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 excercise 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?
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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)
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."
The Churches of Christ camp out most often on Acts 2:38.
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
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.
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..."
Its possible. The church has to offer something that makes being forced to leave it traumatic. Depending on your point of view that's either a biblical lifestyle of spiritual abuse. My blog church-discipline blog is all about these issues. Think about the Amish or the Jehovah's witnesses for example.
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