A really promising tweet from Furtick tonight.
It’s hard to differentiate between a vision & a delusion-both cause you to see things that no one else sees.
No sarcasm here; it’s good that he’s recognizing this.
Before immersing yourself in this post, please read part one of this series on the purpose of baptism. We can’t really make sense of the biblical mode of baptism without understanding its purpose.
Before I get started, let me begin with a little biography. I was born into a Baptist family. My grandparents were Baptist missionaries to China in the 1940s, and my grandfather–and, later, my father–pastored the Baptist church in the city in New Zealand where I was born. I was baptized by immersion by my father when I was seven, and I still prize the letter of congratulations that my grandfather sent me on that occasion.
In other words, I was born an immersionist, I was baptized by immersion, and I remained an immersionist until well into my 30s, even after joining a denomination that believed in baptism by sprinkling. I couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to baptize by sprinkling. It seemed like baptism lite. Why not go all the way (under)?
That all changed when my pastor explained the significance of John the Baptist. The original baptist changed my opinion on the proper mode of baptism from immersion to sprinkling. The key comes from two questions the Pharisees asked–one of John and one of Jesus.
Who are you?
In Luke 3 we are introduced to John the Baptist who has been having crowds come to listen to his preaching and be baptized by him. Clearly he was causing a stir, and in John 1 we see that the priests and Levites have been dispatched from Jerusalem to see what he is doing. Here’s John’s account:
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
Notice the response when John the Baptist said he was not the Christ: “Then who are you.” They initially assumed that he was the Messiah. Failing that, he must be Elijah or the prophet. Why would they think that? Was there a connection between John’s baptising, which they did not dispute or question, and what they would expect to see in a Messiah? Let’s take a look at the priests’ three guesses and show why they connected the Baptist with them.
His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness–so will he sprinkle many nations. (Isaiah 52:14-15)
We see a similar picture of the Messiah in Ezekiel 36:25-29:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness.
The Pharisees, who knew the Bible very well, were looking for a Messiah who would come sprinkling. If John the Baptist was preaching forgiveness of sins and sprinkling the people who came to him, perhaps this was the long-awaited Messiah.
John told them that he was not the Messiah, so they guessed that he must be someone else.
I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.
What would this messenger be doing? We see that in Malachi 3:2-3:
Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
By what means are the Levites purified? We see that in Numbers 8:6-7.
Take the Levites from among the other Isrealites and make them ceremonially clean. To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them.
Elijah would come sprinkling as well.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.
Like who? Like Moses. What connection did John’s interrogators see between the John the Baptist and Moses?
You can’t read far into the story of Moses’ priestly ministry without encountering him sprinkling something, including people. Perhaps the most significant description is from Exodus 24:8.
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
Do you recognize those words? They are repeated by Jesus at the last supper as he prepares to shed his blood to sprinkle the nations (Mark 14:24). Just like Moses and the prophet. Just like Elijah. And like the Messiah was about to do.
John the Baptist came sprinkling, which was the activity that alerted the most Bible-literate people in the land that something important was afoot.
How dare you?
This second question is asked of Jesus after he cleaned out the temple from the money changers. Here’s the exchange:
They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?”
Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or from men? Tell me!”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men’….” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
What is at stake here is Jesus’ authority as a priest to regulate activities in the temple. If he wasn’t a priest, he had no right to clean it out and call it his own house. If he was a priest, he did have that authority.
Why did Jesus turn that question to John’s baptism? Because that’s what sealed Jesus’ status as a priest. If John’s baptism was valid, he had the authority; if it wasn’t, he didn’t have authority.
So, then, how were priests to be baptized? The instructions for the Levites in Numbers 8 cited earlier describe this, and we see another priestly ordination in Exodus 29.
Take the annointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head. (Exodus 29:7)
Take some of the blood on the altar and some of the annointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. Then he and his sons and their garments will be consecrated. (Exodus 29:21)
Priests also had to be at least 30 before they could be ordained (see Numbers 4:46-47). It’s no accident that Jesus’ ministry began when he was 30, as Luke specifically points out for us in Luke 3:23, immediately after describing Jesus’ baptism.
