Grace
Something handy from my English education are the different kind of models that I can use to understand stuff. One of my favorites is the pendulum. For example, politics in America tend to swing from conservatism to liberalim over time. You had Bush Senior then Clinton then W. and who knows what is next. My understanding of things in the terms of a pendulum swinging back and forth often makes me chuckle when people talk about how our culture "is getting so much worse." My understanding is that it is all bad but that it just swings back and forth. Think 50's to 70's, Classical Period to Medieval Period, pro-war America 2001ish to anti-war America 2007. Thus, the pendulum.
One other model that I have found useful is the infinitely long line with two distinctly related, but different regions at each end. I have begun reading again this week and have picked up Diedrich Bonheoffer's Cost of Discipleship. In the beginning chapter he discusses grace and classifies grace into cheap grace and costly grace. As I begin to think about the concept of grace (which stems from a suggestion from Noël to think about one word or one concept for a long time), I began to think about it and how it affects my actions and my life. If I use the line model in terms of the time at which grace takes effect, with three regions, it would look like this.
-At one end you have a costly grace (thanks Diedrich) which truly transforms my mind/life and dictates how I live and the actions I take. The grace that was given to Peter 3 times- at the outset, in the middle, and over a fish breakfast in John (thanks again Diedrich). This type of grace comes before our actions and thoughts, and thus drives us down the path less traveled
-At the other end you have the grace Paul warns again. "Whelp, I am a sinful person, and I will always be sinful, so it is going to be ok to get drunk and look at porn, and just pray for forgiveness afterward." This grace only takes effect after we have taken avantage of the free gift. We have taken complete advantage of God. We just scammed him.
-In the middle you have kind of a blurry-blah area when you don't even think about grace or take advantage of it. You could consider it the blurry-blah-bum-belt.
Don't be a bum or a scammer.
One other model that I have found useful is the infinitely long line with two distinctly related, but different regions at each end. I have begun reading again this week and have picked up Diedrich Bonheoffer's Cost of Discipleship. In the beginning chapter he discusses grace and classifies grace into cheap grace and costly grace. As I begin to think about the concept of grace (which stems from a suggestion from Noël to think about one word or one concept for a long time), I began to think about it and how it affects my actions and my life. If I use the line model in terms of the time at which grace takes effect, with three regions, it would look like this.
-At one end you have a costly grace (thanks Diedrich) which truly transforms my mind/life and dictates how I live and the actions I take. The grace that was given to Peter 3 times- at the outset, in the middle, and over a fish breakfast in John (thanks again Diedrich). This type of grace comes before our actions and thoughts, and thus drives us down the path less traveled
-At the other end you have the grace Paul warns again. "Whelp, I am a sinful person, and I will always be sinful, so it is going to be ok to get drunk and look at porn, and just pray for forgiveness afterward." This grace only takes effect after we have taken avantage of the free gift. We have taken complete advantage of God. We just scammed him.
-In the middle you have kind of a blurry-blah area when you don't even think about grace or take advantage of it. You could consider it the blurry-blah-bum-belt.
Don't be a bum or a scammer.
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