J-Curve Session 21: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 21)

Class Description: Session 21, Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Discovering the Power of the Resurrection: What Makes the J Go Up?

One of the things I’ve appreciated so much about what Paul Miller has done throughout this book is that he’s deepened and enriched so much of what I’ve already understood. He’s taken me deeper.  In this chapter he shows us how much meat is on the bone of the gospel when we refuse to separate the narrative of Jesus from the skeleton of sin, atonement and faith.  He also pulls back the curtain to show us precisely why resurrection is so certain!

*** We are currently unable to produce video from this session due to technical difficulties.

Class Notes:

1.    PM begins by asking the question ‘What makes the J Curve go up?’, and then answers the question by pointing at the apostle Paul’s definition of the gospel from Romans.  On p 168 he provides a summary statement, “At its simplest, the gospel is a story of a person who loves deeply and gives himself completely.”  Further down on the same page he says this...  “If we miss the story of Jesus, we depersonalize the gospel.  We can never separate the story from the person - the two are completely intertwined.  If I want to get to know you, I have to know your story.”

a.    How simple has it been for us in the past to explain the basic tenets of the gospel formulaically without telling the story of Jesus?

b.    Do you think PM is providing a solid and important corrective here?  Why might talking about the gospel in narrative be more powerful and take us as well as our hearers deeper?

2.    Read 1 Cor. 15:1 & 3-8.  Then read p 169 paragraph just above the diagram over to the top paragraph on p 170.

a.    Respond to the following: “My mistake was equating justification my faith with the gospel.  But the gospel encompasses a larger picture.”

b.    Respond to the following: “Jesus’s death for us resides at the center of the gospel, but if you reduce the gospel to justification by faith, you depersonalize it.”

c.     Why is the conversation we’ve had so far foundational for answering PM’s original question in this chapter, namely, ‘What makes the J Curve go up?’

PM is about to launch into demonstrating the absolutely critical role of the Holy Spirit in the resurrection of Jesus himself.  We’re about to see how Jesus and the Spirit are functionally one.  If we, at the front end of this discussion, don’t get how the gospel is not a formula, but a person, we’ll never grasp how the secret to resurrection is also wrapped up in a person and not a formula.

3.    P 170 Read the last two paragraphs over through the paragraph below the graphic on p 171.

a.    Is it clear to you that the Holy Spirit is active and functioning in the very resurrection of Jesus from the grave?  Respond to the following... ‘The Spirit powers Jesus’s resurrection.  No Spirit, no resurrection.’

b.    How has Spirit transformed Jesus in resurrection?  In other words, what is different about the ministry of Jesus precisely because of the transformative power of the Spirit?

4.    Consider the first full paragraph on the top of p 172.  Look at John 16:5-8.  

a.    How did Jesus anticipate that the Holy Spirit would transform his own ministry to the world?

5.    Read the next full paragraph p 172 ‘As we’ve seen...’  Interesting to consider that during his earthly ministry Jesus was largely confined by the same space/time continuum that you and I experience.  The involvement of the Holy Spirit removes those limitations.  Consider the diagram on p 172.

6.    PM has been advocating throughout this chapter that the gospel has everything to do with our connection to Christ.  The next step is to recognize that resurrection living has everything to do with our connection to the Spirit of Christ.  Let’s consider Romans 8:5-11.

a.    Why should the truths represented in Romans 8 and the diagram on p 172 fill us with remarkable hope?

b.    Read footnote 9 beginning w. “He (Christ) alone...  

c.     Now here’s where the rubber meets the road...  Do we actually believe that the same person (the Spirit) who had the power to raise Jesus’ lifeless body and transform his ministry into a world-wide ministry not hindered by space and time.... Do we actually believe that that Spirit lives in us?  Do our actions and attitudes demonstrate that we actually believe that?

7.    Can somebody please give us the cliff notes version of Kim’s pacing story?

a.    How did Kim’s neediness constrict PM’s world?  What did it require of him?  How did he die?

b.    What kind of J Curve was he in?

c.     How did he begin to embrace that J Curve?

d.    What kinds of things did the Spirit accomplish that were so far beyond what PM had prayed for?

e.    How did this expand PM in resurrection?  (see p 175 first paragraph under heading.)

8.    Respond to the following: P 175 “How do I recognize the Spirit?  I’m never sure initially, and I’m cautious to label something ‘the Spirit,’ but he has a distinctive voice.  If it’s a call to love, to repent, or to go lower it’s usually him. After all, he’s the Holy Spirit.’

9.    P 175 final two paragraphs:

a.    Just like embracing our J Curves has required us to slow down, look, pay attention, it seems to me that recognizing our resurrections because of the Spirit’s work requires us to slow down to take stock even more.  Why?

