Tag: Old Testament

Re-envisioning our given environment

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 given environment

[Bible references: Genesis 1-2]

“An important distinction exists between the concepts of nature and creation. There is no concept of nature in the Old Testament. Nature, derived from the Greek worldview, is by scientific definition a self-sustaining system replete with its own internal laws. Creation, a biblical-theological concept, recognizes that creation is not self-sustaining but is continually dependent on the presence of God.” [1]

In Genesis we explored how God had fashioned the cosmos to be a temple, a place where he would meet with his image-bearing creatures. This cosmos, and in particular, this world that we live in, ultimately belongs to him, for he built it with materials that he provided.

It was his intention, though, to not only share this temple with us, but to give us responsibilities within it. We know the story of how we rebelled against the responsibilities he gave us, and we know of the outpouring of patient love which he has endured and continues to endure as he works out his plan to restore our relationship with him. He still intends the cosmos to be his temple where he meets with us.

The theme of the temple began in the first chapters of the Bible with the temple dedication, the temple sanctuary in the Garden of Eden, and the charge he gave to his image-bearers to be the stewards of his temple and to fill the earth, expanding the sanctuary, the place he meets with us, to fill the entire earth.

The temple theme concludes in the last chapters of the Bible, revealing our intended destination, not just a primeval garden, but a garden with a city. It’s a city he built, for we, in and of ourselves, cannot build a city where there are no tears of sorrow, where there is no rebellion, where we can experience the entire fulness of shalom.

We don’t know when that time will come, but we do know the responsibility he gave us from the beginning, to be the stewards of what he has given us, to nurture, sustain, care for, and protect the world he provided.

[1] Bukus, Russell A. “The Stewardship of Creation” The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2002 www.baylor.edu/ifl/christianreflection/CreationarticleButkus.pdf

Observe

Read Genesis 1:26-30; 2:1-15.  How do we best take care of the space Yahweh provided for us, with his intentions for its flourishing and with our role as stewards of this space?

Relation to Yahweh

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Relation to Yahweh

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

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

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

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

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

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

Observe

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

Mystery of faith

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Mystery of faith

[Bible references: Exodus 31:1-11; Isaiah 1:18; Romans 1; 3:24; 4:16; 5:2-21; 6:15; 11:5-6; 2 Corinthians 6:1; Galatians 5; Ephesians 1; 2 Hebrews 12:1-39]

Faith and grace

If we try to systemize grace and faith, we find some saying that God will only give some people a special grace that allows them (and only them) to have faith to receive God’s forgiveness and some will say everyone is given that grace. Fortunately, receiving God’s grace is not dependent on our understanding. We only need to acknowledge it is only by God’s grace that we can be forgiven, and it is by God’s grace that we can be saved through faith.

After we “make a decision” to receive grace through faith, some will have the attitude that, “I’m saved, there is nothing more to do.” This attitude is sometime characterized as getting “fire insurance” or a “get out of hell free” card or as “easy believism.” This puts emphasis on “making a decision to accept Christ as our Savior” as if that was the main point.

While acknowledging Jesus as our Savior is a good thing, we should not put to the side that our decision should also acknowledge that Jesus is also our Lord and therefore our decision includes following Him as a disciple.

Faith and reason

Scripture is full of exhortations for us to use our reasoning. In Isaiah 1:18, Yahweh invites us to reason together with Him. In Romans 1, Paul tells us that we can even discern the truth of God’s invisible qualities, that they are clearly seen in the world around us. The scriptures are full of examples of God pleading with us, appealing with us to do the right things.

Scripture also encourages us to walk and live by faith, to trust God by faith, to obey God by faith, that we need to come to him by faith, that our righteousness comes by faith – and that faith is having confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

To hold these in tension, we cannot go to either extreme of abandoning our intellect or abandoning faith, rather we must go trust God to act in the future based on what we have seen him do in the past or present.

Faith and Creeds

It would seem nice if we could make a simple statement like, “The Bible says it and I believe it,” and not be misunderstood. But it’s not so simple. That’s because the Bible is not a straightforward text of moralizing or instructions. It’s a collection of stories, poetry, bits of wisdom, letters written from one person to another or to a group, prophecy, etc.  So biblical interpretation is not a task to be done lightly. Instead, it requires that we look at every verse in the context of the passage that it’s in, who wrote it and to whom and in the context of the entirety of scripture.[1] 

To address that problem, many congregations have found it expedient to clarify what they believe by using certain creeds or statements of faith. But then we run into the problem of the creeds or statement are not saying enough about the entirety of the faith of the congregation. So other congregations avoid creedal statements altogether and simply say that the Bible as a whole describes their faith.[2]

Faith and expressions of the Gospel

Living out the Gospel can encompass all parts of our lives, but for various reasons, different parts of the church at different times have chosen to focus on different aspects of the Gospel, often creating an imbalance in how the Gospel is lived out. Overfocusing on the intellectual aspects of faith led to a movement to focus instead on internalizing one’s faith and personal walk with God. Overfocusing on one’s personal walk with God led to a movement to put more of a focus on the public aspect of faith and the need for social justice. A desire to “return” to the faith of the New Testament church led to a desire to live out the “whole Gospel,” emphasizing the power of the Spirit as expressed by miracles, healings and speaking in tongues. Of course, the “whole gospel” actually encompasses all aspects and loving God with all our hearts, minds, soul and spirit.

Faith and Art

[Bible references: Exodus 28:3; 31:1-11; 35:10-33; 1 Kings 7:13-14; Proverbs 8:30; 22:29; Isaiah 54:16; Zechariah 1:20]

Expressing our faith through art had been common since God instructed people gifted in arts and crafts to build the Tabernacle. During New Testament times, poverty and persecution limited the amount of artwork, and that artwork was largely symbolic. But after the legalization of Christianity, expressions of the faith blossomed in both art and architecture. The eastern church started to express its faith through special artwork called icons which were highly revered. However, when a volcano erupted in AD 726, superstitions within the empire created a movement to rejected artwork[3] which did not finally end until AD 834[4]. To this day, different segments of the church either accept or reject the use of artwork.

Faith and perceptions of God in the Old and New Testament

At first glance, it could seem like God in the Old Testament is different than God in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the stress seems to be on the holiness of God and his distance from us while in the New Testament the stress seems to be on the love of God and his closeness to us. God in the Old Testament seems to act violently while in the New Testament He seems to act humbly and peaceably. This apparent dichotomy has created much consternation, causing some people to reject or ignore the Old Testament and only focus on the New Testament. But God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. God never changes. More careful reading will show that the Old and New Testaments are not so different, and the characteristics we see of God in one testament can be found in the other testament.

[1] The discipline of “hermeneutics” or “bible interpretation” gives guidance on how to properly interpret the scriptures.

[2] These congregations are called noncreedal congregations.

