ULDAH MINISTRY

No,70　　August. 2001

【LEADERSHIP IN GOD'S KINGDOM 】

　 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?" "We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "you will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared." When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Mark 10:35~45

It was after Jesus' disciples were told three times by their master, Jesus, about His impending solemn passion, that two of His disciples, James and John came to Jesus to ask for high places in the future kingdom. They were obviously only interested in their own high status in the spiritual realm at the time when some glorious events of Christ would take place. If the theory that James and John's mother Salome may have been Jesus' mother Mary's sister is correct, they would have been first cousins to Jesus. Therefore, it might have been natural for them to request such privilege on the basis of family ties. In spite of having been taught that "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all,"(Mark 9:35 Line added) when the disciples argued about who the greatest was, their thoughts were still preoccupied with selfish, personal gain. When He said, 'You don't know what you are asking,' and also, 'Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?' Jesus' reply to the two was addressed to their core problem; selfishness, self-exaltation, jealousy and perpetual pursuit of power and status of this world even after their knowledge of the Lord and the kingdom of God.
In the Hebrew Bible (the OT) God's judgment, i.e., His wrath against man's sin were metaphorically referred to as the 'cup of wine,' or the 'cup of God's wrath,' and no-one was exempt from drinking this cup. In other words, there were no-one that could escape God's jugement. Accordingly, here, by such a term, Jesus referred to God's punishment which He was about to bear in place of all man's sin, that is, Christ's sacrificial death on the cross as divine judgment upon rebellious, sinful men. If the two disciples could have fully understood the serious meaning of Jesus' question; 'Can you drink the cup I drink… ?' they might have hesitated more in their answer. Instead, their reply was as much of a thoughtless one as their request. However, Jesus, having seen their potential and fulfilment in perspective, took them at their word and affirmed their future course as Jesus' followers. Nevertheless, what they had ambitiously requested here was something which belonged to the Father's domain and authority, but not to Jesus. As Paul lived his life on earth as Jesus' follower, in order 'to attain to the resurrection from the dead,' which can be likened to a runner in a race to get the crown, so no-one can know whether or not, he would be awarded a prize until right at the end.
The rest of Jesus' disciples reacted indignantly to James' and John's ambition possibly because they themselves desired the same, and were not so much different from the two. Jesus' previous teaching about leadership in a community of His followers; 'If anyone wants to be first, he must be very last, and the servant of all,' did not seem to be fully understood by them all. Unless they were to turn their firmly seated worldly values of social status, position, power and authority upside down, it would be totally impossible for them to understand the kind of new ─completely different nature of─ leadership in the kingdom of God. Jesus did not actually give any specific teaching about leadership, instead, what He taught them was how to be a humble servant. His disciples should not have been like the 'rulers of the Gentiles' that lord it over others and exercise authority over them to secure their personal advancement. In the world, it is common that power, status and position are valued and that the top of a hierarchy is admired, but in the kingdom of God, what is required are servanthood, humility, patience and love, where though there are variety of talents and functions, believers all have equal status as important members of one family, i.e., of the corporate body of Christ under the leadership of Christ. In other words, Jesus Christ alone has higher status in the kingdom of God as head and teacher, and the most humble servant is regarded highest there, as our Lord Jesus Himself demonstrated such servanthood by humbling Himself and giving His life as a ransom for us sinners.
Jesus' teaching here reflects a completely different sense of value in God's kingdom compered to that of the world. It might parallel the comparison between Daniel's vision about human kingdoms in Daniel 7 and Nebuchadnezzar's in Daniel 2. There, the same prophetic events concerning human kingdom which would rise and perish around the Mediterranean Sea, in human history were illustrated from different views by God's prophet Daniel and a pagan king Nebuchadnezzar respectively. Daniel's vision illustrated them from God's viewpoint and Nebuchadnezzar's vision from an ordinary man's viewpoint. Whereas the former pictured man-made kingdoms as mere abominable, brutal beasts, for the latter they were great, glorious, noble and something worthy of admiration. Thus, there was a huge gap between spiritual greatness and worldly greatness. However, when He said: 'Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all,' (Lines added, Notice that this is not an option but an imperative!), the implication here was not something that was to be demonstrated in the future, when Jesus would be glorified as ruler of the earth, but something that should be exercised in the community of Jesus' followers, i.e., the flock of the Lord now. →continued on page 4

