Learning from Jesus' method of interpretting what it is like to be ruled by the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

Below is a (short URL) link to help us learn from Jesus' methodology of explaining what "The Kingdom of God is like.." i.e. of interpreting what it was like to live under God's rule (as distinct from the rule of leaders like Caesar or Caiaphas, Herod or Pilate, the Pharisees or Sadducees)

He first acted out, or made space for his disciples' acting out, of the qualities of faith, observation, curiosity, & love. That was both an illustrative & interpretive event, as well as a "bearing witness" to the True Love, & to a Loving Truth. When people questioned, or commented, or thought things to themselves, about these provocative events, he responded to them with real answers, or not (when they were not sincere questions/comments/thoughts). His answers were often in the form of stories, or pictures, or analogies, which drew on events, or "lively" things around them - that could spread or grow, like light, a tree, a crop, yeast, a seed, or relationships.


For us today, firstly, we can listen to & learn to understand Jesus' stories, before we secondly, tell them ourselves in settings & in ways that will communicate appropriately with our audience. Thirdly, we can go to the same tool-box that Jesus went to, and dig around for new stories to illustrate what it is like to live under God's rule.

In fact, Jesus told a "parabole" (Grk word = story, illustration, likeness, analogy) which said that a teacher of the law living under God's rule would be  "like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." Matt 13:51-53

It seems to me as I look at Jesus' words, stories, and warnings, that Jesus had a tool box with two sections: a) God's world, & b) God's prophetic word, which was itself divided further into another two: b1) God's prophetic word spoken to people in God's world in the past & which was recorded in the scriptures, and b2) God's prophetic word spoken to people in the present world. Both needed to be recalled (& understood) to be heeded properly. This tool, the colourful table, with it's instructions,(goo.gl/YCQ0ML) is aimed at helping us to use Jesus' toolbox as well, and with his help, to make it our own (click here for the table on it's own - goo.gl/ZvHI2K ).

What analogy shall we use? Are we mining for nuggets, or fishing around for just the right tool in our tool-box, or inventing new things in this world (following the mind of God)? Maybe all of them, and a bit more!

A questionaire on Jesus's message & methods of "Gospelling".

Here (goo.gl/wct1bp)

  THEGOSPEL@FIRST...

5. The Gospels (& other scriptures) relate that both Jesus & his early messengers heralded the "gospel" (="GOOD NEWS"). What would the term "gospel" have communicated to Jesus's hearers & the "Gospel" readers? *
(You can tick more than one to communicate your understanding well)


•  We are sick of the same OLD, same-old!
•  Here's an alternative kind of News to brighten up your day.
•  A new way to worship God & do "religion" is starting out!
•  You have to be GOOD!
•  Here's a way for your life to feel GOOD!
•  Judaism, and its way of getting forgiveness, is over & out!
•  All the old prophecies about a NEW DAY dawning are about to come true!
•  Finally, we'll be ON TOP!
•  Your sins can all be forgiven!
•  You can go to heaven when you die!
•  Other: 


6. As you presently understand it, what was the gospel Jesus himself preached/communicated in his day? *


7. What method(s) did Jesus himself use in communicating his Gospel? *
(Your present understanding)


•  living in such a way as to show what it was like to live under the rule of God
•  soap-box style public speaking/announcing
•  announcing an emperor or king (God) was beginning to rule
•  story telling to illustrate life under God's rule & provoke further responses
•  quoting proverbs or wise sayings to illustrate life under God's rule
•  asking people to follow his example in living under the rule of God
•  trying to be a ruler or judge in this world
•  preaching/teaching in public areas in cities
•  making other people use their money well by using forced donations (taxes)that would then be spent well for them
•  choosing leaders for a new style of leadership
•  forcing compliance to a new law
•  preaching/teaching in religious meeting places
•  using a respected structure of his society to enable teaching & making disciples
•  preaching/teaching where-ever people were (even wilderness areas)
•  Other: 


