Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 03:2 (Spring 2013)
Article: Equipping The Generations: Cross-Generational Fellowship And The Gospel Of Jesus Christ
Author: Raymond Johnson

JDFM 3:2 (Spring 2013) p. 86

Equipping The Generations: Cross-Generational Fellowship And The Gospel Of Jesus Christ1

Raymond Johnson

Raymond Johnson (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) and his wife, Meghan, live in Louisville with their two daughters, Abigail and Charlotte. He is on the ministerial staff at Ninth & O Baptist Church and also serves as the assistant director of student and alumni services at Southern Seminary.

My best ministerial friend is ridiculous. He bleeds blue as a University of Kentucky basketball fan, he does not understand what a first down in football is, and he formerly studied rocks (that’s right, rocks). On top of that, he is twice my age, is finished with school, and has children who can change their own clothes. I‘m a redneck Alabama football enthusiast who bleeds crimson red (roll Tide) and listens to country music.

So how did two men with two wildly different backgrounds come to experience cross-generational intimacy?

The gospel.

The Scripture teaches that two thousand years ago, two other men with two wildly different backgrounds—the Hebrew of Hebrews, bigot and murderer, Paul (Phil 3:5; Acts 7:58, 8:1), and a circumcised half-Greek, Timothy (Acts 16:1)—came to experience cross-generational intimacy too. Again, the answer to the question, How is this possible? is: the gospel. Their fellowship was grounded in a common confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ; this gospel drew them together as they labored expectantly for death-defying vindication in the resurrection. This gospel, which reconciled them to the Father vertically and to one another in Christ horizontally, made their cross-generational fellowship possible.

Paul and Timothy’s friendship is one of the most familiar cross-generational relationships in Scripture (Acts 16:1; Rom 16:21; 1 Cor 4:17; Phil 2:19; Col 1:1; 1 Thess 1:1, 3:2; 2 Thess 1:1; 1 Tim 1:2, 18; 2 Tim 1:2). Unfortunately, most people today interpret this gospel-relationship to be more like ...