Tag: joy

Fruits of the Disciplines

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Fruits of the disciplines

[Bible references: Ruth 3:11; 1 Samuel 13:14; 2 Samuel 11; 1 Kings 22:35; 1 Kings 16:33; 1 Chronicles 29:17; Job 2:3; Psalm 15:1-2; 78:72; Proverbs 4:23; 10:9; 11:3; 17:3; Nehemiah 7:2; Daniel 1:8-9; Matthew 5-7; 12:33; 15:19-20; 23”27-28; Romans 5:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:10, 33; Galatians 5:22–23; Colossians 3:12-15 23-24; Philippians 2:12–16; 4:8; 1 Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9;2:7-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:1; 1 Peter 1:6-7;’ 5:1-4; 2 Peter 1:3-8] 

Forming our dependence on the Holy Spirit

Practicing the disciplines opens us up to the work of the Holy Spirit within us, transforming our very inner character (moral qualities, ethical standards, and principles) into the likeness of Christ. Christian character is the product of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that produces the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, long suffering, and self-control. Although it is the Holy Spirit who transforms us, we are still called to work with and not against the Spirit. It is by His grace that we are transformed, and it is also by his grace that we can work with Him as He brings His kingdom into the world. Because the Spirit of God lives in us, He provides the grace and power that make godly living possible. We are encouraged to make use of this great power.

Forming our character/integrity

People of character are noted for their honesty, ethics, and charity. Descriptions such as “man of principle” and “woman of integrity” are assertions of character. A person’s character is the sum of his or her disposition, thoughts, intentions, desires, and actions.

It is good to remember that character is gauged by general tendencies, not on few isolated actions. We must look at our whole life. For example, King David was a man of good character although he sinned on occasion. And although King Ahab may have acted nobly once, he was still a man of overall bad character. Several people in the Bible are described as having noble character: Ruth, Hanani, David, and Job. These individuals’ lives were distinguished by persistent moral virtue.

People of good character are often described with terms like integrity, honesty, strong moral fiber, care and concern for others, and the like. Although their character is demonstrated in actions, true character resides in the heart. True godliness includes both right actions and right motives.

Forming our choices

Character is developed by our choices. Daniel “resolved not to defile himself” in Babylon (Daniel 1:8), and that godly choice was an important step in formulating an unassailable integrity in the young man’s life. Character, in turn, influences our choices.

We can develop character by controlling our thoughts, practicing Christian virtues, guarding our hearts, and keeping good company. Men and women of character will set a good example for others to follow, and their godly reputation will be evident to all.

Observe

Read 1 Peter 1:5-9. Which characteristic gives you the most problems?

Lamenting our brokenness

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Lamenting our Brokenness[1]

[Bible references: Psalm 90; Lamentations 1-2; Matthew 26:36-46; 27:33-53; Luke 22:15; 1 Corinthians 14:12; Hebrews 12:2]

God made a good world, a world full of his glory. Sometimes, we can look at the beauty, the immenseness, the intricacy of what he has made all around us and be filled with awe and wonder. Unfortunately, what is also visible are the many ways in which things are not as they should be. As we consider all that we see and contemplate the kind of end that God intended, we find ourselves looking at a world that seems to be headed in the wrong direction. Instead of increasing shalom, there is violence, hatred, fear, disease, and brokenness. Pain. Shattered dreams. Loss of hope.

There are times when the brokenness around us and within us can overwhelm us. There may be times when God seems absent for long periods of times. This intense absence has brought some people to what they call the Dark Night of the Soul.[2]

The brokenness around us affects everyone, although some experience the brokenness more harshly than others. The Psalms are full of complaining about how the pain of sins’ consequences don’t seem to affect everyone equally. In Lamentations, that pain is captured in personification – the pain of an adulterous woman who is naked, unclean, scorned, and shamed, a victim of rape, a slave, helpless, isolated, unclean. Just as we all bear the guilt of sinful disobedience against God and neighbor. Not only do we bear the guilt of active rebellion against God, but we also bear the shame of being sinned against.

