Q&A from Saturday #2

At Revolution, we allow people to text in questions during the sermon that I answer at the end. It has quickly become a favorite in our community. Each week, we have more questions than I can get to, so I’ll try to answer those during the week. To listen to the ones I answered, go here.

To know what I talked about, you can read my notes here.

Here is one of the questions we didn’t get to.

Aren’t you complicating the bible way too much adding all that? The good news is that Jesus came to die for us, and in that everything falls under.

This is one of the most common questions I get whenever I talk about what I believe is the core message of the Bible. I believe the core message of the Bible is the kingdom of God, not how we get to heaven. How we get to heaven and eternity fall under the kingdom of God.

I understand that if you have understood the core message of the Bible to be how you get to heaven, changing that feels like “adding” to the Bible. I would say that it isn’t.

The good news is that Jesus came to earth to bring the kingdom of God here on earth as well as in the future and we get to be a part of that. Here and now, as well as in heaven, not yet but to come.

The problem in the church is that depending on our denomination, we focus on one side to the exclusion of the other. We focus only on heaven and it doesn’t matter how we live (we never say this but where did the term “fire insurance” come from). Or, we focus on how we live (social gospel) to the exclusion of heaven. Both ways leave a ton of unanswered questions in their wake.

If the gospel is how I get to heaven, what about today and tomorrow? What about what I am going through right now? What answers does Jesus have about opression, poverty, gender, sexuality, etc.? If the gospel is just for right now, what about heaven, death, the uncertainty of sickness, does God have power over any of that? Do you see what happens when we live with the dichotomy of either/or?

This is why I believe many things in the Bible are both/and, especially this. The gospel and the core message of the Bible is the kingdom of God, both here and now and yet to come. Jesus countless times says the kingdom of God is…in you, in your midst, at hand, but he also says it is to come, it is not here. I think Jesus embraced this dichotomy.

Back to the question, this does not add anything to the Bible or the gospel. It’s right there in the Bible. I think this points out what we often leave behind. We leave something behind, depending on which side we fall on.

A great book on this is Christopher J.H. Wright’s The Mission of God.

What did I miss? How would you answer this? What do you think the core message of the Bible is?