ezra's bucket

Building my theology. Body

2007-03-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

I am an introvert, which explains a lot. I am an only child – which explains a whole lot more! I enjoy cycling alone, running alone, driving alone, eating alone. Pretty sad, huh? Actually, it’s not because I enjoy the company of myself. Rather, I enjoy God’s company, and I enjoy thinking.

But. In the 8th grade I joined a traveling ministry team of eight other junior highers, and since that time I have learned how to “do life and ministry” with other people. Christianity as a team sport. I make my daily pilgrimage with my wife and kids, with my church staff, and with my journey group of Christ-followers.

Why did Jesus have 12 apostles? Moses had Joshua, Elijah had Elisha, Paul had Timothy. Why 12? That’s the number of tribes? Maybe. I think Jesus was modeling Christianity as a caravan. And if you actually think about it, Moses also had the elders, Elijah also connected with a school of prophets, Paul had Luke, Titus, Barnabas, Acquilla, Priscilla, and so on.

Why 12? Why a group? Because 1 Corinthians 12 says we are each a part of the body, and we each have different gifts – we need each other and the puzzle isn’t complete without our part. Why four gospel biographies of Jesus? Because it gives high definition view, stereo sound, more evidence and different perspectives on the life of Jesus. In other words, if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John don’t come together for their weekly small group meeting, they are going to miss out on understanding part of the life of Jesus.

19 books. Matthew, Mark, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1 John, Jude, Revelation. Do you see what these have in common? Which ones are missing? These books were written to “bodies” of people, to local churches. The other books obviously were shared eventually with the churches. Point is, the Bible itself is to be read and studied together in the Body.

The first potential church split? Maybe Acts 6, but certainly Acts 15. Legalistic teachers confuse Antioch Church with Jewish teaching, so they send a delegation to Jerusalem Church and convene a conference. They LISTEN to everyone’s case, understanding of God, experience, etc. Then, they understand God’s direction on the matter. The Bereans? They studied together [acts 17].

What happens when we don’t do theology together? 3 John, a postcard written from John to Gauis, gives us a glimpse. He had tried to write to Gauis’ church, but a member – or elder - named Diotrophes was evidently blocking his message, and didn’t allow other traveling Christians and teachers to visit. When you’re in a church where one person controls the message, and holds the remote control on the truth, and won’t allow for other teachings from the Spirit, there’s one piece of advice – don’t drink the cool-aid!

We understand that owning a personal copy of scripture and studying it alone is a recent (300 years) phenomenon, and more unique to the last 100 years. As joyous as it is to have “quiet time” and personal study, it is not the full design of God for handling his word. I cannot be a spiritual introvert.

I must do theology with the Body. Studying truth is not a dictatorship – one person holding the reins. It’s not a democracy – everyone voting on the message. It is a divine dialogue between the Father who spoke it, the Son who acted it out, the Spirit who teaches it, and the children who must understand and live it out.

God has no “only children”. There are no introverts in his kingdom. We must do theology together.

Who's In? God knows.

2007-03-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

God has a redemptive story. We must understand it for ourselves, and so that we can accurately and effectively share it with those who need it. According to scripture it includes the truths:

1. Humans need salvation.
2. God wants to save.
3. God can save however he wants, whenever he wants, whoever he wants.
4. God has chosen to save through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ.
5. God has directed people forward in faith and backwards in faith towards this sacrifice.
6. God has used different faith pictures and terms to explain this salvation at different episodes in history:

• Adam and Eve through Noah – faith in God shown through sacrificing animals
• Abraham through Joseph – faith in God shown through sacrificing animals and nation building
• Moses through prophets – faith in God shown through sacrificing animals and law keeping
• Jesus through today – faith in the sacrifice of Jesus

7. Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels represent a unique episode, where He could offer his salvation to people however he chose.
8. From Acts forward, salvation is explained to people, Jews and Gentiles, in terms of repentance, belief and faith in Jesus Christ.