Understanding Jesus’ baptism as an ordination rite also helps us understand John’s initial reluctance to baptize Jesus and his eventual acquiescence.
John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
Then John consented.
John, who was a priest himself (by inheritance through his father), understood what Jesus meant by “fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus, who is described as a priest (Hebrews 5:4-6), needed to perfectly obey the law, including the Levitical law for ordination. Sprinkling was the lawful mode of priestly ordination.
This is why this last step (baptism represented the fulfillment of the law) is what triggers God’s public declaration of Jesus as Messiah and the beginning of his priestly ministry.
Jesus’ baptism by sprinkling is also necessary to have him properly fulfill the title of Messiah, which means annointed one. John anoints him with water, and he is revealed as the Messiah.
(I anticipate at least one more post on this topic, so in the next one I’ll deal with objections, including the reference to coming up out of the water and the Greek definition of baptizo. If you have any other objections or counterpoints, leave them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them in the next post.)
Perry Noble puts his critics on the couch for some psychoanalysis this morning.
He starts from the admirably humble position of assuring us that if someone doesn’t like him, it’s because they’re jealous of him.
If that bombshell doesn’t seal the argument for you, he adds this:
Why do “Christians” hate people who don’t believe just like them? (The reformed guys are usually the worse…and, being pretty much reformed in my theology I believe I can say that with integrity!) We all have different beliefs…but I would say if we could claim the Nicean Creed as our common ground…we should be mature enough to work through the rest.
Now, I’m not sure if he’s saying that because he’s reformed, he has a hate problem himself. He might be, because it does help to explain this characterization from just a few weeks ago:
We don’t fight battles with people that claim to be Christian but don’t like us. [emphasis added]
So, people who don’t like Perry are just jealous pagans. Hateful? Surely not.
As for working through differences, I also like Perry’s mature approach from a few weeks ago:
We don’t fight battles with bloggers. We don’t read the stuff, we don’t go on and comment, we don’t do that stuff.
Plugging your ears and shouting “I don’t hear you, I don’t hear you” counts as working things through?
It must be nice to live in a world like that.
To show that I can do bad football analogies as well as anyone, I have been wondering lately what would happen if advocates of multisite churches applied their thinking to football.
From what we’re told about multisites and online churches…
If that logic is good enough for worship, shouldn’t it be good enough for football, which we’re told isn’t nearly as important?
Besides #4, no-one believes that this is the case. Going to a game is such a different experience than watching on TV that we’ll pay lots of money for the opportunity to do it. It’s not surprising, therefore, that we so often find Perry Noble on the sidelines at Clemson football games, and his leaders in the stands (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
These guys obviously don’t believe that watching at home is as good as being there.
Except when it comes to church.
A month or so ago, Perry Noble and Steven Furtick baptized almost 1,000 people between them in a remarkable day when they sprung the opportunity on people who had come to church with no knowledge of what they’d end up being asked to do.
As I showed you back then, Noble spent just a few minutes actually talking about what baptism meant. The message boiled down to something like, “Go public for Jesus. Get dunked.”
Is baptism really a wet public relations exercise? If it’s all about going public, why would Jesus ask us to do it in church, or in pools set up behind a church? An announcement on Facebook or Craig’s List would be a much more effective way of telling the world of our devotion to Christ. If it’s about going public, Philip did it all wrong when he baptized the Ethiopian eunuch on the side of a desert road (Acts 8:26-40).
Although baptism is a public sacrament, telling the world about the state of our heart is not its purpose. By putting ourselves at the center of the sacrament, we invert its real meaning and function.
Baptism has three purposes.
If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Verses 19-21 in the same chapter describe Moses’ washing the people and vessels of worship with blood to cleanse them before God.
Jesus’ blood becomes a once-for-all substitution of the blood of goats and bulls and washes us from our sinful filthiness. The reason that John prepared the way for Jesus by baptism was to introduce Jesus as the ultimate baptizer. Note John’s first words of identification: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Lamb’s blood cleans us from our sin. Jesus baptizes us.
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him though baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live in new life.
