Well that started me thinking, I want to be radical yet I find myself in the same place, at the same time every week, doing something I have been doing in the same way now for 7 years or more, and before me a little old lady had been doing it there for 30 years. That seems to be erring towards tradition, not being radical.
I believe to be practical and effective as a modern Christian who is willing to think outside of the box, you still need to have the stability in your faith life that gives you the authority to be radical.
“I could set my calendar by you”!
What an important statement that is. It is saying that I am reliable in my actions. Of course this is a joke and just something to say, but the underlying truth is very important.
Within the Christian life there needs to be the underlying foundations, the non-negotiable, and the core values.
Our faith, whatever denomination, should be firmly attached to the two commands that Jesus underlined. Love God with all your being, and love your neighbour as you love yourself.
Our living should have truth in its DNA. We need above all things to be truthful and reliable people. We cannot be people who randomly bend the truth, because once bent it can never be re-straightened, and in bending the truth once we set a standard that people see.
The truth of our faith must be clearly evident in the way we live our lives. We cannot be random livers, adding faith to one part of our lives and not applying it to others. People see and understand who we are by the way we live and interact with them.
Much of the New Testament teaching of Paul has the Christian as being in Christ, lives being changed and renewed from the inside out, people need to see Christ likeness, with a truth and reliability that they can set their lives to.
Radical Christianity in my thinking, is not about being wild and random, or dismissing everything that has gone before as worthless. It’s taking the truth and values of 2000 years of faith and applying it in ways that are understandable to the present age.
The problem with traditionalism is that a too well trodden path is full of ruts, ruts force the traveler to walk in them, and ruts become deeper and deeper eventually becoming graves.
Jesus came into a very traditional religious time and introduces a new and more open approach, but we still find him in the synagogue for worship, and as far as possible observing the daily rhythms of prayer.
Peter, empowered by the Holy Spirit and seeing many thousands taking up the new faith, still has that rhythm of prayer in his life, a remnant of his Jewish past. It is during one of these prayer times that he is called to come out of his Jewish comfort zone and take the faith to the gentiles, which would mean eating with them. To Peter that was radical, but it was something rising out of the truth of his faith in Jesus.
Radical Christianity that is based on random thinking and distorted doctrine can only lead people away from truth.
Radical Christianity that grows out of the truth of the gospel, and reaches out in love to our neighbour, by the indwelling power of an Almighty God, it is that that will bring salvation to a modern thinking generation.
Many people came to faith by watching the early church in action, they found truth and reliability in people who were stepping away from the norm but holding fast to their God.
I want to be a person people can set their lives to, but they need to know that my life is in Christ.
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