Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

154 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

2. Teaching on the kingdom story was the heart of Jesus’ teaching .

3. The kingdom story is the central focus of biblical theology.

4. The kingdom story is final criterion for judging truth and value.

5. The kingdom story provides an indispensable key to understanding human history.

6. The kingdom story coordinates and fulfills our particular lives and destinies as they relate to God’s reign.

II. Tua Da Gloriam: “The Story of God’s Glory”

Ps. 115.1-3 – Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, But to Your name give glory, Because of Your mercy, And because of Your truth. Why should the Gentiles say, “‘Where now is their God?’ But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.”

Christianity takes time seriously. History is where God is made known. Christians have no knowledge of God without time, for it is through actual events happening in historical time that God is revealed. God chooses to make the divine nature and will known through events that take place within the same calendar that measures the daily lives of men and women. God’s self-disclosures take place within the same course of time as political events: “In the days of Herod king of Judea” (Luke 1.5 NEB), or “it took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2.2 NEB). God’s time is our time, too, marked by a temporal order called a calendar. . . . For Christianity, the ultimate meanings of life are revealed not by universal timeless statements but by concrete acts of God. In the fullness of time, God invades our history, assumes our flesh, heals, teaches, and eats with sinners.

~ Hoyt L. Hickman, et. al. The New Handbook of the Christian Year . Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992, p. 16.