Back Surgery and the Help of God

Posted on 07/24/2009 by Paul Pavao

This is not meant to be a blog about my personal life, but …

Yesterday my wife had back surgery for a bulging disk. It was huge; 18 mm, for those that have an idea of what that is. The nerve that exits between her bottom vertebrae and tailbone was completely crushed–flattened out–against the bone at the back of the tunnel.

People with bulging or herinated disks have problems if the disk even touches the nerve. This nerve was completely flattened by the bulge. The surgeon commented, both when looking at the MRI and after surgery, “That was a huge disk.”

My wife’s been struggling with sciatica for almost two years. We’ve tried numerous therapies, two of which worked very well for some time. A chiropractor got her relief for six months, and the muscle release techniques found at Julie Donnelly’s web site got her relief for a month. Decompression therapy helped also, even at the end, but only for the day it was done and sometimes the next day.

In the end, none of it worked because the disk was compressing the nerve.

Help from God

One of the things that drove me to belief in God during the short time I was an atheist was a movie called In the Presence of Mine Enemies, a story about a man who was a POW in Vietnam for seven years.

I remember at the end of the movie, all the POW’s were released at the same time. They gathered in the yard and sang “God Bless America,” and then they all got on their knees and gave thanks to God.

As an atheist, that completely threw me. Why were they giving thanks to God? Howard Rutledge, the subject of the story, had been tortured and mistreated for seven years! Why give thanks to God for that?

If God could have saved him, why didn’t he save him at the start, before all the torture?

As I lay in bed that night, I knew there was only one reason that every one of the prisoners would give thanks to God. There was only one reason that none of those prisoners were atheists.

God had helped them during their imprisonment. They were not simply tortured and mistreated. They were also comforted by God.

Nothing else made sense to me.

This surgery for my wife was a similar experience (though, of course, not near so drastic in suffering). By the night before surgery, my wife was able to say, “God’s been so in control of all of this that even if something awful happens and I end up in a wheel chair, I’ll know it is the will of God.”

We’ve prayed and cried out to God, and he’s answered in so many little ways that there’s no describing it. I walked around the surgery center to pray while she was in surgery, and I knew everything would be okay. I didn’t pray; I gave thanks to God.

In fact, one of the last “little things” to happen was that two days before surgery I picked up Watchman Nee’s A Living Sacrifice. I flipped it open at random, wanting to have a little “devotion” time, and I read the chapter on prayer.

Nee said that one should pray until faith comes. Once faith comes, there is no more need for prayer. You have your answer. Any further prayer will only dissipate faith. Once faith comes, praise is in order, not prayer.

That is so true, and I was reminded of that as I circled the surgery center during the operation. Faith had come, and we had peace.

The surgery was a complete success, by the way.

Posted in prayer, Testimonies | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and the Local Church

Posted on 07/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

I got an email from a Roman Catholic and an Orthodox believer both in the same day. The biggest thing they had in common was massive miscommunication.

What I mean by that is that they both presented arguments to me that were convincing to them but didn’t make a lick of sense to me. Worse, neither of them seemed to take into account what I had already told them in a previous email. They just ignored my arguments.

Only later did I realize: no, they didn’t. They didn’t understand my arguments. Not any more than I understood theirs.

The Church

As I pondered the problem, the answer suddenly became obvious. We had two completely different paradigms concerning the church. They saw the church as a large organization, and I saw the church as local and local only.

Take a look sometime at Revelation 2 and 3. No matter which church you go to, those should be really important chapters. They tell us, in letters dictated by our Lord and Master himself, what Jesus likes and doesn’t like about a church, and what he’s going to do about it.

You’ll look in vain in Jesus’ letters for any comments about submission to the pope or even the local archbishop.

You’ll look in vain for any comments about theological stances and statements of faith.

What you will find, in every letter, is a comment about works, both in general and specifically.

You can’t apply any of those letters to a hierarchy. All of them are applicable only to the local church.

The Local Church and the New Testament

In fact, everything in the New Testament only has applicability at the local level. God’s concern, obviously, is not about hierarchy or church structure, it’s about obedience to Christ empowered by the Spirit of God.

Protestant or Rose Creek Village leadership structure is not any more important to the Spirit of God than the Roman Catholic or Orthodox structure. Hebrews says to submit to your leaders three times, but it never gives those leaders the good, Scriptural name of “elders” or “overseers.”

1 Thessalonians is worse. It tells you to submit to whoever devotes themselves to the ministry of the saints (5:12).

Note the wording: “devote themselves.”

Don’t get me wrong. I think leadership and shepherding are important. The Bible does talk about that, using all sorts of terminology. There’s apostles and prophets and evangelists and elders and overseers and leaders and shepherds and teachers.

Some of those overlap, but in the end, you’re going to have hard time proving God cares about the structure of the leadership of the church, both in the New Testament and in the later churches the apostles started.

Justin and Tertullian, for example, refer to the leader in church gatherings as the president. Clement of Rome uses elder and overseer interchangeably, the way Paul and Peter do, but everyone who writes from a church where John worked talks about one overseer over a group of elders.

The Local Church and What God Cares About

So if God doesn’t care about what leadership structure you have, what does he care about?

Well, let’s see. The Scriptures entire purpose is so that “the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Jesus’ death is to “purify for himself a special people, zealous for good works” (Tit. 2:14). It’s also so that he might be “Lord of the living and the dead” (Rom. 14:9) and that we might “no longer live for [our]selves, but for him who died for us and rose again.”

The Scriptures say those sorts of things about the Scriptures and about Jesus’ death, and then Jesus writes seven letters to churches in Rev. 2 & 3 talking to them about their obedience to and love for him.

It begins to be clear what God cares about.

