I want to follow up on the thinking of the previous post, "Excesses in the 'Church.' " If you haven't read it, now is the time to do so.
Having already taken a brief look at some of the more obvious nuttiness available in a 'church' near you, I find a need to ask a few questions:
Q: Is it a sin to blow a police whistle in 'church'?
Q: Is it a sin to blow a shofar in 'church'?
Q: Is it a sin to turn on a bubble machine in 'church'?
Q: Is it a sin to wave a flag in 'church'?
A: Well, not necessarily.. I don't suppose...but....
Q: Do any of these things have anything to do with the Ekklesia of Jesus Christ?
A: No. Nothing whatsoever.
If you read the entire Charles Carrin article to which I referred in "Excesses in the 'Church,' " you will have read the following: "Thousands of conscientious Christians are leaving denominational churches weekly and looking for new places to worship. Many have seen the 'hand writing on the wall' and are abandoning their sinking ships. Even Southern Baptist Churches are on the endangered list. It is estimated at their present rate of decrease the Southern Baptist Convention will be gone in just five generations. Many Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian bodies will not last that long. Seekers from these declining churches are visiting Charismatic Churches. They need a safe haven. Wise churches welcome these wanderers, provide them with compassion, an opportunity to worship, give them acceptance and a safe-haven. But that rarely happens. When these new comers appear on the back row they encounter a similar reception for which Paul chastised the Corinthians. The newcomers hear no familiar songs, see nothing similar to their past, and are blasted out by the noise. In time they become 'drop outs' from the Kingdom. How tragic! Paul would be outraged. Before going farther, I must say what my heart believes: Charismatic Churches that are needlessly struggling and dying could reverse that condition overnight if they would listen to Paul’s advice. Use common sense! Stop scaring off the ones God wants you to convert!"
Folks, Charismatic or not, quiet or riotous, the 'church' paradigm has no part with the Biblical Ekklesia found in the New Testament. With all due respect, Carrin's advice may well be good and practical advice for growing 'churches', and, I will grant you, leans more toward the Bible than the alternative he describes, but God doesn't want 'churches' anyway.
I repeat, God Does Not Want 'Churches'.
If He did, He would have given us instructions on that point, and He gave none.
Instead, He gave us plentiful instruction and example of His Ekklesia.
Does it really matter if our unbiblical 'church' is slightly (often very slightly) more Biblical than the 'church' next door when they are both fundamentally unbiblical? If you don't know what I am talking about in contrasting the 'church' and the Ekklesia you can start here, but it really boils down to this: 'churches' are primarily viewer oriented with a professional pastor class, whereas the Ekklesia is primarily participant oriented with unsalaried elders-not-lords. 'Churches' are grown with artificial fertilizers and filled with artificial sweeteners and empty carbs, whereas the Ekklesia is wholesome, organic, and nutritious. 'Churches' are noisy in spirit even when they don't have noisy services, whereas the Ekklesia is tranquil in spirit, quieted like a weaned child. 'Churches' are the traditions of men, whereas the Ekklesia is formed of the traditions of Jesus Himself, given to us from His own mouth and through His Apostles.
'Churches' are cisterns, broken cisterns that you have made for yourselves that can hold no water, whereas the Ekklesia is the fountain through which Living Waters flow. (Jeremiah 2: 13)
Let's try it the Bible way.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Excesses in the 'Church'
Fascinating. I love it when the Holy Spirit confirms what He is saying..
Recently I wrote an e-letter to a brother in Christ I have not seen in many years. In it, I included the following; "After God came we joined a 'spirit-filled' Baptist church and have had some association with pentecostals and charismatics for many years. We agree with pentecostals insomuch as believing in the gifts of the spirit, and that a believer in the scriptures is on very shaky grounds (for example) by openly contradicting 1 Cor 14: 39. We have also seen that pentecostals and charismatics in general seem to be on rather shaky ground concerning 1 Cor 14: 40. We ourselves can and sometimes do speak or pray in tongues, have given prophecy, and have had genuine prophecy given to us. [My wife] has lain on the floor at Brownsville, and I cannot deny the influence for godliness that occurred in us from this event, though we have real issues with some of the things that have been done and said down there (for more on my position on that topic see here ). At the same time we have seen a lot of nonsense in the name of the Spirit of God, such as the pastor of a notable local Church of God teaching that the proper Holy Spirit way to handle 1 Cor 14: 28 is that if someone believes he has a tongue for the whole church he is to obey God and give it before the church, and that if it is genuine someone there will be given the interpretation – which is clearly in contradiction to what Paul is saying in this passage."
In thinking about this I decided that this topic would make a good blog entry. In thinking about that, I was reminded of Charles Carrin, a baptized-in-the-Spirit Baptist minister that we heard not long after God came and kept up with for a while, but haven't heard anything of or from in many years now (not personally, just ministry newletters and such). My reason for thinking about Carrin was that we had heard (or read – not sure which) him making the point back then that many churches who proclaim to believe the Bible have effectively torn out chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians. In their refusal to accept the possibility of tongues or prophecy or any such operation of the Holy Spirit today, they refuse to honor Paul's clear instructions in 1 Cor 14.
My flow of thought for the blog post was that although we have seen and known 'churches' that do indeed tear out chapter 14 as Carrin said, the counterpoint is that we have seen many 'churches' that have trampled on Paul's guidelines about orderliness in exercising the gifts of the Spirit, churches that really looked like nut-houses trampling on the Word and the true 'spirit' of the Spirit of Christ.
Figured I would link to Carrin's website if I could find it. So I found it.
And what do you suppose I found there?
The following is from Charles Carrin's current newsletter, July 2010, "Does The Public Think Your Church Is 'Mad'?"
