thursday reflection for week 4

Church : World :: Jesus : Israel.

I'm sorry if that analogy reminded you think of the SAT. If it made you vomit a little in your mouth, then I am sorry. Even more apologies if you had to swallow it. AGHH! I hated the SAT, largely because of the analogies, but this analogy speaks some truth in how the church should operate. The main focus of Jesus' mission was the kingdom of God and pointing to people toward it. Likewise, the church should—heavy emphasis on "should" because even on a good day, the church probably does a poor job of this—point to the kingdom of God that Jesus established on earth. The church should be a conducive place of participating in this kingdom.

I stress the words "point to" and "participating" because for a long time I talked about the church's responsibility of establishing the kingdom of God in places that it has not been. Read the other posts below and you will find that I used this language. However, a discussion with my ethics professor and our class today made me realize that the kingdom is, and Christians are to point to the fact that it is. Instead of saying we establish the kingdom of God in places it has not been, we can begin saying that we show others how to participate in the already established kingdom of God. The kingdom has been and is in the practice, but we show how to participate in that kingdom. This may be arguing semantics, but this argument makes a huge difference in our approach. The kingdom is everywhere. We need to start pointing to and participating in it.