The Eudaimonia Blog

So as I wrap up my blogging for a bit as I prepare to travel to Germany, the aim of sharing from Bishara’s book as well as starting some of my writings getting us to think on a proper Biblical-theological perspective on Israel, is to move us as Christians out of the space where we deepen the great divides between Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, it is important that we operate as agents of peace in the world, pursuing reconciliation between the two, let alone all nations, under the banner of Christ. The second we Christians make statements such as, “God gave Israel the land and therefore we should support Israel’s right to the land,” we’ve lost our “saltiness” (in reference to Jesus telling His people they must be salt and light in the world- salt as a metaphor is a preservative of goodness in the world and light that of Christ’s self-giving love).

God has given the whole earth as an inheritance to His people (Matt. 5:5), not any one specific piece of land. As I wrote in an earlier post, in light of the coming of Christ, the promise of land has now been universalized (rather than remains localized to the people of Israel) and the way in which we as followers of Christ are meant to take in the promise of the earth as our inheritance, is to become caretakers and stewards of it,… we do the work of God on earth in participating in the restoration of humans to God, humans to God’s creation, i.e. the earth, and humans to one another. Many years ago, I made the case for defining the term “meaningful ministry” as participating in making all things beautiful once again. In that older post, I looked at the broader context of 2 Cor. 5:17-19 which speaks of God’s children in Christ being a “new creation” and also given the “ministry of reconciliation.” Again, to go back to my recent post on “Christian weapons,” we do not wage war as the world does, but we take on the spiritual weapons of proclaiming the death of death in the death of Christ. We bring hope that for all who trust in Christ THEY ARE ABRAHAM’S SEED AND HEIRS OF THE PROMISE!!!

A large part of my motivation in sharing Bishara’s story is to humanize the “other side,” to demonstrate even the men of Hamas, while the political enterprise and international community might call them (and perhaps rightfully so) “terrorists,” we must always see all men as being the object of Christ’s saving love, for He so loved the world that God gave His one and only Son. We all have a story and Jesus came into the world to bring sinful and wicked humanity (Mike Hsu included!) into the story of His reign, grace and Kingdom.

For those who have held a faulty view of Old Testament Israel’s relationship to the New Covenant, as I’m going to guess, most Christians who are my age or older have at one point (let’s just say I’m past the half-century mark, haha), I urge you to reflect deeply on Galatians 3:26-29 as well as the call of Peter in Acts 2:38,39,… isn’t the promise given to Abraham to once again dwell with God in “the land,” isn’t that promise now fulfilled in the coming of Christ and our reconciliation to Him by faith? And isn’t the promise God spoke to Paul to bring creation out of all of its groanings, the final realization of that promise? (Romans 8:19-21). The context of Romans 8 is that WE THE CHURCH are to suffer for the world out of our self-giving and sacrificial love. And we must not compound the suffering of the nations by supporting war and power agendas. As Jesus said, “my Kingdom is not of this world!”

Christopher Watkin has written in his terrific book Biblical Critical Theory, on p. 481 that “… all that a state (i.e. human government) can achieve, all the judgements it can pass, all the power it can exert, all the possessions it can safeguard, and all the values it can seek to uphold are exceeded and succeeded by the dawning kingdom of God in a way that means earthly political power cannot be the mediator of God’s triumphal rule, for this was secured in the ascension and will be revealed at the parousia (when Jesus returns).”

Author Ed Stetzer writes that Christians must rebel against rebellion and Oliver O’Donovan has said that the Gospel “desacralizes” (removes from its lofty perch) the enterprise of politics. As Ed Clowney wrote many years ago, “The Politics of the Kingdom” operate on an entirely different level from the politics of this world. As we dawn the full armour of God, we recognize perhaps the most significant piece of armour (though all of it being important) is that our feet are fitted with the readiness given by the Gospel of peace (Ephesians 6:15). These are our “weapons” (see my earlier post on “Christian weapons”). Let us dear Church press into a proper understanding of our Scriptures, do the hard work of studying the Scriptures, being intentional in getting discipled by others farther along in their understanding, and let us get our Biblical-theological house in order, before voicing with force our political views.