Transcript The Kingdom of God

The Reign of God
Acts 28 v 31
TIMES ARE A CHANGING, SO ALSO
OUR METHODS, NOT OUR MESSAGE.
Mark 1:15
• “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God
has come near, repent, and believe in the
good news”
• Luke 4 v 18-21 “this scripture is fulfilled”
• Matt 5,6,7 characteristics of the Kingdom
The Reign of God in Today’s world
• ACTS 28 V 31
• …preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching
those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ.
• Luke 4 v 18-21
• …to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
• ..this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.
The Great Omission
• Dallas Willard says: The last command Jesus
gave the church before he ascended to heaven
was the Great Commission, the call for
Christians to "make disciples of all the
nations." But Christians have responded by
making "Christians," not "disciples." This has
been the church's Great Omission.
• His miraculous deeds are signs that the
Kingdom of God that he was announcing had
indeed arrived.
• This kingdom is open to all, unlike being born
a JEW and all are invited to enter into it, but it
is given especially or “preferentially” to those
who are marginalized, that is, the poor, the
afflicted, the oppressed, the captives (Luke 4:
18).
•
• The eschatological events of Jesus‘
death/resurrection are a powerful validation
by God of Jesus‘ message about God‘s power
over sin, corruption, injustice, and violence.
God‘s rule is and will be characterized by
universal peace, justice, and love, and it is
already here
• Jesus taught us to pray......thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, so the kingdom has arrived,
is arriving and will eventually arrive to fill the
earth!!!!! This is our mandate, to serve the
Kingdom.
• These approaches to the Bible and theology
came to be called "contextual theologies"
within the Western academy. This term in
itself betrayed the arrogant ethnocentricity
of the West, for the assumption was that
other places are contexts and they do their
theology for those “contexts”; we, of course,
have the real thing, the objective, contextless
theology. Changeless and eternal.
• Chris Wright says:
• Theology was not to be done in the study and
then applied in the world. Rather, action for
and on behalf of the poor and oppressed
undertaken as a first priority, and then out of
that commitment and praxis theological
reflection would follow.
• Again Chris Wright says:
• What is a sinner, in the vocabulary of first
century Judaism? A sinner is simply a person
who is apathetic to the law and disinterested
in its application to daily life. Thus, then as
now, sinners are folk who simply do not wish
to, or try to, live out the fullness of the will of
God. Are not participating in the Kingdom
• Q: Who are the sinners? They are the folk who
will never have time for God until they realize
that God has time for them. When will they
realize this?
• Ans: When the rather dull-of-wit disciples of
Jesus act like their master instead of the
Pharisees. The gospel is evil spoken of
because of the way God’s people choose to
live.They are the new pharisees.
• The church has no self-identity except as
rooted in and derived from the mission that
Jesus received from his Father. And given the
centrality of the reign of God in Jesus‘ mission,
as we have observed above, it would be
theologically wrong to subordinate the reign
of God to the church, as it was done in the old
theology of mission
• Mission defines what the church is and what
it must do. Consequently, the whole church is
missionary, : “The pilgrim Church is
missionary by her very nature, since it is
• Missio Deo
• ….mission of the Son and the,mission of the
Holy Spirit in obedience to the Father that
she draws her origin,
• Hence, it would be wrong to regard “mission
primarily as “foreign mission and that only an
elite few are called to this mission. “there is a
new awareness that missionary activity is a
matter for all Christians, for all dioceses and
parishes, Church institutions and associations .
Hence, the hallowed distinction between the
sending church and the receiving church is
thereby invalidated.
Three situations for the church‘s
mission where ……...
• 1. Christ and His Gospel are not known, or
which lack Christian communities sufficiently
mature to be able to incarnate the faith in
their own environment and proclaim it to
other groups. EG Libya, Morroco.
• The Glory of the Lord will cover the earth as
the waters cover the seas
• 2. “Christian communities with adequate and
solid ecclesiastical structures. They bear
witness to the Gospel in their surroundings
and have a sense of commitment to the
universal mission. 7 churches in Crowborough
alone.
• 3. Where entire groups of the baptized have
lost their living sense of the faith, or even no
longer consider themselves members of the
Church, and live a life far removed from Christ
• • foreign mission does not constitute the
entire mission of the church but is only a
part, albeit necessary, of it. Furthermore, its
principal goal is no longer “saving souls and
“church planting but bearing witness to the
Kingdom of God. BUT!
