Criticality of the Church

Since many of our readers are in fact Evangelists, that is people who go out and regularly preach the Gospel and train others to do the same, I thought I might touch on an important issue. It is the tendency of many who are regularly out there sharing their faith to become more knowledgeable about scripture, apologetics, culture, doctrine and theology. Many have a tendency in this area to become Schismatics.

I will first deal with the necessity of the Local Church. First among many of my friends I am far more insistent that the Local Church is crucial to our walk, growth, ministry, family and lives. I believe that many who witness regularly become Schismatics. They usually cannot conform to what a Pastor would tell them and then they break away and do things their own way. Do not get me wrong there are reasons to leave a church and I have done so when it was absolutely necessary. However the Local Church is so important. The Church can provide growth, fellowship, accountability, authority and wisdom to its members including those who like to preach the Gospel.

I also am aware that without a good church you can be miserable, so it is important to not only get plugged in, but get plugged in somewhere good. There are great Churches everywhere..... I know sometimes it seems tough but you can find the gems out there. www.9marks.org is a great site where you can find many churches that uphold to the Biblical Understanding of what Church is. Please note that it is not comprehensive by any means. There are other great churches out there who are not on 9 marks and for many of those you have to go and find them. Todd Friel posted a great little .pdf on how to find a good church document. Those are some great questions to ask again not comprehensive and some do not have to be answered an exact way but is a great guideline. Finally if it is not a major issue though, find somewhere you can grow, have fellowship and be submitted to...... then commit it to God through obedience. Personally I love our Church very much... be encouraged.

Part 2 of Bible verses used incorrectly

Bible verses used out of context

This is a major issue in the Evangelical World today this mis use of verses. Years ago when I had not been in the faith very long several people I knew kept using the verse Jeremiah 29:11.
Here is what it says in the NIV (by the way I am not an NIV fan but when this verse is used out of context it is almost always from the NIV)

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Now back then I had very limited knowledge of the Bible as a whole, however I knew one thing from the start that you could not just put your finger on a verse and claim it as 1- applying it to you 2- use it to justify whatever your circumstances where 3- read one verse without reading the other verses, chapters, books and the context. I knew this because in my understanding of the Bible it was a book of all sorts of writings and I had to understand it from what the Author Intended not what I wanted to get out of it. So when I heard this verse used I simply read the verses before and after and here is what I found.


8 Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the LORD.

10 This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. [a] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

Now I think a plain read from verses 8-14 shows who the verse applies to and at the very least it is not ME! We can see that God is speaking through Jeremiah to the Israelites. Now if this did apply what about the rest of Jer 29? Does that apply? Lets look.

15 You may say, "The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon," 16 but this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David's throne and all the people who remain in this city, your countrymen who did not go with you into exile- 17 yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: "I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 18 I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. 19 For they have not listened to my words," declares the LORD, "words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either," declares the LORD.

20 Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in my name: "I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your very eyes. 22 Because of them, all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: 'The LORD treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.' 23 For they have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives and in my name have spoken lies, which I did not tell them to do. I know it and am a witness to it," declares the LORD.

Message to Shemaiah

24 Tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite, 25 "This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You sent letters in your own name to all the people in Jerusalem, to Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest, and to all the other priests. You said to Zephaniah, 26 'The LORD has appointed you priest in place of Jehoiada to be in charge of the house of the LORD; you should put any madman who acts like a prophet into the stocks and neck-irons. 27 So why have you not reprimanded Jeremiah from Anathoth, who poses as a prophet among you? 28 He has sent this message to us in Babylon: It will be a long time. Therefore build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.' "

29 Zephaniah the priest, however, read the letter to Jeremiah the prophet. 30 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

Nope in fact we know who the audience was and why Jeremiah was saying it. Now there are principles that we can look at through right contextualizing and understanding of the text. We look at this from the Historical Grammatical Method and see that there was clearly a warning from God, we learn that God is merciful and just, etc. In fact this passage is full of fantastic insights on how God dealt with his people. I love how it talks about dealing with false prophets. But nothing here is about you or I claiming a promise of God here. The promise in Jeremiah 29:11 was to those specific Israelites.

We are going to look at more verses that are improperly used here in the next few weeks. But this is very important because we need to be like the Bereans and search the scriptures. The only way false teachers and false gospels and false prophets get amongst us and are then labeled Christian is if we cannot rightly understand the Word of God.

