creatures – Dancing In The Kingdom

Re-envisioning our culture

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Re-envisioning our culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflect

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

Observe

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

Looking back – Signs and shadows of the kingdom

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Looking back – Signs and shadows of the kingdom

[Bible references: Genesis 6:5-7; Exodus 25:17-22; Leviticus 16; Joshua 24:19; 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Chronicles 36:17-24; Ezra 1-2; Psalm 14:2; 53:6; Isaiah 43; Jeremiah 29:10; 31:31-39; Matthew 4:12-17; Romans 7:7-24; 8:20-22; Colossians 2:16-17; Hebrews 8:5; 10:1, 5-10; Revelation 21-22]

In the beginning, God created a good earth. Within that good earth, Yahweh created a special place, the Garden of Eden, where he could meet and live with the creatures who bore his image. The Garden was a place where the heaven and earth overlapped, a place where the goodness of Yahweh overflowed, a place of shalom, a place where his image-bearers were intended to thrive and develop as co-creators with Yahweh and ultimately create a civilization that would cover all the earth to the glory of God.

“Perhaps the most fitting symbol of the development of creation from the primordial past to the eschatological future is the fact that the Bible begins with a garden and ends with a city – a city filled with “the glory and the honor of the nations.”^{^[1]}

However, the image-bearers put Yahweh’s authority to the side and rebelled against him. The rebellion disrupted the union of the Yahweh’s kingdom with his creatures and all of creation was put into disorder. Human space and Yahweh’s space were separated and all of creation was damaged, including not only the relations between Yahweh and his image-bearers but between the image-bearers themselves.

In the Bible, the themes of heaven and earth can be thought of as heaven being God’s space and the earth being the human space. It may be helpful to think of these spaces as different dimensions. In the Garden of Eden these spaces overlapped, allowing God and man could dwell together. In the garden the humans were to be partners with God taking care of this garden, however they decided to do things their own way rather than God’s. This resulted in the humans being ejected from the space where heaven and earth overlapped, and the remaining story of the Bible is about how God is once again going to bring heaven and earth back together.^[2]

The image-bearers found themselves in an increasingly vicious cycle of violence and corruption causing God to restart his project by creating a great flood. Fortunately, out of his deep love for his rebellious image-bearers, Yahweh was resolved to overcome the violence and oppression and had a plan to reunite heaven and earth, extending his kingdom over all the earth.

Yahweh set processes in place that would begin with Abraham and Sarah, continue through to the other patriarchs, and then continue with the nation of Israel. Under Moses’ leadership and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the tabernacle was constructed to be the place where heaven and earth would overlap within the Holy of Holies. The temple was decorated and designed to make people feel like they were going back to the garden.

The difficulty was that God’s space is perfect, pure, just, and holy but the human space is full of sin and corruption. This problem was somewhat resolved through the sacrifice of animals, where the animal absorbed the sin of the people and died in their place, creating a limited clean space. Within the Holy of Holies, the mercy seat on the ark was where God’s presence would be but could only be accessed once a year by the high priest.

However, the tabernacle with all its rituals were designed to only be a shadow of things in heaven and a shadow of the things that were coming, a shadow of how Yahweh’s relationship with his image-bearers would be restored and all of earth would be joined with Yahweh’s kingdom in heaven as was intended from the beginning.

In the meanwhile, in those shadows of the coming kingdom, Yahweh worked within the nation of Israel, his chosen people, to gradually reveal signs of his intended restoration. Within those shadows, the people of Israel could see the futility of their own efforts to reconcile with Yahweh despite their denial of the reality of Joshua’s words, “You are not able to serve Yahweh.” Within those shadows, the nation of Israel would rebel against the kingship of Yahweh, rejecting his reign and insisting on creating their own kingdom, like “all the other nations.”

The nation was reminded time after time that the law was good, but they were not, that their continual animal sacrifices were never a permanent solution to reconciling with Yahweh, that they needed a redeemer, they needed a change of heart. Prophets were raised up to warn the people of the consequences of their continual rebellion, but they also delivered messages of hope that, despite their rebellion, God would restore his people to himself.

Then the promised judgment for their rebellion came: Most of the nation was lost to history as ten tribes of Israel were scattered through the Assyrian empire, which would be followed by the temple being destroyed and with a remnant of the remaining tribes being sent into exile in Babylon. If there was any hope that the ritual sacrifices at the temple could reconcile the people with Yahweh, now even that possibility was taken away. The restoration of their own kingdom seemed to be in doubt, never mind the kingdom of Yahweh.

However, the exile was promised to be temporary. After 70 years, the exiled nation had the opportunity to return to the Promised Land and rebuild the temple. Once the temple was rebuilt it was now possible for the temple worship to continue and even for their government to be restarted, although it would be under the auspices of a foreign nation. Yet in all that happened, one thing had not changed; the hearts of the image-bearers had not changed. There was still a need for a redeemer.

