Divine humility

I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up “our own” when it is no longer worth keeping.  If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is ‘nothing better’ now to be had.
 - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

signs and wonders and uppity believers

It is worthy of special notice that our Lord had not said, in so many words, that He was the Son of God, on this occasion. But He had said what beyond doubt amounted to it—namely, that He gave His sheep eternal life, and none could pluck them out of His hand; that He had got them from His Father, in whose hands, though given to Him, they still remained, and out of whose hand none could pluck them; and that they were the indefeasible property of both, inasmuch as “He and His Father were one.” Our Lord considers all this as just saying of Himself, “I am the Son of God”—one nature with Him, yet mysteriously of Him.*http://www.angelfire.com/in/HisName/littlgods.html

When you become a born again Christian you grow to become more Christ-like, you DO NOT become like Christ or a Christ or anything Divine for that matter.  However in Charismatic churches you do; you become a little god - ‘Faith’ becomes an actual force that you wield at your command as you speak things into existence.  This is totally and utterly occult.  The New Age religion believes in something similar . . . http://www.discerningtheworld.com/2011/01/17/the-bible-says-i-said-you-are-gods-but-is-this-entirely-true/

If you or I had come to earth as the Messiah, we would probably have been moving about and taking every opportunity possible with people to verbally emphasize who we really were: Elohim. But Jesus didn't do that. He chose rather to imply His identity through the miracles, through the Parables, through His actions.  probe.org

Sense and Sensitivity in Passion Movies: Gospel and Race

Funny article linked from ChristianBookBarn.com discussing the not-so-ethnic Jesus's Hollywood has given us over the years and how they compare.  Even more interesting which depiction of Jesus and his disciples comes out as most ethnically sensitive ...

power of death

But were it not for that blood, were it not for the death of Christ, you can easily conceive what power the devil would have over us in the hour of death, because he would fling all our sins in our teeth just when we came to die. . . . We reply to the temptation to sin, ". . . But O fiend, let me tell thee my sins were numbered on the scape-goat's head of old. Go thou, O Satan, to Calvary's cross, and see my substitute bleeding there, Behold, my sins are not mine; they are laid on his eternal shoulders, and he has cast them from his own shoulders into the depths of the sea. Avaunt, hell-hound! Wouldst thou worry me? Go thou and satisfy thyself with a sight of that Man, who entered the gloomy dungeons of death, and slept awhile there, and then rent the bars away, and led captivity captive as a proof that he was justified of God the Father, and that I also am justified in him." Oh! yes, this is the way that Christ's death destroys the power of the devil.
~ Charles Spurgeon

greater works: part I

It's difficult to know where to start with criticisms of the "signs and wonders" movement as it is sometimes called.  I'm hoping to compare and contrast some criticisms from within and without the "charismatic movement" (as that has been called), along the way as I make some observations about the  

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

http://letusreason.org/Biblexp107.htm

You can do the greater work by learning the gospel and learning how to explain and stand down the arguments against it. The gospel message is the power of God to salvation which, Jesus taught as the most important (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Tim.1:8; 1 Pt.1:5)- once it is understood by those hearing the message it becomes a motivation to exercise ones will to call upon the Lord to save them from their sin. 

Joseph Prince: Paul's Theology versus the New Testament

Every now and then, somebody says something that begs the obvious question, "Why didn't Jesus preach what Paul preached?" or alternatively, "Why don't we have a more direct link between Jesus' recorded words and the theological statements in Paul's letters?" (That last question is certainly more of a mouthful.)  This entry's inspiration is drawn from one of the less vitriolic criticisms of Joseph Prince.

Prince seems to quote the Gospels only occasionally, which gives me the impression he probably believes much of the teaching is not relevant to the church age because the Gospels were written before the Resurrection. This enables Prince (and typical hyperdispensationalists) to avoid dealing with the command for believers to take up their cross (Mark 8:34-36) and other such passages that demand high commitment.

I believe any teacher who is called to preach like Paul the apostle must preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), which means they need to include equally the Gospels and the epistles of John, Jude, Peter and James as well as the book of Hebrews and the Old Testament.

Joseph Mattera concedes that Prince has "enough good stuff" that warrants recommending his book for "certain Christians suffering from a performance trap in which they try to earn God’s favor and love by the things they do instead of through the merit of Christ’s finished work."  But to restate the quandary yet again, are we using the non-Pauline writings of the New Testament to understand Paul's revelation, or to undo it.  If the texts are contradicting Joseph Prince's theology are they prima facie contradicting Paul's theology--that is, without interpretation being forced to protect the axiom that the writings never contradict each other because they are all divinely inspired.  We should be wary of a forced syncretism of the NT writings that refuses to acknowledge what Paul was saying.

little gods: part 2

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? 
  — Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing*

There is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption.
  — Iraeneus, Against Heresies IV*

Back to the "little gods" topic on whether it is sacrilegious/blasphemous/bad to think that human beings are in any sense beings that are similar to The Being, i.e. God.

While I try to make sure that quotes aren't being given different meanings outside their contexts, I am obviously not attempting to address every point brought up in each source.  What is often the case is that many people come to the same orthodox conclusion in contradictory ways, and if you believe something considered heterodox, you'll find that many critics agree with you on several key points.  What would you think if you wrote a mathematical proof and the only thing mathematicians agreed was wrong with it was your conclusion?  If the lemmas of your argument were not universally objectionable, maybe it's not the math that's wrong.

Why was it important for Jesus to show the idea of men being called God wasn’t new… ?  Why was Jesus arguing from that point of view?

So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.* 

For which of his works did they mean to attack him? For the work that challenged their authority. For which of his words, but the words that challenged their authority. Pilate knew that it was for envy that they sought to destroy him.

little gods: "ye are gods" what did Jesus mean?

If "hyper-grace" is the "deception of the 21st century" (isn't it a little early to tell?), what was the deception of the 20th?   Well, there are too many candidates for what the heresy hunters considered top game, but by the end of the 20th century, there was a lot of uproar over "ye are gods."

And there still is.  So blasphemous was this teaching considered, that when I think back to people affiliated with CRI protesting charismatic ministry conventions, it reminds me of the scene in Life of Brian where the old man is getting stoned for saying the pronouncing the Tetragrammaton. Charges of polytheism, idolatry, creating a pantheon, ... While there may be many versions of it, let's generalize here that the "little gods" doctrine is the belief that being made in the image of God implies something particularly innately godlike about humanity in general, and especially for those in whom the Holy Spirit perfects the image of God's Son.