Throughout its history, the church has been concerned with the sin of people but has largely overlooked an important factor in human evil: the pain of the victims of sin. The victims of various types of wrongdoing express the ineffable experience of deep bitterness and helplessness. Such an experience of pain is called han in the Far East. Han can be defined as the critical wound of the heart generated by unjust psychosomatic repression, as well as by social, political, economic, and cultural oppression. It is entrenched in the hearts of the victims of sin and violence, and is expressed through such diverse reactions as sadness, helplessness, hopelessness, resentment, hatred, and the will to revenge.[3]

None of this is comfortable, our tendency is to use whatever devices we can to cover our feelings. We want to run and cling to the hope and joy of Christ, to rush past our uncomfortable guilt and shame. There is a part of us that would be happy to join Christ in His work in the world, as long as we can skip the confession of sin and guilt, but in doing so we would skip the richness of God’s mercy and the gift of shalom.

The depths of joy and hope are not just feelings for us to receive and enjoy. Rather, the depths of joy and hope are only found in acts of the will, in a persistent choosing to abandon our interests and instead to follow God.

Knowing what was before Him, Jesus chose to push His glory to the side and to take on the form of a human with all its physical inconveniences, to endure the ridicule of people who were not fit to tie his sandals, to spend years training 12 disciples all of whom he knew would abandon him in the time of his greatest suffering as he endured the agony of the cross. But in all of this, as he shared the last meal with his disciples before his time of passion, he could say, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before my suffering.” The great joy that awaited Jesus and His disciples would be preceded by deep sorrow and great suffering.

“Throughout 1946 and 1947, Mother Teresa experienced a profound union with Christ. But soon after she left the convent and began her work among the destitute and dying on the street, the visions and locutions ceased, and she experienced a spiritual darkness that would remain with her until her death. It is hard to know what is more to be marveled at: that this twentieth-century commander of a worldwide apostolate and army of charity should have been a visionary contemplative at heart; or that she should have persisted in radiating invincible faith and love while suffering inwardly from the loss of spiritual consolation” [4]

As we consider in which ways we are called to “Dance in the Kingdom” with God, we need to keep the proper perspective. God’s work is to reconcile people and all of Creation to Himself. Whatever task He gives us to engage in, it will only ever be a portion of God’s work. Whatever task He has called us to is sufficient for us and He will supply whatever we need to accomplish the tasks He has provided. While some are called to do “bigger” tasks than others, we need to humbly accept whatever tasks God has called us to do. We also need to humbly submit to our need for one another and our need to combine whatever spiritual gifts God has given to us with the gifts He has given others as we build up one another. In the task of building up one another, we need to address another humility.

Our sin and our woundedness are deeper than we imagine. As we confess and acknowledge the sins we have committed and the shame we experience when others have sinned against us, our proper response is lament. We can neither undo what we have done nor what has been done to us. But we can take the next step. The path to restoration and reconciliation leads through a lament that must confront our brokenness and acknowledge the pain. In our lament we can recognize how we are corrupted by sin and that we are accountable for all the suffering caused by our sin.

For us to experience healing of shalom, we need to acknowledge the suffering we have caused, encounter the truth about our sins, and challenge the privileges we may have had over others. Shalom requires lament, a reminder not likely needed for those whose lives are marked by the injustice thrust upon them but is likely needed for those whose lives are marked by privilege.

“Lament in the Bible is a liturgical response to the reality of suffering and engages God in the context of pain and trouble. The hope of lament is that God would respond to the human suffering that is communicated through lament.”[5]

[1] Plantinga, Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be Eerdmans Publishing Co – A. Kindle Edition; Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview  William B. Eerdmans Publishing 1985, 2005. eBook

[2] Rah, Soong-Chan, “Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times” Intervarsity Press, 2015; Zaleski, Carol. “Dark Night of Mother Theresa;” St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul First Things, www.firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-dark-night-of-mother-teresa

[3] Park, Andrew S. “The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin” Abingdon February 1, 1993

[4] Zaleski, Carol. “The Dark Night of Mother Teresa’s Soul” First Things, www.firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-dark-night-of-mother-teresa

[5] Rah, Soong Chan. “Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times” Intervarsity Press, 2015

Reflect

What kinds of brokenness in the world do you notice the most?  For what do you lament?

