Security

When Paul travelled up to Jerusalem for the last time with an offering from the Gentile churches to support the church in Jerusalem, he took eight men with him (Acts 20:4-6).

• Sopater of Berea
• Aristarchus of Thessalonica
• Secundus of Thessaloncica
• Gaius of Derbe
• Timothy
• Tychicus
• Trophimus
• Luke.

I don’t think that they were there for the glory. Rather, he was carrying a significant amount of money, most likely in gold coins. This made it a dangerous journey.

At the time, there was no police protection. If someone beat Paul up, and took his coins, there was no police force to track them down and restore what was stolen. The money so carefully collected would be gone forever.

Paul took eight men with him for protection, not so he could beat up the potential thief, but to provide weight of numbers for safety. When several people stand together in unity, praying for protection, it would be a bold person that would take them on.

More at Defence and War.

Widows Wealth - Meaning of the Parable

One of the enemy’s cleverest tricks is persuading humans that their problem is with God, rather than with them. The spiritual powers of evil have persuaded most people that God is angry with them, and needs to be appeased, when the truth is that it is they who are angry with us and want us to suffer. They needed to be appeased, because humans unwittingly placed ourselves under their authority and they refused to set us free. Jesus died to redeem us from their power, because that is the price that they demanded for setting us free (when they made that demand, they presumed Jesus would not be willing to do it, so they would not lose their slaves).

If our gospel requires God to whack a good son to relieve his anger towards a bad son, we have got something seriously wrong. (We certainly dont understand the parable of the Prodigal Son.

It can’t be God’s justice that requires the good son to be whacked on behalf of the bad son, because punishing one son for the sins of another is not justice.

Widows Wealth

A widow had two sons. She gave each son half of her wealth to manage on her behalf. The youngest son listened to his mother’s advice and made good investment decisions that gained a good return. Unfortunately, the eldest son did his own thing and made some bad decisions, which led to a massive loss of her wealth.

The widow was really upset by her elder son. He was embarrassed by his mistakes, so he tended to avoid her, while he attempted to recover the wealth that he had lost. Unfortunately, everything that he did made the situation worse, so his shame increased. Worse still, the debt collectors were after him and wanted to throw him in prison.

The widow loved her son and was sad that he did not come to see her. She was sadder about that than she was about the loss of money. She had some strategies that would have worked for the younger son, which would have helped her older son do better, but shame prevented him from receiving them from her.

A Christian friend of the widow who was concerned about the barrier that had come between the mother and her eldest son organised for some gang members to beat up the younger son. He said that the punishment inflicted on the younger son would cover the sins of the elder son and break down the barrier so they could be at peace.

Her other friends said that beating up her young son to deal with her anger with the oldest son was illogical. According to the scriptures, punishing one person for the sins of another is unjust, even if he is a brother.

The widow said she was not angry with either son, just frustrated with her friends. She told her oldest son that she had already forgiven him. Once he finally accepted that truth, their relationship was restored, although the wealth never was.

Widow’s Wealth – A Parable

A widow had two sons. She gave each son half of her wealth to manage on her behalf. The youngest son listened to his mother’s advice and made good investment decisions that gained a good return. Unfortunately, the eldest son did his own thing and made some bad decisions, which led to a massive loss of her wealth.

The widow was really upset by her elder son. He was embarrassed by his mistakes, so he tended to avoid her, while he attempted to recover the wealth that he had lost. Unfortunately, everything that he did made the situation worse, so his shame increased. Worse still, the debt collectors were after him and wanted to throw him in prison.

The widow loved her son and was sad that he did not come to see her. She was sadder about that than she was about the loss of money. She had some strategies that would have worked for the younger son, which would have helped her older son do better, but shame prevented him from receiving them from her.

A Christian friend of the widow who was concerned about the barrier that had come between the mother and her eldest son organised for some gang members to beat up the younger son. He said that the punishment inflicted on the younger son would cover the sins of the elder son and break down the barrier so they could be at peace.

Her other friends said that beating up her young son to deal with her anger with the oldest son was illogical. According to the scriptures, punishing one person for the sins of another is unjust, even if he is a brother.

The widow said she was not angry with either son, just frustrated with her friends. She told her oldest son that she had already forgiven him. Once he finally accepted that truth, their relationship was restored, although the wealth never was.