[3] iconoclasm

[4] Art in Context, “Early Christian Art – Christian Artwork and Biblical Paintings” Artincontext artincontext.org/christian-art/ ; Joy of Museums “Christian Art and Biblical Paintings” Joy of Museums joyofmuseums.com/most-popular/popular-christian-art/

Mystery of the sacraments

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Mystery of the sacraments

[Bible references: Matthew 26:17-35; Exodus 30:17-20; Mark 1:1-11; Acts 2:38, 41-42; Romans 6:1-23; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34]

Defining Sacraments

Sacraments, the rituals of belonging

“The language surrounding ‘sacraments’ did not develop in the church for some time. We hear of a ritual of baptism in the Christian community of the Acts of the Apostles, and of the ‘breaking of bread’ (Acts 2:38, 41- 42). These celebrations were called by their name, there was no generic term that grouped these experiences together. It was not until the third century that the word mysteries (Greek: ‘mysterion’), a word that the pagans used to describe rites of initiation, also began to be used to describe Christian rites. The Eastern Orthodox church still uses the term ‘mysterion’ to describe these practices.

However, in the Latin wing of the church, in order to avoid any confusion with pagan thinking the church began to use the Latin word, ‘sacramentum’ for ‘mysterion’ to describe baptism. Sacramentum was also used to describe a sacred oath of allegiance that a Roman soldier would make to the emperor. It was suggested that just as the soldier’s oath was a sign of the beginning of a new life, so too was initiation into the Christian community through baptism and eucharist.[1]

“St Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century developed the notion that a sacramentum is a sign that sanctifies – makes holy – because it is efficacious – produces the intended effect. For instance, Christ and the Holy Spirit make effective, through grace, the cleansing that water signifies in baptism. It was Augustine who called a sacrament ‘a visible sign of invisible grace.’ He also, in his letters referred to a sacramentum as a sacrum signum ‘sign of a sacred thing’ It is worth mentioning that Augustine did not consider only rituals but also acts or deeds or things that point to Christian mysteries to be sacraments – and listed over 300 such signs.[2] The Church gradually reduced this by differentiating between rituals and signs and symbols that assist people in prayer and devotion such as holy water, palms, ashes etc. These latter are sometimes called “sacramentals.”[3]

Some congregations hold that sacraments administered by the church convey, by means of the Holy Spirit, grace to the recipients while some hold that the sacraments are only outward signs of an inward grace. Other differences are whether the sacraments are an objective reality that are effective in and of themselves or whether the effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the faith response of the recipients. Either way, the purpose of the sacraments is to make people holy, to build up the body of Christ, to teach, and to give worship to God.

Since the 16th century, the Orthodox and Roman Catholics recognize seven sacraments (The Orthodox church stipulates that there are even more but does not formally name them). Protestants only recognize baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments. Some Anabaptist and Brethren groups consider foot-washing to be a sacrament. “Some Protestant groups, notably the Quakers and the Salvation Army, do not use sacraments.”[4]

Baptism and the mikva’ot

The word ‘baptism’ is a transliteration of a Greek word that meant to immerse. The Old Testament introduces us to the idea that we need to be cleansed before entering the presence of God (Exodus 30:17-20). By Jesus’ time, the city of Jerusalem had many buildings with a ritual bath (mikveh) in them where people could ritually cleanse themselves by dipping themselves in the mikveh. The mikveh can signify: a collection of water, something waited for, abiding, gathering together.[5]

In the New Testament, we are introduced to John the Baptist preaching about the coming of the Lord – and it was a time when many people were expecting the coming of the Messiah. John was baptizing people as they confessed their sins and as these people were being baptized, they would have understood that they were being cleansed and being gathered together for the coming Messiah.

When Jesus was ready to begin his time of ministry, he told John to baptize him. This obviously confused John who knew that Jesus did not need to be cleansed from sin, but Jesus had come to identify himself with us in baptism.

We see the practice of adults confessing their sins and then being baptized continue throughout the New Testament. After the New Testament we now enter an era of confessing adults bringing up their children. In the Jewish tradition, baby boys would be circumcised when they were 8 days old as a way of bringing them into the Jewish community. It is not long after the New Testament times that we see parts of the church using infant baptism as a way of bringing their children into the Christian community. The infants are obviously not confessing believers but believing parents can raise them up with the hope that they will later confirm their baptism. This issue of child baptism would later become an issue that the church would divide over.

Communion and the Passover Feast

The Communion celebration, sometimes called the Eucharist (from the Greek word for grateful or thanksgiving) is tied back to the Jewish Passover Feast. The Passover Feast was a commemoration of God’s work that convinced the Egyptian Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves to leave. God’s work was to send an angel to kill all the firstborn children of the Egyptians but to “pass over” those Israelite homes that had the blood of a perfect lamb sprinkled on the doorposts of their homes. Every year after that, the Israelites were to commemorate that event with a Passover Feast that would include eating, among other items, bread with no yeast to remember the time they had to leave in haste from Egypt. The Passover meal would be one of many celebrations in the Old Testament that pointed to their fulfillment in the New Testament times.

At the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he gathered with his disciples to celebrate the Passover Feast; it would be his “last supper” with them before his crucifixion. He shared with them the bread and wine, but now adding their intended significance: the bread would represent his body that would be sacrificed for the world and the wine would represent his blood shed for the world.

There are differences about whether, during the Communion service, that the bread and wine actually become transformed into Jesus body and blood, or whether his body and blood are present with the bread and wine or whether the bread and wine only metaphorically represent Jesus’ body and blood.

What are the sacraments and how do we practice them?

Sacrament is Latin translation (sacramentum) of the Greek “Mysterion,” which means mystery.  The sacraments are used to refer to different rituals/activities conducted by the church.

There is agreement about the sacraments being a sign of grace imparted to those receiving sacraments, but there is disagreement (naturally, since we’re talking about mysteries) about how that grace works. Some consider the sacraments to be an objective reality that are effective for imparting grace in and of themselves,[6] others think that the effectiveness of the sacraments to impart grace depends on the faith response of the recipients, while others think that the sacraments are more simply a sign of grace.

Since the 16th century, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic recognize seven sacraments (The Orthodox church stipulates that there are even more but does not formally name them). Protestants only recognize baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments. Some Anabaptist and Brethren groups consider foot-washing to be a sacrament. “Some Protestant groups, notably the Quakers and the Salvation Army, do not use sacraments.” [7]

  • Baptism – The first step in a lifelong journey of commitment and discipleship. Immersion identifies us with the death and resurrection of Christ.
  • Eucharist (or Communion) – In a re-enactment of the Last Supper, we share elements that remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. 
  • Reconciliation (or Penance) – Has three elements: conversion, confession, and celebration.
  • Confirmation – An initiation into the church. It is most often associated with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
  • Marriage – A public sign that one gives oneself totally to this other person. It is also a public statement about God: the loving union of husband and wife speaks of family values and also God’s values.
  • Holy Orders – The priest being ordained vows to lead other Catholics by bringing them the sacraments (especially the Eucharist), by proclaiming the Gospel, and by providing other means to holiness.
  • Anointing of the Sick (Last Rites) – A ritual of healing appropriate not only for physical but also for mental and spiritual sickness.

