Once Jesus was asked by a Pharisee when the kingdom of God was coming. He answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation . . . (Luke 17.20-37)In this week’s passage, Jesus is once again presenting two options to Jerusalem: nonviolent, enemy love, or nonexistence. These really are the same options that we are faced with today, but that discussion is for another time.

With brilliant clarity, Jesus lays out a contingent prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction and a statement about the transforming alternative to that destruction, saying that Jerusalem’s destruction need not happen.

Jesus provides the alternative in verses 20-21:

Once Jesus was asked by a Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming. He answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

Remember, for Jesus, the kingdom is a radical new way of orienting and doing life that is rooted in and based on a radical new picture of God and His character of loving one’s enemies. This kingdom would result in the political and social liberation of the Jewish people from the Roman Empire. The kingdom would not only accomplish this, but would also liberate the entire world from “the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” and the systemic way of death they have us enslaved with. (Ephesians 6.12, though the inclusion of this larger liberation was not in the thinking of the Jewish people in Jesus’ day.) The proclamation of this “kingdom” is the gospel! It is the centerpiece of Jesus’ entire ministry. It is also the common thread that runs through the entire story, from Anna’s words in Luke 2.38, “At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for THE REDEMPTION OF JERUSALEM“, to the words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus found in Luke 24.21, “But we had hoped that he was the one to REDEEM ISRAEL.”

Pervading each step of the way is the notion of the kingdom of God:

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of THE KINGDOM OF GOD. (Luke 8.1);

And he sent them out to proclaim THE KINGDOM OF GOD and to heal. (Luke 9.2);

Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘THE KINGDOM OF GOD has come near to you.’ (Luke 10.8-9).

When the Pharisee questions Jesus, he is actually challenging Jesus as a “prophet” to present his “revolutionary vision.” What he is actually asking Jesus to do is explain what its look like when Jesus envisions the people being liberated from Rome by Yahweh. Jesus, in his customary fashion, transforms the question into a contingent prophecy with two potential outcomes: embrace nonviolent love of your enemy and be liberated or remain entrenched in the world of an eye for an eye and retribution looking for a militaristic Messiah and be destroyed.

Jesus’ words, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you”, contain both their most cherished dreams (the favor of God on Israel) and their worst nightmares (the favor of God also on their enemies, the Romans). Loving one’s enemy and nonviolent mutual liberation of Jerusalem and Rome from the real Enemy was a path that would require Jerusalem to forgive Rome, to love Rome, and to endeavor not only to save itself from Rome, but to save Rome from its allegiance to “the Powers” and encourage Roman to follow the nonviolent, enemy loving Messiah. The potential for all of this was among them and the choice was within them.

A window into Jesus’ words, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” is given to us by Josephus. Josephus writes incidents that occurred around the mid-first century (50 A.D.) when revolutionary prophets would lead large groups of people into the desert under the pretense that, once there, God would show them signs of approaching freedom. During these incidents, the Roman procurator, Felix, regarding this as the first stage of revolt, would send cavalry and heavy infantry to cut the mob into pieces (see Josephus, The Jewish War, Williamson and Smallwood, p. 147). The most infamous of these revolutionary prophets who promised “signs to be observed” was a militaristic messiah referred to as “the Egyptian” and who is mentioned in Acts 21. 38: “Then you are not the Egyptian who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand assassins out into the wilderness?”

Josephus describes the event as follows:

“Arriving in the country, this man, a fraud who posed as a seer, collected about 30,000 dupes, led them round from the desert to the Mount of Olives and from there was ready to force an entry into Jerusalem, overwhelm the Roman garrison, and seize supreme power with his fellow-raiders as bodyguard.” (Josephus, The Jewish War, Williamson and Smallwood, p. 147)

In a parallel account of this event, Josephus includes the “sign” that this “Egyptian” had claimed would be shown to the people in the course of their liberating Jerusalem. It would be a sign like Joshua’s sign at the Battle of Jericho. At the “Egyptian’s” command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down so that his followers could enter and seize the city. However, before any such a sign could be attempted, the Roman cavalry and infantry slayed and captured hundreds and put the rest to flight, including the militaristic messiah, the Egyptian. (Josephus, Antiquities, 170-172)

These were not lunatic leaders, but hopeful militarist messiahs, action prophets who contemporary scholars see as attempting to lead movements of Jewish peasants in active engagements of human effort that would be accompanied by divine acts of empowerment and deliverance. The lie went something like, “Success is dependent on combining human effort with divine power.” If they wanted divine deliverance, they must first present the violent human effort for Yahweh to bless. God would meet their efforts if they acted. The rhetoric of these militaristic messiahs was steeped in the symbols of the Exodus and the Conquest of Canaan. (Much like Augustine’s arguments for marginalizing Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence also centered on the story details of the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan of the Old Testament. For more on this, see part 7 of the series, The Active Nonviolence of Jesus, within the eSight posts of 2012.) Today, this is called Sign Propaganda and is similar to when a politician uses symbols of the American Revolution to inspire a following. The militaristic messiahs of the mid-first century in Jerusalem used this same technique by employing symbols of the Exodus and of the Conquest of Canaan.

Josephus also describes another event where Romans massacred a thousand Jewish women and children who were acting in obedience to another Jewish militaristic messiah “prophet.” This militaristic messiah had declared to the people in Jerusalem that God had commanded them to go up to the Temple to receive the signs of deliverance. (Josephus, The Jewish War, p. 360) Elsewhere, Josephus describes a “Samaritan prophet” who was a contemporary “messiah” of Jesus during the time of Pontius Pilate. This prophet’s “sign” was to lead the people up the sacred Mount Gerizim to find holy vessels left there by Moses. Instead, the armed crowd was attacked and overwhelmed by Pilate’s troops at the foot of the mountain. (Josephus, Antiquities, 85-87)

When Jesus says “the Kingdom is not coming with signs to be observed,” he is emphatically rejecting the specific way in which popular prophets led masses of Jewish people to their deaths at the hands of Roman soldiers. The reference to such leaders becomes more specific when he warns, “They will say to you, ‘Lo there!’ or ‘Lo, here!’ Do not go, do not follow them.” (Luke 17.23) Those who followed these would-be messiahs and used violence, retribution, and retaliation would perish needlessly in horrific slaughters by Rome.

The hope that Jesus gives them is of an enemy-loving, forgiving, nonviolent, and yet noncooperative approach, a nonviolent Kingdom that would change the world through embracing a Roman cross, rather than avoiding it or by picking up of a sword. Neither flight nor fight, Jesus offered a third way, a narrow way, a narrow gate that would lead through death to life. It was counter-intuitive, but it was the way of wisdom. The way that seemed right to them [violent retaliation] would lead to their death instead (Proverbs 14.12; 16.25).

“The Kingdom of God is among you!” can also be translated as “within you.” It can also be translated as by the power of the Spirit, “within your doing.”

“But the justice that comes from faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?”’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, ON YOUR LIPS AND IN YOUR HEART” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord [rather than Caesar, and call Jesus, according to last week, “blessed.”] and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”(Romans 10.6-9, emphasis added.)

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today IS NOT TOO HARD FOR YOU, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” NO, THE WORD IS VERY NEAR TO YOU; IT IS IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART FOR YOU TO OBSERVE. (Deuteronomy 30.11-14, emphasis added.)

