From heaven to earth

Eschatology Introduction #2

If I were to over-simplify popular eschatology I would suggest that the movement is from earth to heaven, expressed as ‘going to heaven when I die’ and the final element being that of the burning up of creation, with eternal life being ‘in heaven with the Lord’. In contrast I read the movement in Scripture as being from heaven to earth, with temporary movement prior to the ‘end’ in the other direction.

Within the Greek philosophical world there was a phrase ‘soma sema’ (the body is a tomb). That phrase popularised the notion that the ‘real’ world was not this world but what we might term ‘heaven’. Death was an escape from the body (the tomb) and an entrance into real existence; the material world held no intrinsic value – hence it could either be ignored through denial or exploited for enjoyment. In the area of sexuality, abstinence could be advocated or conversely total freedom; the physical element was not of value. So unlike Scripture where we read,

present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1).

The body has value, indeed in bodily form humanity was created in the image of God, and that body was formed from the ‘dust of the earth’. God, humanity and creation are all connected.

In the post-New Testament period there was an engagement with the Graeco-Roman world and in order to communicate concepts that were familiar within that world were engaged with, and in certain places and over a period of time rather than the concepts being transformed with regard to how they were understood the concepts changed the message to some extent. There became a move from a Hebraic world-view to one that was shaped by Graeco-Roman philosophy, and we can see that influence very strongly with such language as ‘going to heaven when we die’ or ‘saving souls’; and the embrace of the concept, that many assume (wrongly) is biblical, that of the immortality of the soul.

In reading Scripture we have to learn to ‘unread’ how we have been conditioned to read the text. A text we will examine later (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) where Paul is responding to a question about ‘what about those who have died’, we should immediately note that he does not resort to a typical response that we might give along the lines of ‘they are in a better place’, or ‘they are at home with the Lord’. Even if there were truth in those responses they are not the central biblical response that Paul gives, indeed those responses are not even hinted at in the passage. We note that he speaks of their future when the Lord comes (parousia) and that they will come with him (movement from heaven to earth). He does not focus at all on their current state, but on their future resurrection. There might be a phrase in there that could mislead us (‘caught up to meet the Lord in the air’: a phrase that in its historical context did not indicate a final destination of ‘heaven’ but quite the opposite) but even if we were to misunderstand that one phrase we would have to ignore the overall context and that Paul’s response is to answer the question as to the fate of the righteous dead when the Lord returns to the earth. The answer is consistent to a Hebraic world-view but certainly not to a Graeco-Roman, and sadly nor to many current world-views.

Movement from heaven to earth is something we will expand on as we proceed and we can note how ‘heaven’ is presented as a temporary place, a holding place until the restoration of all things.

  • Jesus must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets (Acts 3:21). There is no indication that Jesus is waiting for us to join him, indeed we are the ones who are awaiting a Saviour from heaven (Phil. 3:20). This latter text, of course, raises the question as to what happens to those who die before that time, for they are not ‘here’ to wait for the Lord to come.
  • The prayer that Jesus taught has those central requests for the kingdom to come and for the will of God to be done on earth as in heaven.
  • Jesus, while with the disciples, prayed that God would not take them out of the world (John 17:14).

We can say that the hope expressed is not a hope that death is a door to a better life, but that death will not be the final word; death will not bring about a better existence but death itself will be swallowed up. The hope of Scripture is of embodied existence in the context of a renewed creation.

There is a consistent universal impact claimed for the work of the cross. We might wish to (as do many theories of the atonement do) focus on the ‘forgiveness of sins’ but the cross of Jesus was in order to ‘reconcile all things’, those ‘all things’ being ‘all things, whether in heaven or on earth’ (Col. 1:19,20). The cross is a roadblock to destruction and a gateway to fulfilment. Eschatology then will be the completion of the ‘creation project’, one that includes a destiny for humanity and all of creation.

Eschatology… first stabs

I am planning Zooms in the Autumn on eschatology. Such a maligned and twisted subject, but one could argue that it is the foundation of all theology rather than an after thought, a kind of appendix. Maybe we should say that the two elements of protology (first word(s)) and eschatology (last word(s)) are important and hold everything else in context. Eschatology will help us make sense of what goes before – how do we understand (for example) the creation stories, the call of Israel without eschatology, or the practical areas of economics or politics?