What are the different views on communion?

There are different views on what happens to the communion elements: bread and wine become literal flesh and blood, bread and wine become spiritual flesh and blood, or the elements are simply to remind us Jesus’ sacrifice for us.[8]

There are also different views on who can take communion: whether any Christians present may participate, or only members of local congregation or denomination may participate.[9]

Do we represent Jesus’ body with leavened or unleavened bread. Do we represent Jesus’ blood with wine or grape juice? Are both elements shared or is just the bread shared? Are only designated representatives of the church allowed to administer the elements?

What are different views on baptism?

There are different views on who may be baptized:  Adults only (Believer baptism, only people old enough to confess their faith may be baptized) Infants (infants of believers are baptized as acknowledgement of the infant as a new member in the church community and in hope that they will make a commitment in the future).

There are different views of what happens during baptism: baptism overcomes original sin, frees the baptized from powers of darkness, Baptism in the Holy Spirit – When someone is saved, the Holy Spirit overcomes the person and causes that person to speak “in tongues.”

There are different views of how many times the recipient is immersed: Once (there are differences in whether the words to use are “in the name of Jesus” or “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit), Three times (once for each of the Godhead: Father, Son, Holy Spirit).

There are different views on how the baptism is performed: Immersion (recipient is completely immersed in water), Pouring (water is poured on the head of the recipient), Sprinkling (water is sprinkled on the head of the recipient).

[1] Szczesny, Mike. “[Greek] μυστήριον (mystērion), [Latin] sacramentum” Resounding the faith resoundingthefaith.com/2016/10/27/greek-%CE%BC%CF%85%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AE%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BD-mysterion-latin-sacramentum/

[2] Tennent, Timothy. “The Body and The Sacraments as a Means of Grace” Seedbed seedbed.com/the-body-and-the-sacraments-as-a-means-of-grace/

[3] Catholic Answers“Sacramentals” Catholic Answers www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/sacramentals

[4] Theopedia “Sacraments” Theopedia www.theopedia.com/sacraments

[5] One for Israel. “The Jewish Roots of Baptism” One for Israel www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/was-baptism-originally-jewish/

[6] Theopedia “Sacramentalism”  Theopedia theopedia.com/sacramentalism; Phillips, Matthew. “Augustine, Luther, and the Sacraments” Gospel Notes steadfastlutherans.org/2013/06/augustine-luther-and-the-sacraments

[7] Theopedia “Sacraments” Theopedia www.theopedia.com/sacraments

[8] Zondervan Academic Blog “Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, or Something Else? Roman Catholic vs. Protestant View of the Lord’s Supper” Zondervan Academic 20 Oct 2017 zondervanacademic.com/blog/transubstantiation-consubstantiation-catholic-protestant

[9] Truediscipleship “Communion – Is it Open or Closed? True Discipleship truediscipleship.com/communion-is-it-open-or-closed

Mystery of the kingdom and eschatology

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Mystery of the kingdom and eschatology

[Bible references: Isaiah 2; 60; Joel 2; Micah 4; Daniel 7; Matthew 24; Luke 17; Revelations 20]

What is the kingdom of God/Heaven?

The kingdom of Heaven refers to where Jesus reigns. Heaven has always been under his rule and when he returns and our current earth is transformed into the new earth, Jesus’ kingdom will include that as well. In the meanwhile, His kingdom includes all those who have accepted Jesus as their king. Some only apply the Kingdom of God to only the reign of God in heaven or the reign of God after earthly governments are done away with.

How and when will Jesus return?

Discussion about the end times[1] has always been problematic because of the nature of prophetic language. This has led to much contention in the church about how events will occur or have occurred. Even though Jesus has cautioned us that only the Father knows when that will happen, people have not stopped trying to “read the signs.”

The clues about the Messiah in the Old Testament were confusing to interpret. Even after the incarnation of Jesus, we know that the disciples were confused about how the events of the end times such that Jesus’ death was incomprehensible. Even after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension there was still confusion, and it took some time to sink in that Jesus’ return was not going to happen for a while.

There are a wide variety of thoughts about the Biblical prophecies concerning the end times. The questions deal with such things as: is the book of Revelation about events now past us (e.g., the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70) or about future events or both, does the 1000 years talked about in Revelation 20:1-15 occur now or in the future and is the 1000 years literal or metaphorical, will there be a “rapture” of believers before a coming time of great tribulation, since there was no nation of Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem do the promises that applied to Israel now apply to the church – and other questions.

There are various historical factors and hermeneutical questions that led to some of the variations in the way that these questions were answered: whether the prophecies should be interpreted literally or metaphorically, whether the Old Testament laws should be kept in effect by the church, the importance of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the consequent re-creation of the nation of Israel in AD 1948. Regardless of the way those questions are answered, the more important issue is our behavior in the present.

The role of the prophecies in the past had been to either warn people of behaviors they needed to change or to provide encouragement and hope in the times of difficulty. Wherever we stand on these prophecies, those intentions should be our focus; our behaviors in the present life and our hope to sustain us.

[1] Herrick, Greg. “9. Eschatology: End Times” Bible.org bible.org/seriespage/9-eschatology-end-times

Mystery of God

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Mystery of God

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 55:8; Luke 3:21-22; John 10:30; 1 Corinthians 2:11-14; Philippians 2:5-11; 1 Timothy 3:15-16; 1 Peter 4:14; 1 John 1:6-8; 2:18-22]

How is it that there is only one God and yet Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and the Father is God?

The Bible reveals but doesn’t explain this paradox. From the beginning of the Old Testament there is an explicit teaching that “The Lord our God, the Lord is one,” a teaching that contrasted with all the other cultures around at the time. And yet, from the beginning of the Old Testament we have hints that this One God is complicated. The New Testament gets more explicit about the situation but still does not explain it. This paradox, that there was a person, God, and that there are three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) who are equally God, was given a name, Trinity.[1] The Greek side of the church uses a term, “perichoresis” to describe the interpenetration, etc. of the persons of the Trinity.

But just because a name was given to this paradox did not make it easy to accept. Various explanations were given to explain how this worked and how the three persons related to each other. Discussions involved how to define terms like person, substance and nature.

The following list shows a few of some different explanations that have been espoused but are considered to be heretical:

  • The three persons are three different modes of God expressing himself,[2]
  • The belief that God is only one person,[3]
  • Jesus was created and was less than the Father,[4]
  • God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are subordinate to God the Father not merely relationally, but also in nature and being.[5] This eventually led to the belief that neither Jesus nor the Holy Spirit are truly God.[6]

How can Jesus both be God and human?