¹⁶⁷ Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview William B. Eerdmans Publishing 1985, 2005. eBook (Kindle Locations 581-583)

^[2] Bible Project “Heaven and Earth” Bible Project thebibleproject.com/explore/heaven-earth

In time and In an eternal future

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

In time and in an eternal future

[Bible references: Genesis 2:9; Exodus 25-28; 1 Kings 5-6; Psalms 19; Ecclesiastes 3:1-22; Matthew 6:28]

Although we have not existed from all eternity, God created us with more than a mortal body. We are also endowed with a soul and a spirit that can be joined to God’s Spirit. In the present moment, our mortal bodies are created from the stuff of the earth, and we are born into particular times and places so that we may serve and enjoy God in those particular times and places.

God made us as creatures. And the good part about being a creature is we were made to be dependent upon God and, by our very design, also dependent on other people and the earth … Often what we’re missing is the good of dependence. We need to cultivate an awareness of how our dependence and our needs open avenues of love … What if we stopped thinking of life as to-dos and started thinking of it as relationships? When we’re so task-driven, it’s very hard to appreciate love, because love is incredibly inefficient … when we were younger, God didn’t expect us to be what we are now. He’s still taking his time, by his Spirit, to bring about order through developmental growth … Part of recognizing our limits is getting comfortable in God’s space and growing in dependance on him … Sometimes, I think we’re actually scared to death to pray, because if we actually take the time to get quiet, we might begin to fear that God’s not there or wonder whether he’s apathetic or just really angry. Only in prayer will we discover how compassionately God views us … cultivating the gift of encouraging and celebrating others. It’s a spiritual discipline, a healthy way of dying to yourself and encouraging others. We are all dying for someone to pay attention and notice our presence and being. When someone articulates that, it’s life-changing. [1]

Our creatureliness which sets us in a particular place and time with a particular body is an opportunity to appreciate our finiteness and God’s infiniteness, to cultivate a sense of dependence on God’s provision and our dependence on each other and within the context of those relationships to truly learn how to love.

Our creatureliness also forces us to deal with God’s ordering Creation through process. Everything, whether physical, social, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual, is controlled by processes. Sometimes we desire to bypass those processes: we want to be instantly knowledgeable and wise and experts at what we do … and not dependent on anyone else. But it was precisely that kind of desire that led to our rebellion at the beginning of humanity.

As God’s image-bearing creatures, we not only have relationships with each other but also with our Creator. In our relationships with God’s other image-bearing creatures, our love can be expressed in our opportunities to support, uplift, and encourage one other. God has no need of such support from us, but He offers us such support. When we recognize our dependence on Him, He gives us the ability to pray, to acknowledge our needs and to recognize His provision for us when He supplies our needs.

We think of prayer as mostly self-expressive—as a way to put words to our inner life … if we pray the prayers we’ve been given, regardless of how we feel about them or God at the time, we sometimes find, to our surprise, that they teach us how to believe … We sleep each night in our ordinary beds in our ordinary homes in our ordinary lives. And we do so in a universe filled to the brim with mystery and wonder. We always sleep in a crowded room in our crowded cosmos, so we ask for crazy things—that God send unimaginable supernatural beings to watch over us as we drool on our pillows … Sleep reminds us of how helpless we are, even merely to stay alive. In the Christian tradition, sleep has always been seen as a way we practice death. Both Jesus and Paul talk about death as a kind of sleep. Our nightly descent into unconsciousness is a daily memento mori, a reminder of our creatureliness, our limitations, and our weakness. [2]

As we pray in our mortal bodies, we remember that although our mortal bodies will return to the dust from which we are made, our bodies will be resurrected when heaven and earth are reunited so that we, with soul and spirit and new body, will be able to enjoy God forever into the future.

What is that phenomenon we call ‘beauty’ and why does it lie at the core of both collective civilization and individual desire, even as we value it precisely for existing outside of practicality? In his essay The Weight of Glory [A sermon given in Oxford in 1942], C.S. Lewis explains it as an echo of eternity, imprinted upon humanity as an indication of our origin and destiny.[3]

Indeed, our God is a God of beauty, and he has created us to enjoy his beauty. Art and our appreciation of it are among the great gifts God has given to us. Sure, like anything, it can be turned into an idol. But art, beauty, and appreciation for the finer things of culture are all good gifts from a good God. [4]

In the meantime, while we await for our resurrection and to “gaze on the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4), we have reminders of our connection with our transcendent God in the beauty of His Creation and in our capacity to make things of beauty. Whether the beautiful things are of our creation or the Lord’s, they reflect God’s own beauty.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing … they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited … We do not want merely to see beauty … We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.[5]

[1] Straza, Erin. “Learning to Love Your Limits” Christianity Today 13 Dec 2021 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/january-february/youre-only-human-kelly-kapic-limits-god-design.html Interview with Covenant College theologian Kelly M. Kapic’s about his latest book, “You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News.”

