rule – Dancing In The Kingdom

Principles

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Principles

[Bible references: Genesis 1; Psalm 19:1-4; Isaiah 28:23-29; Romans 1:18-20; 2:14-15; 13:1-2; 1 Peter 2:13]

We cannot establish the kingdom of God nor overcome the powers of evil in our own power. While Jesus has overcome the powers of the world, we do not know when he will return to finish the deed to fully establish his kingdom and fully rid the world of the presence of evil. But we can continue to work on the mandates he gave us at the beginning and rephrased at the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, which extends from our original directives to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and to subdue it and rule over all the creatures.

From the beginning of the church, we can see that while some people were sent out with the express purpose of spreading the gospel, most people stayed within whatever vocation they had, living in their own communities, sharing their resources, and supporting one another. Those that stayed in their vocations, did not change their vocations although they may have changed the way they pursued their vocations.

Albert Wolters suggests several principles that can help guide the way in which we pursue our vocations:^[1]

The universe that God created was good.
The structures/institutions created by people should reflect God’s character and his wisdom as revealed through creation and his word.
The structures/institutions created by people are vested with God’s authority.
The universe reveals God’s glory.
Wisdom is “ethical conformity to God’s creation.”
The will of God for our life can be known through his creation, our conscience, His word, spiritual discernment.
Since God’s initial creative activity in forming the universe, God has been creatively developing the universe either directly through his own work or indirectly through his people. Part of that development includes the development of societal and cultural institutions.
Even without the fall, people would still be expected to develop the garden and other aspects of civilization as part of our role in stewarding what God has given us
When Christ returns, He will restore the earth.^[2]

Whether we are directly communicating the gospel in our vocation or not, we may hold the narrative of the gospel as public truth to be shared.^[3] The first communicators of the gospel were eyewitnesses who could say, “That which we have seen and heard … we declare to you.” As the church, we are entrusted with the responsibility of sharing that same truth, not in a forceful way but in the way of Jesus and his apostles who affirmed what they knew and invited others to respond in dialog.

^[1] Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, William B. Eerdmans Publishing 1985, 2005. eBook Chapter 2

^[2] Wolters, Albert M. “Worldview and Textual Criticism in 2 Peter 3:10” Westminster Theological Journal 49 (1987) 405-413 allofliferedeemed.co.uk/Wolters/AMW2Peter3.pdf

^[3] Newbigin, Leslie. . “An Introduction to the Theology of Religions: Biblical, Historical & Contemporary Perspectives” Gospel As Public Truth, Intervarsity Press 2003

Observe

Read Psalm 19:1-4. How can our work reflect the glory of God?

Discipline of Prayer

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Discipline of Prayer

[Bible references: Matthew 6:6-7; Luke 11:11-13; Romans 8:26; Colossians 1:9-14; Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17]

To have God speak to the heart is a majestic experience, an experience that people may miss if they monopolize the conversation and never pause to hear God’s responses^.^{^[1]}

“We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all. Most of us would prefer, however, to spend our time doing something that will get immediate results. We don’t want to wait for God to resolve matters in His good time because His idea of ‘good time’ is seldom in sync with ours^.”^{^[2]}

“I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him.”^{^[3]}

“Authentic worship will impel us to join in the Lamb’s war against demonic powers everywhere—on the personal level, on the social level, on the institutional level. Jesus, the Lamb of God, is our Commander-in-Chief. We receive his orders for service and go …”^{^[4]}

Fortunately, we have a heavenly Father who cares for us – a Father, not just a distant God, but a Father who created us so that we could share His love, a Father who desires a friendship with us, a Father who desires a partner to rule Creation with Him. The grief, sometimes overwhelming, is that we allowed sin to break our relationship with Him and break our relationship with each other and with Creation itself. The result is that we don’t talk like we should, we let shame and embarrassment get in the way of what could be a wonderful and intimate relationship.

The goal of prayer is to rebuild that relationship, to share concerns, to listen, to express our appreciation of each other, to share our feelings. We have the benefit of having a Father who already knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our thoughts and our needs – but He still wants us to talk, to give us a chance to be honest with him (and ourselves), to confess what we need to confess, to deal with any confusions that we have. He wants us to participate with Him in bringing His kingdom into our lives and into the world, to share His love for the world and to seek justice for the oppressed, to even to bring His shalom into the world.

