Author: theparacleteshammer

NOTE 1: For those who are following the chained sequence of posts, the previous post was on the Servant. Find the link to that post here.

NOTE 2: This is the third of the seven Redemptive Gifts, and is my absolute favorite gift of the seven. And those who devalue the gift of Teacher simply do not understand the gift in fullness or Jesus’ design for the gift. For, if this Gift is worthless, than so is the Third day, all vegetation, all plants, several of my friends, and anything the L-rd made with this gift in mind.

So, I am in the process of removing some toxic things from my life, and the last few days have been rough. I imagine that this post, some Teachers may not understand, but that is okay. It will take some time for the truth of it to sink in. Recognizing that I was only agreeing to be an Exhorter because one of my friends needed me to be an Exhorter, I am mostly back at square one.

But I am grateful.

With no further adieu, the Teacher.

While the Prophet is concerned for truth and is overly-simplistic, and frequently judgmental, and the Servant wants to just help people and build platforms for success, what does the Teacher look like?

Samuel; the Tribe of Levi; Luke;

Isaac (“Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb (wilderness and empty and desert places can be useful and decluttered to help the Teacher in their regular need to meditate on a thing). And Isaac went out to MEDITATE (slow, deliberate processing) in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming);

Baltimore; Steve Wozinak; Bill Hewlett; HP; Volvo; the Onyx; Jerusalem; my friends Brian Claxton, Scott Osattin, Brian Fulthorp, Anna Zimmerman, and Anisha Cruz; the priestly work; the Table of Shewbread; Nicodemus; the Third Day of Creation; Mayo Clinic; The New York Times; Waco (Texas); Jacksonville (Florida); Nashville (Tennessee); the nation of Belgium; Toronto (Ontario); The Cherokee Nation; Sir Henry Royce; Orville Wright; Pensacola (Florida); Ireland; North Carolina; the Southern Baptist Convention; Huntsville (Alabama); London (Ontario); Houston (Texas); Bovines (which is the picture of Luke in much of Christian Iconography of the four Gospel Writers); Mary the Mother of Jesus (though some of my friends believe she is a Giver): and many other entities resonate with dynamics of the Teacher Gift. This is as of this writing, and these are some my take and some where I agree with Arthur Burk.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of the remaining posts, I will find some roundabout way to introduce them each.

Are Traits The Best Way?

Please note that just because I am setting out a list of traits, no one trait is the silver bullet for defining one as a particular gift, nor does the absence of a trait mean a person is not this or that gift. Rather, out of the couple of dozen or more traits, when we get a good 85% or so of the traits fitting, we know we have enough information to say, yeah, that is a Giver, this is a Servant, and over here we have a Prophet. We understand that a certain number of physical traits are enough to distinguish a duck from a bear or a horse. Likewise, these gifts, if you just pay attention to what is there, and are willing to slow down, like the Teacher does, and meditate, will self-present.

The Priority of Our Connection To the Human Spirit

The best way to look for someone’s Redemptive Gift is ultimately not by a list of prepackaged traits, though those traits do help us see the patterns readily, but rather to just feel with your spirit and consider with a knowing what is present. It takes practice for us to get to know the voice of our spirit, especially if we are used to thinking with our brains, natural reasoning, or merely depending on G-d the Holy Spirit, Father, or Son to give us the boiled-down, tl;dr(short for “too long; didn’t read) answer. Our spirit is capable of renewing and healing our minds, and bypassing the logic and mental centers at need.

That said, when you get so entangled with prominent traits that you begin to see multiple gifts, you either have one of three things happening.

1. You have either one or more of the spirit portions coming to the front because they have been so used to carrying a load that your primary portion of the spirit is not readily identifiable,
2. You have more than one of the Redemptive Gifts as your primary gift,
3. Or you have grown to accept a gift that isn’t yours, likely because either A) you have mistaken how the gifts function or B) you think this or that gift is the cool gift to have.

Now for each of those three let me offer some thoughts:

1. There is a theory about what we call “seconds” (secondary Redemptive Gifts) that fits well with what I know about myself: when we are wounded in our primary spirit portion that reflects our dominant Redemptive Gift, the one that marks our soul, other portions will take up the slack in order to help protect the community and especially the wounded portion, so much so that, over the years, a Teacher may think themself a Prophet, and a Mercy may think themself an Exhorter, and so on. For example, my Teacher, Prophet, and Exhorter Portions are all very strong. And some of your portions may have been developed as well, so you might feel that because your portion in question is what is familiar, that it is your dominant portion.
2. I am with Arthur Burk completely in the presentation of the Gifts. We do not have more than one Redemptive Gift, though our spirit does have all seven as a community in portions that interact one with another. We are incredibly complex creatures. Think of your spirit as light and your soul as a colored window. Your spirit contains all six colors of the rainbow, and those colors combine to create a seventh color (white light). Our dominant portion, the portion that gets the disproportionate Return on Investment, is the portion that reflects in the window that is our soul. whether the color of that window is white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple. Everything is going to be colored by that dominant color. Yes, it is an analogy, and yes the analogy can break down, but just stay with me. The point of the analogy is that we each carry something that reflects in ALL of our dealings. One way to tell which gift is your gift is to look at the what we call the ROI (the Return On Investment). Wherever that ROI is disproportionate, that is, wherever we are effortless in reaping the blessing or the effort of walking in the principles, and we get a 1 to 100 or 1 to 1000 return for the effort we put in is a good indicator of where we are gifted. That effortlessness is tied to our gift. And our job is to find the key or keys that unlock that dominant gift and flow in that, which will bring out our G-d-designed flavor and taste in the community of the body of Christ. “We know in part, and prophesy in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9), and in another place, “so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:5, which is the context for this discussion on Redemptive Gifts). Meaning, you with one particular gift ought not cultivate an attitude of superiority or heresy-hunting toward someone you deem is more emotional or more cerebral than you. Emotions and thoughts are things created by G-d. And we are designed to use both in our processing of information, data, and truth. In addition, we use our will, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and the treasure that is our spirit. And we understand that there are certain things that are just not going to make sense to our natural understanding, and that will only make sense to our spirits.
3. A few years ago, everybody was a Prophet, because they mistook the difference between a Fivefold Office Prophet and a Redemptive Prophet. The proliferation of the Fivefold Ministry as the prevalant sacred cow, the only and best method of church leadership, and our twisting of that for the purposes of covering, are part of the reason we got it twisted. Nowadays, because Arthur has done such a good job of selling Mercy, everyone and their uncle thinks they are a Mercy.
   

Concerning the Redemptive Gifts, John Mosley said the following:

Redemptive Gifts…
Prophets – Not because they always prophesy
Servants – Not because they were made to serve others
Teachers – Not because they just want to teach people
Exhorters – Not because they want to encourage people
Givers – Not because they love to give
Rulers – Not because they need to be in charge
Mercies – Not because they always show mercy to people…
We are all so very different. Don’t confuse the word meaning of the gift with a unique and glorious expression of the Maker. 😀

The gifts get so twisted because we associate a few of these gifts with spooky glory of manifestation. They are not manifestations. Rather these gifts are designed to function based on principles. A Prophet is not so-called because he prophesies. A Servant is not so-called because he serves.

Likewise, a Teacher is not so-called because they teach. We get gifts so confused because we in the Charismatic movement associate gifts with the supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit or really bad expressions or articulations of these gifts in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.

These gifts are not based on supernatural manifestations, though when you plug into your gift it might feel to you like “where did all this benefit and favor come from?!”. That is because your Redemptive Gift, unlike the Office Gifts (Ephesians 4) or the Manifestation Gifts (1 Corinthians 12 and 14), are hardwired into you, it is built into your DNA in a way. You were born and conceived with this expression, and that expression will come out across your entire life. The glory of G-d is hardwired to be part of each of us from the beginning, given the gifts and callings of G-d are given without repentance. Your wiring is supernatural of another kind.

Therefore, if all else fails and you are lost in a tangle of what Adam Esbenshade calls the “soul data” (the characteristics and traits won’t help you crack this egg), then what you need to do is quiet your soul, so your spirit can come to the front and identify the dominant portion, and then you will know. It is not meant to be as complicated as we make it. And in the end, you might disagree with a number of people who say you are this or that gift.

But, it is okay. You are responsible to flow in the way the Father has called you to flow, and made you to flow.

Besides, in my eyes, Teacher is the coolest of the seven. And I am always right.

Ahem.

Back to humility, David. 😉

What, You Mean Cities and Businesses and Organizations?!?!?!?!?!

Yes, Cities, and businesses, and organizations and institutions and other things found in creation, all reflect the pattern set in place by the fractal, or pattern, of seven that we see in Scripture. Because businesses, institutions, and cities nations, and other entities flow out of agents that were created by G-d, and because EVERYTHING G-d does is redemptive, that means, His redemptive character, and the gifts translate everywhere, just like patterns of the number seven are found everywhere, prolifically, in Scripture, so also the proofs of this are found in nature. We will cover some of that concept as it relates to the Teacher in this post.

Corrupte apud Florezium, Augustine, “Mentitur qui te totam legisse factetur”
Translated: [Concerning Augustine] He is a liar who confesses to have read the whole [of his works].

