Lens

I was sitting in meeting, ruminating on 1 Corinthians 11:26. Rodger mentioned this a year or so ago, pointing out that when we announce the Lord's death, we're not merely announcing that He died, but all that His death entails.

So there I was, thinking about 1 Corinthians 11:26, and thinking about 1 Corinthians 2:1–2. Many years ago, someone mentioned to me that when Paul said he knew "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2), the context makes it clear he didn't mean he didn't think or talk about anything else. After all, this is the epistle that discusses church order, and marriage, and lawsuits, and a whole host of other issues. So he's not saying he's ignorant of anything but the Crucifixion. 

It seems to me that Paul was saying that the Lord Jesus Christ and His crucifixion were the lens through which he saw everything. So when he addresses church order, marriage, lawsuits, and so forth, he addresses them in through the lens that Jesus Christ was crucified.

I've heard people (especially Francis Schaeffer) talk about "a Christian worldview." Well, this might be Paul's version of a Christian worldview. Jesus Christ and Him crucified was the central fact of Paul's life, and everything he saw was in relation to this central fact.

I'm not doing a great job viewing everything through the lens of "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

If I were looking through that lens, I might not be terribly surprised at the terrible news on my phone every day. What else should I expect from a world that killed the Son of God?

If I were looking through that lens, I'd be a lot less angry about injustices I see around me. Surely the people who have and do reject Christ Jesus as Lord can't be expected to live any better than they do.

If I were looking through that lens, I might have a deeper appreciation for the beauty and majesty of the creation around me: it's a reflection of the One whose heart is unimaginably good. It's a testimony to the eternal power and God-ness of its creator (Romans 1:20).

If I were looking through that lens, I wouldn't be knowing anyone after the flesh, because I'd recognize that Christ's death ended the moral history of Adam, and His resurrection started something entirely new (1 Corinthians 15:45–49; 2 Corinthians 5:16).

So in the spirit of confessing our faults to one another, I will stop here and say that I've gotten distracted and had my eyes pulled away from the lens I ought to have been using. I've been far too likely to look at the world through a moral – but not necessarily Christ-centered – lens. I ought to have been seeing everything through the lens of "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

That is, after all, the Christian worldview.