Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (10) "Religion"

Why the history of the Word 'Religion' Matters

… and why it matters to our discussion here.

Linguistically, Old English derives from an old German (Saxon) dialect. Hence we refer to people, language, things as 'Anglo-Saxon'.

Modern English draws not only from its Old English roots, but also from many other languages - including Latin, even though it is not in the family of Latin languages such as French and Italian. When I attended school in Australia in the 1950s and '60s, I learned about the Latin and Greek roots of many of our words - including how to deconstruct the words to arrive at their "original" meaning. We use many Latin words even today in all of our writing and speaking genres - most of the time we don't even realise we are doing so.  My grand-children of today don't spend much time on Latin and Greek roots at school!

The word 'religion' has suddenly become a popular word again as international and internecine wars and skirmishes become daily news.

Over the years, the English/Latin word religion has experienced considerable evolution of meaning.  As far as I can tell from my study and research, the point at which this word was introduced into the Latin language is all but impossible to identify.  The idea behind the word was doubtless present in the days of the Roman Empire somewhere between the destruction of the Jewish temple in AD 70 and the so-called conversion of Emperor Constantine (c. 285-337 AD).  I suggest it may well have been introduced during Constantine’s reign.  We’ll return to this in due course.

But not too far into the history of this word, it was generally understood as a system or collection of beliefs that has to do with appeasing gods and goblins.  Few if any civilisations have ever lived without a strong belief in spirits and powers above and beyond the mere human.  These beings or powers are generally viewed as responsible for the regulation of the natural order – the things that humans appear to have little control over or little understanding of.  As more knowledge and control is gained, for some, the perceived need for these ‘spiritual’ explanations wanes.

As time wore on, the word religion became a classifier for, on the one hand, any formalised system of beliefs that explained life and the universe beyond human control; and, on the other hand, a measure or ‘canon’ of the worthiness and acceptability of people within the sphere of influence of that particular belief system.

For hundreds of years, up until the time of The Enlightenment originating in the 17th century, ‘religion’ as the explanation for life as it was known was the accepted state of being.  People who followed no religion or an ‘unacceptable’ religion were termed ‘pagans’ – literally, country-dwellers; rustic people.  The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on knowledge and scientific pursuits and explanations, challenged religious pursuits, beliefs and explanations.

For those of us in Western, English-speaking cultures today, the word religion has undergone significant evolution during the development of nations such as the United States of America and Australia.  The PBS television Documentary series “God in America” is an excellent source for understanding a lot of this modern evolution.

Closer to my lifetime, in the 1940s and 1950s, the meaning of the word religion took an interesting turn when, for some, it came to mean what I consider to be the opposite of its general cultural meaning.  Some writers of the time [A.W. Tozer for instance] used the word religion to describe people who were renewed spiritually, and clearly and powerfully energised by the Holy Spirit.  They were nominal believers and ‘got religion’ – which meant they went from being simply church-attenders to being fire-brands for the Spirit of God and for the good news of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ.

Consequently, like the word ‘christian’, the word ‘religion’ is a seriously misunderstood and misused word.  It has come to mean many different things (as I’ve pointed to above) but, in the process, lost its root meaning.  Literally, the word means the 'process of tying up again or re-binding' (from Latin).  And, it seems, few have any interest in its original meaning.

The first ‘christians’ were those who followed the Christ.  They were called this by the society of their day which spoke, on the one hand, with a certain contempt for them and what they stood for and, on the other, with a certain amazement at how they loved one another.  They stood for freedom – what else would one expect?  Some sort of contest between religions can be argued.  Their cry became, 'We have no king but Jesus' - which was a profound threat to both secular Emperor and popular secular worship rites and practices.

But theirs was no contest between religions; it was a contest between religion and freedom.  By (original) definition, religion is how you undo freedom and freedom is how you undo religion.

For far too long, ‘christians’ have peddled a story of bondage while saying they were preaching a gospel of freedom.  Neither they nor their converts are christians by Christ’s definition; they are acting more like the Pharisees of Jesus' day.

