The Gospel of the Kingdom, or The Gospel of Salvation?

The gospel which we preach nowadays, which I refer to as “the gospel of salvation,” is largely about leading people to a salvation experience, typically in the form of “the sinner’s prayer.”

But such an experience is entirely lacking from the ministry of Jesus. Certainly, there’s nothing even remotely like a “repeat after me” prayer in scripture, but more, Jesus never called on people to perform any sort of act of conversion: no sinner’s prayer, no pledge card, no “with every eye closed, raise your hand.” Nothing. Nada.

But his first and strongest message was “Repent [which means “change the way you think” or “change the way you see things”], for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand [which I interpret as “within reach”].” And then for three and a half years, he both taught on and demonstrated what the Kingdom was like.

So apparently, instead of a sinner’s prayer, the transition from sinner to saint was changing how you thought about God’s kingship, re-working your worldview and your view of Heaven. And that was between you & God; no public declaration, embarrassing or otherwise.

And since He demonstrated it, regardless of what we think of His teachings, we have to admit that “the Kingdom” the way Jesus sees it includes healing the sick and raising the dead. We watch Him in the Gospels, and it *looks* like it involves hanging out with tax collectors and “sinners” more intentionally than going to “church” (in his case, Temple).

And apparently, judging from the way he announced it, it involves thinking differently. And since he was talking to arguably the most religious people in history, apparently it meant “think differently than your religion has taught you.”

Adding His teachings into the description, the “good news” [“gospel”] of the Kingdom appears to also include loving people outside our comfort zone, and replicating ourselves (“bearing fruit”), and being treasured by God (as in the Pearl of Great Price).

It may be of some benefit to just look at every place that the Kingdom is mentioned in the gospels (start here: http://bit.ly/KingdomGospels), and see what the Holy Spirit shows you. But take your time; there are 119 verses in that link, each with some revelation on the Kingdom.

I very much encourage you to discuss what you learn with Holy Spirit, and let Him separate the meat from the bones!

Does that offer any help understanding the difference between Jesus’ term “the gospel of the Kingdom” (Matthew 4:23) and our unscriptural term “the gospel of salvation”?

Borrowing an Anointing in Rizal Park

There’s a principle in prophetic ministry: even people with no real prophetic gifts can prophesy when the Holy Spirit is present and manifesting that gift. The clearest example I can think of is King Saul, and it hit him twice: in 1 Samuel 10, and again in chapter 19. When he was around prophets, King Saul flopped on the ground and prophesied. “Therefore it became a proverb: “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

It appears that it happens with other gifts as well. I’m not really gifted as an evangelist, but let me tell you about one time that I was numbered among the evangelists. There’s no great lesson in this; it’s just a testimony.

Some years ago, I was part of a YWAM evangelistic outreach in Manila, the Philippines. If ever there was an organization with an evangelistic anointing, they would be included on that list.

Coming into this “Outreach,” I’d been praying for an anointing for whatever I was going to do. I was assigned to be one of the “street preaching” team, and occasionally part of the drama team. Everybody was on the personal evangelism team.

My friend Connie was there. Connie is an evangelist. She looks across the restaurant and you can hear the sobbing break out. (OK. That’s an exaggeration. A little bit.) She has flaming red hair, and she lives up to it.

One afternoon, we were sharing testimonies of what God had done, and Connie shared this story: she’d led a college student, we’ll call her Kim, to faith early in the outreach, and now, she was discipling her; they met every afternoon after Kim’s afternoon college classes.

The second day, Kim shows up an hour early: it turned out the college professor hadn’t shown up. Connie asks, “Does that happen often?” “Yeah, fairly often.” Connie’s eyes sparkled. “May I go with you to your class tomorrow?”

So Connie accompanies Kim to class, and sure enough, the professor doesn’t show up. And now Connie has a captive audience of 30 college students. She stands up, calls for their attention, and launches into the good news. As she was finishing, before she could ask “Who wants to believe in Jesus?” the professor comes in, sees someone else – a white woman! – speaking to her class. Of course she demands to know “What is going on here?”

Connie says, “Just a moment, please. I’m almost done,” and explains that they need to believe, but rather than praying with them, she instructs those who want to follow Jesus to speak to Kim and tell her.

The next day, Kim brought 28 other students with her to be discipled in the ways of Jesus.

I heard that story, and I’m thinking, “I wanna be successful, too!” so I ask God for effectiveness in evangelism.

The next day, we take an outreach team to Rizal Park, downtown. The team outreach was structured in four parts: three songs, one drama showing the gospel, a 3 minute “sermon” presenting the gospel, and Bam! Everybody splits up to share one-on-one with someone, hopefully leading them to faith.

