Denise, Emma and I are vacationing in Maine, so that means we get to relax and do what we want to do for a week. For me, that means I can finish a book that’s been on my nightstand for over a year: The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God by Greg Beale.
It’s not light reading as the author takes the reader through a highly detailed description of the temple, it’s significance as the dwelling place of God’s presence and all that means to us, His people. Dr. Beale has served as a pastor and college professor most of his life, so his books never scale the ivory tower of intellectualism or tumble down the cliff of abstraction. While always challenging and deeply Biblical, particularly in his sweeping command of the Old Testament, he brings it right down to where you and I live. We are witnesses to the saving power of Jesus and the dwelling place of God’s presence in this fallen world.
I thought Dr. Beale’s purpose in writing The Temple and the Church’s Mission is appropriate for NCCF at this moment in our church’s life: He writes:
The main point of this book is that our task as the covenant community, the church, is to be God’s temple [Ephesians 2:19-22 & 1 Peter 2:4&5], so filled with his glorious presence that we expand and fill the earth with that presence until God finally accomplishes the goal completely at the end of time! This is our common mission.
In order to reach that goal:
We as individual Christians, as members of a local church and as part of Christ’s church throughout the world must not merely share our lives and God’s word with one another, but we need to get out of our little fishbowls and manifest the presence of Christ through our words and lives, so that the boundaries of the temple, the church, will grow until the whole earth is encompassed with and manifests the presence of God. Through us, God will fulfill his promise in Habakkuk 2:14, ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’
But, what does that look like and how can we experience the indwelling presence of God more fully? Dr. Beale puts it simply:
God’s presence grows among his priestly people by their knowing his word, believing it and by obeying it, and then they spread that presence to others by living their lives faithfully and prayerfully in the world… a persevering and joyous faith in the midst of trial is an amazingly priestly witness to the unbelieving world. It gets the world’s attention. Such a witness either sparks more persecution or it influences some who persecute to join the church. This is what ‘missions’ is all about.
So, let’s recap: God’s presence grows in us when we know His Word, we believe it and then we live faithfully and prayerfully. And, we need to remember that each one of us is on mission and want to be “so filled with his glorious presence that we expand and fill the earth with that presence until God finally accomplishes the goal completely at the end of time!”
We had our first church-wide time of fasting and prayer for the Brunswick, Nevada County Christian Fellowship and the Mission, ending with a prayer meeting and feast on Tuesday May 5. We prayed that this would be the first of many such times, when we would go to Jesus as a community of believers, seeking His mercy, grace and provision in moving us forward in our Mission to our neighborhood, our county and the nations.
Please join us in daily prayer and watch for future announcements, praise reports and prayer requests.
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
Colossians 4:2