There are two views held: 1) the one person Jesus has two natures, human and divine, combined in one person, or 2) the one person Jesus has one nature in which his divinity and humanity are combined, [7] In either case Jesus is made of the same substance as God[8].

There were controversies over whether that God could have suffered,[9] that Jesus only seemed to suffer,[10] or whether a human like Mary could have given birth to God.[11] 

So exactly what is the relation of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son?

There is a question about whether the Spirit proceeds from just the Father or the Father and the Son. This question was captured in a statement in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed which originally stated, “And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father ….” In disagreement with the Eastern Orthodox side of the church, the Roman Catholics felt the need to add the words “and the Son.” [12]

How does one develop knowledge of God?[13]

We need to distinguish that we are not trying to know about God as much as to know God, the person. We get to know a person by more than studying about a person, but rather spending time and doing things with that person. We are not a just a student, but a disciple.

When to comes to knowing about God, we find that He has revealed himself to all people through his creation and through our ability to reason.[14] That type of knowledge is not the same as knowing God as a person. To know God as a person, we need to be in his presence and allow him to reveal himself to us. We can do this through prayer, meditation, or scripture. Sometimes God will spiritually reveal himself to us or sometimes he will act through miracles. Other times we interact with God as we do things in His name.[15]

Whether we are learning through general or special revelation,[16] in either case, we are finite creatures trying to understand the infinite God, which is a task we can only do in part. But either way, the knowledge we seek is not an end itself but is for the sake of our relationship with God.

The following examples are some of the particular ways different parts of the church have practiced the pursuit of knowing God:

  • Eastern Orthodox traditions recognize our utter limits in knowing God through negative theology – that is, God’s infinite qualities are so far from our comprehension that it makes more sense to define what we know God is not, instead of trying to define what God is.[17]
  • Many traditions, including the Eastern Orthodox, posit the impossibility of our finite minds to be able to know God by intellectual means and we need to extend our knowledge of God through various spiritual practices such as fasting, prayer and meditation.
    • In the early church, an innovation introduced by Montanus[18] promoted revelations from the Holy Spirit. This caused the church to back away from any other innovations in theology.
    • Quakers have emphasized quieting oneself and waiting for God to reveal himself through the “inner light” that is available to all people.
  • The Eastern Orthodox tradition emphasizes the necessity of becoming transformed by God to become more like him to know God.[19]
  • In a reaction to an overemphasis on knowing God through intellectual means, a movement developed which emphasized spiritual disciplines such as Bible study and prayer.[20]
  • Some in the church over-emphasized knowing God by faith, leading to an anti-intellectual strain in the church. This despite the Christian heritage which did much to support the life of the mind. Christians founded universities, were some of the first to use science to investigate the natural world and have invested much towards loving God with “all our minds.”
  • Some in the church stressed the mysteries of God and the need to develop the more mystical disciplines of prayer, meditation, and contemplation.

[1] In AD 185, Irenaeus claimed that this concept was the teaching of the apostles, but it wasn’t until AD200 that Tertullian created the term, Trinity. Tertullian was responding to the teaching of modalism.

[2] Theopedia “Modalism” Theopedia theopedia.com/modalism

[3] Theopedia “Monarchianism” Theopedia theopedia.com/monarchism

[4] Arian (AD 256–336) was a presbyter in Alexandria. He did have some success in persuading people of his view and for a while it became quite a controversy in the church, but it was eventually denounced.

[5] Theopedia “Subordinationism” Theopedia theopedia.com/subordinationism”

[6] Theopedia “Unitarianism” Theopedia theopedia.com/Unitarianism

[7] Plante, Evan. “What is the difference between Dyophysitism and Miaphysitism?” Mainsail Ministries mainsailministries.org/index.php/q-a-a-god-bible-theology-culture/105-what-is-the-difference-between-dyophysitism-and-miaphysitism.html Dyophysitism (Christ has two natures, fully human and fully God) is the view of the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. denominations. Miaphysitism (Christ has one nature that is both human and divine) is the view of the Oriental Orthodox denomination.

[8] Homoousios – In Greek, the argument looked even more subtle. Was Jesus made of the same substance (homoousios) as God or a similar substance (homoiousios).

[9] OrthodoxWiki “Nestorianism” OrthodoxWiki orthodoxwiki.org/Nestorianism

[10] OrthodoxWiki “Docetism” OrthodoxWiki orthodoxwiki.org/Docetism

[11] Theotokos means “God-bearer”

[12] This additional phrase, referred to as the “filioque” is held by the Roman Catholics and the Protestants but the original wording is held by the Eastern Orthodox.

[13] Epistemology is the study of how we can know things.

[14] This is sometimes called “general revelation.” Trying to understand God this way can be called “natural theology.”

[15] These different ways of knowing God by being with him in these activities is sometimes called “special” or ”divine revelation.”

[16] Got Questions “What is general revelation and special revelation?” Got Questions www.gotquestions.org/general-special-revelation.html

[17] OrthodoxWiki “Apophatic theology” OrthodoxWiki orthodoxwiki.org/Apophatictheology

[18] Early Christian History “Montanus” Early Christian History www.earlychristianhistory.info/montanus.html

[19] Theopedia “Theosis” Theopedia www.theopedia.com/theosis

[20] Theopedia “Pietism” Theopedia www.theopedia.com/pietism

Reflect

We truly have reached the limitations of our knowledge of God when we consider both the concept of the Trinity and the concept of Jesus being both fully God and fully human. How do you handle that limitation?

Observe

Read Philippians 2:5-11; 1 Timothy 3:15-16; 1 John 1:6-8; 2:18-22. What does it  mean to us that God came to us in human form as Jesus?

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?

Assembly of God’s people

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Assembly of God’s people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are also metaphors used to refer to the church:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflect

What groups of people do you identify with?

Observe

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

Baptism, Anointing Temptation     

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Baptism, Anointing Temptation     

[Bible references: Genesis 3:6; Mathew 3:13-17; 4:1-11]

Jesus’ ministry was inaugurated when John baptized Jesus. When Jesus submitted to the baptism to “fulfill all righteousness,” Jesus testified that John’s baptism by water was ordained from heaven. The Spirit then affirmed Jesus’ ministry by coming down and anointing Jesus.[1] The baptism was at once followed by the Spirit leading Jesus to the desert where Jesus fasted for 40 days and submitted to being tempted by the devil. Like David, Jesus responded to the temptations by waiting for the Father. In the first temptation, Jesus waited for the Father to feed him instead of trying to satisfy his need by himself apart from the will of the Father. In the second temptation, Jesus trusted God by not testing God and foolishly putting himself in danger. In the third temptation, Jesus refused to worship and serve anybody but Yahweh. In all these cases, Jesus confirmed Hebrew scripture to be the word of God by using Hebrew scripture to refute the devil.

