I was reading a chapter from Mark Driscoll's book, Vintage Jesus and I thought I'd post a blog asking for your feedback. Here is the premise of the chapter. Jesus came to earth and revealed himself to us in each of these three ways; prophet, priest, and king. "As prophet, Jesus confronts us and calls us to repentance of sin. As priest, Jesus comforts us and comes to us to save us from sin and enable new life. As king, Jesus commands us to relinquish authority of our life so that every facet of our life is under constant sanctifying transformation." Below are general statements about these categories taken from his book.
1. Prophet + King - Priest = Jesus of Fundamentalism. Its weakness is that Jesus is cold, distant, stern, harsh and even cruel. This lacks the peace, mercy, and forgiveness of sins.
2. Prophet + Priest - King = Jesus of Evangelicalism. Its weakness is that people call Jesus Lord, call his Word true, and then do whatever they want in their "personal life" (including sin) because they are king, not Jesus.
3. Priest + King - Prophet = Jesus of Liberalism. Its weakness is that Jesus is seen as someone who would never offend us, raise his voice, hurt our feelings, speak harshly, or command individuals to repent with a sense of urgency.
My question is, which one of these three categories do you find yourself in? Personally I find myself in the second category. Sadly, I love to do things my way. Whenever I come across a difficult passage in scripture such as the sermon on the mount, I tend to flip right on by thinking that someday when I'm really "holy" and a "great Christian" I'll be able to live a certain way. So, where do you stand?
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