   Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” is 2000 years late and falls far short as a program for lasting change. Has history countered with other offerings of a deeper dimension? Perhaps...    

AMEN 2016-Radical Practice: Healing in the 11th Hour

<div> <div> <div> <p>Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” is 2000 years late and falls far short as a program for lasting change. Has history countered with other offerings of a deeper dimension? Perhaps... </p> </div> </div> </div>

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Plenary

Edwin Nebblett

Radical: Burning, Balance or Flame Out?

Todd Guthrie

Free Radicals in Practice: The Good, the Bad, and Oxidative Stress

John Torquato

Radical Practice

John Howe

Radical Resolution: The Healing Faith and Rest of Christ

Bee See

Revolutionary

Daryl Cheng

Of Opiates and Stimulants

Sebastien Braxton

Doctor Who?

Mark Finley

Busyness, Spirituality, and Vision

Medical and Dental Student Testimonies

Mark Ranzinger

Radicalized

The word radical, at least for the present, seems to be a ruined word.

From the radicals of the Communistic Revolution to the radicals of the 1960s, who were against all forms of oppression and therefore against any institution or tradition that supported it.

To the radicals of today, willing to die and taking as many unwilling and unsuspecting victims with them.

This word has indeed fallen on hard times and to very bad company.

The word originated in the 14th century from the Latin radicalis, of or relating to roots, rootedness.

From that word we get the word radish, a root plant, or eradicate, the removing of all roots.

Since a root is at the bottom of something, radical came to describe what is basic, or at the base of something, something fundamental.

Only later did it come to mean a radical change from what was before and had that sense of a reformatory movement.

And I think it would be helpful for us to consider both of those meanings this evening.

The title of this conference, Radical Practice, implies something.

For there can be no radical practice without a radical individual.

Radical practices arise from radical individuals.

But radical individuals come from radical characters which come from radical mindsets.

So in order for us to move towards a radical practice, it won't be a single step.

It starts with a mind that sees and understands and perceives the world much in the same way that Jesus and Paul saw the world.

Few changes, therefore, can be considered more radical than the transformation of a pagan into a Christian.

For the first century world was a world of myth and magic, of gods and goddesses.

Life is only comprehensible through a thousand local gods, said 1 commentator of the time.

Life was not a series of choices, but a series of events, controlled by passionate and often frenetic gods who created chaos in the lives of mortals.

The individual tried to stay ahead of these by a series of sacrifices or ceremonies.

For who would not choose the good or normal life over 1 that was cursed?

One's future was written in the stars, but through divination you might be able to ascertain that future and somehow alter its course.

Through oracles, star gazing, and interpretation, through omens acknowledged and events avoided, 1 might be 1 of the fortunate or lucky ones.

And thus, even today, we have the residual of that in the phrase, Oh, I thank my lucky stars.

Not only was your thought world colored by these ideas, but your actual world was dominated by their presence.

And it was according to these societal expectations and normative worship patterns to the gods that you moved forward.

For at the time, it made no difference that your gesture of worship to the pagan gods and act did not concern itself with accompanying belief.

Indeed, at that time, the word religio meant to observe Roman religious ceremonies.

The act, and not your inward thought or belief, was what mattered.

It was in this context and thought world that Paul pens 1 of the most remarkable letters, or shall we say 1 of the most radical letters of the New Testament, the letter to the Colossians.

Colossae was located about 100 miles east of Ephesus in what is West Central Turkey.

Rome had conquered and controlled this Graeco-Phoetician region, known as the place where the east meets west.

Great roads passed through the region from the major harbors of the east, from the major harbors of the east, from the major harbors of the west to the great cities of the east, such as Babylon.

And it was on this trade route that Clotze found herself situated, having begun as a trade station.

At 1 time, a very large and prosperous city, a great city of Phrygia as it had called, it had sunken into relative obscurity when the more prosperous city of Laodicea was built only 10 miles away.

In 8061, they had a terrific earthquake in this area that had leveled the city of Colossae.

The city of Laodicea had no problem recovering.

As a matter of fact, the emperor offered to completely rebuild the city of Laodicea, but the Laodiceans were too rich and completely refused his offer, choosing to build it themselves.

And thus, while Laodicea recovered splendidly, Colossae never did, sinking even further into obscurity.

