Theology

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 4: What, and Where / How?

January 15, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Why Disciple? | Part 3: When?

As I anticipated in the previous post, I think a couple “journalism questions” remain for our survey of discipleship:

What happened when you were converted?

Where do you go from here?

And because I’ve written on these questions here before, I think a couple of links and a comment or two might be sufficient for this post.

We begin discipling a new convert by explaining to him where he is, or what happened to him when he came to Christ in repentance and faith (or, in today’s common expression, “got saved”). God was doing things in his heart before that happened, and a whole raft of things, many of which he didn’t notice, happened to him at the moment of conversion. And God’s work will continue in him in the days ahead, and for the rest of his life.

He needs to know these things in order to understand his place in God’s plan now.

I’ve written about those things in this series, using the analogy of opening presents at Christmas. It’s a long series (22 posts!), because it needs to be.

We conclude by answering the question “Where do we go from here?” To some degree the last few posts of the series linked above will help to answer this question—there’s progressive sanctification and filling and glorification—but our new brother will need some help with getting there—with fulfilling his responsibilities in the shared (“synergistic”) work of progressive sanctification.

For these helps, I suggest another earlier series, in which I use the analogy of working out, or building muscle. That’s just 6 posts, covering what we call the three (or maybe five) “means of grace.” It’s a subject that I think is taught less clearly than it ought to be these days.

May we all comprehend, and apprehend, our inheritance and our responsibilities in this remarkable spiritual journey.

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 3: When?

January 12, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Why Disciple?

I suppose there are two “when” questions having to do with discipleship:

When should I seek to make disciples (“evangelize”)?

When should I call for a decision in evangelism?

The first question, I think, has already been answered in our survey of the Great Commission: “As you are going,” Jesus said, “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 29.19).

That means it’s a natural extension of daily life.

Now, Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Mt 10.16). I know there are people who would disagree with me—vigorously—but I think that statement at least implies that we should evangelize in ways that are reasonably adapted to the culture in which we’re working.

An example. Some Christians preach on street corners. You can do that; I’ve done some of that myself, in years past. But in our culture, such people are typically viewed as, well, crazy, or at least socially maladjusted, and I haven’t heard of their having much success. The only response I ever got was from someone who was inebriated, and there was no way that I could take him through the plan of salvation in that condition.

Evangelism is simply a part of the way we live our lives. Recently I flew somewhere on Southwest, which at the time didn’t assign seating. The way that works is that the first people to board grab either an aisle or a window seat, as close to the front as possible, and then they all fervently hope that nobody sits in the middle. I boarded relatively late, and as I walked down the aisle I could see that fervent hope on every face I passed. I managed to get an aisle seat waaaay in the back, and when a big guy came down the aisle to claim the middle seat, I just slid over so he could have the aisle seat. He commented on that, and I said, “I’m the littlest guy in the row; makes sense for me to sit in the middle.” (I’m happy to say that this was not a transpacific flight; if it were, the decision would have wrenched my soul.) We had a long and congenial conversation about spiritual things—turned out he was already a believer—and the guy on my right heard the whole thing, even though he wasn’t inclined to join the conversation.

So when do we evangelize? All the time. As we go. Wisely.

My answer to the second question might be controversial as well. I’ve already written some thoughts on how much pressure we place on children to convert. Stop here and go read that brief piece. I’ll wait.

No, really. Go read it.

All right. We can do serious damage when we pressure people to accept something they don’t understand or agree with. Prayers are not magic words; God knows the heart, and even a prayer with all the right words is useless if the one praying doesn’t mean them.

That’s true of adults as well as children. Would that enebriated man on the sidewalk in Boston have been regenerated if he had prayed a prayer that I recited to him, but that he likely would remember only dimly, if at all?

No, he wouldn’t have been. But if he did remember it dimly, then for the rest of his life he could tell future evangelists that he’d already done that, and “it didn’t work for me.”

There’s no way I’d set up a situation like that.

So when do you call for a decision?

The Bible says that salvation consists of repentance—turning from sin attitudinally—and conversion—turning to Christ in faith. Repentance, without which salvation simply will not happen, is animated by conviction of sin, a sense of sinfulness and of guilt before God. And how does conviction happen?

Someone shouting at you?

Someone telling you a sad story that moves you deeply?

Someone telling you about the eternal fires of hell and scaring you half to death?

