Spirit-Filled

Not too long ago I went to Mars Hill Church Olympia. I was running sound during one of the member meetings. They talked about some of the distinctives of Mars Hill Church, but I'm only going to get into one of them here.

That distinctive is called "Spirit-filled."

Pastor Steve was talking about partnering with other churches, even through some differences in distinctives. He said, as an example, something along the lines of working with a church that held all of their distinctives except for the "Spirit-filled" one and how that was still great.

Wait.

WHAT?!

I know what he meant. He meant they could work with a non-Charismatic church. Mars Hill Church is charismatic, which specifically means that they believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit (i.e. tongues, miracles, healing) are still in effect today. Actual charismatic-ness (insert coinage) has nothing to do with a church's music style, contrary to popular belief. It has to do with their view on the charismata, or spiritual gifts.

But this is an extremely misleading thing to say in a church.

Every Christian is filled with the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9 says "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." If we don't have the Spirit, if we aren't "Spirit-filled," we don't belong to Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:19 says, "[D]o you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?"

Galatians 3:2 says that we receive the Spirit by hearing with faith. Along with this, Titus 3:5-6 says "[H]e saved us . . . by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior." It doesn't say anything about there being some Christians without the Spirit in them.

In fact, 1 Corinthians 12:3 says that "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit." We can't even make a true profession of submission to Christ's Lordship without the Spirit!

In other words, if you have a church that isn't Spirit-filled, you do not have a church. All Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, you have no Christians. No Christians means no church, or at best a lukewarm church like the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22.

Again, I know what he meant by what he said. But it just bothered me because it was a very, very wrong way of saying what he meant. To say something about a church that isn't Spirit-filled is to say something about a group of people who claim to be a church, but aren't actually one.

A Bun In The Oven

A lil tyke, a wee one, a youngling. However you want to say it. But yes, Sarrah and I are having a baby!

We publicly announced it yesterday on Facebook after telling our parents, grandparents and some friends. My boss stated this as "a legitimate use of Facebook." He doesn't like Facebook much, but that's unrelated to the post.

It's difficult to express how I feel. Of course I'm thrilled, excited and overjoyed to be a dad! I've always wanted to get married and have kids, and now here we are, married and having a kid.

But with the excited joy comes nervousness. I mean, I've never been a dad before. This is a whole new dimension for me. Sarrah and I are gonna have a child, a little life whom we are responsible for. I worry about providing financially for little Rodriguez. Typical man, right? I know I shouldn't be, that God is the ultimate provider. But still, I can't help but remember that it's my responsibility to provide for the family, to make sure our family is taken care of.

Of course, provision goes beyond the financial realm. There's providing love, care, and discipline, teaching a child the truth (particularly of the Gospel), Biblical morals. I know things like that won't be easy, but I know that Sarrah and I can provide them. I guess we just need to pray that no matter how crazy the little...crazy-driver...drives us, we can be patient and loving. I know from testimony from my parents and parents-in-law that love and patience are two essential parts of good parenting.

Another note: wanting to have kids has always been part of the reason why I'm so relentless about Bible study. I want to know the truth as fully as I possibly can. I want to be able to teach our children and raise them rightly, to know God, to love Him, to feel their need for Him, to know how to live their lives. I want them to know how important the Bible is to one's life. And not just the Bible as a bunch of words, but the Bible as the breathed out words of God. I want them to know there is an all-powerful, totally loving and merciful God who has spoken to us, who has plans for our lives, who will always work for the good of a believer.

"Oh crap, he's going on about Bible study again." Yes, and I plan to until the day I die.

One huge blessing Sarrah and I have been given is great, loving, supportive family and friends. We have a lot of examples of great parents we can learn from, whether they be our own or just friends of ours. With them being there for us, and with Romans 8:28 in effect, I have even more confidence that everything's going to be alright.

Bible Study Doesn't Have to Be Difficult

I know that a lot of my talk about Bible study involves a whole lot of stuff about the original languages, concordances, commentaries, etc. But in all honesty, Bible study doesn't have to be complicated at all.

I think the first step to a good Bible study is prayer. I'll confess right here and now that I often forget this step. But perhaps actually posting it here will drive me to include it in my personal study.

