10. Defining the World
God at times uses the world as a means to enable us to understand Kingdom; however, He does so in very specific ways. Only in the concept of an "ecosystem" is the Kingdom "like" the world. Otherwise, the Kingdom of God is either the complete opposite of the world or it is something entirely other.Thus we understand that the world is not the earth, and the world is not individual people. Rather, the world is that complex set of relationships among selfs living for self and inside and through a false spirit.
Yet it is this very context God has allowed as the backdrop against which He sets the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and through which He intends to prove Jesus, as every Word that He speaks, utterly faithful and true.
Lesson 10.1 A Broken Ecosystem uses the same definitions of a natural ecosystem to define the world, except that this false ecosystem does not work very well, being broken and twisted at every point. The lesson covers a number of important points in how the relationships of the world are manipulation and abuse.
Lesson 10.2 The Opposite shows how the world operates through command and control, through human government, in an opposite way as to how the Kingdom of God operates. We do not use the kingdoms of this world as a model of the Kingdom of God, but rather, as Jesus said, "It shall not be so among you."
Lesson 10.3 The Setting of Victory then lays out God's intention to prove Jesus faithful and true inside the specific context of this present world of darkness. The world lives inside of accusation, yet inside of all the falseness of the world, the Kingdom of God is arising as true relationships of respect and love among us as one Body together. The Kingdom arises in the midst of all that is false.
[Note that the order below is incorrect, follow the 1-2-3 order of the numbering.]