When the Spirit touches you… and you fall down.

by K.W. Leslie, 07 June 2016

Yeah, God’s involved. No, it’s not from the bible. So?

SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT /sleɪn ɪn ðə 'spɪr.ɪt/ vt. Fall down as a result (primary or secondary) of the Holy Spirit’s activity.
[Slay in the Spirit /sleɪ ɪn ðə 'spɪr.ɪt/ vt.]

A lot of Christians believe if a practice isn’t found in the bible, we shouldn’t do it.

Nope, we’re not at all consistent about this belief. Loads of churches and Christians have outside-the-bible practices. In the bible, churches met daily, not primarily Sunday mornings. In the bible, the worship songs are the psalms; where’d all these new compositions come from? In the bible, Christians prayed in tongues, but you’ll notice a number of churches have banned that practice. In the bible, women prophesied, and you’ll notice a lot of these same churches banned that too. I frequently read my bible on my computer or phone, or listen to it on my iPod—and you do realize electronics aren’t in the bible, right?

Obviously if it’s banned in the bible—if Jesus or the apostles forbade it—we shouldn’t do it. But this isn’t that. This is the insistence only stuff with a biblical precedent oughta be done. And if we’re gonna hew to that guideline closely, time to turn off the electricity in our churches: No more microphones, no more video projectors. Heck, no more books with pages. All our bibles need to be scrolls. Written in the original languages.

Basically the “If it’s not in the bible, we shouldn’t do it” argument, is hypocrisy. It’s an excuse Christians use for getting rid of anything they don’t like, or anything which makes ’em uncomfortable. Whenever they get the heebie-jeebies, they try to enforce this “rule”; whenever they don’t care, they don’t bother. It has nothing to do with following the scriptures, and everything to do with maintaining their calm.

This inconsistent behavior applies to a whole lot of prayer practices, but I use it today ’cause I’m gonna bring up the prayer practice of getting “slain in the Spirit.” Yeah, it’s a prayer practice: It’s the result of God giving us a profound revelation through prayer, and as a result of its intensity, Christians fall over. And sometimes do other stuff, but usually we just fall over.

Jesus harvests the Samaritans.

by K.W. Leslie, 03 June 2016

John 4.25-42.

After meeting Jesus and realizing he’s a prophet, this Samaritan woman he met at Jacob’s Well tried to get him to settle a theological dispute—namely which temple was the correct one, the one at Shechem or the one at Jerusalem. Jn 4.20 Jesus pointed out it’s neither Jn 4.21 —God wants worshipers “in spirit and truth,” Jn 4.22-23 who can worship him anywhere. In temple, out of temple; in church, out of church.

But since Jesus appeared to side with the Judeans, Jn 4.22 the Samaritan did the intellectual equivalent of shrugging her shoulders:

John 4.25 KWL
The woman told Jesus, “I know Messiah comes, who’s called Christ.
Whenever he comes, he’ll explain everything to us.”

As I’ve said previously, Samaritans didn’t believe in a Judean-style Messiah. Their bible only went up to Deuteronomy, so no Messianic prophecies. They believed in the Tahéb/“coming one,” a prophet-like-Moses Dt 18.15 who’d come at the End Times and sort everything out. And since the Taheb was sorta anointed by God, the word “anointed”—mešíkha in Aramaic, hristós in Greek—would be a valid synonym for Tahéb. Maybe she said Mešíkha, which is why John rendered it Messías. Maybe she said Tahéb, and John translated it. Not sure; doesn’t really matter. After all, Jesus is the Tahéb. Ac 3.22-26 So we’re fine either way.

Her response was a bit apathetic. “Till Messiah/Taheb comes to explain God to us, meh: Who’s to say who’s right?”

Hence Jesus’s response.

John 4.26 KWL
Jesus told her, “I am the one speaking to you.”

Mic drop.

Yeah, various skeptics insist Jesus never called himself Messiah. That it was an idea added to Christianity decades later by overzealous Christians. Probably Paul; they like to blame Paul for all the parts of Christianity they don’t like. Ignoring the fact Paul’s letters were written first—if Paul hadn’t spread Christianity in the first place, they’d have nothing to nitpick, redefine, and reshape to suit themselves. Can’t have Christ without his Christians.

True, Jesus doesn’t flat-out say, “I’m Messiah.” You say that in that day and age, you get killed for treason. Instead Jesus makes it as clear as he can while having plausible deniability (not that he ever denied it Mk 14.61-62): “I am the one speaking to you.” It’s as close to a “I’m Messiah” as we can get from him, and the Samaritan clearly understood his meaning—and ran with it.

Literally.