I didn’t really know what I was doing. My attention was drawn to one old guy, in a group of old guys, seated on some planters. I asked his permission, and then shared the basic gospel story with him again. In those days, some of the people really wanted to please foreigners, so I explained the gospel, and then I outlined the costs of following Jesus. Twice. And he was old, so I had to speak up while I did it, so he could hear me. He kept looking down, as if the ground were more interesting than what I was saying.

When I couldn’t put it off any longer, I asked, “Would you like to follow Jesus? Would you like to give your life to Jesus?” And for the first time, he looked up, he locked his eyes on mine, and he said in a shaky, but strong voice, “Yes. Yes, I will follow Jesus.” 

I cleared my throat, and prepared to lead him in that great Evangelical theological pillar, the Sinner’s prayer, but before I could get started, the guy next to my guy looked at me. “Could I follow Jesus, too?” Oh! Oh, yes!

And then the next guy tugged at my sleeve, and pointed to the three guys with him. “We’d like to follow Jesus, too.” And then several more guys sitting on the next planter over, asked if they could as well.

I shared the gospel, quite hesitantly, actually, with an old guy that wasn’t interested. But rather than judge him myself, I kept going. That afternoon, I led nine men in the sinner’s prayer, and then introduced them to a local pastor who was traveling with us.

It’s my opinion that it worked because I was “under the influence” of a group that had a substantial evangelistic anointing. And because I was faithful to do what I really didn’t feel like doing.

When I returned home to the USA, I was, I confess, rather impressed with myself. I headed out onto the streets of my city one Saturday afternoon, fresh from successes like that one (and yeah, there were others).

And I “shared the gospel” with a whole bunch of people. Actually, I attempted to share the gospel, but they saw me coming, and dodged me before I could talk with them. I didn’t lead a single person to faith. Actually, I didn’t even have a serious conversation with even one person that whole day.

I’ve ministered under that anointing again since then. I joined the Full Gospel Businessmen in a booth at the regional fair, and watched God move powerfully. I joined with some gifted evangelists in the same city where I had failed, and watched God move semi-powerfully, but way better than I had done by myself.

Nowadays, I teach people, if you want to move in what I call “the juice,” then go be with someone who has what you want. If you can join them in ministry, then by all means do, but if you can only stand next to them, and learn from them.

For myself, it’s only worked when I’m with them. But when I’m with people who are evangelists, I can exercise that gift. And when I’m not, I’m embarrassing. 

Whole Lotta Shaking Going On

Hebrews, chapter 12 has been rather a seminal passage for many of God’s people in recent days.

For a long time, we were focused on verse 7, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children…” and we comforted ourselves that rather than always expecting to be comfortable, God’s children might need to expect to be trained, disciplined.

And more recently, we’ve had our attention drawn to verses 1 and 2, paying attention to the “great cloud of witnesses” that are watching us, and “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Living our lives with heaven in view has been a great focus.

There’s a third part of the chapter that’s capturing my attention. Late in the chapter, the author writes, “now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

I find that my own attention is drawn to these statements from two directions.

First, many of my brothers and sisters are having their lives shaken pretty formidably right now.

I think of filling a container with something that is not liquid (perhaps cereal, or spices, or nuts and bolts). When I’m filling the container, I pour into the new contents into it, until it begins to over flow. And then I shake the container; I might bang it on the counter once or twice. Inevitably, after shaking, there’s more room in the container now, so that I can pour more in. Shaking makes more room in us, to hold more of God, to care more for others, to understand (and experience) more of his kingdom.

I also think of paint. When I buy paint, they add the colorant to make the paint match the architect’s plans. And then they shake it, so that the architect’s influence is permeated throughout the paint, so that everything it touches conforms to the architect’s plans. Shaking makes us more consistent throughout our lives.

And I think of quality control testing. When I build a cabinet, to hold my tools and such, I often pause during construction and shake the cabinet pretty aggressively: I’m testing to see how well it’s been built. If it is going to come apart, I’d rather it did it early in the process – and this is why buildings are earthquake-tested during the design phase – so that I can correct the defects, and have an effective cabinet to hold the tools that I use. Shaking reveals weaknesses, not to draw attention to the, but to correct them.

The second reason my attention is drawn to these verses about shaking is because a number of the prophets I am in relationship with are hearing God use this passage to explain the season we’re in. We’re in a shaking season.

