We are excited to have Meghan Larissa Good teaching us this week.
Our age is characterized by intensifying polarization. Largely because of theinternet, increasing numbers of people have fallen into echo-chambers where their beliefs are continually affirmed and radicalized and where their capacity to empathetically understand opposing perspectives, even their desire to correctly understand opposing perspectives, is greatly diminished. As a result, westerners are quickly losing what once was a shared trust in foundational institutions, norms, values and practices. The question we must ask is: In a social context in which everyone clamours for the power to get their way at the expense of others and/or the earth and animal kingdom, what would it look like for the church to model a radically different and altogether beautiful kind of power, in the process of pointing people to a radically different and altogether beautiful God? The Apostle Paul teaches along these lines when he writes: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom 12:14). We are never to “repay anyone evil for evil” and never to retaliate against an evil-doer (Rom 12:17-18), which is to say, we must “not be overcome by evil” but are instead to “overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). Hence, Paul concludes, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Rom 12:20). The image of burning coals being placed on someone’s head is a reference to coming under conviction. Paul is suggesting that by responding to aggression with love rather than violently defending ourselves, we expose the wrongfulness of the action being perpetrated against us. As we saw was true with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:38-48), this opens up the possibility that our aggressor will wake up to, and turn away from, the wrongfulness of their action against us. This is the power of Cross-like suffering love. The “natural mind” can’t see the power of the cross, but we who follow Jesus are called to trust that this kind of power is the strongest force in the universe.
We are excited to have Meghan Larissa Good teaching us this week.
Our age is characterized by intensifying polarization. Largely because of theinternet, increasing numbers of people have fallen into echo-chambers where their beliefs are continually affirmed and radicalized and where their capacity to empathetically understand opposing perspectives, even their desire to correctly understand opposing perspectives, is greatly diminished. As a result, westerners are quickly losing what once was a shared trust in foundational institutions, norms, values and practices. The question we must ask is: In a social context in which everyone clamours for the power to get their way at the expense of others and/or the earth and animal kingdom, what would it look like for the church to model a radically different and altogether beautiful kind of power, in the process of pointing people to a radically different and altogether beautiful God? The Apostle Paul teaches along these lines when he writes: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom 12:14). We are never to “repay anyone evil for evil” and never to retaliate against an evil-doer (Rom 12:17-18), which is to say, we must “not be overcome by evil” but are instead to “overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). Hence, Paul concludes, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Rom 12:20). The image of burning coals being placed on someone’s head is a reference to coming under conviction. Paul is suggesting that by responding to aggression with love rather than violently defending ourselves, we expose the wrongfulness of the action being perpetrated against us. As we saw was true with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:38-48), this opens up the possibility that our aggressor will wake up to, and turn away from, the wrongfulness of their action against us. This is the power of Cross-like suffering love. The “natural mind” can’t see the power of the cross, but we who follow Jesus are called to trust that this kind of power is the strongest force in the universe.