From Knowledge to Wisdom

The Kingdom of God, thoughts from the Starfish Manifesto

Recently I have been dipping into Wolfgang Simson's "Starfish Manifesto" and watching some of the related Starfish Serie on YouTube. I shared some thoughts about the Kingdom of God with our gathering of saints today. These are my notes:

John 3:1-8 (NIV)

  Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." 
  In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." 
 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 
  Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."  

v3 "no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again"
v5 "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit'

Can we see the kingdom of God? Can we enter the kingdom of God? What does it look like? What is the kingdom of God? How do we live there?

What is a Kingdom?

RMC House Church Conference 2009-11-07

It seems obvious really, the mission of the church is to bring the Kingdom of God to people just as Jesus did. Invite them into discipleship as followers of Jesus. This mission is the reason for the existence of the church. If the church is not carrying out its mission it does not really exist as church.

This the challenging message I got from the one day conference on House Church organised by the Rhein Maas Church network of house churches on 7 November. The speakers were:

    * Marc van der Woude of Joel News
    * Jonathan Fokker, Church Planter
    * Steve Hill of Harvest -Now

We were challenged to envisage church as Jesus formed it with his disciples in Luke 10. He sent them out in twos without a bag, a spare coat, money or sandals, to go as people of peace. This is a lot different from the way many have experience the traditional ways of being church. We expect organization. We want to know who is in charge, what's the line of authority. But Jesus works with a completely flat organization. He who has all authority in heaven and earth, called his disciples friends. (John 15:13-16 NIV) So the reality is that we are all priests, Jesus is our Lord, we are all friends.

So the church is built by going out to the people, to the houses of peace where hospitality is offered, respecting the authority of the head of the household, laying a foundation of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Then leaving for the Holy Spirit to build the church. This is the opposite approach to many traditional churches where new believers are drawn into the church organization and subculture under the authority and under the control of the hierarchy.

But Jesus did not say, 'tell them to come'. He said, 'go'

We did not talk much about how to "do or be house church". Rather we were considering the nature of the church through its mission. New believers should be out on mission immediately. Jesus did not spend years with his disciples sitting on school benches making sure they had their theology all straightened out. He went on the road with them as a bunch of friends. Doing and learning together. The training and dealing with character issues took place as Jesus discipled them on the road between villages. How this works out in detail in practice varies from culture to culture.

So we need to get out of our comfort zones and shed our religious subcultures. And make a fresh start with Jesus in the lead and see how he wants to build us into church.

---

My rough notes of the day are here.

God's Purpose: the Bride of Christ

These are notes for a talk shared with our gathering of the saints on 3 May. Ruth, one of the saints in our meeting, had spoken on the Lamb of God at our previous meeting. She remarked how strange this idea seemed when she first became a believer and how difficult it is to explain to those not familiar with Christian jargon. So I went on from there to explore some other familiar yet strange concepts in Christian jargon using the message from Frank Viola's book "From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God".

Opening comments
Maybe I only have one sermon. I think I have said some of this before.

Intro
Last time Ruth explained for us the symbolism of Jesus our Saviour being called the 'Lamb of God', and

• how strange that seemed to her when she first became a Christian in relation to the lambs on the Welsh mountains
• how difficult it would be to explain the 'Lamb of God' on the streets of Eindhoven.

This morning I want to go on from there and talk about some other terms, phrases or symbols we use

• on the one hand very familiar
• on the other hand very strange when we start to think about them or explain them
• and certainly problematic to explain on the streets of Eindhoven

I also want to try to put the sacrifice of the Lamb of God into the big picture by considering the questions:

• what is God's purpose?
• what is God aiming to achieve and how does the sacrifice of His Son fit in the plan?
• how could it be explained on the streets of Eindhoven?

Evolution and Genesis

A while ago in the corner of Facebook where I hang out a wave of "25 random things about me" passed through. People posted a list of things about themselves as a means of getting to know their Facebook friends. Among my 25 things I wrote:

"I think that someday we will understand how evolution and Genesis fit together."

That triggered some reactions, so I promised to expand on the thought.