What do we pray about? Well, we should start with earnestly confessing and repenting of sin. We need to feel our need for God, need to know that without God, we can't do anything good on our own. We also need to know that without Him, we have no hope of truly understanding the Word we are about to read. We need to pray for the strength to understand. Ephesians 3:18 says we need "strength to comprehend" the things of God and "the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" so we "may be filled with all the fullness of God." And by "understanding," I mean more than just knowing what it means. I mean actually knowing it, knowing it to be true, applying that truth to your life. Real understanding of the Bible means actually believing it and living by it.

So what comes next? Honestly, I'd saying just reading. Find a passage, a chapter, a book, or maybe even a verse, and just read it. Be sure to read around to find the true context, because Biblical context is absolutely necessary for any kind of understanding, and to keep us from error.

While you read, jot down a few notes. You can use a computer, a notebook, the margins on your Bible's pages...anything, really. The point is to help you retain information.

I read all of Colossians this morning. I've started a reading plan I found on Grace To You that involves repetition. It starts with reading a small book of the New Testament once a day for thirty days while jotting down key themes of the book, or a passage, etc. Anything. When I did that this morning, I realized that one of the overarching themes is the complete fallacy of human logic apart from the things of God. Paul actually says that he wrote this letter to the Colossians " in order that no one may delude [them] with plausible arguments" (ch. 2:4). It goes on to condemn humanistic and paganistic things like mysticism and works salvation. I didn't realize that this was a theme of the whole book until I wrote it down at one point and saw it come up again in a way later on. Colossians 3 talks about putting off the old self (our human, sinful natures) and putting on the new self (the Christian, Godly nature) (vv. 9-10). There's this constant comparison between the things of God and the things of man! It's amazing. And this was only my second day. I can't wait to see what I learn for the next 28!

Of course, despite my first paragraph, I also think that the teachings and writings of genuine, God-fearing, Bible-believing, Christ-loving men is indispensable to us. That may be another post I write later, but I will say this: don't cling to everything a pastor says. We are to measure our leaders and their teaching by the standards that the Bible gives. I'm no teacher, but as a guy talking about what the Bible says, I certainly hope those who read this measure it by the standards of the Bible. However, when you have a teacher who is totally committed to the things of God, His saving work in the world, a man who knows he is a sinner and needs God to do anything good, someone who loves Christ more than anything, you can generally rely on him to teach well and teach Biblically.

Know-It-Alls Know Nothing (Part 2)

I was planning on writing this the whole time. Yeah. This was absolutely my point from the beginning.

Okay, not really.

Sarrah lovingly pointed out to me something blatantly obvious that I completely forgot to mention.

With all those resources and fancy-shmancy things that are available, there is nothing, and no one, more important than the Holy Spirit teaching Christians as they read His Word. The Holy Spirit teaches and reveals to us what is meant when God says things in the Bible. As Sarrah said, we're taught by the same teacher as the "big guys" like Calvin and MacArthur. And that's totally Biblical, because Jesus said in John 6:45, "It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.'

As I continued to think about this, I realized how interesting an idea this was to dwell on. How exactly does He do it? I don't think it just "clicks" for most Christians. A lot of us read the Bible and aren't exactly certain of what it's saying in a given passage. I think it "clicks" more with people who have devoted their entire lives to study, who know the Bible and can quote many verses from memory. And I can confidently say that that's still the Holy Spirit guiding them because He is teaching them according to His Word. It's the principle of "Scripture interpreting Scripture" or "God's Word interpreting God's Word." God guides us to a right understanding of the Bible based on His Bible. At least that's how I think of it.

I also think that He guides us when we use other Bible study resources such as commentaries, concordances, etc. It's important to note that none of these things are the inspired Word of God. Only the Bible is. They are, however, an attempt to understand it and to teach it to others. And I think the Spirit helps us to discern whether these people and their resources are right or not based on His Word, the final authority in everything.

And when we listen to those people whose entire lives have been devoted to study, we can discern whether what they believe and teach is Biblical by measuring it with the standard of the Word of God. This doesn't negate a need for teachers; a good teacher of the Word, who studies all the time, can at times bring up an idea that the listener simply hadn't thought of, or perhaps teach about the cultural context that a passage of Scripture was originally written in, or maybe even teach about the historical meaning of a prophecy and how it was fulfilled (the last few chapters of Daniel come to mind). And I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit will prod an earnest, Bible-believing Christian and help them realize something they're listening to or reading in a book could be questionable.