Again, Jesus was presenting a way to live, but it was a way that first passed through death, not of one’s enemies, but of oneself at the hands of one’s enemies. It was a path that possessed the hope of a resurrection, believing in one’s heart that God “raised Jesus from the dead.”

Jesus was clear. To follow the illusive and falsely promising way of violence was a trap. To trust in a future hope by using violence in the present was an illusion. Jesus was not offering them the annihilation of their enemies, but the nonviolent transformation of themselves, their enemies, and the entire world. “The Kingdom of God is within your power.” This nonviolent, enemy loving and forgiving kingdom offered to them by Jesus was both a means and the end of all their hopes. Through the power of the Spirit, this path was both within them, within their doing, and also present among them or, as Jesus said in other places, “At hand!” Overthrowing kingdoms of this world through the power of the sword, through the way of violence, is rarely within our power. But to transform and change the world one person at a time by embracing your enemy, nonviolence, forgiveness, and healing love—THAT is always at your disposal. By staying connected with Jesus (John 15), those means are always within our power and waiting simply for our choosing. This centers on showing kindness toward the “ungrateful and the evil.” (Luke 6.35)

HeartGroup Application

1. This week I’d like you to spend some time contemplatively praying through these three verses:

Luke 6.27—”But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.

Luke 6.32—”If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

Luke 6.35—”But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

2. As you are praying through these passages, I want you to write down any insights that Jesus gives you into ways that you can be a part of healing the world in your daily lives.

3. Share what you discover with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.

As odd as saying it this way sounds, the reason the healing of the world is “within our power”, according to Jesus, is because the power itself is love. It is this love that Jesus wants to not only educate us in, but also empower us for. It is a way of life flowing from God’s love for us AND for our enemies. It is an indiscriminant love, showered like the rain and shining like the sun on all creation. This way of life is “within our power” because we can choose to accept God’s transforming love, not just for ourselves, but for our enemies as well. To view our enemies through the lens of what is in God’s heart for them is transforming. It transforms us! And then, by relating to our enemies, it transforms them too! Before long, we have set in motion a contagious chain of events, dominoes tipping upon dominoes, until a world where love reigns is the only world that remains. Regardless of who they may be or what they may have done to us, we must see that within our loving of them, our forgiving of them, our choosing the way of nonviolent love rather than eye-for-an-eye retribution, lies the hope of our world. Like the Samaritan of old, we will be saved by our enemies, specifically by learning how to forgive and love them. They, and the lessons that are related to them by love, are the means of our salvation.

God’s love for our enemies is the Kingdom within our power and is there for our choosing, waiting for us to affirm it’s divine power, the divine power of agape, and to begin experiencing it. Through our enemies, we meet the heart of God’s love and the possibility of salvation from the way that leads to death.

In the movie of Gandhi’s life from 1982, there is a scene where a Hindu is conscience stricken over his own violent slaying of Muslims. Gandhi offers him a way out of “hell.” Gandhi tells the Hindu to find a Muslim child who has lost their parents due to the violent fighting of the civil wars between Muslims and Hindus and to take that Muslim child into his home, his family, his heart and to raise him, not as a Hindu, but as a Muslim.

I wonder what forgiving your enemy will look like?

We’ll continue next week with prophecy number 6.

I love you guys.

See you next week.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” —Jesus (Luke 13:34–35)Last week we looked at Jesus’ call to Israel to repent of her “eye for an eye” way of relating to the Romans, and to embrace loving and forgiving her enemies, which would end in life through the narrow gate of a nonviolent revolution.

The Hebrew (and remember, Jesus was a Hebrew) word for repentance is teshuvah. Teshuvah is defined as “turning”—it is a turning from sin to God. But what does this mean in the context of Jesus’ use of this concept? Jesus was calling them to repent for their violence and turn to nonviolence. The verb form of teshuvah is shuv, which actually means to “return.” Originally it held the meaning “to return to God from exile,” from the place of alienation and separation back to God. It referred to a return from the path of annihilation, the way of violence, to God and God’s path of life, the way of peace. It is returning from Babylon (Rome) to the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel. Jesus clearly taught that the way of violent retaliation and revolution against Rome accompanied simultaneously by stricter obersvance of the Torah was not the repentance he was referring to. Repenting, for Jesus, meant leaving the path of violence toward our enemies and entering the path of forgiveness and love of others, including love for our enemies (see Matthew 7:12–14).

The context of our passage this week is that Jesus was about to return to Jerusalem:

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’” (Luke 13:31–33)

Then Jesus stops and muses:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Luke 13:34–35)

Jesus, in a rare moment of clarity, through a momentary window, lets us into His heart to see what is transpiring within Him. Jesus steps into the role of a mother hen, as Mother God, and weeps over Jerusalem’s rejection of Him and the way out that He has been offering them. How fitting that Jesus would take up the image of a mother hen, covering her baby chicks with her wings, protecting them from the circling predatory eagle in the sky above (a very fitting description, as Rome’s symbol was the eagle)! Yet Jerusalem’s hope was fading. For three years Jesus had been holding on to the hope of nonviolent transformation through a divine love of enemies offered as an alternative to Jerusalem’s destruction by the eagle of Rome. The mother hen was now leaving Jerusalem to her own devices, yet she was very willing to return at any moment if Jerusalem would simply turn from this path of violent retaliation, this path of placing her hope in a militaristic messiah, and instead call blessed this coming to them by God himself in the form of a prophet of nonviolence. Instead, Jesus was seen not as blessed, but as dangerous. We see this most clearly in the words of Caiaphas:

You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed. (John 11:50)

As Jesus said, three days later He would enter Jerusalem. Would the people of Jerusalem repent and call him blessed, or would they take another step toward their annihilation and ruin?

As He rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, all of His disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” (Luke 19:36–38)

Would Jerusalem join the disciples in calling Him blessed? I’m afraid that’s not what happened. Instead:

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” (Luke 19:39–40, emphasis mine)

Where does this leave us today?

I’m convinced, both within Christianity and outside of it as well, that Jesus is still longing and waiting with deep expectation for a people who, like the early Jesus movement itself, say, “Blessed is this this prophet bearing the message of hope for a world faced with annihilation! Blessed is the prophet that has come, giving us a way to heal broken people, to heal broken relationships, and ultimately the way that leads to the healing of the nations and the healing of the world!”

Lord Irwin is reported as having asked Gandhi at one point what he thought would solve the problems between Great Britain and India. Gandhi picked up a Bible, opened it to the fifth chapter of Matthew, and said, “When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount, we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries, but those of the whole world.”

Blessed is He who comes with the way of life, the way of nonviolently loving and forgiving our enemies, of restorative justice (rather than retributive) rooted in nonviolence. This forgiveness, with a view toward redeeming, restoring, and reclaiming, is the way to heal the world.

The thought that it is too late is of demonic origin. There is still hope, but that hope today is the same as it was back then. Wherever we are right now, the last great hope for us and our world is in calling blessed that Prophet Who came to us two thousand years ago with the message of an enemy-forgiving God Who is inviting us into His nonviolent way of living life.

HeartGroup Application

Too many times our rhetoric betrays us. Today we speak of inviting Jesus into your lives, into our agendas, into our hopes and dreams and aspirations and goals. But the question I would like to ask is, “Are we simply asking Jesus to join our world, or are we ourselves joining Jesus and stepping into His world?” Rather than inviting Jesus into your life this week, ask Jesus to show you how you may more fully step into His life, His agenda, His hope for this world, His dreams, His aspirations. Ask Jesus to take you further up and further into the reality of His passions becoming your passions.

