Friday I drove to Dallas for my last nose check-up, then went straight to Abilene to look at some of my books for seminary. If you ever see a Greek-English Lexicon, you'll probably never want to go to seminary. I didn't have that feeling, though.
Sitting at Monk's Coffee Shop in Abilene as Rosten Callarman serenades me acoustically, I am met with a Crazy Random Happenstance.
First, some awesome quotes, because I'm a quote junkie.
"for, after all, any man's actions correspond to the habit of perfection attained by him."—John of the Cross
"Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation."—Oswald Chambers
And, from Scripture: 1 Timothy 1:5b-6
"You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the LORD, for you received the Word in much affliction, with the Joy of the Holy Spirit."
Wait... did the Bible just say we should be imitators, when Oswald Chambers said that imitators aren't truly sanctified, that they only "imitate" and are not genuine in their sanctification?
And does being an "imitator of the LORD" mean it's all up to us to be sanctified? Is sanctification or perfection "attained" by us alone, or is it an "impartation"—a gift—of the Spirit?
I read all of these these when I opened the first book I got for seminary (I'm reading early, figured I might finally be a good student since I'm in grad school) called "After You Believe" by N. T. Wright.
I am only in the introduction for now, but N. T. Wright explains my questions by looking at the rich young ruler and Jesus (Matthew 19:19-30; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-30).
Here, the rich man asks Jesus what he must DO to gain eternal life (which has a very different meaning to a Jew as it does to a modern Western Christian, but I won't go into that here), and Jesus in the end doesn't give him a set of rules but gets to the man's heart. He knew the rich man was greedy, so he told the rich man to sell all his possessions, give them to the poor, and follow Jesus.
Jesus told the man he needed new character.
Not "Rules" with a capital-R. Not a morally relative statement of "be true to yourself."
Jesus cuts to the heart of why we are here to begin with, which Wright explains can be found in gaining character by way of virtue.
As I go on in Wright's book, and in my Graduate School of Theology work, I'll post more about this because it seems to be extremely relevant to the whole theme and reason I started this blog—to explain my Passion for Christ and His people as I work it out in a Practical manner.
Until then, I'll leave you with another quote I've learned to love recently:
"It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message."—Henry Drummond
Grace & Peace, ya'll
