Tag Archive | Christ
January 26, 2015  

Practical Cessationism

Waiting for the Word

Lately there’s a phrase that is getting thrown around in the world to describe Christians who believe in God but live like He doesn’t exist: Practical Atheism.  There are books and blog posts written frequently that warn about the foolishness of practical atheism.

Living like there is no God when you believe that He exists is dangerous. But practical atheism has a dangerous younger brother most people forget about- practical cessationism.

If you don’t know, cessationism is the idea that the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are displayed by the believers in the book of Acts ended when the last of the apostles died.  Practical cessationists believe that God still does the kind of thing he did in the book of Acts, they just don’t live like God wants them to be involved.

In the almost twenty years since I’ve been a Christian, much of the body of Christ has come around to the idea that Jesus still speaks and heals. They’ll even acknowledge that He does miracles.  But when you talk to many of these believers, even Pentecostals and charismatics, you get the idea that while they acknowledge God does these things, they don’t expect to be involved.

This is sad.

It’s sad because the church is supposed to be full of the power of the Holy Spirit. God gave us the gifts of the Spirit to demonstrate Christ’s reality to the lost and build up the church.

But it’s even more sad because it’s ignoring one of the commands Paul gave to the Corinthians: “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy,” (1 Corinthians 14:1).

These gifts of the Spirit that Jesus gives the church (see 1 Corinthians 12:8-11) are to be desired, not just acknowledged.  And from time to time, they need to be stirred up (2 Timothy 1:6).  But when we desire them, seek after them, and simultaneously keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, amazing things happen.

Jesus gets glorified. The lost see the power of Jesus in real life. The church is built up.

So my encouragement to you today is this- don’t be a practical cessationist.  If you’ve never sought the gifts of the Spirit, ask Jesus what that looks like for your life.  If you have and you’ve let the gifts He’s given you lie dormant, begin to stir them up.

Are you a practical cessationist?  How can you take the next step into experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Let me know in the comment section.

January 21, 2013  

A Missional Bible Study Tip

Into The Promised Land Joshua 18 by Patrick Feller

A year or so ago I had a minor revelation that changed how I understood much of the New Testament. It’s a small thing that dramatically shifts how we understand the priorities of Jesus and the apostles. Are you ready?

Somewhere along the way I began to replace every occurrence of the phrase “the word” with “the message.”

You see, every time I read the phrase “the word,” my mind always pictured the Bible. So when I read that Jesus was “the Word” (John 1:1) I would always think Jesus is the Bible. This was really confusing and I’ve seen it cause some folks to deify the Scriptures.

But if I replace “the word” with “the message” I get something entirely different. Now when I read that Jesus is the word I understand He is God’s Message. He is what God would say in any circumstance. And this message became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14).

So when Luke writes in Acts 13:49 that “the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region,” I know that Luke is talking about the spread of the Gospel and not the knowledge of Bible verses. In the same way, when Paul encourages the Thessalonians to pray that “the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you,” (2 Thessalonians 3:1), he’s asking them to pray that the message of the Gospel would be received powerfully.

All of this should shift the focus from accumulating Bible knowledge to actually being a part of knowing, embodying, and declaring God’s message that’s found so clearly in Jesus and the Gospel. This is why I’ve argued elsewhere that one of the minimum standards of discipleship is a functional knowledge of the Gospel.

What do you think? Would reading the Bible this way change how you understand what’s happening in the New Testament? And, is this approach dangerous in any way?

Photo Credit: Into the Promised Land, Joshua 18, Abandoned Bible, White Oak Bayou, Houston, Texas 0420091320BW by Patrick Feller

June 11, 2012  

Speaking of Church…

A Church BuildingA church is not a well built structure where people worship Jesus.
You cannot go to a church.
You may have been thinking about a church building.

A church is not a program of events where spiritual things happen.
You cannot attend a church.
You may have been thinking about a church meeting.

A church is a group of people with names and faces.
You can know a church and be part of one.
A church is not a what, it’s a who.

We should be careful to not call things churches that are not churches.
It assigns a false significance to things that aren’t that important.
Unless the thing you’re describing is a people that Jesus bled and died to redeem, you’re probably not talking about a church.

Photo Credit: Church by Vik Nanda

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