Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The Naked Christian - The Myth of the Spiritual Six Pack

I just finished reading this book that was published by Relevant Books.

The thing that caught my attention the most is his take on the myth of the spiritual six pack!

He was talking about how he desired a six pack when he looked in the mirror and how that was supposed to mean he was important in a physical sense.

He made the jump to the spiritual life and started talking about what we do spiritually to get a six pack. We want to be the best speaker, the best worship leader, the most recognized in our pastoral area of work. We want to write THE BOOK that gets everybody talking. We want to be the one that everyone calls when they need advice. We want the spiritual six pack.

After making his case that there is some of that desire in all of us to want a spiritual six pack he throws out this verse from Matthew 25:45,

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'"

He challenged that the desire for the spiritual six pack is a myth. Where does the least of these fit into the six pack spirituality? It hardly does in our contemporary Christian culture. I have been challenged this week to look deep within my heart and surface the myth of the spiritual six pack that I have bought into. I have been challenged with what does a life and ministry to the least of these look like in the context of white-suburban church.

1 comments:

charlesdean2 said...

GREAT POST!

I'll admit, I often strive for the spiritual six-pack (since my real life six-pack went out over the drawers years ago!)

I'm bummed that I gave the book away before reading it...oh well, there's no way I can ever read everything given to me!