Observe

Read Psalm 90. Is there any lament that touches your heart?

The context of theology

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

The Context of Theology

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

More than doctrine

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

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

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

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

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

The whole of faith

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

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

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

The problem of the other

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

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

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

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

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

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

The limits of language

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflect

How can love affect your ability to know someone?

Observe

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

Desires and truths of the faith

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Desires and Fruits of Faith

[Bible references: Psalm 1:1-3; John 15:1-5; 1 Corinthians 13; Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 4:11-16; Colossians 1:10; James 2:14-26]

A part of faith is the mental assent to the truth of who Jesus is who we are, but that is just the beginning. If the assent is real, then faith should include a submission of the will which will then lead to a lifestyle that demonstrates trusting in Jesus and submitting to His Lordship. This faith should affect who we are and should show up in our behavior as Jesus starts the process of transforming our character. The fruits of the Spirit ought to be increasingly visible in our lives. Becoming a mature Christian ought to seen in the maturity of the fruits of the Spirit in our lives.

For us to grow and mature, and produce spiritual fruits, we need to think like a farmer; growing fruit requires feeding and nurturing. To this end, Jesus cautions us to remember that we are like branches on a vine, we need to stay connected to him to grow. Staying connected to God however is not an easy thing for us as we tend to be like sheep mindlessly wandering around. Thankfully, we have a God who has never stopped pursuing us.[1]

Our dance with God is a dance where He works on the process of transforming our lives to look more like Him. Our personalities will not all be the same, but there are certain characteristics that should become more evident in our lives. One concise list of those characteristics can be found in a short sentence within the letter to the Galatians, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23). The first and most primary characteristic is that of love, a fuller expression of which can be found in 1 Corinthians 13. The epitome of love is described in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” God created us out of the outpouring of His love, and He has created us to be in His image. Love is the characteristic that permeates all of God’s other characteristics and it should be the driving force in all we do.

[1] Compelling Truth “Does God Pursue Us?” Compelling Truth www.compellingtruth.org/does-God-pursue-us.html

Reflect

Our lives should be increasingly marked by a love that has responded to the love of God. We should not be driven by fear or hatred or legalism. In what ways do we seem to be motivated by something other than love?

Observe

Read Psalm 1; John 15:1-5; 1 Corinthians 13. What should mark a life of faith?

Playful and orderly

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Playful and orderly

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 12; Exodus 35:30-38; 2 Kings 17:1-41; Nehemiah 8:1-9:38; Psalm 100; John 4:23-24; Acts 6:1-7; 15:1-35; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40]

There is much that is wrong in the world. People endure pain and suffering sometimes from natural happenings and sometimes from the actions of others. Evil seems persistent and never-ending. When we are called to serve God in this world, we can become overwhelmed by all the work that is to be done. Playfulness can seem out of place. Particularly, any playfulness that emerges from self-centeredness or obsessiveness.

Actually, that is the point we need to assert. Playfulness can be out of place in a world of sin and evil. But playfulness can also be a reminder that the reality in front of us is not the total reality. Our playfulness arises out of the relationship we have with God, the one who has overcome the evil in the world, who will end the suffering and who will restore us and world to be what he intended from the beginning. Playfulness arises out of the hope and joy we have in knowing that the reality in front of us is not the whole reality.

Our imagination can be helpful in this play. As children, we can pretend there is another world and do something like taking a cardboard box and imagining it to be a spaceship and accepting the rules of living in that spaceship. Family traditions (or even community or national traditions) are a form of play, they do not serve a utilitarian purpose, but stem from the creative ways we wish to remember our unique heritage.

This same imaginative playfulness can be useful in reminding us of the reality that lies behind our current reality. Our traditions of worship are a form of play, albeit a more serious play. Our worship traditions represent ways for us to remember our spiritual heritage or to provide imaginative ways to perform biblical sacraments about which we have sparse details on how to perform them. These traditions and liturgies help us point to that other reality, a new Kingdom that began breaking into this world with the incarnation of Jesus.