The Local Church and Obeying God

Good works can only be carried out together at the local level. Doctrines about Jesus and the Father sharing one substance and Mary being born without sin and everyone else being born guilty of Adam’s sin (the last an abominable doctrine that has created a doctrine of the atonement that is insulting to God)–all those doctrines can be talked about, argued, and enforced at some hierarchical level.

But God doesn’t care about any of those things.

He cares about obedience to Christ. Jesus writes letters to churches about their works and about their love for God, not about their thoughts about his earthly mother, who is dead and can’t hear your prayers, since she’s incapable of omnipresence like her divine Son.

But whatever. Fine. Pray prayers to Mary that she can’t hear. Jesus doesn’t complain about those things to churches.

He complains about churches not obeying his commands.

The Commands of Christ

So what are his commands?

The problem with the Roman Catholic Church is not that they believe the pope is the head of the church. The problem with the Roman Catholic Church is that if you attend one, no one there will care or even know that Jesus said you can’t be his disciple unless you deny yourself, take up your cross daily, hate your own life and your family, and forsake all your possessions.

The problem with the Roman Catholic Church and almost every other church in this country is that so few people care that Jesus said you must seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and not take any thought for what you’re going to wear and eat tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, we idolize retirement plans and college educations. We abandon our churches for a better job offer in a different city, never thinking that we are either serving Christ or serving money, never both.

Why Do I Pick on Modern Churches

I pick on modern churches because they separate disciples. They oppose the work of God.

In modern churches, disciples who know that Jesus Christ called them to forsake their own lives and care about nothing on earth are forced to waste their time fellowshiping with people who don’t care what Jesus Christ said. Jesus’ statements are too extreme for them.

In the meanwhile, if we could get those disciples that do care together, God would do extraordinary things through them. He would display the love and unity of Christ through them. He would shine the light of a city set on a hill that can’t be hidden through them.

But that can’t happen because one of them is down at the Lutheran Church, a couple are at the Baptist church, several are over at the Methodist church, and they are scattered all over town, attending churches filled with people who have no intentions of submitting to Jesus’ extreme demands, listening to sermons being preached by pastors who are okay with the fact that their congregation is full of people who don’t want to follow Christ.

That’s a problem.

I want the sheep back. I want them to be rescued from those pastors and rescued from those clubs for people interested in tinkering with and talking about the faith of Christ. I want them to have real shepherds and be in a flock with real sheep.

The pope’s not interested in that, so I’m not interested in him. The Roman Catholic archbishop over Tennessee isn’t interested in that, so I’m not interested in him. The Eastern Orthodox archbishop, who shares “apostolic succession” with the Roman archbishop, but who claims authority over the exact same area as the Roman archbishop with no unity of labor–that Eastern Orthodox archbishop doesn’t care about these things, so I’m not interested in him, either.

I’m interested in local disciples who can get together with local disciples and obey Jesus Christ. Local disciples who can exhort one another daily (Heb. 3:13) and show the world the unity and love that proves that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Jn. 17:20-23).

Conclusion

Well, I’ll just quit there. This post isn’t very systematic, anyway. It sorts of waddles from point to point uncomfortably, so we might as well just hit the end and stop. I think the things in this post are important.

What letter would Jesus write to us?

Would Jesus even write a letter to us?

Posted in Church | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Christians and Liberals

Posted on 07/14/2009 by Paul Pavao

Today I found a news article about the ACLU supporting freedom of Religion … for Christians!

Giving credit where credit is due, I found that link at this blog.

I have some comments to make about Christians, liberals, and conspiracy theories:

Christians and Liberals

Once, as I was waiting in line to pay at a Chinese restaurant, I heard one Christian tell another this story:

I had someone ask me the other day, “Are you a democrat?”

I told them, “No, I’m a Christian.”

There are times when no one can compete with Christians for slander. It seems that as soon as we start thinking conspiracy, then we can lie, distort, and slander to our heart’s content in order to prove it.

I believe in evolution. I have no problems with the Christian who tells me, “I believe the Bible says the earth was created 6,000 years ago in 6 days, and I’m not interested in scientific evidence because I don’t trust science.”

No problem. I think you’re going to be disappointed as it becomes more and more obvious that life evolved and as more and more churches give in to the overwhelming evidence for evolution, but I have no problem with you trusting your interpretation of the Bible–you’re not actually trusting the Bible, just your confident interpretation of it–over science.

I have no problem, either, with you telling me that my loose interpretation of the Bible is inaccurate and my confidence in science and its rather notable accomplishments will prove a bad idea.

However, when people start accusing scientists of lying when they are not liars and of deception when they are honest researchers, then I get angry. It’s not right, and it’s all the more not right from Christians.

ACLU and Liberalism

The ACLU has taken some outrageous stands. Their idea of separating church and state is sometimes ridiculous. Kids should be allowed to pray and hold Bible studies in school just like other kids hold chess matches in school.

However, the ACLU is not simply anti-Christian. It is no surprise to me that they jumped to the defense of the Christian mom who wanted to send Scripture to her son in jail.

The ACLU does not take stands against Bible study in schools, conducted by students and not faculty, except on rare occasions, when they go too far.

I’m not saying I agree with their campaign to remove the 10 commandments from courtrooms, but removing the 10 commandments from courtrooms is completely consistent with their purposes.

Christian Governments

Christian governments have a history of being awful.

Many Christians would agree with me that the church fell under Constantine in the early 4th century. How did that church fall?

It fell by obtaining a Christian government and a Christian nation.

Those are bad things. REALLY bad things.

Defeating the ACLU

Do you want to defeat the ACLU? Do you want the populace to have such respect for the 10 commandments that the ACLU can’t remove them from courthourses?

