Islam In Africa

Of all the nations on earth, Indonesia has the largest number of Muslims. About 86% of Indonesia (nearly 200,000,000 people) claim to follow Islam.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of studying the history and culture of Indonesia as part of my studies at Bakke Graduate University. I spent ten days in that country with Ray Bakke and about a dozen other graduate students. During our stay, Ray pointed out that Islam did not come to Indonesia through Muslim clerics. It came via business and trade.

Michael Baer, in Business As Mission, writes: “I once asked an Indonesian Christian why the country had become so predominantly Muslim…She said that when the Western Christians came...they built missionary compounds and missionary churches and expected the Indonesian people to come to them. The Muslims, on the other hand, came as traders, farmers, merchants, and businesspeople and simply lived among the natives.”

Dr. Darrell Furgason, an expert in Islamic studies, says: “In places like Africa and Indonesia, the church has been intellectually crippled, with one hand tied behind its back. Western missionaries generally brought the Gospel in the way they learned it, as a purely soul-saving faith, with no real bearing on anything else—religion was a mostly personal matter, nothing to do with things like politics, science, law, economics….African people were given the Gospel, but not how to build a righteous nation, how to apply Christianity to everything….Muslims see their faith as all-encompassing…”

This leads me to follow-up on last week's post about what I learned from African educators earlier this month.

You see, while I was in Indonesia, one of my fellow doctoral students was an African by the name of Aila Tasse. Aila told me of the spread of Islam in Africa via business. His comment to me was: "The Muslims are winning."

When I returned home from Indonesia, I called Aila by phone and asked permission to record his comments for the benefit of others who need to know what is going on.

While in Kenya just a few weeks ago, I played Aila's comments for African leaders from Uganda, Nigeria and Sudan, and I asked if they concurred with Aila's report. Without hesitation, they all replied: "Yes! Absolutely! He is 100% correct!"

I urge you to take 2 minutes and 49 seconds to listen to Aila for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJppIj-Fnmc

Continued...

African Reformation?

Educators from Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon and other African nations came together April 1-4 in Kenya to focus on Christian education.

We met at the International Christian Educators Conference organized by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), where I was invited to teach on the topic of biblical worldview integration.

One leader said that what he hears most from African Christian educators are: "What is a biblical worldview?" and "How do we teach Christianly?"

This same African leader said: "Africans have understood the Gospel of Salvation, but not the Gospel of the Kingdom."

Biblical worldview, the Gospel of the Kingdom, and "teaching Christianly" are closely linked. Why? Because an understanding of biblical worldview opens up an understanding of the Gospel of the Kingdom, which in turn motivates discerning educators to "teach Christianly."

What is the difference between the Gospel of Salvation and the Gospel of the Kingdom?

The Gospel of Salvation helps people understand how to become born-again believers through faith in Christ's sacrificial death on the cross. Through this door we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus, and we can know we will go to heaven when we die.

This is critically important. But the Gospel of the Kingdom helps us to understand what the door of personal salvation leads to. We are not just saved from something, but saved for something!

Actually, the Gospel of Salvation is part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. There is only one Gospel. But personal salvation is not the whole picture. The Kingdom is much bigger.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is about the on-going life of Christ being lived out through the work-lives, civil-lives, and relational-lives of His redeemed people in the here-and-now, as well as in the then-and-forever.

This is what African educators are seeing. The African Christian school movement is burgeoning, not only in numbers, but in the vision of what distinctly Christian education can be.

Many African leaders see distinctly Christian education as a means of enabling the next generation to seamlessly integrate the all-encompassing biblical worldview into the totality of their social, economic, and civic lives.

This is the most hopeful thing I have seen in a long time.

Is this part of an African reformation? African Christian educators are smelling it. They want to carry the life-giving power of Christianity beyond the saving of souls to the transformation of nations.

Continued...

He Flew Into The Presence Of The Lord

Last week, the soul of Dr. Albert E. Greene took flight from his 93-year-old body and he flew into the presence of the Lord.
Apart from the influence of Dr. Albert Greene on my life, it is safe to say I would not be doing what I am doing today, helping people to grasp the meaning and significance of a biblical worldview.

Apart from Dr. Greene, I doubt if I would have come to understand the breadth and depth of that treasure myself.

I first came to know this gentle giant of a man in 1959, as a 5th grade student at Bellevue Christian School, which Dr. Greene founded in 1950, and where he served as Principal and then Superintendent for many years.

