Listen as Steve gives a great explanation of the Crossings Method. In his words, the Crossings Method is a way to look at life, culture, film, literature, and Scripture through the lens of the distinction between Law and Gospel.
It is a specific process for examining Scripture and ourselves through the prism of distinguishing law and gospel. Once we have listened to the Word of God in the biblical narrative, we set our lives, our narratives, next to it and connect them, “cross” them, to understand how faith in that Word and daily life are interwoven.
Here we are. Another section of faith seeking Understanding, where we as the crossings community respond to a variety of questions raised by ordinary people about ordinary things in life, experience, culture, and the scriptures itself. Today I want to address one of the most fundamental questions that often gets asked about crossings. Namely, what is this method? This matrix, I hear you talking all the time about that often fills your website as you delve through understanding the scripture readings appointed for the week. The crossings method really begins with an understanding of the gospel. It’s all about the gospel of Jesus Christ and incredible good news unconditionally God at work for us in Jesus Christ. Good news for all of humanity. Fundamental to all of that then is the distinction between law and promise, which is a way of magnifying the work of Christ and keeping the good news, good news.
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Now, a tool for using the distinction between law and promise and understanding, analyzing human experience and the holy scriptures is what we call the crossings method. The call crossings matrix, and it’s based, you might say, in a kind of medical model, you go to the doctor and he diagnoses what’s wrong with you and then offers a prognosis, a solution. Now, in a sense, that’s what the crossings method does under law, God does diagnosis of human beings and what finally is their problem. The gospel is the prognosis, God at work, transforming, changing, healing, and saving us from that kind of predicament. For example, when we look at a given biblical text, we look at the text and try to think, well, someone in this text has a problem. That’s not the only one with a problem. We also also remind ourselves that every time we come to a text and scripture word, the ones who have a problem, and through that scripture, God is not only diagnosing someone in the text, but also diagnosing us and our hearts and our lives, and offering us a prognosis solution hope in Jesus Christ, and it basically boils down as an exercise in six simple, simple steps.
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Step number one, we’ll look for the external problem in a text in life, it could be behavior. Someone is sick, there’s an illness or death. The conflict, we probe down beneath that the internal human problem, which is always about faith. It’s always about our hearts that don’t want to trust God, want to trust other things, trust ourselves, go our own way. Finally, perhaps say to God, I’d rather do
It my way, which then drives us to the deepest problem, the eternal problem. We’re finally, we’re stuck in our human predicament. Can’t get out. And finally when we look to see God, God is a problem, not happy with what we’ve done with our lives and our relationship to God. Stuck in the eternal problem, the eternal solution. The most important part of the crossings matrix method is step four, where we proclaim the good news, discover how God is at work in that text, ultimately through Christ, answering, addressing, crossing with the problem, identified the eternal, a problem identified, step three, step four, the good news of Jesus Christ, which then addresses our heart problem, our faith, that when we uncover what God is at work in Christ, that always comes across in such a way that the hearer hears that it’s for you. It is a promise, and oh, I can trust that and that then flowers forth in step six, the new life, new behavior. We care for our neighbor, the world, and it’s all a get to under the power of the Holy Spirit. A marvelous method for looking at scripture and life through law and gospel, diagnosis, prognosis, all in such a way that it magnifies the good news of what God is doing for the world in Jesus Christ. The crossings method, go to our website. You see examples of it being put to use all over the place. Very simple, very important. I.
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