Add 1 Peter 4:17 into the conversation (“For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household…”), another verse that prophetic people have been hearing for a while. We could make a number of inferences about our churches, our culture, and our nation, based on this combination, but that’s not my primary goal here.

The main focus I’m coming away with is this: if you’re following God, you’re either being shaken, or about to be shaken. It’s for your good, it’s to make you more like him. Don’t freak out when it happens. Celebrate your advancement in the Kingdom.

Walking in Authority

The scene was an AA Allen meeting, back in the day. At Allen's tent meetings, he regularly had demons manifesting. So it was his policy to set up a second tent, where his assistants would take the people manifesting demons and get them delivered, out of sight of the main meetings.

One day, the young men had delivered everybody of their demons except one old cuss, whose demon obdurately refused to leave. They tried everything they knew, prayed every prayer they ever heard, quoted every scripture, and still the demon mocked them.

They’d been at it for hours, determined to see this man set free. The main meetings finished, and people left, and still the demon resisted them. They determined to keep at it – all night if need be – until this poor man was free.

Finally, the last car leaving the parking lot stopped by the deliverance tent, and out stepped AA Allen himself. In a glance, he saw what was happening, and walked over to the demoniac. He bent over, and whispered a sentence, and the demon fled, screaming. Allen stood up, and walked back to his car.

The young men were astounded, and one ran up to him. “What did you say? What authority did you use? How did you do that? Why couldn’t we?”

Allen paused. “I said, ‘My name is AA Allen. Now get out!’” and he stepped into the car and drove off.

There’s a reason that we’re told to walk in the authority Father has given us. Some of us handle Father’s authority like it’s precious china, or like it’s an expensive and complicated tool: we must be careful and we must use it exactly right!

And Father is calling us to just walk in the authority: we’re his kids, so of course we carry his authority. It’s not something we do, it’s not about the right words, the right prayers, as if they were incantations.

It’s about us being his beloved children: we speak and we don’t even need to mention his name: all of heaven and all of hell already knows that when we speak, we’re speaking in his name.

Help Discerning the Move of God

God’s people have been rebuked with a couple of phrases plucked out of the Bible more times than I care to recount: “Decently and in order, Brother! God is not a God of disorder, but of order. You need to settle down.”

I have to keep reminding myself that Acts 2 - where people are accused of being drunk - is God's idea of “decently and in order.”

And evidently Hannah was “in order” when she went to Shiloh to ask the Lord for a child; she certainly found favor and Samuel was born to her. But she also was mistaken for a drunk, by Eli the priest, the one man who was most qualified to be able to recognize the workings of God in His people at the time.

Do you remember David’s wife Michal when David danced before the Lord?

Apparently there is a long history of religious people mistaking spiritual passion (or being influenced by God's Spirit) for drunkenness. Also apparent is the fact that they’re often wrong when trying to identify what is God moving on his people, and what is the flesh at work.

We could also discuss more recent events: Azusa Street, Toronto, Brownsville, and others, and we’d find the trend continuing. I cannot tell you how many times I was warned that “God is not in that disorder!”

I was warned by my pastor to stay away from such places: “You never know what a crowd of emotional people will do! They’re out of control! It could be dangerous!”

This leads me to an awkward, even politically incorrect conclusion: when God is doing something with me, particularly when it’s something that seems strange to me, there is evidence to suggest that my church leaders may not be the best people to ask for help understanding it.

If their job is maintaining the organization of a Sunday morning fellowship, they have a vested interest in not rocking the boat. They have a vested interest in people not being “out of control” in their experience of God. It’s real difficult to condone your experience, if your experience creates ripples among others in the congregation. A few pastors can do it.

It may be better to ask Father to show you himself, what has happened in your life. It will also be good to ask him to introduce you to others who have had a similar experience, perhaps some who can help you understand.

Are there dangers? Are there freaky people out there? Sure there are. Welcome to the deep end of the pool. Eat the meat and spit out the bones.

As Jesus’ best friend wrote: “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit – just as it has taught you, remain in him.” (1 John 2:27) This is not just theory. This is the Word of God instructing you about how to be instructed. This is the real thing.

This is why we follow God. This is also why we don’t follow people who follow God, but we walk alongside them. 

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Four-Letter Praise

I received an unspeakably great honor recently.

I was at a bible study with folks less than half my age, unchurched folks. After the study, we began to pray, and the shaggy, pierced kid to my left began to pour out his heart to God. He was declaring his love, and at the same time, asking God’s blessing, He was doing it in his native language. And his native language was thick with four-letter words.

