Radical Church Restoration

Radical Church Restoration—–A Review of the Book Series Helping Others to Catch the Vision of Organic Church Life

Frank Viola says, “The church is a living organism.”

Many Christians would concur with Viola that the true nature of Christ’s church is born out of the soil of His finished work and moves forward in the power of the Holy Spirit.

However, as Viola has pointed out in his radical church restoration series, many believers have no problem speaking of the church as organism, but they are quite content to go on practicing the church as an organization.

The series begins with The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament Church. Viola relies on some of the best New Testament scholarship to vividly retell the story of the first-century church in Acts. The New Testament comes alive in one sweeping narrative to give us a clear picture of the life and nature of those first Christian communities.

Pagan Christianity? Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices is the second book in the series, but the first to really capture the attention of Christians across the country. Frank Viola and George Barna team up to give their readers a critical examination of the last 1700 years of church history.

Does the institutional church have any biblical and historical right to exist? Viola asks, “Are the practices of the institutional church God-approved developments to the church that the New Testament envisions? Or are they an unhealthy departure from it?”

As I have stated in my review of PC in January 08, this book “may very well be the most important book written on the Christian church in the last two millennia.” I still stand by this statement as it speaks a great challenge to the organized church. I believe we have yet to see the full impact of this book. In the coming days, I think you can expect to see it nailed to the door of an organized church near you.

Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity is the follow-up to the controversial PC. It is in this book that Viola offers a new vision, which is truthfully an old vision, of the church as organism.

RC is a proposal that the church of Jesus Christ mirror the very image of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you agreed with PC and it left you clueless as to the alternative of the organized church, RC paints a new picture of a church that looks like the community of the Triune God and can truly be characterized as every-member functioning, familial, and organic.

It is in From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God, the fourth book in the series, that Viola takes a step back to show us the bigger picture. It is in this book that he communicates the driving passion behind the work of planting organic churches.

Viola simplifies church life as an act of gathering around Jesus Christ. Yet, much of the Body of Christ has been forced into an institution and she has forgotten God’s eternal purpose. She has lost sight of the grand narrative and the great landscape of God’s love story. She has been preoccupied and polluted by an ecclesiology that leaves out the ageless purpose of God.

If you’re more right-brained and you just can’t seem to sit down to read a book on the church, then read From Eternity to Here and have your eyes opened to God’s eternal purpose. This book is bound to be a favorite among many readers.

Finding Organic Church: A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Sustaining Authentic Christian Communities is the final book, and probably the most anticipated, in the radical church restoration series. It is in this book that Viola offers up a practical guide to understanding and implementing organic church life.

Viola writes this book for three different audiences. First, for those who desire to meet organically and would like some practical help. Second, it is written for all those already involved in alternatives to the traditional church (missional, emerging, house church movements, etc.). Third, it has been written for everyone interested in planting churches.

What is an organic church? Viola says…

“By organic church, I mean a church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grassroots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings (as opposed to pastor-to-pew services), nonhierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering” (p. 20).

There are four models of church planting in the New Testament. Viola begins by discussing these models and also addresses the spontaneous expressions of church life that spring up without the work of a church-planter. Viola thoroughly covers the New Testament pattern of church planting and church growth in the first half of the book.

There are four parts to this book. Throughout the first two parts of the book, Viola helps us to rediscover the purpose and function of the itinerant worker. He deals with questions concerning this largely discarded and often controversial role of the itinerant worker. He has even devoted a chapter to the book entitled “Wasn’t Paul the Last Apostle?”

He skillfully presents his case for the restoration of traveling church planters (i.e. apostles) and their task in empowering and equipping the church to function organically by the indwelling Christ. Can the New Testament model work today? Viola believes so. And he testifies to experiencing it personally over the last 20 years.

In the third part of the book, Viola discusses how to gather and gives practical steps for beginning to meet organically. Maybe you are presently meeting in an organized church but would like to begin meeting organically. It could be that you have left the institutional church and would like to begin meeting with others who are interested. And there are those who are already meeting in homes but are in need of some guidance. You will find this book a great help in moving forward.

How do you sing without a “leader” to direct you? What about teaching? What about giving? What about evangelism? What does it all look like in this new paradigm? And the most often asked question of all, “What about the children?” Viola addresses these concerns and so much more. He gives practical exercises and suggestions in getting started.

In the final part of the book, Viola discusses the seasons and stages of growth within organic church life. He also mentions the diseases and pitfalls of gathering around Christ. His descriptions of these periods no doubt come from his own personal experiences.

Finally, Viola gives a call out to his readers.

“I believe the need of the hour is for Christian who are called by God to raise up the church as a living, breathing experience. Christians who are broken and tested. Christians who refuse to take shortcuts but who have first lived in an organic expression of body life as brothers and sisters before they ever dare plant a church.”

He continues…

“The need of the hour is for such a people to wait on God until they are properly prepared and then sent. And once sent, to plant the church in the same way that all first-century workers did: by equipping it and then abandoning it to the Holy Spirit” (p. 306).

And to those pastors who wish to make the transition, Viola writes…

“As I have said elsewhere, transitioning from an institutional church to an organic church is not cosmetic surgery. It’s a complete overhaul” (p. 311).

For pastors, he closes with three steps to take in moving your church to functioning organically.  But you’re gonna have to get the book to see what those steps call for.

Are you satisfied with shoulder-to-shoulder religion or are you looking for face-to-face community?  It’s not for those that aren’t willing to endure the cross.  Are you ready to dive in to an exciting journey of experiencing the indwelling Christ in familial community?

Then take a bold step outside the walls of institutionalized religion and recline at the table with others who hunger for more of Jesus.

Living Room Faith: The Couch of Completion

Living Room Faith: The Couch of Completion          by David D. Flowers, free-lance writer & blogger,      The Woodlands, TX

For a season the Lord calls us to sit with Him in the living room of spiritual fellowship.  It is there we come to know the peace and tranquility of the stillness… of the being.

He whispers to us and shows us his way of day-to-day fellowship; the simplicity of being aware of his presence and walking in freedom.  It’s a freedom that comes as the Lord severs our ties to the work-centered faith.  It’s a time of undoing that places us firmly on the Couch of Completion.

It is there that the Lord reveals to us all that has been accomplished in His finished work.  It is in this fellowship that the Lord reveals the Father’s heart toward us:           LOVE SO AMAZING… SO DIVINE!

