Is that it? Is what we read on this church sign the message?
Is this what Jesus and the apostles announced?
Are we in rehearsals? Is this prep time for the final exam? Are we taking batting practice? Is this pre-season and we’re sorting out the team, making the cuts, setting the roster?
Are we humans given sixty, seventy, eighty or more years that have no value in and of themselves? Is it all merely preparation for the real deal?
I don’t think so.
The more I read the Bible and the longer I follow Jesus, the less I think this whole thing is about “eternity” or “heaven.”
Of course I hold to an age to come — “I believe…he will come again to judge the living and the dead;” “I believe in…the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting.”
God will make a new heavens and a new earth. However, it is not we who will go to heaven, it is heaven that will come to earth, to us:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them…”
• Revelation 21:1-3
Whatever this “Christian” thing is about, it is about earth.
It is about life on earth.
It is about life in Christ, with God on earth.
It is about life that begins now here on this earth and extends to the age to come on a renewed earth.
And it is about you and I starting to live that life now.
It is NOT about spending my years getting ready for the life to come.
When Jesus gave his apostolic commission, he said we should make disciples — lifelong learners and apprentices. Now.
He said we should baptize — bring people into the life and nurture of his family. Now.
He said we should teach one another to obey everything he commanded us. Now.
He ascended and sits enthroned as King. Now.
He sent the Spirit, who indwells and empowers his people. Now.
The promises Jesus gave regarding the future make now more meaningful, not less. The seeds we plant now will yield a harvest both now and then beyond anything we can imagine.
“Now” is not just time God gave us to determine where we will spend “then.”
Note from CM: Back in 2015, I was reading the book mentioned below, and offered this post as part of my response to what I was absorbing from it. I’ve edited this in an update for today.
• • •
And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
• Ephesians 1:22-23
The good news is that the one true God has now taken charge of the world, in and through Jesus and his death and resurrection.
Wright’s big point is that the gospel is an announcement of a public event that has taken place, an event which has changed everything.
It is not advice or instruction given to us, it is a proclamation that Jesus has become King, that God has taken charge of the world through the finished work of the Messiah.
God has established his rule of justice and peace in the world. God’s enemies have been defeated and will not win the war.
The resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the Spirit means that the new era has begun. It’s a new day. The divine process of transforming the world has begun in earnest.
The announcement of this gospel invites all who hear it to embrace the good news and become part of the transformation. “If anyone is in Christ — new creation!” (2Cor. 5:17, literal translation). The person herself becomes renewed, but even more than that, she becomes part of God’s new creation here and now, right in the midst of this present life. Through baptism she dies to the old creation and is “raised to walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
God has taken charge of the world. Everything has changed. The new world has begun in Christ, who has taken his throne.
That is heady language. And frankly, it causes me consternation.
Here we are, two millennia later, and my eyes don’t see a new world. I observe a world that has progressed in many ways, become more civilized, technologically advanced, literate, and prosperous. But I don’t need to tell you about the unthinkable evil and suffering that continues to plague the inhabitants of earth. Every day I have a multitude of reasons to doubt that “God has now taken charge of the world.”
This is my primary theodicy question.
If the gospel is true, why hasn’t the world been transformed in such a long period of time?
Perhaps our understanding of the gospel is not grounded enough.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something spiritual, when in fact we should be thinking much more naturally — about becoming fully human in our lives and relationships.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something individual, when in fact we should be thinking much more about building bonds with others in Christ.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which gains us life after death, when in fact we should be embracing life more fully right now.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which separates us from the world, when in fact it calls us to participate more in the life of our neighbors, our community, our world.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which is about faith alone, when in fact it is about faith working through love.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which enables us to escape the world, when in fact it is about enabling us to more fully embrace and enjoy the world.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which is primarily about forgiveness of the past, when in fact it is about making the present and future new.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which is about my personal relationship with Jesus, when in fact it is about God creating the new people of God.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which guarantees one’s enrichment and happiness, when in fact it plays out in all the varied seasons and circumstances of life.
Perhaps we see the gospel as something which God alone will work out from beginning to end, when in fact God will work it out (at least in part) through his renewed people.
This last point led me to think about the final verses of Ephesians 1, two of which are quoted above. God’s divine power was displayed when he raised Christ from the dead and established him as Lord over all the powers. But then note this: “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things TO THE CHURCH . . .”
Perhaps a main reason we have not seen the kind of change in the world one might expect millennia after the announcement of God’s good news came to us is that we missed the memo: Christ has been exalted to rule the world through a church that is grounded in the gospel.
Perhaps the church herself has missed the message too many times throughout her history. We have not had an adequately grounded gospel, and even when we have, Christians and churches have not cooperated with God and walked in the newness of life into which God has brought us.
I don’t mean this to sound triumphalistic, as though the church is called to “take over the world” through power and might. Being grounded in the gospel will primarily mean that the church will produce change in the world in the same way God took control: through laying down our lives for others as Christ did.
Ephesians 2 goes on to say that God’s people have become God’s workmanship, created in Christ to walk in the good works he has planned beforehand for us. It may not be the whole reason for the world’s lack of transformation, but certainly the church has walked down alternate paths too often. Laying down our lives for the life of the world has not always been our priority — or even on our radar.
Not only do we need a fuller, more robust gospel. We need a more grounded one.
I am setting out to do something that is unlikely to be extremely popular. I am writing a theologically tentative essay about a word most of my readers have never heard and an issue I’ve only heard one other person discuss. Why this word would inspire serious theologizing on my part, and require an essay to explain, will only be evident to those who expend the effort to read and think along with me. (And as I said, this is a very tentative project.) While it isn’t my goal to persuade, I believe that some segment of my readership will find this essay a further step along a road they’ve been traveling for some time.
The word is “transactionalism.” I no longer believe in it, which won’t bother anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about. Fair enough. The dictionary defines a “transaction” as “a communicative action or activity involving two parties or things that reciprocally affect or influence each other.” Transactionalism would be a belief system that involves a transaction- actions on our part and results- between God and a human being. All based on reciprocal actions.
Put that way, I hope you will recognize that the typical evangelical is awash in a sea of transactional language, images, explanations, sermons, and songs. Evangelicalism is often one huge system for “getting God to do stuff.” I’m out of that business with God, because I don’t think God was ever in that business.
In the simplest terms, transactionalism is the belief that in response to some action on my part, God responds to me and something happens that was not the case before my action. Placed in the context of basic Christian belief, I am saying that I no longer believe that God responds, in a transactional fashion, to actions on my part, but relates to me totally according to His own good pleasure in the Lordship and mediation of Jesus.