St. Isidore of Seville

I quoted that bit on St. Augustine because if you know anything about Augustine’s literary output (lower left corner of the collage), it was massive. Teachers are well known for the massive output which they set forth, often magisterially. For a further visual example of what a Redemptive Gift Teacher does, see the following video:

Did you see those books?!?!?

Traits Of The Teacher

1. Most Teachers are massively committed to the old, the historical. Whereas the Prophet loves the new, and the newfangled, the Teacher is committed to what was, and anchors much of what they do with the past. They have a capacity to connect the current to the past and bring others with them on that journey effectively.
2. Teachers, as noted above, tend to be prolific writers, and whatever they put out will be of the finest and most reliable quality.
3. Pardon the non-standard grammar construct, but Teacher don’t do secondary nonsense or hearsay. You get a book written by a Teacher, it is going to be well-documented, with a good bibliography, works cited, and those works are going to be from primary materials. And it will frequently be dense.
4. Teachers are frequently acknowledged to be one of the slowest of the gifts. Slow because they are meticulous, and slow because they are painstaking with explanations. If you ask a Teacher about John 3:16, they are liable to take you back to Genesis 1:1 and walk you through the heilsgeschichte (German for “salvation history”) of the whole canon. Prophet has a transmission with about 35 gears in it, and the Teacher has one speed: compound low.
5. Teachers, while they are slow of speech, once they get going on a subject that is important to them, their tongues quickly become some of the longest in the body of Christ. You will note that when the third day was written about, G-d used more words there (which parallels the Teacher’s day) more than any other segment.
6. Frequently they are some of the more cerebral of the gifts. The image of the absent-minded professor, because they are potentially dealing with a deep riddle, is not without reason.
7. Teachers, if they have not matured, can be one of the more conceited of the gifts. Think of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up.
8. Teachers are universally considered to be one of the safest of the gifts. Considering the Teacher tribe of Levi, they are the ones who stay at the tabernacle and wait for the sinner to come. Contrast this with the Prophet, who has a license to hunt. The Prophet will tell you to repent once and then stone you. The Teacher on the other hand, frequently walks in patience and listens to any and all sin, and shows people the way back home. Again, the Levites, with their priestly anointing, heard the issues, and then showed people which sacrifices to offer and how to offer them.
9. One function of the Teacher in Scripture, and we see this play out in real life, is the connection between the Teacher and healing. The priests in Israel dealt with the molds, the scabs, the leprosy, and all the regulations dealing with sickness and disease. Likewise, Teaching communities are known for their world-class medicine. Think of St. Louis; Baltimore; Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Belgium, where most physicians for tropical medicine were trained during the last couple of centuries. Also, when you consider the third day, this is when many of your plants, which are the roots of much of pharmacology, comes from. There is healing in the leaves, healing for the nations. Most medications, essential oils, homeopathic remedies, and naturopathic remedies are created using substances that were created on the Third Day.
10. There are seven principles that parallel the Seven Redemptive Gifts. They are, in order Prophet/Principle of Design, Servant/Principle of Authority, Teacher/Principle of Responsibility, Exhorter/Threefold Principle of Pain and Suffering/Sowing and Reaping/Reality, Giver/Principle of Stewardship, Ruler/Judge/Deliverer/Principle of Freedom, and Mercy/Principle of Fulfillment. The principle for the Teacher is the Principle of Responsibility. While that isn’t the sexiest of the principles, the ramifications are YUGE. When the Teacher walks in Responsibility, their authority to speak to a situation with the deep treasures of the Word of G-d reaps a massive harvest.
11. In the Third Day, we see the introduction of male and female into Creation with the introduction of plants and vegetation. As a result, it is the Teacher that frequently can create the most cogent arguments for dealing with issues of sexual confusion.
12. Teacher cities are frequently the places where the beachheads for fights pertaining to sexual deviance are formed.
13. Of note, in Teacher communities, witchcraft in its many forms is usually present.
14. Teacher communities have a high presence of other things that wish to pervert truth.
15. Because of the prevalence of the religious spirit, most Teacher communities have a high prevalence of churches and religious organizations.
16. Teacher cities usually have a disproportionate number of hospitals, schools, and green space, such as parks.
17. When a Teacher gets a new piece of truth, he is neither quick to dismiss that new piece, nor to take it in. He of all the gifts, is the slowest to assimilate truth, because he likes to painstakingly turn it over in his mind and consider it for a while. This can drive some of the more impulsive gifts up a tree.
18. tl;dr the Teacher has a need to validate truth. They love to evaluate truth from a number of different angles. And, as above with Dr. Keener, they are usually prolific writers. Luke and Isaiah exemplify the Teacher. Both men were prolific writers.
19. In the case of Isaiah, the issue that repeatedly comes to the fore for the Teacher are issues of social justice. Now, I know that is going to grate on a lot of conservatives who think that the social gospel and social justice are hallmarks of Protestant Liberalism, and to some degree, that is true. However, the L-rd in this season, is making an issue of justice towards many different people groups that have not long enjoyed reaping justice in the context of the church.
20. I am going to beat this drum rather hard. Those that cannot handle it, might need to come back and read this later. G-d made an issue in Isaiah, and in James (a Redemptive Gift of Prophet), as well as Luke, of justice toward those people that were highlighted in the Law of Moses as people we need to be especially keen as a church body to care for: THE WIDOW, THE ORPHAN, THE FATHERLESS, THE PRISONER. Pure religion and undefiled before G-d is this, to visit these peeps in the time of their distress. It is not the government who should provide the first line of safety net, but rather the church. They know you follow Yeshua by your love. Not by the correctness of your practice. Your Principle of Responsibility is what brings out the finest of church practice. It is not just when we teach rightly, but when we practice skillfully. It is not just when we have the right feast days, but also when we give the disenfranchised justice.
21. Hewlett-Packard, and a number of other Teacher companies FLOURISHED, when they began to practice social responsibility. Let me quote from Onyx Business DNA:

