Former location of "The Kingdom of the Heavens" blog, written by an incurable fool who is trying to become a holy fool!
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.
This post is the first in a series of six outlining a broad view of how things in the Church and the world got to be as they are now, including contributions early Christianity and Islam made to each other. This post attempts to outline the basic positions of early Christianity. Comments are invited!
A God who Speaks, Adoption, Background Information, Church purpose versus church growth, Complex unity, Conversation with God, Desire to have our own way, Emotions, Eternity Present, Free will, God Acts by Speaking, God Never Stopped Speaking, God Speaks to Us, God was never our enemy, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, God's rationality, God's sovereignty, God's Voice, His Children, His Friends, Historical Background, Human Rationality, Is forgiveness of sins the focus of salvation?, Jesus the Son, Knowing good and evil, Language and Speech, Logical thinking, Male and female, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Prophecy, Reconciliation, Regeneration, Rejecting God, Restoration of God's Image, Salvation, Sin, Sins versus sin, Son of Man, The Bible, The Invisible God's Self-Existence, Through the church, To be his ambassadors, To be in his image, To live in unity, Trinity, Unity, What is God's Word, What is sin?
Jesus’ promises of answered prayer are directly tied to our unity. Answered prayer does not depend on our goodness or qualifications. The prayers God has promised to answer are those made under his authority, in love, for the good of the whole Church.
The promises of victory, of spiritual gifts, and of works greater than those Jesus did, were not made to us individually, but as members of a functioning Body. They are given for the express purpose of building us up together, in unity, and so revealing Christ to the world. They only function properly in that context.
A God who Speaks, Church purpose versus church growth, God Acts by Speaking, God Speaks to Us, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Prophecy, Purpose of the Church, Restoration of God's Image, The universal Church and local churches, Through the church, To be his ambassadors, To live in unity, Victory
The ultimate solution to our national racisms lies in the Church, in who we are in Christ. We are not called to uncritically support the current social order, no matter how unjust. We are called to show how social divisions are overcome by the Holy Spirit among us.
An abuse of God's image, Christianity and Social Evils, Church purpose versus church growth, Complex unity, Compulsory Christianity, Divisions in the Church, Emotions, God's sovereignty, Human Rationality, Injustice and Lawsuits, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Racism, Rejecting God, Replacing Relationship with Morality, Restoration of God's Image, Show us the Way of Truth, Social control and statecraft, The Bible, Through the church, To be his ambassadors, To be in his image, To live in unity, Uncategorized, What is sin?
It is our unity that makes Jesus visible to the world in us. It was practical unity that made the Jerusalem church attractive. Restoration of that unity was a precondition to the effective preaching of Steven and Phillip.
The Sermon on the Mount taught complete dependence on the Father, which Jesus’ life on earth also exemplified.
There are those who say that a good Christian should always rejoice because of anything that happens, and must never grieve. These people are wrong. Our instructions are to grieve physical death, and to grieve the sinful condition of our world that leads to it, as God himself does, but to do so in a way that expresses our hope in the resurrection. Do not deny grief, but show hope in grief. Groaning is not a sin.
Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. Hebrews 12:1-3. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves…
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My personal journey from a liberal church that had little belief in spiritual gifts, through local churches of various other flavors, to the point of praying for prophecy, as 1 Corinthians 14:1, 12 and 39 seemed to say was appropriate.