It is on the Couch of Completion that we learn of the Lord’s eternal purpose (Eph. 3:10-21).  We learn that the Lord desires a spiritual house that begins with Him finding His home within you.  It is here that we have come to know that in Christ is hidden all wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:2-3).  Our searching is over.

It’s in this place that we first know Christ is enough.  We have come to realize that our identity and purpose is only found in knowing Him.

Knowing Christ from the couch is evident in several ways.

For starters, you no longer feel that the weight of the world’s salvation is dependent upon you.  You also have recognized that you are not called to correct everyone’s doctrine and “fix” the ills of the church.

The way of man is power-over control through human authority.  The way of Christ is long-suffering and enduring love.  It’s a spiritual authority earned through sacrifice and a life of altruism.

You know you are touching the Lord on the Couch of Completion because you no longer move before having first received a revelation from the Lord.  You are learning how to be sensitive to the Spirit instead of being driven by your own desires to serve and force the Lord’s hand in ministry.

We have not been given a work… we have been given a Person.  We have not been called to further a movement, propagate a teaching, or even save souls.  We have first and foremost been invited to sit and recline with the Lord on the Couch of Completion.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Jesus (Matt. 11:28)

Until we have sat and learned what it means to “sit”… we labor in vain.  We can’t walk with Christ… and we most certainly will not be able to stand… if we fail to recognize the cross of Christ leads us to the couch.  New creation comes after a period of rest.

Couch to Couch

In His time, our Lord will go with us from the Couch of Completion into the field to work.  Yet this work isn’t like anything we have known before.  For we have reclined on the couch of His love and have known the fellowship that brings freedom.

In the past, we believed the Lord was telling us to leave the living room in order to go out and work for Him.  We heard him say, “Get out there and build me a house!”  Our relationship with the Lord was not known as friendship, but as lowly servant (Jn. 15:15).

We must learn that the Lord calls to us work with Him.  He has gone out into the field with us.  To be more precise, we are going out to join Him and His work.  And His work is always done free of religious obligation and duty.

There is no burden involved in the Lord’s work.  We do not “burn-out” in the Lord’s ministry.  When ministry is born out of intimacy with Christ… we sing in jail and rejoice in our sufferings (Acts 16:25).

His work is done in response to His love.  It becomes a matter of fellowship among friends.  That’s where He is… and that’s where we want to be.  If we are called to work… it is because He is already working where He is calling.  There is freedom in this sort of laboring.

We do not go out to work on the house because we believe it to be a good idea or even because it is something expected of us.  No, we do it out of response to His fellowship.

We must understand this.  We may be presently working tirelessly for the Lord, building a house in our own strength and using our own blueprint, only to discover that the Lord is waiting in the living room… calling us to the Couch of Completion.

We can rush into building for the Lord before we have received the proper spiritual knowledge and the experience that only comes from reclining with the Lord for a season.

Furthermore, it is right to acknowledge that this preparation does not come from principles and formulas learned in a book, it is the Lord’s knowledge and wisdom born out of trial and error.  It is born out of time and experience with the Lord and His people.

The work of ministry ought to be an overflow of the relationship that began in the living room with the Lord.  Indeed, we never leave the living room of our faith.  As the seasons change, we are continually brought back to recline with the Lord.  It is there we are reminded of His goodness and that we are to place no confidence in the flesh.

Our journey is one that moves from couch to couch.  It is because of us having rested upon the Couch of Completion with Christ that we can know the yoke that is “easy” and the burden that is “light.”

In this rest, we can truly know the experience of Christ being in all and through all.

Organic Church Life: The Sunday Gathering

The Sunday Gathering

By David D. Flowers, free-lance writer & blogger, The Woodlands, TX

Organic Church Life is expressed in many different ways, in different seasons, at different times of the week.  It is life born out Christ, moves forward in freedom, and is mutually dependent upon each other in Trinitarian love.  Hence the term “organic.”

From our experience, the Sunday gathering is a unique time of worship that is unlike any other communal event we practice (except for the Lord’s Meal of course).  This time is set aside for the most divine expression of Christ among the saints.

As folks are coming into Christ and joining the organic expression of the church, we find that the saints must learn what it truly means to “gather around Christ.”  It takes time, lots of time, to let go of many things (e.g. ill-feelings toward the organized church, old ideas of worship, an awareness of our thoughts about “doing” church, the uncomfortable silence, etc.).

Those of us who have been meeting outside the organized church for a little while now… have by the Lord’s grace begun to learn how to know the Lord with the saints free of having to fight through the junk.

Even after a person begins to let these things go and throw off that dead weight into the deep chasm of death… there arise other challenges that face the saints as they seek the Lord’s heart in the gathering.

Whether it is a concern about the children in the church meetings, giving into the temptation to speak whatever is on your mind in worship, forcing something spiritual to happen when you meet, or following the occasional bunny trails leading to a lot of talk about the organized church… I believe the Lord has helped to discern these challenges with a question:

What is the purpose of the Sunday gathering?

The kind of gathering we seek to have around the Lord on Sunday is best described by Paul in 1 Cor. 14:26.  What is the purpose of “each one” sharing and giving their portion of Christ?

Generally, it is for the building up of the Body, of course.  But to be more specific, it is a time where we are corporately, in spiritual unison and in open participation, seeking the Lord’s heart for his church.  We are reaching out to touch the Lord together.  He is reclining with us and we want to hear from him.

This kind of meeting requires a sensitivity to the Spirit that has never been taught to us in the past and comes through purposely setting our hearts upon Christ.  Sure, we have heard a lot of talk about it, but we have seldom experienced it in a context of real community.

We may have known him in private, but the Lord is longing for us to be a spiritual dwelling and experience him in community (1 Pet. 2:5).  For this reflects the Triune God.

Here is a brief description of the spiritual life and that Life we share as believers:

Worship in spirit (Jn 4:24)

Waiting– “be still and know” (Ps. 46:10)

Listening (Ps. 85:8; 1 Cor. 14:30)

Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19)

Teach and admonish (Col. 3:16)

Prayer (Lk. 19:46; Phil. 4:6)

As we enter into a time of worship on Sunday, we are meeting like the believers in the village of Bethany (Mk. 14:3).  As friends of God, we are reclining at the feet of Jesus to hear what he might speak to us.

The Lord is spirit.  To touch (worship, lit. “to kiss”) the Lord… we must worship him in spirit. This does not come natural for us. Therefore, as we seek the Lord together and reach out to touch him through the things mentioned above… we can easily be distracted.

Any distraction, whatever that might be, can make it very difficult for us to know the Lord’s heart together.  It will be a challenge to bind our spirits together in love when we are not sensitive to what Christ wants to speak to us… and in moments of stillness… there are noise and chatter.