J-Curve Session 22: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 22)

Class Description: Session 22, Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Repersonalizing the Resurrection: Discovering the Forgotten Half of the J Curve

Before jumping into chapter 22, I wanted to jump back to p 141 to provide a quick, but I think helpful, clarification regarding something that we discussed a number of weeks ago.

There are aspects of our resurrections that are hidden in the deaths we suffer.  Recognizing those aspects and the surety of their coming can help to provide the motivation to embrace our J Curves.  Not surprisingly, each of these aspects finds us identifying with Christ.  

*** We are currently unable to produce video from this session due to technical difficulties.

Class Notes:

1.    P 177-78 Read connecting paragraph and first couple sentences of the next paragraph.

a.    Let’s consider Romans 8:31-39.

i.     If in the resurrection we have the Almighty declaring, “That’s my Boy,” and if we’re hidden in Christ, what should that mean to us?  How is this truth designed to combat the doubts any of us struggle against when we’re overwhelmed by our own sinfulness and guilt? 

2.    P 179 “The instrument of Jesus’s humbling (the cross) was the vehicle for his exaltation.  Rising is embedded in dying.”

a.    If Jesus had refused to go to the cross (by calling down the 12 legions of angels for example) how would that have short-circuited his exaltation?

b.    How was rising embedded in his death? (See John 12:23-25) 

3.    P 179-180 “If rising is embedded in dying...”over through top paragraph on 180.

a.    Conversation w. Scott Weeks re. Steve’s preaching.

b.    Can any of us look back on significant suffering in our lives that the Lord used for real good?

i.     Andi C. cancer - ministry to Kim

c.     How should remembering these kinds of resurrections help us to embrace our present-day sufferings?

4.    P 180 1stparagraph: “Jesus is active in death, but passive in resurrection.”

a.    What does it take to remain passive in resurrection?

5.    P 181 2ndparagraph “Knowing that I do...” read down to the next heading.

a.    Because our flesh naturally reacts against suffering, we can find ourselves attempting to short-circuit God’s intentions in resurrection.  Can you think of any longer-term suffering that you submitted to where you actually surrendered yourself to his scalpel and embraced the pain?  What kind of resurrection did God craft?  What did you see in your rearview mirror?

6.    In this next section PM begins discussing Christ’s exaltation.  How much time do you and I spend thinking about the day that Jesus’s kingdom is consummated?  How do you envision participating in his exaltation? What do you expect that to be like?

7.    P 183 final paragraph.

a.    Do you agree with PM’s assessment here?  Has this been your experience?

b.    If we’re doing this, why might we be doing it?

c.     If this is true, what are we missing by failing to give Jesus’s resurrection appropriate attention and energy?  What might the Church stand to gain by giving Jesus’ resurrection the attention it deserves? 

8.    P 185 second full paragraph “Jesus’s single-word response...” and half-way through next paragraph.

a.    Let’s look at John 10:14-15.  I love how PM describes knowing how Jesus talks, the way he relates to people.  How do you find yourselves recognizing his voice?

b.    “”It’s him.  He’s alive!”  That single word pierced her heart, and she lunged for Jesus, likely falling at his feet.”

i.     Does that same thought move us the way it moved Mary Magdalene?  What would you and I need to do to get that thought to provide real inertia in our lives?

J-Curve Session 23: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 23)

Class Description: Session 23, Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Looking through a Resurrection Lens: The J Curve Transforms our Vision of Life.

What if you and I could actually learn to view the deaths we suffer through the same lens as the apostle Paul viewed them?  Perspective can change everything. It can even transform anxiety into joy.

Class Notes:

1.    P 186 first paragraph of the chapter.  I’ve seldom been tempted to memorize a paragraph from a book that is not Scripture, but this paragraph gripped me...

a.    The trials I face in my life tend to be far less dire than what Paul endured in prison, and yet the apostle tended to be far more buoyant than I am.   Can you relate?  What is PM pointing to as the difference?  What made the difference for the apostle Paul?

b.    Stare at the final sentence of the paragraph.

i.     Do you experience this ‘modern commitment to anxiety?’

ii.     Did you long for ‘reflexive joy’ to more a part of your own narrative as you read this?

2.    P 187 consider the two paragraphs of Phil. 1:12-14 (the first being PM’s mock paragraph).

a.    We can easily recognize how two different people would produce each of those paragraphs having lived through exactly the same experience. 

i.     What is the only difference between paragraph 1 and paragraph 2?

ii.     When we’re experiencing hardship how can we train ourselves to slow down, take stock, and evaluate our perspective?

