Tag: body

Reclaiming the institutional church

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Reclaiming the institutional church

[Bible references: Matthew 5:1-16, 38-48; Luke 6:1-49; John 13:1-17, 34-35]

There are many people who claim to love Jesus but not His church (which is his body). But we need to keep in mind that every accusation we may choose to hold against the church is against us personally. The church is comprised of sinful people, and that includes us. The church has done inappropriate things in the past and so have we. As part of our, and the church’s, sinful behavior is the ease with which we focus on the things that have gone wrong while forgetting to examine the “log” in our own eye. A quote from an old cartoon strip is appropriate here, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”[1]

The second thing we need to hold onto is that as Jesus loved the world enough to die for – and redeem – the very people who rejected him. That includes the church – which includes us. If we are commanded to love our enemies, what should our attitudes be towards the group that we are part of? It is normal for us to have higher expectations towards our own family than those who are outside the family. Because of that, it is normal for us to be disappointed by or hurt more easily by people within our family than by anyone else.

Those hurts and disappointments can lead to us overlooking all the ways in which the church has, in its broken way, still managed to fulfill at least some of the intentions God has had for the church. Within the very messiness of church history, the church had not totally neglected its ability to show love to one another and to reach in love to those outside the church. It is through the church that we have the Bible and faithful Christians through the years that created hospitals and orphanages, taken care of the widows and others who need care. It is the church that made it possible for us to hear about the gospel and respond to Christ’s invitation to follow him.

The church is the body of Christ. We serve as the hands and feet, etc. of Christ, doing together what is not possible to do by ourselves. In the apostle Paul’s articulation of the Body of Christ, he notes how we all serve as different parts of the body, helping each other grow by serving in the unique ways God has prepared for us. Furthermore, Christ has told us that we will be recognized as his disciples by how we serve one another in love. This is one of the grand themes of the Bible, God has reached out to us in love, and we can respond by loving him in return; also loving one another. It is through our reflection of his love that others will respond to God in love as well.

On this side of the second coming of Christ, we all remain broken and so our institutions will remain broken. But that does not mean that Christ is unable to use us (as individuals or as part of an institutional church) for his purposes and that does not mean that the goodness of Christ is unable to be reflected through us as individuals or groups or through the institutions we create as his co-heirs to bring mercy and justice to his image-bearers and the world he has prepared for us.

In formal or informal ways, we create the institutional church to help us more effectively serve one another within the Body of Christ and to serve others outside the Body of Christ. As we take an historical look at the expected mixed record of the Body of Christ’s broken church (and, we must remember, our personal records as well), we need to cling to Christ, His love, His sustenance, and forgiveness us for all the ways we have failed to love each other within the church and outside the church.

[1] Kelly, Walt, From a Pogo strip, 22 Apr 1970 www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/04/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html

Reflect

Sometimes our church organizations can be hard to love. Nevertheless, we cannot truly love Christ without loving his church. How could you better express love for your local congregation this year?

Observe

Read John 13:1-17. How can we love and serve the church as Jesus showed us?

Created to gather and build

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 17 – Finding our place

Created to gather and build

[Bible references:  Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:11-16; 5:18-19; Colossians 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:1-2; Hebrews 10:24-25; 1 Peter 4:10;]

When we become part of the Body of Christ, we are given spiritual gifts for the express purpose of building up one another so that we may serve each other, help each other become more unified in our faith and in the knowledge of Christ and ultimately more like Christ. And it is part of that great mystery that we experience God more fully in both the giving and receiving of God’s grace through each other.

Furthermore, it is as a community of believers that we participate in the sacraments of the church. We cannot baptize ourselves and we cannot share communion by ourselves. And then there are other aspects of worship, which although we can do at any time during the week, it is only when we come together to worship that we can build up one another. This worship includes participating in the sacraments, reading and preaching scripture with each other, praying with each other, and singing hymns and spiritual songs with each other. We need to gather regularly in order to effectively build one another up. That is why we are encouraged to gather with one another.

Observe

Read Ephesians 4:11-16; 1 Peter 4:10; Colossians 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:1-2; Hebrews 10:24-25. In what ways can we encourage one another when we gather together?

Created as parts of a body

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 17 – Finding our place

Created as parts of a body

[Bible references: Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4:1-16]

We were created to be connected. We have individual identities and desires, but we were created for love by the God of love. As God’s image-bearers, we are intended to love one another just as love is shared between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor. We are told that the world will know us by our love.

Through a process we cannot understand, the Son of God, Jesus, the Christ, appeared in the flesh two thousand years ago. After His resurrection and He “returned to heaven,” He then sent the Holy Spirit who entered into His disciples. His disciples then, as Christ’s ambassadors, became His body, creatures filled with His very Spirit who were then His feet and hands, even His voice, on the earth. And it is through His body that we and others may come to know about Christ. Sometimes we come to know Christ directly through a member of His body or indirectly by what someone recorded for us. And when we respond to His call through the body of Christ, we also become part of that same great body.

We come to Christ in response to His Spirit connecting with our spirit. But the means of that connection is through the Body of Christ. As we understand how even the set of writings, we call the Bible, was written and compiled by that great body, we can grasp the dependence that we have on His body to even to come to Him. That dependence does not end after we respond to Him but enters us into an interdependence with each other: We are dependent on each other to more fully learn how to love God and love neighbor, we are dependent on each other to build each other up.

Reflect

How can you foster the need that the church has for us to be interdependent with each other?

Observe

Read 1 Corinthians 12. If someone tries to be a “part time” church member, how does that affect everyone else?

Ministry of Reconciliation

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 16 – Fixing our eyes

Ministry of Reconciliation

[Bible references: Matthew 10; Mark 1:40-45; 5:1-20; Acts 2:42-47; 3:20-26; 17:16-34; Romans 8:18-39; 12; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Ephesians 4:1-16; 6:18-20; Philippians 3:25-21; 1 Thessalonians 5:11-28; John 13:34-35; Revelation 21:1-2]

When Jesus came the first time, people were looking for a Messiah to overthrow the Roman government, but Jesus’ message was to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin. That is the message we need to respond to and the message we need to bring to others. The gospel is the good news of forgiveness that we can receive if we respond by repentance. The gospel is the good news of God’s Kingdom come to earth to transform us as well as all of creation so that heaven and earth can be fully joined as God had intended from the beginning.

Once we have become transformed, we are able to invite others to repent and accept the grace of God in transforming their lives as well and then join us in the work of discipleship and restoring the world beginning with the call to reconciliation, that is to engage in the work of evangelism. Some people are better equipped to do evangelism than others, but that does not leave the rest of us with no part in the work.

Evangelism, like other aspects in the life of the church, is a work of the body of the church. It is also a work of the Spirit. Evangelism involves persuading, proclaiming, and teaching the gospel and is a call for others to come to Christ, His Body, and to discipleship. We do not convert people to Christ, which is the work of the Spirit; but we are called to join Spirit in His work in the world. The church is called to be the church and display the gospel at work; the gospel which calls us to be transformed, calls us unity with others in the body of Christ and calls us to join Christ’s work of reconciliation and restoration.

That means that we all have a part to play in the body of Christ, to help build one another up so that we may all become mature members of the body of Christ, displaying the love of the transcendent God towards each other. If we are each transformed by Christ, then we should be able to “give a reason for the hope” we have. A hope that we can hold onto even as we live amid a church that is transformed and yet broken by sin.

The call to discipleship is a call to reconcile all the parts of our lives to the Lordship of Christ. This includes not only all our relationships, particularly with those in the body of Christ, but all of our stewardship responsibilities for all of creation. The evangel, the good news, is not just that our personal relationship with God can be restored, but that all of creation will be restored.

It is for the sake of love that God suffered for us that he might redeem us. The greatest commandments that He gave to his image-bearers, were about love: loving God and loving our neighbor. The good news is about that love – a love that reaches out to us and through us amidst all our brokenness. a love expressed in word and deed.

The remaining parts of this book are about the breadth of expressing that love. Certainly, if we love someone who does has not heard the gospel, it would be loving to share that news with them. And if we are truly loving that other, the words of that news should be happening amid all we do to show that love in our deeds as well as in our words. It may be that the deeds of love will help open-up hearts to hear about that love; a love that reflects God’s prodigal love for each of us, a love that desires to take care of all that God has given us – God’s creation and God’s creatures, God’s image-bearers, and the gifts he has given each one of us. God’s extravagant love should be reflected in the way we love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and the way we love our neighbor as ourselves.

God’s image-bearers, the ones who call him Lord and Father, are God’s chosen vehicles to proclaim and demonstrate his love as his ambassadors. God’s proclamation and demonstration of love is not constrained by our different personalities and circumstances, for our limitations are not his limitations but rather our weaknesses are His strength, and our little demonstrations of love are the reflections of His powerful love to us and to the world.

