Prophecy #2 – Clouds on the Horizon

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” —Jesus (Luke 12.54–56 NIV)This week, I want to continue our look at the final eight prophecies of Jesus concerning the two fates that lay before Jerusalem for her choosing. Remember, our look at these eight prophecies is an attempt to understand more deeply what Jesus’s kingdom is all about—this kingdom that is not simply a new way of doing life, but a way that is deeply rooted in a radically different way of seeing God, ourselves, and everyone around us, even our enemies.

Also, I’d like to remind you once again about the two paths Jesus laid out before the people of his day in Matthew 7.12–14. We have the eye-for-an-eye, retaliation-and-retribution way of doing life that intrinsically escalates till it ends in death. And we have the enemy-love, enemy-forgiveness, doing-to-our-enemies-what-we-would-want-them-to-do-to-us way of doing life that brings healing, peace, and life eternal.

This is our context. This week we are looking at the second of the eight prophecies:

He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? (Luke 12.54–57)

This second prophecy is the foundation and preliminary prophecy for the third prophecy recorded by Dr. Luke in Luke 13.1–9. I’d really like to discuss the third prophecy this week because what Jesus says in that prophecy is astounding! But in order for the third prophecy to make sense and to have its proper impact, we’ll have wait on that until next week and first do some pre-work this week with this passage.

The weather-wise Israelites of Jesus’s day could tell by watching the clouds over the Mediterranean or by observing the wind direction changes (when the wind veered around to the south) what the imminent weather would be in their region, and they planned accordingly. What Jesus is drawing attention to here is their keen ability to reason from cause to effect when it came to matters of weather, but their utter blindness and inability to reason from cause to effect when it came to the path they were on in relating to their political enemies, the Romans.

Jesus then uses a contemporary analogy, a metaphor if you will, of the then current court system to illustrate the trajectory of the path they were on with Rome, a path of retaliation, retribution, and violence.

As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Luke 12.58–59)

What Jesus suggests here is not militaristic rebellion but, on the contrary, peacemaking and reconciliation, rooted in love for one’s enemies and forgiveness. Who was their adversary at this time? Rome, represented in the person of Pilate the Roman governor. Without stealing too much away from next week, this is exactly why Jesus’s listeners object in the very next verse (Luke 13.1) on the basis of Pilate’s atrocity against some Galileans. They were in essence saying, “You want to us to practice enemy-love and forgiveness, peacemaking and reconciliation with Pilate? You have got to be kidding us! Don’t you realize what Pilate recently did to the Galileans who were offering sacrifices? How can you expect us to turn the other cheek, not retaliating but following the way of peace?”

In Matthew this instruction is placed within Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount:

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5.25–26)

In Matthew’s account, this is directly in the context of leaving your gift at the altar when offering a sacrifice if you remember that you have an adversary who is against you. Jesus commands, “First go and be reconciled to that person; then come and offer your gift.” Twice in Matthew, Jesus is recorded as saying, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9.13; 12.7; cf. Hosea 6.6) This is the path that leads to life, and the God of nonviolence that we see in Jesus is intently working with Israel at this stage, endeavoring to have them to repent, to leave the path of eye-for-an-eye retaliation, and to embrace the way of mercy toward one’s adversaries or enemies. This is the way of enemy-love, enemy-forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. This was the path that would lead them to life eternal. If they did not change paths in relation to their present adversaries (the Romans), the trajectory of the path they were one would end in their “not getting out until they had paid the last penny.” It would end in their utter annihilation.

The options before them were transformation or annihilation. Remember, this was not an imposed annihilation force on them by a violent God, but rather a warning about an annihilation that would be the natural result of a course of action toward their adversaries that would escalate into their utter destruction and death in AD 70.

Jesus will say it again:

If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19.42)

Today we plan our daily activities around listening to weather forecasts or checking our weather apps on our phones, while we are strangely ignorant of the clouds of our own making that are gathering on the horizon of our lives in both our personal and global relationships. Last week we looked more personally at following Jesus’s way of nonviolence, of enemy-love and forgiveness, the way of mercy in relation to our family, friends, coworkers, or fellow students. This week I want to ask more global questions. Whether we ask these questions regarding our private relationships or our global ones, the implications are the same.

Next week we will be looking at Jesus’s words concerning a tower that fell in Siloam. Last week in America, the nation spent time remembering those who lost their lives when two towers fell in New York City in 2001. For many, the way of retaliation is the only logical response. Anything else does not make sense. Anything less would possibly be “dangerous.” But Jesus is whispering to us to take a different path than that which is intuitive to us. There is a way that seems right to us, but its end is death. More violence, according to Jesus, only ensures, not our safety, but our own destruction. War-making has today become a kind of “religion” rooted in sacrifice. Jesus calls us to peacemaking rooted in mercy. (Matthew 9.13; 12.7; cf. Hosea 6.6) What would happen if instead of supporting a military-industrial complex, Christians began spending billions on feeding the world’s starving? What would happen if instead of supporting more loss of life in Iran and Afghanistan, Christians went to work to establish new schools and hospitals in Iran and Afghanistan? What would happen if Christians today stopped funding Israel’s occupation of Palestine and began embodying Israel’s Messiah in teaching and demonstrating enemy-love and forgiveness, the way of mercy rather than militaristic sacrifice, to Israel the same way Jesus did so long ago? What would happen if Christians stopped believing that Jesus’s way is impractical, naïve, or insufficient and flatly stating that it “doesn’t work” in the “real world” and began to follow the way of life Jesus came to teach us, no matter how difficult? What would happen if Christians simply began believing in Jesus once again?

The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is still whispering to the world today, “Overcome evil with good. Reject your tribalism, and love everyone on the planet. Reject your way of violence, and become people of enemy-love, forgiveness, mercy, and nonviolence. If you do not do this, you as a global community, will be destroyed. It will not be God’s doing. Your own violence will come down on you.”

Much to ponder for sure.

HeartGroup Application

1.This week I would like you to go back and spend some time prayerfully meditating on these two passages:

As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Luke 12.58–59)

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5.25–26)

2.Get out a piece of paper, and with inspired imagination, tap into your creativity. Begin to brainstorm, writing down whatever comes to mind about what nonviolent conflict resolution might look like with those in your immediate life that you find most difficult to get along with. Begin by simply putting down on paper what ideas come to your mind, whether you think they are foolish or not, logical or not, practical or impractical.

3.Share and discuss with your HeartGroup what you come up with, getting constructive feedback and further creative options on ways you can follow Jesus’s path of nonviolent conflict resolution in your life.

Jesus gave us a way to heal the world, (Luke 9.2; John 3.17). Jesus did not come to this world to condemn this world, but so that this world, through Jesus and His teachings, might be saved. May it begin with each of us in our daily lives.

Wherever this finds you this week, keep living in Jesus’s other-centered, self-sacrificing enemy-love till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys.

See you next week.

Conduits

“The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed . . .” —Jesus (Luke 9.22)

This week, I’d like to begin with something a little different. Are you ready? I want you to listen to an imaginary story.

Once upon a time, there was a God who sang a world into existence. He loved this world and its people. But these people, over time, through no fault of their own, became afraid. They began over time to believe that this God, who had made them, did not like them. They began to believe that He was angry with them. They came to believe that God even hated most of them—not all, but most. Because of these beliefs, they eventually became afraid of each other as well. These people were afraid—very, very afraid. They not only feared this God, but they also feared one another. They looked at each other with suspicion. Days were spent endeavoring to discern whom it was that God hated, so that those who deemed this to be true could hate them, too, and thereby invoke some possible favor from this God.

As fear had turned to hatred, hatred turned to anger, and anger ultimately turned into rage—murderous rage.

