Category Archives: Holy Spirit

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Word Gifts and Christ’s Body—Ephesians 4:11-13 (part 2)

(continued from part 1, p=4275http://www.craigkeener.org/?p=4275)

The mature body, like her head

The ultimate goal of such equipping is unity in believing and knowing Jesus (4:13a). Thus we will function as Christ’s full body (4:13b). When we act together as Christ’s body, the world can see Christ through us. (Of course, that does not mean that all will like us; they did not all like our Lord, either.) This does not mean that we dare get a “big head” as if we have “arrived”; some have emphasized our wondrous role in Christ so much that they have forgotten how solely dependent this role is on Christ himself. We as Christ’s body function properly only as we all remain in connection with our head, our Lord Jesus Christ (4:15-16).

Nor is Paul providing an eschatological scheme or predicting a progression toward maturity through history. Rather, such unity is always the goal, for the church in every generation. Still, the world has yet to see the body of Christ functioning fully in mature unity of knowing and trusting Christ. God delights to reveal his wisdom in forming the church even to the angelic hosts (3:10), and I suspect that he will have a generation through whom he can prove what he can make of new creatures in Christ. After all, Scripture speaks of preaching Christ’s good news among all peoples before the end (Matt 24:14) and of the full harvest of gentiles coming in (Rom 11:25). May we become that generation!

Ultimately, Christ’s body must grow up, no longer immature, taken in by false teaching (4:14). In this context, such false teaching at least includes whatever would take our attention away from Christ and his body and put it on human leaders. In contrast to false teaching, we must lovingly speak truth (4:15), i.e., God’s word consistent with the gospel. Thus we will grow up to be like Christ our Lord (4:15). Paul shows that this is accomplished not by forced ecclesiastical conformity, but by conforming to Christ and nurturing one another in love (4:16)

How do we avoid such “winds of teaching” (4:14)? For one thing, we must make sure that those sowing the ministry of the Word are genuinely serving Christ’s body. Thus one must test those who call themselves apostles (as in Rev 2:2). Paul was definitely not against apostles, since he was one. But he challenged his rivals in Corinth as “false apostles” (2 Cor 11:13). Why? Paul as a true apostle suffered greatly for the gospel (11:23-33). He broke new ground, reaching lost people and preparing them to carry forward the mission (10:14-16). His rivals, by contrast, were false apostles, boasting as if they had won the Corinthians to Christ. They were boasting in other people’s labors. Those who grow big churches or denominations by siphoning members from other churches rather than really reaching people for Christ ought to consider what they are doing. Granted, true teaching may attract many new members, and we do need true teaching. But those who want the title had better be willing to pay the spiritual cost.

Scripture also warns against false prophets (e.g., Matt 24:11, 24). Some of these are certainly outside the church (Rev 16:13), but others pretend to be believers—wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt 7:15). They misrepresent Christ (1 John 4:1) and exploit God’s people (2 Pet 2:1-3). We may also speak of false evangelizers: those who proclaim another gospel, whether by inflating themselves (2 Cor 11:4) or by supplanting Christ’s finished work with other requirements (Gal 1:6). False teachers can overlap with false prophets (2 Pet 2:1).

Meaning of apostles and prophets here

The New Testament uses the title “apostle” in two ways. The Gospels and Acts usually restrict the title to the Twelve (Acts calls even Paul and Barnabas apostles only in one passage!). Cessationists are right about the Twelve: the Twelve have ceased! Paul, however, applies the title more widely (e.g., 1 Cor 15:5-7), to various ground-breaking agents authorized by Christ, such as himself (Rom 1:1); James (Gal 1:19); Andronicus and Junia (Rom 16:7); and probably Silas and Timothy (1 Thess 1:1; 2:7).

What we have today is the second kind of apostles. For both kinds of apostles, we may expect signs confirming their reaching the lost (2 Cor 12:12), but especially and most extensively sacrificial suffering for the gospel (e.g., Matt 10:16-39; 1 Cor 4:9; 2 Cor 11:23-33).

Like apostles, evangelists and pastor-teachers, prophets remain necessary so long as the church needs to come to maturity (Eph 4:11-13). In the Bible, we see a range of different forms of prophecy. Sometimes prophets prophesied to nations; at other times they prophesied to individuals. In the latter case, Scripture most often record prophecies to kings (because of the focus of the historical books), but apparently many were expected also to prophesy to many others (e.g., 1 Sam 9:6-9; 2 Kgs 8:1). Before the exile, prophetic books were often arranged in poetry, but most prophecies found in historical narratives are more prosaic. Prophecies often echoed earlier prophecy (e.g., covenant lawsuits in prophetic books), so we can expect that they were often rooted in prior Scripture.

