Category Archives: Assembling, church

GATHER, LISTEN TO HIM

Posted on 06/11/2017 | Leave a comment

We were reading together recently Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians discovering some wonderful truths—eavesdropping on the reading to those saints meeting in Thessalonica.

We noticed how the authors, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy wrote to encourage their hearers as they sat and listened to the letter being read to them.

They were listening to the words of Paul who was a witness to the risen Christ! Clearly his testimony was critical to their life in the Spirit.

That’s how all of the letters to these young assemblies were received in the New Testament start. They listened together rather than read. The letters were composed to be read out loud to a meeting of believers. Never in their wildest dreams did the authors expect you and I could read this correspondence and gain so much insight into how they saw the application of the gospel.

To receive the word of God we have to hear the word of God rather than just read it. “My sheep hear my voice” said Jesus.

“Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts!”

Literally listening! Not just reading the print on the pages!

You have to be there. To be present.

Ekklesia (badly translated as ‘church’) means gathering or assembly. You cannot have a New Testament gathering unless actually gathered together. They came together and when they went back home they were no longer an assembly. They would eagerly look forward to the next time together, when they would assemble—to hear.

In the hearts of the authors, they saw in the Spirit the people to whom they were addressing when it would be read to them.

There is no way these believers could receive the word of God except they assembled. Right?

Each time together was unique.

No two meetings were exactly the time. Spontaneity. And as the Holy Spirit distributed his manifestations among them.

What is your gathering like? Is it a place where you HEAR His voice?

When we gather today, the living Jesus is with us to speak. But is He welcome? Does he have a voice in your meetings? Is He allowed to be Lord? Do we take seriously these living words?

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Posted in Assembling, church, Bible Study, Discipleship

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Jesus is doing it still

Carl Musch is a friend of mine (connection through Oikos Australia) . He is working with indigenous people in the far North and he posted this wonderful picture and story on Facebook Sept 21 . . . . . .

Indigenous boy raised from death

This little boy was found dead at the bottom of a muddy waterhole in warm water when a bunch of children came down to swim. They dragged him out and took him to the clinic where the doctor tried to revive him but finally pronounced him dead. Then the children said “Can we pray for Jesus to heal him?”. They prayed and he coughed back to life with no effect from the ordeal except today a hunger to hear the Word of Jesus who brought him back to life…and who gives eternal life to all who call on His name.

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Posted on 27/09/2017 in Assembling, church, Discipleship, Health and Healing, miracles

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OH, THAT WRETCHED WORD ‘CHURCH’

Posted on 09/02/2017 | 14 comments

English translators of the scriptures saw the New Testament with religious (catholic) lenses. So these obeyed the politico-religious powers and consistently translated the Greek word ekklesia into a current religious word, ‘church’ which everyone already knew, being taught and accepted as truth, instead of the real meaning of the Greek word, which is assembly or gathering—a word in the Ancient World which had no religious or institutional connotations at all. None.

This is clearly shown by the translators’ inconsistency in translating the same Greek word by assembly or gathering three times in Acts 19—the story of Paul’s gospel stirring up the silversmiths in Ephesus—instead of the c… word! Check me out. I kid you not.

Ekklesia always meant assembly or gathering in the Ancient World of the New Testament period. When Paul wrote to those gatherings of Jesus’ people in the New Testament period, he qualified the word ekklesia by e.g., the ekklesia in God the Father and His son at . . . . (wherever—Corinth, etc) or similar language. It had to be distinguished from all the other local gatherings—religious, political or commercial which abounded in great numbers.  Get it?

And if Paul was talking about more than one gathering of believers, he used the plural, ekklesiai, gatherings. So we read about the “assemblies or gatherings of Judea” and not “the gathering of Judea”. John does not address any “assembly of or in Asia” in the Book of Revelation but as “the seven gatherings in Asia”. Seven! And that’s because they are assemblies not denominations or institutional religious organisations.

