More on Prototype

A while back I posted my review of Jonathan Martin's book Prototype.

Here's a link to a much better review by Jonathan Stone.

Please read it...... and read the book!

  

Following the Prototype

If you follow this blog, you know that over the past month or so I've been posting quotes from a book I really enjoyed, - Jonathan Martin's Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think.  I think it's now time for a brief wrap up.

Martin is a Pentecostal (Church of God) pastor, and founder of an interesting church in North Carolina called Renovatus, which advertises itself as a church for "liars, dreamers and misfits" under renovation by Jesus..  From their website:

We believe there is no better word than renovation for what happens when people start embodying the Kingdom of God (primary message of Jesus on earth) in a city. Renovation is what happens when people practice spiritual disciplines like prayer, worship, study and confession. Renovation is what happens when liars, dreamers and misfits have a meaningful encounter with Jesus Christ, and submit to a gradual process of real transformation. Renovation is what happens when people begin to read ancient Scriptures and start living into the stories they read. Renovation is what happens when worship becomes a way of life, and prayer a way of being in the world with God. Renovation is what happens when people demonstrate the power and justice of God by demonstrating the Kingdom in life together. A small band of us set out to live that kind of renovation: to join God in renovating ordinary lives to embody the Kingdom. 

If you are pentecostal/charismatic adverse, be forewarned that some of that practice and atmosphere is found in this book, particularly in Martin's reminiscences of childhood experiences at pentecostal camp meetings. However, if you can get past that, there is a lot in this book that any evangelical Christian can benefit from.

The thesis of the book is that Jesus was uniquely conscious of His status as the beloved Son of God, but that we also have similar derivative status by our redemption and adoption as sons & daughters of the Father. Jesus heard the voice of the Father at His baptism calling Him "My Beloved Son," and never forgot that voice, even in the immediate crises of His desert temptation, all the way through Gethsemane and the cross. Security in the knowledge of His identity and "belovedness" freed Jesus to love others freely and unconditionally. Jesus heard the voice, knew His identity....and never forgot.

Martin goes on to say that many Christians have also heard that voice of acceptance in Christ  Our problem, however, is that we soon forget! He says that if we can learn to know and believe our identity as beloved and accepted in Christ, we too can be freed from the need to present phony fronts to the world around us, and be free to love and accept others as Jesus did. Following Jesus is not just WWJD (What would Jesus Do), but who did Jesus know He was, and do I also know my own identity as a beloved child of God. If we do, then, even as Jesus' wounds on the cross became symbols of victory and glory, our personal spiritual and psychological wounds can become, not things of shame to hide, but things to glory in as symbols of His victory in us, and  tools of Christ's work through us to free others. That is what makes Jesus the "prototype," or, to use a more Scriptural term, the author and finisher of our faith.

I'm not going true justice to the book in this brief summary. This book has taken me apart, and its message is now putting me back together in strange ways. Go back and read all the quotes I've posted, or, better yet, get and read the book. I do not think you will be disappointed.
  

Let Him Show You Off

"...God wants to show you off. He loves you and delights in you simply because you exist. There is something unique you have to do for Him in establishing His futuristic Kingdom off peace in the world. We have the prototype, Jesus, who has shown us the way. It's time for each one of us to embrace the identity we were given before the world was made. He wants to make our wounds a resource for the healing of others. He wants to make His resurrection power known through our real day-to-day lives. Do you have any idea what's at stake in your understanding who you really are?"

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 205

Telling Your Own Story of Belovedness

"...I believe you, too, have a story to tell:  a story of your belovedness.  It's a story of how your scars and wounds and death fit into the story of the death of Jesus, of how your victories fit into the victory of God's love over the power of death. I believe that you, too, are called to 'follow the Lamb wherever he goes' (Revelation 14:4), telling your story, allowing His wounds to heal your own, clinging not to your own life even in the face of death."

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 204

Can I Get a Witness?