I will slowly post some of what I am writing – I will put it all together (eventually) in eBook / pdf format, expecting maybe to have something like 4 volumes of 10,000 words each. So here the first post.


If we have some understanding of the word ‘eschatology’ we will know it has something to do with the ‘end times’, the ‘end of the world’, or human destiny commonly expressed as ‘heaven and hell’. Given that the term is derived from ta eschata (‘end things’) we are probably headed in the right direction. It certainly includes human destiny (and perhaps some discussion about certain world events) but the big element that is missing in the above responses is the non-involvement of creation. Not only does eschatology have to consider human destiny, but also that of the destiny for the whole of creation; beyond human destiny we have to include the destiny of material creation. Indeed we would be better to replace the word ‘destiny’ in both uses with the word ‘hope’. Eschatology is to do with the hope for the whole of creation, including the hope for humanity.

Popular eschatology has infiltrated the thinking of most believers with terms such as ‘the rapture’ (or ‘the secret rapture’), the ‘millennium’ or the ‘tribulation’ being somewhere in the subconscious. Ideas such as we are in the end times because there are ‘wars and rumours of wars’ or that the signs of the times point in that direction likewise pervades much of our thoughts. Such thoughts do not encourage us to engage with a story that might put such aspects into context and if we are to find where such terms fit (or not) we will have to be patient. And a little pre-warning we will probably also need to be comfortable with not knowing what certain Scriptures mean or are referring to, and we will have to avoid making texts fit what we want them to mean.

Any study of the ‘end’ or simply of ‘the future’ is inevitably something that attracts a lot of interest as there is something innate within humanity that wants to know about what is to come. Such knowledge can give us security and might at best confirm to us that God is in control and has not abandoned us; or we can treat the knowledge of what is to come as giving us secret knowledge, inside information, which certainly is not what Scripture is there to provide. Eschatology is much more than a remedy for anxiety in providing us with an explanation for what is taking place that might be disturbing us.

This attraction to knowledge means the imagination is alive and the whole area is not without its more than fair share of conspiracy theories. Any source suggesting that it can help us understand the future can be attractive. And when that source is a piece of ancient literature we can quickly pull it from its context and assume it is making predictions that directly relate to our historical context. We have as our source a piece of ancient literature, the Bible, so we need to be aware that it does not come from our context nor culture.

The Bible was NOT written to us; it is written for us (and for people of every era) but there is a huge gap; we are separated from the biblical context by many centuries and our world-views are not the same. The gap of time and culture means we have to seek to do our best to understand something of that culture, era and context, or at least we must not force what we read to fit our context and era.

What we assume about a piece of literature and how we interpret it will determine to a large measure what the outcome is. What we read in can be what we read out! If we take language one way but it was intended another way we will miss what is being communicated. An example of misunderstanding a phrase from our time and culture might illustrate how easy it is to mistake how language is being used. If we were to take the words ‘You frightened the life out of me’ to be a literal statement we would then expect that the sentences following would describe the arrival of a doctor who would confirm that death had taken place. The language literally says that I died through fright, but we understand the language is not to be understood literally but as a metaphor to communicate the level of fear I had experienced. Language has intrinsic meaning but we also have to understand how it is being used. We will have to understand how prophetic language is used and beyond prophetic language we will also encounter a genre known as apocalyptic (for example in the book of Revelation). Apocalyptic language is certainly not to be interpreted as literal as such language acts almost in the same way as political cartoons do – communicating reality through the use of exaggerated imagery. Mistakes can certainly be made when we read certain texts and do not allow for the huge difference between our world and the world of the writers; likewise we can make mistakes when we do not understand what might be taking place with the choice of language and descriptions.

We will also read words and concepts that were rooted in the culture of the readers and so might not simply carry the same meaning that we might give to them. One of the most common words used for the ‘coming’ of Jesus (parousia) was a common word related to the presence of the emperor, as likewise was the Pauline phrase ‘to meet’ the Lord in the air. The usage of those words in the culture will give us some guidelines as to how we might understand them. Rome’s use is the pale copy of the real.

