When Jesus stepped into history, His people were bound by entrenched religion, shackles that obscured His nature and twisted His purpose.

He confronted that religion head-on, at every turn.

Jesus did not come to start a new religion, nor to revive an old one. Yet in His name we have built a religion that repeats the very same mistakes, misrepresenting His character and subverting His plan for the earth.

This book takes aim at that distortion.

Let me be clear about what this is not. It is not a search for the perfect church or denomination; none exists. It is not a call to start another, for that would only repeat the problem. And it is not a rebuke of the reformers who went before us. We honour them best by standing on their shoulders and reaching further still.

Nor is it a criticism of any particular church or denomination. I came to faith at nineteen from an irreligious background, with no denominational loyalties to defend or deny. That freedom has let me walk alongside brothers and sisters across many denominational and apostolic settings, for more than three decades, as a pastor and missionary in six countries. I see Jesus in His people. Too often, I do not see Him in the religious systems that define and divide us.

This is a call to humility, radical and relentless. Not merely to admit Christendom's flaws, but to confront the hidden loyalties in our own hearts that defend them. It is a call to follow Jesus with single-minded devotion: to see Him clearly, freed from the distortions that have kept us captive and fractured, and to rediscover His message, unfettered by religion.

For He alone is the Head of the Church, the King of the Kingdom, the Shepherd of the sheep, and the Lord of the harvest.

“But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” (Proverbs 4:18) 

Dedicated to all who long for that brighter day, and to my beautiful family and friends who continue to give me space to pursue that perfect dawn.

In Year Zero, Jesus stepped into chaos.

Humanity was lost, crushed beneath a tyrannical Empire that ruled through fear. His own people were trapped—enslaved by rigid Religion, divided by endless factions, their calling to be God’s solution buried beneath their own agendas.

The two were intricately bound: Empire and Religion. Empire conjured the script; Religion slunk within it, taking its cues. Where Caesar wielded the sword, the religious leaders wielded Scripture, both keeping people enslaved. This is the part of the drama too often overlooked: the way power and piety colluded, leaving humanity trapped by corruption and oppression.

It is a pattern as old as Babylon¹ and as current as today.

Year Zero Reactions

Jesus did not step into a vacuum. He entered a deeply religious context in which His people were divided along the equivalent of denominational and party lines.

Five main groups dominated the landscape: the Essenes, the Zealots, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Herodians,² each holding firmly to their interpretations of the Hebrew Bible.

What they failed to see was that their understanding of Scripture was shaped not only by their party bias, but also by the larger context in which they lived: the pervasive shadow of the Roman Empire.

Despite their longing to remain holy and set apart, and despite their courage in resisting Rome’s oppressive rule, these Jewish groups of the first century reacted to the world around them in four distinct ways. Each path shaped thought, lifestyle and belief, and each was followed with absolute conviction that God was on their side.

Some sought escape. The Essenes retreated into the wilderness, burying their heads in the sand to flee the Empire’s shadow. Some sought confrontation. The Zealots rose with fiery zeal, calling their people to fight, to reclaim liberty through force, leaning on the ancient stories of Israel’s warrior heroes.

Some sought resistance. The Pharisees demanded scrupulous piety, insisting that holiness alone would compel God to act. And some sought compromise. Despite their differences, the Sadducees and Herodians aligned themselves with Rome, calculating survival and advantage in a world dominated by Caesar.

Yet all four reactions were trapped within the Empire’s story. Their efforts to live for God only reinforced Caesar’s centrality. Some prospered, most suffered, all remained bound. For all their zeal, their piety, their compromises, they were cogs spinning in Rome’s machine.

Think about it.

Scripture was no longer read to reveal God, but to defend positions.

What pointed to the Messiah³ should have prepared their hearts for Him, yet it was instead used to divide and justify assumptions already in place.

Two Fatal Mistakes

What went wrong? How did the most devout, most Scripture-saturated people in history, who spoke the original languages, miss the mark so completely?

The Jewish people made two fundamental errors, mistakes that would become the very things Jesus’ message confronted head-on:

First, they obscured the nature of God through their misplaced reverence.⁴

Second, they conflated the purpose of God with their own agenda.

Jesus came to set both right. He rewrote the story, lifting His people above their petty factions, tearing apart the script that bound them to Caesar—unveiling the Gospel, a Kingdom defined not by Empire or Religion, but by the heart of the Father.

In Part One, The Message of Jesus, we will unpack these mistakes and discover how Jesus’ response was not what anyone expected. But first, we need to see how we are making the exact same mistakes today.

We need the Message of Jesus now, just as urgently as they needed it then.

Year 2050 Reactions

Consider the sheer scale of the problem.

There are around 2.4 billion Christians in the world today. That sounds encouraging, until you look closer. As of 2023, there were over 47,300 Christian denominations and apostolic networks worldwide, with more forming every year. If current trends continue, that number will exceed 64,000 by 2050.

