To preach or not to preach?

When is it an appropriate time to preach the gospel, and when is it not? Is it possible to be too forceful in our presentation of the gospel to people? Is there a time to not preach the gospel?

Even as I ask these questions I hear a myriad of responses from people who will likely not agree with me. I will try to answer some of these, but know that people will want to throw more at me.

The first and most important thing to remember is some of the ways that we are actually exhorted to preach the gospel. A couple of examples come to mind. Peter says that we should always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. (1 Peter 3:15) That is be ready, but this does not mean, always preach. Another is when Paul tells Timothy to "be prepared in season and out of season". Again, this is about preparation and readiness, but does not mean to always preach regardless of the season. (2 Timothy 4:2).

Paul also teaches that people can not believe unless they have heard. (Romans 10:14) There is a strong implication here that the gospel must be taken to everyone. But are we actually required to take the gospel to every individual, or is our individualistic world view an obstruction to the gospel? Jesus teaches that the gospel must be preached to all nations. In fact there really is an approach to the gospel in scripture that is more centred on nations than on individuals. This could be unpacked quite extensively.

When Peter tells people to be ready to share the gospel, he tells them to do it with gentleness and respect. I would argue that this is something that often gets left out. In fact many Evangelicals often take the approach that their only job is to preach, often without any love at all, and that once they have "preached" their responsibility is done. Often such people are very quick to damn someone to hell if they do not listen to a forceful presentation.

Therefore, I want to challenge the evangelical presupposition that we should preach the gospel to every individual and propose that we should only do so when someone is ready to listen. (I am sure this sounds heretical to some, and at least highly controversial to others.) Let me present from scripture why I believe this to be so.

A key concept in understanding the preaching of the gospel is how Jesus did it. Jesus did not in fact preach to everyone. John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. A key part of this was the baptism for the repentance of sins. A maxim is used to refer to how many received this baptism- all of Judea, minus the rebellious pharisees. So for starters, Jesus was not actually too interested in preaching to rebellious pharisees. Most of his conversations with the pharisees saw Jesus answering the pharisees attacks, but doing so in ways to cryptically throw them off their attacks. Other times when the masses followed Jesus, Jesus preached in such a way as to again be cryptic, telling parables so that people would be "ever hearing, but not understanding", so that only those who were really hungry would seek the truth. (Mark 4:12, Matthew 13:14, Acts 28:26, Isaiah 6:9). This is consistent with other things Jesus taught- "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness" (Matthew 5:6)  and "whoever seeks the truth will find it" (Matthew 7:8).

A lot of that description of Jesus' method sounds a little reactive. That is, so many were flocking to him because of his miracles that he was forced to react in how he preached the truth. He wanted to make sure that he was actually preaching to those who wanted to listen and were not just seeking the fireworks show. A common argument might be, "well, we can't actually compare ourselves to Jesus, we need to do things differently."  But, Jesus was deliberate in actually telling us how to go about preaching the gospel. He was not only reactive, he was proactive.

Jesus did have a plan for spreading the gospel (i.e his message, the truth) to people. He actually outlines this plan very clearly twice in the gospels, in Matthew 10 and Luke 10. Jesus sent out his disciples two by two. Let's have a look at what he told them to do.
1) Jesus told the pairs (among the 72, not just 12, which included women who were among his closest followers) firstly to go into the harvest. (Luke 10:2) That is, the harvest was ready to be collected.* (More on this a bit later).
2) Jesus told them to take nothing with them. In a first century middle east context they could easily go from village to village. The commonality in a 21st century Siberian context is that we should approach a village or other context in need, depending on hospitality.
3) Jesus told his disciples to greet someone's home with "May the peace of God be on your home." If this was received, then it was a key indicator that this person was ready to listen.  If the host did not receive the peace of God, Jesus intended for his disciples to move on, that is not to persist with a person who was not ready or willing to listen.
4) When received, Jesus then wanted his disciples to (a) receive the hospitality offered to them (b) heal the sick and (c) preach the Kingdom of God.
5) When not received in an entire town or location, Jesus basically tells the disciples to move on and not waste their energy on stubborn people.

There is some context worth looking at in the above example. First century Jewish villages had all of God's word and law. They were in no ways naive about what they were rejecting if they chose to reject God's peace and kingdom. When going to an unreached context this needs to be approached a little differently, taking the time to patiently and contextually explain the truth. Unreached people however are not as big a stranger to God's law as we might think, and there is still a time for not preaching even in such an unreached context. Where Jesus told his disciples to shake the dust off their feet in a Jewish context, this could mean going away and praying and waiting to come back in the future in a different context.

Jesus' method is deliberate and proactive. He wants us as his disciples to seek out those who are ready to listen. A good way to refer to such a person is a "person of peace". This method is employed by Jesus many times in his ministry. Jesus seeking out the woman at the well in Samaria is a classic example. He found a specific person who was ready to listen, and through her the doors opened to an entire community where he stayed for a couple days teaching about the Kingdom of God. He actually does the same thing with the man named legion, who he heals from demon possession. That man opened the doors to an entire community when Jesus later returned there. If we are to be deliberate about following Jesus' proactive example, this is the best way to preach the gospel- find a person of peace who is ready to listen and reach an entire community through them. It could even be argued that it is counter productive to do otherwise. We end up spending so much time and energy convincing ones and twos and removing them from their community, where as God has a plan to transform entire communities and see rapid multiplication of the gospel.

The argument needs to come back to the idea of whether we are obligated to share the gospel with every person we meet. Firstly I would say that Jesus' name and truth should always be on our lips. We should not hide our light under a table, we should put it high on a stand for all to see. But, and this is a big BUT, we need to be ready in gentleness and respect to stop when people do not want to listen. This can be very hard for us to do at times. We tend to take it upon ourselves that if we do not give someone a full gospel presentation that they may never have another chance to hear and seem to think we could be personally cosigning them to hell. Surely if we had done more we could have prevented this! Or could we have? Or should we?

I will go on record as saying I am not a calvinist. I really do believe in free choice, given by God. I know my ideas seem inconsistent with this. Perhaps the biggest question we should ask is, who is better at preaching the truth, us or God? Let's have a look at where God does preach to people.

In Psalm 19 we learn:
The heavens proclaim the glory of God
The skies display his craftsmanship
Day after day they continue to speak
Night after night they make him known
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard
Their message has gone throughout the earth
And their words to all the world

Those are some amazing facts! There is not a language where the voice of God's glory has not been heard. This message has gone to all the world! That is a little staggering to realise, if we think the responsibility is all ours. This means that all ethnicities, all people groups have already been hearing something from God. Our part as disciples is to be obedient, not to question God's methods. He tells us to preach the Kingdom of God, but there is a proactive way we should do this, and a way we should avoid.

Often in theology we reduce God's preaching to a patronising "general revelation". As if to say, "well God can only give some vague message to people himself, and it is up to us to fill in the gaps". Have a look further at the context of Psalm 19. The rest of the Psalm goes on to say what the heavens, the skies are preaching about. Verse 7 and 8 tell us that they are giving us the instructions and commands of the Lord. What? That doesn't make sense surely? Surely God went to great efforts to give us his law, and then to even greater efforts to come as Jesus, the Word made flesh. But Psalm 19 is telling us that God is even teaching us his instructions and commands through his glory being revealed in the skies. Again, our part is to play obedience and bring people to Jesus so they can be disciples and follow Jesus' commands closely. But still, we are not allowed to say that God doesn't do more than simply make people aware of his existence, he preaches so much more to them.

Of course the Romans scripture can not be ignored.
Ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 
This verse (Romans 1:20) actually sounds remarkably similar to Psalm 19, that people can know God from what he has taught us in the sky. This also lines up with Genesis 1, day 4, that God created the stars to bring light on the earth. So we can see from scripture that people in all parts of the world should know something of who God is, something of his glory and even something of his instructions and commands. In fact Paul goes even further in chapter 2 (verses 14-15).
Even Gentiles, who do not have God's written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts accuse them or tell them they are doing right.
Really, this is quite a lot of scriptural evidence to let us know that God most definitely speaks to all peoples before we ever turn up on the scene.