Some preachers today want to deny that this gift continues. But it existed throughout biblical history (though more in some times than others), and there is no biblical indication of it ceasing until Christ’s return, when we see him face to face and no longer need such partial revelation (1 Cor 13:8-12; cf. 1:7).

Those who deny its continuance typically claim that continuing prophecy would compete with Scripture as God’s Word. This claim, however, is plainly false, since prophecy flourished at the time that Scripture was being inspired and never competed with it. They are overlapping but different forms of revelation. Many prophets prophesied during the OT era without their prophecies being recorded in Scripture (e.g., 1 Sam 10:10; 19:20; 1 Kgs 18:4). If just two or three believers prophesied in average weekly meetings in just about a hundred house churches in the first century, we might envision somewhere around 400,000 prophecies in first-century churches. These prophecies are not recorded as Scripture (or else our New Testament would take quite a bit longer to read through—and woe to us professors who have to survey it all in one semester).

Prophecy about personal direction or prophecy that is essentially Spirit-led biblical exhortation does not add to Scripture, if it is genuine prophecy. There is no reason to assume that postbiblical prophecy that does not teach new doctrine adds to Scripture any more than assuming that for postbiblical teaching. Unfortunately, the doctrine that prophecy must cease is a postbiblical teaching. Who, then, risks adding to Scripture?

Some protest, Scripture does not explicitly predict prophecy’s cessation, but if you read Scripture with the right theological system, you will see that it must cease. So where does this theological system come from? If it imposes on the text what is not there, is not this system adding to Scripture? That is, this argument for the cessation of prophecy is guilty of the very error that it attributes to those who continue to prophesy.

Having said this, of course, all prophecy must be evaluated (1 Cor 14:29). We know in part and we prophesy in part (13:9), so we must evaluate both prophecy and teaching based on what God has already revealed. Scripture is not all that God has ever spoken (see discussion above about Scripture noting true prophets without recording their prophecies). But it is the canon—the true measuring stick—for all claims to revelation. It is the already-tested Word that Christians as a community agree on as certain. Those unwilling to stand under its verdict, whether in prophesying or teaching, inevitably end up condemned by its verdict.

Meaning of pastors and teachers

Finally, and relevant to the discussion of prophets just concluded, Paul lists pastors (literally, shepherds) and teachers. The Old Testament (and the ancient world in general) often speaks of leaders as shepherds; good ones are supposed to care for the sheep. For this role, teaching is crucial.

In fact, the grammar may suggest here not a fivefold ministry but a fourfold one, against common traditions: pastors and teachers are closely linked: the Greek reads tous men apostolous, tous de prophêtas, tous de euaggelistias, tous de poimenas kai didaskalous. That is, four of the groups are distinguished with tous de, whereas pastors are linked with teachers (the Greek term kai can mean “and” or “even, i.e.”).

At the very least, pastors and teachers linked closely together. Scripture elsewhere insists that pastors must be able to teach (1 Tim 3:2; 2 Tim 2:24; Tit 1:9); it is essential to know and teach the Scriptures, and to do so according to the true gospel.

We don’t need to agree on every secondary detail of understanding. But we must be united on the gospel and work for unity and the maturity of Christ’s body.

(Continued from part 1, http://www.craigkeener.org/?p=4275)

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Word Gifts and Christ’s Body—Ephesians 4:11-13 (part 1)

There is much talk about the gifts listed in Ephesians 4:11. In context, however, these gifts appear, like other spiritual gifts (Rom 12:6-8; 1 Cor 12:8-10, 29-30), in the context of Christ’s body (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 12:12-27). Their function is not so those so gifted can boast in how important or valuable they are, but so they can serve the body of Christ, equipping all believers for their ministries/gifts in the body.

Setting in Ephesians: Unity

The setting in Ephesians is an exhortation to unity. Ephesians 1—3—the first half of the letter—keeps emphasizing ethnic unity, the unity of Jews and gentiles in Christ. (And if God would transcend in Christ’s body a barrier he himself established in salvation history, the unity of Christ’s body must also surmount every other barrier.) The exhortations later in Eph 4:17—5:2 address relationships, especially members of Christ’s body loving and forgiving like Christ.

Paul also addresses serving one another in the household (Eph 5:21—6:9). Since at least the time of Aristotle, ancient household codes often told the male head of the household how he was to rule his wife (cf. 5:22-33), children (cf. 6:1-4), and slaves (6:5-9). But Paul addresses wives, children and slaves as well as male householders, and his code is the only one we know of in antiquity framed by mutual submission: serving one another (5:21; 6:9). Given Jesus’s teachings about serving one another, the Spirit’s fruit in us, as well as Christ’s example, should make us all eager to serve one another, in Christ’s body generally and in our families.