This doesn't negate the necessity for the study of God's Word. If anything, it encourages it. How else will we know what God has to say to us if we don't study the very words, the absolutely authoritative and correct words, He has said to us? And how else can we know discern His will in a world full of ungodly, heretical wills and viewpoints without reading the words of His will?

It's also not an attempt to remove a supernatural aspect of the Spirit's guidance by saying that we need to study a book to understand. Of course there's a supernatural aspect, there's a Spirit who transcends all earthly reality guiding us to a right understanding of something we, by our own power, are completely unwilling to accept in the first place! But by His power, we do accept it. And He helps us recall, He reminds us of His words, He teaches them to us when we read and listen, and He guides us in our study to understand.

Know-It-Alls Know Nothing

I've come to realize something in the past few days. With all my talk about Bible study, and with all my ranting on this blog and quoting every verse and its brother to prove points that I pretend to know about, I probably come off as pompous. I probably seem like a know-it-all who actually thinks he knows it all.

I don't.

Or, on the flip-side, maybe I just come off like I just have a natural understanding of the Bible and can read any passage and tell you exactly what it means.

I can't.

I will not pretend to have some deep, deep understanding of the Bible or even a thorough knowledge of Bible verses. A great majority of the verses I quote I look up online to make sure I know where they come from, the context, and what exactly they say because I don't want to misquote them. That's good practice I think, because misquoting the Bible is a very bad thing to do. But I don't just know millions of verses and passages off the top of my head.

I also can't understand the Bible in an instant. A great majority of my understanding comes from having a concordance, a Bible dictionary, and especially an ESV Study Bible, complete with study notes written by much smarter men than I'll ever be to help me understand the Bible better.

I also listen to Grace To You a lot, which is a very great, Biblically sound radio program from the ministry of John MacArthur that I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn and get closer to God.

Not just that, but there are a lot of great commentaries and things available free to read online, or through apps, etc. I highly recommend Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible. Like I've said before, however, the internet is very iffy and full of a lot of heresy, so that requires a lot of care.

All of that to say this: I am a layperson who just wants to understand and to grow. All of the absurdly complicated things I write are the result of a layperson using ordinary Bible resources, the internet, and the teachings of much smarter and wiser men than I. I will never claim to know everything, and if I ever act like I do, I apologize, and please call me out on it.

Shapenote and Old Hymns

A few weeks ago I went to something called "Shapenote." For those who don't know what Shapenote is, the simplest explanation I can offer is that it's a singing get-together. People of all ages, skill levels, and backgrounds who love to sing get together and sing a bunch of horrible old hymns about sadness, suffering and death. At least that's how everyone else who was there saw it. One woman even said that she didn't want to be washed in the blood of the lamb, she wanted the lamb to live a long and happy life.

This is my public confession: I wish I had spoken up then.

I don't mean that in an angry way. I'm not mad at all, I totally understand it. A lot of these old hymns do seem dreary and dark when you read them. A lot of them are about suffering. A lot are about how we've been washed in blood, which is a very grotesque image when you think about it.

But these old hymns aren't about being sad and mopey all day. They're about hope in suffering. They fully acknowledge that life tends to suck once in a while, but they're hopeful about the fact that that suffering isn't forever. God is. The ramifications of the bloody, terrible and outright gory death of Jesus Christ, which paid the penalty for sin, and His glorious resurrection which proved not only His deity but the fact that His sin-paying work was done, are forever. And the people who wrote these hymns, the people who used to (and still do in some cases) sing them in churches, all knew this. They all had this hope, this knowledge that their suffering wouldn't last forever and that they'd go to see and be with Jesus forever.

Death doesn't need to be a sad thing. Death, for Christians, is a hopeful thing with good reason.

Thy Will Be Done

I've been having a discussion with a friend of mine about my last post. Some of you may already know that, as it's kind of public. This post is not a response to that discussion, or even a commentary on it. It's about a thought that came to mind as I considered one of my responses.

"Thy will be done." It's a popular phrase among Christians. There's good reason, as it's not only a quote from Jesus, but it's something that all Christians should strive to live by.

What does the Bible say about God's wisdom? Isaiah is a good book to go to for this one. Isaiah says "he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom" (Isa. 28:29). It describes the Holy Spirit as "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD" (Isa. 11:2). Also in Isaiah, God, referring to His judgment of the King of Assyria, says "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding" (Isa. 10:13). Jeremiah says He is "great in counsel and mighty in deed" and His "eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man" (Jer. 32:19). The Psalmist, speaking to God and considering the living creatures of the world, says, "In wisdom have you made them all" (Psalm 104:24). So basically the Bible says God is perfect in wisdom, understanding, and counsel.