'Keeping the rabble in line'

Let’s return to the Constantinian era for a moment.  Governments and civil authorities of the day (as they do in our day) survived by ‘keeping the rabble in line’.  The first christians were ‘rabble’ to all forms of authority, and before a few centuries had passed (persecution only serving to embolden the christians), another method had to be found to quell the rabble’s freedom.  In exchange for status, money, property rights and protection, ‘christian leaders’ agreed to quell the rabble’s freedom by a process of institutionalisation.  The method of choice was, as I alluded to earlier, to take away people’s freedom by stealth and make it look and feel like they were actually getting increased freedom (usually called ‘choice’) in the form of deals done to give the institutions respect, power and real estate.  [What's changed!]

I suspect they said something like (in Latin of course), ‘Let’s bind them up again, but in something that we control (church and state in collusion): priests, theology, rituals, buildings, programs and acts of charity.’

The ‘bind them up again’ part would have been the Latin word religion.

You see, religion is not a particular philosophy or type of philosophy; it is the process of quelling people’s freedom, binding them up again, initially without their knowledge or consent.  The philosophy behind it can be theological or political or both.  In the case of what we know as “the church”, I believe it was both.

Since then, different brands of religion have developed which are particular philosophical constructs.  And this has spilled over into the fracturing of what were once unified, solid and specific sets of beliefs.  The so-called christian church split in two, then each of those split into factions.  The so-called protestants were of a thousand different opinions and each formed their own collective sets.  I cannot think of any religion that has not fractured into many parts.  Further, I have lived and served in many local churches over the years, and even there, not one of them could be said to have solid unity, even at the level of their constitutions and statements of belief.  In fact, the quest for unity and for the maintenance of the unity of the Spirit seems to be little more than a quaint oddity or an impossible dream.

What religion has created is a world full of quasi-spiritual institutions.  And those institutions are so adamant and precious about their beliefs that they will fight and kill one another over them, despite the fact that the God they say they worship specifically commanded against killing one another and against arguing over fine points of theology and against taking one another to court to settle disputes.  Our institutions matter a great deal to us; and God’s household matters so little we will ignore it and trash it for our own institutions’ sake.

Thankfully, God is actually God.  Our institutions matter not so much as a nose-pick to God; while His household is His entire will from start to finish.  Is it not time for us to get new spectacles and see things as He sees them?  Is it not time for us to “discern the Body of Christ correctly”?  Is it not time for us to get with God’s program instead of insisting He get with ours?

'Religion' in the New testament

Now doubt some will say, "but hang on, James 1:27 talks about religion and implies that there is 'a religion' that God the Father accepts and approves of."

Not really - not if you're thinking in terms of modern conceptions of religion; and here's why.

The New Testament was written in Greek, not Latin.  The use of the English/Latin word in the English translation of James 1:27 is completely invalid in my view; it assumes all the historical and cultural baggage the word has carried with it for hundreds of years.  The truth is, the Greek equivalent of the word religion is anakampsei, which does not appear in the New Testament texts.

The word that does appear (in James 1:27) is threskeia - and its right and proper meaning describes how one's love and adoration for God plays out in one's human relationships in the here and now.  It refers to what author and theologian Richard Foster is talking about in his book Celebration of Discipline: spiritual disciplines; the daily practices of disciples of Jesus.  Indeed, I suspect James was actually contrasting real Jesus 'worship' with secular and pagan 'worship' of his day.

All this lays the groundwork for a consideration of nine key elements that make up much of modern 'church' life - as we shall see.

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (9) Hebrews

Hebrews - the book of better things

Now would be a good time to read Hebrews 10:19 to the end of the letter.

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (8) faith.propadeutic.com

“Two Covenants”:

Source - http://faith.propadeutic.com/covenant.html

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (7) unveiling.org

Religion or Christ (by Lynette Woods): 

Source - http://www.unveiling.org)

Old Covenant >>> New covenant (6) 2 Corinthians 2

2 Corinthians 2:12 - 4:18

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (5) Table 2

Covenant Features Compared

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (4) Table 1

The Partial >>> The Whole

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (3)

Devious Behaviour

[Begin here with a careful reading of Matthew 22:36-40 and Mark 12:28-34.]

We cannot relate to God successfully on the basis of anything besides the terms and conditions of the new covenant; and we are very devious, cunning and conspiratorial if we try.  Paul condemns these attempts as “other gospels” which are no gospels at all (see Galatians 1).  Indeed!  We may be able to make them sound like ‘good news’ but, from start to finish, they are very bad news indeed – if only because they are so devious and deceptive.