[2] Warren, Tish Harrison. “The Cosmos is More Crowded Than You Think” Christianity Today 14 Dec 2021 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/january-february/prayer-night-tish-harrison-warren-angels-crowded-cosmos.html

[3] Wang, Irina “Beauty betrays eternity” Salt salt.london/articles/beauty-betrays-eternity

[4] Meuhlenberg, Bill. “Art and the Christian” Culture Watch 28 July 2011 billmuehlenberg.com/2011/07/28/art-and-the-christian/

[5] Lewis, C.S. “The Weight of Glory” Theology Nov 1941

Observe

Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-22. In the midst of meditating on the limitations of life on earth, verse 11 slides in a reference to beauty and eternity. How does that verse impact the rest of the chapter?

Transcendent and Immanent

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Transcendent and Immanent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflect

List the ways in which we exhibit transcendence.

Observe

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

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?

Playful and orderly

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

[Bible references: Genesis 1; 3:6; Job 26:7-14; Psalm 102:25-28; 104:26; Proverbs 8:30-31; Jeremiah 9:24; Zechariah 8:4; Romans 1:18-32; 5:12-20]

It would be more conventional to title this section, “Creative and Orderly,” but creativity is just a part of broader category of play. Although many experts disagree on how to define play^[1], we may think of play as activity which is typically not productive and is done only because one wants to do it and is usually a fun activity involving other people and will typically help people bond together.

When it comes to the Creation, God did not have to create anything. God did not need the universe or anything in it – not the planets, nor the stars, nor the creatures. God created the heavens and the earth for the delight of it, and He did it because He wanted to share heaven and earth with his image-bearers. This spirit of playfulness is reflected in many of God’s creatures^[2] including Leviathan and humans. God’s playfulness also shows up in other interesting places in the Bible.

When Job complains about the difficulties he is going through, God seems to admonish him by “putting Job in his place” and citing all the ways in which God’s ways are higher than Job’s ways. But God does not follow through with any discipline of Job but rather begins the process of restoring Job’s fortunes. In response, Job confesses, “I spoke of things I did not understand … I retract my words and I repent in dust and ashes.” … And yet, Job changes an interesting behavior – he no longer rose early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of his children, worrying that “perhaps they have sinned.” Job seems to have understood what Shams-ud-din Muhammed wrote later on:

the difference between our life and a saint’s is that the saint knows that the spiritual path is like a chess game with God and that God has made such a fantastic move that the saint trips over joy in surrender whereas we think we have a thousand serious moves.^{^[3]}

Another instance of playing occurs in Mark 6, when Jesus takes a late-night walk on a very windy lake, walking as if to go by his disciples. Of course, they were initially terrified, thinking they were seeing a ghost. But he got in the boat and the waters calmed down. He could have calmed the waters down before the disciples started to go on the lake. He could have chosen another way to make his point … but he decided to do it that way.

God’s creativity can be seen within the created world in the extremely diverse types of plants and animals: differences in colors and shapes; different ways of digesting food; different ways of moving and observing the environment to name a few. The creativity we see is awesome. From out of nothingness, from no previous model, God created a whole system of particles and energy fields that interact with each other to form the building blocks of subatomic particles which are used to form atoms, which are used to form molecules of all sorts of complexity, which are then used to form planets and stars (actually, the fusion reaction in stars is used to create larger molecules from smaller ones). And at least one planet was used to create living things like plants and animals in all their complexity and then those living things were used to create communities (ecosystems) that allowed living things to thrive and flourish.

Yet, within the overwhelming creativity displayed within all the diversity of living things there is an order that is imposed by natural processes, sometimes called scientific laws. Christians, like Francis Bacon, pursued these laws as an extension of God’s moral laws in the universe, which then led to the development of modern science.^[4] It is within science that we examine orderly processes at work that we call the natural laws which describe how all physical things behave: like the forces of gravity, electrical forces, etc.

There is no disobeying these natural laws. If you think that you can try to violate them, you’d be wrong. For instance, if you are on earth and stand on the top of a table and then jump off with the assumption that you will not be subject to gravity but rather float around without falling to the floor, you’d be wrong. You can’t violate gravity. You can try to set up circumstances that will cause other forces to come into play – such as airplanes do when they use aerodynamic forces that counteract gravity – but you simply can’t violate gravity, and there will be consequences if you try.