"Transfer the Corinthian-crisis to many of today’s charismatic churches. Through a variety of abuses–tongues being only one of them–numerous churches are chasing off unsaved visitors as fast as they come. Instead of feeling welcomed, the people are repelled by excess. It matters not whether the problem is tongues or ear-splitting music, blasting shofars, tiresome services, flag wavers, etc. Paul would be just as angered at any one of our abuses today." ... "In some Charismatic Churches I witness an imitation of spiritual gifts that frightens me. Human emotion replaces holy order. In some cases the people have left the Holy Spirit and reverted to their earthy feelings. In these places a substitution is taking place. It is this: Human excitement is gradually replacing the Holy Spirit’s authentic presence. Most people do not recognize the change. Some of this is emotion out of control. Congregations do not always give the Holy Spirit the courtesy of awaiting His arrival. Instead they act as if He is automatically there if they wave flags, jump, blow shofars, blast the music, and clap their hands. He comes at their command. Not so." ... "I am grieved to tell you this: Several times, as a guest speaker, I have had to leave the pulpit and go to the office or lobby to wait-out the attack. The noise was unbearable. In one church when I went to the foyer I found it filled with visitors who had also fled the service. A very safe guess would be that once the “worship”was over they never came back. Does that fit Paul’s description of church madness? Absolutely. The most horrific moment of all came once when a matron bounded onto the platform dressed in a child-sized costume and did an interpretive dance to one of my favorite hymns. As a nine year-old, my grandson asked me to take him out of a service because the noise was giving him a headache." ... "During one service a young man ran through the congregation blowing a police whistle. In another, an old man walked about carrying a machine that blew bubbles into the air. Everybody had opportunity to do 'his thing'. Someone says, 'That is freedom, Brother!' No, it isn’t! It is religious silliness and has no place in the church."
And man do we have to agree with all of that. In fact at that 'notable local Church of God' to which I referred at the beginning of this post, there was a woman who attended there who we referred to simply as 'The Fire Alarm Woman', because at the end of every single service she would go down to the front at the altar call and make this ear-piercing 'woo-woooooo-wooo' fire alarm sound. You are never going to convince me that any of this foolishness and disorderliness has anything at all to do with the Spirit of God.
In fact, none of any of this churchy nonsense, on either side of 1 Cor 14, altar calls included, has anything to do with the Word of God.
Read your Bible people.
And man do we have to agree with all of that. In fact at that 'notable local Church of God' to which I referred at the beginning of this post, there was a woman who attended there who we referred to simply as 'The Fire Alarm Woman', because at the end of every single service she would go down to the front at the altar call and make this ear-piercing 'woo-woooooo-wooo' fire alarm sound. You are never going to convince me that any of this foolishness and disorderliness has anything at all to do with the Spirit of God.
In fact, none of any of this churchy nonsense, on either side of 1 Cor 14, altar calls included, has anything to do with the Word of God.
Read your Bible people.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
When God Came
Eventually you will hear or read me use the phrase, "When God came."
Most people don't know what to think when I use this term. I suppose that for the sake of clarity I could stop using it, but it's the best way I know to describe what I mean, and a sincere term of affection toward God because of what He did. I have used this term almost since the time of its occurrence, because nothing else quite describes it properly. You see, I wasn't looking for Him at all when He came to me, and no human being came to witness to me about the wonders of God or my relationship to Him. I did nothing to deserve it, I am no one for Him to do such a thing, He doesn't deal that way with everyone, but while I was not looking for Him in the slightest, He came to me.
So let me explain.
I worked for years in the Pre-press trade.
Starting at a German owned company that lived and breathed process control, I worked my way upward from there learning the trade. Never turned down OT, and usually asked for more. I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I advanced in pay – and into the city – eventually specializing in high-end Photoshop work. The retouching suites there looked like a set from CSI: cushy leather chairs, nice stereo systems, stainless steel, black walls and just a hint of purple glow from black-light accents. Clients from national ad agencies paid a couple hundred dollars an hour to walk in and sit down with the retouchers. Very avant-garde.
Then God came.
It was a literal epiphany. I was minding my own business at work late one night when the Holy Spirit of God filled the room with a presence so thick...it wasn't visible, and you couldn't smell it, but it was heavy–like the room was filled with thick smoke. I could barely breathe and time stood still on that spot while all the world silently revolved around me. The finger of God touched the very heart of my being; I gave my life completely into His hands.
When it was gone, I was a completely different man.
Well, very different anyway. And getting more completely different. Work I had taken pride in I now felt convicted by. And since such work is common fare in the world of printing you might imagine there isn't much room for conviction about righteousness and sin. Of course, the true majority of work wasn't sensual revealing stuff, but mundane staples like important fried chicken, major jet liners in majestic vistas, and the famousest of soft drink brands. But the sensual stuff was now a real sticking point, and where I had fit in nicely before, it was like oil and water. Or maybe more like water and old grimy built up grease that really smells from not being cleaned in a long, long time; but the people are so used to it that they have no idea what you are talking about, and you can't understand why the health inspector hasn't shut the place down a long time ago.
Well, The Health Inspector is going to shut the whole thing down pretty soon.
But in the mean time I had this peculiar situation: Talent, skill, and experience in a field for which my relationship with God made me unsuitable for regular employment; The Holy Spirit like an Olympic home remodeling team tearing out the old and building new; And a family that had a well fed bank account, but was dried up and starving for anything that might be called a husband or a father. So I walked away from my primo position downtown, and took about a year sabbatical with my wife and (now) five children and God – until the money ran out. After that I learned trim carpentry, and branched out into some things I never had time or inclination to try before in the pre-press grind, like logo design, graphic design, and photo restoration. (That one I especially like: taking old battered and faded memories from the past and recapturing them for the future. That's much more satisfying than helping an older gentleman with phony military status sell buckets of chicken.)
Along the way I have learned a few things.
The average American family doesn't need nearly as much money as we think we do. Children do better in the daily presence of their mother and father than with all the schooling, entertainment, activities, programs, gaming, friends and even Vacation Bible School that you can think up. Wives need their husbands at home as much as children need their mothers at home. Men were not intended to spend the majority of their lives out of the home interacting with women to whom they are not married. People waste their time and money on hobbies and entertainment and leisure-time activities galore trying to fill their lives with meaning because they have abandoned A: God, and B: The Home; and thus are spending their 40 - 60 hours a week on a hamster wheel building nothing with any real meaning. The Western church is far, far afield of the Bible we think we believe, running hard after the society we think we're separated from, yelling, "Wait for us! Wait for us! Wait for us!" while waiving our Bibles in the air instead of reading them.
