Jesus: A Parable-Centered Ministry

A few weeks ago Rick Philips wrote a post asking whether a gospel-centered ministry is sufficient for the church's ministry. To answer that question he focused on the ministry of Jesus as presented in the book of Mark. Philips writes:

This raises the question to me as to whether Jesus himself can be said to have a "gospel-centeredTM ministry?"

To satisfy my curiosity, I turned to the Gospel of Mark, which is currently being read during the morning worship services of the church I serve. I do realize that the Gospels are not given as a statistical sample of Jesus' ministry day-to-day. Still, we should be able to get a fair sense of our Lord's own priorities if we categorize the types of messages recorded in his Gospels...

But how was Jesus gospel-centered? The answer is that he revealed himself as the divine Messiah and enlightened man about God, he showed the power and grace to live a new kind of life, he exposed darkness and unbelief as false and ungodly, and he offered forgiveness to broken sinners.

I think Rick Philips makes some fair points regarding the ministry of the church. But I also think he is making a questionable assumption about the connection between the priorities of Jesus's ministry and that of the church by offering an approach which may not be as helpful as it seems on its face. Do the gospels present Jesus as a ministry-template for the church? Is the focus and mix of the church's preaching and teaching to be shaped by reflecting how and what Jesus did in his spoken ministry? One obvious caveat to that last question: in one crucial sense what Jesus did and taught is not only central to the church's ministry it is the church's ministry. Yet to look at the mix of what Jesus taught isn't necessarily the pointer for pastors. One obvious difference is that Jesus did many miracles. He raised the dead, healed the sick, made the blind to see and the lame to walk. Do we? No. But more to the point of this post is the nature of Jesus's spoken ministry. In his spoken ministry did Jesus reveal himself as the divine Messiah? He certainly came as the divine Messiah. And the gospel writers certainly present him as such. But it seems that Jesus himself wasn't as intent on making himself known as Philips' conclusion states. By and large when addressing the crowds that followed him, the gospels present Jesus speaking in what were confusing parables and less than clear teachings. In fact, a center-piece of his public ministry was speaking in mysteries or parables, cloaking the true nature of his identity and mission:

And He healed many who were ill with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He was not permitting the demons to speak, because they knew who He was. Mark 1:34

for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was. Mark 3:10-12

As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables. And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.” Mark 4:10-12 

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable. Matt. 13:34

It was primarily to the apostles that Jesus revealed himself. And even at that, his words were often cryptic and misunderstood by them. This approach is in stark contrast with the purpose and ministry of the church in the New Testament as well as today. The apostle Paul writes in Colossians that his purpose was to proclaim and reveal Jesus Christ to all men:

Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Col. 1:25-29

In contrast, one can argue that Jesus's priority was to not reveal himself (thus his parables and other cloaked teachings) but rather, as the One purposely unrecognized by Israel (Isaiah 53:2b-3), to offer himself as a sacrificial Lamb for the sins of his people. Whereas the church's mission is to fully reveal Christ as Lord and Savior, God who came in the flesh and who has accomplished salvation by his death on the cross. In examining Jesus's spoken ministry it's helpful to keep in view that Jesus had not yet died on the cross. In a sense, his was a moment between the two covenants. The New Covenant in his blood had not yet been inaugurated. And inaugurating that covenant was the end or goal of his ministry. Redemption had not yet been accomplished. The very definitive fullness of the gospel would only at Pentecost be first proclaimed - Christ crucified and risen and ascended. What Jesus taught and how he taught in the gospels worked together to both proclaim the kingdom of heaven at hand and yet in such a way for himself to remain hidden. He not only spoke in parables, Jesus was a walking, living Parable to those around him. He was headed somewhere. 

When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined [lit. set his face] to go to Jerusalem. Luke 9:51

This was even more clearly seen when the disciples were approached by 'certain Greeks' who had heard about Jesus and wanted to see him. The word was getting out about Jesus, even beyond the borders of Israel! It was as if that moment of unwanted wider fame was an alarm going off. What Isaiah 53:10 prophesied was about to be fulfilled.

Now there were certain Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip *came and* told Andrew; Andrew and Philip *came and* told Jesus. And Jesus *answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. John 12:20-23

But why would Jesus, the Son of God come in the flesh, speak in parables and hide his identity? One reason it seems is that the Jews who were looking for the Messiah wanted fervently the restoration of Israel's past glory. That could only be accomplished by reestablishing the throne on David in the earthly Jerusalem. And that road to recognition and glory was not the path to the cross. The gospel of John tells us, as Jesus's identity became more widely known he took measures so that he would not be diverted from Calvary and the one thing necessary to complete his mission. He had no interest in being fully revealed and getting sidetracked from his purpose.

Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. John 6:14-15

His was an unique ministry both in purpose and execution. His was not the Christian church's ministry of proclaiming Christ crucified. His was the ministry of the Sin-bearer come to die. And because of that I would suggest that we should be cautious when trying to find patterns in Jesus's life and ministry to be used as templates or examples for the life and ministry of the church.

Jesus, Jeannie C. Riley, and the Harper Valley PTA

The following post is by long-time friend and brother in Christ, Danny O'Daniels. It was written with a specific church situation in mind and yet touches upon an issue related to church leadership and churches in general. Having been edified by this essay I wanted to share it with the readers of TWR. Thank you Danny for graciously consenting to having it published here!

Jesus, Jeannie C. Riley, and the Harper Valley PTA
by Daniel O'Daniels

I work as a welder. I have been doing production welding for over 30 years. One of the byproducts of working in weld shops is I have been forced to acquire an appreciation for country music. In the late 60's a

country song came out that was so powerful that it crossed over into mainstream radio. It was made into a movie and television show and nearly 50 years later is still played today on country stations 2 or 3 times a week. That song is "Harper Valley PTA" by Jeannie C. Riley. In it she sings the story of a widow who is being harassed by a hypocritical community and how she goes to the PTA meeting and exposes their own sins and the hypocrisy of them judging her for wearing mini skirts, drinking, and running wild with men. This song really struck a nerve in late 60's America.

My brother and I were the only kids in our school raised by a single mom in the 60's and I always appreciated the way that song stood up powerfully for the single mom and socked it to the hypocrites. It was at the time a shocking indictment of mainstream America. What does this all have to do with Jesus? Well, 2000 years ago he appeared on the scene of 1st century Palestine and in the Sermon on the Mount shocked the religious world with his own indictment of their religious hypocrisy. What I would like to explore is: has the song "Harper Valley PTA" and its influence on culture colored our view of Jesus and what he is saying in the Sermon on the Mount?

Lately, I have been disturbed by messages on the Sermon on the Mount that seem to sound more like "Harper Valley PTA" than careful biblical exegesis. And yet they really resonate with the crowd. People clap at the end of those sermons and I find myself clapping along with them. Just like Jeannie, the preacher is socking it to the hypocrites and the people love it. The message can be summed up as something like this, “Don't judge, period. If you have lust in your heart you have already committed adultery. Come on guys, you all have done it so who are you to judge? If you are angry with your brother you are guilty of murder so who are you to judge?" The story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in John's gospel is usually thrown in for good measure. Let him who is without sin throw the first stone. A dig at churches that practice church discipline is usually thrown in at this point equating church discipline with the worst forms of abuse and legalism and of being inconsistent with the gospel of grace. Is this what Jesus is really saying? Is the lesson to be taken that we are all still sinners and we have no right to be concerned with sin in the church?

Dan Allender in his excellent book Bold Love has examined this subject with careful thought. ( pg.201-202.)

Our first warning is not to judge unless we are willing to be measured by the same criterion... A second warning is to take the log out of our eye before we take the speck out of our brother's eye. Jesus is not implying that we are to be so "judgment free" that we are not to notice our brother's inability to see. We are to reflect, assess, and develop a strategy on how to remove the speck in our brothers eye. The implication is that we have judged his sight to be blocked, assessed the nature of the block, and figured out how to get it out. There is nothing wrong with being burdened and furious about a spouse's sin, but only if the huge log is being plucked from our own eye. The priority is always to look first in yourself. You will not stand before God required to deal with any life but your own. Therefore let judgment begin first with the house of God... A second trap is to assume we cannot love another until our log is gone. This person says, "I can't really deal with your speck because my log is so big." Indeed, if this were the case, no one would ever be rightly involved with another' s sin. We are called to restore one another and to pluck the sinner from the fire through tenderness and strength ( Galatians 6:1, Jude 2:23.) We must live with the ongoing work of removing our log, first and foremost, without neglecting the work of removing specks in the eyes of those whom we are privileged to love.

