (p137)

If we began to "be like Jesus...with those who Jesus would have been with" would our lives look differently?  Back several chapters, we discussed posture - that behavior doesn't change until the heart changes.  When we remember this, it's easier to live whimsically with others who do not yet know Jesus.  Sometimes, we simply need to relax.

The issue isn’t so much about how far you can go to “do evangelism.”  Its more about whether or not we will enlarge our view of discipleship to include behaving like Jesus did with the types of people Jesus would always have made a priority.  You can’t be a follower of Jesus, unless you actually follow him. (p139)

“My prayer is not that you take them out of this world but taht you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15)