Episode 143: Change theology: Jesus’ Core Message of (re)Aligning with God’s Kingdom

In this episode, Brian Russell unpacks Jesus’ initial proclamation: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Listen in and discover what Jesus’ call for a radical change in life and perspective means for us as 21st century Christ followers. To learn even more check out Brian's book (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World (Cascade): https://amzn.to/3PU5RqE (I recommend buying the much cheaper Kindle version). Brian Russell’s Other Books Astonished by the Word: Reading Scripture for Deep Transformation https://amzn.to/3OKecg8 Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life https://amzn.to/2S0AcIZ Invitation: A Bible Study to Begin With (Seedbed) https://my.seedbed.com/product/oneboo... Connecting with Brian: Website: www.brianrussellphd.com Twitter: @briandrussell Instagram: @yourprofessorforlife Interested in coaching or inviting Brian to speak or teach for your community of faith or group? Email: deepdivespirituality@gmail.com Links to Amazon are Affiliate links. If you purchase items through these links, Amazon returns a small percentage of the sale to Brian Russell. This supports the podcast and does not increase the price of the items you may choose to buy. Thank you for your support.

Prayer as Imprint: (re) Learning to Pray the Lord's Prayer (pt. 2)

“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.” Kate Chopin (19^th century writer)

Here is my translation of Matt 6:9-13 –

Our Father, the one who is in heaven;

Let your name be holy.

Let your kingdom come.

Let your will become [reality] on earth as it is in heaven [already].

Give to us today our food for the day.

Forgive us our debts just as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.

Don’t lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 

What does this text assume to be true?  What does this prayer suggest about God?  What does this prayer believe to be true about us?

Our Father:

Assumes that prayer is a community activity.  This does not mean that one always has to pray in the company of others (Jesus’ instructions in 6:5-8 suggest both individual and corporate prayers), but it does force the pray-er to reflect on the meaning of “our.”  God is never simply “my father” or “his father” or “her father” or “their father”; God is our father.

Assumes a relational framework.  Many of us are turned away from addressing God as “father” because of our own experiences within our families.  But Jesus’ model is supposed to be read as an invitation to participate in God’s family.  We embody this ethos when we value community and experience authentic relationship with God.

The One who is in heaven

God doesn’t merely relate as “our father”.  God relates as “Our father who is in heaven.”  In other words, this clause distinguishes God as unique among fathers. 

This address is then followed by three petitions addressed directly to God.  All of these are requests for God to usher in fully the promised new reality of an age of salvation.  Yet implicit in each request is a bold and daring shift in the pray-er’s own allegiance.  To pray each petition is to invite God to work in our lives so that each pray-er begins to embody the values of God’s reign that adumbrate the new age that is coming through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.

1) Let your name be holy.

God’s name is holy.  This is a request for the day in which God’s holiness and majesty will be fully and rightfully acknowledged by all creation.  It is a commitment to show God’s name holy in the present through the sort of life that we live.

2) Let your kingdom come.

Jesus came to announce the age of salvation—the kingdom of heaven (4:17).  This is a plea from a pray-er fully aware of the frailty of the present age.  Jesus has ushered in the first fruits of the future, but there is more to come.  It is a prayer for God to consummate his kingdom in its totality.  As this petition is prayer, the pray-er is also committing himself or herself to the values and ethos of the kingdom as taught and lived by Jesus.  Jesus’ followers are to live as people from the future who leave clues for those longing for a better life.

3) Let your will become [reality] on earth as it is in heaven [already].

This request fill outs the previous two.  What does it look like for God’s name to be recognized as holy and for God’s kingdom to come?  God’s will and intentions will be manifest in the totality of his creation.  The ethos of the Kingdom of heaven will be the ethos on earth.  Of course, to pray this line is to commit oneself to living out God’s will in the present in anticipation of God’s decisive action.

The prayer ends with three requests on behalf of the pray-er.  These serve as prayers for persons whose lives involve the mission of God.  Implicit in each request is profound trust in and recognition of God as the source of life, protection, and salvation.  Also each request is also a commitment to embody the very thing that it requested.

Give to us today our food for the day.

This is a simply request for food for the day.  Life starts and stops here.  We begin to embody this value however through becoming generous people.  To receive from God is to give to others.

Forgive us our debts just as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.