To read more on this see Never Read a Bible Verse by Greg Koukl

Paul Washer: Gospel Reductionism and Evangelical Hoops

Evangelical Hoops..... nothing to do with basketball, please listen to this 2:20 second snippet from Paul Washer.

We have also added a bunch of links so check them out.

The Church

I just got back from speaking at an Evangelism Conference. It was a great time of fellowship and teaching. I found a few things very interesting from the conference. Myself and the other speakers really had a common theme with our talks concerning the Evangelists that were at the conference, on how important it was to be submitted to a Biblical Local Church. It is crucial for authority and accountability. My family and I are extremely blessed to have an amazing Church with a Pastor who is not only a great teacher but he truly has a Shepard's heart and attitude. In addition he has great Orthodoxy but also great Orthopraxy. I get concerned when I see other Evangelists becoming Schismatics and falling away from the Local Church. The body in which we belong is family in every since of the word. God has been dealing with me on my place in the Body of Christ and I am glad that He is growing me in this area.

Grammar can Solve Bible debates

I think this is a good example of how understanding the Greek in context and grammar can help solve many debates in the Bible. Having my Greek midterm this week this is all at the front of my mind.

New Missional and Emergent Discerner of Discernment Blog

This blog is hilarious..... just what I need before my Greek Midterm.

http://www.oldtruth.com/QQ0532CRaM.cfm

So many try to be relevant, tolerant, missional to a culture. These guys love the cults, love pagans, love anything but other Christians who use the Bible to point them back to truth. This website does a great job showing their true "intolerance" to Doctrinal Christians.

General Conference

Aaron Shafovalaff over at Mormon Coffee posted an excellent article about the upcoming Mormon General Conference. One other thing "It looks like rain." ")

http://blog.mrm.org/2007/10/general-conference-just-doesnt-do-it-for-you-youre-not-alone/

Well it did rain Friday and Saturday.....anyone know why it seems to rain much of the time on conference weekend?

Here is Aaron Shafovalaff's coverage of the Mormon General Conference.

http://blog.mrm.org/2007/10/sunday-general-conference/#more-560

Jesus' High Priestly Prayer

Over at Desiring God I saw this great post. This also follows the discussion of understanding the Trinity that has been going on in the Blog world in the last few months.

Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer

October 2, 2007 | By: Justin Taylor
Category: Commentary

Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” (John 17) is only about 650 words. It takes only 3 minutes and 30 seconds to read it aloud. But it will take all eternity for us to fully understand it!

I recently found it helpful to break down Jesus’ petitions and propositions into the following categories:

The Father Gave the Son...	John 17
authority to give eternal life	v. 2
people out of this world	vv. 2, 6, 9, 24
work to accomplish	v. 4
words	v. 8
his name	vv. 11, 12
glory	vv. 22, 24

The Son Gives Believers...	John 17
eternal life	v. 2
Father’s word	vv. 8, 14
manifestation of Father’s name	vv. 6, 22
glory	v. 22

The Son Asks the Father to...	John 17
glorify him	vv. 1, 5
keep believers in the Father’s name	v. 11
keep believers from the evil one	v. 15
sanctify believers in the truth	v. 17
make believers one	v. 21

Jesus’ Followers and the World	John 17
they are sent into the world	v. 18
they are in the world	v. 11
they are not of the world	v. 16
the world has hated them	v. 14
their unity with each other and union with God may cause the world to believe that the Father sent the Son	v. 21

Another fascinating part of Jesus’ prayer is the various ways in which the theme of “indwelling” serves the cause of unity. Jesus teaches that:

1. The Father is in the Son (vv. 21, 23)
2. The Son is in the Father (v. 21)
3. Believers are in the Father and the Son (v. 21)
4. The Son is in believers (vv. 23, 26)

Of course, if we do not recognize that these are different sorts of “indwellings,” we’ll quick descend into heresy! But it still may be instructive to see this illustrated:

Jesus’ high priestly prayer is worthy of our greatest study, as we seek to learn from and imitate our great co-heir as he approaches our Father.

For more thoughts on this prayer, listen to D. A. Carson’s talk on The Supremacy of Christ and Love in a Postmodern World, which will also be a chapter in the forthcoming book, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World.

Unity only with "them"

Organizations that promote unity only within a framework of their methodology seem to becoming more prevalent. Why is it that when you approach these orgs/churches with Biblical Concerns that they then point the finger at that person and call them a "divider"? Thanks Pyromaniacs for this "relevant" poster.