Within ourselves, we may be small and insignificant, but we are not just isolated individuals. We are part of Christ’s body, physical manifestations of Christ

  • Past, present, and future
  • Around the world
  • In all our different ways with whatever resources Christ has given us
  • In whatever place and time he chose for us, with whatever strengths and weaknesses we have

We are the creatures whom God has empowered to rule the earth as his gardener-priests. That empowerment has not changed even though we are broken people living in a broken world. The charge he had given us still remains. Therefore, within our brokenness we need to take whatever Christ has given us and proclaim and demonstrate God’s unsurpassed, overwhelming love to the world, a love that not only wants to reconcile all people but literally all the world to Himself … to reunite heaven and earth.

 The challenge we have as God’s ambassadors, is for us to be proclaiming and living the gospel amid the cultures that are sometimes indifferent and sometimes hostile. Therefore, in our tasks, if we are to be effective ambassadors then we must be, “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” as we try to discern how to effectively persuade others to follow Jesus. Of course, keeping in mind that it is not we who ultimately persuade others to follow Christ, rather that is the work of the Holy Spirit. But how can we participate with the Holy Spirit?

Different people are persuaded by different means. Sometimes, people are persuaded by logic as we could see in the life of the apostle Paul. Sometimes people are persuaded by personal relationships and are drawn by a personality that looks attractive as we could see in the lives of people who were drawn to Jesus. Sometimes people are persuaded by seeing something different in the life another.

With that in mind, then how do we put ourselves in the place where we are most effective? The answer is: the church. The church is the body of Christ whose members are called to build up one another and to demonstrate a love for one another such that others will recognize us as belonging to Christ. When the church gathers to worship and express it’s love to God, that same desire should lead to expressions of love to one another which pour out into love of neighbor as the church scatters during the week. That desire to love should then draw us to desire to learn how to love in the best way possible. Love leads to love. The love of God leads us to love, love of one another and a love of the world that God loves.

Exactly how that love will flow depends on the particulars of each individual in their particular circumstances. We are all born with different personalities and different bodies, and are equipped differently according to the Holy Spirit, and find ourselves in different cultures within the church and within our communities. Some individuals will find themselves in a very individual ministry and some will be called to a broader ministry to the world. Also, different church communities will even find different approaches in how they interact with the cultures around them.[1]

[1] Finn, Nathan A, Whitfield, Keith S. “Spirituality for the Sent” Chapter 5 Missional Spirituality and Cultural Engagement IVP Academic 2017

Reflect

Discipleship is a process of “being transformed” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Ultimately it is something that happens to us – but it is something we can co-operate with by engaging is spiritual disciplines. What kinds of changes need to happen in our lives that would make it natural to invite someone else into discipleship?

Observe

Read Romans 12. How do we help those around us to be reconciled to each other and to God?

Discipline of Service

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Discipline of Service

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 10:12; Psalm 126:5-6; Matthew 5:16; 10:42; 20:28; 25:22-23; Mark 10:43-44; Luke 22:27; John 4:34; 13:14; 27:4; Acts 20:9, 24; I Corinthians 3:9; 12:7; Ephesians 4:4-8; 6:7; Philippians 2:7; 1 Timothy 6:18; Titus 2:7; Hebrews 10:24; James 2:17-18; 1 Peter 2:12; 4:11]

To belong to Christ is to belong to His Body, all those who belong him. All who believe in Christ are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit gives spiritual gifts to all who belong to him, gifts that are designed for the building up of His body. This automatically calls us then to be serving others within the Body of Christ.

Change the diapers

Once we are in Christ, by virtue of the gifts He has given to us, we become responsible to Him and therefore to His Body, to use the gifts we are given. This does not mean, however, that we are not obligated to serve outside the scope of the particular spiritual gifts he has given us. For example, if we have a baby, we are obligated to change the diapers even if “it’s not our gift.” It’s merely what we’re called to do. The point is that belonging to Jesus is to belong to His Body and to be a part of an enterprise that began long before we were born and will continue after we die. To be part of that Body is to have a function in that Body.

Different services

To each of us, whatever possessions or gifts we have, all belong to God, and we are stewards of whatever He has given. Jesus declared, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Since to be in Him is to become like Him, we should also have that same attitude of service. A part of developing this attitude is to develop a sense of humility, beginning with the realization that God is holy and that we all deserve His wrath for rebelling against Him, but by His love and grace He has rescued us from the full consequence of our rebellion, and has instead chosen to give us great blessings. It is out of gratitude that we can respond and give back by serving Him, and therefore His Body. The difficulty is, that in this time of “Already and Not Yet” we need to be intentional about dealing with the sin in and around us by developing the habits, which is the discipline, of service. There are different aspects of our service.

  • The service of hiddenness – hiddenness is a rebuke to the flesh and can deal a fatal blow to pride.
  • The service of small things – those frequent opportunities to help in small ways.
  • The service of guarding the reputation of others – actively avoiding gossip which causes division, and instead promoting unity through your words.
  • The service of being served – true servants should graciously receive service, not feeling they must repay it.
  • The service of common courtesy – acknowledging others and affirming their worth
  • The service of hospitality – “practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another” (1 Peter 4:9); making a space where people are welcome as they are to be together and share life.
  • The service of listening – we don’t need to have all the answers, we simply need to be present and listen well in love.
  • The service of bearing the burdens of each other – weeping with those who weep and bearing the hurts and sufferings of others.
  • The service of sharing the word of Life with one another – nobody hears God perfectly; thus we are dependent on one another to receive the full counsel of God

Reflect

Think about the needs of those around you and how you might serve them.

Observe

Read Ephesians 6:7. How does this verse affect how we serve others?

Disciplines of our hearts

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Disciplines of our hearts

[Bible references: Matthew 6:24; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:12-19; 9:25-27; 1 Timothy 4:7-8,12; 2 Timothy 3:16–17; Hebrews 4:1-11; 5:14; 2 Peter 1:3-25]

Anyone who remembers learning … remembers choosing to engage in repeated practice over and over and over precisely so that the rhythms become practices.[1]

Spiritual disciplines are personal and interpersonal practices (habits or activities – not attitudes or character qualities) that are taught or modelled in Scripture which promote spiritual growth among believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The spiritual disciplines derive from the gospel and take us deeper into an understanding of the gospel and they are the sufficient means by which we can know and experience God so that we can become more like Him.

“Spiritual discipline, then, is developing soul reflexes so that we know how to live. We discipline ourselves to develop soul memory in normal times so that we’ll be equipped for the times of high demand or deep crisis.”[2]

A few words of caution: Although spiritual disciplines are the means to godliness that does not mean that we are godly just because we practice them. The great error of the Pharisees was that they felt by merely doing these things they were godly. The disciplines are meant to provide opportunities for Christ to transform us – they are not meant to be a burden or an end in themselves. Although we engage in the disciplines to pursue God we should not rely on our effort or our strength, but by resting in power of the Spirit.

Although God will grant Christlikeness to us when Jesus returns, until then He intends for us to grow toward it. We aren’t merely to wait for holiness; we’re to pursue it.”[3]

“The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us . . . The inner righteousness we seek is not something that is poured on our heads. God has ordained the Disciplines of the spiritual life as the means by which we place ourselves where he can bless us. In this regard it would be proper to speak of ‘the path of disciplined grace.’ It is ‘grace’ because it is free; it is ‘disciplined’ because there is something for us to do.” [4]

Maturity requires incremental growth, accumulation of experience

Before we begin to look at the specific disciplines available to us, we should consider their overall purpose. We are beings created in the image Christ, and although we are not Christ, we can become more like Him. Becoming like Christ is a process. We have examples all around us to show us that growth is a process. Plants start from a seed then, in time, grow and develop new parts until the plants become mature and can reproduce. The same with animals. These examples indicate to us that not only is growing a process but that there is an aspect to growth that is built in to automatically happen. Animals and plants, with proper nutrients and environment, will just naturally become mature.

Allowing intentional choices to become habits and the habits to shape our character

But image-bearers of Christ are not merely plants or animals. Our growth is dependent on the development of culture, which are aspects of our way of life that are not automatic but rather are chosen. We can make choices, moral choices, about what we think is important, to set priorities and values. Those choices started in a garden full of abundant food, but we had a choice to not eat the fruit from one particular tree, we had a choice to make based on love and obedience.

Allowing different disciplines to strengthen each other

The spiritual disciplines provide us with choices, to be intentional about how we want to grow. We will see that each discipline is dependent on the others, and each discipline can then weaken or strengthen the others. So, we may enter the disciplines at any point, but we should not neglect the others. We can choose to start from an area of strength or an area of weakness, but we should not neglect the other paths to growth.