This does not mean that I do not recognize the place of transactional language. Yes, the Bible frequently uses such language. A certain amount of transactional language is unavoidable, particularly in talking about prayer, covenants, sacrifices or in discussing Biblical narratives. But despite this, I believe that if we were to see all of God’s dealings with human beings from the divine point of view, we would not see transactionalism, but instead see God’s own gracious outworkings of unprompted, sovereign salvation in Jesus.
What must I do to be saved?
The New Testament uses three commands to describe what seems to be “our side” of the transaction: repent, believe, and confess. The many variations and synonyms don’t need to be listed. Even if we include the diversity of Christian beliefs about the necessity of baptism, the majority of Christians would agree that repentance, faith and some form of confession are repeatedly urged and illustrated by the New Testament writers.
Most evangelical Christians would agree that these are “our part” in a transaction with God called “being saved.” We repent from sin, we believe in Jesus and the Gospel message, then we demonstrate the reality of that faith through some form of confession. That confession is usually understood by evangelicals to be a public invitation or altar call, baptism and/or the public confession that precedes church membership. In response, God gives us salvation by removing our sin and crediting us with the righteousness of Christ. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, the blessings of salvation become ours. Our entire existence is then infused with the “new creation” that is “in Christ.”
But is this the best way to think of the Christian message? I have serious questions about whether transactionalism confuses the language of scripture with the realities of God, and in the process, leads to a religion of “doing business” with a God who is manipulated. Is transactionalism the source of the trivialization of God and the elevation of man that plagues evangelicalism? I believe so.
Transactional approaches are common in many areas of the Christian life. If we confess our sins, God forgives them. If we have faith when praying, our prayers will be answered. If we pray in large numbers, God will send revival or perform miracles. If we fully surrender, greater power will come into our lives. Of course, we confess, believe and repent….and God responds. Right? Transactionalism tells Christians that they are constantly in a situation where what they do will determine what God does, and what God does is his side of a transaction that starts with- and depends upon- us.
It’s not hard to think in these terms, especially if you are an American. Transactionalism is deeply ingrained in us from virtually all of our human relationships and experiences. I probably sound well off the farm to say I question whether this is really the way God operates. Some may say I am advocating a kind of hyper-Calvinistic fatalism where our choices are so predetermined they are meaningless. I can assure you that is far from my position. I believe our choices are real and meaningful. In fact, I tend to believe our freedom is far more dynamic than most of my reformed friends. But I do not believe the Gospel is a set of directions for transactions between God and people. I believe the Gospel is revelation of who God is, and the announcement of the acceptance that comes from God in His Son, Jesus.
An illustration
One of the most frequent transactional promises heard in Christianity is the invitation to make Jesus your personal savior. Christ stands and knocks. We open the door, let him in, and allow him to change us.
I believe this misrepresents the New Testament message. N.T. Wright uses an illustration that I have found helpful, though I will use my own version.
It is the time of the Roman empire, and a small village on the outskirts of an outlying Asian province has received a messenger from the capital. The village elders have gathered the whole city to hear the message from the outside world. After the formal greetings, the messenger stands and speaks.
“The new emperor, Tiberius Caesar, sends you greetings. Our divine emperor extends his benevolent rule to this village, and proclaims his power and wisdom to all your citizens. In the future, taxes and tribute from you will be brought to Tiberius. Those who submit to his rule can expect peace and justice. Those who rebel against him will find justice and punishment. Tiberias Caesar is Lord!”
Is this a description of a transaction between the citizens of the city and the new emperor? The language of the messenger at first appears to be transactional, as much of the language of the New Testament appears to describe a “give and get” arrangement between God and the Christian. But is that really what’s going on?
What we actually have here is an announcement of a new order. The villagers are being informed of the new order and realities of that order. Their acceptance or rejection of the announcement is secondary to the reality of whether their behavior now conforms to the new order. Tiberias isn’t opening a business and looking for customers. He’s informing his subjects of what the future will be like.
Tiberias is Lord. “Accepting” him as Lord isn’t a transaction; it’s an embracing of reality. Sending taxes to Tiberias may bring Roman protection, but no one is “buying” the friendship of the emperor. They are wisely sending on to Tiberias what already belongs to him. If a new road appears in the city, it is not a transaction with Tiberias that brought the road; it is the “will” of Tiberias that brings roads and blessings; war and peace.
Is “transaction” the word that best applies here? Or is it recognition? The messenger is proclaiming the advent of a new order and the wise benefits of recognizing that order. While his language may sound transactional, the realities of the situation make it obvious that something entirely different has arrived.
Various persons in the city may “repent,” “confess” and “believe” in the new order, but does anything new happen at those points? Or do these responses simply indicate a rearranging and recalibrating of the person’s life in line with the new order and reality of Tiberias?
This illustration may seen silly, but I believe it holds much of the truth that the New Testament is proclaiming, particularly in the fully matured theology of the later epistles and the Gospel of John. In the Gospels, the kingdom of God isn’t coming. It is here, now, being revealed. It is present, but we have not come to terms with it. Jesus’ incarnation plants a sign of the kingdom’s presence in the midst of human history. His journey to earth doesn’t begin the kingdom, or invite us to a transactional relationship with God. Jesus demonstrates that God’s reality, compassion and Lordship are always present.
Repentance, faith and confession are ways we recognize and embrace this kingdom and this king. We do not “bring” the kingdom; we surrender to it and embrace its ever present power.
I also believe it the illustration points out the relationship between the Christian and the kingdom of God. Are verses like Colossians 1:13-14 describing the results of a transaction, or do they describe the free and gracious action of God, to which we respond?
While I like Wright’s illustration very much, I feel it’s important to add a particularly Christian nuance. If the New Testament proclamation is the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then we must talk about “What kind of King is Jesus? How does he differ from other kings and Lords?” The answer to that question is something like this- and it is very important: Jesus is a King who pardons rebels, by taking the rebellion and its consequences upon himself.
In other words, the relationship of rebellious subjects to a sovereign does add the potential of a needed transaction of forgiveness. In the Gospel, we are presented with the clear truth that Jesus preemptively forgives rebels through his own reconciliation and mediation. The “acceptance” of that forgiveness is the closest we come to a transaction in the Gospel.
Ring out, you songs, resound, you strings! Oh blessed times! God will prepare our souls to be his temples.
• • •
How to Convey the Un-conveyable?
At Working Preacher, Karoline Lewis makes a good point about preaching on Pentecost Sunday.
