So, in the previous chapters, we sorted through the beatitudes within the story of the sermon on the mount. Now, having done that, we will hit pause on that study and zoom out a bit to discuss God's Kingdom. First, though, I want to take this opportunity to very briefly lay out what I see as the difference between a disciple and a Christian. (Christian is capitalized and disciple is not, this is simply a concession to the spell checkers.)
A disciple cares the most about God and His Kingdom. He cares more about that than anything else!
A Christian cares most about Jesus and His ability to save people. He will live his life very much like normal for his culture but strives to be saved as well so that his afterlife is sorted out.
So, hopefully, that answers many questions about what I believe the difference is. If you're interested in any further fleshing out about God's Kingdom, keep reading.
On some level, if you read any of my spiritual writings, this should be looked at as a belated chapter 1. This is the paradigm I look through with just about everything I write and believe about God, scripture, the church, work, daily life, the world, etc.
To further explain the rift that occurs, with that subtle difference let me flesh out the notion of God's Kingdom from my perspective as someone who strives to be a disciple. This fleshing out is where the simple title comes from. This is a very zoomed-out view of what I perceive church history to be, and if I'm mistaken, I hope someone will point it out to me. As I learn more, I may zoom in on different parts of the narrative. This narrative is very biased I admit, but I believe this is correct. Otherwise, I wouldn't write it! Perhaps someday I will see the same narrative from a Christian's point of view.
At the beginning of the scripture, we see God wanting a relationship. We see His power. He created the world through spoken words. Then, He made man and woman in His image and formed them by hand from the earth He had created by His spoken word. He placed them in a perfect world and provided them with freedom of choice. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was there. The tree of life was there. They were told to not eat from knowledge, it would bring death on the day they did so. The devil convinced them that being able to see good and evil for themselves was actually good, they could be like God! So, they ate it and died. In this death, they were separated from their relationship with God, instead of merely being separated from their physical bodies in the way we think of death. So, it was a worse death than what we think of.
As time marches on, the world becomes so evil that it just needs washing, so, all who desire after God are invited to rise above the turmoil of the flood in an ark. Unfortunately, there were only 8 who desired it. This 8 survives and repopulates the earth again. People attempt a sort of 1 world government; they try to reach God in Heaven by their own strength with a tower. God does not appreciate this, but rather than destroying them for their foolishness he gives them many languages so they scatter and replenish the earth like He had originally asked them to. Then God is ready to have for Himself a people again. It starts with a promise to a man named Abram, later Abraham, this promise is transferred generationally to his son Isaac, and then his son, Jacob. It is in a time of intense slavery and suffering in Egypt when God pulls out His nation, His people, and takes back the land He has promised for them. This physical nation had many flaws, with their sins and such, the power of God left and they got overrun. Eventually, they were relegated to just being a province in the Roman Empire. Along the way, prophets had spoken of a coming Messiah.
Enter Jesus Christ! He was born in a manger and grew into a carpenter, then at age 30, he began to wander the earth and He taught things, some were hard to hear, these are things I am trying to explore in Surrender!? To Who? The Jews hated Him. He claimed to be the Messiah. He said He would die for us, and He did just that. It was brutal, R-rated. Yet, somehow, He got back up and walked out of the grave! This proved to me that He is the Messiah and that He had the power to end the Roman Empire and restore the physical Kingdom of God. Yet, He didn't, He took great pains to preach spiritual things. The Kingdom of God that is in and among the world kingdoms, a kingdom that transcends borders. A Kingdom that preaches hard things like turning the other cheek, and abiding in Christ to produce good works with His power. Anyway, Christ was up and walking about, now he didn't seem to always bother with doors, often just disappeared and reappeared as He wished. Finally, He told His closest followers to wait at a place for His return in the form of a "comforter." His disciples did so, and suddenly, one day, something came over them! They received clarity on the things Jesus had taught them! They were able to speak in languages they did not understand. They received a supernatural boldness and began to meet to worship the Lord together. They established these meetings in other areas by getting people to transfer their allegiance from their world kingdom to God's Kingdom. This spread and spread and spread.
For 100's years, this was faithfully followed, people would switch allegiance to God's Kingdom. They would get killed off by their world kingdoms or by the Jews for doing so, but still, they kept on. They were disciples! God's Kingdom was their first loyalty, and then, they would only obey the world kingdom when it did NOT conflict with God's Kingdom, for to do that was also one of God's Kingdom's policies. Then it happened, the world's first famous Christian was born, when the emperor of Rome at the time became, a believer in Christ. His name was Constantine, and he wanted to be saved. As time went on, many disciples became Christians and began to wrestle with tough things that had not been a problem for disciples. They determined that "just war" was the way to kill people for God. So, we had the crusades, to take the holy lands back for God. Disciples didn't know that just war was something God wanted, they just thought when Jesus said to love your enemies and turn the other cheek, that, that was literally what He meant. They didn't know they were supposed to do anything with the world government, they didn't even know they were supposed to hold office in it! Well, the persecution had stopped. People were no longer killed for being sold out to God's Kingdom. The world was plunged into the dark ages, and discipleship stopped; at least on a noticeable level.
