Category Archives: Bible Study

CONTRARY WINDS ARE BLOWING

Posted on 14/12/2017 | Leave a comment

REVELATION AND RESPONSE TO THE CONTRARY WINDS BLOWING
By Christine RichardsChris Richards image Daniel

Chris is a dear friend of ours. This is both significant and encouraging—Ian

Many years ago God gave me a prophetic word which He brought to the surface again yesterday revealing that it was a “now” word for His beloved sons and daughters as they try to make sense of these strange and unsettling times when contrary winds are blowing especially in light of laws just passed.

DREAM OF CAPTIVITY
It began with a dream where I was in a land where I was taken captive and surrounded by many who worshipped false gods. At first I kicked and bucked and yelled “I’m a Christian and I don’t believe as you do,” but I was so outnumbered I knew these tactics were useless. My cries were falling on deaf ears. As the dream progressed I began to settle down and make the most of the situation because there was no way of escape.
But I knew in my heart that I would never worship their gods or accept their way of life and so I began serving these people while still remaining true to the Lord. Somehow I knew this was how it had to be.

DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS IN BABYLON
Then when I woke up God led me to look into the life of the prophet Daniel and I was struck by the remarkable similarities to my dream.
Daniel had been taken captive in Babylon but had learned to live for God amongst a people who were hostile to the ways of God and how this was all part of God’s plan and purpose. In spite of the suffering and persecution, Daniel and his friends held fast to their faith and remained true to their convictions, refusing to give into the pressures of an ungodly society and were all in the end elevated to powerful positions.

After being given this revelation the Lord then spoke these words to me,
“My precious one, you find yourself often alone living amongst those who worship false gods. Do not think this is an accident for it is part of my divine purpose and plan. It is not the time for murmuring and complaining and insisting upon your own rights as a child of God. See it as a school of preparation. Walk humbly and meekly in this time and at the end of this preparation you will be my minister. You will be promoted to minister before me with great power and authority.”

Now today I feel God is saying that there are many that feel this way. They feel that they have been like a voice crying in the wilderness in these troubling times and no one cares and no one responds.
God knows. God sees the stand you have taken over many years and says, your time of promotion is fast approaching!
Many will be raised up quickly and given new platforms of influence to be a voice of truth and authority.

Leave a comment

Posted in Bible Study, Discipleship

What is Jesus’ real name?

Posted on 20/11/2017 | 2 comments

November 16 at 7:40pm ·by my friend, Carl Musch on Facebook

Food for thought. (Not criticism or argument): Did you know that Jesus own mother probably didn’t call Him “Yeshua”.

That is His name in Hebrew but the only characters in the Bible who might have used that name to refer to Him would have been the Pharisees.

The NT was recorded in Greek…closest rendered in English is Jesus. Sickness and Demons seem to recognise the name of Jesus OK when I and thousands of others use it’s authority to bring deliverance. Of course they will respond to the names Yeshua or Isho or Yesu or Esu and others too because they are responding to your relationship to Him…The Father through The Son..”In His name” refers to a relationship not to a magic word ( not like “abara kadabera” or “open says-a-me”) Sickness and demons leave because you represent Him as an ambassador, as His son speaking His Word led by His Spirit according to and submitted to His will.

Jesus human parents were Galileans and they probably called him Isho ( this is where the Greeks got the name Jesus from. They added consonants to the front and back to make it easier to say for them like a Noonga might say “blekfella” because it is easier to say and not as weird as saying “black fellow”).

Mary and Joseph and his family are likely to have spoken Aramaic that says “Yeshua” as Isho or “Aeshoa”. As God speaks to us in our heart language usually it seems likely the Angel Gabriel used the Aramaic to speak to Mary. Jesus cried out in Aramaic to His Father on the cross in Aramaic (His heart language) As it says in Rev 5:9 every tongue will be before the throne and The Lord knows and receives them all equally. The Biblical significance of a name was not in it’s sound/pronunciation in a particular language but in the identity and character and nature and authority that the name communicated. Jesus himself sometimes seemed to read from and quoted from the Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. So it would seem Jesus was OK with translations of names because He read them as they were written not back translating them into Hebrew.

No matter how we say His name in the world as long as we know Him personally as Lord He will be our salvation…for that is what Yeshua means…The Lord is our Salvation.

My concern is that we can get caught up in “not really Biblical” “winds of doctrine ” that create divisions and pointless arguments in the Body of Christ and subtle elitism (meaning “holier than thou” huddles)

So let’s get focused on knowing Him and making Him known (John 17:3) rather than on what language we use except that we want people to understand what we are saying (1Cor 14:19)

If we are ministering in Israel or to Jews though of course “Yeshua” is the go.

