Tag: abundance

Re-envisioning our culture

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Re-envisioning our culture

[Bible references: Isaiah 61:1-11; Ezekiel 16:1-19; 1 Peter 3:1-22]

In Culture Care,[1] Fujimura tries to get us to think holistically, in terms of restoring beauty as a means of invigorating culture so that people can thrive. This “Generative Thinking” looks beyond the resources right in front of us and recognizes the transcendence of God in our midst, which then allows us to think and behave generously and then also allows us to think beyond the immediate future and instead think in terms of generations to come. This contrasts with the attitude that resources are scarce and therefore must be handled in utilitarian and economic ways.

As creatures made in the image of our transcendent God, we have been given the capability to detect that transcendence in the form of beauty. As creatures made in the image of our creator God, we have been given the ability to create beautiful artifacts. Beauty is a characteristic that points beyond creation itself, for beauty has no utilitarian value. The beauty we see around us reflects the generous and gratuitous nature of God who intends that we do more than just survive, but rather to flourish in the abundance of His provision. Even more than that, Beauty is a characteristic that encompasses more than what we can look at or hear, but it is enfolded in the spiritual values of justice and morality.

Although, we all have the capacity to create beauty, there are those people who are called to focus on making works of art. Fujimuraviews those artists as the catalysts, leaders that challenge us to think less colloquially but more imaginatively, to look beyond ourselves and our local groups and rather to look to the whole of society. Artists are positioned to do this, because their dispositions usually place them at the fringes of society where they can serve as “border-walkers”[2] allowing them to at once look at their own social group from the fringes and also to connect to other social groups. Fujimura then challenges the rest of society to create an environment for these artists, these “border-walkers,” to be trained in their roles and to thrive. Part of the challenge is to recognize that, for society to flourish, we need the art economy, which by definition is a non-utilitarian economy. Towards this end, artists should be trained to be effective stewards of their gifts and society needs to learn how to be stewards of the artists, by creating environments for art, and Beauty, to flourish. Fujimura proposes that art can even help us create a healing environment in our current culture wars. Participants in culture wars employ language that reduces the enemy to a caricature. Instead, culture should not be handled as a territory to be won or lost but a resource we are called to steward and cultivate. Artists can become known as “citizen artists” who lead in society with their imagination and their work – creating opportunities for genesis moments in culture – moments in which dialogue can happen, caricatures can be discarded, and deeper concerns can be addressed. But for this to happen, we need vision, courage, and perseverance and a focused effort to pay attention to the care and cultivation of the soul.

[1] Fujimura, Makoto. Culture Care: Reconnecting with beauty for our common life.  Intervarsity Press 2014

[2] Also called “mearcstapas” in Beowulf, seventh century

Reflect

We may not all be artists, but we all have some creative capabilities as co-creators with God. We all have the capacity to create beauty: acts of generosity, bringing the life of the Spirit into a spiritually dark place, letting God’s love flow through you to another. How can you bring beauty into the world?

Observe

Read Ezekiel 16:1-19. It is probably not hard to envision the community outside the church as the “adulterous wife.” How can we “clothe” our community?

Discipline of Generosity

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 15 – Reforming our Souls

Discipline of Generosity

[Bible references: Psalm 24:1; Proverbs 11:24-25; Ecclesiastes 5:10-20; Matthew 6:1-4, 24; Luke 12:13-21; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15]

If we have entered the discipline of simplicity to order our lives and stewardship,

and if we have entered the discipline of gratitude to order our attitudes,

and if we have entered the discipline of fasting to order our needs

and if we have entered the discipline of lament to order our desires

then we are in a place enter into the discipline of generosity.

The spirit of generosity is helped by all the previous disciplines. They open us up to recognizing God’s generosity in our life so that we can extend His generosity to others. To move from the spirit of generosity to the discipline of generosity we must move from giving from out of the overflow of what we received to looking for ways to give that may stretch us. If we are confident about God’s provision for us, then we will be free to give from a feeling of abundance rather than scarcity.

One of the ways to begin is with the tithe, 10% of our income. That kind of giving normally requires us to have discipline with some of our other expenditures. If 10% seems too much, you can start lower but look for ways to increase over time. If 10% is not a stretch, then you may consider increasing from there. The goal of the discipline of generosity is to move us from “merely” giving from the overflow of what we received to looking for ways to give that may stretch us.

The principle of the tithe does not apply only to our money, but to our time and talents (spiritual gifts) as well. The point to remember is that God provides all we have, and our discipline is to give back out of what he has already given as an appreciation of all He has provided, and an acknowledgement of our dependence on Him.

Generosity is about more than just giving. It’s about our attitudes towards our possessions. Do our possessions reduce our priorities for God? Do we think that we own our possessions or that God owns them, and we are only stewards? Does our security come from our possessions or from God? By removing trust from the possessions we have and instead placing our trust in God, we will be more able to freely share what God has given.