Then let’s have judgment begin with those who call themselves the house of God.

There’s a reason the ACLU has so much influence. There’s a reason that we’re becoming such a secular, pleasure-loving, God-hating nation.

Because there’s so little light and so little salt coming from those who claim to be God’s people.

That’s what we need to fix. You’re never going to force people to obey your religion, and it’s a bad thing to try.

Christianity became so popular that in the Roman empire that by the 3rd century they had some influence in the places they lived. That happened because of the power of their lives that drew more and more citizens into the churches.

We would do well to emulate them.

Posted in History, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

If We Are the Body …

Posted on 07/11/2009 by Paul Pavao

That song continues:

… why aren’t his arm reaching? Why aren’t his hands healing?

I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, but in case it’s not I’d like to try to answer it.

Because we’re not the body.

The Body of Christ

Our Gospel at Rose Creek Village gets expressed a number of ways, but my personal way is to reduce it to two things:

  1. Give up everything and follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly
  2. Do it with everyone else who does the same

The body of Christ is the local, united gathering of disciples following Christ together as one family.

That wonderful, beneficial song by Casting Crowns assumes that the body of Christ is all the Christians making a profession of faith in the death of Christ. Chances are the closest thing they have to a local expression of the body is weekly meetings where people who are mostly strangers gather to sing songs, give money, and listen to a sermon about Christ.

That’s not the body of Christ according to Scripture and that’s why its arms aren’t reaching and its hands aren’t healing.

The Problem

One of the things that used to bother me immensely when I was in a typical, traditional church was that Paul could be confident that “he who began a good work in you will continue it,” but we could not share the same confidence.

Instead, we could be confident that 80% or more who made a profession of faith would not even be attending church 5 years later and that the great majority of those who do attend church would be cold, living like typical Americans, and not growing in Christ.

Many Christians disagree with that assessment, especially when someone like me–someone asking for change–says it. However, if I’m wrong, why do so many Christians believe that we’re in the “Laodicean church age”?

Why can groups like Casting Crowns sing “why aren’t … ” and become popular singing it?

It’s because everyone knows it’s true.

The Gospel

The Gospel that we’re preaching is either the power of God to salvation or it’s not.

When the result of the gospel is that we’re in the Laodicean church age and Christ’s arms aren’t reaching and his hands aren’t healing, then the gospel is false.

And we need to change to the real Gospel; the one that is the power of God to salvation.

Finishing the Tower

Jesus once said to count the cost. The reason he gave for counting the cost came in the form of an illustration. The illustration was of a man who set out to build a tower but had to quit before he was finished because he ran out of money.

Today we like to say the Gospel has no cost.

That isn’t true.

Because we don’t count the cost, more than 80% of the people who listen to the American gospel don’t finish the course. And we know that only those who continue to the end will be saved. The Scriptures say that repeatedly.

And even among those who do finish their course in “the body” as it’s understood in America are not living anything like the early disciples.

The Gospel

I’d like to suggest that the problem is our gospel.

What does Jesus say in the context of “count the cost”? That statement is made towards the end of Luke 14.

The answer is that he says we have to hate our families and our own life, deny ourselves, take up our cross, and forsake everything we own.

I’ve suggested on numerous internet forums that we do that. The responses I get are almost 100% scoffs and mockery.

Well, no wonder his arms aren’t reaching and his hands aren’t healing!

Faith vs. Works

If we preach a Gospel that proclaims that we must deny ourselves and forsake our families and possessions, then aren’t we preaching works rather than faith?

Obviously not!!!

What, do you think Jesus Christ was a preacher of works?

I shouldn’t have to explain myself because I’m just quoting Jesus. If you say you’re a Christian, then you must believe that he is your Master. After all, to quote him, why would you call him “Lord” and not do the things he says?

If he’s your Master, then you figure it out. You figure out how you can hear the Gospel of faith and also be required to deny yourself, take up your cross, and forsake everything. It’s supposed  to matter to you!

My explanation is here.

Posted in Church, Gospel, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

James 2:10: Guilty of the Whole Law

Posted on 07/07/2009 by Paul Pavao

Whoever keeps the whole Law, yet offends in one point, he is guilty of all. – James 2:10

Okay, I promised that I’d put up a second blog today on what James 2:10 means (rather than what it doesn’t mean).

This is one of the verses where context is important.

Context is not always important, you know. “A text without a context is a pretext” is not a true saying when it comes to the Scriptures.

We all use Isaiah 7:14 out of context–and even out of the original language–as a prophecy of the virgin birth. The writer of Hebrews constantly pulled verses out of context. Paul did, too.

That’s how prophecy works. It’s spiritual.

James is talking in the verses leading up to 2:10 about preferential treatment being given to persons of stature, specifically rich people. Such behavior infuriated Jesus. His most explosive tirade is after a talking about how the scribes and Pharisees love position, honor, and titles.

Most of us, however, excuse those sort of sins. Adultery is terrible, murder is even worse, but a little bit of preferential treatment; hey, no big deal.

James is saying, oh, yes, it’s a big deal. Don’t think you’re better than a murderer. You’re a breaker of the Law, just like them.

No Excuses

Do you want to follow God? You’d better get used to cold, blunt honesty.

God doesn’t like to beat around the bush. He doesn’t say “shy.” He says “coward,” and he says your cowardice will keep you out of the kingdom. He includes us shy people–yes, people like me–with the unbelieving, abominable, murderers, and idolaters (Rev. 21:8).

In fact, he lists us first.

I decided I’d better get over being shy.

“I’m shy,” you say. Yeah, well, you have a number of brothers that, left to their own, would want to sleep with your daughter or wife. That’s just the way they are!

I’ll bet you’re grateful they’ve decided that’s no excuse to do such a thing.

