community – Dancing In The Kingdom

Strategies in cultural engagement

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Strategies in cultural engagement

[Bible references: 2 Corinthians 5:11-21; Colossians 1:1-23]

This leads us to the question of how the church shall, as a community, engage with the surrounding culture. The two main poles of strategies are: 1) the church has a positive view of the world and encourages individuals to engage in various dimensions of civic engagement, and 2) the church has a negative view of the world and thinks that the church will best influence the world by being the church. The first position developed when the church had a high degree of influence within the government while the second view developed when the church was under persecution.^[1]

Over the years, governments have changed along with the influence of the church on the state and civic society. With those changes, the question of how, in each era, the church can best be the church. Other ways to phrase the question are:

“What is the best way for the broken church to minister to the broken world in the time and place allotted to it by God?”
“What is the best strategy in our own time and place to fulfill the cultural mandate given in Genesis and the Great Commission given by Jesus before his ascension?”
“How can we, as the body of Christ, best serve the poor and the hungry and bring healing to the world?”

It does not seem appropriate that any one strategy could expect to work for all individuals for all congregations for all times and all cultures. It does seem more likely that there is much to learn from each other and that we all can sharpen one another’s discernment and call one another to humility.^[2]

Even when we understand that we are called to engage with the world, continuing the process of bringing the Kingdom of God into the world that was begun by Christ, our efforts will always fall short. It is only Jesus that will is able to transform us and the world, and that process will not be completed until Jesus returns and makes all things new. Our confidence in Jesus will free us to thrive in a pluralistic culture, because we can share our convictions in a loving way, confident that changing hearts is not our task, but the task of the Holy Spirit.

“Our engagement in the world in an anxious age is made possible by our confidence in the gospel in a pluralistic society where people have profoundly different beliefs. We won’t always be able to persuade those around us that our beliefs are right and theirs are wrong. Indeed, some of our most important beliefs stem from contested premises that others do not share. But recognizing the existence of these disagreements should not prevent us from holding to what is ultimately true. Our beliefs can be true, and we can hold these warranted beliefs confidently even though others reject them. For this reason, recognizing the social fact of difference should not be mistaken as relativism. To the contrary, a greater awareness of our distinctiveness that comes from confidence in the gospel can encourage us to work to strengthen the social fabric for the good of others. This kind of posture is what one of us has called “confident pluralism.” As Christians, we can engage with the pluralism around us because our confidence lies elsewhere. We can acknowledge genuine differences in society without suppressing or minimizing our firmly held convictions. We can seek common ground even with those who may not share our view of the common good.” ^{^[3]}

^[1] Kyle, Richard. “Anabaptist and Reformed Attitudes Toward Civil Government: A factor in Political Involvement.” Direction: A Mennonite Brethren Forum, Spring 1985. Vol 14. No. 1 pp. 27-33

^[2] Fitch, David. “Finding Things to Love About Reformed People: An Anabaptist Dialogues with a Reformed” MissioAlliance 6 Feb /2017 www.missioalliance.org/finding-things-love-reformed-people-anabaptist-dialogues-reformed; Wax, Trevin; “Three Reasons We Need Today’s Anabaptists” The Gospel Coalition 6 Feb 2017 www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/3-reasons-we-need-todays-anabaptists

^[3] Inazu, John D. and Keller, Timothy. “How Christians Can Bear Witness in an Anxious Age” Christianity Today 6/20/2016 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/june-web-only/tim-keller-john-inazu-christians-gospel-witness-anxious-age.html

Reflect

How can you best serve as an ambassador of Christ to those around you?

Observe

Read 2 Corinthians 5:11-21; Colossians 1:1-23. What is the best way for the broken church to minister to the broken world in the time and place allotted to it by God?”

Listening to our culture

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Listening to our culture

[Bible references: Proverbs 12:15; Isaiah 5:20; Luke 10:25-37; Acts 17:16-34; Galatians 5:16-23; James 1:29; 1 John 4:1]

Outside of providing a healthy, flourishing place within the church community, how can we be more deliberate in engaging with those outside the church. Like the Apostle Paul engaging with the citizens of Athens, we must know what it is we believe then take the time to understand what the others believe and what their needs are so that we can begin the conversation. We can speak better after we have listened.

Listening to voices from outside the church can be challenging because their value systems and world views are so different. We saw in Chapter 13 how different experiences and viewpoints within the church have affected how they answer the various questions asked by the church. We do need to be aware of the different values and world views because, on the one hand, they may add useful understanding to our faith, then on the other hand, they can also distort the values and world views we have within the church.

“A newly released survey reveals that the ideologies of postmodernism and secular humanism have a noticeable influence on how Americans make decisions. The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University released the eighth report of its 2021 American Worldview Inventory Tuesday. The report was based on responses collected from 2,000 American adults in February as part of a more extensive survey with a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points. The survey found that although 2% of Americans have adopted secular humanism as their dominant worldview, a significantly higher share of the population (16%) actively embrace principles associated with the worldview. Similarly, while just 1% of Americans have adopted postmodernism as their dominant worldview, 16% frequently make decisions indicating that the philosophy plays an important role in shaping their day-to-day actions.” ^{^[1]}

What is apparent from the study done by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, is that there is a small percentage of Americans who are aligned with one particular ideology, but many of us, including many within the church, have adapted only various pieces of various ideologies. Before we figure on how to bring the gospel to or culture, we may first need to understand how our culture has affects our understanding of the gospel^[2] so we can communicate clearly about what the gospel is.

According to Timothy Sheriden and Michael Goheen, there are four theological considerations:

“The first is an understanding of the gospel as the good news of the kingdom …God is restoring his gracious and loving rule over the whole of creation and every aspect of human life. … The second is an understanding of the comprehensive and restorative nature of salvation … the whole of human life … the restoration of this creation … The third is the lordship of Jesus Christ … He is more than a personal savior; he is Lord of all. Fourth, the church is the new humanity that shares in the future life of the kingdom now, as sign, foretaste, and instrument.” ^[3]

Once we are clear on what the gospel message is, then we are prepared to first express love by listening to our “neighbor,”^[4] so that we then address our neighbor’s needs as we share the gospel. The very short following list highlights just a very few of the predominant cultural ideologies that have influenced our neighbors.

The church should not influence the government.
Religious ideas are to be kept as private ideas not to be discussed in public
Rejection of any knowledge other than what is available by science.
Humanity is always getting better.
All knowledge, hence, all truth, is relative.