Please forgive me if I have offended anyone. Unity is my hearts desire not more offenses.

 

2 Comments

Posted in Bible Study, Discipleship

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?

Leave a comment

Posted in Assembling, church, Bible Study, Discipleship

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).

14 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

SHE SAID YES

Posted on 20/12/2016 | 2 comments

a_annunciation-edward_burne-jones_the_annunciationGod has given His creation over to the men and women He created out of the earth, the humus. He provided the first humans us with everything good and it says that God was very pleased with His work. We read that God gave authority to the man and woman to control the Creation He had provided.

This authority to the humans is real and true. God has decreed that this is so and so it stands to this day.

But the humans surrendered this authority and power and control to the evil being who deceived the humans into believing their Creator was not acting in their best interests so that they trusted in the dark side instead of the light.

And we have suffered ever since.

And He has pursued us ever since to woo us back—to change our thinking and say ‘yes’.

So complete and final was God’s declaration of the transfer of control upon His Creation to the humans that God did not, could not, intervene in the drama of the Garden. If He had stepped in to reverse what the humans were about to do—turning from love, light and life—His promise, His word of what shall be, in this momentous act of rendering to humans such privileges and sonship, would have been exposed as a sham. His humans would not have free will.

Nevertheless, the great love of God and His desire for fellowship with humans set in motion a plan which would mean finding humans to fully cooperate with Him—to hear His voice and agree to do His will—to put Him first and love Him, pleasing Him, in the great drama of the progress of redemption.

This was—and still is God’s Great Mission: to find us lost ones, us humans, who had been destined to walk with Him in abundance and creativity, but who, as a whole human race, elected to embrace lies and turn from the great Lover into the hands of the great hater, destroyer, deceiver.

The biblical accounts tell an amazing story of this progress of God’s Mission, in which He woos us, seeking those who will walk with Him in His Great Work.

For any work to be done in His Creation, it has to be done—it had to be done—by a fully human person. It could not be done by a half-god-half-man. It had to be done by one of us; born like us; raised as any helpless infant by parents as we are, taught and trained to fit in this world, exposed to suffering, educated by the flawed community into which he was born, subject to every possible test and temptation and privation, weakness and even death.

So in the fullness of time God found a willing woman, a mere peasant girl to give us all a human who would not need forgiveness as we do, and who allowed Him to use her body to bring a man who was the very image of the invisible God, who could be handled, heard, seen doing the works of God for all in his generation to see.

She said ‘yes’ to the will of God.

She was from a very imperfect race of people who struggled with God their Lover and Protector in belief and unbelief. Yet there was “a great cloud of witnesses” in the Hebrew history who in varying degrees of faithfulness had said ‘yes’ to their Creator, the great I AM.

She had said ‘yes’ in contrast to the first woman who had listened to the dark one. What an example she has shown! Her firstborn child we are told followed her example and continued saying “yes, I will to do Your will and that is why I have come.”

This amazing human allowed God to fill him with the Holy Spirit—he said ‘yes’ and God said ‘yes’ and the Kingdom of God could at last be clearly seen and experienced. He said ‘yes’ to the awful death on the stake—the climax of God’s Great Mission to bring us back into friendship and oneness with God Almighty.

God still waits for us to say ‘yes’ to Him—“yes I will do Your will so that You can use my body, my mind, my spirit” partnering with You in Your Stupendous Work.

This festive season and beyond, will we allow Him to do in us what He did in Mary’s spirit, and most of all, what he did in Jesus? Will we accept His love and companionship?

He waits, with infinite patience and love, for you and me to say ‘yes, I will’.

And that is Christmas.

2 Comments

Posted in Bible Study, Discipleship

Tagged , , ,

WHAT TO BELIEVE

Posted on 14/11/2016 | 2 comments

I am persuaded that there is a simplicity in Jesus and the gospel of Christ. The New Testament scriptures emphasize that all we need is found in Christ. We are “complete in him”.

Simply, we need to be “in Christ”, and  Jesus to live in us.

So simply, we need to be one with Him.

One.

Today we tend to complicate everything by presenting enquirers with a sure-fire plan of 3 steps, or 4 points or whatever (remember the ‘4 spiritual laws’?).

We want to make sure all bases are covered, people to understand what is taught, what is right and wrong.

And the more we try want to explain the Gospel and Christianity to somehow demystify the message, we seem to be adding more and more propositions and things for people to do, boxes to tick.

