User:PitPat2/Incarnational

(Notes from Lianne Roemke: "Building Credible Multicultural Teams", chap. 2)


 * humble: God did not fulfill the expectations/stereotype of a mighty, unpersonal God. -> Credibility: God as a Person, not a person-type.
 * identification: God suffered with us. Suffering is included in love.
 * incarnation = "to become flesh", human. Jesus took in Jewish culture, but reflected through God's character. Transparent lifestyle = open for imitation and criticism. (not far-away, but down-to-earth)
 * Satan's temptations to shortcut this painful process (desert: everybody will worship you if you worship me). Perfect love: accepts to suffer for others.
 * As Jesus gave up his rights to be worshiped as creator, we should give up our right be listened as expert (instead: come as a learner into another culture).
 * "inverse identification": because God identified with our suffering, we can identify with him. Creating trust, bonding. Jesus' humanness draws us near.
 * Jesus came as servant.
 * 4 characteristics of Jesus/incarnational lifestyle: authenticity, humility, integrity, compassion (Stott, The Cross of Christ, pp. 71-73)
 * Did Jesus change his personality? No, only his appearance. He was faithful to the law, the nature of God and in transmitting God's love. -> God does not destroy our personality, but filtering out what our culture & sin has added to our likeness of God.
 * In western culture, freedom (i.e. self-fulfilment) is a high value. However, we need to restrict ourselves in order to love. Not every gifting can be used every time (grief: giving back to the giver in order to await the proper time). That's fine as long as we don't run away from our personal responsibility.
 * Adapting the way of communication to the culture (1Cor 9,19-23). Distinguish: what is truth/biblical? What is cultural? -> multi-cultural teams as melting pot