It was when this world was at its darkest that this God dreamed up something daring. He would attempt the impossible. Would it work? Some believe that not even this God knew for sure. It would be risky—really risky. Not pretend.

He would come to them in disguise. He would turn their entire social system on its head. He would embrace all, loved and revered, or hated, feared, and scorned alike. He would simply love, radically, inclusively, daringly, and somewhat dangerously. This would unsettle everything, top-down, upside-down. And then it would happen. If it worked the way He planned, they would turn on His threatening love, this love that challenged and threatened to change everything. This social system, remember, was how they even provoked the “favor of God.” Their life, their security, their assurance, what defined them, EVERYTHING for them was bound up in this. How would they respond?

They would label Him as their ultimate enemy. They would let loose their murderous fear on Him. Yet how would He respond? Having loved them, He would love them to the end. And if this worked, He would do one final thing that would pull back the veil and show them all who He really was the whole time. This would change everything, banish the lies, illuminate hearts, and set the world right once again.

Would it work? If only God knew. But they would be worth the risk. They would be worth risking it all.

I want to take a moment and talk about conduits. Jesus believed He would be a conduit of God Himself. Jesus also understood that God would be taking on Their enemy, who would be using humanity, the object of Their love and affection, as his conduit. How do you defeat an enemy that is using your loved ones as a weapon against you? In light of last week’s fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, I’d like to quote, at length, a Christmas sermon of King’s from the winter of 1967:

“I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.’” (Emphasis added.)

You see, from Jesus, King learned to look on his enemies not really as enemies, but simply as victims. They were conduits of the real enemy, held in captivity to a systemic evil, and as someone who was to be won over from the real enemy and the systemic evil, over to the cause of truth. But where exactly could King have discerned this from the Jesus story? I believe this is exactly what the closing week of Jesus’ life was all about.

How do you win your loved ones away from the real enemy and his systemic evil?

They process is very simple, and it’s the same every time.

It’s rooted in something original to the ethics of Jesus—enemy love.

First you provoke the system of evil.

Second, the system responds violently.

Third, you bear that violence, that hatred, that “sin” in your own body, choosing to love nonetheless. Through the power of nonviolence, you pull off the veil of the very system itself, hopefully winning the very ones held captive by that system away from the evil, through empathy, to the cause of the victim. In short, you seek to overcome evil with good.

It is the same in every era that Jesus’ example has been followed. I’ll give three examples.

Steps

1. Provocation

2. Violence of System

2. Nonviolent Love

Jesus

Temple “Cleansing”

Crucifixion

Nonviolent Love

MLK

Sit-ins

Beatings/Prison

Nonviolent Love

Gandhi

Salt Marches

Imprisonment

Nonviolent Love

(*for more on this, see the presentation A New Way, in the new Life Unlimited series at https://renewedheartministries.com/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=30)

You see the perplexity was never about how we can make an angry God loving again through some kind of appeasement. Rather it was a question of how a loving God could make us good again through becoming the victim of our violence Himself.

“Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”—Jesus (John 12.31)

HeartGroup Application:

1.Remember the cross, to the original followers of Jesus, was viewed as something Jesus did for them, but never instead of them. They believed that they too were called to embrace Jesus’ way [a cross] of putting the world right again, forming human society once more into the image of love rather than fear, hatred, and violence. In light of this reality, ponder the following texts:

John 18.11: Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Mark 10.38: Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized…”

Luke 9.23-24: Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

Romans 16.20: The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.

2.Go back and prayerfully re-read this entire eSight. Write down any thoughts, questions, insights, or perplexities that surface as you, through Jesus, meditate on the cross. Do this not as a means of changing God, but as a means of changing the world.

3.Share with your HeartGroup this week what you have written down, respectfully and openly encouraging one another to keep following this Jesus and way of healing the world. Remember, “if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you (plural, as a HeartGroup) are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you (as a group)?” – Paul (1 Corinthians 3.12-16)

Remember, Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but intended that the world, through Him, might by saved. Wherever this finds you, keep living in love, loving like Christ, until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys.

I’ll see you next week.

New Wine in Old Wine Skins

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”—Luke 5.36-39This week, I’d like to contrast two ways that I often see folks responding to “Jesus” and His ethical teachings today when something Jesus taught challenges their present paradigm.

The first is the way of continuity. In other words, Jesus is not really bringing anything new to the table. If we feel He is bringing something new, it is simply that Jesus is correcting a present day application of the same old ethics as long ago. This view has its advantages for sure; the ethics of the Biblical narrative, in this view, have an unchanging quality. They belong to a consistent whole, a narrative that is seamless. And, on a very surface level, it gives folks a strange sense of security.

What are the pitfalls with this way of responding to Jesus’ teachings when they challenge a previously held paradigm of ours? Well, for starters, the Bible-believing dwellers in the Southeastern region of the United States in the late 19th century used this view to justify simultaneously possessing both a ticket to heaven and slaves. This so-called continuity view also enables some more marginal religious groups to practice polygamy, believing they are well within the boundaries of Biblical ethics. Although not Christian, this way of looking at a sacred text also allows those following the religion of Islam to still practice a modern-day version of stoning. And it allows some Bible-believing Christians today to practice a sanctified, patriarchal and mild form of misogyny. At the very minimum, the continuity view restricts Jesus from truly ever challenging our deeply held paradigms. The best we ever really get from Jesus is either a pat on the back that we have it all right, or simply a “tune-up” of our already smoothly running theological systems—but never do we become fundamentally different. God simply becomes, for us, the justification for our social dysfunctions.

But look again at Jesus’ words in Luke 5.36-39:

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

There are three things I want you to notice about this passage.

First, the piece from the new garment is incompatible with the old one.

Second, new wine doesn’t work in an old wine skin, or it bursts the old one and you lose the new wine.

Third, Jesus was lamenting that when faced with the option of the new wine He was offering in contrast to the “old” ways, no one really wanted this “new” stuff Jesus was teaching. For whatever reason, they were too content with the old. And really, no one who is accustomed to aged wine says the new is better. Jesus laments this reality again in Luke 16.16 when he states, “The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone is attacking it.”

What is the alternate way of relating to Jesus and His ethical teachings when they challenge our favorite paradigms? I call this way of looking at the ethical teachings throughout the narrative of the scriptures the trajectory view. In this view, one looks at the narrative of the Scriptures as a story in which God is meeting people within their own cultures where they are, then slowly and patiently leading them along a trajectory as fast as they can be changed without pushing them too far too fast and ending up rejecting God altogether. A great illustration of this view is the fact that I have a five-year-old, a ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old. I have taught my five-year-old not to talk to strangers. But with my ten-year-old and my sixteen-year-old, I’m teaching both of them, in ways that are appropriate to where they are in their own developmental growth, how to reach out safely and effectively and talk to the strangers that they do meet. And even between my ten-year-old and my sixteen-year-old, there are differences between even them. Now, there is no way to harmonize the “no talking to strangers” rule with the “how to talk with strangers” rule within a continuity way of looking at my parenting because they present a brazen contradiction. But when one views my parenting along the trajectory view—that I am teaching my children according to where they are and what they can safely do—then it all begins to make sense. What I’m teaching my five-year-old is not the way I want it to always be. It is only temporary. It’s what he needs now, but it will not be what I dream for him in the long run.

Look at this, if you will:

No one who has been EMASCULATED BY CRUSHING OR CUTTING may enter the assembly of the LORD . . . No AMMONITE OR MOABITE OR ANY OF THEIR DESCENDANTS may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation . . . Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them AS LONG AS YOU LIVE. (Deuteronomy 23.1-6)

Now this:

Let NO foreigners who have bound themselves to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let NO eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.” For this is what the LORD says: “To the EUNUCHS who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—TO THEM I will give WITHIN MY TEMPLE and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. And FOREIGNERS who bind themselves to the LORD TO MINISTER TO HIM, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy IN MY HOUSE of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be ACCEPTED on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for ALL NATIONS.” (Isaiah 56.3-7)

There is no way to harmonize these two passages according to the continuity view. But harmony can be found—if one adopts a trajectory view.

