The Blessing of Jacob

Jacob is an interesting Bible character. I don’t recommend that we imitate his behavior, but we can learn from his life. Even before he was born, his mother, Rebekah, felt the struggle he was having with his brother. God told her she was carrying twins who would become great nations, but that there would be friction between them. From the moment of his birth, Jacob was marked as a manipulator. His very name hints at his eventual behavior. He was the second twin to be delivered, his brother Esau going first, but Jacob came out of the womb grabbing onto Esau’s heel. Hence his name which means, “supplanter,” which is often interpreted as someone who seizes, circumvents, or usurps.

The first evidence of his living up to his name comes quickly in the narrative. When his older brother comes to him to ask for a meal, Jacob connives to get the birthright belonging to the older son. Esau rashly agrees to trade his rights for a bowl of gruel. Jacob follows this with his most egregious act of deception and manipulation when he tricks his father into giving him the blessing owed the firstborn, Esau. Admittedly, Rebekah initiates the ruse, but Jacob goes along willingly. When Esau comes in later to secure the blessing due him, Jacob’s subterfuge is discovered. This leads to the first indication that Jacob may have to pay for his deceptive behavior.

Quite understandingly, Esau is angry with his brother. Fearing for his safety, Jacob travels to his mother’s relatives in Haran. Having run away from home with little to call his own, Jacob throws himself on his Uncle Laban’s mercy. Rebekah had suggested Haran as a safe place with an ulterior motive: Jacob needed a wife, and the women of Canaan were off limits. The beautiful, young Rachel shows up at the well when Jacob arrives. He is smitten with her, and immediately asks her father, Laban, to allow him to take her as his wife. Since Jacob is virtually penniless, they negotiate a seven-year labor agreement to fulfill the bride price.

At the end of seven years, Jacob discovers what it feels like to be deceived: his uncle substitutes Rachel’s older sister, Leah, on their wedding night because it was customary to wed the oldest daughter first. Laban offers to let Jacob keep Rachel if he will work another seven years for Laban. Having served Laban for over fourteen years, Jacob becomes homesick. However, he has no possessions to speak of because he has been Laban’s servant. The two men negotiate again, making arrangements for Jacob to earn flocks of his own. Once again, Jacob’s conniving heart leads him to manipulate the breeding of the sheep and goats so that his flocks prosper while Laban’s languish.

Jacob finally sneaks away from Laban. Unbeknownst to him, Rachel stole her father’s household gods, perhaps having taken a page from Jacob’s SOP. When Laban finds them gone, he chases after them and demands his possessions be returned. Jacob innocently turns Laban loose to find his things. Rachel uses her feminine wiles (and the time of month) to dissuade Laban from locating his treasures.

On the way back to Canaan, Jacob receives a night visit by what is first called a man, but who is later identified as Yahweh Himself. No reason is given for the wrestling match, and it is curious that the supernatural figure, whoever he is, fights to a draw when his victory would seem to be inevitable. In order to break the stalemate, the man dislocates Jacob’s hip, and a discussion ensues. They exchange names, a typical ancient custom, before Jacob lets the man go. The result is a life-long limp and a name change for Jacob, the new name being Israel.

The final consequence for Jacob’s behavior happens when his sons get tired of their little brother, Joseph’s, arrogance and sell him into slavery. We know that turned out well, but for many years, Jacob suffered with the belief that his beloved son, one of only two borne by Rachel, had been torn apart by wild beasts. The brothers kept that secret for almost twenty years before they were caught in another trap set this time by Joseph, though it was manufactured out of love instead of hate.

It seems natural to ask why God continued to bless Jacob throughout his life of deception and manipulation. Long story; short moral: we are not blessed because of what we do; we are blessed because of who we are. Jacob was Abraham’s blessed seed. The nation named for him, Israel, would, like Jacob, go through many years of trials and tribulations before ultimately serving God’s purpose: the offering of Messiah. Likewise, Christians are blessed because they are adopted into the family of Christ, the ultimate Seed of Abraham.

This wonderful news is not license to live as we please. Paul makes that abundantly clear in Romans 6:1-2: “What therefore shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, in order that grace may increase? May it never be! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Through baptism, we are identified with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. We live the resurrected life through the power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. That power helps us to live properly. When we fail like Jacob, we don’t lose the blessing, but we may have to pay the consequences. So, I’ll take the blessing of Jacob, and I will try my best to avoid behaviors that might earn me Jacob’s consequences. You too?

