Recently I’ve been thinking about our vision of what’s to come in the future. Both before and after the return of Christ. Tonight I had the opportunity to discuss this at the meeting. If we read James 1:22-25 we can recognise the importance of examining ourselves and actually acting on what we see. Acting to walk more inline with God’s will. Generally we have an opportunity to examine ourselves (i.e. look into the mirror) each week during communion.

There is an interesting parallel here: The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They would have seen God working miracles in their midst, they would have known God was enacting His plan for them. But did they have a vision to what was to come in the promised land? Finally when they reached the border of the promised land they sent in spies who bought back some samples and told the people that the land was very, very, good. But the people in the land were to much to overcome.

They had to know God was working with them, and they had proof that the land they were to inherit was extremely good. But where was the vision to actually having/possessing that land?

We read in 1 Corinthians 13:10-13 about how our understanding develops*. Currently we have opportunity to reflect on our walk each day, week, month, year, whatever you choose and we have the holy spirit (i.e. the proverbial proof or spies report that the land is there and it is soooo soooo good – also God heals people all the time). But, well, our understanding isn’t yet perfect, it will continue to grow: at the moment we are merely looking through a glass darkly.

But are you looking? Or do you just know the glass is there and are not too concerned with whats coming down the track (on the other side of the glass)?

Just a simple question. And if the answer is yes, you are looking, then good: Pray about seeing more. Pray for others to see. Pray to keep the vision you have.

* When reading verses 12-13 read all three pre-development points, and then go back and read the 3 post-development points.

Semi-related personal footnote to a few people who know what I’m talking about:

I think that recently with the concept of change that a few of us have been pushing the concept of what the future really holds might have become unfocused with more attention going to how we can improve an entity in the current world. Yes things must change, but not at the cost of deciding to fall in the wilderness because of the frustration or because we change the focus from the great liberty and blessing we receive through Christ to something that gets people involved.

I’m not saying don’t change. Nor am I saying we should keep people who don’t like change, happy. Change will happen. If people can’t cope well they can pray about it and God will bless. But we shouldn’t jeopardize ourselves to make it happen; nor should we build an environment that focuses people on the wrong things.

There was a very strong underlying message to the ministry this week: Be with God. Get stuck into it.

We read in Daniel 3:24-26 the outcome when Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego were cast into a extremely hot furnace. The particular piece that we want to pull out of this passage is the comment by King Nebuchadnezzar: He sees 4 men in the fire, and one is like the Son of God. Where was God during this whole time? In the midst of the fire!!! Stand fast with God.

Question: What do you think God’s will is? Answer: Hmm, actually that is a really good question. There is no fancy review or scriptural reference today. Just a question and my answer. To me the will of God is:

• That mankind can be healed.
• That the righteous have blessing and peace.
• That the overcomer hears “Well done good and faithful”.
• …

Isn’t it funny. It is God’s will. But it is all about a species of animals. A species we call humans.

It is a shame that my second From the meeting needs to be a little negative: It is unavoidable. Today we heard that those that worship God must do so in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). The topic of Worship really made me ask: How would I instruct people to worship God? Well, obviously, in spirit and in truth. But what does that really mean? And I think the meaning is different for everyone. To me, its hard to describe, but it has something to do with Lifestyle, Attitude and Humility.

What’s the negative part then? During the second meeting we watched a documentary (it was actually something new, not just a remake for those who were wondering). The documentary promised to observe and explain certain severe weather and then, at least in theory, use this to demonstrate God’s awesome power over His creation. First warning sign: Belief in God assumed. After a brief introduction the documentary walked through lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes, lasting approximately 40 minutes. At an elementary level the information was good, scientifically sound and well presented. All Good!

Where things went pear shaped:

1. The documentary was interspersed with “interviews” with survivors of severe weather. People struck by lightning, lived through tornadoes, etc… They didn’t add to the science; all they really did was soften people up for the conclusion. In fact it made the documentary feel more like an episode of Worlds Worst Drivers than anything else.
2. The concluding 5 minutes of the film tried to reconcile the documentary with God’s awesome power. Ignoring the lip-service time period; I seriously felt I had missed some important connection. I can’t quote literally but the line went something like this: through science we observe the great power and complexity of weather so we can see the great power God has over His creation. What???

This documentary was seriously flawed. However, in the theme of worship, they truly were seeking to show people the power of God: A God truly worthy of our worship. As we discussed above, worshipping God is an exercise for the spirit, something which must be approached truthfully, whole heartedly. Be awe struck that God can put such powerful forces in motion. But worship God through the connection you have too Him; not through the power of a storm.