No. Not by themselves.

Conviction, the Scripture says, is a work of God’s Holy Spirit.

So when do we call for a decision, a prayer of repentance?

When we see evidence of conviction. In a child, or in an adult.

Otherwise, we’re just inoculating the person against evangelism.

Next time, we’ll finish the series by laying out the content of discipleship:

What happened when you were converted?

Where do you go from here?

Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 2: Why Disciple?

January 8, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

If we’re going to be equipped to disciple others, we need to start with the basics:

What is discipleship?

Why is this a priority? (or, to put it more bluntly, why should I care?)

I’m going to answer those questions in reverse order.

It all begins with God’s will.

Just before he returned to heaven, Jesus left his disciples with a command, the one we call The Great Commission. It appears in Mark 16.15, Luke 24.46-49, and Acts 1.8, but its classic expression is in Matthew 28.18-20:

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. ¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

Jesus begins by asserting that he has obtained all the authority (“power”) there is in the universe.

That’s quite a claim, and it’s backed up elsewhere in Scripture (e.g. Co 1.14-20).

He’s not bluffing.

So the Great Commission is based on the infinite, universal authority of the one giving it. It’s not merely an option.

And what does this authority command?

The main verb of what follows is “teach.” This word means simply to “make disciples.” When are we to do that? Here Jesus uses a participle, “going,” or “as you go.” So whenever you’re out, take the opportunity to make disciples of all people groups. Of course, to do that you need to go to all the people groups. That’s a key basis of what we call “missions,” and I note that he didn’t restrict the command to a subset of professionals. His command assumes that we’ll all be going, and that as we go we’ll take the time to make disciples in the places where we go.

Next he uses two more participles to tell us how we’re to do that. First, we’re going to baptize them. That assumes, of course, that they will have been converted, will have expressed repentance from sin and faith in Christ. And second, we’re going to teach them what they need to know—what Christ has commanded of his disciples.

As the church has functioned throughout its history, some have specialized in certain people groups—and that makes sense. But all of us have been given this command, and by an infinite authority at that. As we go, wherever we go, we should be telling of Christ’s work, encouraging others to repent and believe, and helping to teach them what happens next.

We all have the obligation to evangelize. All of us. Not just the professionals, whether pastors here in the States or overseas. And once, through our evangelistic labors, someone has believed, we have the obligation to teach him. To disciple him.

Apparently, 2 out of 3 of us aren’t doing that.

Maybe they’re too busy screaming at their political opponents about how stupid they are.

I doubt that’ll open many doors. And I doubt that our infinite, universal authority will be pleased with our priorities, or our devotion to the real cause.

The Bible includes many examples of evangelism; we would do well to study those examples and consider how we might apply them to our time and culture:

Pentecost (Ac 2.38)

Temple (Ac 3.19-26)

Sanhedrin (Ac 4.12)

Sanhedrin 2 (Ac 5.31)

Simon (Ac 8.20-23)

Saul (Ac 9.20; 22.16; 26.18-20)

Cornelius (Ac 10.43; 11.17-18)

Antioch (Ac 13.38-39)

Iconium (Ac 14.1)

Gentiles (Ac 15.9)

Philippian Jailer (Ac 16.30-31)

Berea (Ac 17.12)

Athens (Ac 17.30-31)

Corinth (Ac 18.8)

Ephesus (Ac 19.4-5, 18-19)

Rome (Ac 28.23-24)

There’s no lack of patterns provided.

Next time we’ll consider how to proceed in evangelism.

Part 3: When? | Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Demystifying Discipleship, Part 1: Introduction

January 5, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We hear a lot about discipleship in the church these days. Pastors and teachers often point out that discipleship is the focus of the Great Commission (we’ll get to that in a bit), but a recent Barna study (2022) concluded that while about 56% of Christians are being discipled, only about 33% are discipling others.

A couple of caveats.

Accurate surveying is a complicated business; minor inattention can produce huge errors, and every survey that does its statistical work prudently will report a certain “margin of error,” usually 3 to 7 percent, based on sample size and other factors. (The margin of error in this study is +/- 1.5% at 95% confidence.) But even a very large sample size can yield unreliable results—as is the case in virtually every Facebook poll, in which the respondents self-select. That said, Barna is a well-regarded research group.