That really doesn't do it justice – just a few words straining at the limits of human language to try and express inexpressible things – but if you hear me say, "When God Came," that is what I mean.
Most people don't know what to think when I use this term. I suppose that for the sake of clarity I could stop using it, but it's the best way I know to describe what I mean, and a sincere term of affection toward God because of what He did. I have used this term almost since the time of its occurrence, because nothing else quite describes it properly. You see, I wasn't looking for Him at all when He came to me, and no human being came to witness to me about the wonders of God or my relationship to Him. I did nothing to deserve it, I am no one for Him to do such a thing, He doesn't deal that way with everyone, but while I was not looking for Him in the slightest, He came to me.
So let me explain.
I worked for years in the Pre-press trade.
Starting at a German owned company that lived and breathed process control, I worked my way upward from there learning the trade. Never turned down OT, and usually asked for more. I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I advanced in pay – and into the city – eventually specializing in high-end Photoshop work. The retouching suites there looked like a set from CSI: cushy leather chairs, nice stereo systems, stainless steel, black walls and just a hint of purple glow from black-light accents. Clients from national ad agencies paid a couple hundred dollars an hour to walk in and sit down with the retouchers. Very avant-garde.
Then God came.
It was a literal epiphany. I was minding my own business at work late one night when the Holy Spirit of God filled the room with a presence so thick...it wasn't visible, and you couldn't smell it, but it was heavy–like the room was filled with thick smoke. I could barely breathe and time stood still on that spot while all the world silently revolved around me. The finger of God touched the very heart of my being; I gave my life completely into His hands.
When it was gone, I was a completely different man.
Well, very different anyway. And getting more completely different. Work I had taken pride in I now felt convicted by. And since such work is common fare in the world of printing you might imagine there isn't much room for conviction about righteousness and sin. Of course, the true majority of work wasn't sensual revealing stuff, but mundane staples like important fried chicken, major jet liners in majestic vistas, and the famousest of soft drink brands. But the sensual stuff was now a real sticking point, and where I had fit in nicely before, it was like oil and water. Or maybe more like water and old grimy built up grease that really smells from not being cleaned in a long, long time; but the people are so used to it that they have no idea what you are talking about, and you can't understand why the health inspector hasn't shut the place down a long time ago.
Well, The Health Inspector is going to shut the whole thing down pretty soon.
But in the mean time I had this peculiar situation: Talent, skill, and experience in a field for which my relationship with God made me unsuitable for regular employment; The Holy Spirit like an Olympic home remodeling team tearing out the old and building new; And a family that had a well fed bank account, but was dried up and starving for anything that might be called a husband or a father. So I walked away from my primo position downtown, and took about a year sabbatical with my wife and (now) five children and God – until the money ran out. After that I learned trim carpentry, and branched out into some things I never had time or inclination to try before in the pre-press grind, like logo design, graphic design, and photo restoration. (That one I especially like: taking old battered and faded memories from the past and recapturing them for the future. That's much more satisfying than helping an older gentleman with phony military status sell buckets of chicken.)
Along the way I have learned a few things.
The average American family doesn't need nearly as much money as we think we do. Children do better in the daily presence of their mother and father than with all the schooling, entertainment, activities, programs, gaming, friends and even Vacation Bible School that you can think up. Wives need their husbands at home as much as children need their mothers at home. Men were not intended to spend the majority of their lives out of the home interacting with women to whom they are not married. People waste their time and money on hobbies and entertainment and leisure-time activities galore trying to fill their lives with meaning because they have abandoned A: God, and B: The Home; and thus are spending their 40 - 60 hours a week on a hamster wheel building nothing with any real meaning. The Western church is far, far afield of the Bible we think we believe, running hard after the society we think we're separated from, yelling, "Wait for us! Wait for us! Wait for us!" while waiving our Bibles in the air instead of reading them.
That really doesn't do it justice – just a few words straining at the limits of human language to try and express inexpressible things – but if you hear me say, "When God Came," that is what I mean.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Sixteen
Today our second oldest son is sixteen years of age: Happy Birthday! And truly a happy day it was and is. May the light always shine upon that day, and may no miserable or unhappy thing ever be remembered upon it. At your age your frame of reference is so small that it is hard to realize how quickly it is that a very small child is making comical and ear-splitting fireworks imitations, and the next moment he is old enough in the eyes of the law to drive a motor vehicle. Truly, truly, our lives are but a vapor, and you must always endeavor to remember that. When your own children are born – and may you have more than we have –
look at that tiny face and those tiny fingers and fear God because your days with that child are few in number indeed and he or she is depending upon you for direction to God and the paths of righteousness! You are a blessing to us, our son, and we bless you for it! And we wish you many happy returns of the day!
Happy Birthday Son!
look at that tiny face and those tiny fingers and fear God because your days with that child are few in number indeed and he or she is depending upon you for direction to God and the paths of righteousness! You are a blessing to us, our son, and we bless you for it! And we wish you many happy returns of the day!
Happy Birthday Son!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Battlements of Silver
Song of Solomon 8: 8-14
We have a little sister,
And she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
In the day when she is spoken for?
If she is a wall,
We will build upon her
A battlement of silver;
And if she is a door,
We will enclose her
With boards of cedar.
I am a wall,
And my breasts like towers;
Then I became in his eyes
As one who found peace.
Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon;
He leased the vineyard to keepers;
Everyone was to bring for its fruit
A thousand silver coins.
My own vineyard is before me.
You, O Solomon, may have a thousand
And those who tend its fruit two hundred.
You who dwell in the gardens,
The companions listen for your voice—
Let me hear it!
Make haste, my beloved,
And be like a gazelle
Or a young stag
On the mountains of spices.
