Pharisee and the tax collector.

Working through the T4G main session talks and I arrived at John Piper's message on whether Jesus taught Paul's gospel. He basically tackles the common assertion in seminaries and most religion departments that the gospel that evangelicals hold to today is essential Pauline, and was not something that Jesus actually teaches in the gospels. Piper accuses this type of mentality as a dangerous disease, of which adjustments of the gospel are common symptoms. I've seen this in the way I think about approaching the gospels, even without the influence of seminaries and the movement to find the "historic" Jesus, who we find traces of in the gospel accounts. In my mind, I've tended to inaccurately create a mental picture of Jesus in the gospels as the Jesus of the social gospel, of the social justice movement, whereas the Pauline epistles lay out justification by faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, through the imputation (not impartation) of Christ's righteousness.

I'm not actually finished listening to Piper's talk yet, but so far he's set up camp in Luke 18 and has begun exegeting it. Piper has set out for himself a goal of seeing whether or not Jesus taught imputation, not impartation, as an integral part of the Gospel. What he points out is that the pharisee actually thanks God for his righteousness (v.11) and so is not necessarily a legalist nor a Pelagian. He actually understands his righteousness to be a gift from God, but understands his righteousness to be personal, not alien. That is imparted, not imputed. At the end of the day, it is the tax collector who walks home justified, not the pharisee.

Piper passes over the story of the children (vv.15-17) with some brief explanatory notes of how this proves his thesis, and then moves on to the rich ruler. We see a parallel with the rich ruler and the pharisee in that both know their personal righteousness quite well, but have no understanding of an alien righteousness. That's where I've stopped thus far, but I highly recommend listening to the talk, especially those who do a lot of studying in religion and philosophy. It can be found here.

General Updates:

• The Mansfield Foundation internship interview went alright; a bit bumpy, but overall a nice time.
• Was able to help Patrick Muller move this morning, where I got to re-meet Jeremiah and Brian and work out my "guns."
• Going to the mall today to hang out with some Restoration folk and talk theology.
• Tomorrow I'm going to meet up with Mike and hang out with Daniel, both of which should be a awesome.
• Procrastinating my exam studying...
• Weather is getting hot! I love it!