There are those table times of fellowship where we are very much sharing like any natural family event (e.g. kids running around, noise, multiple conversations, etc.).  But, what I am referring to, what I believe the Lord is calling us to in this meeting, is a supernatural experience that can only be entered in through deep spirit-filled prayer and concentration.  There is order within this sort of meeting (1 Cor. 12).

The Sunday gathering is the only time where we meet this way around Christ as an entire church fellowship.  Anything we can do to accommodate for this unique once-a-week meeting is well worth the effort.

I personally have conversed with Frank Viola for three years now. Frank is a wonderful gift to the church.  As an outside worker, his calling is to stir up Christ in us and help us press on in the Lord.  I have read quite a bit on the organic expression of the church and have experienced a couple of years of church life centered on Christ. I have visited several other organic expressions on this journey.

In that short time, we have learned a great deal.  We are so very blessed to have gleaned from Frank and others who have helped us along the way.  I believe this equipping has helped us to see the uniqueness of the Sunday gathering that may elude many who seek to gather around Christ in the New Testament fashion.

“It’s all too common for Christians to know Christ’s lordship and yet know nothing of His headship.”  Frank Viola, Reimagining Church, p.67

Lord, keep us close to you.  As we seek your headship, remind us that we are all learners.

Get Frank’s new book Finding Organic Church: A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Sustaining Authentic Christian Communities today!  In this final book on radical church restoration, Viola addresses all the practical questions a person might have about organic church life.  Of course, if you really want to understand an organic church… join one!

The Torch of the Testimony (Book Review)

The Struggle for the Centrality of Christ                                Book Review of “The Torch of the Testimony” by John W. Kennedy,  Reviewed by David D. Flowers

John W. Kennedy has given us a great gift that has gone largely unnoticed in the western world. “The Torch of the Testimony” uncovers the 2,000-year history of those believing Christians and churches that stood outside the Protestant and Catholic traditions. 

 

Kennedy writes: 

“The history of the working of the Spirit of God is not the history of any organization, and what usually goes by the name ‘Church History’ is only too often a sorry tale of bigoted quarrels and selfish intrigue. Yet the history of the two, the spiritual movement, and the earthly institution, are sometimes so closely intermingled that it is impossible to give an account of one without referring to the other.” p. 56 

Kennedy gives us a concise narrative of church history while distinguishing between the “spiritual church” and the organized church of man. He is gracious and honest to point out the good that was achieved within the organized church, but is consistent in his critique of both movements of the church. 

He very powerfully exposes the shortcomings of the institutional church and how past saints concluded that it can never be reformed. What is needed is a return to New Testament church practice. 

“The life of Christ and the Lordship of Christ through His Word are, therefore, two things which mark out the church of the New Testament. When these are supplanted by anything else, the result is a departure from the principle of Scripture and ultimate confusion.” p. 177 

He wonderfully weaves together the disjointed stories of the church to paint a clear picture of the challenges that still face us today. The reader can’t help but be awakened to the reality that we are a part of the unfolding story of Christ’s church. 

In this book, you will learn about how the the church began to drift from apostolic teachings through Greco-Roman influence and opened the door for the Constantinian State in the fourth century. 

You will discover the enduring testimony of the remnant that existed apart from the organized church up to the Protestant Reformation and onward. You will learn how a break from the State Church into independent movements produced denominations built upon doctrines instead of the rock of Christ. 

How did we get to where we are today? Where are we in the story of God’s people? Will we learn from the mistakes of the past? What will be written about us? 

Will our relationship to Christ be the unifying bond that births our church practice or will we be distracted by power and cling to weapons of the world in an attempt to advance the Gospel? 

I can’t stress enough how important this book is to the study of the development of Christianity. This book is a “must read” for every serious student of church history. 

If you are involved in organic church life and gatherings outside of the institutional church, this book should be required reading before you can say, “I am part of a house church.” 

If this account of church history doesn’t move you… I would recommend you check your spiritual pulse. 

Suggested Reading: 
The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament 
Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition 
Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices 
The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Dissent and Nonconformity)

Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part III

Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part III by David D. Flowers, free-lance writer & blogger, The Woodlands, TX

It has grown increasingly apparent to me that pop-culture Christianity was birthed, and is being maintained, by a steady diet of sloppy hermeneutics and a distorted view of Jesus. It has opened the church up to demonic deceptions and has made her susceptible to the pagan powers seeking to undermine our hope in the finished work of Christ.

Because of this onslaught upon Christian orthodoxy and years of propagating a view of God that more closely resembles Greco-Roman mythology than the Abba of Jesus, it is necessary that we adopt the Berean spirit and be reconciled to an apostolic view of God that looks like Christ and a future that is consistent with the eternal purpose (Eph. 1-3; Col. 1:15-23).

Let’s stop and reconsider what the Scripture teaches concerning heaven, hell, and the resurrection of the dead. For what we believe about the future has a profound effect on how we live in this present evil age.

Heaven: Our Final Home?

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.” Isaiah 65:17

The creation of a “new heavens and a new earth” is a transformation of the former things. It is a world transfigured like unto the physical body of the Lord Jesus (Matt. 17:1-9). The resurrected body of Christ was of its own kind. There is continuity with the old body and there is discontinuity as well (Lk. 24: 13-35, 36-49; Jn. 20:1-18, 24-31; 21:1-14).

In Rev. 21-22 we do not see believers flying off to a disembodied spiritual existence on the other side of the cosmos. No, we see heaven coming to earth. We see heaven, God’s realm, breaking through and fully consummating with the physical realm we call earth. We can see this in the resurrected body of Christ: heaven intersecting with earth.

We must rid ourselves of this mantra that speaks of going to heaven when we die, as if we will have come to the end of our journey. Heaven is indeed where the Lord is presently, but it is not our final home (Ps. 14:2; 20:6; 33:13; Ecc. 5:2; Is. 66:1; Dan. 2:44; 7:27; Rev. 11:15). The finished work of Christ is not fully realized until God makes his home on this earth.

If anything, heaven is only a temporal dwelling for those awaiting the resurrection of the dead. Jesus said there are “many dwelling places” in his Father’s house (Jn 14:2). The Greek word for “dwelling places” used here, monai, has regularly been used to refer to a temporary stop on an extended journey.

Even when Christ was on the cross, he told the thief on his left that “today” he would be with him in “paradise” (Lk. 23:43). This too doesn’t speak of a final destination, but of a temporal garden of rest. All of the saints, past and present, still await the return of the King and the establishment of heaven on earth (Heb. 11:13-16; Rev. 6:10-11).