By observing the laws of the created order, we can ascertain some aspects of the character of God. The natural laws that govern how things are supposed to behave reveals a God who expects things to behave, and that violations are not tolerated. But when image-bearers were brought into the world there was a new level of complexity added to this physical model constrained by natural, physical laws. Because image-bearers were created to reflect God’s transcendence, those image bearers were given moral freedom, the ability to accept or reject God’s rule, the ability to choose to be good or not good. And just like attempts to violate physical laws have consequences, so do attempts to violate moral laws. However, the framework that provides order is also the scaffolding for creativity and play. The order that allows us to study God’s ordered creation also allows us to observe the activity of the living God when He does the unexpected.

^[1] Edgar, Brian. “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Chapter 5: Theology: Ludic(rous) Thinking, Theories of Play Cascade Books 2017 (e-book)

^[2] Yu, Alan. “Which animals play, and why?” WHYY 15 Aug 2019 whyy.org/segments/which-animals-play-and-why/

^[3] Hafiz (or Shams-ud-din Muhammad Tripping over Joy (translated by Daniel Ladinsky) (c. 1320-1389) wrote about God as his Friend, the Beloved, the Beautiful One. from reference by Edgar, Brian “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Chapter 4: Spirituality: Playing with friends, Competing with God

^[4] Harrison, Peter, “Christianity and the rise of western science” ABC Religion and Ethics, 8 May 2012, www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/05/08/3498202.htm; Armstrong, David, “Christianity Crucial to the origin of science,” Patheos, 18 Oct 2015, www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/christianity-crucial-to-the-origin-of-science.html; Hannam, James. “How Christianity Led to the Rise of Modern Science” Christian Research Institute www.equip.org/articles/christianity-led-rise-modern-science/

Observe

Read Romans 1:18-32. Reflect on how natural laws reflect the character of God. Based just on natural laws, what kind of character does that reveal about God?

Paradoxes and Mysteries

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Paradoxes and Mysteries

[Bible references: Genesis 1-2; Job 9; Psalm 8; 19; 103, 104; 139; Proverbs 8; Job 38-39; Isaiah 55:9]

When we look at a work of art, what can we tell about the artist? What can we find from the skill in using materials, the subject matter, the emotional content, the values? We may be able to figure out a few things, but all-in-all we can discern very little. To learn much more we need the artist to reveal not just more about the artwork but also about him or herself.

“People always want to know what inspires you to make art … think beyond the artist statement. Artists are living beings with thoughts, feelings, and ideas … explain who you really are” ^{^[1]}

“Besides making art, storytelling skills are the most valuable in achieving a gratifying journey as an artist. Your storytelling skills enhance your ability to achieve your goals. Art and stories, both written and told, are powerful tools to touch people. When art and stories are woven to work together, they create a compelling experience for artists and their followers.”^{^[2]}

So, as we begin to explore what we can know about the Creator, we also begin by looking at his artwork (that is, the creation)^[3] but then we need to hear what the Creator has revealed about himself to us (that is, through the Holy Bible).[4]

So, let us begin by looking at the living things God created. Sometimes, we think we can look around us and figure out what is living and what is not; but when look at the spectrum of living things, especially through the eyes of the scientists who specialize in it, it becomes more difficult to try to come up with a definition for life. In fact, one organization catalogued over one hundred definitions^[5] … and none of those definitions satisfy everybody. What does that say about the one who created those living things?

If we get so confused about what was created, it is likely that we will get confused about the Creator. When Job challenged God, Yahweh responded, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” In Isaiah, God explicitly says, “My ways are higher than your ways.” There simply are things about God that are beyond our comprehension, mysteries, which should give us a spirit of humility.

Because much about God is mysterious and beyond understanding, we naturally find that the Creator is full of paradoxes: characteristics that seem to oppose each other. When we do encounter apparently conflicting statements about God, we must hold those qualities in tension with each other. Sometimes we might not totally understand how these characteristics can all be true together, but that is what we should expect. If we cannot fully comprehend the creation, why should we think that we can fully comprehend the Creator. We should also consider that if we ever think that we totally understand the Creator of the universe then we probably are not understanding things correctly – we are probably creating a god in our own image rather than the other way around.

This inability to totally understand God leaves us often making speculations as we try to find a way to reason things about God. We then have to be careful, if we make dogma out of our speculations, we will likely create all sorts of arguments with each other. We will see in future chapters that various theologians and congregations have sometimes split up over some of those very issues which no one can fully understand.

