East End Ecclesia

Ok for those of you who do not come out to our Sunday services, I posed 3 potential questions that could arise in light of the sermon. Last week was the last sermon in our Worship series. The sermon was on honoring God through our worship and service. The main point is that God is honored when we give Him our best and He is not pleased when we give Him our left overs. This post will make more sense to you if you have listened to our podcast. I’m currently setting up a new podcast through a new host, so it will be a few days until the past few sermon’s are up. I will post on the blog as soon as the new podcast is up and running.

The 3 potential questions I posed was:

1. If we are to give God our all in ministry what about the popular saying “God first, family second, ministry third”?
2. Is only perfect obedience pleasing to God?
3. The final question deals with different questions I often hear that are along the line of “what is the bare minimum required to be a follower of Christ”?

I will handle these questions in the order listed above. I will handle the third question in a later post.

First: What about God first, family second, ministry third?

This is a commonly made statement when it comes to Christian ministry. Personally I have made this statement many times and I feel there is some practical value to the statement. But as I have thought about it, I’ve begun to realize that this is not necessarily a true statement. What this statement is trying to convey is the idea that you should not sacrifice your family for ministry. This is very true and biblical. If you look at the qualifications listed in the NT concerning church leadership, the order and strength of one’s family is always within the mix. If you would disregard or cause harm to your family for the sake of other ministry obligations, biblically speaking, you would disqualify yourself for ministry. Also in 1 Timothy 5:8 Paul states this “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” This is within the context of Paul’s instruction concerning taking care of widow’s and others in need. So to start off, I would say that it is clear that it is not biblical to abandon your family for the sake of ministry to others.

So why do I disagree with this statement you ask? First off I think that it overly simplifies things and it also compartmentalizes things in a way that are not realistic. As modern westerners we love to compartmentalize things (i.e. family, ministry, personal life, personal faith, work, etc.) The biblical perspective born from a Hebraic view of life is more holistic, seeing all of life as intertwined and interrelated. Secondly if you really stop to think about it, what does this even mean? If you have family second, and ministry third, what does the whole God first thing entail? The reality is, as followers of Christ, God is to be everything, and all of life is to be an act of obedient worship for His Glory and Honor. Also one has to ask “Why does family even matter? Not because it is second on some list, but because it matters to God and our service toward our family is to be an act of service to God Himself. Take God out of the equation and (philosophically speaking) family has no intrinsic value and is only as valuable as you decide it to be.

Our life is to be an act of worshipful service to God, our life is a life of ministry geared toward God’s glory and accomplishing His mission. The reality is, as Christians we are all called by God for the sake of His Glory and His mission. Part of that calling is to serve and minister to your family, part of it is to serve and minister to His people, part of it is serving and ministering to those around us, and part of that is to be ministered to, growing in our unity with Christ. Our priority is to obey God in His calling. That calling may at sometimes be to step back on other areas of ministry to focus on ministering to your family, at other times it may be for your family to make a sacrifice for the sake of ministry to those around you. I know this may sound off to some of you. But God cares for your family more than you do, He cares for your church more than you, and He cares for the lost and hurting more than you. If we focus on God’s calling and not an arbitrary list I guarantee that God will not call you to something that will in turn destroy your family.

I often think of Peter in relation to this idea. Peter was married (though some debate this) and a lot of scholars believe he was married before Jesus called him to come follow Him. Now in the gospels we see that at times there were women within the group following Jesus around Israel (which more than likely included Peter’s wife) and at other times it seems that it was just Jesus’ closest disciples (i.e. the Apostles) that were with Him. If this is true then there were times, and even times at great length, that Peter went out on mission with Jesus and had to leave his family behind. Actually through accounts found in early church history we find that Peter’s wife was killed in front of him because of his ministry. So if this is true, was Peter being disobedient by dropping his net and follow Jesus? Was he wrong to step up as the visible spokesman for the Church putting His family at risk? He would only be wrong if he chose to do these things apart from the Lord’s clear calling, but since it was Christ who called him then it is hard to say that Peter was wrong.

Having a strong family is vitally important, but the reality is, focusing on your family will not build up a strong family. Focusing on the Lord and His will is what will in turn build a Godly and strong family. In my life there are and will be times that I need to say no to preaching opportunities, ministry opportunities, or others in need for the sake of getting quality time with my boys and my wife. But as much as quality time with Dad, my boys also need to see a Dad that is so passionate for his Lord that he often makes sacrifices for the sake of obedience to Christ’s call. So to sum it up, there may be times where you need to obey God and stop what you are doing to focus more time on your family, but then again there may also be times when you need to prayerfully tell your family that as a family we need to make a sacrifice for a season because as a family we will seek God’s glory and His Kingdom with all He has called us to.

I will close with a powerful example I heard years back. I heard an interview with Ruth Graham and Franklin Graham (Billy Graham’s wife and one son). They were asked if they regretted the fact that Billy was often gone 150 -200 days of the year preaching the Gospel. Their response was that even though it was hard, it made them stronger, because Billy made it clear that as a family they were going to be about seeing the Gospel spread. Then Ruth said that even though some years they only had Billy for 150 days out of the year, they had his full love and focus for those 150 days which many families never get even when their dad or husband is home 365 days of the year. They also said that they felt their family was as strong as it is because of Billy’s willingness to obey Christ, even though that meant he was away much of the year.

Second: Is only perfect obedience pleasing to God.

I will make this one quick. The answer is no. Throughout the scriptures we see that God’s anger is shown not because of lack of execution or performance but instead is shown when God is no longer the people’s greatest pursuit. We are all fallen and imperfect, that is one of the reasons we need the cross. If God is only pleased with a perfect sacrifice from us, then we are all screwed. But Christ gave the perfect sacrifice so that in our imperfection God is still pleased and will make us to become perfect as Christ is perfect.

I love the example we get from Paul in his very candid teaching found in Romans 7.  In this passage Paul reveals the battle waging within himself. He wrestles with how he often does what he does not want to do and often does not do what he wishes he did do. Paul is revealing that his hearts desire is to please God, to become like Christ, yet he has not reached that point in everything he does. At the end of this passage he states “but thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In essence what he is saying is that through Christ his desires have been changed, he now desires God’s desires, but he is not yet fully sanctified so he still keeps failing. But thanks be to God, that there is grace and mercy found in Christ, that though he fails he is still being transformed and is still accepted by our perfect God. The problem does not lie in the fact that our obedience is not perfect. The problem starts when we no longer care that our obedience is not perfect. See if their is no tension going on within you, if you do not desire to be transformed and perfected, if you don’t care that you fail, then there is a deep rooted issue within your worship and service. It doesn’t matter how much or how well you serve God, because if you decide that “this is good enough”, if you have no desire to grow more in your walk and bring even greater glory to God, then your worship is no longer Honoring to God. But on the flip side, even when we keep messing up and we have a lot of growing to do in our abilities, if our desire is to continually be transformed by the work of God’s Spirit, and we continually repent and strive to Honor Him as our greatest pursuit,  God is pleased and honored by your worship.