3.    Pp 187-88 Here we find PM unpacking four remarkable perspectives:

a.    Paul isn’t focused on himself:  This is avoiding the mindset of the manager or therapist.  He rejects the view of the fragile self and the victim mentality.  Instead, he embodies Christ.  He’s self-forgetful.

b.    Paul is entirely focused on Jesus and the advancement of the gospel: Fear, self-protection, and anxiety completely suffocate in the atmosphere of Paul’s love for the Savior who bought him.

c.     His imprisonment is in Christ: He’s embodying, incarnating, taking on the character of Christ, participating in the divine nature.

d.    Instead of limiting the gospel, Paul’s imprisonment accelerates it: He rejoices in the fact that people are seeing Jesus!

In the midst of his own dying, he’s on the lookout for resurrections.  But it’s not a ‘happy lens.’  He hunts for resurrection-like activity because he experiences the Spirit bringing life out of death.  Paul’s location in Christ’s dying and rising shapes how he views his chains cutting into his wrists and ankles.  He looks at the dying (chains) through the lens of resurrection (the gospel going out even more).  Dying no longer has the last word.

i.     Can we pause long enough to concede what a radical way of thinking this is?

ii.     Let’s be candid, how much do you and I actually want to learn how to view suffering through this lens?  If we want it, why do we want it?

4.    P 189 top. If you don’t view your circumstances through a resurrection lens...  (they) can bend your soul to the pain.

a.    Interact w. that statement.  Where do we land when we refuse this lens?

5.    P 189 halfway down “Nik Ripkin” Read paragraph and look at Colossians 1:24.

a.    Does Dimitri’s story fill up Colossians 1:24 a bit for us?  How so?

b.    What do you think might have been going through Dimitri’s mind when the other prisoners began singing?

6.    P 191 1stparagraph under ‘Seeing Resurrection in the Middle of Death’

a.    PM discusses viewing hardship through a resurrection lens as a  conscious choice - one that Matt can make as he sits next to his ex-wife.  

i.     Clearly the Holy Spirit has to be involved if any of us are to make a conscious choice like that, but to what extent is this a skill that can be learned and cultivated?

ii.     How much of an uptick in the quality of life would it be for any of us learn to exercise this kind of perspective. What do we have to gain?

J-Curve Session 24: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 24)

Class Description: Session 24, Chapter 24

Chapter 24: The Secret of an Irritation-Free Life: The J Curve Cures Grumbling (Mention UnOffendable) 

Consciously re-enacting the story of Jesus sustains the outer shell of Christin behavior - the purity of love.  You see, the problem with grumpiness is you’ve become too important.  The J Curve kills your self-importance.

*** We are currently unable to produce video from this session due to technical difficulties.

Class Notes:

1.    P. 194 whole paragraph beginning w. “I’ve detected...”  Then P. 193 read the passage from Philippians 2.

a.    Why does remembering the context from which Paul was writing so profoundly inform for us the weight of Phil. 2:14-16?

b.    Are you and I living as if the spirit of the age is indeed more powerful than the Spirit of Jesus?  How do our lives testify to what we actually believe? 

2.    P. 195 “Here’s the point .....  so imagination dies.” 

a.    Describe the gap between the moralizing taking place in the ‘good sermon’ and the beauty of what Paul is attempting to create.  Why does it matter?

b.    He ends with talking about how in simply moralizing leads to the death of imagination.  Why does imagination matter, and what kind of imagination is PM talking about here?  The imagination to see what exactly? (Hint: Look down at p 196 bottom Col. 3) 

3.    P. 196 halfway down.  “Paul frames...”

a.    What are the two parts of this hidden I beam?

b.    Why are they only possible when, “sustained by the beaten path of the J Curve?”

4.    P. 196 bottom Col. 3 passage then... P. 197 By embedding our obedience in the J Curve, he wants to imprint us with the image of Jesus.  His image drives Paul’s pristine visions of goodness that make the pagan Stoic visions of goodness pale in comparison. Paul’s vision of the good reflects the sheer, unbelievable beauty of Jesus.  The ongoing process of dying and rising with Christ imprints his image on us...You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col. 3:9b-10) Participating in the J Curve creates a new person who looks like Jesus.

a.    How does Paul’s vision of the good make the Stoic visions of the good pale by comparison?  How is it better?

b.    From Colossians 3, what things above are we to set our hearts on? Let’s make a whiteboard list.

c.     Too tired to look like Jesus.

5.    P. 197 “Then, in the next breath...” and down through Col. 3 passage:

a.    Who has embodied Christ in your direction in these kinds of ways and how did they do it?

i.     Did you notice it when it first happened or only after some time had passed?

ii.     How did it make you feel?

iii.     Did witnessing this kind of embodiment of Christ in someone else make you want to embody him yourself?  Discuss.