What this all means is, if someone rejects the peace of God when we bring it, they are cognisant of their actions. This doesn't give us permission to communicate the gospel in a culturally insensitive manner (gentleness and respect = cultural sensitivity), but it does give us permission, in fact even requires us to pull back when people reject God.

We have to consider our actions. So often we can come in with a lot of pride and force and insist that people listen to our entire presentation. This approach is not loving. In fact it's not even wise, not what Jesus asks us to do. Jesus asks us to seek out people who are ready to listen, people who have noticed his glory in creation, people who have God's law in their hearts. When we are obedient to Jesus this way, doors will be opened wide into entire communities or people groups.

This should give us a lot of relief. God is in control. We should not be preaching to everyone the entire gospel presentation. We should be opening our mouths and speaking out God's glory, and when people show their curiosity we have a perfect opportunity to go further.
I can think of times in my own life when I believed that I had to push through and convince someone to listen to me. I can think of times here in Russia where other workers here have sat in taxis or trucks with me and pushed through, handed out tracts when the driver has indicated that they do not want to hear. I can even think of a time, when having told my believing brother that this was insensitive, it lead to a big argument and falling out, because he believed he had to preach the full gospel to everyone he met.

Be ready, be prepared, in season and out of season. Always speak the name of Jesus, do so in love with gentleness and respect. Seek out people of peace who are ready to listen. Remember that God has already been preaching to people. Remember that in obedience our job is to go into the harvest and collect the harvest* that God has already prepared. When people do not want to listen, don't push them. You are not letting them down if you don't give them a "full presentation". God is far better at preaching and revealing his glory to people than we are. Often we can get in the way of God getting through to a person. By our backing off, we give God the chance to keep speaking in his own way. Then when someone is ready our job is to be ready to give the reason for the hope that is within us and hopefully even collect a harvest!

Thinking about covenants (and oral bible stories)

We have been telling stories in Genesis for quite a while now. It could be argued that we have been bogged down in Genesis, but then again we have learnt so much. In fact I would go so far as to say that we have relearnt a lot.

As we embarked on telling stories orally to students here in Siberia we did not know just what stories from the old testament we should include, and when we would then move on to Jesus. I have often argued in the past that it is not wise to rush to the new testament too quickly. One of the things we realised as we studied bible translation, was that many of the key terms needed in the new testament can actually be discovered by going through the old testament first. In the same way, it has been the stories of the old testament that have revealed to us, just how many we also need to share.

Quite a while back I wrote a blog on The First Covenant. I had a bit of a personal revelation after telling the story of Noah to some of our indigenous Siberian friends. I realised that a covenant was all about God taking territory back on earth. When he made a covenant with Noah, this was ground that the devil could not take back from God, even though he claimed the rest of the planet. It was God's first step in his plan for victory to reclaim everything.

With this enlarged view of covenants other revelations have laid in wait for us as we have continued to share oral bible stories. There is clearly a big thing going on between God and Abraham. God makes a promise to bless all nations through Abraham. This is a covenant of massive prophetic levels. God is now laying out his plan to claim everything back. If we look at the Abrahamic covenant we will see that all nations on earth are included in it. It is therefore very relevant for all peoples who have never heard the story before. In fact, I would even say that they are provided for or covered by the Abrahamic covenant, even though they still need to place faith in it.

Our understanding of scripture is that Isaac is the son of the promise, who God promised to Abraham. It was through Isaac's line that God would bring his message of salvation to the world. This is of course true, but there is more to the Abraham story than meets the eye. On more than one occasion, something interesting has happened when we have come to the story of Ishmael, when sharing it with Siberian indigenous peoples.  (Bear in mind that we were even tempted to skip over this "irrelevant" story.) Each time we shared the story, the listeners were convinced that Ishmael was the son of the promise. We told them, wait on, the story will reveal someone else.

On deeper reflection, there is something going on with the Ishmael story. He is not God's original plan, Isaac is. But at the same time, God does not reject Ishmael. In fact God even decides to bless Ishmael and bring about a great nation through Ishmael too. When God made his covenant with Noah, he enlarged his tent in this world. When he made his covenant with Abraham he enlarged his tent again. When Ishmael came along (a mistake by Abraham), God decides to incorporate Ishmael into his plan.

Ishmael was not part of God's original plan, but God decides to enlarge his tent through Ishmael anyway. If you like, Ishmael is an annex to the Abraham tent, even though the front chamber is still in Isaac's name. This means that the Arab's exist in provision under the line of Ishmael as a blessed nation.

Every single covenant made in scripture needs to be fulfilled by Jesus the King. We as believers now live under the new covenant of Jesus. The covenants of Noah and Abraham apply to us as gentiles, and then it is Jesus who fulfils these covenants and then brings completion through his sacrifice. As gentiles we were never and should never be under the Mosaic covenant. Paul argued rightly in the new testament that the Jerusalem church should not bring gentiles in under the Mosaic covenant. The Jerusalem church were under the Mosaic covenant, but this was still incomplete without the new covenant of Jesus to fulfil it.

If Jesus fulfils all covenants, then he also fulfils the Ishmaelic sub-clause of the Abrahamic covenant that applies to Arabs. When Muslims claim Ishmael we should not be so quick to tell them they are wrong. But we should point them to Isa (Jesus) who is the only true fulfilment of the Ishmaelic sub clause. This of course means that there is no such thing as a Mohumadic covenant.

When we are bringing the gospel to people, we need to consider what covenants they are under before bringing them to the new covenant. For Jews, this means they need to come in through the Mosaic covenant first and then on to Jesus. But this does not apply to any other peoples. For Muslims, or Arabs at least (I haven't figured out whether they are to be considered the same or not), they need to come in through the Abrahamic covenant with the Ishmaelic sub clause. For most peoples of the world however it is enough for them to come first through the Noahic and then Abrahamic covenants, before they finally come to Jesus and his perfect new covenant, in which we are all provided for.

This deeper understanding of covenants has brought us to the place where we realise that we do need to share all of the oral bible stories from Genesis 1 to the end of Abraham. But for the majority of peoples in the world, it is then appropriate to move on to Jesus next.

Jesus original intention for his followers.

What did Jesus mean when he said, "Upon this rock I will build my Ekklesia?" This came up in Matthew 16 verse 18 when Jesus was speaking to Peter, after Peter is the first of the disciples to openly declare Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

Do we automatically know what Jesus meant, or is it worth revisiting this again? The first mistake would be to simply assume we know what he meant based upon modern translations of the Bible. Modern translations all seem to translate the work Ekklesia as Church. Older translations into English such as Tyndale and others of the 16th century did not do so.

But what does the word Ekklesia actually mean? When Jesus uttered the word in this context it was radical. In fact, so many of the things that Jesus said were completely radical the first time he said them. That is why he had so many enemies and was crucified. Remember, he completely upset the religious sensibilities of established institutional Judaism.

Here are a few places that I have looked at to seek a definition:

1) A straight definition of the Greek word the way it had been used up until Jesus' time can be found in Wikipedia. Ecclesia (from ancient Athens).
In Ancient Athens, the Ekklesia was a political assembly in any one city that made decisions for that particular city. All citizens were welcome to be a part of the Ekklesia. When Jesus uttered the word Ekklesia, this is the definition that his disciples would have heard. Another definition did not exist at the time.
Could Jesus have had a political definition in mind when he uttered this word? Well good exegesis demands we consider Jesus' views on politics from elsewhere in the gospels. Jesus says in John 18:36 that "His kingdom is not of this world" and that his followers would fight to defend it, if it were. Pilate rightly goes on to say "so you are a king then?" to which Jesus agrees.
I would argue that Jesus did have a political definition in mind when he said the word Ekklesia. The distinction that needs to be made though is that he was not saying his Kingdom was of this world, so neither should his Ekklesia be.