I thought it might be nice to, each week, share thoughts that I get out of the meetings. Today one topic was Experience. In 1 Timothy 6:20-21 we read Paul encouraging Timothy to oppose ideas derived from knowledge, science in the KJV, where this knowledge is false (i.e incorrect, based on bad facts, etc…). The warning is very clear: false knowledge leads people away from the faith.

Given certain discussions, and some posts, that I have had over the last year this really made me think. Have I been arguing from false knowledge? In the end I decided the answer is: No!. Still, I feel this is a fair question, especially given some of the topics: aliens, evolution, lost tribes of Israel, tongues, etc… A few of us have truly intellectualized, or used knowledge, beyond any reasonable level. This really boils down to the question: Is it OK to question your beliefs?

The obvious answer is yes! But let’s be a little more conscientious: Paul’s exact works are “guard what has been entrusted to you”. It is only through our knowledge of the scriptures, our understanding of faith, our experience with Christ that truly equips us to perform this task.

There are obvious spiritual areas that should be addressed, however, questioning your beliefs, or more correctly, questioning your understanding of your beliefs also will certainly help build experience. Naturally this doesn’t work for everyone, and, there are other ways: John 16:13 tells us that the “spirit will lead us to all truths”. Yes. It is OK to question your beliefs. But do it looking to build your experience and understanding: to “guard what has been entrusted to you”.

It occurred to me while writing the previous post: really we are instructed to preach the gospel in two manners: a) active; and b) reactive. Where active is drawn from Mark 16:15, an instruction to put a foot forward, to tell people without any prompting. Alternatively reactive is drawn from 1 Peter 3:14-15 to be ready to answer questions whenever they are asked.

After some more consideration I have decided it is a little more complex: when answering a question we are instructed to do so wisely. Often when someone asks a question it will not be: How can I be saved? So we should not treat peoples questions as a general preaching of the gospel, we should answer the question and tailor our response to the individual. When actively preaching there is no question. Two different witnessing styles are required.

I’m not really a fan for stopping someone in the street and suggesting they must repent or burn: often that will get a response like: Get away from me you crazy person!!! I would suggest the best way to witness in an active mode is to bait your conversation. Tell people what you are doing in the church or what you got out of the talk on Sunday (or whenever). Lead the conversation in a manner that they really need to ask: What does that mean? Of course there are some environments where you really will just need to speak the gospel but we should all be capable of discerning those times.

Last night (at the house meeting) I spoke about the brains capacity to recognise and use patterns to discern the nature of a particular item. For example: If I ate 5 extremely hot chilli’s you would expect my appearance to change: I would go red, I would perspire. Alternatively, if you observed this appearance you would most likely conclude I had either just eaten something quite hot or I had just performed some rigorous exercise. Another example was reading coffee shop menu items from a distance: Prue decided that one item on the list read as “Corn Mornay”. When she put on her glasses it read as “Coffee Takeaway”. Often our pattern recognition can incorrect due to any number of things: eye sight difficulties, context, prejudice, random synapse responses yet to be explained by science, etc…

In Acts 2:12 we read the question: What does this mean? The human mind is always looking to classify, understand, explain, etc… Here on the day of Pentecost there was a phenomena that did not match any known pattern. In this particular case Peter stood up and explained. However, in the 21st century, the general population will observe the lifestyle pattern on a spirit filled Christian and conclude either: a) they are just a nice person; or b) they ascribe to some religious belief.

Occasionally people will ask “what does this mean” (i.e. they will get out their glasses and do something to correct the poor recognition of the pattern). As a general rule, they wont. I left it to the individual to draw a particular point from that. I found it interesting that we had 5 testimonies that all were about putting a foot forward and telling someone of the gospel (Mark 16:15) instead of waiting for a question (1 Peter 3:14-15).

Proof is a major issue with teaching people the salvation message of Jesus: People want demonstrable proof of God’s existence. Down through the ages people have intellectualised this issue, both theologically but also philosophically. However, most arguments stem from one of Thomas Aquinas’ Quinquae viae. Personally I feel these proofs are boring! It is hardly a proof to say:

our knowledge can not duplicate or comprehend X, therefore since X exists, and can not be explained, X demonstrates the existence of a god

Surely we can do better than that!

In 1 Corinthians 1:20-21 we read that God has made the wisdom of the world into something foolish. Further, even with all the wisdom of the world, mankind did not establish and maintain a relationship with God. Given this dilemma God introduced a simple message for salvation – v22 indicates that God is (note present tense) happy with a simple message. The message is to save those who believe, not those who can philosophise.

