Phillip,

Q. Do you see anything like the Acts 19 passage you quoted happening today in America?

Q. Where or why not?

Clay Spencer on “Experiencing Vomit.” It’s not what you think. Well…it is and it isn’t.

Jim:

By the standards of most people, I’m not even a Christian. I drink, cuss, and favor legalization of most controlled substances. I don’t use terms like “inerrant” or “infallible” to describe the BIble. I don’t object to the ordination of women as deacons, elders or pastors. I participate in BHT, which is a sure sign that I’m going to hell.

In other words, “I not AGAINST everything.” Why do we feel such a need to be against, control, manipulate and steer everyone to a complete agreement with our way? It’s what sucks about being an american Christian. Jim, I’d love to polish off a 12-pack or throw away the cap on a bottle JWBlack with you sometime. I’ll bet you’d have a hard time holding back after that!!!

Rob Bell: I’m sure a good guy, but nothing I’ve seen or heard has done anything but bore me and remind me how much I can find some EC types annoying.

I have spent some time with Rob Bell. He is a great guy and amazingly gracious. I’d rather hear him preach than just about any preacher I have heard. He’s the real-deal. Ok, now trash me, but I am a huge Rob Bell fan!

I just heard that the Rocket is going to pitch two “tune up” games in Lexington. Man would I love to see that, but school will be in session. Oh well, I saw him pitch in Fenway for the Sox. That will have to do.

Rob Bell: I’m sure a good guy, but nothing I’ve seen or heard has done anything but bore me and remind me how much I can find some EC types annoying.

I don’t know enough about Rob Bell to say anything. Forget that I commented.

I do not know what has gotten in to me.  I read three books in one week.  Not since I was in Africa and had no TV to watch have I done such a thing.  Not only did I read three books, I read cool and hip Christian books. After reading Driscoll’s Confessions I wanted to go hang out with him and pick his brain.  Miller’s T.O.A.D was great and to me is more mature and intentional than BLJ and SFGKW.  Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis was somewhat troubling.  He makes some good points and makes you think but I wonder if his edginess and trying to be so relevant is at the expense of doctrine.  Anybody have any thoughts on Velvet Elvis. I ordered three Mark Dever books to bring me back to reality.

Ok, this subject is actually enough to bring me crawling out of my cave…

My Own Personal Charismatic Experiences:

Baptized in the HS on my birthday in 1979

Since then, I have at various times:

Danced in Spirit, Sang in the Spirit, been Slain in the Spirit, Spoke in Tongues, Interpreted Tongues, Prophecied, had prophetic dreams, fasted for days at a time, did home church, home school, home business, home birth, prayed for healing, prayed for other’s healings, lived “by faith”, (no money), shouted at the devil, tried to cast out demons, “bound” the devil, did lots of “spiritual warfare”, prayed against all kinds of goofy spirits, (if you’ve done it, you’ll already know – if you haven’t, please don’t embarass me even more), commanded things, “spoke to” things and “pronounced” all kinds of silly stuff, blissed out on worship songs, engaged in profoundly extended sessions of naval gazing, “heard God”, “sought God”, “listened for God”, blah blah blah.

Been there. Done that.

I really have to hope that the video game Michael linked to is a hoax. There’s no way that game hits any kind of market. Christians killing people because they won’t convert? That’s so, I don’t know, Islamofascist.

MODERATOR: No hoax, dude. It’s the real deal.

On a completely different note, Paul, you’re invited to add your pin to the BHT Frappr Map. Your addition will help continue the dominance of the State Republic of Texas.

MOD NOTE: If you haven’t read this series, it’s a must read.

As Michael requested, here’s the first post in my autobiography. The whole thing spans several posts, so be warned.

Are we having a contest for extreme Charismatic experiences? I think I can match or beat all of Paul’s experiences. What do I win?