8. What is the gospel as preached/communicated by the first century disciples of Jesus? *
(Your present understanding)


9. What method(s) did the first century disciples of Jesus use in communicating the gospel? *
(Your present understanding)


•  living in such a way as to show what it was like to live under the rule of God
•  soap-box style public speaking/announcing
•  announcing an emperor or king (God) was beginning to rule
•  story telling to illustrate life under God's rule & provoke further responses
•  quoting proverbs or wise sayings to illustrate life under God's rule
•  asking people to follow their example in living under the rule of God
•  trying to be a ruler or judge in this world
•  preaching/teaching in public areas in cities
•  making other people use their money well by using forced donations (taxes)that would then be spent well for them
•  choosing leaders for a new style of leadership
•  forcing compliance to a new law
•  preaching/teaching in religious meeting places
•  using a respected structure of his society to enable teaching & making disciples
•  preaching/teaching where-ever people were (even wilderness areas)
•  Other: 

StorySkills2Woo2Truth

..to be a good advertisement for the gospel (the news of God's chosen & imminent "Leader of Humanity"), to make the Word of God be seen to be as good as that WORD is, to be "as wise as a serpent, yet as harmless as a dove"..

This is a link to another tool (which could be used in conjunction with the other 'colourful table'), which is helping me follow in the footsteps of the greatest teacher/story-teller the world has seen, to realize & re-learn the ancient art of story-telling. It is a clunky "modernist", dot-point kind of thing:

StorySkills2Woo2Truth (Short URL: goo.gl/fWbRUk)

Another way to communicate these ideas may be to tell a story which shows these lessons being learned. This could be a fun thing to do together... to make a story that exemplified these points (maybe as the main character finds themself caught in a story being made by another "The Story-teller", who is learning to "tell" or "write"  it into being, and who is gaining skills and getting better as time passes.. etc). Feel free to post any such stories or email them to me, to add to the blog this is taken from:
http://the-euangelion.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/storyskills2woo2truth.html .

How we've miss-read the gospels

Gospelling..

Dear brothers & sisters,

here is a link to a talk by N.T.Wright that I’m mulling over at the moment: “Putting the Gospels Back Together: How We’ve All Misread Our Central Story” (in case you want to mull it over with me, & then give me/us your thoughts too, in this blog).

Bishop Tom Wright – Putting the Gospels Back Together: How We’ve All Misread Our Central Story

short URL: goo.gl/zJ8JdO

Look at Jesus, then, more.. respond to his "soft" call

(shortened URL to this page: goo.gl/M6pRux)

(http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/look-at-jesus or- play/download (12Mb) at: goo.gl/a87V3i )

What a beautiful way 

to use the gospels to

lead our spirits to pray,

to interchange with you!

What's this amazing thought?

It's not from this young pup,

it comes from what He wrought!

His glorious "looking up"[1]. .

He who was rich, became

poor, that we might become

richer than words can name.

I know that that seems dumb.

Here is the Way - Love's course;

dain't hold it's  rights as "higher",

seeks to woo, not to force

or "make", but to inspire.

Hence visions, voices, dreams;

which could be just madness.

Not all is what it seems:

don't just run from sadness,

grief, suffering, and death;

we must embrace this lot,

that Jesus life & "breath"

be ours to stop the rot

of "image-in"-ation,

beginning in this life;

"on Earth, as in Heaven",

to match him, as his wife[2]!

---

[1] Some of the times when Jesus raised his eyes up: as a Jew, maybe every time he prayed {e.g.  at his baptism?, on the mount of Transfiguration (where Luke tells us he prayed), & after the seventy(-two) returned (Luke10:21ff )},  certainly in “prayer” before  - feeding the 5,000 (Mk6:41), healing the deaf mute (Mk 7:34),  at Lazarus’ grave (Jn11:41), praying personally to God for his glory & for us (Jn 17:1), maybe in Gethsemane, or even on the cross, or to Zachaesus, before inviting himself home to Zac’s house for a meal (Luke 19:5),  inviting Philip to join in on “the problem of the 5,000 hungry families”(Jn6:5), and in the Temple where he noted the Rich people & the Widow giving gifts at the Temple (Lk 21:1).