If you re-read that passage and substitute united in place of baptism, Paul’s argument does not change.
In fact, Paul does use that word in the very next verse to extend the argument.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. (Romans 6:5)
We see this sense of unification through baptism in Acts 8:14-17.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Again, substitute united for baptized and the meaning of what is going on here becomes clear. Not only are we united with Christ through baptism; we are also united to the Holy Spirit.
[God] saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
God give us his grace, Jesus offers his purifying blood, and the Holy Spirit washes us from our sin.
This Holy Spirit baptism is seen clearly for the first time in Acts 2, though Peter explains that Joel predicted it.
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. (Acts 2:17)
It is no coincidence that we also see the Holy Spirit as a participant in Jesus’ own baptism.
John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’” (John 1:32-33)
Baptism is a profoundly beautiful and simple sacrament that tells the story of God’s grace to us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and cleansed us from our sin, making us right with God.
That means that baptism is a sign of something that God does to us, not something we do for God.
Just as the symbols of the Eucharist match the reality of their referents, we might expect that the mode of baptism will match the spiritual reality of what it represents.
But that’s a topic for another day.
Perry Noble last week:
My prayer for this series is that singles will view being single NOT as a sickness, but rather as a season that needs to be embraced in order to learn all that God desires to teach them.
Perry Noble this week:
We started to hand two marbles out to every single dude who attended NewSpring today…because that is the only “set” they would have!!! Dude…if you are single…MAN UP and pursue a woman instead of a video game!
The lesson? Singleness isn’t a disease; it’s a deformity.
Pastor Steven Furtick » Blog Archive » Married Guys Listen Up.
In this video from IMPART, Steven Furtick is joined on stage by special guest Perry Noble. The first thing that hit me after watching this video is that someone paid $700 to watch these guys sit around and talk. Apparently, being able to draw a large crowd to a church service makes you an expert on all things. For instance, from the video, here’s Noble on marriage:
The problem with some pastors marriages is you want your wife to understand you and she don’t. She loves you. She married you. She will never understand you.
Maybe this is true in some cases, but Perry doesn’t strike me as a particularly complex guy. I mean, here’s what he says just a couple seconds later:
We’re men. If it doesn’t have anything to do with sex we forget it.
Luckily for us, Perry doesn’t stop there. He continues to impart his valued wisdom. On women:
Two guys can get in a fight and five minutes later we can go to lunch and be best friends again. Two women get in a fight, they’re not even gonna talk in Heaven.
Man. I wish I had known that women were incapable of forgiveness and grace before I got married. Oddly though, In the past twelve years, I’ve found my wife to be the most forgiving person I’ve ever met. I guess if Pastor P is right, she’ll show her true womanly vengeful side soon enough.
Now, that wisdom alone would have been worth at least $700 to me, but believe or not, Perry shares more. On parenting:
(To an older pastor) How did you raise a little girl that doesn’t hate church? He said this, I wrote this down. He said, “I never talked negatively about the church in front of my little girl.”
That’s good. I do wonder if the opposite is true. Should Perry talk negative about his little girl in front of the Church? I mean, it does seem that every time she has a bathroom accident, he tweets it.
Now, I know that more was discussed at Impart, and I hope that there are subjects where Steven and Perry are more adept, but with Unleash coming up soon, Impart just finished, and who know what else after that, I just don’t understand the draw. What do you think these guys will say that is worth paying to hear? I think it all comes down to the large crowds and hoping some of that success will rub off. The critics are always accused of jealousy, but I think you have to be pretty envious of someone to pay $700 just to hear their secrets.
It’s kind of like dieting, I suppose. We all know how to lose weight: Eat less, exercise more. Yet millions of books and videos are sold each year that in some form or another tell people just that. We keep buying these products hoping that there will be some magic combination that will allow us to wake up and be the person we want to be… with little or no effort. My guess is that is the motivation for a large group of people that keep going to these conferences. Ok, I’ve read my Bible. I know what the Church is, and what it should be…but maybe, if I go to this one more conference, I’ll hear the secret that will bring me 10,000 members overnight.