How could the word Ekklesia be translated as it had been understood by Greeks and Romans before the first century AD? If it is to have some political meaning, then this needs to be considered. It carries the idea of a council, a body of representatives, a legislature, a parliament, senate or congress. This "council" is to be the representative of God's Kingdom here in this earth. This does not mean making earthly political decisions as such. It does mean however, making decisions to transform this world through acts of love into God's Kingdom.

Consider the place that early believers had in the Roman Empire. They were expected to worship the Emperor as all people were. The Emperor set himself up as a god and demanded worship. Early Christian believers refused to worship the Emperor, and said "we have a different King". What is more they also had a different Ekklesia, the assembly of believers that endeavoured to see Jesus' Kingdom established on earth. It is no wonder that Rome was threatened by this concept and executed early Christians. I count myself among these believers. I know that in today's world if the Ekklesia of Jesus was truly impacting society in a big way, that it would be a threat to the established political system of the day, a threat that would undoubtedly result in persecution and execution of Christians once again.

In my mind, this is something of what Jesus meant when he said would establish his Council Assembly, starting with his first follower Peter.

2) It is worth taking a look directly at the Greek scriptures. This is not hard to do these days. The NET bible on Bible.org makes the Greek text available.  (A note here for dissenters- the Greek text has been deduced from the over 25,000 original manuscripts available. The fact that there is some variation in these texts is not alarming, as a process of Triangulation can be used to come up with the original words.)
Read the Greek text. To actually read the Greek you will have to click on the Grk/Heb tab at the top of the right hand column. You can click on the word ἐκκλησίαν and come up with a definition.
The definition speaks of "a gathering of citizens" or "an assembly of people gathered". The definition then goes on to speak of what the word means "in a Christian sense". That is, the word Ekklesia did add meaning from it's original Athenian political sense. But this is added meaning that came over the next couple of centuries.

So, I will readily admit that Ekklesia also means "a gathering or assembly of Christians".  But that is the definition of the word as it appears in Acts or in Paul's letters, but not as it appears when Jesus first says it in Matthew 16:18.

3)  A well researched article entitled "The translation of the Greek word 'Ekklesia' as 'church' in the English Bible and its ramifications", further discusses the definition of the word.
The article makes the point that there is no sense in scripture of a universal hierarchical church. Indeed the word Ekklesia is always used in a local context. Even in Revelation, Jesus addresses seven separate Ekklesia groups, but not one mass Ekklesia. This article argues that it is a mistake to translate the word Ekklesia as church, and that assembly or congregation are better suited.

Conclusion: Jesus was interested in establishing his Kingdom on earth, a new order. To do this he wanted to see Local Council Assemblies of believers be his representatives through out the earth. He always intended to remain the King in charge of all of these assemblies, never to have an intermediate person in charge. These Local Assemblies are of course places of worship, but if they never consider how to transform the world around them, then they are not fulfilling their purpose. Therefore the Council part of the definition needs to be worked out in practical Christian love.

I have argued strongly against the word church before. Again, I am not even suggesting a replacement. It is equally possible for us to behave as the representatives of King Jesus in local gatherings without having to put a label on anything. Often when we start to use labels, we begin to shape them into our own human religion and depart from Jesus' original intention. Let's be about doing Jesus' Kingdom.

Part 4: What will happen to the nations?

Individualism is a pervasive world view that now exists in the west. It affects how everything is played out, especially attitudes towards the gospel. I won't go into depths on individualism now- I will leave that to experts like Mark Sayers.

Unfortunately this means that people often only read the bible looking for ways that the individual can be saved. This approach neglects the fact that people best come to God in the context of their community, culture and nation. This approach also means that many western readers neglect to realise that the bible is so full of the theme of nations.

One of my bug bears is the western pre-occupation with an eschatology that has Jesus returning really soon to rescue them from an uncomfortable society that is not as cosy and puritan as it once was. This is a very selfish approach that does not acknowledge the thousands of nations around the world yet to understand the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was not plagued by individualism. He saw it as his role to bring the truth and gospel to all of Israel, to the "lost sheep of Israel." It is true that his method was to focus on the small, not on the big. Jesus preferred to spend his time discipling a smaller group of people than preaching to the masses- as much as he had compassion on the masses. But even as Jesus was discipling his core group of men and women, he was doing this in the midst of community, one of the building blocks of an ethnic nation. Jesus avoided individualism.

Jesus spoke to his disciples of the end of time. But Jesus chose to deflect this error and focus his attention on the importance of the nations. He explained that the gospel he had been teaching them needed to go to all the nations of the world.

This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14).

This was not just a nice idea, but a necessity for the end to come. This is so often ignored by western individualism, a world view that is so self focused it ignores the wider world.

Some even try to argue that it is therefore only necessary to preach the gospel to all nations, and that when all have simply heard, this is then good enough and Jesus can return. Wrong. Aside from this being unloving, there are other scriptures that underline God's purposes are far deeper. 

Jesus tells his disciples to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." It is clear that preaching is not enough, making disciples of all nations is the goal. Doing this takes patience and a lot of time.  (Matthew 28:19)

That is not the end though, nor the only evidence that Jesus cares about the nations. We can take a flash forward to the end of the age in Revelation. Multitudes are worshiping before the throne of the Most High God. There are so many there that no one could even count them. 

They are singing: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the lamb. (Revelation 7:10).  But don't forget to notice who is there as they are worshiping God. A multitude of people from every nation, tribe, people and language. That's people from everywhere, all nations. This underlines that it is God's desire that his plan of salvation is for nations, not just individuals. and that all nations need to be in heaven, not just in small numbers, but in a multitude.

Following the posts:

Part 1: Nations in the Bible

Part 2: Nations in the Bible

Part 3: What is the definition of a nation?

It should now be clear what a nation is, and how significant they are to God in his eternal plan of salvation. In following posts I would like to take a look at what empires are, how they differ from nations and are not part of God's plan, how there is only one good empire and how the Kingdom of God fits into the concept of nations and empires.

Church de-tox, re-tox and a parable from Jesus to settle the score: parable of the fig tree

I have a confession to make. I am guilty in my life time of putting pressure on people to make a decision as to whether they will believe in Jesus or not. I confess this because I realise it is wrong to put pressure on anyone. In every opportunity I have to share the gospel, I should do so with gentleness and respect.

One of Jesus' parables really helped me to think today. It goes something like this.

There was a man who had a vineyard. There was a fig tree growing in his vineyard. The owner went to the fig tree to look for fruit. He was quite unimpressed when the tree bore no fruit. In fact the tree had been growing for three years, so he was very unimpressed that he had waited so long for fruit. 

The owner told his gardener- 

"Look, I've been waiting three years now for this tree to produce some fruit. It's just a waste of space. Cut the thing down."

The gardener implored the vineyard owner-

"Hey boss, just give me one more year. I'm gonna give extra special care to this tree. I'll get extra manure and dig the soil over and over. Within a year I really hope it will be producing fruit. But, if it doesn't, then fair enough cut the thing down and use the land for something else."

I have some various thoughts swirling around in my head. Most of them have to do with the way evangelicalism shares the gospel with people. The extreme example that presses my buttons is when person A presents the "four spiritual laws" to person B and then hands down an ultimatum- "if you get hit by a bus today will you go to heaven?" 

I have a problem with the ultimatum approach. The are a few reasons for this. For one, I am not the judge of a person's soul. So to say to some body "imagine if you died" is actually a macabre, fearful and unloving thing to say to a person. On the other hand, God is the judge of a person's soul. Only God knows when a person will die. Only the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and righteousness, not me, not any other person. Having said all this, there may be a time when a direct word is needed to challenge some one, but I think the above parable gives us a clue how this should happen.

