SPIRITUAL ETHOS

AND KINGDOM COMMUNITY.

Reclaiming the blueprint of kingdom community

By Isaiah-Phillips Akintola

Acts chapter 4

32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. 36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

 Act chapter 2

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

THE MATRIX OF KINGDOM ETHOS

In this scripture above, we are introduced to the matrix that shaped and defined the community life of the body of Christ and the institution called the ecclessia. 

These two scriptures can be said to be the summary of what the church ought to become in its progressive advanced stage of maturity and representation.

The world of the church is shaped and measured by what these scriptures declares, and I strongly believe that we are stepping into that arena where we are going to witness this kind of kingdom community across the world again even in greater measure of life and power. Anything outside the concept and value order described in these passages certainly do not represent the eternal objective of the father for his Body.

The quality of heart and soul that formed the foundation on which the apostolic spirit was released is much needed again today even as we continue to witness the shaking of everything the father has not defined to be his church. How we need the wind and fire of God again in our gatherings so there can be a clear demarcation of the profane from the holy.

It is evidently clear than we need to reexamine with clarity what constitute spiritual life and culture of the Saints. As we continue to reap the impact of biblical truth misrepresentation and foreign doctrines and ideologies within the body of Christ, we now need to rise to the task of drilling deep into the core of what a true apostolic community means and represent not just before the father, or the Church, but also before the world as the days of Daniel in Babylon and Joseph in Egypt. The nature of the days we live in no longer permits us to be presumptive, casual, or frivolous with our mandate of divine representation.

THE CHALLENGE OF TODAY’S CHURCH SYSTEM

There are several issues that has bedeviled the Body of Christ till this very moment; from the issues of wrong doctrine, inconsistent character lifestyle, financial misappropriation, excessive focus on miracles without biblical foundation, materialism and prosperity message, to sexual scandals from leaders and members of the church to the lack of effective visibility of the church in assisting the socioeconomic challenges of the very poor and vulnerable in society.

These unfortunate issues have caused many within and outside the church system to start challenging the legitimacy of some the so-called spiritual demands and practices within the Church community for example the idea of tithing one tent of our income to the church.

Many are now calling for the collapse of the current religious system of worship which is modeled after the worldly Babylonian system, and the fact is, many no longer believe in the denominational, episcopal concept of church leadership which is basically built on a worldly system of religious service. This certainly gives reason to why many now belong to the house church groups which are seen to be more open and honest in dealing with each other’s desire in the journey of spiritual discovery.

 Any religious system that segregates or disenfranchise people due to some religious rites and influences does not represent the eternal blueprint of Christ for establishing his Church. The church of Christ was not built on Peter like some erroneously assumed; the church was established on the revelation of Christ showed to Peter by our heavenly father.

CORRECTING THE MISCONCEPTION

A man does not initiate nor owns a church; a man whose life has been thoroughly processed and prepared in the school of Christ can be used to kick start the process of what the father desire to carry out through Christ Body, and once that is initiated, such a person must then allow the ministry of the apostolic/prophetic foundation to commence with Christ been the chief cornerstone.

The misconception of who owns the church in terms of how such assembly was formed has been a major controversy, and this should not be if there’s a clear revelatory insight to how the Lord desire his church to be birthed, formed and shaped. While the idea of initiating the birth of a church in a region may be given to a man, it is however impotent we understand that the church is own by Christ. He said I will build my church…

Christ is the builder of his Church, and his Church is not the building made of stones and bricks. Christ church is made of hearts and souls of men, united together in their eternal prophetic identity, values and callings.

The church is a body that functions as a coherent biological organism. Many have been subtly seduced to fix their attention more on the church as a business organization rather than a biological organism with a divine culture ecosystem, ordained to con-depend on each other’s creative part in providing the required nutrients and nourishments for each component of the corporate body to effectively grow and mature into Christ.  The church of the Lord is built and sustained through circumcised and consecrated hearts, called living stones.

