Author: Gregory Scott

Byzantine Travel Journal: Preparation

Copyright © 2010 Gregory Scott

Tomorrow we leave on our trip to Istanbul, Ephesus and Athens, where we will explore the former heart of the Byzantine Empire (Istanbul f/k/a Constantinople), the former site of a famous New Testament church (Ephesus) and Athens, where the Apostle Paul preached his famous sermon and an Athenian Supreme Court Justice (Dionysius) became a Christian (Acts 17). I’ve been looking forward to this trip for years.

My plan is to post daily, uploading pics from some of the places we visit and providing commentary from a Kingdom worldview. You can discover these ancient sites along with me and submit questions or comments.  It is also my intention to tweet photos during the day at @kingdomtweets.  If you are not following me on Twitter, you can click “Follow Me” icon in the right margin and it will take you to my Twitter home page where you can choose to follow.

You are probably wondering what’s with the pic of the cat in the suitcase. Well, that’s our Lilac Point Himalayan, who always packs herself when when we get ready to leave on a trip. It’s her not-so-subtle way of insisting we take her along.  Unfortunately, we will have to leave her behind with our house-sitter, who always takes good care of her.

So, stay tuned, and if you don’t want to check back to the blog everyday, remember you can subscribe to the RSS feed.  GS

Isaiah 11

Photo courtesy ©iStockphoto.com/jgroup

Have you ever watched one of those nature documentaries where they show lions chasing down, killing and eating zebras or wildebeests or some other animal?  The narrators talk about this savagery like it’s something beautiful and natural; they call it the “wonderful balance of nature” or some other euphemism designed to make us feel better about murder in the animal kingdom.  I watch and think there is something very unnatural about animals killing and eating other animals.

The Book of Genesis provides support for my perception. God’s revelation of how things were in the beginning paints a picture of animals in perfect harmony with man and each other.  It shows God assigning for both man and beast a diet of fruit and plants. (Genesis 1:29-30). All that changed when man rebelled against God, thereby introducing the curse and corrupting influence of sin into creation.

Isaiah 11 promises the reconciliation of nature in these particulars during the Kingdom Age:

“And the wolf will dwell with lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox.  And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.  They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  (Isaiah 11:6-9).

Dogs and cats living together, children putting their hands in a viper’s den and playing next to a cobra yet “they will not hurt or destroy.” (Isaiah 11:8-9). This is a picture of the reconciliation of the animal kingdom with itself, man and its creator.

If animals aren’t eating one another, what will they eat?  They will eat what they were intended to eat from the beginning (Genesis 1:29-30), e.g., “the lion will eat straw like the ox.” (Isaiah 11:7).

Don’t be fooled into thinking what is is what was intended or that what is is what will be.  The transformational power of King Jesus and His Kingdom are game-changers. GS

Wisdom From William Wilberforce

©iStockphoto.com/steve-goacher

One of my heroes is William Wilberforce.  Wilberforce, a Christian, was a champion of civil rights and was chiefly responsible putting an end to the British slave trade in the early 1800s.  I intend to blog on him here in the future as a Kingdom hero.

Wilberforce also wrote a book that was a bestseller in its day in England, and it’s one of my favorites: A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country as Contrasted with Real Christianity. He wrote the book in 1797, apparently before the age of marketing.  Modern marketing geniuses have shortened the title to A Practical View of Christianity.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is: “Christianity, be it remembered, proposes not to extinguish our natural desires, but to bring them under just control, and direct them to their true objects.”  I don’t know how one could say it better.

Many view Christianity as a set of rules which, if applied, take the fun out of living.  Quite the contrary, Jesus said, “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” (John 10:10).  The problem is that before people find Jesus they try to suck meaning and life out of things that were never created to give them.  Do you really believe your career or more money is the key to happiness?  If that were the case why, for example, do white male doctors have a suicide rate twice that of the general population of white males 25 and older?