[1] Biblehub “Matthew 3:13” Bible Hub biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/3-13.htm

Observe

Read Matthew 4:1-11; Genesis 3:6. What is similar to the temptations of Jesus and the temptations of Adam and Eve?

Looking for Messiah

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Looking for Messiah

[Bible references: 1 Samuel 8:5; 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:13-53:12; Matthew 2:2; 3:16; Luke 1:23-33; 1 Peter 2:24; John 6:15; 1 John 5:1-13]

During all the messy history, Yahweh was working to bring his plan into fruition. His end goal was to create a new heaven and a new earth but there were things that needed to happen first, including the removal of the power of sin over his people. His solution was to lay aside some of his power and enter history as a human, not only so that he could identify with his image-bearers but so that we would be challenged to choose his authority as a matter of faith – not a blind faith, but a faith based upon recognizing God’s work.

In the writings of Hebrew scripture there were clues and prophecies about the Redeemer that Yahweh would provide: the Redeemer that would be anointed by God, the Redeemer would rescue people from sin and the Redeemer would restore their relationship with Yahweh. The charts in Appendix D show many of those prophecies. These prophecies created an air of expectation. While it’s easier for us who are looking back to see how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, at the time that Jesus was born there were differing expectations about how those prophecies would be fulfilled.

One thousand years previous to Jesus’ birth, the Israelites thought that their problem was that they didn’t have a king “like everybody else” Now once again, many still thought that their problem was still a political one and that what they needed was the kind of Messiah that would throw out the Roman government.[1] (There were also some other various controversies swirling around which we will discuss in more detail in the next chapter.) Nevertheless, people were looking for a Messiah.

[1] Bible Study Tools “John 6:15” Bible Study Tools www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/john-6-15.html

Observe

Read 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6-7; 52:13-53:12; Matt 3:16; Luke 1:23-33; 1 Peter 2:24. What kind of Messiah was expected to come?

Recognizing the unity of Yahweh and Jesus

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Recognizing the unity of Yahweh and Jesus

[Bible references: Genesis 3:14-15, 21; 4:13; 5:5-6; 6:5-6; 12:1-3, 16-33; Exodus 32:1-14; Judges 6:24; Psalms 29:11; 78:40; Job 42:10; Isaiah:4; 54:7-10; Jeremiah 42:10; Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:50; 8:48; 10:5-6; 12:49-53; John 2:13-17; 8:58; 10:30; 14:27; 16:33; 20:28; Romans 12:18-19; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1; Revelation 6-10]

We need to remember that Jesus, as God, was present in whatever God was doing during the times of the Old Testament. There are various Hebrew designations for God in the Old Testament, such as Elohim or Yahweh. It remains a mystery as to whether those Hebrew names refer to all the persons together (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) or whether they might refer to God the Father in particular. Either way, Jesus was included. On one side, anything that Yahweh did, was Jesus’ doing as well. On the other side, whatever Jesus did was the work of Yahweh as well. If Jesus was working at reconciling the world to himself from the beginning, that was the work of Yahweh as well.

While we usually have no problem seeing Jesus as a one bringing peace, Yahweh also desired peace. When Yahweh needed to discipline his people, he desired to show mercy, as well. While human sin drew the wrath of Yahweh, it also brought Yahweh sorrow. We also see that Yahweh did not correct His people when they petitioned Him to show mercy to others.

On the other side, while we usually have no problem seeing the violence of Yahweh, Jesus himself never promised not to use violence. In fact, he promised to bring division. Jesus did not admonish Roman soldiers about their jobs when he encountered them, even complementing them on their faith. At one point, Jesus even violently attacked property in the temple.

In the present time, we are instructed, if it is possible, to live peaceably with all people and that vengeance is reserved for God. But we also know, that at the end of the end times, violence will be unleashed in the final judgment.

Observe

Read Genesis 6:5-6; Matthew 8:5-13. Compare these two passages. How is God portrayed the same way in both passages?

Problematic acts of violence in the Old Testament

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Problematic acts of violence in the Old Testament

[Bible references: Genesis 4:26; 6:5-22; 9:1-1; Exodus 15:1-21; 17:16; 20:5:34:6-7; 14:18-19; Deuteronomy 5:9-10; 33:27; Joshua 6:15-19; 8:1-2; 10:20, 40-43; 11:16-23; 13:1; 15:63; 16:10; 17:16; 21:43-45; Judges 3:1-7; 1 Samuel 17:45-47; 25:28; 1 Chronicles 21; Isaiah 28:21; Jeremiah 6:23; 42:11-12; Ezekiel 8:17; 23:19; Habakkuk 1:6-7]

The Flood

Human violence made God grieved[1] that he had made humans and He was filled with pain. God sent a flood as a judgment on the violence and evil of humanity, but in His mercy, God spared Noah and his family. In addition to that, after the flood God imposed a penalty for murder and gave the rainbow as a sign of his covenant to never flood the earth again.

The conquering of Canaan

God’s instructions to Joshua for conquering the land of Canaan along with and the language that summarized some of results can make is seem genocidal, like all the Canaanites were wiped out. However, reading more carefully, we can see that the language is being used hyperbolically. For example, at the end of Joshua and the beginning of Judges we still see all the Canaanite tribes still exist, that there was still Canaanite land waiting to be possessed and that there were still many Canaanites around that God intended to remain in order to bother the Israelites. Also, as we look at the language God used for driving out the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 33:17, it indicates that Yahweh had a prior relationship with the Canaanites just like He had in primeval times with Adam’s son, Seth, and Seth’s descendants.[2] What is not often linked to the demise of the Canaanites is the curse that Noah placed on Canaan (Genesis 9:18-25).[3]

Intergenerational violence

Many people are disturbed by the statement made in a few locations in the Old Testament, about punishing the children for sins of the fathers to the 3rd and 4th generation. Some clarifications need to be addressed in this statement.

  1. Some translations use the term “punish” but other versions use the better translation “visit,” That is to say that God will witness the effects of the sins of one generation on the following generations. Since family structures in Old Testament times included up to four generations living in one location, it would be natural to see the effect of the oldest generation affecting the others.
  2. Setting the effect of sin to just 3rd and 4th generations also needs to be seen in contrast to the mercy shown to thousands of generations. Yahweh’s mercy is greater than sin.
  3. This statement also needs to be set in contrast to Ezekiel’s statement that the penalty for sin would only be applied directly to the sinner.

