Mary's Friday Newsletter 5/30/25

Shrinking the Gospel, the God-bathed world, and more new art

Hello dear ones,

In Bible study last night, we studied the section of Luke chapters five and six where Jesus and his disciples are doing little things that threaten the strictest interpretations of Jewish Sabbath laws and drive the Pharisees crazy. Jesus tells them a parable about wineskins (usually made from animals skins) and how everyone knows you can’t put new wine into old wineskins. The old wineskins expanded with the fermentation of the old wine and would never be able to contain still-expanding new wine.

That parable sets up Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of the God that would rapidly expand like wine and couldn’t be contained in the old and passing religious systems.

The idea of the Kingdom of God runs all through the book of Luke and Jesus’ teaching in general, but I didn’t always understand its centrality to Jesus’ message. I understood the “gospel” as the steps Jesus took to save us (his birth, perfect life, crucifixion, and resurrection) and our steps to follow him (repentance and faith). I still believe all those things, but I think if we read Scripture, we’ll see that the “good news” is actually an even bigger story!

Look no further than these words of Jesus in Luke:

"But he said, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent."" (Luke 4:43 NIV)

Jesus was proclaiming the “good news of the kingdom of God” before he was ever crucified, buried and resurrected!

Sometimes I wonder if we modern Christians have tried to shrink the kingdom of God back into an “old wineskin,” maybe not the exact same one of strict legalism, but one that shrinks the Gospel and the expansiveness of the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught.

Here’s my attempt at an analogy: reducing the Gospel as simply a way to heaven is like saying the movies Frozen and Frozen 2 are all about Princess Anna finding a husband. Yes, it’s true that part of the story is the growing romance between Anna and Kristoff and culminates in their engagement, but the story is much bigger than that! There is the fate of the kingdom of Arendelle and its people. In the second movie, the fate of the Northuldra tribe is at stake and a grievous wrong has to be made right with much personal sacrifice by the main characters. In addition, there is the bond between sisters, the redemption of Elsa’s powers, and the sisters’ shared rule and management of the two kingdoms that are resolved at the end of the movies. There is a lot more going on than simply a marriage!

It’s an imperfect analogy, but I think it gives us a picture of how we can reduce “the Gospel” down to simple steps to salvation and heaven—a transactional means to an end rather than an entering into a glorious new way of living in God’s kingdom under God’s rule.

Dallas Willard writes this in his chapter “What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World” in The Divine Conspiracy:

“Jesus’ good news about the kingdom can be an effective guide for our lives only if we share his view of the world in which we live. To his eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world. It is a world filled with the glorious reality, where every component is within the range of God’s direct knowledge and control—though he obviously permits some of it, for good reasons, to be for a while otherwise than as he wishes. It is a world that is inconceivably beautiful and good because of God and because God is always in it. It is a world in which God is continually at play and over which he constantly rejoices. Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us.”

This is the Jesus I get to know every time I study the Gospels. This is the Jesus who found delight in all kinds of people, was never threatened or anxious, and who was filled with the knowledge that God has arrived in our world. This is the “living water” life Jesus offered the Samaritan woman in John 4!

Those are the thoughts on my mind today that I’ll leave you!

Speaking of the Samaritan woman, I posted Part 2 of my meditations on the story of the Samaritan woman. You can read it here:

I was really challenged to try to understand the course of the conversation and why it took the turns it did. Did I get it right? Let me know what you think.

I’m still working on my floral series on wood panels. Here are a few from this week:

Here’s your reminder that if you appreciate my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5 a month on the Substack website!

Happy weekend everyone! I’m so thankful you’re here with me.

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