Two key areas of struggle, it seems, for evangelicalism today can be found in celebrity culture and the prosperity gospel. In light of that, I found this excerpt from Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man to be insightful and convicting.
He who would bring together such a prodigious number of fishes into his disciples’ net, and, at another time, receive that tribute from a fish which he was to pay to the temple, might easily have made himself the richest person in the world. Nay, without any money, he could have maintained an army powerful enough to have justled Caesar out of his throne, having oftener than once fed several thousands with a few loaves and small fishes; but, to show how small esteem he had of all the enjoyments in the world, he chose to live in so poor and mean a condition, “that though the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, yet he, who was Lord and heir of all things, had not whereon to lay his head.” He did not frequent the courts of princes, nor affect the acquaintance or converse of great ones; but, being reputed the son of a carpenter, he had fishermen, and such other poor people for his companions, and lived at such a rate as suited with the meanness of that condition.
So many things that Jesus could have done but didn’t, and yet so many things Jesus didn’t do, we can live in pursuit of and never attain. If our goal in discipleship and life is conformity to Christ, a significant step in that process is becoming well-acquainted with the ways of Christ (not only the words of Christ). This isn’t a call to living impoverished lives as some might object, but rather a call to discipleship, a call to follow Jesus in a cruciform manner such that the life of Jesus might be seen in the dying to ourselves (2 Cor. 5).