The determination to confront the inaccurate definition and miss-representation of what church of the Lord and its leadership constitute in society has never been so under the pressure of media and government scrutinization, and If you ask me, I personally believe that this is the doing of the Lord to separate the wheat from the chaff. The church of the Lord cannot continue business as usual, things are changing very fast, and we must grasp the entire apostolic picture of the present demand of the house the father is constructing.

RECLAIMING THE CHURCH’S CULTURE

This material is not an exhaustive work on this subject but the piece of information here can help to kickstart a conversation of many of these issues that is crippling the maturity and advancement of the Church in this new epoch. We are in the consummation of an Age, as the dawn of a new spiritual season falls on us. We must learn to prepare to enter this new day of the Lord travelling light without any form of bitterness and confusion with regards to our position as members of the body of Christ.

Therefore, looking back to recapture the essence and ethos of the church, in my view is one of the most important subject if we must effectively advance into the 21^st century reality of our mandate. Looking at Acts chapter 2 and chapter 4 we do not only see what culture constitute in terms of the spiritual ethos of the saints, but we also see in clear definition the very life essence and the objectives of the ecclesia as a community, ordained to wholly represent the new order of a kingdom civilization on earth.

 In this order of community representation, we immediately see certain powerful concepts that shaped the spiritual footing and the ecosystem on which Body of Christ was formed. These highlighted points, I referred to here as the main building blocks of the spiritual ethos [culture] of the ecclesia. These building blocks can be defined as the core base philosophies of a sound, biblical apostolic kingdom community:

An education and relational system

A sustainable spiritual life ecosystem

A powerful shared community faith system

A socioeconomic financial ecosystem

THE INVISIBLE WAR OF CULTURE

Here is a fact, for any mission or objective to have a resounding successful inroad in the society, its representatives must without doubt understand the vision, or what can be said to be the ultimate end of such vision.  Still, to only have the end in mind without considering the correctness of the vehicle, designed to drive such vision, which I choose to refer to as PHILOSOPHY, is to die.

 While the understanding of vision is highly significant in keeping the end of our assignment in focus, however, the philosophy that shapes and drives such vision must become the motivating arrowhead that guides the highly needed values and ideology for interacting and engaging others within society.  Culture is a powerful system, nations and societies for centuries have used to conquer, control, and even to push the influence of their political and economic crusade across regions.

The Babylonians and the Roman empires used the power of culture to assimilate the nations they conquered in war times. Culture seeks to target your identity, language, beliefs and diet. This very principle is still very much in use today by some of the world super powers.

It’s amazing to discover that many have never been to America, the United Kingdom or Europe, yet, these powerful western cultures bear their fingerprint in almost everything people across the world do, say, and buy. Many in Africa, especially South Africa whose economic socialist policy seem to be anti-west have been directly and indirectly assimilated by the powerful American cultural value system.

Culture has gone beyond the keeping of some moral codes as important as they are; culture has far exceeded the norms passed down by the traditions and beliefs of our ancestors. Today we see the progressive humanist agenda pushing to rewrite and redefine the understanding of what culture and believes means to our children, teens, and Millennials as the new normal of a post-modern New Age society.

New age culture has become the DNA that defines today’s, democratic, globalized, one world anti-Christ movement.  We live in a world of cultural battles; the ideologies that govern our beliefs, even as a follower of Christ, we are constantly embattled by strong foreign values and appetites that appeals to our soulish desires and preference.

Many of our church leaders, including husbands and fathers have lost the power of living by sound morally ordered manhood family ideology. Unfortunately for us, the enemy we are faced with today are fighting the battle of ideology and not of capital or materialism as the media will strongly want us to believe. Behind every dollar earned by the jihadist movement, there’s a clear aim to further push their ungodly agenda of destruction.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY IN CULTURE FORMATION

The Islamic Jihadist without doubt have almost penetrated every aspect of societal life. You find them across the major cities of the western world as their government tries very hard to keep their security operators equipped, which are usually seen as some of the best in the world.

The evil philosophy driving these crusaders of destruction do not mind intermingling with the richest in society, or the poorest in vulnerable communities in order to infiltrate these grassroot with their diabolic ideologies. Weak immigrational laws have allowed this ungodly religious philosophy to breed their evil seed within the most vulnerable within the society. They have taken the concept of micro economic principle to infiltrate aspects of the society government will hardly noticed, and before you know it, they have caused irrevocable damages amongst the most vulnerable of the society.

