JOHNS GOSPEL [Complete- Links
added]
LINKS-
https://youtu.be/f8VpxlYM_kU John 8- ‘who the Son sets free’
(562) John:1[radio # 584] Jesus is called the Word of God, he comes
into the earth as the incarnation, the ‘fleshed out’ fulfillment of Gods Word.
John the Baptist is asked who he is. The Jewish leaders ask ‘are you that
prophet?’ he says ‘no’. What prophet? The one Moses said would come ‘the Lord
God will raise up a prophet unto you, like me. Whoever doesn’t listen to him
will be destroyed’. We covered this in Deuteronomy. They ask him ‘are you
Elijah’ he says ‘no’. John was the fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy that
said before the Lord comes he will send Elijah the prophet. Jesus says this
about John. Why did John deny it? I am not sure, but it might be because he really didn’t
know. Sort of like the thorn in Paul’s side, God allowed things to happen to
Paul so he would not get puffed up in pride and side track his mission. Maybe
the Lord never let John see how truly effective he was. John does say ‘I am the
voice of one crying in the wilderness’ John does see himself thru the prophet
Isaiah. I like this. I have personally had many words from Isaiah that I felt
the Lord had given me, John saw himself in this book too. John was ‘the voice’
just like Jesus is ‘the Word’ John is
‘the voice’. John was a voice before he was a man. God had predestined John to
carry a message before he was born. He had this word in his DNA at birth. His
body was simply a carrier, an ‘incarnation’ of the voice that he was to have.
God has predestined all of us with a purpose before we were born. Our appearing
on the planet is for the sole purpose of carrying out this destiny. You are not
here to be happy, have a nice income, go to a nice church. You are here to
fulfill Gods will, you can have the other things or not, that is irrelevant.
You must first fulfill the mission! John testifies of Christ by the Spirit
descending on Jesus. John says ‘I knew him not, but by the Spirit’ John knew
Jesus, he was his cousin! But John was only going to recognize the gifts and
callings on people. He would follow Paul's admonition ‘know no man after the
flesh’. It is incumbent upon us to recognize the gifts in others and to operate
accordingly. Don’t make alliances and pacts with people based on friendship and
personal affiliations. It’s good to have friends and all, but the Kingdom is
built upon recognizing and receiving those who have come with a mandate from
God. John saw Jesus in this light. Scripture says ‘the world was made by him,
he was in the world, yet they knew him not’ Jesus was creating a divine
atmosphere of grace for people to access. They didn’t even know or recognize
him, yet this didn’t side track him from his purpose. Understand that God has
placed you in a geographical location with a pre planned destiny in mind. God
has chosen you to be where you are and for this season. You will fulfill your
calling whether people ‘know’ you or not. God requires us to see the gifts in
each other, but many will not appreciate what you are doing, do it any way, you
have come with a destiny to fulfill, so fulfill it!
(563) John 2[radio # 585]- Jesus does his first miracle, changes
water into wine. They say ‘most people put the good wine out first, but you
have saved the best for last’. This is a type of the new covenant of his blood
[wine], Jesus will introduce a better covenant thru his blood. Many will not
accept this new way because they have been ‘drinking’ old wine for so long,
they are not willing to change. We often see this in Christian circles, people
who have functioned in a limited way for years, God might bring to them new
ways of seeing things, they will often reject the new wine on the basis of
being comfortable with the old way, we don’t want to shake the apple cart. God
wants us to shake it! Jesus finds the money changers in the temple and drives
them out with a whip, turns the tables over and gets mad. He didn’t take the
ecumenical approach! There are times for radical transition, I feel we are at
that place now as the people of God. The gospel is not about us increasing our
portfolio, it’s about laying our goals down for the kingdom. These money
changers lost their influence in the ‘temple’ after Jesus got thru with them, I
think it was prophetic. Jesus says ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will
raise it up’ those hearing this mistake his Body [temple] with the building
[temple in Jerusalem ].
Evangelicals [some of them] make the same mistake today. They are looking to
the natural events in natural Jerusalem, they should be looking at the real
temple! [Both Jesus and the Body of Christ]. Jesus goes to the Passover, the
people hail him and Jesus says he will not commit himself to them, because he
knew what was in man. What was in man? These same people will be asking for his
death not long from now. Jesus did not seek commitment from men, contrary to
the way we see ministry today. Modern ministry seeks to increase man’s
commitment to them ‘pledge so much money, join this or that’ Jesus knew he had
a destiny, he would fulfill it without the help of man!
(565) John 3[radio # 586]- Nicodemus comes secretly to Jesus, he is
one of the few in leadership that is having doubts. The others with one voice
reject Jesus, Nicodemus is wondering. Jesus rebukes him for being a ‘ruler’ of
the Jews and not being able to comprehend the most basic stuff. I have found it
disheartening over the years to talk with Pastors who heard someone teach that
because Jesus had an expensive coat, that he must have been rich. Despite all
the evidence in the New Testament how Jesus was the son of a carpenter and
lived an average life. The tons of verses where Jesus is reproving rich people.
The whole historical and biblical truth of Jesus being a man of humble means.
The fact that he had an expensive coat can more than likely be explained by the
custom of people doing extravagant acts of worship towards him. The woman and
the expensive perfume poured on him. Things like this. Someone probably gave
him the coat. But for Pastors, who are good men, to fall for this stuff was
unbelievable. Sort of like Jesus telling Nicodemus ‘you are a leader and can’t
discern the most basic stuff’! Jesus teaches the reality of the new birth. All
people must be born of God thru belief in Jesus, or they will not be saved. We
must stand strong for Jesus as the only way to God. John the Baptist will be
told that all men are going to Jesus. John says ‘great, he must increase and I
must decrease’ John understood that the role of leadership [prophets] was to
point to the fame and persona of Jesus. Not to go down the common road of
pointing people towards us. In modern ministry we draw people to our gifts and
abilities. We structure modern churches around the gift of the Pastor. We allow
leadership to become preeminent in our minds and thoughts. John knew better. We
also see that the wrath of God abides on all who do not believe in Jesus. If
you believe in Jesus you escape Gods wrath. It can’t touch you. Whether you are
in heaven or earth, or like David said ‘in hell you are there’. That is you
can’t escape Gods presence anywhere. So if you are in Christ, wrath can’t get
you. If you are not in Christ, it continually abides on you. You do not escape
wrath by leaving the planet during the tribulation. If an unbeliever was on a
rocket ship right before the tribulation started, and wound up on the moon
during the 7 years of wrath, he wouldn’t escape Gods wrath. You don’t escape
judgment by being in the right geographical location, you escape it by being IN
HIM! John also says a man can receive nothing unless it is given to him. Why be
jealous if all of our gifts and abilities are free gifts? We act like we earned
them! John says no man receives his testimony, then he says ‘to those who have
received it’. What’s this mean? Paul told the Corinthians that we have received
the Spirit of God so we might know the things that are freely given to us from
God. God gives us his Spirit first, so we can receive his testimony. This goes
back to the early centuries of the church and hits all the major doctrines on
sovereignty. Augustine, Calvin, Luther [Yes Luther was a strong believer in
predestination, it was no accident that he was an Augustinian monk!] Paul tells
the Ephesians that were are dead in sins and completely incapable of receiving
spiritual truth until God pours his Spirit into us and we become alive. Thank
God that even though no man [in the natural] can receive his testimony, that
God gives us his Spirit and births us so we can know the things that he has
freely given to us in Christ!
(566) John 4[radio # 587]- Jesus talks to the woman at the well. She
is Samaritan and he violates the cultural norms of the day by speaking to this
woman. Critics often say Christianity is bigoted against women, Jesus gave more
honor to women than any other religion of the day. He tells the woman that if
she asked, he would give her the Spirit that would be a well of water in her.
God wants us to flow in revelation and truth, not just teach from the
intellect. Now the intellect is important, God says ‘worship me with you heart,
soul, MIND and might’ but you must allow the Spirit to spring up from you like
a well. Jesus tells the woman ‘you have had 5 husbands and the guy you’re
shacking up with now is not your husband’ she then says ‘I perceive you are a
prophet’. Funny, she turns the conversation over to religion! She recognizes
the prophetic aspect of Jesus words and says ‘I think you’re a prophet’. Unlike
many Christians today, she believed that prophecy was more than just preaching,
she knew it carried a supernatural element. They continue to talk ‘religion’
and Jesus tells her all worship takes place in Spirit and truth, not at a
specific location. The religious mind looks for ‘religious’ places to carry out
worship, Jesus says ‘from now on it will be done thru all who worship in Spirit
and truth’. He is speaking of the new concept of the people of God being the
temple. No longer will they need the temple down the block, but they will be
the actual dwelling place of God. Jesus says his meat is to do the will of him
that sent him and to finish his work. We often do the will, but don’t finish
the task! I just retired after 25 years as a firefighter [actually the
retirement is in process] and I have seen so many talented guys join the dept
and do a few years and go somewhere else. They might stay a few years at the
next dept. and leave again. It’s not that they aren’t talented, they just don’t
stick it out. God wants us to finish his task, don’t have a resume with a lot
of activity, have one that has some assignments that were completed. Jesus says
look on the fields, they are ready. Don’t say ‘4 more months and then comes harvest’.
We are always in the harvest. It is not something that only happens in church
on Sunday. Break the mindset that is always looking down the road for ministry
to happen. Ministry happens right now, all the time. You and I are in the
harvest, are you picking any fruit? Jesus says a prophet has no honor in his
own country. We often want a prophetic word from some out of town prophet. We
enjoy going out of town to a conference or some vacation venue to get a ‘word
from the Lord’. We do not like to receive from prophets in our midst. They
often don’t give good words like ‘Thus saith the Lord, you will be rich’ and
stuff like that. We need to stop looking for the word we want to hear, and
receive from prophets in our area.
(567) John 5[radio # 588]- Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda . Scripture says
an angel went down into this pool at a certain time and stirred the water,
whoever got in after the water was stirred was healed. How do we explain this?
Were the people superstitious? Well I think it happened just like John wrote
it. We believe in a supernatural God, he raised his Son from the dead, he
surely can send an angel to stir up some water. Jesus asks the man ‘do you want
to be healed’? You would think ‘of course’ but people that are in situations
that can lend to being irresponsible, having others take care of them, they
often want to stay that way. It gives them an excuse to ‘not act responsibly’.
The man says ‘I have no man to put me into the water after the angel comes’ he
is looking for others to do something for him. He has a victim mentality. Jesus
says ‘quit blaming everyone else, take up your bed and walk’. It’s time for our
society to tell people ‘take up your bed and walk, we love you, we want to help
you as much as possible, but you need to eventually take up your bed and walk’
hard stuff! Jesus will call God his father, making himself equal with God. The
Jewish leaders will be offended. He then will tell them if they do not honor
him, they are not honoring the Father. He says he only does what he sees the
Father doing first. His life was an exact duplicate of the heart of God. Our
lives should be the result of what God wants and reveals to us. Your life is
not the result of your confession, or you seeking success. Your life should be
the outcome of what God has revealed to you. It might mean less money, or less
success. It might mean a Cross or martyrdom. Don’t presume that Gods plan for
you is simply to have lots of money and be successful, it might mean less money
and obscurity. But it will be an abundant life because you lived it in the
purpose of God. Jesus says the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and
they that hear will live. You had as much to do with your spiritual birth as
you did with your natural one. Before you were born you had no power or ability
to choose to be born, so in your new birth you were dead in sin and unable to
‘choose God’ he chose you. Jesus will tell the religious leaders ‘how can you
believe if you seek the honor of men’ he will challenge the religious mindset of the day that thrived off of the
notoriety of ‘being in ministry’. The leaders loved the greetings in the
markets and public places. They lived for the honor that came from their status
as ‘preachers’ who were well known. Jesus condemned this mindset. He says ‘I
receive not honor from men’ in essence I am here to lay my life down, I will
suffer shame and public humiliation, I will do the will of my Father and bare
tremendous reproach and hatred from men. I will please my Father. Jesus tells the
Jewish leaders ‘Moses wrote about me, you have his writings. If you don’t
believe his writings, how can you believe in me, he wrote about me’ we have
covered a lot of the ‘hidden’ images of Jesus found in the Old Testament. Paul
will use these images time and again in his debates with Israel . I find
it interesting that Jesus saw himself in the Old Testament also.
(568) John 6[radio # 589]- We see the first miracle of the feeding
of the multitudes. It has been commonly taught that this was a miracle of ‘location’,
that is they were far from the market and couldn’t get food to feed everyone.
This is not the heart of the story. It is actually a question of finance. Jesus
in essence asks ‘how can we buy enough food for everyone to eat, where’s the
money gonna come from?’ His disciples say ‘200 pennyworth is not enough to feed
them’. They tell Jesus we don’t have the cash to cover it. This is important to
see, many have taught a doctrine that says Jesus and the disciples had a large
treasury with lots of money. This refutes that. This story is one of God being
our supply, we don’t need to trust him for the millions of dollars we think we
need to reach the world. We need to believe that he can use our limited
finances to reach the world! He did it with Paul, why not you? We also see the
doctrine of sovereignty again. Jesus says all who the Father gave to him will
come to him, and he will raise them up at the last day. No man can come unless
the Father draws him. The Father will draw all who are called. Jesus will lose
none of the ones the father gives to him. These doctrines are without a doubt
taught in this Gospel. I believe them. Some try to make them ‘fit’ the
reasoning of men. They eventually taught that Jesus died only for the elect.
That the ‘world’ in John 3:16
speaks of the ‘world of the elect’. Others taught that Jesus blood was only
shed for the elect [limited atonement]. Christians have fought for centuries
over these doctrines. Our Catholic brothers do not officially teach
predestination, though Catholic scholars have believed in it [Augustine]. Some
will later be called ‘5 point Calvinists’ others ‘4 points’ and so on. I simply
believe the words of Jesus. All that the Father gave to him will come to him,
those who come will be raised at the last day. No one comes unless God brings
them. The point is God is the initiator, sustainer and completer of our
salvation. In our minds we can’t grasp this, but without a doubt Jesus teaches
it in this chapter. Now, Jesus will also teach that he is the bread from heaven
and unless a man eats his flesh and drinks his blood he will not have eternal
life. Many good Christians have taught that the way this is carried out is thru
transubstantiation, they teach that the bread and wine turn into the literal
body and blood of Jesus at the Mass [Catholic theologian Scott Hahn believes
John chapter 6 is the foundational chapter for all Catholic theology]. That it
just looks like bread and wine, but it is really flesh and blood. Luther and
Calvin taught something almost identical, consubstantiation. The doctrine that
the bread and wine stay bread and wine, but that the flesh and blood of Jesus
are also literally contained within the bread and wine. This doctrine differs
very little from the Catholic one. Both of these doctrines are called ‘the real
presence’. The only reformer who taught what much of modern Evangelicals
believe was Zwingli. He took it to be a symbol only. Zwingli was the dear
brother who killed the Ana Baptists for their faith! I visited the spot where
this took place in Switzerland
many years ago. There is this huge statue of Zwingli overlooking the town where
he drowned the poor brothers! The Jews in this chapter say ‘how can this man
give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink?’ They are clearly seeing this in
the natural. Jesus goes on and teaches that all who believe in him will never
hunger again. He is associating eating with faith. He also says ‘the flesh
profits nothing, the words I am speaking to you give life’ he is clearly
teaching that he was not going to figure out a way to change bread and wine
into his literal flesh. He was teaching that all who would believe in his death
and resurrection were eating and getting life from Jesus, they would have
eternal life. The bread that if a man eats from will live forever. I believe my
Catholic and Orthodox and Lutheran brothers are Christian, I do not hold to
the view that the ‘real presence’ is a
doctrine from hell. I believe good Christians took the words of Jesus literally
and developed a belief that became an historic belief amongst many Christians.