I can be extremely negative about the current state of Charismatic/Pentecostal churches, but I also recognize that the movement began in response to a Christianity that had mostly abolished the belief in and the possibility of the supernatural. I am gradually turning to the patristic church as a source of guidance on how to be charismatic without being loony. In the Church Fathers you find an abundance of healings, exorcisms, spiritual warfare, and heavenly ecstasy—but tempered by a wisdom that is mostly absent today.

It’s OK, Dale, I was just messing with you.

Unfortunately, I think I’m turning into my father. He thinks the jokes he makes are hilarious. No one else does.

Like father, like son. (Well, except for the K-niggits of Reformed Orthodoxy song which is probably the apex of my career in comedy.)

Matthew, I’m using BlogJet as the blogging client to post to the four different blogs that I frequent.

I accidentally uploaded to BHT what was supposed to go to an Idaho political blog.

mea culpa

Wait, does this mean that ‘c.t.’ is pentecostal? Read the KJV seven times and speak in tongues?

Paul: No fair! You asked what we thought about it, and I, for one, actually told you! All you did was describe what the cartoon was and added that it is “interesting.” Come on! ;)

Because of that, you are now required to answer another question: Do you see anything like the Acts 19 passage you quoted happening today in America? Where or why not?

:)

P.S. I’m not sure if anybody told you, but I can be a trouble-maker.

This is absolutely one of the most depressing, disturbing, surreal things I’ve ever heard of: The Purpose Driven Life Takers. (HT to a lurker)

My response to the Justin Taylor blog piece: yawn. (No offense to you, Michael)

Of the many critiques that I just don’t get regarding the emerging conversation, this one is getting old:

Taylor lists a couple of different lists of “Four Things that EM is Concered With” One of the lists, taken from Wikipedia, the first list includes: 1) Authenticity, 2) Missional Living, 3) Narrative Theology, 4) Christlikeness and the second list taken from Emergent includes: 1) Commitment to God in the way of Jesus, 2) The church in all its forms, 3) Committed to God’s world and 4) Committed to one another. Notice that in all of these affirmations is the implicit charge that the “other people” don’t do these things.

I may not understand postmodernism to the level of a trained philosopher, but one of the ideas I’ve heard expressed over and over is that pomo’s don’t necessarily deny other philosophies. Rather, they feel free to borrow liberally from them as they see fit. So, in the context of ministering to postmodern culture, if one of the sets of four points above is true, this DOES NOT have to imply that said ministers, or pomos, believe that other churches, denominations, theologies, ad nauseum, deny that these are expressed elsewhere. Instead, ministers to pomos are attempting to provide a specific application of the above ideas. Is this really so hard to grasp?

I’d like to get involved in this discussion on worship music over at Thinklings, but I don’t want to have to think about the kissy-kissy Jesus anymore.

Tim Challies calls your attention to a discounted price on Phillip Schaff’s 8 Volume ‘History of the Christian Church’ set.

Ex-BHT-Patron Tom Hinkle does the same, with a slightly different take.

I guess I am easily amused.

Justin Taylor on the Emerging Church.

There, I did it.  And it wasn’t even very difficult.  I am now a free wordpress guy.

I’d like to give Alex the “Humility In The Face Of the Onslaught of CredoBaptist Persecution Award.” Well deserved. (jn)

Meanwhile, look who turned up over at Paul’s comment threads:

c.t. said…

You’re quoting Scripture, with innocent, genuine belief, on the Boar’s Head Tavern. You’re going to last exactly one and a half weeks…

Jim: Yeah. But it just so happens that my interpretation coincides with the right interpretation.

Alex: That’s just your interpretation.

Our church (PC-USA) currently has four ordained ministers. I know three of them well; the other has just been called, and has not actually joined the staff yet. I do not believe that any of our ministers could be said to accept cessation, in the sense that it is commonly used. At least one of the ministers would acknowledge “charismatic” tendencies, and I’ve never heard anything from either of the other two that was remotely critical of the practice of sign gifts as a rule. I have heard each of them express skepticism about specific claims of a manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit, but their objections were contextually based, not theological.