6.    P. 198 Read final two paragraphs:

a.    Respond to the first sentence of that second paragraph...  Describe what kinds of weights PM envisions us bearing in love.

b.    Caution re. a legalistic approach to what we’re discussing.  This is not a ‘grit your teeth and be a better person’ approach to embodying Christ.  What steps need to be in place for us to actually live out what we’re called to here?

c.     How do the things we’ve been discussing this morning cure grumbling?

J-Curve Session 25: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 25)

Class Description: Session 25, Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Resurrection Realism: The J Curve Protects Us from Cynicism

Paul’s resurrections realism avoids the depression of pessimism and the denial of optimism.  A resurrection lens allows us to live truly victorious lives that can look any enemy in the face - cancer, slander or depression.

Class Notes:

1.    P 199 Mere optimism is blind to the dark side of life and thus collapses in the face of evil.

a.    Why is that true?  Why does mere optimism collapse?

2.    P 199-200 Connecting paragraphs and Phil. 1 quote.

a.    How does the constant consciousness of Jesus’ resurrection obliterate the victim narrative? (Turn over to P 201 - first full paragraph.)

b.    Can you think of some mundane work that you did this week - maybe something that felt like a little death?  How would focusing on Christ’s resurrection have freed you to rejoice even in something that was just plain boring?

3.    P 200 Paul encourages the Philippians to pray.... (focus esp. on the final two sentences of the paragraph)

a.    For Christians, dying is not failure, but rather the promise of resurrection!  

b.    What suffering are you and I enduring right now in which it’s difficult to actually believe that?  Where are we fighting against our acorns cracking open?

4.    P 201-202 Stage 1: Paganism

            Realistic Despair

a.    How does this worldview make complete sense?  Why do many people end up here with Eeyore?

5.    P 202 Stage 2: Christianity - Realistic Hope (Read paragraph)

a.    Why does this realistic hope enable people not only to build castle walls, but to sail around the world?  Why does it transform life into an adventure?

6.    P 202-203 Stages 2 & 3

a.    How do secular liberalism and contemporary culture strip the foundations out of hope, and where do they leave us?

7.    P 204 Paul’s resurrections realism avoids the depression of pessimism and the denial of optimism.  A resurrection lens allows us to live truly victorious lives that can look any enemy in the face - cancer, slander or depression.

a.    What is the practical application of this reality?  What do we do with it?  How would you like to live out of the strength of this reality this week?  What might it look like for you?

J-Curve Session 26: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 26)

Class Description: Session 26, Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Delaying the Resurrection for Love: Saying no to good desire

Sometimes resurrections don’t belong to us, but to the people for whom we’re enduring.  We have to look outside ourselves to recognize new life taking shape.

*** We are currently unable to produce video from this session due to technical difficulties.

Class Notes:

P 205 Philippians 1:21-23

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;

1.    It’s not that the apostle actually has the ability to choose one of these resurrections for himself, but he’s wrestling with them.  Do you recognize the two options here?  What are the competing resurrections?

2.    P 206 Like Jesus, Paul doesn’t grasp at his right to be with the Father.  He leaves heaven behind.  He substitutes his joy at the prospect of being with Jesus for the needs of the churches.  Look at the chart on pp 206-7.  Do you remember the steps of love from several chapters ago?

a.    How are we identified with Christ as we reenact this process?

b.    Why are steps 1 and 2 so inextricably linked, and how do we go about step 1? What does that actually look like?

c.     In what way does step 3 transform suffering?

d.    Can step 4 become light and momentary?  How? 

3.    (R)emaining alive is death for Paul, while death by execution is life.  Paul is dying to die!  His love for Jesus-for the person-colors Paul’s life goals. Jesus’s enthronement, his physical presence in heaven, is as real for Paul as the book you are holding. He longs ‘to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.’ ....  IN this battle between the two great loves of Paul’s life, the church wins:  24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, (Phil. 1:24-25).... Love shapes the dying side of the J curve; it also shapes the rising side.

a.    Do you recognize Paul looking for resurrection here?  He’s scanning the horizon looking for it.  Interesting, he doesn’t just look for it in himself! Remember PM when he took Kim to Florida.  Where was he looking for resurrection? 

4.    P 208 But Paul, who made an actual journey to heaven, shapes his decision-making on the model of Jesus’s death.  Dying with Christ for the sake of love trumps his own desires and provides a map out of the maze of his personal feelings.

a.    Why is this map so important?  What inevitably happens without it?

b.    Who shapes our resurrections?

5.    P 209 Notice that Paul sees option 2 (doing something for himself) as a legitimate choice.  Caring for his own desires is not wrong.  We can tell that because he agonizes over this decision.

a.    Let’s wrestle with that statement a bit.  Agree / disagree - why?

6.    Pp 210-11 Let’s work through both lists - my resurrection/your resurrection.  I think these lists will help us identify the kinds of things we’re looking for as we lift our eyes to the horizon.