Nowhere does the article report how Barna defined “Christian”; it says simply that the respondents self-identified as Christian. (I didn’t read the study itself, which is behind a paywall.) Given Barna’s history, I think it’s safe to assume that they were interacting with evangelicals.

The article also doesn’t define “discipleship,” though I’m sure the study itself does. Given that only 56% percent of Christians are “being discipled,” I’m confident that the definition does not include pulpit ministry.

With those factors in mind, I think we can take the percentages as reasonably accurate. That said, though the percentage of Christians who are being discipled is significantly higher than the percentage of those who are discipling others, I still think it’s lower than it ought to be; and the number of those discipling others is disturbingly low.

When a subset of the survey group was asked why they’re not discipling anyone, the most common response was that they didn’t think they were qualified. I rather suspect that apathy and/or fear play a larger role than the survey indicates, but because people are not likely to give answers that find fault with themselves, I doubt that any survey would yield reliable data on that question.

So then. A large percentage of self-proclaimed Christians are rendering only casual obedience, if that, to Jesus’ last command.

Maybe we should try to clarify, in a few posts, what discipleship is all about.

I plan to proceed by tracking the basic journalistic questions:

Why should we disciple others?

What does discipleship consist of?

When should we call for a decision in evangelism?

What should we teach the disciple about salvation? (This will consist of a blog series I posted some years ago. A link will suffice.)

How should the disciple be enabled to grow? (This too will be an earlier series on this blog.)

We’ll start down this path next time.

Part 2: Why Disciple? | Part 3: When? | Part 4: What, and Where / How?

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

On the Believer’s Dual Citizenship, Part 2: Living for the Eternal King

October 30, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

What is the believer’s mindset as one holding dual citizenship? Can he be a loyal citizen of his earthly national homeland even as he acknowledges the superior authority of his heavenly king?

Earthly Authority Matters

I think he can, for the simple reason that providence exists. God directs the affairs of people and nations—both national affairs and the details of each individual to whom he has given life. Most of my readers were born into citizenship in the USA. Others are loyal to one of a number of homelands in six of the seven continents in the world. (If you’re in Antarctica, please speak up. McMurdo Station, anyone? Anyone?)

Now, we’re not where we are by accident. God put us here. And just to make his intention absolutely clear, he has instructed us in the Scripture, as noted in the previous post, to “be subject unto the higher powers”—by which he means, as the context indicates, political powers (Ro 13.1). He even extends that clarification further when Peter writes to churches in Asia Minor (Turkey) that are suffering persecution from the Roman emperor and subordinate provincial officials:

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; ¹⁴Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well (1P 2.13-14).

So at the outset, we dual citizens are reminded that we’re not playing games here, playing one citizenship against another to our greatest advantage. Given the context of persecution, it’s pretty clear that our personal advantage isn’t a significant consideration in a godly decision.

But Eternity Matters More

Given the brokenness of the world and everyone in it, we should expect that earthly authorities will issue directives that are not in line with God’s will. In fact, the Scripture gives examples of that in both Testaments. Pharaoh ordered the execution of male Israelite babies; Herod ordered the execution of any baby who might turn out to be “King of the Jews”; the Sanhedrin ordered the Apostles not to proclaim Jesus as Messiah.

The responses of God’s people varied. Sometimes God just stepped in and stopped the evil attempt: God warned Joseph in a dream to get out of Bethlehem and migrate to Egypt for a while. In two other cases a key person on scene lied: that would be the Egyptian midwives and Rahab. There’s disagreement about whether these people did the right thing; that’s too long a discussion for this blog post, but for now we can just say that God delivered his people from the evil ruler. (He is sovereign over sinners as well as saints, after all.)

In the case of the Sanhedrin, the situation is clear. Jesus, in his last command to his disciples, had ordered them,

All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. ¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Mt 28.18-20).

The Sanhedrin had ordered them to disobey that command.

What part of “all authority” is hard to understand?

Peter’s reply captured the situation perfectly:

Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. ²⁰For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Ac 4.19-20).

So our heavenly king does indeed take precedence over our earthly king. We obey him regardless of contradicting earthly directives.

There’s a reason for that: eternal directives are more important than temporal ones, because eternal consequences are more significant than earthly ones.

In our patriotic duties, then, we make our decisions on the basis of the eternal outcomes. In such matters, obedient believers may disagree; one believer may choose to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and another may refuse. But if they’re obedient, their decision is based on the eternal.

