Posted on 08/21/2006 5:51:49 PM PDT by Bob J
From a soulish perspective, ie that of a nonChristian, your stance is very reasonable.
The significance of study under a person with the gift of pastor-teacher is not one of enthusiasm or emotion or knowledge or human work. Instead, one must be born of the spirit. This is an entirely new species from what is known to all of us from birth. This new species is purely a gift of God to man and is available simply through faith in Christ, and God does all the regeneration of our spirit.
Once regenerated, a continuous process of sanctification is available to the believer, but if that believer sins, either knowingly or unknowingly, the process is interrupted, until the believer returns to God by faith again on His grounds.
That returning is referred to as repentence and confession of sin. IMHO, too much religion and ceremony and emotion is frequently associated with repentence and confession, yet they really have nothing to do with returning into fellowship with God,..it is simply an issue of faith, a faith that is manifest coincident with simply turning away from sin (repentance) and communicating to God our cognition of our disobedience to His will but placing faith in Christ that the payment for that sn was accomplished millenia ago on the Cross.
Now here is where the issue gets important. As a believer continues to grow in Christ, the Holy Spirit further grows our soul and spirit. There is significant spiritual aspects to our walk with God. Too many people confuse morality with salvation and religion with morality.
A Pastor-Teacher is a person who has been given a particular spiritual gift amongst all believers to communicate and teach the Scripture to believers. Another communication gift from the Holy Spirit is the gift of evangelism. (Not to be confused with colloquial 'evangelical movement' activism, that is simply a worldly emotional expression of religious topics.) Evangelism is a spiritual gift where the speaker has a type of charisma (grace in Greek) which tends to hold the attention of an unbeliever, or one who has never really understood the Gospel, and communicates that with him. Some people not only have soulish gifts or talents, but an actual spiritual gift that heavily promotes a communication of the Gospel to unbelievers.
The importance of a pastor having that actual gift, is that those who study Scripture under such a pastor, are doing so to further their growth in body, soul and spirit.
If a person leads as a pastor without that goft, they might be very well educated, learned, studious, dedicated, emotional, hard-working, but either one is gifted in the spirit with that gift or they are not. It is a gift by grace from God, not an effort of the Pastor-teacher that enables the pastor to teach and properly lead his flock to the Lord and promote spiritual growth purely at the work of the Holy Spirit.
As a sidenote, doctrine is a form of faith. In the Greek, it actually is the same word used in different contexts.
In order for our faith to be significant or usable by God, it must be identical to the good He provides. When we exercise faith that is identical to the faith Christ Jesus exercised, we are guaranteed that the Lord will recognize that faith as righteous because it is identical to that of our Lord and Savior's Christ Jesus'.
If denominations differ on faith, the significant issue is that their faith remain identical to that of our Lord, Christ Jesus. In this fashion, their faith, hence doctrine does not waver from His.
So in many cases, we judge not lest we be judged, but then again, if we stand in righteousness, there is nothing wrong with that judgment and discernment so that we might not become lukewarm in our life.
Agreed, but you have not been spoken to by any spirit holy or counterfiet
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My Father in Heaven, Thank you so infinitely that the above is so utterly false.
Thank you that you speak to me in so many ways--sometimes even when it seems you are most silent, I can look back and see that you were speaking to me even then.
Thank you that Christ died that we might have fellowship intimattely--intimate dialogue with you yet again.
Thank you for your Spirit Who leads us into all truth.
Thank you for the enlivening and deepening of our relationshiop by your Spirit in daily dialogue.
Thank you that naysayers haven't a wisp of a fog evaporating in a midday sun's worth of substance against the truth of your dialogue and eagerness to dialogue with those who Love you.
Thank you, Father, for being You and drawing those who Love you close to yourself by your Son's Blood and Spirit.
Amen.
I quite agree.
I think I've been in 2-4 services in 60 years where it's happened so out of the blue, so spontaneously led of Holy Spirit that it was just LITERALLY HEAVENLY, ANGELIC, SOOOO SUPERNATURAL. We all felt we'd been transported Heavenword during those precious miraculously melodic moments.
Yes, I've been in places where raspy off tune heart felt worship brought me to tears, too.
Reminds me of the old story of the monks in the high mountain monestary.
They sang nightly. That is, they made a joyful noise. One evening a traveling musician came and the monks prevailed upon him to lead the worship with his special gifts and skills. Later a pair of angels visited the abbot and asked why there was no singing that evening. Only the prior heartfelt worship of the unmelodious monks had been 'heard' at Heaven's level in some key sense.
Some people have the gift of helps. Some men act as handymen about the facilities. That work is no less a work before the Lord when performed through faith in Him. On the other hand, if a person performs the work to be recognized as being 'holy' amongst his peers and seniors, then he has already received his reward here on earth in a worldly fashion.
Every believer has a gift from the Holy Spirit. not all believers experience that gift nor may even be cognizant of their gift. One important aspect in walking in fellowship with God is so we might be at the right time and place to perform the work He has predestined in logistics, time and place for us to accomplish through faith in Him so that we might be eligible to recieve the reward He has prepared for us from eternity past to recieve from the Lord in Heaven upon the bema seat review.
There is nothing at all derogatory in a believer working through faith in Christ with the spiritual gift God has given them.
This doesn't mean one is bigoted about women, where the spiritual gift given is not the gift of Pastor-Teacher, any more than most pastor-teachers should have absolutely nothing to do with their church's finances. There are spiritual gifts given to different people in the Church. One significant role of the Pastor-Teacher is to recognize and discern those gifts and direct/utilize/ employ them accordingly through faith in Christ.
Do you believe a man is less deserving if the Lord doesn't allow him to give physical birth to children out of his body?
Why would one consider a woman less deserving if He doesn't give her a particular type of gift over another?
I suspect He has a pretty good plan of exactly what gift to give and to whom he gives it in the accomplishment of His plan.
I find it better to thank Him for the gifts He provides and gives to the believer, rather than try to find fault with why He might not give one type of gift to some people.
cannot provide one single quote or instruction.
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Not true at all. There's a wealth of things one could offer.
Some things are just not fitting.
God reserves a lot of things a lot of the time for a fitting attitude . . . amongst other things.
But, I'm sure most naysayers are exceedingly comforted by their presumed perfect correctness--for the time being, that is. We shall see what God's ultimate perspective is on their naysaying. LOL.
me that will do the judging
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Oh, dear . . . guess I've read so many sentences incorrectly in tone, word content, attitude, sentence structure. Oh my.
A huge percentage of Holy Spirit's commentary and dialogue with me consists of Scripture phrases and passages. Those are abundantly available in many translations.
The rest are private enough to keep that way . . . especially from certain attitudes. But it's far from due to inadequacy or lack of abundance--as God and others know.
It's quite abundantly clear that all the best and wisest most anointed words would fail to communicate to some hearers. Evidently that's why Holy Spirit often bids us be silent.
Trying to impugn the witness of a fellow Christian's experience with God's Holy Spirit, you asked of Quix, "What else needs to be written to man in an effort to save humanity from damnation?" I don't believe that is being asserted by Quix regarding his experience with The Spirit. When Paul wrote of the gifts of the Spirit, he didn't offer the instruction to complete a plan for salvation, but you knew that so why try to raise a strawman argument?
A certain cheeky attitude wears thin quickly as well.
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