Nero

The idea that Paul would tell Christians that they should submit to an emperor like Nero is absurd. Nero was a terrible man He did some evil things. Some historians think that he was mad. In many ways, Rome was a terrible empire. The small minority who were citizens had a good life. Many of the rest of the people were slaves, and those who were not slaves were often not much better off than slaves. The idea that God put Nero in place to make life on earth better for all people is ridiculous.

See Understanding Romans 13.

Future Church Strategy (10) Conclusion

I have been a little disconcerted by the response to my series of posts on Future Church Strategy. The posts describing the problems faced by the church were very well received, with lots of likes and positive comments. However, when I began to suggest solutions, the enthusiasm dropped away. I would not mind if people showed that my proposed solutions are unbiblical, or if they came up with better ones, but the lack of interest in doing something different is quite disturbing.

I have experienced this before. When I published my first critique of the church in the early 1980s, in a little booklet called the Bride of Christ, it was extremely well received. Several thousand copies went out very quickly (this was before the internet made communication easier). However, I noticed after a while that people were mainly interested in the critique of the church. The New Testament analysis of what the church should be seemed to have gone right past them.

When I republished the material under a new title with fuller and clear descriptions of how the New Testament teaches that the church should function, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to leave out all criticism of the existing church and focus on sharing a positive vision. The book, called Being Church Where We Live, was not nearly so well received, although it shared the same concepts.

I conclude that people are aware of the severe problems the modern church faces but are unwilling to make the costly changes necessary to turn the situation around. They agree with the warnings about the challenges we are facing, but seem to be hoping that catastrophe will not happen, or if it does, they will be able to muddle through by doing what they are already doing.

Thinking this way is human, but it is a dangerous strategy for leaders, who should be showing their followers the path ahead. I can understand the New Zealand Rugby Union and the political leaders of the European Union adopting this “head in the sand” strategy, but I expect more of Christian leaders.

Church Strategy (9) Kingdom of God

Fourth Strategy
The Holy Spirit will not be defeated. He will eventually push back the darkness and build the Kingdom of God.

• The Kingdom of God is not national.
• The Kingdom of God is not the church.
• The Kingdom of God is not political.

The Holy Spirit will give the Kingdom of God to restored local communities.

We need a church model that can receive the Kingdom of God. We need a church model that the Holy Spirit can use to bring the Kingdom of God into neighbourhoods and local communities where people live.

This full series (with additional links) can be found at Future Church Strategy.

Church Strategy (8) Rescue Vehicle

Third Strategy

As darkness spreads, the pain and sorrow of life in the world will grow massively.

Many people in the world will need to be rescued from the spiritual powers of evil. This will be a huge opportunity for the church, but only if we are ready for the task.

We need a church model that is capable of rescuing people who are crushed in the world and restoring them. They will need to be rescued into an environment of love and service.

Church Strategy (7) Be a Place of Safety

Second Strategy

The darkness is squeezing out the light in our society.

Christians are becoming a small minority in our society. We are currently tolerated, but as evil grows in confidence, this will change. As the world becomes hostile, standing alone will be dangerous. Christians are currently spread thinly throughout society. That was fine when were a strong influence in society, but is risky now that we have becomes a small minority. Isolated people are easily crushed.

We need a church model that can provide safety for Christians living in the world during a time of darkness and persecution.

Church Strategy (6) Live and Love in the World

First Strategy
We need to get serious about doing the One Another Stuff. These are not optional extras for an hour on Sunday. They should be the heart of how we live. Read the list here. If you have to get into you car to do most of these things, something is wrong.

Jesus promised his disciples that if they loved one another, people of the world would be drawn to him. For people to see us love one another, we must be living in a way that allows the people of the world living around us to see our love for each other working out in our daily lives.

The solution is to go and live amongst them. A person/family going in isolation on their own would be hopeless. They could be overwhelmed by the pressure and fall. However, if some believers go into the world as a group and live close to each other, they will be able to sustain each other despite the pressure.

Church Strategy (5) Gospel Barrier

Here is the Big Question.

The modern church lives in separation from the modern world. This leaves us with a communication problem. How do we get the people of the world to hear the gospel.

How do we get the gospel over this barrier?

This is a serious problem for the church. More of the same will not get the job done.

Announcing the good news from a pulpit in a church building will not work. Most of people in the Modern World will not be willing to drive to a strange building.