The discipline of the soul is not disconnected from the discipline of the body

We are embodied creatures. As we engage in disciplines, we should consider the interplay of soul and body and how they affect each other. We see this effect when, on the one hand it is true that if we are feeling confident then our bodies tend to present a confident posture and on the other hand, it is also true that if we are not initially feeling confident then intentionally assuming a confident posture can produce the feeling of confidence. This leads us to the phrase, “fake it till you make it.” We should keep the interplay of spiritual and material, body, and soul, in mind as we engage in our spiritual disciplines.

Our bodies are the very temple of the Holy Spirit within us, and it is through our bodies that we exercise our faith – and through which we are capable of exercising immorality. To that end, the apostle Paul saw fit to discipline his body as part of his overall ministry.

Forming our virtues

Virtues are the qualities of Christ in our lives that are provided by Him: qualities such as compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness. These qualities help us escape “the corruption that is in the world through lust. (KJV)” But although these qualities are given by Him, we are exhorted to strengthen those virtues with spiritual disciplines. For example, we should add virtue to our faith and virtue to our knowledge for knowledge without virtue only makes someone a walking textbook. Virtue helps add to our faith, to our knowledge, to our self-control, to our perseverance, to our godliness, to our brotherly kindness and to our brotherly love. It all hinges on godly virtues being added to our faith.

As Christians, we all want to grow in spiritual maturity and Christlikeness. Elders should be models of Christian maturity, qualified to the office primarily based on their character. While the Bible provides one quality related to skill (the ability to teach) and one related to the amount of time a man has been a Christian (not a recent convert), all the other qualifications are related to character. Yet while these traits are demanded of elders, they are not unique to elders. Elders are to be exemplars of the Christian graces which all Christians should aspire to. Every congregation is meant to be full of men and women who are above reproach, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, sober, gentle, peacemaking, not lovers of money, mature, humble, and respected by outsiders.

[1] Smith, James K.A. “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.” Brazos Press 2016. eBook

[2] Rumford, Douglas. SoulShaping. Tyndale House Publishers 1996

[3] Whitney, Donald S. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Navpress 2014

[4] Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline Harper & Row Publishers ©1978

Observe

Read Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 9:25-27; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Hebrews 4:9-11; 2 Peter 1:3-25. We are paradoxically called to both work and to rest. How do we do both at the same time?

Reforming our loves

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Reforming our Loves

[Bible references: Psalm 1; 42; 139:13-14; Proverbs 4:23; Matthew 5:3-12; 12:28; 13:1-22; Mark 4:11; 12:29-31; Luke 8:10, 10:8; 13:18-19; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 1:9-11; 1 Peter 5:8-9]

We are shaped every day, whether we know it or not, by practices – rituals and liturgies that make us who we are. We receive these practices – which are often rote – not only from the church or the Scriptures but from our culture, from the “air around us.”[1]

The Hebrew word for “hear,” “shema,” implies not just hearing, but obedience. Hearing with our mind should be connected to obeying with our body. God has made us with heart, soul, mind, and strength. Descartes had said, “I think therefore I am,” but that, in and of itself, leaves out the totality of who we are. We are not just brains on a stick,[2] we are creatures with embodied souls, creatures made in the image of a loving God, whose love is not just expressed in a sentiment, but by everyday choices expressed in what He does and in what we do. 1 Corinthians 13 makes clear that nothing is worthwhile if there is not love expressed through our actions.

Unfortunately, as we have expressed in a previous chapter, our choices seem to always be shrouded in sinful behavior. Time after time, history has shown us that simply filling our mind with the truth of God is a good start but is not sufficient to prevent us doing wrong things. Although our love will not be perfect until we are completely transformed during our resurrection, that does not leave us with no means to order our loves in our current lives. For the time that we are in, God has provided us with various disciplines which can be used to train our habits and therefore train our loves.

Our hope is not just in the future. Jesus proclaimed two thousand years ago that the kingdom of God has come. Jesus’ work of restoration may not be completed but is already underway. We may sometimes fret that the work of restoration, within us and around us, does not happen quickly, but as we observe God’s character as manifested in the natural and spiritual world around us, God seems to relentlessly accomplish his work through processes of growth. God had specified that all birds of the air, fish of the sea, animals and even humans were, through normal processes, to multiply and fill the earth. God’s own plan of redemption worked through generations from Adam, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and finally to Christ. Jesus even particularly specified that the kingdom of God is like a seed that over time will grow into a plant or tree.

As creatures made in the image of God, we are given the free will to participate in our own growth. But we should keep in mind that if our goal is to become more like Jesus, then we should expect that growing into the likeness of Christ will take time … will take normal processes of growth. But we also need to keep in mind that God’s work of restoration is not unopposed; there are spiritual forces at work against God and against us.

Ultimately, it is Christ who transforms us. But we can humbly submit ourselves to God and prepare the soil of our lives to receive His grace. Our growth will be impacted by our loves and desires, by our yearnings, hungering and thirsting,[3] by where we choose to feed ourselves, by the habits and liturgies we allow to shape our lives,[4] by the disciplines we submit to,[5] by how we center our lives,[6] by how we have integrated the love we have toward ourselves, our families, our communities, and God. In the meanwhile, we will face resistance from within and from outside ourselves. In the normal course of events, it will be a common experience to have times when God seems absent, but we must know how to stay the course.

Holding to our center, keeping our loves ordered, holding on to our identity in the face of the pressures of the world will take conscious effort and discipline. Of course, our discipleship is not just a matter of paying attention to our inner life but also in the expression of our inner life in our walk with others, inside and outside the church. Hopefully, within the church, we can find healthy mutual support as we share our complementary spiritual gifts with one another.

Spiritual Disciplines are those practices which keep us centered on Christ. There are books with various lists of spiritual disciplines available to help guide us and you will find them with slightly different approaches. For instance, in Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline,[7] the disciplines are divided into three categories: The inward disciplines (meditation, prayer, fasting, study), the outward disciplines (simplicity, solitude, submission, service) and the corporate disciplines (confession, worship, guidance, celebration).

Another approach to spiritual disciplines is to focus on deliberative lifestyles such as were originally developed for use in monasteries but have application in the everyday lifestyle. One such example is the Rule of St. Benedict.[8] The Rule reminds us that we do not need to go about looking for God, for He is everywhere, including right where you are in your time and your place, in the humdrum everyday tasks of life. Freedom in Christ is achieved through the submission to three vows: obedience, stability and conversatio morum (conversion of life). These vows present us with paradoxes: our need to be in the desert so that we can be more fully present in the marketplace, our need to have prayer alone so that we can be more present in common worship, our need to commit ourselves to stability so that we can be more fully open to change, our need to detach ourselves from things so that we can fully enjoy them. The intent of all these practices is to help us more fully center ourselves in Christ so that we can more fully love our community.

Whether we are following an intentional plan or not, our everyday habits and practices do shape our spiritual lives. Even the normal, incidental routines we do, such as brushing our teeth, can shape us in ways we don’t think about. But if we take the time, we have the opportunity of using those same routines to help transform us in the ways we want to. But if we want to give our everyday routines a chance to transform us in the way we want, we will need to practice ways of waiting, hoping, slowing down, and preparing.

“When I brush my teeth I am pushing back, in the smallest of ways, the death and chaos that will inevitably overtake my body. I am dust polishing dust. And yet I am not only dust. When God formed people from the dust, he breathed into us—through our lips and teeth—his very breath. So I will fight against my body’s fallenness. I will care for it as best I can, knowing that my body is sacred and that caring for it (and for the other bodies around me) is a holy act. I’ll hold on to the truth that my body, in all its brokenness, is beloved, and that one day it will be, like the resurrected body of Christ, glorious. Brushing my teeth, therefore, is a nonverbal prayer, an act of worship that claims the hope to come.” [9]

We need to be mindful that changes in our life are never neutral. We need to be intentional about choosing practices and patterns in our life that will transform us to be more in the image of Christ.

“Take heed, consider your temptations, watch diligently; there is a treachery, a deceit in sin that tends to the hardening of your hearts from the fear of God.” [10]

We need to be aware of how much our sin is actively working against us, hardening our hearts, and turning us in ways, even very subtle ways, against Christ. To be diligent in following Christ, we need to be diligent in practicing spiritual disciplines in one form or another.

