The Hsu’s Views

This past weekend at a soccer tournament, squished on the sidelines between two fields, my daughter and I had little choice but to set out our blanket and umbrella next to a pile of peanut shells. Aside from the annoyance of people throwing their trash on the field (I know they are organic and biodegradable) I thought little of them.

I have many friends that do think about peanut shells tossed on the ground. Because those peanut shells can kill a child with peanut allergies. Our friends Kye and Sherry have been raising the awareness of such food allergies. As a physician with a child suffering from such allergies, Sherry (pictured below) has been doing heroic work in town with other like-minded parents. This is Kingdom work by a parent who understands how her calling/vocation can be used to be a blessing to others.

SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune

Peanut-allergic children and their families and friends watched yesterday’s Padres game from a peanut-free zone at Petco Park. The Padres lost their third straight contest to the Mariners, 4-3.

Here is an article about how the San Diego Padres created a Peanut-Free Zone at the park. Such a zone is far more significant that a non-smoking section. The mere presence of peanut shells can send a kid into an adverse reaction. So, please think twice before leaving a pile of peanut shells.

I’m working on a sermon for Sunday. During my research I ran across a quote in Bosch’s book that I heavily marked the first time I went through it. In commenting on the early church, Bosch argues that Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion. Those who followed Him were not given a name to distinguish them from other groups, no creed of their own, no rite which distinguised them. Nontheless, “Their survival as a separate religious group, rather than their commitment to the reign of God, began to preoccupy them.”

“Jesus foretold the kingdom and it was the Church that came.” Alfred Loisy (p. 50)

The second failure, according to Bosch, is that the early church ceased to be a movement and turned into an institution.

“There are essential difference between an institution and a movement, says H. R. Niebuhr (following Bergson): The one is conservative, the other progressive; the one is more or less passive, yielding to influences from outside, the other is active, influencing rather than being (more…)

I have recently discovered Crosswalk.com’s Bible Study Tools. I spent a fortune on books in seminary, and now many are available online for free. So I thought I’d look around to see what I can find on the topic of Kingdom. I’ve included a link to the references on Kingdom from Nave’s Topical Bible. You will find a bunch of scripture references that you can click on, sending you to the passage of scripture so you can read and study in context.

A really nice resource at Crosswalk is the Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Here is a link to the article on Kingdom in that work. Scroll about halfway down and you will find a section beginning with The Biblical Evidence. It seems like a nice treatment on the passages that speak of the “already but not yet” aspect of the Kingdom of God.

Common Kingdom Value

One of the things that strikes me about the U40 group is how people share the common value of the Kingdom. “Under 40″ is the working name (that I no longer like) for a group of friends that are thinking about how we might take the many diverse focii of the church in San Diego, and work together in functional unity to make a greater difference on our city with the Jesus’ gospel.

“Kingdom” is why people are in the room. When I invited people to the concept, the response was almost intuitive, “Sure, we need to do that.” I continue to believe that a healthy understanding of a “already” part of Kingdom can drive a movement of the church that would be a blessing to the city. There is a common value that each person, and the ministry they represent, wants to join in a larger movement of the church in Kingdom work.

A True Common Understanding will Take Work

The one thing I’m not sure about is whether any of us know just what is involved in working together under that Kingdom umbrella. We haven’t defined it together yet… and that is a little anxiety producing. Our group is quite diverse, spanning the gamut from church planting to working with at-risk youth. We have lawyers and environmentalists, campus workers and marketplace missionaries.

I suspect that one person’s understanding of the Kingdom means we must work to uphold the immigration laws, while another person’s view focuses on scriptural commands to care for the alien amongst us? Some might take the position that Christ and the church must transform culture, while others might say Christ and the church must be against culture. (There are even more categories that Niehbur uses to describe the relationship of the church to culture.)

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The Washington Post’s website has a section called “On Faith.” They posed the following question: “Do you believe the world will come to an end? If so, where, when and what will it look like?” They capture the response from a broad range of people.

I was interested by NT Wright’s quote:

Read the Book; You’ll Know How it Ends
“The idea that to get salvation you need to go to heaven — rather than that salvation is a gift which comes from heaven to embrace earth — results in misreadings of key texts.”

I cut my teeth on Kingdom theology with some mp3’s of his found here (scroll down to Wright Audio/Video.) I would listen to them during my marathon training runs. Until then, Kingdom was mostly a future thing, consistent with my evangelical eschatology. And even though I read things like Ladd’s stuff on “inaugurated eschatology” (or is it “realized eschatology?”), it was Wright’s stuff that helped me think about a “now” and “present” aspect of kingdom.

Dallas Willard’s stuff on Kingdom is great in The Divine Conspiracy. I’ve already been mentioning two other books that speak of Kingdom, Guder’s Missional Church and The Shaping of Things to Come, by Frost and Hirsch.