As it would be understood even in the allegory, attempting such cunning exploits amounts to fraud.  And the only response worthy of a human being seeking the face of God is deep repentance.  But does He get our repentance?  Most of the time, it doesn’t cross our minds that we are doing anything wrong.  Shades of Jeremiah 2:34-36.

The new covenant means that, for the price of surrendering our shabby lives to God through Jesus, we share in all the forgiveness and freedom and rights of sons and in His inheritance.  And then, when we apply Matthew 22 and Mark 12, we fall on our faces in love and adoration and worship; and we please His heart by bringing to others the blessings we have received.  We find ourselves gladly serving Him and His Kingdom and His Household.

The old covenant takes us, with whip and shackles, to the serving part without much hope of ever getting out of the grind of rituals and sacrifices; orders of service and obligations; buildings and programs; priests and robes.  The new covenant is freedom.

The essence of the old covenant is formula, replica and appearances; the essence of the new covenant, by contrast, is principle, original and truth.  [A table of this appears in a later post.]

I believe that, when God abandoned the old covenant as the way to relate to Him, its central ideas were taken up by His eternal enemy and they are now presented to humans in all types of garb to deceive and delude.  Hence, what you get is formulae (instead of principles), replicas (instead of every one being an ‘original’) and everything depending on appearances (instead of the ‘plum-line’ or ‘truth’ of God’s reality).

On this basis, under the new covenant, everything about the administration of the realm changes.  And any ‘servant’ who purports to serve God but binds people back to the old covenant – or to him or her self as a ‘guru’ – is a menace to the Gospel of Jesus and the eternal kingdom of God.  The apostle Paul expressed the wish that they might go and castrate themselves!  Gulp!  Small wonder some see Paul as a “false apostle”.

However, consider a couple of instances of the fraud I am talking about.

1.    Born again

We want to be ‘born again’ – and to be seen and known as ‘born again’.  This is one of the blessings of the new covenant – it was not available under the old covenant.  Now compare what Jesus said about being born again and how it is achieved (and what the first Apostles said and did) with the standard practice of any ‘church’ that says they believe in it.  One says death and resurrection; denial of self and full identification with the suffering Jesus; forsaking all for an uncertain life on earth; faithful perseverance to the day of Jesus’ return and more like that.  The other says, ‘raise your hand; come to the front; pray this prayer; come to ‘church’, read the bible and pray; go live a prosperous life; serve God in your spare time; make sure you give your tithe; and, by the way, always vote conservative.’

The latter is a complete and utter fraud.  Anyone suggesting this is attempting to defraud God by offering His blessings on the terms and conditions of a covenant dreamed up by His eternal enemy, written in the style of the old covenant laws and regulations.  “Do-list Christianity” is a good description for this fraudulent religion.  And how many souls have been defrauded and dudded?

2.    Church

The use of the term ‘church’ is another instance.  The essential meaning intended to be conveyed by this word is God’s ‘called-out’ company.  In the early part of what we call the Old Testament, the idea finds its expression in Israel.  In the latter part of the Old Testament – after Israel’s near-total and near-fatal rejection of God – it finds expression in the ‘remnant’ of Israel.  God always treasured a remnant who remained faithful to Him.

Arising out of that remnant comes Jesus, the inaugurator of the new covenant.  The early part of what we call the New Testament gives us the record of this.  Following Jesus, Apostle Paul carries the burden of revelation of the new administration of the kingdom of God.  ‘Church’ is still God’s called-out company, but it is no longer restricted to Israel.  Indeed, a careful reading of all the scriptures will show that it always was God’s way and God’s intention that His called-out company be from all nations, not just Israel.

So, ‘church’ is God’s idea from the start.  The difference in this instance between the old covenant and the new is in the nature of church and in what it does and how it does it.  Jesus makes all the difference.  Until Jesus came, lived, died, rose again, ascended to the Father and (with the Father) gave the gift of the Spirit of God to human beings, church was mostly lived as a place to go on the Sabbath and a program of rules and laws, sacrifices and offerings.

It never was God’s intention that church be mostly inorganic and centred around buildings and programs; yet that is what it became.  As long as the Holy Spirit was external and not innate and quite remote from most of the people, old covenant church was focused on buildings, law-keeping, sacrifices and a program of religious feasts and festivals.  Remember: the Israelites chose to not relate to God personally, but via king, priest and prophet.  Sound familiar?