On an ethical scale of 1 to 10, let’s image that Jehovah is trying to get people at various times and through various ways, to move from maybe point 1 to 2, or 2 to 3, or 3 to 4. I would be detrimental to see any point from 2 to 9 as the revelation of who God really is and the ethics He wants us to ultimately live by. Granted, “9” would be a lot closer to an accurate understanding of God and His character than “2” per se, but even “9” is not a full “10.”

The people in Moses’ day were moving, let’s say, from 1 to 2, while Jesus came to show us what a full-blown 10 looks like. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the contrast between Jesus’ new wine of nonviolence and the golden rule, and the old wine of commanded violence and the eye-for-an-eye way of doing life.

Old wine:

Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution—life for life. Anyone who injures a neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. (Leviticus 24.17-21)

New wine:

You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. (Matthew 5.38-39)

Old wine:

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. (Psalms 139.21-22)

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3.8)

New wine:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor [fellow Israelite, see Leviticus 19.18] and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies. (Matthew 5.43-44)

Jesus said it best:

I give you a NEW commandment, that you love one another, JUST AS I HAVE LOVED YOU. (John 13.34)

Jesus challenges us, calling us to become more like the Father than ever! Yes, he had been guiding us at each step of the way, all along the ethical trajectory that he has had us on. But now he is calling us even higher. Further up and further in, as C.S. Lewis put it, “so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5.45) Yes, God has spoken to us through the old prophets at various times and in multiple ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, Jesus, who gives us the exact image of what God is really like. (See Hebrews 1.1-3 cf. John 14.9.)

Jesus is calling us to accept not just his new wine, but also new wine skins to hold the new wine, so that we may participate—not in a path that leads to this world being destroyed, but to participate in, even if by fire, his saving and restoration of Eden, the coming of the Bar Enasha, the full unobstructed reign of His Kingdom, on earth as it is in Heaven. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world, through him, might be saved.” (John 3.17)

New wine simply won’t work in the old wine skins. You can’t incorporate it into your present way of looking at things. The new wine doesn’t conform to the old wine. They are both different. They belong to the same trajectory, but they are different. Jesus’ new wine is the final advancement along the trajectory of being restored into the image of God, which was almost wholly lost among mortals. We must not only allow Jesus to give us new wine, but also new paradigms for those ethical teachings to grow in as well.

HeartGroup Application:

1.Take some time to see if you can find your own examples of the ethical trajectory that we find in the narrative of the Bible. See if you can also find examples of where Jesus was moving us into a more full “Father-like” way of doing life. We already mentioned quite a few in this eSight. Look at aspects of the old laws; look at Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos; also look at Jesus. The ones that are obvious to us today are things such as slavery, polygamy, Israel having a king, violence, nationalism, patriarchy, etc.

2.Write down and prepare to share what you find with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.

3.Share with your HeartGroup and be willing to openly discuss your findings.

May Jesus give us all new wineskins this week as we seek to follow Him more fully in the way that leads to life, and life to the full…until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys. We’ll see you next week.

Jesus and Lex Talionis

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”—Jesus, Matthew 7.12-14I want to take you on what will seem like a detour this week. It will seem like this is completely off topic, but I’m hoping you will see the relevance of this next passage to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:

“If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.” (Moses, Exodus 21.7-11)

Sexual slavery, or being sold to become a wife, was common in the ancient world. The taking of multiple wives was also condoned and recorded many times throughout the Old Testament (Ex. 21:10; Dt. 21:15; Gn. 25:1; cf. 1Ch. 1:32; Gn. 30:4; 31:17; cf. Gn. 35:22; 2Sam. 12:11; cf. 2Sam. 20:3; Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, p. 273). An Israelite father could sell his unmarried daughters into servitude, with the understanding that the master or his son would eventually marry her. Jewish and Christian commentators alike agree that this referred to the sale of a daughter, who “is not arrived to the age of twelve years and a day” and that this sale was the result of poverty (John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible; Exodus 21:7).

Here is the million-dollar question this week: Can we allow an Old Testament Jehovah to permit this detestable practice for a time, reforming a cultural practice rather than abolishing it, if that is what it takes for a culture to embrace a “Deity” who will eventually, in the long run, radically change them entirely? Do not misunderstand me. The trafficking of a young girl is truly horrific. Even worse is the realization that once she turns twelve, she becomes one of the wives of the man she was sold to, or possibly one of the wives of his sons. There is no way to justify this. But again, there is the question: Can we accept Jehovah meeting people within their culture, or even meeting their expectations of what He should be like? Can we not accept that He is moving them, patiently, slowly, away from their horrific practices, through years of growth and development, until at last they can understand Him and become a people that will rightly proclaim how He truly is?

As we all know, if you want to get any culture to “follow you,” if you want the people in that culture to change, then you cannot simply come in and bulldoze over their way of life. You must work with them, not against them; you must slowly transform them, little by little, into something other than what they were when you found them. Far from Exodus 21.7-11 being a revelation of what God is really like, it is rather a reflection of what the people God was trying to reach were like. If you want to find out what God is really like, Exodus 21.7-11 is not the place to look. Where are we then to look? I submit to you: Jesus.

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at multiple times and in multiple personalities [jealous, petty, unjust, unforgiving, controlling, vindictive, bloodthirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and THE EXACT REPRESENTATION OF HIS BEING….” (Hebrews 1.1-3)

So radical was this revelation of God in Jesus that even the apostle John, who was raised with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets, wrote: “No one has ever seen God till they met this Jesus” (see John 1.18).

And yet Jesus himself said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (see John 14.9).

So what does this have to do with our topic this week?

I want to look at the concept of lex talionis. Lex talionis is Latin for the “law of retaliation.” It encompasses the broad class of legal systems that specify formulaic penalties for specific crimes, which are thought to be fitting in their severity. Some propose that this was intended, at least in part, to prevent excessive punishment at the hands of either an avenging party or the state. The most common expression of lex talionis is “an eye for an eye”; however, lex talionis does not refer to exclusively literal eye-for- eye codes of justice, but to an entire legal system labeled as “penal,” or a form of justice that is punitive.

Jesus taught:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not use retaliation, even if it has been authorized by your law, against an evil person. Instead, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your Chiton, hand over your Himation as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you [even if you are on the verge of the Jubilee] You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your fellow Israelite and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies too! And pray for those who even persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5.38-45, personal paraphrase. For a fuller exposition of Jesus’ teachings in this passage see The Way of Peace (Arizona) at https://renewedheartministries.com/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=37)

Jesus sought to lead us away from doing life via lex talionis to what others have called “The Golden Rule.”

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you [The Golden Rule]; for this was the intended goal of where the law and the prophets were always headed. Enter then through the narrow gate of the golden rule; for the gate of lex talionis is wide and the road of lex talionis is easy, but it leads to the whole world being blind, toothless and annihilated, and there are many who are presently on that path. For the gate of the Golden Rule is narrow and this road is hard but it leads to life, and there are so few presently who have discovered it and are traveling on it.” (Matthew 7.12-14, personal paraphrase)

Other great people have made statements similar to what we find in Matthew 7:

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” (Mahatma Gandhi).

“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

“And then the whole world would be blind and toothless” (Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof).

The question I want you to consider this week is: Does lex talionis manifest the character of the God we see in Jesus? Or do we, in lex talionis, find the Jehovah of the Old Testament doing the same things we found Him doing with the other temporary cultural accommodations such as slavery, polygamy, the mistreatment of women, race-based preferential treatment, nationalism, genocidal violence, and even Israel having a King?