This seems like too large a topic to cover in one post, overlapping as it does in other controversies, but I wanted to start by surveying what the critics say Jesus actually meant when he brought up the controversial verse in Psalm 82.  By critics, I mean the people that consider the "little gods" doctrine to be patently dangerous.  I wnat to point this out lest a reader say that I am quote-mining authors to show that they support the 'little gods' doctrine;they each obviously have more to say, but we have to start with what Jesus said and what he meant by what he said, before addressing people's interpretations.

this so frail a salvation

Unfortunately, the grace of God is completely secure except when it isn't.  Even though the Father has qualified us for an inheritance in the saints, no one who turns his back to the till is fit for, worthy of, the Kingdom.  No one who is unwilling to leave his family for the Kingdom of God is fit for it.  No one who does not take up his cross daily is fit for it.

Too bad there wasn't a word in Greek for pre-qualified.  The Father has pre-qualified you for grace, but unless you are better than the rich young ruler who was unable to leave everything behind, you are unfit though qualified. Grace is really more like those letters that tell you that there's a million dollars waiting for you; all you need to do is open the letter. Or so it would seem.

This is not meant to poke fun at the mystery at the center of such phrases as "eternal security" and "predestination", but rather expose a misunderstanding about grace and works.  Sometimes a grace-based understanding can be shallow, but the works-based mentality is necessarily shallow, because it tells us to lean confidently on a salvation that is as shaky as our fleshly ability to follow God.   

Being like Christ is occultic?

A short overview of themes that I plan to revisit in more detail:

When you become a born again Christian you grow to become more Christ-like, you DO NOT become like Christ or a Christ or anything Divine for that matter. However in Charismatic churches you do; you become a little god - ‘Faith’ becomes an actual force that you wield at your command as you speak things into existence. This is totally and utterly occult.

 The article that declares this is going out of its way to purge God's church from anything vaguely New Age.  The question remains whether they are also purging it of the New Covenant as well. 

To be fair, most sites that are trying to ensure that we steal none of Jesus' special glory don't state their position so poorly, but I think these words are worth looking at because they seem to express very directly the problem that many anti-heresy groups have with the Word of Faith influence on charismatic doctrine.

"New Age" faith?

Sure, you become Christ-like, but DO NOT THINK for a moment that you are anything like Christ...?  Huh?  I think this typifies the attitude of this particular anti-heresy "movement."  If God can't make me like Jesus, how can I be expected to become the least bit Christ-like?  The New Testament is filled with admonitions to be like Christ, to be like God -- how is that Christ-likeness any less miraculous or any less reliant on the power and grace of God.  In this kind of thinking, if you believe it's possible to do what Jesus said was within the power of any believer, you are stealing glory from God, and yet you are not anything like Christ when you are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit in the power of God?

Paul says that just like a physical body/organism is not just a single part/member, so is the Anointed/Christ.  That sounds suspiciously like saying that the Christ is not just Jesus Himself.  Throughout Paul's letters are references to the mystery that we being "one spirit with" Jesus and being in some sense "in him," we are part of the corporate Anointed, and collectively we are in some sense Christ.  Which is Paul's revelation beginning on the way to Damascus:

"Who are you, Lord?"
"I am Jesus, Who you are persecuting."

But Jesus wasn't around for Paul to persecute.  There was only the church...

It is a more lengthy discussion to explore why and how, as children of God, we are partakers of the Divine nature.  But let's look briefly at the second part of this anti-heresy statement:  

‘Faith’ becomes an actual force that you wield at your command as you speak things into existence. This is totally and utterly occult.

I think there is too much teaching about faith that leaves out the role of the Holy Spirit.  However, taking these statements (and the many similar statements out there) at face value, these same people would have to correct Jesus for giving unsound teaching at times.  The disciples marvel at the fig tree withering at Jesus command, and Jesus does something we should all find very odd.  He doesn't talk about how he can do these things because he is God, or even because he is the Messiah or the Son of God.  Jesus claims that when the meagerest faith is unencumbered with doubt, a believer could command the Mount of Olives to throw itself into the sea and it would obey.  If we look to the words of Jesus, He seems to be saying things that are "utterly occult."  There are teachings in the New Testament (and the Old Testament) that provide a relational context for faith--and those teachings appear as well in charismatic circles.

Many critics of the charismatic movement ridicule the distinction of revelation knowledge from mere mental knowledge, treating all scripture as immediately comprehensible, able to be taken at face value, and yet they are unable to take this scripture at face value.  Jesus doesn't talk about this sort of faith as a sign of an apostle.  This is something Jesus speaks of as being within the realm of possibility for any believer, and he doesn't qualify it in that passage at all.  He speaks of people's faith making them whole (what! more heresy!), rather than telling them that either he or the Father has made them whole, which seems like an odd choice of words, given how jealous God is of sharing His glory...  Where were these people 2000 years ago, when Jesus needed correction? 

Is there a way of understanding Jesus' words about faith that makes faith a less relational thing and a more operational thing like magic and spell-casting?  Sure.  And this is something that people in the Word of Faith movement has often failed to grasp.  But the larger truth of not being able to do anything of real eternal value, anything spiritual, apart from the power and grace of God is something that every denomination and movement has failed to completely embrace, and this is a much more insidious failure.   There have been numerous generations of Christians who are being "good" and "holy" in their own power, and they cover over this sin by seeing "real" heretical dangers everywhere but the foundation.  They strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.   

Michael Brown and the Deadly Deception

The title of "A Dangerous and Deadly Deception" has a catchy alliteration.  I almost expected "dastardly," but thankfully, Dr. Brown does try not to impugn motives.  Dr. Brown has in fact some refreshing takes on topics, and tends to be one of the less reactionary voices on controversial subjects.

Someone that studies the Tanakh or Old Testament as studiously as Dr. Brown has, appreciating the Judaic foundation of Christian beliefs, is bound to fear Marcionism rearing its ugly head.  In Marcion's defense, I don't think we have a very good answer to how the Israelites took Canaan away from the people.  If God is love and has always been love, it is difficult to imagine how God would order the slaughter of men, women, and children.  (If you were to go back in time, would you ask Paul to explain "god of this world" a little better, rather than leaving it up to interpretation?) While the use of this as an atheist or secularist foil assumes quite a bit, somehow, I think we'd feel much better about it now if a host of angels just instantly struck the Canaanite population dead.

Now I agree mostly with Dr. Brown's criticism of Marcion, after all, it's very clear that the Apostle Paul in his doctrine was articulating a continuity between the Tanakh and his experience of Christ, but then trying to use that to explain how God is harsh and exacting (i.e. holy) since He is unchanging has its own "dangerous and deadly" pitfalls.