Listen My Love, My Sister, My Bride, to the blessedness of the Union of the Man and his Wife in the eyes of God! A Battlement of Silver honors this woman who fiercely guarded her virtue. If ever there was a wife who deserved a Battlement of Silver it is you My Love! How I wish that my own heart had always been as jealously defended by me as yours by you! Like the Shulamite you have looked with disdain on all who had no place in your garden, ready to pierce with an arrow any who dared to try; Your heart you fiercely defended, and in that, neither your Husband nor your God will find any fault in you on the Day! Hear how she describes her breasts like towers: the places of strongest defense! But; and made me the only one among all the sons who could enter freely! How you have honored me above all others! How you have trusted and opened your heart! All that a man might give for love would be utterly despised, but you have blessed me above all others by giving me all that you have, making a covenant of peace before God, and granting me authority in all that is yours! How I wish that I had been worthy all these years! How I wish that I had understood and appreciated and known how blessed that truly I was and am! My Sister in Christ Jesus, and yet my Bride upon this earth, You have set yourself under me and made me lord of all that is yours! The wife of my Youth, You have been to me an Excellent Wife, and I have been to you like Nabal: a fool in your eyes! Yet how our God has blessed our oneness in giving to us seven beautiful children, and How He has richly blessed us with fruit of the womb! May each of these be deadly arrows that sink into the heart of the enemy! May not one of them fall short or fail to bite! May your face be lifted up by our Sovereign when at last you stand before Him, and may He have nothing but reward for all that you have given and done! May He strengthen your hands to the work, and your feet to do all that He has set before you, and all that He has placed in your heart! And may your Husband be found worthy to have been granted a covenant of peace with you while your eyes flash fiercely at all the sons!
Joyous indeed is this day above all others! May you overflow with Happiness today upon our 25th Anniversary, the Anniversary of Silver, and glory in your Rampart of Argent!
Happy Anniversary, My Sister, My Bride!
Happy 25th!
We have a little sister,
And she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
In the day when she is spoken for?
If she is a wall,
We will build upon her
A battlement of silver;
And if she is a door,
We will enclose her
With boards of cedar.
I am a wall,
And my breasts like towers;
Then I became in his eyes
As one who found peace.
Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon;
He leased the vineyard to keepers;
Everyone was to bring for its fruit
A thousand silver coins.
My own vineyard is before me.
You, O Solomon, may have a thousand
And those who tend its fruit two hundred.
You who dwell in the gardens,
The companions listen for your voice—
Let me hear it!
Make haste, my beloved,
And be like a gazelle
Or a young stag
On the mountains of spices.
Listen My Love, My Sister, My Bride, to the blessedness of the Union of the Man and his Wife in the eyes of God! A Battlement of Silver honors this woman who fiercely guarded her virtue. If ever there was a wife who deserved a Battlement of Silver it is you My Love! How I wish that my own heart had always been as jealously defended by me as yours by you! Like the Shulamite you have looked with disdain on all who had no place in your garden, ready to pierce with an arrow any who dared to try; Your heart you fiercely defended, and in that, neither your Husband nor your God will find any fault in you on the Day! Hear how she describes her breasts like towers: the places of strongest defense! But; and made me the only one among all the sons who could enter freely! How you have honored me above all others! How you have trusted and opened your heart! All that a man might give for love would be utterly despised, but you have blessed me above all others by giving me all that you have, making a covenant of peace before God, and granting me authority in all that is yours! How I wish that I had been worthy all these years! How I wish that I had understood and appreciated and known how blessed that truly I was and am! My Sister in Christ Jesus, and yet my Bride upon this earth, You have set yourself under me and made me lord of all that is yours! The wife of my Youth, You have been to me an Excellent Wife, and I have been to you like Nabal: a fool in your eyes! Yet how our God has blessed our oneness in giving to us seven beautiful children, and How He has richly blessed us with fruit of the womb! May each of these be deadly arrows that sink into the heart of the enemy! May not one of them fall short or fail to bite! May your face be lifted up by our Sovereign when at last you stand before Him, and may He have nothing but reward for all that you have given and done! May He strengthen your hands to the work, and your feet to do all that He has set before you, and all that He has placed in your heart! And may your Husband be found worthy to have been granted a covenant of peace with you while your eyes flash fiercely at all the sons!
Joyous indeed is this day above all others! May you overflow with Happiness today upon our 25th Anniversary, the Anniversary of Silver, and glory in your Rampart of Argent!
Happy Anniversary, My Sister, My Bride!
Happy 25th!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
A Little Consistency
Shortly after God came in 1998, I heard John MacArthur teaching about church discipline. In his teaching he spoke about his determination to practice biblical discipline. A friend of his warned him that such a thing would never fly and people today would simply never put up with it or join in with it. Yet they now had all these thousands of people at whatever church he pastors who have all joined in with it and do put up with it, because it is an important part of the New Testament experience.
Q: Which parts of the New Testament experience are unimportant? Which parts of the New Testament pattern are we at liberty to simply ignore?
I'm glad that MacArthur felt that way about 'church' discipline, and grateful to him for introducing that topic to me over a decade ago, but what about so many other aspects of the New Testament Christian life?
For those of you who have not read NTRF's House Church (previously and better titled 'ekklesia') they make the point that what they are arguing for is a little consistency. Unfortunately, a little consistency is exactly what we already have. It's the very thing that keeps the Body divided in a thousand sects (better known as 'denominations') and acting exactly like a body that has been divided. What the Body of Christ needs is plain old Consistency, period.
But, of course, consistency isn't like some sort of commodity that you can acquire, as if perhaps someone will give us consistency, or we can buy it down at Wal-Mart, or we are all waiting until Jesus instructs the Holy Spirit to give us consistency and then we will all be able to come to unity and one accord. Consistency is a choice, an act of will, and the only waiting is God waiting for His people to decide that His Word is important enough for us to take it seriously and do as He already said.
Most 'churches' and denominations have one or two aspects of the New Testament pattern that they have grabbed ahold of and that's their 'thing', and they take pride in the fact that they are doing this part of the NT pattern that all the other 'churches' aren't doing.
For example:
Baptists are known for their teaching and practice about water baptism; they baptize by full immersion instead of sprinkling, and they do not baptize infants, but only those old enough to clearly make a choice for Christ, because that is the clear New Testament pattern (although most Baptists do not adhere to other aspects of New Testament baptism, notably that new converts are to be baptized immediately). Secondarily, Baptists are known for their partial adherence to New Testament congregationalism similar to the ekklesia norm. But they do not adhere to other aspects, such as a plurality of unpaid elders without a professional schooled and salaried 'Pastor' to deliver the 'message' or 'sermon' every Sunday. Or celebration of the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day.