In 1979, I took the role of Principal in a Christian school myself. To sharpen my understanding of what Christian education is supposed to be, I took graduate level courses in the philosophy of Christian education from Dr. Greene, who was then teaching part-time at Seattle Pacific University.

It was during this time that he asked me to stop calling him "Dr. Greene," and to just call him "Al." It was something I found extremely difficult, and never did feel comfortable doing.

It was through Al that the "worldview puzzle" fell together for me. I can tell you what room I was in on the day Al talked about the myth of the "secular world." I remember coming up to him after his talk, and sheepishly asking, "Are you saying the 'secular world' doesn't exist?"

I can still hear the inflection of his voice, as he simply stated, "It really doesn't." You could have knocked me over with a puff.

Al was one of the most intelligent men I have ever known. Yet, at the same time, he was one of the most humble men I have ever known. I was mentored as much by his kind spirit as by his brilliant mind.

The last visit my wife and I had with Al was a year and a half ago. His mind was sharp. As always, he suggested more books for me to read, as was captured in the photo that accompanies today's post below. Al's care-giver, Michelle Taylor, snapped this picture on that day.

Thank you, Dr. Greene, for mentoring me, and for your priceless encouragement and faithful support over these many years.

We'll talk again, my friend.

My wife, Kathy, and I, with Al about a year before he passed through the veil.

It Happens Every Summer

I believe any legitimate job can have extraordinary meaning when it is aligned with a biblical worldview.

This is why worldview matters, and why I believe it is critically important to understand how our work can be aligned with a biblical worldview.

The process starts with an understanding of what a biblical worldview is. Therefore, any effort and time we spend bringing a biblical worldview into focus is time and effort well spent.

While it is never too late to learn, it makes sense to get some worldview training as a young person, before entering the workforce. The problem is, few schools offer courses in biblical worldview.

Self-study is one way to learn about biblical worldview, but most young people are not likely to do this until they develop an internal motivation along these lines. Gaining that initial motivation is the real challenge.

One way for a young person to gain such a motivation is to spend some time with a group of other young people who are focusing together on biblical worldview training--and enjoying it.

But where does this happen?

It happens every summer, during 2-week summer camps for students hosted by Summit Ministries.

I can vouch for this program because my wife and I spent two weeks at one of their student summer camps about ten years ago. We wanted to get an "inside picture" of what the Summit program is all about, so we asked if we could come as participants, even though we were long past the target age. We were kindly allowed to participate.

My friend, John Stonestreet, the Director of Summit Ministries, is one of the most able teachers of biblical worldview I know, and is particularly apt at connecting with young people. Many other nationally-recognized experts in biblical worldview come to the Summit summer camps as guest speakers.

While most readers of this blog are already through school, I suspect you know of students who would benefit greatly by a 2-week focus on biblical worldview. This summer, camps are being held in Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Here is the link to the Student Summer Conferences: http://www.summit.org/conferences/student/
The application is downloaded from there.

I encourage you to pass this information on to students you know who are of high school or college age.

By the way, Summit also hosts worldview training conferences for adults. See http://www.summit.org/conferences/adult/

What Makes A "Good" Job "Good?"

What makes a "good" job "good?"

Pay is not the most important factor for most people. Of course, having a job that doesn't pay enough for basic necessities is a problem. But pay alone does not determine whether a person feels the job he or she has is a "good" one.

Matching one's strengths and abilities with one's work is a factor. Booker T. Washington, who was George Washington Carver's boss at Tuskegee Institute, remarked that Carver was a poor administrator. It would have been a mistake for Booker T. Washington to have "promoted" Carver to an administrative role. His best fit was in the lab.

But is it possible for a person to have a job that matches one's strengths and yet still not feel he or she has a "good" job?" Yes. Other factors come into play.

One of the biggest factors is meaning. Working with no sense of meaning can be drudgery, even if the job fits one's strengths. Making progress at work (although this is a vital factor in job enthusiasm), may not be enough either. Making progress toward something that has meaning, however, is another kettle of fish.

The big question then becomes, "How can work have meaning?"

Bonnie Wurzbacher, former Vice-President of Global Accounts for The Coca-Cola Company, once told me, "we don't find meaning in our work, we bring meaning to our work." This is a profound truth. She went on to say, that until she understood  

Carver's work had meaning because he brought meaning to it. He understood what the biblical worldview is about, and how his work fit into it.

The amazing thing is, a biblical worldview provides as much meaning for the work of retail clerks and taxi cab drivers as it does for chemists and college professors.

