3. I have found, in the current mission discussion--when "nations" are thought of
as ethno-lingustic people groups
(vs as geo-political nations), that
their actual 'nationhood' is diminished,
to a large extent, because any kingly rule
is largely exempted from that discussion.
To me, this is a short-changing of a
proper understanding of 'nation-hood.'
I ask, "If Jesus is the King of kings--whom
we worship this way almost every week, then
where in the world are the kings--in terms
of our plethora of ministries?" Paul was given
one missionary commission in Acts 9:15 and
one-third of his key audiences were "the Gentile kings!"
This has been an era of the primacy of democracy, in parts, a growing hatred of the bureaucracies of modernity, as well as the heightening of a radical individualism.
In light of this, it seems,
even in our reading of our Scriptures,
we seem to shy away from things like
corporate conversion (see the majority of
individual conversions in Acts being "and
their household"), discipling (we usually think
exclusively of discipling individuals).
But also, constant citings of rulers, their
relation to the larger pictures of "history"
as well as certainly realms of rulership for
those of us who will pass into a heavenly
reward.
For all of these reasons, we need to re- educate ourselves about not only future rewards as rulers (and how would we prepare for that?) but also a contem-porary void of actually 'targeting' kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers.
We bring the "role of rulers"
in this discussion for at least 3 reasons
1. Almost any discussion of 'nations'
in our authoritative Scriptures usually
pulls in the subject of their kings.
2. We're in a modern/postmodern era
in which we've easily forgotten how central
rulership is to Christ, his ministry and
teaching, as well as to the rewards he will give us in the end.
