biblical roadmaps

Jeremiah 33:14-16

For Sunday, November 29, 2009

First Sunday of Advent (starting Year C)

““ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’”

(Jeremiah 33:14–16 NIV)

Passages like this are fascinating because to be understood they point to the need for a roadmap for understanding the Bible as a whole. The context here is this: the kingly line of David had been cut off leaving only the stump of a tree. Yet a shoot would spring forth from that stump and grow to provide eternal and enduring refuge for God's people. Most if not all Christians agree that the shoot is Messiah, and that Messiah is Jesus.

What we don't all agree on is what Jeremiah had in mind when he says, "Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety." Is this a promise already fulfilled when the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Persian King Cyrus? Or is it a promise being fulfilled in our own day with the establishment of the modern State of Israel? Or is it a future promise, and if so, is it to be fulfilled with reference to the nation-state of Israel, or with regard to the church as spiritual Israel?

There is a wonderful chart and article in Wikipedia to help you determine whose roadmap you want to use. The chart appears at the beginning of this post.

The article contains a good summary of a number of hermeneutical roadmaps of the Bible. They are:

• Supersessionist
• Covenant Theology
• Kingdom-Dominion Theology
• Dispensational
• Allegorical

The two that I find most compelling are Covenant Theology and Kingdom-Dominion Theology. Between these two I find Kingdom-Dominion Theology most persuasive. It suggests that the incarnation of Christ is the center point of all of history and that the overarching theme of Scripture is the Kingdom of God, meaning the establishment of God's rule over God's people in God's place.

Here is how this roadmap makes sense of passages such as Jeremiah 33:

In the New Testament, God's rule is exercised through Jesus Christ the King, who is also the "temple" of God (John 2:19-21), over his people the Church (of which Israel was a type). Salvation for all people in all times is found by trusting (explicitly or implicitly) in Jesus. Thus, Abraham, Moses, David, and all Christians today are saved by the same faith. The Jews are regarded as special in God's plan (as in Romans and Ephesians) and yet the Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel find their fulfillment in Jesus and the Church rather than in a literal restoration of Israel.^[1]

If you haven't already chosen a biblical roadmap for yourself, let this be the week that you pick one by which to navigate your understanding of Scripture as well as the very trajectory of your own life. A secular culture which has lost its way as well as its very belief in a destination desperately needs people who know where they are going and what to expect along the way.

understanding the times

William Blake, "The Ancient of Days"

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

Proper 29

For Sunday, November 22, 2009

One of this week's readings, albeit an alternate one, is Daniel Chapter 7. I've always found the Book of Daniel intriguing. It offers what appears to be a scheme for interpreting history. There are four beasts - a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a fourth terrifying beast with ten horns.

The first three beasts appear to correspond with three historical empires: the lion being Babylon, the bear being Persia, and the leopard being Greece under Alexander the Great. Much speculation has gone into the identity of the fourth beast. It has often been thought of as Rome and the continuation of the spirit of Rome, which is often thought to include the contemporary West.

Stepping back for a moment from the details, in which it is so easy to lose sight of the forest for the sake of the trees, what's really the point? It is what we read in vv. 13-14:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

All of us long deep down for something secure to which we can anchor our lives. Some of us devote ourselves to our careers. Some of us pour ourselves into an avocation. Some of us buy gold.

The "one like the Son of Man" is Jesus and "the Ancient of Days" is his Father. Jesus has been given authority, glory, and sovereign power. If we want to anchor our lives to something truly enduring then it is going to have to be him. For his is the only dominion which is everlasting and his the only kingdom that will never be destroyed. If not even Babylon, Persia, Greece, nor Rome could endure, in what else are we going to put our hope? The U.S. Dollar?

Ask yourself this: "To what am I anchoring my life, ... really?" If it is to anything other than Jesus Christ, then your spiritual GPS is currently chirping, "You have deviated from route. Would you like to recalculate?" How will you answer?

the millenial maze

1 Thes. 5:1-11
For Sunday, November 16, 2008
Proper 28

One of the great things about a pre-set reading and worship plan is that one encounters texts to which current priorities wouldn't draw attention. 1 Thes. 5:1-11 is one of these. I think many evangelicals would avoid preaching on this chapter because of its connection to the notion of the Rapture as conceived by dispenstational eschatology (study of end times). Eschatology was... so 70's and Hal Lindsay. Let's just move on, shall we?

The contemporary evangelical church tends to put eschatology on the shelf. This is a mistake. If we as a people don't have a sense of where we're going we'll soon lose sense of who we are. Regardless of whether one's eschatology is pre-millenial, dispensational, post-millenial, or amillenial, it's vital that we understand ourselves to be a kingdom people on our way to a heavenly kingdom in which all the present injustices and wrongs will be made right. If we lose this then our salt loses its saltiness and our light gets hidden under a bushel.

My own thinking on eschatology has changed over the years. In seminary I was a committed pre-millenialist although not of a dispensational bent. However, further reading and reflection on the book of Revelation as well as its connection to key Old Testament and New Testament scriptures has led me to a current position of amillenialism. I think its important for each of us to know where we stand and why. It's not nearly as important for all of us to agree.

This is the conclusion theologian Stanley Grenz reaches in his wonderful book "The Millenial Maze". If you want some help navigating your way through the important question of eschatology, Grenz is a wonderful guide. He concludes his book with this:

The eternal reign of God has dawned . . . and will one day dawn in its consummated fullness. The God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ will one day bring us into full participation in the grand eschatological community of his divine reign. This is the vision that should inspire us in this in-between era to seek to be a kingdom people now and to proclaim now in word and deed the good news of the coming eternal reign of God. . . Will we as the church be motivated by the vision of God's ultimate future to be about the Lord's business in the present era until Christ comes in glory and splendor?