The next step in a long process of understanding

In this blog, I will be seeking comments on material I have written about a cluster of subjects that that involve generally the meaning of Jesus’ statement that the kingdom of the heavens is at hand. (Matthew 4:7 and 10:7). This cluster of subjects arises from my past writings and my recent reading and thought. It includes the practical aspects of this statement. But it also includes the parts of the history of Christianity which appear to contradict Jesus’ statement about the kingdom of the heavens being presently available. It further includes the history of “Christian” political involvement, and the place of that history in world history, including the role of Christian doctrinal disagreements and the often-visible disunity of the organized Church in and upon world history. I want to emphasize that this blog will not take a traditional, apologetic “Church History” or “Ecclesiastical History” approach, nor will it attempt to paint any one denomination or branch of the organized Church as entirely right, or to minimize the flaws in our collective history as Christians.

I will be using comments to my postings on this blog partly to improve my planned writing for publication. Starting in 1995, inspired by a sermon by Andrew Wommack, I did a good deal of writing for the website Christian-oneness.org, which is now operated by my friend Jonathan Brickman. Then, in 2006, Lauston Stephens and I published a book, Our Oneness in Christ (to which a link is posted on the “About” page of this blog). The central theme of both the Christian-oneness.org website and the book is that, in fact, all believers in Christ are already truly one in Him, even though we usually don’t act like it. Then, about 5 years ago, I started to re-write my chapters of the book to make them easier to understand. Clarifying the more doctrinal chapters was fairly easy. But clarifying and completing the very incomplete historical chapter has proven much more difficult. I have had–and still have, a great deal to learn.

This blog represents one step in a long process of thought development. I was raised in a liberal Christian church. My mother had degrees in Education and Theology, was the paid Christian Education Director of our church for a number of years–and was a conservative Republican. My father was a chemist, a scientist first of all, a vocal agnostic until shortly before his death–and was a Democrat who greatly admired the German Social Democrats. This made for interesting conversations around the house sometimes!

I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior in 1971. But he was presented to me originally as “the answer” to my problems–as I defined them at the age of 16–including one “problem” the people leading me to Him told me I should call my most important problem–that is “if you were to die tonight, do you know you would go to Heaven?” With my new “relationship” with Christ thus reduced to solving my pressing problems and getting me into Heaven, it now seems little wonder that learning to live with Him as my friend (I have a “relationship” of some kind with my employer, my enemies, and even strangers who want to take advantage of me!) and my Lord and King has been a much longer process. It has taken all of the 49 years since 1971!

This leads to the central theme of this blog, which appears to be crucial both to my life and to the development of the history of our disunity. Dallas Willard, who has become one of my favorite authors, points out that, although English translations usually translate tōn ouranōn in Matthew 4:17 and similar verses in Matthew as an indefinite, proper singular (“Heaven”), in the Greek it is really a definite, generic plural (“the heavens”). This translation has the unfortunate consequence of putting “the Kingdom of Heaven” way up there, out of sight, out of mind, out of touch. But the ancient view of “the heavens” had multiple layers–the highest one was the “way up there” that we normally think of, but the lowest one was the atmosphere all around us. Compare Matthew 3:17, where the same phrase is usually translated as “the heavens,” but the voice from the heavens was heard by all present. What Jesus was saying when he said the “Kingdom of the Heavens” was “at hand,”–right next to us–is that, through Him, we really can grasp His Father’s Kingdom:

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ deeds and words, the formulation repeatedly used is the well-known “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand” (3:2; 4:17 ; 10:7). This is a call for us to reconsider how we have been approaching our life, in light of the fact that we now, in the presence of Jesus , have the option of living within the surrounding movements of God’s eternal purposes, of taking our life into his life .

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 16.

This realization obviously has large implications both for my life, and for the history I am writing. I will explore these implications on this blog, and ask for reader comments.