Some of the greatest Christian theologians hold to this belief. I simply
disagree with them.
(572) John 7[radio # 590]- His brethren say ‘if you do these things,
go up to the feast and show yourself openly’. The mindset was if you are really
as special or gifted as you think, then go public! Jesus did not seek honor
from men. He will ‘go public’ at the right time, but it will be a public
crucifixion before many witnesses. He would not let them make him a king, or exalt
him in their own way. Before exaltation there would be a Cross. ‘Some say he is
a good man, others that he is a deceiver’ Jesus caused polarizing reactions
from people. Prophets will be seen as false or good, there is very little
middle ground. ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned’ Jesus
learned, he was a good Jewish boy. They had the Old Covenant and were taught it
‘religiously’. The leaders meant he did not have the ‘higher education’ from
the institutions of the day. I want to make a note here, I am not against
higher education, Jesus did avail himself of the Old Testament, which was the
‘library’ of the day. A great collection of books and wisdom, if you read the
gospels carefully you will also see that Jesus knew current events, he was not
an isolated person coming up with his individual conclusions of scripture. I
think it hurts the church to have an attitude of ‘all I need to know is the
bible’ while it is good to know the Word, you should also expand your knowledge
as much as possible. You don’t need the ‘letters’ or titles from men, but you
should be educated as much as possible. ‘I have done one work and you all
marvel’ the leaders were condemning Jesus for healing the man on the Sabbath,
he tells them ‘you circumcise on the Sabbath, why cant I make someone whole on
the Sabbath?’ circumcision was the cutting away of the ‘flesh’ in consecration
to God. In essence it was saying ‘all that proceeds from me from this day
forward, my lineage and seed and everything I am, is dedicated to God’ if they
were allowed, by their own conscience, to ‘cut the flesh away’ on the Sabbath,
then why not permit [in their own mind] the ‘adding’ unto a person by healing
his flesh and giving him back his health. Jesus showed them that even in their
own reasoning they could allow for what he did, but they didn’t give him the
same lenience that they gave themselves. We often reject what a person is
saying based on the actions he has done in the past, even though we allow many
of the same things. Jesus said ‘judge rightly’ use the same measure that you
would use on your self. ‘Yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me and
not find me’ Jesus says this to the Jews who do not accept him as Messiah, they
have been looking for him [unknowingly] for 2 thousand years and haven’t found
him yet, boy are they gonna be surprised! The Pharisees send the officers to
take Jesus, even though he didn’t openly go up to the feast, he later went
secretly. He is teaching publicly and the people are amazed. They say ‘if this
is the one the leaders are trying to get, why don’t they just take him?’ the
officers couldn’t stop him! The Pharisees ask ‘why didn’t you capture him like
we asked’ they respond ‘never man spake like him’ the authority that he had
from God protected him. As the Pharisees discuss Jesus, they say ‘this people
who do not know the law [word] are going after him, none of us are’. Well
Nicodemus is in this group, and we know he snuck out in chapter 3 and did go
‘after him’. He is feeling a little guilty about it and speaks up on Jesus
behalf ‘well, let’s not be so quick to judge, lets hear him out’. The other
Pharisees reject him too ‘are you also from Galilee?’ They had this
intellectual argument going that took all the Old Testament prophecies about
Messiah and where he would come from. There are different prophecies that speak
of Jesus in different ways, they held to a belief that when Messiah came, no
one would no where he came from. Their understanding kept them in the dark.
They were not willing to be corrected, they saw everyone else as ignorant, and
they were the true ‘elites’ of the day. Pride keeps people form truth. We often
can’t be corrected, we think the ‘correctors’ just don’t know the word. This
comes from spiritual pride. Many who view themselves as religious leaders, or
gifted in some way with bible knowledge, can not humble themselves and receive
correction in the area where they pride themselves. For the Pharisees to have
accepted Jesus, they would have had to admit that they were wrong about certain
prophecies, and that the ‘under class’ was right, this was too much for them to
accept.
(585) John 8 [radio # 591]- The Pharisees catch the woman in
adultery and bring her to Jesus ‘Moses in the law says kill her, what about it
Jesus?’ Religion digressed into this conservative moral crusade that went and
found people in sin and singled them out for judgment. Jesus doesn’t say ‘oh,
don’t worry about that silly law of Moses’ he says in essence ‘you guys are
right, justice demands strict holiness, you got me now’ instead he agrees that
justice does require her death, and he says ‘go ahead, start stoning’. One
thing ‘you must be free of sin in order to carry out this punishment’. The law
required total righteousness from everyone, even the moral crusaders! When
religion digresses to the point where all it does is go out into society and
find fault, then this type of religion is powerless to change the ‘fault
finders’. Jesus doesn’t side with the ultra liberals either, you don’t see him
marching for the right for homosexuals to marry. He tells the woman ‘neither do
I condemn thee, go and sin no more’. Jesus said this to the guy he healed a few
chapters ago. ‘Go and sin no more less a worse thing happen to thee’. Was Jesus
simply telling them the same thing that they heard from the religious right
their whole lives? Was he simply saying ‘watch out, if you sin again you will
get in trouble’ not really. Jesus words had tremendous power and authority, he
told people who couldn’t see ‘see’ and they would! People who couldn’t walk
‘get up’ and they did. He was empowering these people by his words. When he
said ‘sin no more’ he was giving them the first freedom from years of bondage
that they ever had. He also was saying ‘I don’t condone sin’ but he was saying
much more! Jesus tells the Jews who ‘believe in him’ if you continue in my word
ye shall be free. In the next chapter [9] we will read of the guy Jesus heals,
who also says ‘Jesus healed me’ but doesn’t know who Jesus is yet, then later
he believes in him as Messiah. This is the type of belief that Israel and
Islam and other religions have about Jesus. They accept him as a good man,
prophet even. But not the Son of God. To these he says ‘if ye continue in my
word then you will know the truth and be free’ if they stick around long enough
they might just see that Jesus is for real! Truth is progressive, often times I
will give a book to someone, or teach something over the radio. People will see
things that they haven’t seen before. A few years go by and they ‘fall back’
into the old mindset. They sincerely forgot that some of the questions they
have now have actually been answered already. ‘Go read the first book I wrote,
it explains it’ oh yhea, I see now. People need to ‘continue in the word’ in
order to be changed. It is not just the one time ‘revelation’ of a certain
doctrine that changes you, it is continuing in Gods truth and knowing him, that
is Jesus, who is the way and truth and life. Knowing doctrine does not set
people free, knowing Jesus does.
(586) John 8-9 [radio # 592]
before I cover this, last night I was watching a preacher from a classic
type ministry. Not the flamboyant ‘prosperity’ type with gold hanging off and
all. I was a bit surprised [let down] to hear him teach the classic errors of
the prosperity movement. He took the verse in Corinthians where it says ‘though
he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor’ and taught that Jesus died to
make you rich financially [ a direct violation of 1st Timothy 6]. He
went to Genesis and showed how Abraham was rich, then jumped to Galatians 3 and
taught ‘we are Abrahams kids, therefore we get his blessings[stuff]’ a classic
mistake in doctrine. I explained this in the book ‘House of Prayer or Den of
Thieves’ in the chapter ‘The Abrahamic Blessing’[you can read this book on this
site!]. This stuff shouldn’t have been coming from this program, they are not
the type that teach this stuff. You could tell from the look on the faces of
the audience that they were feeling uncomfortable with what this guy was teaching!
Now John 8-9. Jesus says ‘you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the
truth that I heard from God’ often times when people are reproved, they don’t
like it. It’s not that what the ‘reprover’ is saying is wrong, it’s just we
don’t like being confronted with truth. We usually take it out on the
messenger. Jesus says ‘before Abraham was, I AM’ this is the name of God in the
Old Testament ‘the I AM’. Jesus is the ‘I AM’ in Johns gospel. I AM the door, I
AM the resurrection, I AM the way and the truth and the life. I believe you
find 7 different ‘I AM’s’ of Jesus in this gospel. Jesus now heals the man who
was blind from birth. They ask him ‘who sinned, this man or his parents’? They
had a mentality that always wanted to place blame on someone for sickness, sort
of like some in the healing movements of today. Jesus said ‘neither’. He simply
said ‘this happened to him so I would heal him and God would get glory’. He
heals the man and the leaders are mad. ‘Who healed you’? A man called Jesus.
They get the guys parents and say ‘you say he was blind, then how come he can
see?’ They say ‘ask him’. They go back and ask again. The healed guy answers
‘how many times do you want to hear it, I told you already’. Though the man
still doesn’t know Jesus is the Messiah, yet he starts to defend him, and even
prophesy! ‘We know that if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will,
him God hears’ good stuff coming from an ‘unsaved’ guy! Jesus hears that they
rejected him, he tells the guy ‘I am messiah’ and the guy believes. Jesus says
‘I come to give sight to those who are blind [admit they need help] and to take
away sight from those who see’ [think they know it all]. We often can’t receive
correction because of religious pride, we think we ‘see everything’ someone
comes along and shakes the cart, our first response is ‘who does he think he
is, doesn’t he know that we all know more than him’. Quite often whole groups
of leaders have the same blind spot. This is what enforces the belief that they
must be right! Jesus told them ‘you guys are blind, if you could just admit you
didn’t know it all, then I could show you some good stuff, but because you
think you already ‘see’ everything, then you are gonna miss out’. Pride is
destructive, it keeps us in the dark spiritually. NOTE; Let me give an example.
I remember reading an article on tithing from one of the best Christian
historical review magazines in print. They do exhaustive historical research on
many subjects. To the surprise of the readers, this well respected historical
magazine, read by many theologians, showed that all the historical evidence
points to the fact that the churches of the first century did not practice
tithing! This seemed to go against the grain of what many of the theologians
believed, who regularly read this magazine. But you could have easily come to
this same understanding from simply reading the New Testament in context. I
have basically taught you guys this for years, from scripture. Yet this ‘blind
spot’ was an area where many intelligent ‘religious leaders’ were all wrong.
They ‘corporately’ were wrong on this subject. It took a ‘jolt’ from true
historical evidence before they could ‘see’ the obvious! It would be too
humbling to have seen it from a ‘layman firefighter’ who has a web site. NOTE;
Tithing as a practice for Christians developed at the same time as ‘the church
building’ and the office of ‘Priest’ and eventually the altar [in the Catholic
system] and the mass. The church got away from the family/community mindset and
took on more of the ‘church building’ form. Tithing fit in easily into an idea
of church that asked ‘how much should we put in the offering basket on Sunday’.
The whole language and style of church called for the doctrine of tithing to be
taught, sort of like a ‘tax’ on the people of God to support ‘the church’. Now,
there are some good things that came out of the ‘dark ages’ of Christianity.
The ‘desert fathers’, the Catholic mystics and other good spiritual
disciplines. I don’t want to fall into the category of those who see the dark
ages as a time of no good whatsoever. But we also need to see how the church
during that time was very legalistic in the sense that the Mass and Altar
and 'Priest’ presiding over the liturgy
were all forms of Christian service that were absent from the churches in
Scripture. The tithe was just one added aspect of this legalistic approach that
seemed to make it all the way into the Protestant churches of today. All these
churches are good Christians in my view, but we need to be open to change and
reformation as the Spirit leads.
(588)
John 10[radio # 593]- I forgot to mention in
John 9 when they asked Jesus who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind? Jesus said ‘no one’. Later in the chapter after the Pharisees get
done with the guy, they say ‘you were altogether born in sin [after all you
were BORN blind!] who do you think you are, trying to tell us what to do!’ that
secret mentality of condemnation came out. Religion does this to people. It
treats them like ‘yes, God is merciful and we are all sinners’ but in the heat
of the argument the mentality of ‘we are really better than you’ exists. Now in
this chapter Jesus says ‘I am the door’ and also ‘I am the shepherd who comes
thru the door’ how can he be both? Jesus was the one who would fulfill all the
required prophetic aspects spoken of in scripture. There were tons of Old
Testament prophecies that Jesus met to the tee. These requirements were like a
door, as the Jews were waiting for their Messiah they were looking for someone
who met this criteria, Jesus met them! He also IS the door, from this time
onward all other future leadership in the church would have to come ‘thru’ him
and exemplify the servant attitude that he had. Jesus says ‘the hireling flees
when the wolf comes’ the hireling is a mentality that looks at church
leadership as a hired position. People vote on their pastor, if he does a good
job he stays, if not he leaves and they screen for another hired position. Many
good men have been down this road. Often when the ‘wolf comes’ he actually says
to the leader ‘you cant stay in this town any longer, look at all the mistakes
you made’ the accuser gets the hireling to flee, sometimes without the pastor
realizing what’s going on. Jesus wants us to ‘come thru the door’ into the
sheepfold. The ‘prescribed way’ of servant hood and giving your life for the
sheep. I want to encourage all the pastors who read this site, don’t see your
job as completing some vision, or rallying people to a cause. Though these
things are included in pastoring, the main job for all of us is to give our
lives unselfishly for others. It is easy to fall into the trap of ‘the
hireling’ but God wants us to view our callings thru a servant hood mentality.
The good shepherd gives his life [goals, dreams, etc...] up for the sheep. The
Pharisees say ‘he is a mad man, he has a devil, why do you even listen to him?’
The leaders decided to bypass Jesus, they thought ‘we will just ignore him and
he will go away’ the only problem was the average ‘congregant’ was listening!
Often times in prophetic ministry you will find the bulk of leadership by
passing the prophetic word [that which God is saying at the season] it is only
later, after the ‘people’ hear it, that leaders will give it a second look.
Leaders, don’t fall into this category, if you get in on what God is saying
from the start, then you can partake of the good stuff along with the
people! Jesus in these last few chapters
said he is Gods Son and the Jews understood it to mean his claim of equality
with God. They understood right! I mention this because some feel that Jesus
didn’t claim deity, he most certainly did. Even 1st century
historians noted this in their writings, that the believers worshipped ‘a God
named Jesus’. The deity question is vital, if you miss this one, you’ve missed
it all! NOTE; Let me make a note here. It would be very easy for me to develop
a teaching from this chapter that says ‘because of all you have seen about the
idea of modern church, and the unbiblical roles of the hired clergy. That
therefore all ‘pastors’ are hirelings’. Some have actually taught this. There
are a few reasons why I don’t fall into this camp. First, when God initiates
reformation ‘a reforming of the practices of modern church’ he does it with the
sheep in mind. Jesus told the disciples ‘I have many things to say to you, but
you are unable to hear it’ he could have blown them away with doctrine, but the
goal was their development. If all doctrine, even true doctrine, does not build
you up in some way, then it is not accomplishing the purpose that God intends.
So in all the stuff I have taught you guys, the goal is for all of us [Pastors
and people] to grow and change in Gods timing. To use my influence in a way
that would split churches, or have the people viewing their pastors as
‘hirelings’ would be unprofitable. Eventually we all, as a Body, will change
and reform as God directs. But to use this chapter to tear down all current
forms of leadership presently functioning in the church would be irresponsible.
With knowledge comes responsibility. God will give us knowledge and wisdom for
the purpose of edification, not destruction.
(591) John 11[ radio # 594]- Lazarus is sick and Mary and Martha
send for Jesus. They were all friends and supporters of Jesus ministry, surely
they will get special treatment, they know for sure he will be healed! Jesus
waits a few days and lets Lazarus die. When he finally shows up, Martha comes
to ask him ‘why weren’t you here! He would have not died if you were here!’
