Get Your Pretense On!

Endnotes • 201

23 The upcoming chapter entitled “The Oikos Factor” deals specifically with the relationships (family, friends, and associates) in each of our lives that maps out the areas of our own particular calling to represent Christ in our web of influence. Everyone is called to serve as Christ’s ambassador in their own unique, special, and particular arena, each of us with our own circle of contacts and relationships. 24 This cycle of mission and reward is often repeated in Jesus’s parables, including the parable of the Tenants (Matt. 21.33-41), the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20.9-19), the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25.14-30), the parable of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16.1-13), and the Parable of the Minas (Luke 19.12-27). The idea is that those who are faithful in little things, will receive lesser reward, and those who are faithful in great things will receive a greater reward. 25 Paul (and the apostles) referred to the reward they sought often in his writings to the churches (e.g., 1 Cor. 9.16-18, 24-25; Phil. 3.11-14; 2 Tim. 2.5; 4.6-8; James 1.12; 1 Pet. 5.4). For those who are faithful, Jesus will provide crowns of recognition and blessing, which are available to all who do his will as his representatives during their lifetimes. 26 Oikos is a dynamic concept in the Scriptures “The idea of household management extends to stewardship and economy (from the Greek word oikos , “house”) and then further to “stewardship of the world,” and then it becomes a word for “the world” itself. It is used in this sense, for example, in Matthew 24.14 (and Luke 2.1, 4.5; Acts 17.6; Rom. 10.18; Heb. 1.6; Rev. 16.14).” Leland Ryken. Dictionary of Biblical Imagery . (electronic ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000. p. 394. 27 G. W. Icenogle, Biblical Foundations for Small Group Ministry: An Integrative Approach . Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994. 28 One of the most important functions of the oikos when it comes to family is the ease in which we can ground new Christians in Christ within the family context . The same natural, convenient, and simple approach the oikos relationships provide for evangelism , they also provide for follow up and spiritual formation , which can easily be integrated within the rhythms and schedules of a family. The ability to follow the Lord together in the disciplines, in corporate worship, in reading the Scriptures, in prayer, and in following the Church Year together all reinforce in the family the power of the Story embodied in the life of the family’s practices, disciplines, and growth together . (For a wonderfully practical and helpful guide to this kind of deep incorporation of the Christian story into the life of the family please read Winfield Bevins’ Grow at Home: A Beginner’s Guide to Family Discipleship . Franklin, Tennessee: Seedbed.com).