The Contemporary Christian: “Applying God’s Word To Today”

By John Stott:

by

Shichet Andrew

May, 2024

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STEP (1)

INTRODUCTION

To be contemporary is to live in the present, and to move with the times, without

necessarily concerning ourselves with either the past or the future. To be a contemporary

Christian: How ever is to ensure that our present is enriched to the fullest possible extent both by

our knowledge of the past and by our expectation of the future. Our Christian faith demands this.

For the God we trust and worship is the Alpha and the Omega. Who is, and who was, and who is

to come. The Almighty: while the Jesus Christ to whom we are committed is the same yesterday

and today and forever:

So this book is an essay in the Christian handling of this time, in how we meant to bring

the past, the present and the future together in our thinking and living .Two main problems

confront us. The first is the tension between the then (past) and the now (present). The second

the tension between the now (present) and the not yet (future)

The introduction opens up the first problem. I ask whether is possible for us truly to

honour and live in the present simultaneously, can we preserve Christianity’s historic identity

intact, without thereby cutting ourselves adrift from our contemporaries? And can we

communicate the gospel in exciting, modern terms, without there by distorting and even

destroying it? Can we be authentic and fresh at the same time, or do we have to choose?

The conclusion opens up the second problem, namely the tension between the now and

the not yet: I ask how far we can explore and experience now everything God has said and done

through Christ, without unwontedly trespassing into the area of what has not yet been reveled or

given. Alternatively, how can we develop a proper humility before the unrealized future without

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becoming complacent about our present degree of attainment? In between enquiries into the

influence open us of the past and future come twenty- one chapters about our presents Christian

responsibilities. I think of the contemporary Christian as a companion volume to issues facing

Christian today in that the latter explores questions of social ethics while this book relates to

question of doctrine and discipleship under the five headings. The Gospel, The Disciple, The

Bible, The Church, and the World.

I make no attempt to be systematic, let alone exhaustive; instead, I have selected a

number of issues which are either in the forefront of current debate or of importance in my own

thinking. And although the book is emphatically not a random collection of essays and sermons,

much of the material presented here has been used in lectures and addresses in different parts of

the world.

In addition to the topic of time, and the relations between past, present and future, there is

a second theme which runs through this book. It concerns the need to talk less and listen more;

Christians have a reputation for being garrulous. Needless to say, the words of God are much

more substantial than boom echoes in a cave for they are words of truth and of life, nevertheless,

the crucial thing is to listen to them with reverent attention and not drown them by our own

premature talkativeness.

In particular, as indicated in this book’s sub-title, I believe we are called to the difficult

and even painful task of double Listening. That is, we are to listen carefully (although of course

with differing degree of respect) both to the ancient word and to the modern world.

In order to relate the one to the other with combination of fidelity and sensitivity. Every

chapter is, in fact an attempt at double listening. Although I am sure that some are much less

successful than others. It is, however, my firm convection that, only if we can develop our

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capacity for double listening, will we avoid the opposite pitfall of unfaithfulness and irrelevance,

and be able to speak God’s words to God’s world with effectiveness today.

Our challenge is to be both conservative and radical at the same time, conservative in

guarding God’s revelation and radical in our application of it. Stott meets this challenge by

presenting the gospel in the way that speaks to modern dilemmas, fears and frustration, while

retaining Christianity’s authentic identity.

2. READING REFLECTION SUMMERY :CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Secular Challenge to the Church.

One of our greatest needs in today’s church is a sensitive awareness of the world around

us. If we are true servant of Jesus Christ, we will keep our eyes open (as he did) to human need

and our ears cocked to pick up cries of anguish. And we will respond compassionately and

constructively (as again he did) to people’s pain. This does not mean that in every respect we let

the world set the agenda for the church: as used to be said in the 1960’s, or that we trot like a

little dog at the world’s heels. To behave like that would be to confuse service (which is our

calling) with servility (which is not) and to interpret servility (which is virtue) in terms of

conformity (which is a vice). No, first and foremost we have to declare and do what God has sent

us to declare and do: we are not pay obsequious homage to the world. At the same time unless

we listen attentively to the voices of secular society, struggle to understand them and feed with

people in their frustration, anger, bewilderment and despair, weeping with those who weep. We

will lack authenticity as the disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. Instead, we will take the risk (as has

often been said) of answering questions nobody is asking. Scratching where nobody is itching,

supplying goods for which there is no demand in other words, of being totally irrelevant, which

in its long history the church has often been. I would like to set before you in this chapter there