Yahweh’s abandonment of Israel

Just as Yahweh had disciplined Assyria, Babylon, and other nations for their excessive violence towards Israel, Israel’s continued practice of violence and evil warranted the same violent discipline. Yahweh allowed the capture and exile of Israel and Judah by Assyrians and Babylonians. This violence by Yahweh towards Israel was in contrast to the continued mercy shown by God to Israel in the past. For that reason, this abandoning Israel to the violence of Assyria and Babylon would be referred to as his “strange” work (Isaiah 28).

During that abandonment, much of the suffering Israel and Judah experienced, including extreme starvation that led to cannibalism, was due to their failure to surrender during the siege of the cities. Of course, if Israel and Judah had been obedient from the beginning, Yahweh would not have brought in the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

When Israel successfully evaded the Egyptians during their exodus, a song was created in which Yahweh received the title, “the Warrior God.” After that, Yahweh was described as a warrior fighting for Israel. But that sentiment disappeared after Israel went into exile because Yahweh turned the tables and fought against Israel.

[1] From Genesis 6:6. Some Bible translations use “regret” or “repent” to translate the Hebrew nacham which also encompasses grief or sorrow.

[2] Mariottini, Claude. Divine Violence and the Character of God, Wipf & Stock, 2022 (p.329-330)

[3] Fischer, Bryan. “What did Ham do when he ‘saw the nakedness of his father”’” American Family Radio www.afa.net/the-stand/family/2014/08/what-did-ham-do-when-he-saw-the-nakedness-of-his-father/ This curse has been misused by Europeans and Americans who wanted to justify enslaving the Africans by insisting that the curse was put on Ham from whom the Africans were descended.

Observe

Read 1 Chronicles 21. Would you prefer to be disciplined directly by God or by image-bearers commissioned by God to discipline you?

Reflections on Violence

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Reflections on Violence

Many people have trouble reconciling the portrait they see of God in the Old Testament versus the portrait they see in Jesus in the New Testament. The Old Testament portrait seems so violent while the New Testament portrait seems to show Jesus as non-violent even to the point of submitting to being executed. There have been various awkward responses to these seemingly disparate portraits that even include suggesting that the God of the Old Testament is a different God than the one shown in the New Testament.

Reflect

How do you perceive the different ways that God is presented in the Old and New Testaments?

Lost Sheep of Israel

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed– Chapter 10 – The Class of Apparitions

Lost Sheep of Israel

[Bible references: Matthew 9:10-13; 10:5-6; 15:21-28; Mark 2:15-17]

In the Old Testament, the term ‘lost sheep’ initially referred to all of Israel. After the division of the kingdom, the term ‘lost sheep’ referred to the northern tribes of Israel. In the New Testament, Jesus uses the term, ‘lost sheep of Israel,’ to distinguish the people to whom his ministry would focus on. When Jesus used the term ‘lost sheep of Israel’ it is to specify that Jesus only intended, at that time, to serve the Jews in Israel, not to the Gentiles, not to the Samaritans and not to Jews that are in other countries.

Jesus’ ministry focused his efforts on the ‘lost sheep of Israel.’ The ‘lost sheep’ were people who knew they needed help, needed to be rescued from their situation and were aware of their need for healing, wholeness, and love. They were the sinners, tax-collectors, harlots, and backslidden. They found in Jesus one who loved them and did not reject them when they acknowledged their needs.

Reflect

The “lost sheep” in this case does not mean their location was unknown but that they didn’t where they were going, they did not have shepherds who knew where to lead them. Where is your life headed?

Observe

Read Matthew 9:10-13; 10:5-6. How are the “lost sheep” described?

The God of War

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 7– Settlement

The God of War

[Bible references: Exodus 22:21-22; Leviticus 19:33–34; Deuteronomy 10:17–19; 24:19; Joshua 6:17-21; 1 Samuel 15:1-3; Psalm 10:14–18; 68:5; 146:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Hebrews 10:30; Revelations 19:17-21]

One of the troublesome tensions of the Christian faith is how to reconcile our picture of Jesus who’s come to bring us peace with the picture of the “pre-Jesus” God who seems so violent. In particular, the God who commanded Israel to “totally destroy,” to leave no one alive in the cities of the “Promised Land” they were to inhabit.

It has been so hard to reconcile the two images of the God, one of the Old Testament that engaged in violence and the second of one of the New Testament who came to “bring peace,” that from the earliest days of the church some Christians felt compelled to abandon the Old Testament altogether. There are several issues that affect how we deal with this problem.

There are less differences between how God is revealed in the Old vs. New Testaments than many think. (See Chapter 2; Paradoxes and Mysteries; Gracious, Merciful and Just). If we have a problem with God in the Old Testament, then we have a problem in the New Testament as well. Both Testaments together provide the full story of the Gospel and a full picture of God.

We need to see all suffering and death in context of Jesus’ suffering and death by execution. Jesus is God the Son, present from before Creation, the God of Creation, the God of Abraham, Moses and Israel, and the God who commanded Israel to cherem the people in Canaan. Jesus cannot be separated from all the activity ascribed to God’s activity in the Old Testament. The Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace that we are more comfortable dealing with, is only available because of all that He had done beginning with Creation, extending through history of the patriarchs and Israel and eventually his own incarnation, suffering and death.

We need to accept that there is much that we do not know. This comes to us in a couple of different ways. We must deal with our cultural separation from the unfamiliar ancient near east culture and a knowledge of God that is far beyond our comprehension. We also need to take Yahweh’s criticism of Job seriously, and Yahweh’s admonition to Isaiah that  “my ways are higher than your ways.” Then we also must be careful to not accuse Yahweh of injustice when there is so much that do not understand.

The totality of destruction implied by cherem catches our attention, but this is only a specific, though perhaps extreme, case of the question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” The answer to the everyday issue of why “innocent” people suffer, is the same answer that underlies the killing of people that we assume are innocent.

Our sanitized culture makes it difficult for us in the modern day who live in a time where we do not witness the slaughter of animals we eat. We have a hard time associating with those who lived in the time when there was the ritual slaughter of animals, not for the sake of food but for the sake of sins. We have not had to watch the slaughter of animals and contemplate the awfulness of our sin and of God’s hatred of sin because of its awful effect on us. We are then even further separated from the concept of a God so jealous for us that he would even offer himself to be slaughtered on our behalf.

Our perception is further sanitized because we live in a world that has been cleansed by the effect of the grace of Christian values (OK, we have to admit that the church has not always lived up to its professed values) and the ameliorative effects of technology and medicine. It has been the Christian value of life that confronted the once common practice of abandoning babies on the street to die and made it rare. It has been Christian values that have elevated the status of women and children. It has been Christian values that led to the development of modern science. So many of what are now commonly accepted values in Western civilization, were adopted from Christian values, but it’s easy to forget where those values came from.

Yet another level of sanitization occurs when we don’t consider the extent of our own sin and depravity in context of the extent of the holiness of God. A contrast that caused the prophet Isaiah to proclaim, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.”