Many many years later, 3 men left the church and attempted to take the teachings of Jesus literally the way the early church before Constantine had. They desired the first allegiance to God's Kingdom again. In this sense, you might say that they were "making discipleship great again." Well, they started a movement, and then, the persecution started again. Now though instead of the Jews and the world kingdom doing it, Christians and the world kingdom were persecuting disciples. This went on and on and on. In the same period as those 3 men, other men left, they remained Christian and didn't make the full transition to discipleship, so they persecuted the disciples, and, each other. Followers of the first 3 became radicalized, left discipleship, and attempted to do some persecution back. It was a bloody mess. (Literally) Then came the concept of freedom in "the west."
As far as world kingdoms go, freedom in "the west" is a wonderful thing. Religious freedom, personal freedom, financial freedom, etc., and yet, that very freedom brings you to a crossroads. A choice, between Christianity and discipleship. Either way, you choose, if you live in "the west", it looks like your persecution will be very light, and we can thank "the west" for that. Yet, because of that, many people fall in love with their western country and find themselves with split loyalty struggles. So it is, the west is full of Christians, and yet disciples are so rare...
Please read the following questions as challenges to stir your thinking. Not as rules you need to follow. How you personally live out the reality of God's Kingdom is between you and Him.
Does a Christian vote? Yes, if he cares enough, probably for someone who will only kill the "bad people" in other countries and at least talk about ending the sins of abortion. In fact, he will often tell those who don't vote that they are part of the problem!
Does a disciple vote? Maybe, it depends if he cares enough to bother, and he might be focused on God's kingdom too much to bother. If he does vote, he would probably only see it as an opinion on who does the best job, and would not want to actually vote for the person's wars and moral sins, etc. Yet, if someone manages to convince him that he is voting for a fire-breathing republican and all his faults instead of merely giving an opinion on who would do a better job running the country, then he might react by refusing to vote.
Does a Christian go to war? Yes, if he's not too afraid, and the cause is just enough.
Does a disciple go to war? Maybe, if he sees a way to serve and love others the way Jesus taught and did without hating his enemies and trying to kill people. I can envision a disciple wanting to live his life in a war in a similar self-sacrificing, heroic way Desmond Doss did in Chapter 10.
Does a Christian talk about wanting to die for his western Country? Yes, if he's the patriotic sort.
Does a disciple talk about wanting to die for his western Country? No, not really.
Is a Christian willing to die for God and His Kingdom? Maybe
Is a disciple willing to die for God and His Kingdom? Absolutely!
What about situations where a 3rd person, a victim, is at risk? That is in my opinion where both the Christian and the disciple are left with no good choices. I also see very little teaching in scripture in the New Testament about this. A Christian might be inclined to carry a weapon and be prepared to kill. a disciple might carry as well, but only if led by the Holy Spirit and would strive to lean on Spirit leading in those situations on a case by case basis. A disciple would strive to never kill because he loves all people too much. He would rather die for others than kill.
I am ok with pushback, but please keep this in mind:
1. Reacting out of pure emotion without divinely inspired scripture isn't helpful.
2. Taking examples from God's physical Kingdom in the Old Testament as a license to do certain physical things in a western Kingdom while we live in the time of God's Spiritual Kingdom isn't helpful.
3. Adding to or detracting from New Testament scriptures, such as, "When Jesus said to turn the other cheek, He only meant if you get whacked on the left cheek by a blue umbrella." or "The teachings of Christ were for the Jews, we must come to Jesus by only doing what Paul said, therefore the teaching about lust being adultery doesn't apply to us" etc.
Ultimately, none of this is so much about having the right answer for every little detail in life. Rather, this is about acknowledging the reality of God's Kingdom, around us, and within us. So, basically, God's Kingdom is a reality. If you're truly going to be a disciple instead of a Christian, God's Kingdom calls for your first loyalties. Everything should be led by God, and we discussed that level of surrender and brokenness on some level already when we went through the beatitudes. One thing to start with for example in this idea of being completely surrendered to God's Kingdom is to simply read scripture for what it says and not for what we want it to say. With that in mind, we will revisit the sermon on the mount again in the next chapter.
This has been chapter 14 of Surrender!? To Who?
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