Related posts: Understanding Salvation; Lies We Have Been Told

The Awkward Funeral

A friend recently asked me to suggest some Scripture to comfort a mutual acquaintance who had lost his son in an accident. To our knowledge, neither the father nor the son had trusted Christ. I was stymied. The harsh truth will be no comfort; the son is gone and there is no hope for a blessed eternity for him – not if you believe the Bible. I am certain this type of situation is what makes the idea of reincarnation popular. It may also explain why annihilation appeals to some. If my departed loved one will come back in some pleasant form, that is comforting. Likewise, if death is the end of life and not a beginning as the Bible teaches, annihilation erases the painful thought of eternal punishment.

Regardless of what a non-believer thinks, as believers we have a responsibility to share truth. After giving it some thought, I recommended my friend share Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 for starters. It is biblical truth that death is part of life, and though it offers no comfort, at least it states the inevitability and universality.

“To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven:

² A time to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;

³ A time to kill,

And a time to heal;

A time to break down,

And a time to build up;

⁴ A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn,

And a time to dance.”

I suggested she follow that up by saying that our Christian faith teaches us to weep with those who weep. It is a Christlike thing to show sympathy for those who are mourning. I suggested that at some point, it would be appropriate to ask the grieving parent if he was comfortable with his own idea of the afterlife. She might try something like the Evangelism Explosion tactic of asking why God should let him into Heaven – assuming he believes in Heaven. If that’s too harsh, she could simply ask what he thinks comes after death. It may sound heartless to push this kind of thing on a mourner, but that state of mind is often where we make our most dramatic descoveries.

Sadly, this situation is going to become more the norm than the exception as our society becomes more fully pagan. It is surprising how quickly we have traveled down this road. My parents’ generation either professed Christianity or at least used biblical language to excuse or accuse their behavior. There was an undercurrent of Judeo-Christian thought that provided a basis for conversation with almost any American. Even the people who spurned Christianity would often admit that they were probably going to Hell, but they pretended not to care. “Foxhole prayers” were common among those who otherwise had no relationship with the God of the Bible.

It has taken less than fifty years to almost fully erase God-consciousness from our society. We often point to the removal of the Bible and prayer from schools as the cause of this tragic situation, but I suspect that was more a symptom than a cause. Had the parents of the 1960’s and 70’s been more concerned and involved with such decisions, the move to secularize education might have been thwarted. Many of those who were concerned did what I did: withdraw from public education and join the Christian school movement. That was a fine thing, but I feel a little guilty that we didn’t do more to fight against the ruination of public schools. The late twentieth century concepts of values clarification and situation ethics has morphed into what we see today: WOKE attitudes toward gender and morality, critical race theory, and outright enmity against anything Christian.

As believers, we need to prepare for more of those awkward funerals. The best way to do that is to talk to our pagan neighbors before we have to attend their wake. I have previously alluded to W.B. Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.” I am surprised at how prescient his observations were. We have witnessed his prediction:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity…

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand…. 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

The Bible predicts that things will get worse and worse before the end comes. That fact is not a reason to hunker down and wait; it is rather the very reason we should redouble our efforts to spread the news that God’s kingdom has come and to make every effort to see His will done on earth as it is in Heaven. Everyone we reach with the good news is rescued from the awkward funeral. Everyone we bring to the Savior born in Bethlehem will be safe from the rough beast whose hour seems to be coming round at last.

Related posts: Why Witness; Hell? Yes!; Today’s Chaldean Chastisement; I Pray for America

What’s Wrong with That?

A friend encouraged me to listen to an Andy Stanley message that he had found helpful. I accidentally listened to the wrong one, then found the one he recommended. I was struck by the fact that in both messages, Stanley was well over half-way through his allotted time before he mentioned the Bible in any way. In “Paper Walls,” the recommended one, it was at minute twenty-seven of the thirty-two-minute message when the anchor Scripture was brought up. I admit to being interested with and agreeing with Stanley’s ideas up to then, but I had to ask myself if it was really a Bible sermon or just a well-presented self-help counselling session with Bible back-up.

