Author: theparacleteshammer

Text:

ωστε ει τις εν χριστω καινη κτισις τα αρχαια παρηλθεν ιδου γεγονεν καινα τα παντα


How I translated it:
Insomuch as anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation 
The old has passed away 
Behold, all has been created new.


Many of us in the church have read this in a translation that has said something along the lines of “Therefore, if any man is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed, and all things have been made new.”  


Not only does the person become new, reborn as those of us who are “born-again” say, but more than that.  We get so caught up, in the conservative church world, in being born again, that such words become trite after decades of use, and we just pass it off with an “amen” and no second thought.  However, the words require us to think through them again.  


We can be “in Christ” in varying degrees, to the extent that we actively trust Him.  Hopefully we choose to be completely “in Christ” and not in ourselves.  That may not happen every day, but we can choose day by day whether or not we will fully trust Him, and that means not trusting whatsoever in our own abilities.  And as we trust fully in Him, we become that new creation, and not only do we become a new creation, more happens.  For when we become a new creation, we recieve new eyes, new ears, new hands and feet, and new faculties, for then to us is opened up a set of senses by which we may perceive the world as the L-rd perceives the world, we may see others as the Son sees them, we may hear with the L-rd’s ears, and taste and smell as He does.  


Excuse the metaphor, but the metaphor is nevertheless effective for communicating the mystery of what happens to us when we become followers of Yeshua ha-Mashiach.  Not only do you become new, but your perception of reality changes and transforms.  Your mind transforms, your heart transforms, your desires and affections transform, as you yield yourself to Him.  


Permit Him to transform and redirect you, for in that you will never be the same.  You come apart from  the worldly influences of the darkness in this place. And your coming apart from the worldly influences is for the purpose of reconciling the world to Him.  


And coming apart from the worldly influences does not mean you sever all contact with your unbelieving friends, but rather it means the internal changes that occur in you result in external changes your unbelieving friends can see and as you hang around and the L-rd in you begins to work his changes in them, this then will result in the praise of His glory.  “Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and praise your Father who is in heaven.”

So, the living room is mostly packed, and I have started looking at the master bedroom closet.  Oy vey.  Work tonight.  Reading now to relax.  Had a nice talk with Kresha about finances several days ago.  Enjooying the time I have to get ready to move. 

I got a nice piece of counsel from Joe Castleberry, as well as a good quote.

“Better to have one bad but tolerable boss than ten well-intentioned mentors.”

This points out a stark reality.  At least when you are with a boss you are actually engaging your chosen field, whereas with mentors, much becomes theoretical, without much practice.

Better to be corrected by someone when you are engaging a particular field than to be corrected by someone while not engaging the field.

Why am I seeking for a mentorship, when the last two major experiences I had with mentors were complete and utter busts?  What is the purpose of this, and what is my motivation for mentorship?  Is Christ enough as a mentor, as a spiritual father?  Is the Holy Spirit enough as a mentor?

Mentoring, says Joe Castleberry, is inferior to submitting to leadership.  Mentoring may not be biblical, but submitting to leadership most certainly is.

Hmmm.  I am still stuck on something.  Mentoring does not require anything but it’s own formal abstraction.  Now, real ministry, of itself, is preferable, and building relationships and being under the authority of those who can help you along in ministry, and getting the one-on-one sharing of wisdom, which is my motive for seeking a mentoring relationship, is great.

I know what to do, now I need to procure a place that moves me towards my destiny that enables me to rub elbows with others who are farther along than I am.

Putting up blogs to get out my thoughts which need an outlet.  Still more of a typist than a writer on paper with pen.  Today was Good Friday.  I just got home. Kresha is sick with nausea, diarrhea, the boys miss her, I went to church, agreeing to do something without telling Kresha, before she became sick.

Is it just me or is there a religious spirit that haunts this time of year?  Yuck.  Zwingli is right.  Ceremonials for their own sake get in the way of the life of the community of faith.  And we really screw up the Resurrection holidays with our garbage that professes to celebrate the season.  Living last suppers, contatas, vapid Sunday morning services that are designed to cater to the C and E crowd, in some vain attempt to attract them back to church, while remainig so busy this time of year, we forget to reach out ot them in reality, truth, sincerity, and honesty.  Why do we seem the most artificial during Christmas and Resurrection?  We use the same rote passages, the same standards of outreach, the same overdone messages, and the same cliches.

We really need to simplify around this time of year, divest ourselves of our Resurrection vestments (double breasted suits and spring dresses with matching heels and hose) and we really need to trade in the pomp for sincerity, and WAY MORE community.

Yuck…

Church, divest yourselves of the ceremony and come back to the cardial circumcision.

I am a person who loves the Scriptures, especially in the original languages.  I love to research the text, and learn what is said in the tongues of the writers themselves.  Four feet of my bookshelves are filled with books on Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic, Akkadian, Syriac, Latin, and German books.  God gave me this aptitude for language.


