How to Present the Meaning of Salvation
When we think of salvation, most of the time we think of heaven and forgiveness of sin. Of course, these are beautiful gifts, but our group explored the idea of presenting salvation in a more specific way. We thought about ways to explain what it means to be saved each day. We wondered if heaven is the whole and only reward.
We also noticed that people who share their salvation story are often people who have been extremely downtrodden, people who were the least likely to seek and/or find salvation, and who were saved in some dramatic way. Well what about the listeners who lead a “respectable” life? How do we make salvation relevant to them?
Does the prospect of heaven attract people to salvation? Many people find the issue of heaven difficult since heaven always brings to the table the issue of hell. We wonder who’s going where. Some people find it difficult to savor the prospect of heaven given that there will be other people burning and suffering and gnashing their teeth for all of eternity. Besides, the respectable people have not robbed banks or embezzled from their employer, so they aren’t worried about going to hell. So what do we do then? How do we attract people to salvation? How do we demonstrate the need for it?
How about forgiveness? The problem is the respectable people don’t feel a need for forgiveness. They didn’t crucify Jesus. They are good people. Why would they need forgiveness from God? They forgive themselves. Their conscience is clear.
We then considered the need to focus on the daily gifts of salvation, of repeatedly and continually turning our will and our lives over to the care of the Good Shepherd.
We considered the term and the concept of sin. Some in the group thought the term might alienate newcomers, whereas others thought that we should not stray too far from traditional christian language. We considered the definition of sin and its usual connotations of illicit sex, lying, cheating, debauchery—breaking any of the Ten Commandments. But then we explored a broader, more personal definition of sin, that being anything that separates individuals from God, that takes the lambs from the Shepherd’s care.
On individual levels, the sin can be our hurts, character defects, and unresolved pain or resentment, for examples. Sin can be the extrinsic experiences that have warped us and confused us—experiences in our homes, in our schools, our neighborhoods, our society at large. We noticed that we could communicate the specific ways that the Good News can tranform our lives, our thoughts, our behaviors. We can show and tell what Jesus taught us.
We concluded that when we accept salvation, we are being saved from ourselves since the sin whether intrinsic or extinsic, is in our lives, has affected us, separates us from our God. So salvation isn’t just about being forgiven; it can also be seen as a deliverance from an old way of doing life to a new way. And this is not about becoming good little boys and girls who behave nicely; it’s about placing ourselves in the care of our Good Shepherd and enjoying the peace and security of living in his care.
We can talk about how our faith our spirituality helps us make sense of life. We can share the new perspectives we recieve from God, such as gratitude, forgiveness, humor, joy, grace, patience, humility, etc.
Some group members mentioned a spiritual book called A New Kind of Christian that explores this topic in depth.
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Does Anyone Else Care About Salvation???
Or “DAECAS”?
Put on your...
Put on your helmet. 5 years ago I attended a mens retreat with The Journey. It was the first real Journey mens retreat. Some people don’t know that it was because we joined like three other churches. Anyway, the topic was putting on your armor of God from Ephesians 6:13-18 and has changed my life since! check it out. Capt. Doug Wait who was a Navy Chaplin was our speaker that year and delivered one of the most powerful weekend I’ve ever experienced. Jeff delivered the best ever. Here is the scripture that changed everything for me.
Ephesians6:13-18
13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
I hope this reads for you as it has for me.
~Frank
Helmet
Thanks for the wonderful scripture. I’m going to have to think about that one in detail. I get from the scripture that salvation is my helmet. A helmet protects my head. My head is where my mind is, where my thoughts originate. And my mind is like a dangerous neighborhood; I should never go there alone! Not even in the day, but especially not at night. I’m sure you’ve heard that joke before, but it’s a good one, and it’s good because it represents the reality that my thoughts get me into trouble. It’s the noise between my ears that reminds me of the lies, the resentments, the worries, the things that hold me hostage on a spiritual level.
Thanks for reminding me that with salvation my mind gets renewed (that comes from scripture, too, I think), and that my salvation is like a helmet. But what is salvation again? What is that helmet made of?
T
Local event
If you are
then come one, come all to the Church Basement Roadshow (a “Rollin’ Gospel Revival”) featuring noted authors and speakers Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette. They are touring the U.S. this summer and will be coming to San Jose!
Friday, June 20th
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:30)
First Presbyterian Church of San Jose
49 N. 4th street
$10 cover charge
(I’m the local chairman for this event.)
http://jonreid.blogs.com/
I'm going!!
Hey Jon,
I’m going to this event. Thanks for bringing it to San Jose.
I love the discussion around how to share Jesus more effectively with our friends and I think it’s an essential discussion for all churches and follower of Christ to have - especially in our postmodern world.
I look forward to meeting Doug Pagitt - I loved his book about making church interactive.
A New Kind of Christian was a fun adventure - and even the part of the following books that I disagreed with theologically caused me to think through what I believe.
The Journey is committed to our postmodern culture and I believe this will be helpful for us.
Thanks,
jeff
More to come
Teresa, thanks for chatting today.
Jeff, let’s keep talking.
I’ll post a separate topic for this event, but I had to mention it here because I think it is extremely pertinent to what Teresa was talking about.
http://jonreid.blogs.com/
John, Really enjoyed
John,
Really enjoyed connecting on this issue. I’ll look for more info on the event you mentioned.
T