[2] Thinking from the point of view of those early apostles, not during the visit, but after it, realizing that they had touched & eaten with “the very WORD (or “FORCE” in a STAR-WARS-ish way) of  LIFE. “We beheld his glory, the Glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace & truth…”. Their conclusion (reached from the startling facts of his life, his prophecies, his power, his insight, and the scriptures etc) that he was the Eternal WORD, THE Son of God, The Second (Son of) Adam!- needing a wife, to not be alone, & the confidence that God was indeed preparing one for him (with his own spirit in her). As Jesus un-ashamedly spoke of himself as a bridegroom, now it has grown from the Jewish conception of the people of God being seen as a bride of Yahweh, to the new people of God being a bride for Yeshua, Yahweh’s Son. His DNA is to be taken, and made to make a matching pair, so still bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh…. He is so big, so real, & so loving, that all of us (the x Billion humans who have lived, & will ever live) are like the cells in a living being, a woman, & do not exhaust or overpower, or over-love him. …

Another collaborative document on ways to own Jesus that whet people's appetite to know more...

This is a link to another collaborative document on : ways to own Jesus that whet people's appetite (https://goo.gl/hPwfIm) to know and contribute more..

A collaborative document on The Announcement of the Christian Euangelion (Gospel)

This is a link to a collaborative document on The Announcement (https://goo.gl/KOAgN3) of the Christian Euangelion (Gospel).

The News is GOOD!

Very good news about World Leadership.

There is to be one world government & the "High Emperor" (Terminology still being worked out) has been chosen. Wow, I can't wait. Well, I will wait, but it (or rather He) is the only one I'd trust:

Joshua Bar-Joseph.

---

(meanwhile, let those on his side against THE MACHINE, do the kind of things he is on about, till he is revealed. The GoodNews for this world is, as Alan Hirsch has put it (https://youtu.be/mwBEWNn4FTw)

---

All focused on Yeshua, God's christened "Leader of Humanity" ("Leader" in every good way)

(Had a most delicious time with the CS team in Orange over the week-end. A "Ya'sure? week-end" Focused on Yeshua, mostly through the avenue of Mark's Gospel. Now to farther live it out.)

1. PreachingHeralding the Euangelion of the Rule of God (as Caesar's Heralds heralded Caesar's Rule),
2. Teaching what this announced Rule is really like, ("the kingdom of God (living under the Rule of God) is really like..." - this, or that, or the other... (remembering that the WAY he Rules is Love!)
3. Serving\Healing (of people, society's structures, etc) as a sign of the presence of God's Rule of Love through t-his anointed "Loving-Leader of Humanity", & of his coming further intervention (and of his anointing of others for further serving\healing) ..

Father God help us please...Thank you for such a help as you have given us. Just what we needed! The spirit of your son, Yeshua himself. Come on me, on our community, on our Cornerstone Community, on our Dubbo splintered community of Yeshua followers. Wash us clean, wash in (to us) with his tide, new strength & courage.  Stretch out your hand. And at your bidding, (with your spirit's help) we will stretch out ours too.

Oh, God! Your poetry is too vast and good!

Heralding - so people hear, &

Helping people to SEE your way of ruling/wooing- by LOVE;

to see it in their minds (to understand), and

to see it (demonstrated before them, concretely) to experience it, as a foretaste or sign, and lastly with some people

to start to have eyes that work (going from blind, to seeing), as a sort of a sign, of a sign.

Amen.