1.I want you to go back and prayerfully meditate on two passages. The first is John 3:17: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be HEALED [Sozo] through him.” The second is the parable of the pearl of great price (found in Matthew 13:45). Remember that the pearl is neither Jesus, nor ourselves—it is the establishment of Jesus’ kingdom on a restored, healed, and reconciled earth. This is the pearl for which Jesus gave up everything to accomplish, and it is the pearl He calls us to give up everything to join Him in accomplishing.

2.As you meditate on these two passages, write down each day what thoughts, questions, insights, or even other passages Jesus gives to you.

3.Share what you write down with your fellow Jesus followers in your HeartGroup, encouraging one another, spurring each other on to love and deeds that put on display what the world changed by Jesus looks like.

Wherever this finds you this week, keep living in love, loving like Christ, putting on display the beauty of the God we see in Jesus, restoring one human heart at a time, until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys,

See you next week.

At that very time, there were some present that told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”—Jesus (Luke 13.1-9)This week we are looking at the third of Jesus’ eight final prophecies concerning Jerusalem.

What I want you to notice right from the beginning is the phrase “At that very time.” As we discussed last week, Jesus had just plead with his audience to work in the specific direction of reconciling, of their own initiative, with their much-hated adversaries. Specifically, he wanted them to reconcile with Pilate, who represented the Roman Empire to them. What we are looking at this week is Jesus’ audience’s response: “Don’t you realize what Pilate did to the Galileans?” Enemy love is never initially responded to positively, but it is the way of life, whether it appears to be so from the outset or not.

Remember, the background of Pilate’s slaying of the Galileans is as follows. Rome very carefully watched the congregating of any of its subservient people, but especially those with subversive tendencies leaning toward revolt. The Galilean Jews certainly fit this description. Those who hoped for militaristic violence as the means whereby the Jewish people would throw off the yoke of Roman oppression also held to the belief that moral uprightness, obedience to the Torah, would ensure God’s blessing of their violent revolt, and also their success. This is the paradigm of the Maccabean revolts saga. It was the paradigm of those who still subscribed to this methodology in Jesus’ day as well. If there were an engagement between Rome and insurgent Jews and Rome won, the reason is because there must have been some “sin in the camp,” so to speak. It had nothing to do with using methods God could not bless, but rather the level of religious obedience and purity in regards to the Torah by those who were fighting. The details of the story are not clear, but it appears that the Galileans were offering sacrifices in preparation for their engagement with the Romans. According to scholars, Roman soldiers had surprised some Galilean insurgents while the rebels were engaged in these sacrifices. The soldiers slaughtered the men right then and there. The excuse offered by the religio-political part of the Pharisees would have been, based on Deuteronomy 28, “If we obey God will bless us, if we disobey God will curse our efforts.” When there was failure in revolting against Roman oppression, the reason was because those revolting must have been “sinners.” Thus Jesus’ response:

“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?”

Jesus goes on to say:

No, I tell you; but unless you repent [turn from your violence; your eye-for-an-eye retaliation against the enemy is instead love and forgiveness; this turning-the-other-cheek way of life I am presenting you with], you will all perish as they did.

Then Jesus responds to these objectors with a second occurrence everyone was talking about during that time:

Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

According to some sources, this was one of the weaponry towers used by Rome for weapons storage. A group of zealot insurgents had tried to dig a tunnel under the tower, with hopes of seizing the weapons stored there and using those weapons themselves in a violent revolt against the Romans. But the tower’s foundation was already in a state of decay, and the tunnel further compromised the integrity of the foundation, leading to the entire construction suddenly collapsing, claiming the lives of several Galileans.

Again, the logic was not that the approach itself was flawed, but rather how strictly those seeking to carry out the given approach were adhering to the Torah.

Jesus goes on:

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.

The problem was not how strictly they were adhering to the Torah or not. The problem was the concept of eye for an eye, the violent methods they were endeavoring to use themselves. Jesus warns, looking all the way down to 70 A.D., that if they did not repent, did not turn away from their eye-for-an-eye retributive violence, it would continue to escalate until they themselves were destroyed.

Remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 7.13-14:

“Enter through the narrow gate [of forgiveness, enemy love, nonviolent noncooperation]; for the gate [of eye for an eye, violence, and retaliation] is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life,, and there are few who find it.”(Emphasis added.)

Jesus then finishes this third prophecy with a story. Please read this story prayerfully, fully remembering the social and political context within Jesus himself told this story:

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Jerusalem was set on a collision coarse with annihilation if something didn’t change. What was the fruit the gardener looked for that would ensure it remaining?

I point you to the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not retaliate against an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies [i.e., the Romans] and pray for those who persecute you [i.e., the Romans], so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil [i.e., the Romans] and on the good [i.e., Torah observing Jews], and sends rain on the righteous [i.e., Torah observing Jews] and on the unrighteous [i.e., the Romans]. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5.38-48)

What does this mean for us today?

A lot!

Last December, the Washington Times published research that 84 percent of the world population practices some sort of faith; a third of those are Christian. That’s 2.2 billion Christians (32 percent of the world’s population). There are 1.6 billion Muslims (23 percent), 1 billion Hindus (15 percent), 500 million Buddhists (7 percent), and 400 million people (6 percent) practicing various folk or traditional religions, including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, American Indian religions, and Australian aboriginal religions. There are 14 million Jews, and an estimated 58 million people—slightly less than 1 percent of the global population—belong to other religions, including the Baha’i faith, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Tenrikyo, Wicca and Zoroastrianism, and others.

Notice that those claiming to have some connection to the Jesus revolution of the first century (Christianity) are the largest of these groups. Imagine the world we could create if Christians simply insisted on following the clear call to non-violence represented by Jesus’ teachings, which were rooted in His picture of God as well as the way He looked at all of us. Again, I’ll ask the question I asked last week: What would happen if Christians started believing in Jesus once again?

HeartGroup Application

1.This week I’d like you to spend a few days praying through this passage one phrase at a time. I want you to pause at each phrase to contemplatively talk to Jesus about each one. I also want you to be listening for what Jesus does in each of your hearts. What is the passage?

Our Father in heaven,

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

2.I want you to write down any insights, questions, or inspiring gems each day that Jesus gives you.

3.Be prepared to share these with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.

Wherever this finds you, keep living in the enemy-embracing, self-sacrificial, other-centered, nonviolent love we see in Jesus, until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I’ll close this week with the words of N.T. Wright:

“‘Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’ That remains one of the most powerful and revolutionary sentences we can ever say.”

I love you guys.

We’ll see you next week.

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” —Jesus (Luke 12.54–56 NIV)This week, I want to continue our look at the final eight prophecies of Jesus concerning the two fates that lay before Jerusalem for her choosing. Remember, our look at these eight prophecies is an attempt to understand more deeply what Jesus’s kingdom is all about—this kingdom that is not simply a new way of doing life, but a way that is deeply rooted in a radically different way of seeing God, ourselves, and everyone around us, even our enemies.

Also, I’d like to remind you once again about the two paths Jesus laid out before the people of his day in Matthew 7.12–14. We have the eye-for-an-eye, retaliation-and-retribution way of doing life that intrinsically escalates till it ends in death. And we have the enemy-love, enemy-forgiveness, doing-to-our-enemies-what-we-would-want-them-to-do-to-us way of doing life that brings healing, peace, and life eternal.