We have needs and the world has so many needs, that it seems that our list of petitions is overwhelming to the point where it makes us give up. But our prayer is more than a list of petitions because the God of love rules over all creation and that love brings us to express adoration and thanksgiving. And when our brokenness gets in the way of our relationship, we can bring our confessions of sin so that we may receive His overwhelming forgiveness.

Having a prayer life with a loving God should just happen, but it doesn’t and that brings us to the discipline of prayer – to help our prayer life, our talks with God, to happen despite our brokenness.

There are times when we are desperate, when we feel that we have no options … so, we pray. These are the times that St. John of the Cross said are the “dark nights of the soul.” As people of faith, we know that those “dark nights” don’t last forever. Just as surely as we experience the darkness, there is the resurrection light. These dark nights of the soul – these times of spiritual crisis – lead us closer to God. As we pray, are persistent in prayer, and are willing to be moved by the Holy Spirit through prayer? We will see that prayer changes us and help us grow to become more able to see others as God sees them.

^[1] Stanley, Charles.

^[2] Chambers, Oswald.

^[3] Zacharias, Ravi. “Has Christianity Failed You?” Zondervan 2017

Observe

Read Colossians 1:9-14. For whom could you be praying this prayer?

Rejoicing in the hope of God

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Rejoicing in the hope of God

[Bible references: Psalm 42; Isaiah 40; Romans 5:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21]

The relationship between lament and hope is crucial. Reconciliation without lament cheapens hope. To be deeply bothered about the way things are is itself a sign of hope.^[1] It is because of our great hope that we can face the brokenness around us and within us, knowing that God still rules over all things and above all things, knowing that He has not and will not cease working to bring his mercy and justice, and knowing that God will eventually restore all of creation to what He has intended from the beginning.

That is the hope we can remember each time we share communion. In the broken bread we remember: Christ broken for us; our sharing in His brokenness; the Body of Christ, that the church now broken will be made whole when our joy will be consummated at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. In the wine we remember: Christ’s blood shed for us; our sharing in His suffering; the Blood of Christ which cleanses and redeems us so that with pure hearts and with one heart, we may enjoy the glorious presence of our Lord. And so it is, after facing the reality of our brokenness, acknowledging it with our lament, looking forward to the reality of the hope we have in God and seeking His desire to restore all things to Himself, that we can face the reality of what we need to do, so that we can join Christ in his redemptive work. If we have truly faced the reality of our brokenness then we will not be deceived by the illusion of progress in our culture, which ultimately is unable to overcome evil.^[2] Our hope is fixed solely in Christ who has defeated evil.

^[1] Katongole, Emmanuel. Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace, and Healing Intervarsity Press, 2009; Wright N.T. “Five Things to know about lament” NT Wright Online www.ntwrightonline.org/five-things-to-know-about-lament

^[2] Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking, Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church Harper Collins 2008. Kindle Edition (p.84-86)

Reflect

How can communion provide us hope within the brokenness that we live in?

Observe

Read 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. What do we need to experience before we can act a ambassadors of Christ?

Our Mandate

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Our Mandate

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25; 3:6; 39:22-23; Matthew 17:10-13; Acts 3:19-42; 1 Peter 5:10]

We have seen how our journey, the journey of God’s people, creatures made in God’s own image, began with our ordination in the Garden of Eden and we have seen what God has intended for our future. We have seen how that intention has not changed despite our rebellion which continues to this day, and how God has not ceased to work with us, His people, despite our persistent rebellion. We have seen God’s patience and tenderness in not totally abandoning us despite our rebellion and how He has called us generation after generation – from the patriarchs and prophets to the apostles and all who are called Christian – to join Him in His ongoing restoration of His Kingdom on earth.

As image-bearers, we still are charged with the work of stewarding His creation, However, we must be restored ourselves before we can fully join Him in His work. That work of restoration begins when the Holy Spirit comes within us to unite us to God and His community. That is the work God must do within us.

In the previous chapters, we have followed how God called his image-bearers to join in the work that he began and then how, through the years, his image-bearers have joined that work, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. In this chapter, as we prepare to consider how to move forward, we will revisit that multi-faceted call to rule over the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it” and to cultivate^[1] and keep it, to create beauty. This call to act as God’s stewards of His creation is a call to use our gifts of intelligence and creativity, to cultivate the resources of the earth to establish a godly culture and civilization. This call is sometimes called the “cultural mandate,” where our culture includes all the things we discover and make and pass on from one generation to the next: our food, language, sports, arts, businesses and their products, civic organizations, and governments, etc.

