Tuesday, January 15, 2008

A New Series on the Blog

Today We are beginning a series of Articles by Anthony Bradley Toward a Missional Worldview. This guy's perspective is extremely helpful for those of us dealing with the many problems of American christianity.

Toward A Missional Worldview: Remembering the Kingdom

Author: Anthony Bradley

POSTED ON: 06.07.06

The Kingdom of God is a central theme in the preaching of Jesus and, by extension, the preaching and teaching of the apostles. Liberalism has emphasized the kingdom but has left behind Jesus' commission and call to obedience and discipleship. Many evangelicals have a great passion for the church and missions but have often lost the full implications of the gospel into their local culture. A missional worldview orients all of one's life toward the kingdom (Matt 6:33) and ignites Jesus followers into radical living here and now.

Jesus came as king to reign over his kingdom and gather his church to join him in bringing redemption to the world. John the Baptist and Jesus open the New Testament by announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. The time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news (Matt 3:2, Mk 1:15)!

George Ladd rightly stresses the importance of the kingdom this way:

"The kingdom of God is the redemptive reign of God dynamically active to establish his rule among men, and that this Kingdom, which will appear as an apocalyptic act at the end of the age, has already come into human history in the person and mission of Jesus to overcome evil, to deliver men from its power, and to bring them into the blessings of God's reign. The Kingdom involves two great moments: fulfillment within history, and consummation at the end of history."

The kingdom implies more than the salvation of individuals, or the reign of God in people's hearts. It means nothing less than the reign of God over his entire created universe. Colossians 1:9-23 reminds us that Jesus as Lord rescues people from darkness, brings them into the Kingdom (vs. 13), confirms his Lordship over all creation (vs. 15-17), establishes his role as sole head of the Church (vs. 18), announces his work to reconcile all things in heaven and earth (vs. 20), and pronounces victory for his people in the great battle between kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God's son (vs. 21-23) first announced in Gen 3:15.

As the biblical story unfolds-creation, fall, redemption, restoration(heaven)-we find ourselves living in a dynamic yet difficult tension. Jesus teaches that the kingdom is already present in his ongoing ministry (Matt 12:28, Lk 17:20-21) but he also teaches that the Kingdom of God is still future as we look forward to heaven and lament the fact of hell (Matt 7:21-23, Matt 8:11-12, Matt 25, 2 Timothy 4:18, Rev. 21, 22)-the "already, not yet." The mission of the kingdom has begun and will be finalized completely at the return of Jesus.

What are Jesus followers to do in the meantime? Press the "pause" button and sit on their butts, huddled up on their 60-acre compounds waiting on Jesus to return? Nope! Jesus followers are called to "go!" That is, to "go" be witnesses and testifiers of the Kingdom of Jesus everywhere in the world and in all areas of life empowered by the Spirit of God himself (Matt 28:18-20, Acts 1:8). This means teaching the nations about the Kingdom of Jesus, calling them to repentance and faith, living out the good news in their midst, and engaging all areas of life and culture as a picture of what God intends for his world (Col 3:23).

God has chosen his church as his means of proclaiming and advancing the Kingdom. Every follower of Christ has a job in the mission of God (1 Cor. 12). God entrusts his church to bring his grace to a broken world in love, preaching the Scriptures, practicing the sacraments, in prayer, fellowship, worship, evangelism, and missions.

Having a Kingdom-oriented worldview is also a call to a Spirit-filled mission orienting all of life toward Jesus the King and the Father's purposes for the world. God's people, sent out from the church, bring the kingdom of Jesus to all areas of life mired in sin and brokenness. Jesus followers are the world's agents of redemption and restoration (Isaiah 61:1-4) showing the world what it looks like to live a life reflecting the glory of God in all things: repentance and faith, arts and media, business, education, social life, marriage and family, social justice, caring for the environment, and so on.

For more check out these books: Far As the Curse Is Found, by Michael D. Williams; Truth In All Its Glory, by William Edgar; A Theology of the New Testament, by George E. Ladd; The Bible and the Future, by Anthony Hoekema.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

The Vision?

The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? They are an army.
And they are free from materialism. They laugh at the markets.
They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes:
to show and to tell, but never to hide.
They know the meaning of the Matrix; the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults break and cry.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might win, one day
the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciplined.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrades at arms.
The tattoo on their backs boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their eyes.
Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And this generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears
Waiting. Watching: 24 - 7 - 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels, fasting essentials.

The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
Material clothes matter not
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives,
swap seats with the man on death row;
guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.


Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don't you hear them coming?
Here come the frightened and forgotten, with fire in their eyes.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.