In fact, a strong case can be made that ekklesia originally meant “a gathering actually gathered” so that when the assembly broke up there was no longer a gathering. For example the riotous assembly, Acts 19:41. Naturally for a group of believers meeting regularly it would continue in their minds as a spiritual gathering, a virtual one, which had a (hopeful) continuity while not meeting—though could never be guaranteed that it would gather again exactly the same as it did the previous time.

So it’s like our parliaments which sit for a period but then when not sitting, there is no parliament. And a city council is really only a council when it is meeting. The employees are not the actual council, are they?

William Tyndale in his groundbreaking 16th Century English New Testament translation, rendered ekklesia as ‘congregation’ which then had no traditional religious connotation. This led to his being persecuted and strangulated by the religious establishment—that’s 1534 English history.

So why did the English Bible translators three times translate ekklesia as ‘assembly’ in the story in Acts (Acts 19:32, 39, 41)? The word church clearly wouldn’t fit these three meeting contexts. But wearing their religious glasses, they consistently translated the Greek word in other contexts as ‘church’ as if this Roman Catholic term was its equivalent and not as the word was understood in the Ancient World.

A century later, the translators of the King James Version (KJV)  were commanded by James the King of England to abide by about 14 conditions one of which the Greek word ekklesia had to be translated as church. They had no option but to do what James wanted so he could maintain his political agenda. They did translate the word as assembly in the Acts 19 story.

You may be interested to know that now we can use a recent scholarly translation called World English Bible (WEB) which translates the Greek word ekklesia with the English word assembly in the New Testament. In this version, the word ‘church’ cannot be found.

What has kept English translators so long to correct this?

Tradition! which obscures the word of God.

We may ask: why did the apostles use the Greek word ekklesia (gathering) and not other words which had a similar meaning? They did not use the word synagogue for the obvious reason that their gatherings were distinguished from those of the Jews.

Now, the Hebrew word qahal (=gathering, assembly) had been used in the Old Testament over 100 times and in the Greek translation of the OT (called the Septuagint or “LXX”) this Hebrew word was translated ekklesia (gathering). The early New Testament writers widely used the LXX and so probably chose this word which was also used by Jesus (see Matthew 16:18 and 18:17—the only places in the 4 gospels).

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Posted in Assembling, church, Bible Study, Discipleship, Kingdom of God

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Simplicity: Hold fast what you received

Posted on 30/01/2017 | 3 comments

How simple it all is!

But so much has been added to the simplicity of Christ and as a result, that simplicity has disappeared.

In robbing us of that simplicity and embracing instead the religious ideas of human thinking, what has not been given to us, we have lost just about all.

I invite you to consider with me the utter simplicity of what was revealed to the first communities of Jesus.

For starters, consider these words from the mouth of Jesus to believers recorded for us in the book, Revelation.

 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus . . . . . ‘You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.’” Rev 2:4-5.

“I say to the rest of you in Thyatira ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”  Rev 2:24-25

 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write  . . . . . . ‘I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.  Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.  Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.’”  Rev 3:1-3.

And “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia . . . .  ‘I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.’” Rev 3:1, 11

Consider also these words from the pen of apostle John . . .

Let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, you will abide in the Son and the Father. 1 John 2:24

Need I comment?

Dare I comment?

If you have ears to hear, then please join me in hearing, that is, obeying.

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ABOUT THE DOCTRINE YOU TEACH

Posted on 14/12/2016 | 4 comments

Last post I looked at Jesus’ words recorded in John 7. The religious establishment asked how this Galilean could possibly have received such perfect understanding. Where did he get it all? Of course, you know where it came from.

 “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”  

His teaching was not his at all. He had no input of his own. No initiative. No imaginative content. Nothing from the Son of Man. His teaching was one hundred percent from the One who had sent him—his Father.

This has enormous implications for us all.

Are you a teacher? So where does your teaching come from? From God, or does it come from another source, for example, from yourself, or your denomination, or what you learned from respected teachers, or your wisdom or your own private interpretation of the scriptures? Or from your smorgasbord of selections from well known preachers?

