Here's a little something that changed my life again recently.
Paul says, "For me to live is Christ." (Philippians 1:21)
That's it. Just Christ.
Not "For me to live is
serving Christ." Not "For me to live is
preaching Christ." Not "For me to live is
defending Christ." Not "For me to live is
obeying Christ." Not even "For me to live is
knowing Christ." Just Christ.
Not "Christ
and ministry." Not "Christ
and missions work." Not "Christ
and apologetics." Not Christ and.... you get the idea. Just Christ.
It's not that those are bad things to do; it's that they are not Christ. Serving, preaching, knowing, obeying are fine, but they are not Christ. Thus, they are not "the life" (Jn. 14:6). Thus, they are not the things to build your life around. They should be the predicate. Christ should be the subject.
This is about a way of life, not just a point of grammar. A moment ago in the epistle, Paul wrote of some men who preached the gospel out of spite, hoping to annoy Paul during his imprisonment (see Phil. 1:16-17). What is his response? "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth,
Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice." (Phil. 1:18 NKJV).
Not "Paul is preaching Christ" (Christ as predicate). "Christ is preached" (Christ as subject). By whom? Doesn't matter.
If Christ had been the predicate, Paul might have been twinged with envy or bitterness. Since Christ is the subject, it doesn't make any difference to Paul whether he is doing the teaching or someone else is. His sentence begins with Christ, not with Paul.
I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't the key to understanding everything about the Christian life. It bears out many other places in Scripture as well:
"I [Jesus] am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5 ESV)
"...In all wisdom and insight He [God] made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth." (Ephesians 1:8-10 NASB)
Is Christ the subject of your sentence, or is He the predicate?
Comments (9)
ryc: yeah, I'm told that there is good country music out there, but I'm not sure how much I believe it. I've certainly never heard any. It sounds a bit like an urban legend to me... maybe we should ask the Mythbusters to check it out.
RYC- naw...I didn't think that they were stumpers, they are just the first questions I began to ask myself in my desire to flesh out my adult faith, after I realized it was ok to question everything that I had once believed simply because I was told to believe it.
Honestly, I consider myself an 'old earther' however I do not doubt for a micro-second that God could create the world in seven days, or seven seconds...or even an instant. I just view the first three chapters of Genesis written not to tell history, but to introduce us to macrocosmic uber-complex inconceivable concepts in the way that you teach a child to walk.
When I wrote inconceivable I was immediately reminded of the dude from "A Princess Bride."
The speaking, omg! It went so much better than I´ve expected. Thanksgoodness I wasn´t nervous at all and after the mass, people were all wishing me good luck and saying how good it is that someone is doing church youth work again... so all in all I´ve received good feedback. But of course, every time someone wants to change something he gets friends and enemies. Our priest and the pastoral accosiate kinda ignore my work, or at least don´t show any interest
My mother is an english teacher, she would get a kick out of the question you ended with even without the rest. LOL!!!!
Very good post I enjoyed it!
I just poped in because I used some of your comments on the worship cafe from the otherday in one of my posts today. I was wondering if you wanted me to put up a link to your site as well.
I don't usually do links with out permission that's why I don't have a link up right now.
Just drop by and let me know and I'll take care of it.RE: Thanks for the heads up. I'll go ahead and sub to you so I'm sure to not miss it. Hope you don't mind.
Also I added your link to my post. I meant to do it yesterday but my computertime got cut short. I just have seen some people get finicky about linking to their sites so I always ask before doing so.
PS: In case you want to go back and take a look. several others (some who don't usually comment on worship cafe) commented after you.
Later!!!
Thanks for the encouraging post!
RYC: I do consider myself very lucky.
God is incredibly good!