Once the sacrifice of Jesus was complete (He is prophet, priest and king) and the Father honours it by raising Him from the dead and Jesus is taken up into glory, the new covenant church is rained upon by the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of a number of Old Testament prophecies.  Everything is different!  Every person who genuinely turns to God in repentance, faith and baptism is given the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is now innate.  If the Spirit is allowed to do His work, every believer, by the multiplication of the gospel, becomes a cell of church.  The inorganic slips way into the background and the organic life of disciples making disciples comes forcefully to the front. 

Buildings, programs and religious ceremonies disappear from the landscape and in their place the dream and vision of God from creation begins to emerge – the family of God, the Bride of Christ in gestation.

However, one or two things stand out like beacons: 1) no record of church life in the New Testament permits us to take a positive view of church as buildings, programs, orders of service, priests, clergy-laity, temple worship, hierarchy or anything else that was part of old covenant church; 2) what is in that record we denounce and deny by any means available.  So much for being people of the book!

First, there is the complete absence in the New Testament of anything resembling a call to worship like we see throughout the Old Testament.  Second, we do see strong indicators of something hugely different – for instance Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (especially chapter 4), Galatians 4 and 5, and his words to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 14:26.

In other words, church is God’s idea and it hasn’t changed.  What has changed from the old covenant to the new is what it involves, what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like, what it tastes like – fully organic.  Anything inorganic can, at best, be a servant of the church but, by its very nature and by definition, it cannot inherit the kingdom and cannot go into eternity.  Only people inherit the kingdom of God and go into eternity.

Why are things so different?  Because now, with the giving of the Holy Spirit, every believer is a brother, filled with the Spirit, taking the gospel to the world, making reproductive disciples, and fellowshipping with all believers wherever they go.  Church cannot be the same.  And if things remain the same, it cannot be church.  Everything must change.  Every person has something to contribute to corporate worship and must be allowed to do so or the Body will wither and die.

When ‘church’ is happening, there is an audience, but it is not the 90% of the congregation gathered and sitting in rows and pews watching the performance of the 10% elect.  The whole church – 100% – is to minister to God and wait on Him.  God, then is the audience – and probably with Him, the angels.  We also know that the world will be watching.  Further, we know that God uses His church as a means of displaying His glory to the enemy and the dark angels.

Pretty awesome audience; pretty awesome responsibility for the whole church.  But there’s not a whole lot of point to our activity if it’s a performance led by the few and watched by the many – and it certainly isn’t new covenant church.  It’s a fraud doled out to lazy people who want the blessings of the new covenant on the terms and conditions of the old covenant.  Just like Israel, we don’t want to get that close to God – it’s too uncomfortable.  Give us priests and pastors to mediate between us and God, never mind the scriptures (“there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus”!: Paul to Timothy in his first letter.)

The whole idea of church as a building; a place to go; an order of service; a set of do-lists; a series of programs; pastors and priests; a structure of positions and roles; etc. etc. is classic fraud.  It is an attempt to secure the blessings of the new covenant by either invoking the terms and conditions of the old covenant or writing our own covenant documents based on our traditions, preferences and ‘church teaching’.

We need to understand that God cannot, does not, will not honour the covenant documents and promises we have constructed, even if we have made them, in good faith, “in his name”.  The only covenant He honours is the blood covenant He made and established with the life, death, resurrection and ascension of His Son.  We are not divided into classes.  We are all, together, as sons and brothers, supposed to be ‘a kingdom of priests’ who minister to God and bring His kingdom to the world.

In the current era, the vast majority of new covenant church life is underground, even in the West.  When it dares to stick its head up, it is either chopped off or it conforms to the status quo of the old covenant by degrees – or it works surreptitiously ‘under the radar’ as it were.

However, much as the ‘remnant’ of Israel, new covenant church life is emerging – in its time, suddenly!  In its time, when it emerges, by faithful perseverance, it will be too strong to be stamped out.  And at the same time, much of the old covenant church life will be too weak or too stupid (literally: in the grip of a stupor) to inflict great damage.  “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.  Amen!

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (2)

Corporate Allegory

[A cornucopia - image above - is an allegory depicting productive abundance.]