Do you see the problem this presents? People seek proof, they seek some knowledge they can obtain, some theory or scrap of evidence. If we continue reading 1 Corinthians 1:22-24; signs and wisdom are what the Jews and Greeks (i.e. the world) seek. The simplicity that Christ died to give us liberty (Romans 6:7-9) is not good enough for the world; to find proof of salvation mankind needs to look at what the death sacrifice of Jesus provided. There is no need to find some super philosophy nor do we need to produce an extremely complex theory about how Jesus knew the future (e.g. predictions of famine, nuclear war, earthquakes, etc…) neither should we used these scriptures to preach the doom of the apocalypse.

So what did the sacrifice of Jesus provide?

The crucifixion of Christ delivers the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit) was poured out upon the world. A personal connection (intercessor) to God. Think of it as the little angel that floats over the shoulder of a cartoon character. That connection to God, is always on hand to tell you how to use the power of God, and to teach you the wisdom of God. Which leaves: How do you receive the Holy Spirit? How do you know you have?

From Acts 2:38 we see that the key to receiving the Holy Spirit is repentance. Often people will receive whilst being baptised, however, before or after are also common. It should be noted that baptism is still an essential step to salvation no matter when you receive the Holy Spirit.

How will you know? If you are honest and humble about your approach to God, you will know. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but what would you prefer, me to show you a sign or for you to experience a miracle and be convinced of it yourself? Don’t worry though, God knows (1 Corinthians 15:19) that mankind needs more than just hope: there are 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit, one of these is tongues, a language you have not learnt, a sign to the unbeliever (i.e. a proof). So, how will you know? If you are honest and humble, you will know, and on top of that you will now be able to speak in tongues.

[FOOTNOTE]
This post was motivated by members of a certain church who knocked on my door this morning. When I asked them about the doubting nature of society and what their proof was their answer was bad: Essentially it was a two pronged theory a) it is too unlikely that the universe formed by chance; and b) Jesus foretold the future (e.g. famines, nuclear war, earthquakes, etc…). I don’t know the actual statistic but (a) is invalid: you can’t acknowledge there is a chance and then argue it is too unlikely. As for knowing the future, yes any believer will tell you Jesus would have known, but we’re talking about non-believers; there are quite a few people who have correctly predicted the future, does that mean they also are the Son of God? Nope! Did they just get lucky? Probably!

This is an older topic, but I remembered today that I had drafted an email on this topic not that long ago. You can find the email below. But first I should probably direct you to some definitions: Glossolalia and Xenoglossia. Essentially the difference lies in if the language is an actual human spoken language, or something supernatural.

This is a copy of the email I had drafted, certain parts such as names have been removed but it is essentially the original message. I have changed to using eBible’s eBibleicious on my blog, you may hover over the scripture reference to read the text.

We’ve been discussing this evening tongues on the day of Pentecost.

Reading through Acts 2 (mainly Acts 2:4-7) it would seem to indicate that people round about heard their own language; while later Paul writes to the people at Corinth that no man understands tongues. What we are wondering essentially is: Is tongues a unlearned foreign language or something else (supernatural etc…)?

This email was drafted as a question this first part is the premise of this post. Continuing:

We do not know how we should pray to God, so the spirit makes intercession for us, it is not the spoken words (language) that communicates our needs, it is the spirit. Hence the language to someone filled with the spirit is a manifestation of the intercession. While to someone who is un-gifted / unlearned tongues (the language) is a sign:
… for tongues are as a sign to the unbeliever … 1 Corinthians 14:22.

On the day of Pentecost, people round about required proof this was the manifestation of Gods/Jesus promises of ‘new tongues’; therefore it was required that at least some of the languages (spoken words / manifestation of the spirit making intercession) be understood by the people. That in itself is a miracle.

So, the manifestation of the spirits intercession, tongues, the spoken words, may or may not be an unlearned foreign tongue and may or may not be something else (supernatural etc…). However, the words are not important, knowing them does not give you a connection to God, only the spirit does. The words are a miracle for the unbeliever, the connection to God is the miracle for the believer.

I’ve noted previously that evolution is an random algorithm; something that God does not interfere with. I had a thought last night, that perhaps this stance could be used to argue against miracles, or God performing miracles. Such an argument is flawed! If you are thinking along this line, then I suggest you read:

Those called of God are no longer under the control of the random algorithm. They are here for a new purpose. God’s purpose. He works in their lives accordingly; just as His Word promises.