Good Strategy
Good strategy lives in
a right relationship
with reality. Marc Priddy
Bill Morehouse – MBS, Thursday morning, August 31, 2023
…but first the difference�between a crow and a raven…
5
4
Latest study guide “Heaven”�Book 7 in The Joy of Christian Discipleship Series – due out 9/23
The New Jerusalem (why not The New Rome?)
Preceding guides in Course 2 �Books 5 and 6 in The Joy of Christian Discipleship Series – 2022
“Awakening” of Truth
“Kingdom” of God
Course 1 foundational study guides�Books 1, 2, and 3 in The Joy of Christian Discipleship Series – 2020-21
“Saved”
“Sanctified”
“Sent”
Writing books
This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21:24-25
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. 1 John 5:13-15
Who will be saved?�Aaron Neff, August 2023 new member at PFPC
Question: In the light of believers’ baptism, what is “infant baptism” all about?
Course 1 Logo
Who will be saved?�Aaron Neff, August 13, 2023 sermon at PFPC
Question: Does a person need to be born again to be saved from Hell?
Course 2 Logo
Three Realms
Religious
Join Group
Group’s writings
Doctrines/Politics
Harmony?
Various sects
Being friendly
Social support
Here and Now
Rites and Rituals
Civil
Residence
Society’s rules
Opinions/Politics
Golden Rule
Kingdom of Man
Tolerance
Acceptance
Here and Now
Holidays
Biblical Reality
New Birth
Word of God
Truth/Prayer
Love God/Others
Kingdom of God
Agape love
Pure relationships
Here and Forever
Spiritual Family
Denominationalism
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.
1 Corinthians 1:10-15
Reality
Jesus!
alive with Father
in written Bible and accompanied
by Holy Spirit
Kirk vs
Ekklesia
Catholic
Peter
Mary
Roman
Orthodox
+
Popes
Councils
Hierarchy
Saints
Traditions
Protestant
Paul
Luke
Luther
Calvin
Knox
+
100s more
Global Christian Populations
Roman Catholic 1,250,000,000
Orthodox 250,000,000
Protestant (mainline A) 375,000,000
Evangelical (born again B) 625,000,000
Total 2,500,000,000
A) “Mainline” has come to mean primarily liberal or modernist “non-evangelical Protestant” and includes members of the “seven sisters of American Protestantism” which refers to the seven major denominations that comprise the mainline:
1. American Baptist Churches 2. Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
3. Episcopal (not Anglican) Church 4. Evangelical (evangelisch*) Lutheran Church
5. Presbyterian Church (USA) 6. United Church of Christ
7. United Methodist Church *vs. evangelikal
B) Primarily conservative or fundamental and includes charismatic/Pentecostal. How many Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Mainline Protestant members are functionally “born again”?
Two Different “Binaries”?
Political
Left – Right
Progressive – Regressive
Liberal – Conservative
Woke – Bigoted
Blue – Red
Democrat – Republican
Socialist – Capitalist
Sadducee – Pharisee
Biblical
True – False
Right – Wrong
Good – Evil
Saved – Unsaved
Light – Darkness
Kingdoms:
God – W/F/D
Confusion, granular spectra, or binary choices?
Entering the Kingdom
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! Psalm 34:8-9, Hebrews 11
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”
Matthew 23:13
“Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep... If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” John 10:7 ff
Two Kingdoms or “Cities”
Light
Word
Truth
Spirit of God
God
Provision
Purity
Encourage
Love
Choose
Darkness
World
Lies
Satan’s spirits
Selfishness
Temptation
Perversion
Accuse
Lust
Default?
“City of God”
“City of Man”
The default ?
Both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Romans 3:9-12
Yes: This means that every human being who has been born into the world and every human institution fashioned by human beings, including the visible church, has been corrupted by the world, flesh, and devil. All need to surrender to God in Christ to both see and enter the Kingdom of God to receive salvation and ongoing sanctification.
A Kingdom Transfer
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:9-14
Who is Satan in the Bible?
Abaddon – Hebrew for "destruction"
Accuser
Adversary
Angel of Light
Angel of the bottomless pit
Antichrist
Apollyon – Greek for "destroyer"
King of the Bottomless Pit
Lawless One
Leviathan
Liar
Lucifer
Murderer
Power of Darkness
Prince of the Power of the Air
Beast
Beelzebub – "Ruler of the demons"
Belial
Deceiver
Devil
Dragon
Enemy
Evil One
Father of Lies
Ruler of the Darkness
Ruler of this World
Serpent of Old
Son of Perdition
Fallen Star
Tempter
Thief
Wicked One
Did God say?