I first encountered this in some fringe hyper-grace circles, where the reasoning goes like this: “I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body. My spirit is born-again, redeemed and perfect in God’s sight. Therefore my spirit—which is the real me—is incapable of sinning, which means that if there is sin in my life, it’s not really me committing the sin.”

Wouldn't it be great to be so secure in Christ, like the apostles (besides Judas), that the Father had placed in Jesus hand and could not be taken from him?  Maybe some of us are like Judas, devils from the beginning?  Of course, those who want to dissuade us from "easy grace," from believing that He has already sanctified us and made us righteous before Him, even from believing that we are secure in our salvation and don't need to ceaseless worry that we have sinned our way out of His grace, need look no further than Jesus' own words.  Of course, very few of them know what to tell those who have remarried, even though Jesus seems to have sided with Shammai that this is living in adultery.

On the one hand, if we take the spirit-soul-body trichotomy so rigidly, what do we make of "all filthiness of the flesh and spirit"?  How are we affected by spiritual wickedness?  Why do we even still need advocacy with the Father?  On the other hand, is it really true that a believer who consistently suffered from some indulgence of pride his whole life is not born of God?  If "he that is born of God cannot make a practice of sin," as Brown interprets it, then he either never experienced a rebirth or was "unbirthed."

This reminds me of extremes in the Word of Faith camp where people were taught never to say they were sick, since they were already healed at the cross. Instead, they were told to say they were suffering from lying symptoms. (How much better it is to say, “I’m fighting some sickness but I confess that God is my Healer and that Jesus paid for my healing, so believe God with me for complete restoration now.”)

I agree with Brown here mostly.  The practice of never acknowledging sickness is turns oppressive and superstitious, even cultic.  A common criticism of the Word of Faith teaching is that it puts the believer in a terrible bind:  If I don't get healed, what am I doing wrong?   And certainly, we are at least as dependent on the Spirit for the manifestation of our paid-for sanctification as our paid-for healing.  And yet there are believers who never got healed and we can either tell them that they never really had faith or they get told it isn't always God's will to heal.  But is there no point to "calling those things that be not as though they were"?  Is there no sense in which a "kingdom reality" is laid hold of through confession of faith?  Is there no sense in which my own sinfulness truly is a "lying symptom" that goes against who I am in the Anointed and where I am seated in the Anointed?

Yes, I agree with Brown that it's not a good thing when faith is confused with denial.  The Holy Spirit illuminates problems in order to set us free from them and manifest our sanctification.  But some of the alarmist captions to these articles remind me of preachers that wanted you to always be worried that you might have committed the Unpardonable Sin.  Pride is deadly.  Division is deadly.  Gluttony is deadly.  But believing too much in the grace of God somehow became Deception #1 on Heaven's Most Wanted list for the 21st century.  Believing that there is some untouchable core, some incorruptible seed in me, INCORRUPTIBLE, a holy remnant of my spirit that God has reserved to Himself that will not bow to Baal, is not the problem.  I can believe that and still welcome the counsel of the Holy Spirit that reveals dangers that afflict my soul.

Some extreme hyper-grace adherents will take a biblical verse and stand it on its head. For example, John writes, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9, ESV). But rather than understanding the plain meaning of the verse, namely that a truly born-again believer will not make a practice of sin, they conclude, “Even if it appears that I’m doing wrong things, I’m really not sinning, since God’s Word says that I can’t.” (I have read this with my own eyes.)

 Is that really on its head?   Like I said, I think there is often sins that believers never realize a victory over.  According to Brown, presumably, these are not "new creatures in Christ." They have been uncreatured or never were new creatures.  In at least one Brown and another commentator argued that many scholars agree with this translation of a Greek phrase that would as easily be "produce sin."  They seemed to think this was the clear meaning as opposed to the understanding of the man who replied that other scholars think differently.  Which scholars will you believe?  Brown believes that his interpretation avoids the blatant contradiction with the 1st chapter of 1 John, that states that if we say we have no sin we are being untruthful.    
In work.  More to be written...

nature of error-correcting in the church

I find myself surprisingly disheartened by all the Christians correcting each other's "error."  It's not they are disagreeing with each other, but it's that the battle over the "soul of Christianity" rests on getting all the particular meanings right in words written two thousand years ago, or more, in another language.  And, they tell you, we live in constant danger of getting it wrong. There is no shortage of opinions on how to get it wrong.   Why, where you spend eternity will depend on you getting it right, so you better pay attention!

Wouldn't it all have been simpler if about two thousand years ago, Peter would have got up and prophesied that the New Testament canon would be complete and what it would consist of?  We're never even told precisely what the Old Testament canon should consist of; Catholics, Jews, and Protestants disagree.  Before a state church imposed its will, different groups had different NT canons.  Wouldn't have been simpler if Wouldn't it have been simpler if Jesus, verified by 4 different gospel writers each in their own words--not repeating another gospel writer's words-- if Jesus had said, "I need to go to the Father so that you may have a complete Bible, and so the Holy Spirit will come up select men in this select generation so that they may have , and the Holy Spirit will help you tease meanings from those written words, and only the elect shall find the words of life within."  It would have been easier, because then the church would've known what to expect.

I can tell you one thing.  The writings in the New Testament canon could have been a lot more clear, with the passages that leave room for argument unnecessarily.   After hearing one person go on, whether patiently or condescendingly, about what the text must mean, based on making the meaning coherent with other scripture and consistent with theology, it leaves me wondering, "Well, why leave so much room for interpretation in the writing?  All of that could have been written down."  Instead, we have so many people loudly and proudly declaring what the verses (verses? like in poetry?) of people's letters "plainly mean."  "Why, the truth's just there for anyone to see it, and if you were as humble and Spirit-led as me you would see it for yourself!" Or perhaps less arrogantly: "I humbly beseech you by the love of Christ to read the scripture the right way since I don't want you to be lose your salvation, dear brother."  Thank you, dear brother, but you'll have to get in line behind all the other concerned brothers who want me to give their obviously right interpretations a fair shake lest I be set on fire of hell and lead others to perdition or grave error or danger.

Most of these people would be surprised to know that I sympathize with them over the "culture war," as secular and materialist forces out there seek to replace the role of religion in community mores with various man-made platitudes and mores, so-called relativists imposing their moral absolutes on the religionists they despise.  People naturally take refuge in their own absolutes, and if they can't just open up The Bible and divine the words of life, what then?  Well, then anything goes, I guess.