Forgiveness is the key to community and maintaining genuine and life-changing relationships.  It is vital to read this request for forgiveness from God as a commitment to practice and model forgiveness within the community of faith as well as toward those outside of the community.

Don’t lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

To follow Jesus is to participate actively and fully in God’s mission.  Jesus did not come to create a static or stationary institution.  He came to unleash a movement that would embody the ethos of God’s kingdom and carry its message to the ends of the earth.  To live this way is to live dangerously.  Thus, one must pray a prayer of protection for deliverance from the evil one (the Devil) and from temptation. 

Why do we need to pray this prayer with audacity and faithfulness?  Because God desires to imprint his character on us so that we can leave his fingerprints and handprints in the world to serve as clues for others?

God doesn’t need us to make a “difference in the world” but to make the world different. God imprints us so that we can leave his imprint on others.

Are you the type of woman or man who can pray the Lord’s Prayer?  Or better, do you want to be the type of man or woman who can pray the Lord’s Prayer and embody it?

What would your life look like if you prayed the Lord's Prayer as truly lived it out?

© 2015 Brian D. Russell

Read Part one: Praying Audaciously: (re)Learning to Pray the Lord's Prayer.

The Calling to Change: Understanding Matthew 4:17 and Jesus' Announcement of the Kingdom

Jesus begins his public ministry by preaching, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near" (Matt 4:17). 

Many students of Matthew's Gospel consider 4:17 "From this time on Jesus began..." as a major heading for the middle portion of the Gospel (4:17-16:20).  Careful readers will note that 16:21 begins in identical fashion: From this time on Jesus began....  Thus, 4:17 is not only a snippet from the preaching of Jesus but also a heading for the presentation of Jesus' public ministry in Matthew's Gospel. This raises a number of questions for us. What is the meaning of Jesus' sermon "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near"? How does it function as a general heading for Jesus' ministry?  Why does Jesus begin his ministry in this fashion?

I cannot answer these questions exhaustively, but let us begin by breaking down the passage itself.

Repent

The central exhortation is Jesus' call for repentance.  Repentance involves changing or turning.  It is a radical "about face" in one's life. I think that a better way of expressing "repent" is to use the word "realign." Jesus is calling for conversion. When he proclaims the good news of the kingdom, it is imperative for his hearers to align or realign themselves with the values and ethic of God's kingdom.

Often times this text is misread as a one time event in a person's life.  Repentance is typically associated with a person's conversion experience.  This is certainly true, but it misses some of the force of this text.  This text does not exhort a one time "Repent" but rather it could accurately (although somewhat clumsily) "Be repenting" or "Repent continuously."  In the Greek, the verb is in the present aspect which suggests that this verbal form carries on-going/durative force.  This is an important observation because it suggests that repentance or realignment is a way of life for a follower of Jesus rather than one time event or precondition for salvation.

It is also worth observing that our text does not indicate of what one needs to repent.  I think that this carries two implications.  First, Jesus' call to repent is comprehensive. Second, what it means to repent can only be discovered by reading further into Matthew's Gospel. In other words, following Jesus involves a continual willingness to realign one's life with the ethos of the Kingdom of heaven.

The Kingdom of heaven

Instead of giving specific directions on repenting/realignment, Jesus provides a single rationale for his exhortation "for the Kingdom of heaven is near."  This clause however has much that needs to be unpacked.

First, the phrase “kingdom of heaven” is synonymous with the more common “kingdom of God” which is found throughout the other three Gospels.  “Kingdom of heaven” is a distinctive of Matthew’s Gospel.  Matthew routinely makes use of indirect ways for referring to God.  Many scholars attribute this phenomenon to Matthew’s Jewish-Christian audience, which would have been used to such efforts to avoid taking God’s name in vain per the Ten Commandments.    

Second, “Kingdom” may perhaps better be translated “reign.”  In other words, it is a more dynamic term that the static term “kingdom” suggests.  It is the active realm of God’s rule. It is the long awaited age of salvation previewed in the proclamation of Israel's prophets. It is the sphere in which God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven” as the familiar language of the Lord’s Prayer says.

The power in the phrase “Kingdom of heaven” comes as one attempts to flesh out or define the ethos implicit in this.  The phrase “Kingdom of heaven” begs at least two questions: What sort of King? What sort of kingdom?  This would have been a burning question for the hearers of Jesus who were all too well acquainted with powers, kings, and kingdoms of the world.