It’s a question worth asking. In seeking to answer that question, what I find ironic is that the Christian Church, as a result of the Constantinian Shift, in the fourth century reintroduced capital punishment (burning heretics at the stake, a form of lex talionis) against sinners. This should be contrasted with the abandonment of capital punishment (the Old Testament stoning prescriptions) by the disciples of Jesus during the first three centuries of Christian history. Israel definitely practiced capital punishment. The new Israel of the first century, defined as those who were endeavoring to follow Jesus, did not. It seems that the church, following the teachings of Jesus after His death, abandoned “eye for an eye” ethics, only to reinstate those ethics once Christianity and Empire became wedded under Constantine.

Something to ponder for sure!

HeartGroup Application

1.Go back to Matthew 7.12-14. Spend some time each day this week meditating on what it means for the rule of “doing to others what you would have them do to you” being the narrow gate, and “eye for an eye” being the broad path that leads to destruction for all.

2.Write down any thoughts, questions, insights, or inspiration Jesus gives you during your daily time with Him and this topic.

3.Share what you discover this next week with your HeartGroup.

Whether lex talionis can be explained as accommodation or not, we can’t live a life based simultaneously on both lex talionis and the Golden Rule. To the degree that we practice the Golden Rule, we will not, by definition, be practicing lex talionis. Instead, we will practice the way of forgiveness and love. Jesus showed us it is one or the other. He gave us three examples in Matthew 5.38-45 of what the Golden Rule looks like. My prayer for all of us, myself included, is that Jesus will help us learn how this way of salvation, restoration and redemption appears in our daily lives. There are no formulas. No three-step plans. But as we walk with Jesus as His disciples, allowing Him to teach us, I am assured He will be guiding us along the correct path. We will return to this topic in the future. May our understanding, as well as our practice, continue to deepen as we daily seek to follow The Way.

Keep living in love, following the example of the Truth and Grace we see in the life of Jesus. Until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys.

We’ll see you next week.

Advocacy vs. Accusation

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

—Jesus, John 14.16I find it interesting that the word Jesus used to refer to the Spirit is Advocate. This is the word John uses for Jesus in 1 John 2.1:

1 John 2.1: My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

This is an intentional contrast to the word accuser (a synonym for Satan), which John purposefully uses in Revelation 12.10:

Revelation 12.10: For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

It seems quite clear that the work of “the Satan” is to accuse. The work of the Spirit and anyone who is energized by the Spirit is to be an advocate for those being accused.

I want to remind you of the story John also tells in John 8 about a woman who, he says, was caught “in the very act” of adultery. Pay close attention to the contrast between the role of the Pharisees in railing against this woman and the gentle but firm role Jesus plays by kneeling down alongside the naked woman and drawing attention away from her to what he was drawing in the sand. (We have no idea what it really was; if it were important, John would have told us.) Then Jesus speaks the words, “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.” Stop for a moment and ask yourself what is going on.

It’s the oldest phenomenon in human social history. The Romans are oppressing Israel. Any time people are oppressed they grow hungry for the sense of identity that has been stripped from them. They reach out for something to give them value in spite of the dehumanization they have experienced from their oppressors. They grasp for something that will give them worth. The earliest established way for humans to do this is to find a scapegoat. A scapegoat is someone to blame, someone to attack as a common problem, some individual or group that being against will bring unity a sense of identity, and restored meaning to their existence—a group that the community would be better off without. In Jesus’s day, there was a religious group called the Pharisees that was doing this very thing to people they labeled as living “outside the Torah.” The Jews who were not following the teachings of Moses were supposedly the root cause of the oppression they were under by the Romans. And what was the label that the Pharisees gave to these Jews who were not living lives in harmony with the laws of Moses? They called them “sinners.”

Matthew 9.11: When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Luke 7.39: When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Luke 15.1–2: Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Luke 19.7: All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

Notice they did not use the word sinner the way we do today. But what I also want you to notice is what Jesus was doing that made the Pharisees so upset. Jesus was coming alongside of and advocating for those the Pharisees were endeavoring to rally Israel around as a scapegoat for their humiliating subjugation to Rome.

With the woman caught in adultery, it was the same way. “Are you going to side with us, the followers of the laws of Moses, and stone this woman, or are you going to side with the empire of Rome?” But Jesus chose a third party to come alongside of. He knelt down beside the “sinner,” the “scapegoat,” the ones being marginalized and blamed by the religious leaders of that day.

Is it any different today? Recently I was reminded of the accusing words of Jerry Falwell shortly after 9/11:

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

Pat Robertson concurred at that moment, but since then both have regretted saying this.

I raise this awful memory not as an accusation against these two fellows in the slightest but as a simple example of how easy it is for all Christians to adopt this type of scapegoating mentality. As uncomfortable as it is, we must realize that this is not something done only by Pat and Jerry, but something that too often is done, almost intuitively, by all Christians, myself included.

Just this past summer, at one of the events I was speaking at and also on Twitter and Facebook, I periodically shared one or two sentences about how we, as followers of Jesus, are called to come alongside the marginalized today and like Jesus to be advocates for the ones that others are demanding should be stoned. I said this is true even if the people we are coming alongside of are those society has labeled as LGBT. You would have thought I had committed the unpardonable sin! But is it any different? I’m also reminded this week of Tony Campolo’s words, which I believe are relevant.

“You don’t have to legitimize somebody’s lifestyle to love that person, to be brother or sister to that person, and to stand up for that person.”

—Tony Campolo in Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, 2008

But even this, for too many people, goes too far.

Too many Christians today feel they have to choose between the rules and the value of people Jesus died for. I don’t personally believe those two are always necessarily mutually exclusive. But in moments when they do become mutually exclusive, it is quite a paradigm shift to realize that when Jesus did have to choose between the two, he always chose affirming the value of people over protecting the rules (see John 8.1–11; Luke 8.40–47; Acts 10.28), and that is what got him murdered (see John 11.50).

Jesus walked the earth in the radical, extravagant, “dangerous” favor of God. He practiced a boundary-pushing, law-challenging, line-crossing, Pharisee-infuriating, radical favor and inclusivity. And the question we have to answer is, “Do we?”

In our day we could talk about any number of marginalized groups, some of which are being marginalized by Americanized, Westernized Christianity. But in light of the phenomenon of scapegoating, the work of the Satan as an accuser, and the work of the Spirit as an advocate, which of the marginalized is Jesus asking you to come along beside and be an advocate for today?

HeartGroup Application

1.I want you to ponder this week how Jesus was an Advocate for those living outside the laws of Moses in light of these two texts:

John 14.9–10: Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

John 5.19: Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

2.Write down what this means to you to actually begin seeing the Father as the greatest Advocate for “sinners” against the spirit of the Accuser anytime it rears its ugly head. What does it do inside of you to see the Father as coming alongside you to defend you against your accusers? And lastly write down any changes this causes you to want to make in your own life as you allow the three Advocates we have (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) to use your life as a conduit to be an advocate for those being marginalized and scapegoated in our society today.

3.Discuss openly and respectfully with your HeartGroup what each of you wrote down, and then covenant together to become a group that is characterized by being advocates for “sinners” rather than accusers.

Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns, keep enlarging Christ’s Kingdom in the here and in the now. Come, Lord Jesus! Long live the revolution!

I love you guys,

We’ll see you next week.

This world IS our home, we are NOT just passing through.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.—Jesus (Matthew 5.5, emphasis added.)This week, I want to look at an emphasis in the teachings of Jesus that many miss today. Today, those who bear Christ’s name (Christians) are known largely (Praise God for the few exceptions.) as being focused on getting their ticket to heaven so that they can “get out of here.” They sing, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” What we have to realize, however, is that this mindset is strangely absent from the

Jesus story itself and the Jesus that we find in that story. We must allow this absence to confront us.

