From Static by Ron Martoia:

“…instead of asking, ‘What does the word ‘gospel’ mean to me?’ or ,’How should I share the gospel today?’ I’m suggesting that we pursue the question from the viewpoint of where it all began.  Before we try to figure out what the word means to us today, let’s discover the backstory.

I have to confess that at first it was very difficult for me to get a clear view of the backstory of certain biblical words.  I had been to seminary.  I had a systematic theology that directed me toward certain interpretations and understandings.  I thought I had it all figured out.  I had immersed myself in learning Greek, for crying out loud.  So this was some tough sledding.  It wasn’t until I realized that there was always more to learn and that unless I was willing to acknowledge that much of what I believed or understood was, at best, incomplete or provisional, I would never learn anything new, never grow, never experience what it is like to have new insights that would set me free.

When we look at the words of the Bible, we are actually dealing with at least two different worlds that are coming together: the biblical world and the cultural world into which Jesus came.  In other words, there were two converging backstories.  When Jesus spoke, there were details that would be understood easily by his first-century audience, figures of speech and other nuances that they would automatically be familiar with. For us, being removed from the first century by two thousand years, a different language, and a totally different culture, we have a lot of missing pieces to uncover before we can reasonably say we’re even close to being on the same footing as those who heard Jesus’ teaching firsthand.”

This is an important book.  It’s not that the ideas within it are new.  They’re not.  What’s new is that they are conveyed in a way anyone, regardless of whether they are a skeptic of Christianity, beginning to examine Christianity, or a seminary graduate, can understand.  Without being condescending, Ron, with a very engaging writing style, redefines key words in the Christianese dictionary.  Words like “gospel” and “Good News” and “kingdom of heaven” are defined in modern language by first figuring out what Jesus’ audience two thousand years ago would have thought them to mean.  They suddenly take on an importance and breadth they often lack from overuse. 

The book isn’t heavy on scholarly citations or academic language.  In fact, there’s none of that.  Instead, Ron, as if you were sitting across from him at dinner, tells his story and the story of two friends and how they, together, came to understand all over again who Jesus was and what on earth he was talking about.

The one problem I have with Static is that I think reading it would be very jarring for me if I did so alone and I’d never thought through these ideas before.  If I’d never thought of heaven as anything other than a place in the sky we go to when we die, if I’d never thought about repentance as meaning more than ceasing to do bad things and being sorry – if I’d never thought about these things before reading Static I wonder if I would have put it down out of shock after the first two chapters.  The ideas in this book are true but so different from the version of Christianity taught to me growing up.

Maybe it won’t be a shocking experience for you, but in case it is, let’s do this.  Go buy Static.  Then, take a month to read it and meet me over on the Words blog on July 14th and I’ll blog through it.  This way we can raise our virtual hands, ask questions, disagree, agree, and work our way through these pages together.  That would sure help me digest some of it’s concepts and hopefully it will help you too.

See you then.  July 14th on the Words blog.  It’s a date.

(By the way, Mr.Publisher, why isn’t there a blog for this book where the author can work through its contents with his audience better than I’ll be doing it?  Why is there nothing on youtube under Ron’s name?  No teaching.  No excerpt.  Nothing.  Why?)

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