I honestly understand what a relief it is for people outside Christianity to chuck the whole thing as a tangled mess.  What a relief to not wonder whether you have to be baptized or whether you have to accept the Apostles' Creed or whether you have to give all you have to the poor or whether you have to work out your salvation constantly for fear that Jesus will say "he never knew you" when you get to pearly gates or whether you must never "deny" Jesus or whether you have just the right ideas or whether Jesus will disown you because you didn't visit someone in prison... Many within Christianity would tend to take this offputting as a sign that we all need to get orthodox and believe the same thing.  Isn't it obvious that our unity as the Church is suffering, and how will the world know we are God's church without our unity?   I think that all this concern over believing everything in just the right way is really us just making things rest on our human understanding and exalting our human understanding.

"Oh, but if they reject the voice of the Spirit, they are rejecting the Gospel."  Maybe they're rejecting your version of the Gospel, and maybe that's not what the Spirit is reaching out to them.  Maybe you're pushing them further away from the Kingdom of God because you not only won't enter into His rest, but you won't let anyone enter by walking in an understanding that isn't yours?  But that can't be it, can it?

It seems ironic that many of the error-correcters in the church tar-brush various attempts to spiritually discern (i.e. going beyond the natural mind to listen to the Spirit) truth in the New Testament as Gnosticism.  This is a slippery term, and I think they mostly gravitate to this term because they think that believers are talking about some state of "enlightenment" in the sense of some privileged arcane knowledge.  As though to enter the mind of Christ one doesn't need personal revelation from the Holy Spirit but can rely on human common sense about what is "plainly written."  Yeah, it's all so obvious, isn't it?  Putting the mystery into the capable "hands" of the fleshly mind sounds to me more like the Gnostic spirit than the opposite.

I find myself more disheartened by the more reasonable souls this way than by the nastier, ridiculous people crusading for truth.  It's the more subtle, somewhat more meek versions of this that have me feeling discouraged.

invasion of error

claim that we cannot know the Scripture but can know what the Holy Spirit is saying by other means
the claim that the Holy Spirit leads us into truth (which He does through Scripture) by some subjective means that go "off the map" and beyond an "intellectual approach"
 claims that Christ laid aside His divinity

extravagant claims in which they are the heroes and the rest of us the unenlightened dolts

claims that personal revelations and an "encounter with God" will keep us from pride and seeking glory (Johnson: 94)

Supposedly these elitists will set off a great revival of signs and wonders greater than those of Jesus. 

Accordingly, with the right information, zeal, desire, piety, faith and anointing, any Christian can "make the supernatural natural" (Johnson: 133).

have some secret, mystical meaning that can only be assessed by certain elite persons with subjective spiritual impressions

Johnson claims, "For decades the Church has been guilty of creating doctrine to justify their lack of power. . ." (Johnson: 116). It is hard to imagine what "problem" he is reacting to . . .

He resorts to an often misused passage that promotes his anti-scholastic bias: "A powerless Word is the letter not the Spirit. And we all know, ‘The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life'" (Johnson: 116). This twisting of Paul's meaning in 2Corinthians 3:6 has a long history of use to promote subjectivism and mysticism. The false implication is that studying the Bible will kill you spiritually. The context shows that Paul was speaking of the letters written on stone (verse 3), meaning the Decalogue. Paul explains how the law "kills" in Romans 7:5, 6. It kills because of our sinful passions that it exposes, not because it is studied for what it means.³

The rest of us who love and believe God's Word (from Scripture, understood according to the Holy Spirit inspired authors' intent) are supposedly powerless. Johnson's teaching is false and is abusive to the Lord's flock. Ordinary Christians who cannot replicate the miracles of Jesus and His apostles are relegated to a lesser category: powerless Christians to be pitied by elitists like Johnson.

Those who feel safe because of their intellectual grasp of Scriptures enjoy a false sense of security. None of us has a full grasp of Scripture, but we all have the Holy Spirit. He is our common denominator who will always lead us into truth. But to follow Him, we must be willing to follow off the map—to go beyond what we know. (Johnson: 76)

I will claim that his supposed end-time revival is actually end-time apostasy.

discerning the body

http://lambonthealtar.blogspot.com/2012/06/not-discerning-lords-body.html

https://hischarisisenough.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/myth-69-you-would-be-damned-if-you-take-the-communion-unworthily/

Making the devil die of ennui

How does one defeat the Accuser of the Brethren?

Came across this Helen Keller quote:

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui. 

Some might think that the efficacy of the perfect law of liberty against the devil is unscriptural, as stated in such unscriptural terms, but I think it is worthwhile to consider these following statements by "those who seemed to be pillars":

But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

Paul seems to be saying here that the Accuser's plans are foiled by forgiveness.  He seems to imply the same thing in his letter to the Ephesians, when he says, “Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.”   Letting anger ferment into bitterness gives place to the devil. It is in fact one of the chief "wiles of the devil."

The apostle Kepha (Peter) says here:

Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

It would seem that being caught up in the cares of self-promotion make you vulnerable to the devourer.  James makes a similar point in his epistle, quoting the same scripture as Peter from the Tanakh, that resisting covetousness and competitiveness (through submission to God) is resistance to the devices of the Accuser.  Taken in context, I think that the First Epistle of John also may suggest that loving one's neighbor and opening one's "bowels of compassion" to him is resistance to the antichrist spirit.  

It could be that there is nothing like "fulfilling the law of Christ" that would stop the Accuser and make him to die of ennui.

The Scandal of Grace/Spirit

Having noticed the interchangeability of 'grace' and 'Spirit' in Paul the Apostle's writings, I am not surprised to note that some of the ministers championing their cause against "free grace" are also leading a crusade against the charismata of the Holy Spirit.

If you watch any production (Christian or otherwise) about the life of Paul or the early church (basically, the events in the Book of Acts), you may or may not notice-- depending on your familiarity with the Book of Acts-- that speaking in tongues is carefully avoided, even though this is the very evidence of the Spirit that led the Jewish Christians to accept that the "blessing of Abraham" had come on the Gentiles.

If you want to know what is "scandalous" in a society look at what they edit out.  The Holy Spirit is edited out of the Book of Acts, ludicrously, because the manifestation of such raises uncormfortable questions.  So first century Christianity is forced to look like "modern" Christianity, in a unbecoming but all too common form of revisionism.  Until the last two decades, the church in America has largely acted as though scandalized by the charismata of the Holy Spirit, and in the name of "that old time religion" depended on sketchy arguments about Paul predicting the demise of the first century charismata in 1 Corinthians 13 (the "love chapter"), a doctrine of "cessationism" which tries to explain why charismata were once essential for the "upbuilding" of Jesus' church but not now (we are presumably operating in the love and power of the Spirit ever much more than the church of that time).

