Day: April 2, 2011

Different Worlds

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

While I’ve long known it, recently I’ve finding the following quote to be painfully all too true:

Following Jesus today requires you to practice the same single-minded non-conformity. And it will produce the same effect in your life that it did with Jesus.  If you truly follow Jesus, in addition to enjoying a most excellent adventure, you will likely end up seeming too Christian for many of your pagan friends and too pagan for many of your Christian friends.  When you truly follow Jesus, you’ll spend considerable time in the world like he did, and as a result, many of your religious friends will think you’re too irreligious. On the other hand, many of your irreligious friends will find it odd that you are so focused on the spiritual.  Thus, you end up seeming both too Christian AND too pagan.

~ Dick Staub, Too Christian, Too Pagan

Distinct, Not Separated

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

John Stott offers a reminder of the task and the tension we, as Christians, must continually navigate when he uses the phrase:

“spiritually distinct, but NOT socially segregated.”

And here is a quote expanding this perspective:

Your business and mine as Christian people is to be in the midst of this world and its affairs, and still remain true and loyal to God, and be kept from evil.  …The task of the Christian is to be right in the midst of this world and its affairs in order that he may do the work of evangelism, spreading the gospel and the Kingdom of God, while the whole time, keeping himself un-spotted from the world.

~Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from Safe in the World