Redemption work and creation work go together when we think not just about individuals, but about a Christian community. The New Testament does not tend to rank gifts by importance; its emphasis is on the diversity of gifts and the need for us to use our gifts together for the common good.
And so rather than nominating one set of gifts as ‘more important’ and trying to wedge everyone into those, we should improve our understanding of how the various gifts God has given our communities work together. We should learn to depend on each other in order to bless those around us: how can we together create the conditions which give rise to the opportunity for people to hear about Jesus Christ?
As soon as we start to think about the relational context in which people usually hear about Jesus, this diversity of gifts makes sense: some of us are better at organizing outings; some of us are better at including socially marginalized people; some of us have houses and cooking gifts that make it easier for us to do hospitality; some of us are better at initiating relationships with many strangers; others are better at sowing deeply into the lives of a few friends; some are gifted at public monologues; others have insight and experience to know how to bring the Scriptures to bear on the details of everyday life, and so on.
The ideas in this post are drawn from the Groundwork module Good Work: a labour of love
0 comments:
Post a Comment