Jesus also earlier said ‘I am glad I was not there’ not ‘I am glad I didn’t
heal him’ it’s like Jesus knew if he were there he would have had no choice but
to have healed him, his compassion would have taken over. Martha and Mary knew
it too. These are Jewish friends that are all sympathetic to his cause, they
were known to have been friends with Jesus, they already carried a cross for
him. For him to have let this group down was hard. He knew God had a better
plan, but it still was hard. Martha tells Mary ‘come quickly, Jesus wants you’
Mary gets up and runs to Jesus. I don’t read where Jesus asked for Mary, I
think Martha might have just said this to encourage Mary. Often times the
closest followers of Jesus need to be encouraged. They have been with the Lord
for years, they have given so much to the cause. They see how God is doing so
much for others and yet all things don’t seem to be working out for them. They
feel like Mary ‘what’s the use, I was following him years before these others,
and yet he doesn’t even have time to come and heal my brother, he’s out all
over the place healing everyone else, his so called ‘great ministry for God’
and yet I really needed him’ Mary needed to be encouraged, Martha encouraged
her! Jesus does raise Lazarus and God is glorified. Word gets back to the
religious leaders and they are afraid if they don’t do something they will lose
their influence and power among the people. It was a power issue. Often times
leadership will resist the ‘Body of Jesus’ coming into full functioning maturity,
they are afraid that if the Body of Jesus becomes too influential, they might
lose their place. John the Baptist taught us earlier that this was to be, the
Pharisees had other plans. As they hold a council, Caiaphas the high priest
says ‘leave him alone, Rome
will come and kill him and it will be better. That way they can vent on him
instead of all of the Jewish nation’ he prophesies the truth of Christ’s
substitutionary death, and doesn’t even realize what he’s saying! Often times
you will get a word from the Lord from people that don’t even realize they are
prophesying! NOTE; I forgot something. When Jesus and his disciples are going
to raise Lazarus, they will be entering an area where the Jewish leaders ‘have
a contract on him’ they are looking to get him! Jesus reassures the guys they
will be safe if they walk in ‘the light’ of Gods will. Thomas says ‘Oh great,
lets all go and die with him’. Gee thanks for the support brother! Jesus never
kicks Thomas off of the ministry ‘team’ he lets him stay on. You often hear ‘if
you are the smartest person in your group get a new group’ or ‘evil
communications corrupt good manners’ [scripture does say this]. But we
sometimes teach it in a way that says ‘Don’t ever listen to the naysayers,
eliminate them from your group. They will destroy your team spirit’ while there
is some truth to this, remember Jesus was the smartest person in the group, his
critics actually accused him of having ‘a bad group’ [this man eateth with
sinners] so keep a balance in this. We are here to help the sick, not the well.
If you don’t have some ‘bad apples’ in your sphere of influence than how are
you gonna help them?
(593)
John 12 [radio # 595] - Jesus goes to Bethany,
the town where he raised Lazarus. At the house Mary pours expensive perfume on
Jesus. Judas gets mad! ‘We could have sold it and used the money for the poor!’
Judas was the treasurer, he had ‘the bag’. He didn’t care about the poor, but
was stealing from the treasury. Some teach that the treasury had millions of
dollars in it, if this were so then why would Judas be worried about some
perfume worth around $132.00 dollars? You guys teaching this ‘rich Jesus’ stuff
need to read your bibles! In the town of Bethany
Lazarus is the talk of the town ‘hey, did you see the
guy Jesus raised from the dead’? The Pharisees were devising a way to kill
Lazarus too! It’s a funny thing, these leaders were sticklers for the law, real
legalistic. The number one law out of their 10 commandments was ‘thou shalt not
kill’ yet they seemed to be thinking of killing an awful lot! Religion does
this to people, it causes you to overlook the obvious while worrying about the
details. Jesus called this ‘straining at gnats while swallowing whole Camels’.
You see this later on at the Crucifixion, they are all concerned over what day
they kill Jesus ‘God forbid we break our rules of purity WHILE KILLING THE SON
OF GOD!’ Pathetic bunch of losers. The Greeks come to Jesus disciples and say
‘we want to see Jesus’. They go and tell Jesus ‘these Greeks want to meet you’
Jesus responds in a strange way ‘unless a grain of wheat dies it abides alone,
but if it dies it brings forth fruit… If any man serves me, where I am they
will be’. In essence Jesus says ‘I am not here to present myself to people on
some platform, I am here to do the will of my father. If they want to see me
they must lay their lives down and die to self and carry the cross also, where
I am they can be’. His answer was a call to self sacrifice and denial of self.
Today we have an atmosphere of performance ‘lets go watch the great Prophet’.
Going to conferences and stuff. Jesus said prophetic gifts function thru
sacrifice, if you are laying your life down for the gospel you will interact
with all of Gods gifted 5 fold ministers, but they were not designed to be seen
on a stage. ‘While you have the light, walk in it. The darkness comes, and no
one can function then’ Jesus was showing us to ‘strike when the irons hot’ act
when God opens the door. I have found when I ‘go for it’ during seasons of God
showing me stuff, then whatever is instituted at the time [some function of
ministry] becomes really effective. Then there are times where I don’t go for
it when the Lord opens the door, I miss the ‘open window’ and then later try to
get something going, it never works! Like the children of Israel not
entering the Promised Land on the first try, the next day they thought ‘what
the hell, lets do it today’ it didn’t work! Walk while ye have the light [God
showing you the next step] because when it gets dark [you missed the window] no
one can work.
(606) JOHN
13 [radio # 596] - Jesus says ‘I am come
from God, and I am going back to him’. He had this divine sense of mission.
Theologians have disagreed over how much Jesus knew about his own calling as a
young person. I kinda see it like he gradually came to greater wisdom and
understanding as the father was revealing the mission to him. The fact that
Jesus became human also brought with it certain limitations of knowledge and
growth. He did come to see his mission at a young age. When he was in the
temple as a boy he said ‘I am doing my fathers business’. So I see how he grew
in his sense of mission and destiny. You have come from the father, you will
some day go back. Live with destiny in mind. At the table Jesus tells the guys
‘I am giving you an example’ as he washes their feet. Peter is like preachers
today ‘heavens forbid that you wash me, are you saying I need some correcting’!
I have found this response common among leaders [even me!] we sought of cant
get corrected, then when we do realize we need it, we go to the other extreme
‘well, go ahead and give me a bath!’ We want to tear everything down and start
all over! It is funny. Jesus says ‘what I am showing you, you don’t really know
what it means yet, you understand it in your head, but not for real’ I feel the
example of ‘servant leadership’ is a subject that most leaders ‘know’ but the
fact of it being really lived out is rare. We still see ‘ministry’ and ‘church’
from the paradigm of ‘my successful career’. I am not saying everyone is wrong,
I am saying the level we are at is sort of where the disciples were. We ‘know
it’ in our heads, but we still ask ‘who will be the greatest in your Kingdom.
Can we sit at your right Hand?’ Jesus makes one of the worst statements in all
of scripture ‘one of you shall betray me’ he also says in another place ‘it
were better for that man if he were never born’ WOW! How would you feel if this
were said about you? At the table the disciples were feeling insecure. ‘John,
ask Jesus who it is for heavens sake!’ John and Judas know, I don’t know about
the others. It seems as if they leave the meal with the possibility of ‘Oh my
God, could it be me’ this lets you see into the later distress that Peter has
over his denials. He must have thought ‘I am the bad one’. Peter makes every
attempt to not be the one. Jesus says ‘where I am going, you can’t follow’
Peter says ‘why not, I will die for you’! Jesus says ‘I tell you, before the
cock crows, you will deny me 3 times’! “OH MY GOD IT IS ME!’ do you see the
drama here? Why would Jesus say about Judas ‘it would have been better if you
were never born’? It sure seems hard. Jesus said this for Judas benefit, not
his own. Jesus knew that for the fathers plan to work, someone would have to
hate him so much that he would betray him. Jesus loved Judas, he lived with him
for 3 years. He saw THE SINCERITY of Judas as a zealot for his political cause.
You say ‘but he was a thief from the start’ true. But I am sure he justified it
like cheating on your taxes! The point was Judas really thought he was getting
in on this new ‘progressive’ political movement of the day. Sure he was
stealing, but after all ‘I deserve it, the Pay Jesus gives us isn’t cutting it.
Doesn’t he realize we are risking our lives with him. I am deserving of it’.
Jesus knew Judas was the average Joe. Jesus had some good times during the 3
years of friendship. Jesus didn’t lie when he said ‘friend, why are you
betraying me with a kiss’? Jesus wished he had never been born. NOTE; in the
current discussion with ‘Emergent Church’ stuff, some are bringing up the
possibility of hell being symbolic in nature. Does ‘fire’ mean ‘fire’ and stuff
like that. I believe it does, but want you to understand that true thinkers and
movers have differences of opinion on this. Origen, one of the early
intellectual church fathers, taught universalism. That all people will
ultimately be saved. Of more recent fame, Carlton Pearson left his charismatic
roots and embraced ‘no hell’. To be honest, he has gone a lot further than
simply being ‘no hell’. He denies the authority of scripture, thinks John wrote
Revelation as an expression of being delusional. I feel Pearson, in his journey
towards universalism, went way too far. Clark Pinnock, a modern theologian has
taught ‘annihilationism’ that all the wicked will be burned up and non
existent. There are a few verses where you can get this from! The point is some
very good people [and bad] have differences of opinion on this. My point is
this statement from Jesus ‘it would have been better if Judas were never born’
sure seems to indicate that every one will not wind up in heaven! It seems as a
harsh thing to say if Jesus knew his buddy would one day be in heaven. Judas
could rightfully ask ‘why did you say it would have been better if I were never
born, after all, all people who were ever born wind up in heaven.’
(611) JOHN
14 [radio # 597] - Jesus says he is going away to prepare a place for us. He
tells the disciples they know where he is going and how to get there. Thomas
says ‘we have no idea where you are going, how can we know the way’. Jesus
wasn’t talking ‘location’ as much as communion with the Trinity. He was saying
I am going to THE FATHER and you now know the Father, because I have revealed
him to you. You have seen me, you have seen him. Also, the way to the father is
thru the Son, so you not only know where I am going [Father] but the way [Son].
Now I get it! You can take this 2 ways [not three!] you can look at it as Jesus
speaking of the sending of the Spirit as his ‘coming again’, in verse 18 he
does say this. He says ‘I will come to you’ and he is speaking of the Spirits
coming. Thru this chapter the comforter is one just like him. Also you can read
this as the literal second coming. We believe Jesus will come again! Some have
said this chapter is speaking of something else besides these 2 options, they
think this ‘coming’ is the rapture. A separate event from the 2nd
coming. I don’t see how you can believe it this way. Also in this chapter Jesus
is showing the intent of redemption. He didn’t just come to take us to heaven.
In chapter 17 we will read that he prays to the father for us not to be taken
out of the world, but to keep us from the evil in it. Thomas seems to be
thinking ‘location and how to get there’ when he says ‘we have no idea where
you are going, how can you think we know how to get there’? But Jesus is really
speaking the language of fellowship in the Trinity/Unity that he has with the
father and the Spirit. He is telling Thomas ‘my purpose is to bring you into
this oneness that I have with the father, to invite you to partake in this
fellowship’ in essence ‘I am not talking about getting you to a location
[heaven] in as much as bringing you into a state of being with me and my
father’ true ‘HOLY COMMUNION’! You do see this concept thru out the chapter.
The disciples seem to be struggling ‘how will you come back and reveal yourself
to us and not to the world’ Jesus says ‘if a man loves me he will keep my
words, the Spirit will then come and indwell him and we will all have community
together’ [Father, Son, Spirit and all believers]. They are grappling with
these ideas. They were like us, always thinking in terms of being saved to go
to heaven when we die. Now, I thank God for this benefit. I am very happy that
I am not going to Hell! Don’t underestimate this blessing. But Jesus is
speaking on a much higher plane. He even says ‘the words I am speaking are not
mine, but the Fathers’. A few practical things. Jesus says when I leave you
will do greater works because I am leaving and the Spirit will come and indwell
you. The ‘non Charismatics’ say this is evangelism. Jesus will give us the
Spirit and we will evangelize on a mass scale, greater works. The Charismatics
say this is doing more miracles, raising the dead and healing the sick and
casting out devils. Who is right? Take them all! Just be sure and bring people
into the Kingdom. The gifts are not for you to get famous or gain a following,
they are for the purpose of evangelism and expanding the Kingdom. In this
chapter we see Jesus great promises of peace and his dwelling with us forever.
The promise of the Spirit showing us the things of the father. We are invited
into this wonderful communion with him. Let’s allow the work of the Spirit to
use us to bring others into this community. The 2 great commandments Jesus
gives us is to love God and others. The ‘others’ speaks of his desire to bring people
into this community. NOTE; on the radio when I spoke on this entry I mentioned
some stuff on the historic creeds and the language that the early church used
to define the Trinity. In the world today the 3 main religions are
Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Islam and Judaism claim to be Monotheistic.
Christians also claim this, but Islam and Judaism don’t agree. The reason for
this is in the way the historic church came to define the Trinity. There have
been Jewish converts to Christianity who accept Jesus as Messiah but do not
accept the classic language of the Trinity. The verse that says ‘the Lord our
God is one’ is a main text for both Muslims and Jews in their understanding of
Gods oneness. Some of the Trinitarian language has been an obstacle to Muslims
and Jews converting. Now, like I said before, I do believe in the Trinity. But
if you notice the language that Jesus will use in our study in John, it seems
more in line with ‘Unity’ then ‘Trinity’. The truth of the Trinity is there,
but the explanations that Jesus gives sound better than the way the creeds say
it. One of the creeds says Jesus was begotten eternally. That there was never a
time where he was begotten. He was always ‘begotten’. They came to this
language by trying to defend Christ’s deity. The problem is scripture teaches
us that there was a definite point in time when Jesus ‘was begotten’. The fact
that Jesus existed always with the father is different from saying ‘he was
always born as a man’ which is what begotten refers to. So to be honest about
it, the language in this creed is an obstacle. In my recent conversations with
my Muslim friend I stood strong for the deity of Christ and God becoming man
thru the incarnation, but I also tried to use the actual language of scripture
when explaining it. This is going to be important for the future of the church
as she tries to bring both Muslims and Jews into the church. We don’t want to
compromise on the historic truths of Christianity, but we also want to express
our belief in Monotheism in ways that are in keeping with scripture. Also when
I say ‘into the church’ I mean bringing them to God thru Christ, not into some
‘culture of Christianity’ that the world sees as ‘church’. NOTE; I also spoke
on the second coming and Preterism. Preterism is a way of interpreting the
Second coming as having happened in A.D. 70. This belief arose out of a well
intentioned answer to the critics of Christianity. Some critics have brought
out the idea that the early church were all expecting an imminent return of
Jesus, that they took the obvious scriptures that speak of Jesus coming quickly
and stuff like that and were let down when Jesus did not come for the first few
centuries. So some scholars developed the idea that Jesus did come in
‘judgment’ and fulfilled all the verses of the second coming in A.D. 70. Others
have taught how the early church had to later adjust it’s theology around the
‘obvious’ mistaken teachings of Jesus. Some of these guys are believers, but
they fall into the liberal camp. My belief is Jesus will literally come again.
A Protestant scholar actually made an argument for the ‘literalness’ of Jesus
return thru the Catholic teaching on Transubstantiation. He defended our
Catholic brother’s ideas on the Real Presence in the Eucharist. He said the
church has been faithful to the literal return of Jesus and his immediate
presence by the reality of Jesus being present in Communion. Good effort, but a
little too much spiritualizing for me. I believe the best argument that can be
made, if you were going to go down this road, would be this chapter. Jesus says
he will come again and also says the comforter will be the fulfillment of this
coming. Now, I also believe in the future literal return of Jesus, because
later on in the New testament you see Paul teaching a future return after the
initial outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. I was watching an end time
teacher using the verse where Jesus spoke on the destruction of the Temple and he was
applying it to a future Temple .