This is our context. This week we are looking at the second of the eight prophecies:

He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? (Luke 12.54–57)

This second prophecy is the foundation and preliminary prophecy for the third prophecy recorded by Dr. Luke in Luke 13.1–9. I’d really like to discuss the third prophecy this week because what Jesus says in that prophecy is astounding! But in order for the third prophecy to make sense and to have its proper impact, we’ll have wait on that until next week and first do some pre-work this week with this passage.

The weather-wise Israelites of Jesus’s day could tell by watching the clouds over the Mediterranean or by observing the wind direction changes (when the wind veered around to the south) what the imminent weather would be in their region, and they planned accordingly. What Jesus is drawing attention to here is their keen ability to reason from cause to effect when it came to matters of weather, but their utter blindness and inability to reason from cause to effect when it came to the path they were on in relating to their political enemies, the Romans.

Jesus then uses a contemporary analogy, a metaphor if you will, of the then current court system to illustrate the trajectory of the path they were on with Rome, a path of retaliation, retribution, and violence.

As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Luke 12.58–59)

What Jesus suggests here is not militaristic rebellion but, on the contrary, peacemaking and reconciliation, rooted in love for one’s enemies and forgiveness. Who was their adversary at this time? Rome, represented in the person of Pilate the Roman governor. Without stealing too much away from next week, this is exactly why Jesus’s listeners object in the very next verse (Luke 13.1) on the basis of Pilate’s atrocity against some Galileans. They were in essence saying, “You want to us to practice enemy-love and forgiveness, peacemaking and reconciliation with Pilate? You have got to be kidding us! Don’t you realize what Pilate recently did to the Galileans who were offering sacrifices? How can you expect us to turn the other cheek, not retaliating but following the way of peace?”

In Matthew this instruction is placed within Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount:

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5.25–26)

In Matthew’s account, this is directly in the context of leaving your gift at the altar when offering a sacrifice if you remember that you have an adversary who is against you. Jesus commands, “First go and be reconciled to that person; then come and offer your gift.” Twice in Matthew, Jesus is recorded as saying, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9.13; 12.7; cf. Hosea 6.6) This is the path that leads to life, and the God of nonviolence that we see in Jesus is intently working with Israel at this stage, endeavoring to have them to repent, to leave the path of eye-for-an-eye retaliation, and to embrace the way of mercy toward one’s adversaries or enemies. This is the way of enemy-love, enemy-forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. This was the path that would lead them to life eternal. If they did not change paths in relation to their present adversaries (the Romans), the trajectory of the path they were one would end in their “not getting out until they had paid the last penny.” It would end in their utter annihilation.

The options before them were transformation or annihilation. Remember, this was not an imposed annihilation force on them by a violent God, but rather a warning about an annihilation that would be the natural result of a course of action toward their adversaries that would escalate into their utter destruction and death in AD 70.

Jesus will say it again:

If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19.42)

Today we plan our daily activities around listening to weather forecasts or checking our weather apps on our phones, while we are strangely ignorant of the clouds of our own making that are gathering on the horizon of our lives in both our personal and global relationships. Last week we looked more personally at following Jesus’s way of nonviolence, of enemy-love and forgiveness, the way of mercy in relation to our family, friends, coworkers, or fellow students. This week I want to ask more global questions. Whether we ask these questions regarding our private relationships or our global ones, the implications are the same.

Next week we will be looking at Jesus’s words concerning a tower that fell in Siloam. Last week in America, the nation spent time remembering those who lost their lives when two towers fell in New York City in 2001. For many, the way of retaliation is the only logical response. Anything else does not make sense. Anything less would possibly be “dangerous.” But Jesus is whispering to us to take a different path than that which is intuitive to us. There is a way that seems right to us, but its end is death. More violence, according to Jesus, only ensures, not our safety, but our own destruction. War-making has today become a kind of “religion” rooted in sacrifice. Jesus calls us to peacemaking rooted in mercy. (Matthew 9.13; 12.7; cf. Hosea 6.6) What would happen if instead of supporting a military-industrial complex, Christians began spending billions on feeding the world’s starving? What would happen if instead of supporting more loss of life in Iran and Afghanistan, Christians went to work to establish new schools and hospitals in Iran and Afghanistan? What would happen if Christians today stopped funding Israel’s occupation of Palestine and began embodying Israel’s Messiah in teaching and demonstrating enemy-love and forgiveness, the way of mercy rather than militaristic sacrifice, to Israel the same way Jesus did so long ago? What would happen if Christians stopped believing that Jesus’s way is impractical, naïve, or insufficient and flatly stating that it “doesn’t work” in the “real world” and began to follow the way of life Jesus came to teach us, no matter how difficult? What would happen if Christians simply began believing in Jesus once again?

The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is still whispering to the world today, “Overcome evil with good. Reject your tribalism, and love everyone on the planet. Reject your way of violence, and become people of enemy-love, forgiveness, mercy, and nonviolence. If you do not do this, you as a global community, will be destroyed. It will not be God’s doing. Your own violence will come down on you.”

Much to ponder for sure.

HeartGroup Application

1.This week I would like you to go back and spend some time prayerfully meditating on these two passages:

As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Luke 12.58–59)

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5.25–26)

2.Get out a piece of paper, and with inspired imagination, tap into your creativity. Begin to brainstorm, writing down whatever comes to mind about what nonviolent conflict resolution might look like with those in your immediate life that you find most difficult to get along with. Begin by simply putting down on paper what ideas come to your mind, whether you think they are foolish or not, logical or not, practical or impractical.

3.Share and discuss with your HeartGroup what you come up with, getting constructive feedback and further creative options on ways you can follow Jesus’s path of nonviolent conflict resolution in your life.

Jesus gave us a way to heal the world, (Luke 9.2; John 3.17). Jesus did not come to this world to condemn this world, but so that this world, through Jesus and His teachings, might be saved. May it begin with each of us in our daily lives.

Wherever this finds you this week, keep living in Jesus’s other-centered, self-sacrificing enemy-love till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys.

See you next week.

“The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed . . .” —Jesus (Luke 9.22)

This week, I’d like to begin with something a little different. Are you ready? I want you to listen to an imaginary story.

Once upon a time, there was a God who sang a world into existence. He loved this world and its people. But these people, over time, through no fault of their own, became afraid. They began over time to believe that this God, who had made them, did not like them. They began to believe that He was angry with them. They came to believe that God even hated most of them—not all, but most. Because of these beliefs, they eventually became afraid of each other as well. These people were afraid—very, very afraid. They not only feared this God, but they also feared one another. They looked at each other with suspicion. Days were spent endeavoring to discern whom it was that God hated, so that those who deemed this to be true could hate them, too, and thereby invoke some possible favor from this God.

As fear had turned to hatred, hatred turned to anger, and anger ultimately turned into rage—murderous rage.

It was when this world was at its darkest that this God dreamed up something daring. He would attempt the impossible. Would it work? Some believe that not even this God knew for sure. It would be risky—really risky. Not pretend.

He would come to them in disguise. He would turn their entire social system on its head. He would embrace all, loved and revered, or hated, feared, and scorned alike. He would simply love, radically, inclusively, daringly, and somewhat dangerously. This would unsettle everything, top-down, upside-down. And then it would happen. If it worked the way He planned, they would turn on His threatening love, this love that challenged and threatened to change everything. This social system, remember, was how they even provoked the “favor of God.” Their life, their security, their assurance, what defined them, EVERYTHING for them was bound up in this. How would they respond?

