Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria (Acts 1:8; 8:4-25)

Acts opens with this: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Still, it's a marvel that the Jerusalem church would take the gospel to Samaria, because history had driven a wedge between Jerusalem in the South and and Samaria to the North.

Saul came from the North, David from the South; and after Solomon's death, long-simmering North-South divisions ended up in outright schism. After that, David's sons ruled the South by a God-ordained dynasty and built the God-ordained temple on Mount Zion. But non-Davidic kings ruled in the North and even built a faux temple on Mount Gerizim, one of the two mountains from which Israel echoed blessings and curses just before they entered the promised land. This in turn formed the ritual for a covenant renewal ceremony (Deut 11:29; 27:12-26; Josh 8:30-35). Hence its significance to Israel.

Exile came to the North two hundred years before the Southern exile, and one result was a lot of Gentile intermixture among families in the North. So the Samaritans were viewed as at best a half-breed offshoot of God's covenant with Israel (2 Kgs 17:24-41). After the exile, those tensions only increased when the returnees began rebuilding in the South. The Jews refused Samaritan attempts to get involved in rebuilding Jerusalem (Ezra 4:1-3); in turn, the Samaritans undermined Jewish attempts to rebuild Jerusalem's walls, society, and temple.

Even their canon of Scripture varied, which meant their messianic hopes differed widely. The Samaritan canon consisted of a specially edited Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy). That excluded the prophetic histories of the Davidic line that led to Judah's royal messianic hopes. It also excluded the latter prophets' messianic prophecies of Daniel's heavenly "Son of Man" (Dan 7:13); Isaiah's "Immanuel" (Isa 7:14), light to the nations (Isa 9:2), and suffering Servant of the Lord (Isa 52:13-53:21); and Jeremiah's new covenant (Jer 31:31-34), which Jesus initiated with the new cup (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25).

So the Samaritan's "messiah" wasn't a Davidic figure who would bring in a renewed manifestation of God's rule; rather, he was a pseudo-Mosaic figure who would restore the institutions and patterns of Samaritan worship on Gerizim. They weren't looking for a New Jerusalem, they were looking for a New Gerizim.

And yet, the Jewish Messiah from the Davidic line sent his disciples out to take the gospel to all the world, even to Samaria--and they went! Seems like they had taken seriously the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20), and the original job description for the people of God to bless the nations (Gen 12:1-2).

Getting it Wrong: Part 3

My comments on the earlier two blogs on this theme have pretty much stated my argument, but I'll put it in a brief form here:

There is indeed a reciprocal relationship between worship and missions; as Piper says, "Worship is the fuel and goal of missions." But worship is ultimate and eternal, whereas evangelism is not. When we talk of worship being the goal of missions, we reflect a rich biblical strain of thought, running from the Psalmist's calls, "Let the nations be glad" (e.g., Ps 67:3-4; 69:32; 70:4; 86:9; 97:1; 102:22; 117:1), to the apostles' awareness that the root of the apostolic call was in worship (Matt 19:29; Acts 9:16; 21:13; Rom 1:5; 9:17; 10:13; 3 John 6-7).

It's also useful to note that missionary thrust of the prayer Jesus taught is missionary-disciples: May your name be sanctified/honored/cherished and honored above any other name (Matt 6:9).

This assertion of the priority of worship over evangelism seems to me to be essential.

• Reversing the priorities has the potential to do severe damage to the evangelistic cause, as modern American church history has shown when churches lose the real divine cause and allow missions to lapse into merely humanitarian effort.

• Missions that are not driven by the glory of God can only be driven by some human impulse, whether it's vague humanitarianism or merely a guilty, patronizing, and condescending attempt help the developing world.

Now, after making that claim, I'm going to use my next blog posting to assert that there is something even more basic and primary that defines the key priority of the church. (Watch this space.)

Getting it Wrong: Part 2

It was interesting how the argument for and against reversing the priorities to put Worship first and Evangelism second played out. On the side for change, the resolution's sponsors provided a brief argument from biblical priorities. On the side for retaining the present order, Stanley Horton attempted a narrow argument from Acts.

But essentially, the argument against promoting Worship to first status and relegating Evangelism to the secondary position ignored Scripture and argued from our own historical documents rather than from Scripture. An emotive tactic, but not one calculated to do anything about clarifying biblical priorities.

In subsequent postings, I'll provide some of my own biblical arguments that Worship is clearly a priority over Evangelism. I'll invite comments in advance as to how you think I'll argue this case.

And in the end, I'll even argue that there's an even more compelling number-one priority that transcends even Worship or Evangelism as the church's chief priority. What do you think I'll see as the most elemental priority of the church?

Getting it Wrong: Part 1

In the previous blog, I asserted that the AG got it right in a vote at this month's General Council.

This blog asserts that another vote got it wrong. A resolution called for the AG to reorder its priorities to reflect a more biblical order. Presently, the order is 1. Evangelism and 2. Worship. The resolution argued that 1. Worship and 2. Evangelism would reflect a more biblical order of priorities.

The General Council voted this down. But the resolution was spot on and its rejection is clearly misguided.

I'll make my argument in subsequent blog postings.