I think too many of us preachers go into Pentecost Sunday with the pressure of coming up with a pneumatologically correct sermon, worrying that we get the doctrine of Holy Spirit right, so as not to lead our congregations astray through false teachings and heretical claims. But once we start going down the homiletical road of explaining the Spirit, we subsequently explain away her inspiration and imagination. I’ve said it before and I will likely say it again and again — no one wants to hear a sermon on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; a sermon that tells people what they have to believe about the Spirit. One might call that a performative contradiction. As soon as we insist on absolutes when it comes to the Holy Spirit, I suspect we’ve forgotten that we are talking about the Spirit, who blows where she wills.
That, my friends, is a conundrum.
The mystery of the Holy Spirit takes more than words to convey. How can we help ourselves and our congregations to imagine the Spirit’s reality and influence?
Perhaps we can try and find ways to help people meditate, with striking images and sounds from nature, on the mystery and majesty of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps we reenact the ancient rite, possibly dating back to 609 AD, of dropping rose petals onto the faithful to symbolize the descent of the Holy Spirit, as they do at Rome’s Pantheon.
• • •
How about we throw a big birthday party for the church, and celebrate with joyful abandon, serving flaming cupcakes?
• • •
Or, let’s have a parade!
For the feast of Pentecost, Spanish people from all over the Andalucian region set out on Saturday for the journey to El Rocio. They typically dress in bright flamenco dresses and other regional costumes, playing traditional music and dancing along the way.
•
Or, let’s take our worship public!
Weather permitting, why not reserve a local town park and hold Sunday worship outside, in public? Pentecost was a public phenomenon — why shouldn’t we have one too? Include lively music, testimonies, proclaiming the good news, and do it all in a festive and exuberant manner.
• • •
I’m not a person who is into gimmicks, or for doing things just to have something different.
But we have found innumerable ways to convey the spirit and truth of the Incarnation in Advent and Christmas in ways beyond words. We can do Holy Week and Easter up big with tangible, sensory, imagination inducing commemorations.
Are mere words and business as usual sufficient to convey the intense, liberating mystery of Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit?
US World War II veteran Tom Rice, foreground, takes part in a parachute drop over Carentan in northwestern France as part of D-Day commemorations on June 5. (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)
A massive exercise in spin? Later this month ” 3,235 boxes of paper items, 1,000 scrapbooks of news clippings dating back to the 1940s and more than 1,000 linear feet of videos, cassettes, reels, films and audio” which “documents the life and ministry of evangelist Billy Graham” will “no longer be housed at Wheaton’s highly regarded Billy Graham Center Archives.” The boxes are on their way to North Carolina, where a Wheaton College history professor notes, “The so-called (Billy Graham) Library is not a library…It has no archives. It has no archivist.” But it might be worse than that. Religion News Service notes,
British troops land on the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, marking the commencement of D-Day. (Photo: British Ministry Of Defence via EPA-EFE)
iTunes entered this world 18 years ago as a “digital jukebox” that let users import their favorite CDs, organize their libraries and burn custom mixes. It then became a music store of its own — a magical, one-click emporium where 99 cents could get you almost any song under the sun. Steve Jobs heralded its birth as the dawn of a new age of media consumption, one in which consumers would own the digital rights to their own music.
…I’ve come to think of iTunes as a core piece of what I call the Middle Internet — the period between the Wild West days of Napster and the hyper-centralized era of Facebook and YouTube.
It was an era of clean, well-lit marketplaces where people could buy things to listen to, without worrying about buffering or corrupted files. It filled an important technological gap in the period when lots of people had internet access, but few people had smartphones with data plans capable of streaming high-quality media on demand.
And it was a time when people actively curated their own online media, rather than having it algorithmically spoon-fed to them.
But nothing gold can stay. And in the early part of this decade, subscription music services like Spotify and Pandora, which offered an all-you-can-eat bacchanal of music for a monthly subscription fee, began to eat away at Apple’s advantage.
…Since we’re among friends, I can be candid: ITunes didn’t age well. In recent years, it had become a bloated, buggy nightmare. Apple crammed more and more into iTunes — movies, TV shows, podcasts — until the whole thing was slow and confusing.
…But let’s not remember iTunes as the mess it became. Instead, let’s remember it as it once was: a revolutionary product that transformed the music industry, ushered in a new model of digital ownership and tamed a messy, chaotic part of the internet by building something simple and elegant to replace it.
• • •
Canadian soldiers land on Courseulles beach in Normandy as Allied forces storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
For starters, it’s pretty attractive to outside eyes — once you get past the whole issue of it being damnable “heresy.” Quite honestly, at the core of who we are as people there is something that wants to believe the prosperity gospel is real — or at least the benefits of it.
Wealthy preachers like Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, Paula White and my uncle live like rock stars in multimillion-dollar mansions, drive luxury cars, fly in private jets and do it all using donations from their faithful followers. Let’s face it, the prosperity does look pretty good!
This twisted version of Christianity promises that Jesus will make you healthy, wealthy and happy.
The heartbreaking reality of the prosperity gospel is that by the time you reach the top of the pyramid, you’re still empty. Many preachers spend the better part of their ministry exploiting people to have it all, only to weep with regret decades later when they realize they’ve got a date with destiny coming for them.
• • •
US soldiers of the 16th Infantry Regiment, wounded while storming Omaha Beach, waiting by the chalk cliffs for evacuation to a field hospital for treatment. (Photo: US ARMY via EPA-EFE)
And in the third installment, I came across this sentence, which to me signifies the very best evangelicalism offered me in my life:
Evangelical faith soon became characterized by a lively, personal relationship with God, grounded in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, with a deep and abiding trust in the Bible as God’s personal Word to us, with an active desire to spread this gospel to others.
As all of you know, in my own journey I found that this was fantastic, as far as it goes. But it’s simply not enough (for me at least) to encompass a lifelong journey of spiritual formation. Without the ballast of history and tradition, a more robust ecclesiology, an openness to sacramental reality, a willingness to discuss and accept different understandings of scripture, and deep roots in creation and genuine humanism, evangelicalism will inevitably produce shallow and immature results.
• • •
American troops wading from landing craft toward Omaha Beach, under fire of German artillery.CreditRobert F. Sargent/U.S. Coast Guard/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images
The wind blows down hard in the night
The ghosts of the brave and the damned
Howling their song, locked in their fight
Over every inch of this land
Over every inch of this land
•
American World War II veteran Gene Neeley walks through the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, in Normandy, France. (Kiran Ridley / For The LA Times)
Note from CM: I will moderate closely today. Mind your Ps and Qs.