Jesus expects you to get over being shy because if you don’t stand up for him before men, he won’t stand up for you before God. And you’ll be cast into the lake of fire.

Doing the Hard Stuff

The fact is, it’s often easy to get over the desire to sleep with someone else’s spouse. The idea is repulsive to us.

If repugnant, awful desires like that rise up in us, we abhor ourselves and drive such thoughts away.

But if I’m shy? A little quick-tempered? Not polite by nature? Don’t tend to think about others? Hey, that’s just the way I am!

Outside the gates of the city are those who thought that only murderers and adulterers would be outside the gates. Outside the gates are those that thought they were more righteous than those other sinners and that they didn’t need to repent for the minor evils they did.

We need to hear that because most of the time it’s those minor things that are the hardest for us to repent of.

We say that it’s just the way we are.

Exactly. Be different!!

Repent, obtain the grace of God. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you in due time. Confess your faults to your brothers or sisters and confess your sins before God so that God can give you grace and your brothers and sisters can pray for you.

Oh, did you think that only that awful adulterer over there had to lament, mourn, and weep?

Majoring on the Minors

James, the apostle and Lord’s brother, spends his time majoring on the things we call minor.

And that’s what James 2:10 means.

Stop calling your preferential treatment of people minor. Actually, what’s worse, stop calling your ill treatment of people who are “beneath” you minor.

God will send you to hell for not taking care of the least of these.

Really.

Your tongue (Jam. 3). Your desires for worldly friends and possessions (Jam. 4). Your jealousies (Jam. 4). Even your happy-go-lucky attitude! (4:13-16). James calls it “evil”!

All of a sudden there’s some work to do, isn’t there?

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go lament and mourn and weep.

Posted in Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Perfection, the Atonement, and James 2:10

Posted on 07/07/2009 by Paul Pavao

For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, he is guilty of all. – James 2:10

I am going to write two blogs today. The first will be about what this verse does not mean, and the second about what it does mean.

Do We Have To Be Perfect?

James 2:10 is used in all evangelism programs to teach that we will go to hell if we are not perfect. Is this true?

I believe there is nothing true about it. As I said, we’ll talk in the next blog about what this verse means, but I want to argue strenuously that it does not mean that God will burn people in torment forever for the slightest sin.

God the Just Judge

The Scriptures say repeatedly that God is just. It also says that we are made in his image. Does anyone really think it’s just to torture people for eternity because they lost their temper once? Or told a lie once? Or were vain once?

Of course we don’t. In America today, we don’t believe it’s right to torture people for an hour even if they are planning the murder of thousands of people in a terrorist act. How can we also believe that it’s okay for God to torture people for eternity because they gave in to some small temptation once?

The context of James 2:10 is showing preference to a rich person over a poor person (vv. 1-9). That sin deserves eternal torment in the same way that Hitler’s sins do???

There’s something wrong with the person who thinks that is just.

That servant who knew his lord’s will and did not prepare himself nor do his will shall be beaten with many stripes. But the one that did not know, yet did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few, for to whom much is given, much will be required. – Luke 12:48

Look some time at Romans 3. There it tells us, as all evangelicals know and as is emphasized in every evangelism program, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But what is that sin?

Look at Romans 3. It is not some small, one-time transgression. There it tells us that our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, that our feet are swift to shed blood, and that destruction and misery are in our ways.

That is how we sin and fall short of the glory of God, not by stumbling in some small way.

 Our God of Mercy

The LORD … proclaimed, “The LORD … merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but he will by no means clear the guilty. – Ex. 34:6-7

God said this about himself before Jesus died. He also said, “As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness” (Ezek. 33:12). Actually, he makes statements like that throughout the book of Ezekiel.

God has always been willing to give life to those who repent. He did not require the death of his Son, the sinner, or anyone else in order to forgive sin. He has always forgiven sin if people would just repent.

An example of this was Cain. Cain’s sacrifice of grain was rejected by God. Contrary to modern  myth, it was not because Cain’s offering was a grain offering. It was because Cain was wicked (1 Jn. 3:12; Gen. 4:7).

God tells Cain, despite his already being rejected for sin, that if he does good, he will be accepted (Gen. 4:7).

And King David tells us quite plainly that God doesn’t need sacrifice to forgive sin. In  fact, he doesn’t even want them for that purpose!

You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would offer it. You do not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. – Ps. 51:16-17

Jeremiah adds:

I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” – Jer. 7:22-23

God doesn’t need death to be merciful. That is a myth invented by Anselm–God bless his soul, as he was just trying to be a good theologian–in the 11th century.

Jesus Didn’t Die for God

Somehow, evangelicals have developed a theology that Jesus’ death changed God.

God doesn’t change because he doesn’t need to change. He has always been perfectly just, perfectly merciful, and perfect in every other way. God did not need Jesus to die for him.

We needed to change. We needed Jesus to die for us.

Jesus died so that we could repent and live a life of holiness.

For what the Law could not do, God did. By sending his Son … he condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk by the flesh but by the Spirit. – Rom. 8:3-4

For to this end Christ both died and rose and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the living and the dead. – Rom. 14:9

He died for all so that those who live would live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again. – 2 Cor. 5:15

Our Savior Jesus Christ … gave himself for us to purify for himself a special people, zealous for good works. – Tit. 2:14

The Scriptures also say specifically that if we could have been righteous on our own, then there would have been no need for Jesus to die. He would not have had to pay for the sins that are past because if people had become righteous, then all their sins would have been forgotten (Ezek. 18:21-22).

Is the Law against the promises of God? God forbid. If there had been a Law that could have produced life, surely righteousness would have come by the Law. – Gal. 3:21

However, the Law could not produce righteousness because of the sin in our flesh. Therefore, “What the Law could not do, God did.” Christ had to die to break the power of sin over us.

Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under Law but under grace. – Rom. 6:14

The Judgment

Jesus did not have to die to change the judgment either.  The judgment was already just, and it was already abounding in mercy.

Nor did the judgment change. The New Testament says repeatedly that the judgment is still according to works. The judgment is not according to faith, it is according to works!  (Matt. 25:31-46; John 5:27ff; Rom. 2:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Pet. 1:17; Rev. 20:11-15)

(I’m sure there’s many other verses. Those are just off the top of my head.)

There are no exceptions. The judgment is said to be according to works 100% of the time in the New Testament.

And don’t think that it’s just for rewards. Rom. 2:6-8 states clearly that the issue is eternal life.

If you want to argue that Rom. 2:6-8 only applies to non-Christians—which is foolish, but understandable because deception abounds today—then you need to read Gal. 6:7-9, which doesn’t mention the judgment but clearly states that eternal life hinges on walking by the Spirit and not growing weary in doing good.

The Fear of God

I know this may make you afraid. It makes me afraid.

Good, we are commanded to fear the judgment! (2 Cor. 5:10-11; 1 Pet. 1:17; and by inference 2 Pet. 1:5-11)

I’m sorry. It would be nice to have a free ticket. It would be nice to have no requirement to “be diligent to make our calling and election sure.”

It would be nice, but it ain’t so.

It’s worse for me. Here I am teaching these things, and James says that people like me will receive a stricter judgment (Jam. 3:1).

Wow.

Fortunately …

God Is Still a God of Mercy

Jesus didn’t have to die for God because God was already merciful. He’s still merciful.

We can’t live the like the world and expect to go to heaven (Matt. 7:21; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5-8). We can’t claim to know God if we don’t keep his commandments (1 Jn. 2:3-4).

But God has made a way for us. Jesus did die for us! Grace does abound to us!

We have a resource for living a holy life: the Spirit of God.

For those that walk by the Spirit of God, there are wonderful, incredible promises of mercy. As we walk in the light with Jesus Christ, “his blood cleanses us from every sin” (1 Jn. 1:7).

If we stumble and fall, we do not have an enemy in God or in his Son. If we sin, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One” (1 Jn. 2:1). If we confess our sin, “God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).

Notice that he will not only forgive our sin, but he will also “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He will restore us to grace, and under grace “sin will not have dominion” over us (Rom. 6:14).

Summation

It is a glorious thing that God has done. He has taken those who were slaves to sin and condemned to judgment, and he has made them sons of God who can overthrow the flesh by the power of the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:13).

Let us never lessen this Gospel. Let us never reduce it to some legal transaction that strips the Gospel of its power to transform the sons of darkness into the children of light.

As for those who do reduce that Gospel, their condemnation is just.

I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation … For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. – Rom. 1:16-17

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The Book of Acts Today

Posted on 06/22/2009 by Paul Pavao

I already wrote a blog this morning. I’m going to write another, anyway.

I got a newsletter from Gospel for Asia, and I loved reading their first story. They trained a man named Joseph Rao in India for three years, and then he followed a leading on his heart to an unreached area of Maharashtra state in India.

It took two years before Joseph obtained his first convert, but now there’s 25 churches, 28 mission stations (whatever those are), and the seven of those churches that he pastors have over 100 believers.

Now I could tell you that I believe that it’s bizarre to suggest he pastors seven churches and that the work he’s doing is really apostolic and that he needs to be raising up elders to take his place at those churches because it’s elders who really pastor churches; however, it’s hard to imagine the benefit of raising an issue of that.

Instead, here’s the issue I want to raise:

God Hasn’t Changed Since the Book of Acts

America’s boring. We’re full of unbelief, and so we fill our lives with TV, movies, and video games.

In Africa and India and parts of South America where those “ignorant” and “superstitious” people live, they still believe. So they see things that you wouldn’t believe no matter who told you about it.

The article about Joseph Rao says:

Joseph prayed for any who had needs. The Lord was faithful to confirm His Word and healed many from their illnesses, including one woman who had been crippled.

I wonder how many Americans believe that.

I’m Not Charismatic

I’m not charismatic. I left the charismatic movement on purpose over 25 years ago because it was a joke and people pretended to be healed all the time. Lying was a lot more prevalent than healing. A lot more.

However, healing wasn’t non-existent.

And overseas, healing is a lot more prevalent than it is in the US.

That shouldn’t surprise us. The Scriptures say that even Jesus himself could not do many miracles in his home town due to unbelief.

When I was in Germany, I met some Africans who told me stories about things they’d seen in their native Africa. I heard LOTS of  stories. Some were so far out that I assumed they’d just had tricks pulled on them.

Then I met a young man from Surinam. He was a godly, sensible young man who was in college preparing to be a pastor. He spoke four languages. He and I hit it off from the moment we met each other.

When he started telling me the same stories, both about witch doctors and churches, that I had heard from the Africans, I paid more attention.

“How could that be?” I thought.

It was then that I remembered Jesus’ difficulties in his hometowns. God works so much more freely where people believe.

Why?

Why? Why would it matter how much we believe? Can’t God do anything? Didn’t he create the world?

I don’t know the answer to any of  those questions. I just know what I’ve seen.

I was in India when we visited a church along with Pastor Daniel of Voice of Gospel Ministries. As he entered a man came running up with a little girl in his arms. He was very excited, and he stopped us, though it was clear Pastor Daniel didn’t recognize him.

He then told us that he had asked Pastor Daniel to pray for his little girl, whose stomach was swollen with cancer, a month earlier. Pastor Daniel had quickly laid hands on her and prayed. He was in a hurry, so it was a short, one-sentence prayer.