It’s pretty risky to see yourself as a teacher, don’t you think?  James in his letter warns that teachers will be judged more critically.  Have a look. Maybe you should quit.

Jesus told us “call no one Rabbi for One is your Teacher and you are all brothers”. So how can we go on thinking of ourselves as teachers of people who “sit under my ministry” or who follow our blog posts, people who must be protected because there are so many false teachers out there. Maybe you are even in competition with others—your teaching is wiser, more biblical, more accurate than his or hers.

But even Jesus did not see himself as an original teacher but as reproducing the Father’s. Yet millions seek not God, the One who is The Teacher, but selected persons and invest all their listening in these human teachers.

You still want to be a teacher? Why? To win respect? Get praise? Receive glory? Entertain? Be applauded?

He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. John 7:17–18

Aren’t we supposed to be living in a new covenant where no longer does “each one instruct his brother”? but in which “all know me—from the least to the greatest”? by which the Holy Spirit is freely given to all disciples to guide us into all truth and remind us of what Jesus taught? in which we all “have an anointing from the Holy One”.

The Holy Spirit is greatly under-employed.

Maybe you need to work yourself out of this job by encouraging everyone who hears you to be “teachers” themselves as it says in the letter to the Hebrews, instead of you spoon feeding them. Seek only the glory of the One who sends you.

Of course, most preachers insist their stuff comes “from the Bible”. But that’s also what the purveyors of the most weird anti-christian stuff say too.  Scary.

Would you agree that if the Lord Jesus had no original teaching himself but everything came from the one who sent him, that you must follow Jesus and copy him and “be as he was in the world” and be of no reputation?

Do you have any authority to go beyond that? To teach anything different? Moses was forbidden to vary anything in building the tabernacle after the heavenly pattern. We have the pattern for working in the new covenant—it is Jesus. We must imitate him. Humble ourselves. Reckon ourselves having died to our own wills and ambitions.

You must not seek your own glory but God’s glory alone.  For you have died and your life is now hid in Christ with God– remember?

You must not speak from yourself—the true teacher from God must not bring anything beyond what God has said in his son Jesus Christ.

Is that not so?

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WHAT IS TRUE DOCTRINE

Posted on 08/12/2016 | 2 comments

There are hundreds of thousands of teachers who seek to make their opinions, their interpretations known. You could spend a lifetime reading or hearing countless theological systems, books on doctrine, the web is full of them. Thousands of YouTube videos and blogs. Countless organisations each with their statements of faith and mission statements claiming to be correct and biblical.

So who are you to believe? Where, how, from whom, do you find truth?

When Jesus astonished the Jews in the Jerusalem temple with his surprising teaching and wisdom, they questioned how this Galilean could possibly have received such perfect understanding. So Jesus explained how. And his explanation was amazingly simple  . . .

 “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. John 7:16–18

His teaching was actually not his at all. He had no input of his own.

Astoundingly, he had no initiative at all in what he taught.

At the same time, there was tremendous variety as He spoke by the Holy Spirit. His approach to people was different on each occasion.

He teaches us to “call no one Rabbi (that is teacher), you have One Teacher” (Matthew 23:8)

 

Are you seeking truth?  How important is truth?

Surely we are living in a culture where knowing truth is not cool.

Post-truth. Anything goes. How it feels is what guides. What works for me.

Back in the 1960’s Francis Schaeffer saw Post-truth coming and found it necessary to coin the term, true truth.

True truth. We all know there are physical laws that are always true which we ignore at our peril . . . defying gravity, eating poisonous substances and so on.

So there are meta-physical things that never change. Faith, love, righteousness, goodness, for example.

Does your belief system come from someone you respect, admire, even place as your guru, bypassing, shortcutting the Lord Jesus? Wrong beliefs can kill, can lead to destruction and damnation. Cursed, wrote Paul, of those who decide to be justified by law.

Your fav preachers may want to get admiration from men and not from God. They may seek recognition, praise, reputation, advancement. Their desires colour what they teach. No wonder we are in such a poor state spiritually.

