Joseph Mangina on Revelation 21

This excerpt comes from Revelation (BTCB) by Joseph L. Mangina, commenting on Rev. 21:1-6:

The vision in Rev. 21 opens with a great divine act of re-creation. As only God can create, calling suns and stars, water and land into existence at the beginning, so only God can restore, bringing into being a new world in which his will for his creatures is fully realized.

Apocalypse recapitulates Genesis. A fresh start is made. The first heaven and the first earth are not said to be destroyed, like death and hades in the previous chapter. John simply says that they “passed away” (apēltham). “The sea was no more,” not because the ocean as such is cursed, but because the sea in Israel’s imagination represents chaos, darkness, the deep. Now chaos yields to cosmos, disorder to peace, death to life.

God does this. It is not the outcome of any human scientific or technological achievement. The new city comes “down out of heaven from God,” a sheer miracle, a gift apocalyptically bestowed at the end of history and not the outcome of history itself. The unmistakable apocalyptic signature here is the word idou (“behold”), uttered first by a “loud voice from the throne” (21:3) and repeated by “he who was seated on the throne” (21:5).

his unambiguous act of divine speech is the first such we have heard since 1:8. Idou invites us not to act but to see, not to perform but to watch in awe, not to take action but to rejoice, welcoming the city’s gracious manifestation among us. . . .

The goal of all this is the establishing of communion: “Behold, the dwelling place [skēnē] of God is with man. He will dwell with them [skēnōsei met’ autōn], and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (21:3). The language is drawn from the law (Lev. 26:12) and the prophets (Ezek. 27:27), reminding us that the people of this God can only be Israel and not some generic “humanity.”

If grace does not destroy nature, still less does the new creation annul God’s covenant with Abraham! The language bespeaks a covenantal sense of mutuality, God with his people, the people with their God. The long history that reaches from Moses to David to Jeremiah and beyond is not undone.

Yet just as in the new creation imagery, John seems to envisage a certain return to the beginning: thus the image of the desert tabernacle, the skēnē, the tent of the divine presence. The tape is being rewound, past the historical Jerusalem with its compromised history, past even the settlement of the land, to the time of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. It is as though God’s new dwelling with Israel will combine the splendor of life in the city with the simplicity of life in the wilderness, when, for Jeremiah anyway, the bride of YHWH was still faithful to her spouse (Jer. 2:1-2).

But skēnē is also the language of incarnation. It is the term John the Evangelist uses to speak of the Son of God’s “tenting” or “tabernacling” in human flesh (John 1:14). Not, of course, that the heavenly city is identical with Christ’s historical sojourn in the flesh. But the city inhabits the space of divine-human communion he has established.

The “dwelling of God is with man,” first and decisively in Christ himself, then in the church so far as it is joined to his divine-human, life-giving person.

Follow me–Suivez moi

A friend posted this article from Forbes, Leadership 310: The Four Principles of 'Followership'. I am reposting the main points with a few comments of my own.

The four key attributes to strong followership

1) Trust: In everyday behavior, followership requires that the leader provides evidence that they can be trusted.   Do you do what you say?  Do you answer questions honestly?  Are you transparent and share with the team your challenges, obstacles, and needs to achieve your larger goals?

2) Stability: Leaders with strong followership remain calm in the face of panic and give a sense of confidence to those around them.

3) Compassion: Strong followership leaders have unrelenting passion for people and show empathy when those folks are enduring hard times.

4) Hope: Followership requires that the leader has unwavering belief that their product/service will not only succeed, but will change lives.

Many times people are placed in leadership roles and inherently believe that their teams will follow them due to the title on their business card and not the substance of their character. Leadership is as much about being the person that people want to follow as it‘s about knowing where the team is headed.

I think the biblical corollaries are obvious. But which ones spring to mind for you? And more importantly:

Why would anyone want to follow you?

Pastor as Prophet

An article by Chad Hall on the Transformed Blog:

What does the prophetic office look like in today’s church context?  I believe pastors are called to provide prophetic leadership via four specific practices:

1. Preaching.  There is no substitute for sound, doctrinally solid, Spirit-invoked preaching that has as its aim the connection of God’s intent with God’s people.  In other words, prophets make God’s intent known so that God followers can live rightly.  Much preaching these days is more therapeutic than prophetic.  While prophetic preaching does heal (it’s God’s intent that we find wholeness and healing in Him), it is not merely therapeutic in the most popular sense (aimed at helping people feel good about themselves and/or have felt needs met).
2. Decision-making: Prophetic leadership happens from the pulpit, but it also happens in board meetings, in one-on-one ministry settings, and in the budgeting processes.  Churches need prophetic pastors who challenge their institutional processes, question the status quo, and push for godly change within the church.  Prophetic pastors resist mere pragmatism and opt for decision-making processes that implement God’s intent.
3. Vision casting: A key pastoral role is to inspire a shared vision of who a congregation is to be in the midst of their community and world and what the church is to do in order to live out this vision.  The vision comes from God and is oftentimes first witnessed by mature church members (they catch glimpses of what God is calling the church to be and do).  It is the pastor’s responsibility to listen deeply, discern prayerfully, and then speak compassionately so that the entire church community can see clearly the vision God has for their body and then carry out that vision.
4. Community engagement:  The prophetic pastoral role extends beyond leading the local body of believers to being a God-ordained witness to the world.  As the OT prophets challenged Israel and their neighbors, a prophetic pastor will bring a message of God’s intent to the church, to those who are marginal to the church, and to the community in which the church lives.  This does not mean the pastor calls the unchurched to behave as if they were all Christ-followers.  Instead, this is a specific type of evangelism: sharing the good news of God’s intent with those who are currently far from God in expectation that they will repent and align themselves with God through Christ.