• • •
Sunday’s event is a near-perfect embodiment of political evangelicalism in the Age of Trump: It blends Christian nationalism, the idea that the United States has a special place in God’s plans and Trump is God’s agent; social media, where it’s hard to separate the wheat of grassroots support from the chaff of Russian bots; and it has seriously irked Christians who say Graham and others have sold their souls for a mess of political pottage.
I preached at a local church this past Sunday. Before the service, one of the women I know came up to me and asked me to pray specifically for President Trump in the service. She handed me a press release from Franklin Graham, beseeching Christians to make that Sunday a special day of prayer for our president, who “is under attack” and needs special spiritual protection “from his enemies.”
•
I have no problem praying for the president, along with all public leaders. In our Lutheran church, the prayers that are prepared for each Sunday always include a section in which we intercede on behalf of them, that they might have wisdom and work for justice and peace in our world. This is a clear N.T. instruction in 1 Timothy 2. So, when I led the pastoral prayer in this other church last Sunday, I prayed for President Trump by name and I prayed for our congressional representatives, our state and local leaders, and governmental leaders around the world, mentioning that we live in a time of political turmoil, and asking God to guide and help all of them.
I’m not sure if that satisfied my friend who had asked me to pray, but that’s the way I approached it.
I certainly did not approach praying for the president the way Franklin Graham called for pastors to do. That was not about prayer, but something else altogether. That was pure partisan politics. It represented the very opposite of the independent, prophetic stance the Bible calls God’s people to take. I can’t imagine Graham would have ever issued such an emergency bulletin to pray for President Obama, the Democratic-led House of Representatives, or anyone else with whom he disagrees politically.
For someone who says he believes the Bible, this is simply unconscionable. The prophets who spoke to kings and other leaders in biblical times did not represent their nation, nor were they cheerleaders for those in power. They represented God and his word alone. They did not assume, even though they may have believed in some fashion that God had “raised up” the ruler, that this meant he must be supported without question.
Michael Gerson, who is himself a person of Christian faith and one who has been severe in his criticism of evangelicals and their support for Trump, wrote that Franklin Graham’s appeal was pure promotion of the president and a betrayal of the gospel.
[T]he Rev. Franklin Graham’s recent declaration of a “special day of prayer for the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump” on June 2 had a very different theological flavor. Graham made clear that the real purpose of the event was not to pray for the president, but to pray in his political favor. “President Trump’s enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family and the presidency,” Graham explained. “In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has.” The American Family Association described the day of prayer as a type of “spiritual warfare,” necessary because Trump’s many accomplishments “make him very unpopular with the Devil and the kingdom of darkness.”
Who are the “enemies” that Graham had in mind? Who represents “the kingdom of darkness”? The Democratic Party? Robert Mueller and the “deep state”? Never-Trump Republicans?
However the conspiracy against the president is defined, I suppose I am part of it. Having been accused of serving the Prince of Darkness, I feel justified in making a frank response.
In their day of prayer, Graham and other Trump evangelicals have used a sacred spiritual practice for profane purposes. They have subordinated religion to politics. They have elevated Trump as a symbol of divine purposes. And they are using Christian theology as a cover for their partisanship.
So: This is blasphemy, in service to ideology, leading to idolatry, justified by heresy. All in a Sunday’s work.
If you’ve been reading Internet Monk or my (former) Chaplain Mike Facebook page, you know that I have been unswerving in my opposition to President Trump — since long before the election, by the way — but that is NOT what this post is about.
This is about the ongoing syncretism of God and country in the U.S. through Christian nationalism, and about how Christians with public access like Franklin Graham are calling us to put our hope for divine favor in nationalism and partisan politics, then trying to cover it with piety and prayer.
I happen to think the Bible has a lot to say about that very subject. And nothing positive. Jesus himself stood in the long tradition of Hebrew prophets who stood face to face with rulers and confronted them with unvarnished truth, refusing to subordinate their faith, God’s standards, and the welfare of God’s people to political personalities, patronage, or policies. Like them, Jesus reserved the right to call Herod a “fox” when he deserved it.
I think the fox in this case is the one who’s licking Herod’s boots.
We will begin our review of God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation, by Jon Garvey.Jon blogs at The Hump of the Camel and you can buy his book here. As of the writing of this post, Amazon is only showing a Kindle version of the book for sale.From Jon’s bio description at The Hump of the Camel:
“Jon retired as the senior partner of a large medical practice in 2008, and has since been studying and writing on faith-science issues. He started The Hump of the Camel in 2011 at the instigation of various other commenters on the BioLogos website. His greatest concern is biblical theology, but he sees his role as a generalist, pulling together ideas from a wide range of fields of human knowledge to enrich the discussion. This means he has to be pulled up on errors from time to time by more knowledgeable friends, which is all to the good.When not involved in The Hump, his main activity is writing, arranging and performing music for a number of ensembles, playing saxophones and guitars. He is also an elder of a Baptist church.”
This YouTube video gives a nice summary of the book.
The book is broken into four sections:
Section 1 – The Bible
Section 2 – The Theologians
Section 3 – The Science
Section 4 —The Application
Jon Garvey
In Section 1 he surveys the relevant biblical material pretty thoroughly, if not exhaustively.In Section 2 he discusses the history of the doctrine of nature, with reference to the fall, through the last 2,000 years, and he shows how he believes the balance has shifted from a strongly positive view of the goodness of creation to a negative one.He also looks at the possible reasons why the so-called “traditional view” became prominent around the sixteenth century.
In Section 3 he looks at the evidence for “natural evil” in the world itself as science observes it, and why nature is now so widely perceived as cruel and malevolent, when once it wasn’t.This section is also a study on how ideas gain or lose plausibility, and how evidence comes to be considered significant or to be disregarded.
Lastly, in Section 4, Jon sketches out the difference it makes to Christian life to accept either the “traditional view” or the view he presents.He believes that the idea that creation is tainted by the fall a false notion that negatively affects our worship, witness, and plain enjoyment of God’s good earth.Jon says:
Lastly, I will touch on the Christian hope for the future, and how it involves not an escape from an evil creation to an uncreated heaven, but the renewing of a good creation as a better one, of the naturally empowered (psuchikos) as the spiritually empowered (pneumatikos), of the perishable as the imperishable – of the old order as the new heavens and the new earth.