I have a friend that I have been sharing Jesus with for about 8 months now. This friend is quite open to what I have been saying and sharing. My wife and I have shared many stories about Jesus with him and he has always had something interesting to say, and it is clear that he is thinking things through. Later, this same friend began to pray with us "thank you Lord for bringing these friends to me, thank you for giving me faith." In another conversation this same friend said, "you should come to my village with me and tell people there about Jesus." This friend of mine is moving closer to Jesus. I am not one who cares to draw the line as to when some one is in and when they are out. I just know that moving closer to Jesus is the most important thing. I also know that the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and righteousness and not me. I also know that baptism is a great step of commitment to following Jesus- a covenant to say, "I will not live a life of sin." 

A dilemma came the other day. Another friend of mine met with the one who is coming closer to Jesus. My believing friend decided to issue an ultimatum. "What would happen if you were dead and standing before God." 

My friend answered, "well, I'd be pretty surprised!" I kind of think it was a good answer. 

I was thinking, "oh great, just where do we go from here now." 

I decided to throw my two cents in- "I want to follow Jesus 100%, do you think you want to also, or are you still thinking about it?"

"I'm still thinking about it. I'm 50-50 I guess."

"I have a better question, would you like to meet up again and share more stories about Jesus?"

"Sure I would."

We were meant to meet up today. My friend told me he was feeling sick. Whilst I know this could be true, I also felt that he may have been a bit put off by last week's conversation. There was to be a fourth person present, who has been judgmental of my friend in the past. Sometimes I just can't get over how judgmental some Christians can be. (Chalk that up for my detox period. This whole experience has felt like a "re-tox" not a de-tox.)

What is the right approach? Well reading Jesus' parable today gave me some good insight. I think it goes something like this- if you have been sharing the gospel patiently with someone for three years and they have still not chosen to follow him yet.... then don't give up. Give them a fourth year. But in that fourth year redouble your efforts to really show them and tell them the saving love of Jesus. If after that fourth year the person chooses not to believe then so be it, then it is time to move on. They are free to choose not to believe. In the end it is between them and God.

The fact is, sometimes somebody is not ready in their life and God knows what is in their heart. It is never our place to pressure some one to believe.

Why did Jesus get baptised?

Why did Jesus need to be baptised?

Jesus never sinned. I have always been confused about why he decided to receive baptism. I thought that perhaps it was to simply give us an example so that we would follow. The point in the story where Jesus is baptised though is basically at the end of John's ministry. John the Baptist has baptised all the people in Judea and Jerusalem, and then Jesus is basically last. So it wasn't really as an example for the people in his day.

John's baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, so this is still confusing. For the rest of us, we need to be forgiven of our sin. So what does baptism mean for us? For the rest of us it means a physical act of repentance. What is repentance? A decision to not sin in life. For those of us who have sinned in life (everyone except Jesus) this decision means leaving behind a sinful life, but also walking into a sinless life (of course we still struggle to be sinless). Think about it for a moment though- baptism is a covenant with God to live a sin free life. Jesus was able to make such a covenant. By getting baptised he was saying to the world "I am going on record to declare that I am living and will continue to live a sin free life before God, I covenant myself to be sin free." God's response to Jesus covenanting himself is immediate, "You are my son, who I love very much and I am very pleased with you."

Jesus covenanted himself to a sin free life. This is definitely an example, but it was a pre-requisite for his starting up the kingdom, his coronation if you like.

That's what baptism is for us, a covenant to be sin free before God and as such it is actually repentance in action. As such I can not see how a believer would not choose to take this physical step of making a covenant with God. It is an essential step in obedience to following Jesus.

The kingdom of God is found in the doing

The kingdom of God is all about action. The gospel of Mark outlines this well.

* John the Baptist preaches repentance, that people should come to the river to be baptised. Action is required in response.

* Jesus comes to the river to be baptised, even when he does not need to be forgiven of sins. (But the state of sin free living is still required.) Jesus models action, he shows more than tells.

* Jesus calls people to get the kingdom started with him, to confess their sins and believe. But how were they to believe? Was it just a thought in the heart? Action was required. Belief came about by following Jesus. Simon, Andrew, James and John all decided to act in response and went with Jesus.

* Jesus cast out a demon from a man in the synagogue. The way had been prepared by repentance of sins and baptism in the Jordan, but Jesus then began to clean house. Jesus went through out the towns and villages of Galilee to all the synagogues casting out demons. This action of Jesus was the beginning of implementation of his Kingdom. Jesus also healed Simon's mother in law and the many people that came to Simon's house and later to Jesus' house in Capernaum. This action was also a demonstration of his kingdom.

I think there are some very telling stories about repentance in the gospels. One of my favourites is the story of the woman caught in adultery. As there is no one to stone her Jesus tells her to "go and sin no more". This is the action that is required from her to repent. Repentance is not actually the presence of a contrite heart. It is in the act of going away and not sinning that repentance is actually lived out. Baptism is also part of the physical action required to couple with repentance. Words are not enough. This is one of the reasons that formulaic prayers for becoming a Christian can be so hollow and mean so little. It is not the prayer that makes someone a Christian, it is the going away and not sinning and then the following of Jesus by affirmative action.

It is my opinion that little of the Kingdom of God exists in the landscape of the western institutional church. There is a formulaic teaching going around that people need to repent of their sins once, (because Jesus died for sins once and for all, there is a misconception that repentance is once and for all also) and that after this no real action is required. Christianity becomes a religion of words and good feelings, but no copying of Jesus' behaviour, the modelling that he gave to us.

It is impossible to build his temple (the one temple of all believers) in a place where the kingdom does not already exist. I know of very few places in my own experience where- continual confession of sins occurs, demons are cast out, the sick are healed, the poor fed, the lonely invited in. Most of the expression I have seen of Christianity is a hollow expression of ceremonies with little action followed up (these are not meant to be sweeping generalisations against the people I know who do these things, but they are usually no more than 5-10% of any congregation, sometimes less).

Building the church before building the kingdom is putting the cart before the horse. I do feel a little stuck as to doing this in my own life. But I also know that it is only when the kingdom is built that Jesus' true ekklesia will come to life.

What is the kingdom of God? (My church detox continues.)

My season of detox continues and I don't feel as sick as I did before. I still have the odd pang of guilt when Sunday rolls around, but even they are starting to subside.

One of my problems is that when ever I hear the word "church" or "pastor" I cringe a little. The word "church" just brings up images of being chained to the pew (metaphorically for me, but there were some convicts in early Australia who were literally chained!), and not being able to participate. The word pastor (I have sympathy for them) still brings up images of a person overworked by the system, unable to release people into what God has for them.

I really appreciate Frank Viola and all that he is doing for the organic (church) movement, but I do respectfully disagree with him that we need to use the word church. Frank Viola has been in the organic movement for more than 20 years now, so the word no longer carries connotations for him, he is able to use it as it should be. But unfortunately when nearly everyone else hears the word we all get it wrong. I personally want to let the word rest for a generation or so.

Wolfgang Simson was heard to joke (while publicly speaking in Australia) "It was brave of you to invite a non-Christian today to speak. Today I am an ex-Christian, I'm just a follower of Jesus now." Wolfgang Simson is a dedicated follower of Jesus, but he is brave enough to let go of the label Christian (that carries so many incorrect definitions in people's heads). So surely I can be brave enough to let go of the label "church".

Some interesting twitter feeds have been coming through this week. A story of a new house church* movement springing up in Ecuador caught my attention. Have a look at The M Blog here to begin reading the story. It's good to know God is doing good things in so many places around the world. I draw encouragement from such stories to keep moving forward in obedience and faith that we are on the right path and that the Lord will raise up an organic movement of disciples in our midst.

I have been asking the Lord to show me what his kingdom is, and that is a slow unfolding process. I would like to record my thoughts on what I am learning so far. I have begun to tell oral stories from the gospel of Mark. I love the gospel of Mark because it is so fast paced and suspenseful. Most times when people make a movie about Jesus they usually choose Matthew or Luke because they want to tell his whole life story. Mark doesn't do this, he just gets straight to the point. A movie of Mark would be an action film or a "supernatural thriller from the other side" (the other side than from which most supernatural thrillers come!).

