Developing a Christian Culture that Results in Human Flourishing, Part 2

Developing a Christian Culture that Results in Human Flourishing, Part 2 

Joseph Mattera

The fact that Jesus rose from the dead proves that a new heaven and new earth inauguration already began. Jesus, as the first fruits, and His saints will follow at the climax and culmination of history and full manifestation of the new heavens and earth when our bodies are also resurrected in the last day (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

The following realms of society were reframed at the resurrection because of the Lordship of Christ:

POLITICS 

Politics

Acts 17:7; Jesus is the True Caesar:

“These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

Since the church was spreading among the Gentiles (not merely limited to the Jews) Rome had a huge problem on their hands since their empire was held together politically with Caesar worship. Now thousands of people were proclaiming that there was another King who is Lord of everyone else, including Caesar. This is what eventuated in the violent reaction of Rome against the church.

THE WORKPLACE 

Business

The church functioned as a benefactor community for all people in their community; Titus 2:13,14;3:8:

“waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

“The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.”

These two passages elucidate the fact that the early church saw themselves as a community of people called to serve and better their community. This reframed even the workplace and the purpose of wealth as each believer used their time, treasure, and talents to serve their city and extend the reign of Christ through a practical demonstration of His love.

FAMILY

Family

Their leaders modeled a family unit in submission to Christ as the head. Read Ephesians 5 :21-33 and 1 Timothy 3:5, which gives as a primary qualification for church elders the call to be faithful to their families:  “If a man cannot manage his own house how can he manage the house of God.”

Also, Ephesians 5 speaks about a husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church in the midst of a Roman/Greco culture that generally devalued women and used marriage only as a way to have children and perpetuate their family legacy (romance was often connected to arrangements outside the bounds of traditional  marriage); hence, the command to love their wife connected both romance and sacrifice in the marriage which revolutionized Western Civilization.

EDUCATION 

Education

They honored the Scriptures as the primary way of equipping and maturing the saints starting from childhood.

2 Timothy 3:16,17 says: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Scripture was used to catechize new believers and disciple their children (see also Deut. 6:6-9) which eventually became the impulse to create a “Grand Synthesis” that universities (starting in about the 11th century) utilized, in their attempt to orbit all truth and every discipline around theology and the study of the Bible.

PHILOSOPHY 

Philosophy

The Apostle Paul challenged the wisdom of this world with the wisdom of God demonstrated in Jesus (see Paul before the Areopagus in Acts 17, in which he challenged Greek polytheism, idolatry, and quoted their famous poets to make a case for worshipping the One true God). Read 1 Cor. 1:17-24 to see how the Gospel of Jesus challenged the philosophy of the times.

In Colossians 2:8-10 Paul says:

“…..See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

RELIGION 

Religion

JESUS turned the religious world on its head when He challenged the dark powers of the false deities, worshipped in Roman/ Greco culture. As we see in Matthew 16:16-19, Jesus said He was building His church upon the rock that was next to the goat god “Pan” which was connected to the cave/pit called the gates of hell (where people were alleged to be thrown alive into the pit if they did not appease the goat god Pan in their immoral rituals and worship).

We also see Paul challenging polytheism and witchcraft in Acts chapters 14 and 19 in his Gospel messages.

ART 

Art

Paul re-characterized art and poetry by renaming and reframing their statue to the unknown God and giving meaning to popular Greek poetry (see Acts 17).

A new genre of music was created for the gentile world!

Ephesians 5:18,19 says: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart”

Music

Paul taught the church to make use of the Hebrew Psalms, as well as the creation of new hymns and spontaneous spiritual songs of the heart, which created a new genre of music for the Gentile world.

All of the above demonstrated that the church—as a new nation—was not focused merely on going to heaven but rather introduced a new vision for life on the earth related to family, politics, business, music, art, and philosophy as the “new man” (see Ephesians 2). The church was called to envision and walk out a new creation (see 2 Cor. 5:21) which began at the resurrection and ascension of the true King of kings and Lord of all—JESUS Christ.

As they modeled the Kingdom of God in their own subculture, they were able to export it to every aspect of the communal life of the city they were immersed in.

In light of this article, we need to ask ourselves some questions:

Do we embody and celebrate biblical values or the values of the secular humanistic Worldview?

Are we a disciple of Christ that integrates our faith in the workplace or merely a Sunday church attender?

Should churches empower disciples for the workplace or only the church place?

#JSalum
#ASONE

God's Kingdom is a treasure.We need to dig and find it by Dr. Paul Taylor

We have shared with you many times that the Kingdom of God is discovered!  

You have to search for God and He will be found.  

You have to recognize that the Kingdom of God is a treasure and dig for it, to find it. 

G.K. Chesterton onces said,  

"How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!  As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.”  

We must all seek to find the wonderful treasure that we possess in Christ!  