Think about a major company such as Telstra – Australia’s privatized (used-to-be-public) Telco.  For that company to operate in Australia, it has to hold certain documents that validate its existence, its plans and its business decisions.  There are also many national standards and regulations that companies have to comply with, including any CSOs (Community Service Obligations) and a range of ‘Codes of Conduct’ to guide the way it relates to its customers and the communities it serves.  The combination of all this documentation could be referred to collectively as the Company’s ‘Covenant’ or ‘Testament’ with Australia.  The documents of its Covenant with Australia would be stored and administered by a department or branch of the company.

Now imagine that, at its last meeting, the Company Board voted unanimously to change the way it relates to its customers and does business in Australia.  The composition of the Board hasn’t changed noticeably, but a good number of its Covenant documents will have to be rewritten.  Let’s assume for the moment that the standards and regulations and CSOs have not changed, so essentially it is only the internal documents that need to be rewritten.

Once the documents are written and accepted, they will be adopted and, from that point, this new Covenant determines how the company does business, how it treats its workers and how it relates to its customers and its regulators.  There may be some relevant staff changes; perhaps a different section of the company will handle the administration or maybe the current department or branch will be revamped to fit with the new Covenant.  And perhaps there’s a new employee to speak up the new administration.

For the sake of this exercise, imagine that one of the adjustments to how the company is doing business is that, under the new Covenant, all fixed-line phone calls within a calling-code region are free and all fixed-line STD calls anywhere within Australia will be capped at 50c.

Same company; same staff; same customers – just a new régime.  Perhaps the company has decided to subsidise Australians talking to each other on fixed-line phones from the increased profits its new plans will generate elsewhere in the company.  A whole lot of free stuff for the company’s domestic customers!

The day arrives, and the system is switched over.  What if some workers in the company don’t like the new terms and conditions or the way the company has gone about applying its new Covenant?  They decide to run a parallel system that stays with the old terms and conditions and the old documents.  Some of the customers, believing there is something suspicious about the company giving away free stuff, want to stay with the old terms and conditions.  What might happen?  I and others call this agenda ‘governing against government’ – or at least attempting to.

Apart from the fact that such a scenario would be virtually impossible, the ramifications of it would be horrendous.  At the end of the day, which Covenant with the Australian people will the Board support, execute and administer?  The new covenant of course.

As outrageous and stupendous as this scenario appears, something very similar is what has occurred in relation to God and how people relate to Him.

Same God, same angels; different Covenant, different ‘administration’ (read Ephesians 3).  Paul evidently knew about it.  Paul lived in and executed the terms and conditions of the old Covenant until He was arrested and re-educated by Jesus.  Whammo!  His name changes from Saul to Paul and he is an entirely new man.  He died to the old Covenant and, through the freedom and generosity of the new terms and conditions instituted by Jesus, was reborn into the new Covenant with its documents and terms and conditions.

Unfortunately, many people think God is way too generous in the documents and the terms and conditions of His new Covenant with us, so they opt to stay with the old ones.  Unfortunately for them, God and His servants have entirely moved to the new administration of the realm which involves unbelievable generosity and forgiveness and grace.  Perhaps the more studious ones have looked in detail at both sets of documents and decided that the cost of committing to the new Covenant is too great – surrender of yourself, body soul and spirit, to God, without being completely convinced about the benefits involved: what’s this ‘eternal life’, and ‘the power of an endless life’, and all this about being sons of God, a kingdom of priests, reigning with Christ, the spotless Bride of Christ?

The nett result is that many, many people have decided to write their own documents for the Covenant: in their version, they have all the benefits of the new Covenant on the terms and conditions of the old.

Just like this Company could not legally honour a spurious staff- or customer-generated perversion of its covenant – and would not honour it – so God cannot legally honour the spurious perversion of His covenant.  Either you try to relate to God on the terms and conditions of the old covenant: the results of which may or may not be success and riches in this life but death and separation from God in the provisions He has established under His new covenant.  Or you relate to God on the terms and conditions of the new covenant, as outlined in its documents (what we know as the New Testament): expressed simply (in the words of Jesus) as: ‘if you are my disciple, the world will hate you as it hated me, but fear not, I have overcome the world’.

As always, we can learn a lot from the old documents, but the most important thing to learn is that you don’t ever want to go back to relating to God on those terms when He has prepared and opened a far better way.  While God’s grace does not breach our sovereign human will to choose, it remains true that ‘you reap what you so’: we pay a very high price for spurning the new and struggling on endlessly, like a mouse in a wheel, in the old.