I thought of the idea that we all probably have at some point or another. "If I was God, I would do things differently." I don't think any of us has never, ever thought that at some point. There's a lot of suffering in the world, a lot of sin.

I think of Bruce Almighty. In the movie, Bruce is given the omnipotent powers of God. But that's it. He doesn't get all the omniscience, or any of the omnipresence. If you've seen the movie, you know the chaos that Bruce brings about by unwisely abusing his powers. But the omnipotent powers are all we think about when we wonder what things would be like if we were God. We either give little to no thought to the omniscience or the omnipresence, or we give just enough thought to supplement the omnipotence.

The problem with thinking that we'd do things differently if we were God is, if we were God, we'd have all the perfect wisdom, knowledge and understanding He has. We'd know everything, we'd know the reason for everything. As a result we'd be doing things exactly how He does them. There would be no difference whatsoever. Why would there be? If God is perfectly wise and powerful and knows everything, He knows the reasons for everything, so He's working things out perfectly. And, like Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (emphasis added).

That's the kind of thought that, when we really, truly think about it, enables us to say, "Thy will be done."

Calvinism According to Jesus

I once said I'd probably never write a post on Calvinism. I've implied heavily throughout my blog that I'm a Calvinist, but I've never really taken the time to explain why.

Until now.

I've decided to take up the challenge of explaining Calvinism from the perspective of Jesus Himself. That is to say, I want to use only verses that are the words that Jesus spoke while He was on earth in human form.

I know, I know, Jesus never spoke of Calvinism because it wasn't called that back in those days. But I think that Calvinism comes closest to the things that Jesus taught in His time on earth. So, here we go.

For review, I'll list the Five Points of Calvinism:

1. Total Depravity
2. Unconditional Election
3. Limited Atonement
4. Irresistible Grace
5. Perseverance of the Saints
   

This won't be a point-by-point discussion because the Five Points are all related to one another.

Now, John 14:6 is a verse that any Christian - Calvinist, Arminian or otherwise - will agree with. "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" This is pretty basic stuff. There is exactly one way to be reconciled to the Father, and that is through the saving life and work of Jesus. No Christian would ever dispute this fact. They also would fully agree with Jesus when He said, "No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19).

But if we look back at John 6, we start getting into some interesting territory. Jesus said to a crowd of people, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (v. 44). Wait, say that again? "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." So now we have that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus, and that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws a person to Jesus in the first place. This seems like a paradox, doesn't it? When I see these verses together - and they do fully correlate with one another - I see that we are not only incapable of going to the Father but through Christ, but that we are unwilling to come to Christ to get to the Father. But then the Father draws us anyway, inviting us to reconciliation, justification, and ultimate glorification.

Okay, that makes sense. But doesn't that leave it open to the possibility that the Father just draws everyone and leaves it up to everyone else to choose if they want to come? Well, maybe it does by itself. But there are other verses to consider.

The next verse we'll look at is John 6:37: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out." ALL of them. Every person who the Father gives to Jesus will come to Him, and Jesus will never, ever throw them away. And why would the Father truly (the theologians use the word "effectually") draw anyone to Jesus without giving them to Him?

But then there's one last possibility. Jesus said He'll never cast out those the Father gives Him. But couldn't they just walk away by themselves? Not if you look at this statement from Jesus:

For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:38-40)

It is the Father's will that Jesus will lose no one who He gives to Him. And if someone can just walk away, Jesus has lost that person. That's contradictory to Scripture.

Another point I feel must be made, because someone will probably bring this up, is that this passage says "that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life." Everyone who believes will have eternal life. And that's true, I don't dispute that at all. But another important part is that everyone who believes will have eternal life. Only everyone who believes will have eternal life. And if we are not good and completely incapable of getting to the Father or going to Christ on our own, but the Father draws people to Christ (all of whom will go to Him) and gives them to Him, who will ensure that they will never, ever be lost, how on earth can our belief be anything other than a gift from God?

That is why I am a Five-Point Calvinist. Trust me, it wasn't easy for me to accept this at first. It took a lot of research, and I'm not easily convinced of things with without some convincing proof. But the above, along with other verses in books other than the four Gospels, convinced me.