Just before addressing Christ’s body in our passage (4:4), Paul urges believers to be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (4:3). “Keep” often means “obey,” as in keeping commandments, but here may mean “preserve.” Christ, who is our peace, has made us one body in him (2:14-16). Now we must preserve that unity by showing humility, gentleness, and patiently putting up with one another (4:2).

Christ’s body earlier in Ephesians

The context relates even more directly to Christ’s body. The theme of Christ’s body appears earlier in Ephesians. Ephesians was a circular letter, but Ephesus was a major destination for the letter. Many Ephesian Christians had been dabbling with other spirits and worshiping other gods before their conversion (Acts 19:18-19, 24-29). Paul assures them, however, that in Christ they are exalted above all spirits (Eph 1:20-23; 2:6). We are Christ’s body (1:23), Paul says, and since all things are under his feet (1:22) that means that these spirits we once honored are now beneath us.

That does not suggest that we go ordering those spirits to do our bidding—that is exactly what magic was all about. Rather, it means that we are no longer subject to their sin-stirring influence, no longer subject to the devil’s schemes (2:1-3). Later in the letter Paul explains how we therefore can resist the devil (4:27): by treating one another right (4:25—5:2), and by living according to truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, and the gospel (6:10-12).

As Christ’s body, Paul says, we are the “fullness of the one who fills all” (1:23). This is because God fills us up with his love and his Spirit (3:19; 5:18). “All” in 1:23 may refer to all believers (as in 4:6), thus reinforcing unity: we are the product of Christ filling all of us to bring us toward the full measure of being like Christ (4:13).

Christ’s body in Ephesians 4

Paul uses the image of one body to highlight unity. Thus, for example, the husband and wife become one flesh and one body because they are united (5:23, 30). Likewise, Christ brings together Jew and gentile in one united body (2:16; 3:6). We as believers today may be different ethnically, denominationally, and so forth. But if we divide from one another over such ethnic or denominational differences, we undercut the unity for which Christ died. We wound Christ’s one body!

In this context, the purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up Christ’s body (4:12). If we boast in our gifts or demean those of others, we harm Christ’s body and abuse God’s own gifts to us, that were given for the opposite purpose! Each member, united to Christ, is needed for Christ’s body (4:16).

Paul’s image was familiar to ancient audiences, but Paul uses it in a different way. In earlier Rome, the lower class people protested that they were doing all the work while the upper class people just enjoyed the fruits of others’ labors. So an upper-class man named Menenius Agrippa argued that everyone has their function in society, like different members of a body. The upper class was like a stomach; the poor people did the work, and the upper class was necessary to consume the food. In other words, he was saying: keep your place.

But more like some Stoic thinkers, Paul used the image of the body in a very different way. For Paul, there is only one head, namely Christ (4:15-16). Far from lording it over us or exploiting us, he laid down his life to save us (5:25). Each member of his body is equally valuable for the body’s overall function, despite our diverse roles. It is not a matter of some “big” leaders being super-gifted while “ordinary” Christians lack gifts or ministries. Rather, all of us are gifted to minister to one another and to the world around us, just in different ways. The so-called “big” leaders must be facilitators, equipping the other members to grow in their ministries.

Another difference is that the body image is much more organic for Paul than for Menenius Agrippa: Christ actually dwells in us (3:17). On an individual level, the fruit of the Spirit reveals his character in us. But as we function together as one body in him, his character should also be expressed in us corporately as a body. Various aspects of Christ’s ministry are revealed in different members.

Grace given to each of us

Various aspects of Christ’s ministry are revealed in us as diverse members, but “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (4:7 NASB). Each of us plays an important and special role—male or female, young or old, Asian or Latin American, Anglican or Baptist, and so forth. Each of us has gifts for the rest of Christ’s body, and should welcome the other gifts in Christ’s body.

At great cost to himself, Christ made us one and made gifts available. Now exalted, Christ has given gifts (4:8). Paul supports this by paraphrasing Psalm 68:18. The original language of the psalm says that the one who ascended took plunder rather than gave it. But everyone understood that, having taken plunder, victors distributed it among their followers. Christ has taken captive some—such as apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers—to serve as gifts to the rest of Christ’s body.