J-Curve Session 27: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 27)

Class Description: Session 27, Chapter 27)

Chapter 27: Becoming Human Again: The Emotional Life of the J Curve

Paul’s emotions rise and fall on good or bad news.  The path of Christ doesn’t lift these Christ bearers above life; it sweeps them into life’s currents, fully alive to both their exterior world and their interior response.

Class Notes:

1.    P 214 For the next 250 years, thousands of martyrs would pour out their lives on the sacrifice of the church’s faith. Martyrs were the celebrities of the early church.

a.    Contrast this concept with what’s going on on the bottom of p 220-221.  Why would the church be so much rightly-aligned to celebrate the martyrs?

2.    P 215 Read through the entire account of Phil. 2:19-30.  While we read, highlight/underline the words that PM has placed for us in italics.

a.    Is there anything about these emotional highs and lows that gives you pause? Have you seen them before? Have you done business with them?

b.    Interesting, these men are incarnating Christ, and yet they are experiencing real and strong emotions connected to their circumstances.  If they’re incarnating Christ, then we have to ask whether Jesus himself experienced these same strong emotions.  Look over at p 217 second paragraph.  Read and discuss this concept.

c.     What role did emotions seem to play in the lives of Paul, Timothy and Epaphroditus?

3.    P 216 first paragraph under The Passions of Dying and Rising.

a.    How are emotions like longing and distress a real and genuine part of coming alive?

4.    P 216-17 Paul’s emotions rise and fall on good or bad news.  The path of Christ doesn’t lift these Christ bearers above life; it sweeps them into life’s currents, fully alive to both their exterior world and their interior response. They don’t manage their emotions; their emotions reflect their full and honest participation in Jesus’s life. Joy is not a rule.  Like sadness, it reflects Paul’s grip on reality.

a.    What does it mean to be fully alive to the exterior world?  What does PM mean here?

b.    What does it mean to be fully alive to their interior response?

c.     Respond to the comment that they ‘don’t manage their emotions’.  If they don’t manage their emotions, how do they avoid being ruled by them?  Where’s the line?

d.    Interesting here the PM says that their emotions reflect their full and honest participation in Jesus’s life!  Hmmmm, so incarnating actually means that we experience distress, anger, sadness, grief?  Discuss. 

5.    P 218 look at the seven-step tapestry.  Other than the emotions described here, what word is repeated in one form or another in all but one of these 7 steps?   Paul, Epaphroditus, and Timothy give us a leaving, breathing example of what Jesus looks like embodied - an entire community swept up in a symphony of love.  In every sense of the word, they are both in Christ and in one another.

a.    Describe how they are in Christ.

b.    How are they in one another?

6.    P 220 Full paragraph: The character that previously embodied...

a.    How convicting is this?  Why is it convicting for many of us?

J-Curve Session 29: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 29)

Class Description: Session 29, Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Seeing the Big Picture: Multiyear Dying and Rising

During some of my lowest years, I tuned myself into the “resurrection channel” by beginning the early morning habit of reviewing the previous day and thanking God for little mercies, little resurrections. When everything was dark, the Spirit prompted me to hunt for life.

Class Notes:

1.    Pp 234-235 connecting paragraph.

a.    Surely Paul must’ve had flashbacks to the riot in Philippi.  He’d learned to be on the lookout for resurrections even in the midst of absolute chaos.  One of the signs that we’re growing in Christlikeness is perhaps the shortening of the time between when we’re experiencing suffering and when we’re looking for resurrections even as we embrace that suffering.  Discuss.

2.    Pp 235-36 connecting paragraph and down to the breakout quote.

a.    Do we agree w. PM here?  Have we lost the narrative?  Do we agree that fighting to regain the narrative is lost cause?  Discuss.

b.    How do we prioritize the battles we fight?

c.     Comment on this quote: It keeps us from returning to the macho Christianity of the past, where we are going to “Take the hill.”

d.    Read the following paragraph on p 236: What do you expect the ongoing decline of culture in the US to accomplish in the American Church?  

3.    P 236 Our willingness to die, to receive the death God has given us, keeps us from running from suffering.  We outfox evil by receiving what it threatens us with.

a.    How does learning to live like this rewrite the narrative, not only for us, but for those around us?

4.    P 238 Look at the diagram then this quote: Almost everyone I’ve seen who has been trapped by bitterness has focused on the big dying and been blind to the multiple mini-resurrections in their lives.  Almost counterintuitively, the most thankful and happy people I know are confined to wheelchairs.

a.    Interesting, what PM is discussing here is, on one hand, a character that can be developed, but it is also a skill.  How could you and I develop this ability to focus on multi mini-resurrections?

b.    Consider this quote as part of this thinking:  During some of my lowest years, I tuned myself into the “resurrection channel” by beginning the early morning habit of reviewing the previous day and thanking God for little mercies, little resurrections.  When everything was dark, the Spirit prompted me to hunt for life.