In Chapter 1 – God’s Relationship to Creation, Jon points out that there are a series of blessing and curse stipulations to God’s covenant with Israel that follow the known Ancient Near East (ANE) treaty stipulations.These are set out in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, and Joshua 24.The thing Jon wants to point out is the creation is used as God’s reliable and obedient agent for both blessing and for curses.According to whatever God commands, the weather will either be beneficial and productive or violent and destructive.The wild beasts will either withdraw harmlessly into uninhabited places, or act as marauders in towns and villages. The bacteria and parasites will be harmless or will produce epidemics as he wills.
Weather, in particular, is said in scripture to be God’s agent of government. Psalm 104:3-4:
3. He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
4. He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants.
Psalm 65 describes God’s care for the land through his control of rainfall:
9 You care for the land and water it;
you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
to provide the people with grain,
for so you have ordained it. 10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
you soften it with showers and bless its crops. 11 You crown the year with your bounty,
and your carts overflow with abundance. 12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;
the hills are clothed with gladness. 13 The meadows are covered with flocks
and the valleys are mantled with grain;
they shout for joy and sing.
The book of Job in chapters 36-37 not only describes the hydrological cycle accurately, but shows that God’s judicial use of the weather is broader than Israel both geographically and in the range of purposes it serves.The elements are never said to be independent of God.Jon says:
Now there are instances in Scripture where natural phenomenon of extreme weather, famine, and so on are mentioned without any specific references to God’s actions or intentions.But is should not be understood from this that these things “just happen” apart from God’s will.That would be alien to the whole Hebrew worldview.Rather, when things are described phenomenologically, without reference to divine intent, we are to suppose that God is going about his “own business” and that his particular motives are hidden from us, or are just irrelevant to the narrative.
Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt
In the calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee, the word used in all three Gospel accounts, “rebuke”, is that used in the Septuagint version of Psalm 104, in which God’s creative power over primal disorder, not his quelling of an evil rival is in view. In the Old Testament, only in Job 1 is the person of Satan said to 1) send a destructive fire, 2) a mighty wind, and 3) inflict boils.But it is essential to understand that Satan here is represented as a morally ambiguous, but obedient “son of God” who acts only under the direct permission of God, and ultimately in a mysterious way for Job’s blessing.
Jon gives a whistle-stop tour through the animal kingdom to give examples of those creatures which God names as his agents:
Gnats (Ex 8:16-19)
Flies (Ex 8:20-31)
Locusts (Ex 10:1-19, Joel 1-2, Amos 4:9, 7:1)
Frogs (Ex 8:1-14)
Snakes (Num 21:4-9)
Birds (Jer 15:3)
Dogs (Jer 15:3)
Bears (2 Kings 2:23)
Generic wild beasts (Jer 15:3, Ezek 14:15-16)
In addition to these, the general judgement of God himself is likened figuratively to another menagerie of fierce creatures:
·Lions (Is 31:14; Jer 4:5, 5:6)
·Wolves (Jer 5:6)
·Leopards (Jer 5:6)
·Birds of Prey (Is 46:11)
·Snakes (Jer 7:17)
Jon says it is incongruous to consider God identifying his own actions with such creatures if, as the “traditional view” says, they are corrupted and evil. The clearest description of his care towards the nonhuman creation are in passages from Job and Psalms.Job in particular stresses his care – even workmanlike pride – in the details of what he has made.See Job 12:7-10 and Job 38:39-41, 39:1-30.It is hard to conceive how anyone can read the Job passages and still think that God considers his creatures to be corrupt in any way.He is as equally enthusiastic about the carnivores whose prey he procures as the herbivores he provides for. Jon concludes the chapter:
Nothing in what we have examined in this chapter, covering the whole sweep of Old and New Testament teaching about the creation as it is, gives any hint that some other agent has corrupted the natural world, nor that God himself has altered its nature for the worse because of human sin, nor that it has corrupted itself.If God uses it for harm, it is because of humanity’s desert, not because of nature’s corruption.
In Chapter 2, Jon will examine the Scriptures that are most often cited to claim the opposite.
Another Look: My Journey Alongside the Spirit-Filled
I have a distinctly non-Pentecostal/Charismatic/Third Wave Christian heritage. (For the sake of easier reading, these three waves of “Spirit-filled” movements will be simply called “charismatic” in the rest of the post) The steps of my ecclesiastical journey look like this:
United Methodist (before charismatic influence) — Southern Baptist — dispensationalist Bible college — traditionally mainline Baptist church in New England — Evangelical Free Church seminary — non-denominational Bible church in a fundamentalist association — non-denominational (unofficially non-charismatic) Community church — ELCA Lutheran church.
Yet, since my journey really took off in the early 70’s during the charismatically-fueled Jesus People movement, I have witnessed the second and third waves of the charismatic movement from a close vantage point. In this post, I simply want to share some of my remembrances and reflections about what I’ve seen and experienced.
It wasn’t long after my spiritual awakening in my late teens that I became aware of Christians who were emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues. I recall one of the first Bible studies I ever taught under the tutelage of my youth pastor. A man attended who was involved in charismatic renewal in his mainline church. We were studying John, the part about Jesus’ baptism. When we read about the Spirit descending on Jesus and the voice from heaven, he asked, “Was that when Jesus was baptized in the Spirit?” Knowing full well that he had a certain understanding of what that meant, I simply said, “Yeah, I guess,” and moved on to avoid getting off on a tangent.
My youth pastor was a gifted Bible teacher, and we used to record his studies on cassette tape. One of the fellows who attended was from California, where the Jesus movement was strong. He sent some of the tapes to his friends, who listened to them and then wrote back, “He’s pretty good. Imagine how much better he would be if he had the Spirit!” When my youth pastor heard it, he replied, “I’d rather have Jesus.” He wasn’t impressed with the emphases he was seeing in the movement.
I remember a couple of occasions when I prayed in groups with charismatic friends. The first was a Teen Challenge Bible study (David Wilkerson’s organization) that was full of people who had been saved out of the drug culture. I’ll never forget that meeting, because it was the first time I literally saw people “high on Jesus.” They were seeking ecstasy and they achieved a certain level of it. I even remember one of my friend’s eyes. They were actually bloodshot and his pupils dilated as though he had smoked several joints. When prayer ended, it was like a whole room of people awoke from a trance.
On one Easter Sunday morning, our little folk music trio that sang for Jesus opened a sunrise concert for Rez Band in a park in downtown Baltimore. The prayer circle before we went on stage was so intense, I thought we were literally going to take off and hover over the city.
