The importance of broad family and kindred groups to God’s work on Earth and my initiative to my own.
Here is the link to the associated video:
Subtitle: The Importance of Kindreds and My Initiative toward My Own
Slide 2: The Initiative is to:
- Broad Extended Family
- Even Broader Kindred and Ethne
- These first two extend beyond my lifetime via
- Writings and videos
- Contact lists and Lost Cousins
- Others With Common Interests
Many of these ideas started to form during the discussion of “people groups” during a “Perspectives” class that would have been taught at my church I guess seven years ago, now. Missions organizations often like to talk about “people groups,” but I guess we don’t think very much about what the biblical words for people groups mean. So, my initiative is to my broad extended family, my even broader kindred and ethne. These extend beyond my own lifetime by way of my writings and videos and by way of my contact lists and lists on Lost Cousins. It’s kind of a prophetic declaration here–these families will be reached, and many will come to Christ. And it’s also an initiative at the present time, during my lifetime, to others having common interests with me.
Slide 3. The “Great Commission” is to Ethne
Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Matthew 28:18-20 (WEB)
Slide 4. Being a Witness is Not a Doing
First Observation: This says:
“Go, and while going … be witnesses… “
it does NOT say
“Go, and while going … do witnessing..”
It’s who I am, not what I do.
Doesn’t command Christian salesmanship.
Which is a good thing, because I can’t sell anything!
Slide 5. Preached to All the Ethne
This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:14 (WEB)
Slide 6. Reading political nation-states into these passages is an anachronism.
Slide text: The word used is ethnē, or the related ethnos, from which English gets the word “ethnic.” Ethnē are based on genetic/ broad family ties. See, Genesis 10, for example. Also note Abraham, the “father of many nations.”
Comment: When we hear the word “nation,” we would usually think of things like “the United States,” “the United Kingdom,” or “France”… When New Testament writers used the word ethnē, from which English gets the word “ethnic,” they would usually be thinking of something more like “English,” “Irish,” or “Cherokee.” If you go back far enough, ethnē are almost always based on genetic or broad family ties. See, for instance, Genesis 10, which uses a similar word in Hebrew. Also note Abraham, the “father of many nations:” Ethnē is used in the Romans passage I’m about to read, similar Hebrew words in the others.
Slide 7. All the Families of the Earth Blessed through Abram
Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
Genesis 12:1-3 (WEB)
Note the emphasis not only on the “great nation,” but also on “all the families of the earth.”
Slide 8. Abram, now Abraham, the Father of Many Ethne
Abram fell on his face. God talked with him, saying, “As for me, behold, my covenant is with you. You will be the father of a multitude of nations. Your name will no more be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you. Kings will come out of you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you. I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God.”
Genesis 17:3-8 (WEB)
Slide 9. Blessings on Isaac AND Ishamael, and a Covenant through Isaac
Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”
Genesis 17:19-21 (NIV)
Slide 10. Jacob and Esau Two Nations, Not Just Two Babies
Speaking now of Isaac’s wife Rebecca:
But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why am I in this condition?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people will be stronger than the other;
And the older will serve the younger.”
Genesis 25:22-23 (WEB)
Slide 11. Abraham the Father of Many “Nations,” of All Who Believe
The Apostle Paul, here speaking of the promise that comes through the faith of Abraham:
For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.”
Romans 4:16-18 (WEB)
Slide 12. But I also note God’s continuing interest in kinship groups, as shown by:
That was Romans 4:16-18. But I also note God’s continuing interest in kinship groups, “all of the offspring,” which he called “nations,” as further shown by these passages:
Slide 13. God Separating the Nations (Ethne) in Judgment
“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? 38 When did we see you as a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ “The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ …
Matthew 25:31-40 (WEB)
It is the “nations” that are gathered before the Lord, and he separates “them.” “Them,” what? It is grammatically ambiguous. Is it the “nations,” or is it individuals from the “nations?” It doesn’t say! it makes you think!
Slide 14. Jesus Died for the “Nation” Israel and Also for All the Scattered Children of God
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor are you taking into account that it is in your best interest that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish instead.” Now he did not say this on his own, but as he was high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation; and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
John 11:49-52 (NASB)
The “people” and the “nation” are used as synonyms? And as part of the “children of God”–all of us? Hmm…
Slide 15. God Made Every Nation (Ethnos) from One Blood and Determined their Times and Places, so that They Might Seek Him
Paul, speaking to the leaders in Athens:
The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands. He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things. He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
Acts 17:24-28 (WEB)
Slide 16. Example: Isaiah Prophesied Enduring Blessing for Three Nations–Not Israel Only
And here is Isaiah speaking of God’s blessing, in the end on three groups of people, who are related to each other–each being originally a kinship group–and are also “nations:”
In that day there will be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing within the earth; because Yahweh of Armies has blessed them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”
Isaiah 19:23-25 (WEB)
Slide 17. The Redeemed, in the End, Remain Identifiable as from Different Families, Ethnicities and Languages, Standing Before God
And now from John’s vision of the future:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could count, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. They cried with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation be to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Revelation 7:9-10 (WEB)
And John could tell from looking at them that they were from different groups of people that spoke different languages. How about that?
Slide 18. Limiting the “family” words in these passages to modern “nuclear” families is an anachronism.
When we see words like “nation,” “tribe,” or “people” in the verse I just quoted, and some others, our modern tendencies are to either jump straight to a nation-state or to think only of our “nuclear family” idea that is so politically popular now–one man and one woman, married to each other, with 1.7 children and, maybe, a pet. But these words just don’t fit either of those concepts. Think about “tribe!” Trying to apply them to a “nuclear” family is as much an anachronism as trying to apply them to a nation-state.
Slide 19. The “Nations” Will Remain Identifiable in the New Earth
The city has no need for the sun or moon to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk in its light. The kings of the earth bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. Its gates will in no way be shut by day (for there will be no night there), and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it so that they may enter. There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Revelation 21:23-27 (WEB)
Slide 20. The Leaves of the Tree of Life Will Be for the Healing of the “Nations”
He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will be no curse any more. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Revelation 22:1-4 (WEB)
These “nations”–groups of people–are still around. The leaves of the tree are for their healing.
Slide 21. Questions for Comment:
- Is the initiative valid in concept?
- Is there any good reason I should leave it to someone else to do?
- Should I wait for a “recognized” organization to start it? If so, why? And who? [And who must give them recognition?]
- Is there any valid reason to think I should be investing the time in some established “program” instead?
Well that’s the end of this series.