John 4.27-30 KWL
27 At this point, Jesus’s students came back.
They were wondering why he was speaking with a woman.
Yet nobody said, “What’re you asking?” or “Why are you speaking with her?”
28 So the Samaritan left her jar and went back into the town.
She told the people, “Come see a person who told me everything I’ve done!
It’s not Christ, is it?”
30 They came out of the town, and were coming to him.

Like I said, saying “Messiah” might get you killed for treason. So maybe the Samaritan used that word (which John translated “Christ”), and maybe she said Tahéb (which John likewise translated “Christ.”) Can’t say for certain. Again, doesn’t matter. It got the Samaritans’ attention, and they came to check him out for themselves.

The fivefold ministry. Or is it fourfold? Sevenfold?

by K.W. Leslie, 02 June 2016
FIVEFOLD MINISTRY 'faɪv.foʊld 'mɪn.ɪs.tri noun. The belief the five gifts Christ granted to build up his body Ep 4.11 are best held by individual church leaders.

There are several different ways we Christians have chosen to run our churches. Some of ’em are run by archbishops, some by pastors, some by elders, some by democratic vote, and some are anarchist: Supposedly no one leads but the Holy Spirit. (I used to attend such a church, and discovered in practice, certain folks just happen to “hear the Spirit” far more often than others, and wind up leading by default. Sometimes they legitimately do hear the Spirit; sometimes not so much.)

Some of these leadership models are based on the bible. Some not. Is there a particular way God wants Christians to run his churches? I would definitely say so—but I’m not hard-and-fast on it. ’Cause regardless of your church leadership structure, the most important factor is whether your leaders and people follow Jesus. If they do, regardless of the leadership structure, the church is gonna work. If they don’t, again regardless of the leadership structure, the church is gonna go wrong.

At some other point I’ll list all the different models, but today I’m obviously gonna rant write about the fivefold ministry model.

It’s a relatively new leadership structure. Invented in the 1970s, a lot of churches in the charismatic “apostolic movement” have adopted it. It’s where the church is run either by five elders, or five teams of elders. (Since each of these teams tends to have a supervisor… functionally, five elders.) Each of these elders holds a different office, or job title, which corresponds to one of Christ Jesus’s five ministry gifts, listed by Paul in Ephesians.

Ephesians 4.11-12 KWL
11 Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
12 They’re for the purpose of setting up holy people for good works;
for building up Christ’s body till we’ve all arrived at a unified faith and knowledge of God’s Son;
for producing a mature, measured-up, complete Christian.

Now. Historically Christians haven’t taught these are five jobs, but five gifts: Different abilities to minister. Different aptitudes. One Christian has a knack for prophecy, another for evangelism. But in practice the Holy Spirit grants all these gifts—not one and only one—to various church leaders on an ad hoc basis.

Jesus is an obvious example of someone who simultaneously had all five gifts.

  • APOSTLE: Jesus was sent by God. He 3.1
  • PROPHET: Jesus shares God’s word. Mt 21.11
  • EVANGELIST: Jesus shares the good news of the kingdom. Mk 1.14
  • PASTOR: Jesus is our good shepherd, Jn 10.11 our leader.
  • TEACHER: Jesus is a rabbi, Jn 13.13 and our only rabbi. Mt 23.10

“Well of course Jesus could do ’em all,” various Christians reply, ”because he’s Jesus.” You know everybody’s favorite excuse for not doing as Jesus did: He exceptional. And he is, in a whole lot of ways. But not this one, ’cause loads of his apostles also simultaneously had all five gifts. Peter, John, Philip, Paul, James; and you’ll notice most churches expect their head pastor to have these abilities where necessary. Apostles in that God called ’em into ministry, prophets in that they can recognize God’s voice and share his will, evangelists ’cause they lead people to Jesus, pastors ’cause they shepherd the people of their churches, and teachers ’cause they gotta teach us everything Jesus taught.

Fivefold ministry advocates point out this is a whole lot of work to put upon just one person. They’re quite right; it’s why the mature Christians of a church need to step up and aid their pastor. But the fivefold folks claim the list in Ephesians is a jobs list: The Holy Spirit divvied up these gifts, just like he scattered his supernatural gifts among different Christians. 1Co 12.7 Therefore each church shouldn’t only have a pastor leading it, but have five leaders in charge. A pastor of course. And also an apostle, prophet, evangelist, and teacher.

Sharing Jesus… with liars.

by K.W. Leslie, 01 June 2016

Yeah, I admit “Sharing Jesus… with liars” is a harsh-sounding title. But it’s accurate. Sometimes when we share Jesus with people, they lie about how Christian they are.

Four out of five Americans consider themselves Christian. That’s not anecdotal; that’s based on surveys. The Pew Forum currently has us at 70.6 percent of Americans. Gallup has us at 75.2 percent. ABC and Beliefnet have us at 83 percent. And the Barna Group has us at 78 percent. Now anecdotally, it’s been my experience that two out of three people tell me they’re already Christian. But I live in California, not the Bible Belt. Stats vary by state.

