The physician has to study chemistry and physiology. Other men may or may not. The lawyer has to study his Blackstone. The preacher has to know his Bible or the people suffer the consequences of his ignorance, as in the case of the physician or the lawyer. The extreme in each instance is the quack who plays on the ignorance and prejudice of the public. It is true that the minister can learn a deal about his Bible from the English versions, many of which are excellent. There is no excuse for any one to be ignorant of his English Bible, which has laid the foundations of our modern civilization. But the preacher lays claim to a superior knowledge of the New Testament. He undertakes to expound the message of the gospel to people who have access to English translations, and many of these are his equal in general culture and mental ability. If he is to maintain the interest of such hearers, he must give them what they do not easily get by their own reading. It is not too much to say that, however loyal laymen are to the pulpit, they yet consider it a piece of presumption for the preacher to take up the time of the audience with ill-digested thoughts. The beaten oil is none too good for any audience. Now the preacher can never get away from the fact that the New Testament was written in the Greek language in the first century A.D. The only way for him to become an expert in this literature of which he is an exponent by profession is to know it in the original. (A.T. Robertson, The Minister and His Greek New Testament 80–81)

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, we are found false witnesses of God; because we witnessed of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead are not raised. (1 Corinthians 15.13–15, ASV)

While surfing around the net, I cruised over to Adrian Warnock’s site. Adrian has written a very popular Christian blog for the last several years. The funny thing about Adrian is that although he’s one of those nice British gents, he hasn’t shied away from investigating the foundations of his faith or the accuracy of modern preaching.

If you traipse on over, you’ll find that he’s just come out with a book about the cross resurrection — how the cross resurrection changes everything.

Isn’t that ironic? Another non-professional ministry guy who’s found that the Bible’s got quite a lot to say about the cross resurrection.

I told my wife yesterday that I felt like I was getting back into the saddle of writing, but I could only say “Giddy-up” after I did a few more tweaks to the site. One reason for the color changes is because I plan to post more photographs with my essays. The grey background makes’em “pop” and adds a little drama (plus who really needs to see yet another white website?).

Bring on those praising rocks. It’s time to write.

Everything under the sun is vanity.  So I’m no longer surprised when people behave a certain way.   What does still amaze me is the brilliance of our Lord, even when I thought I already knew that He is brilliant.

Because He has included in the Scriptures a Word about every circumstance that could and would come up in our lives.  How genius is that?

For example, friends of ours received light on an issue that has altered the direction of their walk with the Lord.  In their exuberance over their newly discovered revelation, they shared this light with some others in their church, and it wasn’t exactly well received.   Rather than use this event as an opportunity to teach from the Scriptures — either to reinforce what the couple had discovered or to correct an error in their understanding, some of the church elders buried their head in the sand and refused to discuss what they assumed to be error in the couple’s understanding.

And this, again, is where I love the genius of our Lord.  Because He has something to say about whatever situation we find ourselves in.  The Word says:  Hold fast to your profession of faith.  Persecution will come, but we still bless those who persecute us and do not return evil.  We pray for the eyes of people’s understandings to be open.  We know from His Word that people will depart from the faith or favor their pet doctrines instead of seeking the truth in the end times, but there is One who remains ever faithful:  our precious Lord Jesus.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been working behind the scenes on the site. It appears that there is a bug somewhere in the system and I need to track it down before I begin writing again. Shouldn’t be long.

Don’t worry, I’ll get to you stoners. I’ve been pretty busy this week with work and redesigning my work website. I should be back this coming week (and probably add a redesign here).

And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. (Luke 19.37–40, KJV)

Riddle me this: What did Jesus mean when he said “if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out”?

Oswald’s First Shot

All Flesh is Like Grass
And All of Its Glory Like the Flower of the Grass
The Grass Withers
And the Flower Falls Off
But the Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Often those who believe in the “full gospel” are accused of being anti-intellectual. They are said to be promoting experience over scripture, taking verses out of context, yada, yada, yada. As a full gospel believer, I don’t see where intellectualism and the workings of the Holy Ghost are mutually exclusive. Indeed, continued revelation of God’s Word and His work in the plan of redemption demonstrate just how brilliant it all is. But this anti-intellectual tongue talk does remind me of something from my law school days.