5.    P 240 Look at the parallels b/t Jesus’ and Paul’s lives.

a.    Have you ever seen them before?

b.    How does do these parallels inform the ways you view your own J curves?  (Consider Philippians 3:7-11 as we discuss).

6.    P 241 Look at the diagrams then this quote: Seeing little victories, mini-resurrections like these, encourages us when “the big thing” still hangs over our head.

a.    The concept that PM has been discussing throughout the chapter is really a fairly simply idea.  We need to train ourselves to be on the lookout while we’re enduring lengthy suffering to recognize mini-resurrections.  Are we actually learning how to do this?  Have you recognized any mini-resurrections in your own life lately? 

J-Curve Session 30: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 30)

Class Description: Session 30, Chapter 30

Chapter 30: The Power of Weakness: How the J Curve Defeats Tribalism

These leaders knew and loved the gospel, but in this particular instance, it sat on the surface of their lives.... In order to form a community that embodies his life, we need dying leaders who embody a dying Savior.

Class Notes:

1.    In order to set the context for this chapter, let’s describe the culture into which Paul is writing the letter of 1 Corinthians.  What role did the failure/boasting chart play in that that culture?  How was that dynamic expressed in the life of the church there?  

a.    How was the creation of celebrity apostles a reflection of the Corinthian culture? 

2.    P 249 In Corinth, justification by faith sit like a shroud over than essentially pagan power structure.  The Corinthians don’t know that the normal Christian life is not about gaining power, but about losing power for the sake of love. In short, they don’t know the J Curve or the community it forms.

a.    What does PM mean when he says that justification by faith sits like a shroud?

b.    Discuss the danger of having right doctrinal understanding devoid of life/community change.

3.    P 250 Paul goes after the Corinthians’ DNA, their allergy to the downward move of the J Curve.  Paul’s opening salvo is “Look at the cross!” (1 Corinthians 1) He wants the church to see that the weakness and foolishness of the cross (dying) is the secret to power and knowledge (rising).  Let’s open to 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.

a.     To what extent do our lives prove that we actually believe that the way up is actually down?

b.    How do we know if and when we actually believe this?

4.    P 251 (1 Cor.2) I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

a.    How does modeling J Curve living as leaders inoculate the church against tribalism?

b.    P 253 Because Paul doesn’t grasp at eloquence in the same way Jesus didn’t grasp at the privileges of divinity, the congregation sinks its roots into the grace of God.  So Paul’s weakness not only models Jesus’s dying and rising for others, but it also embeds the Corinthians in Jesus.  (Discuss this dynamic - how does this work?) 

5.    P 253 read 1 Cor. 11 quote then p 254 The Roman solider went up the wall, boldly killing his enemies, while Paul went down the wall, hiding in a basket, fleeing his enemies.  Paul is making fun of himself, boasting about his weakness. He mocks the failure/boasting chart just as the cross mocks our foolish boasts.

a.    What is so freeing about a life that doesn’t need to be about me?

b.    How does serving in this way as a church leader enable a congregation to be rightly embedded in Christ?

6.     These leaders knew and loved the gospel, but in this particular instance, it sat on the surface of their lives....  In order to form a community that embodies his life, we need dying leaders who embody a dying Savior.

a.    Why is following a leader who is doing this an easy thing to do - why should it be easier than following someone who makes it about them?

J-Curve Session 31: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 31)

Class Description: Session 31, Chapter 31

Chapter 31: The Spirit at the Center: Learning Wisdom Down Low

Unless the Spirit repeatedly brings the mind of Christ into our hearts, our ever-present flesh will recoil from the wisdom of the cross. Only the Spirit can continually make the cross fresh.

Class Notes:

1.    Let’s refresh our memories.  What kind of culture was Paul writing into in the first letter to Corinth? Look at the top of p 258 first paragraph to get another dimension of the church culture in Corinth.

2.    P 259 Notice the capital “S” above in Spiritual (1 Cor. 3:1 AT).  A Spiritual person is not someone who is religious or who prays easily.  A Spiritual person is in step with the Spirit and led by the Spirit...  The Spirit carries the mind of Jesus into our lives, allowing Jesus’s fruits (Gal. 5:22-23) to become our fruits.  Dropping the “S” depersonalizes the Spirit.

a.    Perhaps especially in our reformed faith tradition, we struggle to speak often and actively about the personal nature of the Holy Spirit.  Why is it important to recognize and remind ourselves that the Spirit is God himself no less than Jesus?  (Look at the bottom of p 259).