In other words, we are not to judge with hypocritical or self-righteous judgment. To be sure, there are insights to be gleaned by comparing and contrasting the Lord's teachings with such an important landmark in popular culture. The song is blasting those in established positions of power who pick on the weaker widow for not conforming to outward community standards, while not being at all concerned with her real welfare or with those standards in their own lives .They aren't humbly looking to themselves lest they be tempted and thus removing the log, or judging themselves first. They are not approaching her in tenderness and strength to address sin, and likewise, her response, though both wickedly clever and bold, lacks love. Tenderness and strength is exactly what Jesus communicates to the woman caught in adultery and to the hypocrites of his society. Like Jeannie, Jesus stands up to those in power with strength on behalf of the woman. Yet the difference is that Mrs. Johnson of the song justifies her sin on the basis that they are all sinners, while Jesus sends the hypocrites away and forgives the repentant woman with the warning to go and sin no more. She goes away saved, but the woman in Harper Valley, by justifying her sin, goes away empowered in a way, but not forgiven.

The Bible teaches clearly that the church's business is not to judge those outside the church but inside (1 Corinthians 5:12). To judge, not with self-righteousness or hypocrisy, but by speaking the truth in love. Let's pretend for a moment that the woman in the song was a Christian. According to Jesus's teaching in Matthew 18:15-19, she is to be approached at first by just one loving Christian who has looked at his or her life first. He is to have dealt with any logs in his own eye as best he could, prayed about the best way to approach her, and then in faith go to her with the goal of finding out what is really going on. Perhaps the accusations were false. Perhaps they are true and she is repentant. Then he gets the joy of restoring her as a priest of the

most high God. Maybe the charges are true and yet she totally denies them. Nobody said this was to be easy. If the accusations are true and she is hard of heart and refuses to deal with a wild lifestyle of drugs and sexual immorality that truly is unhealthy for her daughter, then others from the church should get involved. Yet they should do so never in an abusive way, never in pride or self-righteousness or without first looking to themselves but always with the goal of restoration. Jesus and Paul both made it clear that all of this is to be done in a spirit of gentleness, with great understanding and patience. But if the person after the repeated pleading of the church refuses to repent, then the scriptures teach there needs to be discipline for the sake of that person and the upholding of righteousness. The church, by severing fellowship for a time, does so with the hope that it will cause that person to wake up and repent. I have actually seen this carried out effectively several times.

Some will say, "Where on earth is one to begin? We all sin. We all have issues. What sin is bad enough to demand intervention?" All I can say is that Paul knew. They knew in the first century. We have to look to the Lord and to his Word. We must seek God for discernment. Paul said in Galatians 6:1 if anyone is caught in a trespass you who are spiritual are to restore him. To me that means we don't need to be on the hunt for these situations. But if your brother is caught in sin you need to be willing to help him. If a person is destroying his life or their family, the church, or the testimony of the church in the community, then that is surely a sign that intervention is needed. Is it easy? No. It is a task for the spiritually mature. Will you always get to sleep at a decent hour or not make mistakes and doubt yourself? Probably not, but you will be truly loving and caring for your flock. In 1 Peter 5 the apostle writes about the privilege of being a shepherd of God's flock, of coshepherding with Christ and knowing Christ in that way. Elsewhere in scripture we read about elders having to give an account for their ministry among the flock, and of the crown of glory they will receive from the Chief Shepherd. These are reasons enough. Sadly and ironically, churches today seem to have noninvolvement as one of their primary goals. They don't seem willing to risk practicing what is clearly taught in the Bible for the sake of the spiritual health of their flock. I don't know what the reasons are, whether they be financial or what. But I know God's Word has not changed.

"Christ will do everything or nothing..."

We ended the last post with the words of Martin Luther from his Galatian's commentary:  "This allegory teaches that the church should do nothing but preach and teach the Gospel truly and sincerely, and by this means should produce children... Everything is done by the ministry of the Word."

Let me ask - why is it that the gospel is so infrequently proclaimed from Scripture in a clear and unambiguous manner when the church gathers?  Is it that the content of God's good news in Jesus Christ is not really understood?  Is it that its regular proclamation is not considered central to the sanctification of the Lord's people?  Is it that the gospel is obscure in too many parts of Scripture?  Though indispensable to becoming a Christian, maybe the gospel is thought to be, more or less, an elementary or introductory aspect of the Christian life.  After all, at some point believers have professed belief in the gospel!  The gospel gets us in the door, so to speak.  Been there, done that...  let's move on to the how-to parts of living the Christian life.  Studying Scripture, praying, trusting God for situations in my life, witnessing, learning to love my neighbor as myself (talk about needing a lifetime or two...).  All godly things, things to be found in a Christian's life.  But it overlooks one great big thing, the thing most common in Christians' lives - sin, i.e. our falling short of the mark in everything that we ought to do and ought not to do.

