NeoZine

Backtrack to Colossians 1, where God declares a Revolution:

“He rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son.”

Now watch God’s genius unfold in a blueprint for raising more revolutionaries:

We have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience;  Colossians 1:9-11 (NASB)

What a breathtaking picture of spiritual power Paul describes! What a marvelous transformation from prisoner to inheritor, from a dark kingdom to one bathed in God’s light. Despite the broad scope of Revolutionary Change, the blueprint in Colossians 1 is so simple and practical, anyone can start a Revolution anywhere–without a budget!

Modern Copies

Revolution is a modern phenomena for the Kosmos, only about 150 years old. People may not realize it began with the American Revolution, and this is why Lincoln in the Gettysburg address said America was an experiment watched by the rest of the world. Then came the French Revolution, the Communist revolutions and many others, all massive, social upheavals, all very bloody and destructive.

Satan’s kingdom works this way: since it is a system, everyone must bow to the new boss, together. Did you know both Nazis and Communists won their revolutions as small majorities? People were never given a chance to decide.

When systems fall, it’s violent, and here is the weakness of the Kosmos: it’s a cold place where people don’t matter, where only systems matter, so Kosmos-revolutions merely replace one system with another. The Who sang about it decades ago: “Out with the old boss, and in with the new!”

This is why revolution in the Kosmos really isn’t revolution at all: changes occur, but the elite still dominate a vast population of slaves. The elite, in turn, are dominated by a greater evil, and it’s this pervasive, evil power that robs people of any purpose or dignity in their existence. “All we are is dust in the wind,” one song said, and it’s true in the Kosmos. Why would anyone profess allegiance to this realm brutality? The 1917 Communist Revolution depicts this chain-reaction of brutality. The Mensheveks were betrayed by the Bolsheveks, Trotsky was betray by Lenin, and everyone who came close to Stalin was betrayed. Amazingly, each new betrayal was a “surprise” to the victim.

The Critical Mass of Revolution

Jesus did  it different. He was truly the first to launch the concept of Revolution which others tried to copy, and it’s an ingenious approach. War is conquest by overwhelming power, but Revolution is the quest for liberty. That’s why it spreads so fast, without bullets. Before Jesus, nobody ever tried Revolution. Conquerors and Emporers cared little for what the general populace wanted, and kingdoms always expanded through sheer power.¹

Jesus was not interested in conquering the sick and dysfunctional Kosmos; he turned down the offer to have “all the kingdoms of the earth”, and he fled every attempt to put a crown on his head because he wasn’t interested in becoming “the new boss”.² Jesus came to set people free, not dominate.

The Jesus Revolution really begins on the inside, in the heart, where the Holy Spirit enters with new, spiritual life. The Revolution works its way outward, upheaval erupting into upheaval, leaping from one person to another. Systems aren’t changed; they’re discarded. People touched by The Revolution grow bored with the Kosmos and its mundane rewards.

It is something like the Manhattan Project in Chicago during WWII, when scientists built the first atomic reactor right under a gym on the campus of Chicago University. The famous nuclear scientist Enrico Fermi laid a layer of carbon on top of a layer of uranium, layer upon layer, and with each layer the Geiger counter clicking nearby kept growing with annoying intensity.

Then came the great day when they laid the last layers of carbon-uranium: Fermi slowly removed the dampening rods, and a gallery of scientists and politicians held their breath, watching. Steadily the Geiger counter clicks intensified, then they roared! Those witnesses saw the “fuel of the stars” unleashed on earth for the first time.

They called it critical mass. Their patient layering of carbon-uranium produced a self-sustaining chain-reaction of splitting atoms. Energy from one splitting atom split nearby atoms, and on it went. (Some scientists, including Fermi, were a little worried the chain-reaction might run out of control, right beneath a gymnasium of innocent victims, right in the center of Chicago University! Oh well, “let’s do it anyway,” they said.)