I have it in my mind and heart to tell the whole story of Mark in one go. So far I have told four of the early stories and begun to fill in the gaps.

River Jordan

The first story starts out with the wild camel hair covered, locust eating prophet preaching in the desert. The prophet John the Baptist preaches "say sorry for your sins, get baptised in the river for the forgiveness of your sins." There's something in this story that I had never really paid attention to before. ALL of the people of Judea, all the country towns and villages and ALL of the people of Jerusalem came out to the Jordan River to be baptised for the forgiveness of their sins. That's something to imagine, that ALL of the people came out. There must have been some that didn't, surely. Well later we find out that many of the pharisees did not receive this baptism. And because they had not received John's baptism they were unable to receive God's kingdom. (Luke 7:30.)

John is preparing the way for the Lord. How? He is baptising people for the forgiveness of their sins. This prepares the way for Jesus, so Jesus can get on with bringing his kingdom. This means that Jesus could not bring his kingdom to those who had not repented and been baptised. All of Jesus' ministry is actually to people who had already been baptised for their sins. I'm sure it's true that some of these people later on decided not to participate in God's kingdom. But for now, they were all in.

After the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus he was led out into the desert for his forty days of spiritual battle with the devil. He won by the way. (An interesting footnote here, is that an Altai man in Siberia when telling his epic story of the gospel spent a lot of time on this part of the story, in fact more than the cross itself. For this man and his culture the battle in the desert was where things were won and decided, the cross was the payment of the bill so to speak.) But straight after that, Jesus is back again.

Lake Galilee

This time Jesus is at the Lake in Galilee. He is walking along. As he walks along he says to all those around him "Now is the time to get the kingdom started, say sorry for your sins and believe in the good news." Jesus did not need to tell people to get baptised, they had already done that. But confession of sins was still important. It seems confession of sins is an important part of receiving the kingdom and it's not just a one off event either. (Sometimes in evangelical Christianity it does become a one off event at the "point of salvation".) Jesus says this to everyone he sees. As he comes to Andrew and Simon they seem to respond to him, so he takes things further, "Come with me and I will show you how to catch people, not just fish." The same thing happens with James and John.

This is just the beginning of God's Kingdom though. The whole story of the gospels is wrapped up in Jesus showing and then teaching what the kingdom actually is. He doesn't spend a bunch of time showing what the church* is. (Not to say that the church* is unimportant, but that is more of a lesson for later. And really the church* is a collection of all God's people, who are already a part of the Kingdom. You simply can't have the true church* without the kingdom. Many have tried, and the result is a stale institutional church.)

Mark moves pretty quickly (a lot quicker than my blog!), and before you know it Jesus is casting out demons and healing the sick and telling people their sins are forgiven in front of legalistic know-it-alls. Jesus is demonstrating first of all what the kingdom looks like, he only bothers to unpack the teaching later on.

That's as far as I have got in my rediscovery of God's Kingdom. Hmmm, before I try to understand too much of the teaching perhaps I better get back out there and do some more of the doing, since that's how Jesus started things.

Now is the time to get the Kingdom started!

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Church*- What is a good alternative for this word? There are probably many, mostly phrases, but that is the challenge of post-modernism, to bring clarity back to truth and definitions.

Ekklesia may be a good option, because it needs further unpacking.

A phrase that explains the concept would be something like "the people who belong to Christ in that town or city."

A subtle error: idolatry in the camp of Protestants?

[Before I give my opinion on the topic of Evangelicalism vs Charismatism, I should give full disclosure of myself. (Full disclosure allows people to filter any biases that I have.) I invite you to read the full disclosure before or after my essay. It can be found at the end.]

I first joined an organisation with strong evangelical roots in 2000. I was a member of the Church of Christ at the time. Later in 2004 my wife joined with me, and we were evangelical Anglicans at the time.

The statement of faith of this particular organisation does something that many other evangelical bodies do. It lists its first item as:

WE BELIEVE that the Holy Scriptures, consisting of Old and New Testaments, were originally given by God, divinely inspired, without error, infallible, and are entirely trustworthy and the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice.

I have no problems with the wording of this item as such, but I do have a problem with it coming before the Triune God in the statement of faith. This distinction is subtle, but very important.

Evangelicalism was born in the age of the modernist enlightenment. In the context of atheists arguing with logic that God could not possibly exist, protestants began to formulate their logical arguments of response. Christianity descended to these quarters, from something of mystery (God's ways and thoughts are not our ways; the Spirit blows where it pleases (John 3); no mind has conceived of the mysteries of the gospel (1 Corinthians 2)... etc), to logical systematic theology, ending up with such simple notions of "four spiritual laws" and the sinner's prayer.

Modern evangelicalism sought to explain all matters of faith. It sought to build a logical framework that could not be disputed. Step by step, the bible was dissected into easily understood and irrefutable logic. A point was reached where modern evangelicals could easily explain all things about God, as they understood the Bible in entirety. There was no room left for the Spirit to blow where he pleases. In modern evangelicalism the Spirit is only allowed to blow according to the strict formulas that are logically understood by a mathematical deduction of theology. In short, God was caught in a box, he had been captured, never again to be released.

I have often wondered why Evangelicals are so afraid of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it is because rampant pentecostalism has exploited the Holy Spirit for its own materialistic gains, and hyper abusive spirituality. Or perhaps that is just an excuse on the part of evangelicals. Perhaps they are afraid of the Holy Spirit, because they don't want God to escape from the box, where he can easily be controlled. Evangelicals often don't seem to believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, even though this is frequently evident in Acts. They claim that conversion (at the point of the sinner's prayer) brings the Holy Spirit. Even in Acts there were believers who had not yet received the Holy Spirit, such as Apollos. (See my earlier post.)

I have had my times to examine how the evangelical culture of my organisation operates. This has most often been in the context of international conferences. The first of these times was in Europe in 2007. A speaker attended the conference to educate people living in Europe on how to relate to post modernism. People were asking questions such as "how can we communicate the gospel to these post modernists", while I just sat there and thought "hello, I'm sitting right here, I am already a post modern Christian." At the end of the question and comment time a brave man stood up and said something that shocked the whole room at the conference. He said, "we need to go the God beyond the scriptures."  There was a collective gasp across the room. How dare he question the Evangelical God contained within scripture? (Sarcastic emphasis, my own.)  In reality this man was not for a moment saying that he did not believe scripture, he was just saying that God is bigger than scripture, and that God still has freedom to move outside of scripture. Evidently he had struck an evangelical sacred cow.

I sat there cheering this man along as he spoke. Later he was made to apologise before the conference for his errant statements. I participated in a discussion with him and some other leaders of the organisation after the session ended. The argument was made that we can only know who God is from scripture. I disagreed. I argued that we can know God in the following ways:

 1) Through the witness of God in creation.

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (The Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans.)

I.e- not only is it possible to believe in God from looking at creation, it is also possible to recognise his eternal power and divine nature, and worship him accordingly. I would argue that this is the first witness that every human being receives, not scripture. As the Christian Astronomer Hugh Ross says "God's book of creation, and God's book of scripture will never disagree with one another."  But it is very important to acknowledge that God has another "book" apart from the scriptures.

In the ensuing discussion I threw forth the question- "which Bible did Abraham read when he came to faith?"  This is also a very important question. God taught Abraham how to have faith, and so forth he taught his descendants (of which we are a part).

