How Ephesians Killed My Radical Christianity

Definitions matter. So before proceeding I want to define the term “radical.”  By “radical,” I mean that strain of Christian thinking that says living a normal Christian life, getting married, having children, raising them in Christ, loving your spouse, being faithful at your job, attending worship, reading your Bible, praying, loving the saints, and then dying is not enough.  It is that strain of Christianity that says, “There must be something more that I must do to be a good Christian.”  The radical thinks and preaches that, “Good Christians do amazing things for Jesus.” 

This type of thinking is found in all branches of Christianity. There are mission weeks, revival meetings, monks who abandon all, elusive second blessings, pilgrimages to Rome, women who leave marriage and children far behind, men who leave jobs to enter the ministry, young men who believe that memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism is a means of grace, preachers who imply that Word and Sacraments are not enough, and conference speakers who demand that we pray more and more. The halls of faith echo with phrases like: Be radical. Give it all up for Jesus. Sacrifice everything.

I was raised to think like this and my guess is that many of you were as well. Our Christian life was driven by questions like , “Am I doing enough?”  But over time I found that this pressure to do great things for God was not just burdensome, but it was unbiblical. The epiphany came as I studied Ephesians a few years back.

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