This is why worldview matters. Hear Bonnie's comments in the video below:

 

One Of The Single Biggest Discoveries Gallup Has Ever Made

Gallup's "World Poll" was the first of its kind. No one had ever created a poll that covered almost every issue on the globe, with questions that were applicable to every culture.

There is a lot of data out there that shows what men and women are doing around the world, but Gallup wanted to find out what men and women around the world are thinking. Gallup could not find such a poll, so they made one.

Gallup scientists created a questionnaire that was translated into dozens of languages, and they collected data from over 100 countries. The Gallup organization is committed to conducting this poll for 100 years.

After the first World Poll was completed in 2007, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, wrote of this project: "...we many have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact." He went on to identify this fact as, "one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made."

What was Gallup's great discovery?

Clifton summarized it this way: "What the whole world wants is a good job."

Clifton wrote these words before we entered the world-wide recession we are now experiencing: "If you and I were walking down the street in Khartoum, Tehran, Berlin, Lima, Los Angeles, Baghdad, Kolkata, or Istanbul, we would discover that on most days, the single most dominant thought carried around in the heads of most people you and I see is 'I want a good job.'"

I found Clifton's report fascinating. It says something about people, in all parts of the globe, throughout all cultures. Muslims, Christians, atheists, Jews, black, white, communists and capitalists. It says something about how we are wired. We have a common felt need. That felt need is to be working, and to be working in a "good" job.

But what makes a particular job “good?” Is it the pay? The people we work with? The compatibility of our work with our particular gifts and talents, doing what we want to do? These are important factors, but it is possible to have excellent pay, great people to work with, a very fitting job compatibility, and yet still lack that "something" which makes a particular job a “good” one.

What is that "something?"

To answer this question, we'll turn once more to Dr. George Washington Carver. Next week.

It Boils Down To Four Words

For Dr. George Washington Carver, the purpose and meaning of work boiled down to four words.

After Carver succeeded in creating products from plants, Thomas Edison asked him to come to New Jersey and work for him. Edison offered Carver a salary equivalent in today’s economy to nearly one million dollars per year. Carver declined the offer so he could remain at Tuskegee and help the Southern farmers.

Carver started a “School on Wheels,” going out to farms so he could teach farmers how to revive cotton-tired soil by planting peanuts and sweet potatoes. He also went to his lab to create markets for these plants, inventing 300 uses for the peanut and 118 uses for the sweet potato. Carver not only revived the soil, but the economy as well.

More than twenty years after Carver’s death, Clarence Mason, director of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, said of Carver: “…I have the most profound respect and admiration for Dr. Carver because he turned away from the field in which he was most skilled and best trained [botany], to work in an area which he felt he could do the most good for the people in his community [chemistry].”

When Booker T. Washington invited Carver to come to Tuskegee Institute to teach students how to plant and harvest crops so they could be brought out of "degradation, poverty and waste," Carver replied: “I…shall be glad to cooperate with you in doing all I can through Christ who strengtheneth me to better the condition of our people.”

That is exactly what Carver did.

Through his work as a botanist-chemist, Carver loved people. At age 60 Carver wrote: “Living for others is really the Christ life after all. Oh, the satisfaction, happiness and joy one gets out of it…I know that my Redeemer lives. Thank God I love humanity; complexion doesn’t interest me one single bit.”

For Carver, it boils down to four words: Love God, love people.
Most people would agree that George Washington Carver was an extraordinary person, doing extraordinary work. But I think it is possible for any legitimate work done by any follower of Christ to be a conduit for loving God and loving people.

What do you think?

He Is Able To Look Beyond The Peanuts

Religious leaders tried to trip Jesus up one day by asking Him to identify the most important commandment. Christ replied: “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And then He added: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”

Through his work as a botanist-chemist, Dr. George Washington Carver loved God and loved people. For Carver, his work is a daily opportunity for living out his love for Christ, and for humanity.

Carver’s love for God is evidenced by the fact that he asked the Lord to give him his “orders for the day” during his morning walks through the woods. Carver continued to commune with God throughout the day, while in the lab at Tuskegee Institute creating products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans.

In doing his work as a botanist-chemist, Carver put his daily trust in the Lord. He says: “God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His. No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way of doing it are revealed to me. The method is reveled to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.”

When asked what the secret of his success was, Carver replied: “It is simple. It is found in the Bible, ‘In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.’”