A binary struggle
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12
So Paul said… “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but know he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31
And [Jesus] said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned…” Mark 16:15ff
Matters of the heart
Belief, faith, love, and trust are all related matters of the heart. These are not cognitive agreements with neutral subject matter only but deeper affirmations and commitments.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
Matters of the natural mind
Acquiring intellectual knowledge and forming opinions about life’s issues and philosophies are cognitive matters of learning and mental activity which are subject to fleshly and worldly human influences as well as spiritual ones and often deal with their subjects in biased or corrupted ways.
The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 14:11-12
“The Look
of Pride”
by Sasha Velour
THE
NEW YORKER
Cover
June 12, 2023 Issue
Pride Month
2023
Sasha Velour is a gender-fluid drag queen. Her first book, The Big Reveal, An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag, was published April 2023 with Harper.
Velour is the creator and star of the one-queen drag spectacular Smoke & Mirrors, which toured from 2019-2022 to over 80 theaters around the world including the Folies Bergère and the London Palladium. She founded the acclaimed New York City drag show NightGowns in 2015 and was featured on Season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2017.
Strategy Overview
According to Richard Rumelt, the most basic idea of strategy is the application of strength against weakness. Or, if you prefer, strength applied to the most promising opportunities. Two incredibly important, natural sources of strength are:
1. Having a coherent strategy – one that coordinates policies and actions.
A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength through the coherence of its design. Most people or organizations pursue multiple objectives that are unconnected with one another or, worse, that conflict with one another.
2. The creation of new strengths through a consistent shift in viewpoint.
An insightful reframing of a competitive situation can create whole new patterns of advantage and weakness. The most powerful strategies derive from such game changing insights.
Applying a coherent and “novel” strategy offers the David and Goliath advantage of being unexpected. The Biblical message of the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah provides us with the most cohesive, powerful, and timely strategy for facing our times.
Reality and Wisdom
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew… And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good… My son, do not lose sight of these – keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck.
Proverbs 3:19-22 with Genesis 1:31. See also John 1 and Colossians 1.
The essential point is that God has built the principles of wisdom into the structure of the world itself; wisdom is the ordering principle by which everything functions and does not devolve into chaos. Thus, when one live without integrity, one violates the very rules whereby everything is held together. One cannot do this and thrive.
From ESV Study Bible notes. Read Proverbs 8 for more.
The Reality of Wisdom
Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.
Proverbs 8:6-13
All true wisdom is from God’s Holy Spirit, while foolishness is from God’s adversaries: the world, the flesh, and demonic influences.
Comparison
Wisdom
Cohesion
Righteous
God
Build up
Create
Support
True
Right
Good
Foolishness
Chaos
Licentious
Now!
Tear down
Destroy
Attack
False
Wrong
Evil
Today’s world
With society having lost God as the proper object of healthy fear, our culture is necessarily becoming ever more neurotic, ever more anxious about the unknown – indeed, ever more anxious about anything and everything.
Without God’s kind and fatherly providential care, we are left utterly uncertain about the shifting sands of both morality and reality. In ousting God from our culture, other concerns – from personal health to the health of the planet – have assumed a divine ultimacy in our minds.
And thus we feel helplessly fragile. No longer anchored, society fills with free-floating anxieties.
– from Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord by Michael Reeves.
Alternative Futures
“Progressivism”
Biblical Eschatology
Make Progress!
Move Forward!
But who decides which way is forward?
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.”
John 14:5-7
Socialist Utopia
“Yes, we become stronger when men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant fight together to create the kind of country we all know we can become.”
Bernie Sanders
What will the result of “Progressivism” be?
Some Mixed Resources
THE NEW YORKER
Demonstrating the blatantly pervasive corruption of our society.
Example – https://www.sashavelour.com/
Highly sophisticated naiveté and confusion.
GOOD STRATEGY/BAD STRATEGY
Richard P. Rumelt. New York: Crown Business, Random House, 2011.
BIBLICAL CRITICAL THEORY
Christopher Watkin with Foreword by Timothy Keller.
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2022.
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom… but enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.