I want to close this with an analogy that I find sheds light on this issue. Often I think how much better and smoother things would be if God fulfilled His mission without enlisting us to “mess things up.” But we have to remember our Heavenly Father is our Father. As I have thought about this I’m drawn to my relationship  with Judah. Just the other day I was going outside to work in the garden. When Judah found out I was going to do some gardening he ran to get his shoes and told me we needed to get “Judah’s tools.” I will be honest with you, if Judah wasn’t helping I would have been able to get things done a lot quicker and better. Judah is only 2 1/2 so his “quality” of work is not the best. But the thing is even though I could have done it quicker and better on my own, I preferred having my little buddy there helping out because first and foremost I desire a relationship with my boy, not great production. In that time I was so pleased with Judah because he so badly wanted to help his daddy. He stopped playing with his beloved trucks and dropped everything because Judah wanted to serve me. In a small sense Judah showed me honor because, in whatever little way he could, he wanted to help me and more importantly he wanted to be with me. Sure I hope as Judah grows he will also get better at certain things and his “quality” of work will improve. But what was pleasing to me is that with what little bit he could do, he did so, desiring to help his daddy he loves. Guys I hope you see that this is the picture of our service to our heavenly Father. We are all like little children, sure we all need to mature and grow in our abilities, but what is most important is that no matter what our abilities are, we want to drop what we are doing to go be with our Abba Father, to serve Him and Glorify Him.

For the final question I will address it in my next post. This is already long enough and the final question deals more with a general understanding of salvation and is not specific to the sermon from last week. So in my next blog post I will address the common question of “if I keep doing … and …. or if I don’t do …. and …. am I still a Christian.” In other words the person is asking “what is the bare minimum to be considered a Christian and go to heaven. To just let you know where I’m going with this, I believe that these debates and questions are borne out of a false soteriology (view of salvation) and reveals that the person has not yet grasped the nature of the Gospel and the Majesty of our Lord. It may not mean that they are not saved, but biblically they should not have any security in thinking they have been truly saved.

So on that note I’m done.

Who am I? This is such an important question that too often we can’t answer. As humans we all have a sense that we are lacking something, that we need to find an identity, meaning, value, and purpose. It is ingrained in our being.  Just spend a few days with some elementary school kids, or better yet think back to your school days. It is amazing how quickly as kids we began seeking to form an identity, trying to find our place, trying to feel a sense of value.

I remember when I was in elementary school, a group of us formed a “gang”. We had initiations and everything. We were very particular when it came to who could be in our gang, and we felt a sense of superiority when we denied other kids from joining. I’m not quite sure what our gang was supposed to do, but I can tell you we were the coolest gang on the playground! We really didn’t do anything, but we all got a sense of value and identity by being a part of the cool kid gang. There were other groups, the smart kids, the goofy kids, there was always that one kid who tried to gain friends and attention by eating anything someone gave to him. It really didn’t matter what group you were in, we all shared the fact that at a very early age we were looking for someone or something to tell us who we were. We were looking to create an identity for ourselves, and hopefully gain a ton of friends, so that we could feel valued.

Now hopefully we all have matured and become more sophisticated, but then again most of us haven’t changed. In college the smart kids joined debating societies and racked up huge honors in school, the kid who would eat anything became the kid who would drink anything, and the cool kid gang, well, still tried to be a part of the cool kid gang (just no longer calling it a gang and instead calling it a frat or something like that.)

After college (if you went to college) we moved onto real life. Now we became “real adults” and no longer needed these childish groups to tell us who we are. We now have a career to tell us that, or a sweet bank account, maybe a community at our favorite bar, we have our home and family, some have a little bit of fame, and some have come to realize they have no value and spend their days trying to escape the pain of their existence. How we try to find our identity and value may be different, but one thing is the same, we are all seeking for it.

As you look at ourselves, from childhood to adulthood, you will begin to notice that there is something strange about us humans, we are the most “evolved” yet most insecure of creatures. If any species would have a sense of who they are and what they are here for it would be man. Yet we have no clue.

Each and every one of us is striving to find out who we are, striving to find meaning, value, identity, security, and purpose. This is so pervasive that an entire economic system has been created to capitalize on this reality. Just spend a few hours looking at advertising (this should not be hard because our lives are surrounded by advertising.) The ad industry is driven by the fact that all of us are trying to find an identity, value, meaning, and security, but we don’t know where to find it. This is where the ad comes in, “with a little bit of cash our product will give you what you are lacking”. They even pay people who are perceived by society to have value and meaning to promote their products, because so many of us think “if in some way I can take a bit of their identity and make it mine I will then have value like them.” We spend ridiculous amounts of money on products purely because of the brand name, because that brand has successfully promoted itself as stating to the world “hey I’m somebody”. Now time after time we see these “celebrities”, the people we see as having a meaning and value, crash and burn. But we don’t learn from it. After one star falls, destroys their life, or commits suicide, we just raise another up thinking this one has the identity I need.

I could go on and on, but I hope it is very clear that we are a people who have no idea who we are or where to find our identity and spend ridiculous amounts of resources trying to find it.

In the world of philosophy we have seen theory after theory come by trying to answer these questions. The problem is no one can come up with a legitimate answer. One famous philosopher threw a huge wrench in the road for secular philosophy. For many centuries human value, meaning, purpose was just assumed as the humanist philosophers worked toward creating a Utopian society free from the constraints of God or religion. Then came Nietzsche. Nietzsche taught that “God was dead” and since there is no god we are no longer bound by the constraints that have come with our belief in god. The problem was that according to Nietzsche this “freedom” had a price. The price we had to pay was the death of any foundation for human value, dignity, meaning, or purpose that came with the death of god. Without God calling the shots we are free to do as we please. Yet without God in the pictures we are just a product of random chance, a compilation of chemicals, minerals, and electrons. We are just carbon based life forms produced by chance. Now we are very complex carbon based life forms, but complexity doesn’t create value. So what Nietzsche realized is that ultimately we are no more valuable than any other life form (such as a cockroach). Our only purpose (if you would call it a purpose) is to continue the evolutionary process, i.e. the will to power and the survival of the fittest. (As a side note it was Nietzsche’s philosophy that led Hitler and his companions to seek to take power by executing the weak, ultimately moving evolution forward to create the “uber man” or super man.)

Since Nietzsche we have had many philosophies rise and fall trying to restore the damage that had been done. We had the existentialist who said that we don’t have any real meaning, value, purpose, but we can create value by what we do. This has greatly influenced us as Americans, we are driven to create an identity for ourselves through what we do. ( Ever notice that the first thing we ask someone when we meet them is “what do you do”.)  We also had new-age thinkers who taught that we could find our value within ourselves. The problem is that when you tell yourself you are something you aren’t, you may feel good, but in reality you are just delusional.

I could go on and on but I know most of you are not that interested in philosophy. But philosophically speaking and subsequently within society, we have lost any sense of identity because we have abandoned God as our source of identity. This isn’t anything new, the scriptures teach that the first people “fell” because they wanted to be autonomous from God. The story tells us that while they were with God they were “naked and unashamed”. In other words they were vulnerable and yet they were secure in who they were, because their identity, value, meaning, and security was found in God. Yet as soon as they turned from God they became self conscious, defensive, and felt the need to cover themselves.

We are strange creatures because we were created with a void that is to be found in God. We are created to find our identity, value, meaning, purpose, and security in the one who created us. Yet we are all fallen. I have to say, the scenario that is painted in the scriptures is a very good explanation for the situation we see all around us. If we were created to find our identity in God, yet have turned from Him, becoming separated from Him, you would expect to see exactly what you do in our modern society.