God’s desire has always been to complete his good work in the created world upon which every human being has ever lived. For the Jew, there was a firm belief that God would restore creation and fulfill his covenant with his people. The Lord of heaven and earth would finally merge the two into one unified reality.

This resurrected world is called the “New Jerusalem” and the “Holy City” (Rev. 21:2). This newly remade world is our final destination. It is the Kingdom of God fully realized. Christ says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5)! And it is Christ that has the authority to say such things, for he was the first to be resurrected and be clothed with the imperishable.

Our hope is in a future resurrected existence in the “new heavens and earth.” It is on this earth that Jesus prayed, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). Heaven is indeed coming to earth. Jesus has called for its renewal and resurrection!

“Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden, dimension of our ordinary life—God’s dimension, if you like. God made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever.” N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 19

NOTE: The original section “Hell: Eternal Torture?” has been removed to be expanded into a single post.

Resurrection Future

“I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable… For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” Paul, 1 Cor. 15:50, 53

Some folks would have you believe that the resurrection has already taken place in the spiritual sense and there is therefore no need for a physical resurrection of our bodies. This view highlights the work of the cross but overlooks the importance and power of a physical resurrection in order to maintain its toxic eschatology.

We can’t afford to ignore the earliest Jewish meaning of the word resurrection. Resurrection always refers to a new bodily existence. Paul’s emphasis on Christ’s bodily resurrection in 1 Cor. 15:12-58 is to assure the saints that we too shall receive the same.

It should be equally accepted as his purpose for addressing those believers in Thessalonica (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The believers there were dealing with the deaths of loved ones around them. They had “fallen asleep” before the coming of Christ.

Concerning the Christian hope at death, Stanley Grenz writes:

“As Christians, however, our hope does not focus on any conception of life after death. On the contrary, our hope is directed toward the promise of resurrection. Therefore, anything we say about the status of the dead must arise out of our hope for resurrection.” Created for Community, p.271

It is by Christ’s death on the cross that we died. But it is through Christ’s resurrection that we may live. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Paul continues, “If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection” (Rom. 6:4-5).

Without the physical resurrection of our bodies, we may not enter into the fullness of the new creation. When heaven comes to earth and “the dwelling of God is with men,” we shall receive a body that is clothed imperishable and raised in immortality; a resurrected body for a resurrected world. It is in the physical resurrection of the dead and the judgment that the “last enemy” is destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26). Death shall be no more!

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Jesus, John 11:25-26

Resurrection Now

Does the resurrection of Christ on the third day have any effect on us in the present? Paul believed we could know the power of Christ’s resurrection even now.

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Paul, Philippians 3:10-11

Paul wrote, “outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). How is it that resurrection has already begun in an inward way? It has happened by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. As N.T. Wright has written, it is in the resurrection of Christ that the world is already now “being born with Jesus” (SH, 73).

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life…” and receiving his indwelling Spirit is receiving resurrection life (Jn. 12:24; 14:15-31; 16:5-16; Acts 1:8). The Kingdom of God has broken through into the old order of things and has already begun the work of resurrection in the here and now. It is doing a work within the hearts of men.

“The Kingdom of God belongs to the future, and yet the blessings of the Kingdom of God have entered into the present Age to deliver men from bondage to Satan and sin. Eternal life belongs to the Kingdom of God, to The Age to Come; but it, too, has entered into the present evil Age that men may experience eternal life in the midst of death and decay. We may enter into this experience of life by the new birth, by being born again.” George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 71

We are able to stand firm and give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord because of our hope that soon Christ’s victory over death will become a reality for all of creation (1 Cor. 15:54-58). Resurrection is now working in the spiritual order of things. The Kingdom of God is already here now and it is yet to come (Matt. 12:28; Mk. 1:15). It is working behind the scenes to destroy the sovereignty of Satan and is restoring the creation in every act of Christian love.

The Kingdom of God is breaking though into this present evil age because of Christ’s resurrection and it is testifying of the age to come when God will bring heaven to earth. The two-stage coming of the Kingdom should not be overlooked any longer (Lk. 19:11). The Lord is advancing his Kingdom even as I write this article. Heaven is invading earth in a covert operation of love.

How is the resurrection impacting our world today? What does the Kingdom look like in action? I believe Gregory Boyd very simply describes its nature and power.

He says, the Kingdom of God “always looks like Jesus—loving, serving, and sacrificing himself for all people, including his enemies. To the extent that an individual, church, or movement looks like that, it manifests the Kingdom of God. To the extent that it doesn’t look like that, it doesn’t.” The Myth of a Christian Religion, p. 14

If we are not willing to bleed like Jesus, we shall not know the power of his resurrection life. There is always a cross before there is a burst of light coming from the empty tomb. We must return to Christ and the foolishness of his cross if we wish to exhibit resurrection. For his Kingdom is not a matter of talk, but of power (1 Cor. 4:20).

This power does not come through utilizing the power-over structures of man to baptize the culture into the Christian religion. It is a spiritual authority that is earned by sharing the suffering of mankind. It happens when we see our neighbors as objects of God’s love instead of souls to conquer for our work-centered faith.

Resurrection happens in the here and now when the church is reflecting life as it will be in the new heavens and earth.

And that life always looks like Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

“For, as I have often told you before and now say again with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Paul, Philippians 3:18-21

Suggested Reading:

The Bible and the Future by Anthony Hoekema Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation by Bruce Metzger Created for Community: Connecting Christian Belief with Christian Living by S. Grenz The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology: Toward a Christ-Centered Approach by Adrio Koenig An Evening in Ephesus: A Dramatic Commentary on Revelation by Bob Emery The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment by Edward Fudge Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God by George Eldon Ladd IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL OR RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD? by Oscar Cullmann The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution by Gregory Boyd Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright Dispensationalism: An Inquiry Into Its Leading Figures & Features by Jon Zens

From Eternity to Here (Book Review)

God’s Love Story                                                                

A Book Review of “From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God” by Frank Viola                   Reviewed by David D. Flowers

Growing up I remember hearing folks call the church the “Bride of Christ.” I only believed it to be one more way to speak of “heavenly” things.

Like many things within institutional Christianity, it was nothing more than a metaphor in a line of many metaphors that were used to talk of God’s love for his children. Viola explains in his book that it is more than a fanciful, nice way to speak of the church… it is “God’s central purpose.” Paul called it “the eternal purpose” (Eph. 3:11).