In the past, we have had an interim Adult Ministries pastor who practiced a private prayer language, and claimed to have received the Baptism of the Spirit at an occasion distinct from his conversion. (Despite our disagreement over this, he remains one of my best friends.

We are part of the Confessing Church movement within the PC-USA, and have ties to Presbyterians for Renewal and Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International. We host the Alpha Course, and have a team of people trained by Elijah House Ministries. We have elders who are involved with Ed Silvoso’s Harvest Evangelism, and others who have been influenced by Frances Frangipane.

I am not on staff, and hold no position in the church other than “occasional adult Sunday School teacher.” My wife is a deacon. I lead an eclectic band of men who meet early on Saturday mornings at a local restaurant

I am not a cessassionist. Although I have not personally experienced a single event that I would consider “Spirit Baptism,” I have had occasions during which I have experienced a particularly heightened awareness of the presence of the Spirit. I do not practice sign gifts – I’m still practicing “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long-suffering,” etc. at this point.

By the standards of most people, I’m not even a Christian. I drink, cuss, and favor legalization of most controlled substances. I don’t use terms like “inerrant” or “infallible” to describe the BIble. I don’t object to the ordination of women as deacons, elders or pastors. I participate in BHT, which is a sure sign that I’m going to hell.

I’m looking for Pentecost activities for soli deo. Here’s a very good page.

I have all kinds of comments on this story, but I am not in a good mindset today. Do your own.

OTOH, the Rockies’ GM is claiming that Jesus is the answer.

Tom Ascol addresses a crucial issue that I have also addressed recently at IM. Tom is correct in this: SBC churches are almost incapable of discussing theology, especially with potential leadership. I believe Calvinists haven’t always acted as they should have in this environment, but I believe the problem is far larger than Calvinist pastors not wanting to volunteer to be lightning rods. The problem is in the church, the denomination, and especially the denominational leadership and media. SBC media and leaders stopped talking about theology long, long ago, and those who have theology that drives their ministry are liable to be controversial. I think they have to pay the price, but kudos to Tom for pointing out the big picture.

Dale, Mr. Colson actually surprised me with how charitable he was to emerging churches in this article. He continually qualified his statements by saying “some emerging churches,” without painting the whole thing with a broad brush. His last paragraph isn’t bad, either, even with the (modernist?) last sentence:

The emerging church can offer a healthy corrective if it encourages us to more winsomely draw postmodern seekers to Christ wherever we find them—including coffee houses and pubs. And yes, worship styles need to be more inviting, and the strength of relationship and community experienced. But these must not deter us from making a solid apologetic defense of the knowability of truth.

I’m glad that we’ve got someone who’s been slain in the Spirit other than JS. He’s a poor example. (jn) Jesse: Post the links to your spiritual bio posts. Those were great.

If the holyspirit causes people to act like animals and drunks, cool. I don’t think he does, but I support the Reds, so what do I know. I’d like to act like Jesus, and I think anything other than that is really not very important.

BTW- I find Rod Parsley’s church to be scary. I would fall over with heart irregularities, and likely not get raised.

I am listening to three PCA guys trash the house church movement, and what they are criticizing needs criticism. But when this one PCA guy says that “women have no right to open the Word,” that just freezes me up. Interestingly, “meta-church” seems to be a model these guys relate to much more positively, i.e. accountability to an “institutional” church with regular leaders, small groups led by elders, etc.

My answer to Phillip’s question #10 is easy…I don’t mind tongue-talk at all…I’ve witnessed and participated in it many times; and I know narcissism when I see it.

Part of the challenge of my ‘church-search’ is to locate a place wherein the guidance of the Holy Spirit is not dismissed as, as my grandmother once said, ‘being too religious’. I’ve seen and experienced deep spiritual guidance and correction…but somewhere along the line it seems that we rotten-hearted humans start treating God’s Spirit as if He were a pet in our pocket…which He’s not.