Finally, by way of introduction, and connecting to the opening comment that eschatology is connected to the restoration of creation we need some understanding that the big sweep of Scripture is from creation to new creation (‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ is the beginning and the end of that trajectory is, ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth’). Once we grasp that it is highly unlikely that as we have ‘in the beginning’ the story of creation, that the hope expressed (the conclusion to the story) would then be as simple as a ‘hope to personally go to heaven’ with this whole creation will be destroyed as the conclusion. Consistently when the hope of restoration is expressed for the people we also have hope for creation; we have phrase such as ‘and the trees of the fields will clap their hands’. Metaphorical language, but with deep significance that future restoration includes all of creation. Eschatology (last words) is most likely to connect to ‘protology’ (first words). The arc of the biblical story takes us in the direction of the ‘restoration of all things’ as well as specific biblical texts that explicitly take us there.

As we engage with this theme we will need to exercise patience and we have the task (and it is not a small task!) of engaging with an ancient piece of writing, its world views and beliefs. Patience, a willingness to be left with loose ends, but I am sure it will be rewarding. Theology always has a ‘in the light of this how do we live’ element, always a very practical outworking.

Advance Notice

I am so far ahead of myself with this… but…

Over the past months there have a variety of ‘open zooms’ and the most recent ones have tried to explore what a ‘kingdom economics’ might look like. In September I plan to get a Zoom date where I will present some material that will act as introductory material on Eschatology (so a little bit of a shift… but ultimately eschatology is deeply practical with the biblical question always being a ‘so what?’ or ‘how then do we live in the light of that?’. I am currently recording /editing four short videos and will also make available a pdf (10,000 words) to go with this evening. If we find there is sufficient material we will make this into 2 evenings.

At the heart of this first set of videos (more videos to come) will be:

  • Prophecy is not history written in advance – it is promise.
  • We cannot draw a straight line from OT prophecies to current events.
  • The NT must show us how to read OT texts.
  • A move from a one horizon of ‘Messiah will come’ to three levels of horizon (debt to Andrew Perriman on this) – three horizons of ‘cross’, AD70 and the fall of Jerusalem, and the final parousia.
  • That ‘end times’ is not about a set of events but the final transformation of this world constructs into the kingdom of our Lord and Christ, therefore it must include
  • the transformation of creation not simply the ’saving of souls’ – indeed the paradigm of who is saved and who is not is to miss the thrust of creation to new creation.

I will post here when I have more firm details.

Don’t make idols

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exod 20:4-6.)

An idol is more than an image, but involves making an image and then declaring that somehow this image has become a god or at the minimum is an image of that God. In doing so there is the obvious element of blasphemy involved. How can God be imaged? God will not and cannot be replaced (a jealous God) by any image. But hang on a minute. Idolatry, casting an image and proclaiming that as a god is also a deep insult to humanity.

Idolatry replaces God with a sub-god… Idolatry replaces the true image of God (humanity) with something that is a sub-image, for it is suggesting that we have the power to create an image. We are not the image makers, but are to be the image that manifests God. In indulging in idolatry we are declaring that we are not only replacing God with an image, but we are also replacing humanity, we are involved in the work of dehumanisation, which is the work of the demonic.

Paul gives us another insight

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry) Col. 3:5.

Greed is a (the?) root of idolatry – seeing something, bowing down (submitting) in order to get it. That opens up so much; how much idolatry is embedded within ‘civilised’ society when there is a constant push against the contentment of living within boundaries? A continual push for something more, particularly at the expense of others / the planet? How much hidden (or overt) idolatry have I nurtured?

Time to interact with the images that God made.

Going too far? #6

Time to come back

I’ll make my this my last post that pushes toward / beyond a sensible boundary! I am very conventional on the return of Jesus and am currently putting together some youtube videos and notes to go with them. Just to be clear: conventional in the sense that there does not seem to be any variation within the NT on that hope. Probably does not need to be said, but certainly am no ‘secret rapturist’, don’t fit into any of the ‘post / pre / a-millennialist’ schools, do not see that there is an antiChrist predicted. In short very little in the NT where we see with clarity about what is (wrongly) termed the ‘end times’. Anyway end of my conventionality – let’s stretch the elastic!