In my first year of law school, I was fortunate to do well and grade on to the law review. In my second year, I began dating a girl whose grades were middle-of-the-road which didn’t bother me a bit. But it bothered her — a lot. It bothered her all the time. Anyway, one day we were at my apartment and some question about the meaning or use of some word came up. I said it was this way (I don’t remember this part of the conversation that well) and she said it was that way. I found myself in one of those “relationship” moments — one of those times where I didn’t think it was a big deal at all, but apparently she did. So, to answer the question, she looked for a dictionary. She found one and while she was thumbing through it she muttered that she had taught English for so many years and “so she knows.” She also said she couldn’t wait to prove me wrong. She came to the page and looked with horror to see that I was right.

I thought it was going to end there and we’d go on to do something else, but she asked me how it was that I “knew everything.” Again, I wasn’t taking all of it too seriously. I said, “I study a lot and I pray in tongues.” The dictionary dropped to the ground and she put her face to within 3 inches of my nose. “What did you say!?!” “I said that I study a lot and I pray in tongues.” She screamed a blood-curling cry and fled. The screen door knocked back against the door frame as I heard the squeal of rubber peel off in the distance. What’d I say?

About six hours later, I saw her sitting alone at the commons area at school staring out into space, completely catatonic. (I had tried calling, but no luck with that.). I asked, “What on earth happened to you?” After what seemed like forever, she sighed, “Since we met I have always admired how smart you are. You’re on law review. You’re great at moot court. I just loved the way that you think.  I just love it. But when you said that you spoke in tongues … well … I, uh, … I just lost it. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t believe it so I just ran. I have never met anyone — ever — in my life with any degree of intelligence who spoke in tongues.”

True story.

This coming Tuesday, October 6th, my buddy-in-the-Gospel, John Wiertzema, will be holding our first local Believers’ Meeting. I’ve been looking forward to these. Local believers gathering around the Word in a non-churchified atmosphere. If you’re a hungry Dallas-Fort Worth believer who’d like to get down to the brass tacks of knowing the Word and walking in the Spirit, I suggest that you grab your King Jimmy and come on down. You can find more information on John’s site, Knowing the Times or our Meetup page.

Just a couple of days ago, I received this email (I’ve condensed it down and redacted names):

Peter,

I visit your site often and have responded a couple of times with regard to the Pauline Revelation and Christ being made sin. I also agree with you that tithing is not for the church today. These two positions have caused me heartache with most of my friends who are pastors, one of which is a Rhema grad.

I need some advice. I live in a small town with a lot of Full Gospel churches in it, but they are sad shadows of what a church should be. None of them teach the Pauline Revelation. One of them has made tithing a core NT doctrine, another begs God for revival based on OT scriptures, and the rest are the usual old-line-Pentecostal, emotionally-hyped churches.

I diligently study the Word on our union with Christ. I get my hands on every book I can about “Christ in you, the hope of glory” whether its A.J. Gordon, E.W. Kenyon, A.B. Simpson, R.W. Dale, William Durham, or James Stewart.

I feel a strong desire in the deep parts of my heart to start a Bible study and, unless I’m missing it, one day a church.

Would it be improper of me to cease attending these churches and see what I can do?

A friend of mine who is starting a church tells me that I’m in error about tithing. He acknowledges the Pauline Revelation, but “it’s not the main thing.” He also says that I’m in error for not submitting to one of these local churches.

Can you offer me some advice?

I can’t tell you what to do, but I can give you some off-the-cuff remarks and share my own predicament.

I began this site more than two years ago investigating the nature of Jesus’ death, whether “he made him sin” was what it says or just some imputational theological gloss.  Over time and a hundred essays later, I’m firmly in the camp of all of the Pauline Revelation preachers.  And, frankly, I don’t need or want an unscriptural “covering” that wants to drag me back to bondage while demanding a weekly tribute to “activate my covenant.” Like we see in Galatians, the Word guys started running well, but the second generation has courted the bondwoman.

