In Richard and Lori Passmore’s article in June’s issue of Premier Youthwork, they tell us that God is in the process of tearing down walls. ‘Jesus breaks down the walls between Christian and non-Christian, kingdom and Church, sacred and secular’. This, apparently, should be our model of youth ministry. I think this approach is fundamentally wrong. I want to argue against the theological direction that the Passmores take, and from there see how it makes a difference in our day to day youth work.
The Bible does not declare that God is in the process of tearing down every wall and division. Or at least if he is, he’s going a very particular way about it. If anything the Bible seems to operate on the opposite principle: God is in the promise of setting apart and dividing. Genesis 1 is a story of creation and division, ‘God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness’ (Genesis 1:4). He separated the sky from the waters, the land from the sea, the fish from the birds, the sun to govern the day and separate it from night. The Bible carries on like this. God brings Noah and his family safe out of every other person, calls Abraham out of Ur, chooses Jacob over Esau, divides the Israelites from Egypt, sets apart the Levites from the rest of Israel and draws the Jews out of exile. Continually God deliberately separates his people from those who aren’t his people. Set-apartness is at the root of the word translated ‘holy’ in the bible. And Jesus doesn’t reverse any of this: ‘Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.’ (Luke 12:51). The parables are replete with the language of division; the sheep separate from the goats, the weeds from the corn, the wheat from the chaff.
This might seem counterintuitive. After all doesn’t God himself promise, ‘I will say to those called “Not my people”, “You are my people”; and they will say, “You are my God.”’ (Hosea 2:23)? Paul talks about Christ breaking down the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2) and says how ‘there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ (Galatians 3:28) How can we say God is in the business of division?
To understand that, it’s worth reading what Paul says in the rest of that part of Galatians, ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ Paul then continues, ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise’ (emphasis mine). If you belong to Christ you are all one with every other one in Christ. Logically it follows if you don’t belong to Christ, then you are not one with him and every other Christian. The entire passage makes it more explicit.
‘So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’
‘In Christ Jesus you are all children of God’, ‘All of you who were baptised’, ‘If you belong to Christ’. There is a clear divide in scripture between those who are in Jesus Christ and those who are outside of him. Jesus says the same thing in John 17 when he prays ‘I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you’ (emphasis mine). Again and again the Bible divides between those who are in Jesus Christ and those who are outside of him.
The Bible does not declare that God is in the process of tearing down every wall and division. Or at least if he is, he’s going a very particular way about it.
All through the Bible the question goes ‘are you in or out of God's people?’ Continually humans get this answer wrong ‘we're in because we obey these laws’ ‘we're in because we're Abraham's children’, ‘because we're circumcised’. All those answers are wrong. The only one who is in God's people is Jesus. Jesus is in, we are out. But graciously he brings anyone who calls on his name into himself and the life of God. We are made one with each other in the son.
And this is why the model the Passmores are advocating for is death for youth ministry. All people are outside of Christ, far from him, ‘living in the dominion of darkness’ (Colossians 1:13), ‘alienated and hostile in mind’ (Colossians 1:21) to him, under sin (Romans 3:9), and all need to hear about his great saving work so they can trust in him. Telling young people that everything's okay, that they know God already, that they don’t have to worry about their sin, is a lie. Young people need to hear repent and be baptised for the forgiveness of sins. They need to hear that Jesus has come to rescue them. Only then can they believe, repent, and know the joy of sins forgiven and guilt erased.
During the final days of the kings of Judah, when the great empire of Babylon was marching down towards Israel swallowing up everything in its path a group of prophets stood up and proclaimed the word of the Lord. ‘Everything is going to be fine’ they said ‘God’s not going to let harm come to us, we’re alright’. They were liars. ‘Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins’ says God through Ezekiel (13:3). Why? ‘Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace’, when there is no peace’ (Ezekiel 13:10). What Ezekiel proclaims is that the people weren’t at peace with God, that God was sending his judgment upon them in the form of the Babylonians and they needed to repent and turn to him and they would be saved.
Jesus repeats the same message. Flee from the coming judgment, run to him for salvation, find in Him life and joy and delight. Find in him a saviour willing to rescue us from our darkness. With every young person we have a limited window of time to invest, to love, to care for them. Our job in this time, if we do nothing else, is to present to them the gospel, that we’re sinners and alienated from God, that Jesus has come to rescue us, and that anyone who calls on him will be saved. As Paul says in Romans 10.
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’