Paul notes the gifts given by Christ: as just noted, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor-teachers (4:11). What these particular gifts share in common is the ministry of God’s Word. Through God’s message, given in different ways, these ministers build up the rest of Christ’s body. Their purpose, in fact, is to equip all members of the body for the work of ministry (4:12a) so they can build/be-built-as Christ’s body (4:12b). Those who claim to be apostles, prophets, evangelists or pastor-teachers but exploit God’s people rather than serving and equipping them are more like wolves in sheep’s clothing. (continued in part 2)

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Some key themes in Galatians

The New Perspective(s) and older perspectives come to different conclusions on various points, such as “faith in Christ” vs. “faith of Christ,” the meaning of “works of the law,” and so forth. I connection with my new Galatians commentary, Influence magazine published an article by me on this topic.

https://influencemagazine.com/en/Practice/Jesus-Followers-in-Step-With-the-Spirit

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Why Both Gifts and Fruit Matter

The fruit of the Spirit is produced by the Spirit working in us; it expresses God’s character, his heart, especially in relationships. As this fruit grows, we are increasingly conformed to Christ’s image. God’s seed in us (cf. 1 Pet 1:23; 1 John 3:9) grows the fruit of his character within us. We may welcome this growing by distinguishing between the fruit of the Spirit and the work of the flesh (Gal 5:19-23) and so choosing to sow to the Spirit rather than to the flesh (Gal 6:8). The work and the credit, however, belong to the Lord.

Like the Spirit’s fruit, the gifts of the Spirit are also the Spirit’s work within us. These gifts empower us as individual members of Christ’s body to share with other members of Christ’s body. But because these gifts are for building up Christ’s body, and express our functions as members of his body, they, like the Spirit’s fruit, help us reflect the image of Christ. When we function together as Christ’s body, as his body we together reveal his image. Like the seed, the body members share the spiritual DNA of the one whose body we are. Whereas fruit reveals God’s character in each of us, gifts reveal Christ’s character in us especially corporately.

The fruit of the Spirit shows what God can do in us, and the gifts of the Spirit show what God can do through us. In both cases, it’s God’s work and he should get the glory (or again, in modern Western language, the credit).

If one had to choose, the fruit would be more important than the gifts, because in Galatians 5:22-23 (the passage that specifically articulates the fruit of the Spirit), the key and ultimate fruit is love (cf. the context of 5:14). In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul reminds us that the gifts (ministries to one another) without love are worthless (13:1-3), and that the gifts are partial and will be supplanted or fulfilled by what is complete when Christ returns. By contrast, love endures forever (13:8-13). We need gifts right now to build one another up, but when Christ returns we will no longer have this need.

Rating fruit above gifts does not diminish the present importance of the latter. The purpose of the gifts is to build up Christ’s body. Thus they offer a concrete way to express Christ’s love to one another. What can we offer to others more than Christ’s own work through us? We often think of gifts in a corrective context especially because we are thinking of Corinth, where Christians were abusing some gifts. Yet Paul lists gifts also in Romans 12:6-8 and (in a different sense) Ephesians 4:11 (cf. also 1 Peter 4:10-11), just in terms of mutual edification.

The two verses that frame 1 Corinthians 13 remind us how gifts are valuable when used in love: we should pursue the gifts that most build up the body (1 Cor 12:31; 14:1). Thus we do not say, “I value love, so I don’t need spiritual gifts.” Rather, we say, “I can serve others in love by pursuing the gifts that will build them up, and by sharing the gifts Christ has given me.”

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What Revival Looks Like: III. Pentecost, Part B: Sharing Possessions

If Pentecostals and charismatics have taught the church much about the Spirit empowering our speaking (treated in part A), Anabaptists (and early monastic orders) have taught us much about sharing.

If the immediate expression of the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost was prophetic empowerment, the longer-range impact was a new community of believers who walked together in their lives and shared one another’s needs.

Much of Acts 2:41-47 follows the following structure:

A         2:41     Successful evangelism (3000 converts)

B         2:42     Sharing meals, praying together

C         2:44-45            Sharing possessions

B’        2:46-47a          Shared meals, worship

A’        2:47b   Successful evangelism

Whereas the conversions in 2:41 responded to Peter’s preaching, the conversions in 2:47 apparently responded to the life of the new community. Peter’s preaching explained divine signs at Pentecost; but the sacrificial love that Christians showed one another was no less divine, no less supernatural.

