F.F. Bruce: Pervasive ambivalence

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Do not set your hearts on the godless world or anything in it. Anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father’s love. Everything the world affords, all that panders to the appetites, or entices the eyes, all the glamour of its life, springs not from the Father but from the godless world. And that world is passing away with all its allurements, but he who does God’s will stands for evermore. 1 John 2:15-17

“There is a pervasive ambivalence throughout the New Testament writings wherever the church’s attitude to the world in which it exists comes to expression. On the one hand, the world is God’s world, created by God and loved by God, currently alienated from God, it is true, but destined to be redeemed and reconciled to God.

On the other hand, the world is dominated by a spirit totally opposed to God, organized in such a way as to exclude God, drawn towards unworthy goals of material status and self-interest, quite different from the goals towards which the Christian way leads. In this latter aspect, the world is, according to the NEB rendering, “the godless world”…

Everything the world affords, all that panders to the appetites and entices the eyes, all the glamour of its life, springs not from the Father but from the godless world. And that world is passing away with all its allurements, but he who does God’s will stands forevermore” (1 John 2:15-17).

The Christian is sent into the godless world to reclaim it for its rightful Lord, but while it remains “the godless world” it is an uncongenial environment for the Christian…in the world but not of it, involved and detached at the same time…Seeing you have come to know the truth, beware of imitations and refuse all substitutes.”

F.F. Bruce in “The Church in the World” in The Message of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973) 89-90, 99.

During Lent we fast from things that are temporal to broaden our bandwidth for the eternal.

Today, NT scholar, F.F. Bruce, reminds us that that we as Christians are here for purpose, to reclaim the godless world for its rightful Lord. To do this we must not be enticed by the things of this world, which are leading hindrances to generosity. We must have a “pervasive ambivalence” toward these things to keep our focus.

Can you identify things that allure and entice you? Perhaps after identifying them, when you see them the next time, remind yourself to “beware of imitations and refuse all substitutes” because the godless world and all its glamour is passing away, but the one who does God’s will stands for evermore!