From the VCC Newsletter on 12/17: The Faithfulness of God- Something to Celebrate

Have you ever considered that Christmas is more about the birth of world missions and less about the birth of a child?The God who gave us his Son did so because he loved the world and wanted that no one would perish but have everlasting life. The first coming of Jesus (Advent) was not just a sweet story about pregnant Mary and her fiancé traveling to Bethlehem, to avoid judgement by the neighbors or even to pay taxes to Cesar. It is the fantastic account of God’s faithfulness to humanity, keeping his word from Genesis 3, and his multiple promises to the people of Israel, the Kings, and the Prophets. It is a story of redemption, not just for a lucky few nor a cover up, but an important chapter in the very long story of redemption, forgiveness, and love.  In one week from today we will be celebrating that God took this mission so personal that he sent no one less than his own Son.

At this time of year I am often asked if celebrating Christmas is something we should do in light of the many non-Christian winter festivities that have become part of Christmas tradition. Actually, I think that is one of the best reasons to celebrate Christmas. Jesus took the extraordinary step of becoming fully man while retaining all of what it meant to be fully God. His incarnation becomes the message itself. The very heart of missions is that we engage the world with the gospel by becoming all things to all men, so that we might save some. And our God takes sinful humanity and makes us Saints. He takes all of our failings and turns them into the message of reconciliation. So then he who redeems all things, redeems our winter festivities,  traditions, and our cold hearts and makes them new. If I can believe in the redemption of the humanity and creation (Revelation 21.1-5) then can anything be too hard for God to make new?

In the spirit of missions, redemption, and Christmas, I hope you will invite your friends, family, and neighbors to hear the Good News on Christmas Eve at one of our two services (4:00 or 6:00 pm).

Merry Christmas!

From the VCC Newsletter on 12/10: Reaching the Unreached

A people group is considered unreached when less than 2% of a population has been evangelized.  In the Matthew 24:14 we read, And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. I have often noted that the word we translate as nations in English is actually the Greek word ethnos, from which we derive our English word, ethnic or ethnicity but the old translation of nations still persists giving us sometimes the wrong impression about global missions.

Consider that there are only 195 nations in the world but there are 6,500 people groups (ethnos) in the world of which 2,500 of those ethnos have no church –Nor is there any work being to establish one. When I worked in northern Mexico we had 13 of these unreached people groups who did not speak Spanish and did not have any church that spoke their language. Working in Juarez Mexico it was ironic to me that on one of the mountains in the city of Juarez were the words: La biblia es la verde., Leela. (the Bible is the truth. Read it.) Sadly, on that mountain top lived a group of Tarahumara indians that did not read or speak Spanish. Every year Christians passed these folks on their way to paint a sign in Spanish, but did not learn to speak the language of the people living under the words. Mexico is considered a Christian nation, but the Tarahumara people are unreached (less than 2% Christian, with no viable church).  Although we made considerable effort on the mountain we were unable to any significant inroads in that community, but I have not forgotten the people. This is why it is important for us to pray differently, for the sake of the mission, to reach every ethnos with the gospel of Jesus Christ, not just every nation.

 

After a great deal of prayer I feel the Lord has put it on my heart for us to change our nation of the month prayer format to praying for unreached people groups by the nations where they reside. Specifically, that we pray for those people groups to be reached and to have a church of their own. I hope you will join me as we focus our global mission attention in both prayer and giving to focus our attention on the unreached people groups. Our goal being to send missionaries to begin a church for every unreached people group, so that the gospel of the Kingdom would be proclaimed to every ethnos under heaven and hasten the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to rule and reign over the new heavens and new earth.

I hope you are as excited as I am to see what God is going to do in reaching these ethnos through our prayers and missions.

Three Choices

In 2 Samuel 24 we read about the Prophet Gad who came to David at the height of his reign in Israel. Although Israel was enjoying prosperity, and were probably their most religious, the people of God behaved badly, and God used David to chasten the nation, at which point David let his anger override his better judgment, and soon both David and Israel were under judgment. Gad told David that he had three choices (verse 13): three years of famine, three months of being pursued by his (David's) enemies, or three days of pestilence. None of the options were very palatable. That's why it is called judgment. 
The goal of judgment is not punishment but repentance; to turn back to the Lord and seek his face. David's very wise answer, after a great deal of prayer was, verse 14, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” The three days of pestilence that followed was very severe, but when the three days ended so did the pestilence. Then David built an altar and offered up sacrifice and plead for himself and for his people to be forgiven, and the plague was averted. There was a great deal of loss over those three days but David knew that if they landed in the hands of men they may never recover, but if they landed in the hands of God and repented that they would recover, when they turned to God, and he would give them mercy.  