Same God, same ‘customers’; but the terms and conditions of the covenant by which God relates to us humans has changed fundamentally and permanently because of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the now-innate presence of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus Himself made it abundantly clear that the old has gone and the new has come.  For an example, read the story of an old covenant enquirer in Luke 18:18-30.  Then read through Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7.  “The old administration said this, but I say ...” is repeated many times.  [We’ll come to this a little further on.]  Then read the story of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9, followed by his letter to the Galatians.

As an introduction to the next section, here’s a useful website listing 32 points of distinction between the old covenant and the new covenant in the matter of how humans relate to God.

https://www.christiantruthcenter.com/difference-between-the-old-covenant-and-the-new-covenant/

Old Covenant >>> New Covenant (1)

Towards Better Things

Saturday, January 10 2015, The Australian ran this line:

“The Weekend Australian today published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed arguing with Jesus...  The ... newspaper published the cartoon by Bill Leak entitled "Let us pray" in which Jesus is holding up the Koran and telling Mohammed: ‘I've told you this needs a sequel’, an indirect reference to the Bible which has an Old and New Testament.  To which Mohammed, brandishing a newspaper with the headline "World at War", replies he can't return to human form right now because he would be "crucified".

That last line, of course, is a reference to what happened to Jesus when he produced a “sequel”.  Though he didn’t write it – he lived it.

I’m not interested in the religion or the politics of the issue; but I am fascinated by the fact that cartoonist Bill Leak (who passed away in 2017) understood that there was and is an ‘old covenant’ and a ‘new covenant’.  [Covenant, like Will, is another word for Testament.]  That’s an understanding I find in short supply among millions who call themselves Christians across the globe today.

Typically, christians act and talk as if nothing much happened in the hundred years from the announcement of the birth of Jesus; like Jesus – despite all he set out to achieve – was a momentary aberration in the course of Jewish and world history.  Jesus, to many, was and is a ‘great moral teacher’; but aside from that, for many, nothing much happened in the cosmos or in the supernatural world – even if you are one of a minority that believes there is such a thing.

Many so-called Christians name themselves such simply to distinguish themselves from followers of Islam, Judaism, Shintoism, Buddhism, etc. and couldn’t tell you much about distinctions between named sub-sets of ‘christian’.  And many reference their ‘christianity’ back to the characters, the laws and the teachings and ethics of ancient Israel.  Some do both.

Any number of histories will tell you that the ‘christianity’ of the first hundred years from the announcement of the birth of Jesus was a ‘Jewish sect’ and/or a ‘new religion’.  And histories that take a dim view of the first century character Saul (later Paul) – whom they view as a renegade and a break-away – struggle to make sense of (or find a place for) a distinction between an ‘old covenant’ and a ‘new covenant’ or a transition from one to the other.

This is not altogether surprising given that Saul/Paul was a stand-out in understanding and articulating that distinction and the need for a transition.  Remove Paul’s writings from the equation (and of course Luke’s history of Paul’s exploits in the book of Acts) and you are left with an eerie sense that those histories might actually be on the right track.

So at the outset, I am stressing that I am NOT one who devalues or dismisses Paul.  And my reading of Jesus is that he had no intention whatsoever of forming a new sect within Judaism or of starting a new religion.  Furthermore, it is my view that it is Paul’s exploits and writings that gave the will and intentions of Jesus the impetus they needed to blast through the inertia of the religion of the day to usher in the dawn of a whole new administration of God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven”, as Jesus put it.  There was no one better placed than Paul to do that.

And “administration” it is.  The English translations of Paul in his letter to the Ephesians use that word specifically.  The Greek original of the word is οἰκονομία, which is variously translated administration, stewardship, household.  Believe it or not, this is the original Greek work from which modern English derives the term economics: economics is about much more than money and book-keeping; it’s about a household, stewardship of what we have to hand, and the sound administration of our corporate responsibilities.

Paul picks this up as no other new testament writer does – unless, of course, you see the letter to the Hebrews as not written by Paul but by another (unknown) author.  Indeed, it is inextricably linked to Paul insofar as it is actually part of his character and his perception of his purpose and mission and calling in life.  Paul saw the revelation of this administration – this stewardship; this economics – as coming directly from God.  And I for one don’t doubt it.  After Paul was flipped over and spun about by God – in the person of the resurrected Jesus – he soon thereafter spent around three years in the ‘wilderness’ basically alone with God.  He needed to hear first-hand (not via his usual school of Rabbinic thought) just what the tumult in his life was all about.  You’ll see this in part of his letter to the Ephesian disciples.