Here is a link  (goo.gl/UvK5l2) to something i want to weigh up this year, and 2016AD/CE. Anyone else's thoughts/results-of-experimentation would be gratefully accepted too. Use the comments in the google doc (right mouse, & choose "Comment"). PW

Cultural-Gramatico-Historical Introduction to Mark's telling of the Euangelion

This is a link to some piccies & text as a pdf document (2 pages) on the euangellion: Mark Intros ( goo.gl/oACiJZ ). It goes with about a dozen little stories which help understand the nuances behind the  first century use of the terms .. .. .. & that go with these (arti)facts. If you know of any, feel free to throw them in/ post them (with comments on the blog)....

• "euangelion" (Greek for good news / gospel; & from which we have our English terms evangel, evangelize, & evangelical, the term used for Caesar's message sent by his heralds, of the good news that the hearers are saved, given peace, and connected by Caesar who is Lord, the huios theos );
• "huios theos" (Greek; for the Latin: "divi fili/filius", & for the English: "son of god")
• "apostollo" (Greek for "I am sending", related to the noun for "sent one" / "ambassador")
• "angelon" (Greek for "messenger" / "angel", in the first case God's "angel" is John the Baptist, or John the Washer.
• "kyrios" (Greek for Lord, used of God (in the Greek translation of the early Jesus Followers' bible, but also used of any "teacher" [akin to the way some people still address a male teacher nowadays with "Sir"], and Caesar used it as his Real Title: "Caesar is Lord", was the mantra of the Roman Empire)
• "kyregma" ( Greek for the messaged heralded by the Emperor's Heralds)
• "baptisma" (Greek for the Jewish, but also used by other religions too, ritual washing to make one "clean", rather than "unclean", before spiritual realities.)

Following The Way…

I am starting (again) today to ask God to give me [maybe it's HIS eyes to see] a chance each "today", to grow in these "Big Ways", in following Jesus' lead to: 

q   listen like he did (actively, using questions if nec.; as my first, initial, default stance, "alive to listen") 

q   be slow to speak, not "not to speak", but considered-ly speaking. I think, after considering this for quite a while, God's agenda is that as his herald (I think that's what he has made me, though at times I am not sure), I should let other people know the (really good) news that Yeshua has been made the "Leader of Humanity" by God, - & I happen to think he's the best choice. Then I am assuming that God will make a chance, & I am praying for a time each day (in a way that really connects properly, & is not "forced"), to tell one of the Yeshua stories he has given me [either one of the hundreds of "Gospel" story-lets which we have in "Mat, Mark, Luke, & John, or one from my life (or another Xian's life) in this time since THE VISIT (I s'pose Acts is recording some of these for us Xians' sake)]. I think these have been told, & passed on to us in order for us to tell to others. I am leaving it up to God, at the moment as to who it is that he wants me to tell that little "pericope/storylet" to. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does today with me in this way. 

q   be slow to anger (or even frustrate, or vex; myself, or others). The apostle Paul's way of explaining something like this character-trait, which I think he saw in Jesus [seen in his interactions with all different kinds of people: demanding (or mouse-y), insincere (or sincere), faithless (or faithful), inteligent (or dim-witted)] was to "be very patient with all men". 

God, what sort of way have you given us to walk?  

A new & living way. 

This new way, springs from the new or second Adam who established & (since he did not remain dead after his death, but took life to a new level, he remains to share the enormous inheritance with us & can continue to be &) is our new human culture & new way of life. 

This living way is both our path to tread on[1], & the means by, & style in, which we walk [2]. 

Oh, this way is . . ."Too right"!!!

---

[1] a "flying carpet" under our feet- though not above our life in the sense of aloof & beyond suffering, sometimes it's more like a "dying" carpet (he did say "Take up your own cross & follow me”), but the path he led the way on was going to come out the other side with a new kind of (resurrection) life.

[2] is somehow through his spirit in his people, the one who walks it in (co-operation with) us. Though we know that really it's him letting us be "co-operators with God".