The Goal for the Prize: Understanding the Kingdom of God

By Michael E. Craft

The author introduces a revolutionary concept of the Kingdom of God which is intended to initiate a conversation among committed followers of Jesus Christ. Followers who are convinced there is something more than the placebo, which promises pie in the sky in the great by-and-by.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490821177

Michael E. Craft

Rev. Michael E. Craft is an ordained pastor with more than thirty years os experience in the pastoral ministry. In addition to his theological studies, he holds degrees in electrical engineering, solid state physics, and education. He worked as a research scientist on the Saturn–Man on the Moon project, taught high school advanced mathematics, and served nine years as associate professor of engineering in a northwestern university. Rev. Craft resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife of fifty-five years.

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Copyright © 2014 Michael E. Craft.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-2116-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2115-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2117-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013923605

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/2/2014

CONTENTS

Author’s Note

Prologue

Chapter 1:   The Importance Of Words

Chapter 2:   Introduction To The Kingdom

Chapter 3:   Behold The City

Chapter 4:   The Kingdom Parables

Chapter 5:   Marching To Zion

Epilogue

Appendices

1:   The First Word Of The Gospel

2:   When Three Is Really Three

3:   The Armor Of God

4:   Let’s Talk About Sin

5:   Into What Were You Baptized?

6:   The Law Of Liberty

7:   The Jewish Prayer Shawl, The Tallit

8:   Jesus, The Son Of God

Alice laughed, There’s no use trying, she said,

one can’t believe impossible things."

I daresay you haven’t had much practice,

said the Queen.

"When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.

Why sometimes I believed as many as

six impossible things before breakfast."

—LEWIS CARROL

The pessimist complains about the wind;

the optimist expects it to change;

the realist adjusts the sails.

—WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I grew up in the church. I really cannot ever remember not going to church. My Christmas present when I was six years old was a small King James New Testament. I was an early reader, and I suppose my folks thought to get me started on the right path. I devoured that little book! I discovered in its pages the beauty and the glory of the Lord, and I thought even then that I wanted to be a man of God. I prayed at my mother’s knee and asked Jesus into my heart when I was eight. I was baptized and became a member of a Baptist church when I was twelve.

I love a mystery! I’ve always been intrigued by those things that were not immediately understood. By most standards, I’m a nerd. I loved mathematics, and when Sputnik 1 was launched by Russia, I determined to become an engineer/scientist. At the University of Florida I majored in electrical engineering and physics. Armed with a dual degree, I went to work for the Boeing Company. Boeing was the major contractor for the Saturn, Man on the Moon program in the sixties. I was privileged to be able to contribute to the US effort to achieve a moon landing in accordance with President Kennedy’s challenge. My work led me into involvement with the then fledgling semiconductor industry and opened another door for me with a major manufacturer in Phoenix, AZ.

In Arizona I finally met Jesus. I had thought that I knew Him for most of my life. I was wrong! I discovered that I knew about Him, but there had never been any real relationship. I had recognized Him as my savior. Now I knew Him as my Lord. He baptized me into the Holy Spirit, and my life changed forever.

I completed a master’s degree in solid state physics at Arizona State University. Midway to a doctorate in the same field, the Lord called me to serve Him. I dropped out of the doctoral program and entered a Baptist seminary.

After I left the seminary, I entered full-time ministry as the pastor of a small church in California. The pay scale of a new pastor and that of a research scientist were considerably different. In order to meet the expenses of a family with four growing children, I needed to find an additional source of income.

California was experiencing a shortage of math and science teachers. To alleviate their difficulty, the California Board of Education changed their requirements for math and science teachers. They agreed to allow applicants with degrees other than education degrees to act as certified teachers, providing the applicants would complete the fifth year of their education curriculum.

I entered the master’s program in education at Cal State University and earned my teaching certification. As a certified teacher of advanced mathematics, I found part-time employment as a substitute teacher in California high schools. The same certification was accepted by Oregon’s Department of Education, so when the Lord moved us to a church in Oregon, I was able to continue augmenting our income while maintaining a full-time pastorate.

My involvement with the Oregon public schools eventually allowed me to accept an associate professorship with an extension school of Oregon State University, where I served for nine years as an associate professor of engineering. Professors teach roughly fifteen hours per week, an ideal arrangement for a full-time pastor.

I’d describe my religious experience as ecumenical. I was raised Southern Baptist, attended and met my wife in a Methodist church, taught Sunday school in a Church of Christ, and led a young couples group in a Presbyterian church. I attended a Baptist seminary, and I was ordained to the pastorate by the Evangelical Church Alliance. I have been licensed and served independent churches, Assembly of God churches, and a missionary Baptist church. At this writing I am serving as chaplain for the Colorado Springs Police Department. One thing has become clear to me. Each of the nations in God’s family is in possession of some truth. None possess all of the truth.

I hold to the conviction that the Hebrew scriptures are key to our understanding of God’s will and His ways and His plan for mankind. God revealed Himself through His chosen people, Israel. I have difficulty accepting any religious position or doctrine that ignores or in any way refuses to incorporate the Old Testament scriptures. I’m leery of any doctrinal position that alienates Jewish followers of Jehovah. Any deviation from the truth proclaimed in all of scripture, whether it be Nicene or Orthodox, is questionable.

