The Lord of the Sabbath – Sermon Notes on Mark 2:23-28

“The Disciples Plucking Grain on the Sabbath” by Gustave Dore (1832-1883)

Mark 2:23-28 (ESV) One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.  24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”  25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Read more »

A Review of Boyd’s “The Myth of a Christian Religion”

Following is a brief review of Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009).

This is a book that describes what it looks like to live submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ in twenty-first century America. Boyd addresses the sad and discouraging fact that many professing Christians appear to be totally submerged in the worldly norms and values of our fallen and wicked culture. In this, they are “indistinguishable” from the agnostics, atheists, and peoples of other faiths around them. There is a “radical contradiction between the lifestyle Jesus calls his followers to embrace…and the typical American lifestyle” (11). Boyd calls on Christ-followers to embrace the extreme counter-cultural call of the gospel and lifestyle of the Kingdom.

At the heart of much of our consumer-oriented evangelicalism today is the “magical” sinner’s prayer. Boyd points out that the misuse of Romans 10:13 has done much to empty the gospel of its saving power: “We’re basically [teaching people to purchase] fire insurance with a magical prayer” (167). This has, in my opinion, created legions of unconverted, unloving, gospel-inoculated, church-going sinners who may mistakenly believe that they are co-heirs with Jesus Christ in His Kingdom. People who have no intention of submitting their lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ have placed their trust in the power of a prayer rather than in the power of the One who commands their ultimate love, affection, and allegiance. The object of the prayer is thus ignored in pursuit of the prayer itself. In this, modern evangelical Christianity has become no different than the pagan religions of the world, with their magical incantations and recitations.

Boyd points out that a saving relationship with Christ “must be one of submission. We are ‘saved’ when we authentically surrender our life to Christ, enthroning him as Lord” (167). The remainder of this work details what it looks like, from a biblical perspective, to live out the radical implications of the lordship of Christ in our daily lives.

After two foundational and introductory chapters on the nature of the church universal and the separate nature of the “two kingdoms” (the Kingdom of the Cross and the Kingdom of the Sword) that many evangelicals tend to so easily confuse and conflate, Boyd concisely and adeptly tackles what I believe to the largest issues confronting the body of Christ in America today: heart idolatry, judgmentalism, religiosity, Western individualism, nationalism/patriotism, violence, social oppression, racism, poverty and greed, abuse of the creation, sex, and secularism. A failure to live like Christ in each of these areas has done much damage to the church’s gospel witness and credibility.

This book may be extremely difficult and challenging for many within the conservative evangelical church. All the more reason, then, to honestly and openly engage the truth it contains. I commend Boyd for the courage it took to write this book and to take the bold stand that he takes for the Kingdom and the cause of Christ.