The Christian version of critical mass was called The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church by Roland Allen almost 100 years ago, and the results are similar: the energy from one burst of Revolution triggers more bursts of Revolution in nearby areas. Today they call it a “Church Planting Movement”, but the principles are the same as what Paul described in Colossians: layer upon layer of God’s blueprint for Revolution creates a spontaneous, multiplying, cascading Revolution of Joy.

Radical Discipleship

Taken together, the progressive layers in Colossians 1 could be titled “Radical Discipleship” because they wrap around discipleship, as Jesus describes it in Matthew 28. These aren’t the only elements which come together in Revolution, nor do they exclude other vital aspects of the Ecclesia. But they are vital.

Church denominations argue and fight over so many mundane issues, and wars were fought over things like Communion and Baptism. But isn’t it cool how Paul missed all those things in his description of Revolution? Then consider this irony: very few of the layers Paul mentions receive the attention today they once received during the Apostolic era.

Filled with the knowledge of His will

This means learning God’s Word, which is “the sword of the spirit” (Eph. 6:11), and it makes a formidable weapon in the hands of prison escapees! Young Christians devour the Bible and memorize it gladly, if given some guidance. Even more amazing is the way young Christians will use the Bible when talking to their families and friends about their new spiritual life.

The most foundational need in any young Christian’s life is to be “Filled with a knowledge of His will,” and they need it before they become Christians too old to care anymore! This is the point where revolutionaries are hatched: after meeting Jesus, they’re trying to understand, “Hey, what happened to me?” They know Revolution is working in their hearts, but if they don’t understand it, they’ll never appreciate it or guard it carefully as they should.

What a responsibility it is to introduce someone to Jesus! It means undaunted love and concern, but it especially means teaching them “the knowledge of His will.” Without this, the young believer lacks the fiber of a revolutionary.

Spiritual wisdom and understanding

This describes Radical Discipleship, which is rarely if ever mentioned in all the reconsidering “the way we do church” today. The Bible comes alive under Radical Discipleship because the “spiritual wisdom and understanding” of older believers helps the younger ones apply this knowledge in real-life situations.

Bible-learning alone grows academic and dry. To see the wisdom and understanding of God at work in the real world is called Revolution.

Jesus set it up so young believers don’t have to play spiritual mind-games with their lives, since older believers are around. Discipleship is the most-contagious way to spread The Revolution, and Jesus figured that one out! (Matt. 28:18)

“Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord”

Living like a revolutionary means without boundaries. This is precisely how Jesus Christ lived: “the foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” he said (Matt. 8:20). That’s downright radical. It’s too radical. How many Christians will give up their nests and holes in America?

The Revolution gets messy, and nests get trampled, and foxholes get invaded by new Christians and fellow-revolutionaries. This runs against the American Dream, which builds pretty boxes in a world of make-believe safety called Suburbia.

The streets of Suburbia are lined with little boxes sealed against the outside world. Christians should never live trapped in cages like that!

All the Bible’s ethics  revolve around loving others, including the “stranger” and those outside our narrow circle of family and friends. The American Dream is the breeding-ground of Tribalism, and The Jesus Revolution is a direct threat to this aspect of Americana. But Tribalism clearly is not walking “in a manner worthy of the Lord.”

“To please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work”

This means to “fight the good fight,” as Paul calls it (1Ti 1:18; 6:12; 2Ti 4:7). Everywhere in the New Testament, “to please Him” is tightly-coupled with “bearing fruit”, and “in every good work” means “let’s do something!”

Fruit-bearing requires the will to fight because we live in such a dark world and our flesh is so ravenous. Every gain is a supernatural feat, and it’s exhausting sometimes–but fulfilling. All worthy gains in life require a strong will to fight, we know this is true. So the stereotype of a passive and gentle Christian is especially hideous, because it smothers the will to fight and chokes spiritual fruit.

