The term “homophobia” could be used to describe sinful attitudes or actions towards homosexuals. Its typical use, though, is to describe opposition to homosexual practices and beliefs, which is assumed to be irrational. Used in this way, it is an unfair rhetorical ploy to discredit any opposition to homosexuality.

Debates are rarely won on the battlefield of terminology, but they are frequently lost there. This is certainly the case in today’s debates over sexuality. Virtually all of the key terms are so freighted with ideological ordnance that entire regiments of exegetical and philosophical argument can be wiped out at a moment’s notice by a careless choice of words.
One word that we must handle with care is “homophobia.” Of course, this term is frequently leveled at anyone who dissents from the mainstream view affirming homosexual practices. Frequently, though, the term is also used by Christians to describe sinful attitudes or attitudes toward homosexuals. The problem is that when Christians use this term, we are either using it in a highly restricted sense that our secular culture does not recognize, or we are buying into some unbiblical assumptions about homosexuality.
The second half of the term, “phobia,” signifies an irrational fear. For instance, “arachnophobia” is an irrational fear of spiders. You might have arachnophobia if you avoid opening cupboards because years ago you found a dead spider in one. On the other hand, running away from a tarantula is evidence of healthy fear, not arachnophobia.
But what exactly does a homophobe fear? What does the “homo” refer to? It could refer to homosexual people. In this case, “homophobia” would be a useful term to describe someone’s fear of speaking to a homosexual, of stepping on their lawn, or of eating one table over from them at a restaurant.
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God has already begun to fix everything in this world broken by sin. What a privilege to be called to the mission to spread surrender to Christ’s rule over our own heart loyalties, heart attitudes and every sphere life where we have influence. “The kingdom of God is the renewal of the whole world through the entrance of supernatural forces. As things are restored under Christ’s rule and authority, they are restored to health, beauty, and freedom” (Tim, Keller, Ministries of Mercy). Because of Christ’s resurrection and exaltation, to be a Jesus-follower is to have a part in the most significant mission in history—overthrowing the kingdom of darkness.

