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Taking the guess work out of trying to figure what is the center of God's will for you

6/23/2018

Where my head is at this morning:

You will never figure out the center of God’s will for your life if you keep changing that center, never following through on what you have already once said is God’s will (seeing it through, whatever it is, no matter how hard it gets), and never recognizing that you keep saying “I know this is God’s will for me” and perhaps you shouldn’t keep saying that.

What I do know is that following Jesus and being a family member of a local church is always God’s center of His will for you—always.

What I do know is that Jesus hung and still hangs with the unclean, forgotten, marginalized, the poor, the under-resourced needy, and messy-unloved. This will always be the center of God’s will—always.

As far as I can tell, the Bible takes the guess-work out of knowing where the center of God’s will is.

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The gathered-church is (supposed to be) a banquet-supper: this was and is the picture God gives us of the church

6/4/2018

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I continue to find more and more, as I read my Bible and in my study and research, that the early gathered-church in houses throughout the Roman empire, “the meal” (better a banquet-supper composed of a meal and a symposium, where, after the meal, church teaching and discussion would take place) is the form that seemed to matter to God when he described the future of His people.

Also, the Lord's Supper, well, was actually a supper, both originally with the twelve (i.e., you know, the “last” one) and as the church had been gathering in the New Testament and unto about 300 AD. Also we have the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6ff.) as a picture of the gathered-church from all ages at the end of time (as we know it). Listen to how God through Isaiah the prophet (25:6-9) envisioned the future of His gathered-people:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

We can recall that God in Daniel envisioned a multitude from from “all the peoples, nations and men of every language” were to be gathered into the Son of Man's indestructible and eternal kingdom that they “might serve Him” (Dan 7:14). This, combined with the vision of the gathered-church throughout the ages, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb (Rev 7:9). The pictures of Daniel, Isaiah, and John in his Revelation, along with the formation of the church in Acts and as the church spread house to house throughout the Roman Empire and beyond for 300 years, this table of peoples gathered for a meal to worship, receive instruction, and to fellowship as God's family was indeed the gathered-church.

These pictures demonstrate that to be church (i.e., the gathered-church) was both local and missional in nature. We need to reimagine church.

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Wasted Rough Cut: The gathered-church crucified with Christ

6/1/2018

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"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20, ESV).

Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι: ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός: ὃ δὲ νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί, ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με καὶ παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ.

For some reason, I decided to translate and soak in Galatians 2:20 this morning. I have given it a different spin (than most of the translations and how it is all too often preached); yet, the rendering is both grammatically justifiable and faithful to the biblical theology behind “in flesh” (ἐν σαρκί) and “in faith” (ἐν πίστει). Below, the first is, more or less, my word for word translation (with some help in brackets), which is far more fun to read out loud (to really hear Paul’s audible impression), which would have been the way the first hearers heard (they heard, not read) it. Below my wooden translation, I offer a more English interpretive translation for you.

With Christ I have been crucified:
Yet, live no longer I, but live in me Christ;
but now, this life [the one Christ lives in me] I live in the arena of flesh,
in the arena of faith, I live, that is, [I live] the faith that is the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself on my behalf.

My interpretive translation:

I have been crucified with Christ: yet, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me; but now, the life I live in the realm of the flesh [i.e., in the world and with all its fleshly systems and passions], I live in the faith [i.e., in the realm of the faith], that is, the new age inaugurated in Christ, who loved me and gave himself on my behalf.

For why I have taken the last line in v. 20 as I do, check out what Paul already wrote in his introduction to Galatians: “. . . and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins [cf. Gal 2:20c] to deliver us from the present evil age . . .” (1:3-4). Furthermore, the simple two words "But now" (δὲ νῦν) imply the inauguration of the new age (i.e., the kingdom of God) has come in the appearance of Jesus. Of course many times “now” simply means “now.” Paul, however, often uses "now" to indicate the inauguration of the new age that has arrived in the coming, cross, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and not simply as a conjunction (cf. Gal 3:21; Rom 3:21; 6:22; 7:6; 8:1; Eph 2:13; Col 1:22; cf. Rom 3:26; 11:5, “in the now time,” ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ). Thus, Paul is helping the reader to hear that these words are to be heard within the tension between this present evil age and the age to come inaugurated in Christ. To be crucified with Christ is to be delivered from this "present evil age" and, thus a participant in the new age, now.

Seems to me this verse, Gal 2:20, calls us to live a life based on the new age hushered in by the Spirit (i.e., the new age of the kingdom) that was inaugurated in Christ’s faithful action of the cross (the reason Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ,” 2:20a, which centers on the cross); rather than living by the passions and systems of the flesh that make up the way the world around us works (cf. the fruit of the flesh vs. the fruit of the Spirit later in Gal 5:16-24). This text reminds us, as Christians and as church, we are wholly different. Very much like Jesus’ words in John 17 that we are in the world, not of the world.

This goes with the church-problem that Paul seems to be addressing, that is the nature of the gathered-church. Paul illustrates this by his previous rebuke of Peter (cf. Gal 2:11ff.), who, for whatever reason, had separated himself from Gentile believers at the table (probably a reference to the Lord's Supper of the gathered-church). Additionally, Gal 2:20 is not far from the implications of Paul's words in Ephesians 2:11-22: note the centrality of the cross (i.e., crucifixion as the means by which the wall (i.e., separation) is broken down between believing Jew and believing Gentile, making the two (literally, the both) one new humanity (in Christ), which is the household of God, being built up as a holy temple (i.e., the gathered-church).

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

To be crucified with Christ is to be caught up with the Spirit's working in forming the church. In particular, intentionally, a church, to fulfill the principle of being "crucified with Christ" ought to reflect the age of the Spirit wherein "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28; cf. Col 3:10-11, "new self" is actually "new man").

I am the author of Wasted Evangelism: Social Action and the Church's Task of Evangelism, a deep, exegetical read into the Gospel of Mark. All royalties from this book go to support our church planting ministry in the Hill community of New Haven, CT. The book and its e-formats can be found on Amazon, Barns'n Noble, (and most other online book distributors) or through the publisher, Wipf & Stock directly.

For more information on our church plant >> Learning Local in The Hill

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Taking the guess work out of trying to figure what is the center of God's will for you

The gathered-church is (supposed to be) a banquet-supper: this was and is the picture God gives us of the church

Wasted Rough Cut: The gathered-church crucified with Christ

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