be my witnesses in Jerusalem... and to the ends of the earth" Acts 1:8
EFS & Den svenska kristenheten
EFS och Den svenska kristenheten
Tone Carlsson, studierektor på Johannelunds Teologiska Högskola, får i dagarna en tacksamhetens Vårhälsning från Råslätt till Johannelund och EFS-folket. Varför? Jo, därför att Tone tillsammans med alla andra medarbetare på skolan gestaltar en anda som är så generös, stödjande och uppmuntrande. Läs mera om >> JOHANNELUND
Från Råslätt påminner jag henne om tacksamheten över vad hon med hennes medarbetare fått betyda ute bland Guds folk. David Kyobe-Lule från Uganda, Eskil Selander och Kari Carlsson är tre namn som jag skriver om som på skilda sätt påminner mig om vad Johannelund har fått betyda som en inomkyrklig utbildningsanstalt och rent personligt.
Ute i Den svenska kristenheten finns så många bröder och systrar som har och haft sina rötter i EFS. Namnen är legio om de skulle räknas upp här! Kärlekens Ande med sin värme och omsorg är ett av kännetecknen som EFS fått bära bland Guds folk ute i Den svenska kristenheten. Vad Schartau fick betyda för gammalkyrkligheten i söder, det kom Rosenius att betyda för den norrländska väckelsefromheten. De båda gestalterna kan ibland uppfattas som varandras motsatser, men f.d. domprosten Per-Olof Sjögren påminde om den komplettering de tillsammans utgjorde vad gäller Lag och Evangelium resp. Evangelium och Lag.
I Tåsjö socken i Västernorrlands län föddes 1874 Isak Jonsson. Det berättas om farfar att han haft speciella syner nere vid Tåsjön i samband med väldiga norrsken. I familjen hörde vi berättas om hans omvändelse 1901, som fick till följd att han ville lämna sitt gamla namn och tog namnet Selander. Han kom till Johannelund för predikantutbildning och studerade där under åren 1910-1913. Sedan var han predikant i Söråsele, Arvidsjaur och från 1919 i Råneå. 1945 dog farfar hemma i Skinnarbyn i Bygdeå. Att Isaks son Carl-Gustav också gick Johannelund, innan han blev teol.kand och präst i mörkaste Småland fördjupar tacksamheten för vad EFS och Johannelund fått betyda för många i Den svenska kristenheten.
Läs mera >> om Evangeliska Fosterlands Stiftelsen
och om >> C.O. Rosenius
/Dag Selander
Midfastoaftonen
Lutheran, jude & katolik
Bild: Reichsbishop Ludwig Müller hälsar på Führern
HÄNGIVENHET SOM MOTSTÅND
Ylva Eggehorn föreslår "hängivenhet som motstånd" mot de hot som möter idag: miljöproblem, flyktingströmmar, globalisering och terrorism.
Hennes bok från 2004 på förlaget Cordia bär titeln"Att ta ansvar för Gud. Om hängivenhet som motstånd" är en en utmanande text om 179 sidor.
Hon utvecklar detta med hängivenheten som motstånd i mötet med två personligheter som aldrig möttes. Men ändå levde i samma miljö, i samma tid, i samma Europa. Den lutherske prästen Dietrich Bonhoeffer och den holländska judinnan Etty Hillesum är personerna som utgör exempel på hängivenheten som motstånd.
Ylva Eggehorn påpekar att Etty och Dietrich förenas av en människa som ingen av dem träffat: Edith Stein, holländsk intellektuell judinna som Etty, så småningom övertygad kristen som Dietrich, som också hon dog i Auschwitz. Edith Stein helgonförklarades av påven Johannes Paulus II 1998 och utropades året därpå till skyddshelgon för Europa med Birgitta av Vadstena.
Ylva Eggehorns bok Att ta ansvar för Gud låter en av den kristna trons mest grundläggande tankar, att dö med Kristus, illustreras av 1900-talets mest dramatiska tidevarv.
Hon citerar Bonhoeffer: -När Kristus kallar en människa säger han: Kom och dö med mig.
Ylva Eggehorn fortsätter själv:
-Det behöver inte innebära fysisk död - men det handlar alltid om en förlust av våra egna planer, vår självvalda heroism eller vår bekvämlighet.
Läs hela recensionen av boken >> på Vatikanradions hemsida
/DS
Only Christianity (1)
O n l y C h r i s t i a n i t y (1)
Mere Christianity
BBC:s radioutsändningar med föreläsningsserier av C.S. Lewis från åren 1941 och framåt utgavs senare i bokform under titeln "Mere Christianity" år 1952. Teologiskt var C.S. Lewis lekman men hade kunskaper helt jämförbara med mången teolog, dock utan teologiska examina. Han hade en förmåga att tala till mänskor denna tid och till senare tiders läsare som måste betraktas som enastående. Han var professor i litteraturhistoria och hade kunskaper utöver det vanliga. Han var en storslagen och medryckande föreläsare pedagog som han var.
Omvändelsen 1926-1931 i sidovagnen
När C.S. Lewis efter sin omvändelse, som var en process under åren 1926-1931, beskriver dess höjdpunkt skriver han i ett brev (daterat 1/10 1931) till sin gode vän Arthur Greeves att "jag har just övergått från att tro på Gud till att fullt och fast tro på Kristus… Mitt långa nattliga samtal med Dyson och Tolkien hade en hel del med detta att göra." I Biografin Jack skriver George Sayer, elev till Lewis: "Omvändelsen ägde rum den 22 september 1931 medan Jack [familjära namnet för Clive Staples Lewis] satt i sidovagnen till Warrens motorcykel på väg till Whipsnade, safariparken. 'När vi startade hemifrån trodde jag inte att Jesus Kristus var Guds Son', skrev Jack, 'och när vi kom fram till djurparken trodde jag det.' Det var ingen känsloladdad omvändelse, och han var inte heller medveten om hur han resonerade. 'Det var mer som när man ligger orörlig i sängen efter en lång sömn och blir medveten om att man nu är vaken.'"
Protestanter och katoliker, baptister och grekisk-ortodoxa
C.S. Lewis är vid sin omvändelse i sidvagnen 32 år och 11 månader gammal. Tio år senare vid 42 års ålder har en erfarenhet och ett eget kristenliv han med passion både vill och kan föra vidare. Hans föreläsningar blev "en fantastiskt innehållsrik utläggning av kristen teologi, det vill säga av den lära som nästan alla kristna har gemensam. Han var noga med att undvika sådant som var kontroversiellt för en del kyrkor och att presentera en lära som både protestanter och katoliker, baptister och grekisk-ortodoxa kunde acceptera - precis som han var i alla sina religiösa böcker", skriver George Sayer i Biografin Jack (sid 242).
Only Christianity
Vad Jesus avhandlar i Johannes 17 i sin översteprästerliga förbön är blott och bart allena kristenhetens innersta och yttersta.
Låt oss ta två exempel på attityden Mere/Only Christianity från Den svenska kristenheten av idag. Det är två goda exempel utifrån skilda utgångspunkter och förutsättningar men verkande i samma riktning.
Det ena exemplet är >> Se: Sveriges Kristna Råd >> med eldsjälen generalsekreterare Sven-Bernhard Fast i spetsen,
det andra är portalen >> The-Encounter.nu >> med inte generalsekreterare men väl generaleldsjälarna Erick Holmström och Jonas Lindholm.
[Sveriges Kristna Råd och The Encounter finns med på Katgorin Länkar härintill till höger på denna website.]
/DS
Fotnot:
- George Sayer JACK En biografi om CS Lewis, 1999, ISBN: 91-7195-282-9
- Läs mera >> En av tusentals hemsidor om CS Lewis
KorsVägmärken (8)
JESUS TALAR TILL JERUSALEMS KVINNOR OCH BARN
En stor folkmassa följde Jesus, bland dem många kvinnor som sörjde och grät över honom.
Då vände Jesus sig om och sade till dem: "Jerusalems döttrar, gråt inte över mig, utan gråt över er själva och era barn." (Luk 23:27-28)
Många var de som längs korsvägen uttryckte sin sorg och sitt medlidande inför Kristus Jesus som var så älskad. Men som nu är dömd till döden och själv får han bära avrättningsredskapet på sin rygg till Golgata kulle. Gråt och tårar hörs och syns längs Via Dolorosa.
Han själv - Smärtornas man - rörs i sin ångest och fysiska plåga i sitt möte med dessa kvinnor som så sörjer honom...
Hans bön och maning till dem kommer i våra öron något chockartat. Han ber dem gråta över sig själva och sina barn. Vad menar han, Jesus? Korsvägens evangelium i dessa Jesu ord innehåller mycket mera än vi enkelt kan redogöra för…
Vi kan bara ana att hans ord till de gråtande kvinnorna också kan vara bön och maning av nåd och välsignelse riktade till hela Den svenska kristenheten… Vad Han nu kan vilja säga till oss, tro…
Samfundsledarsamling
SAMFUNDSLEDARSAMLING
Vid samfundsledarsamlingen i Växjö fredag den 4 mars kommer bl.a den av Sveriges Kristna Råd utgivna skriften "Tro - dop - medlemskap ur ett ekumeniskt perspektiv" att beröras.
Den religiösa kartan har ritats om
Docent Göran Åberg har under veckan i Jönköpings-Posten skrivit om denna skrift, och påtalat att vad en läsare genast slås av är att den religiösa kartan ritats om ordentligt i vårt land under de senaste decennierna.
Romersk-katolska kyrkan är en bland de tre största minoritetskyrkorna i landets tillsammans med Pingströrelsen och Svenska Missionskyrkan.
De österländska och ortodoxa kyrkorna har lett till en betydligt större mångfald.
Fusioner inom frikyrkligheten har minskat antalet samfund. Mängder av ekumeniska församlingar har bildats.
Närmast kommer innehållet i denna bok att stå i centrum för samtalet vid den så kallade Samfundsledarsamling i Växjö. Dessa samlingar, som har sitt ursprung i anslutning till det kristna riksmötet i Jönköping sommaren 1983.
Denna samfundsledarsamling i Växjö är således den enda kvarvarande regionala samling som finns i Den svenska kristenheten. Därför har denna samling i Växjö, med biskop Anders Wejryd som ordf., också stor betydelse som inspirationskälla för förnyelsen ute i landet av regionala allkristna råd. Sveriges Kristna Råd har under åren bidragit till att lokala kristna råd finns på de flesta orter i landet.
Med förväntan har vi att se fram emot ett och annat spännande som kan komma att rapporteras från samfundsledarsamlingen fredagen den 4 mars i Växjö.
/DS
Vägen valde dig
"Vägen valde dig"
Hammarskjölds ord ringer inom mig med en alldeles särskild klang. Och med en innebörd som jag förstår, där jag gör min Walk n' Talk vanding denna kalla dag med -18 Celsius före soluppgången vid sjutiden.