Reflect

What keeps you from seeking to stretch your faith in God’s provision?

Observe

Read Ecclesiastes 5:10-20. How can wealth be meaningless?

Our Mandate

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 14 – Remembering our creation

Our Mandate

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25; 3:6; 39:22-23; Matthew 17:10-13; Acts 3:19-42; 1 Peter 5:10]

We have seen how our journey, the journey of God’s people, creatures made in God’s own image, began with our ordination in the Garden of Eden and we have seen what God has intended for our future. We have seen how that intention has not changed despite our rebellion which continues to this day, and how God has not ceased to work with us, His people, despite our persistent rebellion. We have seen God’s patience and tenderness in not totally abandoning us despite our rebellion and how He has called us generation after generation – from the patriarchs and prophets to the apostles and all who are called Christian – to join Him in His ongoing restoration of His Kingdom on earth.

As image-bearers, we still are charged with the work of stewarding His creation, However, we must be restored ourselves before we can fully join Him in His work. That work of restoration begins when the Holy Spirit comes within us to unite us to God and His community. That is the work God must do within us.

In the previous chapters, we have followed how God called his image-bearers to join in the work that he began and then how, through the years, his image-bearers have joined that work, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. In this chapter, as we prepare to consider how to move forward, we will revisit that multi-faceted call to rule over the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it” and to cultivate[1] and keep it, to create beauty. This call to act as God’s stewards of His creation is a call to use our gifts of intelligence and creativity, to cultivate the resources of the earth to establish a godly culture and civilization. This call is sometimes called the “cultural mandate,” where our culture includes all the things we discover and make and pass on from one generation to the next: our food, language, sports, arts, businesses and their products, civic organizations, and governments, etc.

The charge to “have dominion over” and “subdue” the earth and all its creatures includes physical, cultural, and intellectual activities such as farming, mining, manufacturing, government, arts, civic organizations, education, sciences, technology, and many other activities. But the primary place of God’s kingdom is to restore the souls of men. All would be well if all souls were in right relation to God, everything else would fall into place. Evangelization of the souls of all men is the ultimate goal. But if we think of the ways in which God, out of his overflowing abundance, finally managed to touch our hearts, there were many steps and many different ways in which we were individually touched by the hand of God.

As God’s image-bearers we are uniquely equipped to imagine and discover what kind of possibilities can be made of the overflowing abundance of  God, the physical resources He has provided for us: turning grain to bread, grapes to wine, oil to energy and plastics, iron ore to steel, limestone and shale and clay to cement, and many other things we have made from many types of resources. We are uniquely equipped to imagine and discover out of God’s overflowing abundance what kinds of ways we can organize ourselves to fulfill our responsibility to subdue and cultivate the earth by creating organizations such as businesses, civic and social organizations, political parties and non-profit organizations, governments and educational and religious institutions.[2] In all of these activities we can reflect God’s knowledge and wisdom by engaging in intellectual pursuits such as reading, writing, mathematics, sciences, philosophies, language arts, history, engineering, forensics, medicine, law, etc.  

[1] Huber, Dave. “Avodah Word Study” EFCA Today Summer 2012 www.efcatoday.org/story/avodah-word-study

[2] Manahan, Ronald E. “A Re-Examination of the Cultural Mandate: An Analysis and Evaluation of the Dominion Materials” Docsbay Grace Theological Seminary dissertation May 1982 docsbay.net/A-Re-Examination-Of-The-Cultural-Mandate

Reflect

We were assigned priestly duties in the Garden of Eden. As believers, we are to be kingdom of priests. As God’s care for His Creation continues, so does our mandate. What things can you do (and are equipped to do), with God, to fulfill His mandate?

Observe

Read Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; 39:22-23. How would the world be different if we fulfilled our duties towards creation in the same way the Joseph fulfilled his duties?

Spurning love

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 4– Retreating to chaos

Spurning love

[Bible references: Genesis 3:1-7]

God created His image-bearing creatures so that they could receive love and respond in love. He provided those creatures with an ideal environment in which to thrive. These creatures knew the One who created and loved them and yet they chose to reject that love. As the descendants of the original image-bearers, we know that impulse all too well, the compelling urge to distrust others and to rely on our own resources, the desire to clutch power to ourselves and reject any claim to another’s authority over us. These urges and desires seem to overwhelm the opportunity to receive the love offered to us and thus removing our ability to respond by offering love.

We are marked by our continued failure to resist the temptation to grab what we want instead of waiting to receive what we want from God. In spurning God’s love, in rebelling against His authority, we break the bonds that hold us to each other and to God, and in doing so breaking what bound the Kingdom of Heaven to Creation.