"The world does not need heroes; the world does not need more messiah complexes. The world does not need Christians who want to ride in on a white horse to save the day. What the world needs are witnesses. Nothing more and nothing less. The earth needs people who can bear witness to the ways in which the world has already changed through the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth."

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 197

Community of Fractured People

"We've seen how beautiful it can be to follow Jesus into this new way of being human. But one of the things I like the most about Jesus is how much He loves humanity in its brokenness. If He was surrounded by fractured people then, why would we expect it to be any different now? I actually think it is a larger mistake when we Christians attempt to pretend that our lives are more together than they really are in order to 'manage our image' before the broader culture. Come look at our perfect church and our perfect family. And if you join us, maybe one day you, too, can have a perfect life. That kind of spin is a breeding ground for disappointment."

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 190

The Communion of the Broken

"When Jesus offered up His own body and blood for the world, He spread a table for the outcast and the broken. We come to the table not because we are holy, but because we are in need of His holiness. We come to the table not because we are strong, but because we are weak and in need of His strength."

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 165
  

Empowered to Touch

"...The same Spirit that rested on Him [Jesus} is now available to us -available to touch through us. The Spirit was not given to make us private mystics. The Spirit wasn't given to help us escape the world. The Spirit was given to empower us to become God's touch for His creation, right here, and right now. Paul's language that we are the body of Christ was not an elegant metaphor, but a statement of fact. When we touch the splendid shambles of the bodies around us, they receive a touch from Him."

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 148

A God Who Can Be Touched

"The scandal of God in the flesh is that, in Jesus, we behold the God who can be touched....Yet the same apocalyptic terror, the same blinding holiness that was present on Mount Sinai is present on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus for only a moment reveals to His disciples the same Sinai glory of the Exodus narrative. Once again, there is thunder, lightning and smoke. Once again, God's people cower in terror at the sight of it. But unlike the ancient story, that same Sinai presence reaches out and physically touches the disciples. 'Don't be afraid,' Jesus says. In Moses' story, you might die simply by touching the mountain. When the sensuous God is fully revealed in Jesus Christ, you now touch not only the mountain, but the God who formed it."

- Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 144
     

Doubting in the Direction of Jesus

Some thoughts on "Doubting Thomas" from Jonathan Martin in Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think:

"...there are many reasons to be cynical, and more than enough reasons to choose not to believe. Believing in a love that overcomes death is not soft and sentimental; it will always be a hard thing. Luckily, we aren't required to have perfect faith. There is more than enough room for hopeful doubters who, like Thomas, are drawn to reach out and grasp, to touch, rather than to just walk away. Perhaps the difference between 'doubting Thomas' and a 'cynical Thomas' is that Thomas doubted in the direction of Jesus, rather than away from Him. That makes all the difference." (page 137) 

"...We take our fears and our doubts and our dreams, and we toss them in the general direction of Jesus to do with as He sees fit. That's close enough." (page 139)

Scars a Resource for Healing

"As the prototype for a new way  of being human, and as the one who awakens us to our true selves, Jesus shows us how our scars can become a resource for healing, instead of a source of shame. That's not to say that whenever we bring our suffering to Jesus, everything is easily or magically healed and we will never feel the pain again. But it does mean that even in the darkest moments there is yet a blessing - a deep revelation of our belovedness that is as profound as the hurt that we feel."

Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, page 109

Presence of the God Who Suffers

"When we have suffered profoundly, we are given something much better than answers for 'why.' We are given the presence of a God who suffers and who makes His own wounds a resource for our healing."

Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, page 97

Embrace Your Scars

"..that's the beauty, or genius, of Jesus' whole new way of being human - in Him, our scars are no longer a source of shame. In fact (and this is perhaps the most revolutionary part), our scars, in a sense, authenticate us. After Christ's resurrection, the disciples were able to recognize Him by His scars. the wounds inflicted on Him on the cross told a story that the world needed to hear.

This is part of what it means to follow Jesus in becoming people from the future: We become the kind of people who no longer have to hide their scars. Our scars reveal who we are. The fact that we have experienced profound suffering in life- the fact that we carry what may seem to be unsightly scars,- does not disqualify us from following Jesus,. It may be precisely what qualifies us."

Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, page 89

"There is no wound so grotesque that it cannot become a resource for healing. That's the way of the future. The world we live in tells us to hide our scars, to pretend we are stronger and more beautiful than we are. The new world God is creating through us is one in which scars are displayed like merit badges instead of hidden under makeup. We don't conceal our scars because our scars are our story, and our story, however broken, is a story of the tenderness of God."

Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, page 107

Seeing Beauty

"...You can spot people who don't know Jesus very well because the world they see is always ugly. Even if they use all sorts of religious language, don't be misled - people who get touched by Jesus don't ignore the hurt and pain in the world, and yet they see so much beauty in it. They see beauty because they see the future breaking into the present. They see both the beauty in the broken people around them and the beauty that is yet to come when they know their identity as the beloved...."

Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, page 76

Like Moths to a Flame

"..its seems as if everywhere Jesus went, the same people showed up: those who had no where else to go and nothing better to  do. In the Gospels, Jesus is called the light of the world. Apparently, whores and thieves and the sick and the demon-possessed are the moths He attracts."

Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, page 69

Where God Sends His Favorites

"You may think your in obscurity right now because you've done something wrong.You may think you're in the wilderness because you've been cursed or abandoned by God. But if you're in the wilderness, I'd like to suggest it's because you are so desperately loved. What if you are living in obscurity because God is so intent on showing you things about yourself that you would not otherwise see and revealing things about His love that you would not otherwise know?

Obscurity is where God sends all of His favorite sons and daughters. Our society tells us that if and when we get 'there' - the job or position or degree we've always wanted, the notoriety we've always dreamed of - that's when all the important stuff will start happening. Not so. 

All the good stuff happens in obscurity."

 Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, pages 64-65

The Gift of Wilderness

"In my attempts to go into the wilderness on my 'spiritual retreat,' I had not yet gone deep enough.I thought the object of the time was to immerse myself in prayer and Scripture. I forgot that the object was actually God, that real prayer is what happens when my head and heart are fully exposed to Him.

God hadn't drawn me into the wilderness so I could attempt to prove myself to him with religious activity (instead of the more secular activities I indulge in to prove myself to everyone else). He hadn't brought me away from the hustle and noise so I could demonstrate my spirituality to Him. He brought me out to allure me. He didn't want my performance. He wanted my attention. And at that point I don't believe He was drawing me to a place where I could talk to Him. He was drawing me to a place where He could talk to me.

Obscurity is not punishment. The wilderness is the place where our identity is solidified. the wilderness has its perils, to be sure; yet in a sense, there is no safer place. In the wilderness we find out who we really are. We find out what we are afraid of. We find out who our enemies are."

 Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin, pages 61-62

No Need to Prove Anything to Anyone

"...there's one way we can identify the devil's voice. It always plays to our fears. It is the voice that tells us we must do something to prove who we are, to prove that we're worthy, to prove that we are who God has already declared us to be. When we know we are loved by God, we don't have to prove anything to anyone. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves more beloved than we are."

-Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, pages 53-54

The Gift of Obscurity

"In our culture of constant access and non-stop media, nothing feels more like a curse from God than time in the wilderness....

...If only they know that God draws people into obscurity - into the wilderness- not because He's angry with them or because they are not 'successful enough,' but because He wants to go deeper into His relationship with them. Far from being punishment, judgement, or a curse, the wilderness is a gift. It is where we can experience the primal delight of being fully known and delighted in by God."

-Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 50

Living in His Pleasure

"His [God's] voice of affirmation is not the least bit contingent on how we perform in any of our tasks, whether we are good at our jobs or even at spiritual practices. That's why it's so significant that God the Father spoke into His Son's identity before Jesus did any of the miracles or good works among the poor and marginalized. The Father's voice of love was the source from which the work of the Son would come - loving and accepting others as a natural extension of the love and blessing He had received. It could not work the other way around. He was the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased, not by whom He  was well please. That distinction is critical"

-Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, page 49