Ideas about the Kingdom of the Heavens around us and the unity of believers in Christ within it
The question whether God still speaks impacts a number of other issues, ranging from the nature of a believer’s relationship with God, to the miraculous, to church offices and authority.
This post is the beginning of my attempt to focus on the question of how God speaks (or permits Himself to speak) to us today. It presents a summary of the various positions commonly held, from which discussion will proceed in later posts.
This is an outline of the second part of my attempt to link early errors of organized Christianity to the state of the modern world–specifically, in this part, by showing the origins and entrance of specific errors before Muhammad which profoundly affected subsequent history. Links will be added as future posts are written.
A God who Speaks, Adoption, Authority Contests, Background Information, Church History, Islamic History and Secular History Interaction, Church purpose versus church growth, Complex unity, Compulsory Christianity, Discipline or Correction, Disputes about words, Disrespecting poor believers, Divisions in the Church, Forgiveness and Unforgiveness, Free will, God Never Stopped Speaking, God Speaks to Us, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, God's sovereignty, God's Voice, Greed, Heresy, Historical Background, Index, Injustice and Lawsuits, Jesus the Son, Leaving Our First Love, Male and female, Marriage, Marriage and Reproduction, Merit, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Peril of Seeking Numbers, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Prophecy, Purpose of the Church, Quarrels, Regeneration, Religious violence and persecution, Replacing Relationship with Morality, Salvation, Sin, Sins versus sin, Site Index Page, Social control and statecraft, Son of Man, The Bible, Through the church, To be in his image, Trinity, Unity, Wars as consequences, What is God's Word, What is sin?
This is an outline of the first part of my attempt to link early errors of organized Christianity to the state of the modern world–specifically, in this part, by explaining some of the foundations of the earliest Christianity from which later errors diverged. Links will be added as future posts are written.
A God who Speaks, Adoption, Background Information, Church History, Islamic History and Secular History Interaction, Complex unity, Eternity Present, Free will, God Speaks to Us, God was never our enemy, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, God's sovereignty, His Children, His Friends, Historical Background, In the Church, Index, Meaning of Unity, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Peril of Seeking Numbers, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Prophecy, Purpose of the Church, Reconciliation, Regeneration, Restoration of God's Image, Salvation, Show us the Way of Truth, Sin, Sins versus sin, The Invisible God's Self-Existence, The universal Church and local churches, Through others, Through the church, To be his ambassadors, To be in his image, Topic Index, Trinity, What is God's Word, What is sin?
For unity to be seen in the Church, there must be submission—first submission to Christ as Head of the Church, then mutual submission to each other. A part of this necessary submission is to submit to those God has placed in leadership in the Church. But submission to leadership must come after submission to Christ, and be an aspect of mutual submission to each other. Much division has been caused by leaders who have insisted that they, and other human leaders, should be “in command” of the church. Only Christ is rightfully in command.
A God who Speaks, Authority Contests, Divisions in the Church, God Speaks to Us, Heresy, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Peril of Seeking Power, The universal Church and local churches, Through others, Through the church, Uncategorized
To commit the “Scarecrow Fallacy,” which I have named after the Scarecrow character in the 1939 movie the Wizard of Oz, is to mistake a diploma for knowledge or a credential for God’s calling. God usually makes use of available formal education, and often acts through the organized Church’s mechanisms of licensure and ordination, but has never bound himself always to do so. It is possible to have a very powerful calling from God with no formal human recognition, and also, unfortunately too common to have excellent ministry credentials and no relationship with Jesus whatsoever.
Teachers are given to the Church to teach and explain the Word of God and to model and transmit the relationship with God they are teaching. Teaching as a gift of the Holy Spirit may also be given to people who are not permanently given to the Church as teachers, and may be given to people on specific occasions. Ephesians 4:11 “teachers” are not the same thing as “pastors.”
Pastors are shepherds of flocks of people. Their main function is to guide, guard, tend, and care for the needs of their flock, not to command it. They should not be expected to exercise all of the gifts of the Spirit, to be competent to do every job in the Church, or to do the whole “work of the ministry” in place of the members of their flock.
Evangelists, as people given by Christ to the Church, are primarily trainers in evangelism, sent to show the rest of us how to introduce others to a friendship with Jesus. They are not sent to do the work by themselves! But, because of our Western focus on paid “ministers” and on attendance at church “events,” true evangelists tend to be unrecognized and unappreciated.
Prophets tell forth God’s words to an individual, church or situation, giving God’s perspective which is not plainly visible without God’s illumination. The purpose of prophecy is to edify the Church. Prediction of the future is not the essence of prophecy. Many great preachers were likely prophets, though not recognized as such. This function is still important to the Body, and therefore still present in it.