From the Vineyard newsletter on 11/18: The Great Commission-Part 1.

Our church mission statement is taken from the Great Commandment and the Great Commission (the stuff every believer is supposed to do). The Great Commandment is to love God above all else, with all of our strength/personhood. Then the Great Commandment is to go unto every people and teach them what Jesus taught the Apostles, which has been taught to every successive generation of Christians (also known as evangelism and discipleship). So literally half of our life mission as God’s people is to share the good news of Jesus with those who don’t know him and teach them to likewise obey his commission. However, telling people that does not usually make them want to run out and tell their neighbors about Jesus. Most Christians seize up with fear, others balk at the idea, explaining that is why we pay tithes so the pastor can do it, and if the pastor keeps talking about it, they eventually move on to another church that will do all of that for them (religious consumerism). 

So rather than telling people what they are supposed to do and brow-beat them into submission (or leaving), let me invite you to begin with prayer. Prayer is powerful! Of all the people that I have led to Christ over the years, not one of them came without prayer. Either mine or a faithful person who prayed for them other than me. Many a person came to Christ because of the prayers of a faithful mother, father, or grandparent. Over the years I have developed a list that I keep in my journal of people that I am praying for their salvation. I often add to the list, but I also get to cross-off those who have already come to Jesus. Some people have been on that list for a long time, but most are on the list for only months before coming to Jesus. On a rare occasion, I have the painful job of crossing-off my list someone who has passed away whom I don’t think ever received Jesus. In those moments my prayers become more fervent, not wanting any more on my list to perish without the gospel.  

So this week, I want to invite you, this is the time of year we begin making our lists of what we want most. Would you consider making a list of people whose salvation you are praying for? Then do me a favor? Send me your list! If you like, let me know and I will share that list with our prayer team so we can pray for them too.  

Grace and peace,
Hal

A Kingdom Life

One of the central tenets of Jesus' teaching while he was on the earth was that the kingdom of God was coming, and that the kingdom of heaven was near. The word in our New Testaments that we most often translate into English as kingdom literally means reign or rule. It is the picture of God as being sovereign (king), and that his ruling and reigning usher in true justice, righteous government, peace on earth, and freedom from sin, disease, sickness, and death.
For the Jews in Jesus' day, it was heavily tied to the hopes of the promise land, that a man, a messiah would come, and he would reign as the very vessel of God, bringing justice and righteousness to government, and that he would conquer all of Israel's enemies, and rescue them from the gentiles and their governments. As it turned out, his gracious offer was not limited to the Israelites but it was to be extended even to the gentiles, so that the promise God made to Abraham, that his seed would be a blessing to all people, would come to pass (Genesis 22.18). What is essential to our understanding of the kingdom of God is not location, or time, but rather the effect of God's kingdom. Choosing his rule, and submitting to his authority (reign) not only transfers our loyalty, and guarantees our ultimate redemption, but it sets us on a new course of living in this world, in step with kingdom of God living rather than kingdom of darkness living. Meaning, we start living in this world as if God's kingdom was already fully established, obeying God rather than men, and living victoriously rather than as those who are on the defensive. So then taking our eyes off of the world, what would it look like for you and me to live life victoriously?  
Living a victorious life means doing what is right without worrying about what others outside of the church are not doing right. (Not that I don't care but it does not control my actions or cause me to worry.) It means being stewards of God by fulfilling our original command to care for all of his creation (1 Corinthians 10.26). It means loving my neighbors, and not just those I like (Luke 6.32), and it means protecting the defenseless (Isaiah 1.17).
My favorite part about that message is that it's not defined by lists of do's and don'ts, it's not just rules and regulations of religion and restriction. Instead, its the invitation to do life better. Now that is something worth inviting your friends and family to experience; The kingdom of God is good news.

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 5)

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 5)–OR–The glorious redemption of humanity 

At the core of the gospel is not only the restoration of God’s rule & reign but also the redemption of humanity.  It is this two-fold understanding of the gospel pulls the entire biblical narrative together. Without the fall of humanity there would be no loss of God’s rule and reign over creation, and without God’s rule and reign there would be no means of redeeming humanity. 

Yet, some have suggested that the Apostle Paul’s focus on redemption is a different gospel from that of Jesus’ kingdom of God narrative in the gospels, but such a view looks at the pauline passages regarding redemption in isolation. 