It was in [the] context [of several centuries following the Industrial Revolution] that Dave Packard led the way to a paradigm shift that has affected the western culture. He was in a meeting with a number of leading captains of industry in the United States. And this is a quote from Stanford Magazine, article by Dave Packard.

He said, “somehow, we got into a discussion of the responsibility of management. [Paul] Holden made the point that management’s responsibility is to the shareholders — that’s the end of it. And I objected. I said, ‘I think you’re absolutely wrong. Management has a responsibility to its employees, it has a responsibility to its customers, it has a responsibility to the community at large.’ And they almost laughed me out of the room.”

50 years ago, the concept of social responsiblity was not even languaged. Dave Packard, highly respected leader of a major American corporation, meets with other American businesspeople, and says, “we have a responsibility for more than just our shareholders….”

Onyx Business DNA, Disc 2, Cut 1, Timestamp 2:40-4:04

Note, the Teacher company that flowed in and stepped forward in the Principle of Responsiblity back then, became a leader in a revolution on how businesses engage with responsiblity that may not be theirs, but when they embrace a wider problem than just profit margin, as a Teacher company, they grow.

22. When a Teacher embraces the Principle of Responsibility in fullness, and embraces problems that have that flavor of responsibility, they will turbo-charge something and open the door for a flood of authority in their sphere of influence.

23. G-d made the Teacher to slow down some of the more impulsive gifts that may jump to conclusions too quickly.

24. Because the Teacher is a very safe person emotionally, many Teachers may confuse themselves with a gift of Mercy. They are able to listen to brokenness, woundedness, any kind of sin without having a critical attitude, and then they show the way home toward reconciliation with G-d.

25. Because the Principle of Responsibility becomes a battleground for them and a place of testing, Teachers frequently have a hard time returning things. You let a Teacher borrow books, tapes, materials, and those materials, without malice may arrive in the Teacher’s drawers or bookshelves for six weeks, six months or six years, and the Teacher will frequently without malice, completely forget they have borrowed those materials.

26. They are often late in returning not only things, but also in returning communication, letters, phone calls, and e-mails.

27. Teachers, because they are slow-moving, typically have issues with being responsible with time, as in, they are frequently late, to meetings, appointments, and other things.

28. Teachers typically also have issue and problems with handling money. Most Teachers in a marriage with another gift, the Teacher will usually allow the other gift to handle the finances.

29. One of the telltale marks that you are dealing with a Teacher is the way they excel in all areas except at home. You can have a person who is a Teacher that does A+ work at their job, in education, and in ministry, and at their home, the doorbell is broken, the oil in their car has not been changed in several months, and the toilet has not been maintained and some of the outlets are not working. In other words, because the Principle of Responsibility is such a major component for the Teacher, the negative manifestations and the fight for the Teacher will be in the area of Selective Responsibility.

30. The stronghold for the Teacher is the Religious Spirit. I define that spirit way differently than most charismatics. Whereas most charismatics define the Religious spirit as “a set of rules and regulations for doing worship or pleasing G-d”, I define it as “doing anything except the one thing G-d told you to do.” You can engage in a flurry or religious activity, and whether it is dry expository preaching, or dancing, flagging, talking in tongues, and flagging during worship, and the spirit behind both the dry worship and the charismatic worship will be the same. If G-d has asked you to take Sunday morning off in order to do something for the widow next door, and you instead insist on ignoring what G-d told you to do, you have embraced a religious spirit. If you have been told to go to your son’s football game, and you instead stay at home and hang out with your weekly group doing whatever, that is a form of the religious spirit. It is doing anything except the one thing you are supposed to be doing. Put more simply, it is shirking your responsibility.

