Monthly Archives: June 2018

I don’t know how many people just sit back at your theology of God, or more specific your belief in your local church. Do you ask yourself is it working,is it making a difference.

The one aspect of this paradigm of belief is that I see alot holes that the belief’s of certain things don’t actually work. One aspect that I would like to hit on, is the aspect of the community of the ‘christian’ family. One thing that I have to make it quite clear with this ‘community’ thing, it seems that the ‘church’ is emphasizing that they must be a influence in the community around them,(think on this concept that they are pushing for a minute) they are trying to be a influence to people that are that they might come into contact for 2 hours on a saturday for a feed the neighbors thing, and then go home. This is not what a community does or is. But that is another story. The point of community being the followers of God is that they are together in body,spirit, and mind. I would like to use a depiction of community from a movie to show the difference one’s community can make if it is realized in what it is.  The movie “Paul” that was in the theater’s months back, did an excellent job of portraying the foundation of the community in the first century. The ‘community’ were together as one being ‘one’ in mind,body,and spirit in everything they were. It was one of the things that stood out in the movie as I watched, it was a different perception that we have that is different than now.  One thing that in this instance that brought them together was this ‘persecution’ of their time with the Romans, but although we might think that this is an anomaly, it is going on still.

Our understanding of what the paradigm of God getting back his creation entails, we will not understand persecution from now until God fully take’s control!

Community is one of that ‘believers’ are apart of, because they are of one body,spirit, and mind. Now, why would ‘outsiders’ be invited to participate into this community unless they were already believers of this community? This sounds harsh, but let me explain. God, Jesus work in a an upside down kinda way, it is not of our thinking and doing. This goes back to God’s choosing a people(Jews) to be his representative of him in the old covenant, they were to be a mirror of God, an image of him in his temple(earth,world) this was to be the catalyst for the nations to see them at the top of the mountain with God, and be inspired to also be with the creator God.

It is at this point, that it is upside down in our ways of doing things the usual way. We must ‘be’ believers, just ‘be’. If we are just ‘be’ing’ then we are being the witness of who God wants us to be, his image! As it says in 1 Peter 2.9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 

This is the opposite of what the ‘church’ is trying to do now. The church is trying to make the world a community when in fact the church is not a community itself!

Let me shed some light to this in two different ways, one, the community of the believers do not take care of their own. It is sad that we are not perfect in this example of caring of ‘others’, if we don’t do it towards our own, let alone people outside of us. I fault the system(paradigm) that we are in for this tho. (I see that maybe it is changing some in this arena.) Only because the paradigm is changing.

Two, the community of the outsiders have problems themselves that they cannot conform to a community of ‘family’, common interests, or even just a friendships. It is just sad to see, when we step back in our lives and see how things are working around us, or not working. I see this in a personal way from a unique way, that surprises me, but on the other hand it doesn’t because of how we have  no foundation to ‘see’ as a foundation to work with.

Community, It’s so much more than what we are knowing it is supposed to be. It’s so much more, it’s an influence to the ‘all the nations’.  Oh, if it was only so!!

Way back in the beginning of my journey, biblical journey that is, one of my first insights to understanding the storyline of the bible was a book called “From Eternity to Here” by Frank Viola, I have decided to revisit it for this blog.

Chapter five talks about the “Second Eve”. First off we need to ‘see’ where this is coming from scripturally. It should be obvious that we are using the existence of the first and second human beings that God created. But with clarification, and this is important to understand is  that God created only one, with one inside of each other. They were actually halves of each other.

Where we go from here is cool and exciting, so hang on for something special.

The creation of  Adam and  Eve can be looked at as a ‘shadow’ of the real thing to come.

I will concentrate on the ‘Eve’ part of this blog, but we also need to remember the first part of the picture and that Christ is the ‘Second Adam’ to fully understand it all. With Christ’s resurrection defeating the ‘old adam’ in his tainted being, we have the ‘new resurrected being of Christ, who will now be completed with his new ‘half’ of himself, his bride, the body.

I will use some excerpts from this book by Frank Viola, which will define who and what ‘she’ is.

• She is Christ in another form, for she was taken out of Him.
• She takes the name of her Bridegrom. Just as Eve had Adam’s name before the fall, so the bride of Christ takes the name of Christ.
• She is a new creation. In Ephesians 2.15, she is called “one new man,” or more literally,” one new human”.
• She is the masterpiece of God. In Ephesians 2.10, Paul says she is God’s workmanship.
• She is utterly devoted to her Lord, and her Lord is utterly devoted to her.
• She is uncreated. She was built -fashioned- out of Jesus Christ Himself. She is spirit of His spirit just as Eve was flesh of Adam’s flesh (1 Cor. 6.16-17).
• She is flawless. In the eyes of God,she is every bit as holy and as pure as Christ.Recall that when Eve made her appearance of earth, she was perfect,spotless, and without blame.(She made her appearance before the fall.)
• She is Christ’s body. Eve was taken out of Adam’s physical body. In the same way, the New Eve, the bride of Jesus was taken out of Christ’s body.
• Christ is the source of her life. He was the basis  for her existence.
• She was made wholly for Christ. The Lord Jesus desired a counterpart to match Him.
• She was hid in the Son of God before creation. Her origins  are not of this earth. They are in the unseen realm-  in heavenly places in Christ before time began (Eph 1.3-4;2.6)
• She is the increase of Christ. When the bride came out of His side, Jesus Christ was increased. When she was formed,Christ was enlarged.
• She in interdependent upon Christ. God pulled her out of Last Adam’s Pleura, His side(John 19.34)
• She is the glory of Christ.  In the greak, the word traslated “glory” is doxa. The word doxology is derived from it.  A doxology is the closing piece of a musical presentation. It’s the grand finale.
• She is the Second Eve , the mother of all who are alive in Christ. In Galations 4.26(NKJV), Paul says that “the Jerusalem above… Is the mother of us all” In Revelation 21.27, those whose names are written in the Book of Life live in the city of the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ.

These are the who and what’s of the second eve, or as we commonly call her…. ‘the body of Christ’.

Can you see it!!

These bullet points were from Frank Viola’s book “From Eternity to Here”, pages 47-52. I highly recommend this book to ‘see’ the  the shadow’s and ‘the real thing’ in the storyline of the scriptures of God’s Kingdom and the Bride and Groom!!

via The Artistry of Creation, Cosmic Temple, and Imago Dei (RJS)