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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Steve Timmis
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December 27, 2017 - January 1, 2018
A staggering 1.2 billion people have been born since the start of the new millennium. Only 15 per cent of people born between 1980 and 2000 could be classified as ‘Christian’.
Notwithstanding all the additions, a net 66 million people are expected to ‘leave’ Christianity by 2050. In North America there are projected to be 27 million fewer Christians by 2050 than in 2010. An estimated 19 million people moved across international borders between 2010 and 2015, including an inflow of 1 million Muslims to Europe. Islam is projected to account for 11.8 per cent of the U.K. population in 2050. Globally the Muslim population is growing twice as fast as the overall population. If current trends were to continue as they are then Anglicanism in the U.K. will disappear in
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It’s often said that the only way to defeat the darkness is to light more candles.
David Garrison says: ‘Without exaggeration we can say that church planting movements are the most effective means in the world today of drawing lost millions into saving, disciple-building relationships with Jesus Christ.’
Europe is the world’s most secular continent.
Notice the word ‘rule’. The sun is made to ‘rule’ the day and the moon is made to the ‘rule’ the night.
We are to be fruitful and we are to rule. In the image of God, we are to fill what is empty and rule what is chaotic.
Hell is repeatedly described as a place of darkness (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; 2 Pet. 2:4, 17; Jude 1:6, 13).
Where God’s word is absent, darkness closes back in (Ps. 82:5; Eccles. 2:13-14). And those who ‘walk in darkness’ are those who ‘do not practise the truth’ (1 John 1:6).
So much so that when Paul wants to defend his mission to the ‘Gentiles’ or ‘nations’ (it is the same word in Greek) he
does not turn to the Great Commission – though he might have done. He
turns instead to the Old Testament and to the promise of God to Abraham: ‘And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles [= the nations] by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” … if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.’ (Gal. 3:8, 29) The promise to Abraham of bless...
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But three days later Jesus walks out of the tomb and we walk out with Him. The night is over. The new day is dawning. We now are the people of the light. ‘For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.’ (1 Thess. 5:5; Rom. 13:12; Col. 1:12)
And the means of God’s mission has not changed. At creation God brought light by speaking His word. And today we bring light by speaking God’s word.
Mission is not something we achieve. It is part of our identity. Mission is central to what it means to be God’s people. For many people mission has become an event. There is nothing wrong with missional events. They are an important part of the life of any church. But we cannot reduce mission to events or activities we put into our schedules. Mission is more than this. It is an identity and a lifestyle. It is about living all of life, ordinary life, with gospel intentionality.
The invisible God is made visible through the love of the Christian community (1 John 4:12).
Together we demonstrate the reconciling power of the gospel.
And yet at the same time mission in the New Testament has not ceased to be centripetal. As we have seen, we are called to be communities of light that draw people to the reign of God. What has changed is the centre. The nations no longer stream into a literal city of Jerusalem. They are drawn to the new Jerusalem – to the church. We are the new Jerusalem, the city on the hill. So now mission involves a double movement. Jesus sends us out to the ends of the earth and everywhere we go we create communities of light that draw people in.
A friend of mine became a Christian in his twenties. He was a merchant seaman and had never been to church until he was converted. He tells how he was so excited about his first church business meeting. He had been to a few Sunday meetings and been baptized. Now his first quarterly church meeting was coming up. And he was really looking forward to it. This, as he puts it, was where they were going to plot the downfall of Satan. He was in for a big shock. He discovered the main issue for discussion was the type of toilet paper they should have in the toilets. It was a big disappointment!
Church planting ensures that mission defines the nature, purpose and activity of the church – as it should.
church activity. It ensures that church is integral to mission. It defines mission as forming and building churches. Church planting puts mission at the heart of church and church at the heart of mission.
where God’s kingdom can be glimpsed. Here is where people are reconciled as they are brought together in Christ. This is the reason for church planting: to be a light to the nations at street level.
The first ‘tablet’ of Genesis, the prologue (1:1–2:3), reveals His goal, and the second ‘tablet’ offers a kind of ‘close-up’ of the final work, followed by what happened next. (As I have shown elsewhere,1 while both refer to real space-time beginnings, they have been composed under divine inspiration with the subtlety of the wise.
‘vis-à-vis’ structure: humankind’s earthliness (and this is a connotation
The Seventh Day follows, a day which does not end in Genesis (history takes place within that day according to John 5:17).
He is the New Adam in whom and through whom God’s intention will be finally satisfied. His community is the new-creation humankind. And if He is the New Adam, the church may be considered the New Eve. Hence
Paul’s reference in 2 Corinthians 11:3 (cited above). A parallel may be drawn between the blessing of reproduction in Genesis 1:28 and the ‘Great Commission’ in Matthew 28, of which church planting is indeed an aspect.2
What was created originally is being repaired and restored, not simply annihilated.
Restoration goes far beyond mere restoration!
Radically renewed ‘living stones’ thus assemble to build the church, to form the partner people of God.
