The Challenge

This is how the gospels are to become authoritative.  

They are to become authoritative because, as they tell the story of who Jesus was for Israel in judging and redeeming Israel, so we continue that story—this is the great message of Luke, is it not—in being for the world what Jesus was for Israel.  That is how the translation works.  And that is why we need narrative, not timeless truth.  I’m not a timeless person; I’ve got a story.  The world’s not a timeless world; it’s got a story.  And I’ve got a responsibility, armed with scripture, to tell the world God’s story, through song and in speech, in drama and in art. We must do this by telling whatever parables are appropriate.  That may well not be by standing on street corners reading chunks of scripture.  It might be much more appropriate to go off and write a novel (and not a ‘Christian’ novel where half the characters are Christians and all the other half become Christians on the last page) but a novel which grips people with the structure of Christian thought, and with Christian motivation set deep into the heart and structure of the narrative, so that people would read that and resonate with it and realize that that story can be my story.  After all, the story of the Bible, and the power that it possesses, is a better story than any of the power games that we play in our world.  We must tell this story, and let it exercise its power in the world.

The great cities of the world are the key challenge for mission in the twenty-first century. We ignore the cities to our peril. The great cities of our world are the source of most of our wealth and misery, wisdom and depravity, innovation and sin. The engine for societal change is in the cities, but, if used wisely, it could be the dynamo for the growth of the Kingdom.