Let me save you some money: It’s not gonna happen. Even if you follow Furtick’s advice point by point and do everything exactly the way he did it, your odds of getting similar results are almost non-existent. I think even he would tell you that, though if you really believed it, he would lose money.
Read the Bible.
Do what it says.
Be faithful.
Don’t measure success on a worldy scale.
Make all checks payable to James Downing.
Gary Lamb unloaded on his former friends in a remarkable post on Saturday where he tells what he has learned in the “real world” the last few months. Some excepts:
I had some of the fakest friendships in the world. People I thought were my best friends I haven’t spoken to once since I had an affair.
One of his former best friends, Perry Noble, didn’t appreciate the attention, and fired back with a pointed tweet.
Hate to see people play the victim when the people they blew apart with their choices are actually the real victims!!!
Noble’s relationship with Lamb must have, in Furtick’s words, outgrown its season.
Criticism makes me better. I had shielded myself from criticism to the point that I couldn’t see my flaws.
Lamb is warning against the kind of insulation married with vengeance directed at dissent practiced by his pals.
Men are pigs. I was the king of sexual jokes, second looks, and inappropriate thoughts (yes as a pastor and you’d probably be shocked at some of your current pastors in this area) but this is one of the areas I have been getting the most help to overcome. As I overcome it, I am left speechless at how little respect men have for women.
We saw this back in June, though you’d imagine this kind of talk might make a few of his former associates a little nervous. Noble seemed annoyed in this twitter response.
Being “real” means loving your wife like Christ loved the church…being FAITHFUL to her no matter what!
Lamb also talked about what happened at his former church.
Revolution Failed. That is not a knock on Revolution, the people or the staff, it is a knock on me. Big freaking deal that we ran the numbers we ran. The fact is the people in Canton aren’t going to church, want nothing to do with the things of God, and are searching for answers. They could care less how cool the show was every week.
No scoreboard argument here. Lamb also sees now that his church really was all about him. When he failed, his church failed. This is an encouraging insight.
People HATE the church. Wow! Again, I knew the church was a sore subject for people but I had no idea how deep the feelings ran. People hate churches and to be honest, I can’t blame them.
This is discouraging, though, and suggests that Lamb needs to wait much longer before making his planned move back into ministry. The people he meets quite likely do hate the church–something that Lamb himself might bear some responsibility for–, though Jesus does love his church. If we love Jesus, we’ll love his church. Although Lamb has learned a great deal about the failure of his own ministry (beyond his moral failings), one senses that his next church will be even more anti-Christian than his first one.
I worked less than the people I pastored. Ministry was my job yet I asked our people to serve, volunteer, etc. AFTER they have worked 50-60 hour work weeks.
Noble and Furtick typically reject quiet discipleship and learning for activity. Church members need to be proving their devotion to the church by doing stuff for the church. Beyond the question of whether that is really discipleship, Lamb’s pastor friends might evaluate his insight into the long-term sustainability of the you’re-in-the-army-now treatment that church members often experience.
Noble compounds his slippery personal revelation problem with this weekend tweet:
Being filled with vision doesn’t always mean that God is inspiring us…but rather that He’s disturbing us!
Two quick points.
For a some background on the problem of senior pastors leading churches through their visions from God check these posts.
Steven Furtick released this highlight of his recent Impart conference where he downloads his wisdom to pastors and church staffers.
Pajama Pages is happy to provide a translation for you:
I’ve just made a decision in my life that no one human being will take the seat of the throne of lordship in my life, and not one person (and this doesn’t apply to my wife and my kid, because obviously you know that’s a different category) in my life is going to keep me from going to the places that God wants to take me.
Translation: God only wants to take me to really, really neat places. Job is so Old Testament.
You have no idea the relational cost that has to be paid (some of you do, because you’ve paid it) before your ministry can truly grow. And a lot of you have no idea what it feels like to be loved by everyone, but to be known by no-one.
People might not love you, but they sure do love me.
It’s really weird. People come up to me in the restaurant and they’re, like, “Hey, I see you guys are on date night. How did you like the Clemson game Saturday night? I saw you Tweet about that.” And it’s a little freaky; they really know me. And I don’t know them, and I’m trying to have dinner. And usually people are really polite, but still it’s really kind of freaky when you’re, like, “Man, you really know a lot about me,” and I guess I put it all out there, but it’s kind of weird.