The charge to “have dominion over” and “subdue” the earth and all its creatures includes physical, cultural, and intellectual activities such as farming, mining, manufacturing, government, arts, civic organizations, education, sciences, technology, and many other activities. But the primary place of God’s kingdom is to restore the souls of men. All would be well if all souls were in right relation to God, everything else would fall into place. Evangelization of the souls of all men is the ultimate goal. But if we think of the ways in which God, out of his overflowing abundance, finally managed to touch our hearts, there were many steps and many different ways in which we were individually touched by the hand of God.

As God’s image-bearers we are uniquely equipped to imagine and discover what kind of possibilities can be made of the overflowing abundance of God, the physical resources He has provided for us: turning grain to bread, grapes to wine, oil to energy and plastics, iron ore to steel, limestone and shale and clay to cement, and many other things we have made from many types of resources. We are uniquely equipped to imagine and discover out of God’s overflowing abundance what kinds of ways we can organize ourselves to fulfill our responsibility to subdue and cultivate the earth by creating organizations such as businesses, civic and social organizations, political parties and non-profit organizations, governments and educational and religious institutions.^[2] In all of these activities we can reflect God’s knowledge and wisdom by engaging in intellectual pursuits such as reading, writing, mathematics, sciences, philosophies, language arts, history, engineering, forensics, medicine, law, etc.

^[1] Huber, Dave. “Avodah Word Study” EFCA Today Summer 2012 www.efcatoday.org/story/avodah-word-study

^[2] Manahan, Ronald E. “A Re-Examination of the Cultural Mandate: An Analysis and Evaluation of the Dominion Materials” Docsbay Grace Theological Seminary dissertation May 1982 docsbay.net/A-Re-Examination-Of-The-Cultural-Mandate

Reflect

We were assigned priestly duties in the Garden of Eden. As believers, we are to be kingdom of priests. As God’s care for His Creation continues, so does our mandate. What things can you do (and are equipped to do), with God, to fulfill His mandate?

Observe

Read Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; 39:22-23. How would the world be different if we fulfilled our duties towards creation in the same way the Joseph fulfilled his duties?

Kingdom of God

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Kingdom of God

[Bible references: Matthew 4:12-23; 5:43-48; 6:31-34; 13:1-9; Mark 1:15; 4:1-33; Luke 4:17-22; 17:20-21; 18:16-18; 1 John 5:3-5; Romans 14:17]

“The primary idea of the Kingdom of God in Scripture is that of the rule of God established and acknowledged in the hearts of sinners by the powerful regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit, insuring them of the inestimable blessings of salvation, — a rule that is realized in principle on earth, but will not reach its culmination until the visible and glorious return of Jesus Christ.”[1]

The Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven) is broadly wherever the rule of God is in the universe[2] or spiritually in the hearts of those who do His will. Although the Kingdom of God has arrived already, it has not yet arrived in its fulness. That won’t happen until Christ returns. There are some who make the Kingdom of God synonymous with the institutional church, however, the church itself belongs to the Kingdom. When Christians do anything under the authority of God, then they are making manifest the Kingdom of God[3]. Believers belong to the Kingdom when they receive God as their ruler, and they belong to the church in the separateness from the world in devotion to God and in their union with one another. As a church they are called to be God’s instrument in bringing in the Kingdom.

The Kingdom then is not defined by any physical location, nor does it have physical boundaries, rather it exists wherever God’s rule is in heaven or in earth. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus declared that the Kingdom has come near and then he described it in terms of healing the sick, loving enemies as well as neighbors, righteousness, freedom for prisoners, giving sight to the blind, and setting the oppressed free, that it must be received as a child, that it requires repentance to receive it, that it’s like a seed on the ground that falls on various kinds of soil.

[1] Louis Berkoff. Systematic Theology William B. Eerdmans 1974 (Kindle Locations 14321-14324)

[2] Bible Study Tools “Kingdom of God” Biblestudytools www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/explore-the-bible/what-is-meant-by-the-kingdom-of-god-10-things-to-know.html

[3] Christianity.com “What is the Kingdom of God? Understanding its Meaning” Christianity.com www.christianity.com/wiki/god/what-is-the-kingdom-of-god-understanding-it-s-meaning.html

Observe

Read Luke 17:20-21. Where do you see the Kingdom of God?