One thing I have to address first that does not have much to do with the Bible and any prediction is that without some intervention we are making such a mess of our planet (the ‘house’ God gave to us to live in) that there will be an ‘end’. Certainly the end of civilisation as has been. In the past few posts I have dropped in a little line about the bees – over the past 10 years or so I have been praying (maybe not as fervently as I could) about the bees. They are under threat and we need them to survive – for our sakes, for their sakes and for creation’s sake. If God did not destroy Nineveh because of the cattle it does not seem unreasonable to pray for the survival of the bees. If we are going to survive we have to see a MAJOR shift in our economic structures, with a bending of resources toward climate issues. It might take the reality of the crisis to bite even deeper for this to happen… if that does not happen then as there is no evidence biblically of the planet being destroyed we are certainly back by necessity to a conventional parousia. Jesus came first time round ‘at the fullness of times’, the point when there was no future, Jew and Gentile without hope, so maybe any return will be when there is no future. However, if we who have access to the name of Jesus swing a prayer or three in the direction of the bees, the climate, and the economic structures (OK maybe we need to go beyond three or four prayers on that one), maybe we will get much extended time. Let’s assume one way or another we get extended time.

Believers holding space for the gifts of humanity to come through; believers insisting that powers in the heavens that pollute, oppress and dehumanise back away; believers who no longer see anyone according to the flesh; believers who take responsibility for the future rather than make the ‘drag them out of the burning building’ as the central paradigm… If that were to happen maybe we could move into what might have been (maybe and might be!!!) Paul’s follow up to his ekklesia in every city phase. Then maybe with climate change, economic structural change, people before profit, witnessing to Jesus (way beyond evangelising) there could be a steady transformation, a steady increase of the presence of Jesus (the core sense behind the word parousia), more people finding faith, more of those who don’t find personal faith finding the vision for the future being something they wanted to buy into (as per the Asiarchs who did not find faith in Acts 19), then maybe the ‘return’ of Jesus could be a little different to what I think – after all if many of the ‘believers’ / Jews of Jesus’ time did not see how Jesus of Nazareth could be the expected Messiah it could well be that some of us might also miss it this time round.

One of the big push backs on the above is the ‘resurrection’ of those who have died, yet there was among some Jews the belief that the resurrection of the faithful would be over a period of time, not something that happened in one moment of time (a minority view).

Pushing the elastic to breaking… we see huge shifts in the body of Christ, that results in huge shifts to the economic system, that invests time and energy into the climate issue (the bees buzz a little louder), and the increase of the presence of Jesus becomes evident, humanity moves toward being new humanity, resurrection of those who were faithful begins… blah blah… but to be honest I think the elastic has snapped. Too far, Martin!

It is hard for me to read Scripture any other way than there will be a moment, the ‘trumpet’ will sound, the dead in Christ will come with him to the planet (the historical contextual meaning of ‘caught up to meet the Lord in the air’), those who are of Jesus experience mortality being clothed with immortality, that we enter the ‘eschaton’… but that might not be the end for it is never termed the ‘telos’ (goal).

See, when all is said and done, I am pretty conventional. However, there is something about continuing to work as if Jesus is not about to return (while holding on to the hope of his appearing) that is healthy.

Footnote: earlier this year I wrote about ‘new currency’, currency wars etc. The next few months might give some evidence of this – if so, new currency is not the key, but maybe it could stimulate us to pray for a new economics?

Going too far? #5

The elastic is stretching!

This post is a stretch for me; it is a follow on from yesterday. If we should not be obsessed with ‘who is in and who is out’, and that salvation is salvation to purpose, so for example ‘he will save his people from their sins’ is not a ‘he will save all who respond from eternal damnation’. It was first concerning ‘his people’ (Jews – the context for Jesus ministry and the early chapters of Acts so we cannot legitimately simply take texts from there and make them universally applicable beyond their context). Second it is a saving from their sins – the failure to live covenantly which meant living with responsibility for the world (and with benefits). Salvation was then to do with truly being part of a covenant people living in line with heaven – our citizenship is in heaven – for the sake of all others. Salvation to a purpose. If there is an ‘in’ and there is an ‘out’ that is a God-call not one for us to make. For the record, I think most evangelicals will be called ‘in’ as God is a God of great mercy… however, not my call.

Yesterday, why ekklesia – for the sake of one and all, taking responsibility for wherever it is located.

