Thursday, September 07, 2006

More on the kingdom

After now finishing out The Secret Message of Jesus, I've found much of the theme (what Jesus meant by "The Kingdom of God/Heaven is at hand" all over the place (as the book notes)- like this sermon by Tony Campolo.
Somebody gave me an article a few months ago about this very subject. Digging this article -"Is the Church Interested in the Kingdom"- back up (I kept it because it was intriguing), it turns out to be by a sociologist (Christian Smith) written in 1989. Here is some of it:

Consider the following possibility: many churches in our country today have very little to do with the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not a place or an institution. Nor is it the church per se. The kingdom of God is the experience of God reigning among people in history. The kingdom of God is present whenever God's will and intentions for us as individuals, communities, and societies is received and lived out.

Strange as it may sound, God is not at work in history to establish the church. God is at work to establish the kingdom, God's reign among the people of the earth. What then is the role of the church? The church is merely the human institution whose job it is to facilitate the breaking into history of the kingdom of the kingdom. It is, then a provisional institution of instrumental, not intrinsic value. The church is- or, rather can be- a channel, an instrument of the kingdom. But the church is not itself the kingdom, and its outward existence does not guarantee the presence of the kingdom.

When the kingdom of God is present, life gets changed. The kingdom changes a lot about us; our relationships, values, activities, commitments, goals, and ways of life. Because change is so central to the kingdom, Paul urged the Roman churches to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by renewing of your mind, that you prove what the will of God is" (Romans 12:2). The kingdom, then does- or should- produce a transformed people who, because of God's reign in their lives, live in a way that is distinctively different from the world. Unbelievers ought to be able to point to Christians and say, "Ah ha, that is what the kingdom of God looks like."

....
THE POSSIBILITY UNDER consideration is that many churches today have very little to do with the kingdom of God since they typically- rather than pursuing the kingdom like a pearl of great price- spend themselves trying to maintain and preserve their own institutions and traditions as if they were of ultimate value, are devoted to an ethic (being nice) which is fundamentally irrelevant to the concerns of God and his kingdom, and reflect a way of life virtually identical to those who have nothing to do with the kingdom of God, thereby falsifying the transformative power of the kingdom.

Ultimately, the question at issue, of course, is not a matter of good and evil, salvation or damnation, but what of our work for the Lord will stand in the end. Paul explains:

Be careful how you build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. You can build upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or straw. But whatever the material, the work of the builder will be clearly revealed when the day comes. That day will begin with fire and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If anyone's work stands, they will receive a reward. But is anyone's work is burned up, they will suffer loss. Though they will be saved, it will as one who has gone through fire. (I Corinthians 3:10-15).

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