A View of God's Larger Purpose And RCD Within It

My current understanding of the Biblical view of God's larger purpose runs like this [Everyone's entitled to a guess...here's mine. (But bear in mind I also value what my dad used to say, "an open mind is like an open mouth , it is meant to be closed on something...but not left that way"...)]:

• God wanted a populated universe, not a bunch of whirling rocks.
• He made first Wisdom, and through / by way of that wisdom he made everything else, so that everything is infused with wisdom. Start anywhere, find wisdom there and follow it back and you will find God the Creator.
• He made next a bunch of angels, one third of whom checked out and said they would rather do things their way. (By definition, anything other than God's way is second best, because he is into excellence only).
• He made the created universe (at least the part we know about) and whatever else.
• In making mankind, he had in mind a unity, not a bunch of day-care kids fighting over the toys:
  • a unity stretching throughout time and across the face of the globe.
  • able to be in relationship and of one mind with him but not having to do so
  • being of one spirit and mind with each other
  • a bit like a good dancing couple - one leads and the other follows but they both know the moves and move as one unit
  • living in excellence in every aspect of life.
  • with diversity built in, in such a way that like a body, the may parts worked interdependently in relation to the direction of the head.
  • having a blast.
• The rebel angels got involved in trying to persuade mankind to join them in their Opt-out action, and were successful.
• God had to slow down mankind's efficiency at being jerks, and did so by creating a mild allergy to each other, in terms of their giftings, so that different groups went off by themselves and developed cultures which centered around or reflected a preference for certain or other gift-mixes. Inter group friction and wars were an unfortunate result of such an inter-group allergy, but it was still somewhat better than the alternative: leaving all of mankind inter-dependant gift-wise with each other and very efficient at trashing the place. At the rate they were going, they would have the place trashed long before they had a chance to smarten up.
• At the same time God started "Project Abraham" to develop a family amidst the other cultures in order to:
  • teach them what he had in mind back when invented the place
  • prepare a family for his son Jesus who would show them in person what he had taught them over two thousand years of project Abraham.
• Then God sent his Son Jesus into the world to demonstrate and persuade and start a "body" of folks who accepted the invitation to return to God and start again at what we as mankind had walked away from.
• We rejected his offer and killed him. The few who bought in, fled upon his arrest.
• As he had told them, God raised him from the dead, let him chat about with his followers for forty days and then he ascended to Heaven, until his return.
• His followers fanned out around the world and have spent the past two thousand years persuading others to join in his body and be part of this solution rather than part of the problem, the way having been made clear, and past, present and future sin having already been dealt with, so as to enable such a return.
• His body is a work in progress to put it mildly.
• In each age there is a need to look closely at the impediments to understanding and accepting the invitation inherent in the thought patterns of mankind at that particular time, as they shift over the years.
• At some time some person is going to figure out how to circumvent the "inter-gift-allergy", and do "interdependent life without God at the center". Though it won't last long, it is not going to be a lot of fun. When God is at the center of a person's life, such and inter-gift allergy does evaporate, and the very fact that God is at the center makes such an interdependent life "life-giving" rather than "life-taking".
• The good news is that there will come a time when God says, "ok, times up, make up your mind whether you want to be jerks or get with the program", and the jerks will be set aside permanently and not get in the hair of those who just want to get on with a life of quality.
• The bad news is that we are all jerks.
• The further piece of good news is that Christ has taken the hit for us, and (with a sort of "opt-in program") we are freed up to live a new life here and hereafter, not because we are such great folks, but because we have been freed by Christ to go that direction, and have elected to buy into the option.
• God has chosen to conduct this whole caper by persuasion and free choice.
• The scene in heaven is God saying to Satan and his cronies, "Hey Satan, did you see the excellence in living in my servant Job...and Frank...and Susan...and..."
• When the mother of all battles finally takes place, (my perceiver friend can hardly wait 'for the big one'), there will be a final settling out of all this mess...some guess it will be very soon...but my guess is that it's measured in some kind of doggie years...and will turn out to be something like 200 billion years from now...and we get to choose whether we want to live in this mess, make it worse, or clean it up in the mean time. It may not be an ultimate task, but, it could sure make life somewhat nicer for us all until the time comes when God transports us into some other sort of permanent "nice" arrangements.

So that's community development to me:

1. God and his purpose of making an interactive "body" of people with Christ the "head",
2. That "body" of his pitching in along with others to clean up the mess as much as possible in the mean time and making it as comfortable as possible for everyone.

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