When we talk with fellow image-bearers of God, we need to remember our common humanity,^[5] that despite our differences there are many things that we share together. We were all intended to create good, and we are all broken in our attempts to do that good. Our society tends to put labels on ideas, such as those listed above, but those labels tend to be unhelpful because we then create divisiveness by using them to label people.

Whatever ideologies we may encounter in our conversations, we should remember that people are usually not as responsive to attacks on their ideas when they feel they are being listened to. When we are listened to, we may find each other more receptive as we each express our convictions sincerely in context of a polite conversation.

One way of loving our neighbor is suggested by Richard Mouw. Convicted Civility,^[6] is a civility that begins with kindness, grace, patience, generosity, and caring for the other paired with a conviction that is not being relativistic, but truthful about what you don’t approve. Jesus showed most of his criticism to people within the religious establishment but was gracious to the “sinners.”

^[1] Foley, Ryan. “Postmodernism, secularism have increasing influence over Americans’ decision-making: report” Christian Post, 10/22/2021 www.christianpost.com/news/peoples-choices-influenced-by-postmodernism-secularism-report.html

^[2] Mattera, Joseph. “Why Your Faith is More Influenced by Culture than the Bible” JosephMattera.org 31 Aug 2017 josephmattera.org/faith-influenced-culture-bible

^[3] Finn, Nathan A, Whitfield, Keith S. “Chapter 5 Missional Spirituality and Cultural Engagement” IVP Academic 2017IVP Academic 2017

^[4] This parable helps us to understand that our “neighbor” includes anyone we encounter.

^[5] Warren, Tish Harrison. “We Need to Talk How Americans Can Learn to Live Together Again” New York Times, 10/24/2021

^[6] Mouw, Richard J. Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World. IVP Books 2010

Observe

Read Luke 10:25-37. Jesus told the story with characters his audience could identify with. What characters would you choose to tell the same kind of story today?

Flourishing community

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Flourishing community

[Bible references: Proverbs 17:17; 27:10; Ecclesiastes 4:9-10; Romans 12; Philippian 4:4-9; Hebrews 10:19-25; 13:2;1 Peter 1:12 22; 4:9; 2 Peter 1:3-11]

One mark of the Kingdom of God is the presence of communities that flourish. In this in-between time, these communities will not be any more perfect than the individuals within the community. But there are practices that we can engage in that will help our communities flourish. How we share our lives as individuals, congregations, or families will either draw people in or push them away. Within the culture that surrounds us, there are many practices that serve to isolate individuals, creating loneliness and emotional fragility. However, within the context of healthy congregations, there are various practices that serve not only to build us up within the church community but can also impact the communities around us. Christine Pohl has identified four characteristics that will sustain flourishing communities:^[1]

Gratefulness: As much as we are aware of how God has provided for us and we are secure in that knowledge, our gratitude can flourish. When we have gratitude, our lives will be enhanced by being more likely to notice what is good and beautiful around us. When our hearts are grateful, we are enabled to increase our ability to love and to offer grace to one another.

“Be thankful for the smallest blessing, and you will deserve to receive greater. Value the least gifts no less than the greatest, and simple graces as especial favors. If you remember the dignity of the Giver, no gift will seem small or mean, for nothing can be valueless that is given by the most high God.” ^{^[2]}

2. Making and keeping promises: We arrange much of our lives according to our expectations of others’ behavior and the promises they make. Broken promises lead to a sense of betrayal and disappointment to the loss of integrity of the promise maker. On the other hand, promises that are kept strengthen our commitment and love with one another and provides stability for the community.^[3]

“The history of the human race, as well as the story of any one life, might be told in terms of commitments. . . At the heart of this history . . . lies a sometimes hidden narrative of promises, pledges, oaths, compacts, committed beliefs, and projected visions.” ^{^[4]}

3. Truth-filled lives:^[5] Without expectations of truth, there can be no trust. One need only to look at the broken social and political environment that we have today and see the consequences of a society in which trust is broken.

4. Hospitality:^[6] To be truly hospitable is to recognize each other’s common humanity, to set aside the priorities of efficiency and instead, to care for and nurture one another, to prioritize our needs for rest and renewal. According to a tradition in Africa, no one individual is a host but the rather it is the community that offers hospitality.

“Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren’t afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.;” Ogletree, Thomas. Hospitality to the Stranger (Fortress Press, 1985) “to be moral is to be hospitable to the stranger.” ^{^[7]}

All the characteristics mentioned above should ideally be present in the Christian community. When we notice their absence from the communities around us, we can see the destruction created by their absence. A healthy church then has the opportunity to bring a healing influence into the communities around us. As Leslie Newbigin has stated, “the presence of a new reality will be made known by the acts that originate from it.”^[8]

One of the challenges/opportunities for the church is to maintain those healthy characteristics across all the boundaries of the different groups within the church so that there is healthy interaction between married and single adults, between adults and children, between different ethnic groups. Paying attention to those interactions within the church will help to navigate those interactions with those outside the church.

Linked to the gift of hospitality is the gift of friendship. Because this gift is costly in the amount of time and energy that we devote to someone else, exercising this gift outside the bounds of the church will usually require significant intentionality,

^[1] Pohl, Living into Community, Cultivating Practices that Sustain us William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 2012. eBook

^[2] Kempis, Thomas à. The Imitation of Christ early 15th century (Chapter 35)

^[3] Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition University of Chicago Press, 1958, p.244

^[4] Farley, Margaret A. Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping, Changing Harper & Row, 1986,pp. 12-13, 34, 38

^[5] Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Vol 2, Question109: “Of Truth”

^[6] Vanier, Jean, Community and Growth 1979

^[7] Turyomumazima, Bonaventure, “Africa Files – Christ in Africa: Stranger, Guest, Host” www.africafiles.org/printableversion.asp?id=14009 (no longer available); De Vries, Roland. Becoming a Guest: Christology and Ecclesiological Identity Erudit Volume 25, Numero 2, 2017 p. 165-184 www.erudit.org/fr/revues/theologi/2017-v25-n2-theologi04371/1056942ar (p. 165-184)

^[8] Chilcote, Paul and Warner, Laceye” The Study of Evangelism: Exploring a Missional Practice of the Church. Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2008 Chapter Four, Leslie Newbigin. Evangelism in the context of secularization.

Reflect

Of the characteristics mentioned by Pohl, which are evident in your local church community?

Observe

Read 2 Peter 1:3-11. What would a community look like if everyone was living out this passage?

