NEW TERMINOLOGY

I keep reading and hearing new terminology for some very old and simple Bible ideas about followers of Jesus. Jesus called us disciples. He often called people by saying, “Follow me.” So we are followers. Or, as Dallas Willard preferred, “we are apprentices.” I think I prefer it as well.

We are not called fundamentalists, conservatives, Calvinists, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Anglicans or Episcopalians. Neither are we called liberal, High Church, Low Church, progressive or Christian Humanist, Reformed, or Christian Socialist. All these names and distinctions are man-made, man promoted and man believed. They carry no Biblical distinctive whatsoever. They are just man’s bravado and intellect to be ‘spiritual.’ It is ego carried off by a religious spirit.

As I recently read, “Jacob Estell said when his ‘Business Leaders for Christ’ group was kicked off the campus at the University of Iowa, “Our beliefs weren’t made by us, and they can’t be changed by us either.’ It’s a simple but profound Christian creed.” Indeed it is. The Spirit of Religion is one ugly and popular spirit. The Spirit of Jesus is simple and obvious. It promotes Jesus… not us.

“But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” Jesus