Presbyterians are known for their 'presbytery' – their elders, in partial accordance with the NT pattern – but they still retain the Catholic clerical position in the form of 'The Pastor', and lots of other unbiblical practices.
Pentecostals and Charismatics are known for their acceptance of and belief in the New Testament gifts of the Spirit such as tongues, prophecy, etc. But they don't much want to adhere to biblical guidelines for practicing these gifts (calling that 'legalism'), which results in a lot of ungodly weirdness and hocus pocus; and they especially tend to want to have nothing to do with biblical elders, lifting up 'The Pastor' over the 'church' as 'The Man of God'.
And non-denominational 'churches' each have their own salad bar approach to which parts of the New Testament they comply with, and which they reject.
Can anyone out there tell me what exactly would be wrong with all of God's people making a commitment to God and to their brothers and sisters in Christ to sincerely search the scriptures and to perform the things written there to the absolute best of their ability and understanding? Instead we all rest on our dividing unbiblical traditions – whether it's what Grandma and Grandpa used to pray, or whether it's a tradition that came out of some guy's new book last year, we all lift up our traditions above the clearly revealed will of God in the Scriptures.
People! Jesus died on the cross! He gave us the Holy Spirit! He caused the apostles to write for us all the words of this Life in a book! His servants in the reformation were persecuted, tortured, and burned alive to give this book to us that we might both read it and do it! Everything we need is in our grasp!
Come on people, now come on!
Q: Which parts of the New Testament experience are unimportant? Which parts of the New Testament pattern are we at liberty to simply ignore?
I'm glad that MacArthur felt that way about 'church' discipline, and grateful to him for introducing that topic to me over a decade ago, but what about so many other aspects of the New Testament Christian life?
For those of you who have not read NTRF's House Church (previously and better titled 'ekklesia') they make the point that what they are arguing for is a little consistency. Unfortunately, a little consistency is exactly what we already have. It's the very thing that keeps the Body divided in a thousand sects (better known as 'denominations') and acting exactly like a body that has been divided. What the Body of Christ needs is plain old Consistency, period.
But, of course, consistency isn't like some sort of commodity that you can acquire, as if perhaps someone will give us consistency, or we can buy it down at Wal-Mart, or we are all waiting until Jesus instructs the Holy Spirit to give us consistency and then we will all be able to come to unity and one accord. Consistency is a choice, an act of will, and the only waiting is God waiting for His people to decide that His Word is important enough for us to take it seriously and do as He already said.
Most 'churches' and denominations have one or two aspects of the New Testament pattern that they have grabbed ahold of and that's their 'thing', and they take pride in the fact that they are doing this part of the NT pattern that all the other 'churches' aren't doing.
For example:
Baptists are known for their teaching and practice about water baptism; they baptize by full immersion instead of sprinkling, and they do not baptize infants, but only those old enough to clearly make a choice for Christ, because that is the clear New Testament pattern (although most Baptists do not adhere to other aspects of New Testament baptism, notably that new converts are to be baptized immediately). Secondarily, Baptists are known for their partial adherence to New Testament congregationalism similar to the ekklesia norm. But they do not adhere to other aspects, such as a plurality of unpaid elders without a professional schooled and salaried 'Pastor' to deliver the 'message' or 'sermon' every Sunday. Or celebration of the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day.
Presbyterians are known for their 'presbytery' – their elders, in partial accordance with the NT pattern – but they still retain the Catholic clerical position in the form of 'The Pastor', and lots of other unbiblical practices.
Pentecostals and Charismatics are known for their acceptance of and belief in the New Testament gifts of the Spirit such as tongues, prophecy, etc. But they don't much want to adhere to biblical guidelines for practicing these gifts (calling that 'legalism'), which results in a lot of ungodly weirdness and hocus pocus; and they especially tend to want to have nothing to do with biblical elders, lifting up 'The Pastor' over the 'church' as 'The Man of God'.
And non-denominational 'churches' each have their own salad bar approach to which parts of the New Testament they comply with, and which they reject.
Can anyone out there tell me what exactly would be wrong with all of God's people making a commitment to God and to their brothers and sisters in Christ to sincerely search the scriptures and to perform the things written there to the absolute best of their ability and understanding? Instead we all rest on our dividing unbiblical traditions – whether it's what Grandma and Grandpa used to pray, or whether it's a tradition that came out of some guy's new book last year, we all lift up our traditions above the clearly revealed will of God in the Scriptures.
People! Jesus died on the cross! He gave us the Holy Spirit! He caused the apostles to write for us all the words of this Life in a book! His servants in the reformation were persecuted, tortured, and burned alive to give this book to us that we might both read it and do it! Everything we need is in our grasp!
Come on people, now come on!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Homemade TV Antenna
Here is a great home-education project with the kids. It isn't very spiritual, but God made us flesh and blood with a spirit, not spirit alone. (In fact, contrary to the 'earth-suit' thinking people, that's the way we'll wind up too: being spirit only is not our destiny in Christ. We can't be sure what the resurrection body will be exactly like, but we can be sure it is will be physical flesh and blood body just as Jesus had when He was resurrected and he grilled fish for breakfast and ate it with Peter and John et al. Harp or no harp, 'going to Heaven' is just a waystation on our journey. Now there's something spiritual for you I guess.)
We live on a heavily wooded hill in North Georgia some 50 miles from Chattanooga, the nearest source of broadcast TV. Over the years we have tried various antennae of different designs and expense, but always went back to a basic cheapie RCA rabbit ears design plugged into a signal amplifier. Didn't work that great but if you held your breath, didn't turn on the ceiling fan, and the weather was with you, you could get a half-decent signal most of the time. Eventually the old cheapie RCA got bombed by the BAF (that's the Baby Air Force: our nickname for all the mayhem wrought by our two and three year olds throughout each day). After that we used a semi-pricey Phillips powered rabbit ear design that our daughter found at a yard sale dirt cheap. It did work better, but not much really. We tried all kinds of nifty ideas we were sure would make it work better but never did, like aluminum foil balls and wire in various sorts and conditions.
Recently, I just got sick of it, and googled "make your own TV antenna."
