Health Care Plan, Debate, and My One Request

Posted on 09/21/2009 by Paul Pavao

On the Health Care Plan, have you noticed how no one has talked about doctors and hospitals charging less money?

Rose Creek Village has businesses that make a good portion of  their money by working for rich doctors … doctors with jaguars, twenty thousand square foot houses, and money to spend for very fine trim, paint, and faux finishes.

I had my shoulder put back in socket at McNairy Regional Hospital, which according to the $250 book, Customized Fee Analyzer, normally charges 4 to 5 times standard rates for this area for its services, despite being in one of the poorest counties in the country. The doctor talked to me for two minutes, then had me wait for about 90 minutes on a table, during which time he didn’t see me at all. After 90 minutes, he came in and worked on my arm for a half an hour and popped it back in.

He charged me $400 for that half hour.

Doctors need to make $800 per hour???

The hospital charged me $643 for walking into the emergency room. They charged me $90 per shot for six shots I wasn’t given. I called more than 15 times to talk to someone about the six $90 shots that didn’t happen, and I always got someone who couldn’t help me and a promise that someone would call me back.

They charged me $280 for being processed out of the emergency room. They charged me $40 for the $2 scrub shirt they sent me out with because they had to cut mine off. Total charge: $2400, not including the doctor, whose charge was $400 extra.

I paid them $1200, told them I’d see them in court if they wanted more, and then they left me alone. The doctor’s office agreed to take $200, a bit more reasonable, but still $400/hour for his time.

My One Health Care Request

Require doctors to charge less!

Do they need the money? You tell me. They’re hiring our top end carpentry and painters, driving jaguars, and living in multi-million dollar homes. That has to happen?

I read this today in this news report:

Fears over rising costs have been a critical factor in kick-starting the reform debate. The US spends around $7400 per person per year on healthcare, twice the health costs in Canada, the next highest spender.

I lived in Germany as a civilian for four years. America’s health care costs are ridiculous. There’s no other explanation. Limbaugh and others can go on and on about how socialist medicine doesn’t work, but I lived there, and it worked great.

We got a visitor from America while I was there who had no health insurance.  He contracted a kidney infection and was in the hospital for a week with a catheter for most of that time. He got out, the infection flared back up, and he went in another week just being treated with antibiotics.

Total cost? $3,000.

Now I know this was 1986, 23 years ago, but I assure you it was multiple thousands of dollars cheaper than it would have been in America. I’ve been treated by Germans, and I’ve been treated by Americans, and if anything, the treatment in Germany was better, cleaner, and more efficient.

I Don’t Get It

This health care plan, if it doesn’t address America’s ludicrous costs and its over-wealthy doctors, is a waste of time. Yet I’ve not heard one news report yet addressing the issue of simply telling doctors and hospitals their costs will be limited.

Will they go broke? No. Look the world over. We’re the most expensive health care providers in the world by double. A friend of mine flew to England to have a hernia operation. He paid cash, and it was cheaper to fly there and back and get the operation than to have it in the US … in South Dakota.

Good grief.

This is completely inappropriate to the normal subject of my blog, but it’s my blog, so …

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The Councils, the Creeds, and the Salvation of Souls

Posted on 09/20/2009 by Paul Pavao

I always say there’s nothing like reading error to motivate one to write truth.

I’m prone to writing error here and there, too. I’m human. I have things I don’t understand. I have things I forget to consider.

Teaching and Truth

Hopefully those of us who take it upon ourselves to teach will at least never make errors on purpose. Some do, however, Some are so bent on some supposed truth that they couldn’t care less about facts, history, Scripture or anything else. They’ll twist anything to prove their point. (Thus, the anti-Norman Geisler post two days ago.)

Catholicism, the Councils, the Creeds and Men’s Salvation

The one today, however, is not a purposeful twisting of history, I’m quite sure. It’s simply not considering history. It’s so easy not to notice the obvious.

On a “Equipping Catholics” blog, I read:

It is very important that we take a moment to recognize the impact heresies and anti-Christ philosophies can have on the eternal destinies of their adherents. False concepts of Christ can pull people away from the only narrow path that Jesus said leads to eternal salvation. False doctrines about Christ can result in the eternal loss of one’s soul.

And that is precisely why the Father gave us the Church — to protect us from those falsehoods and erroneous philosophies about salvation, sin and judgment …

Indeed, it was the early Church Councils (such as Nicea, Ephesus, Constantinople and Chalcedon) that handed down to the 21st century Church what is still considered the orthodox Christian faith — much of which is illustrated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

What this writer means is that it’s a good thing that these councils came along to defeat heresies like Arianism and Nestorianism, or else people might be pulled away “from the only narrow path that Jesus said leads to eternal salvation.”

What the writer did not consider–nor have most of the rest of us considered–is whether it worked.

Did the councils of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon lead people to follow Christ on the narrow path and save their souls?

Did they not rather lead to a top-heavy hierarchy, numerous false conversions, and a church full of corruption, superstition, and false doctrines? A church which later would be rightly called antichrist by the multitudes that fled its corruption and persecution?

Catholicism and the Dark Ages

After the councils, Christians became the persecutors rather than the persecuted. Rather than desecrating temples of idols, they created temples of idols so much that the emperor Julian the Apostate declared that Christians surpassed the pagans in their hero worship (by worshipping saints).

The last of the seven councils, of which the aforementioned are the first four, approved the “veneration” of icons. That Council, overriding a previous one, declared that it was appropriate to proskuneo a picture of a saint, as long as you didn’t latreia it.

Both those words are translated worship in the NT. In fact, both are used in Jesus’ statement to the devil, when he quoted Deuteronomy, “You shall worship (proskuneo) the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (latreia).” It seems clear to me that Jesus would not have approved of the worship of a picture of Peter, any more than Peter, who rejected proskuneo from Cornelius (Acts 10:25), would.

The Church produced from these great councils refused to allow its followers to hear the Scriptures, whether written or read aloud, in a language their followers could understand.  They burned John Huss and William Tyndale alive for giving people the Scriptures in the vernacular, and they burned John Wycliffe’s bones twelve years after he was buried because they couldn’t find him while he was alive.

This Church created “the Dark Ages,” the greatest time of ignorance in the world since before Sumeria in 6000 BC, and to this day they continue to produce Christians that are well over 90% Christian in name only.

I don’t think the councils succeeded at keeping people on the narrow path for the salvation of their soul.

Would Allowing Heresy Have Done Better?

Yes.

I suppose you want me to give reasons for asserting that.

  1. It could not have done worse; that’s impossible.
  2. It may have prevented the church gaining political power, and that’s always better.
  3. The churches did not hold a council to rout the gnostics, but they were driven out, anyway.
  4. If the Church had not gone into cahoots with the emperor, they may not have admitted all those unconverted pagans who switched to Christianity for purely political reasons.

Since the Church did hold the councils, and since they did get political help to win their battles, history went the way it did. We’ll never know what would have happened had it not happened.

However, I find it impossible to believe that a lack of understanding of the Trinity, which Tertullian said was common in the church in A.D. 200,  could have led to as many people forsaking the narrow path and losing their souls than the rout of councils and creeds did.

Posted in Church, History | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Ronald Reagan Buried 20 Trillion Dollars in the White House Rose Garden

Posted on 09/20/2009 by Paul Pavao

My wife tells me that the ridiculous story that Ronald Reagan buried 20 trillion dollars in the White House Rose Garden actually made it to the Google news listing last night. I found a copy of it here.

As soon as I heard it, I started laughing. When  I heard it was buried in mason jars, I laughed louder.

This is not my typical blog post, but I couldn’t resist talking about this. Humor, politics, and math combined. Irresistible.

Zero Is a Really Big Number

I love math. One of the things I love about math is how big a number zero is.

Just three zeros turns 1 into 1,000. Three more zeros are worth 999,000, as they turn 1,000 into 1,000,000.

The next three  zeros are worth 999 million as they turn a million into a billion.

What’s the point?

The White House Has a Really Big Rose Garden

The article says that the money was buried in “low denomination bills.”

Yeah, right.

Let’s assume these “low denomination bills” are 100’s. If you divide 20 trillion by 100, you only get to take two zeros off. You still have 200 billion.

Do you know how much room 200 billion $100 bills takes up?

Well, assuming that it takes 250 bills to make an inch (which is close to true of 20# typing paper, and I think that money’s thicker), then you have a stack of bills 800 million inches high. Divide that by 5,280 and you get a stack of money 151,515 miles high. That’s 60% of the way to the moon.

You’re going to bury that in the White House rose garden?

We did some more math and determined that Ronald Reagan had to dig a cavern 5 miles long, 1 mile wide, and 100 feet deep. And that’s assuming there’s no mason jars or oven mitts taking up room with them.

That’s a big rose garden.

Where Did Reagan Get the Money?

I was 26 years old in 1987 when Reagan did this. I remember hearing about the deficit and the national debt. To this day, the national debt is still less that 20 trillion dollars. In 1987, the federal budget was less than a billion dollars.

So I looked up the gross domestic product for 1987. It was difficult to find, but I did find that the gross domestic product for “all industries” totaled 4.8 trillion dollars or so.

So Ronald Reagan buried something over 4 times what the entire United States spent in 1987?

Right.

Ronald Reagan’s Buried Money Was a Joke

I don’t know who started the joke, but if you read the article, it’s obviously tongue-in-cheek.

Computers are computers, even if they’re run by Google. I’m sure one of those quick spiders, which can read keywords but can’t see tongues or cheeks, picked it up.

You can’t find it on Google News today, even with a search, so some insightful (mildly) human has removed it.

It’s not April 1, so I don’t know why the story was written. It was funny, though. I loved the comment attributed to Barack Obama:

“‘Our economic worries are no more,’ announced a jubilant Barack Obama.”

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The Historic Christian Faith? – Norman Geisler, Luther’s 95 Theses, and the Bible

Posted on 09/18/2009 by Paul Pavao

Error, lies, and foolishness are always excellent motivators for me to blog.

The particular embarrassing morass of propaganda to which I am referring is John Ankerberg’s interview with Norman Geisler. The interview is such a collection of Protestant fantasy that I hardly know where to start.

However, start I will.

Norman Geisler

Geisler doesn’t believe in Purgatory. Fair enough. I don’t either.

To Geisler, however, it appears that means he can pick any parts of church history he wants and say that they don’t either. In his case, he picks Luther’s 95 theses, and then he tells us:

Luther … tacked up his 95 theses and said, “There is no purgatory. There are no prayers for the dead. You can’t buy people out of purgatory.”

That’s nice. Norman Geisler passes himself off–and is believed to be by a multitude of the ignorant sheep that will always, and should, constitute the majority of the church–an expert on “the historic Christian faith.” Yet, it is apparent from this interview that he makes up his own historic Christian faith.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses

I have Luther’s 95 theses up on my Christian history web site. Try going there and taking a look at number 26. There Luther suggests that the pope, rather than offering to remit sins through keys of the kingdom that he does not possess, ought to seek remission by praying. The obvious context, as is clear from the rest of the theses, is that the pope ought to be praying for souls in purgatory rather than claiming the ability to release them.

Nothing in the 95 theses denies purgatory. Luther was still a Catholic priest at the time, somewhat under the delusion that the pope was going to support him in his ideas. Thesis 50, for example, says:

Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St. Peter’s church should go to ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.

I’m pretty sure Luther would deny purgatory later, though I’ve never looked it up, and I can’t be certain of it. But during the time of the 95 theses, he was a good Roman Catholic monk.

History

This is history. History is where you read what a person said, and then you tell people what that person said.

History is not taking your own words and wishes and putting them in the mouths of historical figures. Doing that is blasphemy, lying, and deceit, and it will cause God to send you to hell.

Read it for yourself. The Bible says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire.

Beware, Norman Geisler and John Ankerberg. I don’t care what service you think you are rendering to people by defending them from Jehovah’s Witnesses, Way missionaries, Mormons, and Roman Catholics. If you defend them by lying, you will have your part in the lake of fire. If you create a new gospel, a new Christian history, and a way that is contrary to the apostolic way–no matter how much you defend it with the Bible–then you are to be anathametized by all true Christians.

The Bible

Geisler also presents an imaginary history of the Bible in that interview. Almost nothing he says is true. I don’t have time to go into it here, nor time to research all the quotes I’d have to research for you, but I have a page on it and I can highly recommend A High View of Scripture? on the subject. A High View of Scripture? is an Evangelical book published by a well-respected Evangelical publisher, Baker Books.

‘Nuff said, as the saying goes.

Posted in Bible, Gospel, History, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Scripture: The Foundation of Truth?

Posted on 09/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

 I saw a blog recently, pretty good other than the ridiculous amount of advertising at the top, and I wrote the following response to it. I thought it was pertinent and ought to be on my blog.

Scripture and the Church

The history part of your post is excellent, and that’s unusual. While there are always going to be interpretations of history, there are basic things that simply happened, and any honest person has to at least stick to those things. Most don’t. You did. Congratulations. It’s sad that it’s so rare.

That said, I do disagree with your conclusion about carefully sticking to the Scriptures. One of the things the Scripture says to do is to test things by their fruit. I’m not very impressed by the fruit of the sola Scriptura movement. It’s pretty pitiful, in fact.

But let’s say we were to actually follow Scripture in the more important areas:love, unity, mercy, judgment, for example, and above all in how to know truth. Well, here’s some things it says.

The foundation of truth is the church and the revelation of God in the church (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Jn. 2:27, where the “you” is plural, not singular). I’m not Catholic or Orthodox. By church, I mean the local church bonded together in Christ, not some organization.

That’s what the Scripture says. I didn’t make that up or rely on tradition. The Scripture says that if people are trying to seduce you, then you don’t have to worry if you–the local church–follow the anointing into what’s true. Hold fast to the unity of the Spirit, and God will lead you into the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:3,13).

God’s church will never be founded on micro-managing type of rules like no instruments and other things people fight over. It will be found on those who depart from iniquity (2 Tim. 2:19). People who pursue peace, faith, and holiness together (2 Tim. 2:22). And people who judge sin and put those who are obviously faking it or purely nominal out of their midst (1 Cor. 5). You will never find the church united in power and following God when most of its members have no interest in denying themselves, taking up their cross, and following God, even giving up all their possessions for one another and for the poor (Luke 9:23; 14:26-33).

Following the Scripture will lead you to know God and walk by the Spirit, so that the Spirit of God resolves all the difficulties in your midst, even the doctrinal ones. Following the Scripture as a foundation of truth, rather than knowing that Christ is Truth (Jn. 5:39-40), will have you never resolving your differences but living like Pharisees. It’s been proved over and over again.

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Accidental Series on the Church, Part IV

Posted on 08/25/2009 by Paul Pavao

I really didn’t mean to be writing a series on the church, but here goes part IV.

Most attempts at starting house churches/simple churches/”the” church don’t go anywhere. That’s acknowledged in most of Gene Edwards’ books. I’m not sure about Frank Viola’s.

Why?

Problem 1: Christians Don’t Know What the Church Is

It never ceases to amaze me that Gene Edwards and Frank Viola have been writing about starting home churches for years, and the description always remains this wonderful, free, joyful thing that practically grows and takes care of itself. While Gene Edwards acknowledges that it hardly ever works, his answer is to get more free and don’t try so hard.

Yikes!

People don’t know what they’re getting into. The Church is the most important thing on earth. It’s more important than governments and countries. If Christians get together, hear Jesus Christ and obey him, then they can conquer the world.

We did it once. We overthrew the Roman empire with love, submission, and suffering. We spread across the earth before there were government churches and conversion by the sword.

If we don’t know it, the devil most certainly does. He’s not deceived. He’s quite aware that the gates of hell cannot stand against the church (see Which Church?, my previous post), and he has no intentions of letting it exist.

He’s taking it seriously, and the followers of simple church/home church are not. The battle’s way worse than they have any idea, and it’s a lot more subtle and deceptive.

As the great Cyprian of Carthage put it in A.D. 250:

Caution is more easy where danger is manifest, and the mind is prepared beforehand for the contest when the adversary avows himself. The enemy is more to be feared and to be guarded against, when he creeps on us secretly. (On the Unity of the Church, ch. 1)

Problem 2: Christians Don’t Know What a Christian Is!

One problem with everything I’ve written so far is that I’m using “we” loosely.

Jesus said that no one can be his disciple who doesn’t deny himself, take up his cross, follow him, hate his family, including his wife and kids, hate his own soul, and forsake all his possessions (Luke 9:23; 14:26-33).

He did.

Most Christians today think he didn’t mean it.

He did mean it. I’d like to be nice and say that you can be a Christian and ignore those ideas of Jesus, but you can’t.

You can’t.

He’s the one who said it.

You can’t build a church with people that aren’t Christians.

Daring to Make It Just a Little Easier

It’s scary to me to lighten what I just said at all. After all, those were Jesus’ ideas, not mine.

However, I think it’s clear from Scripture that Christians weren’t those who did this perfectly. When Jesus wrote letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 he acknowledged as Christians those who had some problems. He acknowledged as churches people who had a lot of problems.

But he called them to repent.

You can’t have a Laodicean church. If the Laodicean church didn’t repent, Jesus was going to spew them out of his mouth. They were not going to continue being a church.

In fact, look at the Ephesian church. They had only one thing held against them. It was one big thing, they had left their first love, but nonetheless all else said to them was positive. They had works and patience. Jesus tells them that twice. But he was still going to remove their candlestick–and that quickly–unless they repented. (History says they did, by the way.)

In other words, even the righteous Ephesian church, standing against evil and deception, were going to cease to be a church if they did not return to their first love.

Problem 3: Christians Don’t Understand Their Purpose

Jesus takes the Church as seriously as the devil. He’s a lot more powerful than the devil, too. He created the devil. The devil is not a problem for him.

But even Jesus didn’t defeat the devil without a fight. He had to stand up to him. He had to bear real temptation. Overcoming the devil is always a fight.

As Justin Martyr put it some 1850 years ago:

[The demons] subdue all who make no strong opposing effort for their own salvation. (First Apology 14)

The early Christians knew what they were getting into.

They also knew what it meant to be a Christian. Justin added this rather frightening description of the Christian life:

There is no other way than this: to become acquainted with this Christ, to be washed in the fountain spoken of by Isaiah for the forgiveness of sins, and for the rest, to live sinless lives. (Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 44)

Hmm. Impossible? His contemporaries didn’t think so:

If we Christians are compared with you [Romans], although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better than you. For you forbid, yet commit, adulteries; we are born only for our own wives. You punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is sin. You are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; we are afraid even of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist. (Minucius Felix, The Octavius, ch. 35)

There is room for stumbling. There is room for public repentance. There is room for forgiveness. There is not room, however, for a Christianity that says, “I don’t have to obey Jesus because it’s impossible.”

Such a Christianity knows nothing of grace.

Problem 4: We Think Real Christianity Is Too Hard

Most “Christians” will look at what I’ve written and begin making the most ridiculous excuses. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told to give away my computer so that I can have forsaken all my possessions and so scoffers and worldly Christians won’t have to read me writing about Jesus’ commands!

They’re not scoffing at me. They’re scoffing at the commands of Christ. There’s no true Christianity except the one that goes all the way with God, and the only Christians that can band together and be the church are those that obey Christ.

Everyone else is a liar.

I tried to think of a nicer word, but “liar” is the word the apostle John–the apostle of love–used (1 Jn. 2:3-4).

We might as well be honest. The fact is, I’m a human, too. The temptations that affect you affect me. I’ve had to cry out to God for mercy. I’ve lived like an American at times, not like a Christian. I fear, like Peter commanded (1 Pet. 1:17), because I know I will be judged by my works. I know how desperately I need the grace that removes sin’s power.

But it’s God that sets the standard, not me. I don’t get to lower it. I only get to submit to it.

And the church that overthrows the gates of hell is going to consist of people who submit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as he gave it, not as we wish it was in this ridiculously intellectual, divided, and carnal Christian world.

Posted in Church, Gospel, History, Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Which Church?

Posted on 08/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

This post is the 3rd part of a 3-part series I didn’t mean to write. Better read the previous two posts. Both of them are dated today, too.

So, here’s part 3:

Which Church?

I keep talking about the church, but which church?

I’m talking about the church. The people who are Christians in your area.

You need them. They need you.

It really doesn’t matter whether we Protestants have developed a denominational system where you go to the Methodist church and your next-door neighbor goes to the Lutheran church. That’s not okay. You’re sinning.

It really doesn’t matter that the pope in Rome is the head of a huge hierarchy that claims to be the one true church; that idea has nothing to do with anything Biblical or with the historical church.

You’re supposed to be sharing your life with other Christians. You are supposed to be family. You are supposed to be more likely to take an unemployed brother and his family into your house than his parents are.

You’re supposed to call nothing your own and share with the Christians around you.

That’s Biblical, and that’s historical. [It’s not just Acts that talks about calling nothing your own. There was an early Christian tract that gave the same command, which is included in the Letter of Barnabas and the Didache. Justin Martyr in Rome in A.D. 150 and Tertullian in Carthage, Africa in A.D. 200 both claimed that Christians in general were following that command.]

That’s the church that God cares about, and that’s the church that will inherit the promises.

That’s the only church that matters because it’s the only one that can exhort one another every day (Heb. 3:13), speak to one another in love (Eph. 4:11-16), and be led together into all things (1 Jn. 2:27, where the “you” is plural, not singular).

How Does One Join Themselves to that Church?

I have no idea.

Sorry. I didn’t create the problem, and I don’t have miraculous revelation on how to solve it. I can just show you that the Bible says it’s a problem and if you try to solve it, you’ll find out what it means that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).

The devil hates it when you try to gather the saints. It terrifies him.

I can give you some advice, though.

I’ve tried a lot of things. Others have tried things.  Here’s some of what’s worked and what hasn’t.

I tried talking to everyone around me, going to every church I could, and telling people what the Bible says.

Not very many people listened to me.

The fact is, most people who call themselves Christians aren’t really Christians. They don’t have the Spirit of God, and they don’t much care what Jesus wants. They’re not going to listen to or look for God’s will whether you show it to them in the Bible or whether God speaks it to them in their hearts. They just don’t care, and they’re not really Christians.

Some are, though, and they care. Hundreds and thousands of people have managed to gather them together to try to do the things I’m talking about here. Gene Edwards and Frank Viola have written dozens of books on what to do when you do get them together.

I’ve met dozens of those groups. What they’re doing isn’t working. They don’t grow, and they get quickly bored. Most simply fall apart quickly. Those that don’t end up going back to the institutional churches they were once part of.

There’s some problems in Gene and Frank’s books. It’s not as simple as they say it is, and there’s some key issues missing.

I gave up trying on my own. When I found people who were making it work, I moved to where they were and gathered with them.

What do I mean by making it work? I mean they were really together, God pays attention to them, and they are being taught by God.

I’ve met other groups like that, but they didn’t last. They had the tremendous joy and fulfillment that comes from being in the church; they were taking care of each other; they had revelation from God; but they fell apart, usually rapidly.

Why?

Well, I have some ideas about that, too. But I guess that will have to wait for part 4.

I didn’t mean to be writing a series, and I’m out of time for today, so part 4 will have to wait until later today, tomorrow, or the next time I can get to this.

For now, just know that the devil hates it when the church rises up. It doesn’t matter whether it looks like a home church or like an institutional church or like neither. When Christians in a local area gather together, love one another, take care of one another, and act like family, the devil hates it and attacks it.

Christians today aren’t ready for a fierce battle with casualties, so they usually lose. The devil just tears them apart.

That’s the biggest problem. Like I said, though, I’ll say more about that in the next part.

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The Church

Posted on 08/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

You might want to read the previous post before you read this one. I just finished it a moment ago.

It’s so important for Christians today to find out that Christianity is not meant to be an individual religion!

The following is what I almost added to the previous post, but I didn’t want to detract from its topic. So here it is as its own topic.

The Church

One further problem we have is a belief that Christianity is an individual religion. It is not. God has always intended for those who are saved to be added to the Church (Acts 2:47).

Unless you are part of a group of people who are exhorting one another every day, you are in constant danger of hardening through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). God never meant for you to be delivered by yourself.

It is imperative that we get this. By losing our understanding of this we have lost everything!

Read through 1 Cor. 12 and Eph. 4:11-16. See how clearly the Bible says that we must grow together. It is only as every part supplies its “effective measure of grace” that we grow together in love.

Apart from that, we don’t grow. We just fool ourselves. Sin is deceitful, the Scripture says. We think we’re righteous, but we’re not.

We need each other.

Doctrine and Division

We have lots of reasons for separating from one another. This one believes in a 2nd experience, a baptism in the Spirit separate from salvation, and this one does not. That one speaks in tongues. This one believes baptism is symbolic; that one believes it’s not.

So important, it seems to us!

But we learn together. The Scripture has not called us to learn on our own. Study and pray for guidance all you want. The first guidance you must get is that you are not going to be led into truth by yourself!

The pillar and support of the truth, according to the Bible, is the church! (1 Tim. 3:15).

Yes, the church!

You need your brothers and sisters. As soon as you divide from them, you lose.

Doctrine and Division: The Solution

We think the Scriptures are the pillar and support of the truth. We don’t seem to care that the Scriptures say that the church is the pillar and support of the truth. We don’t believe that, so who cares what the Bible says!

Dear God, please deliver us from that sort of thinking.

The Pharisees searched the Scriptures. With the Scripture’s help, they missed Christ!

You search the Scriptures because you believe that in them you have life, but these are they which testify of me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life! (John 5:39-40)

You have the Scriptures. They testify of Christ, but where will you find Christ?

Christ, the Church, and the Scriptures

There’s an incredible verse in the Bible, found at 1 Corinthians 12:12. It’s so astonishing it’s hard for us to believe.

Ready?

For as the body is one, yet has many members … so also is Christ. (1 Cor. 12:12)

Do you understand why this is so important? Do you see what it says?

This does not say that the church is like a body with many members. It says that the Christ is like a body with many members.

Think about that a moment.

The Church: Christ in the Earth

I’ve been through a lot of evangelism programs. All of them led to a final point. That final point was something like, “Jesus is here right now. You can’t see him, but he’s here right now. Just bow your head and tell him you believe.”

That’s what’s supposed to happen. All of us Protestants know that.

Can you find it in the Bible?

There’s a fascinating story in the Bible. Saul, persecutor of the church, is on his way to Damascus. A light appears, and he is knocked to the ground.

Then Jesus appears to him. We don’t know how or in what way, but Saul saw Jesus.

If ever there was a time to say, “I’m right here. You can see me, unlike all others, so you can really pray. Just bow your head and tell me you believe,” that time was then.

But it’s not what Jesus said.

Instead, Jesus told him to go to Damascus and wait for Ananias.

The Christ Comes to Paul

We know the story. We know Ananias came to Saul. But have you thought about what happened when Ananias came to Saul?

Saul had been stricken with blindness. Ananias healed that blindness. He laid hands on Saul, and Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17-18). He baptized Saul, and Saul’s sins were forgiven (Acts 22:16).

And Saul became Paul the apostle.

We tell people what they need is an invisible Christ in the heavens. Jesus told Paul that what he needed was a visible Christ on the earth.

Hmm …

It’s true that we need something spiritual and invisible. We walk by the Spirit not by the flesh. Ananias hands were the means Jesus used to baptize Paul in the Spirit so that Paul would be a spiritual man, able to hear the voice of God.

Our Need for the Church

No wonder Paul spoke so highly of the church. No wonder Paul said that our growth is tied to the church, tied to our speaking to one another, and tied to each of us contributing our measure of grace (Eph. 4:11-16).

That’s a lot for one post. I’ll just quit there.

I don’t know how well this is all explained, but as a great man of God once said, both Christ and the church are known by revelation. They are not “figured out.” You must ask God to allow you to see the church and to understand Christ. You will not go through the immense battle that is necessary to be part of the church unless you have a revelation of your need for it.

Oh, you’re probably asking: what church?

That’s for the next post …

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Romans 7 and Romans 8

Posted on 08/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

Romans 7 and Romans 8, do Christians really understand those two chapters of the Bible?

Recently a number of members of Rose Creek Village went to a “Jesus Radicals” conference. As odd as it may sound, the Jesus Radicals conference was a Christian anarchy conference.

Since Christ basically means king [it means “anointed,” and refers to the anointing of the king of Israel], “Christian anarchy” is at least somewhat an oxymoron.

Be that as it may, several of our members went to such a conference in Memphis.

There were some good people there. Many of them are activists; they are devoted to the idea of changing the world.

Missing Romans 7

I’m told that for the most part these Christian anarchists know they are failing in their goals. They want to change the world; they want to do good; but they don’t know how.

Jesus once said that he could only do what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19). If Jesus could do nothing unless the Father was already doing it, how much less can we?

Romans 7 is Paul’s announcement that we will never do good in ourselves, no matter how much good will we have within us. We do have good will within us, he says, but the performing of that good will we find impossible.

It’s a crucial lesson. Like Jesus we are dependent on the Father. In fact, if it’s possible we are more dependent on the Father than Jesus was. If we want to change the world, we have to stop, see what God is doing, and join him.

He’s not going to join us.

Do you wonder why you’re failing at what you’re trying to do? If you’re human–even if you’re a Christian human–the chances are, that’s why.

Missing Romans 8

Most Christians aren’t like those Christian anarchists. They understand Romans 7. They know that the good they wish to do, they cannot do.

The problem is, they don’t seem to want to move on to Romans 8!

Romans 8 is the answer to Romans 7. Read through Romans 7, and you will see that the principle described there is quite accurately described as “the law of sin and death.”

Romans 8 is the answer to the law of sin and death.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:2)

Romans 8 begins with an announcement that we don’t have to live in Romans 7. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus delivers us from Romans 7!

The very next verse says it again:

What the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did! (Rom. 8:3)

We don’t have to live in Romans 7. We can live in Romans 8!

The righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in us who do not walk according the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:4)

Romans 8 and the Atonement

In between the two sentences I just quoted is a statement that this deliverance from the law of sin and death is provided by the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Most Christians know that, but so many don’t seem to believe that it works!

If we are Christians, buried with Christ in baptism, born again to a new life in Christ, then we are supposed to be delivered from the law of sin and death.

So many Christians say that they should not be pushed to good works because they are under grace. No! They should be pushed to good works specifically because they are under grace!

Sin shall not have power over you because you are not under law but under grace. (Rom. 6:14)

Romans 7 and Romans 8

Let us be believers in both Romans 7 and Romans 8. Let us know that we can do nothing of ourselves. Let us know that in ourselves–that is, in our flesh–nothing good dwells.

But let us also know that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus–the law described in Romans 8–has delivered us from Romans 7.

A Caveat: The Church

I have to add a final word.

Wait, no I don’t. I started to add a section on how you can’t do this alone. Unless you’re exhorted every day, says Hebrews 3:13, you’re not safe. You’re likely to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

I highlight that because, being deceived by sin, you won’t know it. You’ll try all the above alone, and you’ll fail. You need your brothers and sisters.

However, I have so much to say on that subject, it would make us lose focus on our topic: Romans 7 and Romans 8.

So, I’ll save that for the next post.

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Three Dollars Worth of God

Posted on 07/29/2009 by Paul Pavao

No comments of my own today. Everything’s borrowed.

I wrote a post yesterday called “Intellectual Honesty and Throwing Up.” I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth posting, needs editing, or just needs to be thrown out.

For today, though, Voice of the Martyrs quoted Wilbur Rees as saying:

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I  want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

I looked that up on the internet, and Wilbur Rees’ daughter commented on a blog (the one about to be quoted) that her father wrote that in a book titled $3.00 worth of God. (Available from Amazon only used and only very expensive; must be popular and out of print.)

When I looked the quote up, I found this comment on this blog:

It has been said that too many Americans have been inoculated with a slight case of Christianity that is preventing them from getting the real thing.

One of the people who has said that is Keith Green, who once put out a tract on “Gospel inoculations.”

‘Nuff said …

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