 

How do we recognise true teaching? Jesus said to make God’s will your will—no other. If you desire to do the will of God, you will know what teaching is true—the one who teaches will not seek his own glory but God’s glory alone.  He will not speak from himself—the true teacher from God does not dare bring anything beyond what God has said in his son Jesus Christ.

Ultimately, the one teacher of righteousness is Jesus. Are you surprised?

 

So, just humbly following Jesus, we shall be like him. Being like him, listening to him, we will desire above all else, to will the will of God.

So, passionately desiring to do the will of the Father, we shall recognise the truth when we hear it, and the truth will set us free.

Simple, isn’t it.

So when will you abandon your own belief system, your treasured traditions, and begin to love His rule, His will?

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THE ORIGINAL DEPOSIT OF TRUTH IS ENOUGH

Posted on 06/11/2016 | Leave a comment

Much is taught to Christian believers in churchy situations that is foreign to the plain teaching of the New Testament—worldliness, avoiding suffering, prosperity, cessation-ism, clergy-laity divide, tithing, rules to follow, steps to become born again or spiritual, weird manifestations, even new-age stuff!

God has provided us with so much direction, revelation and understanding in the apostolic scriptures. We are so blessed with what we have in our hands.

When the apostles received Jesus’ commissioning words before his departure, the only scriptures they had was the Old Testament. Now we have the gospels, the letters and Acts and Revelation, and we have all this in one volume and in many translations and many versions. Can you see how remarkable this is?

But no, all this is not enough for many creative preachers. They add so much more. Adding to God’s revelation, His word, subtracts from it.

These teachers ignore the deposit once made to the saints (Jude 3) and look for ways, new ideas to impress peers or to keep people (some with ‘itching ears’) coming to their “well”  every time to draw stagnant water instead of showing them the living water so they can drink themselves.  If people don’t keep coming their support will dwindle. So preachers often copy other well known teachers and a new doctrine emerges and schisms result. Doctrines of men and not from God which make void the pure word of God.  We are to teach what Jesus taught his disciples. Simple.

But simply Jesus and the gospel is not enough it seems for many. They must improve on what Jesus taught. Imagine trying to improve on what God has said! When men do this they put themselves on a higher plane that the Lord Himself! That is gross idolatry.

So in come issues such as Jewish ideas, medieval mysticism, bizarre behaviours, revelations from angelic beings or reviving forms of religion that lack the power of the true gospel. So the subscribers stay in their pews or lounges frozen in this world which seems out of control, unable to change it.

And all the while the Lord reminds us every time we eat the bread and drink the cup that He is coming back for His undefeated ekklesia (=gathering) because it’s being constructed one by one by HIM and against which the powers of Hades have no option but to crumple into ruins. The rest will be destroyed along with the evil powers.

This is the kind of gospel that is missing.

Warfare is called for. Not of human weapons but . . . .

“  . .  we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.  We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ . . .” 2 Cor 10:4-5, NASB

These fortresses, strongholds are the imaginations/speculations, thoughts which must be taken captive to the commands of Jesus. Right?  NOT to try to “ make the gospel work” by human effort which we can see happening in home meetings as well as the institutional corporations with their CEOs, boards, management expertise, budgets, manpower, clergy caste and hierarchy.

It is very important to begin anew with the new wine of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. It is sufficient. We must stand on the word of God and nothing else. Any mixture will spread like leaven and weaken, even bringing destruction. The Holy Spirit is given to us. We are one in Jesus and one with Jesus—that must sink into our hearts and minds so we know nothing else matters.

Renewal of the mind by the unchanging word of God must happen and keep happening in us. No alternative.

As I said in my last post, how awful it would be if Jesus’ would say to you at the end of time, “you loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:43) or “I gave you my words, my Father’s will, but have you kept my words and not the words of men?”