In this election cycle (2016) I have seen and heard many express their dismay at our choices for President. They fear the bombastic behavior of Trump and his reality show campaign. They distrust Hillary and believe that everything will be up for sale to the highest bidder. And when they look at Johnson, not only do they not believe he has a chance, but they question his ability, his policies, and feel that there is no significant difference in his policies from the other two. He equally lacks credibility, and moral authority, as much as the other two. What is an American to do? Do we vote on party lines? Do we vote for the lesser of two evils? Do we lodge a protest vote? Do we stay home and refuse to participate in a system that seems to be rigged, and that increasingly does not represent the people? 

Or does it? 

In this chapter of our society, as we rail against our political fiasco, and question how, out of 330 Million people, we could end up with this handful of people to choose from, maybe its time to take stock of how we got here? Look at what a mess our society seems to be in: The racial strife, the political climate is hateful, and we must guard our every word for fear that someone MIGHT be offended, not because they actually care about each other, but out of fear of becoming the next target on social media. Our society has become so ready to vilify anyone and everyone. So then, our reflection needs to be, have we reaped what we have sown? Who would want to lead this mess? It looks like some kind of disturbing reality show. 

Enter our three choices for President: One doesn't even really have a chance, the other two, well one of them will be our next president. I have heard all the arguments about what each one will do. I'll be honest, I don't believe either of them. Today, my prayer is like that of King David in 2 Samuel 24.14 “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”    

If you're not a Christian than this post is probably of little value to you, but to every Christian, my plea is to consider that we are under judgment, reaping what we have sown as a nation. It is time for us to lay down our agendas, our political ideologies, and pray. Pray for mercy, and to fall into the hands of God, rather than the hands of men. 

Pan Theology

They just released new statistics that our economy was flat for the first quarter of 2014, and that sent the media into a frenzy. Whose fault is it? Is it the president? Is it congress? Should we blame the Republicans or the Democrats? People are wringing their hands and wondering, what is going to happen to us. Maybe you are one of them. It didn’t take long until the questions started about the end times, the end of the world, and what my view is about them. Actually, I am a bit of a “pan” theologian on the end times. I am convinced that it will all “pan-out” at the end. 

You see, even if Jesus does come back tomorrow I do not even know if I am going to make it to tomorrow. My appointment with Jesus could be today. So I have never put much stock in worrying about the end. Matthew 6.34 says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Worry is like borrowing trouble. So I decided to stop worrying and do what I knew I was supposed to be doing. When Jesus returns I want him to find me doing is being faithful to my wife, faithful to do my job, faithful to share Christ with my neighbors. I want to be found being faithful. So I try everyday to live in such a way that it does not matter if Jesus comes back today, tomorrow, or in twenty years .My responsibility is to be faithful. Then it wont really matter when he returns. Every picture in the Bible of the final judgment depicts a scene where people are measured by what they do, rather than by what they say they believe. Granted what they have done has grown out of a response to what they believed, but the concern is always that they be found faithfully doing what they were told to do. 

My challenge to you this week, is that you can articulate a great faith by living a great faith, so that whenever you live your last day on the earth that the Father might say to you, Well done, good and faithful servant.  

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 6)

The Case for Kingdom Theology 

(Part 5) –OR– The Miraculous Redemption of Creation.

The miraculous redemption of creation is a statement that can raise a few eyebrows. This is not some kind of new age theology or something like that. It simply means that from the beginning, all that God created, God called good. Then God put humans in place to rule and reign over creation. With that in mind, what was lost in the fall was not just human innocence, health, and freedom but the innocence, health, and freedom of all creation. Consider that human sin brought death to creation, because human sin was more than just two people’s private fall. Adam and Eve were rulers over the earth, and their sin was an abdication of the right to rule over God’s creation. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8.19-24a

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.

Reflect on those words, “… the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” All of creation is waiting to be set free, all of creation is longing, all of creation has been subjected to futility and is waiting just as the human soul longs for redemption. Therefore, creation also waits for that day when humanity will be redeemed, not just in the Spirit, but in the flesh. 

