My Magnum Opus

Starting in 2008, I wrote 33 books over the past 18 years. The first 30 works were theological and autobiographical in an effort to find myself: What I believed, why I was dismissed from 2 ministries, and why some ministries seemed little more than a failed experiment. I came to see myself as “different” but my criticism was personal. My argument was with me and no one else. I saw myself as a misfit even though my passion was to serve my Lord in the matter of His church.These last 3 books which total 300 pages [all together] are my heart’s clear vision, which at last I can own and which I could not let go of even at the cost of ministry. I finally saw it!  My magnum opus. 

Theologians highlight the centrality of the new heart in salvation because without it the gospel reduces to moralism, ignoring humanity’s spiritual deadness. Without a new heart, holiness has to be understood academically as an absolute morality we can only debate but never live out.  Τhe Mosaic Covenant’s focus on law is mere literary history without a new heart to write it on and give it meaning. Without a new heart Abraham’s progeny, Moses’ promised land, and David’s kingdom cannot exist because the “old’ heart Jeremiah told us is incurably ill and these covenants will die with it without a new heart to fulfill them. A new heart is essential for understanding redemptive history and God’s unchanging faithfulness. What we are saying is that without the new heart, there can be no heaven. That would be the ultimate tragedy.

This book is written to explain koinonia: its meaning and significance to Christian believers in these final days. Without koinonia our faith will be stressed beyond measure. Koinonia is far more than a Sunday gathering. The early church was empowered by it because koinonia became a mutual support network set up to minister to physical and emotional needs as well as spiritual. Koinonia was the Spirit at work using one ministering to another; it was a sharing, elevated by a passionate interest in giving. Koinonia was a mutually loved familial interest among believers, a desire to exercise their privilege as a citizen of heaven because they had the  Arrabon, “the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts” [2 Corinthians 1:22].  Koinonia is part of the new covenant; it is a mutual participation, adding our voice to others around the circle in exciting affirmation that our Lord is on His way back. 

Koinonia embraces the multifold ministry of Ephesians 4 & Romans 12. But how do we maintain koinonia?  We review the scriptures that speak of Christian interaction or how we relate to “one another” [allelous].This is the burden of this book. We will look into the apostles’ use of allelous, “one another,” as attributes of or characterizing koinonia.

My hope in writing this is to support a theory that the early church needed no cultural accouterments, no further development, no human discovery or inventiveness, to perfect it. The historical changes—many which came because persecution had ended [not begun] by a Roman emperor whose interest was his government [not God’s] were not providential but rather more like Israel of old who asked Samuel to “make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” [1 Samuel 8:5]. First and foremost, even Christians, are religious beings who favor concrete and visible forms of worship; so, not without reason, some form of ritual was understandable even within the Christian church, like the sacrificial “types” Moses received on Sinai that represent Christ and His death.

There is probably much more to add in support of the “house church” model in the New Testament and its relevance to today’s Christian church. Persecution may be, like then, the die in the contrast that highlights the difference between living for Christ and not living for Him. If it is in God’s interest to emphasize a value to “house ministries” He will. I have written enough.