Clicked on the first link I saw, here. This gives you a set of nifty plans in PDF format for making an antenna out of coat hangers and an old co-ax TV converter – you know the kind they used to hand out like candy that hooked up to old TVs with the two screws on the back? I expect you could get one at Radio Shack still, but we had one still hanging around. Used to be, if you bought a TV or anything that went with one, like a VCR, DVD player, game system or whatever it would come with one of those things.
Anyway, me and the two older boys looked over the plans, and then watched the video version here a couple of times. Then we got out the pliers and coat hangers and went to work. The whole time I kept asking them, "You think this thing'll actually do anything?"
You simply would not believe what this thing does. We have channels that we could never get before. We have channels that we could just barely get before (does anyone else out there know the utter frustration of having Rick Bayless blink out right at the crucial moment of the recipe just because your now-six-foot teenager unthinkingly stood in the wrong place?). And best of all, we have the most ridiculously strong signal strength on every single channel. I admit we did have to do a little fiddling around to find the right spot, but even in the wrong spot it way outperformed the semi-pricey Phillips powered rabbit ears. I mean, left it choking in the dust.
Neat.
Now if TV would just get saved...
We live on a heavily wooded hill in North Georgia some 50 miles from Chattanooga, the nearest source of broadcast TV. Over the years we have tried various antennae of different designs and expense, but always went back to a basic cheapie RCA rabbit ears design plugged into a signal amplifier. Didn't work that great but if you held your breath, didn't turn on the ceiling fan, and the weather was with you, you could get a half-decent signal most of the time. Eventually the old cheapie RCA got bombed by the BAF (that's the Baby Air Force: our nickname for all the mayhem wrought by our two and three year olds throughout each day). After that we used a semi-pricey Phillips powered rabbit ear design that our daughter found at a yard sale dirt cheap. It did work better, but not much really. We tried all kinds of nifty ideas we were sure would make it work better but never did, like aluminum foil balls and wire in various sorts and conditions.
Recently, I just got sick of it, and googled "make your own TV antenna."
Clicked on the first link I saw, here. This gives you a set of nifty plans in PDF format for making an antenna out of coat hangers and an old co-ax TV converter – you know the kind they used to hand out like candy that hooked up to old TVs with the two screws on the back? I expect you could get one at Radio Shack still, but we had one still hanging around. Used to be, if you bought a TV or anything that went with one, like a VCR, DVD player, game system or whatever it would come with one of those things.
Anyway, me and the two older boys looked over the plans, and then watched the video version here a couple of times. Then we got out the pliers and coat hangers and went to work. The whole time I kept asking them, "You think this thing'll actually do anything?"
You simply would not believe what this thing does. We have channels that we could never get before. We have channels that we could just barely get before (does anyone else out there know the utter frustration of having Rick Bayless blink out right at the crucial moment of the recipe just because your now-six-foot teenager unthinkingly stood in the wrong place?). And best of all, we have the most ridiculously strong signal strength on every single channel. I admit we did have to do a little fiddling around to find the right spot, but even in the wrong spot it way outperformed the semi-pricey Phillips powered rabbit ears. I mean, left it choking in the dust.
Neat.
Now if TV would just get saved...
Friday, July 2, 2010
Practical Bible Tips
Are you good with remembering chapter and verse numbers? I am certainly not. Anything pertaining to math or numbers has always had me at a disadvantage. I have to work to remember a new phone number, and even after a couple of years I still have to think about my current cell number at times.
The modern church prizes chapter and verse memorization, and has a very subtle tendency to look down on those who do not, as though you perhaps aren't that serious about Jesus. But I have some news for those folks; Chapter and verse markers are handy ways to find your way around, but they aren't part of the scriptures, so the Holy Spirit clearly didn't think it that important, and all the New Testament writers did a pretty good job of quoting the Old Testament without them.
If you can remember them, by all means do: it is a good thing. If not, no worries: it's what is actually written there that God wants in your heart and mind. With that in mind, I have some Practical Bible Tips.
Preface
The Bible is a rather unusual book. For one thing, it has an incredible amount of information packed in it. A neo-pagan friend of mine once asserted to me that the Bible was like a set of assembly instructions, like for an entertainment center, and there was no real point in reading and re-reading it once you'd read it through. What an incredibly ignorant view of the riches that are packed into the Bible! ...though I fear that many Christians have a very similar mindset. The Bible, though, is more like DNA: such an astonishing amount of information packed into such a tiny space.
Like DNA, the real marvel of the Bible isn't actually in the volume of information itself, it's in the unpacking of the information, it's in the actual doing of the thing. Incredible though it is, the DNA packed into an acorn is of no real value just sitting around on the shelf. It's what happens when the conditions and the timing are right, and that acorn begins to unpack the information that is encoded in the DNA and actually use it. It begins to break out, take root, and grow upward and leaf out. It makes a whole, mighty, giant oak tree, spending all its life in the doing of the thing written in the volume of the DNA. It needs that DNA all its life, and refers to it in everything that it does until the day it dies – then lots of other organisms do the things written in their DNA to take advantage of the material resources that have been invested in that massive, dead, oak tree.
That is what the Bible is like.
Practical Tips
After God came, I bought me a brand new Bible. I was so excited, I went and found a Bible with all the notes you can think of. At the time that was the John MacArthur Study Bible®, in NASV®, with More Notes Than Any Other Bible Ever. And boy did it have notes. I mean it really did have notes. In fact, after a couple of years, I found that it had so many notes that the notes actually got in the way of the Bible itself. Eventually I decided that most Christians, including me, needed to spend way more time reading the actual scriptures themselves, and way less time reading somebody's notes about it, even if the somebody were John MacArthur®. So, I gave away my John MacArthur Study Bible®, and bought, instead, in small, plain, portable Bible with just some cross references and minor textual notes.
• Tip 1: Study Bibles
A good annotated study Bible can be a good thing, on your shelf, ready to pull out at times if you need it to look into something more in depth. But you'll be better off for the most part with a good, plain, simple, well bound Bible you can actually keep around handy all the time and just read the Scriptures. So if it's one or the other, ditch the Study Bible.