Intro

In my personal epistemology I make a distinction between knowledge known by the rational mind and truths known by the spirit. The former is the scope of the science and logic, the latter falls outside the scope of science and logic. For science, spiritual truths are irrational beliefs. So it is difficult to have a dialogue between science and faith.

Evolution

Since the Scientific Revolution our knowledge of the universe has been exploding through application of the scientific method, logic, reasoning and mathematics. So we can explain more and more about how the universe works and we have applied that knowledge to the development of all kinds of technologies that have been both improving and destroying the way of life of millions of people.

The paradigm shift of "Surprised by Hope"

So far I'm about half way into NT Wright's "Surprised by Hope".

On the one hand his account is a comfort. He is able explain how things hang together in a way that I find satisfying. I thought things were something like this, but I never found an explanation as clear as this.

For example in the relationships between the scientific world-view, the historical world-view and the Christian world-view.

On the other hand he raises a big challenge. He opens a vision of the magnitude of the paradigm shift brought about by the resurrection. The Kingdom of God has come and is coming. The consequences are not just life-changing but universe-changing.

So, how then should we live?

The resurrection led to fundamental changes in the lives of of Jesus' followers in the decades immediately following. Such fundamental change is not so apparent in the many parts of the church that I have passed through in my lifetime, nor is it in my own life.

Quotes, themes and thoughts so far:

Heaven is not the objective

This is a major element in NT Wright's teaching. And it turns a lot of current thinking in the church upside-down.

NOT "Jesus is raised, therefore we go to heaven"
BUT "Jesus is raised, therefore:
         - new creation has begun
         - we have a job of work to do contributing to the progress of new creation"

I find this one of the most clarifying points that NT Wright makes. The idea that the objective is "getting to heaven" and that all we have to do to get there is "believe", always seemed to me rather unsatisfactory. It devalued creation and our life here in it. Life becomes some kind of waiting game in which we are perhaps being conditioned for life in heaven.

Whereas, the explanation that it is the other way round, and earth and indeed the whole universe will be renewed (become heaven), is much more satisfactory. And, furthermore that the people of God are called to participate in the process of the now and coming Kingdom gives back meaning and significance to creation and life in it.

Prayers of intercession

I was asked to lead the prayers of intercession in our Sunday gathering ten days ago. Normally as part of our prayers we pray for "the world" focussing on current issues. I found it daunting to pray for the people suffering from the disasters in Myanmar and Sichuan, China. How can we pray in the face of suffering on such a scale? Suffering that natural forces have arbitrarily delivered to millions of helpless people.

I found some words and thoughts that I could use in Sinéad O'Connor's song "Watcher of Men" from her "Theology" album. This is based on fragments from Job. And so my prayers for the world became:

We pray for the world

We think of Asia.

Lord we pray for all those suffering from the devastation of the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China. Tens of thousands of people washed away in the cyclone as it tore across the Irrawaddy delta. Tens of thousands buried and injured in the sudden earthquake in Sichuan province China. We cannot comprehend the magnitude of the suffering.

Like Job, we are inclined to say to you God:

"Oh watcher of men
Do you have eyes of flesh?
Is your vision like man?
Are your years the years of man?"

Do you see this suffering? For it is beyond our comprehension.

But with Job we say

"I spoke without understanding
Of things beyond me which I did not know
And now I've heard you with my ears
And I've seen you with my eyes
Therefore I recant and relent
For we too are but dust and ashes"

And so we bow before you in intercession in the face of this great suffering. We pray for those who are helping the victims. And we pray for those in the Myanmar government who are preventing help getting to the people.

Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer

Somehow I felt that first I had to express anger and frustration to God. "Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see this suffering?" With the implication "do you care"? Before being able to recognise that He is sovereign. And accepting that He sees the big picture that we cannot grasp. Only then it was possible to intercede for those who are suffering.

Wandering from Frank Viola to NT Wright to Sinéad O'Connor

Stream of semi-consciousness

Took a couple of weeks off work recently and tried to do too many things at once.