In contrast, a more holistic view of redemption in the Bible begins with creation in Genesis 1. In the creation account of Genesis 1.11-25 each kind reproduces seed after its own kind, until we get to man (v. 26) made in the image of God. While never stated implicitly, the implication is that we are of his kind, and thus man is set over the garden to rule and reign over God’s creation (v. 28). Likewise, the fall is not simply one of sin and death but a change of humanity’s status. Adam and Eve are no longer are masters but those who are being mastered. So the fall of man was not just about a loss of relationship with God, but in change in status. This is further illustrated by the new striving between man and woman, that she would desire to rule over him but he would dominate her (Genesis 3.16). 

The fall is not unidimensional. Despite reductionist efforts to limit the fall to a need for forgiveness, the idea of restoration in the Bible includes the redemption of man’s relationship with God, but also with other human beings (male and female, slave and free) in Galatians 3.28 and with the earth and the beasts in it (Romans 8.19-24), which will be explored more in the next article. 

The central point for this post is that our redemption includes our ruling and reigning with God (2 Timothy 2.12; Revelation 2.26-27, 5.10, 21) and one cannot be separated from the other.  The scarlet thread of redemption that runs from Genesis through Revelation is also the thread of the kingdom. 

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 2)

The title, The Case for Kingdom Theology, fits this series of posts but the actual article  ought to be: Refining the definition of the gospel in kingdom perspective. Last week’s post focused on the need for a kingdom centered theology and view of the Bible. In that post one of the implications for a kingdom centric view was the need to redefine what we mean by the term ‘gospel.’ When you state something like that it immediately becomes worrisome to many that you might use this as an excuse to water down the gospel or as a platform from which to preach “another gospel.” So for that reason let me be clear that I have no issue with the gospel as it is presently defined in every evangelical church. The gospel is the power of God to save. Jesus Christ’s atoning death and resurrection is what paid for my sins. Any gospel that teaches me to depend on less than that is not THE gospel. So then what do I mean?

As I look across the scope of the Bible’s narrative, the Scarlet Thread of Redemption as some have put it, or the Scheme of Redemption, as others have put it, I see a bigger picture than “just” my personal salvation. I also see the triumphant restoration of the rule and reign of God, the glorious redemption of humanity, the miraculous redemption of creation, and the complete and final restoration of all that God has made. This is reflected in the teachings and life of Jesus Christ and subsequently the early church as it sought to make disciples of Jesus (teach and form in them the cruciform life.)

As mentioned in the the previous post, most of our creeds and our statements of faith were written in times of duress and sought to address the problems related to that duress. They are grand and well written. I can subscribe to everyone of them on some level, and to most of them in their entirety. The focus of these creeds spoke to Jesus’ divine and human natures, his equality with God, the equality and personhood of the Holy Spirit, and the virgin birth, and the bodily death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Nonetheless we tend to boil the gospel down to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Meaning that there is a large amount of Jesus life in the gospels that are not included in our over simplification of the gospel. These reductionist statements do not intentionally cut-out over three-fourths of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry as being non-essential to the gospel but in fact, it is what we do in practice, and in our theology when we say things like, ‘nothing else matters.’ How can any of the gospel matter less than any other part of the gospel? How can we conclude that Jesus’ life and ministry is anything less than the gospel? Do we believe that the apostolic biographies (the Gospels) have extemporaneous information? Or are our well written, but utterly human creeds and confessions, and our succinct definitions of the gospel lacking and in need of being broadened? The salvation of the individual is essential to the gospel, but the gospel is not only the saving of a human souls from hell. 

If we concede that the gospel includes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus,  and we include the birth and life of Jesus we should begin a move toward saved with a purpose, birthed into the mission and adventure of Christlike living, and transferred not just from the clutches of hell but into the kingdom of God. We begin down a path that is bigger than our tendency toward a man-centered gospel. Still we need to go further! After all, If all we do is include the life of Jesus and add a kingdom component to our definition we still have fallen short of the bigger picutre. We must put Jesus at the center of the gospel. The gospel is the reinstatement of God’s rule and reign over all creation through the completed work of Jesus Christ, which includes the restoration of all things, including those who receive Jesus Christ as King (Lord) and Savior.  

However, even as I read my kingdom centric definition of the gospel, I bristle with nearly five-hundred years of Reformation/Evangelical history that screams the gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Can anyone relate? But this discussion still matters, because just like the Reformers, it is not enough for us to settle on the hindquarters of our tradition. On-one-hand, I am comfortable with what the Reformers said, on-the-other-hand, I am well aware of the results of this kind of reductionism, and the tendency of pop-Christianity to make it all about us, even as we claim it is all about Jesus. 

The definition that I put forth doesn’t solve all of those problems. I don’t presume to be the one to solve all the problems. Yet as a pastor I feel the need to address the problems with those entrusted to me. I feel compelled to engage not only in instruction but to be a student. I feel that I need to engage with the larger church and not simply work out my answers in a vacuum.