Approaching the End. Stanley Hauerwas
demise [of the pagan world] is rooted in the counter-cultural explication of the break between God and the world. . . . Because ‘God’ in Luke’s sense corresponds not to a particular point within the widest of human horizons but to that which constitutes — makes possible and stands over against — the entirety of the human horizon, the call to (re)turn to God carries with it an entire pattern of life.”33
The truth to which Paul and others witness in Acts is comprehensive: it renarrates the whole of human life, indeed, all that is, in the light of the God who is — now fully known through Christ. This requires a change in the way we live, according to Rowe a change in the “entire pattern of life.” This also displays why the theology is embodied precisely in the ones who arrive with the news of it; they witness to the new vision and also inhabit it. So both what they say and who they are represent a potential threat. As such, it and they may be violently rejected, as the growing connection in the New Testament between witness and martyrdom reminds us. So those who arrive with the news may also be called to give their lives for it. Yet whether they live or die, for the gospel to take root and grow — and so challenge, even bring the demise of, the cultures it encounters — it must be brought by people who both speak and practice it. Christian faith is not a disembodied set of ideas or theories; it is not intuited or received by osmosis. The Kingdom grows person to person; it is brought through witness. Once again, the reason is theological: the God Christians worship is no general truth that can be known apart from those who have been called into his Kingdom. So if the Kingdom is to grow, these ones must travel, bearing witness.
This is why Paul thinks the feet of those who bring the gospel are so beautiful (Rom. 10:10). If they had not walked, the gospel would not have come. Moreover, they come not simply as carriers of a package they can leave on the doorsteps of cities and villages throughout the Mediterranean world, for the locals to unwrap on their own. Rather, as Luke’s story shows, we cannot know Jesus without those, like Paul, who were called by him. And the same remains today: there is no Christ without those who are still being called. To reiterate, the fact that such witnesses are required arises from the fact that the witness is to a life that defies generalization. It is a life that was and is seen, heard, even touched.
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