When they took her back to the doctor, the cancer was gone.

That’s one of many stories I could tell you. In some I was there to see the prayer or hear the testimony. Others were repeated by people I trust.

God Is Still Real

I don’t tell you these things to get you seeking miracles. I’ve been in situations where I’ve needed miracles. I’ve prayed for a nephew who had gone blind in one eye and seen his vision restored. However, it’s not miracles I’m after.

Charismatic churches pursue miracles. That’s wrong. God is not a miracle dispenser, though prayer for help in time of need is something he prescribes.

God rewards those who diligently seek him, so I want to encourage you to seek God. I want to encourage you to believe. I want to encourage you to know God.

I want you to fellowship with God and think the way God thinks. Miracles happened around Jesus all the time. They didn’t happen because Jesus was seeking miracles. He rebuked people for seeking miracles. They happened because Jesus loved people, and he wanted to help them.

Jesus has a lot more faith and you and I have, but our faith is supposed to be growing. We’re supposed to be trusting God in the middle of the storm, unafraid to pray for the things he leads us to pray for.

So above all, more than believing in answers to prayer, you need to believe that you can know God. You need to believe that you can know what you ought to pray for so  that you’re not praying against his will. You need to know what you ought to pray for so that you don’t waste your breath crying out for something that will never happen.

The Book of Acts hasn’t stopped, except in America where we no longer believe. Let scientists study unbelief and figure out how to ignore one-of-a-kind miracles. Christians shouldn’t be so. We should be overcoming unbelief by the belief we have.

Posted in Gospel, prayer, Testimonies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Sign of the Cross and Other Early Christian Traditions

Posted on 06/22/2009 by Paul Pavao

I often run across historical claims that make me angry, especially from Roman Catholics. Because they assume so much they are constantly reinterpreting early church history into their own viewpoint, even when their viewpoint is ludicrous.

Worse, when I point it out to them, they are completely blind to it. They can’t see anything except their own view.

An example is apostolic succession. Even though it’s blatantly obvious that their interpretation of passages in Irenaeus and Tertullian is wrong, not only can I not convince them, I can’t even get them to understand what I’m saying.

Today, however, I read a blog that addresses a Roman Catholic practice, and his history is (sort of) accurate.

The Sign of the Cross

Before we get to early church traditions, the really interesting point he made is in answer to the question, “Why don’t most Protestants make the sign of the cross?”

He writes:

Further, we are talking about the sign of the CROSS. Protestants trace the cross on their Bibles, their clothing, their churches, their pews, and in dozens of other places. Why do they not trace it on themselves?

Excellent point.

However, “why not?” is not a good enough reason to do something. There’s some history worth looking at:

The Sign of the Cross in Early Church Tradition

Back in A.D. 200, a Christian named Tertullian wrote:

At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [i.e., of the cross]. (De Corona 3)

Tertullian argues that such traditions were ancient, even in his time, and thus authoritative. They came from somewhere, he says, and that somewhere, he says, is tradition.

Tradition is held as meaningless among Protestants, but to the early Christians, it mattered. One sort of tradition mattered, anyway: that which was apostolic.

This is Scriptural. Paul three times says that we are to follow the traditions he handed down. One of those times he specifically includes oral tradition (2 Thess. 2:15; the other two are 1 Cor. 11:2 and 2 Thess. 3:6).

In another place, he tells Timothy to “commit” to faithful men the things that he’d taught Timothy (2 Tim. 2:2).

Clearly, Paul meant for his traditions to be held onto.

The Traditions of God vs. the Traditions of Men

Yes, the Scriptures speak against the traditions of men. Jesus said clearly that they can render the commandments of God ineffective (Matt. 15:6).

However, not all traditions are of men. Why did Paul tell the Corinthians and Thessalonians to hold fast to his traditions? In 1 Cor. 14:37, he told the Corinthians that the things he writes to them are the commandments of Christ. In 1 Thess. 2:13 he says that his entire message to them is the message of God.

The traditions of the apostles are not to be dismissed as things that render the commands of God ineffective. They are to be held to as the commands of God.

This, according to the Scriptures and the early church, is true even if those traditions are handed down to us through other men (Paul to Timothy to faithful men to us).

Finding Apostolic Tradition

I’m not an advocate of finding the origin of every modern tradition in order to determine if it’s apostolic. I have trouble believing it’s all that important whether we’re tracing the sign of the cross on our forehead.

The writer of the blog I mentioned earlier thinks it’s important. He writes:

The early church fathers attest that miraculous healings frequently occurred when the sign was traced over someone who was sick.

I don’t know what “early” church fathers he’s talking about. I’ve read pretty much everything Christian that’s been written before A.D. 225, and I don’t remember one mention of the sign of the cross producing miraculous healings. I’m sure, though, that in the superstitious, idolatrous atmosphere of the 4th century there were many such testimonies, along with testimonies of healing through splinters of the cross and martyrs’ bones.

There are other things, though, that are much more important than the sign of the cross. In the same passage quoted above, Tertullian mentions this early church practice:

I shall begin with baptism: When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then when we are taken up [translator’s note says this means as new-born children], we taste first of all a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week.

Immersed three times? Where did this practice come from?

It’s mentioned in The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a document which is likely much earlier than Tertullian. Perhaps some of the questions we argue about could be resolved if we paid some attention to those who had opportunity to know what the apostles taught on certain matters.

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The Gnostic Attempt at an Alternate Christian History

Posted on 06/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

I don’t know if you run across the modern gnostic attempt at an alternate Christian history much, but it’s in the news a lot. The Da Vinci Code borrows a lot from Hugh Schonfield’s The Passover Plot, and Dan Brown, the author, likes to quote Elaine Pagels, another modern gnostic who likes to make up her own history.

