The Very First Church

In 735 BC Isaiah gave a prophecy to king Ahaz about a young woman giving birth to a boy called Immanuel—a prophecy that seemed to be fulfilled with the birth of Hezekiah and the destruction of Aram and Samaria. But there was to be a much deeper fulfillment of this prophecy—as deep as Sheol, as high as heaven—because the testimony of JESUS is the spirit of prophecy.

It’s very hard to take Messiah as he is, when you have your own expectations of what Messiah is supposed to do. But Advent is about waiting. So while we're waiting on the world to be saved, let’s take Christ as he is and not to make him do something or be something that isn't Christlike.

The royal monarchy of Judah was established by David, the youngest son of Jesse. But after two and a half centuries the Davidic monarchy was mostly a regime of corrupt kings. That's when Isaiah foresees a shoot, a branch, a new root from the line of Jesse who will be the sevenfold Spirit-anointed king who establishes righteousness and justice.

The Hebrew prophets were poets of profound imagination. Poetry was their medium for pronouncing judgment and for offering visions of hope. The Hebrew prophets were not pragmatists or political activiststhey were Spirit-inspired poets possessed with prophetic imagination. They could imagine a world that did not yet exist, but one they believed would come. And the among the greatest of the Hebrew poet-prophets is Isaiah son of Amoz.

Our minds need good and true information, but mind and heart need to be nourished together. This is why when we meet together as the church of the living God. We hear a message designed to teach and impart knowledge and we also pray and worship together with songs whose lyrics are poetry, designed to move our hearts. Our goal is transformation, and that doesn’t only mean in our thinking, but our hearts and souls. This is also why we pray the psalms.

In Jeremiah's day Jews had to learn how to live as exiles in Babylon. The New Testament refers to the baptized as citizens of heaven who also have to learn how to live as exiles in Babylon.

When asked about the resurrection, Jesus spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being alive to God. If we think carefully about this, it has enormous theological implications on how we understand when resurrection occurs.

John the Elder tells us that the world under the sway of the evil one is driven by pride, greed, and lust. (Think of how much advertising appeals to pride, greed, or lust.) This world (prophetically called Babylon) cannot be harnessed for good—even though religious ambition for political power imagines it can. The task of the church is not to reappropriate the engines of pride, greed, and lust, but to be something altogether different—the kingdom of Jesus Christ energized by faith, hope, and love.

"The nuns taught us that there are two ways through life—the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you will follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself, accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked; accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to Lord it over them, to have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it, when love is smiling through all things. They taught us the no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end. I will be true to you whatever comes."- The Tree of Life