3.    P 260 The Spirit himself is a gift - “the Spirit who is from God” (1 Cor. 2:12).  He’s not part of a world soul - he’s a person, a personal gift from a personal God.  So at every level, gifts lie at the heart of the church (1 Cor. 4:7).  With the gift of the Spirit, we can “understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12b).  That’s why “the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (v. 10b).  Only God can reveal God.  So wisdom comes from outside us.  The wisdom of the cross is so alien to our spirits that we need his Spirit to talk to our spirits.

a.    Let’s have a discussion about the kinds of things that the Holy Spirit does in the lives of believers.  What does he do in us?

4.    Look at the chart on the top of p 261.  

a.    Every one of us has at one time or another attempted to climb the failure/boasting chart.  Can we recognize ways even in this chart that we’ve abused the Spirit’s power for selfish gain?

5.    P 262 The Spirit helped me to shut my mouth. Plus, I’d recently noticed in the Gospels how much Jesus looked at people.  The Spirit didn’t operate in a vacuum; the body of Christ and the word were his language, helping me to listen.

a.    If the Spirit was active in the life and ministry of Jesus himself, we certainly need him no less.  Can you relate to PM in this interchange with his daughter Courtney? Do you recognize the Spirit’s work in causing him to be quiet?  Discuss.

6.     P 262 Unless the Spirit repeatedly brings the mind of Christ into our hearts, our ever-present flesh will recoil from the wisdom of the cross.  Only the Spirit can continually make the cross fresh.  Now look at the chart on p 263.

a.    How do PM’s actions under the Spirit’s influence demonstrate the wisdom of the cross?

b.    This kind of Spirit led ministry requires that we’re not attempting to design and control what resurrection might look like.  What do we need to believe in order to actually let the Spirit lead through conversations like these?

c.     It’s much messier and costlier to live this way.  What is to be gained?

7.    P 264 Staying in step with the Spirit is not nearly as complex as we might think. We aren’t trying to read the spiritual the leaves - as we embrace Christ in the dying and rising, the Spirit always shows up!

a.    I really appreciate what PM is saying here.  Essentially, we don’t need to guess what it looks like to keep in step with the Spirit.  He has a predictable gait which is always in step with the revealed will of God in Christ Jesus, namely, that if we’ll model Christ through dying and rising - that’s the stuff that the Spirit can use to propagate really neat resurrections!

J-Curve Session 32: (Chapter 32)

Class Description: Session 32, Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Love Treads Softly: Entering the Complexity of Love

*** We are currently unable to produce video from this session due to technical difficulties.

Class Notes:

Not yet available.

J-Curve Session 35: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 35)

Class Description: Session 35, Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Jesus: The ultimate party crasher

“Next time you have a feast, go out to the highways and byways, and invite the poor, the blind, and the lame; then you will be loving, because these people can’t pay you back, but your heavenly Father will.”

Class Notes:

1.     Pp 289-91 How was wealth separating people in Corinth? 

2.     Climb inside the mind of the weak for a moment.  P 291 excerpt “Not slave and free....”

a.     Do they at all perceive themselves as being on level ground with the wealthy strong?  Has the death of Christ actually produced a body that is unified?  What was missing practically?

b.     The strong were blind, but blind to what?  What were they missing? 

c.      Do we discern ourselves as the weak or the strong?  Do we identify with either group? 

3.     P 292 Its easy to imagine the impact as Pauls’ letter is read aloud to this house church.  The strong look down, ashamed, and smiles spread over the faces of the weak.....  It’s Jesus’s meal; he’s the Lord of this feast.  But when you mock and exclude the weak who are his very body, it is no longer his feast; it’s a supper for the strong.

a.     It’d be easy to read these sentences and insolate ourselves from their indictment.  Paul was writing to the church at Corinth, not Elverson.  Has it escaped our notice that poor and uneducated people don’t tend to ‘stick’ at Brick Lane?  Is that changing?  We may not be discriminating as regards the Communion table, but are there other areas where we’re making the weak/poor feel uncomfortably conspicuous?

4.     P 293 “Next time you have a feast, go out to the highways and byways, and invite the poor, the blind, and the lame; then you will be loving, because these people can’t pay you back, but your heavenly Father will.”

a.     Confession time...  I struggle with this.  Do you?  Why?  What does it look like and how might we improve?  Anyone actually doing this well?

5.     P 293-4 In my opinion, the weakest of those three layers in our churches is the middle one - the leaders.  For Christ’s community to reflect his beauty, Christian leaders need to constantly re-enact his death.

a.     Ouch!  PM, as he’s looking at the American Church, is looking at her pastors and elders as the weakest layer of the diagram on p 293.

i.     On a national level, do we agree with his assessment?  Why or why not?

ii.     On a local level, how are we doing at Brick Lane?  Where is this purposeful re-enacting actually taking place?

iii.     Where do our pastors, elders, deacons, ministry leaders, or staff have room to grow?