Shouting from a distance and telling them what is wrong with them will not work. They already know that they have problems. They want workable solutions not more condemnation.

A preacher standing on a pedestal where his people have placed him cannot reach over the divide to them. It is more likely that the people of the world will knock him down with accusations (true or false).

Flying in an American Evangelist will not do it. His communication model belongs in a different time, and his gospel is not good news for the modern world.

We need a Future Church model that can jump over the barrier and reach the Modern World. If we can’t solve this problem, the church will be swamped by the modern world.

The church desperately needs a better strategy.

I am not going to give the solution here. People who care enough can find it for themselves. However, in the next four posts, I will identify four elements that are essential for an effective strategy in the current situation.

Church Strategy (4) Serious Problem

Modern church strategies do not touch the Modern World of the eighty percent.

The church has made a massive investment in reaching the Church Memory group, including buildings, car parks, video and sound technology, theological training of preachers, and training in video and sound production. However, this massive investment has gone into structures that are becoming less and less effective, as our sphere of cultural influence shrinks dramatically.

We have put all our eggs in one basket, but the model that was designed to reach people with a Christian Memory can’t reach over the dividing wall into the Modern World where most people now belong.

The irony is that under the drive-to-church model that we have made a massive investment into, Christians spend most of their time in the Modern World. However, they live there as isolated individuals within the structures of the Modern World, and under the authority structures of the Modern World.

The massive irony is that we are living in the world that we are trying to reach, but the main Christian thing that we do is to drive out of it to a building where the world cannot see our connection, or hear what we are saying.

Were cannot communicate effectively to the Modern World we are living in because we are isolated from each other and dominated by the spiritual authority structures of the Modern World.

The House Church movement has not done much better.

This is a serious challenge.

Church Strategy (3) Shrinking Influence

The people within our cultural orbit are getting older and less open to change. Their numbers are shrinking rapidly. Young people are leaking across the boundaries in a huge flood.

If they get their model wrong, house churches can be limited to rescuing people that are falling out of the church.

Many of the people who join house churches are in danger of falling out of the church, because they are hurt. They were Serious Christians once, but bad experiences have deadened their passion. They are slipping out into Christian Memory. House Churches are a powerful tool for rescuing these people, but it is hard work. Many have been burned by over-zealous authority, so they are hard to get close to. Most carry unfinished baggage, so few will become world changers.

Revival
Many Christians are seeking a revival. Traditional revivals occurred among people with a Christian Memory. They were stirred by passionate preaching and revival meetings. Even if revival occurred in New Zealand, it would hardly be noticed, because it would only touch the lives of people within the shrinking twenty percent who have a Christian Memory. The rest of society would not be touched. Revival is a false hope for New Zealand and most countries in the West. Something more radical will have to happen.

Church Strategy (2) Attractional Model

Modern church strategies are effective within the Christian Memory group.

The church has developed good techniques for drawing people from within a narrow sphere of influence. Most efforts are focused on getting people with a Christian Memory to become Serious Christians.

• Church growth strategies are based on the study of this group.

• The first Billy Graham crusades in 1958 had a huge impact on this group.

• The Charismatic renewal really touched this group.

• Seeker-friendly services are still effective with them.

• Because people in the Church Memory group have become used to more sophisticated communications, church service production has to be slick to keep them amused/interested.

• The main form of service/minsitry for many Christians is ensuring that the Sunday meeting goes off well. In this model, the worship leader is perceived to be the ultimate calling.

• The task of Christians is to get their friends and work contacts to go to church with them.

• They don't have to know how to share the gospel or answer questions about it. They just have to tell people about how good their church is.

• These strategies are all centred on church meetings. If we can get a person with a Christian Memory to come to a meeting, the professionals can swing them into the Serious Christian group.

This is an attractional model. Our task it to get people from the Christian Memory into church meetings of some kind.

• Attractional strategies have been effective with people within this narrow sphere of influence.

• Home/life groups may just be the last legs of the attactional strategy. Attracting people to a church is getting really difficult. Attracting people who are losing their Christian Memory into a home is easier than attracting them to a church building. They might be more comfortable sitting in a lounge of a friend’s home sipping coffee in front of a warm fire.

• When a person from the Modern World is reached by the gospel, they have to be socialised into life within our cultural orbit. The new believer is expected to change to be like us. A new language has to be learnt. They have to learn to be comfortable in our church meetings. They have to learn a new way of thinking.

