Allegiance, Truth and Power: Three crucial dimensions for Christian living
Leading others into a relationship with Christ, then, is a major challenge. It is much easier to contribute information to them than to bring them into Jesus’ family. But, though many are able to establish a relationship on their own once they have heard the message, as a general principle it takes a relationship to bring about a relationship. This is why certain groups advocate friendship evangelism, a way of bringing people to Christ that involves the witness first in establishing a friendship relationship with potential converts.
I remember helping a young woman who had been seeing a Christian psychologist for some time. I had learned that this psychologist had gone way out of her way to help this young woman, going to be with her at all hours of the night, even driving some distance to rescue her when she had run away. I asked the client what her relationship was with Jesus Christ. She replied that she probably didn’t have one and went on to describe her deep disappointment at the way she had been treated in various churches.
Wondering what to do, I ventured the question, “Would you accept [your therapist’s] Jesus?” Her face brightened as she said, “Yes, I’ll accept that Jesus.” And she did. Her relationship with the Christian therapist enabled this very damaged woman to experience genuine love. This experience, then, made it easy to lead her into a relationship with the Source of that love.
The following chart summarizes my understanding of the allegiance-relationship dimension:
The Allegiance Dimension
Primary concern: Relationship
This is the most important of the three dimensions
Starts with conversion—a commitment to Christ—to establish a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ
Aim is to replace any other allegiance/relationship as primary—all other allegiances are to be secondary to this one
It continues as growth in one’s relationship with Christ and with others expressed as loving God with one’s whole heart and one’s neighbor as oneself
It includes all that the Bible teaches on subjects like love, faith(fulness), fellowship, the fruits of the Spirit, intimacy with Christ (e.g. Jn 15), forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, obedience
True intimacy and relationship should not be confused with knowledge about intimacy and relationship
All other allegiances are to be countered with commitment to Christ
Under this dimension, the church is to be experienced as family
Witness to one’s personal experience is key to communicating this dimension
Theology is experienced in worship and submission to God (Rom 12:2)
Truth/Knowledge Leading to Understanding
This is the dimension most familiar to us. Jesus spent a high proportion of His time and energy in the teaching of truth. He wanted people to understand as much as possible about His Father, Himself and all that the relationships between God and humans and between humans and other humans should involve. He punctuated His teaching with regular power encounters and appeals for allegiance. He regularly demonstrated, not just talked about, both the allegiance-relational and the power-freedom dimensions as a part of His teaching of truth.
One of the crucial aspects of Jesus’ method was to enfold His teaching of truth in a relational context—discipleship. He chose twelve people to teach by example in the context of the day-in, day-out activities of living together and ministering to people in love and power. He used His freedom-giving power to minister relational love to others within a discipling relationship with His closest followers (including more disciples than the twelve plus several women). But He wrapped all of this in a truth teaching context. His was a balanced approach to doing and thinking about the doing. He never allowed His ministry to become a merely thinking about ministry.
Category: Fall 2010, Living the Faith
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