He was wrong. I also believe the Preterists are wrong. I believe the rapture as
a separate event from the second coming is ‘extra biblical’. But in all of our
seeking for truth, I don’t throw out the historic belief of Christ’s return. I
believe the best way to explain the supposed delay of his return is to look at
the character of God. The New Testament says the longsuffering of God is
because he wants to bring as many people into the church as possible. That
which seems to be a delay is really mercy. No need to try and find ways to
explain this to the critics, Jesus is delaying his return for their benefit!
(614) JOHN
15 [Radio # 598] Jesus tells the disciples they are the branches, he is the
vine. If they truncate themselves from him they will perish. In the world of
‘once saved always saved’ and ‘if you walk away you are lost’ a lot of these
verses become arguing points. I believe the main context here is sort of like
when I taught Hebrews [read chapter 6 of the commentary on this blog]. I see
Jesus telling the disciples as a microcosm of the Nation of Israel ‘If you
don’t continue in the Old Testament revelation of me as Messiah, then you will
be cut off [AD 70] and be destroyed’. Basically Jesus telling Israel ‘you must
remain in me [after all you have all come from me! John 1:1] if you want to be
fruitful’. Jesus says ‘I want you to have full joy’ in the same context of
bearing fruit. God designed all of us to be active participants in the
spreading of his kingdom. In many modern scenarios you have the Pastors and
staff finding fulfillment, but the average church attendee is simply a funder
of the organization. They see everything thru this paradigm. ‘Give
sacrificially, we can reach the world!’ It’s good to give sacrificially, but
God wants all of us to ‘reach the world’ to be active participants in this
thing. You can’t have ‘full joy’ unless you do the stuff! Jesus says ‘If I had
not come and spoken unto them [religious leaders] they wouldn’t have known they
were wrong’ also ‘if I had not done the works among them that no one else was
doing’. Jesus reproved by word and deed. I find it funny how after preaching
that you don’t need lots of money to reach the world for Christ, that preachers
get really mad at this. Then when we do impact a large region [basically Texas,
New York area and all the African preachers who have been reading/listening to
us on the internet] with me paying for everything, that this really gets the
‘religious leaders’ mad. Don’t be mad, instill this same concept into your
people and you will have a full reward. Tell them like Jesus told his disciples
‘go into the world, don’t think you need a lot of equipment for this, you are
the equipment. No special appeals for funds, keep it simple’ [Message Bible]
Jesus taught and lived contrary to the professional clergies agenda. They got
mad! NOTE; Jesus says ‘ye are clean thru the word that I have spoken unto you’.
As I was reading this chapter for a few days, getting ready to write on it. I
usually get up early and pray ‘aggressively’ for a while before I write.
Sometimes I just wait on the Lord and just listen [for about an hour] and hear
what he is saying. All of these entries come from this ‘hearing’ time, not from
much ‘head knowledge’. As I was waiting the other day, the Lord spoke to me
about this verse ‘ye are clean [set apart for my purpose] thru the word I speak
to you, not thru what you speak [pray] to me’. I felt like the Lord was saying
there are times in our lives where we simply receive and become the ‘incarnate’
purpose of God. That God desires to reveal himself to people thru us. The
purpose of receiving his word is not for didactic teaching only, but for
becoming what he says. Sort of like the imagery I taught in John 1 [go back and
read it!] we in essence become what he is communicating. We don’t just ‘hear’
it, we experience it. Like the Prophets in the Old Testament, God would
communicate thru them, but they also would go thru some strange stuff! Jesus
also says ‘if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what you
will and it will be done’. I want to credit the Word of Faith guys for bringing
out truth in this area. They popularized the idea of knowing Gods will and
purpose by knowing his word. His will is his word, if you will. The problem
became an unbalanced teaching thru only seeing the ‘good stuff’ and avoiding
the suffering verses. It would become next to impossible to correct these
brothers as they went headlong down the path of materialism. Any attempt to
reprove them would be seen as ‘don’t listen to the negative naysayer’ and they
would develop a mindset that would not receive correction. In the reality of
Gods will being his word, we must understand it is his whole word. Even the
verses that give warnings about end time teachers who would stray from the
faith by becoming money focused! [1st Timothy 6]. So lets give
credit where it is due, but also stay on course.
(618) JOHN 16 (radio # 599) Jesus says ‘these things I have
spoken unto you that you should not be offended’. What things? The reality that
after he leaves they will suffer and go thru stuff. He also tells them it is
necessary for their own growth for him to leave. If he doesn’t leave them alone
they will never experience the true ministry of ‘the comforter’. The Spirit
comforts those who need it. They will need it! If Jesus didn’t tell them about
the difficulty up front, there would have been cause for offense. When the
American church preaches only a gospel of success, when people later go thru
stuff they feel like ‘what’s wrong with me? God, you told me thru your
preachers that if I believed you all would go well’ they get offended because
they weren’t given both sides. Jesus gave both sides. When the Comforter comes
he will reprove of sin, righteousness and judgment [do justice]. Some times we
think the purpose for the church is to simply reprove of sin. God wants us to
do justice [civil rights] and show what is right. I heard a preacher say ‘the
only reason Christians should ever practice civil disobedience is if the govt.
said you couldn’t preach. But if they are killing babies, you shouldn’t
practice civil disobedience’. Remember when we said to use the same measure for
others as you would use on yourself? I would ask this preacher ‘what if the law
allowed for your 2 year old to be killed.’ Say if the law came to your house
and said ‘we are going to get your last bible copy and destroy it, or take your
little girl and chop her head off’ would you use ‘civil disobedience’ to save
the baby or the book? ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you can not
bear them now’ I think the American church is simply not able to ‘bear stuff
now’. It’s not like we couldn’t understand the stuff, or ‘receive it’ into our
ears. It’s just we are way too immature as a corporate people to truly grasp
it. The need is really not more knowledge, its more growth [not numbers,
maturity!]. I remember reading how Dietrich Boenhoffer visited a Christian
university in New York .
After his trip he commented on the surprise he had to see the level of
immaturity in the American church. He would soon become a martyr under Hitlers
3rd Reich. ‘Ye shall weep and lament, the world shall rejoice. Your
sorrow will turn into joy’ Jesus wants us to know that a day of recompense is
coming. We will go thru stuff, but God will bring you out on the other side! We
need both truths to stay balanced. ‘When a woman is in labor, she wants to
abort the process. But after the child is birthed, she forgets all the pain’. A
very important aspect of your calling is to ‘bring forth’ the thing God has
destined you for. There comes a time where you need to pass the test. God is
merciful, he lets you ‘re take’ the test. He brings teachers in who know how
important it is for you to pass. They even will ‘teach to the test’ some will
curve the grade. All types of stuff to get you to the next level. Sooner or
later you gotta pass the test. If you don’t, God will still love you. You can
even attend the graduations of your friends. But at the end of the day you will
have been a spectator in the auditorium as opposed to a graduate on the stage.
It’s better to be on the stage! ‘In me you will have peace, in the world you WILL
HAVE TRIBULATION, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ Jesus promise
isn’t to get us out of the world or the tribulation in it. But to keep us at
peace by having our minds fixed on him. The world runs back and forth [I was
gonna say ‘to and fro’ but that would have been a little to preachy] trying to
extend their lives. Have enough money to retire on. Keep from getting blown up
in a terrorist thing. They really have no peace, no matter how hard they try
they will all die sooner or later. The only peace to be found is in God. To
have the promise of future resurrection and living forever with God is the only
lasting thing you can have. All the money you earn and save will be as useless
as toilet paper in a few years, start living for eternal rewards!
(625) JOHN
17 [radio # 600] Jesus prays to the Father and asks God to ‘glorify him’ with
the glory they had in the beginning. In verse 22 he says he gave this glory to
the church. That’s strange. Scripture says God will not share his glory with
another, yet here he gives it to the disciples. How can that be? Well, as the
Body of Christ we are not ‘another’ we are one with him! He also says ‘I have
given life to those who you gave to me, you have given me power over all flesh.
I have given life to the ones you have chosen’. Here you see the ‘reformed’
part of me. Jesus is not simply offering life to those who want it [though he
does this at other times!] but here he is giving life to those whom the father
chose. You find both of these themes in scripture. Don’t fight it, we can’t
explain it, but praise God, he chose you! [and me]. ‘I have finished the work
which you gave me to do’. What work? He hasn’t gone to the Cross yet. I guess
you can say in a way that the work was finished from the foundation of the
world, and Jesus is saying ‘the course has been determined, I will go!’ But I
also see some truth to ‘the work’ being him revealing the Father to the ‘men
which you gave me out of the world’ the work of the 3 year mission to disciple
and train the 12. God has determined for people to cross paths with you thru
out your life. These are ‘the men’ that God has given you out of the world. It
is your destiny to reveal THE FATHERS NAME unto them! In present models of
church leadership we fail miserably at this. We see ‘the men’ that God has
given us as supporters of our ministries. People whom we try to instill
‘faithfulness into’. ‘Be faithful to the vision of this house’ and stuff like
that. When these men go their way, we look for ‘new men’ to come and fill the
gap. We basically reveal ‘our name’ to them! Keep in mind that you have a
destiny to cross paths with people thru out your life. You will have ‘finished
the fathers work’ if by the time you part ways, they have seen and come to know
HIM. ‘I have given them the words which thou gavest me’ Give people the words
that God is speaking. Don’t fall into the trap of communicating only that which
benefits the ‘vision’ of your ministry. We often communicate that which brings
the crowds in. If we teach something and the offerings go down, we have a
tendency to not teach it again! There is so much pressure in modern ministry to
tailor the message to the hearer. Speak the things God is saying. Talk on
social justice issues. Not only on the popular ones, it’s ‘in’ to be against racial
profiling, but how about the truth on quotas and affirmative action? Speak
truth in all areas. Speak the words that God wants communicated. You have a
destiny to cross paths with people, avoid the temptation to speak with the goal
of being accepted. You know, saying things that you know are popular. Speak
truth to power! ‘Father, I will that they be with me where I am. That they may
behold my glory’ Is he talking heaven only? Remember how Jesus said the
Comforter will come and manifest and dwell in those who believe and keep his
words? Jesus is speaking in terms of community here. Organic ‘local church’.
Where 2 or more are, there is he ‘in the midst’. Jesus wants us to be where he
is, Jesus told the Greeks earlier in this gospel ‘If they want to see me, they
can meet me at the Cross’ [a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying].
I think Jesus is speaking of meeting him in true discipleship and union with
him and the father. The reality of the New birth and Jesus dwelling in us by
the Spirit. Let’s end with Jesus desire for oneness and unity. In the beginning
of this chapter Jesus said all who know the father thru the son have life [a
big group of believers!] he also wants all of us to be one. This ‘oneness’ is
actually a present reality in Spirit, though it is not fully functional and
‘seen’ yet in the world. Jesus wants it to be ‘seen’. This is how the world
will know that he was sent by God! Let’s strive for this unity in Christ. I
know there are so many divisions in the Body of Christ it isn’t funny. Some
people miss read my own belief on this when they see how we reprove lots of
stuff in the church. I don’t reprove from the standpoint of ‘we are right and
you are wrong’ more from the standpoint of ‘we are all striving to be what the
father wants, lets be honest and open with one another. Let’s reprove because
we care for each other and don’t want the other to ‘fall off the cliff’. Lets
do all we do with the purpose of true unity in mind. I don’t care how afraid
you are of ‘the one world church’, but whether you like it or not, you are part
of Gods ‘one world church’.
(627) JOHN
18 (radio # 601) Jesus is betrayed in the garden. John follows Jesus all the
way to the judgment, Peter stops short at the door. Why does John record this?
Is he being self serving? He is the only gospel writer that tells you this [If
I remember?] I think there is a purpose. Jesus already taught the principle of
‘whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but he that is wiling to give it
up will save it’. All the others fled out of self preservation. John stayed.
All the others will eventually die martyrs deaths, except for John! He will
wind up on some island in his old age writing this tremendous prophetic vision
[Revelation]. Truly he that was willing to give his life up outlasted them all!
Actually if you read the last chapter of John this becomes an issue. Jesus
tells Peter ‘if I will that John lives until I come, what is that to thee’?
Then a rumor gets started over John not dieing until the 2nd coming!
Hey, I wonder what they thought as they were all getting martyred one by one.
Each time another disciple dies, they must have been thinking ‘hey, Johns still
here, maybe he will live till Jesus comes’? The high priest asks Jesus of his
doctrine AND disciples. Both Paul and Jesus had ‘doctrine and disciples’. Paul
was a theologian on the run! Getting let down in baskets from city walls. Being
stoned and put in prison. Paul was writing theology under crisis. Jesus and
Paul weren’t some ivory tower theologians speculating on the latest fad in
theology. They were ‘doing the stuff’. I want to challenge all my preacher
friends, do you have doctrine and disciples?
Let’s end this chapter in a little controversy. In verse 31 it says ‘the
Jews’. Verses 35 ‘thine own nation AND the chief priests’. Verses 36 ‘delivered
to the Jews’. Verses 38 ‘unto the Jews’. I want you to see how the scripture
makes it clear that BOTH the leaders and the Nation of Israel rejected Messiah!
Jesus in this chapter says he IS THE KING OF THE JEWS! Peter’s sermons in the
book of Acts accuse the Jews as a whole group of rejecting Jesus, not just a
‘conspiracy of the leaders and Rome’ [as John Hagee is teaching]. I don’t want
to be anti Semitic, some have actually accused John’s gospel of being anti
Semitic. Hey, John himself was a Jew! The point is God has great plans for
Israel as a Nation. Read Romans. But it is also a fact that ‘the Jews’ as a
people group missed their Messiah. This chapter makes it pretty clear! Also
when Peter cuts off the guys ear, Jesus says ‘stop, we are not here to fight.
Shall I not drink the cup which my father gave me’? Paul will later teach that
his own sufferings were ‘filling up the sufferings of Christ’s Body’ this would
be heretical if it weren’t in the bible! Paul and the other early believers
understood the calling to suffer along with the ‘being full’ part. I have heard
the ‘being full’ verse used out of context a lot! Paul does says ‘I have
learned to be content in any condition [state] both having a lot and a little’.
I have heard preachers say ‘see, Paul knew how to be rich as well as broke’ no
he didn’t! He was never rich. He knew how to have all his needs met [full] and
to lack [times of suffering and imprisonment where he couldn’t get the basic
stuff to do what he needed to do to carry on the mission]. Jesus says to Peter
‘shall I avoid the cup’? I think the modern American church has answered ‘yes’.
I was reading the voice of the martyrs magazine yesterday. How so many
believers are suffering and dieing for the faith. In Revelation it says it was
the prayers of the martyrs that carried the day. Boy will we be embarrassed at
the judgment when we find out it was the prayers of our martyred brothers and
sisters who died in our day who really were changing things. And at the same
time we were confessing money verses all the way to the bank!
(630) JOHN
19 (radio # 602) The reality of redemption! I want to stress the fact that
Jesus actually dieing on the Cross and really shedding his Blood for us is what
saves us. No spiritualizing here! Over the years I have seen and read how
believers in an attempt to ‘see’ the deep truths of God will sometimes fudge on
the real Blood of Christ redeeming us. Let’s make it clear, the New Testament
teaches that it was the real Blood of Jesus and his death on the Cross that
saves man. Now, were there spiritual aspects to it? Sure. But don’t
‘spiritualize’ the death and real shedding of Blood. Like the recent reproof we
did on some who taught that Jesus was not the Messiah, so here we warn that his
Blood really saves. I remember reading one of the founders of the Word of faith
movement, E.W. Kenyon. He would eventually teach that the ‘death of Jesus
[physically] didn’t touch the sin issue’ he would then teach that it was the
‘spiritual death’ that saved us. Then teach that Jesus was the ‘first born
again man’ who was separated from God and ‘born again’. The New Testament
teaches Jesus was ‘the first begotten from the dead’ meaning the first to rise
from the dead to never die again. Not the first person to ‘be born again’!