I’m really famous, though sometimes I have to talk to little people whom I don’t know.
And what’s more painful than that…
Now think about Jesus. He’s actually invested in these guys and is about to die for them, and they’re sleeping on him. Now think about the relational pain of investing in someone at that level, and then–you know what he says–the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. And it broke Jesus’ heart.
Jesus should have fired that sorry bunch of losers. I would have.
And the single greatest thing standing between some of you and the level God wants to take you to–the stratosphere he wants to propel you into in your leadership–is your unwillingness to confront one relationship in your life.
I’m already in the stratosphere, so the relationship you need to confront is definitely not with me.
I wish I could take your cellphone right now and start asking you questions.
As you know, I don’t do real good talking to anonymous little people like you, but I’m pretty good with cell phones and Twitter.
Some of you have lazy staff members that you’re keeping in positions that they suck at in the name of loving them. You’re not doing that because you love them; you’re doing that because you love the comfort of the relationship you have with them more than you actually love them.
I still have no idea why Jesus kept Peter around. Evangelist, rock. Huh?
I’m not expecting amens in this session. I’m expecting blank stares.
Especially from you suckers who thought it would be a good idea to bring your senior pastor with you today. Go home and start working on your resumes tonight.
I’m preaching so you’ll delete later, not so you’ll say amen now.
Wow, did I mean to say delete? How did some good advice make it into this sermon? Reset.
I’m preaching so you will be empowered. Look, I’m not talking about being cold and being harsh. If you had any idea how much pain we go through to make sure that if someone ever leaves this ministry we take care of them, and we bless them, and we send them. But the most painful things in my leadership life have not been from critics I didn’t know, but from relationships that outgrew their season and I had to let them go.
I’ve fired so many people I can hardly stand it. Don’t you feel sorry for me?
Here’s what I want to prophetically say to some of you who are mourning over a relationship that God has rejected in your life…
When you have to have to destroy a friend’s career, tell them that God made you do it.
1 Samuel 16:1, God confronts Samuel the prophet who was in mourning over Saul, who wasn’t going to make it as the king. “How long will you mourn over what God has rejected?” How long will you mourn over relationships that God was done with three years ago? How long are you going to keep trying to make it work?
I’m the prophet now, so you shouldn’t read anything into the fact that God solved this problem by having the leader fall on his sword. Absolutely no application there.
Would this be a good time to break for lunch?
This weekend, I heard an incredible sermon on the Prodigal Son. This sermon further strengthened my belief that God’s Word is living, because despite the fact that I’ve heard this story a thousand times, I saw it in a new way. I want to specifically look at one small section of the story. I don’t think I’m guilty of reading more into this than is intended:
Luke 15: 25-30
25“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
The older son skipped the opportunity to celebrate the return of his younger brother. He was upset that the father had chosen to bless the younger son. It was unfair. The younger son didn’t deserve it at all. He had wasted his inheritance on foolish living and prostitutes, yet the father was overjoyed to see his youngest son. He even ran out to greet him, and kissed him, and had him clothed in the finest robe.
The father in this story, showed a great act of grace and mercy. Out of the goodness of his heart, he decided to pour out extravagant blessings upon a very unworthy recipient. The older son didn’t understand. He just didn’t “get it”.
For the last couple of days, I’ve been questioning my own motives. I must admit, that on the surface I bare a striking resemblance to the older brother. I can see where an outsider would make that connection. After all, churches like Elevation and Newspring are being blessed. I think (despite the conferences and such) even they would admit that they are wildly unworthy. It appears that I am unhappy about it. Older brother syndrome. I see that.