At the age of 75, Carver wrote: “…if we do not take Christ seriously in our every day life, all is a failure because it is an every day affair.”

Clearly, Carver’s love for God compeled him in his daily work as a botanist-chemist. He is able to look beyond the peanuts to his love for the Lord, and this gave his work with plants extraordinary meaning, and a higher purpose beyond the plants themselves.

Carver was not only compelled by his love for God, but his love for people too, as we'll see next week.

In the meantime, here is the big question of the day: How can our daily work be a channel for loving God and loving people?

Carver Was In Full-Time Ministry

The accomplishments of Dr. George Washington Carver in the field of botany-chemistry are legendary, having developed 300 products from the peanut, and 118 from the sweet potato. The products Carver invented include printers ink, shaving cream, plastics, adhesives and much more.

But Carver only owned three patents on his many creations. Why? Because he didn't feel it was right to take money for something God gave him.

God gave him?

That's the way Carver saw it.

When he was inventing products from peanuts, Carver would go into his lab (which he called "God's Little Workshop") at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, and ask God to reveal to him the mysteries of the peanut.

Carver literally asked God why He made the peanut, and, by Carver's own testimony, God answered his prayer. Carver locked the door to his lab when he was creating things, because, as he put it, "only alone can I draw close enough to God to discover His secrets."

Carver epitomizes what it means to be a co-worker with God. In a letter written to Rev. Lyman Ward, Carver declared, "I am not interested in science or anything else that leaves God out of it."

At the age of 63, he wrote: "Man, who needed a purpose, a mission, to keep him alive, had one. He could be...God's co-worker...My purpose alone must be God's purpose...As I worked on projects which fulfilled a real human need, forces were working through me which amazed me. I would often go to sleep with an apparently insoluble problem. When I woke the answer was there."

Carver did not practice a "Sunday religion." His relationship with the Lord was an every day reality: "...all my life I have risen regularly at four o'clock and have gone into the woods and talked with God. There He gives me my orders for the day."

Carver was in full-time ministry. Not as a pastor, but as a botanist-chemist.

We'll unpack more about Carver's life next week, but in the meantime, please take a few moments to watch a short video clip about Dr. Carver, and note the way he seamlessly integrated his faith with his work:

If the video does not play, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wv4qYIyJoM

Canceled When Adam And Eve Sinned?

Some people believe that when Adam and Eve sinned, they forfeited their role as God’s representative governors over all the Earth. Like ambassadors caught in an act of treason, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden and removed from their positions as God’s delegated vice-regents over all the earth. “Earth-tending” was no longer the job description of human beings.

Was the First Commission canceled when Adam and Eve sinned?

If this is the case, then we are prisoners on a cursed planet, sent out to wander, spending our days toiling for food. Our work is no longer a way of fulfilling the role God had in mind for us when He created Adam and Eve: “Let Us make man...and let them rule…over all the earth.”

Beyond providing for our own subsistence, then, work on planet Earth could no longer have any significant purpose or meaning.

Some people believe the world (and all it contains) was given over to Satan at the point of Adam and Eve's act of disobedience.

If we embrace the idea that “the earth is the Devil’s and all it contains,” and we accept the notion that our original job description (the First Commission of Genesis 1:26-28) was rescinded at the Fall, we will have a very difficult time seeing how carpentry, software development or truck driving can be "the work of God"--unless perhaps we are building orphanages in Africa, developing software for Bible translation, or driving trucks for the Salvation Army.

I can't say exactly how or when it happened, but as a youth in my church, I picked up the idea that this planet is now Satan’s, and we are living on a sinking ship. Only the work that I would do "for eternity" had any real significance, and that didn't include things like selling shoes or processing insurance claims.

What possible significance could there be for Joe the carpenter in spending his life working for the XYZ construction company, pounding nails into 2 x 4s?

This is why, as I mentioned before, I told my mother when I was twelve years old that there were only two occupations in this life worth doing: being a pastor or a missionary.

Thank God that George Washington Carver didn't see it that way!

We'll visit him next.

More Than A Paycheck

Last week we suggested that during Jesus’ 17 years as a carpenter, He was doing the work of God, based on the idea that He always did what His Father showed Him to do, whether as a carpenter or an itinerant teacher.

At age 12 Jesus was doing "His Father's business" in Jerusalem, talking with religious leaders in the temple. When He went back home with Mary and Joseph, He continued to do what His Father showed Him to do, "growing in favor with God and man" as a carpenter.

