Black, David Alan. The Jesus Paradigm. Energion Publications 2009.
David Alan Black is a professor of New Testament and Greek at South Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, he has published numerous books, the most frequent topic is Koine Greek. These academic qualifications as well as his experience as a missionary uniquely qualify him to write the kind of book we find in “The Jesus Paradigm.” It is simultaneously a critique of the western church on practical and theological grounds as well as a contructive treatise, offering a gospel oriented way forward for western evangelicals, essentially Black's effort is to give not only critique, but practical steps in returning the church to the paradigm of being disciples of Jesus, imitating him and living under his Lordship in all things. Black ends his preface thusly, “...I believe I've begun following the downward path of Jesus. Care to join me?” (pp x)
Chapters 1 and 2
In the first chapter Black diagnoses the American church as having “prostituted itself with power, status and wealth.”(pp 1) This is symptomatic of poor ecclesiology and a love for power that simply does not fit within Jesus' vision for life. His solution to this is to look to the New Testament to see how Jesus and his earliest followers viewed power, the church, and the mission of the church. Among the things Black envisions happening as the New Testament is again taken seriously is a revolution of biblical proportions (not in the Ghostbusters' sense, no dogs and cats living together). He sees churches with every member ministries, less paid positions, building used for education, worship happening more than once a week, priority placed upon the spread of the gospel, believers working transdenominationally to get the work of the gospel done, etc. (pp 2-3) This is a big vision, and the mode of its occurance involves really following Jesus' example by learning to serve in the lowest positions possible, Paul is held up as an exemplar who found that God's power was made known in Paul's weakness, just as God was known in Jesus Christ and him crucified. Black further notes that in the gospels it is the suffering Jesus that is the paradigm for the life of Christians. (pp 5-7) The Jesus paradigm is essentially to be a movement back to intentional discipleship to Jesus Christ as the goal within the church community. (pp 10-12)
Black defines a local church thusly, “The church is simply a group of radical Jesus-followers ministering to each other sacrificially and reaching the community about them with the Gospel in word and deed.”(pp 18) Many would find this definition problematic, but in the New Testament adherence to the Gospel is the criterion for the local church to have status as church, everything else is more than window dressing, but it never constitutes the idenity of the church, this is a very baptist view of the church, a positive statement of regenerate church membership, instead of stating that the church is only believers, and not their children it says that the church is any community which adheres to Jesus Christ. So, the logic is simple for Black, if the church would be renewed, there needs to be a new call for every member of the church to live according to the gospel towards each other and those outside the church. If God promises to renew people in Christ through the church. And if the church is the community of radical disciples, then God's power to renew people will be seen when the whole church seeks to live as Jesus taught.(pp 26) This will require following the simple commands of Jesus even when the whole of christendom has abadoned the meaning of being Jesus' student. This chapter is essentially a call to sola scriptura as a principal for individuals and church life, as well as a call to local church autonomy, that each church take due recourse to obey Jesus in the ways most appropriate to serve him where it finds itself.
Chapters 3-5
These three chapters are all deeply tied to the notion that the local church is constituted by disciples of Jesus intentionally associating together to follow Jesus. Black calls us to look to the Anabaptists as an example of how to follow Jesus, citing their non-alignment with state power, their stance on every member ministry, their stance against clericalism, and their focus on missions as paradigmatic for the church and as an example of the Jesus paradigm in action. The next chapter is a critique and solution for the 'redistribution of responsibility' that has caused so much trouble in the church.(pp 65) Black points out the New Testament emphasis on every member admonishment, the changing of the church from a community desiring to be served to a community that serves others, every member ministry, and finally every member being missional. The fifth chapter seeks to expound church leadership after the Jesus Paradigm. He firstly calls us to “Hekastology,” based on the word greek word for “every,” reminding us that every member is a minister and missionary. From there Black points out that positions such as pastor, teacher, and elder function as servants to enable every member to minister. This is based partly on the fact that Jesus is the senior pastor of every local church. I do not have the space to examine Black's exegesis of Philippians 1:1 and the various passages using the 'term' shepherd, but I am largely in agreement with him. The term and office pastor is vastly misunderstood in today's church, I would not necessarily abadon using the phrase pastor to speak about leaders in the church, but I do not think that Black would require such a movement either. His insight of functional distinctions in gifts in the church, over against hierarchical distinctions is incredibly important.
Chapters 6-7
Black calls us to obey Jesus despite our political stances in chapter six, primarily holding our allegiance to him above all other allegiances. He outlines some of what this means, but primarily it appears to mean making the spread of the gospel and service to others the primary tasks of the church. Secondarily it means following the cultural mandate particularly by seeking peace in all things, being critical of government insofar as it is oppressive, willingness to suffer, and maintaining Christian fellowship members of the military and those who leave for conscience sake. Chapter seven outlines the habits of those living under the Jesus Paradigm. Black puts those practices under three heading, upside down deviants, doing the kingdom together, and the gospel of hospitality. The first of these categories involves obeying Jesus' commands when they intensely impinge upon our sensibilities and various cultural norms, he gives the example of visiting murderers in prison to explain the gospel to them. The second of these involves co-operation interdenominationally insofar as Christian distinctives are not sacrificed, but nevertheless, this involves the dangerous task of being flexible in our ideals. The third means showing hospitality to whomever is in need, just as God has done for us in Christ. This portion also includes an excellent exposition of Christian marriage, “My wife and I are deeply in love...more importantly...fellow soldiers and fellow workers for Christ.” (pp 133) Finally, Black asks, “how's your serve?” If we are not good at service to others in the church, Black encourages us to start taking steps to improve our service to others, practicing sacrificial service means beginning to do it.
Afterwords
Black in the end offers an application of the Jesus Paradigm to theological education, positing that Christian academia cannot be divorced from the call of God towards mission to a broken world. (pp 137-140)
Concluding Remarks
Black offers a difficult road to recovery for a church addicted to power, status, and wealth, but what he really does is offer a reexamination of Jesus and the New Testment, and Jesus' summons is always difficult. Black's offerings are all sound from a biblical and theological point of view, though many might find them lacking in terms of his non-reliance upon sociology or marketing, but for those who have ears to hear this book will certainly function to get people excited about following Jesus more closely in their ecclesiology and in every area of their lives. It will also spur creative thought about how to be more biblically faithful with our finances and understandings of power in the local church. I recommend this book to those looking to do things upside down with Jesus. It would make a good college age reading group study or any age book study for that matter. I do not have a rating system, but I whole hearted recommend this book to any who were wondering about it or just hadn't heard of it.
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