[1] Warren, Tish Harrison. “Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred practices in everyday life.” InterVarsity Press 2016. eBook

[2] Smith, K.A. James “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit” Brazos Press 2016. eBook

[3] Smith, K.A. James. “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit” Brazos Press 2016. eBook

[4] Warren, Tish Harrison. “Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life” InterVarsity Press 2016. eBook

[5] Foster, Richard J. “Celebration of Discipline” Harper & Row Publishers ©1978

[6] De Waal, Esther. Seeking God The Liturgical Press. 2001; Tozer, A.W. “The Pursuit of God” Christian Publications, Inc. 1948

[7] Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. Harper & Row Publishers ©1978

[8] Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. Harper & Row Publishers ©1978

[9] Warren, Tish Harrison. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life. InterVarsity Press 2016. eBook

[10] Owen, John. Mortification of Sin. In Believers The Necessity, Nature, And Means Of It: With A Resolution Of Sundry Cases Of Conscience Thereunto Belonging.” From The Works of John Owen Johnstone & Hunter Volume 6, 1850-3 www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/owen/Mortification%20of%20Sin%20-%20John%20Owen.pdf

Observe

Read Psalm 1; Matthew 13:1-22. How do you prepare the soil of your heart so that you can spiritually flourish?

Mystery of our humanity

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 13 – Distinctives within the body of Christ

Mystery of our humanity

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25; Isaiah 59:1-21; Matthew 5:32; 19:4-6; John 8:31-47; Romans 5:12-21; 6:1-23; 7:1-25; 8:18-25; 12:3-8; I Corinthians 2:14; 7:1-40; 12:1-31; Ephesians 2:1-3; 4:11-16; 5:21-33; Hebrews 3:12-14; 3:4]

What is the role of spiritual gifts?

God gives spiritual gifts that to different individuals for the building of the body of Christ. These gifts include exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, prophecy, service, teaching, administration, apostle, discernment, faith, healings, helps, knowledge, miracles, prophecy, teaching, tongues, tongues interpretation, wisdom, apostle, evangelism, pastor, prophecy, teaching, celibacy, hospitality, martyrdom, missionary, voluntary poverty. Different congregations stress different sets of gifts and some congregations will claim that some of the gifts have ceased.

What are the roles of families, marriage, and singleness?

There is a sense in which the church family transcends the biological family. The church family consists of every baptized adult, single or married and all adults can be considered as a parent to all those who are baptized after their own baptism. In a healthy congregation, the single and married adults socialize and serve together.[1]

There has been some contention regarding the roles of male and female. In some congregations, male and female are considered to be equal in all ways, but in others, they consider men and women to have equal value but complementary roles in marriage and within the congregation, where women are not allowed to have authority over men.[2]

Some congregations exalt the value of marriage and the value of procreation. Certainly, marriage reflects the Trinity, but the exaltation of marriage is sometimes done to the denigration of singleness, where the unmarried are not considered to be as mature or fulfilled as the married. In the other direction, singleness is sometimes held in high view, as the unmarried are seen as available to serve the church more whole-heartedly without the distractions that come with marriage. This view is particularly seen in the Roman Catholic denomination where convents and monasteries are available for the unmarried to serve the church and where unmarried men are available to serve as priests and bishops.

What is the role of sexuality?

Most of the church has regarded heterosexual sex within the bond of marriage and celibacy outside of marriage to be the norm, but an increasing number of congregations have become affirming of same-sex marriage. Added to that, post-modern thinking has led to the degradation of gender identification according to biological characteristics while promoting gender identification according to cultural or personal feelings. This transition has led to a rejection of the traditional male/female identification in favor of an unending array gender identities and to an increasing acceptance of transsexuality even within parts of the church.

Some congregations have fallen into the habit of choosing to simply reject people who don’t conform to the overall culture of the congregation, with this rejection being amplified by those people who don’t conform to the congregation’s sexual or gender norms. This is contrasted to other congregations that while not affirming non-heterosexual sexuality or the non-binary gender identification, desire to show acceptance to people who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria without outrightly affirming same-sex marriage or gender transitioning.

How is our sexuality not just a physical issue but also a spiritual one?

There is a profound difference between human sexuality and the sexuality of other creatures. Because humans are made in the image of God, the union of husband and wife reflects the union of Christ and the church. The physical and emotional intimacy and intensity reflects of the intimacy and intensity between Christ and the church. The love and sacrifice of Christ for the church should be reflected in the love and sacrifice of the husband for his wife. The sexual union is not just a physical union, but it is a spiritual one.

[1] Hackman, Gordon. “Hauerwas on Marriage, Singleness, and the Church as First Family”North of the Tracks 3 Mar 2007 gordonhackman.blogspot.com/2007/03/hauerwas-on-marriage-singleness-and.html ; Griffith, Ryan. “Single in a Church of Families” Desiring God 16 July 2021 www.desiringgod.org/articles/single-in-a-church-of-families; Ware, Graham. “Marriage, Singleness, “Family Values,” and the Church” Pass the Salt Shaker 19 Mar 2015 www.desiringgod.org/articles/single-in-a-church-of-families; Treweek, Dani. “Singleness Lessons I Learned from the Early Church” Christianity Today 2 December 2021 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/december-web-only/celibacy-singleness-early-church-lessons.html

[2] Roat, Alyssa. “What are Complementarianism and Egalitarianism? What’s the Difference?” Christianity.com www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-terms/what-are-complementarianism-and-egalitarianism-what-s-the-difference.html

Observe

Read I Corinthians 12:1-31. How does the distribution of spiritual gifts relate to the church as a body?

Mystery of the church

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 13 – Distinctives within the body of Christ

Mystery of the church

[Bible references: Acts 2:42-47; 1 Corinthians 12:17, 27; 2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Peter 2:9]

What is the church?

As commonly used in current times, the “church” is a building to go to. In biblical terms it referred to an assembly of believers (called out ones).[1] How we understand this idea can influence our behavior. There are a few biblical metaphors that describe the church.

  • The body of Christ – This metaphor brings the ideas: that Christ is the head of the church, and we are His presence in the world, that each of us has a unique role in bringing Christ’s presence in the world. Our unique roles are distinguished by the spiritual gifts imparted to each of us to enable us to build each other in our faith.
  • A holy priesthood – This metaphor brings the idea that we have a relationship with God and can act as intermediaries.
  • A temple – This metaphor describes each individual as a stone in the temple and that it is all of us together who make up the temple, that is, the place where God resides on earth.
  • Ambassadors – This metaphor highlights our role in representing God’s to those not reconciled to God.

In the beginning, the organization of the church was not given in detail but seemed to be a cohesive group that “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer … had everything in common … broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”

Is the church more than a Jewish sect?

[Bible references: Romans 11:17; Ephesians 3:6]

At first the church was mainly a Jewish sect. Jesus focused his ministry within the borders of Israel and his disciples were mainly Jewish. After Jesus died, that situation did not change much until Jesus took definitive steps with Peter and Paul to reach the non-Jews (Gentiles). Until that happened, the church mainly consisted of Jews who happened to also be believers, and as Jews, kept up many Jewish practices. But when Gentiles started to be included, there was the question of whether they needed to become Jewish to belong. It took a council of the church to determine that Gentiles were not bound by the Jewish practices. But even after that council, the debate persisted.[2]

In the Old Testament, we are told that Israel will be a blessing to the rest of the world, but it was not revealed just how that would happen. In Ephesians 3, the apostle Paul explains that “through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” And then in Romans 11, Paul explains that the Gentiles were “grafted” into the family of believing Jews, of whom Abraham is the root, so that the Gentiles may receive all the same blessings.

What is the visible and invisible church?

The invisible church consists of all those, past, present, and future, who have put their trust in Christ. Only God knows who they all are. The visible church is the groups of people gathered together as communities. Both believers and unbelievers may be in the visible church.

Some congregations/ denominations are very strict about how to interpret scripture and/or have a limited view of forgiveness, and so would put limits on who they would consider to be in the church.[3] Other congregations/denominations have an extreme view that all of society should be under Christian rule[4] and then misused Luke 14:23, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in,” that they would even resort to torture in order to persuade a people to make a “confession of faith.” Then there are those who think that everyone will ultimately be saved.[5]

Who has authority in the church?

As the church grew and spread throughout the Roman Empire, the natural development was to “institutionalize” the church, trying to make the church more effective with more formal organization. While the apostles were still alive, it was possible to unify the church around the apostles, but of course that was temporary.

Over time, different governance models emerged within the church as there was no model within the church except for the synagogue. In the episcopal model, there is a single leader, or bishop, who oversees a group of congregations and selects the pastors for each congregation. In the presbyterian model, there is a “plurality” of elders, who oversee a congregation or a group of congregations – the congregation may elect their pastor, but the Presbytery has to approve whoever is selected. In the congregational model, the congregation itself is its ultimate overseer and selects its pastor.

Some congregations are independent from one another, and some are affiliated with other congregations. The affiliation may be a denomination where there is strong oversight by the denomination over the individual congregations, but some affiliations are mainly an association for the purpose of sharing resources, but the association has no oversight function.