The church must change its attitude and philosophy of money if we are going to win the battle in this end of days. We cannot afford to have a church who merely sees and use money for its own personal enrichment, survival and material display, such immature frame of thinking has long become obsolete. Money is a tool to use in advancing true godly kingdom prophetic agenda. Having a strategic blueprint to how money and the church offering should be administered in our priestly assignment is the next challenge the Body of Christ must be ready to face headlong even as the church’s monetary system is under harsh scrutiny today from all aspects.

 The understanding of money and other forms of capital in driving the concept of a kingdom philosophy is highly critical if the church must advance in fulfilling her apostolic mandate in this season. In this season of kingdom agenda, our spiritual culture must be upgraded, or do I say, return to its original designed agenda.   We need a different order of priestly philosophy that clearly understand the mind of the father towards money in the advancement of driving sound, apostolic leadership and socioeconomic influence, especially in the marketplace.

 Money is a powerful economic tool that empowers the inner configuration of its bearer or seeks to control or own those who have less of it or more of it. It all depends on the configuration of the heart’s posture that drives its bearer.

Therefore, a follower of Christ without a sound spiritual philosophy when it comes to money, is like a group of individuals in the house of representative without full legislative powers to effect policies. When the assault against the church shifted to fighting the core footing of the church’s values and philosophy, the powers of darkness began to win its battle against the saints.

The enemy truly don’t care how powerful our sermon may sound, or how beautiful are our songs, nor does he really bother about the numbers of mega structures we are able to build as long as we don’t wake up to the true reality of our ascended philosophy.  Philosophy is what people with vision and objective live or die for, and that is becoming even clearer today. The church must now shift aware from an ideology of MERELY USING ITS RESOURCE AND GRACE FOR SELF-ENRICHMENT AND SELF-ENTERTAINMENT TO WHAT IT WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR WHICH IS TO DISCIPLE NATIONS.

THE MSSING LINK

There’s a missing link in today’s definition and practice of Christianity that has made it so easy for it to be infiltrated and influenced by other strange religious beliefs and ideologies, and this missing link is the removal of what I term as the core spiritual tradition that defines our citizenship as a kingdom of priests and kings unto our God.

 The Church according to 1 Peter chapter 2:9. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. The word nation in this translation refers to a tribe or community with its unique own unique cultural identity. It is clear that what Christ came to establish is complete departure from the former philosophy of interaction and existence. Everything the ecclesia represent stems from the eternal order of the father’s counsel and designee; a pattern of existence that is a blueprint standard and pattern of how humans and society ought to exist at all levels.

In order words, we should not just be identified by our large numbers of gatherings, fine motivational messages, or better still, the mega structures we’ve built that are now call churches. The church is a spiritual entity with a definite cultural identity that ought to be identified by those highlighted four core pillars mentioned above. these foundational pillars are the definer of the ecclesia’s community philosophy of existence as the mandate of the kingdom advances in society.

The point is not just the physicality of what we have built, or desire to achieve in relating to those four ideals, but the spiritual philosophy behind them. If we understand that the primary mission of the Church is to redeem, reform, transform, and restore man back to the divine order in the garden, then we begin to appreciate the need to have a working system, with a technical framework that makes that mission a reality.

 Society should have a clear, definite holistic picture of who we are as it was seen in the first century when the church was born. The very first expression that was clear to then world about the church was its power of community. Ever before the church began to manifest the power to heal and perform miracles on people, the very first thing we see as a priority was its establishment of a powerful ecclesiastical apostolic community lifestyle according to

 2 Corinthians chapter 8

1 And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. 5 And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.

The church as a kingdom community functioned within the framework a true spiritual unity; they first offered themselves to themselves before they ever gave of their belongings to the advancement of the course of their newly found organized community. You will notice from the very beginning that their power of shared community life gave everyone a sense of commitment and responsibility to see the establishment of this new vision to increase and grow beyond the influence of one person. Here is the pattern and I believe without doubt that the present concept of church has completely moved away from the blueprint.