John MacArthur, a pastor who has tried to purge Christianity of "free ride" salvation, has renewed his attacks on illicit and unapproved manifestations of the Spirit with his "Strange Fire" conference last year.  Dr. Michael Brown responded to it in a very generous and articulate plea to respect the Holy Spirit and to not mischaracterize the typical charismatic believer.  

Does anyone find it curious that Jesus' discussion of the "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit" comes in the context of Pharisees accusing Him of casting out devils by Beelzebub?  MacArthur refers the manifestation of the Spirit in charismatic churches, which extols the name of Jesus as Brown points out, as the blasphemy of the Spirit in the name of the Spirit, the setting up of an "idol spirit" in the church.  MacArthur seems to believe, with the Pharisees, that Satan casts out Satan and that Satan's kingdom is divided.  The "blasphemy" Jesus speaks of seems to be the attribution of the acts of the Spirit to the devil.  MacArthur must be overwhelmingly confident that he is not making the same mistake, and he instead redefines blasphemy to be wrongfully attributing the works of an "idol spirit" who heals the sick and exalts the name of Jesus to that of the Holy Spirit.  The humility of Gamaliel would be appropos in this situation, as Brown has argued elsewhere.

Christians who devote their energy to purging doctrinal error from Christianity seem to have little energy for anything else.  I appreciate Brown's generosity with MacArthur, but I wonder whether Paul the Apostle would be so generous.  His letter to the Galatians makes me wonder.  Would MacArthur fit Paul's profile of one who resents to liberty we have in Christ?  I imagine that MacArthur would respond that he doesn't fit the profile because he believes that circumcision is not among the works necessary for salvation.  

In an article in which Derek Prince (not to be confused with Joseph Prince) joins MacArthur in attacking the Christology of some charismatics, he writes:

I want to tell you that your salvation depends on your being holy. And holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit.  

Everything that is by grace is by the Spirit, and everything that is by the Spirit is by grace.  Given the thrust of Derek Prince's 'Beyond Grace' (he might as well say, "beyond the Holy Spirit"), my salvation, my being made whole by the Father of lights, is dependent on the holiness in me (which must be in me as a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit) surfacing in sufficient holy behavior, according to Prince, and this sounds dangerously like "another gospel."  In a parallel irony, Dan McConnell's popular attack on the charismatic church was titled A Different Gospel, as though a major perversion of faith was underway in the charismatic movement.  

MacArthur characterizes the charismatic movement as an extension of the psychedelic obsession of the 1960s:

"[B]arefoot, drug-induced young people told the church how the church should act. . .  Hymns and suits went out. For the first time in the history of the church, the conduct of the church was conformed to a sub-culture that was born of LSD and marijuana."

In his apparent ignorance of the restoration of the charismata in Azusa Street Revival, and the roots even earlier in healing movements of the 1800s, Macarthur wants to redefine the charismatic movement as a some culturally liberal extension of '60s social upheaval.  Did Macarthur watch Reefer Madness to prepare for his Strange Fire conference?  You don't need suits and the old-time hymns to worship God.  They that worship Him will worship Him in spirit and in truth, whether in suits or in bare feet.

Even Dr. Brown himself who is also a critic of what he sees as "hyper-grace" feel-good Christianity is sensitive on the issue of self-ful Christianity instead of selfless Christianity, as elaborated here:

Yes, this is the “gospel” of the 21st century, “Spirit-filled” church of America, where the cross is bypassed, denial of the flesh is scorned, purity is called legalism, and anything goes if it feels good.

But this I wonder:  The "false brothers" and "false apostles" that Paul spoke so vehemently against, did they not believe they were steering the believers back to purity?  Did Satan let them know of his nefarious plans, or were they unwitting (through hard-heartedness) dupes?

Brown is right to question spirituality that has no time for an outward display of righteousness, but we need to also be grounded in that any so-called holiness that does not stem from a living experience of grace is righteousness by the law, and is not a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees.  It is a righteousness that Paul specifically had to give up in order to be "found in Him."  Like Paul, I don't want any other righteousness, and I'm not interested in a salvation that depends on my goodness instead of His.  If that is a path that requires self-sacrifice to be fully realized, then that too must be by grace, by His goodness.  If it depends on my being holy, apart from the holiness of his sheer presence in me as his tabernacle, then I have whereof to boast.  Grace is in vain in that case.  "Not of works, lest anyone should boast."

If there is a "form of godliness that denies the power thereof", then there is a form of godliness that denies the grace-empoweredness thereof.  The charismatic movement was partly an answer to a powerless approach to godliness, and the church is still in need of an answer to a grace-starved approach to godliness.  I don't think that "hyper-grace" is making people indifferent to sin; I think that people are mistaking a denial of the existence of sin for hyper-grace.  Grace is lavished upon us in the Anointed Jesus.  There is a pleroma of grace, an abundance of grace.  It is there to free us from "so many weights and sins that beset" us, not for us to root like pigs in our moral turpitude.  But the answer to a lack of repentance is not to "tone down the grace."  

As for a believer seeking to live "beyond grace," I would ask, "Having begun in grace, are you now made perfect through 'your being holy'?"  O foolish Galatian, who has bewitched you?

χάρις and χαρισματα [charis and charismata]

What god is there like You, our God, forgiving rebellion and overlooking treachery among the remnant of His heirs?  He doesn't hold onto His anger indefinitely, because He delights in khesed.
  — Micah 7:18

Much of the meaning of the New Testament is understood through the lens of Paul the Apostle, and grace is the most central idea in his understanding of the "good news" of the new covenant.  The word "grace" is in fact a cognate word of the koine Greek word "χάρις" [kharis, charis] that is used in much of the New Testament:

“For by χάρις are you saved through faith.” “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under law, but under χαρις.” “For the law was bestowed through Moses, but χαρις and truth were realized through Jesus the Anointed.”

Which leads us to a closely related word that recurs in Paul's letters:

χάρισμα

The famous "love" monologue ("Love suffers long ...") read at weddings is an integral part (not a digression) of a longer passage in Paul's letter to the Corinthians about "spiritual gifts," a phrase that variously refers to supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit or to vocations inspired by the spirit (e.g. as an apostle or prophet).  It can't be a coincidence that this man that characterized the "good news" of the kingdom of God in terms of χαρις characterized each manifestation of the Paraclete as a χάρισμα [charisma].  The χαρίσματα [charismata, plural] are to be desired earnestly and sought after.

