{"id":27614,"date":"2026-09-16T10:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27614"},"modified":"2026-09-16T11:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:05:12","slug":"a-preacher-of-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27614","title":{"rendered":"A Preacher of Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Come As You Are - David Crowder (w\/ lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pvmHjtWm4Xg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Wednesday, September 16, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Theologian Richard Beck considers how the apostle Paul challenged the ancient world\u2019s understanding of gift and grace as something one had to earn and repay:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last two thousand years our definition of grace has flip-flopped and under\u00adgone a 180-\u00addegree reversal. Grace was once&nbsp;<em>merited<\/em>; today it is&nbsp;<em>unmerited<\/em>. Back then, grace was&nbsp;<em>deserved<\/em>, now it is&nbsp;<em>undeserved<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what happened? How did grace get flipped inside out? Answer: The apostle Paul\u2026. Paul\u2019s\u00ad great accomplishment was starting the revolution of grace\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was Paul\u2019s ferocious contention that grace was given to \u00adthose&nbsp;<em>who did not deserve or merit<\/em>&nbsp;the gift\u2026. This view of grace flew in the face of all that was reasonable and sane. Gifts must not be wasted! But \u00adhere was Paul suggesting that the&nbsp;<em>unmerited&nbsp;<\/em>nature of grace was&nbsp;<em>precisely&nbsp;<\/em>what made God\u2019s gift so&nbsp;<em>perfect<\/em>. This was an audacious and unpre\u00adcedented reversal, a complete inversion of the ancient imagination. This paradigm shift concerning our understanding of grace was Paul\u2019s great legacy\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Paul would provocatively announce, grace was given to us while we were&nbsp;<em>enemies&nbsp;<\/em>of God\u2026. God had, in sharp contrast to the Roman elite, showered gifts upon the&nbsp;<em>undeserving<\/em>, ignoring our merit, worth, and desert. And it was precisely this incongruity between gift and recipient that made the gift so gracious and magnanimous. So&nbsp;<em>perfect<\/em>. That was the revolutionary heart of Paul\u2019s message. And what was perverse and shocking for Paul\u2019s audiences has become definitional for us. <strong>The entire modern world has been converted to Paul\u2019s gospel of grace. Every\u00adone has\u00ad adopted Paul\u2019s upside-\u00addown definition of grace\u2026. Grace is grace because we don\u2019t deserve it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Beck explains how the small churches or&nbsp;<\/em>ekklesia&nbsp;<em>that Paul founded <strong>w<\/strong><\/em><strong><em>ere able to exist only because of this radically new understanding of grace<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gathered around the message of grace, Paul\u2019s churches were diverse collections of people from every conceivable walk of life and social strata. Rich and poor, Jew and gentile\u2026. In a world divided by class conflict, religious prejudice, and ethnic animus, Christian communities tore down the wall of hostility that existed between social groups so that the single family of God\u2014\u00adpluralistic, multicultural, and diverse\u2014\u00adcould emerge\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grace, declared Paul, ignores hierarchies of worth. Grace destroys social rankings based upon value. In the eyes of God \u00adthere are no inferior versus superior\u00ad people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul\u2019s preaching about the incongruity of grace was social dynamite, blowing to smithereens every attempt to rank\u00ad human persons on a scale of value and worth. In the hands of Paul,<strong> grace became a tool of&nbsp;<em>social leveling<\/em>, creating capacities for egalitarian and demo\u00adcratic forms of social life<\/strong>\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since<strong> Christ had welcomed the early Christians, unconditionally and irrespective of worth, they \u00adwere called upon to extend that same unconditional welcome to each other. <\/strong>As Paul would ask of them, \u201cWelcome each other, as Christ has welcomed you.\u201d Despite their differences, grace had made them a \u00adfamily. No one would be honored or&nbsp;elevated over another. God had loved them all, fully and equally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>=============<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Hello!<br><br>I have a thing for trees. I am utterly captivated by them.<br><br>There is something about standing beside a tree that has been growing for somewhere between 200 and 800 years that offers me perspective. About myself and the world that God sustains.<br><br>The trees of which I am speaking are colossal in stature, towering above my comprehension of how they have come to be. And indeed, my curiosity of how they have developed holds me most spellbound.<br><br>And how have they come to be what they are? Simply by remaining where they are, receiving the nourishment provided them.&nbsp;<br><br>Year after year. Without fanfare. Without striving. Without needing to prove anything.<br><br>They do this silently. Faithfully. They have slowly become magnificent over the accumulated decades and centuries of time.<br><br>Standing beside them, I find myself returning to Psalm 8:4: \u201cWhat is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/us.list-manage.com\/aCk_xzOEtCi?e=9c852305ea&amp;c2id=eefa8a12a756a2f7df85a97a619db30d\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>I am a vapor.<br><br>To read those words in the spirit of shame can feel diminishing. But to imagine them in the context of being deeply known and loved brings me, somewhat counterintuitively, a keenly, abiding sense of liberation.<br><br>To know that I am a vapor is to remember that I am not God\u2014and therefore do not carry the weight of responsibility that God carries. I do not have to work to be wantable. I am able to exhale and imagine Jesus saying, \u201cWhen you\u2019re anxious, the answer is not, \u2018Work harder.\u2019 The answer is, \u2018Come closer.\u2019\u201d<br><br><strong>Because God is God and I am not, I am able to become who he longs for me to become.<\/strong><br><br>There is a great sigh of relief in that. And I sense that sigh as I place my hand on a tree like the one you see here.<br><br>Perhaps we are meant to become more like these trees\u2014not in size or strength, but in our willingness to simply be where we are, rooted in the spaces God has given us, allowing time and faithfulness to shape us.<br><br>Year after year after year.<br><br>Becoming who we were created to be.<br><br>And perhaps this is part of what it means to walk the path of oncoming beauty: trusting that God is at work in us even when we cannot yet see what we are becoming.<br><br>Warmly,<br>Curt<br><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Two questions for reflection<br><\/span><\/strong><br><strong>If grace really means that I don&#8217;t have to earn my worth, what striving in my life might I be able to let go of?<\/strong><br><br><strong>Like the tree, what might it look like for me simply to remain rooted where I am, receiving what God gives, and trusting that I am becoming\u2014even when I can&#8217;t see the growth?<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, September 16, 2026 Theologian Richard Beck considers how the apostle Paul challenged the ancient world\u2019s understanding of gift and grace as something one had to earn and repay: Over the last two thousand years our definition of grace has flip-flopped and under\u00adgone a 180-\u00addegree reversal. Grace was once&nbsp;merited; today it is&nbsp;unmerited. Back then, grace [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27614"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27626,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27614\/revisions\/27626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}