Signposts

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Signposts has come to an end. The passion I felt for expressing Christian musings here has been transmuted into a desire to interact in person with my fellow believers.

In other words, I wish to teach in the Church.

This is far different, and far more demanding, than throwing a few eccentric Christian thoughts onto the Web and hoping for a response.

For one thing, in the flesh, I get grilled, and grilling is good for a would-be teacher of the faith.

If I go overboard with my theology of suffering, somebody is likely to bring me up short and say, “Hey, doesn’t the Heidelberg Catechism say the purpose of humankind is to know God and enjoy Him forever?”

This forum has for me become too egocentric, to0 self-concious, too much of an attempt to sound brilliant so that my readers will be hungry for more.

In short, I have been secretly coveting guru status.

This is the antithesis of good Christian teaching.

Sure, I’ve got a lot of thoughts floating around in my head, but if I don’t constantly direct people to Christ and away from myself, then I will no longer be teaching the gospel.

I am no avatar of Christian life. I am a fellow traveller, a partner pilgrim on this long and mysterious journey of faith.

If I can do some effective teaching, help others to continue walking, then I will be happy.

But if God wishes me to do something else in the Body of Christ, I’m sure he will show me what that is.

I have enjoyed hearing from all of you: The believers, the waverers, the skeptics (all of us at one time or another),  and the out-and-out atheists.

You have sharpened me, corrected me, challenged me and inspired me.

My hope is that this blog has kindled in you a desire to know more about this faith that has sustained me and so many others on their earthly pilgrimage.

Christianity has done this by proposing the most radical kind of hope, i. e. the renewal of the entire world, and us with it.

Christianity pulls out all the stops. It is no crutch; it is either a full blown rejuvination or it is nothing.

“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied,” said St. Paul in a famous passage.

If you think of religion as a coping strategy to get through our present condition, then you must rethink the category “religion” in relation to what Christians proclaim.

They do not propose a coping strategy, a psychology, a psychic system that gives a more fulfilling life, more happiness, etc.

They propose an event that is the utter upsetting of every thought, concept, idea, attitude and scheme on the planet.

If you have any desire at all to understand just what it is that Christians have been saying from the beginning, I can recommend no better teacher than N. T. Wright.

He is a fellow traveller too, but a far more learned and experienced expositor of the faith  than I.

So fare thee well, my online (and sometimes face-to-face) compatriots.

May you know the truth, and may the truth set you free.