Ponder the following three passages and notice their emphasis.

“You are the salt of THE EARTH. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” —Matthew 5.13

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven.” —Matthew 6.10

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit THE EARTH.”—Matthew 5.5 (In modern preaching, we find ministers bellowing from their pulpits, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit Heaven. This is a subtle departure from the early church that began with the introduction of Gnosticism, what some call, “Christian history’s first heresy to burn through the church.” Gnosticism, for those who have studied this early phenomenon, is an unhealthy preoccupation with escaping Earth and getting to heaven.)

What we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that Jesus was not focused on getting people out of this place to some far distant heaven. Instead, Jesus was focused on bringing the far distant Heaven (in the mind’s eye of people) very close, bringing it to Earth. In other words, Jesus wasn’t focused on getting people to heaven, but instead on bringing heaven to people.

This traces back to the ancient Hebrew Genesis narrative itself.

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” —Genesis 1.26

God, according to the Hebrew narrative, made this Earth and gave it to us as our original home, which we lost to God’s enemy:

“The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me [by humanity in the beginning], and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” —Luke 4.5-7

Jesus also repeatedly refers to God’s enemy as the “ruler of this world.” — (John 12.31; John 14.30; John 16.11) Jesus saw his mission as being to save us and our home here from the enemy’s oppressive reign. He sought to restore us and our home, once again, to the original Kingship of Christ (see Colossians 1.13).

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All AUTHORITY in heaven and on earth has been GIVEN to ME. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations . . .” —Matthew 28.18-19 (Notice that Jesus is quoting the devil from the wilderness, saying that through his death and resurrection all that the enemy claimed as his own Jesus had won back and given back to us. See also Luke 11.21, 22)

John too ends his climax of canonical prophecy with God, not taking us to some Heaven to spend eternity with Him, but rather the breathtaking picture of God coming HERE to spend eternity WITH US!

“I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’.” —Revelation 21.2-3

Again, Jesus, contrary to many who bear his name today, lived in the headspace of bringing Heaven to Earth, not getting those from Earth to some Heaven beyond.

Now, I also want to address a rumor that is circulating about myself personally and RHM. It is usually not my policy to track down and correct every rumor that circulates about me. Typically, I simply let rumors and those who spread them run their course and let honest thinking people think things through with the hope that they would talk with me (rather than about me) if they have questions. Some today are saying, “Herb doesn’t believe in Heaven!” Nothing could be further from the truth. I absolutely believe in Heaven. However, I do not believe that Jesus teaches us to call Heaven our home. Being a Jesus follower, if we are actually going to follow the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this means being about restoration rather than relocation.

Now, some Christians today believe that we will spend some time in Heaven at some stage of the process of our transition from this present evil age to the age to come (Galatians 1.4; Ephesians 1.21). Also, it must be noted, that there are followers of Jesus who hold to an eschatology that doesn’t even include ever going to Heaven, but that when Jesus returns here to this earth, it will be to reign here, and for his followers to reign with him. Nevertheless, for this week, I want to address those who believe that we will spend some time in Heaven at some point. There are some differences among the beliefs in modern Christianity about our potential time in “Heaven.”

1) Some believe we go to Heaven at death, and when Jesus returns, he is only to coming back to pick everyone up down here still living and take them to heaven also so that we all together can spend eternity there, in heaven, with him. This is the headspace of

“This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through” that finds absolutely no resonating notes in the Jesus story itself, in my opinion.

2) Some of them believe that the time we spend in Heaven will be between death and His return, BUT that when Jesus returns, we will all spend eternity, ultimately here on Earth in an Earth made new.

3) Others believe that death is a sort of “sleep,” waiting on a future resurrection (Martin Luther as well as some Anabaptists, such as Michael Sattler, believed this in the sixteenth century.) at Jesus return. We will then spend a temporary time in Heaven (not everyone believed this part in the sixteenth century) until a third return of Jesus to this Earth to spend eternity on this Earth in an Earth made new.

I want to address the second and third view above. Regardless of which of the two views you hold to above, in regards to my point this week, it’s mute (again, I will add, that for option 1, I can’t find any evidence for this view, in it’s entirety, anywhere in the New Testament). In BOTH 2 and 3, whichever of those two some may hold, I want those who believe this to notice; our potential time in Heaven, even if we do go there at some point, is ONLY TEMPORARY. Stop and think about this. Your time here on EARTH is not temporary. THIS is your home. We lost it to God’s enemy, and Jesus rescued it back for us. (Revelation 12.10, 11.15) Even if we do, at some point, spend some portion of time in Heaven, our time IN HEAVEN is TEMPORARY. There, we will sing in Heaven (for those who believe we will spent some portion there), “This place [heaven] is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” We are going to be spending eternity HERE! (Revelation 21.2-3)

So, as a follower of Jesus, we should not be living as if “this world is not my home.” We can begin by simply no longer saying the statement, “we are just passing through.” This world IS our home. We have a lot of work to do yet. God’s will is not being done ON EARTH as it’s done in heaven, yet. We are called to put on display what life on this Earth, under the Kingship of Jesus does look like. It is the Bar Enasha (new humanity founded in Jesus) that we talked about last week. It is what Jesus called “the Kingdom”, which Jesus commands us to proclaim, “has come!”

HeartGroup Application

1. This week I want you to ponder the following two texts:

“And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and TO HEAL THE SICK.”—Luke 9.2

We live in a SICK world, and as a Jesus follower, our first concern should not be to leave this world behind, but to bring healing to our sick world around us. Jesus gave us a way to be conduits of healing to this world, and we are to be about setting in motion that healing. We must be about restoration, not relocation.

In addition, this verse:

“I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.”—Philippians 1.23-26

Some view this verse as saying Paul was faced with dying and going to Heaven or that Paul was offered translation like the Hebrew Patriarch Enoch or the Hebrew Prophet Elijah. Regardless, I want you to notice Paul’s headspace, 1) To relocate and be with Jesus or 2) to remain here and continue in the ministry of restoration. Which did Paul choose?

2) Write down any perceptions, thoughts, feelings, or paradigm shifts Jesus gives you during your time meditating on these texts.

3) Be prepared to share and discuss openly and respectfully any of your insights this coming week with your HeartGroup together.

In short, this world IS our home. We are NOT just passing through. We are here to stay. Even if we do spend some time in the future elsewhere, it will be that location that we will “just be passing through.” We are spending eternity here. Eternity starts now! The Kingdom has come! This Kingdom, which is a radical new way of doing life, is based on a radical new way of seeing God (His character), ourselves, and others. We are called to put on display what the “age to come” (Ephesians 1.21) looks like in the here and now! We are called to be like weeds (We’ll talk more about this later.) in a garden, subversively crowding out, with one heart at a time, this “present evil age.” (Luke 13.19; Galatians 1.4)

Much to think about for sure.

Keep living in love and loving like Christ. Now go enlarge the Kingdom.

I love you guys. See you next week.

The Bar Enasha

“You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26.64)This week I want to talk a little about a phrase Jesus uses repeatedly in the Jesus stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This phrase is “Bar Enasha.” This is a Hebrew phrase that even Historical Criticists of the Jesus Story admit is original to Jesus. It is used more than 81 times in the four versions of the Jesus story that we have today. It is the only phrase Jesus used anywhere nearly as much as the phrase “the Kingdom.” Modern translations translate this Hebrew phrase (Bar Enasha) via its Greek version into the English phrase “Son of Man.” However, this is a transliteration from the Greek, which in turn was a transliteration of the Hebrew “Bar Enasha.” What did this phrase mean, not in the Greek, but in the Aramaic that Jesus spoke? This Hebrew phrase comes directly from Daniel 7.13.