^[1] Sayej, Nadjz. “How Artists Use Video Storytelling to Connect with Their Audience” Artrepeneur, 21 Feb 2018, abj.artrepreneur.com/video-storytellin g

^[2] Davey, Barney. “Personal Storytelling for Artists & Creatives” Marketing Courses, mymarketingcourses.com/p/personal-storytellin g

^[3] Ross, Hugh. “The Major Biblical Creation Texts/Creation Accounts” Reasons to Believe 1 Aug 2008 reasons.org/explore/publications/articles/the-major-biblical-creation-texts-creation-accounts

[4] Rusbult, Craig. “How should we interpret the Two Books of God, in Scripture & Nature” American Scientific Affiliation www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/two-books.htm

^[5] Chamary, JV. “A Biologist Explains: What is Life”, Forbes 27 Mar 2019; Zimmer, Carl. “What is Life? Its Vast Diversity Defies Easy Definition” Quantamagazine, www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-life-its-vast-diversity-defies-easy-definition-20210309/

Reflect

Observe

What speaks to you, or confuses you about God’s character when you look at Creation?

Read Psalms 8; 139. The One who created the outermost part of the universe also knows the innermost part our lives. What difference should that make in our lives?

Brooding, moving, dancing

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Brooding, moving, dancing

[Bible references: Genesis 1; Jeremiah 29:11; Romans 8:19-21; Galatians 3:13-14; Ephesians 3:20; 1 Peter 5:10]

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth … and the Spirit of God brooded^[1] over the face of the waters …

Like a bird sitting on eggs keeping them warm until the eggs would hatch and bring forth new birds, the Spirit hovered, brooded, over the earth ready to bring forth life of all sorts, but particularly creatures that would be like God, creatures that would reflect the character of God: transcendent, loving, wise, fruitful, etc. This is how the story begins, full of anticipation and hope for what must be a grand and wonderful future. But even before the story begins, we may contemplate another mystery, the mystery of how there can be one God and also three persons identified as God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The early church^[2] struggled with this concept and eventually, in the second century, a Christian apologist, Tertullian, coined the term “Trinity” to describe this 3 persons in 1 God concept.

However, that tidy little term can mask over the impossible to understand idea of God being one person and three persons at the same time. There is Greek word available to us that addresses the complexity of this three-in-oneness, “perichoresis”[3] which comes from two Greek words which mean “around,” and “to give way” or “to make room.” This is meant to describe the interpenetration or mutual indwelling of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“In that regard the term “perichoresis” (meaning “interpenetration,” “circumincession” or “mutual indwelling”) has been used theologically at least since the time of John of Damascus to refer to the way the three divine persons live in joyful, dynamic communion without merging, loss, or distinction. It is said to be derived from the Greek term perchoreuo meaning “to dance around.” However, the evidence indicates that the term is derived from the different though similar looking perichoreo which refers to “interpenetration” but does not refer to dancing…. this does not mean that the concept itself is inappropriate, as evidenced by those who appreciate its use in that way.” ^{^[4]}

While this term may be partly helpful in understanding this impossible to understand concept, there is another word that is very similar to another Greek which means “to dance around,” which gives us a word picture of our living and complex God in which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit not only interpenetrate but interact with one another, in a freewheeling but synchronized dance. This means that, as God’s image-bearers, we can reflect the image of the loving, interpenetrating, interacting, and dancing God as we participate in His work of taking care of His Creation and of one another.^[5]

This dance which started before Creation, has been joined by God’s image-bearers since the beginning of humanity. It is now our turn. We just need to learn the moves and join the dance.

^[1] Biblehub “Genesis 1:2” Bible Hub biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/1-2.htm Most translations or this phase use the terms “hovering” or “moving,” but there is also a case for using the term, “brooding,” as in a bird sitting on a nest of eggs.

^[2] Van Ee, Joshua J. “The Church in the Old Testament” Westminster Seminary California 9 Nov 2017 www.wscal.edu/blog/the-church-in-the-old-testamen t The term “church” as used in this book will refer to what may more properly be called the “new testament church.” I wish to make that distinction because the term “church” may be properly applied to all of those who are “called out” to follow Yahweh.

[3] Compelling Truth. “What is the meaning of ‘perichoresis’?” Compelling Truth www.compellingtruth.org/perichoresis.html

^[4] Edgar, Brian. “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality,” Cascade Books 2017 (e-book) Chapter 9: Kingdom: Playing with God, The Dance of Life

^[5] Miller, Darrow. “Perichoresis: Great Dance of God and Creation” Darrow Miller and Friends 16 July 2018 darrowmillerandfriends.com/2018/07/16/perichoresis-great-dance-god-creation /

Observe

Read Genesis 1. Think of the Spirit of God hovering, moving and brooding over the earth. In your imagination, think about a spiritual being “giving birth” to physical living things, what would you expect to happen?

Interlude

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Interlude

[Bible references: Psalm 19]

As I was working one warm summer night at a convenience store with the door open, it was not unexpected to see a moth fly in through the door. Normally, moths are attracted to light sources, but this time the moth was attracted to the white top of a garbage container. The moth was distracted by the light reflected off the garbage container. That describes a lot of human behavior; we get distracted by the pretty garbage.