Not yet, but Already

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Not Yet, But Already

[Bible references: Matthew 6; John 15:1-17; 1 Corinthians 3; Revelation 21-22]

Sincere prayer has a habit of changing us. When we commune with God as a friend, we learn his business and desire to join in His work; the work of God calling people to Himself in love and bringing them healing. We also know His desire to restore the earth so that is rejoined to heaven, making the whole earth a temple, a place where he will be with all His people. When He came the first time, He began that work of restoration and when He comes again, He will complete it. In the meantime, He has left us here as His stewards. There are some things that only He can do, but that does not mean there is nothing for us to do. In this time where He has not yet returned, He has already begun a work that He invites us to join with Him, calling people to Him and restoring the earth, bringing healing, wholeness, and hope to the world.

The gifts He has given us can not only be used to serve and build up those already within the church community, but as Christ’s ambassadors, we can bring tangible signs of love and hope into the world around us, to show God’s love and care that He has for not only the smallest things in our lives but for all of creation. As we live in the world as it now is, we can bring the love of God into our relationships, our vocations, our hobbies, etc. Our efforts will be incomplete because Christ has not yet returned. But the work that we do now can demonstrate the hope and confidence that we have because Christ has already come.

There is a call for those who can carry a prophetic message, going and preaching the gospel to those outside the church. For those who do that work, they need to remember that when Jesus called us to go the fields that are “white unto harvest,” he implied that some preparation had been done beforehand, the crops were already planted, fertilized, weeded, and supplied with sun and water. Much work had been done and therefore the crops were ready for harvesting. While not all of us have the gift of evangelism or prophecy, we should be open to what we are called to do.

Observe

Read Matthew 6. How are giving, prayer and generosity linked?

Relation to Yahweh

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Relation to Yahweh

[Bible references: Exodus 6:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:12]

Most English translations of the Bible obscure a very significant relationship. In Exodus 6, the Creator revealed himself to Moses as Yahweh for the first time in history. Our translations mask the personal nature of the name when they translate that name with the title, LORD. However, if when reading the Old Testament replacing the word LORD with the name, Yahweh, we will discover, particularly in the Psalms, a very personal relationship between us and Yahweh.

Not only is God not some impersonal force but He is a person with whom we can have a relationship. In fact, He created us to have a special relationship with Him. As such, the meaning of our lives cannot be found solely within ourselves as if we were isolated creatures or self-contained universes. We are image-bearers of Yahweh, the person who is a community, we are designed to be people in community. And since we are created as an outpouring of the love that was shared between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we should outpour that very same love in our relationship with Yahweh and with each other.

We were created to be co-creators with Yahweh. Not that we have the same kind of powers, but we can use the materials and abilities He has supplied for us to create families, cities, nations, art, tools, and many other types of things. It was intended that our creations would glorify Him.

We know that we are not able to love Yahweh in the same way He loves us. Firstly, He is the Creator, and we are the creatures. Secondly, ever since our Rebellion, we were born in a corrupt state with a tendency to rebel against our Creator. Therefore, to discover the meaning of our lives, we need to search out the essence of the love of Yahweh toward us. In Chapter 15, we explored the various spiritual disciplines which could be helpful in guiding us in the search of who Yahweh is and how he loves us.

Even though our rebellion against Yahweh has harmed our relationship with Him, he continues to love us and has made provision for our relationship with Him to be restored. It is also because of his love, that he has had great patience to endure our constant rebelling and he is constantly working to draw us back to him. Our relationship with Yahweh does not require us to do great things or to do sufficient good things to outweigh the bad things we do. We “merely” need to be born again, to have his Spirit join with our spirit. When we are born of the Spirit, that is when we are born again, then we are not only image-bearers, but children of our heavenly Father. And one day, we will know him fully even as we are fully known by Him.

Observe

Read Exodus 6:1-6. What is the difference between knowing God as “God Almighty” (El Shaddai) vs. “Yahweh?”

Discovering how we are formed

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Discovering how we are formed – for each other

[Bible references: Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, 13:1-3; Ephesians 3:6-8; Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4:7-10]

Once we have centered ourselves on Christ and have learned to submit to God and to one another, we are in a good place to evaluate the unique ways in which God has formed us.^[1] One of the more holistic tools developed by Saddleback Church provides an evaluation of several aspects of how we are formed: the spiritual gifts, the desires, the abilities, the personality, and the experience God gives us.

The reality is that much is life is filled with, “I just gotta do what I gotta do.” Parenting is like that, housekeeping is like that, etc. Diapers need to be changed, the house needs to be cleaned, the bills must be paid, grocery shopping needs to be done, etc. Much of life is filled with responsibilities that need to be done regardless of what capacity we think we may have. There may be no luxury of just doing “what I think I am best at.”

But where it is possible, when we gather in a sharing community, there is the opportunity to allocate different tasks to those people who are best equipped for it. God has intended that we be in such communities, so described in scripture as “the body of Christ,” where different people serve in different functions. At such times, there are opportunities for us to discover in what unique ways God has designed us so that we may serve each other in the best way possible.

Scripture reveals that all who are in Christ are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and that the Spirit has given us various gifts that we can use to help build up other members of the body of Christ. A few Bible passages give us an idea of the kinds of gifts of some of these gifts, but the lists are not exhaustive: exhortation, giving. leadership, mercy, prophecy, service, teaching, administration, apostle, discernment, faith, healing, helps, knowledge, miracles, prophecy, teaching, tongues, tongues, interpretation, wisdom, evangelism, pastor, teaching, celibacy, hospitality, missionary, voluntary poverty.

One way to discover what gifts we may have, is by serving in our community. As we serve in various ways, we may discover that God has particularly blessed our service in various ways. Sometimes others may point out those abilities or gifts to us. Another way to discover our gifts is to read about those gifts and certain gifts may become apparent to us that way. Another way is to take a questionnaire and the results of that questionnaire may reveal certain gifts to us. It may be helpful to take such a questionnaire with someone else because they may have different insights into the questions.

As we mature and encounter different life experiences, we may discover that different gifts emerge or that God has provided differently for us in our different circumstances. God knows us and our circumstances and may provide differently as we change, and our circumstances change.