Photo by Global Residence Index on Unsplash

On the Believer’s Dual Citizenship, Part 1: Introduction

October 27, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Christians have always disagreed over their responsibilities to earthly governments. Jesus, of course, declared to Pilate that his kingdom “is not of this world” (Jn 18.36), leading some since to deny, or at least resist, all earthly kingdoms. Most Christians, though, have tried to follow Paul’s mandate that we should respect “the powers that be” (Ro 13.1), but they have disagreed significantly over what exactly that should look like.

Augustine laid the foundation for “two kingdoms” thinking in his classic work The City of God, in which he asserted that all humans are citizens of either the city of God, loving God, or the city of man (Babylon), loving self. In his view, Christians are also citizens of earthly kingdoms, though only temporarily, and should be good citizens, seeking to improve society while realizing that complete success is impossible.

The medieval Roman Catholic Church gave lip service to this idea—Augustine is, after all, one of the great Fathers of the Church—but various popes sought to exert authority over kings to an extent that rendered the latter essentially powerless. The most well-known example of this is when Pope Gregory VII refused to answer the door at the Canossa Castle in northern Italy, leaving Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV standing barefoot outside in the snow for three days (1077).

The Reformers, who for obvious reasons were not inclined to follow slavishly the Roman Catholic example, mostly returned to something close to Augustine‘s position. Calvin taught that Christians should respect and obey the government—not surprising, since for a time in Geneva he essentially was the government, even ordering capital punishment for heretics as he deemed it appropriate.

These days most evangelical Christians make much of the Romans 13 passage, reserving civil disobedience to matters where they view the government as impinging on matters of biblical command and thus personal conscience. They will disagree with one another on precisely when civil disobedience is necessary*, but they will generally agree on the abstract principle.

In some non-Christian minds this “dual citizenship” seems inappropriate. On November 10, 2004, speaking at the University of Chicago the day after that year’s presidential election, humorist Garrison Keillor said, “I’m trying to organize support for a constitutional amendment to deny voting rights to born-again Christians. I feel if your citizenship is in Heaven—like a born again Christian’s is—you should give up your [US] citizenship. Sorry, but this is my new cause. If born again Christians are allowed to vote in this country, then why not Canadians?”

Now, I’m pretty sure Keillor was joking—first, because that’s what he was getting paid to do, and second, because as far as I know he never acted on those words. But it’s easy to see how this doctrine might give pause to a non-Christian or two.

Well. Given that conservative evangelicals seem to have a robust theology of earthly citizenship based on Romans 13 and are (mostly) in agreement as to its broad application, I think it’s worth giving some attention to our other citizenship—what Augustine called “the city of God.”

How do we live for the eternal king?

And how do we demonstrate longing for the eternal city?

Next time.

* In a contemporary example, the US Supreme Court is deciding this year a Christian therapist’s objection to Colorado’s restrictions on “conversion therapy” for homosexual and/or transgender youth. Practicing evangelical licensed therapists in the state disagree over whether their colleagues can abide by the existing state law in good conscience and in obedience to Scripture. Some think the plaintiff’s objection is unnecessary by biblical standards.

Photo by Global Residence Index on Unsplash

On Revival

October 23, 2025 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

There’s a lot of talk about revival these days. National networks are noticing and reporting on a surge of interest in Christianity, particularly among young men on the political right. Many are attributing it to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, with perhaps a reaction against policies hostile to Christian thinking that are widely viewed as “nutty.” The most obvious of these, I suppose, would be the transgender movement, especially policies promoting the participation of biological males in women’s sports and the encouraging of puberty-blocker hormone treatments and surgeries in minors. Many pundits think that young males have just had it up to here with what they see as the fruits of secularism and are turning to Christianity.

Maybe they are. I certainly would like to see that happen. (I’d also like to see a similar surge in that thinking among young females, but it doesn’t appear to be happening.)

But I’ve noticed something about the current discussions of this phenomenon that gives me pause.

The evidences that I’ve seen cited for this revival are all external.

By that I mean things like attendance at Charlie Kirk’s funeral, and increased attendance at church, and Bible sales, and app downloads, and streaming of Christian music. News outlets and podcasters are chattering about these statistical shifts.

Now, these are all good things to one degree or another, but they’re not revival.

I suppose that in order to support that statement, I need to define my terms.