In all of human history, Jesus was the only one able to successfully resist the temptation to grab for himself instead of waiting for the Father to provide. His success began the restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, a restoration that will not be complete until He comes again to fully reunite Heaven and Earth. Until heaven and earth are fully reunited, we will not fully experience the overflowing shalom that God has intended for us. Until that time, the broken earth will be separated from heaven and allowed to sink into disorder and chaos. Until that time, the overflowing goodness and shalom that God had provided will be masked by the brokenness of not just Creation but also by the brokenness of the co-creators. Look at what we have done!

We were meant to be in communion with each other and with God. We were meant to be “gardening” with God to make our place, a place of thriving and abundance in concord with the type of thriving and abundance with which God originally made the universe. God intended for us to be connected to Him and to be filled with His Spirit so that we would be fully enabled to be co-creators with Him of good works. But until then, we are in a state of rebellion, separated from the one who is the source of goodness. In that sense, we are less human than we should be.

Reflect

It seems to be part of human nature, to be suspicious of those things or those people who are different than us. The question is, when does doubting someone else’s motives become an act of sin?

Observe

Read Genesis 3:1-7. What hidden desires may cause us to distrust someone?

The Temple Maker

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 2 – The God who created

The Temple Maker

[Bible references: Genesis 1-2; Exodus 26; 1 Kings 6; Job; Psalm 8; 95; 100; 104 and others; Proverbs 8:22-31; Isaiah 44:21-28; 45:5-12; 51:4-12; 55:6-13; Matthew 26:61; I Corinthians 6:19-20; Revelation 21-22]

There has been much debate about how to interpret the creation account. There have been various attempts to understand creation as physical processes that had occurred (over shorter or longer periods, depending on your analysis) because in our current cultural context we default to thinking of creation in physical, scientific terms. But what if (surprise! surprise!) we consider the biblical text to be a theological text instead of a scientific one, about functional origins and not about material origins.[1]

The cosmos can only function as sacred space once God has inhabited it and people in his image are there. God is declaring purpose for the cosmos as an ordered space for people and as sacred space where he will dwell. This is what defines the divine activity …Adopting and promoting a vision and mission statement will not change how the institution operates. But it articulates a purpose and identity that may not have been realized or present before and proclaims that as its purpose. Genesis 1 is doing something similar. It is articulating a purpose through a mission statement (people living out their designated role as the image of God) and a vision statement (seeing the world around us as sacred space where God is living among his people and being in relationship with them). .[2]

In the last few decades, research has uncovered much more about the culture in the Ancient Near East than ever before. It has been discovered that in Ancient Near East cultures, the Genesis account would not have interpreted the creation account in terms of physical processes but rather in terms of assigning meaning and purpose. So, as we read the Creation account in Genesis 1, on the first three days the spaces of light and dark, waters above and below, and the land are being assigned a purpose. The next three days the populations of those spaces are assigned a purpose: the sun and the moon and stars, the birds and fish, the land animals.

In this perspective, the story of creation is seen more as a story about the dedication of a temple, where the universe and the world were dedicated as a sacred space, a space where God would dwell with his people. Therefore, the seventh day is when God rested from the act of dedicating the earth, which would now be the place where He would now live with his image-bearers. If you read Genesis 1-2, you will see that, unlike the other days, there is no “there was evening and there was morning.” That is because we are living in the seventh day.

The completion of God’s temple would be later remembered by the seventh day celebration of the Sabbath. Although God’s temple was completed by the seventh day, it was not a time where God ceased to do everything. The still continuing seventh day is the time when the “temple” which is our “home” is completed so that God and we, as his co-regents, can settle in and do the things that our home was designed for. Jesus in John 5:1-7 clarified this idea where he explained, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” Living into this sacred space would entail us taking part with God in his continual acts of creating and sustaining the universe. That is the perspective of Eve, when she gave birth to Cain, she recognized that “I’ve created a man with Yahweh.”[3]

In Genesis 2, the focus moves to the humans God created and how they were to function in that sacred space where the Garden of Eden is the center. Genesis 2 is also where God’s name, “Yahweh,” begins to be used. Genesis 1 introduces the God as the Creator of the universe whereas Genesis 2 introduces the God who in establishing a personal relationship with the people he created uses a personal name.[4]

The cosmos that God created was intended to be a temple, the place where He would meet with his people. The temple/creation imagery permeates and unites all of scripture from the first book, Genesis, to the last book, Revelation. The temple/creation theme shows up in places like in the stories of Noah, Moses, and Abraham, in the construction of the Tabernacle and the Temple, in Job’s dialog with Yahweh, in the poetry of Psalms[5], in prophecies of Isaiah, in the body Jesus and in us as his Body and finally in the depiction of reuniting of heaven and earth. Each instance shows its own unique aspect of the temple, so that when combined with each other, they show a more complete picture of how God meets with us and provides for us and what he has intended for us. We see a complex picture of the temple as a physical place in Creation and at the same time the temple is within us, inside the bodies of all of those who call on his name. In both those cases we can see the provision of God who 1) abundantly fills all of Creation in ways that exceed our imagination and exceed the capacity of any book to tell and, 2) abundantly fills us with His strength and His Spirit so that we can fulfill the desire He has for us to “cultivate and keep” the abundant place He has provided for us.

