Review:
Gordon Smith’s new book, Called to be Saints, has a core of
teaching that is Biblically and practically very sound.
He insists, wisely, that spiritual maturity is based on a vital union
with Christ, not an easy believism, and notes that “few pastors have gone so
far as to give their congregants a specific written statement of how they
define spiritual maturity, how it might be measured, the strategy for
facilitating such maturity or what scriptural passages are most helpful in
describing and fostering maturity” Gordon
T Smith, Called to be Saints, An
Invitation to Christian Maturity, IVP Academic, 2014. (p. 15). This is what Smith’s book sets out to do. But he is
unnecessarily verbose. His tendency to go over the same ground from every
possible angle dilutes his teaching and makes the book more laborious than this
important topic deserves.
M.L.
Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 5/9/14
Excerpts:
“Our discussion of what it
means to be mature in Christ must recognize that we will live out our entire
lives struggling with sin’s debilitating effects: the wrongs of others, the
strains on mental health, the flaws great and small that afflict us all…The sin
factor in our lives and in the world is what more than anything else, calls us
back to a deep recognition for our need for Christ, of what it means to live
under the mercy and in radical dependency of His grace…Personal maturity in
Christ will always be found in dynamic communion with the faith community…We
grow in grace together as God’s people…A key thread that must run through any
discussion of maturity in Christ is the formative power of suffering…as part of
the human predicament due to our moral and physical imperfections” (pp. 28, 29, 30).
Union with Christ
“What makes a Christian is
participation in the life of Christ Jesus, or union with Christ…There’s a
Christological concentration to the Christian experience…A mature disciple is
one who knows Jesus through the fruit of learning,…loves Jesus as the first and
deepest love,…serves Jesus so that all one does is in response to Christ’s call
and resolves in love to live under the benevolent authority of Christ” (pp. 37-39). “We participate in the very life of God through the Spirit
who draws us into the life of Christ…through the means of grace: the Word,
specifically the scriptures taught and preached, and the sacramental actions of
baptism and the Lord’s Supper” (p. 41).
“Christian discipleship is
marked by a focus on Christ,…the crucified and ascended Lord… Without an
emphasis on union with Christ, spiritual formation will be a frustrated effort
to become like Christ. It will eventually become nothing more than
self-development…Our only hope for transformation is that we be drawn into the
life of Christ such that we live our lives with Him, in union with Christ
individually, and together with others who are growing up into Him who is our
head…Salvation means more than justification, and justification means more than
a right standing with God. The gospel of Christ includes our
transformation…Justification is forgiveness, but it is also liberation from the
power of sin and acceptance into communion with God…We are united with Christ
through God’s justifying grace, and we grow into union with Christ through
God’s sanctifying grace” (p. 44, 50).
Wisdom
“A wise person, a person who
is mature in Christ, is one who, through particular practices, associated with
the scriptures, has come to a theological vision of life, work and
relationships. He or she has a Christian mind…Through immersion, through an
engagement of mind and heart and will, with the Christian cannon, we are drawn
into a way of thinking, into a vision that encounters the whole of reality
through a Christian imagination…A Christian mind is one that sees the created
order as brought into being by the power and goodness of God…A Christian mind
is also marked by a profound recognition of the power and presence of evil…It
is to see and feel that sin has marred this good order of God, but that in the
goodness and mercy of God, evil will be vanquished and justice will triumph…A
wise person is [also] a responsible citizen, living and working in deep respect
for the others in one’s community and in one’s world” (pp. 74, 75).
Vocational Holiness
“Vocational holiness means
embracing what we’re called to do and graciously declining that to which we are
not called. We learn to say “yes” and we learn to say “no”. Actually, we will
likely say “no” more often than we say “yes”. And when we say “no”, it is
specifically and precisely, so that we can say “yes” to that with which we are
called” (p. 91).
“Good work…reflects the
purposes of God in the world. And so it is work that meets a genuine need; it
is work that brings delight to God and to the created order; it is work that
alleviates suffering and brings healing…Our work is a participation in the work
of God…The redemptive purposes of God are as wide as his work of creation. In
the name of Christ and the power of the Spirit, women and men are now called
into every sphere and to every sector of society as witnesses to the reign of
Christ, and crucial to this vision of work is that we are co-creators, and
co-reconciler with Creator and redeemer” (pp. 93, 95-96).
