Users Product Reviews: |
Product Review Summary: What Drives Your Life? In Christless Christianity, Michael Horton confronted readers with the danger of a gospel assumed. In The Gospel-Driven Life, Horton moves from the problem to the solution: Recovering a robust understanding of the cross and reorienting the church's purpose toward the good news of the gospel.
"We have to reverse the focus from a human-centered to a God-centered way of thinking. The gospel witnesses not to an inner light within the self, but to the Light that came into the world, shining in the darkness and overpowering it (John 1:4-9)," writes Horton (p. 26). Throughout the first six chapters of the book, he examines this reality in detail.
While seems obvious, it's very easy to go through life as though it's a story about me. God is here to help me. To change me. To bless me. I don't sin, I make mistakes. I'm not a sinner, I'm a "somewhat dysfunctional but well-meaning victim who needs to be `empowered'" (p. 50).
And that's the problem.
These things reveal that my picture of God is too small; it lacks an understanding of His holiness and the offense of my sin. That my sins are my responsibility and no one else's, and I am at fault. But the opposite is true. Horton writes, "Because we are the ones at fault, God is our problem, and this is the one we cannot manage. When the righteousness of God no longer disturbs (much less terrifies) us, we feel no need to cry out for the righteousness from God that is a gift in Christ Jesus. . . .Nobody today seems to think that God is dangerous. And that is itself a dangerous oversight" (p.50).
The dangerousness of God is a subject that deserves more attention that this review can afford, but the big idea is this: Sin is an eternal offense to an eternal, perfect, holy and just God and it must be dealt with. And God does deal with it in a wholly unexpected manner--He substitutes Himself for us, giving us new life in Him, for His purposes and His glory.
Ultimately, what Horton reveals in the first half of the book is that we are passive recipients of grace. We do not merit His kindness and love, yet He gives it. He determines our relationship with Him; we do not (cf. John 15:15). And because of this, we are free to live as "Good News people in a bad news world."
Only when we know that we are condemned in ourselves but righteous in Christ are we free for the first time to love God and love our neighbors. Responding to both out of gratitude for a free gift, we are truly freed to love and enjoy them instead of using them for our own ends (p. 79).
It's only when we fully rely on the gospel in every stage of life that we are able to live out our call as being the light of the world (Matt. 5:14). So we can (and should) engage culture, build relationships, take part in the political sphere, and work for the common good as ambassadors for Christ, proclaiming the news of His death, burial, resurrection and the coming of His Kingdom as we do so.
We are unified as God's people (as Horton puts it, we truly become a cross-cultural community [pardon the pun]); we embrace the Lord's Day and gathering together for corporate worship. ("The church is a concrete place, as well as a people," he reminds us [p. 217].) We are ministered to through God's Word by those God has chosen to shepherd His people.
But it only happens when our focus is Jesus, not ourselves.
The Gospel-Driven Life is a challenging book. It's thoughtful and thick. Pastoral and prophetic. Some will chafe at its message simply because of its focus and its urgent plea for all of us to get over ourselves. That,
"Instead of trying to make God and his Christ a part of our story of personal fulfillment, consumer tastes, national pride, or ethnic empowerment, we are given a new script, with a new plot that defines our ultimate identity, hopes, longings and experience. . . Rather than grasping for power and domination, "the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:26) and calls us to become servants rather than lords (vv. 20-27)." [p. 266]
I need to hear this message. We all need to hear this message. The only question remaining is, do we have ears to hear?
Product Review Summary: Needs an editor I think the author has an excellent point, but with a good editor the book would be better. A bit repetitive in places.
Product Review Summary: Michael's answer to a Christless Christianity If Christless Christianity was Michael Horton's diagnosis of the Christian church, The Gospel-Driven Life is his prescription. Using the lingo of the news room, Michael argues in his sequel that the church needs to reorient to the "Good News" as central to our faith and practice.
Where the former book was bleak, this book is hopeful. The book is split into two halves, the first focuses on getting the elements of the Gospel straight and the second details what sort of a community the true Gospel creates (what he calls a "cross-cultural community" and, yes, pun intended). Horton memorably says that we need to get back to "Drama, Doctrine, Doxology, Discipleship", themes that continually recur throughout the book.
In contrast with the narcissism and Pelagianism that Horton diagnosed as the church's primary problems in Christless Christianity, he offers this as the solution: "The gospel makes us extroverts: looking outside ourselves to Christ in faith and to our neighbor in love."
Again, as in Christless Christianity, Michael is sure to ruffle everyone's theological feathers at some point. For me it came when (I felt) he overstated his case for the sacraments and the inclusion of the believers' children under the new covenant. Still, when it is so relentlessly couched in Gospel, I am more inclined to consider Michael's position, and this is one of the greatest strengths of the book.
Product Review Summary: Excellent and Much-Needed Today! This book is a fantastic treatment on the gospel and its practical outworking in today's church and world.
Especially helpful was chapter four ("Getting the Story Straight") where Horton addresses some of the ways that well-intentioned conservative evangelical believers and leaders have turned the gospel into a neatly packaged formula that tends to distort and subjectivize the objective and outward facts of Christ and His salvation:
Here are a few examples of how the gospel is often defined in our circles today:
1. "A personal relationship with God"
Nowhere do we find the apostles proclaiming the gospel as an invitation to have a personal relationship with God. After all, they presupposed that everyone has a personal relationship with God already. In fact, our major problem is that we do have a relationship with God: the relationship of a guilty defendant before a just judge.... All people know God, but suppress the truth in unrighteousness.... So the gospel does not offer the possibility of a personal relationship with God, but announces a different relationship with God based on Christ!
