This one was inspired by Ivy Beckwith's account of her conversion in Postmodern Children's Ministry. She grew up in the church, and made an outward commitment to follow Jesus at the age of 7. She makes a passing comment that there wasn't a whole lot in the life of a seven-year-old that needed cleaning up...and it got me thinking.
I was raised in the church, and don't remember a time when I didn't love Jesus and believe on him. So what does it mean for me to grow up in the way of following Jesus? See, my behavior when I was seven was a whole lot better than it is now. And let's face it, the church's doctrine of Sanctification is usually defined as growth in holiness - i.e. once a person decides to follow Jesus, their behavior, attitudes, etc. progress (however slowly and imperfectly) from bad to good.
But how does this explain my experience? By almost any standard, my behavior and attitudes have deteriorated since I was seven. As I matured, so did my ability to "invent ways of doing evil" (as one of Jesus' early followers says in the Biblical book of Romans).
I think we in the church need to wrestle with our understanding of what it means to grow in maturity as a follower of Jesus so that our understanding encompasses more than a change in moral behavior and attitudes. The understanding we come to needs to incorporate the reality that many people literally grow up knowing Jesus - and their "Sanctification" doesn't begin at a point in their lives when they've sufficiently matured to be able to sin like an adult. It begins from the very beginning of their lives.
2 comments:
in the last few years i've really gotten into the image of 'the twitching of the string.' g.k. chesterton uses it to refer to the way father brown brings in suspects. and evelyn waugh reuses it in 'brideshead revisited' to illustrate the way a prodigal is brought back. as someone brought up in the church who hasn't had a dramatic conversion experience (and, incidentally, hasn't needed desperate behavioural reform), the image works for me. i've needed the string twitched to remind me that Christ is lord of my life, not me... that i am a daughter and not an orphan... that my gifts have been given for use in the kingdom, not for self-gratification.
and i like the image for people who have had dramatic conversion experiences as well. because the truth is that God in his sovereignty has been orchestrating all the events of their lives to bring them to him.
i'm not sure what that says about growth exactly. but i feel somehow like the sanctification process is also part of the twitching of the string. i don't like the ladder image--that we advance up the spiritual ladder as we 'get better.' i think it has more to do with being drawn more and more into intimacy with God... as we live out of a heart that is increasingly submissive to Christ.
just my thoughts.
-mm
you're the second or third person who's brought up chesterton recently. i've got to get hold of some of his stuff.
i like what you're saying. Makes me think about how we look at training our children. like helping them grow in maturity is more about helping them learn to draw close to God and enjoy intimacy with him. i suppose there is a sense in which people's experience of intimacy deepens as they mature.
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