I know the church can use someone like me.  I have no doubts of that.  I remained concerned as to what my place is in the church, since I do not know if they can handle me as a pastor.  


Several years, I attended a small group meeting led by some very good friends of ours.  One night, our small group was praying for Kresha and I, and someone spoke a word over me.  They said, you are a “professor to the people.”  This confirmed something the Lord specifically spoke to me about, in my calling to flow as a teacher to the body of Christ.  I love the church.  My heart is for the church.  My heart for the church is to see it deepen so it can bear the weight of what the Lord will set on her foundations.  My favorite group of believers to deal with is that category labeled the “doctors of the church.”  When I hear someone mention the “doctors of the church,” I think of people who many years from now, the church will look back on and say, this man or woman saved us a lot of trouble by teaching us this or that dynamic by the power of the Holy Spirit.  


I want to be that kind of man, like Gary McGee, who finished strong, taught the church much about her history, treated we his charges with the irenic dynamic utterly missing from so many scholars, and fought the battle with cancer in such a way that make many of us who don’t have cancer wish we lived our healthy lives the way he lived a life in illness.  


I want to be that kind of man, like David Falls, who endured the trials of malignment and slander as did David to Saul, and, after 10 years was vindicated by none except God Himself.


If such a calling, as “professor to the people,” places me in the context of a pastorate for the rest of my life, I want to attack that calling with the vigor Isaiah prophesied concerning those who waited on the Lord, and help my flock know the word of truth.  I want that congregation to shine like stars and hold out the word of life, in the midst of a dark world.  


If such a calling, as “professor to the people” places me with the chance at a post in a university, raising up the next generation of scholars, then I want to study to show myself approved, that my students shine like stars in the dark halls of that university.


Deitrich Bonhoeffer tells us about the difference between cheap grace and costly grace, and the call to discipleship.  I want to walk in my calling living according to the principle of costly grace, and I want to know that at the end of my life I did what I was called to do, like Eugene Peterson.  Between these two men of God, we gain a full understanding of what is means to handle the weight of discipleship, by which we make disciples, and men and women of God, who are able to handle the weight of the integrity for which the world will curse us like Job’s wife.  Are you ready for that weight?  It’s inconvenient all the time, and requires us to live in a state of normal that the world will find quite irritating.


For I live only to see Your face
So shine on me…

The following is from the desk of Jennifer Page.  I am with her.  This is one time of year I really enjoy for three reasons.  


1) I am joining many millions of believers in actual intercession, seeking to be more like Him and conformed to His death, that of our Lord.


2) Despite my obvious Pentecostal leanings, I remember what my Methodist pastor, Richard Nussel once told me. “Don’t forget where you come from.”  Unlike most Pentecostals I have encountered who came out of high-church traditions with the testimony they were delivered from that bondage, I actually hold my 14 Methodist years as a precious gift from God, during which my mother and the church of which I was part protected me from our hometown’s fundamentalists and evangelicals who balked at my understanding of salvation and relationship with Christ.  To this day, every time this year comes around, I remember to pray specifically for the movement of the Holy Spirit within the UMC, desiring the Lord break through and out amongst the membership.  I pray for the fruition of a dream I was given years ago in Nashville.  


3) I still affirm Wesley as the preeminent theologian of the last 500 years, who himself fasted Wednesdays and Fridays, and mandated the same practice on anyone upon whom he laid hands.  This is the reason so many modern day believers do not flow the way they should flow (independence from relying on the Holy Spirit).  They forget the part of the text that says, “WHEN you fast.” 


And so, without further adeiu:


From the desk of Jennifer Page

The post of the day goes to Dave Heughins.  Concerning the President’s take on Dum-er, DOMA.  Heh. Post from what he sent me

The Executive Branch’s responsibility, according to a basic understanding of the definition of the term “executive” is to execute (enforce) the law.  


Teddy Roosevelt could have chosen to ignore blue laws in NY State when Governor, or the cops could ignore traffic laws, or other executives could choose to ignore their Constitutions’ several clauses, to the detriment of two things 1) respect for their various constitutions 2) respect for the execution of their offices, which are empowered by those constitutions.  But they did not.  They executed and execute laws which were or are on the books and unpopular with criminals (speeding laws, blue laws, murder laws, theft laws, pornography laws), despite their personal feelings or “professional assessments,” because those are the laws of the land.  For us to set the precedent that a law does not need to be executed is to shirk office.


Also, in plain, unbastardized English, and without need for some “living, breathing” exegesis or interpretation (as only the Word of God is living and breathing), Article 2, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  It does not say that the President shall “take care to determine the constitutionality of the Laws,” or “take care to interpret and apply the Laws.” Interpretation of the constitutionality of a given law rests with the Judicial Branch, who judges the law against other laws and against the Constitution.