Barnabas File

My friend, Mike Smith, says, “Don’t say Baptists have never done a certain thing.     Baptists have done a lot of things.”     This is not only true for the Baptist tribe, but the Christian Church historically.     As we study the history of the Church, we observe a continuing evolution of thought and practice.    This is especially true in relation to what we call the mission of the church. Mission has been continually reconceptualized down through the last two thousand years. Missiologist David Bosch and theologian Han Kung suggested that the church has gone through several “paradigm shifts” in relation to its mission.  We might consider the changes in this way: The apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity was based on the expectation of the imminent or impending return of Christ. The Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period addressed this situation: “What do you do when Christ does not return as expected?” T...

The latest cultural putdown and internet meme seems to be “OK Boomer.” In  The New York Times,  writer   Taylor Lorenz defines this as, " Generation Z’s endlessly repeated retort  to the problem of older people who just don’t get it , a rallying cry for millions of fed up kids." She writes that teenagers use the term as a comeback to "basically any person over 30 who says something condescending about young people — and the issues that matter to them." Let me clarify at the outset that I am not a Boomer.  I am part of what is often termed the Silent Generation .  Born during World War Two, I was raised by those that I still consider the Greatest Generation, people who came out of two major wars and an economic depression but never gave up.  According to those who study such things, people of my generation “exhibit a strong loyalty to their personal beliefs and possess a strong work ethic.”  For the most part, the descri...

“Some see things as they are and ask why.  Others dream things that never were and ask why not?”--George Bernard Shaw One of the greatest challenges that Jesus seems to have encountered with his disciples was a lack of imagination.  He used parables and illustrations to explain his vision of the Kingdom and expand their perception, but their responses were often tied to the old paradigms; for example, “Who will sit on your right hand and your left hand the kingdom of God?” (see Matthew 20:20-28) Although Jesus built upon the Hebrew teachings about the Kingdom of God, they only provided a beginning point for him.  He was not interested in the preservation of the Temple in Jerusalem and its sacrificial practices.  He was not concerned about elevating the people of Israel to the top rung of civilization.  He could care less about the place of Israel in the world economy of the day.  Jesus was invested in fulfilling ...