Following a modified version of the New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Christian theology may be defined as the attempt by Christians to make reasoned, Bible based, Christ centred, but culture sensitive, consistent, systematic statements, explicating the faith and its basis, placed within the context of every other worldly relation and spiritual processes. This draws attention to reasoning, Chrito-centrism, systematic consistency and insists on the basis of our faith as well as contemporary spirituality.

My thought ran from the creation to the plans for the new heaven and new earth in search of systematic consistency and it seems to me that it could be found in God’s plan to establish a divine controlled but man governed system. It seems to me that there may be a clue in the fact that the man and woman that God made were full grown. This is especially so when one remembers that the perfect God man is a thirty-three year old man (full grown in most cultures). Christian discipleship is go on ‘until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’.

We are told that the fullness of the Godhead ‘bodily’ is found in Christ – the perfect god-man. So, since man was made in the image of God at the beginning and the image of God we may ever see ‘bodily’ is Christ, growing in discipleship into attaining the ‘whole measure of the fullness of Christ’ makes more sense as it was man’s creative image. It seems to me as if man lost this image to sin and was bought back with the blood of Christ but is to be fully restored through discipleship. Then the mission of God which informs the mission of the Church becomes clearer – God is systematically creating a global community of people (who are growing into the image of Christ) who will reign with Christ over all creation. This is consistent with His original intent of making man in His image and likeness to “rule”, as expressed in Genesis. The mission of the Church then follows suit in going into all the earth and presenting Christ in receiver comprehensible terms, then teaching (discipling) them, in contemporary terms, to grow into the full image of Christ and rule. It follows that anything we are doing that is not in line with what God is doing may not be Christian mission. What do you think?