From Eternity to Here is the fourth book in a five-book series on radical church restoration. (Fifth book is set to be released Sept. 09)  Out of all the books Viola has written, this volume reveals the driving passion behind his life and all of his work. He writes, “in beholding God’s central purpose, I found my own purpose. In touching His passion, I found my own passion” (p.13).

Viola effectively communicates this passion in three parts. The first part is entitled “A Forgotten Woman: The Bride of Christ.” Viola begins by pointing his readers to the “hidden romance” between the great lover (God) and his beloved (the church).

This story begins with Adam and Eve and continues throughout all of Scripture as the true lover is seen through foreshadowing. Viola beautifully describes in detail this great love story between the lover and the beloved that will one day be the wife of God. The story of Adam and Eve is a picture of a greater story. Eve came out of Adam after creation… she was a “new creation.”

Viola says, “There was a woman inside of God before time” (p.41).

Viola is a master storyteller. He has been captivated by God’s love story and is able to wonderfully reveal “the mystery” of Christ to a new generation. “The Holy Spirit must open the eyes of His people in every generation for them to grasp it” (p.25).

“Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come” (Rom. 5:14).

Out of Christ comes his Bride! Finally, a woman for the Lord to love. Viola writes, “All love stories, whether intentional or unintentional, are patterned after this heavenly romance” (p.91).

It is not that God was lonely or that the Trinitarian community was inadequate. It is because “God is love” that he is not content to keep this love to himself. Viola states that the “superabundance of God’s love required a receptacle that was not within the Trinity” (p.40).

God always intended to share his community with his creation. The nature of God’s love is that is given, received, and returned to him. Without God’s creation, he is a “frustrated lover” (p.58). God is sovereign and in control of the future, but indeed frustrated.

Part II is entitled “An Eternal Quest: The House of God.” The chapters within this section look at the divine passion from another perspective. God is homeless and he desires a house that he and his Bride may have a family.

Viola traces God’s quest for a house throughout the Scriptures. As he traces God’s search from Adam to Jesus, he says, “The house of God is not a thing… it is the Lord Jesus Christ” (p.155).

The last half of this section gets personal and compares our own journey to being like that of Israel’s history. Like Israel, as members of the Body of Christ, we must make a choice as to which house we will dwell in. Put another way… what kind of house are we going to be for God?

Egypt: the world system that is driven by pleasures and places earthly pursuits above pursuits of our heavenly home and King.

Babylon: organized religion that is a mixture of fallen humanity and the divine; characterized best by hypocrisy and described best as the “counterfeit of the New Jerusalem.” Babylon can be compared to the institutional church of today. Many of God’s people live there and they will only find themselves building a community centered on man and not Christ and his purposes.

The Wilderness: this is the place where those who leave the world and organized religion will find themselves. It is a place of transition. “To sift us, to reduce us, and to strip us down to Christ alone” (p.191). This is a time of detox. Yet… it is not our home!

The old wineskin must be done away with so that the new can come. The home for which we were made is a land of freedom and one that flows with “milk and honey.”

Part III is entitled “A New Species: The Body of Christ & The Family of God.” This section speaks of Christians being resident aliens. The Bride of Christ is to remain pure and holy as she awaits her bridegroom.

The church is a “new species.” Viola traces this language through the New Testament. A language that many Christians have failed to recognize and apply to their lives.

Viola simplifies Body life as an act of gathering around Jesus Christ. This is our purpose. Likewise, it should be our passion. Yet, the Body of Christ has been forced into an institution and she has forgotten God’s eternal purpose. She has lost sight of the bigger picture and the great landscape of God’s love story. She has been preoccupied and polluted by a theology that leaves out the ageless purpose of God.

How does the church live out the ageless purpose of God? Viola writes, “Very simply: by loving the Lord Jesus as His bride and learning to live by His indwelling life” (p.288).

The book closes with a brief glimpse into Viola’s journey and a call to return to the Headship of Christ in the church that is reflective of the divine image and God’s eternal purpose.

Viola writes, “Recognizing that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of all spiritual things will change your prayer life. It will change your vocabulary and the way you think and talk about spiritual things. And it will ultimately change your practice of the church” (p.303).

If we seek the centrality and supremacy of Christ and know that our riches are in a Person and not in things meant to further our individual pursuits… we shall be fashioned into that beautiful Bride and usher in the Kingdom. At last… God will dwell with his people when heaven comes to earth at the marriage of the Great Lover and his Beloved.

I recommend this book, especially for those who have been lost in our narcissistic evangelical ecclesiology.

For the brave… I suggest:  Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices

For those who know there must be more to Body Life than you are experiencing… I encourage you to read:  Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity 

I also recommend reading:

Going to the Root: Nine Proposals for Radical Church Renewal 
Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition

 

OTHER BLOGS PARTICIPATING IN THE “FROM ETERNITY TO HERE” BLOG CIRCUIT

Today (June 9th), the following blogs are discussing Frank Viola’s new bestselling book “From Eternity to Here” (David C. Cook, 2009). The book just hit the May CBA Bestseller List. Some are posting Q & A with Frank; others are posting full reviews of the book. To read more reviews and order a copy at a 33% discount, go to Amazon.com: From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God

For more resources, such as downloadable audios, the free Discussion Guide, the Facebook Group page, etc. go to the official website: http://www.FromEternitytoHere.org

Enjoy the reviews and the Q and A:

Out of Ur
Shapevine (June newsletter)
Brian Eberly
DashHouse.com
Greg Boyd
Vision 2 Advance
David D. Flowers
kingdom grace
Captain’s Blog
Christine Sine
Darin Hufford – The Free Believers Network
zoecarnate
Church Planting Novice
Staying Focused
Take Your Vitamin Z
Jeff Goins
Bunny Trails
Matt Cleaver
Jason T. Berggren
Simple Church
Emerging from Montana
Parable Life
Oikos Australia
West Coast Witness
Keith Giles
Consuming Worship
Tasha Via
Andrew Courtright
ShowMeTheMooneys!
Leaving Salem, Blog of Ronnie McBrayer
Jason Coker
From Knowledge to Wisdom
Home Brewed Christianity
Dispossessed
Dandelion Seeds
David Brodsky’s Blog- “Flip the tape Deck”
Chaordic Journey
Renee Martin
Bob Kuhn
Living with Freaks
Real Worship
Fervent Worship
Julie Ferwerda
What’s With Christina?!
On Now to the Third Level
Irreligious Canuck
This day on the journey
Live and Move: Thoughts on Authentic Christianity
Spiritual Journey With God
echurch
The Jesus Feed
Book Disciple
My Journey – With Others
On Now to the Third Level
Christine Moers
Breaking Point
Hand to the Plough
Jon Reid
Weblight
D.L. Webster
Searching for the Whole-Hearted Life

Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part II of III

Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part II        by David D. Flowers, free-lance writer & blogger, The Woodlands, TX

“For if the dead are not raised then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.” Paul, 1 Cor. 15:16-18

It is quite clear that the resurrection of Christ is the one event upon which our entire faith rises or falls.  Paul, quoting from an early creedal statement, says, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (1 Cor. 15:3).  ”According to the Scriptures,” would of course be referring to the Old Testament Prophets.  