I asked myself: what’s wrong with that? I’ve had a week or two to think about it, and I have convinced myself that on one level, there’s nothing wrong with good counsel that finds its roots in Scripture. However, my preconditioned, semantically critical self says it’s not Bible teaching. What Stanley did in the two messages I heard was what Bible scholars call eisegesis. The more acceptable form of Bible teaching employs exegesis. (Sorry for the Greek lesson, but here it comes.)

Eisegesis means to “read into” what the Scripture says. In other words, the speaker makes a point and then relates it to a passage from the Bible. He says here is something I find to be true, and here is where the Scripture supports my opinion. That may be fine if the speaker doesn’t take the passage out of context or misinterpret it in some way. Stanley tied his “Paper Walls” message to Hebrews 12:1-2 in an acceptable way – barely. The verses say, “Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, putting aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, let us run with patient endurance the race that has been set before us.” His message warned against making excuses for bad behavior which he identified as sin. His definition of sin was anything that causes harm to a person. Making excuses may harm the excuse-maker or those around him, so it qualifies as sin. It should be “put aside.”

What’s wrong with that? Probably nothing. It’s just that solid Bible teaching generally uses exegesis not eisegesis. This method is sometimes called expository preaching. The speaker “exposes” what the Scripture teaches; he “reads out” rather than reading into. Usually this involves using contextual references such as historical, cultural, grammatical, and literary clues. (For more see “Understanding the Bible as Literature”) What Andy Stanley (and many other televangelists) does is not pure Bible teaching; it is Bible related social or personal commentary. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want.

In the case of the “Paper Walls” message, there is nothing wrong with using a specific sin as an example and then tying it to the Bible proscription against sin. And Stanley’s message does tie properly to the Hebrews point but in a tenuous and tangential way. In fairness to Andy Stanley, I must admit that in the last five minutes of the message, he did show how this particular sin (all others as well, I may add) will damage our relationship with God. What bothered me originally was the five-minute portion of Scripture discussion tacked on to a twenty-seven minute counseling session.

This formula apparently works for Andy Stanley (and many others) as evidenced by the statistics. Outreach Magazine lists Andy Stanley’s Northpoint Church as having average weekly attendance of 22,473 at its 30 partner churches. A Wikipedia article lists attendance at 38,589. (His messages are simulcast to the partner churches.) If numbers were the only measure of ministry success, this would be a stellar confirmation. If revenue were the measure, it is worth noting that Andy’s net worth is above $50 million with an annual salary of $3 million. The Stanley family business, In Touch Ministries, also scores well with $97 million in income for 2019. Andy’s father, the famous Charles Stanley, though retired still works thirty hours per week to earn an annual salary of $530,225. Note that average pastor salary in the US is between $85-117,000 per year, with many making far less than average.

I am going to make my own Bible reference now quoting Paul’s letter to the Philippians regarding contemporary preachers who had questionable motives. Paul said, “What is the result? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.” I guess my attitude should be to say if a few dozen pastors are raking in astronomical salaries, what’s wrong with that if the gospel is proclaimed.

Here’s what feels wrong. Throughout the “Paper Walls” message, Stanley repeatedly said that he did not know his audience; he did not even know if they were believers. This is no surprise. Studies suggest that a pastor can only minister effectively to about 100 people. This would suggest that 22-38,000 people are beyond Andy Stanley’s reach as a “pastor.”  This might also explain current statistics on church size. According to Lifeway Research, “While the average U.S. congregations gathers in a building that seats around 200, only 65 attend the median church each week. This means that half of all churches have fewer than 65 people in their weekly worship service.” Seven of ten churches have fewer than 100 attendees at weekly services.

I believe Andy Stanley and those like him fall into a class of minister not imagined in the Bible. While it’s true Jesus did speak to large crowds on occasion, feeding 5,000 and 4,000 on two occasions, He generally worked best one-on-one or with small groups. The Samaritan woman, the Centurion, Zacchaeus, His twelve disciples were the common audiences the Son of God taught. Again, at the founding of the church, Peter did address upwards of 3,000 people, but throughout the book of Acts, the missionary audiences were likely similar to today’s average church – far less than 100 at the largest.

My intention is not to disparage or incite jealousy of mega-church leaders. If God is using them to grow His kingdom, what’s wrong with that? My point is that “real” church ministry takes place on a much smaller scale than that at which the Stanleys of the world operate. As I wrote in Lead a Horse to Water, the Great Commission commands every believer to make disciples, teaching them all that Jesus commanded. We don’t need simulcasting and Internet connectivity to do that. We just need the willingness to do what Jesus commanded: live our lives as disciple-making examples of His love. People may not come in droves to that, but if each one reaches one, look what happens. What’s wrong with that?