We also are forgetful of the mercies of God. 1) Jonah was perturbed when Yahweh responded to the repentance shown by the Ninevites by not bringing about the threatened destruction. 2) The mercies shown to many of the idolatrous kings of Israel when they repented.[1] 3) In the case of Israel entering the Promised Land, we don’t know what kind of warnings the Canaanites may have received prior to the “total destruction” of their cities. We do know that Yahweh patiently waited until he “sin of the Amorites would reach their full measure.” The Canaanites may have had sufficient warning to change their ways (and they had, among other abhorrent practices, that of sacrificing their children to the flames) and yet they didn’t. While we, in our time, may think of the “total destruction” as genocide, it may be instead an act of mercy – reducing the pain and suffering that would otherwise go on.

Sparing the lives of the “innocent” within the borders of the Israel did lead to the Israelites to continue the reprehensible practices of the Canaanite religions, prolonging the suffering that Yahweh wanted to put an end to. Israel was susceptibility to fall into the sin of the nations around them and was warned that allowing the original inhabitants to live alongside of them, would cause the Israelites to adopt the same abhorrent practices – which is what happened.

God had already used the forces of nature to directly carry out his cherem version of justice (ex: The Great Flood which killed all people except Noah and his family, the crossing of the Red Sea in which innumerable Egyptian soldiers died). With the formation of the nation of Israel, God now had human agents to act on His behalf. When God commanded Israel to invoke cherem, they were acting as his agent to execute a type of justice that God had already been practicing.

How innocent were the Canaanites: men, women, and children? We can’t argue from silence that the Canaanites did not have a chance to respond to God’s warnings. We do know that God waited several hundred years before executing his judgement.

It is not just in the Old Testament that we witness immense suffering. All around us today and through the years before, there has been great suffering among God’s image-bearers caused by our own violence or the violence of natural events or the violence of birth defects. All these can cause us to question, “Why, God?”

These issues and many others cause us to grapple with how God is implicated in the violent activity and the suffering endured by those we consider to be innocent. We are not left with comfortable answers. But we also need to remember, that if we have a “God” we think we totally understand, then it is not God that we are really understanding. Also, if we have a “God” that we are fully comfortable with, then we are not fully dealing with the holiness of God and the totality of our sin.

Jesus dealt with the totality of our sin by his suffering and excruciating death. It is only by the violence endured by Jesus that He has become our Prince of Peace. This is the lens through which we must see the violence around us. But even with that lens, we are not likely to have a ‘satisfactory’ answer. Even with that lens we will still struggle.

Time and time again, we see ordinary people approaching God with raw honesty about human suffering. And God responds to them, because they reflect his own lionheart that’s hell-bent against evil and death. God wants our protest against the evil and pain in this world. … To be a Christian is never to be apathetic toward evil and suffering, nor to avoid protesting God. Instead, we are told to work out our faith in “fear and trembling,” which includes unflinching lament at all the evil and death in this world. We are meant to hold our hands open in foolish faith, to watch and wait with hopeful expectation for God to show up in surprising ways—to remind us that he is good and powerful and that he will grant us his own steadfast courage. We are called to the daring and bold love of God in Jesus Christ, who stopped at nothing—not even death on a cross—to fight and win back the glory and goodness of God’s original creation.[2]

Perhaps we are meant to struggle, to lament about all that’s wrong, evil, awful, terrible, sad, and more that our hearts can bear. But in our lament, not to give up the hope that is also in our hearts, the hope that God our Father is alive, that our Father cares so deeply that He gave His Son, that miracles still do happen and that we can expect God to show up in our midst.

[1] Rishawy, Derek. “God’s mercies aren’t so new”  Christianity Today 17 Mar 2020 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/april/gods-mercies-arent-so-new-rishmawy.html

[2] Hill, Preston. “Have Christians Forgotten How to Fight with God?” Christianity Today 21 Dec 2021 www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/december-web-only/problem-of-evil-christianity-faith-wrestling-with-god.html

Reflect

What have been your conflicting ideas between the Old and New Testaments?

Observe

Read 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Revelations 19:17-21. Why does God’s justice need to be meted out with violence?

Ordinary believers

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 5– Patriarchs

Ordinary believers

[Bible references: Genesis 17:17; 21:5; 21:1-7; 24; 25; 26:1-11; 27:1-29]

Meanwhile, the Biblical record for life of Isaac is unremarkable. God had blessed Isaac with wealth, however, the most notable events in his life were 1) failing just as his father Abraham had failed, Isaac also fearing that a local king kill him to get his wife, so Isaac, like Abraham, claimed that his wife was his sister and 2) when Isaac was preparing to die, he got fooled by Jacob into giving Jacob the primary blessing instead of his older twin brother, Esau. This incident just highlighted the favoritism Isaac showed to Esau and the favoritism his wife Rebekah showed to Jacob. Blessed, fallible, unremarkable, yet still used by Yahweh to accomplish Yahweh’s will.

Reflect

What is our prayer when we know that our time in this life is limited and most of us will not accomplish anything spectacular, and yet, God may use our life to achieve a greater impact than we realize?

Observe

Read Genesis 25:21-23; 27:1-29. What seems ordinary about how Rebekah interacted with Isaac in the way that would fulfill Yahweh’s prophecy?

The plan to restore creation

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

[Bible references: Genesis 3:13-15; 50:20; Isaiah 53; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 7:9; Matthew 10:28-31; Luke 19:11-27; 1 Corinthians 12; Galatians 3:13-14,23-29; Ephesians 1:11-12; Hebrews 1:1-3]

The apparent penalty for sin, physical death, was actually a blessing. Unlike the angels who rebelled against God, death provided the rebellious image-bearers a means of avoiding an eternity separated from the source of goodness and grace. But for the image-bearers, death provided a means where not only they but all of creation could be rescued from decay and death.

The plan of restoration slowly unfolded in ways that would sometimes be baffling and confusing and on a timetable that is beyond our comprehension. Over time though, God gradually revealed how he intended to restore our relation to him, to end our pain and suffering, and to overcome the evil that seems to pervade everything.

God started the process of revealing hints of how he would restore creation right at the beginning. God gave the initial clue in the curse given to the serpent, although the hint must have been a cryptic comment to His newly broken image-bearers. But since we have the privilege of looking back, we can see that God’s then cryptic reference was to the death and suffering of the character revealed in the Old Testament as the Messiah. As time went on, the Creator gradually revealed more and more clues about the plans He had to restore His creation. This gradual revelation was, and still is, a painfully slow time of waiting as we suffer the consequences of broken relations and a broken creation.

Fortunately, as we have waited in our broken universe, God’s grace has continued to intervene throughout history so that things are not as bad as they could possibly be. Our rebellion has not deterred God from providing for our everyday needs nor has he ceased to work on his plan to rejoin heaven and earth.

