The Very Good Gospel: Shalom and The Fall

3. “Thin religion lacks deep roots in the scriptures and
Christian traditions. It skims the surface of sacred
texts, using what seems applicable in the moment
without connecting the dots. To overcome thin faith,
Christians needs to study Scripture in light of the
writers’ historic and cultural contexts,
the original meaning of words,
and the biblical text in the
context of the teachings of
church fathers and mothers.”

4. SHALOMSHALOM andand
THE FALLTHE FALL
Sunday, 7.29.18Sunday, 7.29.18

5. GREEK: perfection within a person/object itself
HEBREW: relationship/connection between things
PERSPECTIVES ON GOODNESS

6. “The biblical gospel writers’
good news was about the
restoration of shalom.”

7. “The biblical gospel writers’
good news was about the
restoration of shalom.”
- Appears 550x (shalom/eirene)
- Peace; wholeness; to make right;
peace offering; loyal, devoted;
well-being; abundance;
perfection of God’s creation;
restoration of relationship

8. God saw everything that God had made,
and indeed it was very good (tov me’od*).
GENESIS 1:31

9. God saw everything that God had made,
and indeed it was very good (tov me’od*).
* The writer is saying there is perfect interconnectedness
in the web of creation; its tov me’od because all the
relationships between things overflow with goodness!
GENESIS 1:31

10. GREEK: individual moral failure/imperfection
HEBREW: the separation of humanity’s
relationship with God based on our
disobedience, all rooted in distrust…
PERSPECTIVES ON SIN

11. The Lord God took the human and put the
human in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the human,
“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it
you shall die.”
GENESIS 2:15-16

12. Now the serpent was more crafty than any
other wild animal that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not
eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said
to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees
in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat
of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle
of the garden, nor shall you touch it,
or you shall die.’”
GENESIS 3:1-3

13. SHALOMSHALOM andand
THE FALLTHE FALL
Sunday, 7.22.18Sunday, 7.22.18

14. 1. Conversion (from darkness to light)
2. Activism (principles must transform how we live)
3. Bible (as ultimate authority)
4. Cross (Jesus’ death on the cross offers life)
EARLY EVANGELICALISM EMPHASIZED
Charles Finney
(Christian Evangelist)

15. THE EVANGELICAL SPLIT
William Rauschenbusch
(Modernist/Liberal)
Cyrus Scofield
(Fundamentalist)

16. “Single cases of unhappiness are inevitable in
our frail human life; but when there are millions
of them, all running along well-defined grooves,
reducible to certain laws, then this misery is not
an individual, but a social matter, due to causes
in the structure of our society and curable
only by social reconstruction.”
- Walter Rauschenbusch

17. “Christians, let us leave the government of the world
till the King comes; let us leave the civilizing of the
world to be the incidental effect of the presence
there of the Gospel of Christ, and let us give our time,
our strength, our money, our days to the mission
distinctively committed to the Church, namely,
to make the Lord Jesus Christ
known to every creature!”
- Cyrus Scofield

18. THE EVANGELICAL SPLIT
William Rauschenbusch
(Modernist/Liberal)
Cyrus Scofield
(Fundamentalist)

19. “On both sides of the divide,
the gospel was thinner than before,
containing only a fraction of its
power and of God’s purposes
for the world.”

20. - INDIVIDUALS: ignorant of God’s love for them in Jesus
- SYSTEMS: failing to care for the most vulnerable
- FAMILIES: trauma/separation/abuse at the border
- ETHNICITIES: increase in racist discourse/violence;
Flint, MI and Puerto Rico are STILL suffering…
- GENDERS: Churches failing to care for abuse victims
- NATIONS: World leaders playing chicken on Twitter
- SPECIES: Thousands of animal species going extinct
WE’RE FACING BROKEN SHALOM BETWEEN:

21. How to work towards shalom in this world,
as much as that shalom is possible,
and exercising my talents, privilege,
and vote to that end without succumbing
to the temptation and lie that any one person,
party or platform can or ever will achieve the
true shalom that will only be fully achieved
when Jesus makes all things new…
WHAT I’M WRESTLING WITH...

22. “Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like
in context. It’s what the Kingdom of God requires
and what the Kingdom promises to those who
choose God’s way to peace… Shalom is both
the antidote to sin’s separation and the fruit
of loving and trusting God…the antidote to sin
is not personal perfection, it is radical love…
very goodness (the shalom of God)
looks like radical love!”

23. A Prayer For The People of God
Holy God of Israel, ever present and moving
among your people, draw us near to you,
that in place of hostility there may be peace;
in place of loneliness, connection;
in place of apathy, compassion;
in place of aimlessness, direction;
and in place of sickness, healing;
through Christ Jesus, in whom you draw near to us.
Amen.

24. Mark 12
Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
And, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment
greater than these.