So what message do I give for salvation? I understand that God can save however he wishes. But, as Robert Coleman states in Master’s Plan of Evangelism, whether or not God wants to save in different ways is not my concern: I have only been given one message for salvation – Jesus Christ.

Details:

Here are the ways in which salvation was offered to people in the book of Acts. On a side note: the “kingdom of God”, which figures prominently in Jesus preaching, is barely discussed in Acts, only mentioned 6 times by the apostles when teaching.

2:38 – Peter, to Jews: “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus”

3:19 – Peter, to Jews: “repent and turn to God”

4:12 – Peter, to Jews: “salvation is found in no on else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved”

5:42 – apostles, to Jews: proclaimed the good news that Jesus is the Messiah

8:12 – Philip, to Samaritans: proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ

8:25 – Peter, to Samaritans: preached the gospel

8:35 – Philip, to Ethiopian: the good news about Jesus Christ

9:5 – Jesus, to Paul: “who are you Lord?” “I am Jesus”

9:20 – Paul, to Jews: Jesus is the Son of God

10:36-43 – Peter, to Cornelius: death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”

13:26-38 – Paul to Jews and Gentiles: “through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you”

14:15 – Paul to Gentiles: “we are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God”

16:31 – Paul to Gentile: “believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved – you and your household”

17:3 – Paul to Jews: “the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah’”

17:30 – Paul to Gentiles: “God commands all people everywhere to repent”

20:21 – Paul to elders: “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus”

24:24 – Paul to Felix: faith in Christ Jesus

26:20 – Paul to Agrippa: “I preached that they should repent and turn to God”

28:23 – Paul to Romans: kingdom of God and Jesus

Building my theology. Spirit.

2007-02-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

I can’t build a house. I can’t even finish off my basement! O.k., I could try, but it would be a mess, I’d damage the house, my pride, my marriage, and my finances. My neighbors have finished their basements, some by doing it themselves, some by hiring a contractor to oversee the work. If I am to tackle this project, I will have to enlist an experienced contractor to make sure the job is done right. And I’ll have to pay him.

I could build my own theology by myself – but I really don’t know what I’m doing. Yes, I have an intellect, yes I can read and talk to others who have tackled it. But the bottom line is, none of us have been here before, this is our first pass through life. I’d like to have a more experienced Counselor for this endeavor.

The Holy Spirit of God built the earth. He moved on the dark waters and began shaping earth [genesis 1:1]. Spirit continued his building work by constructing the revealed, written word of God. 2 Peter 1 says we “must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Spirit guided the Son through his earth journey, from his desert battle with Satan to his prophecy-fulfilling first sermon – “"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." [luke 4]

When Jesus left, Spirit switched to a new building site – the church. Jesus gave instructions through him to the apostles about the new church [acts1:1]. Acts 2? You remember what he did there.

And what does this master craftsman want to do in my soul? “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. [1 corinthians 2]”

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. [2 corinthians 3]

So it just makes sense that the Spirit should build my theology. I want him to be the guiding force, the contractor who pulls all the resources together, the one who teaches me how to understand and practice the truth. I must submit to him. I will pray daily and listen to him teach me as I study the word. I will let him test any and all new thoughts, new teachings I hear to see if he approves, to see if he thinks they can be added to my theology.

And I don’t even have to pay him!

Building my theology. Rock.

2007-01-29T10:49:00.000-08:00

To begin, a house must have a foundation, a set place to be built. You can’t waver on where the house will set, because once it goes up it stays put. Except in certain parts of this county, where they’ll throw an old house on top of a flatbed truck and move it down the lane to make way for a new road! How’d you like to move in a house that had been moved off of its foundation and reset?!

What is my theology foundation? What is the lot I’ll build it on? I have to choose where to build. This may seem counterintuitive to current spiritual journeying, which says you ‘seek’ and search for truth and see where it takes you. That may be fine for a time, but at some point you have to put the stake down, or else the whole life is a game of seeking something you don’t even know exists. It’s called faith.