The Pharisees often debated with the Sadducees whether or not resurrection could be a reality. Many Jews confidently believed that God would renew his creation and restore what was lost.  But not even the Pharisees expected the resurrection to happen until the final Day of the Lord.

The resurrection of Christ even took his closest disciples by surprise. Jesus goes before us all by being the “firstborn among the dead” (Col. 1:18). The apostle Paul believed in this resurrection, not only in the possibility of it, but in the reality that he had indeed seen the crucified and resurrected Messiah Jesus (Acts. 9).

“It’s one thing to believe it. It’s another thing to see it.”  Benjamin Linus, LOST, “Dead is Dead” season 5, episode 12 (Ben’s response to seeing John Locke alive again.)

For a person to believe in the resurrection of Christ is to accept that they too will pass from death to a new bodily existence at the second parousia (i.e. “coming”) of Christ. Jesus himself passes from an earthly body to a real “spiritual body” and promises that those who follow him shall do the same (Jn. 11:25).

Jesus not only spoke of this new existence, but he allowed his closest followers to witness the glorious transfiguration, and later his visible presence in his resurrected body (Matt. 17; Lk. 24:36-49). According to Paul, he appeared to “more than five hundred” people in this new body. And at the time of Paul’s writing, these folks were “still living” and you could go talk to them yourself (1 Cor. 15:6).

Life After Death

Contemporary visions of the “afterlife” stand in stark contrast to the uniquely Christian hope in the resurrection of the dead. Let’s take a moment to briefly examine what others believe about the divine destiny of man.

We have already seen the Platonic or Gnostic vision of the immortality of the soul. This view seeks to emphasize the individual. In this vision, our lives culminate at death when the soul is released from the body and we are freed from the imperfections of the material world. According to this view, discarding the body is necessary to reach the world of eternal ideas and touch the divine.

Another prominent view teaches that we all are destined for a blended union with the divine. Proponents of this idea, often known as monism, believe that God is impersonal and lacks personal distinctions. To become “one” with the divine is actually to lose all of your own personality and be absorbed in with the “great spirit” in the sky. This view undermines the personhood and character of God as well as the personal nature of human beings.

Reincarnation goes a step further in this idea of union with the divine. According to this view, we do not blend with the divine immediately, but after a series of “rebirths” that continue until the soul has reached perfection.  Since this cycle of rebirths is actually never-ending, life is ultimately meaningless. It believes the real person to be only the soul that moves from body to body. Reincarnation denies the perfect God-created union of spirit, soul, and body.

Finally, we can’t leave out those who believe that a person simply ceases to exist upon death. This belief may just be the saddest of all things a person chooses to embrace. Believing that everything ceases at death rejects the created order left by God to lead us to knowledge of himself (Rom. 1:20). And it denies that internal longing for life beyond the grave. This person should stop to observe the seasons. Winter can be dreadful, but Spring is forthcoming.

Pop-Culture Christianity

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Paul, 1 Cor. 15:51-52

Somehow believers have failed to recognize that Scripture teaches that the culmination of our earthly life is found in the future resurrection of the dead when the Lord will break through from heaven and establish his Kingdom upon the earth. They have missed John’s revelation of the Holy City “coming down out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:2).

Instead, many have embraced an eschatological view that propagates some of the tenants of the pagan ideas already discussed. We see this most clearly in Christian funerals and popular teachings on the eschaton (i.e. “last things”) from the pulpit and the pen of preachers everywhere.

Pop-culture Christianity teaches a distorted view of death and the last days. And I believe it is partially born from a resistance to suffering in the New Testament fashion. We say we have the Kingdom in mind through “winning the culture” by legislating sin, when in reality we don’t wish to rely on the foolishness of the cross and suffer as Christ in patient love. We, like the world, are fighting against death instead of embracing it with hope in the resurrection.

American Christianity has made it possible for us to look past Paul’s words, “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12) and “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Phil. 1:29). We have built for us a faith that wants nothing but comfort in this world, only to turn and grieve in sorrow as the world grieves.

We have failed to know the true hope that comes by first confronting the ugliness and reality of death. To cope with the “sting” of death we resort to absurd beliefs that are more reflective of pagan teachings than they are of our distinctly Christian hope in the resurrection. How can we know the victory until we have felt the defeat? Death has “lost its sting” because of the finished work of Christ (Rom. 6:5; 1 Cor. 15:55). Why would we ever use language that takes away from that work?

Evangelical Christianity has largely adopted pagan ideas of the “afterlife” that allows us to continue propagating the “no suffering for me” theology. The Left Behind Series has done much to further the idea that what we all need is to escape or be “raptured” from this evil world and our lowly, decrepit bodies for a future “spiritual” existence on the other side of the cosmos.

Meanwhile, we are learning to care less and less about the soul of a terrorist, genocide, and the many ways we are destroying the planet. What does it matter when the Christian life can be summed up in “going to heaven when you die”… which translates: this world isn’t so important after all. We can hardly see the urgency and the importance of it because the Gospel has been mixed with worldly political agendas.

You have heard it many times at funerals before and probably have said it yourself at some point: “they are in a better place… they have gone home.” Our hymns even reflect this Platonic idea of the soul’s escape from the body. “I’ll fly away O glory… when I die hallelujah by and by… I’ll fly way!” Really? Are we flying away or are we awaiting the resurrection of the dead for a new existence when heaven comes to earth? If we are flying away, where are we going? Cause I’m not too sure I want to go there anymore.

Does this sound like a teaching that reflects our hope in the resurrection of the dead? Is it a development or a deviation from the Gospel that testifies that someday soon heaven will break through to this groaning earth and God’s reign will be known among the nations? Why do we insist on furthering a dim view of the Christian hope?