Some congregations emphasize the importance of maintaining apostolic authority by maintaining the transfer of authority of the apostles and trace the leadership of the church from one generation to the next beginning with the apostles.[6] The Roman Catholic denomination further emphasizes their authority is transferred from the apostle Peter, whom they think was given the most authority from Jesus. Other denominations will maintain that they are apostolic because of their faithfulness to scripture and therefore to the apostolic teachings.

One issue related to authority within the church is related to gender roles. Due to apparent conflicts in some Bible passages, two main views have emerged regarding the role of women in the church On one side, there is no restriction of ministry roles because of gender, but on the other side, women are restricted from any role in which they have spiritual authority over men.

What is the role of elder, bishop, deacon, priest?

The New Testament doesn’t clearly specify how to organize a congregation and that has resulted in congregations organizing themselves in a variety of ways. The New Testament does show examples of elders (aka bishops) serving as spiritual leaders of a congregation and deacons serving the physical needs of the congregation. Priests, in the Old Testament performed duties for God on behalf of the other people. The New Testament talks about Christ being the high priest for all of us but then talks about all Christians as being priests since we all have direct access to God and our role as Christians is to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.

The first denominations that emerged did keep the title of a priest, no longer offering the Old Testament sacrifices but rather now sharing the sacrament of the Last Supper. The Orthodox and Catholic traditions consider the bishops who oversee the priests to be the elders of the denomination. The priests are chosen to serve the sacraments, although they also serve in other ways with deacons helping the priests in carrying out the liturgy in the worship service or serving in other ways as well. In this context, the spiritual leadership of bishops or priests is recognized by the use of honorific titles such as Reverend or Father.

Protestant traditions vary. Anglican and Episcopal congregations retain the title of priest, while in other Protestant traditions congregations are led by pastors or elders.[7]

In some congregations, the pastor is considered to be the elder and the lay leaders are considered to be deacons. In other congregations the pastor is considered to be a teaching elder (if that title is used) while the lay leaders are considered to be ruling elders, or just elders. Some congregations are governed primarily by the pastor, some by a group (plurality) of elders, and some by the congregation itself.

What is the function of a creed?

As explained at the beginning of this chapter, there is much of God that is beyond comprehension. So, when God revealed himself through the prophets, the revelations were more in the form of stories and the interactions of God with the world than a spelled-out theology. That type of revelation requires us to do some of amount of interpretation as we try to better understand God, and that process of interpretation has been the function of the church at large. However, some individuals in the church came up with teachings that seemed to be more than minor differences and actually opposed the more accepted teachings of the church. Those ideas were considered to be heretical. Over time, to combat the heresies that arose, the church developed abbreviated teachings of the church called creeds.

As conflicts within the church developed, different sets of creeds started to emerge. The Protestant section of the church caused even more divergence with the creation of more detailed creedal statements called “confessions of faith,” while other congregations claimed to be non-creedal, stating that the Bible as a whole was their creed because creedal statements are limited and could never present a comprehensive theology of the church.

How can broken people within broken congregations can be instruments of God?

[Bible references: Romans 7:7-25; 1 Timothy 5:10; 2 Timothy 2:21; 3:17; Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 1:10; Hebrews 13:21]

In this time between the Kingdom has come and is yet to come in full, even those of us who trust in Christ have wills that are internally divided between the desire to do good and the desire to do evil. Despite our brokenness, God still desires to use us to accomplish His will on earth. He did not remove the mandates given to us back in Genesis. We may be broken instruments, but God knows how to use broken instruments.

Is the church an Organism or an Organization?

[Bible references: Matthew 28:16-20; 1 Timothy 3:1-6; Titus 1:6-9; 1 Peter 5:1-3]

When Jesus gave the command to “go into all the world” he didn’t specify how to do it, particularly how they should organize themselves to do it. They were to be his body, that is, his hands, feet, legs, eyes, ears, etc. on the earth to continue to do what he had begun. He left no instructions that we know of on how to organize themselves to complete the mission.

The apostles did have the model of synagogue that they could refer to.[8] The first people they reached out to were already in synagogues. But the Bible makes no specific mention of them using that model to organize themselves. In the apostles’ letters to churches and individuals that we have preserved in the Bible, there are some details from which various organizational models have been proposed, ranging from congregation choosing their own leaders to leaders over the congregations choosing leaders for each congregation.

What the Bible is clear on, is the qualifications for those who would lead the church. Some of those qualifications are to be blameless, even tempered, hospitable, to love what is good, to be disciplined, and to encourage others with sound doctrine. The biblical focus seems not to be on how leaders organize their congregations but on the qualifications that those leaders should have.

[1] Biblehub. “1577. Ekklesia” Bible Hub biblehub.com/Greek/1577.htm

[2] Marcos, Juan. Gutierrez, Bejarano. “The Judaisms of Jesus’ Followers” (Chapter 10, The Church Fathers and Jesus Oriented Judaisms) Yaron Publishing, 2017. Nazarenes held orthodox beliefs except in their adherence to Jewish law. Not deemed heretical until the fourth century. Ebionites, possibly a splinter group from the Nazarenes held that circumcision is necessary for salvation.

[3] This “rigorist” viewpoint was held by various people such as the “Novationists” (third century) and “Donatists” (fourth century).

[4] This idea is known as Christendom. Mere Orthodoxy mereorthodoxy.com/christendom-1200-words-give-take/

[5] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Universalism” Encyclopedia Britannia www.britannica.com/place/Universalism

[6] Encyclopedia Britannia “Apostolic succession” Encyclopedia Britannia www.britannica.com/topic/apostolic-succession

[7] Whitaker, Alexander. “The Protestant Problem with Priesthood” The North American Anglican 8 June 2020 northamanglican.com/the-protestant-problem-with-priesthood; Patheos “Leadership”

[8] Burtchaell, James Tunstead. “From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities” Cambridge University Press 1992 (pp.349-352)

Reflect

The quality of church governance is more dependent on the quality of the leaders than the type of governance structure. What qualities do you think church leaders should have?

Observe

Read 1 Corinthians 12:17, 27; 2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Peter 2:9. How does the different metaphors for the church help you to understand the church?

The context of theology

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 13 – Distinctives within the body of Christ

The Context of Theology

[Bible references: Matthew 22:37-39; John 13:34-35; 15:1-17; Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12; 13; Ephesians 4:11-16]

More than doctrine

Everybody has an opinion of some sort when it comes to ideas about God. That is, everybody practices theology. According to one classical definition, theology is “faith seeking understanding.”[1] The only question is. whether our theology is good or bad. That said, there are some who may question whether or not to make a big deal of theology because it seems to create such divisiveness and others think that we should just keep everything as simple as possible.

We were created by God with mind, body, and soul – and it is through all those means that we can come to know God. The formal field of study that we call “theology” has often been restricted to academia, focusing on the intellectual – the mind; but as beings created in the image of God it would be a mistake to restrict our theology to just our mind. It is through our whole being that we can come to know and be transformed by God. Jesus once said that this transformed people would be recognized not by their knowledge, but by their love. Although it is beneficial if our love is informed by our knowledge, love is expressed in its action. In fact, Jesus identified the greatest commandments as loving God and loving our neighbors. Therefore, the practice of following Jesus (aka discipleship) is something we practice in community.

Once we understand all this, that our understanding of God requires the effort of our whole being, then we can see that while theology may have an academic component, it is more than an intellectual exercise. In fact, our soul, or spirit, is the first place in our being to examine our theology. Our theology is lacking if our God’s love is not overflowing through us into the rest of our lives.

To evaluate what our overflowing love might look like, we can consider the descriptions we find for the “fruit of the spirit” as shown in Galatians 5 and in 1 Corinthians 13: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, does not envy or boast, is not proud, rude or self-seeking, is not easily angered, takes no account of wrongs, takes no pleasure in evil, rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. We can also consider how we express our love through the various gifts of God that He provides each one of us for the purpose of building each other up in the faith: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophets, discernments, tongues and their interpretation, leadership, serving, exhortation, giving, mercy, helps apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher.

It is interesting that many non-Christians, even those with limited knowledge of the Bible or of the church, are able to critique Christians by contrasting Christians with Christ. They may possibly misunderstand Christ, but because they have been designed as image-bearers of God, even they have some basis to compare the behavior of others to Christ.

