The hardest thing I have found in life is to preach Grace. All of the things that other people find so easy are hard for me. Here's the thing, for the first nineteen years of my life I never heard any grace, any Gospel. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church that was really not bad. I have been around the block a time or two where churches are concerned and this one was not bad.
I spent nineteen years trying and failing to become a Christian, like I said the things that are easy for everyone else are very hard for me. And then the Lord called me and for the first time I heard Grace. It was years later before I began to wonder how many times the Gospel had been preached to me and I only heard the Law. This is a big part of why my ministry is so strange. I have gone to some lengths to preach the gospel in such a way that it cannot be misunderstood as Law. I have sought out the ways that grace is startling, surprising, what a friend of mine calls the Dark Side of the Gospel with the aim of people seeing that Grace is not like they think it is. I have sought to make the Gospel delivered once for all to the Saints , News that it might once more be Good News.
Finding Grace is a project to highlight the Lord's Gracious Choice. To teach the Bible in such a way that the character and the agency of God are centered, and to do this in such a way as to be accessible to children and novice readers of all ages. Currently, this consists of some adaptations of Scripture, for example an arrangement of the Ten Commandments, an in progress adaptation of the Heidelberg Catechism. This is also where we will post any resources that we find helpful for families and churches.
Specific notes will be with the individual post but I wanted to cover the philosophy briefly here.
I believe just as much in inspired translators as I do inspired writers. I am speaking of William Tyndale. His translation of the Bible, which forms the foundation for the Geneva Bible, the King James Bible and really of most of the English language, is the teacher that raised English speaking people to all that we have accomplished. But it is not adapted to young readers in the 21st century. Any adaptation that I make is intended to aid novice readers and young minds to a Tyndale Bible, among which I count the New King James and other such ‘versions’ as attempt to maintain the integrity of the Tyndale Translation while increasing accessibility.
That we have stopped telling Bible stories in a serious way, recognizing this as productive and meaningful activity for children and adults, believers and unbelievers is a root cause of the decline of the church. Bible stories are more important than devotions or ‘worshipful’ teaching, or moralizing, and infinitely more productive than memorizing verses out of context. Simply put, you don't know John 3:16 if you don't know who Nicodemus was and who said it to him.
I do not believe in a ‘minimalist’ approach to teaching. The whole matter is in the details and the reasoning not the mere ‘facts’.
Memorization is useful for core matters that should always being accessible, like the Ordo Salutis or the Catechism but even here I am not a verbatim kind of guy. Also, I have never had any interest in learning verse numbers or chapter numbers. These are useful for reference and not productive for learning, particularly in the era of searchable Bibles.
The Story is the principal thing. Get the story and you will get the Scripture. Miss the story and everything else is a waste of time. Often we miss God's story because we don't take time to understand the human story.
I believe in bringing the whole of culture to bear for the comfort of the Lord's people and for His glory. That is my perspective is more Normative a la Lutheran or the English Metaphysicals and not Regulative like the Puritans. I still consider myself Reformed but not Knoxian or Edwardsian if that makes sense.
Jon, I love how you emphasize the need to focus on Grace rather than Law. I love that you ask us to take time to understand the Story, and to understand human story. "The whole matter is in the details and the reasoning and not the mere facts."
I'm from Savannah, I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church too. We have a lot in common.
Glad you enjoyed it Blair. For so much of my life, I only heard Law no matter what anyone said to me I only heard, 'Get it right and you get paid. Get it wrong and you get kicked.'. The difficult matter of how to not only see something else but say in a way that people can hear, 'God has laid down His arms, the war only continues because you insist on fighting.' is the greatest task that any believer can work on.