I share these thoughts to explain that my theology has been tempered by a rational mind-set. I have found a degree of compatibility between my relationship with Jesus and my science. Twenty-five years in the secular scientific world coupled with more than forty years as a pastor has taught me to be skeptical of religion and religionists. I’m not your average theologian, but then I guess I really don’t know what an average theologian is. This I do know: I am a follower of Jesus. I seek only to serve Him and to finally reach that place that Paul referred to as that in the following scripture:

Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of THAT for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12 NAS).

PROLOGUE

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P AUL’S STATEMENT IN chapter three of his letter to the Philippians said, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. He made that declaration only after he had first defined a true Christian as one who worships in the Spirit of God and who glories in Christ Jesus and puts no confidence in the flesh (Philippians 3:3).

Then after he rendered his own personal biography, he declares that notwithstanding all of his background, his education, and his accomplishments, his primary goal was to know Jesus and to be found in Him. He declares that though indeed he has not as yet attained that goal, he was committed to the race, and he invited his brethren to join him in the effort.

Clearly Paul was not speaking of going to heaven in the same sense that it is preached in many of our twenty-first-century churches. He was not suggesting that getting to heaven was a race! He had quite another thought in mind. The race that he spoke of was to know Jesus and to gain the out-resurrection (the literal Greek of Philippians 3:10–11) from the dead. Paul was a Pharisee. Pharisees believed in resurrection from the dead. Paul expected to be resurrected, but he longed for the out-resurrection, which is analogous to being valedictorian as opposed to just graduating. Paul wanted to be up close and personal to God in the same way that Jesus was. He understood that the gospel is much more than being forgiven. The gospel is the fulfillment of the Father’s plan to bring man into fellowship with Himself wherein man might know Him as Father as well as almighty God.

My technical bent has always made me curious. In the midst of my technical studies at the university, I took an elective in philosophy. The professor was wont to provoke his students to question their beliefs, and he directed much of his attention to Christian dogma. He asked a seemingly simple question, What is the kingdom of God? and requested a short essay for the answer. My immediate reaction was this: Piece of cake! I thought myself to be reasonably Bible literate. However, when I began to research the subject, I found scriptures that did not line up with my understanding that the kingdom of God is just heaven itself. Consider the following passages:

The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force (Matthew 11:12 NAS).

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24 NAS).

The Kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three pecks of meal until it was all leavened (Matthew 13:33 NAS).

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field (Matthew 13:31 NAS).

The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field … but when the wheat sprang up, and bore grain, then the tares became evident also (Matthew 13: 24, 26 NAS).

My response to the assignment was not noteworthy. However, the question kindled an obsession in me that has continued to this present moment. That obsession was put on hold for several years, but while I was in the seminary, it resurfaced and has since become part of my preaching persona throughout my ministry.

I am convinced that our heavenly Father did not intend our brain to be merely a hat rack. The asking of questions was ordained by Jesus Himself. Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you (Matthew 7:7 NAS).

Biblical questions suggest biblical answers. However, science teaches that sources must be evaluated. I purposed to evaluate all of the contingencies that constitute our modern Bibles. Often, preachers tend to get off on rabbit trails. The trails" can easily lead to a dead end. Sometimes, however, they lead to real treasure.

An examination of the theological conclusions that were adopted into the faith (through the Nicene councils) was quite lucrative. The Nicene Council, which was convened by Roman Emperor Constantine, was subject to the coercion of the emperor. Additionally the pagan Roman church, which was extant for nearly three hundred years before Jesus’ birth, was equally complicit with the emperor in establishing the Council’s agenda. The agenda was to bring about unity between Christianity and the pagan religion of Rome. The process was to amalgamate Christianity into the pagan religion, thereby achieving a political solution to end the disharmony between warring factions. Under the threat of banishment, the attendees were forced to vote in favor of Rome at the expense of biblical truth. They pointedly ignored the Jewish scriptures. Times and dates were changed. The Trinitarian doctrine was adopted, and the deity of Jesus was settled in such a way as to make Him more palatable to a Roman population that already worshiped gods who, like Hercules, were born of the union between a god and a virgin.

I began to understand why the professor’s question was so difficult to answer. It appeared that the message of the kingdom of God had been hijacked. The kingdom of God was replaced with a counterfeit orchestrated by the Devil and his minions. We are told that the cause of Christ conquered Rome. The fact is that Christianity, which had won over the populous of Rome with love and compassion, suffered an incredible defeat at the hands of politically motivated activists. The kingdom of God was replaced by another kingdom, a kingdom that rules from Rome.

It is a major consequence when we fail to recognize that the Bible is primarily a Jewish book. The Jewish mind-set, the Jewish culture, and the Jewish relationship with God must be understood and accounted for if we are to glean any real understanding of the gospel. Too much of the Bible’s message has been understood when viewed only through the Western mind-set. The gospel is not to be understood from a Roman