The whole of faith

Meanwhile, in this in-between time, even disciples of Jesus are affected by sin and our theology is subject to corruption. We misuse theology in various ways: sometimes using it as a tool to achieve something else such as gaining power or justifying bad attitudes (e.g., arrogance or hatred), sometimes by focusing on just the academic side while neglecting the spiritual or practical aspects; or sometimes neglecting the academic side and try to avoid the truth or complexities of theology and simply stop asking questions, preferring instead to yield to fideism, which can be described as the “exclusive or basic reliance of faith alone” [2]

A robust faith is not a blind faith, but rather a thinking faith, a faith with eyes wide open to the realities of life’s circumstances and the reality of God’s providence,[3] a faith that seeks God with our whole self: body, mind, and spirit. So, we should not ignore the academic side of our faith or our theology. The process of taking all the knowledge we have gathered about God and then using that to “build up into an organic and consistent whole all our knowledge of God and of the relations between God and the universe” is called systematic theology.[4]

The all-encompassing nature of systematic theology requires care. Scientific models are helpful in understanding natural phenomena but are limited in predicting future behavior because the models are only approximations of the phenomena they describe. Similarly, our systematic theologies are helpful in understanding the infinite God and his works, but we need to be aware of its limitations. One of those limitations is how our perceptions are influenced by our particular personality, our particular environment/culture, our particular language, and our particular historical context.[5]

The problem of the other

Ever since the creation of humanity, we have continually chosen to idolize ourselves and to not love God, which also meant we have chosen to not love others. This mindset then causes us to blame whatever problems we have on others or even to blame God. It is this sort of mindset that would cause the New Testament church to disconnect itself from its Judaic heritage, setting the church up for continued divisiveness in the future. So it is worth exploring what led to the church to the severing its Judaic roots.

We know that Jesus spoke of how scriptures – and he could only be referring to what we call the Old Testament scriptures – pointed to him and his ministry, and how he was the fulfillment of those scriptures. That would mean that Jesus’ ministry was a continuation of God’s love and grace as set out in the Old Testament. Later on, as the ministry of the church strongly expanded to Gentiles, the apostle Paul spelled out that the Gentiles in the church were like the branch of a wild olive tree being grafted into nurtured tree; the tree being the Jews that were in the church and whose roots went back to the Old Testament people of faith. Paul then warned the Gentiles not to become arrogant about any of the other branches that were broken off because God is capable of grafting the original branches back onto the tree.

As the ministry to the Gentiles proceeded and expanded, Christian Jews still met in the temple and the synagogues with the non-Christian Jews, increasing their ministry there even as many of the non-Christian Jews strongly resisted. But there were two events that would change the trajectory of the church.

In AD 66 the zealots started to revolt against the Roman government. The Christians in Jerusalem want to avoid getting caught up in the rebellions and moved to Pella, causing tension between the zealots and the Christians. After the rebellion was defeated by the Romans in AD 70, the temple was destroyed and the Jews were scattered, but now there was increased tension between the Christian and non-Christian Jews.

Later on, in AD 132, a zealot nicknamed Bar Kokhba (meaning “son of the star”) arose to start another rebellion. He, with the support of a prominent rabbi, declared himself a messiah. Now, the Christian Jews not only did not want to participate in a rebellion, but they had to refuse to acknowledge a messiah other than Jesus. And the zealots, who supported Bar Kokhba, declared Bar Kokhba as messiah, thus rejecting Jesus as messiah, which quickly led to a hardening of those non-Christian Jews against the church, making them more resistant than before to the gospel. When the Romans defeated the zealots, Jews were now banned on penalty of death, from entering Jerusalem.

After this point, when leaders in the church tried to reach the Jews with the gospel, they encountered hardened hearts. However, instead of the recognizing that it had been foretold that Jews hearts would be hardened until the time of the Gentiles was over, the leaders in the church now arrogantly hardened their own hearts and became increasingly anti-Semitic. This resulted in the church increasingly turning away from their own roots and thus becoming susceptible to increasing influence of Greek philosophy. This would create dramatic effects in the development of theology in such areas as the rejection of the human body and sexuality as evil and sinful, and the conversion of asceticism from a form of spiritual discipline to a rejection of the pleasures God created as good things.[6]

The limits of language

Early on, in church history, there was an attempt to overcome the problem of the language barrier in the church. It was thought that the church could be united if theologians across the church world could use a common theological language. This attempt in the 5th century, when the languages included Aramaic, Greek, and Latin as well as all the local languages, did make it easier to find solutions to theological problems, but the negative consequence was that differences in theological views became heightened, leading to what may be the inevitable schisms in the church.

Theologians believed that one faith has to be expressed in one language … Distortion of language, they believed, inevitably leads to distortion of the common faith … ‘Byzantine scholasticism’ emerged in the post-Cyrillian era. This shift had both positive and negative consequences. The positive ones were that theologians started speaking one language. This helped them to easier find solutions to theological problems … The negative consequences of language-centrism were that when theologians disagreed on terms or categories, the regarded their disagreements about theological formulas as essential theological difference. This became one of the most important reasons of the church schism in the post-Cyrillian era.[7]

We cannot approach any field of study as a blank slate. All of our particular factors contribute to which particular theological method people may choose to use. Charles Hodge identified three general classes of methods used within the field of systematic theology: Speculative, Mystical, and Inductive.[8] Given all of that, we can see that there can be many approaches to even framing the questions we might ask about God, never mind the types of answers towards which we may lean. Engaging in the quest of trying to understand the current multi-faceted state of the current church can be overwhelming and most people don’t have the time to study a typical church history book of 800-1000 pages. To make this task more bearable, the approach here will not be to present a comprehensive study but to develop an overview of the church by focusing on 1) the internal and external issues that affected the development of the church, and 2) the main questions that the church has asked and briefly sharing the different answers formulated by different congregations.

[1] Migliore, Daniel L. “Faith Seeking Understanding”  William B. Eerdmans Publishing, third edition. 1991

[2] Amesbury, Richard. “Fideism” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ©2016 plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism

[3] Migliore, Daniel L. “Faith Seeking Understanding” William B. Eerdmans Publishing, third edition. 1991 (pp. 3-5)

[4] Bible Study Tools “Chapter III – Method of Theology” Bible Study Tools www.biblestudytools.com/classics/strong-systematic-theology/part-i-prolegomena/chapter-iii-method-of-theology.html

[5] Migliore, Daniel L. “Faith Seeking Understanding” William B. Eerdmans Publishing, third edition. 1991 (p.205) Confession of Jesus Christ takes place in particular historical and cultural contexts … our response to questions of who we say Jesus Christ is and how he helps us will be s shaped in important ways by the particular contexts in which these questions arise … all theology is contextual

[6] Dualism rejects the physical world as evil or not desirable. “Mystery of Wisdom.” (p. 166)

[7] Hovorun, Cyril. Studia Patristica Vol. LVIII, Volume 6: Neoplatonism and Patristics, Peters 2013.  “Importance of Neoplatonism on Formation of Theological Language” (p. 17-28)

[8] Hodge, Charles, “Systematic Theology” (Chapter I: On Method) Eerdmans Publishing Company, (Chapter I: On Method) 1940

Reflect

How can love affect your ability to know someone?

Observe

Read John 15:1-17; Ephesians 4:11-16. How do these passages relate to each other?

Doctrine of unity

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 12 – Launching the church

Doctrine of unity.

[Bible references: John 17:23; Philippians 2:1-11; 4:1; Ephesians 4:11-13; Philippians 1:27: 2:2; Colossians 3:14; 1 John 4:8]

There are several types of doctrine that ought to lead to unity in the church, such as our knowledge of God, our love of God and others, and our maturity in the faith. Working together these doctrines will increase our knowledge of God and His love not just to us but to those around us. The more aware of we are of God’s holiness and, consequently how far short of that we are in our sinfulness, should be led to greater humility and acceptance of others. When we are called to God, we are called to His Body of which we each have a part in building one another up.

Observe

Read Philippians 2:1-11. What might be our biggest barrier to developing unity with others?

Assembly of God’s people

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 12 – Launching the church

Assembly of God’s people

[Bible references: Isaiah 54; Matthew 5:44-48; 16:18; 18:17; 28:16-20; Luke 17:3; Acts 2:42-47; 11:22; Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 12; 14:19, 26, 35; Ephesians 5:32; James 5:13-20]

God did not create us to be isolated individuals. In fact, He created us in His image, a mysterious Triune God who is at once a person, God, and is also a community: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. To help us understand this complexity, the Bible uses a couple of metaphors that are used to describe the church. Sometimes scripture describes the church as a building of which Christ is the cornerstone, sometimes as a body with many parts that are all necessary for each other, and sometimes as a bride with Christ as the Bridegroom. All these metaphors give us different ways to think of how we connect to each other.

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for assembly is “qahal,” and in the New Testament it’s the Greek word, “ecclesia.” In both the Old and New Testaments there were people who believed in God. These days we call the assembly of God’s people the “church,” but where did that word come from.

The word “church” is derived from the Scottish work “kirk” which is derived from the Greek word “kuriakon” which means belonging to the Lord (Greek “kyrios”). In the Bible, this word was used a couple of time to refer to “the Lord’s” supper and “the Lord’s” day.  In this same expression, sometimes the building where those “who belong to the Lord” meet is also called the church, where it’s the building that belongs to the Lord.