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Posted in Assembling, church, Bible Study, Discipleship

WHAT GOD WANTS FROM US

Posted on 14/10/2016 | 2 comments

The bottom line is not winning the world for Jesus! The bottom line for Moslems is a totally Moslem world. But we Jesus’ followers have a different destiny. For us the bottom line is to do the will of the Father, as Jesus did. Jesus said of his mission “A body you have prepared for me…. It is written of me in the scroll— I come to do your will” (Hebrews 10:5-7). The bottom line is to obey God in our bodies, to do his will ‘as it is in Heaven’. It is about honoring God, worth-shipping him (in every way acknowledging His worth!) and allowing God to use our body and our mind and our spirit.

It is to wholeheartedly adopt His agenda and ruthlessly abandon our own agendas.

It is to embrace his wondrous design for us with all that is within us, not shrugging shoulders at God’s word—insulting him by thinking our ways are better, our plans superior, our doctrines more sound, more relevant, than what has been revealed.

It is to prefer to draw on the infinite resources of the Holy Spirit, the Helper Jesus promised, rather than preferring our own wisdom, strengths and resources.

Do we think He is impotent? uninterested? clumsy? inefficient? ignorant? unacquainted with 21st century thinking? out of touch with modern people?  Do you think He wants us to plead with Him to do HIS WILL?

We know better, do we? We clay pots, can we instruct our maker? We must stop that! It must cease.

I believe Jesus’ ‘hidden life’ of around 18 years is expressed in terms of Isaiah 50:4—5 . . . .

The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue,
to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
I have not been rebellious,
I have not turned away.

Those 18 years were a preparation by his Father upon a willing human. 18 years! He did not come as a ready-made mighty Son of God, great prophet, amazing teacher, a superman.  He came as a son of man, born of a virgin girl, one hundred percent human.

The pattern that came into Jesus was the word of the Father.  God’s will. God’s pattern. And as it became written on his heart, so it becomes written on our hearts under the terms of His New Covenant. Following Jesus means praying, meditating on scripture, as HE HAD TO in his vulnerable human state. He had to learn obedience through what happened to him, like us, says the author of The Letter to the Hebrews.

Following Jesus doesn’t mean copying his dress, eating habits, speaking Aramaic or Hebrew, going to a synagogue, etc. It means being like Him in loving others, serving, taking the lowest place, leading not pushing. It means obeying Him.

Following Jesus means doing what he did, making disciples, teaching them everything he taught his followers. It means healing the sick, setting the oppressed free. Like he did. Forget the rest. Abandon any other faith, any other belief, any other doctrine.

Following Jesus includes meeting together simply to encourage one another. Jesus did this constantly with His little band of disciples. The apostles taught that we meet together to encourage one another and we remember Jesus. . And he gave us the resources to do this.  Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Corinthians 12—14. The term ‘one another’ is used more than fifty times in the New Testament. “Preaching” was unknown in Paul’s communities but prophesying was encouraged for everyone.

They have shown us the way –and it actually worked! They turned the world upside down. The works that Jesus did we can do. But there is a price to pay and that is to abandon our ways and follow his. It is often to WAIT for the coming of his wisdom and to be sure of receiving the authority to do what he wants. To listen to Him with opened ears.

Of course God blesses all those who serve in his name and salvation comes to many though they may not have understood these things but still follow traditions that are outside His wonderful pattern, his design. His arm is not shortened that he cannot save. He puts up with our blind spots, our ignorance, even our disobedience. That’s what God is like.

Yet it is worth abandoning our human and religious traditions and rely on Him completely and obey His design for us as revealed in the teachings left for us by His apostles and prophets.

But how awful it would be if Jesus’ would say to us at the end of time, “you loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:43) or “I gave you my words, my Father’s will, but have you kept my words and not the words of men?”

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A LETTER TO JEB ABOUT BAPTISM

Posted on 24/09/2016 | Leave a comment

The way I see it Jeb (not his real name) is that reading the New Testament as a whole points me to following Jesus only and by the Holy Spirit which he has promised me.  This applies to all questions!

