Jon Zens

When R.C. Sproul boiled everything down about church life, he concluded that "in Protestant worship, for the most part, we sit and listen to a sermon." But aren't we justified in asking, why would we devote an ounce of concern to this since there is nothing in the New Testament concerning sermons? The vital question that begs for an answer is, why have we taken scissors and cut 1 Corinthians 14 out of the NT, and substituted for it a "church service" which was unknown to the early believers? Further, why have we not practiced a body meeting lifting up Christ together, and instead constructed a "service" that is fixated on what "the pastor," and often a worship band, do in front of the audience? Don't Be Called Leaders seeks to answer such pivotal questions and bring the focus back to God's eternal purpose in Christ-a house for His Son, the Son in us, the Son among us, and the Son displayed to the world. The religious machine is called with leaders who have muddied the Lord's preoccupation with His anointed. God's words from the Shekinah glory cloud, "This is My beloved Son, hear Him," must be our plumb line. The Lord Jesus is the only Leader to follow.

Many think that the phrase "body of Christ" is just a picture or a metaphor, but in fact it is a reality. Believers are the body of Christ on earth. The ministry of Jesus has continued through His people since the Day of Pentecost in 30 A.D. Frank Viola pinpoints this truth that is revolutionary, but became buried underneath human traditions. What had taken place on the Day of Pentecost]? The body of Christ was born on the earth. But what does that mean? It means this: The literal body of Jesus Christ had returned to earth. It expanded; God now had a family. Jesus Christ in heaven had dispensed Himself into His body on earth. He returned to earth in the form of His body, the church, and His species was reintroduced to the planet. In the eyes of God, the Church is nothing more and nothing less than Jesus Christ on earth. (From Eternity to Here) In We Are Christ On Earth, Jon opens up a number of crucial implications flowing out of "Christ in us, the hope of glory." He presents perspectives that liberate the people of God to express and serve Jesus in endless ways. Perhaps we will better understand why Jesus said to Saul, "Why do you persecute Me?" when he was arresting and hurting believers.

It is hoped that the various perspectives provided in Elusive Community will stir you up to seek Jesus about connecting His life in you with His life in others. Father, Son and Spirit have always been an ongoing community. They created human beings for community and belonging. Humans are relational at their core. But sin has come and wrecked relationships in untold ways. Many have come to view relationships like the thorns that came after Adam and Eve's errant behavior. But Jesus by His cross created a New Humanity, a New Species, a Third Race where loving, accepting and safe communities emerged everywhere the Gospel was preached. These communities were far from perfect, but they were also far from functioning like earthly organizations. Taking their cue from Jesus, they were lovingly counter-cultural. May you be encouraged to be in step with Jesus' heart for His people to be in community, to be a display of His Kingdom now to the principalities and powers

Moving toward seeing "Jesus only"In They Looked Up and Saw Jesus Only, Jon chronicles the contours of his personal journey, as reflected in his 40 years of editing BRR/ST from 1978-2018. Beginning with C.H. Dodd's 1946 lecture in England, The Gospel and the Law of Christ, which signaled a turning-point in New Testament studies, Jon then presents highlights from his early writings, which have never been published or have been long out-of-print.Triggered by his 1972 reflections on "Of God's Covenant" in the 1742 Philadelphia Confession of Faith, Jon was brought to question the major systems of theology, and began to see that Jesus inaugurated a New Covenant with His blood. This led him to focus on the New imperative to "love one another" as He loved us on the Cross. The "one another" in this love-command led him to realize that there were 58 "one another's" running like a thread through the New Testament. This, in turn, caused him to ask, "How do the sisters fit in as these one-another's are worked out in the life of Christ's body, the ekklesia?" He became convinced that systems of theology generally had marginalized Christ, that most church structures were dominated by "the pastor," thus minimizing the 58 one-another's, and that Christ's work was seen in the New Testament as a "New Exodus," fulfilling the shadow of the mighty Red Sea exodus. As Augustine Stock put it: "The coming of Jesus is the new definitive Exodus--this is the burden of the Gospels' message...The Exodus tradition then seems to be one of the most fundamental in Scripture. All stages of redemptive history subsequent to the first event used the Exodus to explain its own meaning. If modern readers no longer feel completely at home with it, this is only because they have lost their Scriptural heritage to a large degree." (Cited in a very important book, Echoes of Exodus: Tracing a Biblical Motif, InterVarsity Press, 2018, p. 208; for further, deeper reflection see T. Desmond Alexander, Exodus: Apollos Old Testament Commentary, 2, InterVarsity Press, 2017, 764 pp.)

It was said of Jesus that "zeal for my Father's house consumes me."Is that zeal burning in us? Perhaps a big reason that such zeal has been muted or derailed in us rests in the fact that we have been led to chase after issues and ideals about Christ, instead of Christ Himself.This book suggests that the Lord's heart is revealed in the Bookends of Scripture--Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22. At the beginning and the end we discover a Bride and a Groom. Adam and Eve pointed to the larger reality of Christ and His Bride, the ekklesia.The eternal purpose of God in Christ unveils an extravagant love. "God so loved the world that He gave His Son." The Father always pours His love into the Son, the Son pours His love into His Bride, and the Bride pours her love into the Bridegroom. "The love of God is poured out of our hearts by the Holy Spirit."It is hoped that Life Between the Bookends will ignite a spark in your life to be in step with the heart of Father, Son, and Spirit