At the heart of this display of unity was the costly expression of commitment to caring for one another’s needs, in 2:44-45. This sharing exemplified on a literal level what Jesus taught, sometimes on a hyperbolic level. For example:

  • Luke 12:33: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys” (NIV)
  • Luke 14:33: “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (NRSV)
  • Luke 18:22: “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (NASB)
  • Cf. also John the Baptist in Luke 3:11: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise” (NRSV)

In Luke’s Gospel, sharing possessions is actually a sign of repentance, an answer to the question what one must do to have eternal life (Luke 3:9-11; 18:18, 22). It does not earn eternal life, but it concretely evidences the reality of their turning to God. In Acts 2:37, hearers ask Peter what they must do, and his answer is more general: repentance and baptism in Jesus’s name (2:38). The sharing of possessions, however, soon follows as a fruit of this repentance.

In Acts, believers do not immediately divest themselves of all possessions and move onto the street at conversion. They do, however, sell what they do not need to live on, whenever someone is in need (Acts 2:45; 4:34). That this mutual caring is no fluke is clear because at the next corporate outpouring of the Spirit on the Jerusalem church—the next “revival” or “awakening”—sharing again takes center stage (this time, if anything, more emphatically; 4:32, 34-35). Caring for the needy continues afterward, although eventually the Twelve have to delegate this ministry to some other Spirit-filled ministers (6:1-6). Churches in one location also helped churches in another in view of impending famine—even though the famine was predicted to strike them as well (11:28-30).

Often people today pray for revival, thinking of the emotional benefits to individuals involved. But we might demonstrate to God better our commitment to such revival if we recognized up front what it might cost us. If we are ready to devote everything to God that he asks of us, it is clear that we really want revival. And when we are really fully devoted to God and dependent on his grace and power, revival has already begun, at least with us.

For one longer video on this topic, see http://www.craigkeener.org/radical-for-jesus-sharing-possessions-acts-241-47/

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What Revival Looks Like: III. Pentecost, Part A: Prophetic Empowerment

I will address this topic more briefly because I have touched on it in some earlier posts:

The Future is Now: Prophetic Empowerment in the Last Days—Acts 2:17-18
The Point of Speaking in Tongues in Acts 2

Video:

Acts, session 7: Acts 1 and 2
Elijah and Jesus’s Ascension–Acts 1:8-11. 1.5-minute video
What was the point of the wind, fire and tongues at Pentecost?–Acts 2:1-4

sort of related: http://www.craigkeener.org/what-is-baptism-in-the-holy-spirit-in-the-book-of-acts/

But let me summarize here. The outpouring of the Spirit in Acts is not self-focused. The purpose of the Spirit’s outpouring is not just to make us feel good (although that can often happen—the disciples were filled with joy and the Spirit in Acts 13:52, albeit in a context of persecution).

But the purpose of the outpouring of the Spirit is stated more directly in the closing of Luke’s Gospel and the beginning of Acts. (When I speak of the outpouring’s purpose there, I do not mean that this is the Spirit’s only activity, but only that it is the one that Luke is emphasizing.) Right at the transitional point between Luke’s biography of Jesus and his story of the church, as key elements of Jesus’s mission are becoming the mission of the church, Jesus lets us know what to expect.

  • Luke 24:45-49 (NIV): “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
  • Acts 1:8 (NRSV): “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I describe this as “prophetic” speech because it is speaking for God inspired by the Spirit, as in the prophets of old. In fact, the Spirit often is associated with inspiring prophetic speech in the Old Testament, and that was the most common association of the Spirit in early Judaism: the Spirit that inspired prophets.

God was giving the Spirit as a gift for his people so they could be witnesses to all nations. This gift is also the evidence that Christ has been exalted (2:33, NASB): “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.” The mighty one greater than John the Baptist is now pouring out the Spirit, even though in the OT it is clear that only God can pour out God’s Spirit. That is, Jesus is divine: “He will be baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16).

What is the sign or evidence of this empowerment to speak for God? At the risk of sounding tautological, it is: speaking for God! When the Spirit comes on the gathering of disciples, they begin speaking other languages, as the Spirit is giving them utterance (2:4). That the Spirit gives utterance indicates not just any kind of speech, but speech empowered and directed by the Spirit. That they were worshiping God in other people’s languages signifies the purpose of this prophetic empowerment: if we can worship in other people’s languages that we don’t know, how much more can we evangelize in languages that we do know. The speaking in other languages shows us that God seeks a body for Christ from all peoples, and that he is ready to speak in and so consecrate all langages to reach them.

(One may leave aside here the question as to whether every believer empowered to speak for God will speak in tongues. Clearly in Acts 2, the tongues-speaking shows what the empowerment is about: declaring Christ to all peoples. But does everyone so empowered express that gift? Acts does not make that explicit claim. One logical inference, however, is that those who receive this prophetic empowerment ought to express it, sooner or later, by prophetic speech, and ultimately in cross-cultural witness.)