Fruit-bearing is such an overwhelming theme in the New Testament, it could fill volumes, but consider these small examples:

1 Corinthians 3:9 (NASB) For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” Matthew 9:37-38 (NLT)

Increasing in the knowledge of God

This again emphasizes the primary role Bible teaching played in The Jesus Revolution, and it’s the third time in Paul’s list. Why so much repitition? Quite simply, the core of it all is God transforming us “through the renewing of your minds,” as Paul said in Romans 12:1. Mental Transformation comes from truly knowing God’s Word.

This means becoming a Bible teacher. There really is no other way to know the Word of God in such intimate detail. Bible classes are extremely useful, as are so many other ways to study the Bible we might list here, but none of them compare to actually teaching the Word. Teaching it entails significant preparation, and it means living it, too. They say nobody learns more than the teacher at a Bible teaching, and I know it’s true.

It’s quite amazing to work with new, young Bible teachers, because it changes the way they talk. Suddenly they start engaging in spiritual conversations in a way they never did before, and they have something to contribute like never before. Most significantly, all the reminders, rebukes and exhortations in the world will never motivate a young Christian to study the Bible the way teaching it motivates. It’s the ultimate club: “don’t you have to teach next Thursday?”

All Christians should be able to teach the Bible effectively at some level. This sounds almost heretical in todays world of Church, but it’s a sound, biblical tenent. For example:

Hebrews 5:12 (NASB) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

Was that rebuke not addressed to his entire audience in general, and not just the teaching-elite?

Colossians 3:16 (NASB) Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

If we set aside the controversy of singing for now and simply consider that admonition to “let the word of Christ dwell within (i.e., among) you,” is he not calling for “admonishing one another” using God’s Word? And isn’t that precisely what we mean by Bible teaching?

Matthew 28:20 (NASB) teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The above passage comes from the Great Commission, which the last time I checked was addressed to all Christians, and not a special class of “disciple-makers.” (Does such a beast exist?)

2 Timothy 4:2 (NASB) preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.

Some claim the passage above applies only to pastors and priests, but if so, are the rest of us exempt from the “reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and intsruction” clause? I know some hotheads who would love to such an interpretation! (They really hate the “great patience and instruction” clause–it’s so much easier to vomit feelings of disgust instead.)  All those activities must be couched in “instruction”, else we end up simply chewing each other out in a most ungodly and ineffective fashion. “Instruction” means “teaching”, in my vocabulary.

I could continue, but I won’t. I will say, however, that all the “one another” passages in the New Testament are couched in the same framework of “great patience and instruction” as the passage above, and if we don’t promote and develop Bible teaching competancy in the Ecclesia, then we cannot fulfill the scores of “one-another” passages either.

That may be the problem with Church today: the lack of “one-anothering” underway.

“But I can’t teach!” someone might cry out tearfully.

It’s simply untrue. We all teach others: older kids teach younger ones, parents teach kids, we teach new people at work, and in many other ways we are always teaching. Sometimes our teachings are less-than virtuous.

For Christians, the teaching topics change. And the audience expands as Christian character grows. It may not grow into a stadium-sized audience, or even a big one, or maybe not more than a few disciples, but at some level we should be teaching God’s Word to others, and do it with competence.

Today it’s abnormal to depend largely on Average-Christian-Joe for the Bible teaching ministry of the church. What a strange world we live in! Bible teaching was never relegated to an elite caste, like it is today in Church. Average people from all kinds of crazy backgrounds taught God’s Word–even uneducated fishermen! And slaves, too!

Something beautiful was lost somewhere in Church history: great Bible teachings.