I would argue that Abraham had God's book of creation, as well as the oral stories that make up the first 11 chapters of Genesis- the prehistory of the the Bible. This was indeed a lot. In fact we see from Genesis that Melchizidek had this same faith and so did Job who lived in the era of the patriarchs. But most of all Abraham had an active living relationship with the Living God. They related back and forth. Dare I say that he even had a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

2) Through the witness of the saints. This may be a bit scary for some evangelicals. It may even sound a bit Catholic or Orthodox. But think about it for a moment. Early believers in the Old Testament all talked about their belief in "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."  It was the witness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by which they believed, not by a huge body of scripture that we have today. Think about how you came to faith yourself. My guess is that you received the testimony of another believer. This testimony was then confirmed by the Holy Spirit speaking to you, prompting you and then convicting you of sin and righteousness. I know that I came to faith this way myself. It was only much later that I began to understand about the Bible, and how it is useful for teaching and discipleship (2 Timothy). Even Paul, in the context of saying that Christ's death and resurrection are spoken of in the scriptures (he is referring to Old Testament prophecies) goes on to list the testimony of 500 witnesses who saw the risen Christ. (1 Corinthians 15). This witness of the 500 is paramount in establishing his claim for the validity of the entire Christian faith. "Without the resurrection of Christ, we are all fools." So Paul argues that we can be sure that Christ rose because of the witness of the saints. And to add a little fuel to the fire the writer to the Hebrews lists the Heroes of the faith who are our "cloud of witnesses" in chapters 11 and 12.

3) The witness of scripture. In reality, scripture becomes a good way to underline and confirm the witness of creation and the witness of the saints. Also, scripture is a collection full of the testimony of the saints, recorded for all time. Just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, words spoken without love are as a clashing cymbal; in the same way words on a page do not impact the lives of others without the embodiment of the love of Christ. The words of scripture are as often used to falsely condemn others as they are to point to Jesus' love. This does not mean the words of scripture are somehow bad, it just means that when people do not act in love they have a way of twisting the words of scripture to their own ends. Jesus exhorts us that the world would know that we are his disciples by our love for one another. So even when we use the words of scripture, the testimony of the saints remains imperative.

When it comes to the Bible and God, which came first? It is nonsense to say that we believe in God because the Bible tells us so. This is circular reasoning (and even according to an evangelical framework of logic, must fail the test). The Bible is God's word spoken to us, for sure, but it is like a photo negative that needs to have light come through it for people to see it. The words of scripture are understood under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We believe in God because of his witness to us through his creation. Later we believe in the Bible because it came to us from God, via the testimony of his saints through the ages. The Bible is a sure and reliable testimony because of the the first two witnesses. God spoke through the prophets. The prophets wrote the words on to the page. Through out the ages, and even today God continues to work through the Holy Spirit and though people. I believe in the Bible because it comes from God. I don't believe in God because it comes from the Bible.

These ideas become controversial in evangelical circles. An evangelical is usually comfortable with the words on the page, but becomes uncomfortable when asked to trust the Holy Spirit while closing the book. But God will never contradict himself, so it is possible for the evangelical to come back to scripture at a later time and find out that the things the Holy Spirit has said remain in the same vain. But we need to learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said "my sheep know my voice." Sometimes we don't have time to open up the book, and we need to respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit immediately in our lives.

Another moment at an international conference came recently. Sadly the speaker said something classically evangelical, and classically in error. He wanted to encourage evangelicals to seek the Holy Spirit more. But as his talk unfolded, this was not what he did. He pulled out two scriptures as his proof texts, and then put them through an evangelical filter:

Colossians 3:15-16  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Ephesians 5:18-19 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.

The speaker then went on to explain that these two scriptures are so similar that they are essentially the same, and that therefore "the word of Christ" (which he explained is the Word of God; which is the Bible) fills us with the Holy Spirit in our lives. He used the texts to explain to us that reading the Bible more would fill us with the Holy Spirit. He went on to subtly twist these words and make people feel guilty for not having good enough "quiet times". Following his talk there were people in tears, repenting for not reading their Bibles enough. He had successfully condemned them through proof texting an evangelical maxim, that God can only be known through the Bible, and that if you are not reading it (as much as him) then you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. In my opinion his talk was nothing short of spiritual abuse. Pentecostals have been (rightly) accused of spiritual abuse. They have used their position of "touch not the Lord's anointed" to say what ever they please and exert power over people. But this was the evangelical equivalent of spiritual abuse. This man, because he was a "learned bible scholar" and speaking from the pulpit was not to be questioned. His interpretation of the Bible was the "correct" one, and with it he wielded great power. I was saddened and shocked. He had spent an entire sermon, with other proof texts too, telling people that the Bible is essentially the Holy Spirit. This fits into the evangelical trinity: Father, Son and Holy Book.

It is a subtle but grave error that evangelicals can often make. The Bible contains the words of God given to us via his saints. (Yes they are all true- I am not detracting from that for one moment.) But when the Holy Spirit is pushed aside and replaced by a book, this is nothing short of idolatry. This may be hard for people to see. But ask anyone- who is greater, God or the Bible?- the answer must surely be God.

Allow me to offer a different interpretation of the scriptures given. (Admittedly I also have my biases, but I surely hope that I am allowing the scriptures to speak instead of forcing them as my own proof texts.) At the time that Paul wrote his letters, the "scriptures" were what we now know as the Old Testament. When he exhorted believers to let the "word of Christ" dwell richly in them, what could he have meant? I would argue that he was not referring to words on the page. Many of those early believers would not have had words on the page. They would have had stories yes. But until Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote them down, they did not have access to many of those particular words of Christ. But they were not lost. They had the Holy Spirit! In fact, this was the whole point. Jesus told the disciples not to worry when he was leaving, because he would send the Holy Spirit to them who would lead them into all truth. Was this just for the disciples so they could then later write the stories down? No! It was for all believers, the Holy Spirit was abundantly made available to all flesh at Pentecost in Acts 2.

So this scripture is referring to the believers all getting together as priests, all sharing a word of wisdom with one another, all keeping one another accountable, all bringing songs to worship the King, all bringing words of prophecy to glorify the Lord and encourage one another. When they all did this together it brought a full, wholistic and broad body contextual representation of the body of Christ, with Jesus as their head. This was the actual Word of Christ. Just as John teaches us that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the full participation of all priests in the royal priesthood of all believers brings about the Word of Christ, Jesus incarnate, this time not as flesh walking but as the Spirit blowing amongst us. The Holy Spirit is the Word!  The Bible is not the Holy Spirit. It is all a question of priority and sequence.

To remove any confusion, it comes down to our definition of the phrase "the word of God."  The Word of God is a person. John teaches us this. The Word of God is not the  Bible. The Bible is the words of God, but not The Word, that must be reserved for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.


DISCLOSURE:

I was raised in the Lutheran church. The Lutheran church is a liturgical church that recites the Nicene creed every Sunday. One of the things I like about the Nicene creed is that it declares faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while only mentioning briefly the scriptures in the context of Jesus raising from the dead. It also mentions that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets (a reference to the scriptures). But the scriptures are never placed in priority before the Triune God.

My family flirted with charismatism and pentecostalism when I was a child. There was a charismatic renewal movement in the Lutheran church. This mostly happened outside of Sunday services in home groups and at retreat style camps. Over the years it did creep into some congregations. This happened more successfully in South Australia and Queensland. In Victoria the Lutheran church carried out a campaign against the charismatic renewal. Over a period of about 20 years they successfully "assassinated" all sources of what they believed to be heresy. This resulted in a lot of people being hurt and abused, including my parents. I left the Lutheran church at the age of 16 in this environment.

My teenage years included membership in a more rampant form of pentecostalism under the banner of the Assembly of God. I was actively involved in the youth group and Sunday evening services. It was in this time that I experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and took on the concept of boldness for Jesus in my faith. In those years I erred on the side of boldness but lacked gentleness and respect. Over the years I learnt the importance of gentleness and respect for someone, when sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Never in my experience though have I rejected my pentecostal experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is still very much a part of who I am. 

For some years I did subscribe to the notions of the prosperity gospel that are regularly preached in the pentecostal church, under the likes of Kenneth Copeland and many others. I now consider those doctrines to be in error.

