Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

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

power. By and large his successes are few, however, for these people demonstrate an almost supernatural attachment to the Enemy Monarch.

Still, the prince in encouraged by one relatively small, though nonetheless significant, source of help he had not counted on.

There are some servants of the Monarch’s Son, mostly honest and well intentioned, who mis-state his promises. These servants are so intent upon winning people back from the realm of the evil prince, that they leave out of their messages some very important facts concerning responsible citizenship in that Domain. They rarely, if ever, mention warfare, or the prince’s subversive devices, or the residual effects of the dread diseases caught under his reign. Frankly, they portray the Son’s Government as sort of a spiritual welfare state, where there are free goodies for all, with little work or responsibility. One gets the picture of a sort of laid-back paradise, with the Monarch running a giant handout program. Gleefully, the wicked prince capitalizes on this unexplained chink in their armor. All he has to do is let them preach these omissions, and then cash in on the contradictions the people experience in their daily lives. After all, his best source of returnees just might turn out to be the disappointed hearers who listen to these enthusiastic servants. The Kingdom as a Key to All of Scripture Jesus was always full of surprises, even with his disciples. Perhaps the biggest surprise was his news about the Kingdom of God. Jesus came announcing the Kingdom, creating a stir. Through a brief span of public ministry he kept showing his disciples what the Kingdom was really like. They understood only in part. Later, risen from the dead, Jesus spent six weeks teaching his disciples more about the Kingdom (Acts 1.3). He explained that his own suffering, death and resurrection were all part of the kingdom plan foretold by Old Testament prophets (Luke 24.44-47). Now, after the resurrection, his disciples ask, “Are you finally going to set up your Kingdom?” (paraphrasing Acts 1.6). How does Jesus respond? He says, in effect, “The time for the full flowering of the new order still remains a mystery to you; it’s in God’s hands. But. . . . the ~ Peter E. Gillquist. “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” Why We Haven’t Changed the World . Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1982. pp. 47-48.