Let that sink in.

For the first time in history, we are creating new denominations faster than we are making new Christians.⁵ We are fracturing faster than we are growing!

This is not a statistical curiosity—it is a spiritual diagnosis.

Now, there is everything right with a denominational or apostolic network for the benefits of shared values, relational support, synergy of resources and godly accountability. The answer is not a disorganised blob or an unaccountable mob. But for all the silver-lining benefits they offer, most form for one of two reasons: how they interpret Scripture and how they react to the Empire of our day, often wrapped up in what we call “the culture wars”.

The first century collides with the twenty-first.

Despite two thousand years of reflection, reform and renewal, the pattern remains. Different Empire. Same reactions. Same mistakes, only now multiplied tens of thousands of times.

The grim truth? We have learned little from the drama of those early days.

The good news? Jesus has already spoken to this. Literally, it is all in the Book.

Just not in the way we have been taught to read it.

Thinking Kingdomly

Here is why thinking biblically falls short.

The noble idea behind thinking biblically is to think the way God thinks through the lens of Scripture. That is indeed vital, but in practice, we have another lens through which we view the lens of Scripture: the lens of our denomination, our inherited traditions, or more accurately, the cocktail we mix from these traditions and our personal experiences and convictions.

No one takes their Bible neat; we all knock it back with a shot of inherited bias and a twist of personal preference. The question is not whether we have a lens, but whether we are aware of it.³⁶²

And with more than 47,300 denominations, there are 47,300 lenses through which to think “biblically”.

Each one convinced that they have got it right. Each one reading the same Scriptures. Each one arriving at conclusions different enough to warrant a separate organisation, a distinct identity, a theological boundary line. A Presbyterian reads the Bible and sees covenant theology woven throughout. A Pentecostal finds supernatural gifts on every page. A Baptist discovers believer’s baptism in passages others read completely differently. Same Bible. Different glasses.

And all would readily swear on the Bible that they are thinking biblically.

The implication?

That God thinks the way we think.

An assumption that slips in unnoticed, quietly baptising our interpretations with divine authority.

What makes this doubly complicated is that our denominational and personal interpretations are shaped by our cultural moment: by the larger forces at work in our world. In our noble, missional attempts to be relevant, it is easy to drift with those forces rather than discern them.

But before the traditionalists start poking fingers at those attempting to be missional, they too need to acknowledge something: they are often being loyal to what was relevant to a previous generation.

Amen or O-me?

What is less noble—and far more corrosive—is the way political party loyalty increasingly co‑opts the Gospel.⁶ When cultural battles are framed as existential threats to our way of life, the logic of Empire takes over. Power must be seized, enemies must be named, and victory must be secured at all costs. In that atmosphere, it becomes easy to lionise our side and demonise the other, confidently claiming that God is on our team: baptising fear, outrage and the pursuit of power in religious language. This temptation is not confined to one political ideology or party; it cuts across the spectrum, wherever Empire’s logic eclipses the way of Jesus.⁷

This is why thinking Kingdomly is essential. It means properly understanding the Message of Jesus: how it addressed the two fundamental mistakes made by God’s people in the first century, and how it addresses ours today.

If we do not think Kingdomly, we will mistake our interpretation for God’s intention.

And thinking Kingdomly begins with a posture of humility—acknowledging that we read the Bible through rose-tinted glasses, with lenses framed by our inherited traditions and our personal convictions.

Radical, Relentless Humility

As you read this book, I invite you to take on a challenge that few dare attempt.

First, allow for the possibility that some of the things you are most certain of may not be as solid as you think. That calls for radical honesty.

Second, recognise the sobering truth: you do not know which ones. That calls for radical, relentless humility.³⁴³

Third, let that posture of radical, relentless humility accompany you through every page, trusting the “Spirit of the Lord” to transform you from “glory to glory” as you go (2 Corinthians 3:18).

For this book will stretch you.

In fact, you will need to begin again. Again.

Begin Again

Few verses are more misunderstood than John 3:3. What has been reduced to a slogan for sorting so-called real Christians from second-class ones was, in fact, a confrontation.

To a learned Pharisee named Nicodemus, Jesus said,

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” 

(John 3:3)

This was not first and foremost about salvation.⁸ Nor did Jesus intend “born again” to become a noun naming an experience or an adjective defining a “real Christian”.

Jesus reached for the metaphor of birth because nothing less would do. Birth is not an adjustment. It is not refinement. It is not improvement. It is the beginning of life. The beginning of sight. Without it, no amount of knowledge, devotion or certainty would help Nicodemus see what God was doing.

The man needed to begin again.

To begin again is a metaphor for repentance: to review and rethink what we know, to re-examine our preconceived ideas and confront our inherited assumptions, and to respond to the brighter light that comes.⁹

Like Nicodemus, we need regular begin again moments. Without them, we will never fully comprehend the Message of Jesus.