The Word Became Human and Lived Among Us

In one paragraph

Duane Bristow, director of the Brethren Navajo Mission, brought the message this Sunday. Drawing on decades of incarnational ministry among the Navajo people, he traced a line from John 1 to the practical question of whether our own witness looks more like Jesus entering a culture or like religion being imposed on one. Duane opened by describing a conversation with his bishop about a conference...

Read together

1. Romans 1:16 quoted to affirm not being ashamed of the gospel as the power of God for salvation
2. Romans 8:11 quoted to remind the congregation that the Spirit who raised Jesus lives in believers
3. Isaiah 43:19 quoted in the context of God doing a new thing, clearing the wilderness and making rivers in the desert
4. John 1:1-3, 14 quoted in two versions to explain incarnational ministry, the Word becoming human and dwelling among us
5. 1 Corinthians 11:13-16 quoted as an example of how imposed cultural standards were wrongly used as a message to Native American people
6. John 14:5-11 quoted to show Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, and that seeing him is seeing the Father
7. Colossians 2:20-23 quoted to warn against letting others impose worldly rules and self-imposed worship that have no power over corrupt nature

Talk about it

1. Duane described how missionaries sometimes brought their own culture along with the gospel, telling Native American people to change their clothes, their hair, their language and their music. When have you seen that kind of thing happen, and what did it cost the people on the receiving end?
2. Duane talked about Isaiah 43:19, where God says He is doing a new thing, and connected it to the idea of leaving your comfort zone. What has it looked like in your own life when God called you out of a familiar, comfortable place?
3. Duane drew a contrast between an incarnational message and an impositional one, and asked whether our tendency is to say 'if you want to follow Jesus, you have to become like us.' Where do you think that tendency comes from, and how do we guard against it?
4. Looking at John 14, Duane pointed to Jesus saying 'if you have seen me, you have seen the Father,' and asked whether we can say the same thing about ourselves to the people around us. What would it actually look like in your daily life to be that kind of living picture of God to someone else?
5. Duane read from Colossians 2 that rules about 'don't handle this, don't taste or touch that' have no real power to hold back the desires of our corrupt nature, and said the only thing that can do that is letting the incarnate word of God have control of our lives. What does that kind of surrender look like in practice, and where do you find it hardest?