Imagine what might happen if hundreds of millions of followers of Christ around the globe were to go to work tomorrow morning with the conscious awareness that they are doing the work of God as farmers, taxi cab drivers and bankers?

Beyond imagination?

Maybe. So, let’s bring it down to one person—or, better yet, two.

What if you and a friend were to go to work tomorrow morning with the conscious awareness that each of you are doing the work of God, no matter what kind of work you are doing (assuming you have legitimate jobs)?

If you have some difficulty seeing your work as the work of God, I'd like to suggest a helpful resource. It's a curriculum called, "More Than A Paycheck."

"More Than A Paycheck" was written with the conviction that what the work-world needs now is a different kind of stimulus package. What we need is a recovery of "farming theology," "taxi-cab theology" and "banking theology."

Since the topic of the M-TAP curriculum is work of all kinds, it is as applicable for CEOs as it is for homemakers.

"More Than A Paycheck" consists of two texts [God's Pleasure At Work and The Difference One Life Can Make] each with accompanying DVDs that illustrate and augment the text. (The video clips included in this blog are from this curriculum.)

I invite you to join with me in helping followers of Christ to engage in their work as the work of God by forming a small group to complete the “More Than A Paycheck” curriculum.

To view a brief video endorsement by Chuck Colson, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWVf4xlbM1o.

You may order the curriculum by visiting http://www.biblicalworldview.com/bookstore.html, or calling toll-free 877-624-0230.

Carpentry, Too, Is The Work Of God

Ordinarily when we think of the Spirit of God flowing through Jesus, we think of Christ raising someone from the dead, turning water into wine, or healing a blind beggar by the side of the road.

Yes, these are dramatic examples of the Kingdom “actualized,” the Good News "incarnated," and the Kingdom “come.” Clearly, they are examples of "the work of God."

But have you ever stopped to consider that Jesus spent the majority of His days on earth doing work as a carpenter/stonemason? (Some scholars think He may have done both carpentry and stonemason work. Perhaps He was a general contractor.)

So here’s the big question: Did the Kingdom "come” through Christ during His carpentry years, too? When Jesus did carpentry, was He doing the work of God?

By His own testimony, Jesus only did what His Father showed Him to do (John 5:19). Was this the case during seventeen years of doing carpentry work in the little town of Nazareth?

We don’t know much about the life of Christ during His carpentry/stonemason years. But we do know two things: Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" in Nazareth (Luke 2:52), and He spent about six times more time doing carpentry/stonemason work than He did itinerant preacher/teacher work.

It is significant that when Jesus is 30 years old, at His baptism, God the Father audibly proclaims: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:16-17).”

Think about this. Before Jesus heals a single person, or feeds 5,000, or preaches to multitudes, His Father is “well pleased” with Him.

The Father does not elaborate on what is so pleasing to Him. Certainly Christ’s character pleases Him. But I suspect He is also pleased with how Jesus spends His time and energy up to that point in life, reconciling carpentry with the will of His Father. For Jesus, carpentry, too, is the work of God.

Justin Martyr (2nd Century historian) claimed that plows made by Jesus were still in existence around the year 120 A.D. If so, Jesus must have done superior work.

But whether it was building houses or making plows, certainly Jesus found God's pleasure in His work, knowing He was doing what His Father showed Him to do: carpentry!

For me, this casts “the work of God” in refreshing light.

Two Legs Of A Marathon Runner

The Gospel of the Kingdom is Good News for both Heaven and Earth. This is not an "either-or" proposition, but a "both-and" deal.

Participating in the fullest outworking of the Great Commission [that is, participating in the joy of leading non-believers to a point of conversion, and participating in the on-going process of helping believers to observe all that Christ commanded] is like two legs of a marathon runner.

We must certainly share the Good News that Christ took our sins upon Himself at the cross for the personal salvation of human beings. People must hear that Christ died for their sins in order to believe it (Rom. 10:14).

At the same time, we must be diligent to help those who have received Christ as their personal Savior to fulfill the on-going purpose for which they are saved.

A big part of this on-going purpose involves Christ living out His life through His people in the context of their whole lives, which, for nearly half our waking hours, takes place at work.

We begin our new life in Christ through personal reconcilation to God by His grace, putting our trust in Christ alone to save us. And we continue our earthly role of reconciling all things to Him, including our work things, by means of that same grace.