• More than two-thirds of the people in the world
have never heard of Jesus Christ, and that they are
slipping into a Christless eternity at the rate of
more than 3 every second, should show that this is
not enough
• when Protestants as a whole average giving 3 pence
per week to missions.
• when it takes up to 20 churches to support one
missionary.
• when some denominations have less than 10
missionaries
• when Orthodox, Bible-believing churches with
hundreds of members give less than 1% of their
income to missions.
How do we express our faith and
our love to Him?
• By committing ourselves to His mission. Jesus
doesn’t say anything about saving sinners and
getting them into heaven. The primary priority
of his mission:
• 1. to preach good news to the poor, the
kingdom has arrived with it's king!.
• 2. to bind up the brokenhearted,
• 3. to proclaim freedom for the captives and
• 4. release from darkness for the prisoners.”
Christianity has been a repressive force
against the advancement of civilization.
• Karl Marx termed Christianity an "opiate" of
the masses, a tool of exploitation.
• Sigmund Freud called Christianity an illusion, a
crutch, a source of guilt and pathologies.
• Bertrand Russell: "I say quite deliberately that
the Christian religion, as organized in its
churches, has been and still is the principal
enemy of the moral progress in the world."
• Renaissance popes are not Christianity; St.
Francis of Assisi is.
• Pizarro and Cortez are not Christianity,
Bartolome de Las Casas is.
• Captain Ball, a Yankee slave captain,
is not Christianity, Wilburforce is.
• Jesus Himself foretold that "tares" would be
won among the "wheat." (Matt. 13:25-39 ff).
The Rise of Modern Science Science rose in the
West, not in the East. Why?
• Whitehead and Oppenheimer insisted that modern science
could not have been born except in a Christian milieu.
• Awareness of order (i.e. cause/effect, cf. Rom. 1:20). Views
of man as a superintendent of nature.
• In 252 A.D., the Christians of Corinth saved the city from the
plague by responding to the needs of those who were simply
dragged into the street.
• In 312 A.D., half of the Roman Empire came under the
political and social influence of Christianity under the rule of
Constantine.
• Early Christians stood in opposition to infanticide,
degradation of women, gladiatorial combats, slavery, etc.
Examples in the Middle Ages
(Consider the Monks, not the knights.)
• Monasteries served as hospitals, places of refuge.
• Monastic schools trained scribes to preserve
manuscripts.
• Monasteries also developed agricultural skills and
knowledge.
• The Scholastics remain a pivotal period of
intellectual growth.
• A time of major artistic development: architecture,
music, literature
Wesley preached the social responsibilities of
Christian piety:
• 1772 - Slavery was judicially excluded from England,
14,000 freed
• 1792 - Conditions aboard slave ships were regulated
by law
• 1808 - The English slave trade was abolished.
• 1831 - All European slave trade abolished. England
spent 15 million pounds for enforcement, even
making payments to Spain and Portugal to stop the
trade.
• 1833 - Slavery abolished in British Empire: 45
million pounds paid in compensation to free
780,933 slaves. Wilberforce, along with Buxton,
Macaulay, and Clark . . . all evangelicals who were
converted under Wesley's ministry, were the top
leaders in ending slavery (This British action in the
1830's profoundly affected American attitudes
which resulted in the Civil War).Prison reform: John
Howard, Elizabeth Fry (England); Fliedner
(Germany). Florence Nightingale, the mother of
modern nursing, was trained in one of Fliedner's
schools in Kaiserswerth.
• Labor reform: Anthony Ashley Cooper (Earl of
Shaftesbury, self-described "Evangelical of
the Evangelicals" pioneered child-labor laws,
prohibited women working in the mines,
established mental health sanitarium, built
parts and libraries).
• TUC.
Acts 28
• Barnardo's Homes (world's largest orphanage
system); ·
• William Booth's Salvation Army; ·
• Henri Dunant, a student evangelist in Geneva,
founded the Red Cross in 1865; ·
• YMCA was founded in 1844 and grew greatly;· The
Missionaries from William Carey on:·
• CMS (Christian Missionary Society) taught 200,000
to read in East Africa