Christian worship was in fact and from the beginning a festival:  the festival of Christ’s resurrection from the dead … Easter begins with a feast, for Easter is a feast and makes the life of those who celebrate it a festal life … Jesus himself compared the presence of God, which he proclaimed and lived, with the rejoicing over a marriage. His earthly life was a festal life, even if it ended in suffering and death … the early Christians have understood his raising from the dead and the presence of the now-exalted Christ as the beginning of an unending joy and a happiness without end … the risen Christ as ‘the first among those who had fallen asleep’ and as the leader of life; as the leader in the mystic dance and himself as the bride who dances with the others, as the church father Hippolytus put it.  Long before the somber dances of death were painted in medieval times of plague, the figure of the resurrection dance can be seen in the old churches. The modern Shaker song ‘The Lord of the Dance’ brings out very well the dancing Christ:

I am the life that’ll never, never die;
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.[1]

We hope to participate in the inbreaking of the new Kingdom by living according to its rules. When we pray or worship, we are participating in the rules of that new Kingdom. When we come to others and share with them the hope that we have, we ask them to use their imagination to look beyond the current reality and envision the new Kingdom that is already here and is yet to come. When we accept contentment in all situations, when we trust in God, when we comfort others with the hope we have, we are living according to the rules of the new Kingdom.[2]

It is also true, that In this present life there are endless encounters with grief. Although we acknowledge the pain and suffering of that grief, whether that grief is ours or others, we can encompass that grief with hope. Even amid grief we can choose to cling to God and to the hope He brings us. If we can live under the rules of the new Kingdom, we can have assurance that the current grief will pass and will be replaced by future joy and laughter and that every tear that we have cried and will cry and even now cry will be wiped away.

Our hope of the new Kingdom allows us to endure the current pain and suffering knowing that the hard experiences can be redeemed and to be used for good. God can take the pain and suffering we endure to transform us to be more like Christ, who himself suffered for us, transforming the very evil intended for him into the final victory that shall ultimately also make us victorious. This hopeful living then is also a form of play, accepting the rules of a reality we cannot see and choosing to live according to the rules of a Kingdom that we can only realize in part.

That playfulness also emerges in our creativity, which erupts early on in our lives as our desire as children to play and also in the desire we have as parents to play with our children.[3] There is no doubt about how uniquely creative we are in the way we express ourselves, not only in all the various art forms we use but in the ways we can solve all sorts of problems[4] – even to the creative ways we try to cover up our sins.[5] No other creature can come close to expressing creativity the way we can.

Our ability to create and even detect order is also unmatched.[6] Our ability to detect order is evident in the way we can detect patterns in sight or sound. The sense of order is evident in our ability to recognize faces, our ability to recognize the voices of our mothers or fathers as infants and even before we are born.[7] Our sense of order is seen as we grow in our ability to recognize the patterns of letters and sounds and to recognize and respond to language – even languages.

Our sense of order becomes more evident in our ability to create order out of many abstract concepts such as math, science, philosophy, and many other areas.[8] It is our sense of order that allows us to create businesses, governments, and civic organizations to make society productive. When we bring order to farmland, we increase the productivity of the farm.

The visible order within Creation inspired Christians in the past to study Creation. Order within Scripture helps the Bible to be meaningfully used as meditative literature. In the same way, order during worship also helps us to avoid confusion and to focus on God.