It was this community that was called "Church." Apart from ecclesiastical, hierarchical institutions, Church was supposed to consist of these child-like simple-minded followers who faithfully practise with a servant heart what Jesus taught. Therefore, their leader must be the humblest of them all, who would willingly serve others as 'slave of all,' exactly as Jesus had presented Himself. John the Baptist who introduced Jesus as 'the Lamb of God,' would be one of the best examples for us to follow, whom Jesus highly commended; 'among those born of women there is no-one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.'(Luke 7:28) He not only publicly declared that Jesus had to become greater while he had to become less, but also willingly allowed his disciples to leave him and follow Jesus. Furthermore, he died his short life by being beheaded by Herod the tetrarch. He was the one that had lived up to God's standard as Jesus taught; 'anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.' (Ma. 10:38~39) So Church should have put the life of God's kingdom into practice here and now, with the leaders demonstrating it with love and care.
Unfortunately, the majority of people in the world generally see so-called 'Christianity' and also what has been practised by her leaders as genuine Jesus' teaching. However, as depicted above, it is apparent that these so-called Christian things are not necessarily what has been instructed by Jesus or at worst are often opposite to His teaching. Above all, a great general misconcept would be that Christianity is regarded as having a Western origin probably because Christian religion had flourished in Europe and the U.S.A. thorough centuries and it has made up some nominal and distorted impressions through systems, buildings, paintings and statues.
All these were human-made additives to Jesus' simple teaching in later centuries. Accordingly, it is needless to say that we must return to the original culture and context of Jesus and his disciples in Palestine, the Middle East, if we really want to be true followers of Him.

Thought of the Month……….

Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man." Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face down cast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
Genesis 4:1~7 Line added
From God's interrogative words about Cain's downcast stance it is highly conceivable that the Lord had already given instructions on how to offer sacrifices approved by the Lord when He killed the animals and clothed Adam and Eve with garments of skin for the first time after their Fall. In full knowledge that the fat portions from the firstborn of the flock was the right offering, Cain did not obey the Lord unlike Abel, who faithfully did what pleased the LORD. Here, human made religions, humanly oriented religious rituals and acts are represented in Cain's attitude, while faith, God-initiated relationship with man is symbolised in Abel's attitude. If man's relationship with God is wrong, it will affect man's relationship with other fellow men, and this will lead to every sort of problem. As the Lord pointed out, the fact that Cain had a downcast face was clear evidence of his wrong relationship with God. His broken relationship with God came to open him up to further disobedience against Him and eventually to sin of murder, as the Lord warned in perspective: 'If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, … .'
This account of the first murder in human history, which already broke out within the second generation after creation of man, pictures a significant principle of God-given freedom. It suggests to us that there are only two distinct ways for man to choose, either doing what is right in God's eyes or doing what is wrong in His eyes and also that it is solely man himself that is responsible for the consequence of his choice. On the one hand, our continued disobedience opens a gate for the enemy, for him to take advantage of our weakness; i.e., opening the gate for sinning. On the other hand, if we repent and confess our sins, this will open the door for the Lord's forgiveness, mercy and grace. Seen in the expression, 'sin is crouching at your door,' the Bible appears to presume the reality of spiritual warfare. Peter took warning against its monstrous nature so that we are to be aware of the unseen power of the strongholds arrayed against both the work and people of God: 'Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.' (1Peter 5:8).
Somebody said, 'Evil thoughts only become sin when the mind fondles them, nurtures them and continues to hold on to them.' Indeed, our battle field might be said to be in our own mind, emotions and will, that is, in our soul. That is the place where spiritual warfare is located. Accordingly, as Peter succinctly said in the following verse 9, Jesus' followers are to resist their enemy by standing firm in the faith in the Lord because Jesus is the only one that can set the captives, who have been under the bondage of strongholds, free.
Though there is currently a movement that places emphasis on waging war in the heavenlies and pulling down principalities and strongholds with a slogan such as 'Take our city for God!,' among some denominations, the Bible does not seem to teach such a man-centredtriumphant dominionism. Instead, the only weapons with which Christians could fight against spiritual warfare would be to resolve to submit to the Lord alone with repentance and prayers as Paul taught: 'For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.' (2Co. 10:3~5 Line added)
From Paul's teachings two significant points might be pointed out about spiritual warfare.

1. Our battle is against our patterns of thinking and emotions; faulty belief, imaginations, ideas, emotional hurts, rationalisation and every high thought, philosophy that exalts man above the knowledge of God. It is not mentioned in Scriptures that our battle is to be directed to something in the air or over cities. The real problem is within us. Though we are not responsible for man's tendency towards sin, we are accountable for our own thoughts, emotions, decisions and actions. Consequently, it is the kind of faulty patterns of our own thinking that should be attacked and demolished.
2. It is God Himself that brings down our enemy, Satan and demons. Accordingly, appealing our problems to God with repentance, prayers and submitting to His Word and the Holy Spirit would be our most effective weapon spiritual warfare.

Throughout the Bible what is promised is that as long as we trust in the Lord and that we submit to the Lord in every area of our lives, we will be protected from the enemy's attack whose focal point is in man's mental realm and will be able to experience His abundance. However, if we fail to feed our spirits with both the truth of the Word of God and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we will be very vulnerable against the enemy's attack and end up with filling the emptiness of our innermost part with erroneous substitutes, i.e., an ungodly, man-centred thinking.
It is these false belief systems in the mind of each individual that should directly be demolished. Look into the depth of your heart and see what lies there and conquer it. Wouldn't this be the reality of our true spiritual warfare?