31. In preaching or teaching, the Teacher really does not like using incarnated truth. They love their chain references, the exposition, the Greek and the Hebrew (not merely a Strong’s Concordance if they can avoid it). They frequently love the pure doctrine of the written Scriptures.

32. For the Teacher to step up into what they were made to do, they have to have a moment, or series of MOMENTS OF ENCOUNTER with not just the Scripture, but the Word of G-d HIMSELF. The Word of G-d is not merely a book. It is first and foremost a MAN. Hebrews 4:12 is written in the context of the rest of Hebrews 4, which discusses Yeshua as our Sabbath Rest. Just saying!

33. Teacher cities of the last 100+ years, with the exception of Los Angeles, have hosted just about every major revival since the birth of the Pentecostal Movement in Azusa Street. Pensecola, Kansas City, Lakeland, Toronto, etc. All Teacher cities. Teacher Cities are designed to host the presence of G-d and be places that are safe for encounter with the True and Living G-d that the Teacher himself or herself was meant to encounter

34. The Table of Shewbread (also called the Table of the Bread of Presence), the Third in the list of Seven Articles of Furniture in the Tabernacle, symbolizes the desire of the L-rd for intimacy and communion. The L-rd desires for the Teacher to have unlimited access to His presence and to not just know about Him, or even to know the Scriptures, but to KNOW HIM. Note that even though there were certain Levites that were excluded from serving in or around the Tabernacle due to physical deformities (Leviticus 21), every Levite had the right to feast on the Bread of the Presence. In other words, every single person with the Redemptive Gift of Teacher has access to an unlimited amount of intimacy with the L-rd. That depth of hidden manna, of deep truth, is part of the birthright of the Teacher.

35. The Teacher’s piece in the Believer’s Armor from Ephesians 6 are not the Shoes of Peace, but the Shoes of Readiness. Feet shod not with peace, but Feet SHOD WITH READINESS from the Gospel of Peace.

36. The Teacher also likes to slow down and ponder their thoughts. One statement that embodies the Teacher is “she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”, a reference to Mary, whom I call a Teacher, hands-down. Now, I understand, there are people who call her a Giver, and that is their business, but my take is Teacher. Slowness of thinking, and moving, and consider the riddle and unpack the deep riddle.

37. Here is a blast on my views of the Teacher. This is my absolute favorite gift of the seven and the one I celebrate where most won’t. They are steadfast, loyal, thoughtful, tender, plaintive, contemplative, soulful in the eyes, chewing the cud, generous with their words when believing the best about someone, and when they are not wounded or offended, some of the best, sweetest, kindest, deepest people you will every meet.

38. The symbol for the Luke in Catholic and early Christian Icons and artwork of the Four Evangelists (authors of the Four Gospels) is the bull or ox. Pulling heavy loads, solid, strong, steady, plowing the fields to plant the seeds of deep truth. This is a very fitting motif for the Teacher. Luke was faithful and loyal and the only one who stayed by Paul, just like Mary did with Jesus at the Crucifixion, to the end.

39. My Teacher portion presents very much like Ferdinand the Bull. He will not leave anyone behind, loves the smell of flowers, does not like separation, like the deep thoughts.

40. The Teacher, when you see me compare them to a vehicle, is without a doubt the motorcycle. A LOT of responsibility goes with riding a motorcycle. Capable of great fun and thrilling rides when handled correctly, and capable of great damage when mishandled.

And follow the path, from the ground to the sky, to my post on the Exhorter, which is next.

Read this, gang. Sarah Frost Crew of Shiloh Place Ministries speaks the truth.

She writes:

This spiritual bypassing is what makes the church seem like insincere jerks sometimes who are uncomfortable with emotion.

This spiritual bypassing fueled my anger at God when people tried to encourage me to bypass my grief because they did not know how to deal with it.

This spiritual bypassing where we encourage people away from the sin a strong emotion might cause, instead of letting them feel their emotion and weeping with them, distances us from community and true relationship. That relationship is where you get a leg to stand on to encourage them later toward Jesus.

The Lord designed us in His image and so our emotions ARE Godly. As a Christian, I am learning how to be comfortable with human emotion. I am learning how to hug before I preach or bypass. I am learning to to stop talking and be still with them, instead of nonchalant invalidating without thinking.

Will you join me?

I have spoken against him, and spoken against the way in which his writings have been used to hammer an entire generation into submission.

And now, the other side…or as Paul Harvey regularly intoned…..