Peter is clear in his interpretation of this experience: “In the last days” (which, since we are later than Peter, are presumably still going on!), Peter quotes the LORD as saying,

“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

                        and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

            and your young men shall see visions,

                        and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

                        in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

                                    and they shall prophesy”

(Acts 2:17-18, NRSV)

The last line, “and they shall prophesy,” is not in Joel, but belongs to Peter’s expansive paraphrase to ensure that we do not miss the point. This is prophetic empowerment. It might be expressed in visions or dreams or direct speech, but it will be moved by God’s Spirit.

It is also clear that it is for everybody. When Joshua was jealous for Moses’s sake about the Spirit coming on the elders, Moses declared, “I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” (Num 11:29). In Joel 2:28-29, after a time of repentance, this is fulfilled: both genders (sons and daughters, male and female servants), both ages (old and young), and both classes (Israel was not supposed to have other classes besides these two: slave and free). Moreover, “male and female slaves” in the OT often designated gentile slaves, suggesting that the “all flesh” on which God pours out his Spirit is on Jew and gentile alike, all peoples.

Although Jesus spoke the promise to the eleven appointed witnesses and those who were with them, we also are witnesses of God’s work. The mission to the ends of the earth (1:8) continues in our day, and so does the power to go with it. This is clear from Acts 2:38-39, which evokes language (“promise,” “gift”) of the earlier promise to the first witnesses: “Turn from sin, and be baptized, each of you, identifying with the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins may be forgivem; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For this promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away [cf. Isa 57:19, possibly imply gentiles], whoever the Lord our God calls.”

We can experience this empowerment of the Spirit individually, of course. “Revival” can happen on an individual level, but we also pray for it on a corporate level. Lest we suppose this experience of the Spirit in Acts 2 was a one-off rather than simply the first and seminal corporate experience, it is not the last outpouring of the Spirit even on the Jerusalem church. In Acts 3 and 4, after a healing the apostles preach boldly, and are ordered by local officials to stop doing so. So they gather and pray again for yet more healings and more boldness (4:29-30), and God’s Spirit fills the community of believers again: “and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke God’s message with boldness!” (4:31).

This gift is for you and for me. Let’s welcome the Spirit’s power, praying and trusting that he enables us to share the message of Jesus Christ to those around us and ultimately to those culturally distant from us. Revival is not just to make us feel good, though that may be a side benefit in the process. True revival makes us agents of God’s grace to change the world for Jesus, by preaching him as the true, rightful Lord and Savior of humanity.

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What does revival look like? The Spirit Speaks (application)

(picking up after last week’s post)

What did revival look like in 1 Samuel? First, it affected even the wider culture, even those who would not have been seeking God on their own.

Second, there can be times when the corporate presence of God is so strong that it affects even those around us. That is, its effects are not exclusively individualistic, though it begins with individuals whose hearts are for God. In terms of personal responsibility, we want to live our individual lives in the light of God’s presence. But sometimes God’s Spirit impacts even those around us through what we do or even how we worship.

I never visited “the Toronto Blessing,” and my illustration here need not reflect on everything that happened there. But I had a friend who visited it to check it out. He tells me that as he was approaching the entrance of the building he spoke to someone beside him, whom he didn’t know. “Do you think this is for real?” he asked. The other man shook his head. “I’m just coming to prove how fake it is.” The moment their feet touched the threshold, the other man dropped flat on his face, and my friend jumped back. “Is he dead?” he asked himself, terrified. Anna Gulick, a neighbor who participated in the Asbury Revival of 1970, said that even a block away from the campus, one could feel the presence of God so strongly that one could barely speak, so in awe was one of God’s holiness.

Third, we can see one of the ways that hearing from God spread from one boy, Samuel, to many others over the course of a generation. In a time when few were hearing from God (though some were—cf. 1 Sam 2:27-36), God sovereignly reached out to a boy consecrated by others for his service. Samuel began hearing from God and became widely known for this as he grew to be a young man (3:19-21). Still, Israel was following its institutional leaders, who were either corrupt (Eli’s sons; 2:12-17, 22, 25) or compromised and ineffective (Eli himself; 2:22-25, 29), and they led the entire nation into judgment (1 Sam 4). After twenty years, Samuel was in a position to summon Israel back to the Lord (7:2-6).

But many were thereafter drawn to Samuel, and learned from his experience of God. As we see in 1 Sam 19, Samuel was mentoring many younger prophets. Although God’s Spirit speaks perfectly, we humans do not always hear perfectly. Samuel, who had a perfect batting average in prophecy (3:19), could oversee younger prophets and help guard against them going astray. (In the first-generation churches of the Pauline mission, Paul has to appeal instead to peer review; 1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:19-22.)