Let me touch on the two things that have caused you heartache with your pastor-friends: Jesus becoming sin and NT tithing.

The crux of the Pauline Revelation lies in Jesus’ absolute substitution for fallen man. Parallel to Kenyon and the other Pauline teachers, Hagin taught:

Spiritual death means something more than separation from God. Spiritual death also means having Satan’s nature. (Kenneth Hagin, The Name of Jesus, first ed. 31)

The context of Hagin’s statement is made in reference to the cross; Jesus had to ontologically bear the sins of mankind in order to effectuate our redemption. Hagin didn’t believe or teach imputation. Rhema eviscerated this sentence from the book in its Legacy edition.  And that wasn’t the only change.

In The Name of Jesus’ first edition, Hagin wrote:

Jesus tasted death — spiritual death — for every man. Sin is more than a physical act; it is a spiritual act. He became what we were, that we might become what He is. (Kenneth Hagin, The Name of Jesus, first ed. 31)

In the Legacy edition, Rhema took out “Sin is more than a physical act; it is a spiritual act.” The effect is to neutralize the critical fact that Jesus suffered spiritually on the cross (see my posts on Hebrews 2.9).

Again, in The Name’s first edition, Hagin wrote:

It is clear that both Peter and Paul are talking about the same thing. You will not be able to understand the authority in the Name of Jesus until you understand this fact. Down in the prison house of suffering — down in hell itself — Jesus satisfied the claims of Justice on behalf of each of us, because He died as our substitute. (Kenneth Hagin, The Name of Jesus, first ed. 31)

Rhema re-edited the book to say:

It is clear that both Peter and Paul are talking about the same thing. While we do not know specifically what all transpired in hell, we know that through Jesus’ great work of redemptive work, He effectively took care of spiritual death for us. You will not be able to understand the authority in the Name of Jesus until you understand that Jesus tasted spiritual death and satisfied the claims of justice on behalf of each one of us when He died as our Substitute. (Kenneth Hagin, The Name of Jesus, Legacy ed. 2006)

Rhema, while trumpeting Hagin’s legacy, has gone from a solid enunciating of the nature of Jesus’ suffering to the Mickey Mouse line of “we don’t know what happened from the cross to the throne” (thank you, D.R. McConnell); a quiet but evident repudiation of his teachings on Jesus’ death and resurrection.

As to NT tithing, in your A.J. Gordon, et al books, you won’t see any mention of it because it’s not just a take-it-or-leave-it issue; it’s antithetical to the Pauline Revelation. The fact of being righteousfied (my own word) by the hearing of faith is mutually exclusive to tithing or any other means of performance. In Galatians, Paul’s rhetorical questions of “Did you get the spirit by works or by faith?” and “Did he work miracles by the means of works or faith” demonstrates that there is nothing outside of Christ that moves God.

And contrary to the teachings of the wildly popular oracle of Newark, Jesus affirmed that tithing was part of the Law:

Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin,yet you neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You should have done these things without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23.23, Net Bible)

It doesn’t take two minutes of Bible-thumpin’ to see that the Old Covenant has been abolished:

and not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from staring at the result of the glory that was made ineffective. (2 Corinthians 3.13, Net Bible)

On the one hand a former command is set aside because it is weak and useless (Hebrews 7.18, Net Bible)

for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. (Romans 5.13, Net Bible)

But showing its fault, God says to them, “Look, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” (Hebrews 8.8, Net Bible)

when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace,- (Ephesians 2.15, Net Bible)

And Paul’s admonition in Galatians demonstrates that NT tithing — however it’s preached — renders Christ’s death useless:

I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing! (Galatians 2.21, Net Bible)

In a word, Word of Faith, as a movement, has become just like any other powerless denomination — short on power, long on Boy Scout morality and money — because it has shirked from the brute reality of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

If you do decide to leave a church to begin a Pauline Bible study, you’ll quickly find what Jesus meant about persecution for the Word’s sake (persecution hardly ever comes from the world). Not too long ago, my own Word of Faith pastor found out about my essays on NT tithing. He never asked to speak to me about them nor did he ever present me with scripture to try to save my soul (frankly, he had no scripture with which to do that). Instead he used the pulpit to characterize me as being deceived, on the path to destruction, blah, blah, blah.

Was it hurtful? Yes it was, but frankly I’m much more jealous for the One who, having loved me, handed himself over for me than I am for being the life of a tired Old Covenant party (see my essay, Confessions of a Tithing Party Crasher). My wife and I quietly bowed out of the church because he couldn’t handle the truth or my presence on the back row.

Should you start a Bible study where people again can hear of the wonderful romance of redemption? Of the glorious sacrifice of the Righteous One who became unrighteous so that we could be called the very righteousness of God? Of the One who did not shrink back, but went to the lowest place so that we could be seated with him at God’s very right hand? Of “Christ in you, the hope of glory”?

That’s exactly what I’m doing.

[Note: One day after I penned this post, I came across a Google search that brought the surfer to this site: “youth pastor without pay expected to tithe”.]

I’ve been asked to participate in some local believers meetings and couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

I’ll have more information later, but they are slated to begin next Tuesday, October 6th, at 4720 Little Road, Arlington, Texas (next to Molly’s Burgers). They’ll be every Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. They’ll last about an hour or so.

If you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and are hungry to hear the Word, I’d encourage you to check these meetings out. At Gospelooza, the power of God was present to heal. I don’t expect anything less for these.

Dear Pastor _______,

First off, I want to thank you for the sacrifices that you’ve made for the sake of the Gospel. I know that you’ve given up a lucrative business career that would have provided you with a cushy retirement package, a company Lexus, friends at our local country club, and a big house in our town’s gated community. Instead of pursuing those dreams, you followed the call of the Lord and you have dutifully shepherded the not so many wise, not so many mighty, and not so many noble in our local assembly (see I Cor. 2.8). And while you have remained steadfast in the prosperity of our Lord, you have continually admonished us to keep our eyes aimed at heaven rather than the things that are sure to pass away on this earth (I still think the last thing to perish on this earth will be my Leica M camera and we’ve both laughed about that.). You and your wife have remained faithful to your calling, living selflessly among us, and I have thanked God all the time that you are my pastor.

All that being said, I have to ask you to refund to me all of the offerings that I have given to the church over these past ten years. Please understand that I ask this reluctantly because I know that it will cause a great hardship on you and the church, but I will not be moved. You see, in doing my Bible studies on the internet, I came across this ministry site and it promises me twice the eternal reward for my offerings:

KCM’s outreach goes far beyond the powerful voices the Lord has entrusted to us such as the BVOV broadcast, international meetings and this magazine. Our outreach extends to other ministries—trusted, effective ministries—all around the globe. This is because the first 10 percent of all gross income received by Kenneth Copeland Ministries from donations and sales is placed into a special, earmarked fund we call Twice-Sown Seed. In other words, when we receive a gift from you, we sow a portion of it again into another ministry—so every penny you give is twice sown—it’s twice as effective and will yield twice the eternal reward. (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Twice-Sown Seed)

As you see, if I give to this man’s ministry every penny that I give to him will “yield twice the eternal reward.” You’ve never promised me such a thing. You’ve never mentioned a special, earmarked fund for my offerings nor have even gone so far as to promise a 1:1 monetary return for my gifts. All you have taught  is that God rewards those who help support the proclamation of the Gospel to the world. This man guarantees twice the yield.

Please don’t take this request personally. Over the years I have given to many ministries: foreign orphanages, soup kitchens, traveling preachers, foreign missionaries out in the sticks, etc. Like you, none of them have ever promised me a double yield so I am writing to them too. I hate to take the rice bowl out of an orphan’s hands, but then again, that double yield is eternal and I’m not just supposed to live for today, right?