Of these self-described Christians, there are obviously a number of ’em who aren’t Christian. Do a little prying, and you’ll discover they’re pagans who think they’re Christian. They’re not what I mean by liars. They’re not lying. They honestly do think they’re Christian. It’s just they’re not; they like Jesus, but don‘t believe he’s any more special than any other religious leader, and figure they’re going to heaven because they’re good. And can’t understand their beliefs make us look at ’em so strangely: Doesn’t every Christian talk to their angels?

Nah; by “liar” I mean people who deliberately aren’t telling the truth about their Christian life. They are Christians: They know who God is, what Christ did, how God saved ’em, and all the usual orthodox Christian beliefs. They’re not ignorant about the basics. They totally know what God expects of them. They also know what Christian society expects from them. It’s just they’re not living like that, and they know it. They feel bad about it. Or they don’t; but they don’t wanna get into that with you today. So they conceal. Distort. Misrepresent. Exaggerate. Lie.

They want us to shut up and go away, so they tell us whatever they think we wanna hear. You know, like a lot of us do with telemarketers: “Actually, I’m quite happy with my current cable provider.” Oh, you know that’s a lie. Nobody likes their cable provider.

They don’t pray. Don’t go to church. Don’t read bible. Don’t do good works; they just don’t harm anybody, and figure passive non-interference counts as a good work. Don’t figure they sin as much, swear as much, doubt as much, dabble in superstition as much, as their pagan friends. Figure the amount of religion they can be bothered to engage in, makes ’em WAY more religious than their pagan friends—maybe too religious. (Whereas we religious Christians: We’re beyond the pale. Go to church more than once a week? Yikes.)

But they like to imagine they’re good enough Christians. Good enough for saving. And hey, we’re not saved by being good anyway. We’re saved by grace. They’re not the best Christians, but even the worst Christians are getting into heaven; they’ll just be the least in the kingdom. Mt 6.19 They’re in; that’s all that matters, and it’s none of our business how good they are.

Jesus prophesies to the Samaritan.

by K.W. Leslie, 27 May 2016

When the woman at the well realized Jesus hears from God.

John 4.16-24.

John 4.16-19 KWL
16 Jesus told the Samaritan, “Go call your man and come back here.”
17 In reply the woman told him, “I don’t have a man.”
Jesus told her, “Well said, ‘I don’t have a man’—
18 You had five men, and the one you now have isn’t your man. You spoke the truth.”
19 The woman told Jesus, “Master, I see you’re a prophet.”

Well duh he’s a prophet.

Notice when Jesus replied to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, he commended her twice for telling him the truth. Probably ’cause she’d never told anyone the truth before. For all we know, no one in her town, Sychár, knew her whole story. But clearly Jesus did. Yet he was in absolutely no position to know anything, so the Samaritan naturally concluded he’s a prophet. ’Cause he is.

This woman previously had five ándras/“men.” Most bibles translate it “husbands,” ’cause in Hebrew custom, ishí/“my man” (or Aramaic enáshi) meant a woman’s husband. (The Hebrews used to use the word baal/“mister” for husbands, but God told ’em to stop it, Ho 2.16-17 ’cause they kept calling pagan gods by that title.) There is an ancient Greek word for husband, gamétis, but it’s not in the bible—though gametí/“wife” appears once in apocrypha. In any case, if Jesus was speaking of “her man,” it’d usually mean her husband.

Most cultures, Samaritans included, figured if you lived together and had sex, you were married. Our culture doesn’t—we call it “living together,” and more conservative folks call it “living in sin.” That’s because we define marriage by wedding contracts and vows. Comes from Christian custom. It’s not universal. The ancients, including the Hebrews, defined it by sexual activity and living arrangement. Like Genesis describes it, a man leaves his parents, bonds to his woman, and the two become “one flesh.” Ge 2.4 Remember?

This woman didn’t currently have this arrangement. She had something with a man—but he wasn’t her man. Shtupping him, likely; but didn’t live with him. They didn’t wanna turn it into a marriage.

Previously she had five husbands. We don’t know why those relationships ended. A lot of preachers judge, and assume divorce. We don’t know that. Maybe she had a thing for older men and outlived them all. Maybe they were criminals, and the Romans crucified them one after the other. Let’s not leap to the conclusion she was defective in some way.

Because that was her problem. That’s why she was going to an out-of-town well at noon: She was isolated. Either because she was unwelcome, or because she didn’t feel welcome; she was sick of the town’s gossip about her. Either way she kept to herself. Possibly shared nothing with no one—meaning there was no way some wandering Galilean prophet could know about her man. Except he did.