 

In Deep Weeds

In his second epistle, the Apostle Peter warns against a group of people who were sowing seeds of doubt in the church. “In the last days scoffers will come with scoffing, following according to their own desires and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” He reminds his readers that God sees time far differently than we do saying, “one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day.” Then he continues to explain: “The Lord is not delaying the promise, as some consider slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

As I wrote in “The Patience of God,” ever since Adam’s fall from grace in Eden, God has been patiently working His plan to bring His creation back to Himself. So, while 6,000 years may seem like forever to us, it’s only six days to God, in a manner of speaking. But Peter raises the question, “What sort of people must you be in holy behavior and godliness, while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God?” That’s the real question: not why is God waiting, but what should I be doing while we wait?

Jesus hinted at this period of waiting when He told the parable of the wheat and tares. The word for tares refers to a specific plant called darnel. Darnel mimics wheat in appearance, so it would be difficult to tell what’s wheat and what’s weeds. That explains why the farmer in the parable told his servants not to do anything until the crop had matured. At harvest time, the true nature of the darnel would be apparent.

This condition is reminiscent of the state of the church throughout history. The enemy, whom Jesus identifies as the Devil, puts darnels in churches to sow trouble. They often look like fine, upstanding Christians. This is no surprise since the enemy is able to masquerade as an angel of light. The parable doesn’t mention that during the growing season, the darnel steals water and nutrients that the wheat needs, perhaps diminishing the harvest. Likewise, the Devil’s plants in churches mislead people and misuse resources in a way that thwarts the true kingdom growth.

In his comments on this passage, Pastor H. B. Charles suggested that the efforts of the servants of God are often a greater threat to the harvest than the enemy. Ouch! As I consider my years among God’s people, I have to agree. When I recall the battles many churches fought over music styles in the 1970’s, I can see the perfect application of the parable. I shudder to think how many young “wheat plants” were torn up and carelessly thrown away when well-meaning church people tried to excise the “darnel” of contemporary music. A generation later, polls prove that a host of young people, many of whom were the force behind contemporary Christian music, have left the church behind. They typically cite irrelevance as the reason they left; I can’t help but think that musical “irrelevance” played a part in their decision to leave.

On the other side of the music battle, people who enjoyed the new choruses often forced the removal of hymnals from the pews, thus subtracting a wealth of sound Bible teaching amassed over the years by godly hymn writers. What we were left with is a repertoire of feel-good, me-first songs that do very little to advance sound doctrine. (For more see “Music for the Soul”)

There have been many other instances of servants attacking supposed darnel to ill effect. Think of the battle over Bible translations: King James only, The Living Bible, NASB versus NIV. Instead of rejoicing that the Word of God was being made more accessible, misguided servants created noise that drowned out the desire to read Scripture. The Jesus Movement, the seeker model, the emerging church all started with honest intent, yet each was criticized and pilloried in turn by servants seeking to remove darnel. I grew up in a church tradition that, like many others, thought they were the only true Christians. In that attitude, they denounced the errant denominations and drew battle lines between them, thus destroying the unity Jesus desires for His church.

The people attacking the darnel had apparently forgotten the story of Jesus’ disciples who wanted to stop some preachers who were not in their little group. Jesus said, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Likewise, Paul reminded the Philippians in reference to others preaching with dubious motives, “What is the result?^[g] Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.” It looks to me like we need to stop focusing on the weeds and look for the unity Jesus desired. After all, the harvest is in God’s hands in the end.

Related posts: The Country Club Church; To be Content; Check Your Roots; What is the Church?

What About Islam?

The world-wide-web, as we used to call it, offers some amazing opportunities to share the gospel around the world. This blog has had over 28,000 views in the years since I began posting; many of them are in the United States, but about half of them are in other nations across the globe. Through the wonder of cyberspace connections, I have been privileged to witness for Christ in countries like Russia, China, and India where on-the-ground ministry would be difficult if not impossible. I recently had contact with a Muslim in Pakistan who said he had no knowledge of Christianity. I am sharing what I told him on the chance that another Muslim might read it, or that you might find it helpful in your witness to a Muslim in your life. Here is what I wrote:

The Christian faith teaches that Yahweh God created the earth and everything in it. Yahweh had a special purpose in creation to fill the earth with people who could be His family and develop a paradise on earth. Yahweh’s first human creation, Adam, rebelled against Yahweh’s rules and went astray. Because Yahweh loved His creation, He devised a plan to bring them back into His family. First, Yahweh called upon one man, Abraham, to put His plan in motion. Then Yahweh brought into being a nation, Israel, from the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The ultimate descendant of Abraham was Jesus Christ.