Now to my point. (I know it took a while to get here.) All other religions and (pseudo religions) have a system in which we make ourselves valuable in order to reconnect to God. The problem with that is if being reconnected to God is our only source for value and yet we need to make ourselves valuable so that we can connect with God, then we have quite a dilemma on our hands. It is like someone saying “come out of that dungeon and I will free you from your shackles” yet you can”t come out until you are first freed.  The Christian message on the other hand is that God has come to us, through His Son, so that we may be restored to God. We are given an identity, meaning, value, purpose, security by the only one who is capable to give it to us. It is by grace not by works you have been redeemed. As it was in the Garden so it is for those of us in Christ, you are who you are because God has declared you to be so. To continue the earlier analogy, the Christian message is like someone saying “I will first free you so that then you can come out and be with me.”

So you would then think that Christians would be the most secure group of people. You would think we would never try to prove our value, try to find identity in something other than God, that we would always rest our security in God and we would never rest our security in our career or 401k. At least as you read the NT you would see letter after letter arguing just that. But this is not the reality and sadly (and quite ironically) our response in the church is often to “work harder at it”.

As you look into the scriptures you will see that much of the NT has a common flow. Rarely do you find a new testament letter start with something we must do, it always begins with who we are because of what Christ did. In more academic terms the “indicative” precedes the “imperative”.

So I ask, is your identity, value, meaning, purpose found by faith in what Christ did? Or are you still seeking redemption through work and effort. I know most of us will proclaim the proper theological answer, but looking at your life what is the real answer that you are showing by how you live?

I know for myself God has been convicting me. I so often don’t accept that which I proclaim. I’ve spent too long trying to gain affirmation of who I am and affirmation of my calling through the response of others. If people are not responding to my preaching, reading my blogs, and attending an East End Ecclesia service my identity, my value, my calling is in jeopardy. This is because I’ve sought others to tell me who I am instead of listening to God as He tells me “you are my beloved child, an ambassador, a prince, a coheir with Christ.”

I want to particularly challenge other pastors. What drives you? Where are you finding your worth? Are you working and striving because secretly you are finding your worth or identity in the ministry you create? Or are you functioning out of a deep sense of who you are because your Daddy has told you so?

No matter what your answer is, the only way we can find our true identity, true meaning, true value, true security, and a true purpose is to Trust God at His word and Believe you are who God says you are because of what Christ did.

Three weeks ago we started a weekly Sunday morning service in the back of a Turkish coffee shop in central Lawrenceville. The first series that I’m teaching is on the Lord’s prayer. This past week I taught on “give us this day our daily bread”. One of the main points in the sermon was that God will provide for us what we need, but will not necessarily provide for our greed. The reality is that God often provides for us more than our daily bread, but often God provides us more than we need so that through us He can provide others their daily bread.

In the midst of my sermon prep I came across a quote by a Pagan philosopher named Aristides who wrote around 125ad. I was so convicted by this quote.

We so often talk about wanting to be like the early church. As I plant E3 my desire is that we would be a church that sees God move through us as He did with the early church. But as I’ve studied, one thing I have found is that the early church’s witness was not summed up in a program, marketing, cool worship, etc. The church’s witness was so powerful because the early Christians were radically devoted to God, each other, and the world around them. This devotion was so extreme that even the Pagans of the day had to take notice. This is the context in which Aristides is writing concerning this new Christian movement. Here is the quote:

“if they hear that any of their number is imprisoned or oppressed, all of them provide for his needs. And if there is among them a man that is poor and needy and they have not an abundance of necessities, they fast for three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food.”

When I read this quote I’m so convicted. Notice how Aristides notes that the early Christians not only provided for others out of their access, but even when they themselves barely had enough, they would go without for a few days just so that they would have enough to care for others. As I read this I think about how much I have, how much God has given me, and yet I still struggle at times to let go of some of my comforts in order to care for others in need. I have to be honest, I don’t know if put in the same circumstances as many in the early church, I would fast to provide for others. But the reality is, I’m not in the place where I would have to do that. The reality right now is that God has provided me enough that I only need to let go of my access to care for my brother and neighbor. What is haunting me is that so often I get consumed with needing more “access” instead of looking at what I can cut out to be able to provide for the needs of others.

After preaching this sermon, I’m really starting to look at my finances and priorities. Too often we begin to think that all that we have has been given to us for us. But the reality is, yes some of what we have been given has been given to us by our Father for our needs and pleasure, but I believe that much of what God has given us is not for us, but, that through us God can provide for the needs of others. Right now Coleen and I are looking at all of the “stuff” we have that we just let sit around. So much that we have is wasted while right down the street there are those with nothing! I don’t know what it will look like, but I know that we need to change some things.

Now I don’t think it is wrong to have stuff, I don’t think we are all called to a “monastic” vow of poverty. I believe that God often blesses us and in the proper context we are to enjoy those things God has given us. To continue the analogy from the Lord’s prayer, some time God gives us our daily bread along with a steak and some cheese cake. And it is Ok to enjoy that steak (at least I hope so or I’m in trouble cause I love a good steak). But often God will provide for us 3 loaves of bread and while we enjoy two of the loaves one is left to rot and be thrown away. The issue is not enjoying what God has given us and turning it back to Him in praise. The issue is hording what He has given us as we let it go to waste. Coleen just told me tonight that she is bothered because all around us are loaves of bread that are rotting, while others are waiting, hoping to receive their daily bread.

I’m asking all of you, are you hoarding that extra loaf of bread that God gave you so that through you He could provide another person their daily bread? Or in other words are you taking what God has given you to meet your needs and the extra He provided to feed you greed? Or are you thanking God for providing your need and looking at the extra provisions He has blessed you with as a means to provide for the needs of others?

As I said in my previous post, we all interpret reality in light of the stories we tell. This reality is especially true when we try to understand literature.

Have you ever walked in part way through a movie? Or worse yet have you ever watched a movie and have someone come in mid way through the movie? It can be quite frustrating. As you watch the movie the newcomer keeps interrupting with questions (so who is that guy, is he a good guy or bad guy, why are they running from that guy, etc). The problem is that the newcomer doesn’t have the proper “story” to interpret the particular scene. To the individual coming in midway, the specific scene makes no sense because he has no “greater story” to make sense of the particular scene. Also when it comes to movies, I’ve always enjoyed movies that have unexpected twists. I love when the good guy ends up being the bad guy, when the protagonists end up finding out they are working for the wrong side, etc. When you watch these types of movies, even when you start from the beginning, you end up “miss interpreting” parts of the movie because you still have yet to get the whole story.

I love watching a good movie, from beginning to end, then watching it again. When you have seen the whole story, then go back, you begin to notice little details you didn’t notice before, and many of the conversations and events in the movie make greater sense in light of the whole story.

I believe that the way we understand the scenes of a movie are in some ways very similar to how we understand particular stories within the bible.  Within the Christian scriptures we have the whole story from beginning to end. This is quite amazing because we are not finished with the story yet. We have a bible that is made up of multiple books, compiled over thousands of years, covering multiple literary genres, that come together to make one coherent story. In other words we can watch the entire movie, even though in real time the movie isn’t finished yet.

I think one problem that we have fallen into within modern western biblical studies, is that we focus on picking out particular verses (or scenes) without first understanding the entire story. Another problem is the fact that the majority of us in the west are not Jewish and are not well versed in the Hebrew OT. In some ways we are like people who have come in midway through the movie. We pick up the NT and read the Gospels and Epistles while not understanding these books in light of the story up to that point. We come to conclusions about a particular scene without first watching the beginning of the movie.