They would label Him as their ultimate enemy. They would let loose their murderous fear on Him. Yet how would He respond? Having loved them, He would love them to the end. And if this worked, He would do one final thing that would pull back the veil and show them all who He really was the whole time. This would change everything, banish the lies, illuminate hearts, and set the world right once again.

Would it work? If only God knew. But they would be worth the risk. They would be worth risking it all.

I want to take a moment and talk about conduits. Jesus believed He would be a conduit of God Himself. Jesus also understood that God would be taking on Their enemy, who would be using humanity, the object of Their love and affection, as his conduit. How do you defeat an enemy that is using your loved ones as a weapon against you? In light of last week’s fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, I’d like to quote, at length, a Christmas sermon of King’s from the winter of 1967:

“I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.’” (Emphasis added.)

You see, from Jesus, King learned to look on his enemies not really as enemies, but simply as victims. They were conduits of the real enemy, held in captivity to a systemic evil, and as someone who was to be won over from the real enemy and the systemic evil, over to the cause of truth. But where exactly could King have discerned this from the Jesus story? I believe this is exactly what the closing week of Jesus’ life was all about.

How do you win your loved ones away from the real enemy and his systemic evil?

They process is very simple, and it’s the same every time.

It’s rooted in something original to the ethics of Jesus—enemy love.

First you provoke the system of evil.

Second, the system responds violently.

Third, you bear that violence, that hatred, that “sin” in your own body, choosing to love nonetheless. Through the power of nonviolence, you pull off the veil of the very system itself, hopefully winning the very ones held captive by that system away from the evil, through empathy, to the cause of the victim. In short, you seek to overcome evil with good.

It is the same in every era that Jesus’ example has been followed. I’ll give three examples.

Steps

1. Provocation

2. Violence of System

2. Nonviolent Love

Jesus

Temple “Cleansing”

Crucifixion

Nonviolent Love

MLK

Sit-ins

Beatings/Prison

Nonviolent Love

Gandhi

Salt Marches

Imprisonment

Nonviolent Love

(*for more on this, see the presentation A New Way, in the new Life Unlimited series at https://renewedheartministries.org/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=30)

You see the perplexity was never about how we can make an angry God loving again through some kind of appeasement. Rather it was a question of how a loving God could make us good again through becoming the victim of our violence Himself.

“Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”—Jesus (John 12.31)

HeartGroup Application:

1.Remember the cross, to the original followers of Jesus, was viewed as something Jesus did for them, but never instead of them. They believed that they too were called to embrace Jesus’ way [a cross] of putting the world right again, forming human society once more into the image of love rather than fear, hatred, and violence. In light of this reality, ponder the following texts:

John 18.11: Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Mark 10.38: Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized…”

Luke 9.23-24: Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

Romans 16.20: The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.

2.Go back and prayerfully re-read this entire eSight. Write down any thoughts, questions, insights, or perplexities that surface as you, through Jesus, meditate on the cross. Do this not as a means of changing God, but as a means of changing the world.

3.Share with your HeartGroup this week what you have written down, respectfully and openly encouraging one another to keep following this Jesus and way of healing the world. Remember, “if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you (plural, as a HeartGroup) are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you (as a group)?” – Paul (1 Corinthians 3.12-16)

Remember, Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but intended that the world, through Him, might by saved. Wherever this finds you, keep living in love, loving like Christ, until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys.

I’ll see you next week.

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”—Luke 5.36-39This week, I’d like to contrast two ways that I often see folks responding to “Jesus” and His ethical teachings today when something Jesus taught challenges their present paradigm.

The first is the way of continuity. In other words, Jesus is not really bringing anything new to the table. If we feel He is bringing something new, it is simply that Jesus is correcting a present day application of the same old ethics as long ago. This view has its advantages for sure; the ethics of the Biblical narrative, in this view, have an unchanging quality. They belong to a consistent whole, a narrative that is seamless. And, on a very surface level, it gives folks a strange sense of security.

What are the pitfalls with this way of responding to Jesus’ teachings when they challenge a previously held paradigm of ours? Well, for starters, the Bible-believing dwellers in the Southeastern region of the United States in the late 19th century used this view to justify simultaneously possessing both a ticket to heaven and slaves. This so-called continuity view also enables some more marginal religious groups to practice polygamy, believing they are well within the boundaries of Biblical ethics. Although not Christian, this way of looking at a sacred text also allows those following the religion of Islam to still practice a modern-day version of stoning. And it allows some Bible-believing Christians today to practice a sanctified, patriarchal and mild form of misogyny. At the very minimum, the continuity view restricts Jesus from truly ever challenging our deeply held paradigms. The best we ever really get from Jesus is either a pat on the back that we have it all right, or simply a “tune-up” of our already smoothly running theological systems—but never do we become fundamentally different. God simply becomes, for us, the justification for our social dysfunctions.

But look again at Jesus’ words in Luke 5.36-39:

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

There are three things I want you to notice about this passage.

First, the piece from the new garment is incompatible with the old one.

Second, new wine doesn’t work in an old wine skin, or it bursts the old one and you lose the new wine.

Third, Jesus was lamenting that when faced with the option of the new wine He was offering in contrast to the “old” ways, no one really wanted this “new” stuff Jesus was teaching. For whatever reason, they were too content with the old. And really, no one who is accustomed to aged wine says the new is better. Jesus laments this reality again in Luke 16.16 when he states, “The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone is attacking it.”

What is the alternate way of relating to Jesus and His ethical teachings when they challenge our favorite paradigms? I call this way of looking at the ethical teachings throughout the narrative of the scriptures the trajectory view. In this view, one looks at the narrative of the Scriptures as a story in which God is meeting people within their own cultures where they are, then slowly and patiently leading them along a trajectory as fast as they can be changed without pushing them too far too fast and ending up rejecting God altogether. A great illustration of this view is the fact that I have a five-year-old, a ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old. I have taught my five-year-old not to talk to strangers. But with my ten-year-old and my sixteen-year-old, I’m teaching both of them, in ways that are appropriate to where they are in their own developmental growth, how to reach out safely and effectively and talk to the strangers that they do meet. And even between my ten-year-old and my sixteen-year-old, there are differences between even them. Now, there is no way to harmonize the “no talking to strangers” rule with the “how to talk with strangers” rule within a continuity way of looking at my parenting because they present a brazen contradiction. But when one views my parenting along the trajectory view—that I am teaching my children according to where they are and what they can safely do—then it all begins to make sense. What I’m teaching my five-year-old is not the way I want it to always be. It is only temporary. It’s what he needs now, but it will not be what I dream for him in the long run.

Look at this, if you will:

No one who has been EMASCULATED BY CRUSHING OR CUTTING may enter the assembly of the LORD . . . No AMMONITE OR MOABITE OR ANY OF THEIR DESCENDANTS may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation . . . Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them AS LONG AS YOU LIVE. (Deuteronomy 23.1-6)

Now this:

Let NO foreigners who have bound themselves to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let NO eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.” For this is what the LORD says: “To the EUNUCHS who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—TO THEM I will give WITHIN MY TEMPLE and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. And FOREIGNERS who bind themselves to the LORD TO MINISTER TO HIM, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy IN MY HOUSE of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be ACCEPTED on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for ALL NATIONS.” (Isaiah 56.3-7)

There is no way to harmonize these two passages according to the continuity view. But harmony can be found—if one adopts a trajectory view.