2. "Asking Jesus into your heart"
God has used the truth contained in such formulas, however, to equate salvation with Jesus' taking up residence in one's heart is, at best, a half-truth.... "Asking Jesus into your heart" simply does not answer the problem identified in the Scriptures. My main crisis is not that Jesus is not in my heart, but that I am - with the rest of humanity - "in Adam," and the gospel is that through faith in the gospel I am - with my coheirs - now "in Christ...." When people are given the impression that they are saved by praying a prayer, we can easily forget that it is the Spirit who gives us the faith to desire, much less pray for, God's mercy. The focus shifts from the gospel itself, through the Spirit gives us faith, to the act of faith itself....
The most important criticism of this definition of the gospel is that it is not found in Scripture. No one is called in the New Testament to pray "the sinner's prayer," asking Jesus to come into his or her heart. Especially in Acts, this is the patter: God's judgment is announced on all people; the gospel is proclaimed as Christ's fulfillment of the Scriptures, and many, convicted of their sins and the Good News of salvation in Christ, believe, are baptized, and are thereby added to the church.
3. "Making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior"
This is another expression that is not found in Scripture. In fact, the Good News is so good precisely because it is simply an announcement of what is already in fact the case.... We all want to be and do something rather than to be made and to receive our identity from above. It is a blow to our spiritual ego to be told that everything has already been done. Yet that is the glory of the gospel!... Faith receives; it does not make (91-93).
Also very helpful was Horton's "4D" (my term) model for understanding the life of the Christian and the church. Many churches do not regularly teach on the basic plot of Scripture, and therefore, Christians life out their lives in a disjointed and compartmentalized fashion.
Finding our place in God's story ["drama"], renewed in our thinking by his instruction ["doctrine"], and led by his Word to respond in grateful thanksgiving ["doxology"], we now have the proper content, motivation, shape, and direction for our discipleship [the fourth "D"] in the world (98).
I especially appreciated Horton's emphasis on "two kingdoms," a teaching that appears to be non-existent in both conservative and liberal churches. Both of these wings focus much attention and effort on wresting control of the levers of the American empire from the other group in order to exercise power and influence on the rest of society, presumably "for Jesus' sake." Horton helpfully separates activity in the kingdoms of this world with activity for the Kingdom of God:
Christians may be distinguishing themselves in the common realm of secular culture, but they are not doing this as part of the church's activity. They are not even doing "kingdom work." The church is not yet the realized kingdom of Christ on earth, but it is the only place where that kingdom becomes partially visible through the ministry of Word and sacrament. Even the work of Christians remains part of secular culture, where God sends sunshine and rain upon the just and the unjust alike. Their cultural endeavors are no more redemptive than those of their non-Christian neighbors, and yet the Spirit blesses all city building with his excellent gifts of common grace.... Christ's kingdom is its own culture: holy rather than common. That does not mean that it is an alternative subculture. In other words, there is no such thing as Christian sports, entertainment, politics, architecture, or science. In these common fields, Christians and non-Christians are indistinguishable except by their ultimate goals and motivations (248-49).
Horton goes on to speak of the church and power:
The Christian churches do not have any power - at least the kind of power that the world considers powerful. At least it shouldn't. Aside from the doubtful thesis that there ever was a truly Christian civilization, the idea is a bad one. The only weapon that the church really has is the gospel (260).
My only criticism would be Horton's heavy emphasis on the sacraments (the Lord's Supper and baptism) as a "means" of grace. I agree with him that the ordinances (he uses the term "sacraments") "ratify" and "certify" the gospel message (p. 196, 200), but would state that "means" speaks of a delivery vehicle, not of a method of "ratification" and "certification." "Means" don't "ratify" and "certify," but deliver. I would state that the Word delivers the gospel of grace and the ordinances testify to its reality and certitude. (Holding to believer's baptism by immersion, I obviously don't agree with Horton's infant baptism, although I greatly appreciate my pedo-baptistic brothers and sisters in Christ.) I would also take a slightly more positive view of "contextualization" than Horton (p. 257).
Overall, I loved this book and agreed with Horton in just about every area other than those listed above in the previous paragraph. A fantastic and much-needed work. (This review also posted at: [...]
Product Review Summary: Excellent Treatment of Key Issues in the Evangelical Church Michael Horton tells the church that it has good news to share in the midst of a bad news world. In the first half of the book, Horton defines this good news, the gospel of Christ, in a classical Reformed way, focusing on justification by faith alone through the righteousness of Christ. As Horton says on page 80, "The gospel is not a general belief in heaven and hell or hope for a better life beyond; it is not even confidence in a resurrection at the end of the age. It is the announcement that Jesus Christ himself is our life, for he is our peace with God. He does not merely show us the way; he is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6)."
This gospel-centeredness permeates the whole book, leaving other pursuits, whether purpose or prosperity or therapeutic moralism, open to criticism. Horton does point to the shortcomings of such approaches but this book is less a critique than a call for the church to return to the gospel as the focus of its life.
|
Similar Products with reviews:
Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church
Introducing Covenant Theology
Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters
Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing the Heart of the Gospel
Gospel-Powered Parenting: How the Gospel Shapes and Transforms Parenting
|
