I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way than this

HOW DO YOU TELL WHEN SOMETHING

IS BIBLICAL?

THE BIBLE IS

A STORY

ADAM AND EVEWhen God created the universe he created men and women as his image bearers, presence carriers and purpose fulfillers in the earth. Adam and Eve were singularly created in the image of God and were the only creatures capable of enjoying close spiritual relationship with him. They were given authority to fulfill the purposes of God for the earth and their relationship of oneness with each other was intended to model the unity of the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit. They were deceived through an encounter with Satan and chose to act apart from their relationship with God and contrary to his calling. By doing this they devalued the image, lost intimacy and therefore the authority to fulfill his purpose. Adam and Eve’s descendants multiplied and extended this condition and became more and more committed to thinking and acting corruptly until a point where they were incapable of good.

NOAH AND HIS FAMILYUnlike the others of his generation, Noah acknowledged God and modeled his life on God’s character. When God spoke to him, Noah heard, believed and embraced what was said. Together with his family he fulfilled God’s redemptive purpose. They built the ark, gathered animals and spent more than a hundred years calling people back to the ways of the Creator. After surviving the flood they began to re-established God’s loving purpose in the earth. As the generations passed, however, fewer people shared this calling. Instead they began to build communities and cities based on their own wisdom and their own purposes. Finally they forged a powerful unity, independent of God and opposed to him. The tower of Babel was the symbol of this climactic failure and the dispersion of the nations was its consequence.

ABRAHAM AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL When Abraham left his kinship group in Haran and moved his family to Canaan, it was to embrace both the blessing and responsibility of serving God. God’s purposes for the earth were going to be represented by a nation/community that God would build through Abraham’s descendants. After God liberated the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, the law of Moses gave them the insights that would see God’s image restored and the tabernacle, cloud and pillar of fire enabled them to honour and follow his presence. The land of Canaan was to be an operations base to take this same blessing to all the peoples of the earth. Instead of becoming a community that looked and sounded like God, they kept copying the ways of the nations around them. Instead of offering God’s blessing to the nations, they became an exclusive club for one nation. One of the saddest consequences of this failure was when they rejected God as their king and asked Samuel to appoint a human king.

DAVID AND THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL (1 OF 3)When God agreed to appoint a human king for Israel it was a case of redemptive love taking another risk. Even though many of the kings dismally failed to honour and serve God, King David became the prophetic foreshadowing of the promised Messiah/king. David was selected by God because even though he was working as a shepherd, he was doing it as “a man after God’s own heart.” Despite his well known imperfections God promised that the real king would be a ‘Son of David.’ In spite of this high and lofty calling, David, his son Solomon and those who followed them, transgressed the principles God had revealed about godly leadership. They began a process of compromise that saw the kingdom of Israel being torn apart by internal division and external oppression. The glimpses of glory faded and the following three hundred years tell the horrible story of corruption, betrayal and shame.

DAVID AND THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL (2 OF 3.)During these days God raised up prophetic messengers who tirelessly and graciously warned the people of the consequences of foresaking God. Sadly they were consistently rejected and their warnings unheeded. The honour and presence of God was shunned, the image of God on earth was marred and his purposes resisted. Ten of the twelve tribes were wiped out and the remaining two were exiled in Babylon. Jerusalem and the temple were completely destroyed. Even though God brought about a profound miraculous deliverance seventy years later, only a small percentage were willing to return and rebuild the city and temple. The systemic failures that had plagued them from the beginning continued. No word was spoken from heaven and there was no divine intervention for four hundred years. The powerful prophetic images and promises of a new day and of restoration were tied to the coming of the promised Messiah/king. The people waited in the long night of divine silence as they struggled to hang on to their very existence