Den 6 juli 1961 skrivs orden "Vägen valde dig". Några månader före flygkraschen i Ndola i Nordrodhesia natten mellan den 17 och 18 september 1961.
Orden "Vägen valde dig" handlar om uttryck för det kallelseperspektiv Dag Hammarskjöld hade.
Han är ensam och trött. Nej, trött och ensam. Hela hans själ värker. På vandring är han. Var går med orden i texten? Smältvattnet och de stumma fingrarna indikerar våra aningar om fjällvärlden. Han bearbetar sin tankar som vill de ge upp uppdraget han står i. Han tänke på andra och andras rastplatser i solen. Bortom kylans trötthet och ensamhet. Nu är det Nu, och så mycket vilar som en obeskrivlig tyngd över hans axlar. Plikten talar om att inte svika. Det är som orden om och av plikt från far Hjalmar talar, krävande och hårt. Själv uppmanar han sig att gråta. Om han kunde. Klagan må vika.
Ty… så kommer orden som är så himmelskt laddade i helig kallelses höghet:
"Vägen valde dig"… Och du ska tacka…
Så ter sig en ringa medvandrares tankar om en verklig vandrares verklighet - i ett statsmannens uppdrag i ett Nu, där bönen kunde vara "Gånge denna kalk ifrån mig…"
Texten med "Vägen valde dig" återfinns i Vägmärken sid 171:
Trött
och ensam.
Trött
så sinnet värker.
Nedför hällarna
silar smältvattnet.
Fingrarna är stumma,
knäna skälver.
Det är nu,
nu, du inte får släppa.
Andras väg
har rastplatser
i solen
där de mötas.
Men detta
är din väg
och det är nu,
nu, du inte får svika.
Gråt,
om du kan,
gråt
men klaga inte.
Vägen valde dig -
och du skall tacka.
Peter Halldorf skriver under rubriken "Vägen valde dig" om Dag Hammarskjöld i tidningen DAGEN från den 14 september 2001.
Läs DAGEN-artikeln
/Dag JustNu
Dag Ted Simron f.Gunnar PA
På min vandring idag möter jag PA. Han berättar bl.a. om honom som "kom med sin lilla flicka." Scenen med pappan och hans lilla flicka trodde han utspelade sig längs och kring Fyrisån - född som han är i Uppsala, säger han… Men det hela utspelar sig i verkligheten på Skansen enligt en forskare, säger han, PA. "Han" som "kom" var enligt samme Hammarskjöldforskare en nära anhörig, fortsätter min sagesman.
Texten på sidan 59 i Vägmärken lyder:
- Han kom med sin lilla flicka. Hon hade på sig sitt finaste. Du såg hur rädd hon var om den fina kappan. Andra såg också - såg, likgiltigt att det varit en annan liten flickas fina kappa som varit fin ett annat år.
På förmiddagen hade det varit festligt i solskenet. Nu hade de flesta redan gått hem. Ballongförsäljarna räknade dagskassan. Även solen hade följt med sin tid och gått till vila bakom ett moln. Så det var rätt ensamt och kulet när han kom med sin lilla flicka för att smaka på vårglädjen och värma sig i en nyblankad påsksol.
Men hon var nöjd. De var nöjda båda två. För de hade lärt sig en ödmjukhet som det ännu återstår dig att fatta. En ödmjukhet som aldrig jämför, som icke förskjuter vad som är för "annat" eller "mera".
Vad säger oss texten?
Ett och annat!
Bland mycket detta om ödmjukheten som aldrig jämför med "annat" eller "mera", eller hur…
Tidigare har jag samtalat med Ted om goda tecken på kristnas autenticitet. Till goda tecken enligt Ted hör detta hur vi ser och beter oss visavi de små och de minsta i samhället. Vi kommer in på fader Gunnar i Osby och hans sociala patos och sitt hjärta för dem som gladdes och värdesatte någon som ville vara deras röst. Över kaffekoppen delar jag vidare några liknande erfarenheter med Simron som i femton år arbetat bland de små i samhället.
Dag Hammarskjöld - som omkommer den 17 september 1961 - visar i texten om flickan att han bär i sitt hjärta samma stråk av barmhärtighet som märkt hjärtana hos fader Gunnar och PA, Ted och Simron.
Här har Den svenska kristenheten många vidare utmaningar i en tillvaro som blir allt kallare för de som är små och skyddslösa i olika sammanhang…
/Dag JustNu
Kartan ritas om
När den religiösa kartan ritas om
av Göran Åberg - Jönköpings Posten, 2 mars 2005-03-02
Göran Åberg skriver i artikeln När den religiösa kartan ritas om:
SVERIGES KRISTNA RÅD [ läs om SKR ] är ett slags paraplyorganisation för den samlade kristenheten i vårt land. Det är organisatoriskt indelat i fyra 'familjer', den lutherska med Svenska Kyrkan och Evangeliska Fosterlandssstiftelsen, den frikyrkliga omfattande de flesta frikyrkosamfunden, den katolska samt den ortodoxa, innefattande ett stort antal kyrkor för medlemmar med utländsk härkomst.
Till uppgifterna för detta råd hör utgivning av informativa skrifter i ekumeniska ämnen. Den senaste har titeln Tro - dop - medlemskap ur ett ekumeniskt perspektiv, vari företrädare för nio kyrkor, samfund och rörelser presenterar sin syn på de tre titelbegreppen.
Syftet med den hundrasidiga skriften är "att sakligt informera om hur kyrkor och samfund tänker och handlar i dessa frågor och inte minst hur de tre huvudorden hänger samman i en sorts ecklesiologisk helhetssyn."
Vad en läsare genast slås av är att den religiösa kartan ritats om ordentligt i vårt land under de senaste decennierna. Romersk-katolska kyrkan är en bland de tre största minoritetskyrkorna i landets tillsammans med Pingströrelsen och Svenska Missionskyrkan. De österländska och ortodoxa kyrkorna hare lett till en betydligt större mångfald. Fusioner inom frikyrkligheten har minskat antalet samfund. Mängder av ekumeniska församlingar har bildats…
… Målgrupp för denna verkligen informativa skrift är "de lokalekumeniska råden, präster och pastorer, kyrkoråd och församlingsstyrelser".
… Närmast kommer innehållet i denna bok att stå i centrum för samtalet vid den så kallade samfundsledarsamling inom Växjö stift som ska hållas denna veckan. Dessa samlingar, som har sitt ursprung i anslutning till det kristna riksmötet i Jönköping sommaren 1983, J 83, har hållits i det närmaste årligen sedan dess, även om de numera har delvis annorlunda utformning än i början. Också här borde ett studium av denna bok leda till en förnyelse av den ekumeniska tanken; väl vore det! - avslutar artikelförfattaren Göran Åberg.
Skriften Dop - medlemskap ur ett ekumeniskt perspektiv - Se skriften -
Nr 6 i Sveriges Kristna Råds skriftserie
Red. Kjell Ove Nilsson
Bakgrunden till publikationen är de snabba förändringar som skett bland kyrkorna i Sverige under de senaste årtiondena. Frikyrkoförsamlingar har gått samman lokalt. Katolska kyrkan har expanderat och är nu en av de större minoritetskyrkorna. De ortodoxa och österländska kyrkorna tillför genom sin närvaro kännedom om liturgi och spiritualitet från kyrkans äldsta tid. Rörligheten i samhället och flyttningar medför att människors kyrkliga förankring ändras. Frågor kring kyrkotillhörighet - dubbelanslutningar, dopsyn etc. uppstår ofta till följd av dessa förändringar. En arbetsgrupp inom Sveriges Kristna Råd fick därför uppdrag från styrelsen att arbeta med dessa frågor och resultatet föreligger nu i form av rapporten Tro - dop - medlemskap.
I rapporten redogör först nio representanter från olika kyrkor och samfund för den ecklesiologiska helheten tro, dop och medlemskap i sin egen specifika tradition. Därpå följer tre tvärkapitel med fördjupad analys av vart och ett av huvudorden. I dessa kapitel har även infogats viktiga punkter från internationella, ekumeniska dokument som t.ex. BEM-dokumentet (Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry, 1982). Avslutningsvis ges vissa råd i syfte att undanröja några av de problem som antytts ovan.
Tro - dop - medlemskap kan bli till praktisk nytta i lokala ekumeniska råd, t.ex. när osäkerhet uppstår om vilken ekumenisk praxis som skall gälla i olika pastorala situationer. Rapporten kan även användas vid universitet och högskolor för forskning inom ekumenik och kyrkovetenskap
/DS
KorsVägmärken (7)
JESUS FALLER ANDRA GÅNGEN
Herren upprättar alla nedböjda
(Ps 145:14)
Bördan av korsets tyngd blir för svår.
Frälsaren stapplar och faller.
Smärtan förmeras av korsets trä.
Jesus reser sig.
Han kämpar vidare med plågan.
Herren upprättar alla nedböjda.
Herren Jesus gör sig till ett med alla som faller;
alla som faller flera gånger gör han sig till ett med;
Herren Jesus gör sig till ett -
- med alla nedböjda…
- med alla som faller…
KÄRLEKEN - EN BRO
Två dikter av MARGARETA MELIN
***
SE MÄNNISKAN
Se människan
medmänniskan i underläge
den utsatta och hotade
som om hon vore du själv
eller en av de dina,
din mor - ditt barn - din bror
så vet du vad du ska göra!
***
OFFER
Det har syndats emot mig.
Jag blev offer, skuldbelagd
och tog på mig skulden.
Inför dig lyfter jag av
den skuld som inte var min
och tar avstånd ifrån den.
Du är min enda domare
och vet allt.
I ditt ljus klarnar sammanhangen
och sanningen gör mig fri.
Att du delar smärtan
ger mitt hjärta tröst
och i kärlekens blick
börjar såren läkas.
***
Ur diktsamlingen KÄRLEKEN - EN BRO
av Margareta Melin
Bokförlaget Libris
ISBN 91-7194-898-8
Breakfast with David Yonggi Cho
Breakfast With David Yonggi Cho And Rick Warren:
A Conversation Between Two Innovative Pastors
David Yonggi Cho is pastor of the largest Protestant church in the world (Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea - 750,000 members). It is a church known for its prayer ministry and for its use of Cell Groups to embrace new members and to develop lay leaders. Cho started the church as a plant over 30 years ago.
Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, California. Warren, through his Purpose Driven Ministries, has mentored over 100,000 congregations worldwide.
Recently, they both met in Southern California for a brief breakfast, and we recorded their conversation for you:
See: The Interview by R. Warren
NB
This material was written by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church and has been adapted by Mission Xp for use at this website M'Xp. Permission to reproduce this material does not extend beyond this publication./DSr
M'Xp 2005-02-28
/Dag Selander
Q&A: Only Christianity
Subject: 'Only Christianity' (1)
Product vs Packeting… Product vs Cover… Product vs Envelope… What is most Important, the external or internal?