All of them get lots of press (or in the case of The Passover Plot “got” lots of press).

What prompted this post was a link I was sent to a web page espousing the gnostic interpretation of Genesis. It has some interesting ideas and some interesting arguments, but in the end you have to ignore a lot of history for those interpretations to make any sense.

Let’s look at this.

The Gnostic Interpretation of Genesis

The author, Stephen Hoeller, tells us that the “orthodox view” of Genesis is that it is “history with a moral.” To orthodox Christians and Jews “Adam and Eve were considered to be historical figures, the literal ancestors of our species.”

The gnostic interpretation, he says, is not so. Instead, “The Gnostic Christians who authored the Nag Hammadi scriptures did not read Genesis as history with a moral, but as a myth with a meaning. To them, Adam and Eve were not actual historical figures.”

I’m fine with that. Many early “orthodox” Christians didn’t consider Adam and Eve to be actual historical figures, either. Origen, for example, said it was “foolish” to believe that God planted a tree, as though he were a farmer, so that if someone bit into it with bodily teeth they would obtain life (Against Celsus IV:1:16).

The problem does not lie in the gnostics suggesting that Adam and Eve were not literal historical figures, but in the interpretation that is given later. Hoeller tells us that the gnostic treatise, The Testimony of Truth, looks at Genesis in this way:

After extolling the wisdom of the serpent, the treatise casts serious aspersions on the creator.

The gnostic work, The Hypostasis of the Archons, is said to teach:

The serpent was similarly inspired by the same supernatural wisdom … then taught Adam and Eve about their source, informing them that they were … not mere slaves of the creator deity.

He goes on to say that the Creator has an “unfavorable image … contrasted with the favorable one of Adam, Eve, and even of the serpent.”

Uh huh.

Did Stephen Hoeller forget whose story this is?

Putting Interpretation in the Light of Real History

This gnostic interpretation of Genesis suggests that the Creator is the bad guy, who should be forsaken in order to adhere to another, higher god that has made himself known through the various gnostic teachers.

I have to wonder if they noticed that they have made the Creator the bad guy based on stories that they don’t believe really happened. They don’t like how the Creator behaved in the story of Adam and Eve, but they don’t seem remember that according to their own interpretation the Creator didn’t behave any way at all. The story never happened!

Adam and Eve is a Jewish story. Whether you believe it is literal history or not, it is in the Hebrew Scriptures, and it is not found anywhere else. For the gnostics to come along 1500 years after Moses and make it theirs is nonsensical.

We Christians have come along and made that story ours, but we have also surrendered ourselves to the God that gave the Jews that story. We believe that Christianity is the continuation and fulfillment of the Jewish religion, not a correction of it.

More Real History: The Matter of Jesus Christ

Those who are proposing this alternate Christian history argue that the gnostics may well have been the first, original, and true Christians.

The first problem with this is that there’s no evidence for it. Not one gnostic text can be certainly or even likely dated to the first century

The second problem  with this is that everything in gnosticism, including gnostic literature, is reactionary. None of it is original.

The Adam and Eve story belongs to the Jews. The gnostics took the Jewish story and corrupted it. Their whole system begins with the Hebrew Scriptures, which they did not write or have any part in, and goes from there to the myth of a false deity–Yahweh, the God of the Jews–that they say is the produce of a being, Sophia, that they invented and said was produced by the true god, who is unknowable and has never done anything on earth at all.

How are they supposed to know this? Their claim is that they learned this in some way from Jesus Christ, who they claim was sent by the emanations (or aeons) of their unknowable god who has never done anything.

The problem here is that the only known companions of Jesus Christ are the apostles, and they all said that Yahweh, the God of the Jews and the Creator in Genesis, is the true God and the Father of Jesus Christ.

Here again, the gnostics simply steal history. Their works are full of references to the apostles, trying to explain why Jesus would have given them false knowledge, while he passed true knowledge on to someone else.

Of course, in gnostic literature who that person is varies. The only consistent thing about those who supposedly received true knowledge of Jesus is that they left us no writings and we have no good historical way to verify that they really received anything from Jesus at all.

In the Gospel of Thomas, it’s Thomas. That’s convenient. He’s one of the apostles who left us no writings. So you can say anything you want about Thomas, and there’s no written evidence to refute you.

The problem is that the churches that were formed by the known apostles all tell us that Thomas went to India. If you go to India, you will find churches that say that they were founded by Thomas. And, surprise!, those churches teach exactly what Peter, Paul, John, and James taught, that the Creator in Genesis is the true God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not give “capricious” commandments, but spoke the words of life.

In the gnostic Gospel of Mary, it’s Mary Magdalene who knows more than the apostles. In the Gospel of Judas, it’s Judas who was given the secret message that the God of Israel is a false God.

Does it sound a little like someone made something up and then tried to borrow the authority of people who are actually known to history to justify their fantasy?

The Interesting Link to Mormonism

I don’t know if you’ve ever read The Book of Mormon, but it’s interesting. About a third of it is quoted word for word from the King James Version of the Bible, which would have been the most common English Bible in the early 1800’s, when Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was attending a Christian church.

The sections quoted from the King James Bible have some interesting additions. There are definitely places in the New Testament where we are left wondering exactly what Jesus meant by something he said. Not in The Book of Mormon. In The Book of Mormon fascinating and plausible explanations are inserted into the King James text so that these difficult sayings of Jesus are not so difficult anymore.

If those parts of The Book of Mormon were the only parts, and if The Book of Mormon were being sold as a commentary on Scripture, I’d have no objections to it. Some of the added explanations seemed pretty brilliant to me. Joseph Fielding Smith was a smart man.