“the rest of the story.”

I am going to do my best to approach this one with some mercy, given that if someone were writing about me, I would hope their words would be seasoned with salt. I also know that there have been times in the last twenty years where my words were seasoned with cyanide more than salt, and for that I have done what I could to repent.

True, Josh Harris was ignorant of a lot of things for a great many years, and in that ignorance, in the interim, a lot of ministers articulated a lot of things about his writings, some were true, and a few may not have been, but, because I don’t like leaving stones uncovered or unturned, I would like to clarify something, so at least we are looking at a fully clear perspective here.

THE NEXUS INTO WHICH HARRIS DROPPED HIS WRITINGS

I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Boy Meets Girl were dropped into the middle of an agreement-heavy, empowered, fundamentalist evangelical segment of the church that took obedience to its leadership seriously and its edicts even more seriously, some of which were stupidly uttered without first checking in with the courts of heaven to see if those thoughts were heaven-sent, or soulish nonsense in reaction to wounds sustained while those pastors were under a heavy hand.

All this occurred under the Ruler Season dynamic of systems, and protocols, and authority, and regulation…

And in for those of us who are part of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement and legion of nasty and improperly articulated concepts such as ministers as coverings, apostolic oversight (a very poor articulation of what the apostolic is supposed to do, given that apostles do not oversee, they examine foundations; bishops oversee, or better yet OVERSEERS oversee), spiritual fathers, submission, touch not my anointed, and other dynamics that could easily be thrusted under the heading of spiritual abuse.

It was a case of over-bakked swaggar and not enough tenderness and affection.

But let me highlight two dynamics from his books to throw this concept in sharp relief, given we have the idea that 1) the purity culture started with Josh Harris and 2) his writings told us that courtship was better than dating.

DISCLAIMER: granted, the subtitle of “Boy Meets Girl” is “Say Hello to Courtship”, but if you open up the two books most notorious for this issue, there are some statements at odds with the idea that “courtship was the point.”

Truly, I think he was trying to articulate, as a twenty-something pastoral assistant with little real-world experience, a new paradigm with evangelistic zeal, but it was not his problem. Rather, we allowed ourselves to be programmed, and groomed, and coached into this mentality.

To the first point, the purity culture started, not with Josh Harris, but with his literary precursor, Elisabeth Elliot.

But that is not even the point, as neither Josh nor Elisabeth are wholly culpable for the “purity culture” beast that we fed.

The point is that our ministers and pulpits and denominations latched onto this and launched things like True Love Waits and the Silver Ring Thing.

And also, as we begin to register the fallout from this movement, articles have been written in ministerial and counseling periodicals that detail situations in which couples have issues following their wedding in which the loss of virginity is received as a form of trauma.

To the second point, I think it is more appropriate that we cover something Harris said himself:

‘Dating versus courtship’ isn’t the point. I’ve known ‘serial courters’ who lived like the devil and ‘saintly daters’ guided by integrity and holiness. In and of themselves, the terms they used to describe their relationships were meaningless. The way they lived is what really mattered. 

Josh Harris, Boy Meets Girl, 1st edition, 2000, pp 30.31

Dating versus courtship is not the point.

Not the message we have been taught. And granted, that point may not form the balance of Harris’ arguments, but it is a point that is present. And a horde of preachers beat this philosophy of “ditch dating, embrace courtship” as if changing the labels was going to make the difference.

So, where do we go from here?

I will flat-out tell you.

What elements were missing from these writings and from a lot of the teachings of the purity culture, and the larger world of evangelical Christianity?

Discernment. And I am not talking about discernment the way many evangelicals describe it–is this message being preached biblical or in line with the Holy Spirit?—I am talking about discernment as in discerning the physical presence of different kinds of spiritual beings, or discerning the voice of the Living G-d and hearing what He is actually saying in the moment, not through our logic, our minds, our brains, but through the living and active voice of the Holy Spirit.

I am talking about whether or not we have a living and breathing relationship with a book, the Bible.

I am asking, beseeching, crying out…

Do we have a living and breathing and active relationship with the Man, Christ Jesus?

Did we hear him verbally say, thus and so is the right thing for you?

Did we have evidences that are undeniably supernatural that this man, this woman are what Father has for us?

Did we notice that we were able to engage in the finest of our designs in company with this person?

Not, did I cross off all of the religious requirements of Harris or Elliot?

Harris and Elliot are going to be dead and buried one day, and before their King.

And their books will all decompose like the rest of what is before us.

The question I have is, “do you have a living and breathing relationship with G-d, and no matter the label you use, are you doing with your time what Father wants you to do with your time?”