• Tip 2: Translations
Choose a good, solid, non-trendy translation. We prefer the New King James Version (NKJV). Of course, the King James Bible is the classic English translation, and a good one. The KJV scholars put everything they had into meticulously producing an accurate translation that was a literary classic. My primary issue with it is that the language is truly so archaic that in many places you have to work through the 'Shakespearean' English first to get to the word itself. NASV is OK, and, perhaps, even the NIV will do in a pinch – but I would have to be pinched before I resorted to it. If you care anything at all about accuracy in translation, stay as far as possible from silly versions like The Living Bible, New Living Translation, and The Message; and yes I do mean silly and no I will not apologize for it. In fact, if silly is the worst that could be said about these versions I'll be surprised. I think other adjectives such as 'dangerous' might well be warranted. If you don't care anything at all about accuracy in translation in the Bible, back up and check to see if you are really saved to start with.
• Tip 3: Highlighting and Bible Tabs
You may have noticed that some study bibles have handy little tabs cut into the edge of the pages so that you can see immediately where a given book is. You can also buy a set of these that stick onto your page edges if your Bible doesn't have them. This might possibly be a help to some baby Christians until they are used to finding a given book quickly, but really, either one of two things is going to happen: You are going to quickly learn your way around so that you don't need the tabs and they are just in the way, or you are going to stop using the tabs anyway because you aren't actually using the Bible. My advice is to skip the tabs, use the Bible, learn your way around, and grow in Christ!
But I want to tell you about a different kind of tab.
Lots of people highlight passages in their Bible. If you are growing in the Word you almost certainly are to some extent. But you often wind up with scattered highlightings that are of little use unless you happen already to be reading that section anyway, and if you really dig into the Word, over a period of years, you can wind up with so much highlighted that it works against you. If your whole Bible is highlighted, then nothing is really highlighted!
Here is my solution.
I decided it would be much easier to post some photos than to describe this with mere words.
Somewhere, my wife bought me a double ended highlighter, which I thought was very cute. I had already been attempting to bring about some structure in my highlighting by using both yellow and orange highlighters. I found that with these two colors I could highlight different verses in three distinctly visible colors: yellow, orange, and yellow-orange. This is very useful if you are trying to highlight different verses for different reasons, but keeping two highlighters and a black pen too was a bit cumbersome. So when she saw the double-ended highlighter it seemed to her the natural solution. I am afraid it took me a little longer to catch on and realize how useful a tool it really is.
Now at all times I keep a black pen and my double-ended yellow/orange highlighter with my Bible. But I also keep nearby a yellow/blue highlighter, a yellow/pink highlighter, and a roll of 3M Scotch brand matte finish tape. This now gives me a range of color combinations, and when I highlight, I divide it up according to various categories, and highlight in color-codes accordingly. Then I tape on a small, folded over Bible tab from Scotch tape and mark the tab according to it's category. For instance, if I find a previously unmarked passage in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah, I highlight it yellow with a thin orange stripe through, and make a tab marked 'M' for Messiah, which I can now easily find at the page ends. All these passages I can instantly access without having to dig around and search out.
This all got started as I was reading the end of Luke's Gospel. I saw in 24: 27 it says, "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them the things concerning Himself." Then in verse 44 Jesus admonishes the disciples, "...that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." So I got to wondering what all these things were, and I started searching them out. As I searched them out I highlighted them, and then I started tabbing them to find easily. So far I have 41 tabs on this topic.
I now have twelve different categories that I tab for quick reference:
M = Messiah: Old Testament (OT) scriptures about the coming Messiah.
J = Judgment: OT scriptures about the coming Judgment.
R = Resurrection: OT scriptures about the coming Resurrection
S = Satan: OT scriptures about Satan
LS = Lord's Supper: New Testament (NT) scriptures about the Lord's Supper, often erroneously called 'communion'
C = Childrearing: Scriptures throughout the Bible about raising children
E = Ekklesia: This is mostly to mark every occurrence in the NT of the word 'ekklesia' or 'ekklesias', which is the correct Bible word for 'church'.
D = Discipline: NT Scriptures about discipline and judgment within the ekklesia
T = Trinity: NT Scriptures pertaining to the Doctrine of the Trinity, and to the Deity of Christ.
LOS = Loss of Salvation: NT scriptures warning that a loss of salvation is a real concern.
CON = Congregationalism: NT scriptures showing congregational (democratic) function in the Biblical ekklesia.
ELD = Elders: NT scriptures pertaining to eldership in the Biblical ekklesia.
As you can see below, there may be multiple topics highlighted on a given page. At the top of the right-hand page is the topic ELD for elders. You can see there I recently began a practice of putting a sample of the appropriate color coding under the tab tape. That helps to identify when I have a page full. On these two pages I have Elders, Trinity & Deity of Christ, Ekklesia, and Childrearing; with assorted other notes.
The modern church prizes chapter and verse memorization, and has a very subtle tendency to look down on those who do not, as though you perhaps aren't that serious about Jesus. But I have some news for those folks; Chapter and verse markers are handy ways to find your way around, but they aren't part of the scriptures, so the Holy Spirit clearly didn't think it that important, and all the New Testament writers did a pretty good job of quoting the Old Testament without them.
If you can remember them, by all means do: it is a good thing. If not, no worries: it's what is actually written there that God wants in your heart and mind. With that in mind, I have some Practical Bible Tips.
Preface
The Bible is a rather unusual book. For one thing, it has an incredible amount of information packed in it. A neo-pagan friend of mine once asserted to me that the Bible was like a set of assembly instructions, like for an entertainment center, and there was no real point in reading and re-reading it once you'd read it through. What an incredibly ignorant view of the riches that are packed into the Bible! ...though I fear that many Christians have a very similar mindset. The Bible, though, is more like DNA: such an astonishing amount of information packed into such a tiny space.
Like DNA, the real marvel of the Bible isn't actually in the volume of information itself, it's in the unpacking of the information, it's in the actual doing of the thing. Incredible though it is, the DNA packed into an acorn is of no real value just sitting around on the shelf. It's what happens when the conditions and the timing are right, and that acorn begins to unpack the information that is encoded in the DNA and actually use it. It begins to break out, take root, and grow upward and leaf out. It makes a whole, mighty, giant oak tree, spending all its life in the doing of the thing written in the volume of the DNA. It needs that DNA all its life, and refers to it in everything that it does until the day it dies – then lots of other organisms do the things written in their DNA to take advantage of the material resources that have been invested in that massive, dead, oak tree.