Meanwhile, God invites us to take part with him in the continued creation of the universe, bringing healing, health and hope directly into the midst of our now broken world, a task that he and we will continue until God fully restores his kingdom. Towards that end, he has provided spiritual gifts, gifts that we can share with one another, to build up one another and to bless the world as his ambassadors.

There are many things about the plans of God that we do not understand. God’s plans for us seem to be drawn out over a long time in which there is much suffering and pain. But even the suffering and pain we endure can be redeemed to help us become more like the Desire of our Hearts, the One who gave all Himself so that we all may become more like Him.

Reflect

What would the world look like if there was no goodness?

Observe

Read Isaiah 53. What did God need to do to restore our relation with Him?

Body, soul and spirit

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Body, soul and spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflect

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

Observe

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

Trustworthy and faithful

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Trustworthy and faithful

[Bible references: Exodus 34:6; Deuteronomy 7:9; Psalm 100; Zechariah 8; Hebrews 10:23]

God has continued to offer us lives of goodness, generosity and shalom despite our continued waywardness. Our opportunity to experience the faithfulness of God comes as we hold to his promises – and even when we fail to hold to his promises. Scripture is full of passages of God’s commitment to faithfulness despite the lack of our own[1] and those examples are helpful for us to hold onto as we experience our own trials and difficulties in life.

The faithfulness of God is starkly evident in His relationship with the people of Israel. God made a land covenant with Abraham (patriarch of many nations) and has never withdrawn what He has promised. Though the Jewish people have been scattered around the world, God promised they would return to the land He promised Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all their descendants (Zechariah 8:7-8).

God’s faithful promise was fulfilled in the New Testament when He sent Jesus to atone for our sins. No matter what sins we have committed, no matter how “bad” we are, God is faithful to forgive us if we accept Jesus and repent of our sins. [2]

[1] Got Questions “How Can I Trust in the Faithfulness of God” Got Questions www.gotquestions.org/faithfulness-of-God.html; Christiansen, Connie Ruth. “The Story Behind The Hymn: Great Is They Faithfulness” Independent Baptist.com /www.independentbaptist.com/great-is-thy-faithfulness1/

[2] All About God “Faithfulness of God” All About God allaboutgod.com/faithfulness-of-god.htm

Observe

Read Zechariah 8. Zechariah’s prophecies were written it the nation of Israel many years after the nation had been taken in exile. What effect do you think these promises of God would have had on the exiles?

Gracious, merciful and just

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Gracious, merciful and just

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 7:8; 2 Chronicles 2:11; Jeremiah 31:3;2 Samuel 24:14; Psalm 5; 85; 88; Matthew 18:21-35; Romans 9:22-24]

There is a common misunderstanding of how God is seen in the Old Testament vs. how God is seen in the New Testament. This perceived contrast has caused reactions such as thinking that there must be two different gods or the desire to ignore the Old Testament while focusing exclusively on the New Testament. It is easy to see how these misperceptions happen while looking cursorily at the Bible, but this misperception can be resolved by looking more carefully into the text. We can see that God’s love, mercy and grace is found not just in the New but also the Old Testament. We can also see that God’s wrath and justice is found not just in the Old but also in the New Testament.

God’s love, mercy and grace can be seen in the Old Testament right near the beginning.[1] There is grace in the placing the image of God on creatures that did nothing to earn it. There is mercy in the judgements meted onto Adam and Eve after their sin and grace in the provision of covering for their nakedness. While we could look at more other instances of mercy and grace in the Old Testament[2], let’s just consider the meanings of the Hebrew words that have been translated as “mercy.”[3]  One Hebrew word, “racham,” can also be translated as compassion and another word, “chesed,” can be translated as steadfast loyalty and is seen as God’s steadfast compassion and loyalty to Israel even after repeated rejections from his image-bearers.

But even beyond mercy and grace, God’s compares his love with his chosen people with the love of a husband to a wife. This Hebrew word that God often used for love, “ahavah,” refers to a giving type of love, which indeed was the way God showed his love to his chosen ones; even though time after time his people rejected him, God patiently worked through it all giving us a chance to see ourselves as we really are and the chance to put our trust in his unfailing love.

Wrath and justice in the New Testament can be seen in God’s strong desire expressed as zeal or jealousy concerning the welfare of his image bearers. In both the Old and New Testaments, God is clear about his desire for justice and righteousness. God expresses his anger very clearly when we try to cover-up our lack of justice with religious exercises or pretentiousness.

God’s response to injustice is his wrath. Although God’s wrath has been long covered by his patience and his desire that all people would come to him, his wrath will eventually be revealed when he comes back to earth to fully restore his kingdom on earth. While he cautions us to allow him to carry out vengeance, that does not mean we should not be concerned by the injustice that we see. The Greek term “dikaiosuné” which is usually translated as “righteousness” can also be translated as “justice.”[4]  Jesus exemplified justice throughout his ministry, and he encourages us to practice justice as well.

That concern for justice and desire to eliminate sin is explicitly expressed in Jesus’ statements in Matthew 10:34 (“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”) and Luke 12:49 (“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”). Then later in Revelation 19:11-21, however real or metaphoric this passage may seem to be, the passage clearly expresses in very warlike terms, Jesus’ concern to eliminate evil.

So, on the one hand, God’s often responds to the injustice in the world with patience and mercy – and we all need the kindness of God so that we can respond with repentance and receive forgiveness. On the other hand, God will eventually respond to unrepented injustice with righteousness, justice, and wrath.

[1] Arsenault, Bill. “Grace vs. Mercy – What’s the Difference?” Faith Island 10 Sept 2017 faithisland.org/grace/grace-vs-mercy-whats-the-difference/

[2] Forest, Joe. “A Better Way to Read the Old Testament” 29 June 2018 Instrument of Mercy instrumentofmercy.com/2018/06/29/a-better-way-to-read-the-old-testament/ ; Deem, Richard. “The Mercy of God as found in the Old Testament” God and Science www.godandscience.org/apologetics/mercy_of_god.html; Beale, Stephen. “God’s Tender Mercy in the Old Testament” Catholic Exchange 10 Feb 2021 catholicexchange.com/gods-tender-mercy-in-the-old-testament

[3] Schmalz, Matthew. “What is the true meaning of mercy?” The Conversation, College of the Holy Cross, 8 Feb 2017, theconversation.com/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-mercy-72461

[4] Foster, Robert L. “Understandings of Justice in the New Testament” Society of Biblical Literature www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/TBv2i5_Fosterjustice.pdf; Grimsrud, Ted. “Justice in the New Testament” Peace Theology esuitesneakpeek.com/justice-in-new-testament

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 7:8; 2 Chronicles 2:11; Jeremiah 31:3. The Hebrew word for “love” in these passages is the same as used in the Song of Solomon describing marital love. How does that affect the way you perceive God’s mercy, grace, righteousness and wrath?