September 27 - Kingdom of God: City of the King

Yesterday we talked about the Tabernacle - the House of God.

Snyder, in the book "Kingdom, Church and World" says that the "Bible is a book about cities, not just about sheep and vineyards." (pg. 43)  That sentence just leaped off the page for me!  Oh my goodness, there are cities sprinkled all through the scriptures.

It all begins in Genesis 4:17 - Cain builds a city.  Wow.  It didn't take long for urbanization to take hold, did it?  The worst example of a city was one that believed it was its own crowning glory - Babel.  Maybe you could consider it to be like Silicon Valley in the 80s and 90s.  It was everything that mankind could create.  God wasn't having any of that, though.

David conquered a Jebusite city and even though we might think that God was always in residence in Jerusalem ... no, not until that point.  But, when David moved in ... God did too and this city became the home for centuries of God's temple and was also known as Mount Zion.  This was the one place that God returned to - even after Babylon (remember Babel?) conquered her.  God brought His children back to Zion ... to Jerusalem.

The city of God, the holy city ...

Jesus calls Jerusalem "the city of the Great King" (Matthew 5:35), he weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19:42) when He was rejected.  It seemed as if all the hopes for Shalom ... for peace and wholeness were dashed at His crucifixion.

With His resurrection ... the Good News went out from Jerusalem to the entire earth.  And the promise was set forth to all people ... not just the Jews ... of the coming New Jerusalem, the city of God, the final completion of the Kingdom of God, our Promised Land.

If you look at the passage in Revelation 21:1-4, Revelation 22:1-5, you will see that the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven to a cleansed and re-created earth.  God dwells with man as He did in the Garden of Eden.  The reconciliation is finally complete.  Man can return to the garden ... man can walk the streets of the New Jerusalem.  The throne of God will be in the city.  There will be no more night.  He will reign forever.

Snyder goes on to lay out several things about cities ... things that become important points for each of us.  1) Cities are places of power, 2) cities are places of the poor, 3) cities are places of mission.

How do we move within our cities?