We should stop and reconsider our anticipation in the resurrection of the dead when a believer is struck by the awfulness of death. In a better place, I’m sure, but “home”… I should think not. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (a popular phrase that is nowhere in the Bible)… should only imply that we shall never be separated from his presence (Lk. 23:42-43; Rom. 8:38-39; Phil. 1:23). But who can be home when they are separated from their body? It is in the climatic event of resurrection that we shall enter our rest.

“The doctrine of the resurrection affirms that we do not enter into the fullness of eternity apart from the body, but only in the body.”  Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, pg. 588

When we reduce the Gospel to a few clichés and water it down with pagan ideas of life after death… all that is left is to convince our neighbors that hell is hot and that they better hop aboard the J-train before it shoves off headed past a few stars to the right and on till morning. Are we followers of Christ or members of the Heaven’s Gate cult?

If we believe there is life after death without the body, then we have greatly misunderstood our hope in the resurrection of the dead. All the saints past and present await the coming judgment and resurrection of the dead. It is as if all of creation is on the edge of its seat crying out for that passing from death to life (Rom. 8:22; Rev. 6:9-11). Heaven and earth cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus! Come!”

“Now, at the climax of God’s salvation in the bodily resurrection of believers, the final enemy is defeated, the final victory won.”  Michael S. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, pg. 281

Until heaven comes to earth and God remakes the world for our new resurrected existence… we live in that hope. We live to testify of the coming Kingdom of God that is already, but not yet. Winter is here and the times are dreadful, but Spring is coming!

 

You can now read “Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part III.”

Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part I of III

Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part I
by David D. Flowers, free-lance writer & blogger, The Woodlands, TX

“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
Paul, 1 Cor. 15:13-14

In Acts 17:16-34, the apostle Paul, while in Athens, was brought to the Areopagus because he was preaching “the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.” Athens was the center of Greek philosophy. The popular view of resurrection among the Greeks was… well, there wasn’t one. That is of course if you have in mind a physical resurrection from the dead. If a person actually believes that the dead can rise, then no, according to the Greeks, there can be no such thing as “resurrection.”

Greek Philosophy
The Platonic view taught that heavenly bliss was an escape from our physical bodies for a purely spiritual existence where the “shadows” become reality, but only in a disembodied state. No wonder their response to Paul was, “You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean” (Acts 17:20).

The Greeks, the wisest of the wise, did not accept a literal and physical rising of the dead. Resurrection, or anastasis (lit. to stand again), can only mean a spiritual rebirth or gnosis of the eternal things, not an actual dead body coming to life again. For the Greeks, it goes beyond the belief that a dead person could live again. Rejection of the resurrection was founded in the philosophical idea that the physical world was evil and only a shadow of that pure spiritual realm.

Greek philosophy largely embraced the idea that the soul needed to be freed from the material world of imperfections into the eternal realm of ideas. Some believed this meant there was, therefore, no moral code because material things were of no consequence.

The Corinthian church saw these ideas threatening its community. Immorality was being accepted among the saints, and they were gathering around one or two individuals like unto the way of Greek philosophical practice. This is still popular today.

“Where is the philosopher of the age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world… But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise… We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom…” Paul, 1 Cor. 1:20, 27; 2:6-7

Whether it was of the Stoic or Epicurean flavor, there was no room for Paul’s message of resurrection. According to the Greeks, dead men can’t rise, nor should we want them to. Therefore, many of the leaders rejected the idea, but others would hear Paul again and become followers of Christ (Acts 17:32-34).

Gnosticism
Plato’s teaching on life after death was the prevailing view among the Greeks. As the good news of Christ was being preached in the first century, these philosophical ideas slowly merged with Christian doctrine and sort of a Christian Gnosticism was born.

Paul was constantly combating these foreign ideas and the threat of “another” good news. It was a century later that we have the Gnostic “apocryphal” books written to promote this merging of Greek ideas with Christian teaching (e.g. Gospel of Thomas, Mary, Judas, etc.).

You can see the continued popularity of these teachings in movies today (e.g. The Matrix, V for Vendetta, The Truman Show, etc.). Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is the latest to promote the Gnostic view of Christ.

The goal is to strip Christ of his divinity and his sinless human nature. The same teachings that promote this disembodied spiritual future also accept the idea that the Creator (Yahweh) is evil and the serpent of the Garden of Eden is the agent of good come to cut man lose from his puppet strings.

According to Gnosticism, the serpent, the devil, brings knowledge of what is really going on. What man needs is to be freed or “awakened” by the “secret” knowledge or gnosis. Man needs to throw off rules and regulations of the flesh in order to embrace “spiritual” living. He needs to recognize his own divinity apart from God. Taking from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would do just that.

If man will only take the “red pill” and choose enlightenment… he shall indeed see “how far the rabbit hole goes.” We should find a sobering reminder from the movie, The Matrix.

“Zion” in Gnosticism leads us on a ship, named after the God-defying Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, to a dark city below the earth (i.e. hell). It will not be an orgy or a party portrayed in The Matrix, but an eternity separated from Christ where man ceases to bear the divine image. Hardly a future any of us would hope for.

If you can prove Jesus of Nazareth was like the ordinary man on the street, having that corruptible nature called “flesh,” and that there was no physical resurrection of the dead, that Jesus was merely revived after his crucifixion, and that he spent the rest of his days in Spain having kids with Mary Magdalene, then you can undermine the entire Christian hope. It is a distortion of the first century synoptic Gospel’s account that is satanic propaganda disguised as “knowledge.”

Gnosticism is an absurd attempt to falsify the Gospel message and its presentation of Jesus as the promised Messiah who was both God and man. I am confident that, at least for now, the idea is only embraced by a few who live with their heads in the clouds. However, these ideas have indeed wiggled their way into Christian eschatology and our teachings on heaven and the resurrection.  (I’ll address this in Part II.)

This fabricated “secret” message may be able to make money at the box office, but the Gnostic Jesus holds no weight when it comes to reliable testimony and the historicity of the New Testament. We have plenty of evidence that suggests that the account of Christ we have in the New Testament Gospels is the real deal.

“Jesus is either the flesh-and-blood individual who walked and talked, and lived and died, in first-century Palastine, or he is merely a creature of our own imagination, able to be manipulated this way and that.”
N.T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? p.18

We, therefore, must decide what we do with Jesus and his recorded resurrection from the dead. Everything hinges on the resurrection… everything. We will choose to align ourselves with orthodox Christian belief or be swept away with the rising tide of heretical doctrines of demons.

