As I understand it one aspect of being a “missional” Christian or “missional” church is seeking to be a blessing to the world. That is, missional Christians take seriously the call to love our neighbor.

Mark Lauterbach is reflecting on The Nature of True Virtue by Jonathan Edwards and included the following quote from Edwards in a recent post.

True virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to being in general. Or perhaps to speak more accurately, it is that consent, propensity and union of heart to being in general, that is immediately exercised in a general good will.

Mark interprets for us,

What he means by this is this (simply put): true virtue desires the highest good to all beings. It does not rejoice in evil, but rejoices in good. Being established upon the glory of God as the highest good, it desires all to enter into the enjoyment of God.

What he goes on to assert is that the test of all true benevolence is its root — is it established upon a desire to see all blessed! God is to be delighted in above all — and true benevolence would desire others to enjoy Him as well.

Mark also comments,

Edwards makes some painful statements regarding the trend of some Christians to be parochial. By parochial I mean the pursuit of the good of my particular family or church or society to the exclusion of all others. It is, in essence, a form of “As for me and my house — we will serve the Lord — and if we are well, let the rest of the world be hanged.” Private love with no interest in the public good is not love at all.

The conclusion? Edwards sounds missional in the material Mark is quoting from.

[tags]missional, mission, love, loving your neighbor, Jonathan Edwards[/tags]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Ministry, Mission, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.