The word “church” is used in a variety of ways: the whole body of Christians in one city; a particular local congregation; or the whole body of believers on earth (past, present and future). Throughout this book, the word ‘church,’ using the lower case ‘c,’ refers to this whole body of believers. It might be clearer if, perhaps, we used the term am Yahweh (“people of Yahweh”) (Numbers 11:29) to refer to all believers through time, through Old and New Testaments.

There are also other words in the Bible that are used to describe Christians in general:

  • Brethren – those who belong to a spiritual brotherhood or fellowship.
  • Believers – those whose doctrine is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • Saints – Those who are consecrated to God, holy ones who are separated from the world and dedicated to God
  • The Elect – those who are chosen by God
  • Disciples – those who follow Jesus to learn from him.
  • Christians – those who belong to Christ
  • Those of the Way – those who follow Christ, live like Him

There are also metaphors used to refer to the church:

  • The Body of Christ – which refers to the many inter-related functions of the people in the church. Related to this is the way we sometimes say the church ought to be regarded more as an organism rather than an organization.
  • The Temple of God – which sometimes refers to the entire church being built on the cornerstone, “Jesus,” and sometimes to the individual believers in whom the Holy Spirit resides.
  • The Bride of Christ – which refers to the intimate relationship we all have with Jesus.
  • Pillar and buttress of the truth – which refers to the need to behave correctly and defend the truth.

All of this is to say that there are many ways to refer to “the church,” depending on what one wants to emphasize. But it is clear that the mission of “the church” is to

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:19-20).

Making disciples, being a disciple, is a life-long process. It includes many things, the commands given to Adam to steward the earth and create a culture that glorifies God, all the ways in which we can love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, all the ways in which we can love our neighbor – and even our enemy, all the ways in which we can be a part of our church community that builds one another up, and all the ways in we can worship God in all we do.

Toward that end, God has given spiritual gifts to each one of us, so that in context of the community we can build each other up and help each other grow into the unity of the faith.

 “Local congregations … must resume the practice of making the spiritual formation of their members into Christlikeness their primary goal, the aim which every one of its activities serve” [1]

God has not supplied one person with all the gifts but has divided them among the disciples in a community so that together we might build one another up. The church is a community designed to worship together, to share the sacraments, to build one another up and hold each other accountable.

It is in the context of living in community that we can grow in love towards others as we learn to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, even those with whom we disagree and with those who are unable to respond equally. Our attitude should be the same as the attitude of our “good and overflowing God” to generously reach out to others with the good news of the gospel.

[1] Willhoit, James C. “Spiritual formation as if the church mattered” Willhoit, James C. “Spiritual formation as if the church mattered” Baker Academic 2008

Reflect

What groups of people do you identify with?

Observe

Read James 5:13-20. What power is there when people pray together?

The kingdom arrives

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 11 – The Kingdom Enters

The Kingdom Arrives

[Bible references: Isaiah 61:1-2; Matthew 8:16, 28-34; 9:6; 10:1; 28:18; Luke 4:14, 18-19, 32; 5:21; 6:6-7; 7:1-10, 29-30; 9:1-6; John 5:14; 10:11-18; 14:9; Acts 10:38; 1 Corinthians 15:24]

When Jesus broke into history, we no longer saw the kingdom of God overlapping the earth in a place as in the Garden of Eden or a place in the Holy of Holies. This time the kingdom of God had entered by a person, Jesus, who was anointed with the power of the Spirit. His next goal then was to invade the earth with his kingdom by that same Spirit entering our lives, by the overlapping of Heaven and Earth within each of us as Heaven and Earth overlapped within Jesus.

“God’s kingdom” in the preaching of Jesus refers not to postmortem destiny, not to our escape from this world into another one, but to God’s sovereign rule coming “on earth as it is in heaven.” [1]

When Jesus began his ministry, he quoted from the book of Isaiah to declare how he had come to fulfill that prophecy. Then there were many times throughout his ministry when he declared the reason he had come.

Left to our own resources, we cannot, on our own, correct our relationship to Yahweh; we cannot find our way back to a good relationship with him. We are lost to sin and unable to find our way back to Yahweh, the good shepherd.

Even though His power was evident in the teachings alone, His power was testified to by healing all sorts of diseases[2] including physical or spiritual blindness, casting out spirits (all these things that not only Jesus did but his disciples as well), proclaiming freedom for those in prisons, and setting the oppressed free. But even above providing hope and healing, Jesus offered forgiveness for sin and admonitions to turn away from sin. Jesus came to make us whole in body, mind, and spirit, to experience shalom. Sadly, even though some Gentiles recognized Jesus’ power and authority, some of the chief priests and elders did not want to recognize it themselves, remaining trapped and oppressed in their sin.

[1] Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church Harper Collins 2008. Kindle Edition (p 19.).

[2] Walk with the Wise “Every instance of Jesus Healing in the Bible: What they all had in common” Walk with the Wise walkwiththewise.org/every-instance-of-jesus-healing-in-the-bible-what-they-had-in-common

Reflect

How do we participate with Jesus in bringing His Kingdom to the earth?

Observe

Read Matthew 10:1; 28:18-20; Luke 9:1-6. How do we participate with Jesus in bringing His Kingdom to the earth?

Hope in the brokenness

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Hope in the brokenness

[Bible references: Genesis 2:16-17; 3:14-15, 23; Psalm 4; 102; Isaiah 1:26; Jeremiah 29:11; Acts:318-26; Galatians 3:13-14; Ephesians 1:11-12; Romans 5:12; 8:18-3; Hebrews 1:1-4]

Grief is the normal response to loss or separation. We may grieve when we lose dreams, jobs, health, family members or friends and many other things. Death is separation. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God.

The first humans voluntarily separated themselves from God so that they could grab what they wanted. This was spiritual death. When the non-physical angels rebelled against God, they too suffered spiritual death. For the angels, the separation was permanent with no hope of reconciliation with their Creator. But the first humans were given the possibility of hope.

Humans were also physical creatures, with mortal bodies, physical bodies that could die. Indeed, the humans needed access to the Tree of Life in order to keep on living. When the humans rebelled, they immediately suffered spiritual death. When the humans were also denied access to the Tree of Life, then their physical death was ensured. Spiritual death followed by physical death. A double grief. But the double grief contained the possibility of hope.

The consequences of rebellions created a great tragedy that could not be undone, not by the image bearers. But even so, as we look around us, we can see that despite the tragedy around us, things aren’t totally bad. Even though evil is very evident around us, goodness is also evident. It is in that observation that we can glimpse the possibility of hope. Amidst the consequences of rebellion, there are hints of hope.

When God confronted the first humans with the consequences for their rebellion, He also gave them a hint of the undoing of death, a solution to the problem created by sin. This hint would only be the first of many other hints to come that we can see revealed in the Biblical text.

We can also see evidence for hope in the continued creation by God, as he continues to sustain the universe he created, continuing to create new living things, plants, and animals alike. There is also hope hidden in the mandate given to the image-bearers. Their mandate of stewardship of God’s creation was still in force, although there would now be suffering involved in the fulfillment of the mandate. There was hope hidden in the name of God’s Son.[1] There was also a strange hope in the banishment from the Tree of Life; the consequence of physical death would provide a way to free us from an eternity of being separated from God and open a way for our redemption.

The sacrifice of Jesus followed a life in which Jesus successfully waited to receive those things that His Father intended to give, resisting the temptation to grab those things for himself. In his life and death, Jesus successfully accomplished what Adam and all those who came after Adam had not.

In the beginning, we were eager to grasp for ourselves wisdom and the knowledge of good and evil on our own terms. What we didn’t plan on was the consequences that would follow. Sometimes God gives us what we think we want even though it would bring us the suffering that God was trying to steer us from. It’s a continuing pattern we see from the beginning until now, that it is not always a good thing when we get what we think we want.[2]

But Jesus life did not end with his crucifixion. Jesus’ resurrection was the proof of redemption and of the hope of restoration. Sin had corrupted all of creation and all of creation is groaning and awaiting its restoration.

The universe is not what it’s supposed to be. We are not what we are supposed to be. We are creatures created with the imprint of the image of God but broken in body, soul and spirit. Our brokenness shows up in our actions, words and thoughts. Our brokenness shows up in the way we are treated and the way we treat others. And our brokenness even shows up in the bodies we are born with. But in His death and resurrection, God is able to redeem and restore all of us, all of who we are, all of what we have done, all of what has been done to us, and even all of creation. God is able to use all of our suffering and use it for our good, making something beautiful out of what was broken.