I have followed Jesus for decades. But following Jesus and obeying His commands is not just a matter of interpretation but sensitivity to the Holy Spirit who has been given freely to us. It involves taking into consideration what things have been revealed to each of us in our journey.

I was baptised as an infant and from early age till about 12 I knew His care in the midst of dysfunctional parenting and some dreadful childhood experiences. But I always wanted to serve Him and “extend the work of Christ and His kingdom” to the best of my ability as I was taught by ministers I respected. Then at age 20 my long search and constant prayer that had been wrung from my innermost person for 10 years was answered and I trusted in Christ through the witness of two East Africans and was overwhelmed by His great affection for me and my company, His amazing grace, His re-birthing me from above, His great and manifold promises, and more, plus the amazing realisation that I was known by Him and that I had come to know “the only true God and Jesus whom he sent”.

I thank God that he does not judge me for my omissions nor for anything that I am supposed to do. His Son’s death for me is sufficient.

Sometimes it takes a long while for things to be worked out and we grow in maturity gradually. Slowly. One of the many things to learn as I progressed was the meaning of baptism and the when? And by whom? And the how? –and I often sought answers from Baptist people. But I could not be convinced of the importance of “believers baptism” as they called it.

All the while I saw God do amazing things, experiencing the Baptiser in Holy Spirit, healings, deliverances, gifts of the Spirit etc. For most of this time I was not baptised in water but I knew I was baptised into His death and risen with Him and knew I was seated in the heavenly places in Christ! So the idea of being submerged in a water baptism after all this wonderful witness by the Holy Spirit in my spirit, did not seem all that vital.

However I came to believe by the Holy Spirit that it was time for me to be immersed as a believer. I have no problem with believers being baptised convinced by the same Holy Spirit. The concern I have is over those who preach that it is necessary to be baptised in water to be saved with the alternative being condemnation. This is simply untrue and patently legalistic and is often proclaimed by people who wish to purely maintain their own viewpoint reflecting a denomination of ‘party’ or a historical tradition, and worse—often by threats, warnings and authoritarianism.

Surely it is more important to be immersed into His death and resurrection and to know him in “the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death . . . . .” than to be dipped in water by some ranked pastor in a tank in a ‘service’ and then to show no fruits or maturity in the Christian walk.

To recognise a believer I don’t think many of us would check if he had been baptised in water but rather, what are the fruits of his life, what are the evidences of his faith.

Do you really think that by omitting water baptism leads to believers’ rejection by God–amounting to trillions of saints down the ages? Is such a warning written large in every book of the New Testament? No. Instead we constantly read it is by grace we are saved by faith—in hundreds of places, emphatically stressed by Paul and the other apostolic writers.

The implications of this hard and fast doctrinal emphasis by some is awful .

Are we going to be condemned over the adherence of a doctrine or not? If we are, then it’s doctrine that saves us and not the holy name and sacrifice of  Jesus. Or it’s what we do that saves us. Unthinkable!

Just imagine the famous Christian leader John Wesley fronting Jesus at the judgment—is he going to be shown the left hand door? Wesley  believed and taught tens of thousands that “the whole Church of Christ, for seventeen hundred years together, baptized infants.” So is Wesley who lived in the Spirit and turned the whole of England to Christ, is he going to be condemned?

Is that really what God our Father is like—a despot who watches to see if His children who receive His Son and then if they fail the baptism test , He sends them to everlasting punishment? NO. It’s all about relationship with Jesus and the Father and abiding in Christ, being in Him and He in us. It’s all about knowing Him.

The good news is so simple.

Does Jesus command us to be baptised anywhere in the new covenant scriptures?  You may quote to me the one at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.  But that is referring to much more than mere water. Much, much more.

Is Jesus recorded as water-baptising anyone? Were the 12 apostles thus baptised by Jesus?

Of course what our resurrected Lord did say to his disciples was “You will baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now”, following John’s prophecy “I baptise in water but He will baptise in the Holy Spirit”.

Yes, I know the apostles regularly baptised believers in the name of Jesus. But do we do all of the things the apostles did or directed because we are afraid of losing our salvation? Let’s be balanced, please.