One of the benefits of considering only the theological aspects of the Creation accounts, or the why of creation, is that we don’t have to be as highly concerned about the how of creation, or the scientific/physical accounts of creation. When scientific creation accounts are proposed and are not perceived to be correct because they don’t seem to theologically fit, we don’t need to despair. It may be that the various proposed scientific explanations simply don’t theologically fit because they just don’t or because we just don’t understand just how they could theologically fit. We know that the sciences are limited and that theories will change as more discoveries are made. Sometimes those theories may seem to move closer or further from our limited theological understandings, but our theology is not constrained by whatever the current science may indicate. In the meanwhile, we are free to explore the science and wonder in awe and marvel at just how God managed to do it all while humbly admitting that we don’t have the mind of God and how much higher his ways are than our ways.

[1] Walton, John. “The Lost World of Adam and Eve,” Proposition 3, InterVarsity Press. 2015 Kindle Edition. pp. 35-45; Driver, Cory. “Commentary on Genesis 1:1-5” Working Preacher 10 Jan 2021 www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-genesis-11-5-5; Carlson, Reed. “Commentary on Genesis 1:1-2:4a 12” Working Preacher Sept 2011 www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/creation-by-the-word/commentary-on-genesis-11-24a-5; Throntveit, Mark. “Commentary on Genesis 1:1-2:4a; or 1:1-5,26-2:4a 1 Working Preacher 1 Sept 2011 www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/creation/commentary-on-genesis-11-31-21-4

[2] Walton, John. “Material or Function in Genesis 1? John Walton Responds” Biologos 3 Apr 2015 biologos.org/series/reflections-on-the-lost-world-of-genesis-1-by-john-walton/articles/material-or-function-in-genesis-1-john-walton-responds

[3] Friedman, Richard Elliot, Commentary on the Torah, Harper Collins, 2003 Location 6942 of 37412

[4] There will be more discussion on that name in “Hope in the Brokenness,” Chapter 4

[5] Muran, Alexej. “The Creation Theme in Selected Psalms” Geoscience Research Institute 1 May 2015 www.grisda.org/the-creation-theme-in-selected-psalms

Reflect

Does viewing the universe as a temple affect the way we look at it?

Observe

Read Proverbs 8. This proverb personifies God’s wisdom. Read how God is describing how His wisdom is built into the very framework and fabric of this temple we call Creation. How can we sense God’s presence with us because of how His wisdom should be speaking to us?

Generous and overflowing Shalom

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 3 – The Image-bearers

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 30:9; Psalm 37; 65; 72; 92; Isaiah 9:6; John 10:10; 14:25-31; 20:19-23; Philippians 4:4-9]

The church has a stake in human flourishing. The challenge for the church is to define and promote human flourishing (which we might otherwise describe as human well-being, human happiness) in accordance with biblical teaching, to present and commend its alternative approach to human flourishing in the face of competing cultural visions, and to embody human flourishing in the presence of God amid a culture of death and destruction. Christian theology has a role to play in assisting the church to meet this challenge.[1]

“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there.”[2]

Goodness, generosity and shalom all fit together. We begin with the premise that we are representatives of the Prince of Peace. Scripture is full of encouragement for us to live in peace because it is through shalom that much else flows, including goodness and generosity. Goodness flows out of the shalom which is concerned with the overall well-being of others and is necessarily linked to justice, mercy, and humility – and we are not to be content with helping God to usher in only the minimal amounts of justice, mercy into the world but the fullness that stems from the overflowing goodness of God.

Our Creator and Temple-maker intended for us to enjoy his overflowing love and goodness. He provided us a place of abundance where all our needs could be met, where He had a purpose for us as His stewards and His co-creators and where we could enjoy him and enjoy each other. This overflowing can actually be overwhelming when we consider the breadth, the beauty, the abundance, and the complexity of this temple he has provided. And we can marvel at the breadth, the beauty, the abundance and the complexity of the skills and abilities He has provided for us as his stewards and co-creators. Just look at what He has done and what we have done with what He has given us!

[1] Swain, Scott. “Psalm 19 and human flourishing” Reformation21 http://www.reformation21.org/blogs/psalm-19-and-human-flourishing.php

[2] Lewis, C.S. “Mere Christianity” Samizdat 2014 p. 31

Reflect

In what ways can the shalom of God flow over from our lives to the lives of others?

Observe

Read John 14:25-31; 20:19-23. What are the conditions of the disciples when Jesus offers them His peace?