“For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.”  Matt. 7:8 -- 

Dr. Paul Taylor  #ASONE

Developing a Christian Culture that Results in Human Flourishing, Part 1 By Joseph Mattera

Developing a Kingdom Culture that Results in Human Flourishing, Part 1 By Joseph Mattera

As I begin, we need to ask ourselves the following questions:

What is the culture of our family, church, and/or organization?

Is it a healthy culture that walks out its biblical values or a dysfunctional culture that does not correspond to Scripture and its missional perspective?

Do we have a robust application of Scripture that reinterpret and reframes our surrounding culture? 

Before we attempt to answer these three questions we have to define three key terms:

What is a leader?

What is culture?

What and how is culture shift?

WHAT IS BIBLICAL LEADERSHIP 

What is a leader? A Biblical leader is a person who has influence and exerts responsibility

for the sake of others; hence, a kingdom leader is really a servant.

Mark 10:42-45 says:

“And Jesus called them to him and said to them, ‘You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”

Consequently, the biblical locus that defines CHRISTIAN growth and maturity does not comport with the contemporary American CEO model of top-down visionary (directive) leadership but with what Jesus described as (bottom-up) model of Servanthood. (The SERVANT is considered great in God’s kingdom- not the one being served; see Luke 22:27.)

CULTURE 

What is culture? Culture is an unspoken or spoken value system and its concomitant methodologies that are expected and celebrated in an organization or entity.

HOW DOES A CULTURE SHIFT?

In order to establish and/or shift a culture, those recognized as leaders within an entity or system need to embody and model the values, so they become the norm.

IE, the perceived leaders of a church need to walk out the values celebrated and taught, or it will frustrate the church and reduce the values to nothing more than abstract propositions. Consequently, it takes “buy in” from those within the primary circles of influence of the lead pastor. And “buy in” is only demonstrated when said circle of influence function as exemplars at the ground level among the people.

We have to thus conclude that culture shift takes place, commensurate to the ability of each concentric circle, expanding its influence to other circles of influence within the church.

(For example, if only the new Christians and new disciples are excited about the vision and the older recognized leaders lag behind — the church culture will shift from anticipation and passion to cynicism and frustration, resulting in a loss of momentum).

The New Testament Pattern of Church leadership 

The early church framed their activities initially with the Apostles doctrine:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:42

This enabled them to frame every subsequent activity with a biblical worldview.

In addition to this framework was the fact that their focus was missionally-based on Acts 1:8:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

As a result, they planted the gospel in cities and went house to house—not limiting their CHRISTIAN activity and proclamation to meetings in buildings (we now call churches) like we do on Sundays today.

Planting the Gospel in a city also implied the application of the Lordship of Jesus in every aspect or realm of a polis or city.

As we examine the Book of Acts, we observe that all of the effective Gospel activity took place outside of a religious building in their communities except for the initial church services in the Jewish Temple.

IN EVERY REALM!

Furthermore, in reading the Biblical narrative we see a reframing of politics, business, education, philosophy, religion, family, art, music at the inauguration of the post ascension New Heavens and New Earth that began to manifest the reign of Jesus on earth.

Read Part 2 next week as I expand on the realms of society that were re framed at the resurrection because of the Lordship of Christ.

How some church leaders consider the Kingdom of God? By Pr. Jeremie Manirakiza

How some church leaders consider the Kingdom of God?
By Pr. Jeremie Manirakiza

Some church leaders consider the four walls of the church as the Kingdom of God, when in truth, the so called "temple" is one small element of the Kingdom of God. 

They put all their efforts in organizing the Sunday service and the believers in the church have the impression that they are serving the Kingdom of God only during the Sunday service and other services in the designated “church area”. For them, any place outside the church, God simply doesn’t reign. For many wrongly think that Satan rules the world. All areas of society are ruled by our enemy. What misconception is this? The One who rules the whole universe is Jesus. "The Lord Reigns" is the message of the Gospel. This is the Gospel.  “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭52:7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” Colossians‬ ‭1:15-16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In addition to that, they focus merely on rapture, the last days and trying to escape the Earth instead of engaging in it. They postpone the reality of this world until they reach heaven. Though there is plenty of rebellion on Earth the Lord reigns and our prayer is and always should be “your Kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.” We are ambassadors of King Jesus and work in all areas of society (the world) until “the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign for ever and ever.” Revelation‬ ‭11:15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

John Mattera states in his book “The Divided Gospel” that when we take away the call of the believer to steward the Earth, we hinder our ability to make disciples who will be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  We also weaken the church’s call to be an equipping center to fill the Earth with believers in every facet of society to His glory.

John Mattera continues to say that without the reign of God on Earth as our focus, we are left with little more than merely experiencing God during Sunday church services, thus limiting the Kingdom of God to operating only within four walls of the church building for two hours every Sunday.

#ASONE