Paul insists on head-coverings worn for women who pray or prophesy and said that if anyone thinks otherwise he is being contentious. Do you insist on that? Do you insist that women ‘remain silent in the churches’? Do you follow Paul’s instructions about remaining single because ‘of the present distress’?

Oh Jeb!  It’s all about knowing Him, hearing Him. This is all about an intimate “I-thou” relationship. It’s the exchanged life as Hudson Taylor called it. It’s so simple but why do people make the Christian walk so complicated, so cluttered up with dogma that divides?

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Is Baptism really Necessary?

Posted on 20/08/2016 | 2 comments

Last post I quoted Jesus from John 3 : “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Condemnation comes by disbelief in Jesus and not by failing the baptism test, a test which many people demand to be set before others to make sure they are acceptable to God. As important a place as baptism is in the whole scheme of things (and yes, I have been baptised as a believer and yes, I have baptised others who believed) the New Testament as a whole does not support the view that baptism is necessary for salvation.

Let me repeat : If baptism is necessary for salvation, then millions upon millions of believers who have failed to be baptised as believers,  no matter how godly and how full of the love of Jesus, will face condemnation.

In Mark 16 we read He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.

You cannot use this verse to mean that believers who are not baptised or baptised as believers will be condemned. No. This is all about believing. Without believing, baptism does nothing. There are many who i know who were baptised but they do not confess faith in Christ. Faith is the currency of the Kingdom of God, not what we do. If you believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection, changing completely around from the heart (metanoia), you are justified in God’s sight (Romans 3:21-26; 4:1-5; 5:1-2, 10-11; 8:1-4; 10:9-10).  Baptism is an immersion into a state already established as has been shown.

Repentance and faith bring us into the Kingdom. Baptism can then follow—people are baptised as believers –‘believers baptism’! So the Ethiopian after believing Philip says “What is to prevent my being baptised?”—the desire came from his heart, having believed. Then later at the house of Cornelius Peter says “how could anyone forbid water for baptising these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47) Baptism was a privilege following an experience with the Holy Spirit even without any reference to repentance!

Sometimes ‘baptism’ has nothing to do with immersion in water. It can mean the immersing of the person or persons in a spiritual experience. Here are examples of baptism used in a spiritual sense in the New Testament.

Noah and family were immersed into the terrifying covenant of salvation from judgment (1 Peter 3).  And the Israelite ancestors were immersed into Moses in the sea and the cloud as a profound experience of salvation from the Egyptian Pharoah’s army (1 Corinthians 10). But neither Noah and family nor the children of Israel were immersed in water. In both cases it was the unbelievers who were immersed in water (and drowned). But the believers were immersed in the most dramatic events and were saved. Neither Paul nor Peter taught that water baptism saves. In the same letter Peter had already stated emphatically that God has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead  . . . “ (1 Peter 1:3-5)

We also see Jesus stressed at the prospect of the most traumatic experience—His sacrificial and atoning death for us all: I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed  (Luke 12:50).

And again, His reply to the disciples who asked for the best places in the Kingdom of God was Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? (Mark 10:38)

Many commentators take baptism to be part of the gospel. So David Pawson points to Matthew 28:19-20 teaching that “making disciples is in two steps—first, by immersing them; second, by teaching them to live in the way Jesus had instructed”.  But in saying this David has omitted the essential steps of repentance and faith.  Disciple-making begins with repentance and faith. Also this “baptism” goes well beyond water to be seen as an immersing in the character, the kingdom, the life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, especially when we read that in the rest of the New Testament, water baptism was practised consistently only “in the name of Jesus”.

Certainly, water baptism has an important place in establishing a good foundation right at the start for new Christians. But that is just the beginning—discipleship is an ongoing perseverance, a dying daily, a determined transformation of the mind as Paul would insist (Romans 6:3-8; 8:13; 12:1-2) in all his letters.

I hope to address further how the apostle Paul sees baptism and its place of value for the new believer, in my next post.

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