[1] Moltmann, Jürgen. “The Living God and the Fullness of Life” trans. Margaret Kohl Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, p.192; Carter, Sydney. Lyrics “Lord of the Dance” (1963) Genius genius.com/Sydney-carter-lord-of-the-dance-lyrics; Tune “Simple Gifts” Brackett Jr., Joseph. (1848) Praise gathering www.praisegathering.com/media-files/pdf/a08380_lyrics.pdf

[2] Edgar, Brian. “The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality” Cascade Books 2017 (e-book)

[3] Gowman, Vince. “Playful quotes for the child in your heart” Vince Gowman www.vincegowmon.com/playful-quotes-for-the-child-in-your-heart/

[4] Baumgartner, Jeffrey. “The Basics of Creative Problem Solving – CPS” Innovation Management, innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/the-basics-of-creative-problem-solving-cps/

[5] Brister, Tim. “6 Destructive Ways We Minimize Our Own Sin” Bible Study Tools www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/6-destructive-ways-we-minimize-our-own-sin.html

[6] Basulto, Dominic. “Humans Are the World’s Best Pattern-Recognition Machines, But for How Long?” Big Think 24 July 2013 bigthink.com/endless-innovation/humans-are-the-worlds-best-pattern-recognition-machines-but-for-how-long

[7] Pfaff, Leslie Garisto. “6 things you may not know your baby can do” Parents www.parents.com/baby/development/intellectual/6-things-you-may-not-know-your-baby-can-do/

[8] Armstrong, David. “Christianity Absolutely Critical to Origin of Science” Patheos, 18 Oct 2015, www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/christianity-crucial-to-the-origin-of-science.html

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 12; 1 Corinthians 14. These chapters contain explicit instructions about how and how not to worship.  Since we do not yet experience the fullness of the new Kingdom, how can our imagination help us more actively engage in worship?

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-human

[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?

Reprise with variations

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Reprise with variations

[Bible references:  Genesis 1; Psalm 8; 111; Exodus 8:16-19; John 21:1-14; Romans 8:19-22; 1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4; 5; 2 Peter 3; Revelation 21-22]

“The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse towards whom he might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of his nature, and to whom he might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that was in his heart, and that in this way God might be glorified. [1]

God created the universe for his glory, and within that, humans were created to experience the true joy of living, to bear the fruit of His nature, to reflect His presence. We are designed to be image-bearers of God himself, stewards of the creation He inserted us into as we reflect the very character of God. The exercise of stewardship is seen in the process of “subduing” and “having dominion” over the earth (its creatures and it resources), and in being “fruitful” and filling the earth. God’s initial reaction to creating us was, “It was very good.” His intent was that we would fill and take care of the earth, all the while reflecting His character to each other and to His creation.

In the beginning, heaven and earth were joined at the Garden of Eden. It was a place where the Creator could have communion with his image-bearers and walk in the garden with them. The garden was the perfect place for the image-bearers to develop and begin working out the intended future of filling the earth and ruling over it as co-regents with God.

He gave us unimaginable delight and freedom, but that very freedom He gave us was joined to a responsibility, a responsibility that was wrongly used and caused immense far-reaching damage – damage we could not possibly undo – the whole universe is groaning, waiting for to be restored. Our pride-laden rebellion damaged the relationships between each other, between us and God, between us and the world and even between heaven and earth; but God had a plan from the beginning, a plan which is now underway, to ultimately restore what was lost and undo that damage[2] and bring us to our intended destination – an earth filled with and ruled by image-bearers and where heaven and earth are rejoined so that the image-bearers can walk with God once again.

“Jesus’ own teaching during his brief public career simply reinforced the Jewish picture. He redefined a lot of ideas that were current at the time – notably, of course, kingdom of God itself, explained in many coded parables and symbolic actions that God’s sovereign, saving rule was now breaking in, even though it didn’t look like what his contemporaries had imagined and wanted.”[3]

Ultimately, we will be freed from the bondages of sin and death and all the relationships that are now damaged will be restored. In fact, in a timeline that we cannot fully grasp, God waited from the beginnings of mankind until 2000 years ago to defeat the power of sin and death and begin the process of restoring His kingdom on earth. Then He told us that someday, he will complete that process and he will return in the fullness of his glory to fully restore all things at that time. We just don’t know when that will be.

Our hope looks at the resurrection of Jesus as a harbinger of the resurrection that awaits all those of us who will be united with Him in our own transformed bodies in the new heavens and the new earth.