The god Muslims worship, known as Allah, is similar to the God revealed in the Old Testament Bible. Allah is also said to have a relationship with the descendants of Abraham. The two stories part ways concerning the special nature of Abraham’s sons. Islam believes the special blessing went to Abraham’s illegitimate son, Ishmael. According to the Bible, the son of Yahweh’s promise was Isaac, not Ishmael.

Because Islam teaches that the line of Abraham’s son Ishmael obtained God’s promised blessing, the entire message of the Bible is lost. The prophet Mohammed was responsible for creating a parallel story where Allah used Ishmael’s descendants to carry on his plan. This parallel story is recorded in the Koran. This explains why Muslims are often at war with Christians and Jews; throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, the descendants of Ismael were fighting with the Jews. They still are to this day.

The god of Islam does bear a resemblance to Yahweh God as He is revealed in the Old Testament of the Bible. The vengeful, warlike image of Allah is somewhat like Yahweh as revealed in the Old Testament. Yahweh God did instruct His people, the nation of Israel, to conquer the territory of the Canaanites, now known as Palestine, and to drive out or kill all the inhabitants. Many of these displaced people were descendants of Ishmael. Yahweh’s justification for the slaughter of the Canaanites was the sinful, idolatrous nature of their worship of Baal. Because of Yahweh’s loving grace, the Canaanites were given many generations to turn from their idols and worship Yahweh, but few of them took advantage of the gracious offer.

The religion that grew from the prophet Mohammed’s teachings denies the central theme of the Bible. Yahweh God loves His people and desires a relationship with them. He made provision for their sinfulness by sending His own Son to pay the penalty for the sin of every person who would ever live. By discounting Jesus’ essential role in Yahweh’s plan, Mohammed lost the beauty of the biblical narrative. John 3:16 in the New Testament of the Bible says this: “In this way, God loved the world, so that He gave His one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.” To have eternal life means to be at peace with our Creator, the sovereign king of the universe now and forever in the future.

The Koran has many true sayings, but Mohammed missed the importance of the blessing which came through Abraham’s son Isaac and was fulfilled in Yahweh’s Son Jesus. Although Jesus was a descendant of Abraham in the flesh, He was truly a Son of God because of His miraculous birth. Mohammed denied Jesus’ divine nature and His resurrection after death on the cross. It is the resurrection that proves Jesus’ claim to be the Savior of the world. If you deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you deny yourself the possibility of a life of peace with your Creator that lasts for all eternity.

Today, many Muslims around the world are coming to believe the Bible is the inspired word of Yahweh God. This is hard for them in some ways because they have to discard many of the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. But it is easy in the sense that they need only to profess a belief in the saving life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then devote themselves to the teachings of the Bible instead of the Koran. This can be difficult because they must often separate themselves from friends and family, sometimes with threat of death, but once they do, they find new friends and fellowship in the body of Christ known as the church. Ultimately, the peace found in Christ Jesus is worth whatever price one must pay to receive it. The Christian faith says that what you choose to believe about Jesus will determine where you spend eternity. Make your choice carefully.

Related posts: Through the Bible in Seven Minutes; Understanding Salv
ation; Defending Resurrection Faith; Do We Really Need God?

Why Witness?

R.C. Sproul, a well-known reformed theologian, once told of an experience he had in a seminary class. The professor asked why Christians should bother with evangelism if God’s sovereign election was responsible for choosing the saints. As he went around the circle asking each student individually, the professor didn’t hear one acceptable answer. When he came to Sproul, the student hesitated, then said almost as a question, “Because Jesus commanded it.”