Charisma basically means 'a gift'.  Outside the NT it is not at all a common word. In classical Greek it is rare.  It is not common in the papyri, but there is one suggestive occurrence where a man classifies his property as that which he acquired apo agorasias, 'by purchase', and that which he acquired apo charismatos, 'by gift'.  In the NT charisma is a characteristically Pauline word.
  — William Barclay, New Testament Words  

If χαρίσμα was uncommon in ancient Greek, the rare usage of χάρις among Hellenized Jewry in Paul's day is also worth noting.

Since 'grace' is so distinctively Pauline . . . it is important to grasp that Paul drew this term also . . . from his scriptural Old Testament or Tanakh (OT) heritage.  This point needs to be reaffirmed, since it has been maintained that 'the word charis [χαρις] is almost unknown in the Jewish literature'.  On the contrary, however, Paul would no doubt have been well aware of the two Hebrew words, chen ('grace, favour') and chesed ('gracious favour, lovingkindness, covenant love').  Both denoted the generous act of a superior to an inferior.  But the former [chen] was more one-sided, . . . The latter [chesed] was a more relational term.
 — James Dunn in Ancient Perspectives on Paul

That is, where Paul is writing in Greek he is still thinking in terms of the Tanakh.  "Surely goodness and khesed will follow me all the days of my life." (Psalm 23)

Much nearer Paul’s use of charis [χαρις] is ratson (רָצוֹן), “acceptance,” in such passages as Isaiah 60:10, “In my favor have I had mercy on thee”; Psalms 44:3, “not … by their own sword … but … because thou wast favorable unto them.” Perhaps still closer parallels can be detected in the use of chesed (חֶסֶד), “kindness,” “mercy,” as in Exodus 20:6, etc. But, of course, a limitation of the sources for the doctrine to passages containing only certain words would be altogether unjust.      

  — Burton Scott Easton, section 6 of "The Meaning of 'Grace' in the Bible"

For Paul the Apostle everything that is by the Spirit is by grace, and everything that is by grace is by the Spirit.  It is no wonder that he called the manifestations of the Spirit of God "gracings".

“In Paul ... χαρις is never merely an attitude or disposition of God (God’s character as gracious); consistently it denotes something much more dynamic—the wholly generous act of God. Like ‘Spirit,’ with which it overlaps in meaning (cf., e.g., [Rom] 6:14 and Gal 5:18), [χαρις] denotes effective divine power in the experience of men.”
  — James D.G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), p. 17 [emphasis mine]

To think about another word that is used by Paul to describe the connection between Jesus the Anointed and his anointed church:

“See, from his [Jesus'] pleroma we have all received χαρις on top of χαρις.”

Charisma - New Testament Words

test 2

When he was 30 years old, Ezekiel began to experience astonishing visions from Almighty God. Perhaps in a personal diary, he recorded the exact date on which the first vision occurred: "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God" (Ezekiel:1:1Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God., emphasis added throughout).

test

reference link another

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, Who is the greatest of them all?

Later he arrived in Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?” But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.  And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and set him in front of all of them. And when he had taken him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives such a child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.  Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  I tell you truly, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not be able to enter it.”   

[harmonized account] 

Where Sin Abounds: Absalom and Solomon

David comforted his wife Bat-Sheva, came to her and went to bed with her; she gave birth to a son and named him Shlomo.  Adonai loved him and sent through Natan the prophet to have him named Y’didyah [loved by God], for Adonai’s sake.- 2 Samuel 12:25 

The prophet Nathan called David's supreme violation of khesed against his loyal general Uriah a blasphemy against the Lord.  Even though David made it seem like Uriah was just another casualty of the Ammonite war, needlessly exposing his general to danger was seen as killing Uriah "with the sword of the Ammonites." Just as Saul's violation of Adonai’s khesed with the Gibeonites brought calamity on his household, David's violation of khesed brought immediate and future trouble upon himself.  David's secrecy and subterfuge in it would ultimately result in public shame, as David's "neighbor" as Nathan mysteriously identifies will publicly humiliate David.  It will turn out that one of his sons (not Shlomo/Solomon but Absalom) will take David's lack of khesed to heart and commit treachery against David; after all, a king can do whatever he wants.

Pooh Bear scholarship

A funny quote about the tendency for scholars to find a position more credible from the growing abundance of citations by other scholars:

... it’s like Winnie the Pooh following his own tracks in the snow around a clump of trees and each time he sees more tracks he takes this as evidence that his quarry is even more numerous and more real than he thought before!

From http://www.reasonablefaith.org/rediscovering-the-historical-jesus-presuppositions-and-pretensions

Paraklesis and and Paraclete (פרקליט) in Prophecy

Sometimes the New Testament writers are accused of getting various facts wrong due to being removed in time or culture from the Aramaic-speaking Galilean eyewitnesses (if indeed the higher criticism allows belief in such eyewitnesses).  Because of much of the history falling to Gentiles or Hellenized Jews outside of Palestine, some mistakes don't seem unlikely.

However, the apparent error about the epithet of Barnabas might not be a simple error of fact, but something instead that illuminates something about the early group of Jesus followers.

One of many 1st century Jews with the name Joseph, bar-Navya seems to be the nickname of Paul's colleague (or at least that is the best guess as to the Aramaic origin of "Barnabas"), which would mean "son of the prophet."  More likely it was bar-Navua, or some Aramaic equivalent for נְבוּאָה] נְבוּאָה] or "prophecy." However, the Greek-speaking author of Acts of the Apostles translates his name as 'son of παράκλησις' which is often rendered 'son of encouragement' in English.

For the Aramaic speakers of Antioch, בוּאָה [navua] likely became a synonym for παράκλησις [paraklēsis], and vice versa.   Paul tried to communicate to the Corinthian believers the sensibilities of the Antioch school of prophecy from which he and Joseph bar-Navua hailed, for which prophecy was all about "exhortation and comfort."  One of the two other men at Antioch rising up in prophetic gifts with Paul and Barnabbas, one is named Menachem which also means 'Comforter.'

The word παράκλησις is often translated encouragement or consolation as in the Acts 4:36 explanation for υἱός παρακλήσεως [huios paraklēseōs] generally as "son of consolation" or "son of encouragement."  Ity is also translated "exhortation."  It has the sense of "refreshment" as what gives one the strength to go on, of "consolation" and "comfort."  

The Ruach ha-Qodesh or Holy Spirit is famously called the παράκλητος [paráklētos] in the gospel of the Beloved Disciple.  There is a similar array of translations for παράκλητος as for παράκλησις, the most famous being "Comforter," followed by "Advocate," "Counselor," "Helper," and "Encourager."  "Helper" is the only one that covers all the senses of parakletos but is kind of a weak translation; some get around this by translating the word more or less directly by calling the Spirit the "Paraclete" in some translations.  

