Reign-drops

One of the ways I think about the reign of God in our world is kind of silly, but it makes sense in my own head.

Robin Hood.

See, Robin Hood lives in a land where an evil villain, Prince John, is ruling. He's taxing the the people ruthlessly, exploting them for his own purposes. Robin and his men reject the rule of that tyrant, on the grounds that he does not represent the wishes of the Richard, who is the true and rightful king. So they live ina state of rebellion against the false king out of loyalty to the true king, trusting that Richard will someday come and set things to rights. So they wait for an eventual time when the king will reign again, bt in a way, they already are living in his reign by fulfilling his will while he is gone.

And so it is with us. Now the metaphor isn't perfect, but you can still see the point, right? While we live by God's will, we represent his reign in the earth in our current time, but we also wait for his eventual return when his reign will be complete. So the kingdom of God (the reign of God) is here, but not completely.

But someday, the king will return. So we Christians hope.

Burdensome

In my Bible study this morning, the following verse jumped me. It ambushed me from the thick dark bushes of the book of Hebrews. It's from chapter thirteen.

"Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you."

I've been trying to let that sink in, and am still feeling out what it means.

It's a very honest picture of leadership...leaders can't do everything on their own but depend on their followers a bit, particularly for confidence and submission (not a negative word, I believe). Leadership can bring joy, but also burden. Also, followers can make their leaders more effective (beneficial to the followers). In some ways I have a leadership role here at PV, but I think that today I rightly read this as a follower, as one who submits to a group of shepherds.

I'm trying really hard these days to figure out what it means for me to be the kind of follower that brings joy to our church leaders, and not burden. I know that while they do find a lot of joy in their work, I've seen the burden too. I know if we can learn to hear what this verse is saying, we'll be a better church. It seems close to the very heart of discipleship.

I guess this short admonition just caught me in the right place today. I pray that by God's spirit that bit of truth that it's planted in my heart can grow and bear fruit.

Thoughts?

Conversation

As we envisioned this blog, we thought it would be a great place for us to have a running conversation as a church family, and perhaps with some in other communities as well. I have to admit a little disappointment, though.

From conversations, and emails, it seems that a good number of people are reading the blog, but a quick scan shows that very few are posting...now my friends, that makes for a one-sided conversation! That might be okay, but I just wanted to say that it wasn't exactly what we were hoping for.

I figure that there may be three reasons why it's happening this way. First, the posts might just stink, so that there isn't really anything to post about. In this case fair enough. If you have suggestions about post topics you'd like to see, let us know, and we'll get something up.

Secondly, you might be intimidated about posting online, in which case I would really like to encourage you to just go for it! Believe me, we would love to see what you have to say! Don't think of this too formally, like you're posting your official position on matters...it's just a conversation! It's even okay if you misspell stuff. Watch, just to make you feel more comfortable, I'm going to misspell a word. "mountian." See, nobody assaulted me! It's just fine. So, please don't be intimidated, rise up over your fears and post a comment. Comment on this particular thread, just to prove to yourself and to me that you can.

Finally, if you're new to the game, it might eb a little confusing how it works. Here's what you do: click on the place below where it says: "3 comments" (or whatever the number is..."1 comment" etc.) It'll take you to a page that will let you see the other comments people have already made. Read through those to get a sense of the conversation, then at the bottom click where it says, "Post a Comment". That will give you a page with box in which to write your comment, a place to identify yourself, and a random word verification (that helps keep people from posting blog spam...that doesn't mean anything to you except that you need to type the word you see in the blank). You don't have to have a blogger account to post.

Okay, if you have a different reason than the three above, we have a dilemna. I could suggest that you post a comment about your different reason, but that would be illogical, since your reason would keep you from doing that. But, if you find yourself in one of the above categories, then please let me encourage you write one comment here, even if it is meaningless, so that we can get this conversation going.

-Steven Hovater (stevepvc)

Living in the Word

I've been working on a term paper for my grad school class, and as they tend to do, the subject matter for this semester's paper keeps seeping slowly into the other structures of my life, popping up in the most unuusal papers. It comes up in conversation, in classes, during worship, and in my mind during a thousand moments in each day. The great thing is, this paper's subject is simply a short passage od scripture, 1 Peter 2:1-3. Three simple verses, nothing particulalry complex about them, and although the research process is bringing up lots of interesting questions, that's not my main point here. Mainly what I want to note here on the blog is the way that living with a bit of scripture for a while can really shape the way you see things in the world. The passage I'm working on says :

"Having put off every evil, and every deceit, hypocricies, envies, and all slanders, crave true spiritual milk like newborn babies, so that by it you may grow into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." (my translation)

So over the past couple of weeks I keep wondering, "Is this 'true' milk?" or about the kinds of hypocrisies that I'm holding on to in my life. I've thought about ways that I've found God to be tasty, and what it means to grow into salvation. Most of all I keep checking back to the word crave. That's a good word.

Finally, I want to really encourage you to post a thought. I think I'm going to make a separate post about how to do that, but here I want to suggest that if you have a passage that's been running through your mind lately, let us hear a little about it. Or maybe those words from I peter caught your eye, and you have a thought tho share on that regard, too.
Thoughts?