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Ok, I know I have to look at a new book by Robby Waddell The Spirit in the Book of Revelation. One part of the description says “Biblical and literary studies are situated within the context of a Pentecostal community as attention is paid to the prophecy concerning the temple and the witnesses in Rev 11.”
This interests me because of my reflection today on Church and Kingdom. In many of the larger churches, mega-churches, there is a teaching that to flourish you must be “planted in the house of the Lord”. This comes from a reading of Psalm 92:13. I could argue the logical order of this process but I am not sure that is really what is at issue.
I think the issue is an understanding of hermeneutics. Christ has come and the temple has been done away with – we are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. Yet we keep going back to Old Testament models of the Temple for the contemporary church. We develop a “house theology” rather than a “Spirit-in-Us Theology” that sends us out into the world, a maintenance theology rather than a missional theology.
Why does this happen? I think in part because of poor hermeneutics. In part because mega-churches need the support to continue their work, though some have been forced to share their premises when things have gone bad. In part because it is easier to consider being blessed than to consider how to be a blessing by giving time, talents and resources to people with names and faces. In part because it is easier to repeat the mistakes of ages past and become new Cathedrals that will possibly be near-empty in a few generations time rather than listen to the Spirit and figure out how He wants us to go and make disciples rather than call them in to where we are comfortable. Mind you no one I know says Durham Cathedral has comfy chairs after a thousand or so years.
Funnily enough I think Robby’s book will be interesting because like me he has to struggle with being Pentecostal, understanding the Spirits work and working in a tradition that itself is both calling people in and sending them out to those inside and outside the temple.
So do you think we should have a house theology or a sending theology?
It is interesting to consider what image or picture of Jesus drives the different traditions.
It seems easy to me to say that the emerging church seems to be driven by the Historical Jesus. Jesus as a Jew in Jewish culture, confronting and living in Jewish culture as a model for us to live today. I like this idea even if it is focussing its effort on understanding Jewish-ness rather than Christian-ness.
The Roman Catholic picture seems to be the Jesus as sacrificial lamb, the Australian Pentecostal Jesus as Jesus triumphant, the Charismatic Jesus as Spirit-filled teacher, the Evangelical Jesus as the Word, the fundamentalist Jesus as the one who saves but judges, the Liberal Jesus as moral instructor, the peace churches’ Jesus is the prince of Peace.
Are these stereotypes of the churches or is the image of Jesus these churches see really a reflection of the water at the bottom of the well of what they want to see?
Maybe as I think about the spirituality of these views then there is truth in all of them but we need all of them to accurately reflect the real Jesus. The Jesus we all need and should worship is all of these yet as people we tend to focus on parts we like. This may or may not be healthy but it does happen that way.
So what do you think?
One of my students found a book on World Missions to help him write up a paper for a paper on theology of mission. The book is Introducing World Missions.
From memory when I looked at it on a break from another class in it is a diagram of three sort of concentric circles describing the relationship of God, Mission and Missions. The outermost circle is the Missio Dei, all that God is doing in the world, the middle circle is Mission, all that the church does in the world, and the inner circle is Missions, where the church is explicitly evangelising.
I had some hits on the blog yesterday through a comment I made on Earl Creps blog.
I raised the issue that it is great that Earl is trying to have the Pentecostal church, in his case Assemblies of God USA, have an emerging church expression and we need to have a conversation about the whole process. In the process of considering planting an emerging church Earl has copped abuse.
Mathematics is an exact field, so is computer science. They state that something is or is not. Two plus two equals four. It is not two plus two should be close to four. It is four. This sort of thinking is helpful for giving expression to the relationship possibilities for Kingdom and Church even though this is a theological discussion. Read the rest of this entry »
One of my areas of interest at the moment is the issue of “kingdom” and “church”. How they relate and how the church embodies the kingdom. While my research has been on church and I make a comment about the church reflecting the kingdom I have come to the conclusion recently that I need to do more work on this. Read the rest of this entry »