In short, Prior to Jesus’ resurrection (see Romans 1 especially verse 4), the old administration was in force.  For the Jews, it meant pretty much the continuation of the administration we see as the context for the old testament writings.  For non-Jews, it meant whatever was their particular administration of the cosmos relative to their culture and history.

The resurrection changed everything.  Romans 1:1-6 puts the story in a nutshell.  The old Jewish prophets recorded God’s promise that a descendant of David would receive the imprimatur as “son of God with power.”  Through him, a new administration would begin in which “all nations” (the proper meaning of the Greek word translated ‘Gentiles’) are now included – not least the Roman disciples to whom Paul addressed his letter.

To many Jews it was then and is now an utter scandal.  As Luke’s record in Acts shows us, the Jewish leaders have continuously and assiduously maintained the view than any Gentile seeking fellowship with them must keep the “law of Moses”.  And this – as those same scriptures show us – meant that anyone wishing to join the new “Jesus movement” (“The Way” as it was often called) must also keep the “law of Moses’.  Paul fought this notion to his death – precisely why many view Paul as ‘the false apostle’.

The new testament scriptures record various first-person and second-person accounts of Paul’s understanding and articulation of what this means and implies.  Much of Romans and Hebrews is precisely about his, as are parts of his various letters to the local gatherings of Jesus People he worked with.

And Luke’s record in Acts contains multiple references to events (e.g. Acts 9 and 15) that shed light on the reality of a new administration and of the necessity of a transitioning from old to new.

And for me, this issue is not just a “theology” or a doctrine that only has significance within the perimeters of religion, church or christianity; it is central to our humanity.  Many works that make no profession of being about theology, religion, church or christianity talk at length about both the existence of ‘old’ and ‘new’, of a transition from ‘old’ to ‘new’, and of a considerable need to make that transition.  Two come immediately to mind: New Power by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms; The Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Community by David C. Korten.

As far as I am concerned, a true authentic and satiated humanity flows not from the ‘old’ (Empire; domination; winners and losers) but from the ‘new’ (Earth Community; partnership; cooperation).  And on both counts, we have ample evidence from thousands of years of recorded history of both approaches; notwithstanding the fact that Empire tends to get the lion’s share of the oxygen, attention and Press coverage and Earth Community tends to be just ‘white noise’ in the background of life.

Blogger Bill Britton (promiseed.com) calls the new testament letter to the Hebrews “The Book of Better Things” as this is the chief argument of the letter.  In summary, the ‘new’ is better than the ‘old’, as witnessed in these ways:

·         Sonship is better than the angels

·         A better gospel spells better dominion

·         A better house with a better builder

·         A better Sabbath (day of rest)

·         A better high priest in a better priesthood

·         A better tabernacle (tent/meeting place)

·         A better covenant

·         A better blood from a better sacrifice

·         A better holy place

·         A better day

·         A better way through a better veil

·         A better faith with a better promise

·         A better relationship (sonship)

·         A better kingdom with a better city

·         A better altar with a better sacrifice

From promiseed.com by Bill Britton:

Thirty years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus we still find the Jewish Christians following the law of Moses and the ceremonial ritualism of temple worship. Thirty years after the Holy Spirit fell on the day of Pentecost, thousands of Spirit-filled priests and Jewish Christians were still engaged in the offering up of the Passover lamb and other blood sacrifices. The writer of Hebrews is trying to show them the glory of the reality in Christ Jesus, and the "better things". (emphasis added)

It remains a puzzling question why people still cling to the old, the less satisfactory, the less effective ideas, ways and practices in the manifest presence and availability of a far superior way.  Why do we do that?  David Korten has excellent insight here.

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Next I want to set up a parable story – a metaphor; an allegory – to illustrate what I’m talking about.  Following that, I want to add in some tables of comparison and contrast.

Included somewhere in there will be an examination of the “old covenant” nature of the things included in what we call church today, as well as touching on the brilliant work of Gregory Boyd in his two books: The Myth of a Christian Nation and The Myth of a Christian Religion.  And as sure as the sunrise, they are both myths.

And the pièce de résistance: a short tour of Matthew 5, 6 and 7 focusing particularly on those occasions when Jesus is reported to have said “You have heard that it was said...  But I say...”