The Gospel answers both of these questions in due course.  God is of course the King, but Jesus is portrayed as the regent who has come to inaugurate the eternal reign of God.  By observing Jesus, we can gain insight into the nature and character of his kingship, the kingship of God.  Let me highlight briefly two elements of the Kingdom:

1) Jesus came to bring salvation.  From the report of his birth to his death and resurrection, the mission of Jesus was “to save his people from their sins” (1:21).

2) Jesus expanded the reach of God’s grace.  By “expanded” I am by no means suggesting that God was somehow limited in terms of salvation before the coming of Jesus.  Rather Jesus incarnated and modeled for God’s people the necessity of moving to a missional engagement model for ministry.  With few exceptions, God’s people in the Old Testament embodied a “Come to” missiological practice.  In other words, the nations were invited to come to Israel to experience God’s best.  Yes, we can point to Jonah and certain oracles in Isaiah to dispute this, but these exceptions point to the reality of an essential “come to” practice in ancient Israel.  In contrast, the modus operandi for Jesus was go.  Jesus went and sought out lost persons in order to bring them back into God’s fold.  After his resurrection, Jesus fully unleashed his disciples to make disciples of all nations.  This involves going.

What sort of ethic is found in the Kingdom?  It is one that subverts the power structures of Jesus’ day.  It invites the outsider to the table. 

Consider these two passages in terms of what they say about culture of God’s Kingdom:

Matthew 5:1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Notice in particular how Jesus subverts power structures but reversing the expectations for who will be considered blessed. In Jesus’ kingdom, it is the downtrodden and excluded who are blessed. Scripture is not glorifying a marginalized life. Instead, Jesus is emphasizing that those in such position are most open to God’s grace because they are desperate for what only God can provide for them.

Matt 22:37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Jesus elevates an ethic of love for God and for others.

Is Near

The verb predicating “The Kingdom of heaven” is provocative.  It is in the Greek Perfect tense.  I know that most of my readers don’t know Greek, but bear with me. The Greek perfect carries the basic force of completed action with on-going affects into the present/future.  In other words, Jesus is declaring that God’s Kingdom has indeed come.  Jesus’ ministry involved tangibly demonstrating this truth.  Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, and cast out devils as actions that provided convincing evidence of the presence of God’s kingdom. Yet we have to be careful here because there is a tension present.  In the person of Jesus, God has brought near his end time salvation, but at the same time, the present age remains as well.  With the advent of Jesus, we live in a time of overlap between the present age and future reign of God. Biblical scholars often talk about the coming of God’s kingdom in terms of a tension between the “already” and the “not yet.”  In other words, Jesus inaugurated the reign of God through his life, death, and resurrection, but its full consummation awaits a future date.  God’s kingdom is present now wherever and whenever God’s will is done, but there still remains a day in which God will usher in God’s eternal reign and bring an end to the present age.  This is the essence of the lines of the “Lord’s Prayer” that read: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10).

The very fact, however, that Jesus is announcing the reign of God in his person is reason enough for responding to his call for conversion.  Anyone who desires to be part of the world as God intended it was to take notice.  In fact, from our perspective, this gets at the missiological or missional point of this text.  Jesus’ proclamation at its core is a call to conversion.  This is the essence of the repent.  Jesus is calling everyone to repentance: from the devoutly religious to the most hardened sinner.

To the religious he proclaimed: Align your beliefs and practices to what God is doing through Jesus.  To those on the outside he issued this invitation: Come and join the new community that God is raising up in our times.  

When we understand Jesus' first message, we must ask ourselves, "Am I (are we) ready to (re)align with the good news of God's long awaited age of salvation?"

© 2015 Brian D. Russell  

Interested in learning more about (re)aligning with God and using it as an interpretive approach to the rest of the Bible? Check out my book (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World  

Sabbath as Way of Life: Reading Sabbath Missionally

Too many pastors have accepted a life of “busy-ness” instead of a life of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I teach a course on the Exegesis of Exodus at Asbury Seminary.  As part of the semester, we work through the Sabbath commandment.  At the heart of the Sabbath, is God’s command to inaction.  I am not a sabbatarian in the classic sense of the word, but I am convinced that there is an abiding missiological witness implicit in God’s commandments.  When we as followers of Jesus Christ live out the principles found in Scripture, we reflect inherently to the world something of the heart and character of God.  Biblical ethics are not merely about punishment and sin—they are about witnessing to the world of a better way of life—the life that God created humanity to live.