Are there any similarities when you look at Christianity vs Church ed. X,
Christianity vs Church ed. Y or Christianity vs Church ed. Z?
It is totally clear what the Main thing is.
Though there too often are huge distances between the Main thing and the Cover. C.S. Lewis had a good attitude when answering people about actual and different questions of Faith. C.S. Lewis decided to talk and write about only Christianity in 'Mere Christianity' - and not out from the Dogmatic Frames in his own church, the Anglican Church.
According to my understanding it should be better in many Aspects and in practical Mission, if we Christians from all kinds of Church families could help each other to communicate out of this frame 'Only Christianity'. A good example is to be found in The Fellowship of St. James, Chicago, US; they have an exciting communication of three Churches;
see and read: The Fellowship of St James
My question out of my simple understanding to professional people in the Global or/and The Swedish Christianity is this:
- Is the Idea and Vision of Inter Communication between the Churches and Denominations from the single frame 'Only Christianity' as an complementary Way possible and desirable? - And Why?
This Question we are seeking Answers to among all beloved Global and Swedish Christian brothers, sisters and fellowships.
Gratefully, send the Answers either to our E-Address or under the Commentaries [Kommentarer, in Swedish] just below.
Raslatt in Jonkoping SWEDEN 28th February 05
Website Mission Xp
Dag Selander editor
DBSel@myway.com
Ale-Övertorneå Update
Ale - Övertorneå Update
VECKANS RAPPORT
De utsända Frågeformulären till landets kontraktsprostar börjar nu att leta sig ut till hela Sverige från Ale - Övertorneå.
Ortsnamnen nedan visar att Den svenska kristenheten redan representeras från Öster, väster, norr och söder.
VECKANS STJÄRNA
Härmed översändes för notering 'Veckans Ros' alt. 'Veckans Stjärna' till ett antal kyrkoherdar samt till berörda kontraktsprostar för respektive pastorat [med en Xtra stor Stjärna till Askim som 17/2 blev först med svar] enligt följande Inventerings-Rapport:
· Alvesta
· Askim
· Borgvattnet
· Döderhult
· Färgelanda
· Hjo
· Kungsbacka
· Mönsterås
· Näset
· Oskarshamn
· Stugun
· Vadstena
· Ålem
· Övertorneå
Öster, väster, norr och söder Korsets armar överskygga:
Alla äro våra bröder, Som på jorden bo och bygga.
Då vi bröders bördor bära, Med och för varandra lida,
Är oss Kristus åter nära, Vandrar, osedd, vid vår sida.
Anders Frostenssons text från 1936 är aktuell inte bara i kategorin Diakoni utan även i helig Fastetid.
2005-02-28
M'Xp
/DSr
Var är din skatt?
Var är din skatt?
Uppdraget som Den svenska kristenheten tillsammans har skulle kunna beskrivas med den frågan i rubriken hon bör ställa genom sin profetiska närvaro i grannskapet, på orten eller i nationen. Hur man svarar ute i stugor och gränder ger följande rader svar på...
Grupp 1
Arkitekt: "Få projekt som gör det möjligt för mig att tjäna
mycket PENGAR."
Ingenjör: "Utveckla system som är användbara och VÄLBETALDA."
Advokat: "Vinna många rättegångar och kunna köpa en BMW."
Företagare: "Se till att företagets VINSTER ökar mer och mer."
Idrottsman: "FÅ berömmelse och bli erkänd i hela världen."
Grupp 2
Livstidsfånge: "Promenera i FRIHET på gatan."
Blind: "SE solljuset."
Döv: "HÖRA blåsten."
Stum: "Kunna SÄGA till människor hur mycket jag älskar dem."
Handikappad: "Kunna SPRINGA en solig morgon."
HIV-positiv: "Kunna LEVA en dag till."
Märker du skillnaden mellan grupperna?
Personerna i grupp 2 önskar saker, som inte kan köpas för pengar medan de i grupp 1 vill ha pengar och beröm, eftersom de redan har det som inte kan köpas för pengar. Det otroliga är att många har jättemycket pengar, som de inte sätter värde på. De ser som sin "skatt" de saker som man kan sätta ett pris på och som kan köpas för pengar.
Som Den svenska kristenheten skulle vi ju fundera som följer, eller hur:
Därför undrar jag... Var är din skatt? Ditt svar är viktigt, för där kommer ditt hjärta att vara.
Källa:
Var är din skatt? Församlingsblad
KorsVägmärken (6)
VERONIKA TORKAR JESU ANSIKTE MED EN DUK
Saliga är de barmhärtiga, de skall få barmhärtighet (Matt 5:7).
Längs korsvägen får Jesus under sin korsvandring möta Veronika som kommer fram till honom och torkar hans ansikte.
Det fanns människor som också brydde sig om Jesus på hans Via Dolorosa. En kvinna torkade hans ansikte. Han tackade henne för hennes godhet genom att han lät henne se sitt ansikte inpräglat på sin duk.
Kristus Jesus gör sig till ett med också dem som historien inte ens känner namnen på; till ett med alla dem som visat barmhärtighet; till ett med alla dem som ingen tycks veta om eller känna till.
Herren Kristus gör sig också till ett med alla dem i Den svenska kristenheten som i avskildhet och anonymitet är Ordets görare och vittnen om Jesu utgivande barmhärtighet.
Fotnot:
Läs mera om: Veronika av Sven-Erik Pernler
The Mystery of Israel... Chapter 7
The Mystery of Israel and the Church
by Art Katz
Chapter 7 - Israel and the Kingdom of God
There is a great corrective that is needed in the Church, all the more in those segments of the Church that are most applauded, where we presume to think that we have a 'full gospel' and the 'fullness of the Spirit.' Any part of the Church that is not preoccupied with the jealous guarding of that which pertains to the glory of God as its central and foremost consideration, or has substituted the needs of men, however real such needs may be, is no longer the Church in any true or apostolic way. The glory of God is going to be realized in the coming of the King and His theocratic kingdom in these final and consummating Last Days.
Though we may be persuaded that the kingdom of God is exclusively 'within,' and something personal and subjective, the kingdom of God, in its most awesome aspect, should be understood as a ruling entity over the nations. There is a God who is actually going to rule out of the nation, Israel. There is going to be a law that will go forth out of a literal and geographic Zion in Jerusalem. The result of that rule will be that men will not study war any longer, they will beat their swords into plowshares, and nations will come up to the God of Jacob in the place where He will have established His sanctuary, His dwelling, and the locus of His theocratic rule out of a restored Israel.
Our failure to know, believe, expect and desire this has had great consequence for the Church. It should be central to our every perspective and our every preoccupation with the faith. When the Lord inserts the critical key of an apostolic and prophetic perception of the centrality of Israel, as being significant and foremost in the Church's own consideration, all of the separate and isolated good things, given of God, come together in a new coherence that makes the faith the faith indeed!
God has not forsaken His ancient people, Israel; His promises and covenant intent will yet be fulfilled, or how shall He then be God? Probably the greatest presumption of the Church is its triumphalistic assumption that it now is the Israel of God, and that this ancient and original people have lost it, and have no place of return or restoration in God's purposes. That is a tragic error, and has condemned the Church to something much less than the glory, power and significance of God's intention. The issue of Israel is central for the Church's own recognition of itself as the Church, and to remove this aspect from our consideration is to leave us lopsided and out of joint, and subject, therefore, to every whim, every passing fad, and every hope for something to fill the void that is sensed and needed. We must restore the thing that God Himself intends, not because Israel necessarily deserves that consideration, but because God has spoken, because God has promised, because God is the God of covenant, and will keep it even when His own people will not.
Because the kingdom is the kingdom of David, so must it be established from the throne of David in Zion. These are not mystical, poetic allusions; these are concrete and specific indications of the scandalous specificity of God, of a literal people and a literal place that must be the seat and locus of His rule over creation. That we are not jealous for that rule is an embarrassment to the Church, and I trust that our human governments, however much we may hope in them, will invariably show their inadequacy. When we say, "Come, Lord Jesus!," we are not praying for escape, but for righteousness to come into the earth through the rule of God from the place which He has designated, and which will not be obtained except through the instrumentality of the Church to the Jews in these Last Days.
This is to be accomplished by a self-sacrificing Church that demonstrates the very mercy of its God, not in a corner, but must take place before the face of all nations. The nations will have to acknowledge that the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, the Creator of the heavens and the earth is alone God, to the eternal praise of His glory. The nations presently have given scant consideration to the God of Israel. They see Him only a contending deity among the whole bewildering array. But the God of Jacob is alone God, and the demonstration of His mercy to Jacob, after His judgment, will persuade the world that He alone is God, for they will witness both the expulsion as well as the return of His own people through their own nations. God has said that He will not do this in a corner, but before the face of all nations (Isaiah 52:9-10).
We are at the conclusion of the age; an antichrist time of great severity, challenge and devastation is coming, not only upon Israel, but also upon the saints. What we lack, and what was distinctive of the early Church, and needs to be restored, is the significance of Israel in the eschatological (pertaining to the end) and apocalyptic (judgment and devastation) content of the faith. The first Church anxiously awaited the Lord's appearing, which in turn gave to the Church the sense of urgency, a dynamic of great and high seriousness, altogether the antithesis of the lightness that has characterized our 'charismatic' time. To not have these components as a vital center in our Christianity disfigures our Christianity, and relegates it to the kind of harmless and innocuous culture by which the world perceives us. The issue of Israel is the issue of the Church, but it is the issue of Israel rightly understood, and not idealistically minimized.
The turning point for the Church will be the discovery of Israel in the sense that we are describing it, not in the condescending acknowledgement of the present, Zionist state and its success, for which many hope, but in the sense of the mystery central to God's redemptive glory and theocratic intention. Significantly, a merely benign and sanctimonious approval of present Israel does not threaten our petty kingdoms; rather it leaves them strangely quite intact. The revelation of a redeemed nation resurrected out of the death of the present one, like its Lord before it, shatters all our petty kingdoms, all of our categories, and requires and makes necessary anew the review of our understanding even of God as God. One can know that one has apprehended the issue of Israel rightly when it jostles and requires a complete realignment of one's entire understanding, and the forsaking and foregoing of one's own petty kingdoms.