Since the time of Adam and Eve we’ve had the temptation to place ourselves at the center of the universe, dismissing the idea that we did not create the natural beauty of the world around us but that we can possess and control it ourselves, that we are the masters of all we see. We are tempted to dismiss the reality that we are part of a universe we did not create with the idea that we can define the universe which we think revolves around us.

In the meantime, there is a story that began long ago when God brought into being creatures made in his image, a story about his plans for those creatures, plans for them to fill the earth and making the whole earth a place of love and goodness, but a place where that love and goodness would be disrupted by our rebellion. Fortunately, that disruption did not deter God from continuing his plans for his image-bearing creatures and that story is still in the making. That story is now our story.

What can get confused is that this story is contained in the Bible which is often presented as a disconnected story. The Old and New Testaments of the Bible can seem disconnected because of the cultural barriers between us and the testaments. Some people even think the God described in the Old Testament is different from the God in the New Testament.

That disconnect is exasperated by the long and messy history of the church. The church seems very divided on how to interpret those writings and how to live into them, leaving us with a confusion of various interpretations and practices that seem to contradict one another. How is one supposed to make sense of it all?

However, it is possible to obtain a clearer understanding of how both Testaments make one cohesive story, a story into which we can fit. When we see how the unified story than runs from Creation to Revelation, we can then see how we, as part of God’s church, are intended to participate in that story. God did not need to create us or the universe, He did it out of a desire to share his love and delight. God’s creation was more an act of play than of work and He desires that we actively play with him, if you will, to dance with him in His Kingdom.

The Kingdom Dance is not meant to be a solo effort, we are to dance with God and with his people. To that end, while this book can simply be read as a solo exercise, there are additional ways to engage with the material.

Biblical references are provided extensively through the book. They are there to support the text. If you read them, particularly the shorter passages, take the time to slow down and let God the Spirit speak to you. The Bible has been described as ancient Jewish Meditation Literature.^[1] It is best read when you give yourself time to absorb it.
There are extensive footnotes throughout the book. Whenever possible, I have provided hyperlinks to online materials to make the additional materials easily available to you. If you spend time investigating the footnotes, you will notice that I am not drawing from only one Christian tradition, but from a variety of them, allowing the richness of the different traditions to form a more complete story. To form a more complete story I also, particularly in the beginning, will use materials from the “Second Book of God” that is, book of Creation.[2]

“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.”[3]

For those who are not practiced in studying the Bible, Appendix A gives a summary of techniques that could be used to help understand scripture. This may prove useful for understanding when you study the Biblical references given throughout this book.
Reading the material with a group can make the most impact. There are questions at the end of each chapter that ask you to reflect on the material and then read related biblical passages to think more deeply about various issues. These exercises and questions will help you engage with the material by first asking you to think about how each section applies to your life and secondly to share your thoughts with others in the group so that together you can more thoughtfully “Enter the Dance” with God, with all the others that have come before, with those that are coming now and with that will continue to come until Heaven and Earth are reunited.
Finally, the best participation will be not to just read and reflect, but to dance the Kingdom dance with God. Part 3 of this book will suggest ways to take part in his activity in bringing healing to the world he loves, broken now but to be finally and fully restored when He rejoins heaven and earth.

The Bible is a complex collection of literature, using many literary styles and techniques and it can be difficult to understand some parts, particularly when one part seems to contradict another. I have found a useful principal in studying the Bible which I call “Conflicts are Clues” which says that any apparent conflict or confusion in Scripture should be handled as clues to look further instead of thinking that the conflicts create contradictions which reduce the integrity of the Bible.

In our age, many regard science and theology to be in conflict. In years past, however, the issue was not about conflict but about which discipline rules over or undergirds all the other disciplines. These ideas were expressed in ways such as “theology is the queen of all sciences,” “math is the queen of all sciences,” “philosophy is the queen of all sciences,” “philosophy is the handmaid of all sciences.”

The biblical perspective is that God speaks to us both through two books, the book of Creation and the Bible. Theology’s main goal is to understand spiritual reality and science’s main goal is to understand physical reality, but both fields can inform the other about the nature of God.

This principle of “Conflicts are Clues” applies not just to the “First Book of God” (that is, Scripture) but also to the “Second Book of God” (that is, Creation) which is practiced by the testing and revisions of theories, but also between the Two Books. During the course of history, the study of the Two Books got separated and some of those in science rejected Scripture and some of those who were Christian rejected science, leaving conflicts unresolved as contradictions. But moving forward, this does not prevent us from considering apparent conflicts between the books as clues to be investigated further.

