Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents
Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 12 – Launching the church
No detailed strategic plan, but promises and presence
[Bible references: Genesis 12:1-4; Matthew 13:15; 26:56; 26:69-74; 28:16-20; Mark 16:1-3; John 20:19; 12:31-36; Acts 1:4-9]
When Jesus had ascended to heaven, he had left a group of bewildered disciples who had no idea about the kind of enterprise they were going to launch. They were all missing pieces of the puzzle. Although Jesus had been explicit about his suffering and dying and resurrecting, the disciples did not fully grasp what had happened until they witnessed his appearance after the resurrection. A few days before his crucifixion, when he told about the death he would die, i.e., “when I am lifted up” which people knew meant crucifixion, the people protested saying they knew that the Law said the Christ remains forever, so how could that be?
Even the chosen apostles were unprepared. Upon Jesus being arrested, they fled and hid and, in the case of Peter, even denied knowing Jesus. They fearfully gathered behind locked doors, not knowing their next steps. Even those women who were close to Jesus thought they needed to anoint his deceased body. The words of the prophet Isaiah, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart,” seemed to apply just as fully to Jesus’ closest disciples.
What the evidence displays is that the program and order of Christian communities originate in direct continuity with the synagogue communities of Israel … These communities had assemblies, elders, presiding elders, deacons and a full program of worship, common policy-making, social welfare and interurban alliances. They lacked the authorization to govern themselves on behalf of the empire. But in other respects they developed patterns of community organization that were traditional to their Jewish origins and members.[1]
Even after his resurrection, when Jesus appeared again, he apparently did not give any instructions about how to organize the church, particularly for the next 2000+ years. The evidence we do have shows that early church organizational structure was based on the organizational structure of the synagogue. In fact, the first explicitly Christian assemblies were split offs from the Jewish assemblies. What they did have, and what they and their successors did build on, was the liturgical and governmental structure of the synagogue.
Jesus instigated no characteristic new organization or anarchy among those who shared faith in him. They proceeded from where they found themselves. And they found themselves in the synagogue. The synagogue became the church, not by dint of a new social format, but in virtue of new convictions within its members. It developed and adapted and consolidated and searched for its own authenticity. We claim here only that to study the energetic development we must know that it proceeded form the organization of the synagogue. [2]
In fact, there seemed to be some hints that the final consummation of the kingdom would occur in their earthly lifetimes. The main preparation of his disciples seems to have been spending time with Jesus, listening to Jesus’ descriptions of the kingdom of God and seeing (and sometimes participating with) Jesus in the inbreaking of the Kingdom through teaching, healing, compassion, and casting out demons.
After the resurrection Jesus spent times with various groups of his disciples during the next forty days. Then just before he was to “ascend to heaven,” he gave his apostles one last charge. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and 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.”
Before he was to visibly leave the earth, he had given the promise to be with them … always. The living God was not going to be present in a physical body nor would the living God leave any instructions in a written document, instead the living God would be present by means of the Holy Spirit.
[1] Burtchaell, James Tunstead. “From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities” Cambridge University Press 1992 (pp. 334-336)
[2] Burtchaell, James Tunstead. “From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities” Cambridge University Press 1992 (pp.349-352)
Dancing In The Kingdom 