On an ethical scale of 1 to 10, let’s image that Jehovah is trying to get people at various times and through various ways, to move from maybe point 1 to 2, or 2 to 3, or 3 to 4. I would be detrimental to see any point from 2 to 9 as the revelation of who God really is and the ethics He wants us to ultimately live by. Granted, “9” would be a lot closer to an accurate understanding of God and His character than “2” per se, but even “9” is not a full “10.”

The people in Moses’ day were moving, let’s say, from 1 to 2, while Jesus came to show us what a full-blown 10 looks like. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the contrast between Jesus’ new wine of nonviolence and the golden rule, and the old wine of commanded violence and the eye-for-an-eye way of doing life.

Old wine:

Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution—life for life. Anyone who injures a neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. (Leviticus 24.17-21)

New wine:

You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. (Matthew 5.38-39)

Old wine:

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. (Psalms 139.21-22)

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3.8)

New wine:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor [fellow Israelite, see Leviticus 19.18] and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies. (Matthew 5.43-44)

Jesus said it best:

I give you a NEW commandment, that you love one another, JUST AS I HAVE LOVED YOU. (John 13.34)

Jesus challenges us, calling us to become more like the Father than ever! Yes, he had been guiding us at each step of the way, all along the ethical trajectory that he has had us on. But now he is calling us even higher. Further up and further in, as C.S. Lewis put it, “so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5.45) Yes, God has spoken to us through the old prophets at various times and in multiple ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, Jesus, who gives us the exact image of what God is really like. (See Hebrews 1.1-3 cf. John 14.9.)

Jesus is calling us to accept not just his new wine, but also new wine skins to hold the new wine, so that we may participate—not in a path that leads to this world being destroyed, but to participate in, even if by fire, his saving and restoration of Eden, the coming of the Bar Enasha, the full unobstructed reign of His Kingdom, on earth as it is in Heaven. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world, through him, might be saved.” (John 3.17)

New wine simply won’t work in the old wine skins. You can’t incorporate it into your present way of looking at things. The new wine doesn’t conform to the old wine. They are both different. They belong to the same trajectory, but they are different. Jesus’ new wine is the final advancement along the trajectory of being restored into the image of God, which was almost wholly lost among mortals. We must not only allow Jesus to give us new wine, but also new paradigms for those ethical teachings to grow in as well.

HeartGroup Application:

1.Take some time to see if you can find your own examples of the ethical trajectory that we find in the narrative of the Bible. See if you can also find examples of where Jesus was moving us into a more full “Father-like” way of doing life. We already mentioned quite a few in this eSight. Look at aspects of the old laws; look at Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos; also look at Jesus. The ones that are obvious to us today are things such as slavery, polygamy, Israel having a king, violence, nationalism, patriarchy, etc.

2.Write down and prepare to share what you find with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.

3.Share with your HeartGroup and be willing to openly discuss your findings.

May Jesus give us all new wineskins this week as we seek to follow Him more fully in the way that leads to life, and life to the full…until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys. We’ll see you next week.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”—Jesus, Matthew 7.12-14I want to take you on what will seem like a detour this week. It will seem like this is completely off topic, but I’m hoping you will see the relevance of this next passage to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:

“If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.” (Moses, Exodus 21.7-11)

Sexual slavery, or being sold to become a wife, was common in the ancient world. The taking of multiple wives was also condoned and recorded many times throughout the Old Testament (Ex. 21:10; Dt. 21:15; Gn. 25:1; cf. 1Ch. 1:32; Gn. 30:4; 31:17; cf. Gn. 35:22; 2Sam. 12:11; cf. 2Sam. 20:3; Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, p. 273). An Israelite father could sell his unmarried daughters into servitude, with the understanding that the master or his son would eventually marry her. Jewish and Christian commentators alike agree that this referred to the sale of a daughter, who “is not arrived to the age of twelve years and a day” and that this sale was the result of poverty (John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible; Exodus 21:7).

Here is the million-dollar question this week: Can we allow an Old Testament Jehovah to permit this detestable practice for a time, reforming a cultural practice rather than abolishing it, if that is what it takes for a culture to embrace a “Deity” who will eventually, in the long run, radically change them entirely? Do not misunderstand me. The trafficking of a young girl is truly horrific. Even worse is the realization that once she turns twelve, she becomes one of the wives of the man she was sold to, or possibly one of the wives of his sons. There is no way to justify this. But again, there is the question: Can we accept Jehovah meeting people within their culture, or even meeting their expectations of what He should be like? Can we not accept that He is moving them, patiently, slowly, away from their horrific practices, through years of growth and development, until at last they can understand Him and become a people that will rightly proclaim how He truly is?

As we all know, if you want to get any culture to “follow you,” if you want the people in that culture to change, then you cannot simply come in and bulldoze over their way of life. You must work with them, not against them; you must slowly transform them, little by little, into something other than what they were when you found them. Far from Exodus 21.7-11 being a revelation of what God is really like, it is rather a reflection of what the people God was trying to reach were like. If you want to find out what God is really like, Exodus 21.7-11 is not the place to look. Where are we then to look? I submit to you: Jesus.

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at multiple times and in multiple personalities [jealous, petty, unjust, unforgiving, controlling, vindictive, bloodthirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and THE EXACT REPRESENTATION OF HIS BEING….” (Hebrews 1.1-3)

So radical was this revelation of God in Jesus that even the apostle John, who was raised with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets, wrote: “No one has ever seen God till they met this Jesus” (see John 1.18).

And yet Jesus himself said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (see John 14.9).

So what does this have to do with our topic this week?

I want to look at the concept of lex talionis. Lex talionis is Latin for the “law of retaliation.” It encompasses the broad class of legal systems that specify formulaic penalties for specific crimes, which are thought to be fitting in their severity. Some propose that this was intended, at least in part, to prevent excessive punishment at the hands of either an avenging party or the state. The most common expression of lex talionis is “an eye for an eye”; however, lex talionis does not refer to exclusively literal eye-for- eye codes of justice, but to an entire legal system labeled as “penal,” or a form of justice that is punitive.

Jesus taught:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not use retaliation, even if it has been authorized by your law, against an evil person. Instead, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your Chiton, hand over your Himation as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you [even if you are on the verge of the Jubilee] You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your fellow Israelite and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies too! And pray for those who even persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5.38-45, personal paraphrase. For a fuller exposition of Jesus’ teachings in this passage see The Way of Peace (Arizona) at https://renewedheartministries.org/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=37)

Jesus sought to lead us away from doing life via lex talionis to what others have called “The Golden Rule.”

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you [The Golden Rule]; for this was the intended goal of where the law and the prophets were always headed. Enter then through the narrow gate of the golden rule; for the gate of lex talionis is wide and the road of lex talionis is easy, but it leads to the whole world being blind, toothless and annihilated, and there are many who are presently on that path. For the gate of the Golden Rule is narrow and this road is hard but it leads to life, and there are so few presently who have discovered it and are traveling on it.” (Matthew 7.12-14, personal paraphrase)

Other great people have made statements similar to what we find in Matthew 7:

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” (Mahatma Gandhi).

“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

“And then the whole world would be blind and toothless” (Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof).

