Salvation

Been very busy this week and not had much time to think about blogging. Could certainly have done without the incident mentioned in the below entry!

Anyway, spent a fair bit of time last weekend working on an essay about the imagery Paul uses to describe salvation in Romans. One thing that writing that really made me realise is that Paul was very good at using language and images that were relevant to his time and culture, images and language that would have really resonated with and meant something to his readers. I think 1 problem that much of the Church in this era has is that we are still using these same words and images nearly 2000 years later, and they often do not mean anything to or resonate with people in our culture in the same way. Words such as salvation itself, justification, righteousness, redemption, sanctification, have become religious jargon that don't mean much to us as Christians some of the time, let alone people who we're trying to communicate the gospel to. As a Church I really believe we need to be looking for relevant words and images that convey the amazing meanings and truths of these words and concepts in a way that will grab people's minds and attention.

One of the images Paul used for salvation was the idea of reconciliation, and I really like something Bishop Tom Wright wrote about this. Reconciliation is “effected from God’s side, by the initiative of love” and “The fact that God’s rescuing love has found a way of deliverance and reconciliation is part of the wonder of the gospel.” Surely this is something that as Christians we should be trying to communicate relevantly and effectively. We worship an amazing God!!