In late teenage years I became involved with an independent charismatic church. It had a lot less hype than the Assembly of God. This church was on a devolving journey away from institutionalised religion. Over the years the pastor stopped calling himself a pastor, and simply became an elder, along with other elders in the fellowship. The building we met in evolved from hard chairs and rows, to couches and soft chairs in a circle. The style of worship evolved from one priest led to open participatory worship. People began reading books with titles such as "The Open Church".  As a fellowship we began relating to an itinerant Apostle.

I was eclectic in my worship experience. For all the years that I went to the devolving open fellowship, I also continued to associate with hard core pentecostals at a church my sister attended. In those years I also experienced the "laughter phenomenon" that came from the Holy Spirit via the Toronto Blessing. While such experiences have not been normative in my journey- they continue to line up with my relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person who is gentle and loving, yet also extraordinarily powerful.

In my early twenties I left behind both the hard core pentecostal circles and the open church circles, and landed in an extremely post modern embryonic emmergent church. It was called South Melbourne Restoration Community, and was a member of the Australian Churches of Christ (a protestant denomination- not the Boston movement). This fellowship was led by the now famous Alan Hirsch and his wife Debra Hirsch, along with other leaders who are no where near famous, but desired after the heart of God also. My six years in that context led me through a lot of post modern questioning that has been very helpful in my faith. It enabled me to find synergy in all of my previous Christian experiences.

I still look back fondly on my years in South Melbourne Restoration Community. I consider them to be formative, but not conclusive in who I am as a Christian. Alan Hirsch used to talk about "simplicity before complexity" and "simplicity after complexity."  We were all exhorted to wrestle with our faith, to go through the complexity and come out the other side into a deeper and purer simplicity. That is, a simplicity that is grounded in the Eternal God and an active relationship- having tested the truth, but not a naive simplicity that is founded in dogmatism- i.e accepting something as true just because other people say it is, and should never be argued with.

After my time in the post modern emmergent church, I moved to live in Saskatchewan, Canada, where I married my wife. At the time there were no such concepts in Saskatchewan. I sought out a Vineyard fellowship, which advertise themselves as holding the tension of the "radical middle." The Vineyard of course are far from perfect, still being an institutional church. We even currently attend a Vineyard fellowship in our city of residence. It often disappoints for its shallowness.

During this season in the Vineyard in Canada the actual fellowship began to implode under crises of personality in leadership. (A problem that should not exist if everyone is allowed to participate in ministering- but often exists when personalities compete for leadership.) My wife and I again became eclectic, attending the Vineyard sometimes and also the childhood church of my wife, the Anglican church. At first I resisted the Anglican church, because I had come to dislike the stuffiness of a liturgical church. But at such a small country side fellowship it became easier to slot in and appreciate the good things.

Upon returning to Australia, my wife and I sought out an Evangelical style Anglican church in Melbourne. This is the closest that I have come to being Evangelical. Many of the attitudes of people are quite evangelical, but not the same as the Baptist evangelicalism of America. The Anglican church in Australia is still a liturgical church, that recites the Nicene creed (even if the evangelical variety no longer do this every service).

The first covenant

Our story telling has been continuing. A few weeks ago the story was a synthesis of Genesis chapters 1;3;6, Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12. It's my least favourite story in scripture.

As mentioned previously here on this blog, there is actually mention of the creation of the spirits (angels) in Genesis 1, but we usually can't see it through western eyes. But a more complete exegesis of scripture shows that the angels are referred to as stars also in Isaiah, Job and Revelation.

The initial purpose of the stars was to give light on the earth. Light? But surely the sun and moon give more light than the stars. This light is of course metaphorical and refers to guidance. But once a third of these stars fell from heaven (Revelation 12), they were then deceptive and no longer gave good guidance. Think of astrology. Astrology is based in the stars. Perhaps it was God's original plan to use the stars to speak to people. But as a third of the stars are now lying and deceiving, astrology can not be trusted. God tells people to stay away from astrology because it is now corrupted by the fallen angels. It takes a more holistic world view to see the spiritual and the physical co-inciding.

The first of these fallen spirits was the Morning Star. He said that he would ascend on his throne above all of the stars and above God himself. (Isaiah 14) This fallen angel fell from heaven to earth. He then took on the form of a snake. (This is not hard for non western animistic cultures to understand. Spirits can easily appear as animals.) This spirit in the form of a snake deceived Adam and Eve in the garden.

It is my thesis though that no other angels fell for a significant period of history after this. It was only in the days of Enoch that this fallen angel (who we now know as the first devil, or the father of lies) plotted further sinister activities. He lusted after the daughters of men (Genesis 6) and decided to take them for his own wife. (The Sakha even have this in their own ancient stories.) Instead of doing this alone he tempted other angels to do this with him. He came in the form of a dragon and tempted the angels. (Revelation 12) When he tempted them they too decided to take the daughters of men as their wives (Genesis 6) and then a great war started in heaven (Revelation 12) and they fell to earth, where they committed their terrible sin (Genesis 6), then taught magic and other evil things to the people on earth (Book of Enoch, quoted by Jude in the New Testament). They had the Nephilim as their descendants (the gods of various mythologies such as Greek and Babylonian mythology- Genesis 6).

The power of the spirits on earth increased greatly, and the evil of people also increased. This was what led God to destroy all people and the creatures living with them in the flood of Genesis 6-9.

In telling this story I made the comment that God had a plan to limit the power of the evil spirits. As I said that I realised I didn't even quite know what this plan was.

In telling the story of the flood it became clear to me what God's plan was to limit the power of the evil spirits. The power of the evil spirits was tremendously high on earth. People had entered into sexual intercourse with them and the demonic powers were rife. People may not realise it today, but I am convinced this is why sexual sin is an opening to demonic activity, even today. Sexual sin was the gateway sin that the demons used to bring the occult to earth.

God destroyed everything that the evil spirits had brought to earth. Noah is listed as a blameless man who walked closely with God. After the flood God makes some promises to Noah and his descendants, and then he establises a covenant. Up to this point in scripture there has been no covenant. There has been sin and consequences (curses) there has even been God's grace (in every major story- Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and then Noah). There have been prophecies of good things to come (a descendant who would crush the head of the serpent; Noah who would deliver people from the curse). But there has been no covenant before this point. 


Each act of sin up to this point was a legal contract of bondage to the evil spirits. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit they had knowledge of good and evil. The devil was then free to tempt them all he pleased. When people entered into sexual union with the spirits in Genesis 6, they were effectively signing contracts all over the place to give spiritual authority over their existence to the evil spirits. They signed all of their authority away, it was stolen from God. Noah was the only righteous one left, God had no alternative, the human race was nearly completely lost for eternity.


But when God made a covenant with Noah, it was permanent. The connection between Noah, his descendants and God was sealed. A covenant was made that could never be broken. Sure, sin still had significant power on earth, but the power of the evil spirits was limited. God re-established his claim to having authority of the people he made in his own image. (There is some argument to say that the Nephilim were not in God's image because they were the offspring of demons.)


It became clear to me. This first covenant that God established was God's first step in his epic plan of redemption. The first step to limiting the power of sin and the evil spirits. The power had not been abolished altogether, but God had taken significant territory back in his spiritual war with the fallen angels to completely recover his creation for himself.


Even today, as the power of sin can now be abolished because of the new covenant in Christ that we live under, there are more covenants to come that we have not experienced. Revelation 7 speaks of a time when there will be no more tears or suffering. That will be the ultimate covenant. God has taken much territory of his creation back through each consecutive covenant in scripture, but we can see that he has more planned in his plan of complete redemption for all of creation.

Things we can learn from the creation stories (creation of spirits, hydrogen).

We have been sharing some oral bible stories with some of the friends we have been making. With one friend we have been looking at some stories about Elijah the prophet. That's appropriate for his life. With another friend and some of her friends too, we have been looking at the early stories in Genesis.

