The Incarnational Church
by Josh Eby
All Christians desire to become more like Jesus. All Christians long for our world to become more like heaven. And all Christians struggle to figure out how to live out their faith in the midst of a changing and complex world.
On the one hand, we make the mistake of identifying Christianity with our world. We tend to make very few distinctions between hopes, dreams and aims of the world and those of Christianity. We compress Christianity and culture. We see Jesus as a means to getting whatever it is we already want from this life. This is the identification trap.
On the other hand, we isolate Christianity from our world. We make Christianity completely at odds with our culture. We don’t read secular books or watch secular movies or work out in secular gyms. Instead we read Christian novels and watch Christian films and workout in the “Lord’s Gym.” This is the isolation trap.
Christianity is not identification with the world or isolation from the world. It is incarnation in the world.
The incarnation teaches us that Christians are both similar and distinct from our world. Christians are similar because in the incarnation Christ took on real flesh. His humanity is not an illusion. He walked, talked, breathed and cried as a real person. But Christians are distinct from our world because Christ lived completely different from everyone else. He lived a selfless life. He lived a sinless life. He didn’t lie or cheat or hurt his fellow man. Instead he gave himself fully and freely for others, culminating with his death on the cross.
As we seek to become more like Jesus, we must not isolate ourselves from others, but rather be in radical relationship with others. We must relate to one another as real people with real hopes and dreams and fears. But the incarnation also means that we live, work and play differently. We don’t live out the same hopes and dreams as the world. Instead, we live out the hope of the gospel. We live out the reality of Christ’s resurrection. We live out God’s peace, God’s Shalom in our families, workplaces and communities. This is the calling of every Christian everywhere: to incarnate the life and love of Christ in and to God’s world.
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Josh Eby is a PCA pastor serving with Peru Mission.
Posted: April 6th, 2009 under Contextualization, Cultural, Ecclesiology, Ethos, Mission.