Later on you would have another famous Word of Faith brother teach the same
thing. I don't know why we have to always ‘see deeper’ than the plain truth? I
guess it offends the natural mind to believe that Jesus physical death and
separation from the father actually redeems man. I do believe Jesus ‘went to
hell’ I don't teach the ‘hell’ being a separate place called ‘paradise’ that
was really like heaven. It would seem strange for David in Psalms to say ‘thou
wilt not leave my soul in hell [paradise] nor suffer thy Holy one to see
corruption’. It just seems to fit as being ‘hell’, not ‘paradise. But I also
believe it was the real death of Jesus on the cross that saves us. He really
died and really shed his Blood and it was really finished when he said ‘it is
finished’. Jesus will also say to John ‘behold your mother’ and tell Mary to go
home and live with John after his death. Catholic apologists use this to defend
their belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. They say ‘if Mary had other
natural kids, then it would have been offensive in Jewish culture for Mary to
not have gone and lived with them’ good point. But heck, I defend our Catholic
brothers an awful lot. Let me defend the Protestants a little. It is also
possible that Jesus strong teaching on putting the spiritual family before the
natural one might have played a role here. This could be the beginnings of the
strong family mindset that you will see playing out later in the book of Acts.
True believers living and sharing as strong [or even stronger!] than natural
families. Also we already taught how Jesus knew that John would outlive the
others. Even Jesus brother James, one of the lead apostles at Jerusalem will be
martyred. Maybe Jesus knew [maybe!] that committing Mary over to Johns care was
a more long term thing than handing her over to his brothers? We also see
Nicodemus openly follow Jesus in this chapter. He is the first of the Pharisees
to confess Christ openly. Later in the book of Acts we will see ‘Pharisees who
believe’ but most times leaders are the last to repent and change positions.
Why? Well some of it has to do with the whole persona of leadership. With this
calling comes a type of character that says ‘I preached it, any one who
disagrees is simply persecution’. While there are times when this is true,
there are also times where God calls leadership to new levels. Some get it on
it early [Nicodemus] others later! [some never!] Be part of the early group. I
forgot to mention we also see the Jews appeal to ‘King Caesar’ as opposed to
King Jesus. They will tell Pilate ‘we have no King but Caesar’. They hated
Caesar. The whole Jewish nation were treated like 2nd class citizens
under Roman rule, sure they benefited from ‘Pax Romana’ [the peace of Rome] but
they hated to be living under an occupying govt. Jesus told them earlier in
this gospel ‘you refuse my testimony of who I am, yet you will accept the
testimony of another’s name’ some feel this is a reference to anti Christ. I
think it fits in good right here!
(634) JOHN
20 (radio # 603) THE GREAT VICTORY OF
THE SON OF GOD. In this chapter we finalize the witness of Jesus from his
father. All along he claimed to be the Messiah, here it is truly proven! The
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave is an historical fact! If you were
to try and disprove this fact [many have] you would find more historical
evidence backing up the reality of the Son of God than any other person. If you
believe in Lincoln, Clinton, Washington or any other historical figure, than
for sure you must believe in the Christ! He has so much more proof than all the
others. John will say at the end of this chapter ‘Jesus did more signs than
these, but these are recorded that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life thru his name’. John
tells us that the miracles [signs] that Jesus did were proof of his
Messiahship. I hate to have to bring this up again, but being we are reading
this during the controversy [12-07] let me say it. In John Hagee’s book ‘in
defense of Israel’ John teaches that Jesus was not the Messiah to Israel
because God didn’t give him the power to do signs like Moses did. That Jesus
told them ‘no sign will be given to you but the sign of the prophet Jonah’.
Then in an unbelievable fashion John will teach that because of this, Jesus was
not the Messiah. It is almost unbelievable to hear him teach this. Many
Messianic groups have come out and openly rebuked Hagee for this. These are the
same Jewish groups that you would think would be on his side. They also see the
danger of preaching a doctrine that says ‘Jesus was not the Messiah because he
refused to do signs’. Peter in Acts will actually preach sermons that say ‘God
approved of his Son by giving him the Holy Spirit to do miraculous signs in
front of you’. The ‘sign of the prophet Jonah’ was not Jesus telling Israel
‘you will get no signs from me’, like Hagee teaches. He said ‘the sign of
Jonah’ was that Jonah went to the gentiles [Nineveh] to preach and not to
Israel. Therefore the sign was Jesus telling Israel ‘I am not your Messiah, I
am going to the gentiles.’ This is not what the ‘sign of Jonah’ means. The sign
of Jonah was ‘as Jonah was in the belly of the whale 3 days and 3 nights, so
shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth [buried] for 3 days and
nights’. The sign of Jonah was the death and resurrection of Jesus! Jesus was
saying to Israel ‘I have been doing many signs already [raising the dead,
opening blind eyes. All the signs that they were rejecting!] And in the ‘sign
of Jonah’ statement Jesus was saying ‘this will be the ultimate sign, until you
believe in this sign [the resurrection] your eyes will be blinded to all the
other signs’. Hagee actually says ‘if God wanted Jesus to be the Messiah to
Israel, why didn’t God give Jesus the ability to do signs like Moses’. He did!
Moses even says ‘the Lord your God will raise up a prophet LIKE UNTO ME,
whoever doesn’t hear him will be destroyed’. Peter says God did signs among you
[Israel] to testify that he was the Messiah. The writer of this gospel [John]
says ‘these signs have been recorded SO YOU WOULD BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS THE
MESSIAH [CHRIST]’. John [the Apostle] will later write in his letter ‘who is
anti Christ? He that denies that Jesus is the Messiah [Christ] is anti Christ’.
So here we see that Jesus was proven to be the messiah by the miracles he did.
The greatest one being his resurrection from the dead!
(673) JOHN
21 (radio # 604) wow, I have been
putting this off for a while! If you go back a few months you will see that I
never finished this study. Jesus finds the disciples went back to fishing. As
they near the shore he yells ‘did you guys catch anything’? No! They reply.
‘Cast your net on the other side’. Sure enough they fill the net! Notice
something, there is another account where Jesus says ‘cast the nets’ and in
that story they only cast ‘one net’. Why? Fishing was a tough business. After
pulling in and cleaning all the commercial nets it is not easy to ‘cast them
all back out for one last try’. So in that story Peter sort of says ‘Oh fine
Jesus, will humor you’ and he cast ONE net. What happened? The net broke! [I
think I am remembering right? If not this story will still have some meaning].
Here Jesus says ‘cast it’ they do and he fills it. The point is prepare for the
capacity that he wants to give you! If he says ‘nets’ [multiple] do ‘nets’.
Don’t think ‘fill the building’ here. Think in terms of harvest. The ‘fill the
building’ could be part of it, but I think there’s more. Let the Lord direct
your ‘casting’. Don’t focus on ‘my church in my city’ only. You often see these
appeals on church web sites. It is not uncommon to find a web site on the other
side of the world saying ‘come visit our Sunday meeting’. For heavens sake, if
you have a web site [interNET] use it to cast to a broad region. Actually teach
and interact with the thing! All the ‘virtual community’ are a real community
of people. Don’t take a possible few million potential readers and say ‘come
visit my building’. Geez! Get the word out! As the disciples get to shore they
realize its Jesus and Peter jumps out and leaves the brothers to bring in the
nets. Thanks a lot! But oh wait, then Jesus says ‘bring the fish’ and Peter
runs down and grabs the net right at the end! Sort of like what Saturday night
live used to say about Bill Clinton. He was a nice guy, the type who would
offer to help you move the furniture, but when you let your side down you
realize he wasn’t really lifting! Peter was a little ‘showboat’ here. Leaders,
be careful about arranging your ‘ministries’ around your personas. Are the
majority of the funds being spent on broadcasting your gift and image to
people? This is not primarily New Testament ministry! Peter tells Jesus 3 time
‘you know I love you’. Most of you are familiar with this story. Jesus says ‘do
you love me’ 3 times to Peter. In the Greek Jesus used the 3 different words
for love. But don’t lose the context. Scripture does say Peter was grieved that
Jesus asked him this 3 TIMES. Peter understood that Jesus wasn’t asking him 3
different things one time each! Maybe Jesus was allowing Peter to work in his
own mind for the 3 times he publicly denied him? Maybe we need to say out loud
‘I LOVE JESUS’ to reaffirm to ourselves that if we really weren’t sincere why
in the world would we even be doing these things! It’s easy to question all
your motives, especially after reading this site! For the most part all you
Pastors and leaders I relate to, you guys are real ‘players’. If you didn’t
really love the Lord most of you wouldn’t be doing the stuff you are doing, I
commend you! In verse 18 Jesus basically tells Peter ‘I am going to give you
one more chance. You feel terrible about not dieing for the cause. Your denials
of me were done out of fear of loosing your life. The church is going to enter
a period of great persecution, many will die for the faith. When you get old
Peter you will stretch forth your hands and be martyred’. It’s almost like Jesus
said to him ‘don’t worry, I am giving you another chance at it’. I think this
scenario is very possible, he doesn’t tell the others they will die like this.
As we conclude John’s gospel, let’s recap some stuff. I said earlier that Johns
gospel could be called the ‘gospel of sovereignty’. I believe Jesus taught
Predestination in this gospel. At least he hits on this doctrine more in this
gospel than the others. I think you could also call it ‘the gospel of belief’.
There are more statements on those who believe having eternal life than in any
other gospel. I think we should not take this lightly. It is common in
Christian circles to add a bunch of stuff to the gospel. Many evangelicals
preach a type of altar call that says ‘if you think simple belief in Jesus is
going to save you, well you got another thing coming’. But simple belief in
Jesus does ‘save you’ [Actually Jesus saves you!]. There is a recent resurgence
in Reformed theology going on in the Evangelical church. Good stuff on
Orthodoxy and Eastern roots also. Studying Patristics. We need to be careful
that we don’t stray from the simple offer of eternal life to those who believe!
It is all too easy to ‘fall in love’ with a sort of romanticism with all things
Orthodox and mix sacerdotalism in with justification by faith! This gospel
falls down heavily on the justification by faith side! [I know my Catholic
friends will say ‘hey, chapter 6 says this is my Body!’ I don’t want to re
teach it here. Go back and read chapter 6 on this study]. So thank God that he
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
him would not perish but have Everlasting life!
(1372) JOHN 17:1-7 Jesus said his hour has come, ‘glorify me
with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested
your name [who you are] to the men that you gave to me, they were your men and
you gave them to me. They have received the words that you gave me, and they
know for sure that the things that I taught them came from you.’ There is an element
in Christian ministry/teaching when the rubber meets the road, after a period
of time people either say ‘you know, I believe what he is saying is accurate’
or when you say ‘enough, I really can’t take this anymore’. Now Jesus will also
tell us later in the chapter ‘I have kept the men you gave me, but Judas had to
fall away for the scriptures to be fulfilled’ Jesus also dealt with the pain of
losing one of his guys. A while back I read an article about a famous
evangelical in the UK, he made some waves by referring to the Mother of Jesus
in a sort of Catholic way [I forget the exact wording] but he got some heat
over it. While trying to defend his new view of becoming more open to the
Catholic Church, he said ‘I am as sure about this as I was about the truth of
the prosperity movement’ not too comforting for me. The point though is
Protestants have a tendency to journey thru the Christian life in sort of a
haphazard way, we often see a certain viewpoint about some doctrine [whether
true or not] and that becomes what we teach the people, then we see another
thing and that becomes the next road. Too often the individualism of the
Protestant way of approaching Gods kingdom has us ‘revealing to them the next
new thing coming down the pike’ as opposed to saying with Jesus ‘I have
manifested thy name unto the men which you gave me’. We have all been put here
with a predetermined purpose from God, we can’t say ‘glorify me with the glory
which I had with you [father] before the world was’ but we can say ‘father, carry
out the purpose that you gave to me before the world was, that eternal purpose
that you destined me for, before I ever existed’ we need to grasp a better hold
on the purpose of God for our lives. We need to stop following people, even
good intentioned people, thru all their ups and downs and highs and lows of new
experiences and teachings; in Ephesians Paul said the purpose of us being ‘a
body/community’ was so we could be built up and not be tossed around by every
whim and new doctrine that people come up with. The ‘Body’ imagery speaks of
the people of God as a worldwide community, a living corporate being whom God
indwells. When we hear and grow with the ‘whole church- of all time’ then we do
well, when we follow too closely individual men/teachers we spend too much time
going up and down.
(1373) JOHN 17:8-14 Jesus says he has given the words that
the father gave to him, to his men. He is preparing to be ‘no more in the
world’ but these are in the world, and I am glorified in/thru them. Jesus saw
his mission thru the paradigm of having faithfully deposited Gods truth into
the people that the father ‘gave him’. This group of men were planned by the
father to have been impacted thru his life, Jesus did not see them thru the
lens of ‘these men are here to promote/support my calling’ sort of like God
gave them to him in order for them to help him reach some type of goal or
personal achievement in life. Instead he realized that thru serving them and
laying down his life for them, that thru these acts he would be
‘glorified/honored thru them’. That is the people of God would carry on the
legacy of Jesus after he was gone, they too would be ‘sent out into the world,
even as the father sent me into the world’. He would entrust to them Divine
realities and they would pass these truths along to those who the father ‘gave
to them’ [Paul- I do all things for the elects sakes]. I want to
encourage/challenge our leaders today- do you primarily see the people around
you [whether church members or simple friendships in the kingdom] as people God
has brought to you in order to help you achieve your mission? That is are they
simply assets to ‘the ministry/church’? It’s easy to fall into these mindsets,
and it’s not wrong to see God as bringing relationships into your life for the
purpose of a great goal, but I think it would be better if we saw these things
thru the mindset of Jesus; he knew that his life being poured out as a
sacrifice would impact his followers in such a way that for generations to come
the ‘words that the father gave to him’ would continue thru the lives of his
friends. Don’t be too consumed with the material aspects of the here and now
[facilities, finances, etc.] they will all pass away, but those that do the
will of God will abide forever.
(1382) IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD; AND THE WORD WAS WITH
GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD- John 1:1 Jesus is called ‘The Word’, the Greek word
for ‘word’ is Logos. In the first century this word was common among the
philosophers, it stood for a sort of overriding principle that would explain
and bring together all the fields of science and learning, the same obsession
of Einstein in his search for a unified theory. The philosophers believed that
there had to be some type of base principle of truth that would bring together
all the other fields of wisdom and learning. In essence John was saying ‘This
is it, we have found the Logos- the answer to everything- his name is Jesus!’
It’s always difficult to teach these types of verses, they are fraught with
only seeing one aspect of what God is saying, and then dividing lines are drawn
between the Christian camps. I was having a conversation yesterday with a
person who was asking questions about a Muslim friend who used to be a
Christian. The Muslim said that he wanted a religion that he could understand,
that God is the only God and Jesus is not God. I explained the best I could and
shared this verse and a few others, but I also explained that various
‘Christian’ groups have argued over the way to express the deity of Jesus for centuries.