As the nation of Israel was known and identified by its 12-tribal identity, we should also be clearly known and identified by our corporate apostolic kingdom culture with each one, reflecting its own unique life with the broader community culture.

Each of the twelve tribes of Israel carries a unique spirit and leadership assignment that cannot be effectively carried out by other tribes within the nation of God. For example, we know that the tribe of Juda was designed as the leadership arrowhead of the entire clan.

They’ve been chosen by providence to be the tribe that will release the anointing and Spirit of the Messiah to the world. The Levites are known for the priestly assignment within the house of God.  Every time the Lord desire to do something new amongst his people, the Levites are the ones that prepares the ground in terms of consecrating the heart of the people to embrace the desire of God amongst his people. They are also known as those who prepare the entire worship system that leads the people into the presence of God.

Their spirit is zealous in reaching and responding to the holy things of the father.  The point I am emphasizing here is, the community life of the church is a very powerful and unique spiritual principle that must be prophetically understood in the place of building the civilization of the kingdom within earth.

I have always advocated that the heart of this third reformation of the Church of the living God will not merely focus on the message being preached, but will also zero on the very container [vessel] that will be carrying the message. In order words, the environmental life that will house the message will be as important as the very message itself.

The body of Christ can no longer afford a situation where we seem to be hearing the right thing, yet in the same breath the vessel and environment that conveys such message contradict the very life value and culture of the message.

This is hypocrisy at its best. To build an effective platform that will strategically influence society in a very strategic manner must require that will first build a powerful kingdom community with a clear defined cultural system and tradition.

DEFINING THE COMMUNITY OF THE SAINTS

If we refer to the church as the Body of Christ, or a kingdom community, we are then indirectly, or directly saying that we have a clear governing operating system with its own leadership values, socioeconomic philosophy and educational system policy that is generally accepted and implemented by everyone who belongs to the body of Christ.

And this community effectively operates within the larger society without isolating itself as a cult. The very essence of the body of Christ is to influence society, therefore, we are not referring to an idea of isolation here, but a concept of identity and the capacity to effectively resource what we stand for in terms of our calling and assignment within society.

A community by design is coherent, powerful, and effective in the sense that it has all the necessary lifeline components and inputs for its governance, socioeconomic development, productivity, sustainability and independence. The Church is an entity of biblical spiritual community that exist with a common objective to creatively establish the kingdom of God within every sector of human realm. If Adam was given the authority to govern the earth as a king priest before the father, and we see the second man, the last Adam who came to finally restore and consummate that same ministry assignment given to the first man in the garden, It’s obvious that we start focusing the heart of our apostolic assignment into the same frame of the ministry objective in this hour.

To reclaim back every aspect of what the first man lost in the garden in terms of the leadership of the earth, we need to spiritually identify within the community life each one’s grace and positional influence in order to effectively carry out our corporate mandate of restoring and administrating the earth according to divine order.

Meaning, the organs and faculties that defines both the assembling of the ecclesia’s life, and its strategic objectives are not just for the mere sake of interdependence on each other’s gift, resources and grace, but should be seen as a corporate entity that is integrated within the life of Christ to coexist within the common framework of a spiritual culture and citizenship.

Understanding kingdom culture

As we can see according to Acts chapter two that a systematic tradition was being established that will eventually define the framework of the culture that will form the foundation on which the kingdom of God is perfectly established.  Our understanding of culture or even the word tradition is one that has been greatly influenced by the humanistic view lens, and every time we try to understand or define spiritual reality through our inherited, societal frame of thinking, we will definitely not arrive at the right point of truth.

Now, if you try to get a definition of a culture from your secular dictionary you’ll certainly not arrive at the most accurate meaning of the word. Culture defines the commonalities of our identity, perspective, beliefs, character values, faith values, and of cause the shared hope and expectation of our callings and objectives as the body of Christ.  Culture defines the acceptable value system that drives a mission mandate and the philosophy of our common expression and expectation. The fact is, you cannot have any sense of spirituality without a powerful sense of a driven culture philosophy behind it; a sound kingdom culture is spiritual in all intent and purposes. As we have godly centered culture system, so we have perverted and corrupt cultures that promotes the activities of darkness within cities and regions of the earth.