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threefold quest of modern, secularized men and woman, which is, in fact, the universal, threefold

human aspiration. Which Jesus Christ himself arouses within people. Which he alone can satisfy

and which challenges the church to present him to the world in his fullness.

NEW PESPECTIVE:

1. The quest for transcendence: Until quest recently transcendence was regarded as a rather

obscure word. Whose use was limited to institutions of theological learning? there

students were introduce to the distinction between transcendence (meaning God above

and outside the created world)and immanence (meaning God present and active within

it).Nowadays, however, nearly everybody has some notion of transcendence, because it

has been popularized by the craze for transcendental meditation .

The quest for transcendence is, therefore, search for ultimate reality beyond the

material universe. It is a hottest against secularization. That is, against attempt to

eliminate God from his own world. It is a recognition that humans belongs do not live on

bread alone: for materialism cannot satisfy the human spirit.

2. The quest for significance: There is much in the modern would which not only smothers

our sense of transcendence, lout also diminishes (and even destroys) our sense of

personal significance, our believe that life has any meaning .But when human beings are

valued as persons, because of their intrinsic worth, everything changes. Men, women and

children are all honored. The sick are cared for and elderly enabled to live and die with

dignity. Dissidents are listened to prisoners’ rehabilitation, minorities protected, and the

oppressed set free. And the gospel is taken to the ends of the earth. Why? Because people

matter. Because every man, woman and child has world and significance as a human

being made in God’s image likeness.

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3. The quest for community: The modern technocratic society which destroys transcendence

and significance is destructive of community also. We are living in an area of social

disintegration people are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to one another so we go

on seeking the very thing which includes us-love in a loveless world. We proclaim that

God is love and that Jesus Christ often true community. We insist that the church is part

of the gospel. God’s purposes, we say is not merely to save isolated individuals, and so

perpetuate their loneliness, but to build a church, to create a new society even a new

humanity, in which racial national, social and sexual barriers have been abolished

moreover, this new community of Jesus dares to present itself as through alternative

society which eclipses the value and standards of the world. For there are Christian

communities all over the world where true, sacrificial, serving, supportive love is to be

found. Where such Christian love flourishes, its magnetism is almost irresistible. Bishop

Stephen Neill expressed it well:

Within the fellowship of those who are bound together by personal loyalty to Jesus

Christ, the relationship of love reaches an intimacy and intensity unknown elsewhere.

Friendship between the friends of Jesus of Nazareth is unlike any other friendship. This

ought to be normal experience within the Christian community… that in existing Christian

congregations it is so rate is a measure of the failure of the church as a whole to live up to

the purpose of its founder for it. Where it is experienced, especially across the barriers of

race, nationality and language, it is one of the most convincing evidences of the continuing

activity of Jesus among men

MATTERS ARISING FROM READING REFLECTION

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 Here, then is three fold quest on which human being are engage. although they might

well not articulate it thus, I think we may say that in looking for transcendence they are

trying to find God, in looking for significance they are to find themselves, and in looking for

community they are trying to find their neighbors. And this is human kind’s universal search

for God. Our neighbors and ourselves

Moreover, it is the Christian claim (confident I know, humble I hope) that those who seek

will find in Christ and in his new society. The contemporary secular quest seems to me to

constitute one of the greatest challenges and opportunities with which the church has ever

been presented people are openly looking for the very thing that Jesus Christ is offering

The only question is whether the church can be so radically renewed, by the spirit and the

word of God, that it offers an experience of transcendence through its worship, of

significance through it teaching, and of community through its fellowship for if so people

will turn to it eagerly in the quest, and our proclamation of the Goodnews will have a

credibility which otherwise its lacks.