Living temples

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Living temples

[Bible references: Genesis 1; 3:6; Isaiah 35; 54:10; 60; Jeremiah 29:1-23; John 2:19-21; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21; Revelations 15:8; 21:22]

Although God’s first image-bearers had close, unhindered, intimate contact with their Creator, there was enough space given them to think freely, as if they were not being watched all the time. It was in this space that they – and we – were given several blessings: the freedom to procreate (be fruitful and multiply), to oversee God’s creation (subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures), and to nurture God’s creation (work it and take care of it).^[1] We were given the assignment to be fruitful, to fill all the earth, discover its possibilities and care for the world in the same way that God would care for the world.^[2] Just as God continues to create more living things and sustain all that he has created, we as his co-regents^[3], can join him in sustaining and creating those things entrusted to our care.

“There are two ways in which God imposes his law on the cosmos, two ways in which his will is done on earth as in heaven. He does it either directly, without mediation, or indirectly, through the involvement of human responsibility. Just as a human sovereign does certain things himself, but gives orders to his subordinates for other things, so with God himself. He put the planets in their orbits, makes the seasons come and go at the proper time, makes seeds grow and animals reproduce, but entrusts to mankind the tasks of making tools, doing justice, producing art, and pursuing scholarship. In other words, God’s rule of law is immediate in the nonhuman realm but mediate in culture and society. In the human realm men and women become coworkers with God; as creatures made in God’s image, they too have a kind of lordship over the earth, are God’s viceroys in creation.” ^[4]

We were also given the responsibility to subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures. When there is resistance, we still have the responsibility to bring the rule of God to the world. Then we are given the responsibility to work and take care of the earth, starting in the Garden of Eden and then expanding to all of God’s creation. Implied in all these things is that we should do everything in context of God’s love, to care for each other and to care for the earth and its creatures with the mind of the God who created us for love.

The work that we were designed to do was more than just tending the garden. In Genesis 2:15, we were given a mandate to “work” and “take care of” the garden God had created. These tasks in light of Ancient Near East culture, were more of a priestly nature, taking care of this temple where we reside with God.

“The verbs ʿbd and šmr (NIV: “work” and “take care of”) are terms most frequently encountered in discussions of human service to God rather than descriptions of agricultural tasks… ‘bd can refer to … work connected with one’s vocation, to religious service deemed worship … šmr is used in the contexts of the priestly responsibility of guarding sacred space, as well as in the sense of observing religious commands and responsibilities … it is likely that the tasks given to Adam are of a priestly nature: caring for sacred space. In ancient thinking, caring for sacred space was a way of upholding creation.”^{^[5]}

We were to take care of this place which was designed to be a “very good” place for us to flourish in, creating whatever structures we needed to “increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.” This task, this mandate, meant that we would eventually go beyond the capacity of gardening and create not just a bigger garden but cities, a flourishing civilization as pictured in Revelation 21 and 22.^[6]

When examined closely, we can see the breadth of what was committed to Adam and Eve. Subduing the earth would entail many physical, social, and intellectual activities. In the gardening we can see cultivation and farming; in taking care of the animals, we can see shepherding and domestication; in the naming of the animals, we can see a cultural and scientific activity which required understanding the nature and attributes of the animals and establishing authority over them. We can see that God had created things to be beautiful and as his image-bearers we would be expected to also create beautiful things.

As we look forward to the new earth which will manifest when Jesus comes again, nature’s comeliness will reach its pinnacle; the wilderness itself will burst into blossom, and streams will gush in the desert. To complement all this natural beauty, human culture will flourish. All the great creativity of humankind-artistry in music, dance, painting, woodcrafts, sculpture, architecture and more-will be brought into the New Jerusalem.^{^[7]}

There is a sense in which we, as members of the Kingdom of God, now seem to be living in a foreign land. This puts us in a position similar to the Israelites when they were taken in exile into Babylonia. During their stay in Babylonia, God’s instructions were to settle down, build houses, get married, have children and to seek the prosperity of the city they were sent to, for “if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

But above all these things we can do, we should not lose focus on who we are. We are creatures designed by God to be like God to be in relationship with Him, the God who is a community in Himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything we do should be done in context of who we are. We should remember that we were designed to be human “beings,” not human “doings.” This viewpoint become clear when we compare the Biblical view of creation to the view of other Ancient Near East cultures. For the surrounding cultures humans beings were created to feed the gods and serve the gods who created them, whereas the Biblical viewpoint sees God being the provider for the people.^[8]

Originally, we see Creation designed as a temple, a place for us to “be” with God. Later on, Jesus refers to himself as the temple, a human in whom God resides. Later on, Paul declares that our own bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. So here again, we see the mystery of perichoresis, where we are distinct from the Holy Spirit, yet the Holy Spirit becomes a part of who we are. In this we see the mystery of perichoresis unifying the persons within God, unifying the body, soul and spirit within humans, and unifying God and humans.