^[1] Bible Project “Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature” Bible Project bibleproject.com/explore/video/bible-jewish-meditation-literature-h2r/

[2] Rusbult, Craig. “How should we interpret the Two Books of God, in Scripture & Nature” American Scientific Affiliation www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/two-books.htm

[3] Bacon, Francis. “The Two Books of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.” The First Book. Section.VI.Paragraph.16 1605

Observe

Read Psalm 19. This Psalm captures a response to what Francis Bacon called the two books of God: the Book of Creation and the Book of Scripture. How do you respond to the “two books”?

Confronting our freedom

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Confronting our freedom

[Bible references: Genesis 3:1-24; Deuteronomy 7:6-14; 30:18-20; Joshua 24:14-16; John 7:17; 15:16]

To be creatures designed in the image of the transcendent creative, loving God, we needed a kind of independence so that we could choose to love – or not love – and to be free to imagine and create wildly new and different things as proper for God’s image-bearing creatures. We were free to do this in a place where everything was very good and designed so that we could flourish. However, that very freedom which gave image bearers the possibilities of independent thoughts, also gave those image-bearers the opportunity to also confront temptation.

While the image-bearers were given the opportunity to meet with God and to walk with him in a specially designed garden, they were also allowed the opportunity for questions. They could even question the motives of the God who made them:

Was something good being withheld from them?
Were they being deprived of some power?
What would be available to them if they violated the restriction?
Would they actually die?
What special knowledge were they being deprived of – particularly this knowledge of good and evil?
Everything they had encountered had been good, why would their thinking about violating this one restriction not be good?
Was the Creator so good anyway?”

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 7:7; 30:18-20; Joshua 24:14-16. The ability to love is not possible without the ability to choose. What did the Israelites choose to love (or not love)?

In Time and In an Eternal Future

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

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

[Bible references: Exodus 25-28; 1 Kings 5-6; Psalms 19; 37:4-5; Proverbs 3:5-6; 11:14; Ecclesiastes 3:1-27; John 10:27; Acts 16:6-10; Romans 1:8-10; 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10; 15:42-49; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Peter 4:10; 1 John 3:16] Gen 2:9; 1 Samuel 2:26; Ps 19:1-14; Ecc 3:-22; Matt 6:28; Romans 1:18-20; 1 Cor 3:7;15;42-49; 2 Cor 10:15; Eph 4:15; Col 1:6-10; 2 Thes 1:3; 2 Pet 3:18

… God made us as creatures. And the good part about being a creature is we were made to be dependent upon God and, by our very design, also dependent on other people and the earth … Often what we’re missing is the good of dependence. We need to cultivate an awareness of how our dependence and our needs open avenues of love … What if we stopped thinking of life as to-dos and started thinking of it as relationships? When we’re so task-driven, it’s very hard to appreciate love, because love is incredibly inefficient … ⁵⁹

when we were younger, God didn’t expect us to be what we are now. He’s still taking his time, by his Spirit, to bring about order through developmental growth … Part of recognizing our limits is getting comfortable in God’s space and growing in dependance on him.⁵⁹

Our creatureliness also forces us to deal with God’s ordering Creation through process. Everything, whether physical, social, emotional, intellectual or spiritual, is controlled by processes. Sometimes we desire to bypass those processes: we want to be instantly knowledgeable and wise and experts at what we do … and not dependent on anyone else. But it was precisely that kind of desire that led to our rebellion at the beginning of humanity.

Sometimes, I think we’re actually scared to death to pray, because if we actually take the time to get quiet, we might begin to fear that God’s not there or wonder whether he’s apathetic or just really angry. Only in prayer will we discover how compassionately God views us … cultivating the gift of encouraging and celebrating others. It’s a spiritual discipline, a healthy way of dying to yourself and encouraging others. We are all dying for someone to pay attention and notice our presence and being. When someone articulates that, it’s life-changing.[1]

As God’s image-bearing creatures, we not only have relationships with each other but also with our Creator. With other of God’s image-bearing creatures, our love can be expressed in our opportunities to support, uplift and encourage one other. God has no need of such support from us, but He offers us such support. When we recognize our dependence on Him, He gives us the ability to pray, to acknowledge our needs and to recognize His provision for us when He supplies our needs.

What is that phenomenon we call ‘beauty’ and why does it lie at the core of both collective civilisation and individual desire, even as we value it precisely for existing outside of practicality? In his essay The Weight of Glory [A sermon given in Oxford in 1942], C.S. Lewis explains it as an echo of eternity, imprinted upon humanity as an indication of our origin and destiny.[3]

In the meantime, while we await for our resurrection and to gaze on the beauty of the Lord (Psalm 27:4), we have reminders of our connection with our transcendent God in the beauty of His Creation and in our capacity to make things of beauty. Whether the beautiful things are of our creation or the Lord’s, they are a reflection of God’s own beauty.