Will God go that far? We anticipate a soon-coming catastrophe that will eclipse the Nazi time, and the Church has not the slightest awareness of its coming, and has made no preparation, either physically or spiritually, to expect it. In fact, most of the Church has presumed its own absence at that time. This puts the great premium on our relationship to the Holy Spirit. Only He can bring the perception of reality and understanding that has been so lost to us that it cannot even be humanly communicated. Even Paul speaks of it as mystery, and warns us to not be ignorant of it (Rom. 11:25). It is the only mystery of which Paul gave such a warning. We might miss some of the other mysteries, but if we miss this mystery, there is a consequence that is fateful for the Church, namely, it will become wise in its own conceit. It will remain pompous and inflated, and believe that it has become the Israel of God, and that it will bring the kingdom of God to the earth; that the Church, in fact, is the kingdom of God, the 'kingdom now,' and that it is going to influence and take over society. God has, on the contrary, called the Church to a humbling and secondary role. We are called as a proviso in order to bring back to Himself a people who have been broken off from the tree into which we, in their place, have been grafted.
When we perceive the issue of Israel rightly, we are compelled to consider the God of Judgment, to consider apocalyptic devastation; to consider people being dispelled again into the nations, exile, and a subsequent return; to consider suffering and its significance; to consider the meaning of the Cross and the suffering that precedes the glory, not only for Jesus, but for that nation called in Exodus 4:22, "My firstborn son." And that son has a destiny more comparable to its Pattern Son and Messiah, and must, in substantial measure, also follow Him in a road to Calvary.
If God will take sin that seriously as to judge His ancient people so devastatingly, how well do we know Him? And what 'Jesus' is it that we promulgate? Is it, in fact, really the Son of God? The One who is going to judge the earth in equity and justice? Do we know God as God? And can we know Him if we have dismissed the revelation of Himself, so accurately set forth in His full triune Godhead except in His dealing with the people Israel? This is the divinely chosen context of God's own self-revelation. The absence of that critical knowledge has made the Church light and frivolous, open to the celebration of personality, feeling, experience and excitement, to the point where our souls have been so indulged that we cannot scarce tell now where soul ends and spirit begins. We can hardly distinguish between the faculty of soul and spirit, and have equated the one as the other. How much do we realize that our souls are being stirred through hype, through all of the various devices that betray a foundational emptiness in the Church for the lack of that centrality God intended as normative? Little wonder there is a pride in the Church that is reluctant to give to the Jew place of prominence in the Last Days.
There is a remarkable episode of an incident that occurred in another age, in an hour when the Spirit of God prevailed in such magnitude and purity that the very same act which might well be applauded today resulted, in that day, in sudden judgment and death. Let someone come today with a great contribution (as with Ananias and Sapphira - Acts 5:1-10), and we would not ask too much about its source or the spirit by which it was offered. Probably such a person would be given a place of honor and acknowledgement, a deacon, at least, if not an elder, but the Church that identified the lie, and was not impressed with the sum, is quite contrary to the Church of today. The Church then was in its glory because it was alert to the issue of truth and deception; it knew that before the Spirit of God is the Spirit of power, He is first and foremost the Spirit of truth. When truth is compromised, we will find that the Spirit is not going to be around to perform the expressions of power that serve our needs and gratify our souls, especially if we have forsaken Him and His first designation and identity as the Spirit of truth. There needs to be a jealous regard for the truth, and Peter was therefore able to discern the pretence of a man and his wife, giving a sum of money as to be the whole, when it was only the part.13
Almost in the next breath we hear that "with great power, the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ," and that when the shadow of Peter would fall upon those who were sick and infirm, they would be healed. The respect for the Spirit of God as the Spirit of truth allowed for the demonstration of the Spirit as power. It is much easier to try and reverse that order, and many have, and have celebrated the power, the signs and wonders, and relegated truth to a distant consideration, if indeed, any consideration at all. And who of us has not played the game of giving the part and making that to appear as the whole?
The distinctive character of truth is that it is the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or it is not the truth. Any disqualification, any cutting of corners, anything less than what is whole and full converts what seems to be impressive into the lie. So much of our fellowship life does not have the modesty and humility appropriate to a Church whose Lord is the Lamb, whose essential character is meekness. We are too often full of exaggeration, pompous ambition and activity, and think that the appearance constitutes the whole. The greater part that is missing, and that would have made us to a large extent whole, is the part that that has to do with the centrality of Israel in the Church's consideration. It needs to be restored if the Church is to be the Church of the Last Days, and thereby become the very provision of God for the redemption of His people whose time has come, for that is the time to obtain the kingdom.14
It is Israel's kingdom, not exclusively for national aggrandizement, but out of the nexus of their Jerusalem, and out of their Zion, shall the law of the Lord go forth to all nations, which can only go forth from them as the redeemed nation. God has made promises to their patriarchs and to themselves that must be fulfilled. A deliverer must come out of Zion and take transgression from Jacob according to the covenant that He has made with them (Rom. 11:26-27).
We need to ask ourselves whether we are doing anything different from what Ananias and Sapphira did when we seek and expect the evidence of power while consecrating ourselves only in part to the Lord, while yet presuming to have given ourselves wholly. We all want the semblance of these things, the comfort of the Spirit, the intimate communion, but we want it at the lesser price of acknowledging truth as only being doctrinal, or the issue of being biblically correct rather than as the very sum and substance of the reality of our lives. There is a way we can delight to speak truth, but, in our deeps, we do not want to be true. We want correct words, we want to acknowledge truth, but we do not want to obey it. We are bringing our partial, phraseological truth, and making that to stand for the whole, as if we have already the reality that we are describing!
To tolerate one's deceit is to violate the whole truth. To be ninety-nine percent true, or mostly true, and represent that as the whole truth, is to lie utterly. To sin in one part is to sin in the whole. We can talk about our love for the Lord, and our submission to Him, but the issue of truth is found in the place where we are most tempted to keep back for ourselves. There is always one final and ultimate reservation that keeps us back from that utterness towards God. This is the thing that makes truth really the truth, and brings to the Church the reality of His presence and His glory.
How true is true if we are still celebrating the Church over Israel as being the essential center of God's enduring glory and rule? The issue of truth, stubbornly awaiting our consideration, will require an alignment in terms of our traditions and understanding. Until we do, dispositions remain that have opened us for deception, for pseudo-revival, for experience, for emotion, for the kinds of things that are questionable and dubious at best and may actually be demonic at worst. There is something about the radical apprehension of the centrality of Israel as the Zion of God over every other consideration. Once apprehended, we find that the power of deception is broken; it puts an iron into our souls that steadies us, and keeps us from being disposed to the kinds of things that make for deception.
The New Wineskin
The proper recognition of Israel's centrality is the greatest provision of God for the Church, and the absence of that provision has left us in a questionable condition. Even the best of what we have known charismatically has not been the answer. Perhaps it is because the wineskin was always inadequate. We are suggesting that the wineskin is more a wineskin of comprehension of an apostolic and prophetic way of perceiving all the faith, thus fitting the Church for its apostolic mandate and indeed, the very purpose for God pouring out His Spirit. Is not the Holy Spirit rather a provision to prepare us for the suffering, the opposition and the persecution that will come with our identification with Jews in the Last Days, when they will be a hated people among all nations?
When the predominantly Gentile Church receives the Holy Spirit, we are in fact appropriating the promise made first to Israel. We need to understand that, and to be humbled by that fact. The error of the charismatic and other similar movements is that we have forgotten the auspices by which the Holy Spirit has come to us, out of Israel's own promise, and have extrapolated Him for our own purposes even at Israel's expense. Why was the Spirit initially given to the Gentiles? Why was it not enough to give it to the 3,000 or the 5,000 original Jewish converts? Why has God turned now to the 'foolish nation,' Gentiles? In our opinion, the eschatological Spirit was given that we might be a witness to Israel, moving them to jealousy. In other words, we have stopped short of the issue of the glory of God and the resurrection life, the ends for which the Spirit was given. We have lost both the eschatological framework and God's strategy. Paul magnified his office so that he might have a humbled people who would so express the Shekinah glory that Israel must say, "Now there is our God!"
We are saying that this is the new wineskin, not as it is currently understood as a change in ecclesiastical forms or church structures, but as an apocalyptic framework of understanding. Like Paul, our gospel needs to be one that is according to the revelation of the mystery hidden in other ages. (Col. 1:26). It is a context of an Israel that would stumble, of a Son of Man who would be rejected and crucified by His own nation, and then a calling out of a foolish, Gentile people, a 'no people,' to move Israel to jealousy. What is the gospel if it is not preached in this context? What is lost? Paul preached his gospel in that context, and it is a context that should compel and direct our attention to the issue of death and resurrection, which then restores the gospel as 'Christ-centered.' It restores Jesus to the true center as King, because it recaptures the theocratic context, and this, we are saying, is the 'gospel of the kingdom.'
When we talk about 'the mystery of the kingdom,' or 'the mystery of the gospel,' we are talking about the context of the mystery of two comings of Messiah to Israel. This is the key to the whole mystery, and if we do not understand that the Messiah came a first time to make Israel stumble, as a judgment, an eschatological judgment, and that we are living between the two advents of Messiah, under and during the judgment of Israel. There was a plenitude of salvation promised to Gentiles, of Israel going forth to the nations as a priestly, theocratic kingdom, the knowledge of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. In other words, if God was just interested in evangelism, He would have restored Israel and the Gentiles would have had an abounding access to the grace that would come to them. Now that will be true in the Millennium. "For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world [nations], what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" (Rom. 11:15). In other words, if their fall has brought this much grace to the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness bring but more abundant grace to the Gentile nations!
The first Jewish believers in Messiah knew that when Israel was to be restored, the nations would be blessed, and Abraham's promise be fulfilled, but what they did not conceive, or consider, was that God would be calling out a people from the Gentile nations "to move Israel to jealousy," and that the gifts of the Spirit would be given to a "strange and another people" to make Israel jealous as a judgment, as a testimony against them. Both Moses and Paul were in agreement. That context has been lost, but it is a theocratic framework that constitutes the mystery.
…according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith (Rom. 16:25b-26).
Only a gospel preached in this context will do that. Is this not the plumbline that divides between the true and false church? Israel is the missing link, and nothing so accentuates and underscores the core of the gospel, namely death and resurrection, than the issue of Israel. God has given Israel to underscore in her own experience the issue of death and resurrection. And He has given the Gentiles to Israel to press that reality home to them. Israel has been given to us to compel us to that reality, and we, in turn, to them. That Israel would not know the 'time of their visitation' was foreordained of God.
In the absence of this theocratic context, the gospel that has been promulgated has been reduced to something personal, rapture-oriented, 'place in heaven,' and enjoyment, satisfaction, and prosperity in this life. Or, as the institutional religion of Rome, the gospel is completely of a 'displacement' orientation. It takes to itself all the prerogatives that God intended for theocratic Israel. It conceives of itself as the theocratic entity in the earth, a kind of millennial phenomenon. In other words, being identified with another gospel results in our establishing a present kingdom on earth, exempting Israel's national restoration, her resurrection from the dead, the glory of God forever!