^[1] Links to various assessment tools: Spiritual gifts: Carver, Jeff. “Spiritual Gifts Test – Adult Version”Spiritual Gifts Test spiritualgiftstest.com/spiritual-gifts-test-adult-version ; Granger Community Church. “Spiritual Gifts Test” Granger Community Church spiritualgiftstest.com/spiritual-gifts-test-landing; Ministry Tools Resource Center. “Take Online Spiritual Gifts Test Inventory Assessment” Ministry Tools Resource Center mintools.com/spiritual-gifts-test.htm; Rock Church, “Gifts Test” Rock Church giftstest.com. Personality test sites: Hayes, Robert. “The Best Free Enneagram Tests You Can Take Online” Tech Junkie www.techjunkie.com/best-free-enneagram-tests; Truity Psychometrics. “The Enneagram Personality Test” Truity Psychometrics www.truity.com/test/enneagram-personality-test; Barkers, Ewald. “Eclectic Energies Enneagram Tests (Free)” Eclectic Energies www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test; Shape test: Hill, Kevin M. “S.H.A.P.E. Test” Free Shape Test www.freeshapetest.com; Saddleback Church “You Were SHAPED for Serving God” Saddleback Church www.ministryideas.com/doc/shape_discovery_tool.pdf

The Discipline of Liturgy

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Discipline of Liturgy

[Bible references: Exodus 12:1-28; Psalm 39:4-7; 90:9-12; Ecclesiastes 12:1]

I don’t know why so many Christian groups think they need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to “discipleship programs.” This time-tested annual pattern for the life of individual believers and the Church together that is focused on Christ, organized around the Gospel, and grounded in God’s grace, is sheer genius. It is simple enough for a child. It offers enough opportunities for creativity and flexibility that it need never grow old. Each year offers a wonderful template for learning to walk with Christ more deeply in the Gospel which brings us faith, hope, and love.^{^[1]}

Teaching and learning that are attuned to the spiritual power of habit recognize the power of little things, the formative power of micro practices. Little things repeated over time in community have a formative effect.^{^[2]}

In one sense, a liturgy is a ritual, or a script, used by a congregation to format its worship services. In that regard, all congregations are liturgical no matter how formal or informal. In another sense, a liturgy is a “work of the people” which emphasizes the participation of the congregation during the worship service. The goal of the liturgy is to place the whole of our lives, including our schedules, our possessions, and our efforts, in submission to Christ.

That means that we should consider not just what we do on Sundays in the corporate setting of the church, but as individuals, we have our own individual liturgies through the week as well. We should pay attention to the ‘work’ we do as individuals as we live our lives, the ways we worship as we go about our daily lives, the tasks we do and the habits we practice. How do we, in fact, place the whole of our lives, our schedules, our possessions and our efforts, in submission to Christ? That is the point of our liturgy and all the other disciplines we incorporate into our lives.

The liturgical year

The liturgical year is an ancient, time-tested method of discipleship. In addition to the weekly Lord’s Day reminder/celebration of the resurrection of Christ, the liturgical calendar provides a way of refocusing our attention on the spiritual aspects of life. The focus on the Christian story and celebrations provides an opportunity to be shaped by our counter-cultural message rather than the so-called secular message and celebrations. The liturgy of Word and Sacrament has varied through different times and places, but the ancient liturgical calendar provides one way for us to engage as in a concert in a practice that unites us to the one holy, catholic church, past, present, and future.

Sacred Time

Interestingly, the Jews have a liturgical calendar that is different than their “secular” calendar, in the same way that we keep a liturgical calendar that is different from the secular calendar. The calendar of the Canaanite culture of the Old Testament started at the beginning of the wet season which began in the fall. That was the time when seeds would be planted. The Biblical calendar starts in the spring at the beginning of the harvesting season. While the Canaanite culture begins the year with the work that they do to reap a harvest later, the Israelite culture begins their year harvesting the crops (that God provided) and from which they would have seeds to plant later. The difference highlights whose work has preeminence. The “Gentile” calendars are similar. The secular year begins in January as the date when the Roman consuls would begin their terms of office whereas, the Christian liturgical year builds our focus around the life and ministry of Jesus.

There is an intriguing way in which the Jewish culture uses its calendar compared to how we now use it. Whereas, in our present culture we, with a few exceptions, remember historical events according to the actual historical dates that event occurred set. There are exceptions, like Martin Luther King’s birthday which is set to be always celebrated on a Monday, regardless of his actual birthdate. The long weekend has preeminence over the actual birthdate.

This shift of preeminence helps explain what seems to be certain discrepancies in how things are recorded in the Bible. These apparent discrepancies include: the timing of travel to Sinai from Egypt, the construction of the tabernacle, the timing of events in Deuteronomy, even the timing of events in Holy Week. These apparent discrepancies can be explained when we look at them within the biblical framework.

The Bible’s liturgical calendar always celebrates historic events in the same way we handle our exceptions. In the Biblical framework, it is more important to remember events according to the liturgical calendar rather than the actual historic chronology, to frame events in a spiritual context rather than in an historical context.

This includes the events of creation. The modern debates concerning whether creation happened in six 24-hour earth days or six longer eras – or whatever – can be put aside as only scientific concern but not necessary as biblical concerns. The purpose of the liturgical calendar is to help us place everything, both in time and space, both physical and spiritual, in God’s domain. This includes us and the little piece of time and space that we occupy. Therefore, all things, including all our time, our possessions, and our efforts, are under the domain of God. The discipline of the liturgy then provides the larger context in which we can pursue all our spiritual disciplines

^[1] Spencer, “Chaplain” Michael. Internet Monk Archives imonk.blog/2010/11/15/church-year-spirituality

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

Reflect

The sacred calendar reminds us that all time is sacred. In which parts of your day are you most likely to need reminding of that sacredness?

Observe

Read Exodus 12:1-28. Yahweh is establishing a new calendar for the Israelite. What is the purpose of creating a new calendar?

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

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

^[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?

Our limits

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Our Limits

[Bible References: Genesis 1-2; Deuteronomy 15:11; Psalm 40:17; 1 Corinthians 12]

As we seek to fulfill our cultural mandate, there are various constraints which control how we exercise our call.^[1] First and foremost, as God’s image-bearers, we are to act in accordance with God’s character: holding to the balance and tension of acting with sovereignty and servitude, mercy and justice, playfulness, and orderliness, along with his attributes of overflowing goodness, generosity and peace, trustworthiness, faithfulness, self-sacrifice and forgiveness. Although we are not transcendent in the same way God is, as his image-bearers his character of transcendence can be reflected in the ways we manifest His other qualities: Our ability to creatively imagine the ways in which we establish dominion, live into our relationships, display fruitfulness, and fulfill our responsibilities as God’s image-bearers.

We also need to remember that there are limits with which we should exercise our responsibilities. God has given us finite resources of materials or time to work with along with the reminder of Sabbath to help us refocus, to remember that although we are designed to work that we are not designed solely for work. It is not work that gives us value, rather it is God who gives us value and our work only has value if it gives God the glory.