Historically, the term revival has been used of a renewal of dedication to God among Christians. It’s not technically a wave of conversions; that’s evangelism. For our purposes, though, I’m happy to just lump those two phenomena together as a broad move toward Christian thinking, regardless of the subject’s previous religious state.

The little itch that I need to scratch is the apparent confusion between a sociological phenomenon and a genuine experience of Christian conversion or renewal.

The Bible speaks of revival, or conversion, as a work of God’s Spirit in the individual heart. The Spirit convicts someone of his sin; he draws him to himself. As a result, the person repents of that sin and turns to Christ, seeking him and trusting him as the source of forgiveness and spiritual life. He becomes a servant of God, and his priorities are radically reordered.

Maybe that’s happening on a large scale today. I hope so. But the simple fact is that we can’t possibly know that yet. Jesus said that we know his followers by their fruits; and Paul names the fruit of the Spirit as a set of character traits: love, joy, peace, endurance, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (Ga 5.22-23).

We see precious little of that these days, on the right or the left. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Now, I really don’t think I’m the curmudgeon here (shades of Andy Rooney), or the stereotypical fundamentalist (“no fun, too much damn, and not enough mental”). I think the body of this blog demonstrates that I’m fundamentally an optimist. But I know from experience that young people get swept up in various emotional causes. I note that a recent study suggests that the transgender movement among young people may be powered as much by peer pressure as genuine sexual dysmorphia.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the response to Charlie Kirk’s death were in any significant way another example of the same phenomenon?

So what do we do?

To start, we seek to understand accurately what’s happening. Becoming a Republican, or a fan of President Trump, or of Charlie Kirk, is not regeneration. Going to church is not conversion; in fact church is designed to be a gathering of people who are already believers, not a way to become one. Listening to Christian music, especially considering how broadly defined that genre is, may not be evidence of any particular mindset.

Let’s see what’s actually there, and not what we wish for.

And then, we steward the opportunity this social phenomenon represents. We interact with those who show up in our churches, showing them what the Scripture says about regeneration and the Spirit who gives that life, and showing them what the consequent life of sanctification looks like. We challenge the deviancies of professing Christians on both the right and the left. And we do these things in a way that reflects the fruit of the Spirit, bringing grace, mercy, and peace to those we serve.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

On the Big Story, Part 3: The Kingdom of God

October 16, 2025 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Israel and the Church 

How do Israel and the church fit together? And are there any other stages in the Big Story that God is telling?

What should we make of all this?

Oh, my friend, this is not dusty theology. This has everything to do with today’s news cycle, and more importantly how we live in and respond to it.

The New Testament speaks often of “the kingdom of God.” John the Baptist introduces the term (Mt 3.2), and Jesus presents himself as the fulfillment of John’s prophecy (Mt 4.17; 12.28; 16.28). It’s a major theme of Jesus’ teaching (e.g. Mt 13), and it shows up in the writings of Paul, Peter, John, and James.

So what is it? Well, a kingdom typically involves three elements:

A king, or ruler

A realm, or sphere of authority

A people, or subjects

The kingdom of God, then, might be defined this way:

God reigns in heaven and on earth, over a people he has created and called, for the praise of his glory (Ps 103.19).

That reign has manifested itself persistently through the history of the world and will continue forever:

The cosmos (Gen 1-11): God created it from nothing, and he sovereignly directs it. We literally set our watches by this cosmic direction.

Israel (Gen 12-Mal): This is the kingdom of God as manifested throughout the Old Testament. He originates it in Abram; he constitutes it at Sinai; he appoints its leadership, climaxing in David and Solomon; he sovereignly directs its location in Canaan, then Egypt, then Israel, and even Babylon and Persia.

The church (Acts-Jude): This is the kingdom of God throughout the New Testament and up through today, all the way to the return of Christ. God originates it at Pentecost through the work of his Spirit; he empowers its spread as evidenced in Acts; He sets forth its moral code in the Epistles.

The eschaton (Revelation): “Eschaton” is just a fancy term for the time after Jesus returns; it literally means “the last thing.” At that time God will invade the realm of earth and establish his kingdom (Rev 20). (Here I’m taking the position that the millennial kingdom is visible, earthly, and yet future. Many will disagree with me.) Then he will create a New Heaven and a New Earth (Rev 21-22).

So how does all this affect the way you and I live today and tomorrow?

