Mission of the Church

Got up too early today. Yesterday I slept in after staying up well past midnight to observe the eclipse through the broken clouds. Looked great in my telescope, especially after 12 o'clock. You could definately see the "blood" moon color. Sunday night a group of 35 gathered to watch Rick Larson's - The Star of Bethlehm DVD. Everybody thought it was fantastic and we highly recommend you get a copy and view it. Click the link for more information. In the 2nd half of the DVD you'll learn about the "blood moon" at the time of the Crucifixion.


Anyway on to today's main thought. I've started to read the IX Marks reviews of books about the mission of the church. In their intro they speak about ones they most recommend. I decided to start with Kevin DeYoung's excerpt since I follow him. You can find it here: Is “Incarnational” the Best Way to Describe Christian Mission? I'm not going to repeat their discussion but I did have one interesting observation.


The passage mentioned in John 20:21 is followed but Chapter 21.

I've mentioned this before since this is the section where the Bible says they had 153 large fish. John 21:11 and interestingly Jesus already had fish on the fire cooking. If you want to visualize this you can see us modeling Jesus' "service" on our Yosemite backpacking trip this summer.

Two thoughts: 1) Peter and the other disciples didn't catch any fish just using their own skill and effort. Jesus had to point out to them where the fish the Father has choosen for them to catch actually were. John 21:5-6 and since they were skillful fishermen they probabally had already tried the other side of the boat with no luck; 2) Afterwards Jesus specifically speaks to Peter about three tasks. I've frequently read this in the context of Love which is mentioned each time. But it also speaks about: lambs and sheep. John 21:15-17

[15 ] When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” [16 ] He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” [17 ] He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. (John 21:15-17 ESV)

I can see three points in this passage...and remember this comes after Jesus has demonstrated how to catch fish and he had already told them to become fishers of men: Mark 1:17

Feeding the lambs is providing spiritual food to those newly in Christ...spiritual milk: 1 Cor 3:2 ; Heb 5:12 ; 1 Peter 2:2 Tend my sheep is gathering, organizing, leading and taking care of the Church and finally Feed my Sheep is the mature side of developing and equiping those in the Church. See my blog from December 16th. Also note he use the little word "my" each time.

So you can see the wild trail I wandered off on reading the excerpt. You can find the full PDF download of the November/December IX eJournal by clicking this link and begin your own odyssey.