The Bible college I attended considered the charismatic movement unbiblical, schismatic, and dangerous. As a dispensationalist school, they argued for cessationism, though I always found their reasoning bogus. Their approach in this area was one reason I ultimately found dispensational theology wanting. It was also one of the reasons I found a group like the Evangelical Free Church more attractive. They took no firm position from a charismatic or non-charismatic perspective, and there were pastors and teachers in the EFCA who argued for various points of view. And so, I thought, when I’m ready to go to seminary, I’ll check out their school.
But first, I made a foray into ministry to get my feet wet and to dry the wetness behind my ears. The little village church we went to in southern Vermont (200 years old in 2014) had been a mainline Baptist church. Charismatic influences were springing up all around them in the late 70’s. Vermont is one of the last refuges of the hippies and other counterculture folks who fled the flatlands and moved to the hills to “get back to the land, set our souls free,” as Joni Mitchell sang. It made for an interesting mix of folks, and most of the old conservative Vermonters had little clue how to relate.
Some of these seekers came to our steepled church to hear the young pastor preach. There was also a Bible study going in a nearby town where they joined others who were seeking the Spirit. One night when I joined them, I asked a lady where she lived, and she told me she had moved up to Wilmington from Brattleboro because, seeking for guidance one day she opened her Bible and read, “Get thee up to the high mountain.” I didn’t have the heart to ask her why she hadn’t relocated to Jerusalem, since that’s what the text was talking about. Another gifted woman who was quite artistic and dramatic told me a story of her young daughter walking through the woods and encountering a deer. I can’t recall if the deer spoke to her or not, but it led her to where she was going and then bowed down before running off.
If I’m remembering correctly, it seems to me that in those days, the charismatic folks I encountered didn’t speak so much about healing but more about tongues and visions and guidance. It was about God touching their lives and making them new and then praying for God to touch their friends in the same way. It was also about “experiencing God.” Many of us in those days had sharp hunger pangs. We longed to know and touch and sense what was real and authentic. We found it in different ways. People like me found it in the study of Scripture. The Spirit illumined the pages of the Bible and made Jesus real to us. The charismatics, on the other hand, seemed to want more — a felt experience of God in prayer, visible signs of his presence, direct guidance for their lives. One thing we shared in common was music.
Those were the days when we began singing Scripture and praise choruses in addition to hymns in church. Most of the new songs were coming out of the (charismatic) Jesus People movement, and they were simple, Scripture-based if not quoted from the Bible, melodic, and heart-felt. In our congregation, we mixed old and new in worship, Bible studies, and fellowship gatherings. At least where I lived, there were no “worship wars” at that point, because no one was trying to force anything upon the whole church. We were simply including expressions of newness in the midst of the historic faith.
I did occasionally have arguments with my charismatic friends. The main point of contention was second-blessing theology. Was it essential for Christians to have a separate experience of being “baptized in the Spirit”? If they did, was this consistently marked by speaking in tongues?I always thought the wall between us might be broken down if we could agree that God is free to grant such experiences, but they are not essential to salvation or sanctification. I was not a cessationist and I was willing to grant that God could still bless us with his gifts. I was not able to agree that certain gifts were for everyone to experience in the same way and that they were necessary for a complete relationship with God.
In my studies as a young pastor I would occasionally come across material that would encourage me to think more about the place of the Spirit in my life and the Christian life in general. I read D.L Moody’s testimony of how a couple of ladies had prayed for him to receive “the power” and he did. I was challenged by A.W. Tozer’s words on how the 20th century church had rudely ignored the Holy Spirit. One of the most powerful presentations of the Holy Spirit’s work came to me through David Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his commentaries on Romans. He linked the powerful experiential work of the Spirit with assurance of salvation and revival. One contemporary popular book, Birthright: Christian, Do You Know Who You Are?, by David C. Needham, was also influential. Among other things, Needham argued (in non-charismatic terms) that the experienced presence of the Holy Spirit is fundamental to NT teaching about the Christian life. These men affected my thinking deeply. Though none of them were pentecostal or charismatic, they taught about the Spirit in such a way that made me much more open to his work in my life and ministry.
By the time I went to seminary in the 80’s, a lot of the controversy about the charismatic movement had died down. We seemed to be in a bit of a lull before the Third Wave (some prefer the term neo-charismatic movement) really hit. D.A. Carson taught a class on Corinthians that I took at TEDS and he got very little discussion when the topic of gifts and tongues came up from 1Cor. 12-14. I remembering him expressing his surprise at how quickly things had changed. In those years, he wrote a book on the subject called, Showing the Spirit. In my opinion, it remains the most thoughtful, insightful, and pastoral study of these chapters available. Carson includes a narrative of his own experiences as a pastor trying to help a church deal with growing conflicts between pro-charismatic and anti-charismatic groups in the congregation that I find exemplary.
Why did the controversies die down and things change?
Maybe one reason was because the church growth movement was encouraging charismatics to start their own congregations, and they were. Also, from my perspective, the fact that so many new leaders, teachers, and pastors were coming out of parachurch ministries that were focused on mission more than dogmatics played a great part in making these matters less contentious. Furthermore, the culture war discussions enabled Christians to agree on moral and political concerns and pushed some of these doctrinal matters to the back-burner. It seemed foolish to argue about the gift of tongues when so many babies were dying and the world was heading down a fast track to hell. I also think that evangelicalism’s embrace of contemporary music and emotive worship diminished some of the special attractiveness of charismatic emphases for many seeking a more experiential Christianity.
In my experience then, over the past 20 years or so, I have relatively little interaction with charismatics where we’ve talked about these things. We seem to live in largely different worlds now. I have friends in Vineyard and Assembly of God churches, I have appreciated some of the music from reformed charismatic circles, I appreciate charismatic Biblical scholars like Craig Keener and Gordon Fee. But charismatic doctrine and practice has not been an issue in any of our churches or in my personal relationships for a long, long time. The public problems and excesses of contemporary neo-charismatic theology and practice that Michael wrote about in this piece, some of which are even more apparent than when he posted that article, remain troubling to me, hence my own critique and opinion post.
It’s been a long and strange journey alongside my Spirit-filled friends. Given the fact that studies show one in four Christians around the world report themselves to be charismatic Christians, and that pentecostalism is one of the most rapidly growing forms of Christian faith, especially in the global south and east, our journey together is not yet over.
Note from CM: Whenever the subject of the Holy Spirit comes up, as it does in even the most traditional churches during the time of Pentecost, questions regarding “second blessing” theology, miracles, spiritual gifts — especially those involving supernatural manifestations such as speaking in tongues and prophecy — healing, and “God speaking” directly to the believer arise. Here is one post Michael wrote on the subject.
