The Mundane Act of Reigning (Super-Christians Beware)

Posted on November 21, 2012 by tdillmuth

Post by Pastor Tim Dillmuth – If we’re not careful, it’s easy to mistake reigning as a spiritually elite activity only for the Super-Christians among us (and just for the record I am not among that elite class).

Reigning is quite the opposite though, in most cases it’s the normal . . . even mundane act of caring for and cultivating the world around us in a way that reflects God’s character and glory (James Davison Hunter).  And when it comes to reigning, we don’t only seek to “care and cultivate”, we seek to model that care and cultivation as an example to others around us.

And this Work of Mercy is not some new Christian fad, but it actually dates back to God’s mandate in the creation account (Gen. 1:26-28)!

If you’ll recall, last week I sought to reign through my difficult situation with the newspaper.  I did in fact write a letter to the editor, but nothing earth shattering or spectacular happened as a result.

What did happen was that the normal (and yes a little difficult) act of reigning interacted, cared for and cultivated those around me.  Let me share a few of the results from last week’s letter to the editor.

  1. I had the opportunity to interact in a very simple and transparent manner with the editor and the reporter who wrote the article.  The reporter who had made the mistake thanked me not only for my understanding, but also for compassion.
  2. I had a long conversation with a dear friend in which we encouraged each other in mutual opportunities of reigning.  His situation involved a neighbor installing a new driveway which was placed carelessly on the wrong side of the property line!  Instead of legal action, my friend has been moved (by the Spirit) to redraw the property lines and give the difference to his neighbor as a gift.
  3. My wife and I have grown in the Lord as we worked through how to respond in a Christ like fashion.

I’m a privacy-coveting American by nature, but it turns out God’s call to us is to be transparent in the mundane–to “let our light shine before men“–so that Christ’s rule
and reign is evident in the everyday moments of our lives. Privacy takes a back seat to calling people to imitate us as we imitate Christ.

So, even within my almost surreal situation with the newspaper, my act of reigning was quite average.  And some of the best ways that you can reign could also be described as normal or routine.  Normal activities such as faithfulness to your spouse, a daily practice of scripture reading, honesty in all your business dealings are what exemplify the Work of Mercy of reigning.

But . . . you won’t get profiled on Christianity Today for completing these kinds of activities.  And chances are no one is going to pat you on the back for your efforts either.  And that’s because this goes against the grain of our modern Christian experience.  Matthew Redmond says, “It appears that the current evangelical climate is one in which faithfulness and spirituality are measured by the eventful and the big — the bombastic. If the waves are not huge and the shifts are not seismic then we assume a kind of carnality.”

Consider the life of King David.  Some of his greatest acts of reigning were done before he was king and often could be described as mundane and thankless.   Take a moment to ponder some of the mundane ways that David reigned in these situations.

I’m sure you figured out by now that by normal and mundane I don’t also mean unimportant.  You see, it’s often in these normal, mundane, and thankless efforts that reigning is properly brought to life.  The great acts of Christian devotion always start with small acts of Christian obedience.

Do you want to reign with Christ this month?  Let’s start with the small, faithful, steady and mundane acts of obedience in our everyday lives.

Posted in Reigning | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Reigning With Christ: The Original (And Still Greater) Great Commission

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Historians credit seventeenth-century Lutheran missionary Justinian von Welz with coining the phrase “The Great Commission” to describe Jesus’ “go and make disciples of all nations” missionary charge to the disciples in Matthew 28:18–20; however, it took Hudson Taylor, nineteenth-century missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, to popularize the phrase’s use. If Taylor popularized it, contemporary evangelical Christianity seized upon it and emphasized it so completely as to overshadow the even greater—that is, more comprehensive—commission given to the human race in the very first chapter of the Bible:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:26–28, NIV)

As author James Davison Hunter notes, the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:18–20 is a remedial commission, not a replacement one. At the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry, it is the launch of the next chapter of the redemption story, which takes the whole Bible to tell. That story describes the restoration of human beings to the station for which they were created, namely, receiving the lavish philanthropy of God and pouring it out in its fullness upon all creation:

There is a strong tendency, especially within the pietistic branches of Protestantism, to see formation or, if you will, “the great commission” as a new and different work for the people of God in history; that redemption is of a different nature than creation. It is absolutely true that the incarnation of God in Christ, his life, his suffering, his death and resurrection represent a radical rupture in human history. This is the euangelion, the “good news,” and to proclaim it and live out its meaning is a calling for all believers. But this rupture in human history does not represent a departure in God’s purposes. Indeed, redemption through Christ represents a reaffirmation of the creation mandate, not its annulment. When people are saved by God through faith in Christ they are not only being saved from their sins, they are saved in order to resume the tasks mandated at creation, the task of caring for and cultivating a world that honors God and reflects his character and glory. (From James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 236.)

This is the Work of Mercy of reigning. The term carries such triumphalistic overtones that its mention is likely to prompt recoiling, derision, and protest not only on the part of non-Christians but even on the part of many Christians as well. The disciples themselves descend repeatedly into triumphalism as they grapple with what the Lord is equipping them to do and be, and they have to be rebuked out of their completely wrongheaded notions by the Lord sternly and often. Even so, a search of Scripture reveals that the New Testament and the entire span of Scripture are saturated with the witness that God is absolutely determined to see it come to fruition.

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8:19–21, NIV)

(This post is excerpted from my book, The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy. (c) 2011 from .W Publishing. All rights reserved.)

Posted in Reigning | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Video – Is King David a Good Example of Reigning?

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Rev. Eric Foley Preaching – Scripture calls us to imitate those who imitate Christ.  Pastor Foley notes that King David provides an awesome example of ruling…in the period before he becomes king. And when he becomes king, he provides a clear example of a chilling Scriptural theme: the danger of giving into the temptation of leading like other, more experienced and highly regarded leaders lead.

For all of the latests podcasts on Reigning and on past Work’s of Mercy visit our Seoul USA Podcast Page!

Posted in Reigning, Videos | Tagged , , | Leave a comment