As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a SON OF MAN coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. (Daniel 7.13, 14)

The Hebrews rightly understood this phrase applied not only to an individual but also to a “community” founded in this individual. Notice the following context of Daniel’s phrase “son of man.” It is not an individual but also a “People” who are “birthed” from this “individual.”

“The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to THE PEOPLE of the holy ones of the Most High; THEIR kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey THEM.” (Daniel 7.27)

Pay close attention to verses 13 through 14 and verse 27. You will see clearly that Bar Enasha (what in English is translated as “Son of Man”) is much more than a mere individual, and is a new humanity that finds its source in that individual.

“Son of” is merely a Semitic idiom meaning “Of or pertaining to the following genus or species.” Translating Bar Enasha as the “True Humanity” or “The Human Being” or the “Divinely revolutionized humanity,” or, as some historically have called it, “beloved community” would be better than merely “Son of Man.” Here is a side exercise. Go back and reread all the times Jesus uses this phrase “Son of Man” and try to see what Jesus is saying “communally.” In other words, look at this phrase, not as merely talking about Jesus himself as an isolated individual but rather as Jesus himself AND this new humanity he has come to give birth to. It’s not Jesus or the New Humanity, but Jesus AND His New Humanity.

Now I also want to be clear about something else. I don’t want, for a second, to be misunderstood on this. I believe wholeheartedly in a literal second coming, a literal physical return of Jesus our Lord to this earth. This was clearly promised by the angels that accompanied his ascension:

“While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1.10-11)

Yet we must also be honest that when Jesus referred to the “coming” of the Bar Enasha, he was not always referring to his literal physical return but to the coming of that must precede his literal, physical return. He was pointing, in many of his uses of Bar Enasha, to the coming of this “Bar Enasha,” the coming of this new Humanity that must and will precede his literal, physical return. Which leads us to our featured text this week:

“You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: FROM NOW ON you will see the Son of Man [the Bar Enasha] sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26.64)

Notice, here Jesus is not talking about some event in the future on literal clouds. (Although Jesus will return on literal clouds.) Jesus here is quoting Daniel 7 and saying, “What Daniel is referring to in verse 13 taking place at that moment, “right now” before your very eyes! Jesus said, “from now on!” Jesus is quoting Daniel 7.13 and applying it to that very moment and from that very moment onward! Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, which was at that moment set in motion, He would be giving birth to this new humanity, the Bar Enasha. This is what Jesus had been referring to throughout His entire ministry as the coming of the Kingdom.

How does this apply to us today?

We must make no mistake here. We, as followers of this Jesus, are not only invited to be a part of this new humanity birthed through Jesus’ death but are also called to put on display what this new humanity is all about. We are called to be the world changed by Jesus! We are not called to force, through legislation, change over the world around us. No, no! We, as the church, are called to BE this whole new world radically changed by Jesus Christ. To put on display what that looks like! We are called to put on display what this new humanity birthed out of Jesus’ death and resurrection is all about, NOW!

HearGroup Application

1.This week I want you to look at these texts not individually as is all too often done. I want you to look at these next three passages in their original communal meaning, which scholars today see that Paul actually intended them to be read in:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, THE NEW CREATION [the Bar Enasha] has come: The old has gone, the NEW is here! (2 Corinthians 5.17)

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is THE NEW CREATION [the Bar Enasha]. (Galatians 6.15)

By setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself ONE NEW HUMANITY out of the two, thus making peace. (Ephesians 2.15)

This is not to exclude the truth that Jesus makes each one of us “new” as we continue to encounter what He and His Kingdom are all about. Certainly, He does that for us personally. These texts are specifically referring to the communal nature of the new creation, the new humanity, the “new community” so to speak of which Daniel’s “Bar Enasha” foretold, and that Jesus death gave birth to: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12.24)

I want you to consider what you looked at last week in Matthew 5-7, where Jesus describes what his Kingdom, which he had come to establish, would be all about. Make the connection in your hearts that this “Kingdom” IS the Bar Enasha, this new humanity, which claims Jesus as their King, and reigns alongside with him; “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5.10, emphasis added. Cf. Daniel 7.13-14, 27. Remember “reigning” in Jesus’ Kingdom is a radically different type of reigning than the reigning that the Empires of this world practice.)

2.Meditate on the following four passages this week concerning the literal, physical return of Jesus, and write down any insights Jesus may give you as you look at each one:

[Jesus] who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets. (Acts 3.21, emphasis added)

Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every [competing] ruler and every authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15.25, emphasis added)

He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. (Luke 19.12, emphasis added)

As you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. (2 Peter 3.12, emphasis added)

3.Be prepared to share with your HeartGroup not only what you just wrote down but also, according to the Sermon on the Mount, what you perceive this New Humanity, this Bar Enasha, to be about. Remember, it is Jesus’ first coming that gave birth to the coming of the Bar Enasha whose coming in turn gives birth to Jesus’ return, cause and effect.

Remember, the Bar Enasha, Jesus’ Kingdom, is a radical new way of doing life. This new way of doing life is based on a radically new picture of the character of God, a radical change in how we view ourselves, as well as a radical change in how we see everyone else around us. Jesus gave us a way to heal our world. The only alternative, according to Jesus’ parables, is annihilation, but we are not there yet. There is still hope. Jesus would not have come had there not been. There is still work to do. This world is right where WE belong. This is our home, given back to use through the death and resurrection of Jesus. (See Revelation 21-22.) And we are called to put on display the coming of the Bar Enasha, the coming of this new humanity rooted in the person and the teachings of Jesus Christ. We are called to invite all who are willing to be a part of this revolution. In a phrase, we are called to “enlarge the Kingdom” that arrived with Jesus’ first coming, so that Jesus as King can return to shepherd this new humanity at his second.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be looking at Jesus’ two alternative “end of the world” scenarios. This world is set on a collision course with death. But Jesus gave us a way out. Jesus, in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, gave us a way to heal our world, if we will only listen. We’ll get to that subject in the upcoming weeks. Until then, keep living in love (Ephesians 5.1-2), keep loving like Jesus and keep enlarging the Kingdom! The Bar Enasha has come, and if you are willing, you are welcome and invited to be a part.

I love you guys. Now go build the Kingdom. Long live the Bar Enasha!

I’ll see you all next week.

The Deeply Obstructed Kingdom Has Come (Part 2)

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. (Matthew 9.35)This week I’d like to finish up our look at Jesus’ “already present,” but deeply obstructed Kingdom that we began to consider last week. In the above verse, we find once again, the picture of Jesus as an itinerant teacher, traveling from place to place within Israel, proclaiming “the Kingdom” has arrived. What we also find in the Jesus story is that there was, what many call today, negative “kick-back” to Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom’s arrival. In short, the Kingdom was a radical reorientation of how humanity does life, based on a radical paradigm shift in how we see God, ourselves, and everyone else around us. But there were many who were benefitting by how life was already oriented. To Jesus’ new reorientation, they did not feel positively in the least. Jesus met deep resistance from the very beginning (see Luke 4.28-29). He met anger. (see Luke 13.14) He was bringing what He considered to be “good” news, but He was met with suspicion, accusations of his teachings being dangerous. Crowds too, voiced “complaints” about what Jesus was teaching. While some saw what Jesus was sharing as truly good, others felt he was “deceiving” everyone. (see John 7.12) Jesus met, time and time again, stubborn resistance. Sometimes he faced censure and rebuke by the religious leadership of his day. Sometimes he endured being labeled as a heretic, an outsider, whose views, if were adopted, would bring about the end of the entire nation of Israel. And the bottom line is that many to whom Jesus brought the good news of the Kingdom to, initially, by their responses, betrayed that in reality they were very afraid.