There are groups that say ‘Yes, Jesus is the redeemer, he is Gods Son, but only
God is God’. From the catholic bishop Arius in the 4th century all
the way up to the Unitarians in Boston in the 20th century, people
have debated the language we use. I explained to my friend that the bible
clearly does teach us that Jesus is God, but I do see how people have problems
with the language. But I told my friend that for a person to use the difficulty
over the Trinity to embrace Islam is going way too far in my view. I mean the
fact that someone has a problem with the wording of the Trinity should not mean you abandon all the realities of
redemption and Christianity and embrace a movement that was started by a ‘prophet’ who killed
and murdered and had ‘many women’, I mean no other prophets ever had a track
record like that! As we read the rest of John chapter 1 we see how John the
Baptist says he came to bear witness, to give a record of Jesus, the ‘Lamb of
God’. The religious leaders come to John and ask him ‘who are you, we need an
answer to bring back to the authorities, the movers and shakers of our day’
John says ‘I am the voice of one man crying in the wilderness, get ready, the
lord is on his way’. John quoted Isaiah 40, he is also said to be the prophetic
voice that Malachi spoke about- the Elijah that was to come. Johns only
significance was in the fact that he was chosen by God to trumpet the reality
of the Messiah, his purpose was not about him or his prophetic gifts, his
purpose was to proclaim the last true prophet [in the sense of Hebrew
messengers who came down the line- see Hebrews chapter 1] and John the Baptist
said ‘this is the one, the one whom the Spirit descended on- he’s going to
baptize you guys with the Spirit’ [and fire!]. John testified that Jesus was
the end of the line for promised Messiahs, he was the ONE. Why look we for
another?
(1384) YOU’RE NO EINSTEIN! A few weeks back my wife was
getting on me for looking like a homeless guy, she tells me ‘John, why don’t
you cut your hair- at least brush it’ and I responded ‘Einstein let his hair
grow out’- the response ‘your no Einstein’. Humility is one of those gifts that
just keeps on giving. Okay, seriously I have become a little messy these last
few years. I am feeling okay physically though I realize all things are not
well. About a year [actually a few years] ago I noticed some physical signs
that probably needed to be checked out, but I had just lost my health insurance
and finally went on line and did the best with what I had. At the same time
there were days where I would get off of work and barely be able to walk [back
problems] and would go to the homeless mission to see the brothers and some of
them are in there 20’s, doing much better than me, and yet they are on Social
Security, getting medical stuff for free, and I couldn’t even get the darn VA
clinic to check me out! [I was in the navy, and my wife also. Tried but failed
to get approved for the clinic]. So I guess after a while you get frustrated.
Okay, in John chapter 2 Jesus turns the water into wine. The governor of the
wedding drinks it and says ‘wow, most people serve the best stuff first, and
after everyone is feeling good- then he sets out the cheap stuff. But you have
saved the best for last’. Of course we know this is a story that speaks about
the New Covenant in Jesus Blood being better than the old, but the point I want
to make is this governor testified about Jesus and he didn’t even know it.
Later on after the leaders draw up their personal opinions of him, they will
not give him the credit for ‘the good wine’ they will find all sorts of reasons
to demean him, but those who simply got a taste of the wine said ‘wow, that’s
some of the best ever’. Do you [I] have a tendency to reject the ‘wine’ because
we have already pre judged the source? Have people ever approached you and said
‘hey, did you hear that brothers teaching, it’s really good’ and yet you felt
offended because ‘that brother’ might have hit a nerve or 2 along the way.
Jesus turned the water into wine, not just any wine, but some of the best stuff
on the planet. Many wouldn’t access it because they were offended by his
straight forward approach- they even said of John the Baptist that he had
strange eating habits [locusts!] and looked a little shabby [camels hair
wardrobe]. Don’t let the personal animosities keep you from the good wine,
people are going to drink it whether you like it or not, might as well get in
on it while there’s still some time left.
(1385) JOHN 4- Jesus does the unthinkable, he travels thru a
bad side of town- Samaria. If you read our Kings study you will remember the
history of the region, by the time of Jesus day they were considered the ‘dogs’
of society. Now Jesus meets the woman at the well and they engage is this
intriguing conversation, she brings up the debate over where the true place of
worship should be- do we meet in the church building or the house? Ah, Jesus
says ‘woman, the time is coming and it is even here now when the true
worshippers of God will do it in spirit and truth’. It really wasn’t a matter
of ‘where’. Okay, she gets into this religious discussion with this strange
person in the middle of her busy day, she really doesn’t have time to get into
the whole thing. But for some reason she’s drawn to this person, he seems to
have insight that is rare for the day. Jesus tells her ‘if you knew who it was
that you were talking to, you would have asked for water and I would have given
you water that once a person drinks from they will never thirst again’. Okay,
another one of those strange sayings, but she’s running out of time, she needs
to finish her business at the well at get back to town. What the heck, she says
‘Okay, give me the water’ well, first we have to deal with a few things-
remember I’m looking for sprit and truth, brutal honesty about your life and
situation. This isn’t an encounter with some ‘wealth coach’ for heaven’s sake!
Here we go ‘call your husband’ what? What a strange question to interject at
this point-okay, she knows how to answer questions about her past in a way that
makes it sound like everything is all right, when we all know it’s not. She
says ‘I have no husband’ got ya now. Jesus tells her ‘you have spoken the
truth’ the man your living with now is not your husband, and you have been
divorced 5 times already, so yes, you ‘have no husband’. Okay, this is where
the rubber meets the road, this is what Jesus was getting at when he told her
that worship is not about ‘where’ but about truth and honesty when confronted
by God. At this point many walk away and stay offended for life, but she was
thirsty enough to allow the confrontation/offense to happen. ‘Well, I know that
the Messiah is going to come some day, and when he comes he will tell us all
things’! It was really a shot at Jesus ‘sure, you know SOME STUFF about me, but
the real Messiah knows everything!’ Jesus says ‘I that speak unto you am he’.
At that point the disciples returned with the food, they are shocked that Jesus
is engaging this woman, they must be thinking ‘thank God the Pharisees aren’t
here for this one’ I mean they were always looking for an excuse to discredit
him. Well the woman goes back into town and tells all the other ‘mongrels’
about Jesus, he is invited to the town and spends 2 days and this truly is the
first great ‘gentile/Samaritan’ outreach of the first century. In our day there
is much debate about the how and way to ‘do church’ much of what is missing
from the conversation is the ‘spirit and truth’ aspect. I have noticed that
when a famous preacher falls into some public sin, that when they make the
rounds [Larry King, etc.] there is much interest. People want to know that the
things that they have struggled with are also things that we all deal with. The
‘spirit and truth’ aspect is often missing from our modern practice of
Christianity. This woman allowed the confrontation to happen; it needed to
happen for her to get to the next step where she would believe that Jesus was
the Messiah. She truly found the water that she asked for.
(1386) DROP THE BED [AND GIVE ME THE WINGS] - I was reading
a news story about a Dominoes guy who was robbed; the brothers who robbed him
found out he had no money on him, so one of them said ‘just give me the wings’,
now that’s a brother that I could go easy on if I was on the jury. Recently I
made a few comments on line dealing with the Emergent movement and stuff, all
things I have written on before. Though I have been both critical and at times
supportive of certain aspects of the movement, I felt some who also made
comments were not leaving enough ‘room’ [grace] for the author of the book
being critiqued. In John chapter 5 Jesus heals the guy at the pool of Bethesda
and he tells him ‘take up your bed and walk’- take up my bed! That’s the reason
I have not been able to get healed by making it into the water after the angel
troubles the water, I mean if I could walk I wouldn’t be in this dilemma. The
poor brother didn’t realize that he was talking straight to the source ‘forget
about the angel thing, I am the Messiah man! Take up the bed now’ the man
walks. Now that’s a real miracle, something that we could all be happy about,
right? Not. The religious folk saw the man and their first response was ‘who in
the heck told you to carry that darn bed on the Sabbath’? They immediately saw
the perceived violation of their religious point of view, the bible says ‘they
sought to kill him’. What! The same 10 commandments that speak about keeping
the Sabbath has a little bit to say about killing people too. Sometimes we as
believers [defenders of the faith] need to be able to look past the things we
perceive as wrong- now there are times where we take a stand and say ‘enough is
enough’ but there are also times where we need to ask ourselves if we are just
looking for some guy carrying his bed- the person who seems to be violating one
of our ideas. There is a difference between true rejecters of Jesus, and people
who believe in Jesus but are coming at stuff from a different point of view. To
shoot a pizza delivery boy in a robbery is a serious crime, to say ‘give me the
wings’ I don’t know.
(1387) FOR THE FATHER HAS LIFE IN HIMSELF, AND HAS GIVEN TO
THE SON TO HAVE LIFE IN HIMSELF; AND HAS GIVEN HIM AUTHORITIY TO EXECUTE
JUDGMENT ALSO- In John chapter 5 one of the statements that irks the religious
leaders is Jesus calling God his father- thus making himself equal with God.
Those who doubt the deity of Christ should look at the way the religious
leaders viewed him, they knew that he claimed equality with God. In some of the
recent musings on the liberal ideas of ‘the evolution of God’ [those who see
the church evolving in her view of God as time goes by] I want to say a few
things. First, the incarnation is Gods way of saying ‘yes, your view of me was
limited, the very fact that the incarnation is the full revealing of myself to
man, shows that man never had the complete [full] view of me yet’. So in a
sense, yes, our view of God ‘evolved’ [so to speak] from the wrathful God of
the Old Testament to the merciful God of the New Testament. Now, are these
contrary views of God? No. Are they views like some in the early days of the
church taught- that the God of the Old Testament was a different God than the
God of the New [Marcion and other Gnostic cults]? No. But our view of God from
the Old Testament is a view of Gods holiness and judgment apart from the grace
of the New Covenant. He is the same God, seen absent the Cross [for the most
part, yet we do see Gods attribute of mercy even in the Old Testament]. Now,
without getting off track too much, in the New Testament we are told that Jesus
is the complete picture of God to us; Colossians says that ALL the fullness of
the God head dwelt in Jesus bodily. We never had this fleshly reality of God
before- the apostle John will say ‘we handled the word of life’ [1st
Jn]. A few weeks back while watching an apologetic show I mentioned how some of
the staunch apologists were labeling the UPC [united Pentecostal churches] as a
cult because of their unique view of the oneness of God. The apologists at one
point quoted the verse ‘all things were made by him’ referring to Jesus, and
said ‘therefore Jesus is God’ true. But they were trying to combat the UPC
brothers by using this verse, the apologists were using it in a way that said
‘see, Jesus created everything too, just like it says about God’ sort of in a
disconnected way. In John 1 we read that in the beginning was the word and the
word was with God and the word was God. In Genesis we read that God ‘spoke’ all
things into existence. Jesus in the New Testament is called ‘the word of God’
to try and simplify it, when Colossians says ‘all things were made by him’ it
does not mean that Jesus created things separately from God, it means God spoke
and that ‘the vehicle’ of creation was the Son. The act of God’s word [also
called Jesus] going forth created all things. God did not create separately
from the Son, or the Son from the father. I really loathe teaching this stuff
because church history is filled with names that get tagged on all the various
views of explaining the oneness of God while at the same time upholding the
reality of the Trinity. The main point today is mans view of God did ‘evolve’
in a sense, it became fully revealed in Jesus. Now the liberal view of the
evolution of God is something different than this, but I wanted to make clear
that if the only view of God is seen thru the Old Testament, than yes we are
not ‘fully’ seeing God, the full view comes thru Jesus. We reject the Marcion
idea of 2 different Gods, the Gnostic belief that the God of the Old Testament
was the God of matter and thus an evil God, while the God of the new testament
is the spirit God- this is true heresy, but as Christians we accept the
incarnation as the complete picture and revelation of God to man. This in no
way negates the wrath of God [eternal judgment] but it tempers it with mercy.
(1388) 1, 2 MANY BISHOPS? In John chapter 6 Jesus is
confronting the religious leaders, they are always appealing to some ancient
hero of the faith [Moses, Abraham] and they are doing it in a way that violates
the supremacy of Jesus. Jesus tells them ‘look, you guys are always appealing
to the writings of Moses, if you really believed in the guy you would have also
believed in me- he wrote about me!’ In ‘blog world’ there has been a scuffle
over an overseas church that many have labeled as a cult. On the site ‘religion
news blog’ they have been doing an expose’. The church is led by a man who
calls himself a Bishop and one of his satellite churches had a Pastor walk out
and split the church. The coverage of the ministry that I have read seems to
place them in the prosperity/apostolic covering type movement. I have written
on this before and have always felt that there were too many independent
churches-ministries claiming ‘apostolic authority’ and these well intentioned
people have crossed the line when it comes to the freedom of the individual
believer's conscience. Many are famous for rebuking ‘the maverick spirit’ while
at the same time they seem to be totally mavericks themselves! In the above
case I think the religious site went too far in calling them a cult. I have
read from this site in the past and they are run by fine Catholic Christians,
but they are too quick to holler ‘cult’. I personally do not recommend these
types of church movements, but avoid the cult label. I also read an article a
while back written by a leader in one of the more historic churches, they were
rebuking the rapid spread of these types of churches thru out the world. The
leader said they were sprouting up like wild fire, all with their self
proclaimed bishops, who were basically starting their own independent churches
and everyone in the organization is ordaining everyone else as a bishop, the
leader saw this as a major problem. What exactly does the bible teach about
this? The words for ‘bishop, overseer and elder’ in the bible seem to speak of
the same office. Though different Greek words are used, most scholars agree
that they seem to be used interchangeably. One thing we know for sure is in the
New Testament there were no Bishops in the sense of an ecclesiastical authority
over a number of churches. This developed over time and my purpose here is not
to get into the whys and how’s this happened, I am not ‘anti clergy’ in that I
reject the modern role today [in the historic churches]. Does the bible have
any office that does show an extra local authority? Yes, the apostle Paul had a
very effective oversight ministry to most of the churches we read about in the
New Testament. So the idea of a church planting ministry to have a number of
‘satellite churches’ is okay. The Catholic Church has Bishops in the Cathedral
cities who oversee the entire region. I live In Corpus Christi; the cathedral
for this south Texas region for the Catholics is located in my city. San
Antonio has another region. While living in New Jersey, Saint Patrick’s was the
Cathedral in N.Y. that covered the region. So you have different views and out
workings of how bishops work. The thing I would warn about is when these
bishops [the independent ones] seem to teach a strong type of ‘covering’
authority over people. Many of these movements [sometimes referred to as the
shepherding, discipleship movement] teach a controlling type spirit that has
the main apostle as the person that the community submits to, but it is done in
a way that violates the freedom that we see in the New Testament. The religious
folk of Jesus day were enamored with Moses, to the point where they were never
fully able to move on to Jesus as being the true authority figure that they
would submit to, I think we could all learn from their mistake.
(1390) THE EXCLUSIVITY OF JESUS CHRIST- John chapter 8
begins with the woman caught in adultery, Jesus refuses to judge her but also
tells her to go and sin no more. Then we launch into a conversation between
Jesus and the religious leaders. Basically they claim belief in God and tell
Jesus that he is their father. Jesus replies that if they do not believe that
he is the Messiah, then in reality they do not have God as their father- he
flat out tells them that satan is the father of those who claim belief in God
while not accepting and honoring the Son. This chapter is important for the
pluralistic society we live in today. How should believers approach other
faiths that claim belief in God, but do not accept Jesus as the Messiah? First,
we should respect the various beliefs/religions of others people groups. Now
when I say ‘respect’ I mean we should give people room to form their own
beliefs while at the same time challenging them with the truth claims of
Christianity. We should not leave the impression ‘well, we all believe in the
same God, so what’s the difference whether or not you believe in Christ’ well
frankly the difference is between heaven or hell! The point being Jesus is
‘exclusive’ in the sense that you can’t really have God as your father without
having Jesus as your savior. He can’t just be ‘one of the prophets in a long
line of prophets’ no, he alone is the God man! God became flesh and dwelt among
us thru the Son, Jesus said if you don’t hear his words, believe that he is the
one sent from the father, then you don’t have God as your father. Jesus is
‘inclusive’ in the sense that he even accepted the woman taken in adultery,
something the so called ‘God believers’ would not do. The religious acceptance
of belief in God, absent the reality of Jesus, treats women and others with
disdain [wearing veils, etc.] those who ‘have God’ and the Son, are truly the
liberators of society. The world might accuse the church of being arrogant and
believing in exceptionalism, but in the end we have the only answer to the
human sin problem, that which G.K. Chesterton called the only Christian
doctrine that has 100% empirical evidence of being true! Truly Jesus is the
answer to fallen man, let’s not be ashamed of that fact.