Part of our limits are tied to our embodiment. Our earthiness is a reminder of our dependance on the earth, each other, and God. Our earthiness should help us lean into the humility worthy of image-bearers of God. Our need to sleep is a constant reminder that we are not God who never sleeps.

The multi-faceted call God has given us, requires us as God’s stewards to weave together the call to glorify God, to bring to maturity God’s rule over the earth, to reflect God’s triunity within the community of his image-bearers. This call is not for us to fulfill individually, but rather together as the Body of Christ with whatever God provides.

^[1] Theology of Work Commentary, “Genesis 1-11 and Work” Hendrickson Publishers Marketing 2015, 2016

Reflect

We have built-in limits to what we, in our bodies, can do. How do these limits remind us of our dependency on the earth where we live, on each other, and on God?

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 15:11; Ps 40:17; 1 Corinthians 12. Why do we need each other?

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?

Mystery of the traditions and the Bible

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 Traditions and the Bible

[Bible reference: Matthew 15:1-14; Mark 7:1-23; 2 Timothy 3:10-17]

What is the relation between the Bible and church traditions?

Christ came to establish the church, not the Bible. The Bible is the product of the church recognizing which of its writings should be considered to be inspired by God. Within the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, there are unwritten as well as written traditions (including the Bible and other writings by the church Fathers) and both have equal weight. The Protestant denomination, reacting against the corrupted traditions of the Roman Catholic denomination, gave the Bible the authority over tradition.

How were writings selected to get included in the Bible?

Throughout history, there were various “lists” denoting which books should be accepted as scripture.^[1] Eventually, most congregations agreed on the New Testament writings, but there has been significant disagreement about which books to include in the Old Testament.

The Masoretic text is a set of writings that were preserved in oral form by the Jews until they were set in writing by Masoretes during the 6^th through 10^th centuries. This “Hebrew Bible” contains all the writings included in the current Protestant Bible and are arranged in three groups: the Torah, the Prophets and Writings.

The Roman Catholics and Orthodox use the Greek translations of the Hebrew scripture that were created around 200 BC.^[2] The writings that are in the Septuagint that are not in the Masoretic canon but are accepted by the Orthodox as scripture are: I Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastical by Sirach, Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremy, the First, Second and Third Books of Maccabees, and parts of Esther and Daniel. The Roman Catholic canon includes all those books except 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh in Chronicles, 1 Esdras.

The Protestants use the Masoretic texts but put the texts in the same order as the Septuagint^[3].

How do we interpret the Bible?

The Bible was not constructed as a book of doctrines, but rather a collection of different types of poetry and prose: songs, wisdom literature, letters, civil and religious law and narratives, stories of God interacting with people and people trying to respond to God. More than that, each of those genres use a variety of literary techniques: hyperbole, poetry, allegories, anthropomorphisms, metaphors, etc.

That complexity, combined with the complexity of the historical context and language barriers, means that it is not straightforward as we try to use the Bible to construct theologies, statements of faith, and rules for behavior. The result is that many disagreements have arisen in how to interpret the Bible.^[4] One of the current controversies has to do with that when we say that the Bible is true, how literal do we need to be in Bible interpretation.^[5] That discussion is very serious as various heretical teachings have arisen when some individuals or groups put the community to the side and developed their own interpretations. For example, an individual, Marcion, rejected the Old Testament entirely and most of the New Testament except for what Paul had written.

The main types of interpretative principles used by various church communities are:

Interpreting the Bible according to its historical, socio-political, geographical, cultural, and linguistic / grammatical context.^[6]
Analyzing the Bible by applying various literary genres that it uses,^[7] including the differing levels of symbology, allegory, figurative language, metaphors, similes, and literal language. Also, each verse should be analyzed in context of surrounding chapter and book.
Presuming that the original texts of the Bible are without error or contradiction.^[8]
Presuming that the basic message of the Bible can be easily understood by the average person.^[9]
While some basic content can be understood by the average person, those understandings need to subject the expert knowledge of those who are trained in Bible interpretation.
While there are many academic disciplines used in interpreting scripture, proper interpretation can only be done by those who are spiritually discerning. The main goal of Bible study is not to gain knowledge but to gain sanctification.

How do you apply Biblical views to todays’ issues when the Bible is silent on those issues?

Particularly in regards in how to do worship, there are two main schools of thought on how to apply scripture: that we are allowed to do whatever is not specifically restricted by Scripture, or we cannot do anything that is not specifically permitted by Scripture.^[10]

^[1] Canonical books are the writings that are accepted as scripture from God

^[2] Septuagint, a translation form Hebrew into Greek which was created by seventy-two scholars in the 2nd and 3rd century BC.

^[3] Oakes, John. “When was the Old Testament Canon Decided?” Evidence for Christianity 3 Dec 2013 evidenceforchristianity.org/when-was-the-old-testament-canon-decided-was-it-at-the-council-of-jamnia

^[4] The technique of interpreting the Bible is called hermeneutics, with the first step of hermeneutics being exegesis which means to interpret a text by way of a thorough analysis of its content.

^[5] Christian Bible Reference Site. “Should the Bible Be Interpreted Literally?” christianbiblereference.org www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_BibleTrue.htm#:~:text=Literal%20Bible%20Interpretation%20Many%20fundamentalists%20believed%20the%20Holy,true.%20Anything%20less%20would%20be%20unworthy%20of%20God Different Church communities have different ideas on how to use a high level of literal interpretation or whether to use allegorical interpretation in various sections of Scripture; Bible Project “How To Read the Bible” Podcast Series bibleproject.com/podcast/series/how-to-read-the-bible-series

^[6] Historical-grammatical Interpretation considers the historical, socio-political, geographical, cultural, and linguistic / grammatical context.

^[7] Literary analysis – Each genre of Scripture (narratives, histories, prophecies, apocalyptic writings, poetry, psalms, and letters) has a different set of rules that applies to it.

^[8] The principle of Inerrancy – The original autographs were without error or self-contradiction or contrary to scientific or historical truth (when the original authors intended historical or scientific truth to be portrayed).

^[9] Principle of perspicuity

^[10] Jackson, Wayne. “The Silence of the Scriptures: Permissive or Prohibitive”; also known as permissive view of scripture vs the restrictive view Christian Courier christiancourier.com/articles/the-silence-of-the-scriptures-permissive-or-prohibitive

Mystery of our role in the world

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 role in the world

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; Deuteronomy 18:14-22; Proverbs 31:4-9; Isaiah 1:17-20; Jeremiah 7:16-17; 21:11-14; 22:1-5; Amos 7; Micah 6:8; 1 Corinthians 14; 2 Corinthians 6:14-17; 2 Peter 3:10-12]

What is the prophetic role of the church?