For your own sake and the church’s too, may I encourage you to find out how you might qualify as a double-yielder. Once you do, I won’t have any problem supporting the church financially again. Until then,

Your Brother,

____________________

*  *  *

There is no scripture–anywhere–that supports the view that giving to one ministry provides a better eternal return than another ministry. If that were the case, I’d create a ministry organization that guaranteed twice as much “twice-sown seed” as the next guy.

[Note: Yes, I consider myself to be a Word guy and that’s the reason why I write posts like this one.]

Gospelooza, our razzmatazz Believer’s meeting is off to a roaring start. Ross Roberts jazzed us up with “God said it–that settles it.” and tonight Joe Morris is set to rock the casbah. Don’t dare miss it.

One of the troubles with humanity is that it is oftimes too lazy to do its own thinking. We ride in an automobile somebody else has made for us. Many a young man will tear along the country road at 75 miles an hour, knowing nothing whatever about the principle of internal combustion or the relationship of piston displacement to drive shaft and gear. Many a man in the car of the creed of another’s manufacture, without knowing anything about the machine in which he rides.

When the preachers mount the pulpit steps of what was once a church but had now deteriorated into a social club or an academy of science, the people started assimilating their teaching because they had been used to allowing the preachers to do their thinking for them. This condition, as I have before stated, was not brought about overnight, but it was the result of years of premeditated attack upon the Church by the forces of infidelity and darkness.

The eternal Son of God Himself had looked down the corridors of the years and beheld this very day and hour, and asked the question: “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” The inferential answer, of course, is no. That does not mean, however, that there will be none at all, but it does mean that most of it will be gone. It does declare what the Church once had it would have lost, to a large extent at any rate. (Charles Price, The Meaning of Faith 24–25)

Charles Price was an Oxford-trained lawyer who became one of the heroes of the faith message after he had sought to “pop the balloon” of Aimee Semple McPherson’s healing meetings. He was a preacher’s preacher and his book, The Meaning of Faith, is one of the best books on my bookshelf.

Gospelooza — The Mother of All Believers’ Meetings

In early February, in a Steak-N-Shake in frozen Illinois, my wife and I dreamed up the idea of Gospelooza. At first it seemed like a really silly idea — two non-ministry people attempting to put on a meeting with a couple of preachers who didn’t have big ministry organizations, marketing campaigns, or a list of supporters that could fill a Crystal Cathedral. Starting out, it had all the hallmarks of being a dismal failure. For instance, after setting the dates, we found out that we set it during the same week that a big-time ministry is putting on a big conference with a fashion show to boot. How is a little kids healing service supposed to compete with that?

But looking at the stats to my latest and greatest post, Get Thee Behind Me Smythe!, and reading Ray’s comment, our goofy idea of a Gospelooza meeting isn’t so silly. The crux of the Word of Faith message was the victory of Christ’s resurrection from the dead (1 Cor. 15.17 — “if Christ hasn’t been raised, your faith is in vain”). The faith message, as it’s been called, demonstrated how the plan of God identified believers with his Christ and how they’ve been raised to sit with him on God’s very right hand. The glory of that message was that believers were actual sons of the living God who could walk out the inheritance of their redemption in the now with just the puniest mustard seed of faith. The Gospel took on a transcendence that went well beyond the flimsy doctrines of denominational Christianity.

Since those heady days of “Christ in you,” there have been a crop of “Word” preachers who have anointed themselves as the prophets of tithing prosperity (How exactly does one qualify to be one of those Malachi “storehouses” anyway? I need an application.). While these guys have paid homage to the forefathers of the faith, they’ve steered the Body away from a righteousness conscious to a Galatians 2.21 grace-frustrating of workin’ for a zoe-livin’.

Gospelooza is for the Rays of this world — believers who honestly love the Lord, but who haven’t been schooled in the author and finisher of our faith (Colossians 2.7 — “being rooted and built up in him”). Our sufficiency is in him alone and our offerings are the aroma of a sweet sacrifice of praise, not a means to earn his blessing.

If Jesus were to come back next week and ask his Luke 18.8 question (“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”), we’d tell him to head over to the Holiday Inn in Arlington, just a punt, pass, and kick from the new Cowboys stadium. He’d find a lot of it there.