A true, biblical culture does eliminate every form of humanists, racist, nationalistic ideology. The promotion of the unity of faith is only establish through the realization of the common culture we share in the revelatory life and nature of Christ as the Body of Christ.  The challenge we are faced with inside the body of Christ today is that people desire to practice Christianity without a set, defined, biblical cultural value system, and of course this is impossible.

Every kingdom, nation, society, or even companies and organizations establish culture to define the framework of who they are and what they represent. In other words, culture is what defines your identity, values or even services and product amongst others.  When there’s no clear definition and identification of culture within any environment, anyone can do as they wish; lifestyle, expectations and productivity become subversive.

Biblical doctrine is the very framework designed to help the church build a strong cultural philosophy. The believes and practice of Christianity is not just based on some good idea and spirituality passed down through certain popular beliefs and opinions. Biblical doctrines which are the overall teachings of Christ and his prophets and apostles established on certain practices and values system, ordained to release and produce a certain outcome of thinking and behavior that honors and glorifies the father through the power of our individual lifestyle.

To arrive at this kind of predictive community lifestyle within the body of Christ, we must embrace the ministry of sound, apostolic discipleship which is the platform that releases doctrine to the body of Christ. These doctrines which are coherent and consistent throughout the teaching of the old and New Testament lays the foundation to start building a powerful, spiritual community ethos that stand out as a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden to other nations.

 To build a powerful kingdom philosophy which is highly needed now, we need to return to the teachings of Christ. These teachings are filled with strategic, systematic layers of divine truths that enhances our ability to engage ourselves as the body of Christ, and earthly interactions and relationships without compromising our values or moral ethics.

Doctrine by design are biblical teachings that maps out the parameters of what is biblically accepted or rejected as the standard ethical, moral, spiritual values of anyone called to follow the ways and footsteps of Christ. Furthermore, biblical doctrines are principles and spiritual, moral codes taught with the objective to enlighten us in the knowledge, wisdom, ascended understanding of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ as the only way, the only embodiment of eternal truth, and the very life that creates and sustains all things in heaven and the entire universe.

True doctrine doesn’t just give you good head knowledge, or theology, as many believe today; true spiritual doctrine, or what you may call apostolic doctrine, gives you the key to the power of lifestyle. A lifestyle that transcends your own limited definition and experience of a Church you grew up knowing, or how Christianity ought to be practice. Doctrine lays the foundation for the emergence and representation of accurate kingdom lifestyle with the power and the authority for representation in Egypt or Babylon.

DEFINING THE APOSTOLIC

The apostolic is not a movement.  The apostolic is the foundation and culture on which the New Testament church is built on, and it’s also that spiritual culture is which defines and establishes sound biblical doctrine within the society of God’s people. An authentic, balanced biblical doctrines by design, are the building blocks of a true spiritual ethos. Without a pure apostolic spirit, there can be no formation of the ministry of the ecclesia.

The ecclesia, which is the core representation of the body of Christ to the society sources its revelatory wisdom, knowledge, values and identity from what the ascended fivefold apostolic grace releases to her. The church by design and intent is apostolic because she is ordained and sent by our Lord Jesus Christ to represent its purposes and interest in society. Yes, we are in the day of the restoration of the apostolic ministry because it was one’s systematically dissolved in the church by the diabolic, Roman catholic spirit.

REESTABLISHING APOSTOLIC PHILOSOPHY 

From the beginning of time, the knowledge men received, and the manner in which such knowledge is received and interpreted by others, whether from a religious, biblical, spiritual viewpoint, or from a primitive, cultural, traditional view, or even from today’s secular, charismatic, modalism all stems from the degree of trust and willingness to defend what we believe.

What we believe, and how we came to believe what we believe is something I personally feel needs to be reconsidered as the battle of the last day church narrows down to that of the clash of highly powerful modern and ancient demonic philosophy that now seeks to redefine human culture.