The use of παράκλητος was much more common in Jewish writings of the time than the Hellenistic world, and it survives in modern Hebrew as פְּרַקְלִיט, a word for an attorney.  "Praklit" (פרקליט) found its way into rabbinical usage as someone (or something) that speaks good things on one's behalf, as an advocate or an intercessor.  The writer of the epistle of 1 John has this in mind when he says that "if anyone does sin, we have a παράκλητος with the Father."  When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews states that the blood of Jesus speaks more positive things than the blood of Abel, the blood of Jesus is acting as paraklētos on our behalf.  If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our hearts in the knowledge of love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Paraclete: because the inward paraklēsis of the Spirit releases us from the yoke and torment of fear so that we can be bold and without fear in "the day of reckoning."  The word παράκλησις [paraklēsis] has itself a sense of "conciliatory" speech, as would be expected with its connection to advocacy.

In Acts 15, the episode of the church leadership convening to decide whether or not the Gentiles should be compelled to be circumcised and follow the laws of Moses, tells how Simon the Rock (Peter) recount the Gentiles being baptized in the Spirit, and how he says "Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the disciples that neither we nor our forefathers have been able to bear?"  After James the Just decides that it doesn't make sense to make the Gentiles follow the laws of Moses, the Gentile Christians respond as though an unbearable yoke has been lifted from them.  They rejoice because the paraklēsis in the letter from Jerusalem encourages them.  Then after receiving the initial paraklēsis in the letter, "Judas and Silas being themselves prophets, did with many words encourage [paraklēsis] and strengthen the brothers."

Being called as prophets, Judas and Silas spoke many words of paraklēsis.  Being prophets they did παρακαλέω [parakaleō] the brothers. As prophets, they spoke words which released the burden, refreshed their souls, and ministered grace.  In Acts chapter 20, the author speaks in the first person plural about the events leading up the resurrection of the young man Eutychus.  When he is brought back from the dead, the boy's parents were greatly comforted [parakaleō]. Comfort. Relief.

Another word in the Antioch vocabulary for prophecy, one that illuminates the role of παράκλησις for Jesus' ekklesia (church), is the word that is almost always translated "edification," from "edifice" a word for a large building.  Paul tells the Corinthians that the charisma of prophecy is for building, for paraklēsis, for consolation.  There is some obvious parallelism with refreshment and consolation, but what of 'building'?

Building/edification almost always has the sense of the Petrine revelation of the Jesus' church as a building ("upon this stone I will build my church"), to which Peter likens us to "living stones," built on Jesus as the chief cornerstone.  The Pauline revelation is more organic: we are parts of the Body of the Anointed, under the direction of Jesus as the head.  Paul combines both metaphors in his letter to the Ephesians: "... speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even the Anointed, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up [edification] of itself in love."

In Ephesians 4, for the building up of the Body, Paul discusses avoiding things that "grieve the Holy Spirit": bitterness, unforgiveness, strife, malice . . . in general, "un-grace."  As Jesus and his brother James do, Paul pays special attention to the un-grace that comes out of our mouths.   He says that our speech needs to be motivated with grace, always seasoned with grace.  Where James warns against our tongues being set on fire from hell, Paul exhorts that our mouths be sources of grace.

As a prophetic priesthood, the Body of the Anointed are meant to παρακαλέω with grace.  Always with grace: encouraging, entreating, motivating, interceding, prophesying.   The following gem from the Johannine community – "The spirit of prophecy is that which bears witness of Jesus" – makes more sense in terms of the essence and motive of prophecy is what reveals the character of Jesus.  As "ministers of reconciliation" those born of the Spirit are ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven as though God is παρακαλέω-ing the world through us.

One final thought here on the building up of the ekklesia Acts 9:31:  If the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," maybe the παράκλησις of the Spirit of Consecration is the perfection of wisdom.  The Ruach ha-Qodesh reveals to us how Jesus has become our righteousness before the Father.  He speaks of good things of us, advocating for us and encouraging us, bearing the testimony of the blood of Jesus in our hearts.

A funny thing happened in Jerusalem

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”  They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
  - Luke 24:17-18

What’s remarkable here is the degree of agreement on the events of Jesus’ Passion. Even the sceptical critics affirm the central events of Jesus’ Passion: his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey as a herald of the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, Jesus’ disruptive action in the Temple driving out the money-changers and their animals, the involvement of the Jewish authorities in Jesus’ arrest and trial (or hearing) before them, Jesus’ being delivered to Pilate on the charge of sedition, and Pilate’s condemning Jesus to crucifixion as a pretended King of Jews. It is stunning testimony to the historical credibility of the Gospels that even sceptical critics find themselves compelled by the evidence to admit the historicity of the fundamental outline of Jesus’ Passion and death.
  - William Lane Craig,  Jesus and His Passion

the general mood of the culture

"Recently from one of the most famous pulpits in New England, a new book about Jesus was recommended to me on the grounds that the Jesus contained therein was opposed to capital punishment, was uninterested in sexual ethics, and in various other ways (my summary) supported the liberal status quo.  These are the books that are sold in Barnes and Noble, in Waterstones, in W. H. Smith.   These are the books that people in my congregation, and perhaps yours, are likely to read.  At a time when the general mood of the culture in which I live is deeply anti-Christian, ready to swallow anything, no matter how wild or wacky, as long as it is not orthodox Christianity, these are the books that feed the general cultural mood and that increase the sense that anyone who believes or practices anything like orthodox Christianity is simply living in cloud-cookoo-land. Our culture knows in its bones that Jesus could not have been like we traditionally say he was." [emphasis mine]
  - N. Thomas Wright, "Jesus and the Identity of God" 

The Acts of the Table-Waiters

In the so-called Acts of the Apostles (the traditional name for the 2nd volume of the beginning of the church attributed to Luke "the beloved physician"), one of the interesting things about the volume is its "egalitarian" nature.  By rights, if it were meant as propaganda for the faith, it should ascribe the miracles of Elijah to each of the eleven apostles (twelve minus Judas) demonstrating their heroic status as the men who walked with Jesus.  But most of the apostles don't figure at all in these accounts, and Peter figures in less than half the book.   There is nothing linking Peter directly to Paul, or a direct conferring of divine calling, as would make sense for some 2nd century pro-Paul propaganda.  Peter is prominent at the beginning, especially with the initial outreach to the Gentile believers, but then falls out of the spotlight almost entirely.