(1391) NO MAS [SA]! Back in the 70’s us boxing fans were
treated to one of those so called ‘super fights’ you know, a matchup between
greats. Roberto Duran faced Sugar Ray Leonard. A few rounds into the fight
Duran got so frustrated that he walked out of the ring while chanting ‘NO MAS’.
Yesterday a Democratic congressman from N.Y. - by the name of Massa- resigned
his seat and went on the war path against his own party. It seems like he has a
history of making racy comments to other men, but his excuse for being rail
roaded is that he voted against Obama Care. It’s quite sad, he is making the
rounds [today he’ll be on Beck] and he’s describing all these encounters with
the administrations men, he says they approached him in the showers at the gym,
wearing nothing, and he describes Rahm Emanuel’s ‘tush’. He seems like he can’t
escape language that pits him up against other men, while nude! All of this
wouldn’t be so tragic if it weren’t happening to the most ethical congress in
U.S. history! Plus, it really stains N.Y. politics, I bet Spitzer and Patterson
can’t even sleep at night. Okay, in John chapter 9 Jesus heals a man that was
blind from birth, the disciples ask him ‘who did sin, this man or his parents,
that caused this man’s plight’? Jesus said neither, but this happened so the
works of God could be manifested in him. This might be the most important verse
in the chapter. This man and his family lived many years with the insinuation
that they must have been children of a lesser God, sure their neighbors didn’t
come right out and say it, but you could sure feel the underlying accusation.
Now, the news makes it to the religious crowd and they find out he was healed
on the Sabbath, a big no no, a real ‘No Mas’ moment. They question the man and
his family, they can’t escape the fact that this is a real miracle, so they try
and convince the man that he should thank God for the miracle, but this Jesus
is not authentic. The more they question him, the more he becomes a vocal
advocate for Jesus. Finally at one point the religious leaders get fed up and they
say ‘who are you to teach us anything, YOU WERE ALL TOGETHER BORIN IN SIN!’
There it is, that underlying accusation that he always felt from the religious
crowd- you know, the group who always had their act together, they prided
themselves in their upper class status ‘thank God that I am not like this
beggar’ type of thing. But now, at the moment of truth, they blurt it out ‘Look
at you, your whole life has been a testimony of your utter worthlessness, sure
we never said it openly, but we always felt that way’ so the truth came out. I
had a good friend a few years ago, New York Tony, he was a homeless brother
that came from my home turf, never knew him from the north, but ran into him
while making the rounds. Tony was a good friend, hooked on Coke and Crack, but
a hard worker and Army vet. Tony used to always question why he was like the
way he was, he was adopted and he thought maybe his real mom passed something
off to him- was he like this because of what he did, or what his parents did?
In the religious world we often create mindsets that say to people ‘surely if
you were right with God, these things wouldn’t have happened to you’ we often
violate the mandate from James ‘Don’t despise the poor’. At the end of the
chapter Jesus tells the man that he came into the world to make the blind see,
and the ‘seers’ blind. The religious leaders would find no help until they got
to the end of their rope, the point where they could say ‘No Mas’ to the road
they were on, but instead they said to Jesus ‘No Mas’.
(1392) CAN A DEVIL OPEN THE EYES OF THE BLIND? In John 10
Jesus defends his deity in sort of a strange way; he says ‘if those to whom the
word of God came are called “gods” how much more shall it be said of him whom
the father hath sent and sanctified, that he is called the Son of God’. Jesus
is quoting Psalms 82, as far as I can tell this is the only attempt that Jesus
makes to justify his deity thru scripture. He has said things like ‘before
Abraham was, I AM’ and ‘how could David call the Messiah his Lord, if he is the
Son of David’ all statements that speak of his deity, but this quote from
Psalms 82 seems to be a direct reference
to him claiming deity [Son ship] based on a verse that calls us ‘gods’. Over
the years this verse has been used by certain camps to teach dominion theology,
but I think they missed the point. The Psalm itself is a rebuttal to the
religious leaders of Jesus day, it argues for the defense of the poor, the
doing of justice- it is the ministry of Jesus in a nutshell, a strong reproof against
those who refused to do justice and defend the poor and needy. I mean Jesus
healed the crippled guy and all they could do was critique him for violating
their view of the Sabbath. In this chapter they say ‘can a devil open the eyes
of the blind’? Jesus purposely healed these people on the Sabbath, I mean there
really were 6 other days to do these healings, why keep doing it on the
Sabbath? I think he was sticking it in their faces, causing them to have to
rethink their religious views. He was showing them the reality behind the law
‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ the rebuke of psalms 82
‘do justice and quit using the law as some religious measurement of class and
status’. Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus didn’t heal every sick person he
met- I know the bible says ‘he healed them all- he went around healing all who
were oppressed of the devil’ but this does not mean every person on the planet.
I mean at the pool of Bethesda he healed only one, I mean that pool was like a
hospice, people who were ready to die were showing up for one last miracle, yet
Jesus healed only one. But these outstanding cases were proofs that just
wouldn’t go away. The religious leaders kept going back to those events in
their minds ‘can a devil do this’? The father testified of the authenticity of
the Son by doing these miracles, Jesus even says ‘look, if you don’t believe me
because you think my doctrine and claims are wrong, then at least believe for
the actual works that I’ve done’ no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t
deny the reality of those few outstanding miracles-‘can a devil really do
this’? No.
(1393) POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY- in John chapter 11 Jesus raises
Lazarus from the dead. The news gets back to the religious leaders and they say
‘If this keeps going on, we will lose our influence with the people and the
Roman authorities will come and take away our position’ and one of their own,
the high priest Caiaphas, says ‘Don’t you guys understand that it is expedient
that one should die for the nation, instead of the whole nation suffering’ and
John says ‘this spake he by the Spirit, being he was the high priest he was
prophesying of Jesus death’. Okay, did the brother realize what he was saying?
I doubt it. But he was stating a political reality of the time, that this
railroading of Jesus would play a cathartic role for the political times that
they were in. I finally watched the interview with the disgraced congressman,
Eric Massa. He went on Beck and the whole thing is really a fiasco. Beck was
hoping to expose the hidden conspiracies of the administration, instead Massa
confessed to tickling his navy bunkmates! The sad thing is, as I listened to
Beck, he really believes in many of the conspiracy theories he espouses. It
doesn’t help that the president, as well meaning and pluralistic as he is, puts
people to work for him that have held fringe beliefs. This allows the Becks of
the world to find these hidden treasures [UTUBE] and lo and behold, we have one
of his people praising Mau Se Tung, or signing a 911 petition that claims Bush
was in on it. What purpose do the Becks of the world [or to be fair, the MSNBC
crowd] play? I see them as sort of a cathartic for the people who also hold to
their views, it seems to be a necessary evil that allows people to vent, a sort
of political necessity if you will. I saw Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Ted
Kennedy, rebuking the media for their coverage of Massa, while at the same time
they have forgotten about the seriousness of the war in Afghanistan and the money
and cost of lives on both sides, he was mad and raging on the floor. Though I
am not a fan of Kennedy, yet I believe he spoke much truth. I thinks its
appalling that the media has dropped the ball on this, every so often a story
or so will leak out, a bunch of accidental deaths that our govt. denies being
involved with, then a month or so passes and a small report comes out ‘yes, we
did accidently kill 40 people’ what? The media seems to not hold the current
president accountable in these things. They play sides to the point where real
atrocities are glossed over. How many more stories on Sarah Palin’s daughter
will they do? They trodded out the ex boyfriend onto the main media outlets to
share their dirty laundry. They gave a forum to a disgruntled kid who posed for
playgirl, and they keep on doing this stuff. I mean this is the daughter of a
‘private’ citizen for heaven’s sake. How much coverage did they give to the
‘partner’ of Joe Biden’s daughter who made a sex tape with her? How often have
you heard the story? How many stories on Chelsea Clintons sex life? MSNBC is
just as bad as Beck when they do these things to a girl dealing with all the
situations that life can throw at you, and yet from letterman to Chris Matthews
to the major news outlets, they have all been guilty of this double standard.
Caiaphas saw the writing on the wall, he wasn’t worried about the fact that
what he was prophesying was that a corrupt system was going to railroad someone
thru a kangaroo court and execute an innocent man, he was simply calculating
the political balances of the day ‘will this help or hurt our cause’ type of a
thing. They should have been more worried about losing their souls, then their
seats in congress.
(1394) THE TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY? In John 12 the
Greeks come to Jesus disciples and want a meeting with Jesus, the Greeks are
those who prided themselves in their wisdom. Jesus basically brushes them off
and refuses to cow tow to the elites. He responds ‘unless a grain of wheat
falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone’ in essence- you guys ‘abide
alone’ [no meeting with me] until you take up the Cross and follow me. This
week [yesterday] the news has been reporting the Texas school book story.
Basically every few years Texas school board members go thru the process of
what the books for the state should include; basic guidelines and stuff. Texas
is the nation’s number one purchaser of textbooks, so the theory is if Texas
‘conservatives’ get their way, then the rest of the nation gets stuck having to
buy books that are tainted with backwoods idiots who imposed their views on the
rest of the ‘Greek’ [intellectual world]. Do our schoolbooks in general steer
away from the religious history and statements of many of the founding fathers?
Yes. Do our schoolbooks in general avoid/edit out religious statements from
their coverage of the founding documents. Yes. Why? There is a basic mistake
made by many of the publishers of schoolbooks that say ‘if we show religious
content, then we are violating the separation of church and state idea’. The
problem with this approach is they have
left out a large portion of history
while trying to produce a product that will be accepted in both ‘liberal’ and
conservative states. If you read the founding documents in their entirety
[Mayflower Compact, etc.] they read like a ‘church covenant’ that any Christian
community could adopt. Yet when the history books show quotes and portions of
the documents, they never quote these sections, why? Because of what I just
showed you. This has happened time and time again over many years until we have
gotten to the point where many public school children are really not learning
an accurate history of the country. The well meaning [but grossly misinformed]
opponents simply do not know this. They see the struggle as one between ‘those
darn Christian ignoramuses’ versus the enlightened crowd, they are really the
ones who have no idea what they are talking about. Now, are we- quote ‘a
Christian nation’? Not really. At least not in the way that some Protestant
preachers claim. During the founding of our country you had the mindset of the
European enlightenment affecting much of western society. Lines were being
drawn that pitted a humanist form of belief in God [Deism] against the classical
Christian view. Some of our founding fathers did adhere to a Deistic view.
Deism said ‘we do not need tradition or religion to inform us of human value
and dignity, we can hold to these principles by virtue of our human nobility
and intelligence’ that is they believed these truths to be self evident, sort
of like the current theme from some of the more popular atheists ‘do good for
goodness sake’ [which by the way, fails in the long run- too much to explain
right now]. Now, with this background, when our founding documents say ‘we hold
these truths to be SELF EVIDENT’ this term smacks of the fact that some of our
fathers did indeed reject the classical Christian view. So what does this show
us? That some of the founders purposefully included language that would veer
away from the Christian view. But you will never understand or learn this
simple thing that I just showed you, if we continue to expunge from the record
all the religious statements and views of the fathers! So the point is, when
these so called enlightened ones try and approach teaching from a biased view,
a view that they often don’t realize is biased, they do more harm than good to
their cause. The Greeks said ‘we are willing to hear Jesus, let’s set up an
appointment’ they went further than most of the liberals on the Texas school
board.
(1395) GLTB community [might have left a letter out?] Last
night I caught an interview on CNN with a transgender person. Tonight they will
be doing a special on him called ‘my name was Stephen’ he has ‘transitioned’
and is now living as a woman. Then the next show [Anderson Cooper] interviewed
Chas [former Chastity] Bono, the daughter of Sony and Cher who also is
transgender. A few years ago I saw a documentary on a phenomenon where people
had this compulsion, sometimes from as long as they can remember, to want to
rid themselves of a limb. The interesting thing was many of these people came
from various backgrounds and had no idea that others too grappled with ‘this
feeling’. Eventually a community formed around them to affirm them and tell
them there really is nothing wrong with them, after all many others have
struggled with the same feelings from their youth, so it must be an identity
thing. During the show they interviewed family members who dealt with the fact
that many of their loved ones went thru with these desires and found ways to
get their limbs amputated [freezing them to the point where the ER had no
choice but to amputate the limb]. One person who finally gave in to ‘who he
really was’ found out that after the first amputation, yes he felt a sense of
relief, sort of like ‘well, I was told by many others that it was the answer to
my problem, so I did it’ he was later interviewed and described how he
eventually sought counseling and he now realizes that both his desires, and the
good intentions of others who tried to affirm his desires, were actually very
damaging. Others felt affirmed in their acceptance of his desires, but they
really did not realize that their acceptance and encouraging was actually harmful.
He said that after the first amputation, some time elapsed and he began having
a desire to amputate another limb. He thanks God that a good counselor treated
this disorder and he is happy he stopped at limb one. In the interview with the
transgender person it showed how he went for many years without any inkling of
wanting to go from man to woman, then one day he watched a show and they
espoused this belief as the answer to some people’s problems. This idea stuck
in his head and through the process of time he acted on it. His son and wife
dealt with it the best they could, but it no doubt affected his entire life.
They went thru the whole procedure of surgeries and hormone treatments and
dealing with severe depression [and a high suicide rate] that many of these
people deal with, and yet the whole flavor of the show was geared towards
saying it was societies fault [church, morals] that has caused these people to
feel unwanted. There was really no thought given to the possibility that these
decisions, acting out on years of feelings, might in the long run solve nothing
and actually lead to more problems. In so many words the psychologist who was
also interviewed admitted that the depression rate is almost 100 % after the
‘transition’ is made. How should we as believers respond? In John 13 Jesus is
with his men at the last supper, he takes a towel and begins to wash the
disciples feet, Peter gets upset ‘No way Jesus, I won’t let you wash my feet’!
Jesus says ‘Peter, if you don’t let me wash you, you have no part with me’.
Then Peter says ‘fine, give me an entire bath’ and Jesus says he really only
needs to admit that sometimes in life we need foot washings, not entire body
makeovers! Some in the progressive church are trying honestly to deal with
these issues by saying ‘they don’t need a foot washing, that’s the way God made
them’ they are trying to be affirming towards people with struggles, but in the
long run this affirmation will not work. Imagine trying that with the brother
who kept ‘feeling’ that it was right to amputate his limbs! Jesus shows us that
all people get defiled in life, whether a person’s struggle is with a sexual
identity issue, or a heterosexual issue, we all have times where we need to go
to Jesus for cleansing. It might very well be that some of our brothers and
sisters in Christ will struggle and stumble in life with these things. We
should help them ‘get clean’ even if it’s a life time struggle. But to espouse
the idea of the world that says the answer is to affirm them in their sin, this
is neither helpful to them nor the biblical thing to do. When the religious
conservatives brought the woman in adultery to Jesus, Jesus received the woman;
he accepted and did not reject her. He also told her to sin no more, he
empowered her not by saying the lifestyle she was living was okay, but by
telling her ‘yes, I love you, and this lifestyle you think is fulfilling you is
not- you must let me wash you from it’. I know these issues are hot button
issues, and I know many well meaning Christians are presently trying to work
thru these issues, but the fact is many who have been told ‘to keep resisting
this desire, to not give in to it is living a lie’, they are being misled. They
are told year after year that to give in to whatever temptation they are facing
would be the answer, this simply is not true. Many will eventfully find the
same struggles all over again [remove another limb?] and finally realize that
in life there are times when yes, our feet get dirty- we might fall and
struggle for many years, but Jesus said you could still have a part with him,
if you let him wash your feet- if you keep coming back, 70 times 7, he will
keep working with you. The tragic thing is many of these precious people are
told that this struggle, to keep trying to overcome, is not being open and
honest, they are told this at times by the church. My brethren, we ought not to
do these things.
