The Coming Theocracy

I’ve been considering writing a series of blogs to challenge current Christian worldview. This kind of action stands the chance of producing volatile reactions. One challenge with sharing worldview issues via a blog is keeping the reader aware of authorial premises without rehashing the same in each blog. So, if I follow through with my thoughts, I’ll occasionally refer back to this post, The Coming Theocracy, a foundational truth guiding my worldview.

I look forward to the consummation of an eternal theocracy. It is present now in measure, but its full arrival will displace or complete all other governing systems. The theocracy I look forward to is the reign of God over the hearts of every person. People’s actions will no longer be guided by political, economic and religious principles and beliefs, but by what they see God doing.

In a nutshell, here’s why I anticipate this kind of theocracy: 

God created people and then commanded them to subdue and have dominion over creation (Gen 1:28). As God intended it, people were given this capacity to subdue the whole cosmos. Created in the image of a creator (Gen 1:26) and walking with God as a norm (Gen 3:8), people had potential to subdue and have dominion over creation (the original theocracy) to an extent that is difficult for us to imagine. However, people decided not to subdue and have dominion according to his presence, a situation where they could see what he was doing (they hid, Gen 3:8). In effect, they just decided for themselves what to do. Apart from subduing and having dominion according to what is seen in God’s actions, exploitation follows, something that certainly persists today. Exploitation would be exponentially worse if man’s authority over creation had not been limited.

Because man’s potential would have been exponentially disastrous apart from relation with God, he introduced a variable that limited potential; he cursed creation for people’s sake (Gen 3:17, see KJV or Hebrew text to get the 2nd person possessive intended here), creation is now against people instead of subject to them. I believe this to be explained more clearly by Paul in Romans 8:18-25. God subjected creation to futility, i.e., purposelessness. Creation’s designed purpose was to be subject to people, it was instead temporarily subjected to “no purpose.” Creation waits eagerly for the restoration of its original purpose. First, though, people have to arrive at their intended place, in the presence of God, where they can see and hear. So the curse, or the subjection to purposelessness, was done in hope. The hope was to bring people back to God. They come back to him because creation is against them, thus exposing their need for him.

We look to Jesus, the first fruit (1 Cor 15:23), to see what will be for all who are in Christ. Jesus did only what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He healed, fed, stilled storms and etc. . . . all examples of subduing creation. At the consummation of the Kingdom, we will all obey in the same manner as did Jesus and creations’s purpose will be restored. We will then command it, not according to what we decide, but according to what we see the Father doing.

The consummation will look like this: Jesus will return with the church-dead; the church-living will go out to meet them (1 Thess 4:16, 17; Rev 21:1, 2) and usher them in; when he arrives, he and angels will remove everything that causes sin and law-breakers so that people who desire to subdue according to God’s desire will remain and those who have no desire for God to reign over them will be removed (Matt 13:41-43; 24:40, 41); God will from that time into all eternity be with men (Eph 1:10; 1 Cor 15:28; Rev 21:3-7).

So, I ask myself, what systems will govern in the coming theocracy? I opine that rule will be less systematic and more relational. I imagine the potential of people to subdue the cosmos as they see what God is doing in it. 

We have a responsibility to, as much as is possible, live this theocracy out even now. The Kingdom is now present in measure (Luke 11:20; 17:20, 21), the Holy Spirit in disciples of Christ; it is something that we seek first (Matt 6:33); it is something we pray for and should be the answer to whenever possible (Matt 6:10).

What I anticipate governs how I view and participate in existing systems. Not that I avoid participation, but I appreciate them as temporary stopgaps, many with redeemable aspects.

Mountain Community's Mission Statement

A faith community manifesting the life of Christ in our place and time. 

Why did we choose this for our mission statement? As the church, i.e. the body of Christ, we should continually look back to the life of Christ as he mistered in Palestine and realize that we should do similar things in our place. So this statement provokes us to measure what we do against what he did and does? 

It can be difficult, once a church begins, to reemphasize away from the event that it initially converged around. Many churches initially converge around a Sunday morning meeting...not a bad thing in  itself, but I think its common to struggle from there toward significant missional events. 

Here in Boone, we are presently working toward quantifying community needs. It is our hope to converge around needs, from there move into small communities of faith that take ownership of community need, and from there, eventually, to corporate worship events. We want missional outreach to be the natural and expected gathering draw for our community of faith.

Moved by compassion, measuring by mercy, acting in selfless love and doing only what the Father showed him, Jesus taught, healed, fed and made disciples. Recognizing what Jesus did in his body of flesh, we, Jesus’ body of flesh today, in our place and time, moved by his Spirit, do what Jesus did and does.