To begin with, we recognize and take into account the fundamental, universal principle of all existence, which is that God is in charge.

A lot of people don’t like that principle, particularly in the West, where democracy is ingrained into us, and we talk a lot about our “rights.” But I’ll observe that according to the USA’s founding document, we are endowed with those inalienable rights by our Creator; even our democratic republican system begins by recognizing that God is in charge.

Now. How do we think and live under that dominating principle? How do we respond to the evidences of brokenness in our human social and political systems? We manifest God’s rule in multiple ways. Let me suggest just a few and leave you to see how far down that road your own thinking can take you:

We seek to know Him personally.

We obey His will as expressed in the Scripture.

We submit to earthly authorities* because they are under His dominion (Rom 13).

We live trustingly and confidently—optimistically—in a broken world, or at least we’re supposed to, because we know that the Sovereign is wise and good and will bring it all out in a good place.

We seek an eternal kingdom, thereby relatively devaluing the present world. That means we live in grace, peace, and confidence instead of fear, frustration, and anger.

As the people of God, we inhabit our phase of history, of God’s plan, with confidence in the one whom we know intimately, who has all power and exercises it wisely and beneficently. And I’ll observe that as God’s people, we can do the world a lot more good by living that way, in sharp contrast to the spirit of any age, than by acting as frustrated, angry, and afreid as everybody else.

Vive la difference.

* As I’ve noted before, there are exceptions to this rule at times when our authorities are not in fact respecting God’s dominion.

Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash

On the Big Story, Part 2: Israel and the Church

October 13, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

We all know that the Bible consists of two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Within those two divisions, we find that the people of God are organized differently. In the Old Testament, after the primeval period in Genesis 1-11, God begins to establish his people as a family—specifically the family of Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, whom he later names Israel. As the family grows, Jacob’s twelve sons become tribes constituting the people of Israel.

In Exodus, God turns this family, this people, into a nation, with defined leadership and explicit laws. And the rest of the Old Testament is the story of this nation—a turbulent story indeed.

These are the people of God.

How do you become part of the people of God? Usually, you’re born into it, but there are exceptions. When the Israelite slaves are delivered from Egypt, some Egyptians come with them; at Jericho, a Canaanite woman—a prostitute!—asks for asylum and is granted it. And the Mosaic Law provides for “strangers”—foreigners—who can be admitted to Israelite citizenship.

But for the most part, the people of God in this stage are genetically determined. And that leads to some, well, imperfections. Throughout Israel’s history, some percentage of Israelites do not believe in Israel’s God. At times, hardly anybody in Israel really belongs to God. The prophets paint a dark. stark picture. But for now, the people of God are defined in terms of ethnicity, of nationality, and, after the Conquest, of geography.

When we come to the New Testament, the whole picture changes. Now the people of God are defined by their belief in God. Ethnicity (Ga 3.28) and nationality (Ro 13) and geography (Mt 28.19-20) become irrelevant; the church begins in Jerusalem and expands throughout Judea, but soon it’s in Samaria, and then it explodes across the Mediterranean Basin. Within a generation or so it’s in India, and soon in China, and once the New World is discovered in the late 15^th century* it immediately takes hold there as well.

Now. How do these two manifestations of “the people of God” relate?

So far in church history there have been two basic answers to that question. There may be other theories in the future, but for now this is what we have.

One approach is that Israel has been replaced by the church. The promises that God made to Israel in that historical context have either been fulfilled already (e.g. the land promise [Gen 15.18] under Solomon) or are now given to the church. That means that modern Israel has no biblical or theological significance; it’s just another country, like Liechtenstein or Malawi. And that means that Christ’s kingdom is not an earthly, political kingdom; it’s either the influence of the church in the world (postmillennialism) or the reign of Christ in the hearts of his people today (amillennialism).

For most of church history, this approach, and specifically amillennialism, has been by far the majority view. Today it’s called “Covenant Theology” and is held by Presbyterians and a few other groups.

Another answer to the question is that Israel and the Church are distinct—perhaps eternally distinct—entities. God has not yet completely fulfilled his promises to Israel—most especially the Land Promise. That means that he will fulfill that promise at some future time, in a political kingdom here on earth. The Temple will be rebuilt; David’s greater son, Christ, will reign from Jerusalem, and that earthly reign will last for a thousand years.

