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The Kingdom Heart and Task of an Apostle (Part 1)

Today there is a resurgence in some Protestant circles about the position and ministry of apostles. In some current Protestant circles today that emphasize the charismata (“spiritual gifts”) heavily one will find teaching asserting that the “five-fold” ministry of the Church needs to be restored. They will cite Ephesians 4:11: “He himself granted that some are apostle, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, . . . ” (NRSVue) Some sociologists and historians who study Christianity in the modern period have designated this movement as part of the “third wave” of charismatic renewal movements in the Western world. I am all for people exercising the charismata, and for churches to have a genuine openness to the work of the Holy Spirit. But this movement needs to be noted because it unfortunately had deviated from biblical teaching and the historic practice of the Church. Thus I want to address this matt
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Sabbath Keeping as Santification, Part 3

Andrew Murray makes a very helpful point about sanctification and what God wants from believers and further what God desires to do in our bodies. “Many believers fail to watch over their bodies, to observe a holy sobriety through the fear of rendering them unfit for the service of God. Eating and drinking should never impede communion with God. On the contrary, they should help us maintain the body in its normal condition. The apostle spoke also of fornication, this sin that defiles the body and that is in direct opposition to the words, ‘The body is for the Lord.’ It is not simply sexual promiscuity outside the married state, but all voluptuousness, all lack of sobriety regarding sensual pleasure that is condemned in these words: ‘ Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost ’ (1 Corinthians 6:19). In the same way, all that goes to maintain the body—to clothe it, strengthen it, give it rest or enjoyment—should be placed under the control of the Holy Spirit. Just as, under the old cove
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Sabbath Keeping as Sanctification, Part 2

A friend of mine related to me that this past year Javalina came onto his property and dug up and tore out an irrigation line which he had put underground. This irrigation line stretched around his whole property (about one acre of his land). He had to replace the entire irrigation line because of the damage done by the Javalina—which cost him a lot of money and took a lot of time to replace! Javalina are notorious for scavenging whatever they think is needful for them to survive. Many people think that navigating through human experience requires more or less the equivalent behavior of the Javalina. Yet this is not God’s way revealed to us in Scripture but rather the perverse and insidious deception of sin and the demons. Sabbath keeping is revolutionary because it profoundly challenges and protests against the notion that we must initiate and establish our own security and safety in life by means of our own devising. Sabbath keeping is an act of faith in the living God to be one’s ke
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Sabbath Keeping as Sanctification, Part 1

Some years ago I wrote something on the topic of the Sabbath. I am sharing that here with you all. This is part one and the second will be included in the next newsletter. The Sabbath has been on my mind much lately as I was able to take some down time due to the Christmas season. The more I consider what it may mean to keep the Sabbath the more I have turned toward the human body and the doctrine of sanctification. A connection between Sabbath keeping, the body and sanctification has been emerging in my mind more and more. I am convinced and thus would suggest that it is sound to even think of Sabbath keeping as sanctification. To explicitly connect these is new to me and I will attempt to clarify why I think they should be linked. The connective points in my mind begin with a remarkable comment made by the writer of Hebrews which I have pondered for many years. In a section on God’s interactions with the ancient Israelites (see chapters 3-4:11) the writer states this: “For if Joshu
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Tending to the Fire Within (Walter Hilton)

  “It may sometimes happen that the more troubled you have been outwardly with active work the more fervent your desire will be for God and the clearer your view of spiritual things, by the grace of our Lord, when you come to devotion. It works out as if you had a little burning coal with which you wanted to make a fire and get it burning. You would first lay sticks on it and cover the coal; and although it might briefly seem that you were putting the coal out with the sticks, nevertheless after a brief wait and a little blowing there soon springs out a great flaring flame, for the sticks have turned into fire. It is just so spiritually; the will and desire that you have for God are like a little coal of fire in your soul, for they give you some amount of spiritual heat and light: but very little, since they often grow cold and turn into bodily rest—sometimes into idleness. So it is good to put on sticks, which are the good works of active life. If it happens that these activities seem
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Daniel, Prophecy and a Sober Perspective of the "lawless one"

Comments on Text : Daniel 8 & Matthew 24:15-28 The vision granted to Daniel in the 6 th century BC is a glimpse into the “end of time”: As Gabriel said to him, “the vision is for the time of the end.” (8:17) This is a vitally important statement to keep in mind, not only as we attempt to interpret this specific vision within the book of Daniel but also the second section of Daniel (chapters 7-12). What the careful reader finds is that Daniel is given in the different visions something like short video clips or pictorial metaphorical representations of persons and events that will profoundly change and shape the history of the world—but in a time that he will not live to personally witness (see 8:26). The particular vision of chapter 8 prophecies the dominance of the Medo-Persian empire, and thus implies the downfall of the rule the Babylonians. (v.20) And then the scope of it reaches further to the downfall of the Medo-Persian empire and the mighty triumph of Alexander the G
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Christendom, Converts and Spiritual Conversion

  “Through all those centuries of clashing and changing frontiers, Christendom in terms of time and space extended itself. Its missionaries succeeded among the barbaric as they had among the cultured, and such gatherings as the Synod of Whitby, far by the North Sea and almost on the edge of the ancient Empire, repeated, to their degree, the Council of Nicaea. Both the Gospel and the Creed mastered the new world. But the method of conversion had perhaps changed somewhat. In the old days it had been individuals who had been converted, either by intellectual persuasion or spiritual violence, by grace, by intellect, or (at lowest) by fashion. But now it was whole communities which were abruptly annexed. The prestige, the power, and no doubt sometimes the piety of Christendom subdued one dynasty after another; a sudden rain of culture and Christianity descended over their territories, and the Christianity was often no more than the chief interference of the culture. The mass of the converts
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