I really began to live after I became a Jesus-follower and starting enjoying things for the purposes for which they were created.  I enjoyed golf more when I realized being a scratch golfer would not provide true meaning in my life.  I have a better marriage because I don’t expect my wife to satisfy my need for purpose and meaning.  I enjoy the blessings of money because money is not the source of my blessing.

I enjoy life because, first and foremost, I enjoy Him. GS

Isaiah 9

I’m halfway to the finish line in my plan of reading the Bible through in a year chronologically, that is, reading the Bible in the historical order in which the events it records occurred. I highly recommend it.  While it requires some skipping around, it brings a continuity to the historical sections and a relevance to the prophetic sections of the Bible you wont get from merely reading the Bible from cover to cover. You can download the daily reading plan here, and you can start any time.

I started on January 1, 2010 and, according to plan, I’m about halfway through the Bible, in Isaiah to be exact.  Last week I read through Isaiah 9 and came across one of my favorite Kingdom scriptures in verses 6-7:

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders, and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this”

There are at least 4 conclusions one can glean about the kingdom of God from these two verses:

1.  God’s kingdom is a government. God’s kingdom is not merely a realm or an experience but a government, and governments exist to manage, people, places and things, in other words, the earth.

2.  The Kingdom will bring peace on earth. Jesus is described as the Prince of Peace, and as His kingdom spreads so does the peace that is characteristic of its King and kingdom. That peace is planted first in man’s heart, and like anything in man’s heart it is manifested in his word and deed.  Bottom line: as the kingdom continues to advance on the earth, war will gradually become a thing of the past.

3.  The kingdom of God will grow. “There will be no end to the increase of His government…from then on and forevermore.”  “Then” refers to the birth of the child, i.e. the birth of Jesus, and from that time on the kingdom of God will continue to grow.  This is good news.  No cowering in the corner waiting for Jesus to return, but victorious expansion and progress as the earth is transformed into the place God intended from the beginning.

4.  God’s enthusiasm for His kingdom guarantees its success on earth. His zeal ensures these things Kingdom promises will be accomplished (v.7).

This is all good news for citizens of the kingdom of God, which is why it’s one of my favorite passages in the Bible.  GS

Kingdom Wage & Hour Law

Courtesy ©iStockphotos.com/HelpingHandsPhotos

The law that governs the conduct of Kingdom citizens is not always the same as the law of earthly kingdoms. The Kingdom standard is higher and rarely, if ever, lower. On the issue of wage and hour law, this is certainly true.

The Lord told Moses, “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him.  The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning. (Leviticus 19:13).

In other words, you don’t make your employees wait to be paid. In fact, it appears the Lord equates delay in payment with oppression and robbery.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say, like many employers, you pay your employees as infrequently as allowed by your government, which can be as infrequently as monthly.  Once your employee completes his day’s work, he has earned his pay. By you holding on to his money, interest free for a month, you are not only gaining a benefit for yourself, you are also depriving your employee of what the Bible says is lawfully his.

You may be thinking, “I can’t write a paycheck everyday.  That’s not feasible.”  I agree. With the legal requirements of withholding and for timely depositing payroll taxes it would be an administrative nightmare. Here’s what you can do.

With salaried employees, you pay them weekly in advance of their work. That way their wages do not remain with you overnight; they are receiving their wages before they earned them.  You may be thinking, “What if they quit before working the entire week?  Then I will have to try to get the money back from them.”  True, but by paying the employee periodically in arrears, you are forcing the employee to bear the risk that you won’t pay them.  Either way there is a risk to one party or the other, but it’s a risk the Bible places on the employer, who is in the better financial position to bear it.

With hourly employees, because you don’t know in advance how many hours they will work, you probably don’t have a choice but to pay them in arrears.  However, you can and should pay them as often as is possible and practicable, which is usually weekly.

Over the years, I’ve paid my salary employees in advance and my hourly employees weekly, and I’ve always felt it blessed them.  This is as it should be for employees employed in a business run by one operating under the delegated authority of King Jesus because the law of the Kingdom should be a source of blessing for those who nest in the branches of the kingdom of God.  GS