If the “green thing” and all the political stuff that goes with it bothers you, don’t let that keep you from getting this point. Simply read, all of creation awaits that great day, when all is revealed, and our bodies are redeemed. It is a beautiful picture of God’s restorative power, of his ability to redeem anything and everything that he has made and called good.  It is also a powerful reminder to every believer that sin is not a private, personal issue.  

Looking from a Kingdom perspective at the issue of redemption, keep in mind that throughout the Old Testament leadership was always held to a higher standard. Every prince, king, priest, or ruler of God’s people was held to a higher standard. Even their offerings were more costly. Looking at the collateral damage surrounding the fall and redemption of humanity, Adam and Eve’s actions are far reaching because they were the de facto rulers of creation.  Thus the far reaching effects of redemption include the restoration of everything damaged by their sin. (The implications of this for harmitology are huge.) 

Thus, the kingdom perspective on redemption is not limited to the redemption of humanity, especially as central as it is to the biblical narrative, but rather a more grand restoration of all God’s creation with humanity as the crown jewel. However, this more grand and inclusive kingdom perspective does beg questions about human stewardship of the earth like creation care, the treatment of animals, etc. As well, such a perspective also challenges the notion that it is acceptable to consume the earth because you think its all going to burn anyhow (2 Peter 3.10). That’s not just bad hermeneutics, but from this perspective, it’s bad theology. These points obviously need more in-depth development to address all the issues. 

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 4)

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 4)  -OR- Kingdom Eschatology

So then, if we accept the premise that the gospel does need a kingdom centered definition, the implications are that a kingdom centered gospel also includes a triumphant view with regard to the restoration of the rule and reign of God. What do I mean by that? 

So much of popular theology today is centered around defeat. The demise of Western culture creates a tendency in western Christians to put their cultural narrative over the biblical one. Add to that the American Church's huge impact on global Christianity (money, publishing, seminaries, missionaries, etc) and those concerns not only dominate western theology but they tend to redefine everyone’s view of the world, prophecy and any other eschatological concerns too. The end result of the Western church  losing ground in society becomes the driving premise in global eschatology that the church of Jesus Christ must essentially be defeated by the world in order for Jesus to return. In contrast, the Bible teaches that there are two kingdoms in conflict (and its not the USA vs. the devil) and that the kingdom of God is triumphant, overcoming the kingdom of darkness, so that the gates of hell are unable to prevail. The prophecies of Daniel tell us that the kingdom of Christ will fill the earth and crush the feet of the kingdoms of this world and that God will establish his rule and reign forever. Even now, in contrast to this defeatist eschatology, the global church is advancing all over the face of the earth (with the exception of the West) yet Christians keep declaring defeat because of the ground lost in the West. The truth is that the Kingdom of God is much more than the Western Church! In fact, the rule and reign of God is even bigger than just the church. Still, the point is that the church is growing in the majority world by leaps and bounds, even as it losing ground in the USA. As well, kingdom values like: human rights, justice, mercy, the sanctity of human life, loving our neighbor, the brotherhood of humanity, and even equality are all becoming more common among the nations. This is not some “Pollyanna” naive worldview, despots are not becoming benefactors. On the other hand, countries who once had terrible human rights records like China, Russia, Romania, South Africa, and others are engaged in the discussion of human rights, and the International Olympic Committee will not allow a country to host the Olympics if they are not making any effort to do what is right. These are advances! The point is that the Kingdom of God  is advancing and that the rule and reign of God is being revealed even to those who deny it.

Moving toward a more triumphant eschatology is NOT promoting Dominion theology or Christian Re-constructionism or even Kingdom Now theology. The church cannot make the kingdom come, but neither should it hide it's heads in the sands of reality, injustice, or the failures of society. It does not mean adopting the expectant humanistic eschatology of the late nineteenth century that saw the advances in science as the arrival of the kingdom. This is not advocating that we can bring the kingdom of God about, or that we will clean up the whole earth before Jesus’ return to vanquish his enemies. It is the celebration of the inauguration of the kingdom in Jesus. It is seeing the win, when there is a win to celebrate, as a triumph over evil, over temptation, over disease, sickness, and demons. And when there is a loss, that the people of God do not surrender to defeat, but pray all the more earnestly, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

