My Father Who Art In Heaven?

Yesterday morning on the way to work I tuned to the radio program of a nationally well-known and popular pastor. There are times when I’ve appreciated his messages, but then there are times when he overlays culture, pop-Christianity, and eschatological dramatic speculation over the Bible. I listened to less than one minute of his message yesterday. In essence this is what I heard:

“In the Old Testament God dealt with a people, the people of Israel. In the New Testament he deals with individuals. In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught that we are to pray “Our Father”.

That was all I could take. How can someone extract individuality from the word “our”? Or, to continue with the Lord’s Prayer; “our bread”, our “trespasses/debts”, deliver “us” from evil. Plus, of course, a central theme of the New Testament is the church, the Body of Christ, the family of God, the priesthood of believers...I have no idea how many collective images of the people of God there are in the NT but they overwhelm the emphasis on the individual. We can rightly say that the individual finds his or her place, identity, and purpose in the context of the Church of Jesus Christ – this does not negate the individual, it affirms the image and calling of God in the individual member of the Body.

But we have become so self-centered and individualistic, and many of us have also bought into a mythological and fanciful storybook belief about eschatology, that we cannot see what is written in Scripture.