^[1] Jacobsen, Eric O. The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment, Baker Academic, 2012, (Page 20 )

^[2] Crouch, Andy. “What is the Cultural Mandate” The Village Church, 6 Jan 2017 www.tvcresources.net/resource-library/talks/what-is-the-cultural-mandate

^[3] Walton, John H. “The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate (Proposition 4) InterVarsity Press. 2015 Kindle Edition

^[4] Albert M. Wolters. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview William B. Eerdmans Publishing 1985, 2005. eBook(Locations 203-208)

^[5] Walton, John H. The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate Edition(p. 105-106).

¹²²Buzenitz, Nathan. “The New Jerusalem”

^[7] Sherman, Amy L. Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good. Intervarsity Press, 2011 eBook location 291

_[8] Walton, John. “The Lost World of Adam and Eve,” I “Proposition 12: Adam is Assigned as Priest in Sacred Space, with Eve to Help” (p.104)

Observe

Read Genesis 1; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 6:16. What difference does it make if the universe is God’s temple or that our bodies are God’s temple?

Co-sovereigns and servants

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

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

Co-sovereigns and servants

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; Exodus 19:6; Ezekiel 34:1-10; Matthew 23:11; Mark 10:35-45; Luke 22:26-27; Acts 2; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; 1 Peter 2:9]

We are created in the image of the Creator, endowed with His attributes. With the attributes of God overflowing in our lives, He blessed us 1) with the pleasure of sex so that we would “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” and 2) with the pleasure of acting on His behalf so that we would subdue it and rule over its creatures as His co-sovereigns. As creatures in His image, we have been given great abilities, and it is out of that mastery of those abilities that we have managed to use the resources of the earth to create all the technological advances that we have. Unfortunately, in many cases we have abused our abilities; abusing not just the resources of the earth but often abusing each other.

In our sinfulness, we typically appeal to our call to sovereignty while forgetting our call to service. This very issue Jesus took care to remind us of on many occasions. If we mistreat the earth that we are placed in or if we mistreat others, then we dishonor not only the one in whose image we are made but we also dishonor the other image-bearers of God. In fact, it is out of our call to sovereignty and service that we are called to love, to willingly give of ourselves to the service of God just as God gave of himself to us.

It is under the constraint of God’s love that he tells us to “subdue” and “have dominion” over his creation. As God’s stewards, our sovereignty means we have the responsibility to maintain the good in God’s creation, to bring order to it and to help his creatures flourish and fill the earth.

There are two dimensions to our responsibility to subdue and have dominion.

When Genesis 1 was written, it was hard work to cultivate the rocky soil and people had little control of the elements; people were more powerless than powerful. In that context we see the forceful aspect of radah (ruling the earth) that is evident in other instances in the Bible when that word is used. That is one dimension of our responsibility.

But another dimension of our responsibility to have “dominion” is tempered by gentleness, such as when God spoke through Ezekiel’s to the “shepherds of Israel” and reprimanded them for using cruelty and violence and caring more about themselves than the people they were responsible for, serving themselves instead of the people.

In our service, we are dependent on one another. We were not made to be self-sufficient; we not only need to have a relationship with God but also with each other. God allowed the first man to see that he needed another human before God presented the man with a woman to be his ‘ezer kegnedo. In Hebrew, ‘ezer is usually translated as “helper” or “deliverer” and is most often used to describe God delivering his people; kegnedo is usually translated as “in front of” or “opposite” or “parallel to.”^[1]

Later on, in scripture we see that we are called to be a nation of priests and a body where all the different parts have a purpose as they work together. We are called not just to a restored relationship with the one who made us but are called together as a people to serve each other and to serve the world around us.

^[1] Blue Letter Bible “ezer” Strong’s concordance, Blue Letter Bible www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=kjv&strongs=h5828; Bible Hub “Neged” Strong’s concordance, Blue Letter Bible www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5048/kjv/wlc/0-1/

Reflect

God provides the model of servant-leadership (see Chapter 2). What are some ways in which that should affect the way we take care of the earth and each other?

Observe

Read Gen 1:26-28; 2:15. Gen 2:15 shows God putting people in the garden to (depending on your translation) dress/guard/work/till/cultivate/serve it and to keep/take care/guard/look after it. So these verses together talk about our authority over Creation and our obligation to serve it. How do we do both?