• • •
Tuesday with Michael Spencer
A good and dear friend recently updated me on developments in her recent spiritual journey.
Let’s stop here. If you’re reading this, here’s a question for you: What do you expect to hear now?
Thought about it? Good. Let’s go on.
Most of what she told me about would go in the category of signs and wonders.
A prayer was answered with the sudden appearance of a rainbow, and so on. Mystical, personal stuff in the realm of answered prayers and personal experience. Her entire spiritual life is not studying scripture, but about what she describes as a “deep, personal experience of God” that includes His very real activity to show His hand in signs and wonders.
Scripture isn’t absent, but my friend’s journey is one where experience is leading and scripture is following. My friend is immensely happy, by the way, and closer to Jesus than ever before.
I had to immediately admit that this isn’t my journey and isn’t likely to ever be. I’m honestly afraid of anything in the category of “signs and wonders.” I’m very suspicious of any and all personal religious experience of this sort. I’m a skeptic when I hear most testimonies of miracles or signs. I tend to think that it isn’t true, is exaggerated or won’t last.
I’m ruthless to preachers in this regard. When I preacher talks off into a story of a miracle, sign or wonder, I’m wearing a helmet that says “Don’t try that stuff on me.” I’m kinder to regular Christian folk, but I’ve still got a skeptical attitude that the devil himself would admire.
I believe that religion, as a human phenomenon and by its very nature, creates a world where people believe that things happen that haven’t happened. The line between fact and reality goes very thin and takes a good bit of the week off.
I don’t find it at all unusual that a guy like Todd Bentley can say the last three rows at his meeting were all in caskets dead yesterday or that angels are tossing elephants around in the green room. And I’m not surprised that people believe him and defend him.
Now I won’t argue with you that there’s a problem with me in this area. (If you haven’t noticed.) Christianity is a religion of miracles that are essential to its existence. While I would stand by my frequent assertion that the number and frequency of miracles in the Bible is generally over-emphasized and exaggerated, I’m all signed up to affirm that the Bible is a record of miracles, signs and wonders.
I know that the Christian worldview is open to the intervention of God. I’m not a deist. I pray for God’s intervention all the time. I’ve experienced it. My family was once awakened from a sound sleep to discover our house on fire. How? By a noise in the street that I just happened to get up to check out….and thereby discovered the laundry room on fire. I’ve seen God answer prayer for my wife, my children, my mother and the ministry where I work.
But there’s no doubt that I have a bias in this area. Is it an over commitment to logic? An inevitable part of the Protestant use of the Bible? Residual damage from being a Calvinist?
There was a time, when I was a very young Christian, that I was part of a Charismatic prayer group that did little other than sing, pray for miracles and talk about miracles. When I left that chapter of my journey, I didn’t leave angry or hurt, but I wonder if I left feeling superior? Convinced I- at that time a dispensationalist- knew more than those kinds of people?
Have I spent so many years preaching, that I’m convinced God works by argument? By debate and verbal persuasion? How did I get so biased against the many other ways that God certainly uses to wake us up, draw us to himself and assure us of his presence?
Am I frightened by the unordered, uncontrollable aspect of God the Holy Spirit? Have I fled to the security of God working through chapter and verse so that I can understand him? Does my skepticism give me the illusions and delusions about God that keep my feeling safe and in control?
My friend’s spiritual journey hasn’t made her a raving loon. She doesn’t claim to hear voices or see visions. If she did, I don’t think it would turn her into someone bizarre and embarrassing.
My friend Pat had two heart transplants before he died a few years ago. When he came back from his first one, he was profoundly changed by a vision of Jesus on the cross, there in his hospital room. He told the story many times, with obvious and sincere emotion. It assured him of God’s love and salvation. After years of alcoholism and living far from God, he loved the cross of Jesus, and he believed he’d been taken to it that day.
I know a dozen explanations for what happened to Pat. Doctors can explain it to you. So can most psychologists and more than a few counselors. But the thing is, Pat didn’t see Jesus all the time, like Harvey the Rabbit. He saw the cross once, in a vision, and his life was changed. It was “outside the Bible,” but it was very much inside the Bible, too.
My friend’s journey isn’t an exposition of Romans. It’s a discovery that God is out there, beckoning her own to another chapter of loving God and loving neighbor. She’s sane as a judge. And she believes a rainbow appeared out of nowhere, just for her.
I’m the skeptic, and I assure myself that my skepticism makes me a believer in what God has said in scripture. (I mean, I have an ESV Study Bible!) But I have to face the fact that I’m often an unbeliever in the God beyond the page. I’m a skeptic about experiences happening today like those I read in the life of Abraham, Jacob and Moses.
Somehow, I sense that for all the theology I’ve imbibed, by faith and my connection with God are smaller. And while some will say that my friend and others have walked away from the Bible, I’m wondering if they have taken the Word into the Wild, where the God who surprises with signs and wonders still lives.
Ascension Sunday 2019: Prayer, Power, and Proclamation
In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.
Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”
He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” (Acts 1:1-11)
• • •
Many years ago, my faith in Christ was reawakened during a season of revival.
In high school, I became part of a youth group where Christ was obviously present and actively in charge. We were young people from both Christian and unchurched backgrounds. But in that fellowship, we experienced a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We started drinking in the teachings of the Bible. Our prayer meetings were rich—marked by simple faith and wholehearted rejoicing when we saw our requests answered. We shared our faith with enthusiasm. Of course, given our ages, there was a lot of immaturity and misplaced zeal too. Nevertheless we experienced the presence and power of God in our lives in real and tangible ways. Christ was obviously present and actively in charge of what was going on.
Many in that youth group went on to further Christian studies, and a number ended up in full-time vocational ministry. Our experience of revival led us into service for Christ. I once returned to that church many years later and spoke with several adults who had witnessed that revival. They told me they had never seen anything like that since in their church or youth group. It had been a remarkable season of God’s revival blessing.
We just read the opening to the Book of Acts. Acts shows what happened in the early church after Jesus ascended to heaven. It portrays a similar time of revival and renewal. It also shows that this revival led to a worldwide missionary movement. Now that Jesus had gone to the Father’s right hand, his people went into all the world telling his good news.
As we see from verse 1, Acts is part two of the story that the author of the Gospel of Luke wrote. He says here that Luke was about “everything Jesus began to do and teach until he was taken up to heaven.”
The Book of Acts is about what Jesus continued to do after he ascended through his people, the church.