If you noticed the title of this week’s episode, you may be wondering, “What in the world is a resurrection worldview and why does it matter?” It turns out not only that a resurrection worldview is an essential biblical concept for Christians; it is the foundation for the three specific truths that Paul repeatedly asks for God to help the Ephesian Christians grasp. This episode examines these three life-changing PERSPECTIVES.  
Before digging into the three resurrection truths that Paul yearned for the Ephesians to grasp, let’s consider why a person’s view, his perception of the truth, his mental perspective matter so much. Let’s start way back with happiness. Scripture teaches that happiness and life-satisfaction are not a result of circumstances but of the ATTITUDE you choose. For example, Proverbs 15:5 observes, All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. Jesus taught the same truth when he began his portrait of kingdom restoration with eight godly attitudes (known as the beatitudes) introducing each one with the term blessed (MAKARIOS), which is the Greek word for the entirely fulfilled. So, Jesus’ plan to transform our heart attitudes, restoring them to holiness, happens to be the pathway to fullest enjoyment of life.
If at the core of God’s salvation plan is transforming our sinful heart attitudes into Christ-like ones, no wonder Paul wants us to have a resurrection perspective. One of the great secrets of life taught in Scripture is this: Your PERSPECTIVE determines your ATTITUDE. If you doubt that, just consider how your attitude of thankfulness for getting an unexpected 10% raise from your boss would change if you found out everyone else got a 15% raise. Or consider how, after taking a step onto the street to cross it, your angry attitude towards a pedestrian whose arm flies out against your chest shoving you backwards into a mud puddle would be transformed to gratefulness if you then saw a bus fly across the surface of the road on which you were just standing! Our attitude is inseparably bound to our perspective. It should not surprise us that Paul, who knew that God’s goal is to transform our heart attitudes, wrote to the Romans, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the RIGHT PERSPECTIVE—the renewal of your mind (12:2).
With this background, we can see why Paul’s prayer strategy for the Ephesian Christians began with prayer for them to have a correct RESURECTION PERSPECTIVE, i.e. to mentally grasp the way the resurrection impacts our everyday living in specific ways. As we now come to these three truths, notice in the text we’re studying, how Paul piles up words that have to do with PERSPECTIVE. Ephesians 1:16-23: I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of 1) wisdom and 2) revelation in the 3) knowledge of him, having the 4) eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may 5) know…Five different ways he refers to the PERSPECTIVE he longs for them to have—a perspective about what difference the resurrection makes. That resurrection worldview is to know: 1) What is the hope to which he has called you, 2) what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and 3) what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. If you are anything like me, these words go right over your head. What is Paul talking about? And why in the world does he single out these three aspects of the reality of the resurrection? I believe that as we dig into these truths, we will come away with a much richer understanding of how the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Day—matters in our everyday lives.
Truth # 1: The Hope to Which He Has Called You
A. Biblical Hope Is Richer than Most of Us Realize
We recognize that the historic miracle of God suspending the natural order to raise Jesus from the dead validates Jesus’ claims. But it points to so much more. Author, Tim Keller observes:
“The resurrection was indeed a marvelous display of God’s power, but we should not see it as a suspension of the natural order. Rather it was the beginning of the restoration of the natural order of the world, the world as God intended it to be. Since humanity turned away from God, both the human and natural worlds have been dominated by sin and evil, disorder and disease, suffering and death. But when Jesus rose from the dead, he inaugurated the first stage of the coming of God’s kingdom power into the world to restore and heal all things. The resurrection means not merely that Christians have hope for the future, but they have hope that comes from the future. The Bible’s startling message is that when Jesus rose, he brought the future kingdom of God into the present. It is not yet here fully but it is here substantially, and Christians live an impoverished life if they do not realize that it is available to them.” (Hope in Times of Fear).
If our view of what the resurrection accomplished is basically that when we die, we get to go to heaven, we’ve severely shrunk the biblical concept of hope, which is RESTORATION of CREATION PARADISE on EARTH—not ESCAPE from it.
“The world was created by God to be a place of perfect harmony under his rule. Everything was cohesively woven together with every other part of creation. There was no disharmony between the body and the soul, or between our feelings and our conscience. There was no conflict between individuals or the genders. The body never became disharmonious within itself—there was nothing like the disintegration of the body through disease, aging, and death. There was also perfect harmony between humanity and the animals and the environment. There was no broken relationship of any kind” (Ibid).
When we look behind the false worldviews we studied in this series, we realize that what is longed for is actually the restoration that Jesus is bringing. Behind broken sexuality is often a hunger for unconditional love. Behind the accusation that biblical patriarchy is toxic is often the feminist yearning for significance, and sense of worth. Beneath the pro-abortion position that embryos have no right to be in the way of women’s pursuit of happiness is the yearning for fulfillment. The day when open borders work is the day when sin and oppression are ultimately vanquished from earth. True resurrection hope is enormously attractive.
B. Biblical Hope Balances the Already and Not Yet Aspects of the Kingdom
The kingdom of God and the Second Adam have already broken into Adam’s kingdom and overthrown the usurpers, Satan, sin, and death. As one theologian observes:
“We must not underestimate how present the kingdom of God is, but we must also must not underestimate how unrealized it is, how much it exists only in the future. Because the kingdom is present partially but not fully, we must expect substantial healing but not total healing in all areas of life…If we overstress the ‘already’ of the kingdom to the exclusion of the ‘not yet’ we will expect quick solutions to problems and we will be dismayed by suffering and tragedy. But we can likewise overstress the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom to the exclusion of the ‘already.’ We can be too pessimistic about personal change. We can withdraw from engaging the world, too afraid of being ‘polluted’ by it.” (Ibid).
C. Biblical Hope Energizes Our Calling
Christ-followers are those who have responded to our Master’s personal CALL to enlist in his cause—not  just throwing a lifeline to people guilty of sinning—but the overthrow of the kingdom of darkness and establishment of his kingdom of righteousness over every square inch of life on planet earth.
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Written by T. M. Suffield |
Saturday, September 2, 2023
Discipleship is slow. Gamification is all about quick wins and rewarding incremental progress. Discipleship, the lifelong obedience towards God that transforms us into the likeness of his son, is often incremental, but it’s never quick. If anyone suggests a quick win for an issue of character or obedience, run away from them.

I was speaking to a friend and he suggested a startling thought: we want our discipleship to be gamified.
On the face of it I could shrug it off, he and I are millennials, gamification is a Gen Z problem. They’re the generation that sees progress in terms of levelling up. We’re the I’m amazing, I don’t have a problem generation.
Ah.
By gamified we mean having clear achievements, progress meters and rewards for levelling up: life being like a video game, and one where I beat the game instead of the other players. When I last worked in the private sector I ran graduate programmes at Rolls-Royce, and it was touted as the next big thing to include in graduate programmes and development activities, there was a desire to gamify to ensure that young talent was kept motivated and engaged through their training. I would be surprised if they got that far, the engineering industry would itself be resistant, but it was thinking ahead of its time.
Then, in the early 2010s all of our graduates were Millennials, the ‘participation trophy’ generation. Now, all of their graduates would be Gen Z, the ‘level up’ generation.
I see this in my own life. I track what I read on a website called Goodreads. I found it helpful to keep a log of how much I read in a year, and to easily look back at what the books were. It both encouraged me that I read more than I think and gave me a tool to review a year’s reading to see if I want to make changes to what I read the following year.
I do wonder how much my reading output increased once I started logging it though. Things change when we observe them, that’s basic quantum physics, and basic human behaviour too. There’s something motivating about my annual target (I’ve pitched for a lower 52 books this year, but the homepage helpfully tells me that I’m ‘7 books ahead’). I stopped logging how far through a book I was because I wanted to mark down the next page number rather than read the book, I wonder if the reading challenge has a similar effect (Ed: in the last two years I’ve stopped doing this, for this reason).
Have you ever found yourself wanting to finish a book to say you’ve finished it rather than to enjoy its pages? That’s gamification. When we remember that Goodreads is owned by Amazon, we might also see why they might desire me to finish more books.
Technology changes us in ways we might not expect. It’s difficult to throw useful tech away in monastic pique because it either is, or masquerades as being, useful. Telling the difference is harder than you might think, and your soul needs you to.
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