When it comes to Sabbath, the principle of no work that brings financial gain is crucial.  As our world becomes increasingly global, Western nations are coming into competition with rising economies in which workers routinely work 60-100 hours seven day per week schedules.  I believe that followers of Jesus Christ have the opportunity to witness to the surrounding culture that work is not the final word for humanity—rest is.  A God-given rest has been woven into the very fabric of the universe.

Yet if followers of Christ are to capture this missional moment, Christian leaders need to live radically different than many currently do.  Too many pastors allow themselves to be trapped by a never ending mountain of busyness in which at the end of the day they experience poor health, loneliness, family discord, and burn out.

How can pastors begin to experience the sort of life that God has called humanity to live?  How can pastors begin to create an ethos of health within communities of faith rather than dysfunction?

 1) Pastors must be ruthless in their quest for a balanced life.  We need to quit making excuses for obscenely busy lives.  Each of us is ultimately responsible for the decisions we make in how we choose to conduct our lives.  God has not called us into Christian service so that we can destroy our relationships with our spouses and children, have no time for meaningful relationships with friends, and ironically lose the zeal that we once had to spread the Gospel.

2) Pastors who live balanced lives will prioritize their time around their strengths.  We need to understand ourselves.  It is crucial that we learn to spend the majority of our time doing what we do best.  Christian ministry in the traditional sense puts ridiculous demands on pastors.  Read the job description of the pastor in any denominational handbook and you will be shocked by the many and various tasks that a pastor is supposed to juggle.  Smart pastors focus on their own gifts and learn to delegate the majority of other tasks to persons more capable than themselves.

3) Pastors who live balanced lives teach and promote a gift-based ministry.  The New Testament documents portray the body of Christ as an organism in which each believer plays a crucial role through the deployment of his or her gift for the sake of the mission of the whole.  Christendom has subverted the biblical witness by setting churches up as corporations in which paid professions “do ministry” on behalf of a group of spectators (usually called the “laity”) who provide only the financial resources to fuel the mission of the Church.  Pastors need to have the courage to teach the biblical model of a gift-based culture.   Pastors need to function primarily as equippers rather than laborers.  Here is a test: if the pastor has to be present for a ministry to function, the pastor has not created a gift-based culture within his or her congregation.

4) Pastors who live balanced lives train leaders rather than enable followers.  New Testament communities expect Christ followers to deploy their gifts.  It is simply inconceivable for the biblical writers that a person can profess belief in Jesus Christ and then live unchanged and unproductive lives.  21^st century leaders must focus on training leaders rather than feeding sheep.

What do you think?

© 2014 Brian D. Russell

For more on reading the Bible missionally, check out my book now available in paper and Kindle formats:

(re)Aligning with God: Jesus' Announcement of the Kingdom as the Starting Point for a Missional Hermeneutic

Here is an essay published by Catalyst Resources that captures a starting place for a missional hermeneutic. I focus on using Matthew 4:17-22 as a launching point for developing a means of reading the Bible through a missional lens: (re)Aligning with God: Jesus' Announcement of the Kingdom as the Starting Point for a Missional Hermeneutic.

A Missional Approach to NT Eschatology: Part One

The New Testament writers recognized that God’s victory through the life, death, and resurrection secured the future. The New Testament is full of visions of God’s future. God’s future is bright and good. It is one of abundant love and mercy. It is the full reversal of the effects of human sin and brokenness. It includes the full redemption of all creation. It marks the return of shalom and rest. It involves the climactic consummation of God’s future.

Our day has seen an ongoing fixation on figuring out dates and time tables. The Bible is mined ingeniously for insights used to predict the end of days. However, this is not a missional approach to Scripture. As humans, we may long to gain control of the future by connecting it to our calendar of events, but this is not the purpose of the eschatological visions of the New Testament. The New Testament writers describe God’s future as a means of inspiring a courageous faithfulness in the present. Since God’s future is secure, God’s people live as the people whom God created them to be in the present. The New Testament’s eschatological vision subverts the present struggles by proclaiming a dogged and audacious confidence in God’s final victory.