This is important, because in contrast there is the dispensational eschatology of LaHaye and Lindsey, whose narratives essentially teach us that the church is the fallout (result) of the Jews rejecting Jesus as messiah.  It is a doctrine that says, Jesus failed. Subsequently, it teaches that Jesus went to the cross to save the gentiles, and that one day he will return and then the Jews will know that Jesus really is the messiah, but until then the church is fighting a battle against evil that cannot be won, in a heroic effort to save a few, while the majority go to hell. Then when it looks as though all has been lost, Jesus comes back, vanquishes his enemies, rubs there nose in their sin, and rescues the very few, and of course the Jews, and declares himself the winner, despite having lost the vast majority of people to sin and death. 
Is it really enough for God to be proven right? If that was so then he would not have needed to go any further than the garden. In contrast to these relatively recent eschatological views, John 3.16 says, God so loved the world, that he sent his Son, and the picture of Revelation 19 is one of triumph, of myriads of believers from every tongue, tribe and nation worshipping him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. Then in Revelation 20 Satan is bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations. Once released he does not triumph! He is again defeated swiftly. Gog and Magog are not the dreadful events of the Left Behind novels but an exclamation point of defeat again. Followed quickly by the final judgment. It does not take a neatly worked out eschatology to know that God wins; that the triumph is not secret! Satan is not just beaten back but utterly defeated, destroyed, humiliated not only by the cross, but again, and again on the world stage. 

Likewise, Jesus' parables on the kingdom continually illustrate the idea of the church advancing over the face of the earth, taking ground not through wars or by force, but advancing through the subversive acts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. It is through subversive activity like loving your neighbor as yourself, self-sacrifice, generosity, and the like. These are not pacifist acts of acquiescence but the radical confrontation between kingdoms. This is taking kingdom authority over the violence that has been perpetrated against the kingdom of God. 

In Colossians 2.15 it says that the cross was triumph, disarming and making a public spectacle of  the powers and authorities that opposed his kingdom. Why then persist in a theology of defeat, doubting God, emotionally surrendering, forming social ghettos in the social media, television and music, making poor imitations of everything in the world. The goal here isn’t to offend but stop the bleed. When do we see the goodness of the world, and give credit to the work of God in the world? What if we give God credit even if he does that good work through those who are not Christians? Doesn’t the Bible tell us again and again, that people like Pharaoh, King Darius, and even traveling Samaritans do what is right? Doesn't Jesus celebrate their good works? Can't it be celebrated by the people of God giving credit to Yahweh God who is God of all creation (Psalm 24.1, 1 Corinthians 10.26) not just that which is redeemed? 
Look at the parables, the vision is one of the kingdom of God filling the earth, defeating nations (Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome). Add to that list nations not that have disappeared from the world stage after becoming a threat to Christianity like the Suleiman’s Ottoman Empire, Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s U.S.S.R., Mao’s P.R.C. Christianity has outlived them all and withstood the attempts of each of those nations to stomp it out.  At the dawn of the twenty-first century Christianity not only regained ground in each of those regions, but has over-taken much of the continent of Africa and continues to spread among almost every nation in the world, only loosing ground in the West. Given the evidence of Christianity’s expansion into nations once hostile to Christianity, there is every reason to believe that it will retake even the West in time. That does not mean that earthly governments will all become Christian, but it does means that the Kingdom of God and the church will be present and healthy among every people group and nation. 

With that in mind, a triumphant ‘hermeneutic' or principle ought to yield an eschatology that is throughly biblical, historically valid, presently viable, and expectant of the future. It should exalt Jesus as King of kings, and Lord of lords, it should expect his final vanquishing of his enemies, and give reason for every knee to bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. It should not glorify man, except to the extent that God does, and it should substantiate the entire witness of the Bible, not confound it.  To that point what eschatology does all that? Here is hoping that a kingdom centered eschatology will yield that ideal.          

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 1)

As a new Christian I heard a great deal about the kingdom of God, but I soon realized that when people used the phrase the kingdom of God that they all meant something quite different by it. Some people meant the kingdom of God in the sense of God’s rule and reign in the world, others meant the church of Christ on earth, some their denomination, and still others meant the physical manifestation of their eschatological understanding. Yet as I read the Bible, and the words of Jesus more specifically, I believed that these definitions fell short, in part because they approached the kingdom as one topic among many topics in the Bible rather than as the central theme of the Bible. That conviction has led my study of God’s word for the past fifteen years.