I have spent many years reading the OT stories merely to find a moral teaching point, trying to find an analogy from the story that can apply to my life or the lives of those I’m teaching. Now I’m not saying this practice is completely wrong, but we must remember that the OT stories are “historical narrative” first and foremost. They are telling the story of How God has worked in His creation through His chosen People. They are not teaching parables, that are made up stories to teach a truth, they are historical accounts revealing God’s action and will. The vast majority of the OT is narrative, even the prophetic section of the OT is written within a narrative framework. Actually after reading a few books of the OT you will see that the early Jewish people greatly valued stories. This is because God greatly valued stories. The Jews were commanded to tell and retell the stories of God’s great works through the people of Israel. One example of this is that every year the Jews were commanded to participate in a symbolic dinner to retell the story of God’s liberating the people of Israel from Egypt. For some reason it was critical to God that His people did not forget this important Historical story.

Often I have wondered what is the point of so many of these stories in the bible. I mean, if I’m really honest some of the stories are kind of bizarre and it is a real stretch to take some of these stories and make practical teaching points from them. Some of the OT does not make sense or at least seems inefficient if God’s intention was to purely to give a systematic list of theological truths and practical moral teachings. But if it is true that we all interpret within the framework of a shared narrative, what God is doing with these stories is quite brilliant (which should be expected because it is God after all!) Maybe God was inspiring these ancient authors to record these narratives to build a “meta narrative” framework for humanity to properly understand the pinnacle of His Story, Jesus.

I’ve seen serious bible expositors come to radically different interpretations of the NT claims due to different accepted “narratives”. I’ve watched the TV as preachers use the death and resurrection of Jesus as a confirmation that God wants us prosper in our pursuit of the “American dream”. What I see happening here is that these preachers are interpreting a particular passage in light of an individualistic, comfort and prosperity American narrative.  You see if you come to the bible with an assumed narrative that the point of the scriptures is to show us how to be happy, successful, morally good people, etc. you will interpret each passage radically different depending on your assumed narrative. And here is the problem, as much as one may want to deny it, we all come to the scriptures with our own “meta narrative”, and this will determine how you will understand any given passage.

But I think one must ask, where does my narrative come from and how is this influencing me in my understanding of this passage? I will argue that as we study the scripture we must continue to seek to have the overarching story of scripture reshape our stories. Instead of looking to the OT narratives assuming that they are there just to give a moral analogy, or an example on how we can gain prosperity through faith, or as parables showing us how to become better people. Try reading the OT stories as Historical narratives, asking what is this telling us about God, creation, and His will. Ask how does this particular event shape our understanding of God’s greater story. No one would recommend watching a particular scene in a movie and then interpret it in light of another different movie. In the same way we must not try to interpret the scriptures in light of our adopted modern western narratives. You interpret a particular scene in light of the movie in which that scene is found. In the same way we must interpret any given passage in light of the whole narrative of scripture.

Paul says in Romans 12 to “renew our minds” so that we can understand “the will of God”. I don’t think this just means that we should learn new biblical facts to add into our assumed narrative. I think this means that we must let God’s story confront our stories, so that our minds (the way we perceive things) is transformed as our “meta narrative” is conformed to God’s overarching story. This will mean that we not only grow in what we know about God and His word, but also we will grow in how we understand what we know.

A challenge I would give you all is to read then entire Bible beginning to end as one grand story. Not focusing on the particulars, but focusing on the flow of the narrative. Not that the particulars are not important, they are. But so that as we grow in our  knowledge of particular passages we are also growing in our understanding of God’s overarching story that will give us the proper framework to understand the particulars as we study them.

One thing that is shared by all of humanity is that we tell stories. All cultures have myths, stories, and parables that are shared through out generations.  It is our stories that shape our society, that shape our world views. Some within philosophy talk about an over arching story that is the foundation of our beliefs, this over arching story is referred to as our “meta narrative.” Our Meta narrative is an underlying story about reality that shapes how we interpret and understand all of reality. I will give a quick example from literature to help illustrate this idea.

When you read anything you begin by reading individual words. These words only make sense by their relation to surrounding words that make up a sentence. We understand a sentence based upon its place within the greater thought or paragraph. But each paragraph gains it’s meaning from the greater story at large. To transfer this to reality. Specific facts and events are like words, that are understood in relationship to surrounding facts like a sentence. These combined facts or events make up a theory. These theories are understood in light of our “meta narrative” or the over arching story.

In the instance of science, all scientific work and discovery is borne out of a shared narrative. A scientist must first hold a “meta narrative” that describes reality to be coherent, that rationality exists, that the physical world is not illusion, that reality is governed by laws, among many other things. Scientific testing would be futile if, say, one believes that reality is governed by inconsistent chaos. If that was so then one would have no basis to assume that if a test produces a given result, that the same would be true tomorrow or in another location. Even basic things such as the continued existence of the physical laws are accepted based upon the assumption that these laws are constant and will not change tomorrow and were the same thousands of years ago. You cant “prove” that the physical laws will remain tomorrow, for tomorrow hasn’t come, you can only assume that they will remain based upon a “narrative” that states that the universe will remain constant.  Also all scientific discovery is borne out of “premises” that come from an accepted narrative about the physical world. It is out of a scientist’s narrative that he forms his hypothesis, he then goes out and tests his hypothesis to formulate a theory. If science was based solely upon “facts” as some propose, then no scientist would be able to form a theoretical hypothesis to test. Also if one did not hold a “meta narrative” that tells the individual that humans have trust worthy rational cognitive abilities, that humanity has the capability to have empirical connection with reality, or even that the physical world exists and is not an illusion, that person would have no reason to even begin down the road of scientific testing and investigation.

Hopefully you can follow what I’m saying here. I’m not a scientist (so I’m sure I’ve butchered the scientific process) but I wanted to use the example of science because it is often the scientist that excludes himself from being foundationaly rooted in narrative presuppositions.

But the reality is we all interpret facts and events in light of a greater story. Just last week my wife and I were sitting in our living room and we heard sirens in the distance, while multiple military helicopters flew over our house. Immediately one would begin to formulate a story in order to understand the “facts”. I could speculate that the sirens are from police vehicles, and the number of sirens seem to mean that something bad has happened. The existence of the military helicopters could mean that a war or attack has occurred. I would then formulate a story to understand the facts. A possible story could be that “Pittsburgh is under attack from a terrorist group” which would account for the sirens and helicopters. Now I could then talk with my wife who has a different story. Let’s say my wife has read the paper and saw that the G20 is in town and that there is expected to be thousands of protesters in Pittsburgh. My wife tells a different story. Her story leads to the conclusion that because the G20 is in town the sirens and helicopters indicate that there must be a protest going on nearby. As I pit my story against her story I would conclude that her story better takes into account the given evidence and I would change my story (unless I’m feeling really stubborn and unwilling to admit I’m wrong!)

You see the reality is, whether it is waking up and walking down the stairs expecting to see what existed there the day before or determining whether the holocaust really occurred and if it was a bad thing, we all need stories to make sense of the facts.

In light of this reality many today conclude that since we all have different stories no one can claim to know what is true. We are all left with different interpretations based upon different, but equally valid, “meta narratives”. I completely disagree with this assertion. Just as I could begin to refine and change my story to better reflect the evidence given the superior explanatory value of my wife’s story. I believe that we can engage other “meta narratives” taking into account our shared experience, and begin to refine our stories to come to a fuller understanding of Truth.