So we end up far from the simple message of “believe in him whom God has sent” (John 6:28)

Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”  Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”   Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (John 6:68).

And that simple word of Jesus changes everything for us who do just that.

Says it all: “believe in him whom God has sent”

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you – Mat 28

Why teach anything else?  Just teach only Jesus!   His word—what he commanded the disciples.

“If you abide (continue, remain) in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  John 8:32

Jesus and only Jesus reveals the truth that sets us all free. But it must be lived. You can’t really say you believe it if you are not living it. You have to remain in it.s

Sound teaching is critical–that is to maintain the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). The traditions of men and their organisations, big or small, are to be rejected. Much of today’s “Christianity” has been added, sometimes to try to make things plainer or else to exert control and to define who is “in” and who’s not. Really the doctrine which most seem to ignore is illustrated in 2 John 9 :

“Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God–the one who abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil ways.”

So much of Jesus’ teachings, his commandments, are ignored while doctrines of men are preached instead, bringing confusion, disunity, splits, denominations, the making of books having no end.

It’s as if we take his serious life-giving words as suggestions. No, these are his commands!

Jesus is everything. Everything.

 

2 Comments

Posted in Bible Study, Discipleship

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?”

Leave a comment

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?”

2 Comments

Posted in Assembling, church, Bible Study, Discipleship

Tagged ,

WHEN A GOOD THING BECOMES LAW David Pawson’s teaching on water baptism

Posted on 10/10/2016 | 14 comments

David criticizes people who talk about “receiving Jesus”. But David ignores many passages of the NT. Consider John 1:11-13. “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (and no mention of baptism there).

David teaches that if not water-baptised one is not really ‘born again’ or ‘saved’ (https://youtu.be/wFuJa5n3hAU). He says all four things: repentance, faith, water-baptism and receiving the Spirit are necessary to have eternal life. Let’s look at the implications of his doctrine . . . .

Thus, if you have not been baptised, despite being a disciple of Jesus, you do not have eternal life. You are not sanctified, not a child of God. David doesn’t state this outright but these are the implications: you are condemned, heading for eternal separation from God. Thus if not baptised, in David’s view, you do not have eternal life. You may have experienced the Baptiser in the Holy Spirit but if not water baptised your experience of the Holy Spirit means little. You may have had a lifetime of the fruits of the Spirit but unless you are water baptised you will be rejected.

I know that many teachers insist that baptism is not merely symbolic. But if it is a ‘means of grace’ and deemed necessary for salvation, it comes close to the Roman Catholic doctrine known as ‘baptismal regeneration’. The NT is silent about whether baptism is just “symbolic”. Symbolism and metaphor abound on the lips of Jesus and are frequently used by the apostolic writers. Symbolism is important and should not be ignored. Symbols transmit truth.

It is clear that the first believers practised water-baptism and we ought to follow their example.  In fact we ought to follow their example in many practices which are ignored. We think we know better. Shame.

But to demand that believers be water-baptised to make them “saved” or to get them “into the Kingdom” is to introduce something that sends every unbaptised believer to condemnation. Can you imagine the Father saying to such ‘well sorry you missed getting baptised so there’s the door—depart from me!”?

Is that really what God our Father is like—a despot who watches to see if His children who receive His Son then fail to be baptised and then 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.

Millions of Jesus’ precious, devoted saints assume that baptism is symbolic. They know they have experienced washing of regeneration, assurance of salvation, forgiveness of sins, victory over sin and have entered into eternal life in Jesus—having “received Jesus” (John 1:12) they go through life without any conviction they are lacking water-baptism.

We may persuade others to be baptised but to insist on this is deeply divisive. They have a walk with Jesus. They have a conscience. They also have the Holy Spirit. We can encourage people rather than insist. Commanding to be water baptized can put people under pressure especially if salvation depends on it! Commands bring condemnation, but encouragement strengthens and enables us to obey God and that’s Grace. People can then be open to God who can lead believers to be water baptized.

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. Read John 1:11-13 again, and 1 Peter 1:3—and the whole of the New Testament. Otherwise we get only part of the picture.

I am persuaded that when we join the great throngs in the new world praising the Father and the Lamb we will meet John Wesley, Geo Whitfield, Charles Finney, General William Booth and the millions who embraced their teachings, together with witnesses, reformers, evangelists, prophets, revival leaders, and so on.

14 Comments

Posted in Bible Study, Discipleship

Tagged ,

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?

Leave a comment

Posted in Assembling, church, Bible Study, Discipleship, Personal