There can be no peace so long as sin is unforgiven; there can be no perfect peace so long as impurity remains in the life, dominant and influential. Peace is a necessary sequence in experience; if indeed my trespasses are forgiven, if indeed my consciousness is purged, then issues peace.
The need of peace is created primarily by the fact that man is out of harmony with God.
“Our beloved Anglican Communion must be rescued from the manipulation of those who have denied the gospel and its power to transform and to save; those who have departed from the Scripture and the faith ‘once and for all delivered to the saints’ from those who are proclaiming a new gospel, which really is no gospel at all. In the wisdom and strength God supplies we must rescue what is left of the church from error of the apostates.”
Peter Akinola, Nigerian Archbishop, speaking at a meeting of 1,000 conservative Anglican leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday.
The group met for a weeklong discussion about the future of the Anglican Communion. The schism in the Anglican Church has grown since the U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated the openly gay V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire and the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada blessed same-sex unions in 2003.
The Hebrew worldview is the window through which we should always attempt to view the Bible. It is the culture, history, and framework within which the entire Bible was written.
If you try and view the Word through a worldview other than the Hebrew one, you will misinterpret or misconstrue its meaning and intent.
You cannot fully understand God’s Word if you do not pay attention to the elements of this world.
Before there was anything, there was God.
He simply was and has always been.
Then God created a universe. Now, into this universe He placed man. He then gave that man a family, and then He gave that family a mandate.
That mandate was to go out into the garden, their imminent domain, and take charge of it.
It started very specifically with a very specific aim in mind. It started first with the creation of man with the aim of that man fellowshipping with God.
It started relationally.
It started with God’s magnificent creation of the universe and His overriding desire to share it with someone.
Then God gave man a family.
Not a job, but a family.
Not a career or a ministry, but a family.
Then God gave that family a calling.
That calling was an expansionist calling.
That calling was about reaching out and touching and taming the world around them.
That calling was about going beyond what they knew out to the far reaches of what had been created for them to enjoy.
But in all of this as we touch on creation and even the fall of man, I am hoping that you get a sense of greatness that has been lost from the human race.
This may sound strange in an age when man is worshipping man; the trouble I see is worshiping the wrong things.
The trouble is that man does not know who he truly is and what he is; he does not realize his own greatness and what he is capable of.
For instance, the theory of evolution is an utter insult to man from the standpoint of the biblical account - man is great and glorious and wonderful in the mind and conception of God, not an animal.
Now this term ‘image’ or ‘likeness’, of course, conveys to us the idea of a mirror and a reflection.
Paul uses it in that way in 2 Corinthians 3:18 where he says,
2 Corinthians 3:18
(18) And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
The ASV puts it like this
2 Corinthians 3:18
(18) But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
That is the idea of image, so that fundamentally when we talk about being made in the image of God, we mean that God made us in such a way that we are some kind of a reflection of God.
The image of God was not entirely lost when Adam and Eve sinned and fell. There have been schools of thought that have taught that.
There have been unworthy and inadequate notions of the image which have suggested that when man sinned everything that belonged to the image of God in him disappeared, and in the rebirth what was entirely lost is given back.
But these scriptural quotations demonstrate very clearly that the term ’image’ is used after the fall as well as before.
In other words, when man fell he lost something, he lost an aspect of the image, but he did not lose the entire image; something essential to the image still remains.
And that at once suggests that there are certain elements in this image of God which are to be found in each person.
Lets think about what this means in terms of regeneration.
What happens in regeneration is not merely that we are restored to the condition that Adam was in before he fell, but we are indeed advanced beyond that:
Romans 5:20
(20) ……but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
My thought is this:
Salvation, redemption, regeneration do not merely put us back where Adam was; we are in fact placed in a much higher position.
They put us back on track with the divine pattern and order of things and creation.
As we were at creation called to become more and more like God, so we are after. Just be careful here that you do not slip into the false doctrine of Christian Perfectionism.
I am not trying to lead you down that path. What I am trying and hoping to do is encourage you, that greater is He that is you than he that is in the world.
You never evolved, you where created and you should aspire to live worthy of that.
Someone sent me this today….got to make you think.
I suppose I contrast what we experienced last night with what this church has allowed itself to become and I thank God for all He is doing!
Last night Church was phenomenal!
To be honest I find this story really sad. Money seems to be the reason the guy got into ministry because money was the thing that took him out.
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Connection Metro Church, which used its foyer coffee bars to attract visitors to its eight satellite churches in the Denver area, has decided to abandon ministry altogether to focus on coffee.
“People liked the coffee a lot better than the ministry, according to congregational surveys, so we’re practicing what we preached and focusing on our strengths,” says former teaching pastor and now chief marketing officer, Peter Brown.
Many in the congregation seem downright relieved.
“The sermons were okay, but the vanilla frappes were dynamite,” says one woman who regularly attended the church for two years so she could enjoy the special brews. “I even brought my Jewish neighbors and they loved them.”
The staff of Connection Metro Church began noticing last year that more money was coming in through the coffee bar than in the offering.
“People complimented us about the pastries and mochas but didn’t really mention the teaching,” says Brown. “After feeling disappointed, we got pragmatic about it and realized God was telling us where to put our efforts.”
The church renovated each of its locations into Connection Coffee Houses and removed most traces of its spiritual past. Now crowds are up and many former members are flourishing.
“Who knew I was so gifted at making foam?” says the former head usher, now the head barista, as he makes a heart-shaped design on a cappuccino.
The church’s small groups have been turned into neighborhood reading clubs, with some reading Christian titles and others following Oprah’s recommendations. The only visible remnants of the coffee house’s past are the offering bucket which serves as a tip jar, and the greeters stationed at the door to give a more welcoming feel than the nearby Starbucks.
Some former members were stunned to arrive at church Sunday morning to find the sanctuary transformed into a seating area with newspaper racks and coffee-themed gift items.
“I guess we’ll go back to the Methodist place,” said one father who had brought his family. “But only after we try those delicious looking chocolate cream-filled croissants.”
People in the surrounding neighborhoods say they are far more likely to stop by now. One man who came occasionally says he feels less guilty standing around the coffee counter now that there is no service taking place.
“Before, we had to sit through the service and pay our dues,” he says. “Now we go right to the good stuff — the double espressos.”
The staff also feels liberated now that the pressure of ministry is off.
“The best way to be relevant is to give people what they want,” says Brown. “In our case, that’s coffee drinks.”
This is a great interview by John Copeland. The challenge with any interview with the media is that they have no love of the church and no love for the gospel, they want to minimize and marginalize both.
To be honest I found this very informative. I did not know that KCM had presented it’s books and invited the IRS to audit them.
Well done.