{"id":24383,"date":"2012-01-18T05:03:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T11:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=24383"},"modified":"2012-01-15T11:01:38","modified_gmt":"2012-01-15T17:01:38","slug":"what-about-a-prophetic-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/18\/what-about-a-prophetic-word\/","title":{"rendered":"What about a prophetic word?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/40\/2012\/01\/Screen-shot-2012-01-04-at-9.04.51-AM.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-23958\" title=\"Screen shot 2012-01-04 at 9.04.51 AM\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/40\/2012\/01\/Screen-shot-2012-01-04-at-9.04.51-AM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"279\"><\/a>If Jesus was prophetic then the church that follows him is prophetic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you believe in a prophetic word today? Not only do you think anyone speaks prophetically today, but do you see Scripture as the prophetic word?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Luke Timothy Johnson\u2019s new book <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802803903\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=musionscieand-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0802803903\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church<\/em><\/a><\/strong> examines these questions and probes what the church needs to hear today.<\/p>\n<p>He sketches the two essential features of the prophetic word: it is a call to conversion (repentance), which is about God\u2019s judgment on the human construction of this world, and it is a call to a life shaped by the covenant \u2014 and this means <em>genuine repentance\/conversion forms a politics of a new order<\/em>. The message of Luke-Acts is the \u201ckingdom of God,\u201d and Johnson rightly argues this means God is King and that God\u2019s people are to live under God\u2019s Kingship in God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson contends, and I agree with him (and Joe Modica and I have just finished editing a book that will come out, we hope, this fall called <em>Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not<\/em>, and this book will examine the anti-empire theories at work today) \u2026 anyway, back to Johnson, I agree that Luke-Acts is misread if seen through the lens of anti-empire ideology. Instead, it is a politics \u201cmore possible to be realized by small intentional communities than by worldwide administrations\u201d and has to do with \u201cdeep derangement of human dispositions \u2026 a liberation from dispositions that corrupt all social programs and a demand for dispositions and actions that work for the transformation of all social practices\u201d (74). [By the way, Johnson is very close to our <em>King Jesus Gospel<\/em> proposals.]<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In other words, kingdom pushes to church; he has somewhat of an ecclesial view of kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>He examines then the infancy narratives, John Baptist, Jesus, and the early church in Acts on understanding the word of God as prophetic: repentance, conversion, and concrete social transformation in the ecclesial body.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So what does this mean for today?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Johnson asks that Luke-Acts faces us and asks: \u201cWhat do Christians really stand for?\u201d (89).<\/p>\n<p>Kingdom of God today: we see an already and not yet view of kingdom, and it is a summons at two levels, both necessary: personal and political. The \u201cpolitical\u201d is not reduced to partisan politics in society but to an ecclesially based new society, and the personal is not reduced to personal pietism.<\/p>\n<p>Repentance: not about remorseful guilt, which one can find today among some Orthodox, some Catholics, some Reformed \u2026 but is about an acceptance of God\u2019s measure of reality and a commitment to live in that reality in the here and now. Johnson pushes against the soterian gospel and against the easy-to-find acceptance of a personal experience as the essence of repentance. Luke-Acts sits in judgment on this stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Baptism and forgiveness of sins: baptism involved risk and danger and forgiveness, surely the great news of God\u2019s gracious forgiveness and <em>at the same time<\/em> a summons to be people who forgive.<\/p>\n<p>Big one: when we think of sins from which to repent, or if we listen to folks talk about which sins are most important to avoid, we move into the realm of sex. We have not a sex-repressed but a sex-obsessed culture, and Mark Driscoll needs to recognize the former is not the problem. Johnson says we need to see that Luke-Acts\u2019 primary goal was possessions and wealth and <em>a summons for kingdom people to embrace and embody an altogether radical vision of possessions and wealth<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Should Christians live in mansions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Jesus was prophetic then the church that follows him is prophetic. Do you believe in a prophetic word today? Not only do you think anyone speaks prophetically today, but do you see Scripture as the prophetic word? Luke Timothy Johnson\u2019s new book Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church examines these questions and probes what the church [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,1743],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-kingdom-of-god"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What about a prophetic word?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If Jesus was prophetic then the church that follows him is prophetic. Do you believe in a prophetic word today? 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