“Self-knowledge is an
awareness of strengths and limitations...Perhaps what we should stress is that
we need to identify and cultivate those strengths and capacities that open up
the possibilities of fulfilling our deep passions. These are the strengths that
matter and these strengths merit cultivation” (100, 102).
“Vocational holiness is found
at the unique intersection of the purposes of God in the world, the way God has
made us personally and the circumstances in which we find ourselves…the calling
of God is always specific to a time and place, it is always historical…Vocation
is fulfilled as we learn to respond to opportunities, but also graciously
accept the constraints of our lives…Part of spiritual maturity is knowing when
to accept constraints and when to press against them, when to see opportunities
rather than closed doors” (pp. 103, 104, 107, 108).
“Vocational holiness also
suggests that a deep commitment to justice – by which we mean justice to all –
demarcates all good work. We are called to do our work with an attentiveness to
the poor, the marginalized (those without advocacy or access to the levers of
power) and the vulnerable” (p. 116).
An invitation to Social Holiness
“We are designed to live in
mutuality with others, a mutuality governed by informed by and infused with
love…The effects of sin are evident in the severing of interdependence – sin is
alienation from others, thus the salvation of God must include restoration of
this interdependence, and the church is the embodiment of this hope – a living
entity that illustrates mutuality and interdependency made possible by love…The
call to love comes easily to no one…Our hearts are bent on independence,
self-sufficiency and autonomy…Our propensity is to view the world as something
that revolves around us” (pp. 129, 132).
“Humility is a disposition of
heart that affirms that one is not the center of the universe; it is the
antitheses of self-centeredness. Humility is the posture of complete dependence
on God for the grace to live the Christian life…It is humility that enables us
to love rather than to judge our neighbor” (p. 134).
“We can love only as we
humbly grow in our proclivity to live de-centered lives, lives that are
oriented around, first, the centrality of Christ in the cosmos, and second, the
love of Christ for each one of us. Worship gives us perspective…Wisdom provides
the contours and grounding and content of love” (pp. 149, 152).
We’re called to be active,
proactive and intentional [in love] through hospitality…within Christian
community…, and then beyond the walls of the church to the world…Listening is
essential to this radical hospitality. It takes another seriously and gives him
space,… including an identification with the emotional contours of the other’s
life with the joys and sorrows that mark our shared human experience (pp. 137, 138, 139). “Forgiveness is utterly foundational…We do not
rehearse in our minds again and again how we have been wronged…To forgive means
to let it go, we no longer hold it against the other. We bless the other rather
than curse the one who’s wronged us…Forgiveness involves intentionality in
rebuilding the relationship through confession, apology and restitution” (pp. 142,143).
An Invitation to Emotional Holiness
“Joy is a tonality of
Christianity that penetrates everything” (p. 153). “The complete measure of our joy that will
never be taken away will not come until Christ Jesus makes all things well. In
the meantime…our joy now in the midst of this deep fragmentation [in life] is a
foretaste of what is about to come; we live in a broken world, but our
emotional focus is determined not by the fragmented world, but by the reality
that is yet to come…Sorrow does not define us, it is not the central emotional
space with which we live. What defines the church and the Christian,
intellectually and therefore emotionally, is the deep awareness that all will
be well” (p.
157). “The call to rejoice is not an act
of denial of the pain of the world…Men and women of deep joy are not those who
refuse to sorrow or grieve; rather, they are those who sorrow, but who have
learned that this is not where they choose to live. They come back to the
center” (p. 171).
“Faith and hope are the air
that we breathe and the basis for our joy. Faith speaks of trust…in the risen
and ascended Christ, and hope suggests confidence in the capacity of the
ascended Christ to fulfil God’s promises…To live in hope is to believe and act
in the conviction that though evil is strong, it does not have the last
word…Joy rests on good things that have happened and that will happen – from
the resurrection through the ascension and consuming reign of Christ” (pp. 161, 162).