We all hold some type of grand story that shapes how we interpret things, how we perceive things, what we value, what we despise, even determining how we live our lives. The question is “is our story the right account of reality?’

In light of all of this, I find it very interesting that the core of the Christian message is a story. It is a story about God, humanity, meaning, and purpose. It all culminates on a story or “Good News” about a God that entered into our story, through His Son, who was crucified, and raised for the redemption of the world. If how we perceive things, interpret reality, even live our lives is borne out of a foundational story, then the Gospel message is given as an alternative story that when accepted would change everything. Now I personally believe that the Gospel is not just a “good story” but that it is the “true story”. I also believe that the Gospel should only be accepted and adopted as our foundational narrative if it is True.

If putting your faith in the Gospel is nothing less than accepting the Gospel as the true “meta-narrative”, then the Gospel can do nothing less than Change Everything about our lives. The only way one could “accept” the Gospel while not finding their whole world view (perceptions, values, and daily lives) radically transformed, would be for them to accept the Gospel as “a” story not “the” story.

Now I haven’t laid out any arguments for the “Gospel” being the true foundational story, but instead I’m trying to show us all that everyone builds their entire lives off of a narrative, and we all must ask ourselves what that narrative is. For the Christian, is the Gospel just another “story” that you have placed within some other greater narrative, or is the Gospel your foundation that all other “stories” are understood through? In other words is the Gospel a paragraph, a chapter, or is it the grander story of your life. For the non christian. It is a false stance to write off Christianity because it is foundationaly based upon “stories” while you claim that you follow “facts”. We all ultimately determine truth based upon foundational “stories”. I ask you to try to truly understand the Gospel story, and begin to understand your “meta narrative” to honestly seek to find out if the Gospel is not the true “story” to interpret all of reality through.

As a Christian I believe that we are called to defend the faith. To me this is not an option. Clearly reality exists, so there is a true account of reality and there are false accounts. If you hold a view (which everyone believes something) you should hold a belief because you believe it to be true. Now if your belief is true, then you should share that view and hold onto it unless your view is proven to be false. Now in the Christian understanding of truth there are things that are essential to our world view and there are things that are “non-essential” that ultimately do not effect the foundations of our beliefs. I say all of this to say that we all must draw a line in the sand. But as Christians we must decide where the battle lines are to be drawn.

In 1 Peter 3:15-16 we have one of the foundational passages for “Apologetics” the defending of the faith. In this passage Peter tells us to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in us. The Greek term we translate as “answer” is the Greek work “apologoi”, which is where we get the term apologetics. So as you can see in this passage we are called to “give an answer” or defend the hope we have. So if you take this passage as being universal, then we all must draw a line in the sand. But the question we all must ask is where do we draw the line? In the name of defending the faith some Christians have drawn the line so far back that they act as if defending their chosen translation of the scriptures equates to defending the true faith. Too often Christians can begin to fall into the trap of believing that every belief they hold is an essential. I have run into many Christians that hold their view of the end times as fervently as they hold the physical resurrection of Christ. This is very dangerous. When someone begins to make all of their views “essential”  then if one of their views begins to be disproved, their entire faith begins to crumble. Also as Christians begin to defend a “non-essential” as “essential” many on the outside may be left denying the faith because they deny a chosen “non-essential” as apposed to denying something “essential” to the faith.

One of these battlegrounds surrounds a chosen “literal” interpretation of the first 3 chapters of Genesis. My fear is that many scientists are not dealing seriously with the Gospel because they cannot get past the many vocal apologists arguing for a 60,000 year old universe as if their interpretation of Genesis is essential to the Christian faith. The problem is that instead of having to face the evidence for, say, the resurrection of Christ, they are bombarded by argument after argument for a young earth. Now I’m not saying that it is wrong to defend a given view of creation based upon your understanding of Genesis. What I am saying is that this must be done with humility, recognizing that if you are wrong then it doesn’t change the fact that God is real, He is creator, and that Jesus is raised.

I’ve begun thinking about this as I read a book by Francis Collins (the head of the Human Genome Project). Collins is a Christian and proposes a view called “Theistic Evolution”. Now I don’t necessarily agree with “TE” but I’m also not a scientist. What I find enlightening is the fact that if Evolution is true, nothing essential to the Christian faith is in danger. The only thing in danger would be our chosen approach to interpreting Genesis 1-3.

To go back to 1 Peter 3:15-16, what is our hope? Is our hope found in a literal 6 day creation, is it in a pre or post trib rapture, is it in premillennialism? I would argue no. Our hope is found in a Sovereign personal Creator God, a creation with purpose and intention, a God who came into His creation to bring redemption, a Messiah who was truly man and truly God. Our hope is found in a Messiah who historically and literally died, was buried, and physically raided from the dead. Our hope is in a Messiah who will historically return and establish His kingdom for all eternity. Now there are some other essentials that make up the Christian hope. But we must step back and decide whether we are placing our hope in an interpretive tradition or the essentials of the Christian faith.

I ask, have  you drawn a line in the sand? Where is that line drawn? Are you being prepared to defend the Hope that is the Gospel, or are you arguing to defend a tradition that has been handed to you? There are many things that I would not consider as essential but hold as very important. It is very important to have “in house” discussions and even debates concerning biblical specifics. Hey, even what I’m writing about right now (where we draw the line) is not an essential, but that isn’t keeping me from trying to persuade others concerning my view. What I’m trying to propose is that when it comes to defending the faith, we must not create a stumbling block to the unbeliever over a “non-essential”. We need to let the non-believer stumble upon Christ. After all isn’t Jesus where the Christian hope is summed up?

I will close this post with a quote from St. Augustine concerning the literal interpretation of Genesis.

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we may find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”

I would love to hear your thoughts on where the line needs to be drawn.

So we are on part 2 of my look at epistemology. To understand where we are now in western thought and to be able to take a fresh look at what Christianity has to say about how we know, we must first take a brief look at the history of thought in the west. It is not my intention to give an exhaustive look at the past 500 years of epistemological thought so I will be giving a broad generalized look at the flow of western thought. So if their is anyone out their who is a Philosophy PHD or even worse a second year philosophy undergrad, understand that this will be a generalization not a precise thesis!

There are 3 general stages of thought that have made up western thought, pre modern, modern, and post modern. I know very little about pre modern thought so I want to look at the shape of modern and post modern thought.

Most scholars would place the beginning of the modern era during the time of the great philosopher Rene Descartes. Descartes was a French philosopher during the early 1600′s. In the face of heightened skepticism Descartes set out to form a basis for certain knowledge. (correction) Descartes’ pursuit of philisophical certainty was motivated by his desire to carry the certainty found in mathmatics into the realm of philosophy. In his pursuit of an unquestionable basis for knowledge he came to the famous conclusion “I think therefore I am.” Though we can doubt most everything, Descartes came to the conclusion that we cannot doubt our own existence because even in our doubts there is someone doing the doubting. There are 2 key things that came out of Descartes that played a key role in forming western thought. The first key thing is the pursuit of certainty. This is key in understanding western thought post Descartes. After Descarte the focus of modern thought was the pursuit of certain knowledge. What was important were the things we can know with certainty. The second important thing that came out of Descartes was the focus on the “I” as the source of knowledge. I think therefore I am. This is important because the easiest way to summarize modern thought would be the pursuit of concrete certain knowledge and the centrality of man as the focus of our knowledge. Throughout modern thought there were 2 main streams of thought. The first stream was what is called rationalism. Rationalists believed that human reason was the primary source of knowledge so they focused on reason and logic as the means to obtaining knowledge. The second camp was what is called empiricism. The empiricists believed that knowledge obtained through the senses was the primary source of human knowledge. The best way I can distinguish the 2 would be that the empiricists would fall more in the realm of scientific knowledge while the rationalists would fall more in the realm of philosophic knowledge. As the modern era took shape western society began to place an emphasis on what can be rationally proven and empirically verifiable. In other words, does it make sense and can we test it. Because of the huge influence modern thought had on western society, people began to be more and more skeptical of things such as revelation, and God. The shift that occurred was a shift from “I know because God spoke” to “I know because I see it and understand it.” Needless to say the Christian approach to scripture, knowledge, and theology was greatly influenced by post enlightenment modern thought. But I will talk more about this influence in a later post.

