BEGINNING WITH THE END IN MIND: THE CONFLUENCE OF BIBLICAL ESCHATOLOGY, THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND DISCIPLESHIP

The second "habit" of Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is to "begin with the end in mind," meaning to identify in as clear terms as possible the goal of one's project: from there, "reverse-engineer" the plans, the resource-acquisition, the objective-creation and timeline for completion. God's eschatological gift of the Holy Spirit to humans very much functions in this way: it is His Presence and power to accomplish His purposes in the world, "the power and promise in Christ of the completion of all of God's works," an indwelling of the eternal life to come "already" living in tension with the "not yet" of this age. The Spirit is "the power of new community in Christ," and the "giver of gifts or charismata for the building up of the new community in Christ." When the Spirit's work is properly considered as "preparing for and bringing to fulfillment the saving work of Christ," it is "cosmic in scope." It is "personal but not individualistic." Popular-level evangelical and conservative-biblicist faith culture has muted eschatological vision, resulting in a truncated corporate and individual experience of the Holy Spirit and misconceived discipleship, hindering Kingdom mission and evangelization. This paper seeks to identify a key source of muted eschatology and proposes that recovering a biblical sense of eschatological vision is a vital component of expanding our experience of the Spirit, focusing our discipleship, and deepening our participation in God's Kingdom in this age.