Was this generation a one-off? Or did God work this way at other times? In a generation when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord (1 Kgs 18:4, 13) and replaced them with her prophets of Baal (18:19), Elijah thought that he alone was left a prophet of the Lord (18:22; 19:10, 14). (Technically, 18:4, 13, suggest that he was wrong, though he was probably the only one still speaking for God publicly.)

But by the time that Elijah is about to be taken to heaven in a chariot of fire, the land abounds with prophets (2 Kgs 2:3, 5, 7; cf. 1 Kgs 20:35). Although 1-2 Kings does not specify Elijah’s time mentoring these prophets, we do see his successor Elisha leading them (2 Kgs 4:38; 6:1; 9:1; cf. 2:15; 4:1).

I believe that this suggests that God can raise up leaders who not only experience the Spirit but who lead others into this experience, who over the course of a generation transform their generation by the spreading of the Lord’s message.

We shall see something similar or related in the Book of Acts, in (hopefully) future installments on this theme. Prophetic revival is not, however, the only way that God works, as if he is limited to a single method. God also works through societal transformation through godly leaders, as we see through King David or King Josiah or William Wilberforce. (I will take Josiah as my example for this.) God also brings revivals of worship, as we shall see in 1-2 Chronicles. God also works in other ways than what we might call revival in any sense—e.g., through promises of progeny to patriarchs (Abraham and Sarah) or through preserving people in famine (Joseph).

What does revival look like? And who gets to define it as such? There have been times in my life when I experienced such a deep spiritual connection with certain brothers and sisters that when we encountered each other even in a casual situation we began to overflow with worship and soon prophesying. Sometimes in a small group we would take turns prophesying. (Apologies to my cessationist brothers and sisters here, but with some of you I have experienced the same joy of us excitedly discussing Scripture; we all agree that God speaks through that, at least!) Essentially, we worshiped God, experienced his Spirit strongly, and I shared what I felt that he was speaking and encouraged others in the group to do the same. We sometimes kept going for a couple hours. Of course, in that small setting we could also offer course corrections without embarrassment if the others felt that someone went off biblically or said something that interfered with the sense of the Spirit’s approval (cf. 1 Cor 14:29). But it wasn’t something we worked up; it flowed naturally from the overflow of the experience of God’s Spirit among us. Whether you want to call that prophecy, as I would, or just worshiping and listening for God’s voice, seems to me just a matter of semantics.

I don’t think that a small group experiencing God’s voice together is what people mean by revival. But what happens if it spreads?

When I came here to teach at Asbury Seminary I learned more about the two twentieth-century revivals at Asbury College (now University), which of course impacted the seminary as well. When Anna Gulick shared with me her own experience of the 1970 revival, it triggered my memories of experiences I had at a Pentecostal Bible college (now part of a university) maybe ten years later. More than once the Spirit so moved us during worship in chapel that we couldn’t stop worshiping without neglecting his awesome presence (and who would do that?) Classes had to be canceled, and the Spirit of worship and prayer settled on the campus for days. Through Spirit-led leadership, we regularly sent out mission teams. We didn’t know to call that “revival.” But we cherished it, and expected that it would happen periodically.

What is the long-range impact? That’s much harder to measure. Out of the Asbury Revival did come a generation of servants impacting the world for Christ, such as Ajith Fernando. I have kept up with a couple of my friends from those small, usually spontaneous prophetic prayer meetings; one went to share Christ with an unreached people group, and the other facilitated training for over a million believers in a closed country. Not all my colleagues from Bible college even persevered in the faith, but many are now doing ministry all over the world and leading in cutting-edge mission. While we’re called to evaluate fruit, however, only God’s perspective in eternity will show us the fruit that comes from the true moving of God’s Spirit.

Whether we want to call something revival or use some other terminology, may we embrace whatever God’s Spirit wants to do among us. When our hearts are so tender before him that we want what he wants, willing to interrupt our otherwise-appropriate schedules when he invites us into special times of intimacy with him, when we refuse to limit what God might do if he wishes … call it what you will. Just welcome, embrace, and passionately desire his presence.

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What does revival look like? Part I: The Spirit Speaks

Many of us pray for revival, but what are we expecting? How would we recognize that God is answering our prayer?

Since our usual definitions of revival are largely shaped by movements of the past few centuries, rather than from a particular passage in Scripture, it’s possible that we are blending together a few different biblical models of how God works. That is, God works in various ways, and we have clustered some of those ways under particular expectations of what we mean by revival.