Is it a coincidence the leader of The Revolution was merely a carpenter, or did God plan it that way? It seems planned. And because he was a carpenter, what scorn the religious elite heaped on him! In so many ways Jesus was inferior to their breeding and learning, or so they thought. That’s why, when this ignorant hick from Gallilee tied them up in knots, the elitists resorted to personal attack against his parentage (knowing Jesus had a father-issue):

“Where is your father?” they asked. Jesus answered, “Since you don’t know who I am, you don’t know who my Father is. If you knew me, you would also know my Father.” John 8:19

But the carpenter and (later) his gang of fishermen twisted the religious elite like pretzels, and the people loved it:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law. Matthew 7:28-29

Revolutionaries may lack the pedigree and long string of letters after their names, but they will always confound the so-called experts. Why? Because revolutionaries know God’s Word through discipleship, not in a classroom, and not merely to pass the test and graduate; more important, revolutionaries love God’s Word in a contagious fashion very difficult to immitate in a seminary.

It surprises people to discover that average Christians often know more about the Bible than seminary graduates. I discovered this by surprise during my own seminary experience: I went into seminary already heavily-engaged as a Bible teacher at all levels of teaching in Xenos, Columbus, so I was fortunate enough to receive significant discipleship from my brother and other accomplished teachers. In one class, a liberal professor asserted with great confidence that “as we all know, Moses didn’t actually write the Pentateuch.” (The Pentateuch was the first five books of the Bible.) I knew better, so I raised my hand and we jousted briefly–very briefly, because he was quickly dumbfounded, and said so.

I knew this incident had nothing to do with any great scholarship on my part. It really bothered me to think he didn’t know the scriptures as well as I did, which really wasn’t saying much.

I understand it better today, after long acquaintance with various seminarians and seminaries. Most seminaries today emphasize learning the history of interpretation over learning the Bible. So if my argument with that professor had centered on something St. Anselm said in the Middle Ages, I would have been spanked badly. But when the conversation shifts to the Bible, most professors’ knowledge is spotty, at best. They might hold vast reseviors of knowledge about a specific Bible passage, but the chances are good they won’t know the rest of the Bible quite so well.

More important–and here’s where the modern seminary system is one big crash-and-burn disgrace today–seminary graduates are often trained in running Church business, like fund-raising, Worship Service technology, accounting practices and other management tasks unique to Church. But very little time is spent studying the Bible, by comparison.

Am I anti-seminary? No, not really, although I do believe it has significant issues. I learned quite a good deal in semianry, and I highly recommend it for advanced Bible training, because the professors in a solid Christian seminary are experts in their fields. Even when a professor’s expertise is narrow, it doesn’t matter: expertise is valuable.

I say all the above in order to dismiss the superstitious fear Christians have toward seminaries and seminarians: don’t be intimidated! If you do it the way Paul tells Timothy, you’ll probably end up with more advanced Bible knowledge than most seminary graduates:

2 Timothy 2:15 (NASB) Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

Strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might

God’s revolutionaries are protected, strengthened and infused with exceptional spiritual life. This is God’s promise:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere…to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (NLT)

No wonder it’s a Revolution of Joy! To unleash the Holy Spirit in revolutionary discipleship, teaching, preaching, sharing and real jailbreaks–how can the World System make a competitive bid?

For the attaining of all steadfastness and patience: it is so very difficult to bribe a revolutionary, you know. All the stimulation or wealth or power in the World System could never match such a revolutionary life.

This is why the Institutions of the Church took away the joy of learning God’s Word from people like the Galilean fishermen Jesus loved worked with: revolutionaries caught up in the mystery and beauty of God’s Word, armed with the “gifts to his people” that Jesus gave, with hearts full of Joy, and who understand, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” (Gal. 2:20) — who can tame such radicals?

The Revolution should look like this:

They and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord there. Acts 15:35 (NLT)

The believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. Acts 8:4 (NLT)

Friedrich Handle nailed it in “Messiah”:

The Lord gave the word;
great was the company of the preachers.
(Psalms 68:11)

Footnotes:

1. The Greek and Roman conquests were more innovative and tried to win loyalty from their conquered lands by accomodating local customs–if they didn’t challenge the authorities. [↩]
2. See Lk. 4 for the offer to rule “the kingdoms of the earth”; and see Jn. 6 where they wanted to crown him. [↩]

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1. Spontaneous Power