The main target is painting some of the house and disposing of some of its contents. This is progressing.

But there are many distractions and other matters of interest and duty. Maybe all my life I have had difficulty applying myself to a task.

Frank Viola

I have been listening to some interesting stuff while painting. Firstly a talk by Frank Viola "Developing a Narrative Ecclesiology" that he gave at a conference in the Bahamas in October 2007. I bought it from PTMIN on CD a while ago. It includes a very interesting explanation of Paul's ministry and a theory that Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was the leader of a legalistic group from Jerusalem, ex priests who went round all the churches planted by Paul teaching the need for the Law of Moses including circumcision and undermining Paul's authority.

The conference session where he gave the talk was apparently in parallel with a seminar by NT Wright and Frank was frustrated that he could not be at that seminar himself and very appreciative that a few people did not go but came to hear him instead.

The Shack

"The Shack" William P. Young (Updated 2008-01-16 20:58 CET)

After "The Time Traveler's Wife" more fiction about love. This time the love of God.

Whereas the TTW was about passionate, erotic love between a man and a woman, with a dialogue that now and then verged on the ordinaire, "The Shack" is a vision of God's love for a person as experienced by a man in a deep life crisis.

This is a rare gem, fiction that portrays God and is carried by a gripping story line. I read through it rapidly first time round because it is a story and I wanted to know what happened - how does it end. Now I am going back over it appreciating the detail. Yesterday morning there was no need to get up. I curled up in bed reading and was in tears over the passionate, gentle love of God as told in this story.

The start of the book seemed a bit slow and dry with the change of writing style from Audrey Niffinegger in the TTW. But it became a gripping story after the scene setting.

The account of his meeting with God is very effective. (Avoiding spoilers here.) God is people. God relates. And as Mack's issues with life are worked through in his long weekend with God a whole range of common religious and theological misconceptions are brought to light, including:

• the nature of the church,
• Bible study,
• free will and its effects,
• God's time travelling!  ;-)
• atonement and salvation - but such religious jargon never crosses anyone lips,
• the character and purpose of God,
• the theology of the Trinity.

They all arise throughout the weekend as Mack gets to know God and begins to see his own life and his attitudes a God sees them.

And there are lovely details all along the way. For example, God listens to all sorts of music, not just religious stuff:

"God's Ultimate Passion"

A while ago I was invited to write a review of this book - "God's Ultimate Passion: Unveiling the Purpose Behind Everything" by Frank Viola. Here is a first shot. It has been a long time coming.

This book contains so much. To try to capture the passion and purpose of God in human language is an endless challenge. (We have to live our relationships with God, not just write and read about them.)

And so far, I have only read the early chapters and the closing chapters. My wife has this habit of reading books from the end. "This is amazing! You must read this!" And so I was tempted to skip to the closing chapter, the Afterword, which is a kind of a check-list in the spirit of 2 Corinthians 13:5

"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"

Evelyn found this check-list at an appropriate moment. We were heading into a big discussion in our gathering about how we are organised and whether we should be more connected with institutional church. So now we are aiming to use this check-list to stimulate some evaluation in our group about what we understand by 'church' and how we do it together.

Frank Viola opens the Afterword with:

Emerging Church - a Distillation

Tangentrider Laura is blessing us through her research on emerging ecclesiology and a distillation of the knowledge she is gathering. See EMERGING ECCLESIOLOGY abstract-esque for a collection of definitions of emerging church, some of the common themes and links to examples.

Thanks Laura!

Pope Benedict and Islam

A recent speech by Pope Benedict has provoked violent protests among Muslims in many countries.

The references quoted by Pope Benedict explain some of the divergence between the Christian view of God and the Muslim view.

In the Christian view man is made in the image of God, and this likeness includes the logos rationality of God.

In the Muslim view God is so far away beyond our perception that we can't say much about Him or his motivations - so He acts, as far as we can see, at random, unpredictably. That view leads to a devaluation of human reason. And it limits our expectation of being able to relate to God and limits our expectation that He should act in consistent ways.

This seems to explain some of the differences between Muslim and western cultures.