Posted on 11/23/2010 12:14:36 AM PST by Cronos
. . . digest it and APPLY IT.
More than quoting, the better bring it alive.
As my AoG teen pastor said—gotta get the hay down outta the loft where the cows can eat and digest it.
I do deplore the UnBiblical stuff in it so much I won’t offer it on the used book table at church. However, at the time I read it, I treated it as a novel and chose to focus on the aspect of emphasizing God’s Love. There’s nothing unBiblical about God’s Love.
It’s the whole story.
Thanks for your kind reply.
The best of Thanksgiving to you and yours.
May all your loved ones benefit from your insights and alerts this season with open minds and hearts.
INDEED.
EXACTLY.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
Penguin pics:
http://www.webshots.com/pro/category/travel-antarctica?vhost=www&path=%2Ftravel-antarctica&page=1
Might have to be a subscriber to download, however. I think they are professionial pics.
Thanks to Joya for the link.
ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH! on this wet dreary day. But we need the rain!
Last night I picked up my copy of the GENEVA BIBLE. It uses the term “foreign” tongues and the running commentary says these were languages spoken by foreigners who needed a translator.
Think of a person speaking to the Greek audience in Hebrew or Aramaic might as well speak to the air as no one could understand a word he said. Strongs 1100 says it can mean learned language or speaking a language unaquired.
Where Paul mentioned speaking in the language of men and Angels Geneva says that LOVE was the theme and Paul was reinterating that languages without love were useless, even if it were an Angelic language. It is not as if he really spoke in angelic tongues (The Geneva translator's comment, not mine.)
Now back to the KJV.
As for Paul's word “When that which is perfect is come...” has nothing to do with Christ but has a meaning of the believer moving onward toward Christian MATURITY (See Strong's 5046), growth in mental and moral character, full of age. This is why this whole passage has references to growing up and leaving childish things behind.
What other things could it mean?
Some see the organized formation of the church as that which was working toward organization or completeness, others see the Scriptures which were not all written at that time for our instruction. When those things came to completeness then there was no need for partial things.
The same theme is repeated when Paul writes to the Galatians where the LAW was our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, but now that we are there we no longer need a schoolmaster.
As for the early Methodists and Quakers, a better explanation than “tongues” would be what happened when Jonathan Edwards delivered his message, SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD, in calm easy to understand language to his congregation. No raving, speaking in gibberish, no wild eyed working up the audience, no foaming at the mouth.
The people were convicted of their sins! They knelt in the floor begging God for forgiveness! They quaked in fear of God's retribution! They did not start speaking in “tongues”.
Those old Methodist Brush Arbors shook not with people “in the spirit”, but people trembling and shaking because of their sins.
Must go for a while. Got to peel Potato(e)s.
Interesting insights. Thanks.
Pentecostal scholars discern and document things differently and convincingly, to me.
Regardless, have a blessed thanksgiving.
Dear Dear Cronos,
I feel constrained, pressed in my spirit to add . . .
As Scripture notes . . .
God’s ways are higher than our ways.
God ranks things differently.
Even when we think we are applying God’s Biblical rankings in Biblical, logical ways . . . we still miss it.
We miss it because we are finite.
We miss it because we are NOT God.
We miss it because we are mortal.
We miss it because we see such a microscopically tiny portion of the whole.
We miss it because we are flawed, egotistical, proud, stubborn, selfish, prissy, focused on our ‘IN-GROUP’ stuff, brittle, . . . human.
We can’t help but miss it even when we do our best to be Biblical, Spirit-filled, led of Him, kosher, righteous.
We can’t manage that—certainly in our own strength.
We do poorly at best even flowing our best in The Dance with Him.
I think there’s a major lesson in that. As Christ noted . . . we are NOTHING apart FROM HIM.
As Peter demonstrated in his denial . . . we can be flowing along with God and His priorities and The Dance one moment and abjectly in satan’s camp the next.
God demonstrated throughout Scripture His habit of slicing diagonally across all human sensibilities and perspectives—even those HE, GOD, had cultivated.
He has a habit of demolishing ALL our tidy little boxes because
HE’S BIGGER THAN ALL THAT—ALL THAT—BIGGER, MUCH BIGGER THAN EVERY LAST EVEN MASSIVE COLLECTION OF TIDY LITTLE BOXES.