• Home/life groups can make this social, cultural and philosophical transformation easier.

• The House Church model still focuses on getting people to attend meetings. Hopefully they are better meetings, where the Holy Spirit is freer to move.

Unfortunately, as the Christian Memory group is shrinking fast, attractional methods become less effective.

Church Strategy (1) Target Population

From the perspective of the gospel, our target population can be thought of as three groups.

Serious Christians
The hard core of serious Christians is probably about 5 percent of the population.

Serious Christians have the following characteristics.

• They are serious about serving God
• They attend church regularly.
• Their numbers are shrinking rapidly
• This group is aging rapidly.
• The future of the church depends on this group.

Christian Memory
The second group have a Christian memory, but do not participate in the church. They might be a twenty percent of the population.

The Christian memory group have the following characteristics.

• They may have gone to church or sunday school when they were young.
• Their mothers were active in the church.
• Their fathers went occasionally
• They can sing How Great Thou Art at a funeral
• They do not think about it much, but sort of believe there is a in God
• When things go wrong they pray,
• They do not know how to pray, so it is usually a desperate cry for help.
• When things go well they believe someone was watching out for them.
• They love spam messages about miracles and prayer.
• They forward on emails about angels.
• This group is getting older and is probably shrinking.
• Perhaps they should be called the "Church Memory" group, because many have a quite distorted understanding of Jesus and the gospel.

Modern World
The third group belongs in the modern world. In parts of America this group is getting up toward 60 percent of the population. In New Zealand, they could be 80 percent.

The Modern World Group has the following characteristics.

• This group never goes to church, except for funerals and weddings, and they feel about as comfortable as a Christian would feel in a mosque or masonic lodge.
• They do not call themselves atheists, because they do not define themselves in terms of an attitude to God.
• The possibility of a Christian God just never occurs to them. The idea is simply not on the radar.
• They never think about God, even in a crisis.
• They never pray, except to say “Oh God!”
• When things go wrong, they go to the doctor or the gym.
• They hate religion, because they believe that it causes most of the problems in the world. Like John Lennon, they would love a world with no religion.
• These people know a few Christians at work or at the gym, but they do not particularly like them. Christians seem a bit odd. They tolerate Christians, but they would not see them as role models or want them as friends.
• This group is quite spiritual, but they live in a complex spiritual world with a whole bunch of spiritual ideas and realities all mixed up together.

Two Kings

Anyone who thinks that Paul taught that we should submit to two different kings (Jesus and a worldly king/emperor/president) does not understand how well Paul understood Jesus, or how much the Holy Spirit trusted him.

I find that the people who are the most staunch about submission to political power, are pastor-leaders who want their church to submit to their power. The problem is that if they let submission to rulers go, they are in danger of losing submission to their authority.

Two Kings

A king who says to his people, I want you to serve this other king who hates me has lost the plot, and will eventually lose his kingdom.

Jesus has not lost the plot.

Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters (kurios - lord)”. “You will love (agape) one and despise (kataphroneo “think against”) the other”. Christians who choose to love their political rulers will eventually begin “thinking against” Jesus and his kingdom.

Two Kings

I do not understand why Christians who have Jesus as their king/ruler, are so keen to serve another king/ruler/president/prime minsiter, especially one who hates Jesus or who is controlled by a powerful government-spirit.

I do not understand why people who (should) have security in the body of Jesus, are so keen to look to a rulers who hate Jesus for their safety/security.

It does not compute.

Spirit and Soul

Soul and spirit seem to be different, but it is hard to understand how. The problem is that the Greek and Hebrew words for spirit both mean wind or breath, too.

• Watchman Nee sliced and diced spirit and soul in his book the Spiritual Man. It was sort of interesting, but not really real.

• The letter to the Hebrews says that word of God can divide between soul and spirit like a spiritual sword (Heb 4:12) but it does not explain how they are divided.

• The Old Testament seems to use soul and spirit quite interchangeably at times (eg 1 Sam 1:15; Job 7:11. I have never been able to find a consistent pattern that makes sense.

• The Greek word “psuche” is used for “life”. It can be the life that God breathed into Adam. It can also be used to describe the entire person. So I think that we have to be careful.