Which leads me to why, I believe, we see in Jesus, so much compassion and genuine sorrow for his rejecters. (see Luke 13.34) All the rejecters desired was for the promises made to Israel of long ago be fulfilled. They longed for “the restoration.” They believed the covenant made with them involved their being “obedient.” And all they really wanted was to be obedient enough so that the promises, according to their understanding, could be finally fulfilled. This too is why Jesus was viewed as such a threat. Jesus was, in reality, the fulfillment of each of those promises, but it involved changing some significant things as well. And this they could not handle.

THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS were in effect until John came; since then the good news of THE KINGDOM of god has been being proclaimed, and everyone is attacking it. (Luke 16.16, personal translation, emphasis added.)

Jesus had already assured them:

“Do not think that I have come to nullify or demolish THE LAW OR THE PROPHETS; I have come not to nullify or demolish THE LAW but to fill in the areas in which it is deficient, to bring it from incomplete to a complete whole. (pleroo). For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until the whole is brought into existence. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of the commandments I am about to teach here, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in THE KINGDOM; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in THE KINGDOM. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees [which was rooted in the law and the prophets], you’re not even going to be able to enter THE KINGDOM. (Matthew 5.17-20, personal translation/paraphrase)

It was time to move from outward rule keeping to inward heart realities. (murder to even anger; adultery to even lust). But it was also time to move from demanding “an eye for an eye” our enemies, to now learning how to radically forgive our enemies and to love even them as indiscriminately as the sun shines and the rain falls. It was time to move to seek the restoration of our enemies from their victimhood to the real Enemy, and no longer desire their punishment, but their restoration too. It was THIS that repeatedly caused the religious leadership of Jesus’ day to violently reject him. For where they Law and the Prophets demanded punishment of “sinners”, Jesus continually circumvented the required punishment, and sought instead, the restoration of those the law and the prophets condemned. (See John 8.1-11; Luke 8.40-48)

What response did Jesus get in return?

These changes threatened too much. In response to his “Kingdom,” Jesus found fear and anger from the very ones who claimed to be “the people of God.” All the while, in Jesus, God was standing right in front of them, the very God, whose people, they claimed to be.

But here is the beautiful part.

Jesus met their anger with compassion, because he knew they didn’t know what they were doing. To their intolerance, he sought to explain their intollerance as simply the result of their ignorance. To their fear, he saw only infinitely valuable souls to be won from fear (not fear of God, but fear of change) to love. To those who were so addicted to their certitude to embrace the questions that following this new Jesus would bring in its tow, Jesus felt sorrow. To their closed system that was now being threatened by Jesus’ radically inclusive love, Jesus simply loved even more. To a system that had become stagnant, a protecting and guarding of the old ways rather than a continual movement along side of God into the “new”, Jesus, incomprehensibly, continued to sow the seeds of hope. While the religious leadership of Jesus’ day had become oppressive, Jesus saw in their plight, a plight common to all humanity, and not unique at all. They were not alone. To their tactics of manipulation and control, Jesus excused them as simply being blind, immature and inexperienced. To there extreme religious dysfunction which would ultimately turn into full blow homicide, no Deicide, Jesus understood they were simply . . . afraid.

So what did Jesus do? He continued to actively love them so much so that the only way for them to escape the insecurity that the religiously zealous, and nationalistically dedicated felt in response to Jesus’ radical nonviolence and radical inclusivity was to crucify him:

“You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (John 11.50)

But what does all of this mean for us?

1)The gospel was to Jesus the announcement that the Kingdom (the new creation, the new humanity) had come.

When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about THE KINGDOM of God, and healed those who needed to be cured. (Luke 9.11)

2)Jesus’ commission to those who were his followers was to proclaim this SAME gospel.

Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘THE KINGDOM of God has come near to you.’ (Luke 10.9)

3)We see the first century followers of Jesus actually carrying out this commission, teaching Jesus’ same gospel:

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed THE KINGDOM of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance! (Acts 28.30-31)

4)Jesus’ intention was that this gospel, the good news announcing that his Kingdom had come, would be proclaimed to each and every nation.

And this good news of THE KINGDOM will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come. (Matthew 24.14)

The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me [and my Kingdom] in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” (Acts 23.11, emphasis added)

What is this Kingdom? Why was is so threatening to the religious leaders of Jesus day that they had him crucified? Why was it so threatening to Rome that Rome had Jesus’ followers crucified (or beheaded)? The answer is in the fact that whatever Jesus’ Kingdom encounters, this radical reorientation of how we do life, based on a new way of seeing God, ourselves and everyone else around us, seems at first to be threatening.

They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is ANOTHER KING, one called Jesus.” (Acts 17.7)

They were proclaiming, not the Pax Romana (the Peace of Rome), but the Peace of Jesus’ Kingdom. (See Acts 10.36) They were not praising Caesar as Lord, but proclaiming different Lord, the Lord Jesus. (See Acts 10.31,36) They were not chiming in with all the rest, proclaiming Caesar as “Son of God,” but this new Lord Jesus, of a different Kingdom as “Son of God.” (See Acts 9.20) The were not proclaiming Rome, and more specifically Caesar, as the “Savior of the world,” but they claimed that Jesus and his Kingdom was the “Savior of the world.” (See 1 John 4.14)

What does this mean for us today?

Does following Jesus ever feel, to you, as if it threatens to change everything about your life too?

Well, I’ll tell you a little secret. It does. But the changes that Jesus brings are changes that lead to life. The course that this world is on is one that ends intrinsically in death. Jesus came that we might have life.

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day WHAT WOULD BRING YOU PEACE—but now it is hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19.41-42)

HeartGroup Application

1)Read, prayerfully and thoughtfully, DAILY, through Matthew 5-7 for the next seven days. Be mindful of the voices in your headspace that will try and marginalize, or explain away, what Jesus was actually teaching.

2)List some ways that Jesus’ teachings feel threatening to you. Then list how those same teachings could also set this world on the course toward a “new humanity” (Ephesians 2.14-15), a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5.17; Galatians 6.15), life rather than death, if those teachings would be embraced by us.

3)Be prepared to share openly and mutually your insights and discoveries with your HeartGroup, dialoging with each other and discussing each respectfully. Remember to practice the fifty plus “one anothers” of the New Testament most of all.

Wherever this finds you today, remember, the Kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom in heaven, but the Kingdom OF or FROM heaven, come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave us a way to heal our world, one person at a time. So today, go out and love like Jesus did, think like Jesus did, feel like Jesus did. Embrace Jesus’ picture of the Father, how Jesus taught us to see even ourselves. And continue to embrace how Jesus taught us to see, also, everyone else around us.

Keep living in love (Ephesians 5.1,2), and keep enlarging the Kingdom.

I love you guys, I’ll see you next week.

Herb

The Deeply Obstructed Kingdom Has Come (Part 1)

Once, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17.20–21)This week I want to take a moment to share what has the potential to be truly revolutionary if you can get your heads and hearts around it. In fact, not only is this revolutionary, but it seems so obvious when one reads the Jesus story that it is truly bizarre how so many today miss it. I’ll be splitting it into two parts over the next two weeks. So let’s begin with part one.

What I want you to notice in the following passages is that the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke was not proclaimed to be coming at some point in the future, as some event to which we look with anticipation. No, the kingdom, of which Jesus is king, had come, then and there, with the arrival of Jesus Himself, and Jesus’ followers were invited to participate in the proclamation of its arrival.

Matthew 3.2: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven HAS come near.”

Matthew 4.17: “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven HAS come near.’”

Matthew 10.7: “As you go, proclaim the good NEWS, ‘The kingdom of heaven HAS come near.’”