That is what the Bible is like.
Practical Tips
After God came, I bought me a brand new Bible. I was so excited, I went and found a Bible with all the notes you can think of. At the time that was the John MacArthur Study Bible®, in NASV®, with More Notes Than Any Other Bible Ever. And boy did it have notes. I mean it really did have notes. In fact, after a couple of years, I found that it had so many notes that the notes actually got in the way of the Bible itself. Eventually I decided that most Christians, including me, needed to spend way more time reading the actual scriptures themselves, and way less time reading somebody's notes about it, even if the somebody were John MacArthur®. So, I gave away my John MacArthur Study Bible®, and bought, instead, in small, plain, portable Bible with just some cross references and minor textual notes.
• Tip 1: Study Bibles
A good annotated study Bible can be a good thing, on your shelf, ready to pull out at times if you need it to look into something more in depth. But you'll be better off for the most part with a good, plain, simple, well bound Bible you can actually keep around handy all the time and just read the Scriptures. So if it's one or the other, ditch the Study Bible.
• Tip 2: Translations
Choose a good, solid, non-trendy translation. We prefer the New King James Version (NKJV). Of course, the King James Bible is the classic English translation, and a good one. The KJV scholars put everything they had into meticulously producing an accurate translation that was a literary classic. My primary issue with it is that the language is truly so archaic that in many places you have to work through the 'Shakespearean' English first to get to the word itself. NASV is OK, and, perhaps, even the NIV will do in a pinch – but I would have to be pinched before I resorted to it. If you care anything at all about accuracy in translation, stay as far as possible from silly versions like The Living Bible, New Living Translation, and The Message; and yes I do mean silly and no I will not apologize for it. In fact, if silly is the worst that could be said about these versions I'll be surprised. I think other adjectives such as 'dangerous' might well be warranted. If you don't care anything at all about accuracy in translation in the Bible, back up and check to see if you are really saved to start with.
• Tip 3: Highlighting and Bible Tabs
You may have noticed that some study bibles have handy little tabs cut into the edge of the pages so that you can see immediately where a given book is. You can also buy a set of these that stick onto your page edges if your Bible doesn't have them. This might possibly be a help to some baby Christians until they are used to finding a given book quickly, but really, either one of two things is going to happen: You are going to quickly learn your way around so that you don't need the tabs and they are just in the way, or you are going to stop using the tabs anyway because you aren't actually using the Bible. My advice is to skip the tabs, use the Bible, learn your way around, and grow in Christ!
But I want to tell you about a different kind of tab.
Lots of people highlight passages in their Bible. If you are growing in the Word you almost certainly are to some extent. But you often wind up with scattered highlightings that are of little use unless you happen already to be reading that section anyway, and if you really dig into the Word, over a period of years, you can wind up with so much highlighted that it works against you. If your whole Bible is highlighted, then nothing is really highlighted!
Here is my solution.
I decided it would be much easier to post some photos than to describe this with mere words.
Somewhere, my wife bought me a double ended highlighter, which I thought was very cute. I had already been attempting to bring about some structure in my highlighting by using both yellow and orange highlighters. I found that with these two colors I could highlight different verses in three distinctly visible colors: yellow, orange, and yellow-orange. This is very useful if you are trying to highlight different verses for different reasons, but keeping two highlighters and a black pen too was a bit cumbersome. So when she saw the double-ended highlighter it seemed to her the natural solution. I am afraid it took me a little longer to catch on and realize how useful a tool it really is.
Now at all times I keep a black pen and my double-ended yellow/orange highlighter with my Bible. But I also keep nearby a yellow/blue highlighter, a yellow/pink highlighter, and a roll of 3M Scotch brand matte finish tape. This now gives me a range of color combinations, and when I highlight, I divide it up according to various categories, and highlight in color-codes accordingly. Then I tape on a small, folded over Bible tab from Scotch tape and mark the tab according to it's category. For instance, if I find a previously unmarked passage in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah, I highlight it yellow with a thin orange stripe through, and make a tab marked 'M' for Messiah, which I can now easily find at the page ends. All these passages I can instantly access without having to dig around and search out.
This all got started as I was reading the end of Luke's Gospel. I saw in 24: 27 it says, "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them the things concerning Himself." Then in verse 44 Jesus admonishes the disciples, "...that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." So I got to wondering what all these things were, and I started searching them out. As I searched them out I highlighted them, and then I started tabbing them to find easily. So far I have 41 tabs on this topic.
I now have twelve different categories that I tab for quick reference:
M = Messiah: Old Testament (OT) scriptures about the coming Messiah.
J = Judgment: OT scriptures about the coming Judgment.
R = Resurrection: OT scriptures about the coming Resurrection
S = Satan: OT scriptures about Satan
LS = Lord's Supper: New Testament (NT) scriptures about the Lord's Supper, often erroneously called 'communion'
C = Childrearing: Scriptures throughout the Bible about raising children
E = Ekklesia: This is mostly to mark every occurrence in the NT of the word 'ekklesia' or 'ekklesias', which is the correct Bible word for 'church'.
D = Discipline: NT Scriptures about discipline and judgment within the ekklesia
T = Trinity: NT Scriptures pertaining to the Doctrine of the Trinity, and to the Deity of Christ.
LOS = Loss of Salvation: NT scriptures warning that a loss of salvation is a real concern.
CON = Congregationalism: NT scriptures showing congregational (democratic) function in the Biblical ekklesia.
ELD = Elders: NT scriptures pertaining to eldership in the Biblical ekklesia.
As you can see below, there may be multiple topics highlighted on a given page. At the top of the right-hand page is the topic ELD for elders. You can see there I recently began a practice of putting a sample of the appropriate color coding under the tab tape. That helps to identify when I have a page full. On these two pages I have Elders, Trinity & Deity of Christ, Ekklesia, and Childrearing; with assorted other notes.
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