The problem was, Joseph Smith wasn’t interested in publishing a commentary on the Bible. He was interested in starting a new religion, but he didn’t have the authority to do so.

Where did he get it?

From Jesus! He simply invented a history where Jesus came over to America after his resurrection and appointed twelve apostles from among the Jews in America.

Oh, you didn’t know the Jews were in America in the 1st century A.D.?

No problem, Joseph invented that history, too, though he made a few mistakes that stand out to someone who knows the real, actual, and verifiable history that Christians believe.

Not Theory, but Reality

We Christians have a big leg up on the gnostics. Our history is real. The gnostics had to steal it, and then they had to try to adapt and explain it because our history proves their theories to be false.

This is one of the reasons that it’s good for Christians to know their history. Martin Luther and John Calvin, for example, taught doctrines that were completely unknown to any Christians anywhere for three or more centuries after Christ.

Try to explain that! How exactly did true doctrines, found in the Bible that was read by Christians whose churches were founded by apostles, get missed by every Christian in existence from the time of the apostles until well after the Church had degenerated into a state church?

It didn’t. Those new doctrines are false because they are not founded in history.

Baptism is another example. The purely symbolic baptism believed by most evangelicals in America is even newer than the 16th century, when Martin Luther and John Calvin were preaching. It’s unknown to all Christians from the time of the apostles until the 17th century!

How likely is it that this doctrine is true?

Some of our worst doctrinal arguments would disappear if we grounded our faith in history. The apostles really started churches. They really preached the Gospel to those churches. Those churches wrote letters to one another, letters to people in the world, defenses of the Gospel to Roman emperors, refutations of heretics, and stories about major events in their life.

How smart is it for us to ignore those things?

Not very, but we’re ignoring them almost across the board.

Thank God those early apostolic churches battled through issues like the eternality of the Son of God, the truth of the Incarnation, and the hope of the resurrection, judgment, and eternal life. It’s hard to avoid holding on to those things because the early churches embodied them in a creed so that we wouldn’t lose them like we’ve lost everything else.

Otherwise, our complete lack of historical  foundation might have made us already gnostics in disguise.

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“Alternative” (read “Fake,” “Fraudulent,” or “False”) Christian Histories

Posted on 06/13/2009 by Paul Pavao

Okay, I just put up a blog minutes ago. Rather than go edit it immediately (and probably too quickly) as I normally do, I’m going to rant about false, fraudulent, fake, feigning, and phony historians like Elaine Pagels and Dan Brown.

Fume, fume, fuss, fuss …

Just gets my ire up! Listen to this utter nonsense and blasphemy from some inventor of imaginary history:

Pauline/Roman Christians: When the Roman-backed instance of Christianity went in search of the ancient centers of Christianity, they discovered to their horror that the Ebionites and Gnostics pre-dated them. Their un-Christian answer was to edit verses, burn books, arrest and harass the other poverty-stricken Christians until no opposition was left. The form of Christianity that we have inherited from the Roman Empire is far from what Christianity originally was.

This voice for the devil was actually published. He has the amazingly apt name of Vexen Crabtree, and his book is Types of Christianity: Who Were the Original Christians?

Isn’t it amazing that after 2,000 years, Vexen Crabtree managed to dig up these verses, books, and records that the Pauline Christians burned! Thank God this person came along to reveal the truth to all of us!

…

Excuse me a second, someone’s telling me something.

…

Oh, no verses?

No books? No records?

What, was Vexen Crabtree there? This person’s immortal or something? Maybe this person had a vision or a revelation from God?

…

How do these people get published? They just get to write whatever they want and invent history?

Where did Vexen Crabtree get his/her information from? He invented it!

Some Useful Applications of This Rant of Mine

1. When someone tells you all the evidence has been destroyed:

… then what they’re telling you is a fantasy invented in their own mind.

You only find history through evidence, and when all the evidence has been destroyed, then no one knows the history; especially the idiot who’s trying to con you into believing his latest conspiracy theory.

2. If 1st or 2nd century Christians had successfully obliterated some sect …

… then they’d be bragging about it!

1st and 2nd century Christians had no political power. They had only the strength of their arguments for the truth. Thus, they were happy to speak and write against heretics.

You’d know that they found heretical sects when they got to a city because they’d tell you about overcoming them by the preaching of the Gospel!

3. If 4th century Christians or later obliterated some sect …

… then nothing Vexen Crabtree says would apply. Christians filled the entire Roman empire in the 1st century. They didn’t have any political power, however, until the 4th century. So they couldn’t have burned books and driven out heretics until that time period or later.

If they persecuted heretics in the 4th century–and they did, persecuting pagans and sects alike–that’s bad, but it has nothing to do with Vexen Crabtree’s premise. The Christians were already everywhere in the 4th century. They couldn’t find “Ebionites and Gnostics” there first in the 4th century.

Final Note

Here’s a guy making the historically ignorant claim that “Rome-backed Christians” found out that “Ebionites and Gnostics” beat them to “the ancient centers of Christianity,” and someone actually published that nonsense!

To this day, there is not one gnostic writing that is even probably written in the first century. There is not one comment by any Christian suggesting this conspiracy invented by Mr. Crabtree.

Simply put, this history is invented from thin air and wishful thinking.

I have a page on gnosticism at my Christian history site. I recommend a book there that addresses all the phony history invented by Elaine Pagels, Dan Brown, and others.

I can personally tell you that none of their fantasy histories makes a lick of sense in light of the history we do know. They have to rewrite the history of the early Christian churches, which is certain and clear, in order to fit in the history they invent.

It irritates the stew out of me that they get published, and, worse, that they get publicity.

I hope you’ll take the time to learn the truth; it’s the surest defense against error.

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