Elements of this view were held in early apostolic times; many of the Apostolic Fathers, for example, held to a literal earthly reign of Christ. But fairly soon a literal reading of prophecy fell out of favor, and the idea of spiritualizing the kingdom became dominant. But in recent centuries—the 19^th and 20^th—this second view, called Dispensationalism, has become popular and even dominant in evangelical Christian culture.

I prefer one of these two views, but I don’t believe that this question should cause rancorous divisions in the body of Christ. I think it helps us to see that we all agree on The Big Story:

God is creating a people for his glory.

He began doing so with a physical illustration (Israel), including an ethnicity and a legal system.

That people demonstrated a need for something beyond the physical arrangement.

Having demonstrated his point, God graciously did what Israel could not.

Incarnate, he kept their Law in their place.

He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice for their sin.

He promised to return as king.

And then he extended this offer of grace to the entire world.

Next time we tie these two entities, and more, into the Really Big Picture.

* Sure, the Vikings. But they made no lasting settlement. And the Native Americans apparently had no history of contact with Christianity before they arrived in North America.

Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash

On the Big Story, Part 1: Introduction

October 9, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I think it’s time for something different here on the blog. I often write about theology—by my count 518 (65%) of the 800 (!) posts so far, with 266 (33%) focusing on systematic theology and 25 (3%) on biblical theology. (I’ll confess that my recordkeeping has been imperfect; there’s another project for my retirement.) While I’ve taught academically in a university environment, I’ve determined to keep this blog on a popular level, simple enough that even I can understand it. No theological nerditude here.

But I’d like to get a little more academic in this brief series—still simple and clear, Lord willing, but sounding more like a teacher than an opiner—because I think this topic is worth addressing in this venue.

I’d like to talk about the theology behind The Big Story. It’s often been observed that the Bible, while a book of commandments and morals as well as a collection of stories, most of which we like to tell our children, is at its most basic a Big Story, and a story not so much about Adam and Noah and Abraham and David and Peter and Paul as about God: who he is, what he’s like, and what he’s doing here on earth and beyond for his own purposes. In light of that, it’s worth taking a look at the big picture so we can accurately place all the little ones.

What God is doing in this Big Story is gathering a people for himself—a people to be his sons and daughters (or whatever we’ll call people in eternity, where there is apparently no sexual identity; Mt 22.30), to know him, to love him, to serve him perfectly and successfully, and to glorify him forever. How he’s been doing this is a lesson in wisdom, power, and grace.

He began by including everyone; both of the two original humans were in his image, after his likeness (Ge 1.26-27), and they have multiplied and filled the earth (Ge 1.28). But as we know, those first humans opted out of God’s family, rejecting his plan and going their own way (Ge 3.1-24). Maybe God drew them back to himself later; though there are rare hints, we’re not told whether or when.

Now, God knew this would happen; this is just the beginning of his plan, and one way he is showing his wisdom and goodness in that plan.

Over the next few centuries there are individual people who walk with God. The Scripture mentions Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and a line of “sons of God” (Gen 6.2; and no, I don’t think those were angels; don’t even get me started on the current fascination with the Nephilim).

But God’s plan goes well beyond just a few individuals. He has in mind an eternal nation, a people for himself.

His first step toward that great goal is to designate an earthly nation, Israel, as his own people. As we know, they proved to be highly erratic and unfaithful, though they were also an avenue for God’s Word and for the Coming King, in whom God permanently embodied himself as a man. And even in this early stage, God makes it clear that Gentiles—proselytes, converts—are welcome in this nation, if they will follow him.

But when the King comes—the first time—God expands the vision. He begins at Jerusalem and Judea, but then expands to Samaria, and to a Roman centurion and his family, and by commission to the ends of the earth. The family is now not one nation, but representatives from every nation—all who will come. And Jesus uses a word the Jews already know well—ekklesia, assembly—to describe this new “nation,” the church.

The Scripture uses a third term for the people of God, one that envelops both Israel and the Church and looks ahead to the eternal state. All of this is “the kingdom of God.”

There’s a lively discussion about these entities and how they relate to one another. I don’t intend to answer all the questions and solve all the problems, because that’s well beyond my ability. But I would like to take a few posts to lay out the land, so to speak, and to identify the questions. I have a position on the questions, but I hope to be reasonably objective.

Next time: Israel and the church. Wish me fair winds and following seas.

Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash