My Life

Posted on 09/26/2014 by Paul Pavao

I’m not in Africa starting a new church every week. Most days, I face nothing remotely life-threatening. I’ve recovered from leukemia and a marrow transplant better than most people do, and my “new normal” is a lot like my old normal.

In other words, I don’t consider my life all that exciting. It’s great, but not exciting.

As a result, I don’t think much about writing about my life. I need to, though. I say a lot of things about the Gospel, the real church, and the life of a disciple. How do I live?

Not perfectly, and I’m pretty certain you would not be awestruck by my holiness.

But I am in the church.

I went to California for two weeks, mostly to provide some encouragement for the church in Rick’s house. They were feeling a need for direction.

I rushed to the rescue!

Well, no, actually I didn’t. I did what I always do, whether I am visiting a big church, a small church, a “building” church, or a house church. I showed up, tagged along with them as they tried to follow God around, and I joined whatever they were doing with my whole heart, providing whatever help God was able to provide through a marred vessel like me.

The first night, I sat with one of the leading couples, and we talked about direction. I’d felt led to read Ephesians that day, and I was explaining the grand picture I sawe there when the wife told me she’d been reading Watchman Nee’s Sit, Walk, Stand, which is based entirely on Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus.

We, or at least I, left there pretty satisfied with what God was saying to us. The church is an eternal, grand, and glorious thing, and we should be aware of it, but our response to that knowledge is simple. We have to walk worthy of the calling with which we are called.

Don’t get distracted. Don’t despise the day of small things. Don’t entertain delusions of grandeur.

Instead, stop stealing and work so that you can give. Stop lying, and tell each other the truth. Honor each other above yourself. Forgive.

Diligently maintain the unity of the Spirit, and devote yourself to helping each other obey Jesus … in the simple things just mentioned.

This is sound teaching, according to the apostle Paul. Titus 2, which explains sound teaching, and it doesn’t get into glamorous things. Be sensible, love your wives, raise your children, work as unto the Lord, deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and look for the appearance of the One who gave himself to gather a unique people, zealous for good works.

I know that people like dissect the atonement, then explain why it gives them the right to sin. We prefer to give thanks for the atonement, then spend our time being careful to maintain good works. That’s borderline heresy in Protestant churches, but Paul called it a faithful saying that should be affirmed constantly (Tit. 3:8).

On the first Friday I was there, we talked about that idea. Yes, we talked about it. I didn’t preach it, nor did the sister who was reading Watchman Nee’s book, nor her husband who was part of that discussion. We brought it up, and God let it sink so deep that on Sunday morning, at least 3 people (I think 4 or 5) said they’be been thinking about Friday’s meeting all weekend.

On both Wednesdays I was there we wrestled (verbally) for hours with a brother who had some important questions. Each time, it took 2 or more hours to get to the root of the problem, to find out what was really bothering him. Both times, we found our point of misunderstanding, broke through into mutual joy and understanding, and left delighted at the answers the Lord provides and the work it sometimes takes to obtain those answers.

I did teach on the last Friday night. I got results that can be typical for me. Most folks are speechless. It takes minutes or even days for them to get around to talking. When I talk I get dead silence–with no one asleep, no eyes closed, and everyone looking at me–more than any speaker I’ve experienced.

Friends tell me it’s because there’s nothing to say. Everyone is thinking, “I guess I better go home and deal with this.”

I sure hope that’s true.

I live a lot of my life finding the next step. What’s next? What is God saying now? Where am I failing him?

Thus, when I show up somewhere, I don’t just sit down and teach. I get to know the people who are going to give me their precious time to listen to me. I pick their hearts to find out what God is saying to them. Then, when I’m in front of him, I simply put together what’s on their heart with what God has put on my heart, and I show them from the Scripture and from what’s going on around them what they ought to be doing next.

I’m not wrong very often. God is always talking to his people. If we will talk to his people, we’ll start finding what he’s saying to all of them. All I do is gather it up, put it together, and give it back to them cleaned up and easier to understand. Usually people are pretty excited about it because it’s what was already in their hearts.

I like exploring the will of God with his people, not telling them what to do. If they’re already at the point of realizing that God has called them to live just like their older brother, Jesus, then they’re as hungry to do nothing but the will of Jesus as Jesus was to do nothing but the will of the Father.

Sometimes those wonderful disciples don’t know there’s always a next step for them. I just work at helping them find it.

I am terrified of this post because I say “I” so many times in it. It’s what I feel like I was supposed to write, though. I suppose that if this post does nothing but expose how self-focused I am, then there’s benefit in that, too.

But maybe it will help someone else who is looking for the next step when our corporate or individual walk with God feels stagnant.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Zealous for Good Works

Posted on 09/20/2014 by Paul Pavao

You won’t be able to tell right away, but this is a followup to yesterday’s post about Ephesians and what we should be doing as churches.

The title of this post comes from Titus 2:13-14 where we are told that Jesus died to obtain for himself a special people that are zealous for good works. The purpose of this post is to discuss a reason for an emphasis on good works that many of us do not consider.

A friend of mine wrote a book called Desperation, which deals with overcoming sin, in particular pornography. At the heart of the book, as you can tell from the title, is the issue of desperation.

Many of us are not desperate. We want to overcome sin the way the average person wants to buy a Rolls Royce. It would be great, but the actual doing of it seems so impossible we’re not even going to try.

In most cases, if we read apostolic (from the apostles) or divine (from Jesus) commands, we immediately turn to thoughts of mercy and grace.

That would be right if we didn’t apply it wrong.

Grammar Nazi excursus: I left the -ly off “wrong” because I liked the contrast with “right.”

Here’s how we usually apply it.

We hear, “Jesus commanded such and such.”

We feel guilty. We wonder how we’re going to achieve obedience. Then we remember mercy. We comfort ourselves with the thought that when we sin we have an advocate with the Father, King Jesus the righteous (1 Jn. 2:1).

So far, so good.

Grace is the power of God to overcome sin (Rom. 6:14). We think, and we even say, “By the grace of God I will (eventually) not do this anymore.”

Here is where the problem comes in.

The problem is that what we mean is: “It’s all up to God. Nothing I can do. God will forgive me over and over again, and hopefully, not likely, but hopefully, the grace of God will deliver me from disobedience to that command of Jesus … eventually, I’m sure. Just give me a decade or so, and I’m pretty confident things will be better.”

You can deny you think like that, and I will hope that you are telling yourself the truth. Reality is that most of us, and I’m being honest including myself, are naturally prone to thinking that way every time we are convicted; every time.

We are not desperate. Why should we be? We’re forgiven by the blood of Jesus. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, his blood will cleanse us from every sin (1 Jn. 1:7).

Among the many problems with this attitude is Paul’s warning that God will not be mocked by ongoing sowing to the growth of the flesh (Gal. 6:7-9). A more direct warning is from John, who tells us not to be deceived about the fact that only those who practice righteousness have the righteousness of Jesus imputed to them (1 Jn. 3:7).

We might be able to find some exegetical or hermeneutical tools to weasel our way out of that warning (thus proving that we fear man rather than God) except that John adds, “Those who go on sinning are of the devil.”

Wow. John is extreme! I’d imagine some of us think he is so extreme that his statements in 1 John ought to be taken with a grain of flavorless salt.

We’re not desperate.

The apostles go out of their way to make us desperate. They do this because the incredible grace of God that delivers us from sin and empowers us for service is for desperate people. They do this because it is to those who walk in the light that God does not impute sin (1 Jn. 1:7).

It takes effort, usually born of desperation, to stay in the blazing light of God.

We’re so used to life in the shadows that we don’t realize that most of us have tasted of the light and run from it.

That last statement is based on 32 years of experience as a Christian. The statements before that are based on Scripture. Since I’ve already explained my premise, I am going to finish with a boring list of Scriptures that only the desperate will want to read.

  • The foundation of God stands firm, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his, and let those who name the name of the King depart from iniquity. (2 Tim. 2:19)
  • … who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. (Tit. 2:14)
  • This is a faithful saying, and I want you to affirm these things constantly, that those who believe in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable for people. (Tit. 3:8)
  • Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one will see God. (Heb. 12:14)
  • (Paraphrased for brevity): Add to your faith virtue, wisdom, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly-kindness, and love. If you don’t do this, you’ll be blinded and forget you were purged from your old sins. If you do these things, however, you will never stumble, you will ensure your calling and election, and you will be given a glorious entrance into Jesus’ eternal kingdom. (2 Pet. 1:5-11)
  • The works of the flesh are … (list of sins here) …; those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:19-21)
  • But don’t let fornication, uncleanness, or greed be named among you even once. And walk in love as the King has loved us … For you know that no sexually immoral, unclean, or greedy man has any inheritance in the kingdom of God or the King. (Eph. 5:3-5)
  • Let us not grow weary in doing good for in due season we will reap [eternal life] if we do not lose heart. (Gal. 6:9)
  • Cramped is the way, and narrow is the gate that leads to life, and there are few that find it. (Matt. 7:14)
  • “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21)
  • If the righteous are saved with difficulty, where will the ungodly and sinner appear? (1 Pet. 4:18)
  • For to this end the King both died and rose, and lived again, so that he might be the Lord of both the living and the dead. (Rom. 14:9)
  • He died for everyone so that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again. (2 Cor. 5:14)
  • So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, for if we live according to the flesh, we will die. But if, by the Spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body, then we will live. (Rom. 8:12-13)
  • Those who are the King’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Gal. 5:24)

It is true that we should find that in our own effort we are incapable of pleasing God (Jn. 15:5). Heartbroken, we should cry out, “O, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24).

When we’re there, when we’re desperate, then we will seek, and then we will find there is an answer to our powerlessness: “Thanks be to God, through King Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 7:25). There, in our desperation, we will learn that what the Law could not do, God did, and the righteous requirement of the Law will be fulfilled in us when we walk according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:3-4; Gal. 5:16).

There we will also learn there is a reason that we are told to speak the truth in love to one another (Eph. 4:13-16), exhort one another every day (Heb. 3:13), and consider how to provoke one another to love and good works (Heb. 10:24-25). There is a reason that the Scriptures are said to be useful for “teaching, correction, rebuke, and instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). We need each other’s help, as well as the Holy Spirit’s help, to become “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17).

Posted in Bible, Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Ephesians for House Churches: Why We’re Trying Too Hard

Posted on 09/19/2014 by Paul Pavao

This is not the only overall message of Ephesians, but it’s probably the most critical one for house churches.

Deep breath. Rub my hands together. Here’s my attempt at a short, to-the-point, yet helpful 400-meter dash through Ephesians. Ready? You might need to read this really fast to get the feel, then come back and read it more slowly for the content. 😀

This is written for little churches wondering how to progress, who already know they are supposed to be family, sharing their lives and their possessions as best they know how, abandoning their own will of Jesus, again as best as they can.

Okay, the specifics:

Ephesians 1-3

This is the glorious spiritual introduction to the church. Church life is not just a nice spiritual thing for us to do together. It was eternally purposed by God to be “in” King Jesus. From before the beginning God thought of us, and thought of how to call us and join us together inside of Jesus along with all the rest of creation.

Jesus is the great Ruler over everything, in this age and the next. Yet this great and glorious King has been given as head to the church, so that the church is “the fullness of him that fills all in all.”

We’re supposed to respond to this first chapter with, “Whew! Wow! Amazing! We have been called into a glorious, cosmic, Divine purpose planned by God before the foundation of the earth! Whoo whee, my head is spinning.”

I’m using facetious terminology, but I mean every word. That’s how we should respond to Ephesians 1.

Ephesians 2 and 3 bring some details to chapter 1, but the effect is the same. We’re seated in the heavenlies in Jesus despite the fact that we were all demonically influenced sinners (really, see 2:1-3). We are citizens now of heaven and part of a glorious mystery, hidden through all the ages, to join Israelites and Gentiles, all people, into a habitation for God.

Wow! Talk about stretching your head across eternity and the universe!

Ephesians 4

That’s all awesome, but what do we DO? What is the practical application of that?

I, THEREFORE, the prisoner of the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. (v. 1)

What calling? The one described in Ephesians 1-3? We can walk worthy of THAT calling?

Yes, we can. Paul gives a route:

  1. Earnestly give youself to preserving the unity of the Spirit (v. 3). If you’re tied to someone by the love you feel by the Spirit, DON’T LET THAT GO!
  2. You have help. Jesus has given us gifts—gifts which are gifted men—to teach us how to work to build up the body of the King (4:11-12).
  3. Talk to one another. Do your part. Don’t sit alone. Together, you won’t be deceived, and you will grow into the full maturity of King Jesus, if you’ll just do your part, telling each other truth in love. (4:13-16)
  4. Put on the new man that is created in righteousness and true holiness, and put off the old man with all his unrighteousness.

What does that mean? What do we say to each other? What is the focus? What deep revelations out of the eternal mystery and purpose of God do we deliver to one another in the truth?

Stop stealing. Stop lying. Tell the truth. Work so you have money to give to others. Beware of your anger and don’t let it lead you into sin.

Huh?

Oh, and get rid of all your bad attitudes bitterness, complaining, and ill-will. Instead be kind, tenderhearted, and quick to forgive.

Pretty deep revelation, right?

Here’s even deeper revelation, from Ephesians 5 …

Ephesians 5

If you don’t do what you just learned in Ephesians 4 you won’t have any inheritance in the kingdom of God or of the King (5:5).

No matter how you interpret it, that’s bad. No matter how you interpret it, that’s something you want to avoid.

Some people want to say that this doesn’t apply to Christians, who are forgiven by the blood of Jesus for their willfull continuance in sin. That’s a pretty strange way to interpret a warning that’s in a book written to Christians, but Paul sees it coming nonetheless.

Do not be deceived. It is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Do not partake with them. (vv. 6-7)

God is not a respecter of persons. If he is going to judge the sons of disobedience for these things, he’s not going to let you off the hook, either. Jesus is the Savior of those who obey him (Heb. 5:9). If you’re not obeying him, something is wrong with the salvation you received (1 Jn. 2:3-4).

Usually what is wrong with a salvation that is ineffective is two things: 1. You haven’t been told about the Gospel of the kingdom and that you must acknowledge Jesus as King and Judge over everyone, especially including yourself. 2. You haven’t been told about the church, and that it has an obligation to exhort/encourage you every day and to watch over you like a shepherd over his sheep. Please let us know if you need help with that.

Ephesians 5 goes on with more details, much like the details in Ephesians 4. Don’t be like the world, be careful of what you do with your mouth and your time. Be filled with the Spirit. Sing spiritual songs … all the time. Give thanks. Love your wives; respect your husbands.

Summation To This Point

We are through what I would see as THE two key steps to the growth of a small church.

  1. Know the majesty of our calling, the power of God in us, and glorious inheritance awaiting us in God and for which God awaits as well. Know the church’s role in that, and the exceeding greatness of his power in us.
  2. As a result of that knowledge, don’t get overbearing or impressed with your knowledge. Instead, walk worthy of the calling with which you are called by simply doing what’s good in the Spirit. Don’t steal. Give. Don’t lie; tell the truth. Don’t complain and bear malice; give thanks, forgive, and be kind. Praise, sing, and give thanks.

Super simple. Don’t take over God’s job and focus on glorifying and entertaining yourselves with the latest wild notions. Glorify God and do good by being kind and honest and friendly and loving your wife and not angering your children and treating your employees well.

Simple, simple. Now let’s go to #3, the most complicated thing on earth.

Ephesians 6

The building of the church is not a human battle, it is a spiritual one. We may have a very poor idea of our role in the eternal purpose of God or of the incredible power he has released in the church if we walk in unity and obedience to Jesus, but the devil does.

Paul tells us that we don’t fight against flesh and blood, but against a whole organization of spiritual forces in heavenly places.

Those forces know that you four or five families—timid, confused, and not really sure what to do in the modern environment of competing churches, mostly infested with worldlinnes, of competing messages, and of a scoffing and unbelieving modern culture—possess the power to dispossess them despite their high and lofty positions and their spiritual knowledge.

Paul spent a lot of time in the first three chapters describing his prayers that you and I would know that power as well.

So step #3, after you have learned of your power, and after you have THEREFORE joined together in unity to serve and love one another in kindness and to help each other on the route to obedience to Jesus, is to batten down for the assault that will follow.

Make yourself strong. Get ready. You need salvation, truth, the preparation of the Gospel of peace, righteousness, faith, and the Word of God. Work on those. Get those read. Faith is the shield that will knock away EVERY dart of the evil one. The rest is growing together in God, speaking the truth in love to one another, and thus preparing yourselves to present first by your lives and later by your tongue, the Gospel of peace.

Just as the devil’s minions will notice your devotion to the unity of the Spirit resulting in encouraging one another in simple obedience to the basic teachings of Jesus, so the world will notice your love (Jn. 13:34-35), and they will ask.

Repeatedly, when I point out that there are no commands in the letters to the churches to go out and evangelize, Protestants flip out. All of them. Almost no one, friend or foe, has much tolerance for my statement that the “great commission” applied only to the apostles. We don’t need to be running around preaching until we are sent like the apostles were sent (Rom. 10:15). I tell them that we are taught to be prepared to answer those who ask us, and they say, “Phthhh, when was the last time someone asked you about the hope that was in you.”

I’d guess it’s been a couple weeks, but it has happened at least tens of times, if not hundreds. I cannot imagine that I am the only one that has happened to.

Final Summation

Three things:

  1. Know the incredible power and importance and eternal significance of the church.
  2. THEREFORE, work hard at preserving the unity of the Spirit and departing from iniquity (cf. 2 Tim. 2:19)
  3. Hold on to your salvation, increase your knowledge of the truth, guard your heart with righteousness, walk in the Gospel, protect each other with faith, and win the war with the Word of God because you will find yourselves in a battle. DO NOT CONFUSE the weapons used on you with the source of those weapons and their power. The enemy will use people, but the enemy is spiritual. Do not be distracted by humans.

I hope that helps. I know it would have helped me a lot over the last 30 years.

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Unity and Denominations

Posted on 09/16/2014 by Paul Pavao

I began my last post with “I left all the denominations.” Although that is clearly a Protestant-type comment, for Protestants are the only one who have denominations and gladly belong to them, I got a couple Catholic responses.

One of those responses included the following:

If I allow my personal attempts toward holiness and obedience to the Word to determine what the Body of Christ should be, then I basically end up in my back yard with a handful of others calling it “church” (believe me, I know)… I would argue that this is the end result of Protestantism, even if we avoid Protestant terms.

Ah, right here is the difference between those who read the early Christian writings and wind up in an Orthodox or Roman Catholic Church and me. I don’t care about anything in this paragraph. All of it is completely irrelevant to me.

I only care about one thing. On the last day, I want to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant.” For that to happen, I need help.

Exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Heb. 3:13)

Honestly, I don’t think attending a meeting with a speech about the Bible once per week is much help to anyone, no matter what sort of reverence accompanies it. I think the only way we really help each other is by devoting ourselves, together, to fellowship, the apostles’ teaching, and the breaking of bread.

I’ve never been in a denomination that does that.

Show me people who are doing that, whether in a back yard or in a building, whether called a church or not called a church, and I will run not walk to wherever they are getting together in order to be a part of what they’re doing.

Not much else matters to me than that. We have our own little “backyard” church, and it’s exactly what I’m looking for. They seek God together with me. We know each other, help each other, and we exhort each other.

We would be glad to do that with any other Christian that wants to do that with us, but most of them are busy attending meetings with Christian speeches and holding Bible studies with people who are trained to absent-mindedly ignore any correction the Bible might have for their novel traditions.

Show me a LOCAL Catholic or Orthodox congregation that lives like the family of God and that doesn’t require me to do things I can’t conscientiously do, and I’ll stop what we’re doing, and we’ll all go there. Everyone I’ve talked to locally, though, is quite prepared to admit that their congregation is mostly nominal, just like Protestant denominations are.

Thanks, but no thanks. That’s of no use to me. I tried it for years, and after years I see that I’m no use to them, either.

I wrote a booklet once called How to Make a Church Fail. It’s my least popular book, still available on Amazon. No one has reviewed it that doesn’t already know me well. In fact, only my mom and one other person have reviewed it. (Thanks, mom!)

In it, I suggest that adding “the national religion” as an element in bringing people into the church ensured the division, not of the organization, but of the Christians in the organization. The sons of God now spent as much or more time with sons of the devil than with each other.

The organization known as the church has never stopped that practice, except in rare circumstances, so what the Scriptures portray as a church has been absent, except in relatively rare circumstances.

I know that one of the objections I will hear to this is something to the effect of, “You sure are confident of your own opinions that you would dare to suggest that all these denominations and organizations aren’t churches as described in the Bible.”

Yeah, I am. Sorry, I just can’t pretend that the local Baptist, Catholic, or Orthodox congregation even faintly resembles what I read about in the New Testament. It seem silly for me to say, “Yeah, I know that I read the New Testament, and these churches look nothing like what I read, but I guess I’ll just doubt myself, ignore the obvious, and go join one of them.”

Sorry, no. I’ve attended denominations for years, but only to find people who are willing to leave them like I and many others have.

Posted in Church, Modern Doctrines, Protestants, Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

A Heavenly Examination

Posted on 09/15/2014 by Paul Pavao

Last night someone asked me what denomination we are. I answered by telling him why I left all the denominations. I talked about how much of the Scriptures are routinely ignored by everyone in pretty much every Protestant church. There are those of us who couldn’t take it anymore, and we are trying to live in obedience to the things most “Christians” ignore.

Then I listed a few for him. Turning the other cheek, forsaking all our possessions, loving with a heavenly love that produces a unity closer than any earthly family. As I quoted the words of Jesus and the apostles, he asked questions about how that is practically lived out.

Honestly, I have no idea of the effect our discussion had on him, but it took my breath away. I am giving myself to the teachings of Jesus, but how fully? Having to explain the call of Jesus highlighted areas where my diligence lags. It highlighted small, or not so small, compromises I make. The sword of conviction was deep and painful, but it’s a pain that must be embraced often by all of us.

If someone were to ask you what it means to hate your own life so that you might keep it for eternal life, do you know what you would tell them? And if you told them, would you be able to say, “That’s how I live my life”?

Posted in Holiness, Modern Doctrines, Protestants | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Ephesians 1 Continued

Posted on 09/13/2014 by Paul Pavao

In the last post we talked about how incredible it is that God thought of us, planning to bring us all creation under and into his Son, before the foundation of the world.

Let’s continue that theme today.

Since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love to all the saints, I do not stop giving thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Anointed Lord Jesus, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling and the wealth of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, how exceptionally great his power is toward us who believe, comparable to the energy of his mighty power which infused in the King when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principalites, authorities, powers, and rulers, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one that’s coming. He has also put everything under his feet and gave him to be the overall head to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills everything in everything. (Ephesians 1:15-23)

Where do I start with this majestic prayer that is more than a prayer, but a proclamation?

The apostles wants us to have both wisdom and revelation concerning these things. He wants us to know him, and he especially wants us to know …

The hope of his calling and the wealth of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

What’s at the end of the road? He has called us in hope. That hope motivated Paul so much that he called everything behind him nothing but manure for the pile and pushed forward for the prize of the upward call of God in King Jesus (Php. 3:8-10).

The Scriptures do call what God has prepared for us has never been seen by any eye, nor heard by any ear, nor entertained by any heart (1 Cor. 2:9). They also say that God has revealed them to us by his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:10).

Knowing this, Paul prays that we will be spiritual enough to see it. Jesus endured the cross because of the joy that was set before him. We, too, have a hope laid up for us in heaven, and it should motivate us.

It is the first thing Paul prays we will understand by wisdom and revelation.

… how exceptionally great his power is toward us who believe, comparable to the energy of his mighty power which infused in the King when he raised him from the dead …

The second thing Paul wants us to know by wisdom and revelation is how exceptionally great the power of God is to us who believe. He says it is the same energy that powerfully raised Jesus from the dead. We don’t have a lesser power. We have that power of God constantly being exercised toward us.

May we believe it. May we search it out with wisdom, and have the knowledge and understanding of that power given to us by the revelation of God.

… his mighty power which infused in the King when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principalites, authorities, powers, and rulers, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one that’s coming. He has also put everything under his feet …

There is a tremendous exaltation of the power of God, which raised up the King and set him at God’s own right hand, and of the fearsome power and majesty of the Lord Jesus, who has been set over everything.

We find in chapter 6 of Ephesians that those principalities and authorities over which Jesus will rule are our enemies. We wrestle against them. We overcome them as ambassadors of Jesus’ kingdom, clad in the armor of salvation, righteousness, truth, and the preparation of the Proclamation of peace. We fight them with faith and the Word of God.

The reason that we can triumph, the reason that the shield of faith quenches all, and not just some, of the fiery darts of the wicked one, is because Jesus has been set by the mighty power of God over all principalities, authorities, powers, and rulers of this age and the next one. None is excepted.

Of course this is true. The whole universe leapt into being with that purpose in the Father’s mind. His Word would rule over all things and bring them together in himself. It is the purpose of the universe.

… and gave him to be the overall head to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills everything in everything.

Whoa! What is this! This glorious Rule of all, triumphant over every other rank or authority, in this age and the next one, this one is our Head? He’s the one who moves us? He’s the one who stretches forth his hand through us because we are his arms and hands, his body? This is our head?

Aye, the Lord God would tell us. Not only is he the Head of the church; not only is the church his body; but the church is his fullness. The one that fills everything in everything … we are his fullness.

Folks, let’s agree with Paul. Let’s cry out that we might receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation so we begin to understand just what it is we have entered into. How seriously we understimate the hope of our calling, the wealth of his inheritance in US, the exceptional greatness of the energy of his power toward us, and the majesty of the Ruler of the Ages who is our Head, our Lord, our King. Please, Father, open the eyes of our understanding!

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Ephesians 1

Posted on 09/12/2014 by Paul Pavao

Back to the Bible. Let’s talk about Ephesians. I know I started in 1 Timothy a couple weeks back. Don’t worry, my daughter-in-law is compiling the Bible commentary posts into a book.

An author’s favorite posts are going to be those that have made the biggest impact on him. This is one of those.

Verse 4

He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

If you don’t know and you’re wondering, I am strongly opposed to Calvinism. For the most part, I am also opposed to the Calvinists it creates.

That’s all I’m saying about Calvinism today, but I thought I’d better mention it since we’re going to be forced to address election (“has chosen us”) and predestination, mentioned in verse 11. Nothing in this chapter justifies the horrid teaching that God randomly chose who would be saved. (Unconditional is the equivalent of random unless it is applied to everyone. By the way, “unconditional” is one of the worst words that has ever crept into Christian tradition.)

Sorry for having to crawl over creepy misinterpretations in order to begin expounding on a verse of Scripture.

The point I want to make here is the importance of the proclamation of the faith which we have received. It’s not a small thing. It is something that God …

… Creator of the Universe, the One who fills all things, the most important life there is because he is the source of all life …

was thinking about before he made anything.

There was nothing. God was alone, conversing with his Wisdom and his Word, which were still inside of him. He was planning, purposing.

One of his purposes was to create the whole universe, which I think was a wonder to behold. We can’t even imagine. A flash of light and a burst of energy of unimaginable force. So powerful was it that no rules applied. Matter spewed forth and expanded at many times the speed of light from this beginning of pure energy from God. Rocketing outward, waves of energy rolled across this unspeakable, exploding creative thought of God, driven by his Word.

Shortly, to God anyway, it was there. Our universe; still expanding, sparkling, still pulsating and glowing with creative power.

He did it all for a purpose.

Primarily, that purpose was that the Word, his beloved Son, begotten before the beginning began, would rule and contain all of this in himself. Secondarily, though there can be no secondary to the will of God, his purpose was to have for himself a people and for his Son a bride, suitable for him.

Wow. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. Breathtaking.

Truly beyond even what we can imagine and fathom, but it is not other. It is not foreign. It is about you. As God surveyed the majestic expanse of the universe and the tiny ball that is earth, he was already thinking of you.

How does one turn that into “going to church.”

“Hey, hon, ya wanna go to church today?”

We—me—we so underestimate the glory that is the salvation that comes from God and the church that arises from that salvation.

Before the foundation of the world he chose …

YOU.

He predestined, he longed, he wanted, he thought about, he weighed and considered, and he purposed …

YOU … and me and everyone else would be awed by the proclamation that God had anointed a King, his Son, to rule the nations, raise the living and the dead, show inexplicable mercy to those who believed the Gospel and denied themselves in order to serve the weak, lonely, forlorn, and helpless and to discard forever those who have chose evil.

This is the importance of the Gospel and the salvation it brings.

What majesty has been given to us. “The King in us, the hope of glory.”

Not any King. The one who exploded the universe into being so that he might one day gather you not just into his arms or under his wings, but into his heart, so that he might be in you, and you might be in him.

The eternal purpose of God, to gather together as one all things in the King, the Son of God (Eph. 1:10).

That’s enough for one day. We have hardly touched even the first chapter of Ephesians. You don’t need me. There are other teachers, and if you have joined yourself to the saints of God, then you have people to go through Ephesians with you. Nonetheless, I hope you’ll join me as we go on in the days to come.

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Finding a Church: The Radical Way

Posted on 09/11/2014 by Paul Pavao

I’m 53, survived leukemia, and had a bone marrow transplant. I no longer want to waste time beating around the bush.

Someone asked me about what I think about various denominations. If you’re looking for a church that will meet your needs, here’s my advice, no holds barred.

  • Your one need is to surrender to King Jesus, Lord of all, who will one day judge the living and the dead. You NEED to lose your life, hate your own soul, and consider everything you have ever done to be manure fit for the manure pile so that you can wholeheartedly pursue knowing Jesus, the eternal King.

If you can give yourself to Jesus like that, then here’s my advice for finding a church:

  1. The church is the family of God. If Christians aren’t living like family, sharing in some way their lives and possessions enough to take care of one another, they are not in the church, no matter what organization they join. They may be “spiritually” in the “universal church,” but their lives prove their membership in the body of the King is ineffective and without purpose.
  2. “Pursue righteousness, love, peace, and faith along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). That is what you should be doing as a Christian. Organizations are not churches. Disciples make up the church, not organizations, clubs, or buildings.
  3. There are just a couple requirements for those that gather in his name. Know Jesus and depart from inquity (2 Tim. 2:19).
  4. He is King. We are his subjects. We live for his will, and our lives are abandoned to follow him. Organizations and clubs that teach something else as salvation or the Gospel are counterfeits, joining believers to unbelievers, the children of God with the children of Belial (2 Cor. 6:14-18). May the children of God, those who know they are to take up the cross and follow Jesus, be delivered from slavery to fellowship with the unrighteous.
  5. The command not to be unequally yoked, in context, is about the church, not marriage, though it applies to marriage as well.
  6. For any disciples who join together like this, they should get all the help from anyone they can find to help, and especially to pray. The devil will do everything within his power to ensure those disciples never learn the incredible power of the saints living their lives as one family, united in the Spirit of God and taught by him alone. It is there that the Lord can commanded the blessing of eternal life (Ps 133).

      7. I don’t have any compromised, nicer advice to go with that. I only have so long left on this earth, and I want to fight for the Gospel of the kingdom. I want to shout to my fellow disciples that they don’t have to show loyalty to counterfeits nor remain in fellowship with darkness. They really can purge the loaf and pursue love, faith, peace, and righteousness with brothers and sisters of pure hearts.

      Those fellow disciples are few and they can be hard to find. Many of them are corrupted into thinking that something other a wholehearted surrender to Jesus is required for fellowship. A psychotic addiction to disputable doctrine is highly contagious even to disciples when they wander into the counterfeits who base their existence on carefully constructed doctrines (1 Tim. 6:3-5).

      Our sound doctrine is described in Titus 2, one of the only places that Paul explains what sound doctrine is. Let us hold to that doctrine, then join together bound by the perfect bond of unity, the love that is poured from heaven by the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

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The King James Grammar Nazi

Posted on 08/29/2014 by Paul Pavao

I am sent by King James 1 on behalf of the king’s Elizabethan English. I am come to defend our language from misguided American Christians.

Today’s post is in sport.

talent whither marquee

This church marquee puzzleth me. Whither goeth this unused talent? Whence and wherefore is it come? Traveleth it hither and thither like the tongue of an American?

Afore have I believed that a talent unattended would wither or be stolen. Henceforth shall I know that it withereth not, but departeth, though whither is not yet revealed.

Note: This is a simple misspelling, but I’m guessing that a church marquee is much more likely to have a misspelling like this because of how many Christians either read or are familiar with the King James Version of the Bible.

Some Elizabethan Grammar

I am not fluent in early modern English, but here are a couple things that might help if you ever want to feign the language of King James’ crew of Bible translators or the works of the great bard, Shakespeare.

  • “Thou” is singular and verbs used with “thou” end in -est.
  • The third person singular is the only other pronoun that takes an unusual ending. He, she, and it add -eth to the verb.
  • Neither I nor any of the plural pronouns get unusual endings. We, ye, and they all allow verbs to remain infinitive, just as in modern English. We run, ye have, and they clap are all correct.
  • Like today’s English, early modern English has many irregular verbs. “To be” is conjugated with I am, thou art, he/she/it is, we are, ye are, they are.
  • Oddly enough, “may” is an irregular verb in Elizabethan English. It is conjugated as thou mayest, but he may, rather than mayeth. I’m not sure why.
  • “Ye” is used as a subject of a sentence. If it’s the direct or indirect object, then it’s “you.”
  • The same is true with “thou” and “thee.” “Thou” is a subject, “thee” is used when the person you are addressing is the direct object. Thou hittest me, but I hit thee.
  • That shouldn’t be that hard. We already do that with I/me, we/us, he/him, she/her, and they/them. People say that choosing between who and whom is hard, but it is actually no more difficult, and follows the same rules, as I and me or he and him.

Just in case you were interested.

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Solid Teaching and How It Happens

Posted on 08/26/2014 by Paul Pavao

I’m reading a book on house churches that says that if a house church isn’t teaching regularly, then it would be better to go to an institutional church with solid teaching.

Uh huh. Where would I find one of those?

You want solid teaching? It’s going to require some honest evaluation of our current teaching.

Look around, folks! Protestantism is divided into tens of thousands of sects.

Tens of thousands!

And no one cares!

When the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he gave them some encouragement at the start, and then he launched immediately into a problem. They had a lot of problems, but Paul spent at least the first three chapters focusing on just one.

Division.

Paul said that as long as the Corinthians were saying “I’m of Paul” and “I’m of Peter” and “I’m of Apollos”–and even “I’m of the King (Christ)”–then they were carnal and behaving like humans.

Does it really take an insightful, spiritual teacher to recognize that when we say “I’m a Baptist” and “I’m a Methodist” and “I’m a Pentecostal,” we’re doing the same thing?

Where’s our “solid teaching” when it comes to issues like these?

Jesus said that the world would know that the Father sent him because of our unity. Everyone knows that the Protestant Church is known for its division and bickering.

Where’s our “solid teaching” when it comes to issues like these?

Dodging Reality

Almost 30 years ago I walked into an (English language) bookstore in Germany. It was an unusual bookstore. It was small, but it had all of Watchman Nee’s book in it. Nee’s books were on one wall in wide hallway that separated the two small rooms that made up the store.

On the other wall were the typical books that you find in a Protestant bookstore.

I remember standing in the hallway looking at the two walls and wondering, Do these people know that the books on Nee’s wall teach that the books on the other wall are carnal, lukewarm, and of little spiritual value?

Recently, I read “The Old Cross and the New Cross by A.W. Tozer again. Tozer’s books are popular, but much of his writing condemns almost all of modern Christianity. The tract to which I just linked does not specifically mention “seeker-friendly” Christianity, so it can’t directly condemn it, but the tract nonetheless directly teaches that seeker-friendly Christianity is an offense to Jesus our King.

Do we pay attention to these things?

For the most part, we do not. Many Protestants know about these problems, but they consider them unsolvable, so they do nothing.

Reality and Solid Teaching

The book I’m reading recommends a church with solid teaching.

I assert that in Protestant Christianity those churches are nearly impossible to find because no one pays attention to the problems I mentioned above and the hundred others like them.

It’s just too costly to fix the problems.

Despite these problems, most of us think that “solid teaching” means repeating the same old things that have been taught in Protestant churches for centuries (though no more than five centuries since Protestantism is only five centuries old).

The very teachings that have produced the myriad of horrendous problems in the Protestant churches are just parroted as “solid teaching.”

Why? Because they’re Biblical?

Are you kidding? Oh, wait. You’re not kidding. You haven’t looked at the problems, so you don’t think they need a solution. You just go merrily along thinking that Protestant “solid teaching” is justified because some part of Protestantism has taught your doctrines for one-fourth of the church’s existence.

Okay, let me try to help you with this.

The book that recommended finding a church with solid teaching was written by a group of house churches that has “the doctrines of grace” as their primary, number one consideration.

“Doctrines of Grace” means that they believe that everyone is so totally depraved that no one would ever choose to believe the Gospel on their own. They believe that God randomly (“unconditionally”) chose a small percentage of the human population to believe before the creation of the world. Those randomly selected people are the only ones capable of believing the Gospel, and they will believe the Gospel, no matter what, because God’s grace is “irresistible.”

Believing all this, they conclude that Jesus only died for the “elect,” those randomly selected few. They also conclude that the elect must persevere to the end or they wouldn’t be elect. On the last day, every one of the randomly chosen will be justified by the blood of Jesus before the judgment seat of Jesus.

Those who were unfortunate enough not to be chosen will be tormented in hell forever for not being selected.

Makes The Hunger Games seem positively utopian, doesn’t it?

How anyone could derive these ideas from a book that says things like “He is the atonement for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” is beyond me. Knowing that the men who made these doctrines popular were familiar with the earliest writings of the church puzzles me even more.

I once read a “systematic theology,” a book which analyzes a number of theological ideas, which had a chapter on “soteriology” which advocated “eternal security.” That means that those who are once saved are guaranteed, by the promise of Jesus, to go to heaven after dying and live their eternally in the presence of God.

The end of that chapter listed some verses that “seem” to contradict the idea of eternal security.

It listed at least 50 verses.

FIFTY verses that “seem” to contradict what the book taught.

That kind of thinking is the habit of Protestants. It is normal, not unusual.

The Catholics point out to us that James said that salvation is not by faith alone. That’s true, but we write them off because we know Catholics are deceived by works salvation. The apostle Paul knew better. He taught that salvation was by faith apart from works.

We don’t think about the fact that this means we’re saying James is as wrong as the Roman Catholics are.

I don’t know why we don’t think about that. Martin Luther did. He solved the problem by saying that James had nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it. “A right strawy epistle,” he called it.

Witness Lee was equally bold. He explains in his Recovery New Testament that James did not understand the “New Testament economy.”

What else? It’s those horrible Jehovah’s Witnesses who point out to us that Jesus called the Father the one true God (Jn. 17:3).

Now that’s one is easy to handle. The JW’s are a cult, and we can find dozens of verses that tear apart their doctrines.

Um, but what about John 17:3? It appears that we can just ignore it as long as we can silence those cults that bring it up to us.

My wife grew up in a Southern Baptist church. Now that is a church that would definitely have solid teaching. They are by far the most popular Christian denomination in the US besides Catholicism.

As we got to know each other and marriage became a real possibility, I decided I had better talk to her about 1 Corinthians 11.

1 Corinthians 11? Why would I be talking to her about the Lord’s Supper?

Actually, 1 Corinthians 11 has two subjects. One is the Lord’s Supper, and the other is women covering their heads (and men not covering their heads or having long hair).

After more than a decade of being a devoted, faithful member of the Bible-believing Southern Baptists and a faithful reader of the Bible herself, she had no idea that the Bible talked about a subject like women covering their heads.

No problem. The rule we Protestants would never verbalize, but which has been ingrained in us by long practice, is that if no one brings up the verse, we don’t have to deal with it.

Maybe the rule could be better written this way: “If a book somewhere explains why a verse that seems to contradict what we believe doesn’t really contradict it, then we never have to look at the verse again.”

Baptism is always an excellent example of this problem. We know that baptism is only a symbolic, public testimony because salvation is by faith only, and baptism is a work.

  1. Jesus said that the one who is baptized and believes will be saved (Mk. 16:16). Ah! But he adds only that he who does not believe will be condemned. This, then, proves we’re right. It is not those who are baptized and believed who will be saved. It is those who believe who will be saved, and they will also be baptized, which of course will have nothing to do with salvation.
  2. Peter told the Jews to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). Hmm. We know that can’t mean what it says, so this is a really tough one. Fortunately, dishonesty is always an option when defending Protestant doctrines, so a couple of Greek scholars have kindly helped us out by telling us that the Greek word eis could possibly mean “because of” in that verse. (For the record, that’s simply not true, and Robertson and Wuest both ought to know that.)
  3. Paul said we are baptized into our King (Gal. 3:27) and into his death (Rom. 6:3). No problem, we have invented a new baptism. Now there is a baptism by the Holy Spirit into Jesus that is different than a baptism by a preacher into water and also different than Jesus baptizing us into the Holy Spirit.
  4. Peter said that the flood saved Noah and his family from the old world as a figure of how baptism now saves us (1 Pet. 3:20-21). Again, no problem. Peter added a parenthetical statement telling us that baptism does not save us, so that the passage should read, “… baptism now saves you (but it doesn’t save you).”

I could on and discuss being born of water in John 3:5 or the washing of regeneration in Titus 3:5. I could point out that from the earliest writings of the church until the rise of Pietism in the 17th century everyone thought that those verses meant what they say and that being born of water or washed for regeneration is a clear reference to water baptism.

I am not going to.

I am going to return to the start of this post and ask you to look around.

The Problems

We are known for our division. Jesus said that our unity was his proof that the Father sent him (Jn. 17:20-23), but few seem to care. Paul was confident that the work of God would continually grow in his disciples throughout their lifetime (Php. 1:6). Most of us know that the majority of the people in Protestant churches don’t read the Bible regularly, don’t pray very often, nor have any solid commitment to obeying all the teachings of Jesus.

Rather than fix these things, we excuse them. Charles Stanley, the famous pastor from Atlanta, taught publicly that we would be forgiven by God even if we don’t forgive others despite the fact that Jesus taught the opposite (Matt. 6:14-15). He had some brilliant excuses based on different types of forgiveness, but in the end, he simply denied this Scripture and taught people it did not apply.

I listened to a Sunday school teacher try to address Galatians 6:7-8 once. That passage says that if you sow to the Spirit you’ll reap eternal life, but if you sow to the flesh you will reap corruption. The teacher made a joke about the possibility of losing our salvation, then moved on.

The teacher was an acquaintance of mine, so I wrote him a letter telling him that even if that verse did not refute eternal security, it is nonetheless a warning, and he had not passed on that warning to his hearers.

My “brother” in the King turned my letter over to the pastor, who called me in to his office and asked my why I dared talk to one of “his” Sunday School teachers about this. (When he couldn’t intimidate me, he got somewhat bewildered about what to do.)

People “converted” to the Protestant Gospel fall away much more than they continue. Those who do continue generally find that they stop growing before too many years have passed. As a result the large majority of our church members are lukewarm at best.

How is it possible, then, that Protestant teaching could ever be solid?

The Route to Solid teaching

When a set of churches has problems as great as those I have been describing; when they refuse to address those problems because they are too difficult to address; and when they have to excuse and ignore multiple portions of Scripture to defend their doctrines, they do not have solid teaching.

There are two routes to solid teaching.

1. Stop ignoring the problems, stop explaining away verses from the Bible, and struggle through rejection, loneliness, confusion, and long periods of not knowing what is true, all the while crying out to God and searching the Scriptures.

Sometimes that works. You will know if it has worked if the problems go away and are replaced by unity, holiness, and the common growth of all or almost all of those that you are in fellowship with.

That’s a really hard route.

2. Find someone who has done the above and join yourself to them.

You will know if they are worth following if they are not alone, if they are united in love, living as the family of God, and are growing together in obedience to the commands of Jesus.

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