In the Old Testament, two words are used to describe the prophet. The earlier of the two is the word ro’eh, which roughly means ‘the one who sees.’ Later, the more common word used for a prophet is nabi, which can be loosely translated as ‘the one who speaks,’ particularly on behalf of another… a prophet is one who sees a different world, and says a different word … A Prophetic church … sees Jesus as King and His Kingdom arriving here and now … Speaks the truth to power …points towards the day when the Kingdom comes in fulness … [1]

As the Body of Christ, the church serves to encourage the weak, bring hope to those without hope, to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted”[2], to warn the powerful, and to call all to repentance, justice, mercy, and humility.

The actual practice of the church through the years has been inconsistent. There have been times where believers were willing to speak for Christ despite the threat of death, were willing to sacrifice time and resources to provide for the poor, were willing to speak out and take action to defend the helpless. But there also have been times when believers closed their community off from outsiders, defended and encouraged the oppressors, showed hatred towards, and persecuted those who were different.

In what ways should Christians be involved in “guarding the sacred
space” ^[3] entrusted to us?

“Culture care is to provide for our culture’s “soul,” … a well-nurtured culture becomes an environment in which people and creativity thrive.” ^{^[4]}

Our sacred space includes the “natural world” of God’s direct creation and the cultural world of the society we have created. However, those Christians who either have a Gnostic^[5] of the world or who focus on the apparent destruction of the world in 2 Peter 3:10-12, there is no value in trying to redeem either the physical realm around us, or the culture around us.^[6]

How should Christians respond to the community around them, particularly the unbelievers?

The caution in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 cautioning Christians against yoking with unbelievers has led to a variety of responses. One set of responses leads to some form of separation of the church community from the surrounding culture.

Creating communities that are isolated in whole or part from the culture around them, such as with the Amish and Mennonites.
Other variants of this are the creation of monasteries or convents, where the “spiritual community” where the participants can focus on “spiritual” activities.^[7]

Monastic communities were developed as a criticism of the church’s decision to become a large scale, inclusive organization.

Some congregations have even separated themselves from other believers whom they consider heretical, or even from other believers whom associate with any heretical congregations,^[8] although some congregations desire to be cooperative in some extent with other congregations they are not in total agreement with.^[9]
Some Christian communities are in outright opposition to the culture around them, creating a “culture war” or “Christ against culture” mentality.^[10] Some Christian communities such as the Brethren, Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Wesleyan Methodists, and Seventh Day Adventists are opposed to particular issues such as the appropriateness of Christians to be involved in the military or with violence in general^[11] with others think war, or violence, is justified in certain circumstances.^[12]

Moving in the other direction, congregations find themselves adopting the values of the surrounding culture,^[13] sometimes to the point of adopting the power narratives of the government.

The intertwining of church and state began with Emperor Constantine, who not only allowed Christianity to be tolerated, but inserted his secular power into the church[14]. There are those who insist that secular law should conform to biblical values,^[15] which can result in the conflation of nationalism with patriotism to the point of imposing some variation of Christian values on a pluralistic society.^[16] This conflation happened regularly throughout history, particularly in the first millennium of the church because the religion of a nation was seen as a community value (i.e. no one had their own individual religion, the individual simply assumed the religion of the entire community). In practice, it was the local king who determined the religion of his kingdom. The linkage of nation and religion was prevalent until the end of the Holy Roman Empire and continued beyond. One variant of this viewpoint interprets the phrase, “compel them to come in,” (Luke 14:23) to authorize the use of physical force to “compel” people to become Christians.

In between those views of the separation from the state and intertwining with the state is the view that since all humans are image bearers tasked with stewardship of the world, and that we can work co-operatively with non-believers in those tasks in which we have a common interest.

[1] Packiam, Gary. “What does it mean to be a prophetic church?” ChurchLeaders churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/339974-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-prophetic-church.html

[2] Deis, Robert. Thisdayinquotes July 30, 2020 www.thisdayinquotes.com/2020/07/comfort-afflicted-and-afflict.html This often used phrase was originally penned by Finley Peter Dunne on Oct 5, 1902. The full quote as Dunne wrote it is: “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, conthrols th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” Originally published in the column, “Mr. Dooley on Newspaper publicity”

^[3] Walton, John H. “The Lost Word of Adam and Eve” InterVarsity Press. 2015 Kindle Edition (pp.104-105)

^[4] Fujimura, Makoto. Culture Care, “Chapter 2 Culture Care Defined” Intervarsity Press 2014

^[5] Theopedia “Gnosticism” Theopedia www.theopedia.com/gnosticism

^[6] The overall concept of being stewards of what God has provided for us is sometimes called “Creation Care.”

^[7] McCulloch, Diarmaid. Christianity The First Three Thousand Years. Viking Press. 2009 (p. 200)

^[8] Van Gelderen, John. “Separation: Primary Vs. Secondary” Revival Focus 30 May 2018 Revival Focus www.revivalfocus.org/separation-primary-vs-secondary

^[9] Theopedia “Ecumenism” Theopedia theopedia.com/ecumenism

^[10] Stanley, Chris. “The 5 views of Christ and Culture” Culture Redeemed cultureredeemed.com/the-5-views-of-christ-and-culture

^[11] This viewpoint is known as pacifism.

^[12] Mosley, Alexander. “Just War Theory” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu/justwar/

^[13] Theopedia “Syncretism” Theopedia theopedia.com/syncretism

[14] : McCulloch, Diarmaid. Christianity the First Three Thousand Year “Chapter 6. The Imperial Church” Viking Press. 2009 Shortly after Constantine issued the Edict of Toleration, the Church found itself embroiled in an internal dispute which caused Constantine to call a council of bishops to resolve the issue. This precedent combined with those in the Church who sought the favor of the emperor began an intertwining of church and state.

^[15] Theopedia “Theonomy” Theopedia theopedia.com/theonomy

^[16] Encyclopedia Britannica “Christendom” Encyclopedia Britannia Britannica.com/place/Christendom

Reflect

How should the church be involved in taking care of our “sacred space?” Should congregations join with non-Christians in that effort?

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 18:14-22; Proverbs 31:4-9; Isaiah 1:17-20; Jeremiah 7:16-17; 21:11-14; 22:1-5; Amos 7; Micah 6:8; 1 Corinthians 14. What is the prophetic role of the church?

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 5^th 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

^[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?

