to be in the world, but not of the world.18 Every word of Jesus is charged with the force of eternity, and this is no mere thought spoken lightly. Within this concept, which is anything but a finely nuanced distinction, lies an allusion to the nature of the gospel. It also defines the character of those who worship God incarnate in Christ. It demarcates the church’s dynamic and creative engagement with the world. The church’s most daring and effectual engagement will occur through a proper interpretation of what it means to be in but not of the world. The question is not if the followers of Christ will engage the world; it is, rather: What will be the nature of that engagement?
In one sense, the gospel tells us of God in Christ taking a radical stand against the world. Again, “Jesus Christ is the supreme divine intrusion into the world’s settled arrangements.”19 These “settled arrangements” are the world’s ways of operating and organizing itself which, at best, are only dimly consistent with truth. Christ’s stories, miracles, and conversations with people were provocative challenges to the prevailing ways of the world. His death on the cross is evidence enough that his challenges did not go unnoted. His resurrection gave birth to a tidal-wave movement which merely reinforces the impact of the intrusive nature of Christ’s gospel. In this sense, the gospel is radical; it challenges the world and the world’s ways of being at every point.
Yet it is part of the paradox of the gospel that God in Christ also takes a radical stand on behalf of the world. Christ is an advocate before God for the world. God came in Christ to make the good news of God’s reign clear if not comprehensible. The reconciling work of Christ changes everything and offers redemption and restoration to all of creation.20
Understanding the gospel requires acknowledging the dual impulses of “in but not of.” The gospel makes radical claims on our lives, and we become followers of Jesus. And like Jesus, Christ’s followers make choices against the world as well as acting on behalf of the world, living the gospel—the good news—into the world. The church exists for the glory of God and for the sake of the world, a dialectic balance requiring the church to be in the world without being of the world.
These dynamically corresponding impulses—in but not of the world—have been identified as “The Twin Forces of Christian History.””21 These two forces both find their source within the gospel itself, and must be held in continuous tension. The first is the “indigenizing principle . . . a homing instinct, which creates in diverse communities a sense that the church belongs there” (emphasis mine).22 The second is the “pilgrim principle that creates within the Christian community the sense that it is not fully at home in this world, so that it comes into tension with its society from its loyalty to Christ” (emphasis mine).23 The jeopardy in the first without sufficient measure of the second allows the church and its gospel to become too much “at home” in the culture within which it exists. The hazard of the second without sufficient measure of the first is that the church might isolate itself and its gospel from the culture within which it exists. In either case the church’s witness and the gospel’s influence are diminished, one because of a lack of distinction from the culture, the other because it is too far removed for viable persuasion. The greater danger is not to have too much of either impulse—only to have too little of one or the other.
Faithful worship and the church’s liturgy, defined as the work of the people of God, will intensify rather than abate the dynamic tension of in but not of. Such worship will shape participants for living both the indigenizing and pilgrim principles of the gospel. The gospel expressed faithfully through the lives of Christ’s followers will always challenge the world’s “settled arrangements” and serve the world for the world’s sake.
Any examination of the biblical record reveals the radical nature of all encounters with the God of Israel incarnate in Christ. Descriptions of encounters with God throughout history reveal the Lord God to be graciously confrontational. If followers of Christ respond faithfully to these radical encounters, the world will perceive the church—and its subsequent engagement with the world—as radical. As bearers of the message of Christ his followers are likely to threaten the status quo, turning the world upside down as it were, as per the assessment of the citizens of Thessalonica after Silas and Paul came to town. The church’s presentation of an alternative way of being in the world will challenge the world’s ways of being, its “settled arrangements.”
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