Love before the dawn of time

How are we loved before we are created?

God foreknew person X would come to be and loved him?

or is a more appropriate answer is corporate and relational
i.e. God loves Christ
and loves anyone in Christ and through Christ
- which works for both those in the image of the image (humanity), and in the image (Christians)

why does my father love my son? because my son is his grandson
where does his love for his grandson lie before my son is born?
in me

this is true 'corporate' thinking.... and does not take anything away from persons

One

5 days on Ephesians - mainly chapters 1 till mid 5 - to 13-18 year olds
(just a note - Singaporean 15 year olds are very well behaved and pretty educated.. =) )

Theme: One Lord, One Love, One Family

Excuse my Singaporean-ese and you can obviously tell that it isn't scripted - so have mercy on my countless repetitions or hesitations

One Plan

One Hope

One Family

One Bond, One Body

One Bond, One Purpose

Let me know what you think...

What's the Difference?

Ultimately, as we get more Trinitarian and 'eternal' in our theology..

we should be mapping every aspect of Christian life and mechanics to the unchanging dynamics and character of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as they have always interacted with each Other

But yet not everything is the same....

there is one other element to add in that is different from what has been happening in eternity

The Cross (meaning from incarnation to ascension)

The Cross is necessary because when God created - creation was outside Himself, as in creation is separate from Him
And so He goes into creation to bring it back to Him

We can summarise all of creation into 1 being - Adam

Adam (the fullness of created things) is apart from the Other Being - Christ (in which is the fullness of Deity)

Adam first must break, then Christ comes into Adam, then Christ must break, then Adam comes into Christ

now then we are back to eternal Trinitarian dynamics - church incorporated

what ever is 'left over' is thrown away... a strange new dynamic of eternal sinfulness

Sovereignty of God (2)

Further attempts to go a little deeper into God's Sovereignty:

So then...

Here's a question, can one go against the will of God?

See.. both yes and no answers have problems
if yes - you imply God is not sovereign
if no - you imply there is no 'free will' (at least at some level)
therefore current theologians want to insist that there is tension between the 2

tension cannot be the state of the living God - He is definitely not tense
the theologians are

anyway,
let's review it with Christ in mind

the Sovereign Will of God has to be Christ-centered and Christ-focused
therefore what is the will of God?
let's take a few:
1. To glorify Christ
- this is done through Christ's obedience

2. To perfect Christ (cf Heb)
- this is done through Christ's obedience

3. To save the world - so that Christ will have a bride
- this is done through Christ's obedience

So then - the will of God is for the sake of Christ ALONE in the major sense
and accomplished through Christ ALONE
what else would you expect?

So what does that mean?

If I say I can reject or cannot reject the will of God - I take Christ out of the picture - in some sense it is a meaningless question, with no correct answer found in Scripture
there is no will of God for me ALONE

Since the will of God is only for Christ through Christ
so can I thwart those 3 points above? no.. of course not - Christ has been obedient
can I not reject the will of God? - again a bit meaningless here.. it's not really about you

Yet when I join into Christ - the will of God is fulfilled:
1. glorify Christ - yes you glorify Christ by trusting Christ
2. perfecting Christ - yes you now are making up the new body of Christ through death
3. saving the world - yes you are saved and are now His bride

let's take it down to me personally :
In Christ - His will for ME is :
1. to conform me into the image of His likeness - which glorifies me (cf John 17), perfects me, and saves me (past, present and future tense)
2. this was foreknown - God ordained it from before the beginning of the world
3. this was predestined - God carried it out - through His Son (note here that predestination only makes sense when the Father trusts His Son)

When I am not doing things in Christ, that is against the Spirit
then I am 'outside' His will for Christ - i.e. I am in the 'curses' zone (cf Abraham)

I am not 'against' His will either - because again:
- He predestined those outside of Christ to go to the place of judgment
- He will still glorify, perfect and have a bride for Christ
- It's just it will be done without me included in the blessings, but in the curses for the same purposes

so the Christological question is not whether I can defy the will of God
but rather whether I am in Christ, so am I part of His will in Christ, done by Christ and present-continuously, am being part of His will - so I pray "let thy will be done" or "not my will, but your will"

then there really is no tension
God, and those in Christ, can relax....

The Returning Word

Here's a thought experiment into some Barthian theology of Scripture..
not even sure what I make of it myself

Barth, if I understand, explains that the Scriptures 'become' the Word of God through 'personal encounter' with Jesus, via the Spirit

I wonder then if we can continue - is then the written Word a temporary thing, like the old covenant, designed to pass away?

The Word must go out, and it is not designed to stay out, but to return, and so the written Word is temporary, and must fade - it must enter the hearts and minds of men, and continue it's outgoing, creative work

Then once accomplished, it will return to the Source, the Father, where it performs its incoming, restive work... bringing the lives of those it has made with it

so then the actual book.. unlike certain other religious theologies.. is hardly eternal, but inherently old...

what do you think?
just a flight of fancy..

Trinitarian Church Dynamics

From "The Other Six Days - Paul Stevens"

A fully trinitarian approach is needed, since the identity and ministry of the laos are shaped by the God whose people we are. God has called out “a laos for himself” (Acts 15:14) or as the King James Version puts it, “a people for his name.” If the identity of the laos comes from the Trinity, the vocation of the laos also comes from the triune God. In this way both the being and the doing, both the identity and the vocation, of the laos will be considered.