Yes, the church carries the eternal, undoubted truth, but if the church’s idea of truth remains on the peripheral of what such truth can gain for our personal or even corporate growth without addressing the primary reason why the truth was given to us, then, this generation is at the risk of losing the ground of what defines us as Christ representatives. For truth to function in its true potency, it requires a define, spiritually processed thought system that is found on the very revelation and values of Christ our pattern for existence.

A NEW FRONTIER OF WARFARE

A thought that is completely shaped by an ideology that is governed by what I will refer to as an ascended, spiritual philosophy is a powerful, engaging tools system to face the forces of darkness and overcome them. Truth works within certain environment that creates a sense of love, wisdom, understanding, and acceptance of the entire counsel of the father’s will and desire without rejection. The truth is not just some information we know; truth is a life that works within a code system, ordained to change our behavior and perception and outlook.

Therefore, the mind faculties must be trained to accept and process truth in its total sense in other for such truth to permeate the entire philosophy of reasoning. The enemy hates the truth not just because of the information we are going to gain but because of the transformation and liberation such truth will cause to happen within families and societies. The more we embrace the tenants of sound, holistic apostolic truth, the more changes occurs within the frame of societal behavioral lifestyle.

Whenever the mission of truth is sent to reform and transform communities, there’s a powerful principality, assigned to frustrate such mandate.  The nature and objective of warfare have not changed as we see from the beginning. The old ideology the enemy used in the garden to deceive and lure man from the position of truth is still the same today. The only difference is, the manner and focus of attack has slightly shifted from how it used to appear.

The attack on truth today is coming through the utilization of secularism and liberal movement within the community of universities and other government institutions to challenge every kind of philosophy that tries to advance the idea of morality and exclusivity of truth whether from an educational, political, or economic perspective.

The agenda to methodically eradicate Christianity has majorly played out its role by mingling a false value system into the building model of the church’s assignment to reform society through the mission of apostolic discipleship.  Trying to neutralize the spiritual, ideological frame of existence of the 1st century pattern of the church community, which of course remains the authentic, legitimate apostolic footing of the church culture has in many ways strengthened the thrust of today’s capitalist, material driven secular Christianity.

One of the many reasons why we seem to be struggling in making inroads in our apostolic assignment as the church of Christ, most especially in the arena of having a passionate, Christ centered, kingdom driven, entrepreneurial believe system in the Southern region of Africa, and of course, the rest of the world, is because the Church and its faith values have been SEDUCTIVELY, and systematically drifted off the IDEOLOGY of being a KINGDOM ORIENTED PHILOSOPHERS.

When we consider this simple but highly profound definition of philosophy as the study of the fundamental NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE, REALITY AND EXISTENCE, one immediately sees the connection of our position and assignment as the church of the living God.

The increased battle the 21st century church is confronted with is that of the authenticity and acceptance of biblical truth from society. There’s no doubt that sound, biblical apostolic truth is what defines and configures the very footing, foundation, and pillars of our faith philosophy as sons of God.

Yet, when the enemy, through seasons of relentless attacks is finally able to convince some of our leaders and gatekeepers that the very substance of the truth our faith is anchored on is inaccurate and inconclusive, then we’ve got a huge problem that needs urgent doctrinal correction.

The fact is, when Christ gave the command to his church to go disciple the nations, what he was directly saying is, go (display) show the nations, including the Jews, Greeks and the Roman philosophers that his knowledge, wisdom, glory and the majesty of his kingdom is the ultimate of all philosophical standards and values of human culture.

 Emperor Constantine the great was generally known and accepted as one of the deadliest adversaries of the 4th century church; in fact, he was known as the one who managed to infiltrate and fragment the culture and philosophy of the church by merely recognizing and giving the church state political powers.

This emperor never fought the church with swords, bows and arrows. All he needed was to divide the church by giving the church judicial, legislative authority in Rome, which in turn weakened the core driving prophetic agendas of the church which is to win the state to Christ and not just a church organization. This powerful strategy Constantine introduced is still playing out on various levels of our assignment and engagement in Babylon.