The whole interim that the Gentile Church is in now is a 'between-the-times' phenomenon, and it is given as a call for repentance, to prepare the way of the Lord for the coming of the apocalyptic, intervention of His kingdom. We enter by the Spirit now, into the kingdom that must come to Israel. We are entered as a first fruit, a foreshadowing of Israel's millennial glory in ourselves. The reality of that kingdom should have a power and a presence now, but it should be with one view: to preparing a people for that kingdom, which will bring the restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets (Acts 3:21). The first saints were living in the imminent expectation of the destruction and overthrow of Jerusalem, and the imminent restitution of all things. It was a time of great urgency, but that apocalyptic framework has, for centuries, been lost, exacting, thereby, an enormous toll.
Unless the Spirit of God and the gifts of God are understood and are seen in the context of the apostolic framework of God's intention as a besieged community in the midst of a sea of hostility and worldly hatred, then we make the Spirit of God and His gifts serve a lesser purpose. They accommodate us rather than God, and one wonders if God is in that business, providing that accommodation, or, that something questionable has come in its place, and that we have not the discernment to distinguish. If it seems to bring a measure of excitement, a measure of enjoyment, a measure of relief, a measure of healing, which the Powers of this world can easily provide in order to bring in an ultimate deception. The Holy Spirit needs to be restored to the context of God's intention, of which the center is the restoration of a people who have not even the faintest notion of their eternal destiny or a desire for it, and want only to be as other nations. Nevertheless, God's word toward them, and the gifts and callings of God, must be fulfilled, for they are irrevocable and without repentance, or God is voided as God.
Let us not lose this ultimate and apocalyptic expectation, the dynamic that gave the early Church its distinctive. To substitute lesser 'excitements' leaves completely unchallenged the Powers of the air in the heavenly places, who rage against God and against His Anointed, and whose final defeat comes only with the restoration of Israel through the Church. To forfeit this eschatological calling constitutes a Last Days' apostasy, the great falling away of which Paul spoke. However much we might be occupied with the benevolent needs of men, for their healing, their deliverance, even their salvation, etc, it is to be occupied only in part, rather than in whole. It is the occupation with the whole that is the radically requiring aspect. It is little wonder that we shun the Jew, "the enemy of the gospel," and that we would much rather engage one another than to take up the central task of the Church, and, indeed, in a great part, the divine strategy in the salvation of Gentiles "so as to move them [the Jew] to jealousy."
In the unfathomable wisdom of God, the issue of Israel, rightly and prophetically understood, is God's provision for an errant Church, because it alone provides the framework by which the Church itself is to be understood. Its origins are derived from Israel, "for salvation is of the Jews." By being grafted into her tree, and living by the Life that is expressed through her root, the Church has a destiny as God's salvific agency for the restoration of that people in moving them to jealousy and showing them the face of their own God, who is full of mercy and unconditional in His love.
What has been too long confused is that the Church is not the kingdom, per se, but an interim provision in Israel's restoration, and it is time now to restore the kingdom of David to that literal people on David's throne, on the holy hill of Zion. The kingdom of God will either go forth from that place, or it will not go forth at all. Until that kingdom comes, no true divine law will go forth to the nations. Wars, suffering, death, incest and every kind of vile mayhem will continue to prevail over the world until the law of God can go forth from the one place specifically designated. Only one redeemed nation has the honor of expressing it, and whose redemption has come through a Zion (the Church of the Last Days) out of which, alone, their Deliverer comes (Rom. 11:25-27).
There is something foundationally wrong when we desire to enjoy a semblance of the Spirit, and its 'excitement,' without the Cross. We want the reality of God without the suffering that precedes that glory. Church, as every earnest believer knows, is a place of suffering, before it is a glory. The Church is a means, not an end in itself, but by being that means, it obtains, at the consummation of the age, something more glorious than that of the redeemed millennial Israel herself, namely, a ruling and reigning with Christ in the heavenly places. We, who are a "no people" as the Church, have become the "people of God" to move to envy a nation, Israel, that has lost that very identity. In the final frenzy, which is even now brewing, Jews will likely regard us, the Church, as enemies and a threat to their Jewishness in the anti-Semitic furor of the Last Days' persecution. In the failure to recognize that ours is a heart of love toward them, we may possibly have to suffer martyrdom even at their hands, as Stephen did, as a critical necessity, a sacrifice, to bring by it, if that alone is the final requirement, the revelation of the Lord that turned Saul from persecutor to apostle, and will bring that nation from opposing God to its own apostolate in blessing all the families of the earth.
Our coming under these purposes of God for Israel's redemption, this first-born among the nations, is calculated for our humility. We must not expect Jewish understanding, let alone gratitude for our sacrifice on their behalf, and, like Christ dying for us as sinners when we were dead in our transgressions, we also must 'suffer' for them while they are yet in their transgressions. In that mutuality and in that willingness to suffer for them as He suffered for us, we show forth the essential character of their God. The crisis that the Jew of the Last Days brings to a Church called to their redemption will reveal the truth of our condition in its depths, a condition calculated by God to bring us to the need for a full sanctification, which would not otherwise have been recognized, nor sought.
by Art Katz
Chapter 7 - Israel and the Kingdom of God
There is a great corrective that is needed in the Church, all the more in those segments of the Church that are most applauded, where we presume to think that we have a 'full gospel' and the 'fullness of the Spirit.' Any part of the Church that is not preoccupied with the jealous guarding of that which pertains to the glory of God as its central and foremost consideration, or has substituted the needs of men, however real such needs may be, is no longer the Church in any true or apostolic way. The glory of God is going to be realized in the coming of the King and His theocratic kingdom in these final and consummating Last Days.
Though we may be persuaded that the kingdom of God is exclusively 'within,' and something personal and subjective, the kingdom of God, in its most awesome aspect, should be understood as a ruling entity over the nations. There is a God who is actually going to rule out of the nation, Israel. There is going to be a law that will go forth out of a literal and geographic Zion in Jerusalem. The result of that rule will be that men will not study war any longer, they will beat their swords into plowshares, and nations will come up to the God of Jacob in the place where He will have established His sanctuary, His dwelling, and the locus of His theocratic rule out of a restored Israel.
Our failure to know, believe, expect and desire this has had great consequence for the Church. It should be central to our every perspective and our every preoccupation with the faith. When the Lord inserts the critical key of an apostolic and prophetic perception of the centrality of Israel, as being significant and foremost in the Church's own consideration, all of the separate and isolated good things, given of God, come together in a new coherence that makes the faith the faith indeed!
God has not forsaken His ancient people, Israel; His promises and covenant intent will yet be fulfilled, or how shall He then be God? Probably the greatest presumption of the Church is its triumphalistic assumption that it now is the Israel of God, and that this ancient and original people have lost it, and have no place of return or restoration in God's purposes. That is a tragic error, and has condemned the Church to something much less than the glory, power and significance of God's intention. The issue of Israel is central for the Church's own recognition of itself as the Church, and to remove this aspect from our consideration is to leave us lopsided and out of joint, and subject, therefore, to every whim, every passing fad, and every hope for something to fill the void that is sensed and needed. We must restore the thing that God Himself intends, not because Israel necessarily deserves that consideration, but because God has spoken, because God has promised, because God is the God of covenant, and will keep it even when His own people will not.
Because the kingdom is the kingdom of David, so must it be established from the throne of David in Zion. These are not mystical, poetic allusions; these are concrete and specific indications of the scandalous specificity of God, of a literal people and a literal place that must be the seat and locus of His rule over creation. That we are not jealous for that rule is an embarrassment to the Church, and I trust that our human governments, however much we may hope in them, will invariably show their inadequacy. When we say, "Come, Lord Jesus!," we are not praying for escape, but for righteousness to come into the earth through the rule of God from the place which He has designated, and which will not be obtained except through the instrumentality of the Church to the Jews in these Last Days.
This is to be accomplished by a self-sacrificing Church that demonstrates the very mercy of its God, not in a corner, but must take place before the face of all nations. The nations will have to acknowledge that the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, the Creator of the heavens and the earth is alone God, to the eternal praise of His glory. The nations presently have given scant consideration to the God of Israel. They see Him only a contending deity among the whole bewildering array. But the God of Jacob is alone God, and the demonstration of His mercy to Jacob, after His judgment, will persuade the world that He alone is God, for they will witness both the expulsion as well as the return of His own people through their own nations. God has said that He will not do this in a corner, but before the face of all nations (Isaiah 52:9-10).
We are at the conclusion of the age; an antichrist time of great severity, challenge and devastation is coming, not only upon Israel, but also upon the saints. What we lack, and what was distinctive of the early Church, and needs to be restored, is the significance of Israel in the eschatological (pertaining to the end) and apocalyptic (judgment and devastation) content of the faith. The first Church anxiously awaited the Lord's appearing, which in turn gave to the Church the sense of urgency, a dynamic of great and high seriousness, altogether the antithesis of the lightness that has characterized our 'charismatic' time. To not have these components as a vital center in our Christianity disfigures our Christianity, and relegates it to the kind of harmless and innocuous culture by which the world perceives us. The issue of Israel is the issue of the Church, but it is the issue of Israel rightly understood, and not idealistically minimized.
The turning point for the Church will be the discovery of Israel in the sense that we are describing it, not in the condescending acknowledgement of the present, Zionist state and its success, for which many hope, but in the sense of the mystery central to God's redemptive glory and theocratic intention. Significantly, a merely benign and sanctimonious approval of present Israel does not threaten our petty kingdoms; rather it leaves them strangely quite intact. The revelation of a redeemed nation resurrected out of the death of the present one, like its Lord before it, shatters all our petty kingdoms, all of our categories, and requires and makes necessary anew the review of our understanding even of God as God. One can know that one has apprehended the issue of Israel rightly when it jostles and requires a complete realignment of one's entire understanding, and the forsaking and foregoing of one's own petty kingdoms.
Will God go that far? We anticipate a soon-coming catastrophe that will eclipse the Nazi time, and the Church has not the slightest awareness of its coming, and has made no preparation, either physically or spiritually, to expect it. In fact, most of the Church has presumed its own absence at that time. This puts the great premium on our relationship to the Holy Spirit. Only He can bring the perception of reality and understanding that has been so lost to us that it cannot even be humanly communicated. Even Paul speaks of it as mystery, and warns us to not be ignorant of it (Rom. 11:25). It is the only mystery of which Paul gave such a warning. We might miss some of the other mysteries, but if we miss this mystery, there is a consequence that is fateful for the Church, namely, it will become wise in its own conceit. It will remain pompous and inflated, and believe that it has become the Israel of God, and that it will bring the kingdom of God to the earth; that the Church, in fact, is the kingdom of God, the 'kingdom now,' and that it is going to influence and take over society. God has, on the contrary, called the Church to a humbling and secondary role. We are called as a proviso in order to bring back to Himself a people who have been broken off from the tree into which we, in their place, have been grafted.