Trinitarian Ministry

The ministry of the laos is not generated exclusively by the people, whether from duty or gratitude. All ministry is God’s ministry. God’s ministry continues through his people. This ministry begins not when we join the church to help do God’s work but when we join God (John 1:12) and have “fellowship . . . with the Father and with his Son” (1 John 1:3). Laos ministry is participation in the ingoing ministry of God (Father, Son and Spirit) and simultaneously participation in the outgoing (sending) ministry of God. “As you sent me into the world,” said Jesus, “I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). On the first (the ingoing), God is “lover, the beloved and the love itself,” as Jürgen Moltmann puts it (p. 32). On the second, God is sender, sent and the sending.

_____________________

To this rich understanding of peoplehood and ministry each of the three persons of the Godhead contributes. The Father creates, providentially sustains and forms a covenantal framework for all existence. The Son incarnates, transfigures and redeems. The Spirit empowers and fills with God’s own presence. But each shares-coinheres interpenetrates, cooperates-in the others so that it is theologically inappropriate to stereotype the ministry of any one. But that is exactly what happens.

Christians tend to “play favorites” when it comes to describing peoplehood and ministry. For order, providence and sustaining the structures of society we appeal to the Father. The Son is associated with redemption and winning the lost. The Holy Spirit is the focus of those seeking renewal, empowering charisms and direct religious experience. Churches and denominations tend to form around one of the three: Father denominations emphasize reverent worship and stewardship. Son denominations stress discipleship and evangelism, thus furthering the work of the kingdom of God. Spirit denominations promote spiritual gifts and graces.

A rich and full doctrine of the Trinity avoids such stereotyping. God is more than the sum of the Three. God is not God apart from the way the Father, Son and Holy Spirit give and receive from each other what they essentially are. “One God”-the primary confession of Islam-is ironically the Christian’s deepest praise. We affirm that God is more One because God is Three. The laos too does not have a “mashed potato” unity, as is sometimes alleged, but a rich social unity in which each member becomes more himself or herself through experiencing an out-of-oneself (ek-static) community life. Unity is not the means to the end-a practical necessity to get the church’s work done. Unity is the end, the goal, the ministry itself (John 17:22; Ephes. 1:10; Ephes. 4:13). To be laos then is not merely to be a bouquet of Christians or a cluster of saints. To be laos means to be simultaneously communal and personal. In the long history of trinitarian reflection, this supreme idea of the personal and interpersonal within God forms the true basis for the identity and vocation of the God-imaging people.

Implications for Laypeople

The implications of this for peoplehood are substantial. Being laos means that members of Christ coinhere, interanimate and pour life into one another without coalescence or merger. The Greek church fathers spoke of this as pericho4re4sis, mutual indwelling within God as a model for mutuality in the people of God. It means belonging communally without being communistic or being a collective. Moreover, and pertinent to the clergy-lay dilemma, being a perichoretic people means being a community without hierarchy. The community of Father, Son and Spirit finds its earthly reflection “not in the autocracy of a single ruler but in the democratic community of free people, not in the lordship of man over the woman but in their equal mutuality, not in an ecclesiastical hierarchy but in a fellowship church” (Moltmann, p. viii). Such a community can have leadership and diversity without hierarchy; it can be a community without superiors and subordinates; it can be a church without laity or clergy-in the usual sense of these terms. Three conclusions may be drawn from this.

First, there is no such thing as an individual layperson. If, as I have proposed above, we live out the Christian life interdependently, the individual Christian is an oxymoron. Consistent with the Old Testament, the saints in Paul’s letters are really a unit. The saints are the church, which is the body of Christ. Believers are held together in what can be conceived as a corporate, inclusive personality. It is biblically inconceivable for a person to be a believer in Christ and not be a member of this community. John Wesley once observed that the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion. The believer’s identity is corporate as well as individual. In Christ we can say, “I am us!” Whereas the basic unit of the church is the individual member, for Paul the basic uniqueness of the individual arises from his or her membership in the church.

Second, there is no hierarchy of ministries. In his seminal work on the theology of the laity Hendrik Kraemer says, “All members of the ecclesia have in principle the same calling, responsibility and dignity, have their part in the apostolic and ministerial nature and calling of the church” (p. 160). Incarnating our loving submission to Christ’s lordship in every arena of life precludes saying that certain tasks are in themselves holy and others are sacred. Laos theology is concerned not only about the work of the ministry but also about the ministry of work. William Tyndale, the English Reformer, was considered heretical and executed for teaching, among other things, that “there is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a souter [cobbler], or an apostle, all are one, as touching the deed, to please God” (p. 98).

Third, supported Christian ministry is not the vocation of vocations but merely one way of responding to the single call that comes to all (Ephes. 4:1). Most expositions about ministry are magnetically attracted to the supreme place of the ordained professional as the minister-par-excellence. It is small wonder that laypersons aspiring to ministry attempt to become amateur clergypersons or paraclergy. There is some reason for this. Work in the church is strategic because the church is the prototype community and the outcropping of the kingdom of God, but work in the church is important only in view of what its members will be and do in society. Church leadership must be evaluated not in terms of its priestly character but by whether the saints are equipped for the work of the ministry seven days a week (Ephes. 4:11-12).

Amazing Grace

Here is my lame attempt at a talk on this topic..

it's a raw recording
i have no idea how to edit it

or any desire to do so =)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mydtzz5ho5g/45min - Amazing Grace.WMA

me ripping off Venning, Edwards, Scrivener, Reeves, Virgo, Newton, etc...