DAVID AND THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL (3 OF 3)During these days God raised up prophetic messengers who tirelessly and graciously warned the people of the consequences of foresaking God. Sadly they were consistently rejected and their warnings unheeded. The honour and presence of God was shunned, the image of God on earth was marred and his purposes resisted. Ten of the twelve tribes were wiped out and the remaining two were exiled in Babylon. Jerusalem and the temple were completely destroyed. Even though God brought about a profound miraculous deliverance seventy years later, only a small percentage were willing to return and rebuild the city and temple. The systemic failures that had plagued them from the beginning continued. No word was spoken from heaven and there was no divine intervention for four hundred years. The powerful prophetic images and promises of a new day and of restoration were tied to the coming of the promised Messiah/king. The people waited in the long night of divine silence as they struggled to hang on to their very existence

JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD (1 of 3)After four hundred years of silent suspense the promised Messiah was born. Jesus of Nazareth was the faithful image bearer of God. From the time of his birth in Bethlehem and while he was growing up in obscurity in the home in Nazareth he represented the image, carried the presence and embraced the purposes of his Father. From the beginning of his public ministry he carried a single message: the kingdom of God had arrived and the kingdom of darkness was going to lose its power.Jesus of Nazareth was the ultimate exposition of the law of Moses and the fulfillment of every prophetic testimony of the coming Messiah. He challenged the religious structures that had buried the relational nature of the covenant through its traditions. The message he proclaimed was of a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. As he lived, spoke and ministered to people, the kingdom of God advanced. As foretold in Old Testament prophecy he embraced the purpose of his Father as he faced unjust torture and death in Jerusalem.

JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD (2 of 3)His death on the cross forever broke Satan’s power to lock people in cycles of destruction and separate them from God. His resurrection heralded the promise of God to make everything new. When the Holy Spirit began to be poured out on “all people” on the Day of Pentecost, Jews, Gentile, males or females, young and old were supernaturally empowered. The image of God could be restored, the presence of God could be known and the purposes of God could be fulfilled. New Jesus-looking communities could be formed that transcended all forms of human distinction as testimony to Jesus and the kingdom of God and therefore complete the task of carrying the message to every part of the earth.

JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD (3 of 3) Adam, Noah, Abraham and the people of Israel had failed to fulfill the commission they were given. Jesus succeeded. When his followers obeyed his words and the church was created by the power of the Holy Spirit it emerged as the corporate expression of the new covenant. They began to carry the presence, declare the image and fulfill the purposes of God in the earth. It was by no means perfect, but because the new covenant was designed to operate through grace and relationship, God was able to do amazing works through committed, even though imperfect, people.

THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH (1 OF 2)The message and ministry of the kingdom of God has been described as the future happening in the present. It is heaven happening on earth. Every aspect of personal and collective spirituality is designed to foreshadow the consummation of the plan of God for the heavens and the earth. This consummation is described in various places throughout the New Testament books but portrayed most profoundly in the last chapters of the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. When this age is complete Jesus the Messiah/King will come and establish an eternal heaven and earth and the people who bear his image, carry his presence and fulfill his purposes will see the consummation or final expression of what began in Eden, was lost by Israel, restored in Jesus and being completed by his followers.

THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH (2 OF 2)It is the work of bringing everything back under the rule of his Son, Jesus Christ. The rule of King Jesus will be the fulfillment or completion of what every follower and every collection of followers will experience and accomplish in some measure. The kingdom comes where the will of God is done on earth as it is being done in heaven. Revelation 21 begins to describe that fulfillment in terms of God dwelling as God in the midst people who had been fully made new in a world where everything has been made new.

QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT THIS STORY

1. According to this story, what has been and remains the desire of God for people?

2. If Jesus is the true and faithful Son of God, what does it mean for us to be true and faithful?

3. What is it about the Person, the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus that resolved the unresolved issues for the plan of God?

4. What was it that defined the people as the “people of God” in former times and who are the “people of God” in any place at any time?

5. What defines success and failure for the people of God according to this story?

ARE YOU PREPARED TO:

1. HONOUR THE IMAGE OF GOD IN YOU

AND OTHERS?

2. CARRY THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN

YOUR OWN LIFE AND WITH OTHERS?

3. FULFILL THE PURPOSES OF GOD?