Apart from Him, we can do nothing to save ourselves. And by the same grace that we exercised for our personal salvation, we are to let our salvation be "worked out" [expressed, or demonstrated] in the world around us, even as we're pounding nails, driving taxis or selling real estate. "...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13)." That's grace in action, and it's a 24-hour deal.

Personal salvation is the critical starting point. It is essential to the Gospel of the Kingdom. But we must also bear in mind that we are not just saved from something. We are saved for something. And that "something" has a lot to do with our everyday work in the world.

We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works (Eph. 2:1-10). What better place to live out those works than in the workplace?

What “Good News” Are We Talking About?

The word “Gospel” means “Good News.” But what “Good News” are we talking about?

For most of my life, when I heard the word “Gospel,” I reduced it to this: “Jesus died for the sins of the world so people can be forgiven and go to heaven when they die.” (John 3:16)

That statement is very true, and I’m eternally grateful for this reality! But is personal salvation what the Good News is all about?

Salvation of souls is an important part of the Good News, for sure. But reducing the Good News to a matter of souls and the state of those souls in the afterlife fails to encompass the far-reaching meaning of the word Gospel.

The Good News Jesus preached was the Good News of the Kingdom. He told Nicodemus one night, "Ye must be born again," and this is a fact. We must be. But is this the complete Good News?

The far-reaching thrust of the Kingdom, basically, is this:

The Kingdom of God is demonstrated via the bodily incarnation of Christ. This Kingdom keeps on "coming” [being "realized," "actualized," or "demonstrated"] via the on-going expression of Christ’s life through a great body of everyday people who have been forgiven and reconciled to God through faith in Christ's sacrificial death on their behalf. These people are indwelt by the Holy Spirit for the continuing purpose of being "ministers of reconciliation" of all things to God--including Earth things. (Col. 1:17-20, II Cor. 5:17-20, Matthew 6:9-10)

That's Good News! The ramifications of this for the workplace are enormous!

Here we have not only Good News for the soul, but Good News for the real estate market (as Jack vanHartesvelt demonstrated), artwork and carpentry, as followers of Christ reconcile all things to God (including their work things), "actualizing" or "demonstrating" His Kingdom right where we live and work.

This Kingdom is incarnational, whereby the Spirit of God flows through Christ's many-membered Body of redeemed people around the globe who are driving trucks, selling shoes and managing IRA accounts in the here-and-now, just like the Spirit flowed through Christ's single body 2000 years ago in Palestine--while working with wood in His shop, or preaching to thousands.

When I hear the word "Gospel," I think "Kingdom incarnated," and that's Good News!

Please view Paul Stevens' comments on the Gospel of the Kingdom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VitIItMXKc0

To Observe All That I Commanded You

Why did God create humans?

We won’t know the complete answer until we see Jesus.

But the functional reason God created humans is no mystery. It is spelled out in the first chapter of the Bible. God created us with one functional purpose in mind: to rule over the earth and all it contains.

The First Commission [Genesis 1:26-28] provides a compelling rationale for daily work. For Joe the carpenter, for Bev the realtor, for Peter the pilot, and Bonnie the business executive.

“But,” some may ask, “don’t followers of Christ have another commission that is more important than the First Commission? In a Fallen world, doesn’t the ‘Great Commission’ of Matthew 28:18-20 trump the 'First Commission' of Genesis 1? Doesn’t the Great give us a higher reason for living than the First?”

I was at a table with a group of Christ-followers at a conference not long ago, when a woman across the table declared: “My only purpose in life is to see souls saved.”

The question I would ask her is, “Why?"

So people won’t go to hell when they die?

I don’t mean to imply hell is not an issue. But there is a reason for saving souls that aligns more closely with the Great Commission itself, namely: so people can engage in the First Commission in a way God intended from the beginning.

The Great Commission says: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." [NASB]

I don’t believe the Great Commission trumps the First Commission, because I see them both having the same intent. The Great Commission provides the means by which the First Commission is fulfilled in a Fallen world. The Great provides the gateway for people to rightly engage in the First. It gets us back on track.

In what more splendid circumstance can we "observe all that Christ commanded” than while fulfilling the First Commission in our work? That's what work is about.

The Great Commission has more to do with what happens on earth than what happens after we die.

And this casts the word Gospel in extraordinary light.

Continued…

Polar Opposites

A reader of this blog had difficulty with my use of the word “actualization” in connection with the Kingdom of God last week.