According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Scripture teaches that believer's do remain very much sinners:

6.5 - This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin; and 13.2 - This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. 

Though pardoned through faith, we remain sinners who sin.  And united to Christ by faith, the dominion (reigning power) of sin has been overthrown.  Yet we still remain sinners who still sin, though now as new creatures we have entered the battle.  Having indeed received a new heart and new will, we now embrace God's law and are now children of our Father in heaven.  So now it distresses us deeply when we see our sin, which is often... an evidence of God's work in our lives.  Opening our eyes to see our sin is very much at the center of the Holy Spirit's's work in us.  And hand in hand with the Spirit's diagnosis and exposure of sin in our lives is also the work of God's remedy.

And what is the remedy for sin but the gospel of Jesus Christ?  The gospel is the divine means by which the Holy Spirit creates and increases faith in the Savior in the hearts of those that hear.  The gospel is the only power given by God for the forgiveness of sin, the only heavenly weapon supplied by God with which to diminish sin's power and defeat it. The apostle Paul, again and again, stresses the power of the gospel to save from sin.  Not just once upon first belief, but continually throughout our lives we are being saved by the gospel:

And I make known to you, brethren, the good news that I proclaimed to you, which also ye did receive, in which also ye have stood, through which also ye are being saved, in what words I proclaimed good news to you... (1 Cor. 15:1-2a) YLT.

J. Gresham Machen stated it this way:

"Christ died for our sins," said the primitive disciples, "according to the Scriptures; he was buried; he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." From the beginning, the Christian gospel, as indeed the name "gospel" or "good news" implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened. And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. "Christ died"--that is history; "Christ died for our sins"--that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity (Christianity and Liberalism).

Can we say with Luther that "the church should do nothing but preach and teach the Gospel truly and sincerely?"  Some might ask, is Christianity to be reduced to simply proclaiming and hearing the basic message of the gospel?  Paul again,

For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God... it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe... Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1: 18, 21b-24) ASV.

And,

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Rom. 1:16) ASV.

Here's a suggestion for a new church growth program:  more workers who are willing to become foolish and preach a foolish message, a message that presents the Scriptural record of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, the One who is the complete and perfect satisfaction for sins and fulfillment of God's law; the One who is the ever present and eternal righteousness, sanctification, and redemption of sinners.  Again from Machen's book:

If Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. For no matter how small the gap which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge that gap. The guilty soul enters again into the hopeless reckoning with God, to determine whether we have really done our part. And thus we groan again under the old bondage of the law. Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief; Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all.

We continually need to be taught this and pointed to Christ alone.  To close with Martin Luther:

Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law), but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.

Two Cities, Two Kingdoms...

Few Reformed doctrines draw more heat today than that of the much misunderstood two kingdoms.  Most of the the time it seems, at least to me, that those criticizing this teaching are arguing against something that it is not.  I can only imagine what it must be like for one of its main proponents, David VanDrunen.  I've excerpted some of his book review of  Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective, edited by Ryan C. McIlhenny, as it provides clarification which often comes forth best in response to one's critics.  I tend to think that those who take issue with the two kingdoms theology do so for at least one main reason - it offers no support for those societal-transformational agendas pursued by many Christians.  The entire review can be read at The Ordained Servant.  Dr. VanDrunen writes:

My claim is that Augustine’s Two Cities and the Reformed Two Kingdoms ideas are compatible, not that they are identical. They are harmonious, but get at different aspects of the truth: Augustine’s Two Cities describe two eschatological peoples, one marked by love of the Creator above all and one marked by love of the creation above all; in this world the Two Cities mingle, but they can’t be identified with any particular earthly society or institution; there is stark antithesis between these Two Cities, and each person is a member of one city and one city only. The Reformed Two Kingdoms, on the other hand, pertain to the twofold way in which God rules this present world, primarily (for early Reformed theologians) through church and state. This means that Christians are actually citizens of both kingdoms. Christians, in other words, are citizens of two kingdoms, but of one city. As citizens of the city of God they stand in eschatological conflict with unbelievers; as participants in the common kingdom, they are called to co-exist in peace with unbelievers as far as possible...