The question I want you to consider this week is: Does lex talionis manifest the character of the God we see in Jesus? Or do we, in lex talionis, find the Jehovah of the Old Testament doing the same things we found Him doing with the other temporary cultural accommodations such as slavery, polygamy, the mistreatment of women, race-based preferential treatment, nationalism, genocidal violence, and even Israel having a King?

It’s a question worth asking. In seeking to answer that question, what I find ironic is that the Christian Church, as a result of the Constantinian Shift, in the fourth century reintroduced capital punishment (burning heretics at the stake, a form of lex talionis) against sinners. This should be contrasted with the abandonment of capital punishment (the Old Testament stoning prescriptions) by the disciples of Jesus during the first three centuries of Christian history. Israel definitely practiced capital punishment. The new Israel of the first century, defined as those who were endeavoring to follow Jesus, did not. It seems that the church, following the teachings of Jesus after His death, abandoned “eye for an eye” ethics, only to reinstate those ethics once Christianity and Empire became wedded under Constantine.

Something to ponder for sure!

HeartGroup Application

1.Go back to Matthew 7.12-14. Spend some time each day this week meditating on what it means for the rule of “doing to others what you would have them do to you” being the narrow gate, and “eye for an eye” being the broad path that leads to destruction for all.

2.Write down any thoughts, questions, insights, or inspiration Jesus gives you during your daily time with Him and this topic.

3.Share what you discover this next week with your HeartGroup.

Whether lex talionis can be explained as accommodation or not, we can’t live a life based simultaneously on both lex talionis and the Golden Rule. To the degree that we practice the Golden Rule, we will not, by definition, be practicing lex talionis. Instead, we will practice the way of forgiveness and love. Jesus showed us it is one or the other. He gave us three examples in Matthew 5.38-45 of what the Golden Rule looks like. My prayer for all of us, myself included, is that Jesus will help us learn how this way of salvation, restoration and redemption appears in our daily lives. There are no formulas. No three-step plans. But as we walk with Jesus as His disciples, allowing Him to teach us, I am assured He will be guiding us along the correct path. We will return to this topic in the future. May our understanding, as well as our practice, continue to deepen as we daily seek to follow The Way.

Keep living in love, following the example of the Truth and Grace we see in the life of Jesus. Until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.

I love you guys.

We’ll see you next week.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

—Jesus, John 14.16I find it interesting that the word Jesus used to refer to the Spirit is Advocate. This is the word John uses for Jesus in 1 John 2.1:

1 John 2.1: My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

This is an intentional contrast to the word accuser (a synonym for Satan), which John purposefully uses in Revelation 12.10:

Revelation 12.10: For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

It seems quite clear that the work of “the Satan” is to accuse. The work of the Spirit and anyone who is energized by the Spirit is to be an advocate for those being accused.

I want to remind you of the story John also tells in John 8 about a woman who, he says, was caught “in the very act” of adultery. Pay close attention to the contrast between the role of the Pharisees in railing against this woman and the gentle but firm role Jesus plays by kneeling down alongside the naked woman and drawing attention away from her to what he was drawing in the sand. (We have no idea what it really was; if it were important, John would have told us.) Then Jesus speaks the words, “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.” Stop for a moment and ask yourself what is going on.

It’s the oldest phenomenon in human social history. The Romans are oppressing Israel. Any time people are oppressed they grow hungry for the sense of identity that has been stripped from them. They reach out for something to give them value in spite of the dehumanization they have experienced from their oppressors. They grasp for something that will give them worth. The earliest established way for humans to do this is to find a scapegoat. A scapegoat is someone to blame, someone to attack as a common problem, some individual or group that being against will bring unity a sense of identity, and restored meaning to their existence—a group that the community would be better off without. In Jesus’s day, there was a religious group called the Pharisees that was doing this very thing to people they labeled as living “outside the Torah.” The Jews who were not following the teachings of Moses were supposedly the root cause of the oppression they were under by the Romans. And what was the label that the Pharisees gave to these Jews who were not living lives in harmony with the laws of Moses? They called them “sinners.”

Matthew 9.11: When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Luke 7.39: When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Luke 15.1–2: Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Luke 19.7: All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

Notice they did not use the word sinner the way we do today. But what I also want you to notice is what Jesus was doing that made the Pharisees so upset. Jesus was coming alongside of and advocating for those the Pharisees were endeavoring to rally Israel around as a scapegoat for their humiliating subjugation to Rome.

With the woman caught in adultery, it was the same way. “Are you going to side with us, the followers of the laws of Moses, and stone this woman, or are you going to side with the empire of Rome?” But Jesus chose a third party to come alongside of. He knelt down beside the “sinner,” the “scapegoat,” the ones being marginalized and blamed by the religious leaders of that day.

Is it any different today? Recently I was reminded of the accusing words of Jerry Falwell shortly after 9/11:

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

Pat Robertson concurred at that moment, but since then both have regretted saying this.

I raise this awful memory not as an accusation against these two fellows in the slightest but as a simple example of how easy it is for all Christians to adopt this type of scapegoating mentality. As uncomfortable as it is, we must realize that this is not something done only by Pat and Jerry, but something that too often is done, almost intuitively, by all Christians, myself included.

Just this past summer, at one of the events I was speaking at and also on Twitter and Facebook, I periodically shared one or two sentences about how we, as followers of Jesus, are called to come alongside the marginalized today and like Jesus to be advocates for the ones that others are demanding should be stoned. I said this is true even if the people we are coming alongside of are those society has labeled as LGBT. You would have thought I had committed the unpardonable sin! But is it any different? I’m also reminded this week of Tony Campolo’s words, which I believe are relevant.

“You don’t have to legitimize somebody’s lifestyle to love that person, to be brother or sister to that person, and to stand up for that person.”

—Tony Campolo in Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, 2008

But even this, for too many people, goes too far.

Too many Christians today feel they have to choose between the rules and the value of people Jesus died for. I don’t personally believe those two are always necessarily mutually exclusive. But in moments when they do become mutually exclusive, it is quite a paradigm shift to realize that when Jesus did have to choose between the two, he always chose affirming the value of people over protecting the rules (see John 8.1–11; Luke 8.40–47; Acts 10.28), and that is what got him murdered (see John 11.50).

Jesus walked the earth in the radical, extravagant, “dangerous” favor of God. He practiced a boundary-pushing, law-challenging, line-crossing, Pharisee-infuriating, radical favor and inclusivity. And the question we have to answer is, “Do we?”

In our day we could talk about any number of marginalized groups, some of which are being marginalized by Americanized, Westernized Christianity. But in light of the phenomenon of scapegoating, the work of the Satan as an accuser, and the work of the Spirit as an advocate, which of the marginalized is Jesus asking you to come along beside and be an advocate for today?

HeartGroup Application

1.I want you to ponder this week how Jesus was an Advocate for those living outside the laws of Moses in light of these two texts:

John 14.9–10: Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

John 5.19: Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

2.Write down what this means to you to actually begin seeing the Father as the greatest Advocate for “sinners” against the spirit of the Accuser anytime it rears its ugly head. What does it do inside of you to see the Father as coming alongside you to defend you against your accusers? And lastly write down any changes this causes you to want to make in your own life as you allow the three Advocates we have (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) to use your life as a conduit to be an advocate for those being marginalized and scapegoated in our society today.

3.Discuss openly and respectfully with your HeartGroup what each of you wrote down, and then covenant together to become a group that is characterized by being advocates for “sinners” rather than accusers.

Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns, keep enlarging Christ’s Kingdom in the here and in the now. Come, Lord Jesus! Long live the revolution!

