Hi Brothers and Sisters,
RT2 brings you greetings this week from Manchester. We started the session sharing testimonies of God’s goodness and faithfulness in our lives during the past week. Truly, our God is an awesome God, and we continually stand amazed each week with what He is doing. In this week’s discussion, we were also amazed by how Jesus showed us the way of life as we approached the topic of “Jesus, unafraid of the secular”, from Bill Johnson’s book. In the Old Testament, one would avoid touching a leper - otherwise you become unclean. However, in the New Testament, Jesus touched the leper, and the leper became clean. In the OT, people would “draw a line” and stay away to prevent being defiled. In the NT, Jesus shifted perspectives to erase the line, responding instead with love, facing the problems and taking action to help the poor and heal the sick.
We discussed the secular words used by Jesus and their origins, noting that these were Greek words that were also adopted by the Romans. Bill highlighted three specific secular words: Apostle, Ekklesia and Paul, revealing their meaning, shifting our perspectives.
We dove into the importance of knowing their original meaning.
* Apostle:
- Current understanding: Christ’s disciple, someone sent.
- Original meaning: the lead ship, sent out on a mission to recreate Roman Culture in the newly conquered land by introducing Rome's educational system, language, arts, roads, and countless other values that had worked well in Rome.
So, Jesus chose this word to highlight the responsibility of bringing Kingdom culture into the world. We talked about how each of us can also contribute to such apostolic work, bringing Kingdom culture into our areas of influence.
* Church (Ekklesia):
- Current understanding: Building or organisation
- Original meaning: a secular institution operating in the marketplace in a governmental capacity. Ekklesia consists of a small handful of people representing the government of Heaven, and it is mobile, wherever 2 or 3 stand in agreement.
Jesus emphasised that whenever there are 2 or 3 that are gathered in His name, He is there in their midst. This is the fundamental understanding that defines church, a group of people called out by God, to be out there in the world making Kingdom impact (Matt 13:33), with “governmental” authority (Matt 16:19).
* Paul:
We also discussed the changing of name from Saul (a Hebrew name) to Paul (Secular name). Other such examples in the Bible were Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Belteshazzar to Daniel. God revealed purpose in their lives through their new names, and they all embarked on their new mission.
At the end of the session, we summed up by discussing about the church being the Salt and Light of the world. We can’t add flavour to a world we’re not a part of. We cannot illuminate one room whilst we are in another. We need to be spread out into the world, to impact everyone to know God. We are ambassadors of God's love. We are mirrors that reflect Jesus Christ to the world around us, such that the light can reach across the world.
Love,
RT2 (Tony)
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