How effective will that responsibility be? How long is a piece of string, or to use the analogy from one of the early comments on this series – how far can this elastic stretch without breaking? Could it stretch as far as including those who are not (now what word would I use? saved?) as part of the new humanity? Or maybe as ‘not fully’ part of the new humanity? In other words what level of transformation might come?

I know a reply can be made with ‘all our righteousness is as filthy rags’ but that again is a Scripture to Jews who were ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’ in relationship with God. We can’t simply make it universally applicable to someone who is ‘doing good’ – after all that is what God was ‘doing’ in the beginning, so there has to be some element of that being reflective of God – image and likeness of God.

We should not write humanity off – God doesn’t, we shouldn’t, though the devil seeks to do so at every turn.

I have no clue as to how far the elastic stretches; I think though we can – and we who are ‘saved’ can – eat, rest and pray for one and all so that health, goodness and a little more of heaven is expressed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we discovered the elastic is more stretchy and also stronger than we ever thought. I think that might be a better approach than setting ourselves up as the judge of who is in and who is out. And I suspect the buzz from the bees might add their approval to the shift.

Going too far? #4

But why an ekklesia?

Paul seems intent on seeing an ekklesia in every significant city / area within the oikoumene (‘civilised’ land – most commonly used of the territory governed by an empire). In those cities there was already an ekklesia, maybe if we gave it a modern twist, a city government, a body of people who took on the responsibility for the shape, culture and values of the city; they were focused on enabling the city to a better future.

With Paul’s language it is not surprising that the initial understanding was not that he was calling people to raise their hand and pray the sinner’s prayer but that he was presenting a political vision for the oikoumene, indeed for the kosmos. And when he bodly called those who responded ‘the ekklesia of Jesus’ in that city that political understanding would have been re-enforced. Adding to this that the word ekklesia, in the Greek translation that was in common use, translated the Hebrew word qahal – used of the people when they were called to act in response to God. Seems to me that ekklesia has a lot to do with purpose and a purpose related to the wider community setting. If the Imperially endorsed ekklesia were to take responsibity for the city, to ensure that (e.g.) Corinth was a copy of Rome (headquarters), then the Jesus’ ekklesia had a responsibility to work toward (e.g.) Corinth being modelled on heaven (headquarters). This being the understanding behind Paul saying that ‘our citizenship (passport?) is in heaven’. It has nothing to do with going to heaven when we die, but a lot to do with here and now, not a much later idea to do with there and then.

So far no issue raised but as I am suggesting ‘going too far’ – although this time I do not think it is too far.

Paul was focused on getting something in place. He wrote to the Corinthians that if only their faith would increase he would no longer need to be working with them. His apostolic work would have been complete, that of laying a foundation so that they could get on with the work, the work of enabling heaven on earth, or within that part of the oikoumene that they carried responsibility for. What did Paul have in mind once that first task – an ekklesia in every city – had been accomplished?

We can have many debates on ‘church as shaped by the New Testament’, but I think we are probably missing the point. Why an ekklesia? Maybe Paul had something in mind once ‘their faith’ had increased, something beyond church as caring community? I think so, but then again he might only have had sight of the first level of strategy, in reality it does not matter too much what he saw or didn’t. What does matter is what do we see?

Church as healing community, as all-embracing of those who are open to the embrace of the love of heaven, is a wonderful reality, and exchanging that for a purpose driven, law-demanding group of dysfunctional people on a mission would be a disaster. There must always be a place for those who have been broken by the oppression of ‘sin’. Gayle is convinced John the disciple of Jesus had special needs, and ‘The Chosen’ presents Matthew as somewhere on a spectrum that we consider is not ‘normal’! There is space for all of us who don’t fit. A place for everyone, and not a place provided we get all our issues sorted and then can become some sort of warrior. However… you knew there would be an ‘however’.

There has to be something in evidence among ‘us’ that we take responsibility for where we are located.

I consider that with respect to the Bible we have to be ‘post-Pauline’, we need to follow the trajectory that we can see in his writings.