‘… what is the ultimate Christian hope? …what hope is there for change, rescue , transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present … if the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for “new heavens and new earth,” and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together … “God’s kingdom” in the preaching of Jesus refers not to postmortem destiny, not to our escape from this world into another one, but to God’s sovereign rule coming “on earth as it is in heaven.” [4]

Furthermore, our hope doesn’t ask for us to simply wait for that time when the Kingdom of God is fully restored, but that we can be part of God’s plan to bring the Kingdom of God into our broken world.

[1] Edwards, Jonathan, “Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two,” SERMON II. THE CHURCH’S MARRIAGE TO HER SONS, AND TO HER GOD. Ed. John E. Smith, Yale University Press, 2009(p. 62)

[2] Bible Project “Pursuing God, Heaven and Earth,” Bible Project www.pursuegod.org/biblical-themes-an-animated-explanation-of-heaven-earth

[3] Wright, N.T. “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church” Harper Collins 2008. Kindle Edition(p. 18).

[4] Wright, N.T. “Surprised by Hope” Harper Collins 2008. Kindle Edition (pp. 4-5, 18)

Reflect

Speaking strictly from what we know from science, we seem to be random life forms on a random planet in a random spot in the universe. In that perspective, having an anthropocentric view of the universe seems absurd. But knowing what the Creator of heaven and earth has revealed to us, the universe was designed to be inhabited … by us! How does that change your view of the universe?

Observe

Read John 21:1-14. What does this passage suggest about our resurrection bodies?

Patterns of love

The young women will dance for joy, and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing. (Jeremiah 31:13, New Living Translation)

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Preface

Patterns of love

[Bible references: Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:19; Deuteronomy 4:37; 5:10; 6:5; 7:8-9; 10:12, 15; 13:1-4; 30:6,16-20; 1Kings 8:23; Nehemiah 9:17, 32; Psalm 17:7; 23:6; 33:18; 36:5; 103:1-17; Lamentations 3:22, 32]

The theme is love

The hardest thing to understand is the one thing we need to understand for the world to be understandable, to make us understandable, and it provides the themes for what we write the most poetry and songs and fiction about. And it’s even the hidden feature behind many non-fiction books.

We have this desire to express love and be loved but most of the time we are confused about what love actually is. We sometimes get analytical about it but only to wind up with a mix of

  • it’s an emotion that happens to us,
  • it’s something we choose to do,
  • we just fall in it,
  • we have to grow into it

We can’t pin it down, but it’s so much of who we are that we end up writing stories about it. The interesting thing about those stories is that we are creatures who desire to love and be loved but we all seem to be broken when we try to give and receive that love.

That brings us to another thing that seems so hard. Most of us are aware of this thing called “the Bible” or “the Holy Bible” but there seem to be confusing things about that Bible that seem to lead to many ways of trying to interpret it—and if “experts” can’t agree about it what chance do most of us have?

The Bible is about love as well, but it doesn’t get analytical about it, it basically just tells stories:

  • stories about God and the creatures he designed for love,
  • the Kingdom he desired to build with them,
  • how that love got broken,
  • and how God put a plan in place to restore that love and restore His Kingdom.

From the beginning, the Bible lays out patterns of all the practical ways to live out the Christian faith today. These patterns can be followed through the Bible itself as well as through church history. At one level, those patterns make it possible for the average reader to discover the Bible’s basic meanings while, at another level, scholars can discover the Bible’s richly intricately woven literary text and its patterns of clues and links that can lead to deeper understandings of God, of His Creation and of us.

The goal is of this book is to allow a more average reader to begin to uncover some of the literary richness of the Bible and see how the patterns laid out in Genesis trace not just through the rest of the Bible but also through church history and even provide guidance for us to live today.

Once we begin the process of finding pattern and discovering their meanings, we can discover that God of Creation has provided abundant patterns that could fill an encyclopedia, more than enough to fill our lifetimes. The full complexity of who God is, of His Creation and who we are is beyond our grasp, but He created us to be His Friends and the Stewards of His Creation. We can look forward to a joyous eternity of discovering and living out all He has laid out before us.