[1] Straza, Erin. “Learning How to Love Your Limits” Christianity Today 13 Dec 2021 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/january-february/youre-only-human-kelly-kapic-limits-god-design.html Interview with Covenant College theologian Kelly M. Kapic’s about his latest book, “You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News.”

[2] Warren, Tish Harrison. “The Cosmos is More Crowded Than You Think” Christianity Today 14 Dec 2021 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/january-february/prayer-night-tish-harrison-warren-angels-crowded-cosmos.html

[3] Wang, Irina “Beauty betrays eternity” Salt salt.london/articles/beauty-betrays-eternity/

[4] Meuhlenberg, Bill. “Art and the Christian”; Culture Watch 28 July 2011 billmuehlenberg.com/2011/07/28/art-and-the-christian/

Reflect

How does having an eternal future help us live in the world today?

Observe

Interlude

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

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

Interlude

As I was working one warm summer night at a convenience store with the door open, it was not unexpected to see a moth fly in through the door. Normally, moths are attracted to light sources, but this time the moth was attracted to the white top of a garbage container. The moth was distracted by the light reflected off the garbage container. I think that describes a lot of human behavior; we get distracted by the pretty garbage.

For too many people, even Christians, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible can seem disconnected. Some people have even proposed that the God described in the Old Testament is different from the God in the New Testament. This is partly due to the issue of the cultural barriers between us and the Old Testament. One purpose of this book is to show the unity of both Testaments, how they help make sense of each other and how together they make one cohesive story, a story into which we can fit.

There is a further disconnect. Between us and the biblical writings is the long and messy history of the Church. The Church seems very divided on how to interpret those writings and how to live into them. It is downright confusing to sort out all the various interpretations and practices that seem to contradict one another. How is one supposed to make sense of it all?

This book’s purpose then, is to not just overview the Biblical story from Creation to Revelation, but to show how we, as part of God’s Church, are intended to participate. God did not need to create us or the universe, He did it out of a desire to share his love and delight. God’s creation was more an act of play than of work and He desires that we actively play with him, if you will, to dance with him in His Kingdom.

The Kingdom Dance is not meant to be a solo effort, we are to dance with God and with his people. To that end, while this book can simply be read as a solo exercise, there are additional ways to engage with the material.

Biblical references are provided extensively through the book. They are there to support the text. If you read them, take the time to slow down and let God the Spirit speak to you. The Bible has been described as ancient Jewish Meditation Literature.^[1] It is best read when you give yourself time to absorb it.
There are extensive footnotes throughout the book. Whenever possible, I have provided hyperlinks to make the additional materials easily available to you. If you spend time investigating the footnotes, you will notice that I am not drawing from only one Christian tradition, but from a variety of them, allowing the richness of the different traditions to form a more complete story. To form a more complete story I also, particularly in the beginning, will use materials from the “Second Book of God” that is, book of Creation.[2]

“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.”[3]

For those who are not practiced in studying the Bible, Appendix A gives a summary of techniques that could be used to help understand scripture. This may prove useful for understanding when you study the Biblical references given throughout this book.
Reading the material with a group can make the most impact. The Dancing in the Kingdom Workbook provides exercises and questions to help process the material as a group. These exercises and questions will help you engage with the material by first asking you to think about how each section applies to your life and secondly to share your thoughts with others in the group so that together you can more thoughtfully “Enter the Dance” with God, with all the others that have come before, with those that are coming now and with that will continue to come until Heaven and Earth are reunited.
Finally, the best participation will be not to just read and reflect, but to dance the Kingdom dance with God. The last chapters of this book will suggest ways to take part in his activity in bringing healing to the world he loves, broken now but to be finally fully restored when He rejoins heaven and earth.

The Bible is a complex collection of literature, using many literary styles and techniques and it can be difficult to understand some parts, particularly when one part seems to contradict another part. I have found a useful principal in studying the Bible which I call “Conflicts are clues” which says that any apparent conflict or confusion in Scripture should be handled as clues to look further instead of thinking that the conflicts create contradictions which reduce the integrity of the Bible.

^[1] Bible Project “Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature” Bible Project bibleproject.com/explore/video/bible-jewish-meditation-literature-h2r/

[2] Rusbult, Craig. “How should we interpret the Two Books of God, in Scripture & Nature” American Scientific Affiliation http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/two-books.htm

[3] Bacon, Francis. “The Two Books of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.” The First Book. Section.VI.Paragraph.16 1605

Reflections

Look at the four videos you can find at bibleproject.com/explore/category/how-to-read-bible-introduction/ for an overview of the Bible. How do these videos help you understand the larger context of the Bible?

Observe

Read 2 Timothy 3:14-16; Hebrews 4:12-13; Romans 15:1-6; 2 Peter 1:19-21. What is the purpose of the Bible?