(1397) IN MY FATHERS HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS- Yesterday I read an article by an Arab
believer who grew up in a Muslim country. He shared how over the years he has
learned how to dialogue respectively with Muslims and how important it was to
share the Christian faith with respect, I really liked the tone. Jesus said ‘I
have other sheep which are not of this fold, I must gather them too’. In
context he is telling Israel that he too will gather Gentiles into the kingdom.
I also read a verse [?] the other day that spoke to me about leaving the door
open when dialoging with various groups. One of things that has surprised me
since I started blogging is the Arab brothers [Christians] who have contacted
me over the years and have been excited about our site. Many of them are
pastors and are really laying their lives on the line to bring the gospel to
Muslims. I do realize that my stance on natural Israel as well as how the
western world should treat Muslims/Arabs is part of the reason why fellow Arab
believers have been drawn to our site. For the most part I believe the church
should put the gospel of Jesus above all ethnic/political concerns- when
preaching the gospel we need to avoid getting into geopolitical wars or wars in
general! Many believers in Palestine who are Arab face persecution from fellow
countrymen who are Muslim, as well as persecution from Israel. These believers
generally do not get support from believers from the U.S., instead when
American believers go over there to interact, we usually are there to support
natural Israel and to see how well the future ‘temple’ plans are going, and
stuff like that. The Arab believers feel neglected by this attitude, some have
actually said ‘why don’t you care for us, don’t you understand that we have
been persecuted at times by Israel’? They feel confused and rejected when they
read in the bible how Christians should love and care for one another, and then
they see western believers taking sides in natural conflicts. Jesus said his
house had many rooms, the people of God [Gods house] are diverse and come from
many varied backgrounds. I do not hold to the thinking that says ‘all religions
are Gods children’ in a pluralistic sense of all monotheistic faiths have the
same faith. But when dealing with other fellow believers in the world [whether
Arab, Jewish, etc.] we should defend our brothers and sisters and side with
them in times of conflict, by ‘siding with them’ I mean we need to speak out in
support of them and call for justice and help when they are in trouble. I do
not advocate ‘siding with people’ when talking about actual warfare- believers
should not be in the business of siding with any conflict when it includes
killing other people [the sides you take as a citizen of a country are a
different matter, I am speaking here as a citizen of Gods kingdom]. I am
grateful for all my Arab friends and pastors who have been in touch with me over
these past few years, I pray for them regularly and have embraced them as sort
of part of the fellowship of brothers that I regularly reach out to. I do
realize that they also enjoy the level of teaching we do [not that we are that
great, but we do share from a broad range of teaching that many individual
pastors might not be able to access on their own]. I thank God that ‘his house’
has many mansions, that Jesus calls sheep from 'other folds’ that we might not
be familiar with, let’s be open to those from other ethnic backgrounds that
share the same faith in Jesus Christ- they are all our brothers and sisters in
the Lord.
(1398) REV. ZEKE- [pastor from India] Brother, I accidently
deleted your email, if you are reading this, email me again and I’ll put your
email on our global section.
Okay, it’s a rare thing for me to take a ministry off of my
blog roll. Once I put someone on our site I feel it would be irresponsible to
drop them for any minor disagreement, or because they might hold differing
views than my own. For the most part I add other web sites because I feel they
add to the diverse conversation in the global church. Having said this, I
recently deleted the site for Charisma Magazine. I originally put them on
because I was blogging on their site and they eventually removed the blog
section, but I felt it was okay to leave them on anyway. But after a period of
time I just couldn’t keep endorsing ‘the level’ of stuff they teach- in all
good conscience I hit the delete button. The other day I thought I’d give them
a visit, on the main article page they had some sister sharing a vision and on
the heading it said ‘I saw snakes wrapped around [something- I forget]’ and I
just felt bad that a major Christian magazine would do stuff like this. In John
14 Jesus says he’s going away and will send ‘another comforter’ this word
speaks about the Spirit coming, one just like Jesus. The disciples ask him how
he will reveal himself to them, and not to the world. Jesus says if we keep his
commandments and do his will, that the Spirit will manifest and come to us- but
the world cannot see him and they will not benefit from his work. Though many
Christians are divided over ‘Charismatic churches’ yet the need for the work of
the Spirit is vital, I personally believe in the gifts of the Spirit and do not
hold to a cessationist view. Over the years as I have read this chapter I have
been inclined to see the promise of Jesus ‘going away and coming again to
receive us’ as actually referring to the Spirits outpouring at Pentecost. This
does not mean I reject a literal physical return of the Lord at the end of the
age, but in context it seems that Jesus was telling the disciples that he would
‘come again and receive them’ in the sense that the Spirit would complete the
ministry of Jesus by sealing them until the day of redemption [Ephesians].
Jesus said those who hear his word and do his will are promised the presence of
the Spirit; truly God is no respecter of persons. There is a movement in the
church today that appeals to the kingdom call of Jesus, versus trying to
convince people of the truth claims of Christianity- to some degree I like this
emphasis, it appeals to other religions in the sense that we are telling people
‘we are not here to change your culture [and make you accept ours] but we are
here offering you the promise of Jesus, if you believe his words and do his
will he will manifest himself to you’. There actually are some in the Muslim
community who are claiming belief in Jesus [not just the ‘Jesus’ of the Koran]
and yet still consider themselves cultural Muslims, this is certainly
interesting. The point today is we need Gods Spirit desperately, though we have
been guilty at times with confusing the work of the Spirit with people having
visions of snakes! Yet we need the Spirit to work, Jesus said he would manifest
himself to those who are keeping his word- a great promise indeed.
(1400) IF I HADN’T DONE WHAT I HAVE DONE AMONG THEM, WORKS
NO ONE HAS EVER DONE, THEY WOULDN’T BE TO BLAME. BUT THEY SAW THE GOD SIGNS AND
HATED ANYWAY… THEY HATED ME FOR NO GOOD REASON- John 15, message bible.
This is the chapter where Jesus tells us he is the vine and
we are the branches; the father is the main gardener. If we remain-abide in him
we will bring forth fruit, if we do not ‘remain in him’ we are cut off and
burned. In Johns other writings [1st John] he speaks about those who
did not remain in the doctrine of Christ, they went out ‘from us, but were
really not with us’. John was speaking of the Gnostic/Docetist groups that
would reject the incarnation of Jesus; these did not ‘remain in him’. Also what
about the immediate circle of disciples that Jesus was speaking to, did any of
them ‘not remain’? Judas would also reject Christ, and Jesus said he too was
not really a part of them from the start. In the above quote Jesus challenges
the religious leaders of the day by doing the works that he did. The religion
of the day viewed God’s will as religious performance, public praying on the
street corners, fasting ‘to be seen’, their mindset was one of public
performance. Jesus put priority on doing acts of justice, reaching out to the
poor, spending time with the down and out, and also rejecting the ‘crowd
pleasing’ mentality of the day. In John’s gospel his brothers tell him ‘go up
to the public feast and show thyself, no man who does these things secretly
will not eventually go public’ they thought there was something strange about
his unwillingness to ‘go public’. I have often found it strange that we as
believers put such a high priority on ‘public meetings-ministry’ to the point
where we really believe that this is the main part of Christianity. A few years
back I visited/stayed with some brothers in Europe, they ran a Christian
community where they all lived and helped each other out [addicts and stuff]. I
spent about a week with them and it was great, I immediately saw the work as a
legitimate expression of ‘local church’ [Ecclesia] I even defended them to
others who were saying ‘they are not church’. During the week I spent with them,
the main leader of the group was just beginning to rent another building so
they could ‘do church’. I went to a few of the meetings and it was okay. The
point being they kind of felt like the public meetings were ‘really church’ and
the actual community was 'Para church’ a very limited view indeed. The same
thing has happened with many well meaning churches/ministries thru out the
years. Jesus put a priority on things that the religious crowd deemed ‘non
legitimate’ they would ask him ‘where are you getting your authority from, who
gave you this authority’? In today’s jargon it might be said ‘who’s covering
are you under, what ‘local church’ has legitimized you’. We often err, not
knowing the scriptures or the power of God. Jesus put such a high priority on
social justice, reaching out to the poor and needy, speaking out for the widow
and oppressed. This same theme runs thru out the entire teaching of the New
Testament. Very little time is spent on the idea of public meetings/ministry.
Yet we have exalted the idea of church and ministry to the point where we see
public performance as the main thing, that’s what we usually regulate our lives
around. Jesus told the religious crowd that he came and did all the things that
Gods kingdom was really about [helped the poor, raised the dead, etc.] Yet they
found fault with him, they fulfilled the scriptures that said ‘they hated me
for no good reason’ do the things we do have good reasons, or are we just
following the crowd?
(1401) GLENN BECK- Okay, this past week Beck stirred up a
controversy by telling people that if their churches use language like ‘social
justice’ that you should leave the church. Beck showed how many of the liberal
movements of the past, both inside and outside the church, used this language
and also were socialist. Is Beck right to warn people about this? 50-50. In
reality most Christian churches [if not all] have some belief about social
justice, that is doing good, being charitable, etc. You also have strains of
theology that touch on these issues [liberation theology, Rev. Wrights church,
etc.] these see the role of the church in setting up systems that would mediate
‘social justice’ programs thru the state- not all Christians accept this
premise. Overall we as believers should value social justice very highly on the
scale of Christian service and belief. Beck seems to mean well, but the poor
brother seems to be a little unhinged at times [like between 4 pm and 5pm every
day or so]. In John 16 Jesus tells his men ‘a time is coming when those who
kill you will think they are serving God’. Here in is a strange thing; out of
all the commands of God, one of the most important ones is not to kill. But
Jesus says that men are so susceptible to the influence of the world that they
can even be convinced that killing other people is ‘doing God’s will’. Now, if
I were to tell you at a young age ‘little Johnny, you will walk the planet for
a few short years [70-80?] one of the most important things you need to avoid,
more than anything else, is don’t kill other people’ got it- I mean how hard
can this be? Yet Jesus says there will come a time when people think killing
other people is ‘doing God’s will’ Huh? Okay as the year’s role by people all
over the world are born and have been taught some version of this natural law,
often given by their own belief system in God. So you have those in Islamic
countries who eventually are shaped by their nations political causes and a
time comes when they blowup other adherents to their own religion and shout
‘God is great’ as they kill themselves and others with them, they think they
are doing ‘God service’. But you also have little Johnny growing up in the
western world, he attends church as a boy, is taught lessons from the bible,
and thru process of time joins the military. He is a good man, means well, and
is taught that God and country go together. He even remembers attending some
patriotic religious rallies over the years. He gets sent off to Afghanistan and
winds up killing a woman with child. He either mistook her for an enemy
combatant, or maybe she violated a safe zone. Either way, the one main command
above all other commands, the thing that you were always told was the main
thing to never do, you wind up doing. You even think that it is your patriotic
duty to do this, yes you think the doing of this act is not only acceptable,
but in a way it is ‘doing God service’. Now, as an ex Navy person, I support
and believe in our military men and women, and in no way equate the act of a
terrorist with that of our people; but what I am trying to show you is that as
we go through life we can become effected by ideologies that are in conflict to
our base principles, we can even do things that violate our most fundamental
ideals, and be convinced that doing it is from God. When dealing with all types
of social justice issues, we need to put Gods will first and foremost, above
all other things. The message of Gods kingdom often runs contrary to the
nations and governmental systems we espouse. When we confuse the two [whether
the Christian patriot who chooses a career that may involve killing people] or
the radical Muslim who confuses Gods will with the advancing of his political
ideas, we need to re-evaluate our motives and think things thru before we
embrace any world kingdom over Gods kingdom. Beck obviously had a point about
the radical liberation theologians and their mixing of liberal politics with
‘church’, but Gods kingdom is all about social justice. Isaiah prophesied of
the Spirit coming upon Jesus- to carry out social justice!
(1402) THIS IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO, ASK THE FATHER FOR
WHATEVER IS IN KEEPING WITH THE THINGS I’VE REVEALED TO YOU; ASK IN MY NAME AND
ACCORDING TO MY WILL AND HE WILL GIVE IT TO YOU. YOU’RE JOY WILL BE LIKE A
RIVER OVERFLOWING IT’S BANKS- Jesus, message bible. In John 16 Jesus says the
father will show us the things of the Son ‘all that the father has is mine, and
he will take of mine and show it unto you’. I have been doing a little teaching
on the nature of the church and how we as believers are affected by the way we
‘see church’. For instance in the bible the terms ‘where do you attend church’
‘I am looking for a church to join’ ‘the tithe belongs to the local church’ all
of these modern ways of viewing church are really not found in scripture. In
the bible the gospel of the kingdom is proclaimed, those in the local
communities who believed were baptized and became openly identified with the
Jesus movement. From that time forward these communities of believers would be
referred to as ‘the church’- they were not looking for a church to join,
choosing between a buffet of ‘meeting places’ in their respective locals, no,
they were actually referred to as the church! Of course it’s fine for believers
to meet in buildings and give money to ‘the church’ and all the contemporary
things we usually associate with church, but a part of the ministry of the
Spirit is he takes what is Jesus’ and shows it unto us; he reveals the nature
of the church to us [the church being the Body of Christ, his Body]. Recently I
did some blogging at a Christianity Today article on Scot McKnight’s critique
of Brain McLaren’s latest book. I Like Scot and have read McLaren. One of the
critiques of Brian by Scot [of a previous book] Is Scot felt like McLaren left
out Ecclesiology while talking Kingdom. While I do not defend Brian’s works
[too much rejection of orthodoxy] yet in this area I think Scot may be
confusing contemporary ideas of church [ecclesiology] with the idea of church
in scripture. For instance, many theologians teach that Jesus really had no
‘ecclesiology’ in his teaching [or very little] and that Jesus preached a
Kingdom message that was different than the church, I think this idea is
wrong/limited. It is in the preaching of the reality of the kingdom of God, and
the people of God actually doing kingdom works, it is in this atmosphere that
true church occurs; people are begin called out of the world unto Christ and
these people are becoming the church. It’s really a matter of fully grasping
the nature of the kingdom alongside the reality of what church means in the
bible. Now, I think modern expressions of church are okay. Much of my criticism
of modern church has a lot to do with losing the real message of Jesus in the
bible and having replaced it with a modern success gospel, but there are some
mega church expressions that are utilizing all the modern means of
communicating while at the same time holding true to biblical teaching. Mark
Driscoll pastors Mars Hill church in Seattle, Mark teaches historic reformed
theology in a contemporary setting. So the reality of the church being much
more than we usually understand, does not mean that every modern expression of
meeting in huge buildings should be condemned. The point today is Jesus wants
to reveal to us much more than we have seen up until this part of the journey.
When we ‘see more’ it usually brings with it adjustments and changes that at
times can be difficult; I want to encourage all of our Pastor/Leaders to be
open to the ministry of the Spirit in the area of him revealing to us the
nature of the church, there are many learned men [Kluck, McKnight, Galli, etc.]
who I think are not fully seeing what the more mature Organic church movement
is really saying, we also need to be careful not to write off the historic church
in one fell swoop- both of these extremes do not help the church in the long
run.
Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts-
re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on. I deal with
issues at times that it would be beneficial for some of you to download and
save the file from the Word Press link. This creates a permanent record. The
on-line videos are only good if sites are not hacked- which has happened in the
past. Thanks- John.#
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