Well, as modern thought progressed, western society progressed. With no need for God or revelation, western thought pushed ahead creating a new “man centered” age of progress and knowledge. Everything seemed to progress quite well till the late 1800′s when a German philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche came along and messed everything up. Nietzsche was an atheist philosopher that began to deconstruct the base assumptions that modern philosophers had functioned on all these years. Nietzsche believed that since their is no God then their is no ultimate purpose to reality. Nietzsche was influenced by Charles Darwin with his theory of evolution. What Nietzsche taught was that since we are just part of a line of species continuing to evolve we cannot  trust our own knowledge, so instead we are left to the fight for power and survival of the fittest. Up till Nietzsche most thinkers held Man as the center of reality and sought to create a human utopia. But with Nietzsche man is just an animal (though the most fully evolved animal). Ultimately we no longer should talk about truth and meaning, but instead we should pursue power and the evolution of the species. It was Nietzsche that coined the idea of the “Death of God.” Basically he claimed that the need for the idea of God is gone and now we are free to take power as man and rule our future. Here are a couple of quotes from Nietzsche that capture his understanding of the meaning of life and the death of god.

“What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.” Nietzsche ‘Antichrist’

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.After the old god has been assassinated, I am ready to rule the world.“ Nietzsche

Even though Nietzsche was very anti Christian (one of his more popular works was called “Anti-Christ”) I really like Nietzsche thinking. In my opinion he brought man centered atheistic philosophy to it’s proper conclusion. If their is no God how can we talk about good, right and wrong, or even meaning? Their can’t be right and wrong if their isn’t purpose and their can’t be purpose if their isn’t a purposer behind everything. Also if their is no rational mind behind creation how can we assume that creation is rational? If we are a product of mindless random chance how can we trust our minds? I would not trust an ape’s conclusion on reality. So how do we know that we will be like apes to the next species that would evolve out of humanity?

Anyway in light of Nietzsche’s work, a group of philosophers began coming up with an answer to the dark nihilism of Nietzsche. These philosophers came up with a philosophy called existentialism. The 2 primary thinkers in existentialism is Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre. The existentialists recognized the idea that since their is no God their is no overarching purpose to reality. But what they proposed was that their are purposers in creation and those purposers are us. So what they taught was that we had to create meaning and purpose for ourselves. Truth was no longer an objective reality that needed to be found through reason and science, but instead truth was a subjective reality that needed to be created by the individual. On the heals of Camus and Sartre came the Post modernists. Post modern philosophy at it’s core is built upon deconstruction. You will not find a lot of positive assertions within post modern writing, what you will find is many negative assertions critiquing earlier modern thought. Their are many streams of post modernity that influence many different fields of thought, but the current conversation is around the post modern influence on epistemology. In essence post moderns are epistemological skeptics. They question our ability to know anything with certainty. They propose that instead of talking about truth in absolute terms we need to speak of personal or societal truth. I like to say that post modern thought is Nietzschian nihilism with a smile. Nihilism would say that truth is unknowable so we are all wrong, so then the strong should impose their will on the weak and dictate their false “truth”. Post modernity would say that truth is unknowable so lets just say we are all right and live and let live.

You will hear many talk about the fact that we now live in a post modern culture. I would say in some ways we are and in other ways we are not. Very few people actually accept or function within the epistemological framework of the radical post modern philosophers. Also post modernity is like a rebellious child that is still living within modernity’s home. Some would say that postmodernity is not post modern but the continuation of modernity. I would say that as a whole we are more epistemologically post modern when it comes to areas such as theology and morality, but we are still very epistemologically modern when it comes to areas such as science and math. Which would still leave us very much modernist because many modernist philosophers were very skeptical about our ability to know truth in the realms of theology and morality. I say this because their is a growing movement of Christian thinkers that like to quote post modern philosophers such as Derida and Foucault and then claim that our current society functions within their thinking. The danger is that many are influenced to begin ministering in a manner to engage the thoughts of some dead french philosophers that many current philosophers have rejected as being too radical. But this is just a side note.

Anyway what I wanted us to see is that the way we approach knowing has been shaped by a long progression of thought. Whether the primacy of knowledge is placed on science, reason, the will, or our own personal experience, we all approach the question of “how we know?’ with a lot of presuppositions that are not solid nor universally accepted.

There is one thing that I want to point out as I close this post.  No matter what stream of epistemology you chose they all have one thing in common, man is the center of reality. Whether it is “I think therefore I am” or “I am the source of truth”, truth and the knowledge of truth is centered in man. It is interesting because even though this epistemological project began some time in the 1600′s it very closely resembles an ancient story I remember reading. It is a story of the creation of humanity in which a man and a woman were in a garden left with a choice. Either trust their creator and rely on Him as their source of knowledge and truth or eat some fruit so that they may poses this knowledge apart from God. As the story goes, the man and woman decided that they wanted to be the absolute rule of truth and turned from God so that they may “rule the world”.

Just something to think about.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, this will be a more theological and philosophical series. Don’t worry though, I will be writing other post’s that are less “philosophical” as I work through this more academic issue. For those who are interested, I will try my best to make these next few posts as understandable as possible. But to be honest the issue of “knowing” in a truly Christian framework is an issue I’m still trying to get my mind around. So I will do my best to be coherent.

To many the thought of even questioning how we know things is a silly pursuit that only strange philosopher types, that have lost touch with reality a few PHD’s ago, would wrestle with. To some degree I would agree. But on a practical level this idea of how we know things goes to the core of one of our highest pursuits as Christians, the pursuit of the knowledge of God. So bare with me as I stumble through such an abstract and complicated issue.

Before I begin I want to lay out an outline of what I hope to cover.

1. What is epistemology? How can we know?
2. Our cultural epistemology: A historical look at our knowledge of how we know.
3. The epistemological war: The battle between those who are certain we can know and those who know we can’t be certain.
4. A new epistemology found in Christ that can get us out of our current mess.

So what then is epistemology? In simplest terms, epistemology is a philosophical category dealing with the question “how does one come to know truth?” Epistemology is the study of how we know things.