When we perceive the issue of Israel rightly, we are compelled to consider the God of Judgment, to consider apocalyptic devastation; to consider people being dispelled again into the nations, exile, and a subsequent return; to consider suffering and its significance; to consider the meaning of the Cross and the suffering that precedes the glory, not only for Jesus, but for that nation called in Exodus 4:22, "My firstborn son." And that son has a destiny more comparable to its Pattern Son and Messiah, and must, in substantial measure, also follow Him in a road to Calvary.
If God will take sin that seriously as to judge His ancient people so devastatingly, how well do we know Him? And what 'Jesus' is it that we promulgate? Is it, in fact, really the Son of God? The One who is going to judge the earth in equity and justice? Do we know God as God? And can we know Him if we have dismissed the revelation of Himself, so accurately set forth in His full triune Godhead except in His dealing with the people Israel? This is the divinely chosen context of God's own self-revelation. The absence of that critical knowledge has made the Church light and frivolous, open to the celebration of personality, feeling, experience and excitement, to the point where our souls have been so indulged that we cannot scarce tell now where soul ends and spirit begins. We can hardly distinguish between the faculty of soul and spirit, and have equated the one as the other. How much do we realize that our souls are being stirred through hype, through all of the various devices that betray a foundational emptiness in the Church for the lack of that centrality God intended as normative? Little wonder there is a pride in the Church that is reluctant to give to the Jew place of prominence in the Last Days.
There is a remarkable episode of an incident that occurred in another age, in an hour when the Spirit of God prevailed in such magnitude and purity that the very same act which might well be applauded today resulted, in that day, in sudden judgment and death. Let someone come today with a great contribution (as with Ananias and Sapphira - Acts 5:1-10), and we would not ask too much about its source or the spirit by which it was offered. Probably such a person would be given a place of honor and acknowledgement, a deacon, at least, if not an elder, but the Church that identified the lie, and was not impressed with the sum, is quite contrary to the Church of today. The Church then was in its glory because it was alert to the issue of truth and deception; it knew that before the Spirit of God is the Spirit of power, He is first and foremost the Spirit of truth. When truth is compromised, we will find that the Spirit is not going to be around to perform the expressions of power that serve our needs and gratify our souls, especially if we have forsaken Him and His first designation and identity as the Spirit of truth. There needs to be a jealous regard for the truth, and Peter was therefore able to discern the pretence of a man and his wife, giving a sum of money as to be the whole, when it was only the part.13
Almost in the next breath we hear that "with great power, the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ," and that when the shadow of Peter would fall upon those who were sick and infirm, they would be healed. The respect for the Spirit of God as the Spirit of truth allowed for the demonstration of the Spirit as power. It is much easier to try and reverse that order, and many have, and have celebrated the power, the signs and wonders, and relegated truth to a distant consideration, if indeed, any consideration at all. And who of us has not played the game of giving the part and making that to appear as the whole?
The distinctive character of truth is that it is the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or it is not the truth. Any disqualification, any cutting of corners, anything less than what is whole and full converts what seems to be impressive into the lie. So much of our fellowship life does not have the modesty and humility appropriate to a Church whose Lord is the Lamb, whose essential character is meekness. We are too often full of exaggeration, pompous ambition and activity, and think that the appearance constitutes the whole. The greater part that is missing, and that would have made us to a large extent whole, is the part that that has to do with the centrality of Israel in the Church's consideration. It needs to be restored if the Church is to be the Church of the Last Days, and thereby become the very provision of God for the redemption of His people whose time has come, for that is the time to obtain the kingdom.14
It is Israel's kingdom, not exclusively for national aggrandizement, but out of the nexus of their Jerusalem, and out of their Zion, shall the law of the Lord go forth to all nations, which can only go forth from them as the redeemed nation. God has made promises to their patriarchs and to themselves that must be fulfilled. A deliverer must come out of Zion and take transgression from Jacob according to the covenant that He has made with them (Rom. 11:26-27).
We need to ask ourselves whether we are doing anything different from what Ananias and Sapphira did when we seek and expect the evidence of power while consecrating ourselves only in part to the Lord, while yet presuming to have given ourselves wholly. We all want the semblance of these things, the comfort of the Spirit, the intimate communion, but we want it at the lesser price of acknowledging truth as only being doctrinal, or the issue of being biblically correct rather than as the very sum and substance of the reality of our lives. There is a way we can delight to speak truth, but, in our deeps, we do not want to be true. We want correct words, we want to acknowledge truth, but we do not want to obey it. We are bringing our partial, phraseological truth, and making that to stand for the whole, as if we have already the reality that we are describing!
To tolerate one's deceit is to violate the whole truth. To be ninety-nine percent true, or mostly true, and represent that as the whole truth, is to lie utterly. To sin in one part is to sin in the whole. We can talk about our love for the Lord, and our submission to Him, but the issue of truth is found in the place where we are most tempted to keep back for ourselves. There is always one final and ultimate reservation that keeps us back from that utterness towards God. This is the thing that makes truth really the truth, and brings to the Church the reality of His presence and His glory.
How true is true if we are still celebrating the Church over Israel as being the essential center of God's enduring glory and rule? The issue of truth, stubbornly awaiting our consideration, will require an alignment in terms of our traditions and understanding. Until we do, dispositions remain that have opened us for deception, for pseudo-revival, for experience, for emotion, for the kinds of things that are questionable and dubious at best and may actually be demonic at worst. There is something about the radical apprehension of the centrality of Israel as the Zion of God over every other consideration. Once apprehended, we find that the power of deception is broken; it puts an iron into our souls that steadies us, and keeps us from being disposed to the kinds of things that make for deception.
The New Wineskin
The proper recognition of Israel's centrality is the greatest provision of God for the Church, and the absence of that provision has left us in a questionable condition. Even the best of what we have known charismatically has not been the answer. Perhaps it is because the wineskin was always inadequate. We are suggesting that the wineskin is more a wineskin of comprehension of an apostolic and prophetic way of perceiving all the faith, thus fitting the Church for its apostolic mandate and indeed, the very purpose for God pouring out His Spirit. Is not the Holy Spirit rather a provision to prepare us for the suffering, the opposition and the persecution that will come with our identification with Jews in the Last Days, when they will be a hated people among all nations?
When the predominantly Gentile Church receives the Holy Spirit, we are in fact appropriating the promise made first to Israel. We need to understand that, and to be humbled by that fact. The error of the charismatic and other similar movements is that we have forgotten the auspices by which the Holy Spirit has come to us, out of Israel's own promise, and have extrapolated Him for our own purposes even at Israel's expense. Why was the Spirit initially given to the Gentiles? Why was it not enough to give it to the 3,000 or the 5,000 original Jewish converts? Why has God turned now to the 'foolish nation,' Gentiles? In our opinion, the eschatological Spirit was given that we might be a witness to Israel, moving them to jealousy. In other words, we have stopped short of the issue of the glory of God and the resurrection life, the ends for which the Spirit was given. We have lost both the eschatological framework and God's strategy. Paul magnified his office so that he might have a humbled people who would so express the Shekinah glory that Israel must say, "Now there is our God!"
We are saying that this is the new wineskin, not as it is currently understood as a change in ecclesiastical forms or church structures, but as an apocalyptic framework of understanding. Like Paul, our gospel needs to be one that is according to the revelation of the mystery hidden in other ages. (Col. 1:26). It is a context of an Israel that would stumble, of a Son of Man who would be rejected and crucified by His own nation, and then a calling out of a foolish, Gentile people, a 'no people,' to move Israel to jealousy. What is the gospel if it is not preached in this context? What is lost? Paul preached his gospel in that context, and it is a context that should compel and direct our attention to the issue of death and resurrection, which then restores the gospel as 'Christ-centered.' It restores Jesus to the true center as King, because it recaptures the theocratic context, and this, we are saying, is the 'gospel of the kingdom.'
When we talk about 'the mystery of the kingdom,' or 'the mystery of the gospel,' we are talking about the context of the mystery of two comings of Messiah to Israel. This is the key to the whole mystery, and if we do not understand that the Messiah came a first time to make Israel stumble, as a judgment, an eschatological judgment, and that we are living between the two advents of Messiah, under and during the judgment of Israel. There was a plenitude of salvation promised to Gentiles, of Israel going forth to the nations as a priestly, theocratic kingdom, the knowledge of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. In other words, if God was just interested in evangelism, He would have restored Israel and the Gentiles would have had an abounding access to the grace that would come to them. Now that will be true in the Millennium. "For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world [nations], what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" (Rom. 11:15). In other words, if their fall has brought this much grace to the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness bring but more abundant grace to the Gentile nations!
The first Jewish believers in Messiah knew that when Israel was to be restored, the nations would be blessed, and Abraham's promise be fulfilled, but what they did not conceive, or consider, was that God would be calling out a people from the Gentile nations "to move Israel to jealousy," and that the gifts of the Spirit would be given to a "strange and another people" to make Israel jealous as a judgment, as a testimony against them. Both Moses and Paul were in agreement. That context has been lost, but it is a theocratic framework that constitutes the mystery.
…according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith (Rom. 16:25b-26).
Only a gospel preached in this context will do that. Is this not the plumbline that divides between the true and false church? Israel is the missing link, and nothing so accentuates and underscores the core of the gospel, namely death and resurrection, than the issue of Israel. God has given Israel to underscore in her own experience the issue of death and resurrection. And He has given the Gentiles to Israel to press that reality home to them. Israel has been given to us to compel us to that reality, and we, in turn, to them. That Israel would not know the 'time of their visitation' was foreordained of God.
In the absence of this theocratic context, the gospel that has been promulgated has been reduced to something personal, rapture-oriented, 'place in heaven,' and enjoyment, satisfaction, and prosperity in this life. Or, as the institutional religion of Rome, the gospel is completely of a 'displacement' orientation. It takes to itself all the prerogatives that God intended for theocratic Israel. It conceives of itself as the theocratic entity in the earth, a kind of millennial phenomenon. In other words, being identified with another gospel results in our establishing a present kingdom on earth, exempting Israel's national restoration, her resurrection from the dead, the glory of God forever!
The whole interim that the Gentile Church is in now is a 'between-the-times' phenomenon, and it is given as a call for repentance, to prepare the way of the Lord for the coming of the apocalyptic, intervention of His kingdom. We enter by the Spirit now, into the kingdom that must come to Israel. We are entered as a first fruit, a foreshadowing of Israel's millennial glory in ourselves. The reality of that kingdom should have a power and a presence now, but it should be with one view: to preparing a people for that kingdom, which will bring the restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets (Acts 3:21). The first saints were living in the imminent expectation of the destruction and overthrow of Jerusalem, and the imminent restitution of all things. It was a time of great urgency, but that apocalyptic framework has, for centuries, been lost, exacting, thereby, an enormous toll.