To be ‘post-Pauline’ we will not be un-Pauline. But we will need to move beyond getting dogged down in ‘church’ debates; moving beyond drawing firmly in the dust a line of who is in and who is out. If we are willing to draw in the dust as Jesus did (with the woman caught in adultery) we will touch the dust of humanity and challenge all religious judgements while calling people to their true humanity.

Losing the small vision of getting more people on the inside of our box, but encouraging the small people so that their faith will grow. Those who are serving but have no understanding of demonic powers should not be dealing with demonic strongholds – surely that is an area of responsibility that is ours. Removing powers that have dominated and restricted forward momentum so that good people can serve – our task. Painting a vision for a future that is not based on past inadequate foundations. The sky (heaven?) is the limit.

Paul seemed to have a level of vision (and a vision for the whole of the oikoumene) that he presented daily in Ephesus that got the attention of those who held supremely endorsed Roman authority to ensure that Ephesus (and the wider Asia Minor) was mirrored on Rome.They had not submitted to the ‘Jesus as personal Saviour’ message but had been impacted by ‘Jesus as the Saviour of the world’ message. Maybe if we focus too much on the ‘Jesus as personal Saviour’ message we might find that people wander in darkness without a clue about what a new heaven and earth might look like; maybe if we focused on ‘Jesus as the Saviour of the world’ people might find their way to Jesus as personal Saviour. Maybe then (and I think is possible) that the bees might buzz with anticipation that they will survive.

Going too far? #3

A little breather

Thanks for all the comments thus far, and I loved the language that Rob used in his comments as to how far the elastic might stretch. I am pretty conservative in my beliefs, certainly at least on the central ‘fixed’ points, but am convinced that scripture pushes us to engage with some of the internal debate we read of within those pages and that ‘right doctrine’ is far more about right living in relationship to heaven and to earth than it has to do with my professed beliefs. I am glad that we do not have to work out too much more, and certainly that I have not been elected to join the final jury – way beyond all our pay grades, for sure!!

The return of Jesus is a fixed point – but what might that be? I will post on that soon, just aware that we can so easily fall into the trap of knowing what that will look like being absolutely sure we will not get our interpretation of scripture wrong unlike those who could not understand how a crucified messiah could possibly be the personal visitation of God! In all my conservativeness on (e.g.) the parousia I need to take note that there are likely to be some major surprises, and on my stretching of the elastic I need to make sure that it does not get disconnected from where it connected.

What I am convinced about was that Paul (one of my heroes… I see he perfected some of my weaknesses and his focused strengths leave me knowing I need to ‘beef up’ – all personal reflections that probably reveal too much of my misfitedness!!) believed the Gospel that brought Jesus to die in Jerusalem, as no prophet could die outside of the religious setting, was the key to unlocking all of creation. I have no idea if he had sight beyond AD70, but we certainly must. Maybe he thought it would all end with the Fall of Jerusalem, maybe he thought that would be the marker that Rome (and all the other Romes since then) would also fall, be re-shaped and be some kind of tentative image for the New Jerusalem vision. By that I do not mean anything close to the conversion of the emperor and the Imperial forces being the servant of christianising its subjects. If, as I suspect, that Paul did not see the ‘end’ as being the fall of Jerusalem, I think Paul had a long-term vision. No conversion of the emperor would satisfy, but the removal / transformation of structures that reward the opposition to the arc that I wrote about yesterday. The work of the powers (earthly and heavenly) is to dehumanise, and to reward all who dehumanise… Reduce humanity to a number and be rewarded – buy and sell.

We take bread and wine proclaiming his death (why did he die?) until he comes. The past and the future together, giving us a trajectory for now. The trajectory has not changed (or maybe it has, but the trajectory that the cross sets has not changed). I am totally agnostic about what will be transformed prior to the parousia but I am totally convinced that our hope and vision can be set on that trajectory and not be deviated by ‘but what a mess this all is and it is getting worse’. It might be getting worse, but the Gospel says it can get a whole lot better!

I had a call yesterday where someone was saying that child trafficking is now one of the biggest ‘trades’ taking place. That is a sad sign of things getting worse than ever, and I am thankful for all who are involved in responding to this heinous sin. Without diminishing in any way the awefulness of this I write tentatively that it is a sign of the end of an age. As an age passes sins that were present in ‘acceptable’ seed form manifest in full sight. Money, fortune and prosperity make the world go round… and round… till it is unhitched from its axis. Child sacrifice has always been based on sacrificing the future for present prosperity. The gods (Moloch) will reward us today with bountiful crops as those that we should be working to give them a future are sacrificed. Our economic systems have worked toward this – reversing the order that there ‘will always be seedtime and harvest’. When one is sold the lie that one can have today what we have not sown for yesterday we are reversing how we are to work with creation… and it spins off.