Food for thought.

If we have an alternative story, who does what?

‘As we anxiously gaze into the future and delve back into our history and traditions to retrieve missiological tools from the Christendom toolbox, many of us are left with the sinking feeling that this is simply not going to work’ (17). What is needed is a new paradigm: ‘a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions, and values, especially as they relate to our view of church and mission’. –Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways.

Hirsch believes that we need to put the emphasis on developing the quality of new life in Christ as an alternative to the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of Western culture, rather than on a quantitative program of church multiplication? Why do we not explore what it means to be an effective prophetic community?

 

Here is the toolkit for story, i.e., this how we put the plot to work, as it were.

 

Eph. 4 11It was he who “gave gifts”; he appointed some to be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, others to be pastors and teachers. 12He did this to prepare all God’s people for the work of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ.

 

 

APOSTLES

extend the gospel. They ensure that the faith is transmitted from one context to another and from one generation to the next. They are think about the future, establishing the church in new contexts and developing leaders, The shepherding and teaching functions are needed to ensure people are cared for rather than simply used.

PROPHETS

know God's will. They are particularly attuned to God and his truth for today. They bring correction and challenge the dominant assumptions we inherit from the culture. They call the community to obey what God has commanded and question the status quo. 

EVANGELISTS

recruit. They communicate the gospel message to recruit others to the cause. They call for a personal response to God's redemption in Christ, and draw believers to engage in the wider mission of growing the church. 

SHEPHERDS

nurture and protect. As caregivers of the community, they focus on the spiritual maturity of God's flock, cultivating a loving and spiritually network of relationships to make and develop disciples. Shepherds value stability of the of the mission.

TEACHERS

understand and explain. They communicate God's truth and wisdom and help others to remain biblically grounded to better discern God's will, guiding others toward wisdom, helping the community remain faithful to Christ's word. and constructing a transferable doctrine.

Fill in the blank…

Paul is telling us that these gifts are given to the church. The context is not on individuals who have these gifts, but the purpose of the gifts in the church. How does the church respond and adapt to resistance from the culture, marginalization, persecution, or even lack of relevance.

Paul is saying that these various gifts are given to the church so that it can know where it needs to go and what it needs to do; to keep on track, as well as to nurture and protect the flock.

The question is, how does the church recognize these gifts, who has them, how are they used in the ministry of the body of Christ?

Finally, how would you define each of these gifts? Do you agree or disagree with the individual synopses?

More musings on an alternative story.

What might an alternative story look like?

“The circus is among the few coherent images of the eschatological realm to which people still have ready access and ... the circus thereby affords some elementary insights into the idea of society as a consummate event. This principality, this art, this veritable liturgy, this common enterprise of multifarious creatures called the circus enacts a hope, in an immediate and historic sense, and simultaneously embodies an ecumenical foresight of radical and wondrous splendor, encompassing, as it does both empirically and symbolically, the scope and diversity of creation. I suppose some ... may deem the association of the circus and the Kingdom scandalous or facetious or bizarre, and scoff quickly at the thought that the circus is relevant to the ethics of society.... To [these people] I only respond that the connection seems to me to be at once suggested when one recalls that biblical people, like circus folk, live typically as sojourners, interrupting time, with few possessions, and in tents, in this world. The church would likely be more faithful if the church were similarly nomadic.”
—William Stringfellow, A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow

I like the image.

More on an alternate story - 2

What is a Christian, and what do we think she/he might look like ?

“To become and to be a Christian is not at all an escape from the world as it is, nor is it a wistful longing for a “better” world, nor a commitment to generous charity, nor fondness for “moral and spiritual values” (whatever that may mean), nor self- serving positive thoughts, nor persuasion to splendid abstractions about God. It is, instead, the knowledge that there is no pain or privation, no humiliation or disaster, no scourge or distress or destitution or hunger, no striving or temptation, no wile or sickness or suffering or poverty which God has not known and borne for [humanity] in Jesus Christ. He has borne death itself on behalf of [humanity], and in that event he has broken the power of death once and for all.
To become to be a Christian is, therefore, to have the extraordinary freedom to share the burdens of the daily, common, ambiguous, transient, perishing existence of [humans beings], even to the point of actually taking the place of another [person], whether he be powerful or weak, in health or in sickness, clothed or naked, educated or illiterate, secure or persecuted, complacent or despondent, proud or forgotten, housed or homeless, fed or hungry, at liberty or in prison, young or old, white or Negro, rich or poor.
For a Christian to be poor and to work among the poor is not a conventional charity, but a use of the freedom for which Christ has set [humanity] free.”
~~ William Stringfellow, My People is the Enemy

Beautiful answer. 

More on an alternate story

“The kind of fasting I want is this: Remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free. 

Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless poor. Give clothes to those who have nothing to wear, and do not refuse to help your own relatives.
Isaiah 58:6-7 GNT

What do disciples do ?

What would it look like in our church if we did this stuff ?