Having said that, there are times in history when God expressed his presence in such a way as to transform a generation, and if we are praying for such transformation, these are worth looking at. We cannot determine what shape the answer to our prayers will take—Hannah was simply praying for a son from a desperate heart, not for revival. Revival was in God’s own heart when he answered Hannah’s prayers with the boy Samuel. God is sovereign, stirring us to prayer and answering prayers in ways that sometimes make us uncomfortable. Catholics were praying for a new era of the Spirit just before the Pentecostal revival broke out among ultra low-church Protestants. Many Pentecostals were suspicious when the Spirit began moving among mainline Protestants and among Catholics. And Peter was certainly taken by surprise when his sermon was interrupted by God’s Spirit falling on uncircumcised gentiles.

Moreover, keep in mind that the long-range measure of impact may take a generation—or even eternity—to evaluate. Nevertheless, those experiencing God’s presence in these dramatic ways were not waiting for such full-scale evaluations, but were embracing what God was doing in them and through them at that time. So let’s look at one example of a revival that changed a generation. Because even this part I (on 1 Samuel) is longer than most of my posts, I will divide it into two sections.

When Samuel was a boy, the word of YHWH was rare and visions were infrequent (1 Sam 3:1). But by the time that Samuel is an old man, prophets are traveling in bands, prophesying all together with their worship instruments (10:5-6, 10). The Spirit of the Lord could come on someone else who came among them so that he too began prophesying, although afterward he might act mostly the same at the beginning (10:10-13).

By “prophesying together” I do not mean that they were prophesying in unison, but that they were all experiencing the Spirit’s inspiration and were expressing this inspiration from God rather than, or more than, paying attention to each other. Or possibly they were taking their turns (if we think of something more orderly, as in 1 Cor 14:31). The point is, that the word of YHWH was no longer so infrequent. (For the sake of some readers who are accustomed to hearing “inspiration” used in a narrower, more technical sense, I add a parenthetical digression here: I do accept Scripture as inspired [2 Tim 3:16] and as uniquely canonical. But I am using the term here in the broader sense of the Spirit moving people to speak or act for God. The English term has wider usage, of course, than even how I am using it here.)

What changed between 1 Samuel 3 and 1 Samuel 10? The author may take for granted that we already know, but he nevertheless provides a window into what was happening. Later we see Samuel presiding over a group of prophets who are prophesying (1 Sam 19:20). The Spirit of God was so strong among them that when Saul sent messengers to apprehend David, the messengers, overwhelmed with the Spirit, began prophesying. This happened also with the next two groups of messengers that Saul sent (19:20-21). Finally, Saul himself went to capture David, and was so overwhelmed by God’s Spirit that he too cast off his honorable robes and, on the ground, prophesied all day and night (19:23-24).

Keep in mind that this same Saul had lost the royal anointing of the Spirit earlier, replaced by a spirit sent for judgment (16:14). Saul had been “prophesying” by this bad spirit (18:10), and had wanted to kill David as this spirit was tormenting him (19:9-10). But when he came to where God’s prophets were prophesying, the Spirit of the Lord was so strong in that place that Saul fell down and began prophesying by God’s Spirit.

This account provides us with several insights. First, just because someone can prophesy doesn’t mean they’re super “spiritual”; it might just mean that they’re in a place where God’s Spirit is moving. There may be some leaders today living in sin who experience God’s anointing not because they are walking with God but because their mission is bathed in prayer by others. Their anointing is not permanent; compare those whose gifts leave them because of persistent sin, as in Judg 16:1-20). In times of revival, even the wicked may be affected, though they may still be wicked when the anointing “wears off.”

More next week …

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Celebrating being God’s child

Today as I write this (Oct. 17, 2018: I scheduled this in advance), I am celebrating being a child of God.

Today I have felt so loved by God, as his son. This wasn’t something I grew up with before my conversion, but it has come in my relationship with God. I could feel the reality of the Spirit of God’s Son crying out and causing me to cry out, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6).

One might think that since God has so many children now, it is not special to be his child. But that is not at all the case. This is the Spirit of God’s Son, Jesus Christ (Rom 8:3, 9, 11; Gal 4:4-6), and we are beloved in the Son. He made us his children in the Beloved One, Jesus (Eph 1:5-6). Our Father loves us as He loves Jesus (John 17:23). Of course, I already know that theoretically as the fruit of my study. But it is a step beyond that to celebrate its reality in my heart.

I don’t always think about it and I don’t always feel it. But when I remember what it means in my own relationship to God, when I express it in prayer and worship to God, when the Spirit reminds me, calling within me even when I had been thinking of something else—what sublime joy that brings!