From Savior to Teacher
In knowing me, you know that I tend to highlight the importance of context. Context is the cradle holding the text, so taking proper care of the text is to pay attention to that which holds the text.
I once heard a West Michigan pastor say, “We are quick to employ Jesus as Savior, but often as quickly fire him as our teacher.” (Pastor Jeff Manion, by the way).
That truth rings a little sharper and louder in an area often referred to as a Bible Belt. We love the idea of being saved, of course, but the wrestling with and walking out the way of Jesus is often inconvenient.
We tend to highlight what we are saved from, yet we too often hiccup when asked what we are saved for, in this world and in this day. A lot people talk about the sweet by and by, whatever that means, the problem is Jesus didn’t so much. What are you saved for… today? What is Life before death, because that tends to sew up Life after death, which I find helpful.
In paying attention to the biography accounts of Jesus’s life, it’s important we pick up on how much more Jesus stressed and taught discipleship, which includes and is an extension of salvation. To separate and compartmentalize is quite problematic, because they should be wonderful dance partners.
A popular text that is actually inviting a dance party of the understanding of Saved from and Saved for.
So if you believe deep in your heart that God raised Jesus from the pit of death and if you voice your allegiance by confessing the truth that “Jesus is Lord,” then you will be saved! — Romans 10:9
We see the key words believe, confess and saved in there, but we need to invite the context to help us walk out the text. It’s largely understood that Paul is writing to the church in Rome here, which is quite fascinating. Rome is the global military superpower of the day, and they lived with their boot on the back of the early church. Caesar was lord and Rome was the kingdom in which all were to pledge their allegiance. Rome is the way of wealth and power and luxury, one simply needed to offer their allegiance. Rome makes way for and allows you to flourish, or you can say no which would be to flounder. So says Caesar.
So when Paul says to confess that Jesus is Lord, it also means you are saying that Caesar is not. To offer allegiance to the kingdom of God, is to not go the way of empire. And to believe, which is better translated as trust, is to place one’s confidence in the truth that death does not have the last word. It is to trust that Jesus occupied death in order to overcome death. All death. Because God has obliterated the entire system of death and is making all things new. That kingdom has begun, so walk in this way.
And its is a Way. We can say the Way, but not in arrogance, rather in humility and with gratuity.
Because “Jesus is Lord,” is a pronouncement of generosity at a cosmic level. It must reach beyond our mind and ideas about God, and into all of our words and ways in this world… because we belong to the realm of the forever world. Paul doesn’t place this as somewhere else, but rather here… which is what Jesus said over and over. The kingdom is among you, around you, WITHIN you.
Resurrection is that big, and yet that deeply personal.
It doesn’t just save us from a fractured nation, it saves us for participating in the New Creation. It is both Savior and Teacher.
To claim Jesus as Lord means it is not the emperor, system, political party or nation state. It’s not complicated, but please do not think it isn’t hard. The current state of our country, including the American church, should be plenty enough evidence of that.
Each day is a journey in saying Yes to Jesus as Lord… King… Savior… Life Giver and Life Shaper.
Sorry Caesar, this seat is occupied for the One who is Savior and Teacher.