How we know is usually something we assume and rarely question. When I put my hand on a hot stove I don’t think to myself “this stove appears to be hot, but how can I be certain that it is actually hot, maybe it only appears to be hot, I mean possibly my senses are not in right order so my mind could be tricked into thinking it is hot when in reality it is cold, well it appears that this burning sensation I feel can not give me epistemological certainty, oh well this is quite the epistemological dilemma.” Of course not! When I put my hand on a hot stove I scream out “owwwwww this stove is hot” with quite a bit of certainty. This is a bit of an exaggerated example, but the point is most of us never really question how we know things. Well most of us never question how we know things as adults, but little kids sure do. Have you ever been around a toddler who is just beginning to understand concepts. That little child is just full of deep epistemological questions. Well the child may not see it that way, in his mind he is just curious, and in our mind he is just being annoying. You have probably experienced a small child’s deep epistemological prodding. You are doing your thing, working in the yard, then a young philosopher comes up to you and asks a seemingly simple question. “Hey why do you (fill in the blank)?” You respond with a very clear and concise answer, then continue with your work assuming the child’s question has been answered. Then the once simple question becomes quite complex with a little added question, “well, why?’ You try to give an explanation of why to only receive another response of “why” from that child. This then goes on till you don’t know the “why” behind your previous answer so you respond by saying “just because.” Often we as adults see the child as being annoying, but in reality the child is trying to figure out what we take for granted. The child wants to know “how we know” what we just told them. In technical terms the child is trying to figure out our epistemology. The sad thing is that most children eventually “grow” out of this curiosity. By the time they get to high school they have been trained to not care about “how” the teacher knows what they are telling them and are instead trained to just worry about “what” is being taught so they can pass the upcoming test.

So what is the point? Well the point that I’m trying to make is that academic philosophers are childish! OK not really, but in some ways I wonder if when the bible tells us that we are to come to Christ like little children, it is saying more than we have previously assumed. Maybe we need to stop and look at our epistemological assumptions. Then go to Christ as children, asking “why” seeking to learn from our messiah not just “what” is true, but “how” we can know this truth. Maybe we have just assumed our culture’s epistemology, missing the fact that God wants to transform not only “what” we know but also “how” we know. Maybe I have spent to much time sitting on a mower thinking about this stuff and need to “grow” up and stop asking such silly questions. Well, maybe, but how do we know that such questions are silly?

The reality is we all have an epistemological frame work in which we reason, live, and ultimately try to find “truth’. This is not a bad thing, it is a necessity to function in reality. The problem comes when we begin to realize that this frame work is not shared by all peoples and cultures. So we are left with the question “how do I know that my frame work of knowing is true?” This is where epistemology becomes very tricky because we must function within a framework of knowing while we try to question that which we are using to ask the question in the first place. It would be like a person who is uncertain if the computer program is working properly and the only way he can check the program is by using that same program that he thinks may not be working right. This dilemma is what has caused many to become epistemological agnostics, or in common terms someone who believes that we can never to know truth with any certainty. Others seem to ignore the problem claiming that it is all foolish philosophy and continue approaching the scriptures and life within their current framework assuming that they have it right. I tend to take a middle ground, I don’t think we can just assume our current modern western epistemology is true but I also believe that their is a creator God who has revealed Himself and makes us capable of knowing His Truth with certainty. This understanding is what has caused me to wonder if indeed God is not only teaching us what is true but also through His Spirit is transforming our minds in a manner that changes our framework of how we know truth.

Till the next post, I will just say, go to your heavenly Daddy to not only know Truth but also allow that Truth begin to transform your mind.

A lot of people may see the title of this blog and see the term “Eschatology” and immediately pass this post by, thinking “here we go again, Eric is going to go on another theological rant using big terms so he can sound intelligent.” Well you are partially right. Eschatology is a subject that is usually only discussed among intellectual seminary types, but I think that it is an integral subject that may play a key role in helping us shape a more biblically faithful ministry. Eschatology is simply the study of the last things. It is the section of theology in which we seek to understand where God is taking history and if we study it properly it will give us insight into the will of God. So I want to take a moment and give a quick look at eschatology and how this will better shape the mission of our church.

The common eschatalogical understanding is that the end of all things will be every Christian taken to heaven to spend eternity in bliss. Multiple times I have heard well meaning preachers proclaim a Gospel message that calls us to repentance so that one day we will go to heaven, a place in the clouds that has Golden streets and all the golf you want to play (it seems pastors like golf so their understanding of heaven encompasses endless days of golf.) Whether or not you are into golf doesn’t matter, but it seems that heaven is often understood as this great resort in the sky. I don’t mean to belittle this understanding but in all of my study of the scriptures I don’t see this anywhere. If you read the book of Revelation you will see the climax of the story is a restored earth, a new Garden of eden if you will. There is this picture given of a great city, the new Jerusalem, descending from heaven upon earth with Christ seated as King. Throughout the new testament there is this theme of the “kingdom of God” being established on earth. In Matthew’s gospel he sums up the message of Jesus by saying in chapter 4 that Jesus began preaching saying “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” In this Jesus was proclaiming that the Messiah has come, the one that the prophets of old talked about. If you read the OT prophesies concerning the coming messiah you will see that the coming of the Messiah meant that God was going to destroy the old system and reestablish His reign over the earth. Now the majority of the Jews during Jesus’ day thought that this meant that the messiah would destroy Rome and reestablish the kingdom of Israel. Often people think that the Jews originally despised Jesus because He claimed to be the Messiah. But as you read in Luke 4 the Jews were excited when Jesus essentially claimed that He is the fulfillment of the Messianic hope. They didn’t get pissed till He continued to state that the Messiah was coming not only for the Jew, but also for the ones the Jew’s thought He would come to destroy. The reality was that the Jews had a very limited and narrow understanding of what the promised messiah was to come and do. The messiah was not coming to liberate the Jews from an earthly kingdom, but he was coming to liberate the whole earth from the destructive rule of fallen man. The term “heaven” originally was used not to describe a physical place, but to describe the realm of God’s full presence (it was also used sometimes to generically refer to the sky). The idea was that even though God is present here and now, there is a vail that separates heaven from earth that was established with the fall. In the OT we see this idea represented in the vale separating the holy of holys with in the tabernacle. The picture we are given within the book of revelation is that one day the vale will be taken down, heaven will be fully present on earth or in the words of John “the dwelling place of God will be with man.” The eschatalogical end is the reestablished Garden of Eden, but it will not be 2 people and a garden, it will be a multitude of people from every tribe and tongue in a great city “the new Jerusalem”. This understanding of eschatology sees the end of the story as a picture of God putting to right all that was lost in the fall. In the beginning the fall began with the rebellion of man which caused a separation between God and man, leading to a severing of the relationship between man with fellow man, and ultimately flowed into creation itself causing the physical world to begin to see decay. So just as the fall began with the separation of man from God because of Adam’s sin, God’s redemption of all things begins with His restoration of Man to Himself through the forgiveness of sin. But just as the fall did not end with man’s relationship with God being broken, God’s redemption of the world does not end with man being restored to right relationship with God. As the fall led to a broken relationship between humanity, redemption should then lead to a restored relationship between humans. Also as the fall ultimately led to a broken and fallen world so will God’s redemptive work lead to a restored world. I believe we see this view being played out in Romans 8 where Paul says that creation is awaiting its redemption because it must await the revealing of the Sons of God.

