Regnum Caelorum

I was having lunch with other missionaries on a mission compound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I was enjoying getting to know these men and women that had given their lives in the service of the gospel in one of the poorest countries in the world. I was there with my friend Elias, and we were sharing with another missionary about the disabilities conference we were putting on for the churches in Addis. Joni Erickson Tada had come with us to Ethiopia to help us make the church aware of the need to reach out and care for those with disabilities among them. My role in the conference was to be a photographer and instructor on how the Bible calls us to serve “the least of these” among us. I told my new friend, “The conference is designed to equip churches with what they need to be able to serve the disabled all around them.” The missionary’s response was quite surprising: “Well, it’s all well and good to care for the poor and disabled, but that’s not the ministry of the church. The mini...

Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix Brian D. McLaren I liked this book a whole lot more than I expected to. It offers a very engaging challenge to those who would want to package evangelism into diagnostic questions, canned illustrations or five point outlines. He likens it to a dance. It "begins with something beyond yourself," and "over time, your whol life begins to harmonize to the song. It's rhythm awakens you; its tempo moves you, so you resonate with its tone and flow with its melody. The lyric gradually convinces you that the entire world is meant to share in this song with its message, its joy, its dance" (pp. 15-6). McLaren understands that it is the gospel itself, and the transformation that occurs in us by God's Spirit that motivates our engagement with unbelievers. And he undestands that the hope of the gospel is more than just the conversion of the sinner--the entire cosmos (not the sum total of all people in the world) is suppo...

Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, 2nd Edition C. E. Hill Welcome to my theological blog page. The title Regnum Caelorum , meaning "kingdom of heaven," is taken from an excellent book written by one of my professors about the history and development of millennial thought in the early church. Hill's argument is that, despite popular opinion, there were many in the early church (particularly from the late first to third centuries) that were not "chiliasts" (or premillennialists by today's terminology). These non-chiliasts can be identified because they believed in a heavenly afterlife, as opposed to their chiliast bretheren, all of which believed they would rest in Hades after death. In fact, reading his book makes one believe that chiliasm was a development in early Christianity around the middle of the second century. I highly recommend it to those interested in the history of eschatology in the early church. For an overview of Hill...