In Serpents and Doves, I suggest, “The ‘common good’ every Christian pursues on behalf of the world is the build up of Christ’s body…Christ’s body is crucial since it offers a substitute for the world’s broken systems.” Take a moment and think concerning the implications of claiming to represent the Triune God while doing what is true in our own eyes (Judg 17:6). Discipleship trains us to like what God loves on God’s terms. As we learn to like on God’s terms, we turn into increasingly able to representing God to the world.
“In those days Israel had no king; all of the people did whatever seemed right in their very own eyes.” – Judges 17:6 NLT
In the Old Testament, God called Israel to be his “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation” (Exod 19:6). Israel was to maintain the law, partly, in order that the nations would notice their wisdom (Deut 4:6). The nations would ultimately flow into Israel in praise of God (Isa 2:2). Israel was to reflect God to the world in order that those that were lost would recognize that wisdom of fearing the Lord.
The church serves an analogous function. Having been incorporated into the “root” (Rom 11:16), the mixed multitude (cf. Exod 12:38) of Jews and non-Jews in Christ who’re called on to “put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Pet 2:1) because they “are a selected race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his [God’s] own possessions” (2:9). This group is to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (2:9).
The Church’s discipleship will not be something that isolates the church from the world. Instead, discipleship differentiates the church from the world. Christian discipleship assumes the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed. It assumes that Christians seek to reflect God to the world. If we’re going to love our nation on God’s terms, we must learn to achieve this through discipleship.
Discipleship have to be a proactive activity for Christians because nations, even those just like the United States, that are deeply influenced by the Bible and Christianity, are usually not within the business of build up Christ’s body. While some nations are adamantly against Christianity and interact in persecution, the United States is usually content to go away room for Christianity as long as Christian convictions don’t turn into too disruptive. Regardless of how much room our nation may leave us to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ, discipleship will ultimately create tensions with the state since the state is involved in a form of discipleship all its own.
Commenting on the formative power of the state, political commentator George Will writes, “Men and ladies are biological facts. Ladies and gentlemen—residents—are social artifacts, works of political art. They carry a culture that’s sustained by smart laws and traditions of civility. At the tip of the day, we’re right to evaluate society by the character of the people it produces. That is why statecraft is, inevitably, soulcraft.” Christian discipleship counters this “soulcraft” by ensuring that God’s people reflect Christ somewhat than some set of national ideals. Without discipleship, Christians run the chance of becoming strange residents embodying a certain set of values and ideals as an alternative of being the body of Christ.
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