Today is Ascension Sunday. On this day we remember, as the Creed says, that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the Father’s right hand. Jesus has been enthroned as King over all creation. Next week is Pentecost Sunday. On that day we remember that Jesus, from his throne in heaven, poured out the Holy Spirit upon the church so that we — you and I and everyone who calls him Lord — may be empowered to be his ambassadors and to represent him throughout the world.
When he was here among us, the Gospel of Luke says, Jesus announced that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed.
As he ascended to heaven, this passage in Acts says, Jesus told us, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
That’s exactly what we see happen in the Book of Acts. Jesus ascends to his throne. His followers gather in Jerusalem and wait. Then, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they are filled with new life, new energy, new purpose. They begin to love one another and take care of each other in remarkable ways. They begin to see their neighbors in a new light, and to show them love with a renewed spirit of generosity and hospitality. Through their lives, their words, and their actions, they point others to Jesus and encourage them to trust him too.
It reminds of that youth group I was a part of so long ago — a time of revival, a time of renewal, a time when a refreshing wind from heaven blew upon the church. From Jesus on the throne, the Holy Spirit came to people who were waiting for him, and it changed everything.
I love this season of the year for that reason. Easter and Ascension and Pentecost not only remind us of what happened back in the days of Jesus and the early church, they remind us of what the church can be in any given moment of history. They remind us that a fresh wind from God can blow through our lives at any time. That Jesus is still on the throne. That he still gives the Holy Spirit to those who wait for him. That our lives can still be revived, renewed, and transformed. That we can make a real, meaningful difference in our neighborhoods and communities by continuing the work Jesus began as his Spirit-filled ambassadors in the world.
There is an interesting pattern in the Books of Luke and Acts that I’d like to leave you with this morning that I think shows us how we might go forward with these ideas.
The author of Luke and Acts does something very interesting in the way he tells the stories about Jesus and about the church. Luke designed his accounts of Jesus (Gospel of Luke) and the church (Acts) in such a way as to show that their mission and methods PARALLEL one another. When you read the story of Jesus, you find out not only what he came to do you also find out how he did it. Then, when you read the church’s story in Acts, you find that the early church did the same things Jesus did, and that they did them in the same way.
Let me give a few examples, and let’s start with Jesus. More than any other Gospel, Luke shows Jesus at prayer. So, for example, at his baptism, when the other Gospels just talk about Jesus going down into the water and coming up, Luke says that Jesus was praying while being baptized. And as he was praying, the Holy Spirit came upon him, and from that moment on Jesus began to preach and teach.
Or, in Luke 6, when Jesus called his disciples, it tells us that Jesus went up on a mountain to pray. There he calls his disciples, and then they go down the mountain, Jesus is filled with power and he heals and helps people who had come from far and near to see him.
Another example: Luke is the only Gospel that tells us when Jesus went up on the Mount of Transfiguration that he went up there to pray. As he was praying, he was transfigured before the disciples and they saw his glory. Then, they went down the mountain, having been filled with this amazing vision, and Jesus healed a young man bound by a very serious disease. The text says, “Awe gripped the people as they saw this majestic display of God’s power.”
So here’s the pattern. First, Jesus prayed. Second, Jesus was filled with power. Third, Jesus proclaimed the good news and shared God’s love and healing power with others.
Now, if we go to the Book of Acts, you will find that the author shows the same pattern, but this time it’s not Jesus, it’s the church who follows Jesus.
So, in Acts 1, right after the passage we read this morning, after Jesus ascends into heaven, the disciples gather in Jerusalem and the text says “They all met together and were constantly united in prayer.” A few days later, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them. Peter preaches his Pentecost sermon, 3000 people come to faith in Christ, and the church begins taking care of all these new friends, gathering together, eating together, sharing their possessions, rejoicing in the newness of life that they are experiencing together.
Another example: in Acts 4, after Peter and John get in some trouble for their preaching, the church gathers together to pray. Then, listen to what the text says: “After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.”
Do you see it? The very same pattern Luke described in Jesus’ life and ministry is now replicated in the early church. It starts with prayer. Then God pours out his power. And with that power, the good news is proclaimed and lived out in daily life.
Prayer, power, and proclamation. That’s how Jesus fulfilled his ministry while here among us. Prayer, power, and proclamation. And that is the same exact way that we, his people, will fulfill our ministry of being ambassadors of the King who is now enthroned in heaven.
In this light, I would like to encourage us all to make this week between Ascension Sunday and Pentecost Sunday a special week of prayer. Let us do what the early believers did when Jesus left them to go to the Father’s right hand. They devoted themselves to prayer during that waiting period.
I have prepared some prayers for you, with associated scriptures, to use this Monday through Friday. I hope you will use them daily, and that God will fill us with his Spirit in new and fresh ways, leading us to be renewed ambassadors of his good news to our neighbors.
Jesus himself promised us: “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (Luke 11:13)
•
Prayer: Heavenly Father, you are good and give good gifts to your children. The best gift of all is your presence, love, and power in our lives. As you instructed your disciples to wait for the Spirit, to watch and pray, I pray that you would teach each one of us the patience of praying and waiting. Fill our lives as you filled theirs, and bless your church with power from on high. Come, Holy Spirit! In the name of Jesus, our risen and ascended King we pray, Amen.
When I was in the midst of reading N.T. Wright’s book, 
,” to write an opinion piece at RNS called 
If I’m remembering correctly, it seems to me that in those days, the charismatic folks I encountered didn’t speak so much about healing but more about tongues and visions and guidance. It was about God touching their lives and making them new and then praying for God to touch their friends in the same way. It was also about “experiencing God.” Many of us in those days had sharp hunger pangs. We longed to know and touch and sense what was real and authentic. We found it in different ways. People like me found it in the study of Scripture. The Spirit illumined the pages of the Bible and made Jesus real to us. The charismatics, on the other hand, seemed to want more — a felt experience of God in prayer, visible signs of his presence, direct guidance for their lives. One thing we shared in common was music.
, by David C. Needham, was also influential. Among other things, Needham argued (in non-charismatic terms) that the experienced presence of the Holy Spirit is fundamental to NT teaching about the Christian life. These men affected my thinking deeply. Though none of them were pentecostal or charismatic, they taught about the Spirit in such a way that made me much more open to his work in my life and ministry.
. In my opinion, it remains the most thoughtful, insightful, and pastoral study of these chapters available. Carson includes a narrative of his own experiences as a pastor trying to help a church deal with growing conflicts between pro-charismatic and anti-charismatic groups in the congregation that I find exemplary.
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