Matthew 12.28: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God HAS come to you.”

Matthew 21.31: “Which of the two did the will of his father? They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes ARE GOING into the kingdom of God ahead of you.’

Mark 1.15: “And saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God HAS come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Jesus was not announcing that His kingdom would arrive in the future; He proclaimed that it had come, rooted in his own arrival. He saw His purpose as traveling from one city to the next, proclaiming it’s arrival!

Luke 4.43: “But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’”

Luke 8.1: “Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”

Luke 17.20, 21: “Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” for, in fact, the kingdom of God IS AMONG YOU.’”

With the arrival of Jesus, a new Kingdom had arrived. This Kingdom, at the time of Christ’s proclamation, had yet to measure up against the kingdoms of this world (particularly the Roman Empire), but it would, and it would conquer them. Not the way though, we typically think of how kingdoms conquer kingdoms. Jesus, through the weapon of nonviolent noncooperation (see the eSight series The Active, Nonviolence of Jesus), would establish his Kingdom in the very territory claimed by “the Satan” who claimed to be “ruler of the kingdoms of this world.” (see Luke 4.5; John 12.31) As N.T. Wright states, “The birth of this little boy is the beginning of a confrontation between the kingdom of God—in all its apparent weakness, insignificance and vulnerability—and the kingdoms of this world” (N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone).

Today, we live on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ Kingdom is here now! It is all around us! Paul called it the “new creation”! But it is not readily recognized or obvious to all at this time.

John 3.3: “Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can SEE the kingdom of God without being born from above.’”

Now I can already hear some who are familiar with the following verses begin to ask, “Well, what do we make of all those places where Jesus speaks of His Kingdom not a present but as a future reality?”

Pay close attention to these next verses:

Luke 21.31: “So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is NEAR.”

Luke 22.18: “For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God COMES.”

This is how I understand these two passages in Luke 21 and 22, and, as always, we are all in process of understanding, but today, this is how I understand them.

a. Jesus arrived and with Him arrived a New Kingdom.

b. Jesus became the new ruler of this world through His death and resurrection. (cf Luke 4.5 and Matthew 28.18-19)

c. Jesus then, after His death and resurrection, conferred this new Kingdom on us.

Luke 22.28–30: You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel

d. And we are called to enlarge the boarders of this Kingdom until all opposing dominion, authority, and power to Christ’s dominion, authority, and power has been removed, and then the age of the UNOBSTRUCTED reign of Christ’s Kingdom will begin.

1 Corinthians 15.24–25: Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

No, I want to be clear; we do not enlarge Christ’s Kingdom through methods that are foreign to His Kingdom. We do NOT enlarge Christ’s Kingdom by the methods used by kingdoms of this world. No, no! We do not enlarge Christ’s Kingdom by the power of “the sword” but rather through the power of the cross. We do not enlarge Christ’s Kingdom by seeking to obtain and use power over those in opposition to Christ’s Kingdom, but by humble, servant love, coming under and serving those in opposition to Christ’s kingdom (See Paul’s use of the word “submit” in the context of slavery, unbelieving, patriarchal husbands, secular government, etc.) We do not slay Christ’s enemies, but oddly enough, as counter intuitive as this is, by allow ourselves to be slain BY Christ’s enemies, thereby, through our own death, conquering them through our unconditional forgiveness and our humble servant love for them. This is the history of the first three hundred years of the Jesus movement, without exception. Thus, we becoming, like He who died on a Cross before us, conduits and subjects of this Christ.

Let me illustrate what I have just stated so that you can understand it with pristine clarity.

First, notice the words of Christ:

John 18.36: “Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting TO KEEP ME FROM BEING HANDED OVER to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’”

What I want you to notice in this passage is that we do NOT fight to prevent ourselves from being killed but that we fight THROUGHBE killed. Understood correctly, the cross, or nonviolent-noncooperation IS a weapon. But it is a weapon of an entirely different nature. It is a force more powerful.

2 Corinthians 10.4: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

And as our weapons are different, so is our enemy:

Ephesians 6.12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

In other words, the first century followers of Jesus did not view those who were killing them as their enemies but rather as those being used by the real enemy. And through their own being slain, they would be won away from service to the enemy to obedience to Christ.

In church tradition the story is told of the beheading of James, John’s brother, in Jerusalem. It is said that the Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, as the officer accompanied James to the place of execution, he became overcome by conviction. He declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James and, as a Christian, offered to be beheaded too.

The blood of the martyrs was seed. Not only did these followers of Jesus live well, they died in such a manner that even their enemies were won over.

Jesus was explicit about the methods we are to use:

Luke 9.22–24: “‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’ Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.’”

To the early followers of Jesus the cross was something that he was doing for them; yes, but NOT instead of them. The cross was something that they too were to embrace as followers, or disciples, of Jesus.

So the Kingdom is both future and present. The future/present paradox is not either/or, but both/and. It is here now, and it will reach a time, when it is UNOBSTRUCTED in the future. A war, according to the New Testament, is coming. But it is the war of the Lamb. A war where, contrary to all the fairy tales, a Lamb defeats a dragon! This Lamb has an army too! But it’s an army that fights with the same methods used by the Lamb himself. In other words, this war will not be a war in which Christ’s followers slay their enemies but rather a war in which Christ’s followers conquer in the same way that Christ himself conquered—by allowing themselves to be slain by their enemies. (For more on this topic, see the new series on our website entitled Follow the Lamb at https://renewedheartministries.com/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=35)

As Lincoln said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

The promises remain as follows:

Revelation 15.3–5: “Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations! Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed.”

Revelation 21.24: The nations will walk by its [the New Jerusalem’s] light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

HeartGroup Application:

1.Go back and prayerfully reread Luke 9.22–24 in context.

2.Mediate on Matthew 5.38–48 each day for some time. Even if it’s only for fifteen minutes a day this week, spend some time pondering Jesus’ words. Gandhi used to meditate on the Sermon on the Mount for two hours each day, and though Gandhi used these methods to enable his own nation of India to drive out the nation of Britain, it is obvious that there was wisdom we must rediscover in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Write down any thoughts, fears, questions, or insights that Jesus shares with you as you do this exercise. Remember that Jesus’ teachings on living non-violently are rooted and grounded in His radical new way of perceiving God and what He is really like.

3.Be prepared to share any insights this exercise brings you with the group.

I want to be clear, I absolutely believe in the literal second coming of Jesus, but I refuse to use Jesus’ second coming to deny all that Jesus accomplished in his first coming. God’s plan is not relocation (getting us out of here) but restoration (using us to heal this world). The Jews call it, Tikkun Olam. Jesus called it enlarging the Kingdom.(See Matthew 10.8) Remember, God is not taking us somewhere else to spend eternity with Him; He is coming HERE to spend eternity with us! (See Revelation 21-22) We are not just passing through; this place has been won back through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and given back to us as a gift, as our home once again.

I do believe in Jesus’ literal second coming, but we must not use it as an excuse for not taking Jesus’ teachings seriously, as difficult as they may be, in the here and now, today. It is through following way of life of Jesus’ Kingdom today, even if it costs us our very lives, that Jesus’ Kingdom will reign UNOBSTRUCTED in the future. They are connected, and it is vital that we get the chronology correct. We are not waiting on Jesus’ return to create a world where we will be able to follow Jesus’ teachings at some point in the future. Rather, the age to come, in a deeply obstructed form, has actually already begun with the first coming of Jesus. We, as followers of Jesus, and just like we see Jesus doing in the actual Jesus story itself, we actually get the privilege of bringing about it’s unobstructed era in the future by the way we choose to live our lives today.

Much to ponder for sure. We’ll take a look at part two next week.

Keep living in love and loving like Christ.

I love you guys. Now, go enlarge the Kingdom!