As I understand the subject, Jesus’ primary message while he was on earth was about the Kingdom of God. Even in his resurrection, in both Luke 24 and Acts 1, Luke has the risen Christ speaking to his disciples and “opening up their minds” to understand the Scriptures through the lens of the Kingdom. However, that changes our our praxis, and this inherently changes our entire understanding of the whole biblical witness, our entire theology, our view of church history, and should impact our understanding of ecclesiology too. Consider the following four fundamental assumptions laid out by N.T. Wright from his book, How God became King: 

First, that the climax of Israel’s story is the story of Jesus, and that he is the fulfillment and purpose of Israel’s story. The implications of this mean that the Old Testament apart from the New Testament, and New Testament apart from the Old Testament are little more than moralisms and mythology not unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey.  

Second, that the account of Jesus in Israel is not a new solution, but the story of Israel’s God returning to his people just as he promised.

Third, that Jesus’ earthly ministry inaugurated the restored kingdom of God and launched his renewed people (i.e. The church) into action. 

Fourth, the current status of things is one of war, a clash between kingdoms, that will conclude with the triumph of Christ’s Kingdom over the Kingdom of darkness. This victory will not be a secret victory, it will not be a theoretical victory, but it will conclude with the utter decimation of the kingdom of darkness and every power, person or thing allied to it.  

If you consider each of Wright’s four propositions, each is packed with implications that we do not have time to fully unpack in short post, but here are some implications:  

1. We need to refine what we mean by the gospel. Not because the gospel needs redefining, but that the current reigning definition is too small. Most of the church creeds, and other historical documents, that we use to define the gospel were written to address problems in the church, but are woefully inadequate to define the gospel entirely. If our gospel is only the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and our response to that, then our gospel has left out the bulk of the text contained in the Gospels (biographies of Jesus), as well as the entire witness of Israel, the history of Acts, the apocalypse of Revelation, and much more. 
2. We need to flesh out what we mean by the rule and reign of God. What does that mean? For instance, Dr. John White, the famous Christian Psychiatrist gave four lectures on the kingdom of God after spending a year with John Wimber at the Anaheim Vineyard. His theme was the Authority of Christ, including Christ’s authority 1) over temptation, 2) over sin, 3) over disease, and 4) over demons. We could easily expand that to include Christ authority over 5) the earth & nature, 6) over time & space,  and possibly you can think of a few more. This includes the tension of the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God. The problem for us is to expand our understanding of the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God and not just use that theological tension as an excuse (i.e. cover) when Jesus’ authority does not trump a person’s sin, disease, demons, addiction, injustice or whatever we/they are battling against. We need to ask, what can we articulate about the now and not yet besides unanswered prayer?
3. We must consider what are the implications of the kingdom for eschatology. For instance popular church culture has embraced the eschatological concepts favored by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye because of their popularity of their books on the end times. However, with those popular eschatologies comes a whole host of hermeneutical and doctrinal considerations.  As I understand it, the conflict between Kingdom eschatology and dispensational eschatology is that dispensationalism begins with a premise that Jesus did not accomplish his mission when he came to earth, and that the church is a stop-loss measure designed to give the Jews another chance. This has given rise to a culture of fear in the church, and taught us to acquiesce to the triumph of evil in society as a necessary progression toward the return of Christ, and does not agree with the assertions of the kingdom triumphant (Daniel 2.35, Luke 13.18-19, et al).
4. This also has implications for our soteriology. How big (or small) our understanding of salvation and restoration are will depend on how we view the continuance of the story. If we do not embrace points one and two listed above with regard to the kingdom, then salvation and restoration would be limited to only personal implications (personal salvation, escaping hell, etc.) However, if we do embrace the whole of Kingdom theology then we must include the restoration of all creation. Before you react to that, think about Romans 8.19-24, the whole of creation groaning in anticipation for the redemption of the sons. There are big implications from that vantage-point about creation-care, not just as theological pondering but as the logical out-growth of our entire theology. Not to mention what role does this play in our understanding of divine healing, or of other redemptive expressions of the kingdom. 
5. As well, the issue of Justice become more than a side-interest that leads to some neo-political social justice concern for the poor.  Authentic discussion of Justice moves to center stage, along with a renewed interest in the minor prophets, and our need to do more than hand out a few sandwiches.

There are other implications that arise from shifting to a kingdom centered theology and would invite any comments to that end. Meanwhile, I plan to unpack each of these a little more over the next few posts. So stick around, and engage. 

* 
Eschatology- a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind; specifically : any of various Christian doctrines concerning the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the Last Judgment.

Soteriology- theology dealing with salvation especially as effected by Jesus Christ

Ecclesiology-the branch of theology that is concerned with the nature, constitution, and functions of a church.