Posted on 05/04/2005 10:53:04 AM PDT by Quix
"CHRISTIANITY EXPLODING Worldwide"
"THIRD WORLD sending MISSIONARIES"
[from 'WorldNetDaily'- http://www.worldnetdaily.com ]
Christianity taking over planet?
New book makes case it's fastest growing faith on Earth.
[-April 28, 2005 © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com ]
What is the fastest-growing religion on Earth?
Most news reports suggest it is Islam.
But a new book makes a compelling case it is a new, or, perhaps, old form of biblically inspired evangelical Christianity that is sweeping through places like China, Africa, India and Southeast Asia.
In "Megashift," author Jim Rutz coins a new phrase to define this fast-growing segment of the population. He calls them "core apostolics" - or "the new saints who are at the heart of the mushrooming kingdom of God."
Rutz makes the point that Christianity is overlooked as the fastest-growing faith in the world because most surveys look at the traditional Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church while ignoring Christian believers who have no part of either.
He says there are 707 million "switched-on disciples" who fit into this new category and that this "church" is exploding in growth.
"The growing core of Christianity crosses theological lines and includes 707 million born-again people who are increasing by 8 percent a year," he says.
So fast is this group growing that, under current trends, according to Rutz, the entire world will be composed of such believers by the year 2032.
"There will be pockets of resistance and unforeseen breakthroughs," writes Rutz. "Still, at the rate we're growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more Christians than people by the autumn of 2032, about 8.2 billion."
According to the author, until 1960, Western evangelicals out-numbered non-Western evangelicals - mostly Latinos, blacks and Asians - by two to one. As of 2000, non-Western evangelicals outnumbered Westerners by four to one. He says by 2010, the ratio will be seven to one.
"There are now more missionaries sent from non-Western nations than Western nations," he writes.
This trend, says Rutz, has been missed by Westerners because the explosive growth is elsewhere.
Hundreds of millions of these Christians are simply not associated with the institutional churches at all. They meet in homes. They meet underground. They meet in caves. They meet, he says, in secret.
And what is driving this movement?
Miracles, he says.
"Megashift" attempts to document myriad healings and other powerful answers to the sincere prayers of this new category of believer, including, believe it or not, hundreds of dramatic cases of resurrections - not near-death experiences, but real resurrections of actual corpses.
"When I was a kid in Sunday school, I was really impressed that 3,000 people were saved on the Day of Pentecost," he writes. "I thought, 'Wow, that'll never happen again!"
But, Rutz says, it now happens around the globe every 25 minutes.
"By tomorrow, there will be 175,000 more Christians than there are today," he writes.
The essence of Rutz's book is about how Western Christians can tap into what he sees as a mighty work of God on Earth.
"Very few people realize the nature of life on Earth is going through a major change," he writes. "We are seeing a megashift in the basic direction of human history. Until our time, the ancient war between good and evil was hardly better than a stalemate. Now all has changed. The Creator whose epic story flows through the pages of Scripture has begun to dissolve the strongholds of evil. This new drama is being played out every hour around the globe, accompanied sometimes by mind-bending miracles."
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It is.
But it is spreading not just through Rutz's cell church movement, but also through the Anglicans, the Catholics, the Pentecostals, the Baptists and other followers of Christ.
And these other groups see miracles and massive conversions as well.
I agree with you and Quix that even as we see those in the West lose the precious gift of faith in the saving sacrifice of Christ Jesus and the outpouring of His mercy and grace, others around the world are finding it.
We here can learn from them.
THX.
AGREED.
bump
Amazingly, in today's church true believers are often labeled "contentious."
Christ was often "contentious." Nice people don't get nailed on crosses.
Thanks for the ping!
***We here can learn from them.***
Indeed!
(They may be sending missionaries to us some day soon!)
Thanks for the ping!
Freed from keeping the Ten Commandments as a basis for our acceptance (justification) before God? - Yes.
Do you remember Paul's words to Peter?
"When I saw that they were not following the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter in front of all the others, "Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you trying to make these Gentiles obey the Jewish laws you abandoned?
You and I are Jews by birth, not `sinners' like the Gentiles. And yet we Jewish Christians know that we become right with God, not by doing what the law commands, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
So we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be accepted by God because of our faith in Christ--and not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be saved by obeying the law.
But what if we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then find out that we are still sinners? Has Christ led us into sin? Of course not! Rather, I make myself guilty if I rebuild the old system I already tore down.