Charles Templeton. Brilliant, powerful, talented preaching friend of Billy Graham. Both had amazing ministries in the 1940s. But at an intersection of faith, Charles doubted what he was preaching to the masses and sought knowledge through a degree at Princeton. He begged Graham to pursue truth with him. In that dark moment, Graham wrestled with his trust in a real God revealed in a literal scripture. He made his decision that he would travel through life clinging to God and his Word. Templeton lived and died an agnostic.

So, based on my experience and what I have learned from scripture, I choose to start with a foundation of rock.

on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades* will not overcome it. Matthew 16:18

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7

I start with belief in fundamental truths about God. And from there the building begins.

Building my theology.

2007-01-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

I’ve never built a house, but I’ve watched them being built all through my neighborhood. In the three years I’ve lived in this subdivision, there has been a non-stop caravan of work vans, delivery trucks, and construction machinery swarming from job site to job site. How do they know where to go? What needs to be delivered to each site? What needs to be done? How is it assembled? What do they do with all that ‘stuff’?

I am in a steady stream of books, e-zines, podcasts, websites, blogs. New teachings, old teachings, old thoughts with new clothes, new thoughts with old clothes. How do I know what to do with all this stuff? Do I just keep taking in every new post? Does it fit with what I’ve already accepted? Do I just close the door and say, “no thanks, I decided everything in college. Please, no more new thoughts?”

Bottom line is that I have to have a house to live in. I can’t sit on an empty lot and watch the delivery trucks go by, seeing the stacks of building supplies pile up in the yard. So, I must assemble all I hear, see, read, experience, know, believe into a living theology, a creed I can travel with. It doesn’t mean I won’t renovate and redecorate along the way. But I have to have a place to live spiritually. I have to know “this I believe.”

terms for God's people.

2006-11-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

terms used for God's people in the NT...

Term (singular, plural)
Disciple – 290
Brother – 202
Saint – 45
Child of God – 30
Follower – 9
Holy people/nation – 4
Student – 3
Christian – 3
People of God – 3
Church - 110

my questions:
-what term would people most understand?
-what term, if any, is the one God would have us use?
-is there any significance to the fact some terms are used in the gospels/acts, and others are used in the letters?

celebrate. celebrate the birth. celebrate the birth of christ.

2006-11-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

The earliest Christians do not appear to have commemorated the nativity, but only the baptism and resurrection of Christ and the deaths of the martyrs.

98 Traditions say that it has been celebrated since the year

137 AD the Bishop of Rome ordered the birthday of the Christ Child celebrated as a solemn feast.

Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) favored May 20 but others for April 18, April 19, and May 28. Hippolytus (c.170-c.236) championed January 2. November 17, November 20, and March 25. Polycarp (d. 155 AD), for example, suggested that Christ was born on a Wednesday, since the sun was created on the fourth day in Genesis.

273 AD, Western Christians had decided on December 25 to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
350 AD another Bishop of Rome, Julius I, choose December 25th December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: the Roman "birth of the unconquered sun"), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian "Sun of Righteousness" whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers. The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival.

A Christian writer explained in 320 AD:
We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it. {6}

Origen of Alexandria {2}, strongly opposed the celebration of Christ's birth. Pointing out that only Pharaoh and Herod celebrate their birthdays in the Bible {3}, Origen argued that birthdays were for pagans, not Christians.

The pagan origins as well as pagan origins for many Christmas customs
• gift-giving and merrymaking (singing, drinking naked) from Roman Saturnalia;
• greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year;
• Yule logs and various foods from Teutonic feasts), have always fueled arguments against the holiday.
• 12 days

Mid-ages – caroling was lewd (drunkenness, gambling, etc.
Reformation frowned on it as too lewd and catholic. Anglicans didn’t like it, puritans banned it in 1647 (1659-81 in boston).

1800s – Dickens Christmas Carol, xmas trees with presents, xmas cards, santa

study. practice. teach.

2006-11-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice {it,} and to teach {His} statutes and ordinances in Israel. ezra 7:10