Something else I’ll admit: I am wholly unworthy of the Father’s blessings as well. While I am pretty strong on theology and doctrine, I am pretty weak on sharing the Gospel with the people I encounter in my daily existence. Sure, sometimes they notice that I don’t cuss much, or that I try not to gossip. If they ask why, I might hint towards my belief in Christ, but in general, I live as if we have forever. We don’t. We are not even promised today. I know that many of my colleagues are completely lost in their sin…and I don’t care enough about their eternity in Hell to share the Gospel with them. I can give you a ton of excuses. I might even lose my job if I were to begin evangelizing co-workers. All that means is that I care more about my standard of living, than I care about the souls of the lost.
What does all this mean? Am I going to stop pointing out error where I see it? No. The stakes are too high. People are being led astray at an alarming rate, and I won’t be quiet. Some of the issues seem minuscule, but they have to be discussed. Deception starts with the small points. Overlooking even the tiniest venture from Scriptural truth will only lead to larger errors in the future.
What this does mean is that I have to rededicate myself to reaching the world with the Good News of Christ, starting right here in my office. My passion for purity of the Church has to be matched with a broken-heart for lost souls.
I won’t ignore error, and I won’t ignore the lost. I will try to join in the dance and celebration when Father decides to put His best robe on a younger brother.
As I’ve said before, the efforts to peel children away from their parents is one of the most troubling aspects of NewSpring’s youth ministry.
Pastor Cooper is at it again.
I love hearing about parents who get uncomfortable with the radical passion their student lives out… Exposure of complacency?? Hmm?
A complacent parent would be one who wouldn’t care what kind of spiritual guidance his or her child was receiving at church.
If Cooper is producing “radical” life change, every engaged parent should be concerned and uncomfortable. A parent who really cares might be quite worried about pastors who train young people to be more loyal to a church or pastor than to their parents.
Cooper is building a generation of rebellious, uncorrectable kids. When a father counsels his child about proper Christian behavior, Cooper’s given the child permission to punch back and tell the dad he’s being spiritually complacent.
I don’t know how that would make you feel, but, for me, it wouldn’t be complacent.
Perry Noble has revived an old post about why people criticize him. It’s an interesting list, but one that—to our great distress—totally nails PP.
Please understand this…most people do not have the guts to share their core convictions about what they believe. That is one of the things that bothers me the most about the “Christian” watchdog sites, they never spend any time developing their own ideas–nope–all they do is spend all of their time attacking others.
Please don’t look around what’s posted on PP, especially this past week. We have NO thoughts of our own.
I have seen people say things on websites and send things through fake e-mail addresses that they would never say to my face–ever. I once heard Rob Bell say, “The internet is a place for cowards,” and I have discovered that to be true.
This is why I steadfastly refuse to put my name on anything I write here.
Actually, after Noble’s confessing his temptation to respond violently against critics and his intriguing account of a staffer crossing the line against a critic of his, perhaps anonymous criticism is the safer course.
He continues:
It is VERY easy to lob accusations and point out problems when you are sitting in your underwear in your mothers basement behind a computer screen.
And I thought dress codes didn’t matter. Anyway, we prefer pajamas.
How does God speak to us and reveal his will? I’ve written about how preachers should talk about God’s revelation, so this will extend that to consider how we think and talk about how God speaks to us as laypeople.
Has God stopped speaking to us?
Just because God closed the book on his written revelation, does not mean that the book is dead. The question assumes that God has thought of more things to say in the past two thousand years. It also assumes that what he as said is at least a little bit worn out now.
God’s Word is eternal and imperishable. That means that it is as powerful and present as the day it was written. Our words do pass away (if we’re speaking, they die on our lips), are forgotten, and sometimes contradicted. God’s words are not.
One of the ironic aspects of liberal complaints against the sola scriptura position is that they say that we think God no longer speaks. To the contrary, we think that God continues to speak so powerfully and completely that he need not say anything else.
For example, one especially awful passage in The Shack is its characterization of seminaries.
In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper. (p. 65)
I would argue that seminaries exist because they do think that God’s Word is alive and a suitable object of focused study. The author of The Shack is the one who might more accurately be said to believe that God’s Word is dead, which is why he saw a need to write a new version of God for us.
Is God’s Word the foundation for personal revelation and guidance?
God’s Word should be a foundation for our faith in God, but it is not a foundation for additional words. We can use it as a measuring stick against which to measure words spoken by man. It cannot be a measuring stick for measuring additional words from God for two reasons.