• Jairus’s daughter is interesting, because most translations say her "spirit returned" when Jesus prayed for her. However, because the word pneuma means breath, Luke would must be saying that her “breath returned”.

• Similarly with Jesus on the cross. Most transaltions say that "He gave up his spirit".The gospel writers might be just saying that Jesus “stopped his efforts to breath”, which is the most difficult thing when you are on a cross. Giving up breathing would quickly end his life.

Brain and Spirit (3)

Some Christians call their facility to see and hear in the spiritual realms their “spirit”, and there may be some scriptural justification for that, but that does not tell us much more, given that the Greek and Hebrew words for spirit mean wind, which suggests something that can’t be seen, which has an effect that can be observed.

The example of Jesus is interesting. I beleive that he had this facility in operation before he was baptised in the Spirit.

• I presume that Jesus had to partially give up his ability to discern the spiritual realms so that he would be like us and experience life like us.

• I suspect that Jesus had far more spiritual experiences before his ministry began than are described in the gospels. The spiritual powers of evil had tried to kill him when he was born. I don’t imagine that they gave after their first attempt as this was a desperate spiritual battle. I don’t think that his temptation in the wilderness was his first temptation. I presume that the evil powers continued to attack him throughout his life and tried to deceive him into doing something wrong that would wreck his ministry. They had probably continued trying to kill him with falling rocks etc.

• Obviously, his baptism in the Spirit heightened his spiritual discernment, but because he a not affected by guilt and shame I presume that he had far better insight into the spiritual realm, than most of us have. I presume that this enabled him to identify the source of his temptations and resist them.

Brain and Spirit (2)

Its important what we understand is that we live in a universe that has spiritual and physical dimensions. We tend to forget that because we have becomes locked in the physical.

The scientific method can only observe the physical part, so scientists, at best, can only produce half-truths. They don’t have the tools to observe an important aspect of reality, so we should never be intimidated by them. They are like a man who can see and hear, but has no sense of touch. His description of the world will be correct as far as it goes, but he will miss out something really important things like the difference between objects that are solid and those that are fluid. He will understand that some objects are a barrier and others are not, but he will not understand why.

If scientists had put cameras and heat sensors in the tomb where Jesus was buried, they would have measured his body being absolutely cold, then quickly warming. They might pick up some of heat that the Holy Spirit generated when reviving Jesus body. The cameras would observe Jesus beginning to breath and then get up and walking out. They might observe the stone moving back. They will see all this, but they will still have no idea of how or why it happened.

A Christian who was part of the scientific team could not use this evidence to prove conclusively that God did it, or even that God exists. He could say something odd happened, but he could not prove why. The reason is that the best scientific tools cannot observe or measure spiritual reality.

The spiritual realm that scientists cannot observe is probably far more important for what happens in human life than the physical realm (more here). Those who just observe the physical dimension get a very distorted view of reality.

Humans obviously have a facility within us (not floating over us or beside us) that has the ability to observe and communicate into the spiritual dimension of life. That ability has been badly damaged by the fall (original sin is not a very could term for describing what happened). I presume that this facility is within the brain (not the heart which is just a pump, which responds to adrenaline) but I have no idea how it actually works.

Some people have this facility to observe the spiritual world with a greater capacity than others do, just as some have greater intelligence and some have heightened compassion. I do not think it is just a gift of the Spirit (although discernment is one of the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives) because some non-believers have this heightened ability too.

No matter how much the neuro-scientists do, they will not be able to see this facility, because there tools can never observe the spiritual dimension. They might pick up the effect of the spiritual on the physical, but they will not be able to see observe the interaction. All they will see is effects in other parts of the brain, but they will never know what caused them.

I reckon that the deadening of this facility that interacts with the spiritual realms is the major effect of the fall. I presume that it is restored when we are born again. However, it is essential for followers of Jesus to be aware that they have this facility, and develop their ability to use it. This awareness is something that has been lost with the secularisation of or culture.

In terms of apologetics, McGilchrist’s comment that surveys show that most people believe “there is something more out there” is relevant. I believe that most people these days have an awareness of the spiritual dimension of life. Most of the younger generation have had a spiritual experience, and for most, it was a bad one. So the people of the world don’t need to be persuaded that the spiritual is real. What they need is an account of the spiritual realms that makes sense; that fits with their experience of the spiritual, whatever it might be, and which enables them to make sure that they are living on the right side in the spiritual battle.