I love you guys,

We’ll see you next week.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.—Jesus (Matthew 5.5, emphasis added.)This week, I want to look at an emphasis in the teachings of Jesus that many miss today. Today, those who bear Christ’s name (Christians) are known largely (Praise God for the few exceptions.) as being focused on getting their ticket to heaven so that they can “get out of here.” They sing, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” What we have to realize, however, is that this mindset is strangely absent from the

Jesus story itself and the Jesus that we find in that story. We must allow this absence to confront us.

Ponder the following three passages and notice their emphasis.

“You are the salt of THE EARTH. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” —Matthew 5.13

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven.” —Matthew 6.10

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit THE EARTH.”—Matthew 5.5 (In modern preaching, we find ministers bellowing from their pulpits, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit Heaven. This is a subtle departure from the early church that began with the introduction of Gnosticism, what some call, “Christian history’s first heresy to burn through the church.” Gnosticism, for those who have studied this early phenomenon, is an unhealthy preoccupation with escaping Earth and getting to heaven.)

What we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that Jesus was not focused on getting people out of this place to some far distant heaven. Instead, Jesus was focused on bringing the far distant Heaven (in the mind’s eye of people) very close, bringing it to Earth. In other words, Jesus wasn’t focused on getting people to heaven, but instead on bringing heaven to people.

This traces back to the ancient Hebrew Genesis narrative itself.

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” —Genesis 1.26

God, according to the Hebrew narrative, made this Earth and gave it to us as our original home, which we lost to God’s enemy:

“The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me [by humanity in the beginning], and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” —Luke 4.5-7

Jesus also repeatedly refers to God’s enemy as the “ruler of this world.” — (John 12.31; John 14.30; John 16.11) Jesus saw his mission as being to save us and our home here from the enemy’s oppressive reign. He sought to restore us and our home, once again, to the original Kingship of Christ (see Colossians 1.13).

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All AUTHORITY in heaven and on earth has been GIVEN to ME. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations . . .” —Matthew 28.18-19 (Notice that Jesus is quoting the devil from the wilderness, saying that through his death and resurrection all that the enemy claimed as his own Jesus had won back and given back to us. See also Luke 11.21, 22)

John too ends his climax of canonical prophecy with God, not taking us to some Heaven to spend eternity with Him, but rather the breathtaking picture of God coming HERE to spend eternity WITH US!

“I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’.” —Revelation 21.2-3

Again, Jesus, contrary to many who bear his name today, lived in the headspace of bringing Heaven to Earth, not getting those from Earth to some Heaven beyond.

Now, I also want to address a rumor that is circulating about myself personally and RHM. It is usually not my policy to track down and correct every rumor that circulates about me. Typically, I simply let rumors and those who spread them run their course and let honest thinking people think things through with the hope that they would talk with me (rather than about me) if they have questions. Some today are saying, “Herb doesn’t believe in Heaven!” Nothing could be further from the truth. I absolutely believe in Heaven. However, I do not believe that Jesus teaches us to call Heaven our home. Being a Jesus follower, if we are actually going to follow the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this means being about restoration rather than relocation.

Now, some Christians today believe that we will spend some time in Heaven at some stage of the process of our transition from this present evil age to the age to come (Galatians 1.4; Ephesians 1.21). Also, it must be noted, that there are followers of Jesus who hold to an eschatology that doesn’t even include ever going to Heaven, but that when Jesus returns here to this earth, it will be to reign here, and for his followers to reign with him. Nevertheless, for this week, I want to address those who believe that we will spend some time in Heaven at some point. There are some differences among the beliefs in modern Christianity about our potential time in “Heaven.”

1) Some believe we go to Heaven at death, and when Jesus returns, he is only to coming back to pick everyone up down here still living and take them to heaven also so that we all together can spend eternity there, in heaven, with him. This is the headspace of

“This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through” that finds absolutely no resonating notes in the Jesus story itself, in my opinion.

2) Some of them believe that the time we spend in Heaven will be between death and His return, BUT that when Jesus returns, we will all spend eternity, ultimately here on Earth in an Earth made new.

3) Others believe that death is a sort of “sleep,” waiting on a future resurrection (Martin Luther as well as some Anabaptists, such as Michael Sattler, believed this in the sixteenth century.) at Jesus return. We will then spend a temporary time in Heaven (not everyone believed this part in the sixteenth century) until a third return of Jesus to this Earth to spend eternity on this Earth in an Earth made new.

I want to address the second and third view above. Regardless of which of the two views you hold to above, in regards to my point this week, it’s mute (again, I will add, that for option 1, I can’t find any evidence for this view, in it’s entirety, anywhere in the New Testament). In BOTH 2 and 3, whichever of those two some may hold, I want those who believe this to notice; our potential time in Heaven, even if we do go there at some point, is ONLY TEMPORARY. Stop and think about this. Your time here on EARTH is not temporary. THIS is your home. We lost it to God’s enemy, and Jesus rescued it back for us. (Revelation 12.10, 11.15) Even if we do, at some point, spend some portion of time in Heaven, our time IN HEAVEN is TEMPORARY. There, we will sing in Heaven (for those who believe we will spent some portion there), “This place [heaven] is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” We are going to be spending eternity HERE! (Revelation 21.2-3)

So, as a follower of Jesus, we should not be living as if “this world is not my home.” We can begin by simply no longer saying the statement, “we are just passing through.” This world IS our home. We have a lot of work to do yet. God’s will is not being done ON EARTH as it’s done in heaven, yet. We are called to put on display what life on this Earth, under the Kingship of Jesus does look like. It is the Bar Enasha (new humanity founded in Jesus) that we talked about last week. It is what Jesus called “the Kingdom”, which Jesus commands us to proclaim, “has come!”

HeartGroup Application

1. This week I want you to ponder the following two texts:

“And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and TO HEAL THE SICK.”—Luke 9.2

We live in a SICK world, and as a Jesus follower, our first concern should not be to leave this world behind, but to bring healing to our sick world around us. Jesus gave us a way to be conduits of healing to this world, and we are to be about setting in motion that healing. We must be about restoration, not relocation.

In addition, this verse:

“I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.”—Philippians 1.23-26

Some view this verse as saying Paul was faced with dying and going to Heaven or that Paul was offered translation like the Hebrew Patriarch Enoch or the Hebrew Prophet Elijah. Regardless, I want you to notice Paul’s headspace, 1) To relocate and be with Jesus or 2) to remain here and continue in the ministry of restoration. Which did Paul choose?

2) Write down any perceptions, thoughts, feelings, or paradigm shifts Jesus gives you during your time meditating on these texts.

3) Be prepared to share and discuss openly and respectfully any of your insights this coming week with your HeartGroup together.

In short, this world IS our home. We are NOT just passing through. We are here to stay. Even if we do spend some time in the future elsewhere, it will be that location that we will “just be passing through.” We are spending eternity here. Eternity starts now! The Kingdom has come! This Kingdom, which is a radical new way of doing life, is based on a radical new way of seeing God (His character), ourselves, and others. We are called to put on display what the “age to come” (Ephesians 1.21) looks like in the here and now! We are called to be like weeds (We’ll talk more about this later.) in a garden, subversively crowding out, with one heart at a time, this “present evil age.” (Luke 13.19; Galatians 1.4)

Much to think about for sure.

Keep living in love and loving like Christ. Now go enlarge the Kingdom.

I love you guys. See you next week.