My basic case in chapters 2–5 of LGTK is this: God gave the original cultural mandate to Adam as representative of the human race in an unfallen world, demanding perfect obedience and promising the attainment of an eschatological new creation as a reward for obedience. Adam failed and plunged the human race into a state of curse rather than eschatological blessing. But God sent his Son as the Last Adam, to fulfill God’s task for humanity perfectly and thereby to attain the new creation for himself and his people.  Popular recent neo-Calvinist works speak of redeemed Christians being called to take up again Adam’s original cultural task (not to go back to Eden, but to fulfill Adam’s responsibility to fill the earth, have dominion, etc.). In response, I have argued that this cannot be the correct biblical paradigm for the Christian’s present responsibilities in this world. If Christ is the Last Adam, then none of us are called to be new Adams. It is not as if Christians have no cultural mandate (as Kingdoms Apart suggests I claim), but that the cultural mandate comes to the human race only as refracted through the covenant with Noah after the flood. It comes thereby to the human race as a whole (not to Christians uniquely) and is geared for life in a fallen world and holds out no eschatological hope of reward. Thus in order to understand our calling to participate in the life of politics or commerce, for example, we should understand these responsibilities as rooted in the Noahic covenant and as work to pursue in collaboration with unbelievers, as far as possible (without forgetting the different attitude, motivation, goals, etc. with which Christians take up these tasks). I also suggested that all of us who share a commitment to the Reformed doctrine of justification should appreciate the attractiveness of my suggested paradigm, built as it is upon traditional understandings of the covenant of works, the Two Adams, and the sufficiency of the obedience of Christ. This is an invitation to soteriologically orthodox neo-Calvinists to embrace a view of Christianity-and-culture that is more consistent with doctrines at the core of the gospel they love.

And from the Conclusion of his review:

It might also be interesting for a valiant defender of neo-Calvinism to address the following observation: most ordinary Reformed believers already live what might be called a two kingdoms way of life. When they follow the regulative principle of worship, uphold the church’s jurisdiction over its own discipline, and respect the Christian liberty of fellow believers in matters of faith and worship that are “beside” God’s Word (see Westminster Confession of Faith 20.2), they embrace aspects of Reformed practice historically inseparable from the two kingdoms doctrine. And when they live peaceably with their unbelieving neighbors—working, buying, selling, driving, flying, playing, and voting alongside them—are they not giving implicit witness to the reality of God’s distinctive common grace government over the world through the covenant with Noah? And if this is the case, then I suggest that the two kingdoms idea serves a clarifying function: it helps Reformed Christians understand in a more theologically clear way the Christian faith and life they are in so many respects already practicing.  

Two books by David VanDrunen  on two kingdom theology:
Living In God's Two Kingdoms
Natural Law and The Two Kingdoms

The Crucified "Disappointment" - His "Ineffectual" Necessary Church

R. Scott Clark on the institutional church... how it is a disappointment... how it says things it shouldn't, and doesn't say things it should... how it is manipulated for political agendas by believers of the right and the left... And yet how this very same institutional visible church, which Jesus established, is not optional for the christian who also wants Him. From one commenter, quoting John Stott, “If the Church is worth Christ’s blood, then the Church is worth our labor and love.”

Here is Dr. Clark's closing that drives the nail home:

"For moderns, who will let Jesus be Jesus it is only a matter of time before discontent sets in. Jesus is most resistant to being re-made or remodeled. He was and is what he has always been: the Holy, Holy, Holy one of Israel and a disappointment. He seems to have disappointed his mother, at least initially, at Cana. He certainly disappointed the disciples (hence Peter’s sword) and the disappointment among the mob in Jerusalem led them to clamor for another and a new new hero: Bar-Abbas.

"Jesus is just a Savior. He established a kingdom manifested in his (visible, institutional) church populated by Peters and Pauls and Judases and lots of other disappointing sinners. He did not give it great outward power or pomp. He gave it a fairly incredible message (a crucified rabbi was raised from the dead and will return in glory) and two rather unimpressive sacraments. It’s understandable why people would be disillusioned.  At the root of disappointment is eschatology. Americans and moderns have an over-realized eschatology (yet another way in which evangelicals are thoroughly American and modern; “Shine, Jesus Shine”).

"Jesus is also Lord, however, and he is returning. All the glory folk seek now will be then. When the Crucified Disappointment comes in glory every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Messiah and the Lord of Glory. There will be no question. The empirical evidence will be overwhelming. The noumenal will become the phenomenal. What the pietists regard as private will become public. All social ills will be cured. All institutions will be perfected. The civil state will be no more. Of course, as I wish I had thought to tell my uncle decades ago, when he declared that he would believe the resurrection when it could be reproduced in a laboratory, they will have then what they want now but it will be too late.  To have Jesus now (and then) is to have his disappointing visible church now. One cannot have Jesus without his little, ineffectual church. He called us “the least of these” for a reason."

Read the whole thing...