Each of these stories have been oral. Nothing is read. The stories are followed up by discussion and questions. (1) What did you like or not like about the story?  (2) What can you learn about God from the story? (3) What can you learn about people from the story?  Recently we added another question as it is appropriate- (4) What can you learn about spirits from the story?

I decided that the first story we would share would be the creation story from Genesis 2. There is actually more than one creation story in the Bible. Some people get freaked out by this idea. It doesn't mean that the stories contradict each other. It just needs to be remembered that they come from the ancient world and a different perspective than our own. The creation story in Genesis one has God speaking the divine word, that is creation by word. The creation story in Genesis two has God creating by action. God plants a garden, God forms the man from the ground and then breathes life into the man. God opens the man up and takes out part of his side, closes him up and forms the woman from part of the man. The story in Genesis two has people actively in the story and is a little easier to relate to as a first contact story. 

Following Genesis two, we actually shared the story of the tree of good and evil on the next occasion with our friends. It was fun to listen to many of their insights- God is generous. This is our common story. We all blame each other like that in our own lives. Who was the snake? These insights and questions were prompted by the story and nothing else.

Before moving further into the "pre-history" stories of Genesis, such as Cain and Abel, I decided that it is probably important to tell the creation story of Genesis 1.

Over New Years we had some friends stay with us who live among an animist people. I handed a book to our friend called "Making disciples of oral learners." It made for some good conversation, and explains well what we are trying to do ourselves. A question came up during the reading of the book- someone in Nigeria was asking when the spirits were created. Apparently the people there then told an oral story from the Bible that addressed this issue.

The spirits are very important to animistic peoples. The spirits are very real every where in the world, but many western people doubt their existence and write it off as superstition. Many Christians can be included in holding this perspective. So I began to wonder how important it was to address this question before moving ahead with stories in Genesis.

When were the spirits created? I began scouring the bible and looking up what other people thought about the topic. Nobody gave a clear answer. Various scriptures can be found that show that God did actually create the spirits (such as in Colossians). So there is no doubt on this issue. But there just didn't seem to be a definitive scripture that showed when it happened. Some argue that Job 38 shows that they were already there at the foundation of the world:

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?

Tell me if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set?

Or who laid its cornerstone?

While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

I don't think this shows that the angels were there at the actual foundation of the earth, but only during the process. This becomes a little clearer in the Genesis 1 story.

I had always thought that the spirits were created before the world. But there is no scripture to show this at all. In fact I think the devil wants people to believe he is special enough to have been created before the world. Consider for a moment some other stories in the Bible that refer to the devil or fallen spirits. Two that come to mind off the top of my head are Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12. In Isaiah 14 the devil is referred to as having been the "Morning Star" before his fall from heaven. In Revelation 12 he is called a dragon, but it is mentioned that this is the same as the "ancient serpent" from Genesis 3. We tend to think that since Genesis 3 is so early in the story that the devil must therefore have fallen before the creation of the world. In the Revelation 12 story, the dragon (who St. John confirms for us is the ancient serpent from Genesis 3) sweeps a third of the stars from heaven down to earth, after a war in heaven against Michael the archangel. These stars are of course the fallen angels.

A consistent fact that we can learn from each of these stories is that spirits or angels are synonymously referred to as stars at times in scripture. Even in the Job 38 story the morning stars are singing for joy. Why are they are called morning stars? Perhaps because they are born at the dawn of the world. People are born some time later.

I read the first creation story closely. Something jumped out at me. In Genesis 2:1, the NIV says that "God created the heavens and the earth and their vast array." I think they have actually left something out in the translation. Other versions say "God created the heavens and the earth, and the hosts there of." The word "hosts" is a little archaic in this context. But the word is translating a Hebrew concept that actually refer to an army or armies. Elsewhere in scripture the word is used in the context of "angelic hosts" or "starry hosts". Again there is a level of synonymity between "angel" and "star". So, it becomes clear that there is at least a reference to the creation of spirits or angels in the creation story.

When taking bible translation studies at SIL we learnt that it is ok to make something that is implicit in the text explicit, so long as it is in the text. I determined that the word hosts sufficiently explained angels in creation, and that there is enough else where in scripture to support this. So I explicitly expanded the line to say "God created the heaves and the spirits (hosts) that inhabit them and he created the earth and the creatures that inhabit it, he created them completely." I almost left it at that.

This seemed to be a good enough explanation. It satisfied me that there is at least a reference to the spirits being created in Genesis 1. It never bothered me that the serpent's cover is not fully blown in Genesis 3. The serpent is clearly a lying spirit, but it really didn't matter which spirit it was. The point of the story was not to give focus to this lying spirit but to show what happened in relationship between God and people. But of course the lying spirit still plays a big role.

One of the mistakes we make as westerners is to ignore the spiritual world. So often we just don't even see its existence. It can be right under our nose and we can still miss it. This is a big and common mistake that happens when westerners try to take the gospel into animistic cultures. Paul Hiebert called it "the flaw of the excluded middle." That is, there are three levels to be considered in the animistic world (1) God, (2) the spirits, (3) people. Often as westerners we only think about God and people and completely forget that the spirits exist, or at very least think they are not important and at worst think they don't even exist. (Every animistic person knows how real the spirits are.)

I had been reading the creation story and excluding the middle. But my eyes were beginning to open. Just as chapter 2 verse 1 showed me that the spirits are actually in the story, I started to look further.

Here are some of the things that became apparent to me as I read the story and prepared it for oral rendition. Aspects of a spiritual world view and a scientific world view.

* "The spirit of God hovered over the waters." The word waters seems to be inept to explain what happened at the start of creation. But is it really? This is an ancient story, carried orally for thousands of years before writing even existed. Water was the most basic element in the ancient world view. What is water made up of chemically? Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Hydrogen is the most basic element as we understand the universe today. Stars are all made of hydrogen. All elements come from hydrogen. So in reality "The Spirit of God hovered over the hydrogen mass". Amazing as it may be, this ancient story still holds up to scientific scrutiny for those that want to see it.

* God separated the waters below from the waters above.  Once again waters can broadly refer to all space matter. In this case, God is separating the hydrogen masses to form stars and planets. Yes, stars as we know them are created on day two, not day four as we think the story says. It is also on this day that the solar system and earth are formed. I am not bound by six 24 hour periods. The phrase "there was evening and there was morning" serves to delineate between the periods of creation and to show completion to God's task; i.e God did everything he intended to do that day and he did not forget anything.

Day four is the day that confused everybody. How could God make the sun and moon and the stars after he had already made plants in day 3? Our western intellects fail us here. We can only understand "literal" texts. We fail to understand ancient oral texts and the word imagery that is being used. This does not make them any less true, we just need to travel back in time X thousand years to when the oral story originated and wear glasses from that ancient world view to understand it. This is the day when seasons, days and years are marked. This is the day when the constellations were set in place. Constellations in the ancient world represented gods or spirits. Yes, this is the day when the spirits were created. Just as many other bible texts use the word star to be synonymous with spirit, so is the case in the Genesis 1 story. What was the purpose of the spirits/ angels/ stars? To give light on earth; i.e to be God's messengers of light, God's light bearers.

Keep in mind that everything that happens in the creation story in Genesis 1 is good. The spirits God created in Genesis 1 were good, they had not fallen yet. Things that happen in the spiritual realm may not be on a time line the same way that we understand. This is clear from Revelation 12 when the war in heaven happens after Jesus is born.

I contend from this story that no spirits fell before or during creation. Spirits were created on day 4 and then sang for joy (Job 38), their purpose being to bring light on earth. It is only in Genesis 3 that we see a spirit doing something sinful. At this point it is fair to say that the events in Isaiah 14 may have happened shortly before the serpent tempted Eve. Or it is equally possible the Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are simply renderings in the spiritual realm of what was happening simultaneously in the physical realm.

The next chapter in the story of the spirits happens in Genesis 6. I may write on that topic when we get to that in our oral story telling.