INVASION!!!

I have been listening to NT Wright lately. NT Wright is one of my favorite (if not the favorite) theological thinkers. He has just some absolutely amazing and I think groundbreaking insights into what it means to be a follower of Christ.

I have listened to these talks before, but now I have discovered fresh insights that I did not realize before. The more I thought about it, the more a few parallels began to make themselves clear. I've said before that I'm not quite sure where this is going, but sometimes the glimpse of what might be is even more exciting than finally arriving.

Let's think about the creation story. God created the world, and then He placed in it a garden. This garden was a paradise, the pinnacle of His creation. It was Heaven on Earth. God had, in a sense, invaded the Earth with a little bit of Heaven.

After the Fall, the garden ceased to be. But eventually, God worked through human history to bring about the nation of Israel. He made a covenant with them, and blessed them and freed them from their bondage. God said that He had set aside land for them that was to be their land forever. And so what did the Israelites do after making the covenant? They invaded their land to take it and use it.

But the Israelites also fell away from the covenant, and were carried back into bondage, away from their land. Their Holy Land ceased to be.

But eventually, God worked through human history to prepare for the arrival of His Perfect Human, Jesus. Some Israelites followed this new leader with these new teachings about what it meant to be perfectly in the covenant with God. And what did Jesus tell these followers of his to do? Go out and make more followers of him. Jesus told his followers to invade the world with the message that Jesus is Lord.

Joshua was the leader in charge of the Israelites when they had to invade their land and take it.

Jesus was the leader of the movement to reclaim creation to God's purposes.

We have been ordered to continue the reclamation process.

Erwin McManus once said, when asked what his job was, "My job is to continue the revolution that Jesus started 2,000 years ago."

This is going to get really cool!


wingnut