Eschatological Discipleship: Leading Christians to Understand Their Historical and Cultural Context by Trevin Wax
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
At first glance I wondered what Eschatological Discipleship meant. After all, my church background was heavy on eschatology including charts, diagrams, and cheesy movies about the end of the world. For all those years eschatological discipleship would have meant, Jesus could be back any second now, do you want him to catch you doing whatever it is you are doing.
Fortunately, Trevin Wax never even came close to saying that. In this book eschatology means asking what time is it. Eschatological discipleship is a “…type of spiritual formation and obedience that takes into account the contemporary setting in which one finds himself.” P3. HE goes on and says “…spiritual formation that goes beyond adoption of personal spiritual disciplines or engagement in church related activities to a missionary encounter and confrontation with the world.” P3
The first part of the book Wax drills down deep into understanding worldviews, a definition of eschatology and discipleship. He then gives an extensive biblical precedent for eschatological discipleship. This area makes this book a solid, biblical understanding of this process making this more than just a how to book on discipleship. He also wants us to understand the difference between absolutes and non-absolutes when we understand what time it is. There is a lot of meat here to validate the need for eschatological discipleship.
In this early section the best part of the book was the section in chapter 3 discussing witness. Trevin makes a powerful case that witness is not something we do but someone we are. Witness is not a task but our identity. He states the activity of witnessing is birthed out of our identity as witnesses. This section alone makes the book a valuable resource.
The section on rival worldviews (Enlightenment, Sexual Revolution, Consumerism) were another strong point of the book. These chapters helped me to realize where we came from and how we got here. IT makes it much easier to understand the time we are in when we see how we got here. Instead of just a history lesson Wax provides tools to expose these contradictory worldviews and provide a way to flourish.
Eschatological Discipleship winds down with an evangelical look at discipleship and its common expressions he calls reproduction, personal piety, and gospel centered. Wax points out the pros and cons of each expression and the value of adding the eschatological discipleship element. He also provides tactics to have a missionary encounter in these areas.
This book was a tough read for me. Not because of the content but because there was so much packed into this volume. I had to take my time reading and digesting each section. In the end if you are looking for a deeper, long lasting definition for discipleship this is it.
You will not find 3 easy steps or 12-week studies here. Instead you will find the call to a healthy form of discipleship that will require you to put the hard work into fleshing this out in your life and context. But that’s is what makes it long lasting and what the purpose is anyway, to develop the wisdom that leads to light for living in Gods kingdom in your time and context.
A free copy was provided for review.
Thinking About Theology 