Along the way there are mysteries . . . sometimes seemingly mutually exclusive mysteries—though there’s nothing mutually exclusive from HIS ALL KNOWING, TIMELESS, HEAVENLY perspective.
That’s one reason I TRY to extend grace in the face of startlingly different Christian perspectives and seemingly mutually exclusive contradictions.
Of course, logic is useful and often vital. Yet, our finite logic is still NOT HIS LOGIC.
I think one example is the Biblical evidence for two mutually exclusive concepts from our finite perspective—free will and predestination. Both are evident in Scripture. Our finiteness has no solution. Folks in their rush to be linearly logical cleave to one or the other and pretend the other side is all wrong.
No. The Bible is on both sides. I choose to stand with Scripture and wait for God to sort out the seeming mutually exlusive aspects IN HIS TIME, IN HIS WAYS.
In terms of the Pentecostal stuff . . . most of the naysayers have never experienced anything close to the more dramatic experiences a huge percentage of Pentecostals have. Given those experiences, MOST such Pentecostals couldn’t imagine going back to a frozen chosen mentality or Christian life.
And, I think it’s somewhat like the healing thing. Many congregations are convinced such ended when John finished Revelation. Not surprisingly such congregations don’t experience many healings. I’m not sure why they even pray for their sick loved ones.
On the other hand, in Pentecostal congregations, not everyone is healed—yet—that day will come. However, when they approach God expecting and believing He will honor His word accordingly . . . on occasion, HE DOES JUST THAT.
He doesn’t shove healings down the throats and prissy theologies of the frozen chosen groups. He’s also not an automatic vending machine in the Pentecostal circles.
Therefore what?
Humility is in order. He honors humility a lot.
And He absolutely requires the freedom to be God and do things HIS WAY, IN HIS TIMING, AND HIS CHOICE OF CONTEXTS AND CONTINGENCIES.
Emphatic assumptions and presumptions are hazardous regardless of the theological/denominational label folks put on them or that they arise out of.
Bless you this Thanksgiving.
The only reliable conservative congregations I’ve seen here in Nashville are:
Pentecost
Primitive Baptist
Tennessee and Texas branch Church of Christ...not UCC
Some Southern Baptist
Some Presbyterian (PCA)
don’t know if we have Lutheran MO Synod here
that’s about it so I say go for it
Thanks very much.
For those sola scriptura buffs, you might want to read Romans 14, especially verse 23.
Cheers!
14 Then David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod.
15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet.
16 Now as the ark of the LORD came into the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.
17 So they brought the ark of the LORD, and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. 18 And when David had finished offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts.
19 Then he distributed among all the people, among the whole multitude of Israel, both the women and the men, to everyone a loaf of bread, a piece of meat, and a cake of raisins. So all the people departed, everyone to his house.
20 Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!”
21 So David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the LORD. 22 And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor.”
23 Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death. Footnotes:
When the word of God isn't preached, the flock is not fed. they can dance all they want to, but they get bumpkis. Same with black churches like Rev Wright's, a lot of yelling and jumping up and down, everybody gets an adrenaline rush and some exercise, full of the sound and the fury, and signifying nothing
lol, reminds me of that girl that chased Paul around.She was in the spirit too, he said she had a demon
In services, they sit quietly and when one feels that the Spirit has led him, or her, to speak, they would get up and do so.
A few "spoke a word from the Lord", ie, Scripture, but then the other stuff would start.
long ramblings about oh I don't know, love and butterflies, and cookies, and kittens, it was ok, but on and on, no one ever makes them stop.
Later I talked to one of the women who did seem more grounded and she said that a year or two before, they had to shut it all down-- people were getting up and jumping around and confessing and accusing others, and pretty much using the church as some sort of psychological therapy, so they halted everything and started over.
well I had seen enough--but I just wonder what goes on in these places where no one brings a halt to it.
This is not the Spirit of God, because the HS edifies and builds up, He does not cause chaos and divide churches.
YUP, Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin.
—Rom 14:23
Challenging verse, that one.
Cheers!
Interesting. No good So Baps there?
well dont claim that David undressed and acted like a boor like Michal claimed, for that is incorrect. David chose to dispense with the pomp and circumstance, yet in the fear of the Lord he had things done properly. Wearing the ephod, blessing the people and then *feeding them* he acted as the priest that day, not as a king.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.