I hit my personal ‘Waterloo’ during the ‘Toronto Blessing’ when the focus switched from Jesus to the Holy Spirit and His manifestions…in effect we became Unitarian in our practice…the only thing that mattered was what we or one of our leaders thought the HS was doing. The issue of ‘Annointing’, especially as it relates to leadership also became an injurious distortion…it is part of why I’m so careful of allowing myself to be ‘under’ authority.

At some level this becomes, in my experience, one part of the Body inflicting pain and guilt on another part of the Body; simply for having different experiences and focus. Michael’s words about catholicity are crucial to understanding how an inordinate focus upon the HS can cause so much division…and what a warped thing, that He who indwells us and causes us to love one another could be used as a means to elevate one of us over another. This stuff can get really, really weird…and when you are on the ‘inside’ you want nothing more than to stay on the ‘inside’ and be perceived as an ‘insider’. When you start to feel like there are ‘insiders’ and ‘non-insiders’ you are well on your way to being part of a cult.

I believe that every Fellow at BHT is filled and guided by the Holy Spirit of God and daily manifest His good gifts in their daily interactions with the others in their lives as part of the (Romans 7) struggle with carnality…with sin. There are no shortcuts to holiness, only lifelong struggle.

My experiences as follows in chronological order since I was saved:

Feeling God’s presence when I worship God.

Praying to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The result is 4-5 weeks later, I believe the Holy Spirit came upon me during a men’s bible study and I started to speak in tongues.

We had a guest Revivalist Evangelist come to our church. During and after the service, I had an eyewitness account of seeing people healed and filled with the Spirit and several individuals prophesy and spoke in tongues.

When the Brownsville Revival started on Father’s Day in 1995, members of my church and members of the Christian campus group got excited and went to Pensacola, Florida. They came back more excited about Jesus and wanted to bring what they experience down there up to Minnesota.

My church had the guest evangelistic come back a year later. After the service, I thought these Christians has gone wild. People where worshipping, prophesying, drunk in the Spirit, seeing healings, people were dancing.

Many of these individuals who went to the Brownsville Revival heard there was a revival going on in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I went with them. Got prayed for, got slain in the spirit several times, had a prophetic word spoke over me. Saw alot of the same things that my church experience in the last paragraph.

Went to Central Bible College. Nothing happen except I found my wife and got married. Began to understand Pentecostal and Charismatic doctrines.

We lived in Oklahoma after we got married, went to a Pentecostal church, saw someone get saved, then I saw the same person asked to received the Holy Spirit and then the same person spoke in tongues. All with 20 feet away.

I am sure I have more experiences to tell, but I don’t remember them and I am at work.

From Chuck Colson over at Christianity Today.

Speaking of hermeneutics, Jim, I believe you have misinterpreted Mark Dever’s claim, which is not that hermeneutics simpliciter is ruining the Church, but a particular variety of hermeneutics, viz., what he calls “egalitarian.”

That said, I think Dever’s comment is, at best, a little overexcited, and at worse, flat-out and terribly wrong, in a soul-destroying, unity-destroying, Christ-destroying (as in His Body) kind of way.

He’s wrong about the paedobaptists too. They’re right, after all, and he’s the heretic on that one. After all, if he’s gonna get his panties in a twist about egalitarianism, why can’t I get my panties in a twist over paedobaptism (semi-JN the previous paragraph)?

Well now, let’s see. I’ve been a Christian for about 17 years now. And like I’ve lost count of the number of times the Rapture/Appearance of AntiChrist was supposed to happen, I’ve lost count of the number of “This is going to be the divide between the Orthodox and the Heretics”...

N. T. Wright

The New Perspective

Evangelicals and Catholics Together

The Megachurch movement

The Election of Bill Clinton

The New Age Movement

The Jesus Seminar

The Errantist Movement / “Battle for the Bible”

Et cetera. I’m sure the few codgers here older than I could easily expand the list even further. If every crisis and dispute turns into “we’ve gotta die on this hill or the Gospel is lost”, there won’t be anybody left to fight on the real hills when the real fight comes. When I hear these battlecries now, my first instinct is to put underwear on my head and shove pencils up my nose.