She had no problem with the idea that God’s Kingdom is “realized” when people align themselves with God’s will. But the phrase “Kingdom actualization” didn’t fly. My use of the term seemed to contradict the truth of the Kingdom’s present reality. After all, the Kingdom is “actual” whether people align themselves with it or not.

True. The Kingdom is reality, whether people align with it or not. It is an “actual” Kingdom, and not dependent upon humans to be “actualized.”

But there is a reason I use the phrase “Kingdom actualization.”

If you google “self actualization,” you will find many references to this term as it is used by psychologists. It was first coined by Kurt Goldstein to describe “the motive to realize all of one's potentialities.” It described the “master motive” of a person, or “the only real motive a person has."

The term “self actualization” was later popularized by Abraham Maslow, a famous psychologist who included the term in his so-called “hierarchy of needs” theory. “Self actualization” is “the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are fulfilled and the ‘actualization’ of the full personal potential takes place.” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_actualization.)

Every college freshman taking Psychology 101 learns about Maslow’s theory of “self actualization.” But Maslow’s theory is secularized to the core. God has no honored place in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As the very term “self actualization” connotes, "it's all about me.”

I’m of the opinion that the highest of all human needs is not “self actualization of human potential,” but “Kingdom actualization of God’s will being done through us.” This is what “Kingdom actualization” is about. It's all about Him. His Kingdom is what we "seek first" (Matthew 6:33).

Along with “Kingdom actualization” comes the amazing realization of why God created us, how we fit into His design for our lives, and His reason for sustaining our next breath.

The term “Kingdom actualization” and the term "self actualization" are polar opposites. I'm using the former to supplant the latter.

"Kingdom actualization" may not make it into psychology books, but it makes more sense to me than Maslow's idea ever did.

"Self-actualization" rings hollow.

“Kingdom actualization” is humanity's highest need, privilege and joy.

Kingdom "Actualization"

Last week we saw Jack vanHartesvelt aligning his real estate dealings with the will of God. He reconciled what he is doing on Monday morning with what he is hearing on Sunday morning. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJRU2EEqcaQ for Jack's story.)

When Jack started doing this, the Kingdom of God “came to light” in his workplace. As a result, people’s lives were touched. Transformation occurred. Over time, the city of New Orleans was blessed by a man who had been stirred through the way Jack handled business. (Sounds like that great film, It’s A Wonderful Life, doesn’t it?)

What do I mean when I say the Kingdom “came to light” in Jack’s workplace? The Kingdom of God was already there, wasn’t it? Doesn’t the earth and all it contains presently belong to God (Ps. 24:1)? Isn’t God exalted as head over all (I Chron. 29:11) presently? Isn’t Jesus presently Lord of all (Acts 10:36)?

Yes! So why did Jesus teach His disciples to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven?”

We have such a difficult time holding this truth in tension. If the Kingdom of God is already present (Jesus is Lord), why does it need to come?

Here is how I manage this tension: I see the whole world as God’s "turf." The “field” is His (Matt 13:24-43), the earth and all it contains presently belongs to God (Ps. 24:1), and Jesus is Lord of all, right now. His Kingdom is as broad as creation is wide! At the same time, things happen in this present Kingdom that are in conflict with the King, or, "out of alignment" with God. Lots of things on earth need to be reconciled to God, including the way we handle real estate. (Remember 2008!)

But when a follower of Christ, like Jack, by the grace of God applies the "ministry of reconciliation" to a situation, and the will of God is done, the Kingdom is "actualized." It is "realized." It “comes."

Yes, legally and geographically, the present Kingdom is already here. But until it is recognized and submitted to, it remains “hidden.”

The Kingdom will fully come when Christ returns. But in the meantime, Kingdom "actualization" occurs through human recognition of the Kingdom and submission to the King right now.

God’s Kingdom [though always present] "comes to light" when God's will is done.

The Ministry Of Reconciliation

Each month, I go through the same personal ritual of reconciliation: I reconcile my checkbook with my bank statement.

When the bottom line of my checkbook is in alignment with my bank statement, I’m at peace with my bank. But when the bottom line of my checkbook does not align with my bank statement, I groan inside. I don’t feel good. I can’t rest until I reconcile my checkbook with the bank statement.

On one occasion when my checkbook did not align with what my bank was telling me, after repeatedly going over my arithmetic (I mean repeatedly), I was convinced the bank was in error.

I took my checkbook along with the bank statement to my local branch, and sat down with an employee who had the ministry of reconciliation.

