02/26/2016
Two posts about GRACE and WORLDVIEW (Part 2)
Feb 25th (words: 934 – a record length)
Grace again… I realize I’m on rocky ground retreading a familiar subject (building-on-top-of the post from Feb 2nd). Treading water is where you beat your arms and legs to keep your head above water. This is a little bit of what I’m doing – not moving you into any new places – but giving you tools to keep your head above water.
I have one small goal for my message this Sunday: to develop a heart-understanding of the ancient Roman/Greek understanding of grace. Experience the other-worldness of the Greek term charis.
I’m leading some of you into foreign territory – we’re going to a place that uses terms like worldview, paradigm, horizon, cultural prejudice. Last week we looked at how culture shapes our thinking and the way we see the world around us. People from different cultures see the world differently. Os Guinness, says that the best education is in traveling the world. This gives a clear, quick sense of how people in different places think very differently from you. This is an important reality for us as we read the Bible. We are reading a book that is close to 2000 years old and written in another part of the world.
We can get a fuller sense of the Bible’s story by understanding the mind-set of the Bible’s people. Hopefully this introduction will draw us into another quote from the writer: D.A. deSilva in The Dictionary of New Testament Background : A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship. electronic ed. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2000.
May-be you missed our earlier excerpt from the DNTB and you’ll want to go back and read it (this time I’ve taken out the academic references).
“A term of central importance for discourse about patronage is charis, frequently translated ‘grace.’ Classical and Hellenistic Greek authors use this word primarily as an expression of the dynamics within the patron-client or friendship relationship. Within this social context, charis has three distinct meanings. First, it is the benefactor’s favorable disposition toward the petitioner… Second, the term can be used to refer to the gift or benefit conferred (… see 2 Cor 8:19). The third meaning is the reciprocal of the first, namely, the response of the client, the necessary and appropriate return for favor shown. In this sense the term is best translated as ‘gratitude’ (… Rom 6:17; 7:25; Heb 12:28)…
A person who received “grace” (a patron’s favor) knew also that ‘grace’ (gratitude) must be returned… According to Seneca, the three Graces dance with their arms linked in an unbroken circle because a benefit ‘passing from hand to hand nevertheless returns to the giver; the beauty of the whole is destroyed if the course is anywhere broken’ (Seneca Ben. 1.3.3–4). Gratitude was a sacred obligation, and the client who failed to show gratitude appropriately was considered base and impious… The greater the benefit bestowed, the greater should be the response of gratitude.
Gratitude in the ancient world involves the demonstration of respect for the benefactor… acting in such a way as to enhance his or her honor and avoiding any course of action that would bring him or her into dishonor. A client who showed disregard for a patron would exchange favor for wrath… The client would return this gift of honor not only in his or her own demeanor and actions but also in public testimony to the benefactor… Gratitude also involves intense personal loyalty to the patron, even if that loyalty should lead one to lose one’s place in one’s homeland, one’s physical well-being, one’s wealth and one’s reputation… This is the level of gratitude and loyalty that the NT authors claim should be given to Jesus and, through him, to God. Finally, making a fair return for a gift meant giving something in exchange, whether another gift, or, as was more usual for clients, some appropriate acts of service… ‘Grace,’ therefore, has specific meanings for the authors and readers of the NT, who are themselves part of a world in which patronage is a primary social bond.”
The depth of grace God has given us draws us into a deeper depth of gratitude that has no parallel. One could think of a close example. Imagine the thankfulness of a homeless orphan girl. She is sitting in the dirt making mud-pies (because she has nothing to eat). She is suddenly picked up by a wealthy king who adopts her and makes her a royal princess – to live with him in his palace forever. Now imagine the gratitude of a homeless orphan boy. He is sitting in the dirt making mud-pies (because he has nothing to eat). He is suddenly picked up by a wealthy king who adopts him and makes him a royal prince – to live with him in his palace forever.
We are that boy or girl.
Those of us who have accepted the free, salvation gift, given by grace and received through a repenting faith (saying “yes I want God’s salvation” – See Romans 3:23-24; 6:23; 10:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-10) we have been adopted into God’s family. We’re invited to wear God’s royal robes. If the adoption process is genuine, we will experience an internal transformation as God puts his royal seal on us (the Holy Spirit), and brings about the reality of children who act less and less like orphans making mud pies and more and more like the princes and princess we have actually become.
Live the person you have already become.
Live out loud.
Live a life that shouts God’s glory.
He’s the one who gets the attention – the notice – the glory.
