Notes from a dear friend |
Russ, here is my summary of N.T. Wright's teaching on the Kingdom of God. Am I summarizing him correctly?THE KINGDOM OF GOD - WHAT DID JESUS MEAN BY THIS?"It assumes that Israel's God was the world's true ruler. Israel's God would rule Israel in a whole new way returning in Power and Glory, to rescue His people, rebuke the wicked, and set up a new rule of justice and peace. Torah would be fulfilled at last, The Temple would be rebuilt and the Land cleansed. Israel's God would rule in the way He always intended through properly appointed persons and means. By implication the rest of the world will also be ruled through Israel whether for blessing or judgment. Promised Kingdom of God as promised throughout Psalms, Isaiah 40-55, and the Book of Daniel. The people in Jesus' day had long cherished hope for a new exodus out of the exile that began with the Babylon Captivity in 597 BC, a new Temple, a reconstitution of the 12 tribes, a renewal of the Covenant, a national forgiveness of sins, the release from captivity, an epoch of peace and justice and an end of foreign rule. Through Jesus, God was now unveiling his age-old plan." - Anon
The Hebrew Bible is organized into three main sections: the Torah, or “Teaching,” also called the Pentateuch or the “Five Books of Moses”; the Neviʾim, or Prophets; and the Ketuvim, or Writings. [As a collection] they are often referred to as the Tanakh, a word combining the first Hebrew letter from the names of each of the three main Jewish divisions.
Know this let me suggest some other ways to divide the bible...
- Two Testaments: One Bible;
- by observing Covenantal Continuities v. Discontinuities (based upon the covenanted community at the time in transition per historical era, such as early tribal Israel, pre-kingdom Israel, kingdom Israel, exiled Israel, the InterTestamental Age, Jesus in Roman Israel, Jesus in Resurrection, or the Church after Jesus' death and future coming);
- Christologically as seen within each of the Covenants in either Testamental period; known as The Christ of the Covenants;
- perhaps via various schemas of Millenialism (none, pre-, mid-, post-trib, amill);
- or by God's promises to His covenanted people themselves, better known as Remnant Theology;
- by the tension between the Here-and-Not-Yet, described as the Presence of the Future;
- or reading the NT through the eyes of the OT; or, the OT through the eyes of the NT; sic, Jewish v Christian; summarized in the New Perspectives of Paul.
- perhaps by the biblical themes of Messianic Hope;
- or themes of Gospel v Law as Contrast or Continuum? between the covenants;
- there also have been studies of the bible from the perspective of God's Covenanted People: God's promises to Israel (kingdom communities) as versus God's promises to the Church (ecclesiological communities): Israel and the Church;
- or perhaps of Christ-as-the-MidPoint-of-History (sic, Christ in Time: theophanies, prophecies; thematic pictures of Christ in the OT, etc);
- then there is God's Design of Creation, Salvation, and Well-Being mostly focused on viewing the covenants for differences in legal pact, formation, geography, and promises;
- and lastly, any other basic theological issues in Debate unaddressed by all of the above and in formations and debates around their validity of insight - or overall helpfulness - in knowing God and His creation through Christ, event, experience, and outcome (thus the contributions of many over this past century in applying Process Theology to Hellenised/Modernised Christianity).
Whew! So as you can see, there is no one way to divide the bible but LOTS of ways as one would expect in a diversity world with many needs, philosophies, and cultural traditions. So to simply say one is a dispensationalist or one is a covenant person really doesn't say a lot except that each individual is trying in their own way to picture who God is, what He wants, and how He intends to interact with humanity (and very creation itself... which we always tend to lose sight of being overly focused on ourselves).
WORDS OF ADVICE
At this point let me throw out a few charts with the precaution that like the study of numerology I would strongly resist getting too far down the rabbit's hole in this subject. It never seems to end... as coincidental imagination runs rampant through the comparative themes of the bible. But some of us love to organize and chart things - meaning that this type of study can be a wizard's delight locking one into his or her own tower of trolling the news and social media looking forwards-and-backwards trying to predict this-or-that to come. To those future prognosticators out there, dial it back... take your passion and apply it in ministry to the underserved by providing bedding, clothing, housing, job training, and local community helps. Don't get lost in this area of predicting and prognosticating. Thanks.
To help sink in this kind of fruitless exploration let me note two things. First, history can be visualized as a helical spiral moving upwards in hope in Christ (rather than downwards in defeatism). Events and circumstances always tend to repeat but never in the same way. The Christian church recently has been going through its own apostasy these past few years (I count since the 1990s)... not unlike past historical ages of Christian apostasy away from Christ and towards worldly structures. Observation: Don't be surprised when history repeats itself... but never in the same way twice. It seems to move in escalated helical cycles.
Secondly, Christ says when He comes it will be as a thief in the night. He's not advertising His coming, He's just coming. Think of it as a surprise birthday party, or special event in your life you weren't expecting. So too with Christ. All the charting in the world is not going to help in determining the times and the seasons of Christ's coming. He's just coming. We call this form of future an "Imminent Coming of Christ" as versus a "Date-certain form of Coming" which we have had plenty of these failed predictions since the year 2000. Name the event and you'll have the prognosticators out there with their charts saying "He is Coming!"
Perhaps I'll add a third... my wife always like to say "Lord Come!" PTL, Hallelujah! To which I sometimes loving respond, "Dear, it's better to say 'Lord BECOME.'" Why do I say this? Because the Cross is a past historical event and whether Christ comes again or not is not in our Christian jurisdiction to control. But it is in our Christian responsibility to birth the love of God and the salvation of Christ to one another in all that we say and do. For me it's not a "Wait and See" event but a "Here-and-Now" let's-get-busy-event. There is work to do and God cannot do it if we are not out in the world bringing it about. I have no intention of waiting, charting, or predicting. But I have every intention of bring Christ to the world right now. Hence, "Not Lord Come! but Lord BECOME! in our midst!"
DISPENSATIONAL CHARTS AND AGES
Dispensational Link |
http://voiceoftruthblog.com/a-survey-of-the-history-of-covenant-theology-part-ii |
1. The Dispensation of Innocence. (From Creation to Adam’s fall)
2. The Dispensation of Conscience and Sacrifice. (fall of man until the flood)
3. The Dispensation of Human Government. (flood until the tower of Babel)
4. The Dispensation of Promises. (Babel until Moses)
5. The Dispensation of Law. (From Moses until Pentecost)
6. The Dispensation of Grace Abounding. (Pentecost until the rapture)
7. The Dispensation of The Kingdom. (the thousand year millennium)
1 - Adamic/Edenic
2 - Noahic
3 - Abrahamic
4 - Sinaitic/Mosaic
5 - Priestly
6 - Kingly/Davidic, and
7 - New Covenant