Crisis… it is here, but the doorway that indicates transition has always been labelled ‘crisis’. I do believe we are headed toward the end of an era. Maybe that end will mark the end (certainly the fall of Jerusalem was ‘the end of the age’), maybe it will mark the end of an era, where Jerusalem is not our home nor our hope, but the world becomes our one and only place of habitation and we have a hope for the world; that we do not lift a glass to say ‘next year Jerusalem’ but raise a glass concerning the world that has been occupied by alien forces and we say ‘next year the kosmos, the world, the ktisis, the creation’).

Not to get distracted we can get on and pray for the restoration of the bee colonies (a Gospel prayer), for the smart scientists to come up not simply with vaccines and cures, but healing for the eco-system. Pipe-dreams? Could well be, but the elastic can stretch a long way, for the death of Jesus that we proclaim encompassed from the highest point to the lowest – all of creation, visible and invisible.

The elastic has a stretch and a non-breakability inbuilt as the embrace of God is eternal and universal.

Paul lived pre-AD70; I might be living pre-end-of-an-age. His vision went beyond AD70… what about ours? There will always be ‘seedtime’. And if there is ‘seedtime’ there will always be ‘harvest’.

Going too far? #2

'Theory' of Evolution

I have heard so many people say – OK evolution claims to be a theory… that is all it is, a theory. Correct, however the term ‘theory’ in the world of science is used slightly more firmly than we might think. Data considered and weighed is then used to put together a ‘theory’ – something that best fits the data. A bit like a court case where there is no film footage of what took place, interrogations are made and then the jury have to come to a conclusion – we might term their decision is based on a ‘theory’.

I am not a scientist, far from it, and there are those who are scientists who are certainly very unhappy with the ‘theory of evolution’; I have no basis to enter into the debate. Perhaps though with a little bit of understanding of ancient myth stories and genre I would certainly be very negative about trying to defend a young earth / 6 day creation in any literal sense. Hence I am not opposed to evolution – as indeed are many Christian scientists, take for example the book The Language of God by Francis Collins. He being one of the main team of scientists who pushed the understanding of the gene code and as a result embraced both an evolutionary understanding of ‘creation’ and a firm belief in God the Creator.

What is at stake is not the theory of evolution vs. a theory of creation (a theory based on a rather pre-determined approach to an ancient text) but a belief in the God that is revealed in Jesus or a denial of that God.

So here is a thought that might well be going too far!!!

If God is the author of life – does the life that is released inevitably move toward an expression of that life as ‘the image of God’?

The Civil Rights movement used to say:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Wow… that takes faith. A long arc, but bending always toward a future that is different to one around us, always bending toward justice. What if life (OK let me go too far, before I pull back) begins as a single cell, but there is evolution? Where will the ‘arc’ of life move to? Will it inevitably lead to ‘at last an expression of life (human) that we can say is ‘in our image, after our likeness”? I kinda like that. Death exists but life is stronger than death.

So pulling back into real life, and away from pretending to be some psuedo-scientist. I think I am on to something. Submit to the process, go with the life of God and there is an arc, even if it is a long one, of pulling humanity toward being the image of God. True at a personal level, could it be true at a universal level?

Going too far? #1

Beyond the Bible?

I am going to make a few posts that might provoke a ‘this is too far’ kind of response. No worries… fixed points help us travel further than we might otherwise. I walked up a mountain in Italy – higher that Ben Nevis (Scotland) with our dog. It had some paths, but not very clear, and I certainly got myself somewhat lost… however there was a farm house that I had noted on the way up that acted as my guide, and showed me I was now the wrong side of a valley going back down the side of the adjacent mountain. OK – get the point? We can wander and get lost, but if we keep some fixed points we will be able to make a few adjustments in our wanderings.