[1] See Chapter 2, The Mystery of God’s Name

[2] See Chapter 8. Rejecting God as King

Reflect

It’s not hard to see signs of brokenness around us. Are there any signs of hope that can be seen?

Observe

Read Isaiah 1:26; Jeremiah 29:11; Matthew 17:11; Acts 3:18-26; Galatians 3:13-14; Ephesians 1:11-12;. Throughout the Bible, God has chosen to share his future plans in pieces at a time. What those plans are, have been the subject of much debate within the church. What is your understanding of God’s plans for the future?

Transcendent and Immanent

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 3 – The image-bearers

Transcendent and Immanent

[Bible references: Exodus 19:6; Psalm 139:16; Proverbs 3:5-6; Ecclesiastes 3:1-22; Acts 16:6-10; 17:24-28; 1 Peter 2]

Man appears in the visible world as the highest expression of the divine gift, because he bears within him the interior dimension of the gift. With it he brings into the world his particular likeness to God, with which he transcends and dominates also his “visibility” in the world, his corporality, his masculinity or femininity, his nakedness. A reflection of this likeness is also the primordial awareness of the nuptial meaning of the body, pervaded by the mystery of original innocence.

Thus, in this dimension, a primordial sacrament is constituted, understood as a sign that transmits effectively in the visible world the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial. This is the mystery of truth and love, the mystery of divine life, in which man really participates. In the history of man, original innocence begins this participation, and it is also a source of original happiness. The sacrament, as a visible sign, is constituted with man, as a body, by means of his visible masculinity and femininity. The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.[1]

God has placed each one of us in a particular time and place and with particular people. Within that time, place, and people he has plans for us. Each of us has a particular mind and body with which we need to discern God’s calling for us in our time and place. Such plans are revealed in many places in scripture.

And though we are called to particular times, places and people, there are ways in which God’s transcendent character spills over onto us. The mark of his transcendence is even placed in each of our hearts. The expressions of transcendence are impossible to avoid in our day and age: Although we were not born with the ability to fly, we can fly to the moon, although we were not born to live under water, we are able to spend months at a time under water even at incredible depths, although we were not born to run like a cheetah, we don’t even think about climbing into a vehicle and going more than 60 miles an hour for hours at a time, we can also create works of art that show places we have never been, we can use the resources of the earth to generate more power than we can imagine … and the list goes on.

With our gift of transcendence, God has shown that he has set us aside as his representatives, “to be holy as he is holy.” We are not to merely live as earthly creatures but as creatures who represent the living God. The challenge before us is to discern, as God’s image-bearers, to what end God can use our particular bodies, emotions and minds in the particular family and community into which we are placed, to fulfill the purpose he has intended for each of us.[2]

[1] Paul II, John. “The Redemption of the Body and Sacramentality of Marriage (Theology of the Body)” Man Enters the World As a Subject of Truth and Love, p. 49 28 Nov 1984

[2] Russell, Chris. “8 Steps to knowing God’s will for your life” Bible Study Tools 11 Oct 2018 www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/8-keys-to-knowing-god-s-will-for-your-life.html; WEC International “How to Find God’s Plan” WEC International wec-uk.org/mission-resources/articles/how-to-find-gods-plan; Renner, Rick. “Discerning God’s Plan for your life” Renner Ministries renner.org/article/discerning-gods-plan-for-your-life/

Reflect

List the ways in which we exhibit transcendence.

Observe

Read Acts 17:24-28; 1 Peter 2:9. How are we, as a nation of priests, an expression of God’s transcendence and immanence?

Body, soul and spirit

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 3 – The image-bearers

Body, soul and spirit

[Bible references: Genesis 2; Matthew 3:16-17; 19:6; Acts 2:42-47; Romans 5:5; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19-20; 12:4-30; 2 Corinthians 9:6-8; Colossians 1:18; Revelation 21-22]

The mystery of perichoresis which tries to describe the one person God consisting of the relation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit may very well be the best approach to understanding the mystery of God’s image-bearers. There are conflicting views on whether a person consists of a body and soul or body and spirit or body, soul, and spirit. Are we two parts or three parts then which parts? A similar issue arises in the attempts to figure out the relation between the brain and consciousness.[1] Some researchers think that consciousness is only due to biology and that we will be able to eventually build a computer with a conscious, but it is likely that the mystery of perichoresis will prevail.

As image-bearers, being created as community of male and female points one way to the community of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but also points in another way to their unity as represented by becoming “one flesh.” The term, “one flesh,” refers to the way in which the sexual union of husband and wife signifies the reconnection of Adam and Eve. Genesis 4:1 says that “Adam knew [Hebrew yada]Eve, his wife and she conceived …” The term yada is rich in meaning; it does not refer to knowing information about, but to know intimately on an emotional level. Also significantly, in the Ancient Near East, yada was used to indicate a covenant relationship.[2] All this together heightens the sexual intimacy to much more than a simple physical relationship.

In Genesis 2:22, most English translations translate the Hebrew word צלע (tsela) as “rib” but it more properly means “side.” Adam’s own words clarify that Eve came from one of his sides when he declared of his wife, “Finally, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!” (Gen 2:23). Had Eve been created from the man’s rib alone, Adam would only have been able to say that she was “bone of his bone.” As Adam’s bone and flesh, the woman is the man’s “other half.”

So, Adam’s “deep sleep” (תרדמה, tardemah) was probably like a hospital patient’s sleep via anesthesia, more like a vision in which God removed half of Adams’ body to create Eve, she is metaphorically then, Adam’s other (better?) “half”. This vision then would present the woman as an equal to Adam.[3]

So the sexual union husband and wife reunites the two halve as husband and wife become “one flesh.”[4] Our male and femaleness show us our human incompleteness without each other. The joining of the male and female bodies brings completeness.

This completeness does not just happen at a physical level. Humans are unlike all other creatures in that we are made in God’s image with body, soul and spirit, and our spirit is joined to God’s Spirit. So as husband and wife become “one flesh,” they create a living metaphor of the union of Christ with the church. The love, intensity, and passion of two different but complementary bodies united both in spirit and in “one flesh” is an extension of the perichoresis of the Trinity as the bodies of the image-bearers united in spirit with Christ become the body of Christ on earth, joined in love, intensity, and passion, enjoying the overflowing goodness and shalom that God has intended for us.

We are created body, soul, and spirit with the intention that when heaven and earth are rejoined, we will be restored body, soul, and spirit (although it will be in resurrected bodies) in the new heaven and earth. It is also through our bodies that we are restored to Christ. When he took on flesh.

God created the flesh of man, which the Son assumes in the Incarnation, all so that he might save the flesh of man.

Tertullian states this idea straightforwardly: caro salutis cardo, the flesh is the hinge of salvation …Thus, our bodies are not meat-suits to be discarded or clusters of atoms that will disintegrate and disappear. They are made to last, because God’s kingdom will last, taking up from this world all that is good and preserving it. All that is made in and through Christ – including the body – will find its ultimate meaning in him. “My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Ps. 84:2 RSV).[5]

When fellow Christ-bearers assemble together, they are together the Body of Christ, with each person bringing different gifts to support and strengthen the others in the Body. By wedding himself to humanity, Christ truly becomes “one flesh” with them (Ephesians 5:30–32), making them his members, “the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:27), with Christ as their Head (Colossians 1:18). Head and body are joined through the “bond of charity,” the love that has been “shed abroad in our hearts” by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). The union of love between Head and body is so close that “Head and body speak as one,” because they are “no longer two, but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6).[6]

[1] Tolson, Jay. “Is There Room for the Soul?” CBS News 15 Oct 2006 www.cbsnews.com/news/is-there-room-for-the-soul/

[2] Hegg, Tim. “As a Covenant Term in the Bible and the Ancient Near East” Torah Resource torahresource.com/hebrew-word-yada/

[3] Schaser, Nicholas J. “Splitting the Adam” Israel Bible Weekly 23 July 2021 weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/splitting-the-adam/

[4] Schaser, Nicholas J. “Did Eve Come From Adam’s “Rib?” Israel Bible Weekly 8 May 2021 weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/eve-come-adams-rib/

[5] Franks, Angela. “What’s a Body For?” Plough Quarterly 6 Aug 2018

[6] Colbrook, Niamh. “Inhabiting Our Feeling Bodies” Comment Essay 26 Aug 2021 comment.org/inhabiting-our-feeling-bodies

Reflect

If God’s love is expressed through our current bodies which were used to shape our character, do you think that it is possible that our resurrected bodies will retain aspects of our current bodies which have shaped us in the same way that Jesus’ resurrection body still bore his scars?

Observe

Read 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 12:4-30. Together we are God’s temple and together we share the Spirit and His gifts. What do we miss if we try to be a Christian apart from other Christians?