Salvation and the Bible 1

Any time you start a blog with a title that has a "1" in it you are committing to a series! What I plan to do is share my talk, reworked a bit as I do it, which I gave at our recent healing conference here in Memphis Tennessee. The weekend was wonderfully blessed and I heartily recommend the work of Mike Endicott http://simplyhealingorg.blogspot.com/2009/08/free-audio-downloads-from-mike-endicott.html
As you probably figured out this is a link to free audio donwloads....

Mike's premise is that we are to proclaim the Kingdom, because that is what Jesus did. And I would add, because of how we have been shaped and formed in our Christian walk, most of us are not at all clear on the Kingdom or the preaching of Jesus. [NT Wright is the most brilliant and helpful source of insight on this that I have found.] Because of this lack, much of the NT is lost to us, simply because so much of it is not an explanation of what we need to do to get into heaven. And the healing ministry is considered by many devout Christians to be a sham and a scam because, they assuredly declared, healing was an early church phenomenon but ended with the Apostolic Age. (And a corollary of that belief is a commitment to NOT read any early church works which regularly recount the widespread miracles, including healing, associated with early Medieval Saints. Look especially at the Celtic saints.)

Having seen many miracles and heard even more stories of miracles, I personally think it embarassing to claim that they do not happen. And this weekend we saw several. But, as Jesus said to the Apostles, rejoice not in signs and wonders but even more that your name is in the Book of Life!

Which brings us to my topic: Salvation. I was asked to speak on this topic by our Order of St. Luke (the healing ministry group) convener. As I shared with the group Saturday, I know that I can be very controlling. And it worries me that I might be bringing my agenda to everything. While I also know that the choice of topic by someone else does not guarantee that my agenda won't surface, it does mean that there will be some other influences at work. I have learned that it is helpful to have checks and balances.

What I intend to do is chop up what I said in smaller sections with additional commentary. First a brief introduction. Salvation is holistic. It is both here and now and also future oriented. It is always tied into and connected with the work of God. It is always a grace and that grace always costs us dearly. My premise is this is tied into the nature of the CREATED universe which God has VOLUNTARILY bought into. In a real sense, the Cross of Jesus reveals to us the COST to God of being in relationship with us. God must self empty to come to us, be rejected by us (even the best of us) and to bring us out of our self-imposed death and destruction. It will be fun to ponder this together, but also challenging. Let's pray that it is also a faithful proclamation of the Kingdom and is True!