This first post is one where I think I am no where near in danger of wandering off on another mountain and finding that I have no way of knowing how to get home! I will put it boldly first and then invite you to wander a bit with me:

We have to go beyond the Bible, or
the Bible is not the final word.

Put boldly like that it is amazing what reactions can come, and then I think – and those who object? Why then be happy with ‘pulpits’, ‘ordination’, ‘bishops’, ‘seminaries’ etc. Somewhat beyond the Bible methinks. So we really should not object. Most of what is acceptable that is beyond the Bible comes through tradition, ‘church’ tradition. I want to push in a different direction, and I want to do so as I see developing revelation and understanding within Scripture itself. Very evident with Jesus – you have heard it said, but I say to you… And the change with Jesus is beyond profound. He was either deceived at an incredible level (the Scriptures pointing to him!) or he has to be placed central, with Scripture moving out of the category of timeless truths disembodied from history / culture, to a record of an unfolding story of a people of faith on a journey recording that journey with at times a stronger and at other times a fainter line pointing to the revelation of God in Jesus, and therefore necessarily pointing away from itself. A sign is not the arrival point and at times signs can be confusing (just ask us we tried to follow google maps these past weeks at some crazy junctions!). We can find ourselves with a ‘phew we are still on the right path and direction’ to other times ‘well that was a bit of a dirt path, but here we are back on track’. That is the richness of Scripture – the internal disagreements are so enlightening as they tend to be the ones that expose our personal internal disagreements. (Could this be why the entrance to the kingdom that we favour is ‘you must be born again’ over ‘go sell all you have’? Both statements spoken to an individual – one religious and one rich.)

Surface, and at times deeper than at surface level, disagreements within the pages should alert us to look deeper than wave a few favourite verses around. The God who gave instructions about the death penalty certainly did not abide by those instructions in the Cain / Abel story (nor in the ‘repeat’ in the Jesus / Barabbas story). And as mentioned above – the Jesus approach that overturned / went beyond Scripture with his ‘but I say to you’.

The Gentile mission (Paul) went beyond what they understood. They went beyond Scripture. Of course that can be justified with ‘the Scriptures are apostolic’. I remember well the various lectures on the New Testament where the big issue was of seeking to root the books in either ‘written by an apostle’ or ‘someone so connected to the apostles that they are writing with apostolic authority’. Why? Seems that was a belief imposed on Scripture not coming from Scripture. And this has come through in certain charismatic views of prophecy where (I paraphrase) the apostles of the NT write without error and are the partner to the prophets of the Old Testament – thus prophecy of the NT is not at the same level as prophecy of the Old… (Not substantiated by the testimony of Scripture, so friends of the ‘Gospel Coalition’ this one does not get my vote and I suspect it is supported by (yet again) an imposition on Scripture.) Oh how I love to pontificate!

Moving forward quickly… to be biblical we need to be immersed in, but not drowned by, the text(s) and allow the forward flow to carry us to and through uncomfortable territory. We can be carried beyond Scripture, but it has to be on the same trajectory; we might repeat parts of the story, but a continual repetition might simply lock us in a ‘chapter’ that has already been written. If I am unable to recall earlier ‘chapters’ I will lose the plot, the story. I need the fixed points, the characters, the drama, the flow. But then?

The tension is that the biblical ‘story’ (story-line) holds the answers as they point to Jesus, but if we use the story (the text(s)) to be the end in themselves we will use yesterdays answers and seek to apply them to today’s issues. And on the latter issue highly dangerous when we try and explain biblical discussion and uproot the discussion from the story – such as with the cross of Jesus and the ‘wrath’ of God.

Where could this take us… maybe quite a bit of wandering, but come on there are mountains to be climbed and sight to be gained of a landscape that we have not seen clearly into.

I am provoked by Paul – apostolic writings if ever there were any! He saw ekklesia. Did he see what might lie beyond his passion to get an ekklesia in every place where there was already an ekklesia. What should follow after (I assume there was an ‘after’) there was a community who understood they were (with all their faults – that is grace!) the chosen ones to take on board the future shape, culture and health of what was within their territory? Did he have sight on that? But probably more importantly do we? And then we could explore what territory might mean today – simply geographical? Boundaries and times are in the biblical story – now where might we wander if we keep our eyes on the fixed points?

Perspectives