Unless the Spirit of God and the gifts of God are understood and are seen in the context of the apostolic framework of God's intention as a besieged community in the midst of a sea of hostility and worldly hatred, then we make the Spirit of God and His gifts serve a lesser purpose. They accommodate us rather than God, and one wonders if God is in that business, providing that accommodation, or, that something questionable has come in its place, and that we have not the discernment to distinguish. If it seems to bring a measure of excitement, a measure of enjoyment, a measure of relief, a measure of healing, which the Powers of this world can easily provide in order to bring in an ultimate deception. The Holy Spirit needs to be restored to the context of God's intention, of which the center is the restoration of a people who have not even the faintest notion of their eternal destiny or a desire for it, and want only to be as other nations. Nevertheless, God's word toward them, and the gifts and callings of God, must be fulfilled, for they are irrevocable and without repentance, or God is voided as God.
Let us not lose this ultimate and apocalyptic expectation, the dynamic that gave the early Church its distinctive. To substitute lesser 'excitements' leaves completely unchallenged the Powers of the air in the heavenly places, who rage against God and against His Anointed, and whose final defeat comes only with the restoration of Israel through the Church. To forfeit this eschatological calling constitutes a Last Days' apostasy, the great falling away of which Paul spoke. However much we might be occupied with the benevolent needs of men, for their healing, their deliverance, even their salvation, etc, it is to be occupied only in part, rather than in whole. It is the occupation with the whole that is the radically requiring aspect. It is little wonder that we shun the Jew, "the enemy of the gospel," and that we would much rather engage one another than to take up the central task of the Church, and, indeed, in a great part, the divine strategy in the salvation of Gentiles "so as to move them [the Jew] to jealousy."
In the unfathomable wisdom of God, the issue of Israel, rightly and prophetically understood, is God's provision for an errant Church, because it alone provides the framework by which the Church itself is to be understood. Its origins are derived from Israel, "for salvation is of the Jews." By being grafted into her tree, and living by the Life that is expressed through her root, the Church has a destiny as God's salvific agency for the restoration of that people in moving them to jealousy and showing them the face of their own God, who is full of mercy and unconditional in His love.
What has been too long confused is that the Church is not the kingdom, per se, but an interim provision in Israel's restoration, and it is time now to restore the kingdom of David to that literal people on David's throne, on the holy hill of Zion. The kingdom of God will either go forth from that place, or it will not go forth at all. Until that kingdom comes, no true divine law will go forth to the nations. Wars, suffering, death, incest and every kind of vile mayhem will continue to prevail over the world until the law of God can go forth from the one place specifically designated. Only one redeemed nation has the honor of expressing it, and whose redemption has come through a Zion (the Church of the Last Days) out of which, alone, their Deliverer comes (Rom. 11:25-27).
There is something foundationally wrong when we desire to enjoy a semblance of the Spirit, and its 'excitement,' without the Cross. We want the reality of God without the suffering that precedes that glory. Church, as every earnest believer knows, is a place of suffering, before it is a glory. The Church is a means, not an end in itself, but by being that means, it obtains, at the consummation of the age, something more glorious than that of the redeemed millennial Israel herself, namely, a ruling and reigning with Christ in the heavenly places. We, who are a "no people" as the Church, have become the "people of God" to move to envy a nation, Israel, that has lost that very identity. In the final frenzy, which is even now brewing, Jews will likely regard us, the Church, as enemies and a threat to their Jewishness in the anti-Semitic furor of the Last Days' persecution. In the failure to recognize that ours is a heart of love toward them, we may possibly have to suffer martyrdom even at their hands, as Stephen did, as a critical necessity, a sacrifice, to bring by it, if that alone is the final requirement, the revelation of the Lord that turned Saul from persecutor to apostle, and will bring that nation from opposing God to its own apostolate in blessing all the families of the earth.
Our coming under these purposes of God for Israel's redemption, this first-born among the nations, is calculated for our humility. We must not expect Jewish understanding, let alone gratitude for our sacrifice on their behalf, and, like Christ dying for us as sinners when we were dead in our transgressions, we also must 'suffer' for them while they are yet in their transgressions. In that mutuality and in that willingness to suffer for them as He suffered for us, we show forth the essential character of their God. The crisis that the Jew of the Last Days brings to a Church called to their redemption will reveal the truth of our condition in its depths, a condition calculated by God to bring us to the need for a full sanctification, which would not otherwise have been recognized, nor sought.
Alla dessa Västerbottningar!
Roger Larsson Frälsningsarmén, Anja Pärson, Ingemar Stenmark, Henning Sjöström, Martin Lundström, Assar Rönnlund, Torgny Lindgren, Sara Lidman, Lars Lundkvist och P-O Enquist samt... Martin Lönnebo, f.d. biskopen ...
MARTIN LÖNNEBO 75 år
Söndagen 27 februari
Läs om hur han firar dagen: i Norrköpings Tidningar
Martin Lönnebo växte upp som det åttonde barnet i en bondefamilj i Kågeträsk, Västerbotten på 1930-talet. Föddes 27 februari 1930. Yngst av åtta syskon. Han tjänade bl a som bonddräng men fick möjligheten att läsa vidare och började med filosofi.
Sådan är också hans gärning: kombinationen av det jordiskt praktiska och det andliga tänkandet och reflektionen över skapelsen.
En kort sejour som EFS-predikant i Bohuslän. Doktorsavhandling om Albert Schweitzer. Engagemang i handikapprörelse och miljörörelse. Ökenäventyr när han gick vilse på Sinai och var nära att dö …
Som biskop i Linköping mellan åren 1980-1995 blev han snart mycket känd över hela landet med sin blida men konsekventa personlighet som tjänat som andlig förebild för många människor.
En av hans viktiga deviser är att andlighet måste övas!
Förutsättningen för Lönnebos andlighet är att han står med båda fötterna på jorden, lever i världen, men inte av den.
Hur ser pensionären Lönnebos vardag ut? Frågas i en intervju när han pensionerats och Lönnebo berättar: Stressar inte. Stiger upp när man behöver. Först samlar han tankarna. Äter gröt, klassisk musik och lingonsylt är bra på morgonen. Om jag sedan inte skall resa iväg någonstans för att undervisa så går jag kanske till datorn och skriver på en bok. Tröttnar jag så lägger jag mig ett tag på soffan tills det blir kaffedags. På kvällen samlar jag mina tankar innan det blir TV-Aktuellt klockan 18. Man måste följa med i tiden. Sedan blir det promenad eller jogging, lite sport i TV, en stunds begrundan över dagen som varit och så somnar jag vid 23-tiden. Men en annan dag kanske jag ägnar mig åt att gräva i trädgården. Laga mat har jag blivit rätt bra på om jag bara får viss handledning, jag har lärt mig att följa recepten.
I en intervju Aftonbladet 1999 med akademiledamoten Torgny Lindgren född i Raggsjö Västerbotten berättar Lindgren:
Jag har sett ett stamträd som börjar med en karl på 1700-talet, jag har glömt hans namn. Men följer man grenverket ner till sista raden blir det rätt intressant. Där står till exempel jag själv, förre biskopen Martin Lönnebo, Sara Lidman, Lars Lundkvist och P-O Enquist. Vi är släkt på långt håll allihop.
Se: Zakrissläktens stamträd
Där finns en stamfader Zackris Nilsson född 1675 och anfader till författarna som nämnts ovan. Detta är om inte annat så en mycket märklig plantskola för Västerbottensförfattare...
Martin Lönnebo har berättat om hur han som liten hade han de starkaste upplevelserna av Gud i naturen, när han satt i en eka på en blank sjö eller gick under en norrskenshimmel. När himmel och jord var nära. Jag tänkte att allt detta är Guds hus. Här hör jag hemma. Det lilla, enkla och det stora är så sammanbundet.
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Skarpnäck 2-3 april
En doft från en annorlunda värld
Välkommen
till Operation Missions årsmöteshelg
i Skarpnäck, Stockholm
den 2-3 april 2005
Helgen kommer att präglas av en doft från en annorlunda värld ur många olika aspekter - kom och njut.
Du kommer att träffa Kristina och Kamal Fahmi och deras flickor som jobbar i Arabvärlden sedan många år, samt Hanna Pellmyr som varit på båten Logos II. Är du intresserad av mission, vill du veta mer om OM och vårt arbete, vill du bli utmanad, är du välkommen till Stockholm denna helgen.
Anmälan till OM-kontoret 036-184491.
Se OM´s hemsida för mera information.
Kostnaden för helgen är: 150 kr (enkel logi, kvällsmat, frukost)
Vad i all världen är OM?
OPERATION MISSION
Peter Magnusson, OM:s missionsföreståndare, skriver på OM:s webbsajt så här om OM och vad OM är - OM:s webbadress -
OM är en kristen missionsrörelse för alla åldrar men med flera program inriktade på ungdomar. Vi arbetar med mission, som betyder "uppdrag". För oss är uppdraget att föra hela det kristna budskapet till hela världen. Det innebär att vi vill möta fysiska, sociala, själsliga och andliga behov hos den enskilda människan över hela världen i samarbete med församlingar och andra kristna organisationer
Vi gör detta i stor respekt för andra religioner och livsåskådningar. Möjligheten till hjälp skall aldrig vara beroende av vilken tro eller uppfattning någon har. Samtidigt döljer vi inte att vi tror att det bara finns en väg till Gud och en väg till verklig fred och frihet både för individen och samhället - nämligen Jesus Kristus. Att ta emot honom är alltid ett fritt val för varje människa och påverkar inte vår respekt för människan som sådan.
Genom historien har de flesta människor sökt meningen med livet och vägen till Gud. Olika övningar har sagts hjälpa oss att nå honom. Tron på Jesus innebär en insikt om att det inte är möjligt att själv "klättra" upp till Gud. Istället får vi sträcka oss mot honom som är sann Gud men steg ner till människorna, delade våra villkor, sökte sig till de mest utsatta och som genom sin död gjorde det möjligt för varje människa att komma ända fram till Gud. Allt detta får vi utan att förtjäna det - detta är vad vi kristna kallar nåd.
För mig personligen har denna tro gett trygghet och motivation för livet och medmänniskorna. Den innebär att jag fått lämna misslyckanden och tillkortakommanden bakom mig och istället leva i en daglig personlig relation till den levande Guden. Allt är därmed inte alltid lätt och periodvis kämpar jag med tvivel på att min Gud verkligen är i kontroll.
Alternativet att han inte skulle finnas eller inte vara möjlig att nå skulle dock lämna ännu fler frågor obesvarade!
Jag är tacksam att få leva i den här relationen med Gud och jag hoppas och ber att fler skall få samma förmån. Min övertygelse hindrar inte att jag har stor respekt för människor med annan åskådning och att jag även lär mig mycket från dem. Faktiskt har jag lärt mig att en stark övertygelse, med respekt för andra, oftast ger en bättre grund för en verklig relation med människor med helt annan tro än om man har en diffus och osäker utgångspunkt.