For people who want to love

Many of us look at the Bible and we can love some things … but other things are not so easy. Most of the time we find it easy to love Jesus … most of the time. But some things that the apostle Paul writes about? And the Old Testament can be tough; some things are so violent and there are those religious practices that we can’t relate to.  Are they even relevant?

How are we to understand how the apparent conflicts in the Bible: the stories of an angry God in the Old Testament and the merciful Jesus in the New Testament, the violence in the Old Testament and the message of peace in the New Testament; a story of creation that doesn’t seem to match the findings of science; the meaning of the laws in the Old Testament when the New Testament tells us we are not under the law; why Christianity of the New Testament seems so disconnected from our Jewish roots in the Old Testament.

And then, if we can get by all that and learn how to love the Bible, how do we move beyond that and love the church when so many people over so many years seemed to do so many wrong things. And even if we manage to love some of our people in the church, all those other people in the church are hard to love. It doesn’t help that over the years it has seemed that the church has divided up into so many denominations that we can’t even count them never mind trying to get to the point where we could love them.

On top of all this, who has the time to do all the reading to put all this together enough so that we can understand how the processes God’ started with image-bearing creatures in Genesis follow through to Revelation and then through church history to the processes and problems we can follow today.

From a writer who loves

More than 45 years ago, I was, in one moment, in such a bitter spirit that my brother warned his Christian friends to stay away from me, then in another moment I found myself sneaking into his room to start reading some of my brother’s books like Basic Christianity, Mere Christianity, Knowing God, and Evidence that Demands a Verdict. Somewhere in that reading my heart softened until I acknowledged Jesus as my Lord. Somewhere in that reading I also seemed to grasp that the story of Jesus began in Genesis and that the Old and New Testaments made a complete set.

In my first year as a Christian, I found myself in a small group that took an entire year to work their way through the four-page book of Philippians because Philippians seemed to be a portal to many other parts of Scripture and also to their lives. Also, in that first year (in fact, the first semester of that year), I had a Sunday School teacher who assigned a five-page writing assignment on one of the attributes of God. I didn’t know any better about how unusual all of that was. I just soaked it all in.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity for more than 45 years to serve the church in different ways including church governance and teaching different levels of Sunday School and Bible studies. I was ever curious to learn and to read about the Bible and the church because to me it always seemed that there must be a whole story to connect from Genesis to today even if I didn’t know all the pieces.

It seemed like such a large task. I also had a large problem which I will share later in the book. As we all know, the ones you love the most can hurt you the most. And so, in the reality of church family, as in all families, there is ample opportunity to get hurt. It is in the processing of that hurt that gave me a chance to learn how to truly love the church.

The impetus for this book started in 2017, when I participated in a 9-month (12 if you include the pre-class summer reading) journey in theology. The course was designed to provide, through group discussions, readings and practice of the spiritual disciplines an

“understanding of the scope of the Good News of Jesus Christ: By his death and resurrection, his renewing his people and the world. We want participants to see how their individual faith stories are part of the larger story of God’s redemption so that they find new freedom and boldness to serve the church and to engage every aspect of culture.”[1]

The intensive course required 4000 pages of reading, but I even read more. I also had the desire to bring this kind of knowledge to others who did not have the time for such expansive reading. It is therefore, the intention of this book to provide a manageable way for the average person to explore breadth and continuity of the biblical story, how that story has been expressed by the church through the years and how our individual stories can fits into that original story, so that we can look forward to participating with God in bringing His kingdom into the world.

This book can be read at different levels. To make this book more accessible, most theological terminology is minimized while at the same time terms that are commonly used (e.g., church, bible, etc.) are explained. People who have less background or have less time can get all the essential information by simply reading through the text without using footnotes or appendices. Those who have more background or have more time can explore the Bible references, appendices and more than 500 footnotes. Again, to make the book accessible, the footnotes point to online resources whenever possible.

For deeper exploration, discussion points are available at the end the chapters which have thought provoking questions designed for group study, challenging readers to engage scripture and their own thoughts and to share thoughtful responses within a group. This approach recognizes the value we have as interdependent parts of the Body of Christ and the value we each have as creative and capable image-bearers of God.

