While reading Romans 12 recently, I
tried to count how many sermons I heard on this Living Sacrifices passage. I
lost count pretty quickly. And in the midst of my religious nostalgia I was
reminded that many Christian traditions do not have the same fondness for this
text as my holiness peeps do. Not that they ignore it. They just emphasize
other passages more. Maybe even read a text like Rom 12 through the lens of
these other texts. So I started a list of different Christian traditions and
their favorite texts. I have some of the easy ones already: Lutherans and Rom 4
/ Gal 3; Pentecostals and Acts 2; Mennonites and Matt 5-7.
This little exercise left me with three questions:
(1) Do you have any to add?
(2) Can the so-called "emergent church" be characterized by any
particular text?
(3) Can we get any ecumenical use out of these various "faves", a.k.a. are they a good starting point for
dialogue?
At 1:25 PM, August 01, 2005, Amanda said...
Q. (2) Can the so-called "emergent
church" be characterized by any particular text?
Perhaps Matt. 9:16-17
"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old
garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will
burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour
new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."
(Only gender inclusive, of course)
At 7:27 PM, August 01, 2005, pk
said...
I've heard a couple Catholic doozys
out of John 6.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him."
At 12:38 AM, August 02, 2005, said...
The Churches of Christ camp out most often on Acts
2:38.
At 7:24 AM, August 02, 2005, Ken Schenck
said...
Baptists like verses like Romans 8:35ff and the
hand verse in John. I suspect Presbyterians are quite fond of Romans 9-11.
For pop Christianity see the verses in Purpose Driven Life and add a good dose
of Matthew 7:1 and John 8:7.
Mormons: John 10:34-38; Jehovah's Witnesses John 1:1
At 1:01 PM, August 02, 2005, Sniper said...
I agree with Amanda. I would like to think that the
emerging church leans heavily on the entire Sermon of the Mount (the social
justice/liberation side of the emerging church.)
Perhaps also some Psalms and verses of celebration and
praise.
At 3:58 PM, August 03, 2005, pk
said...
Okay, so it's not a Christian tradition exactly,
but I thought it'd be fun to throw in the mix.
Islam would point to John 14:26, the Counselor of course being Muhammad.
"When the Father sends the Counselor..."