Excerpt from Cities on Fire

Overview

In re-looking at Paul’s journeys and letters (Sections 3-7), we will observe that Paul’s message and his ministry mode, became more sharply focussed as he visited, revisited and then wrote to the various cities. Our aim then will be to lift out high points and keynotes from Paul’s letters, following the probable order in which he ministered and wrote. In so doing we will observe Paul’s development toward his mature crystallisation of the message and ministry of the cross. The structure of Sections 3-7 will be to extract key points of focus from Galatians, Thessalonians and Corinthians, and then conclude with various high points from Romans, Philippians, Ephesians and Hebrews. As we draw out the key lessons from the apostles’ practices, we will review the obvious and fundamental questions: how did they declare, demonstrate and minister the cross of Christ, such that the hearers joined them in the processes of the cross? What were the crucial points of their proclamation? How were the life and power of the gospel actually applied? And most critically, how did the apostles evoke the cornerstone responses – viz. receiving and hearing?

Expanding further on these questions: what was the essential nature of the life that the apostles were imparting – in practical terms? What was the nature of the interaction between the apostles and the hearers? How were the believers to enter into the gospel process? How did the apostles function as the true circumcision? How did they circumcise ‘the flesh’, without doing so in a way that was ‘according to the flesh’? How were the believers to understand the all-important issues of tribulation and persecution?

Our two volume study ‘Cities on Fire’ aims to revise, revisit and revitalise these foundational elements:

• the essential elements of salvation – the keys that open the gates and release the prison doors,
• the need to understand salvation not as a linear, systematic theology, but as infinite integration – a four-square city with 12 gates, with 12 foundation stones, with a vast array of jewels, with a myriad of colours making up one pure, crystalline glory,
• the importance of receiving and hearing as crucial foundations of response; ‘remember how you received and heard’ (Rev 3:3),
• the need to hear what the Spirit is saying in the ‘candlestick’ (the local church) through the messengers of Christ – learning from the Biblical cities that failure to hear the Spirit, brought firm rebuke from Christ Himself,
• how the reconciling ministry operates through the apostles as a total package, not imputing trespasses (toward eternal exclusion), for through the cross, God has commuted our sentence to tribulation; this is now the context for the operation of the cross, by the power of God,
• how the hearers are drawn by the word of the cross into the processes of the cross for the purpose of bringing forth the new creation (II Cor 5:17),
• the apostles’ mode of weakness in ministering the gospel process – their mode of ‘coming’ (e.g. simplicity, godly sincerity etc);
• how tribulation is essential to the cross; how the life given is both the dying and the living of Jesus;
• partaking of weakness by the power of God,
• how appropriation actually works, and from there we need to develop an entire culture of appropriation as the church of the living God on earth,
• how transformation operates by invoking the power of God at the point of weakness,
• how imputation operates as a supernatural action of sons, bringing forth life out of death, and calling into existence things which are not (Rom 4),
• how to maintain believers in the crisis of salvation, keeping all the crucial elements above in balance,
• how we proceed to establish kingship (mature identity and corresponding accountability) and priesthood (relationship, community and the capacity to reconcile and resolve through the cross) as the goals of the Melchizedek Order;
• how the circumcision of the cross operates, as against the many false concepts of circumcision – how to circumcise the whole mode of relevance to and conformity with, the world;
• from here, a practical, pastoral model must emerge, one which describes, practically, how the flesh is dealt with - how we admonish one another, how we deal with (retain and remit) sin, how real change takes place, how each believer sends sin away and remits fallen culture,
• how to understand the apostles’ warnings about not availing ourselves of the gospel process – even abusing the gospel process. (Heb 6:6; 10:29).