For when I tried to keep the law, I realized I could never earn God's approval. So I died to the law so that I might live for God."
***Or do we get to pick and choose which "laws" are still pertinent and which ones are unnecessary?***
Are you saying you believe that we are still under the law?
Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Indeed!...
"For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." - Rom 8
*** By that definition, would that then render the Bible as a "tradition of men?"***
The Bible is the Word of God. Peter even refered to Paul's writings a "Scripture"
"There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." - 2 Pet 3:16
And Paul refered to the Gospels as "scripture".
***And yet, its funny how many "Bible-believing" Christians will claim that unless you believe in the Bible, God will not accept you.***
If a person knows of, and refuses to accept the Bible and it's message then they will not be accepted by God.
Do you not believe this?
***I would use the same criteria used by the early Christian Church: those who adhere to the authoritative teachings of the Apostles.***
Well that would be a very good criteria. And if we add that those teachings are contained on the NT then I think this group is fairly safe for they hold to the authority of the Scriptures much more tightly than most Westerners do.
When Rabbi Sha’ul (a second generation Pharisee) speaks of ‘Holy days’ he is referring to Leviticus 23. In the above scripture he's speaking to those who have adopted the Feasts of The LORD.
Name one Christian holiday that falls out on the new moon.
***The Bible is a product of Apostolic authority? Why does it then trump it?***
The Bible is the product of the Holy Spirit.
Do those with supposed "Apostolic authority" trump the Holy Spirit or are the subject to Him and His words?
***(a second generation Pharisee)***
And first generation Christian. He counted his Pharisee position as dung. (Phil. 3)
***In the above scripture he's speaking to those who have adopted the Feasts of The LORD.***
Are you saying that he was not addressing the Sabbath?
Well then for what purpose are you asking whether you NEED to keep them? So that you will be accepted by God or so you will feel good about yourself?
***Am I still required to "keep the sabbath holy"?***
The new requirements meet and exceed the old requirements. Every part of the Christian's life is the be holy. Our very bodies are a sacrifice to Him.
Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Do you think you can keep the other six days unholy?
But by what power are we to do this, seeing that we were unable to keep even the lesser requirement of the Law? By the power of the new birth, regeneration, the indwelling Spirit. We are not "required" to do anything because all we can do is fail. When we, by faith, accept God's free gift of salvation He gives us gives us a new heart that wants to keep the law and He gives us the Holy Spirit which is the power to keep the Law. This is the promise of the new covenant.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people."
As Paul said...
"For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." - Rom 8
The basis of our acceptance before God is the blood of Christ alone - nothing more, nothing less. The person who, by faith, has entered into this covenant of grace will desire to do, by virtue of their new nature, anything and everything that pleases God. These acts are done out of gratitude and love, not out of a desire to rack up points in the hope of earning God's acceptance.
***Which "Gospels?" Paul's epistles predate the writing of all the gospels. I think you mean "Scriptures" which would have been what we know as the Old Testament only.***
Actually Paul in 1 Tim. quotes Luke, (or a variant of Matt.) and calls it "Scripture". Theories about the precise date of compilation of the Gospels are only theories. Paul quotes the words of Christ as "Scripture". Many people are suprised to learn this.
*** As a nation has civil authority, so to does the Apostolic Church have a spiritual authority.***
Well if you are under the law then you have fallen from grace...
Galatians 5:4
"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."
***The Church does not come from the Bible, the Bible comes from the Church***
This is not strictly true. "Scripture" as a source of final authority existed long before the Church in the form of the OT. Scripture predates the Church.
Scripture is the Word of God. It is God's voice to us put down in black and white. It is ultimatley not the product of man but the breath of God Himself.
Mary may have given birth to Jesus but that didn't make her Jesus' master did it? Even so the Church may have given birth to the New Testament but that doesn't mean it is master over the New Testament.
***The Bible, albeit an integral part of a Christian person's faith cannot be their foundation ***
You are correct, the Bible without obedience is no foundation. But Jesus promised us...
"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."
That sounds like a pretty firm foundation to me.
*** in every denomination there is an infallible interpreter of God's eternal Word: either the successor to Peter as appointed by Christ or yourself.***
Who interprets "Peter's successor" (i.e. the Magesterium) to YOU? You must read the voluminous history of interpretation put out by the Magesterium in order to understand it, but how do you know you've interpreted the Magesterium's teaching correctly???
If you think you are incapable of understanding the Bible then WHY do you thing you are capable of understanding the Magesterium?
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