First, we cannot bifurcate God’s words into any hierarchical system. New or old. Written or spoken. Perfect and pretty good. If God says something, it is always perfect, so cannot be inferior to anything else he’s ever said. If we are to say that God speaks something outside of the Bible, it would be blasphemy if we didn’t treat it as being as authoritative and permanent as the Bible.
Second, God has told us that he has finished his revelation. Revelation 22:18 warns us not to add anything to the Bible. Jesus tells us in Luke 16:17 that his Word is perfect down to the dot on an i. God’s revelation to us is also complete. God, who reveled himself to us through his Word, describes himself in Revelation 21:6 in literary terms—he is the Alpha and Omega, the A to Z, the whole story.
God’s Word is complete, perfect and unalterable. He need not add anything to it.
Does God speak to us when we ask for wisdom and guidance?
God has given us his Word, which is sufficient for both wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-7) and guidance (Psalm 119:105). Wait, you say, Psalm 119 doesn’t tell me whether I should marry Betty or Sally, or whether I should take the job in Iowa or Texas. How can I know what God wants me to do?
Pray that the Holy Spirit would give you wisdom, which we assume you’ve been developing through studying God’s written Word.
If you ask God to “tell you” what you should do, how do you know when you’ve received your answer? How do you distinguish between the effects of God whispering to you, caffeine, last night’s pizza, or Satan? How can you be certain that your deceptive heart is properly recognizing the speaker?
You can’t be sure. As 2 Peter 1:19 tells us, God’s Word is certain. If you can’t be certain, it’s not God speaking.
(I’m not including in this discussion some other ways God speaks to us, which would include general revelation, our conscience, and preaching. To keep the discussion reasonably simple, I’m just thinking about gut feelings or meditative states that tend to be translated into “God told me…” moments.)
How do we speak of God’s guidance?
First, don’t preface statements by telling us that God told you something. He probably didn’t, but you also put him on the hook for all kinds of nonsense.
Second, take ownership for your own thinking and planning, and treat God’s Word as sufficient for developing and sanctifying your wisdom and decision making.
Instead of saying, “God told me to be a missionary to India,” say, “God told us to go into all the world, so, based on my love for India and its culture, I think that the best way for me to serve him is to be a missionary to India.”
Instead of saying, “God told me to be an electrician,” say, “God told us that we should work to support ourselves and our families, so, based on my personal aptitudes and interests, I think that the best way to serve God through work is to pursue a career as an electrician.”
You honor God by submitting your desires to his Word, yet you don’t risk dishonoring his name should you or your plans fail.
Anyway, that’s what I think. You’ll need to ask God to tell you what he thinks.
I like what Furtick has to say on his blog today. I have often questioned the motives of mega-church pastors, and it’s good to know that Steven is beginning to question his motives as well. Here’s a little snippet:
And my friend felt like the Lord responded to him with a challenging thought:
“What if I do everything you’re asking me to do in your city, but I do it through someone else’s ministry? Would you still pray as passionately? Would you be okay with that?”
That’s a good thought for any of us involved in ministry. Steven admits that he is not to that point yet, and that he’s not even sure he’s ready to work on it, which is a good start:
I’m not sure I’m entirely ready to wrestle with my own motivations at that level. This is pretty advanced stuff. But ultimately, I’d like to get to a place where my heart rejoices with the same intensity because another church in town baptized 100 people as it does when Elevation baptizes 100 people.
I’m not there yet.
Maybe it’s time for some of these guys to really examine where their audience is coming from, and why they are showing up. I know the programmed response is that it doesn’t matter as long as they are hearing the Gospel, but if Furtick is concerned about the Universal Body of Christ, like this post implies, then it does matter.
Maybe instead of throwing up another video campus, or promoting your online service so much, you could partner (rather than compete) with an established church in that area. Maybe there will come a time when Elevation will be struggling like some of the older churches are now. Will a newer, shinier church swoop in to pick from their remains, or will the new church lend a hand to an older brother in need?
Here’s hoping that Furtick continues digging into this thought…and acts accordingly.