That is the only right answer. No matter what you think about sovereign election, the command remains as recorded in Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus said to His disciples: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus gave a command based on His divine authority over all things. But the primary command was not to “Go.” Without getting too deep in the weeds of Greek grammar, let me just say that “Go” in this verse is a participle. As such, it cannot be the main verb in the sentence. What is the main verb? “Make disciples.” “Make disciples” is in the imperative voice – the voice of command. You might think that doesn’t matter, but it does. If the main command of Jesus was to “go,” that would make evangelism – making disciples – something we go off to do as a special activity. If going is the command, we can sit back most days and ignore disciple-making because we are not “going” at that particular moment. If I go to Africa or I go door-to-door, then I can be about making disciples. Otherwise, I am exempt from the command.

However, if the main verb, the imperative, is “make disciples,” “go,” the participle, tells me how to make disciples. Strictly translating it as a participle, it would be “going.” But there is more to the Greek than that. A text on Greek grammar says this about the participle used in Matthew: “[The participle] conceives of action not as in progress (Present), nor as an existing result (Perfect), but as a simple fact.” Out of 16 translations on my computer, there is the only one not saying “GO;” it is Young’s Literal Translation which renders it as “having gone.” I would translate it as, “as you get on with your life….”

If you are thinking that this all belongs in some graduate level linguistics course, let me explain why it belongs right here, right now. I believe in something called plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible. Basically, that means every word in the original text was given by God. As such, I believe Matthew was given the Greek words in the particular tenses that God wanted him to use. So, it does matter if “go” is an imperative or a participle. The proper translation gives us the proper instructions for how we are supposed to evangelize aka make disciples. How is that? By living our daily lives as disciple makers.

Now let’s move on to the rest of Jesus’ command, “baptizing them… teaching them.” The baptizing part is pretty clear. Paul says that when we are baptized, we are identified with Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. There have been arguments over the centuries about how much water to use and when to administer it, but baptism as a concept is fairly simple. “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” is more complex. Truthfully, teaching is implied in the making of disciples; a disciple is literally a learner – that’s what the Greek term means. So, where there are learners, there must be teachers. What did Jesus teach?

I am going to suggest that there is a basic teaching of Jesus that is the focus for His command to make disciples. If you boil Jesus’ ministry down to one main theme, it would be that the Kingdom of God or Heaven had come. The Sermon on the Mount was instruction for kingdom living. Many of the parables taught specific kingdom principles. The ideal prayer He taught His disciples opens with, “Thy kingdom come,” and it ends with, “Thine is the kingdom.” He told believers that if they would seek the kingdom, all other things would be theirs. On the day He was crucified, standing before Pilate He admitted the existence of a kingdom, though not one of this world.

I should explain at this point that the Greek word for “kingdom” is more about what the king does than where he does it. In other words, the word didn’t conjure up geographical spaces; it was more about the idea of ruling or reigning. If you were under the rule or reign of a king, you were in his “kingdom.” So, the kingdom of God was a reference to God being the ruler of your life.

The word “kingdom” appears 127 times in the Gospel records. Jesus used it often. But there is another word that appears almost three times more often than kingdom: that word is father. Before Jesus came, the Jews were comfortable with the idea that God was the father of Israel; a common term for the nation was “children of Israel.” Calling someone a child implies a father. But when Jesus called God “My Father,” the Jews became incensed. They tried to stone Jesus on one occasion because they said calling God “my father” was a claim that He and the Father were equal. The Jews couldn’t accept that. Yet, Jesus spoke of the Father over three hundred times in the Gospel accounts. Why so much emphasis? (For more on this, see “Through the Bible in Seven Minutes”)

If you think about it, the message is pretty easy to understand. God made us, and He has plans for us. The kingdom we enter when we trust Christ is the Kingdom of our Father. It’s not a nation; it’s a family. Redemption is about God getting back what is rightfully His as creator. Redemption is about a cosmic battle between forces that operate at a level far above your pay grade. Granted, we play a role demonstrating God’s grace to His heavenly host, but we are the pawns, not the kings in the cosmic chess match. As Paul says to the Ephesians, we can take part in the battle if we choose. We have also been offered the chance to take part in the victory celebration when the battle is finally over. In that final glorious day, we will take all our righteous accomplishments, those things the Bible symbolizes as crowns, and gladly place them at the foot of the throne of God.

If you ever wanted to get involved in something bigger than yourself, this is your best chance. This is what we have to share with our fellow travelers on this fallen earth. There is a reason to live, and it not only gives us purpose now, but it promises an eternity of peace with God. That’s a story you can share happily. That’s why we witness.

Related posts: Two Pressing Questions; Understanding Salvation; What Happens to People Who Never Hear About Jesus?