The gifts of the faith

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

The gifts of the faith

[Bible references: Romans 12:1-8, 1 Corinthians 7:7-8; 12; 13:1-3; Ephesians 3:6-8; 4; 1 Peter. 4:7-11]

One way to discover what gifts we may have is by serving in our community. As we serve in various ways, we may discover that God has particularly blessed our service in various ways. Sometimes others may point out those abilities or gifts to us. Another way to discover our gifts is to read about those gifts and certain gifts may become apparent to us that way. Another way is take a questionnaire and the results of that questionnaire may reveal certain gifts to us. It may be helpful to take such a questionnaire with someone else because they may have different insights into the questions.

To strengthen the spiritual gift questionnaires, Saddleback Church has created the SHAPE assessment tool. What this tool does, is combine the spiritual gifts assessment with other things that define us: these factors are Spiritual gifts, Heart (our desires), Abilities (talents we have), Personality (who we are) and Experience (the things we’ve lived through).[1]

Romans 12
exhortation
giving
leadership
mercy
prophecy
service
teaching

1 Corinthians 12
administration
apostle
discernment
faith
healing
helps
knowledge
miracles
prophecy
teaching
tongues
interpretation
wisdom

Ephesians 4
Apostle
Evangelist
Pastor
Prophecy
teaching

Misc. Passages celibacy (1 Cor. 7:7-8)
hospitality (1 Pet. 4:9-10)
martyrdom (1 Cor. 13:1-3)
missionary (Eph. 3:6-8)
voluntary poverty (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

Biblical lists of spiritual gifts

[1] Saddleback Church “Shape Guides” Saddleback Church www.ministryideas.com/doc/shape_discovery_tool.pdf; Hill, Kevin M. “S.H.A.P.E. Test” Free Shape Test www.freeshapetest.com;

Reflect

What abilities do you have that benefits other people?

Observe

Read 1 Peter 4:7-11. What is our motivation for exercising our spiritual gifts?

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 Spirit and the servant-leaders

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

The Spirit and the Servant-Leaders

[Bible references: Matthew 23:8-11; Acts 1:12-26; 2:42-47; 4:32-37; 6:1-6; 8:14-17; 9:26-31; 11:1-18; 13:1-3; 15;1-29, 36-41; Galatians 2:1-14]

God had created the church as a community: a community to share life and resources, to support one another, to share the gospel and send out missionaries, and to pray together and make decisions together. It was as a community, a council of apostles, that they:

Chose Mattias to replace Judas Iscariot
Chose seven men to oversee the daily distribution of resources among the church
Accepted Saul into their ranks as an apostle.
Decided that the gospel was to be shared among the Samaritans and the Gentiles
Decided that Gentiles did not have to become circumcised to become believers.

It is normal that within the community decision-making, disagreements were a part of the discussion and those disagreements needed to be worked out. For example, there was at least one occasion where Paul had to correct Peter’s concession to the circumcision group within the community who were denying grace of the gospel. In the end though, the apostles’ decision-making included God, so their decisions always included prayer.

Outside the venue of the council, there were other disagreements as well, including one where Paul and Barnabas disagreed about whether to take Mark along on a mission trip. That result ended up with Barnabas and Paul splitting up and with Barnabas taking Mark with him.

Observe

Read Matthew 23:8-11; Acts 1:12-26; 2:42-47; 6:1-6; 13:1-3. What do these passages say about church leadership?

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?

Reflecting God’s paradoxes

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Reflecting God’s paradoxes

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-32; 2:4-7,15-25; Matthew 22:36-40; John 15:8-11; Romans 8:20-21; Galatians 5:22-23]

Understanding the character of God, can help us understand what he has intended for creatures that are made in his image. Image-bearing creatures are not gods or duplicates of God, but they are imbued with the character of the God that made them.

It was into this good universe that God prepared beforehand that God created creatures to bear his image. Good creatures, image-bearers, who were given the task of taking care of the good creation that God blessed them with – and God declared his creation to be very good. The image-bearing creatures were created in the complex image of God – the one God who was a community within Himself, the God who was immensely creative, the God who was generous and loving beyond imagination, the God who is sovereign over the universe, the God who is above all things.

There was a danger in God creating image-bearers. To make creatures that were lovers – just as He was a lover – meant giving these image-bearers the freedom to choose whom or what to love. Since we are created as lovers, we are compelled to love, so when we choose to not love one thing or one person it is only because we have chosen to love someone or something else. Because God’s image-bearers were the capstone of creation, their option to love something more than God risked an awful catastrophe, a catastrophe that could affect the entirety of creation itself. The good creation, all of it, would become not so good.

And so it was, after creation was prepared for God’s image-bearers, those creatures who were created in the image of the loving God were given instructions to be stewards of the world God had made. Everything was good, and the first human couple had free access to the provisions in the garden prepared for them. Only one restriction was placed before them, a restriction not meant to deprive them of anything good but meant to provide the opportunity to test their love, by testing their obedience to the one who created them.

We all now know that those creatures failed their test, and we daily experience the consequences of that failure. We also daily experience our own incapacity to restore holiness on our own efforts, our own inability to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and our own inability to fully love God or to fully love our neighbors as ourselves.

The mystery of who we are has to worked out between all the goodness we are endowed with as creatures who bear the image of God and all the evil we are encumbered with as creatures who innately rebel against that same God. Traces of heaven and hell run through each of us and are manifested in our everyday lives. The tongues we praise God with also curse our neighbor. The selflessness we display to others is corrupted by the selfish desires that emerge from the same heart.

Observe

Read Genesis 1:28; 2:15. What tasks did God provide for the humans?

Dancing through the pain

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Dancing through the pain

[Bible references: Luke 17:20-21; Hebrews 12; Revelation 21:1-3; 22:1-5]

Right now, it might seem hard to see images of the Dance of God’s Kingdom. We look at the news and wonder where things are headed to. Sometimes we look at our own lives and wonder … If there is a God where is God? What’s His plan for the world – for the church – for us? Then we pick up a book called the Holy Bible and read the stories and wonder how they all fit together. Then we look at the church – well, churches, there are so many of them – and wonder why it’s so complicated and messy and wonder if anybody’s got it right. And, what about me, my story, my mess? How do I fit into it all that?

But hints of God’s activity with His people are there to be found. God has been working through and intervening in the lives of many people that have been dancing the Kingdom Dance through the years, bringing hope and healing to the world. Their stories can be found in the Bible and in the rest of history^[1] and sometimes even inserted into the news of the day, in the middle of all the stories of our brokenness.

I dance because it makes me happy! My experience is that when I dance, I can express something from my heart to God that cannot be expressed in words. Dancing is a point of contact with God for me. It gives me an experience of God as the origin of creativity and beauty … “I dance because I want to spread a message of love, joy, hope and faith to the world … Among the dimensions added by the dance expression itself is the meta-message that there is room for the whole human being and life in its fullness in a Christian religious setting. Dance can teach children and adults a body-embracing way of living, believing and being in God’s world. One participant says that through dance in general, “we want to communicate heaven to people down here, the message of salvation, our freedom in God, the joy in God, and the joy of dancing with fellow Christians.” … Through dance these Christian dancers experience and practice their religion in a bodily way. This means that their spirituality takes an embodied form and that dance for them is not only a bodily practice, but also a spiritual one.[2]

Dancing seems to be a human attribute, not necessarily linked to just Christianity[3], it is a gift from God that can be used in the manner expressed here; to be a human means of expressing our God-given joy through our bodies. While dancing can be done alone, when done in community it can help to bind participants together. Joy and community are part of God’s purpose for us. We are tasked as God’s image-bearers to be his representatives and stewards. But our tasks are not to be burdensome but rather they are meant to be joyful. If you will, our tasks are meant to be a joyful dance we do with each other and with our Creator.

For us to dance the Kingdom Dance we don’t have everything figured out, He does. We don’t even have to worry about the results of the dance because the results are not dependent on us but on Him, who is working through us. As much as we have messed things up and will continue to do so, He will ultimately restore us and the rest of creation, making us all into what He had intended from the beginning.

Among all the creatures that God created, we are uniquely made, even if we are not the physical center of the universe as some people may have thought at one time. Through the pursuit of science, we now have instruments that make it very clear that we are not physically at the center of everything, not that we can prove anyway. We are only specks on a small planet spinning around a star in an apparently random solar system in an apparently random galaxy in a universe we cannot even see the edges of. Although we don’t know where the center is, the universe seems to have been created with us in mind. The properties of the universe, the physical constants, the atomic structures, were all created such that it would support our existence.^[4] Interestingly, although we are creatures made of the stuff of the universe, not only can we study and reflect on the properties of that stuff, but we can also study and reflect on and even reflect the one who created us.

In the meantime, we do not know when He will return, and we find ourselves in the middle, in-between those two times, between the beginning of the restoration of God’s kingdom on earth and the time when it will be fully accomplished. In this in-between time, sometimes we see some signs of God’s restoration – and sometimes we can’t – and it’s hard to figure out what God is doing, especially when there are times that He seems to be absent. In those times, we need to call upon our faith to hold onto the hope that God is still working out His plans. We need to recall all the times that we did see Him at work, and then we also need to remember that getting to the end of the plans that He intends for us may require some pain on our part just as it required pain on His part. And like Him, our pain will be ultimately overwhelmed with the glory that will be revealed.

Our ultimate destination is not a mere returning to the way we started out, but to the full flourishing of our potential, where God will establish a kingdom of image-bearers released to display God’s character and reflect His glory.

“And salvation only does what it’s meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them. The point is this. When God saves people in this life, by working through his Spirit to bring them to faith and by leading them to follow Jesus in discipleship, prayer, holiness, hope, and love, such people are designed—it isn’t too strong a word—to be a sign and foretaste of what God wants to do for the entire cosmos. What’s more, such people are not just to be a sign and foretaste of that ultimate salvation; they are to be part of the means by which God makes this happen in both the present and the future. That is what Paul insists on when he says that the whole creation is waiting with eager longing not just for its own redemption, its liberation from corruption and decay, but for God’s children to be revealed.” ^{^[5]}

With that in mind, we can not only wait and hope. We can participate with God in bringing His kingdom to earth and bringing a taste of healing and hope into a broken world that desperately needs it.

“Within the biblical story, the Christian discovers a constant call for justice on behalf of the weak and forgotten. In the biblical tradition, justice is an aspect of God’s shalom, a notion that carries with it the idea of completeness, soundness, well-being, and prosperity, and includes every aspect of life – personal, relational, and national.”^{^[6]}

The suffering and pain in the world can be overwhelming, challenging our ability to maintain hope and persist in our effort as we try to bring shalom. That challenge forces us to focus on the taste of shalom that God has given to us knowing that it is just a foretaste of the fullness of the shalom that awaits us in the fully restored earth.

^[1] See Appendix G – The contributions of the Church for some examples

[2] Schurr, Hildegunn Marie T. “Dancing Towards Personal and Spiritual Growth” Nordic Journal of Dance – volume 3, 2012 (pp. 31-40)

[3] La Mothe, Kimerer. “The dancing species: how moving together in time helps make us human” Aeon aeon.co/ideas/the-dancing-species-how-moving-together-in-time-helps-make-us-huma n

^[4] Slezak, Michael. “The human universe: Was the cosmos made for us?” New Scientist, 29 April 2015. www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630190-400-the-human-universe-was-the-cosmos-made-for-us

^[5] Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope, Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. Harper Collins 2008. Kindle Edition

^[6] Katongole, Emmanuel. Rice, Chris. “Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing,” Intervarsity Press, 2009 (p. 72)

Reflect

Think about how the universe seems designed for us, our capacity to think about and explore it and then think about our capacity to reflect on the One who created it all. What does that suggest to you about what God has intended for us?

Observe

Read Hebrews 12. What does this passage say about how we should be living now?

Strategies in cultural engagement

Listening to our culture

Flourishing community

Not Yet, But Already

Relation to Yahweh

Discovering how we are formed – for each other

Discipline of Liturgy

The liturgical year

Sacred Time

Reforming our Loves

Our Limits

Our Mandate

Mystery of the Traditions and the Bible

What is the relation between the Bible and church traditions?

How were writings selected to get included in the Bible?

How do we interpret the Bible?

How do you apply Biblical views to todays’ issues when the Bible is silent on those issues?

Mystery of our role in the world

What is the prophetic role of the church?

In what ways should Christians be involved in “guarding the sacredspace” [3] entrusted to us?

How should Christians respond to the community around them, particularly the unbelievers?

Mystery of the church

What is the church?

Is the church more than a Jewish sect?

What is the visible and invisible church?

Who has authority in the church?

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

What is the function of a creed?

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

Is the church an Organism or an Organization?

The Context of Theology

More than doctrine

The whole of faith

The problem of the other

The limits of language

The gifts of the faith

Assembly of God’s people

The Spirit and the Servant-Leaders

Body, soul and spirit

Reflecting God’s paradoxes

Dancing through the pain

In what ways should Christians be involved in “guarding the sacred
space” ^[3] entrusted to us?