There is also a journal available, Dance Steps, for a day-by-day closer reading of the book and how it may apply to your life.

I bring no special academic credentials to this project. I do bring a love of the church, of teaching, and of reading widely. The research needed to create even this short book is shown by the extensive footnotes referring to experts from many different fields such as biblical studies, ancient near east languages and cultures, linguistics, church history, anthropology, psychology, science, Judaism, philosophy, etc.

I love the Bible, the church and the One who gave us both. I love reading, and teaching and the One who gave me both abilities.

[1] The class, called Brooklyn Fellows, was offered by a church network, Resurrection Brooklyn in Brooklyn NY. Special thanks to Marc Choi who led the class and my fellow students who gave their time and attention to all the necessary reading and gave their input and questions. The journey of the church network that gave rise to Brooklyn Fellows has ended, but God continues his work through those people.

Generous and Overflowing Shalom

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

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

[Bible references: Genesis 1; Psalm 69:16; Zechariah 8; Luke 15:11-32; Romans 1:20; 8:18-23; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Revelation 21-22] 

When God created the universe, he was creating order out of disorder, assigning purposes for everything in the universe. When he assigned purposes to the places and things in the universe, when things functioned according to how he created them … they were “good.”[1]  And when in the midst of all those good things he placed image-bearing creatures that also reflected his character, everything was “very good.”

God is good because he delights in the existence of something other than himself.[2]

However, when in the midst of that very good universe, those image-bearers rebelled, they and the world they inhabited suffered the consequences. Yet, in spite of that rebellion, God relentlessly pursued those image-bearers with the intent of restoring not only them but restoring all of creation as well to the good condition that He originally intended. The Bible is the story of how God’s original purposes will be carried out despite the constant rebellion of his image-bearing creatures – and how the good and very good, creation will endure the brokenness of the rebellion to be finally restored to the good and very good purpose that God had intended.

Within that story of creation and the relentless pursuit which followed, God’s character is revealed as he pours himself out even to the point of taking on the form of a man and the giving of himself to the humility and suffering of being tortured to death on a cross. Even though all of creation is now marred by the rebellion, it is possible to examine the character of God as it is revealed in this outpouring of himself into his creation and into his image-bearers.

Revisiting Genesis 1:1, we see God creating … everything in the heavens and the earth. The rest of that passage shows the orderliness in how the creation happened. We see that as God creates each set of creatures or things that God declares them to be good. Then after God creates humans, he declares “it was very good.” We will see later in Genesis those things got messed up, but at this point the core of everything in the universe, everything was good and beautiful and working as it should. Certainly, as we look around us now, it would be hard to say that everything is working as it should, but at the beginning, everything was good.

That goodness was further amplified when, despite the rebellion of his image-bearers, God tirelessly invited them over-and-over again to come back to him even though they would continue rebelling over-and-over again. The generous invitation and re-invitation would be highlighted by Jesus’ parable which has been commonly called the “Prodigal Son” (Luke 15:11-32) in reference to the wastefully spending son. But the parable could equally be called the “Prodigal God”[3] in reference to the father who represents extravagant giving of God.

These continuous and generous offers from God are meant to draw us to himself so that he could restore to us the good and generous life that God has intended from the beginning, life free from suffering and pain, life full of joy and peace, wholeness and health, contentment and completeness,[4] which is all captured by the Hebrew word, shalom.

“The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.” [5]

[1] Walton, John, H. “The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate. (Proposition 5) “good” refers to a condition in which something is functioning optimally as it was designed to do in an ordered system – it is working the way God intended”

[2] Weil, Simone.

[3] Keller, Timothy, The Prodigal God

[4] Refiners Fire ‘Meaning of the word “Shalom;”’ Blue Letter Bible “Word search: Shalom” www.therefinersfire.org/meaning_of_shalom.htm

[5] Plantinga Jr., Cornelius. “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin,” Eerdmans Publishing Co – A. Kindle Edition p. 10

Reflect

How do you define “good?”

Observe

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