Now many of you may say, “that is all well and good, and may make for good theological discussion, but what does that have to do with the mission of the Church?” I think this discussion has a very integral role in our understanding of the mission of the church because understanding eschatology is understanding God’s final plan. We must understand God’s mission in order to understand how we are called to join it. Within the popular eschatological frame work of our day, God’s end is to rescue people from hell so that they will get rewarded with an eternity in the “great country club in the sky, aka. heaven.” With this understanding we have begun to shape the mission of the church around gathering as large a group of people as possible with the purpose of getting them to “pray a prayer” so that they can get to heaven some day. Now I am not trying to diminish the importance of conversion marked by prayer or the reality that Christ has come to save us from an eternal separation from God in hell. But the reality is Christ has not come to give us a “ticket” to heaven, but to call us to “repent” or turn from our allegiance to this current kingdom to become citizens of the coming kingdom of God. We must note that the first century debate was not “how one gets to heaven” but “who will be allowed into the Kingdom”. Christ and the early Apostles did not attempt to change the debate but to offer a different answer to the question being raised. The answer to the question was that one was made a citizen of the coming Kingdom by grace through faith in the Messiah. So as ones being brought into the Kingdom by grace, the church is to then live as citizens of the coming kingdom now. Living as a foretaste or reflection of the coming kingdom of God. When we are saved, we are not just left here to try to be good and wait to go to heaven. When we are saved, we are called to live out the kingdom of God on earth bringing a little taste of “heaven” to earth. With this eschatalogical understanding the mission of the church is much grander than the mere gathering of people for the purpose of getting to heaven some day. The mission of the church is to proclaim the Gospel message of forgiveness, calling men and women to repentance, so that together we may be a small city living out the kingdom of God within the greater city of man. As the church we are to live out the “great commission” found in Matthew 28, which calls us to go and make disciples that live out the kingdom teachings of Christ, not to merely go out and make converts. To accomplish this mission the church must dig deeply into the teachings of the scriptures to better understand what “living out the kingdom of God” means, and we must put more effort into creating disciples not merely drawing a crowd to create converts.

I will finish with this. Christ taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.” I don’t think this is merely nice wording to be prayed. I believe that we are literally calling upon the Father to bring about His kingdom on earth. I also have to believe that Christ, in asking us to pray for this reality is also asking us to live out this reality as His church.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” John 5:39-40

To begin my little exposition of the things that will make up the heart of this new ministry, I must begin with the term “Christocentric”. Christocentric simply means “Christ Centered.” I place this first because it is of the utmost importance. Take out Christ and there is no Christianity. As we see in Jesus’ statement recorded in John 5:30-40, Christ is at the center of God’s revelation. The books that we commonly call the Old Testament were written to prepare the way for Christ, pointing forward to the coming messiah. Then we have the Gospels that declare that the messiah has come. Finally there are the Epistles that look back to the coming of the messiah, working through how we should then respond to this history changing event. The beginning of the story is the Father creating everything through the Son and the end depicts all of creation being restored back to Him through the Son. He is described in scripture as the author and perfecter of our faith, the alpha and omega, the king of kings and the suffering servant, he is both the lamb of God and the conquering lion of Judah. I don’t think there are many churches that would not acknowledge that Christ must be center in all that we do. It is easy to say that as a church we are Christocentric, but working out what that really means is a different story.

When a church says that it is Christocentric, it must first elaborate on what “christ” is center. Almost every heresy found throughout church history had christ at the center of their theology or at least gave him a high position. The Gnostic heresy of the 2nd through 4th century was very christ centered. The problem is that the “christ” they had at the center was a carrier of a divine knowledge, who came to free the divine spark within men from their physical prisons created by the evil demi-God Yahweh. Some Gnostics even denied that Jesus had a physical body. Sure christ was central for the Gnostics, but that christ was far from the 2nd person of the Trinity incarnated as the Man Jesus of Nazareth. There are so many christs out there. There is the Jesus of Mormonism that focuses on a christ that is an example to us, as our oldest brother, the first of the heavenly father’s spirit children. There is the christ that came as our great investment broker, coming to make all of us rich and prosperous as long as we are good people and we invest in his kingdom which happens to be a certain church or ministry. There is the christ that came as a 1st century hippie, showing us how to live in harmony with each other, care for the environment, and get along with people of other religions. You get the picture, there are a lot of christs being thrown around, so making sure we have the true Christ is as important as being Christocentric. I have heard it said “in the begining God made man in His image and since then man has been trying to return the favor.” We can be fully man centered in our ministry, yet take our own desires and image, slap the term Christ on it, and feel that we are a Christocentric ministry. When I say that we are Christocentric, I am talking about the eternally begotten Son of God, incarnated as the man Jesus, who died as a propitiation for the atonement of our sins, and now sits at the right hand of the Father restoring all things back to Him, patiently awaiting the final judgment of all creation.

Another important qualifier when talking about being Christocentric is what aspect of Christ is center. “The way of Jesus” is a popular mantra for churches that are reaching people in my generation. What they mean by this is that they focus on Christ as our great example. When they claim that we should be walking in the “way of Jesus” they are being fully biblical. Jesus walked this earth as the perfect human, He walked this earth in the manner in which we were intended to walk. The problem occurs when we allow this to be central in our focus on Christ. The Person of Christ, not the example of Christ, is the “way” to God. Dr. Tim Keller once said that “the Gospel is good news, not good advice.” The good news is found in the work of a person, not the advice found in His example. Our ministry, our lives, and our hope must be in the person and work of Christ, not in our ability to emulate the life of Christ. Am I saying that we then should not seek to follow the “way of Christ”? By no means, what I am saying is that in order to be fully Christocentric we must have the whole of Christ as center, His life, His death and resurrections, and His Glorification. On the other hand there are many churches that focus only on the “doctrine” of Christ. Christ may be center in these churches, but only the theological implications of Christs atonement are recognized. It is almost as if Jesus is some one we study, not someone we have an intimate relationship with, follow, and model our lives after. I could go on with examples, but the point is that when we seek to be Christocentric, we must seek to place the whole of Christ as center. I remember studying the Ethiopian Coptic church a few years ago. It was interesting to see how differently the Ethiopian church depicted Christ from how we commonly depict Christ in the west. They regularly referred to Christ as the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Conquering lion of Judah. Their art depicted a glorified Christ as a warrior king. They would often depict Him as a powerful African man in Kingly robes, prepared to judge the earth with a sword in hand. This is so different than how we often depict and talk about Christ in the US. We like the earthly suffering servant. We talk about the lamb of God, and love the stories of Jesus with the little children. We usually depict Jesus as a frail Scandinavian hippie, kneeling broken in prayer. Who is right, the Ethiopians or the Americans? I think both are right and both are wrong. First Christ was neither African or Scandinavian, he was a Jew from the tribe of Judah, but what He looked like really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Christ is both the suffering servant and the King of Kings. Affirming the teaching of the scriptures the counsel of Chalcedon stated that Christ is both truly God and Truly man. As biblically orthodox Christians we must acknowledge the full nature of Christ. He was a man who walked this earth, loved the unlovable, suffered, and died on a cross. But He is also the eternal Son of God, risen from the grave, seated at the right hand of the Father, and will stand as judge over the whole creation. Christ is both the slain lamb and the conquering lion.

It is critical that we not just say we are a “christocentric” church, without truly seeking to place the whole of Christ at the center of all that we do. To be truly Christocentric is to have the historical, biblically revealed Christ as the center of all that we say and do. We must have the Person and work of Christ as the end focus of all we preach, do, and say. Our hope must lie in the faithfulness and sufficiency of the Person and work of Christ. Our lives and our ministry must be modeled after Christ, since He lived as the prototypical human, He is our only perfect example. So as a Christocentric church plant we will seek to care for the poor, love the unlovable, fight injustice, seek reconciliation, and stand against the false religious institutions of the world as Christ did. But we will also proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ, pointing people to the person and work of Christ as our only hope for redemption. We will both follow Christ as our “Rabbi” and fall on our face before Him crying out “my Lord and my God.”