Now, in the afternoon of its influence and importance, this sidelined and almost forgotten city receives a letter from Paul, without a doubt the least important church to which any epistle of Paul is written.

To the best of our knowledge, Paul never visited Colossae.

In chapter 1, verses 4 and 9, he speaks only of hearing of their faith.

Nevertheless, this small church was a product of Paul's ministry.

For 3 years In the mid-50s, Paul had preached the word with incredible power in Ephesus from the lecture hall of the school of Tyrannus.

And during this time, it is said in Acts 19 that all of Asia had heard the word of God.

It seems during this time, there was a young man who had come and heard Paul by the name of Epaphras.

He had heard the gospel from Paul and was converted.

Now Having a burden for his own, Paul trains and prepares Epaphras to return to his hometown of Colossae to begin at church, according to chapter 4.

Epaphras could not bear to see the gospel left aside.

He could not bear to see its light extinguished.

He therefore hurried off to Rome, where Paul bends this letter from his imprisonment.

He then sends this letter, the letter to Philemon, whose house church was the church in Colossae in Ephesians.

3 letters to be hand carried and delivered.

Thus comes from Paul's heart this writing.

1 of Paul's most sublime letters giving us a small glimpse of the magnificence of Christ, stretching from an eternity past to a distant horizon we cannot even see.

Of all the treasures we could speak of in this small book, I'd like to direct your attention to 2 verses in chapter 2.

And I'd like you to pay particular attention to the verbs in this verse.

Reading from Colossians 2, verses 6 and 7.

Therefore, just as you received Jesus Christ, the Lord, in him walk, having been rooted and now being built up in him, and being established in the faith, just as you were taught.

6 verbs describe the radical Christian life.

And I'd like to spend some time considering each of those verbs.

Paul here reminds the Colossians they had received something.

He had passed it on to Epaphras, who had passed it on to them.

Paul speaks here as a delivery man, as a messenger.

He had delivered to them the most important message, the most important gift they would ever receive.

He speaks of this delivery more fully in the book of Corinthians.

First Corinthians 15, now my brothers and sisters, I made known to you the gospel that I proclaimed to you, which you also received and in which you stand, by which you are also being saved, by the word I proclaim to you, for indeed I delivered to you of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to scripture.

That phrase, Christ died for our sins, is what Paul had received.

They were the sweetest words to Paul's ears.

Here was the solution to Israel's need, to his personal failure, and to the inadequate pagan's way of life and systems.

In this phrase is the gospel in a nutshell.

Here is the summary and the end point of the whole Old Testament.

A system drenched with the blood of sacrifice.

He had a problem, God, that no earthly solution could be found for, not even cute little lambs.

God had a problem that love, not justice, had created, for justice could have just left us alone.

God's way was to take into himself all that was wrong with the world.

It's shame, it's guilt, it's fear, it's horror, it's filthiness, it's sinfulness, it's crudeness.

To take it into himself and into the grave, sheol, that second death experience.

And yet in the violence that man produced against his maker, against his own father, is the divine solution to our unsolvable human problem.

In God's sacrificial offering of himself, his life for ours, is the death of the old, the rebirth of our lives, and the beginning of God's new creation on this earth.

As his life flowed out, so did our sin and all that was wrong with this present creation.

Now, the basis for the final answer to sin had come, even though we yet don't see it in its final form.

They have been left in the grave with his grave clothes.

Christ himself has buried your sin in mine.

Thus, you must know that your sin has been borne away and forgiven.

Series

Plenary

Radicalized

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

An Eye for an Eye

44m

Dave Fiedler: Core of the Controversy

Christ: Let Me Show You

1h

Adventism’s Unique Message

30m

Personal Preparation

Personal Preparation- Part 3

1h 9m

Wrestling with God

04 Wrestling with God

43m

The Parables of Jesus

The Parable of Jesus: Hold the Mustard

33m

The Truth About Being the Best, Following Jesus’ Example

37m

The Book of James

The Book of James: The Perfecting of Our Faith

58m

A Witch and the Powers of Darkness

6m

Living Today

Understanding the War in the Middle East

58m

The Power of God Unto Salvation

Something or Someone?

49m

Plenary

Are We First or Last?

57m

Sound Doctrine