Such New Testament echoes of the Genesis 3 Protoevangelium confirm that heralding the Gospel, testifying of Christ, persuading of biblical truth and planting churches means taking part in the long battle with the Serpent, of which the issue is certain: the victory of faith over that world which lies under the control of the Evil One
Accordingly, the victory of faith does not consist only in coming to faith, but also in staying in the faith, persevering and growing in the faith.
is that of an adulteration of the true Christian message.
and makes it into ‘being like God’ (one may translate this as ‘like gods’ or ‘like God’). The ‘knowledge of good and evil’ is best interpreted as autonomy, as the ability to determine what is good or right and what is evil or wrong. It can be seen as a seductive distortion of the human privilege of responsibility, the ability to appropriate the difference, as determined by God.
There has probably been no previous epoch in history when the claim to autonomy, the self being the ultimate arbiter of good and evil, was so widely spread as in ours. Theologies are not lacking that cultivate this false gospel. One could add to those observations drawn from Genesis, which apply to our mission today, that the Serpent figure had strong connotations in the ancient Middle-East: the emblem of occult science, of the mastery of forbidden secrets, and also, with phallic symbolism, of sexual power. Who can deny the fascination for the same around us today?
These blessings include a suitable environment. For this feature also ratifies that human beings, being earthly creatures, a dimension of their created goodness, are locally defined. We see today uprooted populations by millions, countless homeless individuals. Their humanity is bleeding, whether they are aware of it or not. This remains true when affluence generates the rootlessness: ‘jet-set’ people, who possess homes everywhere and therefore nowhere, who lead vain, de-humanised, lives.
vague concomitance of souls floating in outer space. Most occurrences of the word ekklesia in the New Testament refer to local churches. Twice only do the Gospels in Greek put that word on our Lord’s very lips, and the second time the local character of the community cannot be doubted (Matt. 18:17). Planting churches, which as ‘planted’ are necessarily local, agrees with the Lord’s intention as evidenced in Genesis 2. We could boldly draw a parallel between church planting and the Lord God’s planting of a ‘garden’ in the beginning!
In the apostolic period, most regular meetings of Christians would take place in the houses of some wealthier believers, as was already the case, we are told, in diaspora Judaism. Paul writes to ‘the church (singular) of God in Corinth,’ but that
constituted by the threefold event of the cross, the resurrection and the outpouring of the promised Spirit.
On the other hand, we should not rate local churches simply as parts, or even cells, of the big company. The local church is the Church of God in that place, the distinct implementation of His purpose. Paul could not, if it were not so, use the Bride and new Eve
avoid the danger of celebrating the Church universal as if it existed above and prior to local churches and believers, whether as a Platonic Idea or as an Institution. And we must avoid the danger of ignoring that the local church is the Church in union with all other churches as the Body
Paul’s ‘anxiety for all the churches’ (2 Cor. 11:28), established a basic framework. And their legacy, the apostolic tradition or deposit (the canon of our faith), still fulfils part of this role. It was supplemented by exchanges, letters of recommendation, conferences, gestures of solidarity and assistance. Such means are available to us, often in the form of so-called parachurch organisations and inter-church associations. Church planters will be wise if they work in close associations with existing churches and unions.
In the Creator’s original design, as revealed in the early chapters of Genesis, two features stand out significantly: order and life. So we should expect to see the reflection of these two features in the church(es), if we have been on the right track in our preceding remarks.
Human thinkers have often perceived order and life as opposites. Classical preferences went to order while romanticism protested in the name of life.
Reason has a kinship with the former and life has been valued as the mysterious X which escapes rational apprehension.
What our apostasy has produced is not ‘pure’ dis-order, but a deadly caricature and perversion of order: mis-order. Cancer illustrates what mis-order means: a mad repetition, multiplication of cells without measure and solidarity.
He says a histological section of healthy tissue resembles traditional cities; that of cancerous tissue resembles our modern agglomerations. ‘There is a striking analogy between the images of our suburban areas and that of a tumour.’
a play on words that sound almost the same may be used as a symbol: order and ardour should go together.
order’ on the one hand, and the warmth and elasticity of healthy tissue, all the exchanges of life, on the other hand. Preoccupation with order must not so dominate that it stifles the new inventions of life. That will degenerate into sclerosis and final necrosis. Neither must life and ardour be measured by excitement, or excesses of exuberance. Life in depth is no noisy phenomenon, and we must not mistake fever for fervour. A biblically harmonious balance should be sought in the apportionment of ministries and in the forms of worship, and there is room for variety and adaptation.
He was not raising the mere possibility of it happening. He was not saying that this might happen if everything worked out. It is not, ‘You might be my witnesses’ or ‘You can be my witnesses if you so choose.’ Jesus was saying that this new identity would be the direct consequence of the Holy Spirit coming upon them in power. The power of the Holy Spirit would be primarily evident in them being His witnesses to the ends of the earth.