6.     P 294 Read 1 Cor. 11:23, 25-26 excerpt.  In secular liberalism, abortion “protects” a woman’s freedom of choice.   Someone has to die so others can live.  Outside of Jesus, it’s always someone else who dies.  Someone else is the problem.  Our founder’s death lies at the center of our faith.  Instead of killing our enemies so we can live he died so that we, his enemies, can live.

a.     Does PM’s logic make sense to you in these paragraphs?  When community is built up around a shared ideal, anyone who poses a threat to that ideal becomes dangerous.  Discuss so we make sure we’re all following him here.

Further down on p 294...  Each tribe is ranked internally and in relationship to the other tribes.  Paul, the football player, leaves his table, sits with the Goths, and then brings them up to the football table.  From the culture’s perspective, he’s destroying the lunchroom.  From Paul’s perspective he’s creating the body of Christ.

b.     If we perceive ourselves as the strong, we should picture ourselves already seated at the football players’ table. What perceived rights do we tend to hold onto that associating with the weak/poor (read here: someone who smells, an addict, some guy who’s all tatted up or pierced through) might threaten?

7.     P 295 bottom: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:27-28)...  Scholars believe that Paul is reciting an early church baptismal formula, “neither Jew nor Greek,...  neither slave nor free,...  no male and female,” which was spoken as the person was being immersed.  You go down into the water as a wealthy Greek landowner and come up one in Christ.  You go down as a poor Scythian slave and come up a son or daughter of God.  The slave and the landowner are now equals in the one body of Jesus. Our former identities have not only been erased, but replaced with his.

a.     This section reminded me of our earlier discussion about Onesimus and Philemon.  It’s a picture of the vision of the good we’ve been discussing all along - a true Jesus community!

b.     Have you ever looked at baptism that way?  How would doing so enrich your understanding of it?  How should it change the ways we perceive other believers whom we may look down on?

J-Curve Session 36: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 36)

Class Description: Session 36, Chapter 36

Chapter 36: The Beauty of a Jesus Community: Including the Distant Outsider

“But Paul mentions in the same breath the now infinitely valuable slaves and the wealthy aristocrats.  They are on equal footing, completely valued in Christ, in his body in a virtual Jesus community.  The gospel re-enacted by its leaders has worked.”

Class Notes:

So that we can capture the whole context of what PM is going to show us today in chapter 36, let’s begin by reading 2 Cor. 8:1-15.

1.     Bottom of P 299 The poor have no value, so their thanks have no weight.

a.     The apostle Paul is trying to get the Corinthians off the failure/boasting chart.   In your own words, why would the wealthy Corinthians have spurned an opportunity to give to poor Judean believers?

2.     P 300

a.     Why is it critical for us to see J Curve living modeled?  Why did the Corinthians need the example of the Philippian believers?

b.     Justification by faith levels the playing ground, destroying the Failure-Boasting Chart with its factions, jealousy, and exclusions.

i.     Encounter at the dollar store with a young mom.   “Nice Truck.”

ii.     Have the things we’ve been discussing this year leveled the ground for you?  Are you and I learning to see “the weak” as infinitely valuable? 

3.     P 301 Because the Corinthians live on the Failure-Boasting Chart, they love receiving grace, but they give it sparingly.

a.     How does failing to extend grace cheapen the grace we’ve received?

4.     Pp 301-2 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich (life), yet for your sake he became poor (death), so that you by his poverty might become rich (resurrection) (2 Cor. 8:9)....  Paul doesn’t berate the Corinthians for not giving.  He points them to a new vision of beauty - the sacrificial death of Jesus. 

a.     Jesus isn’t simply the payment, he’s the model!  Paul is providing the Corinthians with an opportunity to incarnate with their brothers and sisters in Christ.  In what ways is this vision of beauty so much higher than remaining on the F/B chart?

b.     This account has gotten me thinking about the Afghan refugees.  Anybody else thinking that way?

5.     P 304 “But Paul mentions in the same breath the now infinitely valuable slaves and the wealthy aristocrats.  They are on equal footing, completely valued in Christ, in his body in a virtual Jesus community.  The gospel re-enacted by its leaders has worked....  Only when the other becomes my brother or sister, only when objects of pity become people - even friends - do we create a divine community.

a.     How/Where is that happening at Brick Lane?

b.     Where do we still need to grow?

6.     Anything in particular stand out to you from the conclusion or from the Afterward?

7.     General comments on our time together? 

a.     What has been impactful? 

b.     How are you growing?

c.      Where have you embraced suffering in new ways?

d.     Where are you seeing resurrections?

e.     Are you embracing a new vision of the good anywhere?