And BTW, isn’t it ironic that Dever graciously concedes that paedobaptists are “otherwise” faithful to Scripture? Could it not be said that credobaptism is little less novel than egalitarianism, and has caused considerable grief in and of itself at times? ;-}

Phillip,

I think the cartoon drawing is interesting. The scripture, Zech 4:6, is the key for me in understanding the cartoon. The verse and the cartoon is telling us that man in of himself, cannot do spiritual warfare (and Christianity) in his own strength. This cartoon is telling us we cannot rely on ourselves, but what is offered through the quoted Scripture is the Holy Spirit if we turn to him. If we rely on the Holy Spirit who is symbolize in the cartoon as the John Deere Tractor, we can move mountains of satanic opposition.

A good bible example of this is found in Acts 19:13-17 – Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. (One day) the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.

Phillip says: “should this be considered normative for today? To answer that, I ask another question: how effective a sign is it to unbelievers in America today?”

This is a good question. In response, I have another question. Has anyone else observed that much of what we see in America (you could possibly generalize this to developed nations) tends toward the sensational, even fake, while in places like Africa (instead of generalizing to undeveloped nations, think about places where the gospel has not been widely proclaimed) you see what many would call legitimate instances of physical healing?

Just askin’

I agree with Mark Dever: Hermeneutics is completely undermining the authority of Scripture. Any church practicing hermeneutics should cease immediately. We must stop this slide into liberalism in our lifetime, for the sake of the unborn generations to come, before it kills someone. Our entire existence and the schedule for the end times is at stake.

Please, believers everywhere, call your pastor today and urge him to take a stand against Hermeneutics. This is the most crucial thing you can do; it’s even more crucial than sending money to Focus on the Family so that they can lobby for Supreme Court nominees. It’s more important that being purpose-driven. It’s more important than emerging. We have to stop this insidious heresy before our children all leave the church and turn into devil-worshiping homosexuals. I implore you! Act now!

Paul: By the way, thank you so much for bringing this stuff up! Sometimes we get stuck on issues that are really uninteresting to me (as I’m sure some members are thinking about this stuff right now), but this one really piques my interest. I’ll stop monopolizing the conversation in the bar for a while, and part of doing so is to ask you: What do you think of that cartoon?

I’ve spent a bit of time studing this, and there is no question in my mind that the apostles spoke in tongues, as did some (but not all) of the folks on whom they laid hands. There is also no question in my mind that there was a second experience that followed belief.

Questions remain: why does the Bible tell us that some people gave evidence of infilling such as speaking in other tongues, but not everybody, or even most? Paul says that was done for a purpose, and as Michael mentioned, Stott make a good case that the purpose in those cases was to convince the apostles that these gentile groups were believers, a concept they had trouble understanding at first. Paul also talks about tongues and interpretation being a sign to unbelievers, and a good example of that is the initial infilling on the day of Pentecost. If that’s the purpose, that begs the question: should this be considered normative for today? To answer that, I ask another question: how effective a sign is it to unbelievers in America today? In my experience, not much. So what then would be the purpose in America today? It’s an open question. The purposes I’ve heard suggested to date don’t line up much with the purposes outlined in the Bible, it seems to me.

Why was there this second experience? Is that second experience also normative for today? Should we seek it? Why is Paul essentially silent on it (the effort of seeking a second experience, that is), when it was such a big part of the lives of the other apostles? Should a second experience lead to a third and a fourth and a fifth? Should we seek continual new experiences on par with that of the apostles? “Fresh oil from heaven” and the like? Should the gifts of the Spirit always be accompanied by the fruit of the Spirit, or what do we make of someone who claims to operate in a prophetic gift but does not practice love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, gentleness, or faithfulness?

Let’s be practical and offensive, shall we? I’ll take it behind the cut.