What Christ Would Say About, “Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves”
The more I learn about Jesus Christ the more I stand in awe of Him. He was/is for the little guy. He wants to be glorified in little people doing great things in His name. Hence, if one pays close attention, he taught His truth in a way that it could be understood by the least gifted. I am not saying that the Word is not deep at times, but I am saying that depth does not stand in the way of the knowledge we need for individual “life and godliness.”
Plato was different. He wasn’t like Jesus. Knowledge was the only way to understanding reality, so vast giftedness in regard to intellect was critical for the wellbeing of society. That gift was only found in a few who should rule the masses for the betterment of “the group” or “the whole.” Knowledge is it.
And that’s the American church. Obviously, in our mindset, a Ph.D. equals intellectual giftedness that must rule over others for the sake of “the group.” We have lots of them telling us that we need to “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” John Piper and Al Mohler et al continually warn us not to think we can be saved by the gospel and then, “move on to something else.” The brilliant Dr. Horton tells us that we must continually visit the gospel “afresh” in order to live the Christian life. Supposedly, the spiritual peasantry should listen to them because they are the gifted ones appointed by God to, as Al Mohler put it, “save God’s people from ignorance.” Ahmen.
But what did Jesus say thou spiritual ditch digger? Well, He told us a story about a woman He met at a well:
John 4:7 – A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Obviously, Christ was talking about the gospel, salvation, or whatever idiom you want to use. The one drink results in a continuous spring of living water with no need to drink of it again. Then why would we need to continually drink of the gospel “afresh” for our Christian life? Christ is clearly saying that one drink is enough and that particular thirst/need will never reoccur. “But Paul, He wasn’t speaking of the gospel per se.” Then what was He speaking of?
Bottom line: Jesus’ illustration completely refutes the idea that sanctification, or the Christian life, has a realized or unrealized thirst that needs to be satisfied by the gospel. We drink of the gospel once for salvation and have no need to drink again.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Gloriously true. One drink, satisfied and set free from prison. Jesus did say, “never thirst again”. Never means never. If it had been, “thirst again tomorrow morning”, then He would have said so.
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What do you think Paul meant by “the Cross?” “The word of the cross,” for example.
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Anon,
In regard to the ESV committee of heretics adding the present continuous tense of “being” to 1Cor. 1:18, or the past tense rendering of the MT? The latter makes it about the message of salvation.
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“How can they preach unless they be sent?”
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Your point about the “ESV committee of heretics” on 1Cor. 1:18 is interesting and something I never thought of or noticed.
KJV “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish [future] foolishness; but unto us which are saved [past with present effects] it is the power of God.”
ESV “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing [present progressive], but to us who are being saved [present progressive] it is the power of God.”
The ESV makes the tense match in both cased. Should it? I’m not going to bother whipping out my Greek text. But from my theological perspective I think perish should be future tense as it is in the KJV. Nobody “is perishing” — they perish in the end. So also nobody “is being saved” — they either are or aren’t saved, or will or will not be saved. Saved would work in either a past with present effects or future sense, but with what Paul is trying to say here a past with present effects tense seems most obvious.
Ok, so I changed my mind and looked up the Greek after all. Yay for me.I used the unbound bible website http://unbound.biola.edu/ and used the Textus Receptus. I then googled the word απολλυμενοις and σωζομενοις. I found this link: http://www.kjvtoday.com/home/are-lost-or-are-perishing-in-2-corinthians-43
““Απολλυμενοις” is a present participle, which would normally be translated into English as a contemporaneous participle (e.g. “are perishing”). However, the participle can be “broadly antecedent to the time of the main verb, especially if it is articular (and thus adjectival)” (Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pp. 625-6).”
As is the case in 2 Cor 4:3, απολλυμενοις is not the main verb but a secondary verb. The main verb is “is,” as in “For the word of the cross IS folly to those who απολλυμενοις ” — So here, απολλυμενοις should not be translated “are perishing” but rather “will perish/are perished.” The same applies to σωζομενοις also a present participle but the same rule applies, its being used in an adjectival sense and therefore is not “are being saved” but “will be saved/are saved.”
Its amazing how much ambiguity actually exists in the Greek on some of this stuff people like to be so dogmatic on. Anyway, the conclusion is that the ESV translators were sophmoric and didn’t know the rule that Daniel Wallace describes there.
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Reblogged this on Paul's Passing Thoughts.
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