Some of you are supposed to get married and connect and have kids, and you have been scared half to death by an undiscerning culture, that told you miracles do not exist, and the only miracle that exists is found in the Scriptures.

Some of you have been told that you either have to pick the miraculous or you have to pick the Bible.

There is a healthy fullness that incorporates the fullness of both principles, and miracles.

The issue is, with our love life, we have been sold a bill of goods that says love is either a choice, or love is an emotion.

Love in all of its complexities, incorporates elements of both choices and emotions. There are warm fuzzies and hard, deadly choices.

And for G-d’s sake, if you are trying to figure it out in your head and you don’t need spiritual discernment that comes not from your natural brain, but from the spiritual realm governed by the King of Glory, then you are not living a G-d-sized faith.

It’s not that Harris or Elliot got it wrong, necessarily. I am really trying to be gracious here.

Rather, it is a lack of fullness in their writings. It is a lack of discernment and a lack of dependence on the spiritual realm.

Our place is in two worlds, and we cannot solve kingdom-sized problems with standard natural solutions.

We need kingdom-sized weapons of the spirit realm….

Discernment, which is picking up the presence of spiritual entities in the spiritual realm

Revelation, which is hearing G-d actually speak and understanding the treasures He gives in a new way (treasures old and new).

And above all, love in two ways, both in choices and in emotions.

We need fullness.

Harris and Elliot, as angry as Harris’ stuff makes some of you, got a few principles right.

But, ask yourself, what is missing?

It’s not about being afraid of being fruitful and multiplying.

Rather, it is about observing the times, timings, and seasons that G-d has placed before us, and when we note a man or a woman with whom we can redemptively connect, we connect and work alongside them for a season.

And being ready to hear if Father wants us together with that person in a covenant.

Gang, I want each of you healthy and loved.

And, I could not let a rant about Harris’ writings wrest, without also being even-handed about including a post about the few things he got right, in addition to tracing back to Elliot the part of this whole context that is a mess now.

It is not just about a couple of books, gang. Rather, it is also about an entire nexus of people who were fired up to blast anyone who stepped a small way out of bounds.

A woman and a man should never have to go to their wedding bed ashamed of performing a sex act. Period. And yes, the Song of Solomon describes all sorts of sex acts that are not PG-13 missionary position only with no pleasure.

There are metaphors and pictures for oral sex and all kinds of stuff, gang in that book.

I mean, G-d made us to not only have kids, but to enjoy this thing called marriage.

You were made to have a foxhole buddy that was that close and intimate. Someone that you share a trench with and smash some clowns together with.

In closing, a small piece, one thing I appreciate about Peaches is that if I have a struggle with a Leviathan or an alien human spirit or something weirder in the spirit realm, she is the first one to gird her sword no matter how unusual, and tell me straight-up what she is hearing, and she has my back without question.

As a pastor, it is my job to have the back of every one of my charges here on both social media and physical life. I treat the groups that I lead as churches. My job is to be life-giving and flexible to every last one of those people I lead and serve in my groups, no matter how weird the battle gets.

I have dealt with all kinds of weird things.

And I do not every question my wife when there is a spiritual issue. I must at all times, get into the freaking foxhole and put a bullet right between the enemy’s eyes. Period.

Woe to me if I shoot the woman who shares my foxhole and watches my back.

For in the moments we share the foxhole, and fight battles together, that is one more step closer to intimacy and it is a form of lovemaking and is set apart, for those who are in covenant union under the kingdom-advancing banner of Christ.

It’s not just about following the rules leading up to marriage.

It is also about following the spirit and heart of the counsel of the Trinity after the wedding is done, so that our love grows.

Be blessed.

The decision had been made.  Bear (right) and Peanut were about to be put to sleep.  The day was Pi Day.  Irrational, to the end.  Everything about what was happening did not make any sense.

But the vet decided that for one to be put to sleep would have left the other alone, with no way of coping, and Peanut’s Cushing’s had advanced beyond the place where he could be comforted.  We had also discovered that Bear had advanced cancer.

And, as my wife and mother were sitting in the exam room while they were being put to sleep, my wife registered something she had not considered before.

She felt a portal between heaven and earth open in the vet office, and two angels step through the portal into the exam room, and, not a rainbow bridge, but the Man at the Center of the Rainbow Himself, step through, and the spirits of these two very good boys leap from their bodies, and walk toward the One Who Had First Ushered Them Into Existence.

He is the Rainbow, the Door, the Gate, and The Bridge.

And the Presence of the L-rd had come…

For the purposes of escorting two of his beloveds into Father’s presence.

And I know a lot of this does not make sense because I am using what could be construed as anthropomorphic language.

But when you are married to someone who is so strongly connected to animals, the rest of the arguments about animals and eternity makes little sense.

He is the G-d who is surrounded by Oxen, and Eagles, and Lions, and Men.

And of those favorite, the Ox, or bull, representing the Teacher, Dr. Luke, that chews the cud and plows the field with broad shoulders, embraces beyond the metaphor to the quite literal statement found in Job.

“Ask the animals, and they will teach you.”

Quite literally, if you ask the animals, and connect with their unfallen spirits, they will speak and instruct you in the ways of the Creator of the Universe.

Quite literally, the Lion Roars as we step “further up and further in”. And the veil between Narnia and our world is gossamer thin. As close as the alveoli are to the erythrocytes, and as the O2 passes across that membrane, so also we were made to transition across that membrane, beyond the veil.

By the Mane of Aslan, gang.

This is one of the most irrationally rational things we could consider.

Arthur wrote:

One part of my legacy is the legitimization of the Mercy gift. 

A number of years ago, a family listened to the whole RGI teaching and one member responded with disdain and contempt at the end saying, “What did God make the Mercy gift for?”

He was not alone in finding the differences of the gift to be an undesirable thing, instead of being the crown jewel of God’s creation. 

I have championed the Mercy gift, individually and collectively, giving pictures and explanations for how it is wonderful that this gift exists, how it is the responsibility of the rest of us to understand them and value their treasures, and I have inspired the Mercy gift to rise above the crude “Messy Mercy” label and to shine in the culture. 

The net result is that the Mercy gift is now cool, and this post is proof of it. 

I don’t know some of the people commenting. But of the people I do know, fully 25% of those claiming to be gift of Mercy are NOT, but are choosing to see themselves that way, because Mercy has come full circle from being a problem, to being the elite gift. 

On the one hand, the lack of reality of people not coming to terms with their design is a constant irritation in all forms, but in this case, it is a left handed compliment that I have built a good enough brand for the Mercy tribe that you now have a major illegal immigration problem on your hands!

If you are squeamish in your will or gentle in your thoughts, or you have made an idol out of homeschooling, this post might not be for you. Feel free to opt-out, because this one makes me cranky.

There is still time to turn back, even for those who write with me.

Dear Josh Harris,

Your legalism shipwrecked you.

This is why I cannot stand side hugs. As I work with people with parts, I understand some people need to. But people who side hug because of a religious spirit, or a fear to cause seine to stumble, this is what that spirit has done to make Evangelicals even more nutty.

To my audience,

If you place your faith in homeschooling or this or that rather than placing your faith in Christ.

If you don’t have the ovaries or the testicles to raise your kids…

If you don’t have the chutzpah to school your kids in the way Father tells you to, even if that means sending them to public school, or private school, or homeschooling them, then you are embracing a religious spirit.

The religious spirit is NOT merely embracing an expression of faith that is not charismatic or pentecostal, because I guarantee you there are people who are spirit-filled embracing a religious spirit. Worship this way, do deliverance this way, speak in to uves or prophesy this way.

The fivefold ministry is RIFE with a religious spirit.

The religious spirit is not the spirit of the Pharisees, nor is it merely a judgmental spirit.

No, no, no.

The religious spirit is the spirit that gets you to do Anything except the ONE THING Jesus told you to do.

It has nothing to do with crunchy legalism or Spirit-filled, charismatic freedom or rolling down the aisles or swinging from the chandeliers.

It is engaging in ANY behavior as a display or a show of expression of your devotion to G-d that is anything but the one thing the L-rd freaking told you to do.

Your capacity to be an apostle or a Prophet or a bishop or a pastor or a rabbi or a supporter or detractor of national Israel does not impress me.

Your willingness to do the one thing Jesus told you to do is what impresses me.

Hook up to that one thing G-d told you to do, rather than emphasizing prophesy or to gues or the apostolic or the gifts or this or that.

And when G-d says “send your kids to public school”, send them to public school.

And when he says “homeschool them” homeschool them.

And when he says “go on a date with thus-and-so” go on a date with thus-and-so.

Or when he says take your kids and enroll them in Sace Camp, then do that.

My counsel to you is don’t flame out like Josh did.

This is now how G-d wants us to live, by flaming out.

Or wearing out.

Maria Woodworth Etter said, “it’s better to wear out for Jesus than rust out.”

Wrong!

It is better to be hot and then cold by turns and flowing and doing the dance between hot and cold so you can be useful in this season and to the next season.

Just my take.

Run with Him. Bless your kids according to their design.

And on this topic, Rachel Stephens was right.

Our job was always to embrace a faith that impacts the world and touches our kids. The Principle of Responsibility. Do the one or two things by your kids that leaves them dangerous in the world rather than milquetoast.