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.”   Paul, 1 Cor. 15:3-5

 

Read “Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection, Part II of III”

Corinthian Elders (Book Review)

New Testament Elders
A Book Review of: “Corinthian Elders” by Jack Fortenberry 

In his book”Corinthian Elders,” Jack Fortenberry delivers one more strong defense for the functioning of elders in the New Testament fashion. This book is a “biblical examination” of specific Pauline rhetoric on the teaching and practice of church leadership. 

Fortenberry skillfully expounds on the various events that caused divisions throughout the local churches of the New Testament. In particular, he draws our attention to the unhealthy desire and practice of leaders that was wreaking havoc on first-century churches and still plagues us today.

The author crafts a vivid account of the issues facing these churches and presents the reader with solid evidence as to how authority “over” the saints severs the branches from the Vine that is Christ. 

Are there leaders in the New Testament church? Absolutely. However, this leadership looks like Christ and allows others to know Christ as head of the church. It makes room for all the gifts to be equally shared among the saints.

Fortenberry suggests that this is one of the greatest threats to the unity in the church at Corinth: division caused by an infatuation with eloquent preachers and teachers. 

“by submitting to leaders as a substitute for our fellowship with one another, we will loosen our hold on Christ.” (p.43) 

I have read many books on church restoration and organic church life. I recommend this little book to those who are convinced that something is definitely wrong with the top-down model of leadership within the church today and rightfully need to be persuaded by the very words of Scripture that there is another way.

If you are the least bit concerned about the centrality and supremacy of Christ being known in the local church, then give this book a read with your New Testament in hand. 

I also recommend reading: 
The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament 
Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices 
Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity 
The Normal Christian Church Life 
Going to the Root: Nine Proposals for Radical Church Renewal 
Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition

Organic Church Life: The Lord’s Supper

Organic Church Life: The Lord’s Supper

If you haven’t been following the Organic Church Life series of notes at facebook… I recommend you start with “Organic Church Life: The Beginning.” 

I wanted to post this specific note here because of the Easter season and because of the great need there is for others to have a window into the Lord’s meal experienced in simple community.  I pray you are encouraged.  As learners… we welcome your questions, comments, and a testimony of your own journey with Christ.

The Gathering 4/8/09 

Tonight (Wednesday) we met at the Price’s house to share the Lord’s meal together for the first time.

We started off talking in the living room and then made our way into the kitchen after everyone had arrived. We feasted on roast, mashed potatoes, cantaloupe, and mixed veggies. Yum! We spread out at the table and the bar. We were eating and laughing with each other. 

Earlier I had stopped by the grocery store to pick up some bread for the Lord’s meal. I mentioned that every time I go through the self-checkout line… I have problems. Kerry couldn’t understand how anyone could have problems with it. She said, “you people” are the ones taking so long in the line. Everyone was having a good time laughing at us. I told her if they didn’t throw up Mission Control at you on the little screen… it would help!

After everyone had finished eating and were just talking… we began to move toward the bread and wine (juice). A few of us men had already discussed the “Lord’s Supper” a day or two before. We recognized that the practice was intended to be a meal, at least part of the meal. What should this look like? We concluded that it is a meal and that we shouldn’t lock ourselves into any certain way of practicing it. The important thing is that we do indeed share the meal together as an extension of what we are already doing as a family.

Joel grabbed another chair and we made room at the table for everyone to sit down. Grant placed the loaf of bread on the table with the juice and I reached for the cups. I began by mentioning how the Lord told his disciples that he “eagerly desired” to have this meal with them (Lk. 22:15). 

Normally this upper room conversation is completely reflected on with emphasis on Judas’ betrayal and Jesus’ talk of his upcoming suffering. He did speak of these things. However, Jesus was also joyful over his sharing of the meal with those he was closest to in this world. He longed for the intimate fellowship. And he wanted to tell them the real meaning behind the Passover meal. 

Jesus did not let anything keep him from this communion with his followers. Not only would the disciples have this event etched in their memories for the rest of their days… they would continue sharing the meal “until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God” (Lk. 22:18)… until they shared it together at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Grant spoke on the betrothal and marriage ceremony of Jews. He talked about how the cup of wine was given to the bride for her to accept the groom’s proposal. This cup of destiny is also offered to us, the Bride of Christ. Jesus offered this cup and still offers this cup to us who belong to him. Our acceptance of this cup is the embrace of a new covenant with God’s people. This covenant gives us reason to celebrate our hope that we will be joined with Christ in the coming of his Kingdom.

We made mention of the meal’s first purpose and how radical it was for the Lord to reveal its fuller meaning. Can you imagine what these guys must have been thinking to hear Jesus seeming to change/add the symbolism of the Passover meal? They must have recognized that they were witnessing something of great significance, but still a little unsure of its meaning for the future. What an intimate time of expectation that must have been!

Everyone poured their juice and began to drink as we continued speaking about the blood of Christ and the new covenant in the partaking of the wine.

The conversation naturally shifted to the bread, which the Lord said, “This is my body given for you.” Everyone pinched off a piece of bread from the round loaf in the middle of the table. We continued eating and drinking as we remembered the Lord. 

Several of us spoke on how in the past the meal was no meal at all, but a solemn ceremony where believers turn inward only to think about their sin and the death of Jesus instead of moving on to the forgiveness of sin and the resurrection of Christ. 

James and Joel both shared about how they once dreaded the practice of communion. It was a burdensome ceremony that left no room for life. We all agreed with one another that the meal was to be a celebratory meal in remembrance of our Lord and the foreshadowing of the Kingdom to come. Gone are the days of taking the shot glass of grape juice and the Jesus chick-let from the cracker plate while sitting in condemnation being isolated in our pews. 

We have been forgiven, the Lord is risen, and now is the time to celebrate!

I mentioned how the Gospels tell us that after the meal they sang a hymn before leaving for the garden where Jesus was arrested. Someone said, “Let’s sing a hymn then.” So we did. We sang several with our voices only. How sweet it is to hear all the voices and to know we are one in the Spirit of Christ. 

What a blessing it is to share the Lord’s meal as a family of saints learning about the depths and riches of Christ in simple community.

A few departed when we got up from the table. The rest of us talked for a little while longer in the living room. What a wonderful time we had this evening. Thank you Lord for your blood of the new covenant, your body that was broken for our sins, and your resurrection that has given us your very own LIFE!

Peace,
David D. Flowers

NOTE:  We will not be meeting this Sunday. Several of us will be out of town. Those who are not will be spending time with family here at home. You can expect another note next week. Thank you to all who are following. I pray that these notes are a great encouragement to you. May the Lord bless you in your pursuit of him!