Immediately, something rose up inside me: I was offended! But just as immediately, Father drew my attention to the heart that was pouring out that stream of “profanity.” Quickly, I saw it from His perspective: how tender, how sincere, how transparent, how beautiful. I felt Father’s joy, delighting in that prayer which offended me so badly. And I began, just barely began, to understand, and as I did, tears formed in my eyes.

This was “love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5) This was exactly what he was looking for: someone worshiping him “in Spirit and in truth.” God was delighted with this prayer from his beloved son!

And I’ve had to admit: “cuss words” are just noises. It’s the heart behind them, it’s the intent, that gives them meaning. God is not offended by noises. Maybe I shouldn’t ought to be either.

Now, having said that, having rejoiced at being present at such an intimate outpouring of love in four-letter vocabulary, I should probably add: this isn’t my language; it doesn’t justify my using that fellow’s language to communicate, either with God or with man.

Whenever I bring this topic up, there’s always someone who angrily responds, “But the Bible says to not use filthy language!” And it does, but in the same sentence it says to put off anger.  Hmm.  And anger is also encouraged, even commanded (Ephesians 4:26). Hmmm again. Maybe this isn’t as “black & white” as I thought.

The word for “filthy language” here is “αἰσχρολογία,” which is literally “αἰσχρός [aischros] words.”  And aischros words are words that are dishonoring, shameful: he’s speaking about the heart (no surprise there), not about the sounds coming out of the larynx.

Aischros is also the “filthy” part of “filthy lucre” which is more commonly translated “dishonest gain.” Again, the command is not about certain sounds, certain noises, that are off limits, but the heart behind the sounds. We foolishly think that as long as we don’t make those particular sounds, we can tell people off (perhaps in Facebook comments?), we can cut people off in traffic, point out others’ mistakes, tell shady jokes and leave lousy tips. All of these are violations of the same intent: dishonoring, shameful, dishonest gain. 

Renowned Greek scholar, Richard C Trench, concludes that aischros “includes therein every license of the ungoverned tongue employing itself in the abuse of others, all the wicked condiments of saucy speech,” and adding, “the context and company in which the word is used by him going far to prove as much; seeing that all other sins against which he is here warning are outbreaks of a loveless spirit toward our neighbour.”

Other principles apply, though I hate to reference principles, knowing how quickly they’re wielded as laws. Paul outlines some of them in his first letter to believers in Corinth:

§         “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)

§         “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.” (1 Corinthians 10:23)

It seems that there are three appropriate questions to ask here:

1.      Is this practice profitable?

2.      Is this practice mastering me?

3.      Does this practice edify or build people up?

In the case of four-letter vocabulary, asking these questions – particularly as they relate to the next generation – gave me some surprising answers. I’ll get different answers, of course, when I ask them related to churchgoers, but I expected that.

But then he suggested to me: “Now ask these questions about the practice of correcting other people’s four-letter vocabulary.” Oh my. That one failed all three. 

I find myself drawn to these conclusions: Four letter vocabulary is not my language, but I’m not going to condemn myself over my language choices when I hit my thumb with a hammer. And my offense at others’ use of a language that is not my own appears to be far more offensive to God than either their language or mine.

Insights from the Book of Job

One of the most useful insights from reading the Book of Job is seeing the difference between what went on in Heaven, and how it manifested on earth, in Job’s life. (The worst use of the book is learning theology from Job’s “friends.” What a train wreck!)
  
Job never knew about the dialog between God and Satan. In fact, Job (and Job’s whole culture) didn’t really know about Satan, so they believed that God did all this bad stuff, when the Book *clearly* says it was Satan. (It’s embarrassing how many Christians believe the same way today.)
  
Job blamed God for the disasters that had struck him, and called him throughout the book to account for why he’d done such evil to him. The oddest part, from my perspective, was this: God took the blame. (I observe that at no point, did Job ever ask God, “Did you do this?” or even “Who did this?” Maybe that would have been useful.)
  
At no point during God’s several chapters of response to Job’s accusations did God ever say, “That wasn’t me. That was the devil.” In fact, God’s reply can reasonably be summarized as, “Job, this is above your pay grade. You don’t even have the capacity to understand what went on in this.” 

God took the blame for the devil’s destruction, knowing he was innocent. 

How many other times does it happen in scripture: the devil wreaks havoc, but we blame God for the destruction. 

We have *got* to read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus, who was the “exact representation” of God’s nature. If we don’t see death in destruction in the ministry of Jesus, then death and destruction is not part of God’s character or his job description. 

Maybe it would be useful to look at the stories of the Old Testament through the revelation that is Jesus, and ask the question:“Who did this?”