What is especially noteworthy before Paul becomes the focus of the early church historian is the people who do come into the spotlight.  The seven servant-leaders (or leader-servants), who Christians have traditionally called the first "deacons," were chosen as men whose character exemplified the qualities of  Jesus, whose job would be to tend to the needs of the growing community of believers and responsibly distributing the communal property of the believers, a job that the chief apostles will describe as "waiting tables."

One of these "waiters" is a disciple named Philip -- not to be confused with Philip of the Twelve Apostles.  Philip quickly moves beyond his humble serving of the church to preach the gospel.  We don't see where he was formally sent out on his mission by church authorities; in fact, he is physically caught away" to remote places without his control.  One of the wonders worked by the deacon is referred to mysteriously as being "caught away by the Spirit."  This sounds uncannily like the power of k'fitzat ha-derech attributed to especially spiritual rabbis in much later centuries (the jumping-through-space that would inspire Frank Herbert's Kwisatz Haderach in Dune), though it is somewhat reminiscent of Elijah being caught away by the chariot.  This miraculous deacon figures later in The Acts with daughters who prophesy.  One of these daughters would later tell Papius (a historian who interviewed acquaintances of the apostles) about someone she witnessed to be raised from the dead.

For The Acts to be decent propaganda for the Church, it should attribute these miracles and wonders to Philip the Apostle, or to one of the twelve apostles such as Thomas or John.  Instead the account of Acts has the apostles follow Philip into Samaria.

Being freed up from the distractions of the service industry to fulfill their higher purpose to seek God, they hear of how the lowly deacon has been taken by the Spirit to Samaria and is doing a mighty work.  And they follow the deacon into Samaria.  Philip the Table-Waiter (whom we now refer to as "Philip the Evangelist" to distinguish him from Philip of the Twelve) is more prominently an apostle than the Twelve, being a "sent one" (the meaning of "apostle") into one of the territories fulfilling the "Great Commission" (to Judea, and then Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth).

Also among the deacons is Stephen, who seems to fulfill Jesus' prophecy to the Sanhedrin about his place at the right hand of God, and whose death plants in Saul of Tarsus a seed that will eventually come to fruition on the road to Damascus when Saul is told, "It must be hard on you to be constantly kicking against the goad."  Stephen's death sets precedent for the term "martyr" or "witness" for those who die for their confession of faith.  Those that hear Stephen testify of his vision, stop their ears in panic at hearing Jesus' prophecy being realized, and give witness to Stephen's prophetic sermon about their hardness of heart.  Saul's hardness of heart will eventually be broken.

Stephen the Waiter seems to draw attention to himself almost immediately after his appointment to serve the church by exhibiting signs and wonders.  He soon after fulfills a major prophecy of Jesus, and sets off a pattern of persecution that breaks forces the Jerusalem church to fulfill its commission and enlarge its borders beyond Judaea.  Congregations will form in proximity to the Gentiles, and the Antioch congregation will be formed.

The rise of Stephen, Philip, Paul, and Barnabas, and the waning prominence of the original apostles (and eventually of even Peter himself) arises soon after the appointment of men to release the apostles from mundane service:  "It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables."  And yet, after announcing the New Covenant in His blood, the first illustration given to them by the Word of God in the flesh was the lowly act of a server:  He washed their feet, and told them that the servant is not above his master. He that shall be first must be last.

The Greek word  ἀρεστός more generally means "acceptable" or "satisfactory" or "pleasing"or "fitting":  "It is not fitting/acceptable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables." It is a curious way to put it.  It sounds a little melodramatic.  Abandon the word of God to wait on tables.  On the one hand, it may be true that the Holy Spirit was leading the apostles to prayer and prophecy rather than to service.  But think about Jesus' gesture of washing the feet of the apostles and disciples.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.”

Think about Jesus' pastoral directive to Peter to "tend My sheep."  There is certainly more to tending the sheep than waiting on tables, but is there something to this that they didn't say that the Holy Spirit was leading them to devote themselves the prophetic.  Rather, "it is fitting for someone other than ourselves to wait on tables."  Even the description of the menial work of taking care of the mundane needs of the faithful seems almost flippant: "We didn't walk with the Messiah for three years to wait on tables."

I can't help but wonder if there is an element of pride in this.  Do the apostles have a "higher" purpose than waiting on tables?  Were Peter and John so busy giving themselves to "the word" and prayer, without the distractions of table-waiting, that they ended up realizing God was doing something in Samaria after one of their table-waiters started doing radical Jesus-type things there.  Some amazing things happen with Peter in later chapters (but very soon seem to no longer be reported), but the Twelve appear less and less after the "table-waiting" announcement, and soon after we hear almost nothing of Peter.  The soon-to-rise apostle Paul will later write that, though he would prefer to devote himself to preaching and outreach with the voluntary support of the church, he is certainly not above the mundane work of tent-making.

The book of The Acts is known as The Acts of the Apostles, but it should really be called The Works of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is building His church, not the Eleven, not the apostles.  All the believers, not just the Eleven apostles, are the "living stones" that make up His tabernacle, as Peter writes in his epistle.  The builder is the Holy Spirit, and unless He builds the house, they labor in vain that build.  And when the Eleven started to think of themselves as the builders of the church, God made the very rocks cry out in prophecy; for from the very stones he can raise apostles.

The mindset of most modern evangelicals and fundamentalists and Catholics is such that if the year was 45 A.D. they would idolize the Twelve Apostles.  The Twelve were after all in the company of the Son of God night and day for years, and today's Christians idolize mere pastors, popes, bishops, prophets, authors of bestsellers, and leaders of 1,000 member churches.  Yet, the Apostle Paul, who was not considered one of the Twelve and had not walked with Jesus as the Twelve had, referred to the most prominent apostles (Simon Peter, John bar-Zebedee, and the brother of Jesus) as "those who were presumed to be pillars [of the church]."  Paul doesn't say that they weren't pillars, but implies that pillars are as pillars do.  He refers to the most prominent apostles also as "those who were thought to be something (whatever they may have been, it doesn't matter to me since God is not prejudiced)."

God isn't distinguishing the nobodies from the somebodies.  The one who thinks "I'm kind of a big deal" is least in the kingdom of God.

*Note: We don't hear much about Matthias, one of the two long-term disciples of Jesus who were in the lottery to take Judas Iscariot's place among the Twelve, but we do hear of the other one, Joseph Barsabbas.  Papias wrote that the sign of poison-immunity was worked in him by the Holy Spirit.  The only tradition we have of Matthias is his martyrdom.