To my astonishment, when this gifted person found the problem, it was as plain as the nose on my face. And the egg on my face was very plain, too. The sin was clearly mine! Admittedly, I was a bit embarrassed, but down deep it felt good to have my checkbook reconciled with the bank. I was at peace with the Bank of America.

Last week I made reference to II Cor. 5:17-20 and Col. 1:17-20, where we find that followers of Christ have been given “the message of reconciliation.” Here we see Christians having the ministry of reconciliation between people and God.

Wow! But that’s not all the reconciliation Paul mentions. He writes about reconciliation between God and “all things,” in heaven and on earth (Col. 1:20).

Things? Not just people?

What things on earth need to be reconciled to God?

Actually, everything on earth needs to be reconciled (or, "aligned") with God! This includes all work-related things. Things like how we repairs automobiles, how we sell clothing, and how we manage civil affairs.

One great example of a follower of Christ reconciling his work-related things to God, is Jack vanHartesvelt.

Jack buys and sells multi-million-dollar hotels for an investment firm. About a week prior to my video taping of Jack in his Seattle office, his firm was involved in the selling of a Manhattan hotel--for one million dollars per room.

Buying and selling hotels? Can this “thing” be counted among the "all things" on earth to be reconciled to God?

Watch Jack's compelling story, and let me know what you think.

Click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJRU2EEqcaQ

The Greatest Christmas Gift

One of my favorite carols is Joy To The World.

The words are by Issac Watts, based on his paraphrase of Psalm 98:

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth; make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for He cometh to judge the earth, with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.

Some people believe Joy To The World is not about the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. They say it is about His second coming, not the first. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World.)

The joy that is sung about, then, is a future joy that will occur when Christ returns, to “make the nations prove the glories of His righteousness,” in that full expression of His Kingdom yet to come.

But for me, the song makes as much sense as a celebration of the first coming of Christ in Bethlehem.

While I’m looking forward to that full and perfect expression of Christ’s Kingdom in the future, I’m also celebrating the Kingdom that has already come. Jesus is Lord of all. Today! Not just in the future, but at this present moment (Acts 2:36; 10:36).

No, the Kingdom of God isn't fully recognized, or perfectly expressed right now. I believe this will happen when Christ comes the second time. But that domain over which Christ is King (His Kingdomain) presently includes both Heaven and Earth!

This is the greatest Christmas gift: that Christ the King has come “to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.” And He intends His blessings to flow through carpenters, cops and CEOs (today!) who are reconciled to God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and reconciling all things to Christ--including their work things! That's the idea behind Christ's coming in the first place. (See II Cor. 5:17-20 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=II%20Cor.%205:17-20&version=NIV and Col. 1:17-20 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Col.%201:17-20&version=NIV.)

So, no more let thorns infest the ground. By God's amazing grace, put your work gloves on, go to your workplace after the Christmas holiday and start pulling up bramble bushes--and planting redwood trees.

Joy to the Earth! the Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

The First Commission

Last week I claimed that carpentry is the work of God. Even pounding nails and building a home in your neighborhood.

I justified this claim by referencing the “The First Commission,” found in Genesis 1:26-28.

It is the very first command of God to human beings.

Here's how The Message puts it:

God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself...

He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
or every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

Genesis 1:26-28 is sometimes called, “The Cultural Mandate,” or, “The Dominion Mandate.”

But I prefer to call it, The First Commission.

And what a commission it is!

Here we have a commission to rule over the entire globe! It is a command to take charge.

Chuck Colson summed it up this way: “On the sixth day, God created human beings—and ordered them to pick up where He left off!”

Randy Kilgore says: “God created a world that functions on order, and requires labor for its tending. He created you and me to be a part of that order, to do that labor. Even when our acts at work don’t seem to have eternal significance, their very rendering fulfills His original commission to humans to tend His creation.”

"Creation-tending" is a very big job! Ruling over "all the Earth" (not just the animals) entails a responsibility as broad as the world is wide, and requires a lot of varied occupations, including carpentry, as well as civil service, high-tech work and homemaking.

Earth-tending involves physical work ( as with Adam the landscaper, tending and keeping the Garden), and mental work (as with Adam the zoologist, naming the animals.)

Both kinds of work occurred before the Fall. Work is not a curse. The curse just made work more difficult.

Did the Fall cancel The First Commission?

I don't think so.

Ruling over trees, metal, electricity and water pipes is all part of what goes into building a good house. And when Joe builds that house, he is participating in The First Commission.

That's the way I see it.

What do you think?