Välkommen att utforska livet med Jesus tillsammans med oss!
Peter Magnusson
Missionsföreståndare
peter.magnusson@s.om.org
Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka 1 Iwas
Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka 1 Iwas
Syrianska ortodoxa kyrkan i Sverige är en av de många invandrarkyrkorna vi har i den stora kyrkofamiljen som vi kallar Den svenska kristenheten.
Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka 1 Iwas på bilden ovan är en av de ledare som dessa kyrkor hör samman med.
Så här presenteras denne ärkebiskop på >> en syriansk ortodox hemsida:
His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka 1 Iwas
Patriarch of Antioch and all the East
Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church
Extracts from H.H.'s Biography
H.H. was born on 21st April, 1933, into the faithful family of Iwas in Mosul, Iraq.
H.H. obtained his elementary studies at the school of Our Lady's Parish then was transfered to St. Thomas school.
In the year 1946 H.H. joined the Theological Seminary in Mosul, and was called Zakka.
In the year 1948 He was ordained as a deacon at the rank of Reader.
In the year 1953 promoted to the rank of Half-Deacon (Afodyacno).
In the year 1954 honoured with the Monk's rank.
In the year 1955 promoted to the rank of Deacon.
On 27th November 1957 was ordained by H.H. Moran Mor Ignatius Yacoub the third as a priest, and in the year 1959 was honoured with the Holy Cross.
H.H. at the beginning of his service with the clergy became the Secretary of the Patriarchate, when H.H. Moran Mor Ignatius Afram Barsoum the First (1933-1957+) appointed Him as the Patriarchate Secretary, then became the personal secretary for His Holiness. He maintained this position for a while at the time H.H. Moran Mor Ignatius Yacoub the Third became a Patriarch (1957-1980+)...
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VI HAR NÅGOT...
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ATT GE
SVERIGE!
Evangelistveckan 8-10 mars i Pingstförsamlingen i Jönköping.
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SAM i Indien
Glädje, fest och dans
vid indiska Allianskyrkans 100-årsjubileum
School Compound i Nandurbar var dekorerad till fest med portaler och girlanger under den tre dagar långa jubileumsfesten... Med standar och sång tågade den stora skaran indier och vi utländska gäster till mötesbaldakinen. Varje dag var det sedan mer än timslånga välkomstceremonier, med blomsterkransar, välkomstrosetter, jubileumsmärken, schalar och andra gåvor till både utländska och indiska gäster. Mötena varade mellan fyra och fem timmar, och en stor del av tiden måste alla gäster sitta framme på podiet. Vi var ett 20-tal gäster enbart från Sverige, däribland 8 ättlingar till missionspionjären A.P. Franklin, 5 vuxna och 3 barn. Dessutom Dr Valta med fru och dotter från Finland (han arbetade på tbc-sjukhuset på Sharon 1974- 76) och två från Danmark. Plus ett antal gäster från olika delar av Maharashtra. Sång, dans och drama Att kyrkan har ett imponerande skol- och skolhemsarbete blev tydligt under jubileet.
Läs mera: om 100-årsjubiléet i Indien
Herdabrev i Fastetid
- Herdabrev för fastetiden 2005 -
"Gud är ljus och inget mörker finns i honom" (1 Joh 1:5). Han har låtit sitt ljus gå upp över vår värld genom att sända sin Son till oss. Alltsedan Gud har blivit människa i Jesus Kristus, badar världen i ljus. Detta ljus måste få lysa upp varje människas liv. Fastetiden ger var och en av oss möjlighet att ta emot Ljuset, Jesus Kristus, och göra honom till medelpunkten i vårt liv. Det räcker inte att en gång för alla öppna sig för honom. Varje dag på nytt väntar han på att få komma in i vårt liv och ta oss i besittning. När vi väl har släppt in honom i vårt liv, vill han använda oss för att upplysa och leda andra till honom. Vi får förmedla Ljuset, Jesus Kristus, till varandra. Hela Kyrkan bygger på denna grundidé: att Ljuset ges vidare från människa till människa. Gud vill inte frälsa oss som enskilda, åtskilda individer utan genom att göra oss till ett heligt folk, som gemensamt tar emot honom, förkunnar hans glada budskap och ger honom den tillbedjan som tillkommer honom. I vår individualistiska tid får vi förmånen att tillhöra den heliga gemenskap, som har "Kristus Jesus själv till hörnsten" (Ef 2:20).
I mässan blir detta tydligare än någon annanstans. Där förs vi, hela gudsfolket i all dess mångfald, samman och helgas genom Jesu offer och får i hans kraft tillbe och förhärliga Fadern. I år firar vi ett eukaristiskt år, som ger oss ny möjlighet att tränga in i mässans mysterium och förvandlas av det. Som katoliker har vi plikten - och privilegiet - att varje söndag delta i mässan, oavsett på vilket språk den firas. Tyvärr kan man märka att vissa frestas att bara delta i mässan, när den firas på ett språk eller på ett sätt som behagar dem. Men det strider helt mot den sant katolska andan! Mässoffret är alltid av samma oskattbara värde och ger oss den näring vi behöver för att överleva som katoliker under vår jordiska ökenvandring. Där får vi både ta emot frukten av Jesu frälsande offer på Golgota och ta ut den himmelska bröllopsmåltiden i förskott. Smärta och glädje knyts samman och blir i Kristus till tacksägelse och tillbedjan. Vi får frambära våra mänskliga känslor och tankar och ge oss sådana vi är till Kristus, som i sin tur frambär oss till Fadern som en offergåva. I mässan vidgas vårt av synden förkrympta lilla hjärta och får del av Jesu Hjärtas vida horisont. I mässan blir vi mer och mer vad vi redan är genom dopet: Guds älskade barn med ett i sanning katolskt och universellt hjärta, öppet för hela världens nöd.
Under detta eukaristiska år inbjuds vi att växa i kärleksfull vördnad för Kristus, som alltid förblir närvarande i detta heliga sakrament. Tyvärr har denna djupa vördnad för Kristi sanna närvaro i sakramentet förflyktigats hos en del. Vi behöver fortbildning i den djupt mänskliga grundattityd som vördnad är. Bäst lär man sig det på knä inför Jesus i sakramentet. Att falla ner i ordlös tillbedjan inför tabernaklet en aldrig så liten stund kan göra underverk i en jäktad och splittrad människas inre. Att avsätta tid för eukaristisk tillbedjan i en församling kan föra samman människor av olika samhällsklasser och kulturer och skapa djup gemenskap och förnyelse. Att föra ut det allraheligaste sakramentet i procession på gator och torg kan inspirera oss att ta vårt uppdrag till evangelisation på större allvar. Därför är det min förhoppning att man i våra församlingar försöker fira Kristi kropps och blods högtid den 29 maj med en offentlig procession på alla platser där så är möjligt.
I eukaristin hämtar vi den kraft vi behöver för vardagens liv i Jesu efterföljd. Det finns ett samband mellan Jesu närvaro i eukaristin och vår kallelse att göra honom närvarande i världen. Den vördnad vi visar Jesus i eukaristin hjälper oss att visa varje människa den vördnad som tillkommer henne som Guds avbild. Ur mässan föds ett större engagemang för människans frälsning och världens helgelse. Som kristna är vi kallade att dela med oss av vår tro på Kristus till alla vi möter. Bästa sättet är ofta att försöka visa dem något av den kärleksfulla vördnad som vi visar Jesus själv. I vår nästas ansikte anar vi Jesu fördolda anlete. Eukaristin ger oss del av en allt större Kristus-likhet och inspirerar oss till en allt djupare Kristus-efterföljelse. Hans närvaro i eukaristin färgar av sig på hela vår existens och får allt att lysas upp av hans ljus. Men detta ljus måste spridas! Det är vi som fått förtroendet att bära ut Kristi ljus på gator och torg, på skolor och arbetsplatser. "Utsändandet i slutet av varje mässa" skriver påven Johannes Paulus II, "utgör ett uppdrag som driver den kristne till en insats för evangeliets utbredande och samhällets genomsyrande av kristna värderingar" (Eukaristins år, nr 24).
Ofta är människor mer öppna än vi tror för Kristi ljus. Vi behöver bara tänka på tiden efter katastrofen i Sydostasien, då många som annars aldrig skulle ha uppsökt en kyrka gjorde det. I lidandets stund ger Jesus, som tog på sig allt mänskligt lidande på korset, hopp och styrka. Det är vår uppgift att hjälpa människor att inte bara passivt ta emot hans ljus som lite tröst när ingenting annat hjälper utan inse att ljuset vill förvandla dem inifrån. Kristi kärleksfulla ljus måste också få lysa upp de områden av vårt samhällsliv, där respekten för människans värdighet tycks naggas allt mer i kanten. Vi behöver bara tänka på flykting- och asylfrågan, där vi kristna gång på gång måste höja vår röst för att påminna om Jesu ord: "Jag var hemlös och ni tog hand om mig" (Matt 25:35). Det finns flera andra grupper som speciellt behöver Jesu omsorg: gamla som blir försummade, barn som sliter ont, ungdomar som fastnar i missbruk. I varje mänskligt ansikte får vi vörda den människoblivne Gudens ansikte. I varje sårad människa känner vi igen den sårade kropp som fastspikades på ett kors för vår frälsnings skull. Vår frälsning kan bara ske, när vi känner igen den fördolde Guden i den förtrampade människan. I eukaristin är den förhärligade Kristus fördold för vår vanliga blick, men med trons, hoppets och kärlekens blick kan vi känna igen och vörda honom. Med samma blick kan vi känna igen och vörda honom, fördold i dem han älskar att kalla "dessa minsta som är mina bröder" (Matt 25:40).
+Anders Arborelius ocd
Herdabrev - 3 s i Fastan
H E R D A B R E V
Tredje söndagen i fastan
***
Råslätt i Jönköping den 25 februari 2005
Bäste Kontraktsprost & kyrkoherde
Ett litet men
tacksamt fredagsmeddelande…
Från Ale - Övertorneå fortsätter det sakta men säkert att strömma in svar i den Inventering vi påbörjat om Den svenska kristenheten.
Kyrkoherdarna är generösa i sitt sätt att ta sig några minuter för att besvara formuläret.
Kontraktsprosterna är likaså generösa som vidarebefordrar mitt e-brev till sina kyrkoherdar. Några har haft frågor men förstått att syftet inte är annat än just en enkel inventering. För att få en liten överblick över hur Guds församling ter sig och gestaltas i landets 290 kommuner.
För frågor
e-postadress: DBSel@myway.com
God helg inför oktaven Tredje veckan i Fastan
/Dag Selander
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