We are . . . always carrying in the body the death 

of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also 

be Manifested in our bodies (2 Corinthians 4:8-10, RSV).

Mountain Community Logo

From Anxiety to Peace

An old sermon about something that I continue to bring up when talking to people about difficulties endured in the here-and-now.

The Uniqueness of the Evangelist Role

A colleague recently put me onto an article by Rice Broocks, The Evangelist and the Missional Church, featured on Ed Stetzer’s site. Broocks makes a valid point, i.e., evangelism is not a spiritual gift, rather, evangelist is a role. Let’s take it a step further. The role of evangelist is, as are the other roles mentioned in Eph 4:11, the culmination of multiple grace gifts, a calling and a God-granted personality. I will compare the role of evangelist to both apostle and shepherd, list the duties assigned to the evangelist and briefly consider personality. For the limits of this blog post, I’ll forego calling. I should preface the discussion by three assumptions. First, I don’t think the Lord limits people rigidly to one role for all time with no crossover. He is able to and I think does gift persons to cross lines that we tend to draw and we therefore should remain flexible enough in our understanding to ignore such lines according to the leading of the Spirit. Second, though I appreciate Alan Hirsh’s increasingly popular study and presentation of the Eph 4:11 roles, I doubt that the relationship between roles is quite as linear as as he presents (see the APEST assessment). Third, for the sake of referring to a biblical example, I consider the duties assigned Timothy and Titus by Paul. Paul told Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5) and Titus was instructed to duties strikingly similar to those assigned Timothy. With these assumptions in mind, know that my description below is not an attempt to draw ridged lines between people serving in different roles.

Apostle vs. Evangelist

Apostle simply means “sent one.” There were apostles who were with the Lord during his ministry and witnesses of his resurrection, either present during events as were the twelve, or via visions as was Paul. I think we appropriately distinguish them from other sent ones. There were and are other apostles in a more generic sense. Biblically speaking, Apollos was enumerated with Paul and Cephas (1 Cor 1:12); Barnabas was enumerated with the same (1 Cor 9:5, 6); Andronicus and Junias seem to have been referred to as apostles (Rom 16:7); James, Jesus’ brother was an apostle (Gal 1:19); and, of course, the apostle who was sent the furthest, Jesus (Heb 3:1). Not everybody, depending on grace gifts and personality, could handle being sent. I think that “apostle” in its regular sense is very general. Paul, an apostle, was also prophet and teacher (Acts 13:1). Peter, an apostle, was also a fellow shepherd (1 Peter 5:1). "Apostle" seems to have been used fairly generically in some cases. Additionally, the close connection between Paul's work and Timothy's blurs the line. Paul told the Corinthians that Timothy was doing the same work as he (1 Cor 16:10) and should therefore be sent as well (1 Cor 16:11). The role distinction between apostle and evangelist therefore is not stark.

Shepherd vs. Evangelist

Likewise, I think shepherd and evangelist roles necessarily intersect. However, we should view the evangelist’s role as a unique and valuable convergence of gifts, calling and personality that the church at large ought to under-girded for the equipment of the saints. Expecting the evangelist to take on too many shepherding roles denies the kingdom the needed ministry of evangelist. I have observed that 2 Timothy 2:2 often gets used to ends that I question, blurring the differences among equipping roles more than appropriate. Many people treat the instruction to “entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach to others also” as an apprenticeship function to raise people up to the same role. Maybe . . . and maybe not. Those men that Timothy taught may have been gifted and called to the role of shepherd, never to move to the role of evangelist. I suspect that most shepherds remain shepherds and most evangelists remain evangelists. I’m not suggesting that Timothy never taught people who became evangelists. I am, however, suggesting that it was not to move people in a hierarchal upward leadership direction in the organization; rather it was to equip according to gifts, calling and personality.

An Evangelist’s duties

This is just a quick bullet list run-through of the equipping duties (forgoing attention to the many personal instructions) assigned Timothy and Titus in the so-called pastorals:

• 1 Timothy
• 1:3 - instruct.
• 1:18 - fight.
• 4:6 - point out (i.e., doctrine, Christian behavior and elder and deacon qualifications).
• 4:11 - prescribe and teach.
• 4:12 - be an example.
• 4:13 - read Scripture publicly, exhort and teach.
• 5:1 - appeal to people according to their generational roles.
• 5:7 - prescribe instructions about widows.
• 5:20 - rebuke sinning elders.
• 5:21 - maintain principles.
• 6:2 - teach and preach (social relationships).
• 6:3 - instruct in regard to appropriate use of wealth.
• 2 Timothy
• 1:8 - suffer.
• 2:2 - entrust teaching to faithful men who will teach.
• 2:14 - remind them of the Gospel.
• 2:15 - handle the word accurately.
• 2:25 - correct.
• 4:2 - preach, reprove, rebuke and exhort.
• 4:5 - endure hardship and do the work of an evangelist.
• Titus
• 1:5 - set order and appoint elders.
• 2:1 - speak the things which are fitting sound doctrine.
• 2:7 - be an example.
• 2:15 - speak, exhort and reprove.
• 3:1 - remind (of Christian behavior in society).
• 3:8 - speak (of Christian behavior in society).
• 3:9 - shun controversy.
• 3:10 - reject factious men.
• 3:13 - send others supplied.

God-granted personality

A bit of a digression maybe, but one connection that strikes me as interesting from Broocks research is his finding that only 1% of the people in a faith community are suited to this role. Compared to this, the Church Planter’s Assessment Center looks for what is generally termed an “entrepreneurial characteristic,” so identified, in-part, as a High-D personality trait in the DISC assessment. High-D personalities account for 2-3% of the U.S. population. Could there be a correlation here? Is a person an evangelist solely due to grace gifts or is the convergence of grace gifts and God-granted personality?

As it relates to church planting

There’s a difference between the pastor who plants a church and in doing so gathers a flock around his gifting, calling and personality which is suited to shepherding and an evangelist (maybe and apostle) who goes out to start multiple churches, appointing shepherds as he discerns the Lord has gifted and called them. Shouldn't we recognize at least a meandering distinction between the equipping roles of shepherd and evangelist?

Should a church planter be paid?

For church planters seeking to plant New Testament churches as they appear in the New Testament (i.e., no buildings, no specialized staff, no denomination and etc.), the critique often goes something like this . .. “why don’t you just get a job and make disciples?” Should a church planter hold a full-time job? I’ve struggled with what’s best/prudent/biblical/pragmatic for my role. It depends a lot on the calling and grace gifting. The biggest determination is whether the planter is really a pastor/shepherd/elder/overseer type or an evangelist type? Will he make disciples, and therefore start a church and take care of the sheep in it or will he make disciples, entrust the oversight to elders and then start more churches. Biblically speaking, there were those who pastored locally and those who were sent to make disciples, equip churches and appoint elders.

We often stress the “Paul making tents” deal and press that on missional guys nowadays (really, I think it would be a blessing to function like that . . . but would missional guys then get accused of not spending enough of their time missionally?). Paul didn’t charge the Corinthians while at Corinth, but the Macedonians supported him. Paul did not want his motives to be misconstrued with the churches he was beginning, so he worked and accepted support from churches behind him. The disheartening reality today is the misconstruing of motives from churches behind.

Another favorite piece of advice put forth to missional guys is the Luke 10 “carry no purse, no bag, no shoes” bit. I admit, I brought my shoes, my wife brought her purse (though there’s not much of value in it) and we are here with about one bag of clothing each. Jesus gave these instructions to be followed while he was present. He then said that He was going to go . . . told them to take purses, bags and swords next time (Luke 22:36) . . . and left. I didn’t bring my sword . . . should I correct this deficiency?

Mature churches should always be willing to send missional guys forward. Look at this concept from a biblical perspective. New Testament writers use the word Pro-pempō nine times. The word means to “send supplied.” After the church at Corinth supposedly matured beyond the point of misconstruing motives, Paul instructed them to send him supplied (1 Cor 16:6) and forthwith instructs them to send an evangelist (i.e., Timothy) supplied (1 Cor 16:11) because he is doing the same work (1 Cor 16:10). Beyond this incident, Paul instructed the Roman church, a church he did not plant and had never even visited, to send him to Spain supplied (Rom 15:24). And, he instructed Titus to send supplied a couple of other missional guys even though one of them was a lawyer (Titus 3:13). Outside of the Pauline corpus, there’s another incident worthy of consideration, 3 John 2-8.

The case is not clear-cut. However, a simple church/house church/organic church pastor/elder/shepherd/overseer does not seem to be a position financially supported by the church, but rather a role played in the life of a local church. On the other hand, it seems that it’s much more likely, though not necessarily 100% of subsistence, for an apostle or evangelist to be supported financially as he is constantly moving to catalyze kingdom growth.

We've moved into a new old house (built in 1900) in the Valle Crusis area of Watauga County . . . that's about 8 miles from downtown Boone. The area is know for it's historical use as a Christian mission. Here's a photo of the house we're living in: