Posted by Farmer on February 28, 2011 at 00:25:34
In Reply to: Re: not very refined...just some thoughts posted by OT2 on February 25, 2011 at 17:30:26:
Dear OT2...a pleasure for me too to communicate with you...indeed there is plenty in common...something I don't take for granted...there are not so many people I know personally, who have a very common look on events etc....plus sharing the same background...only to my shame, that I mustered up the courage to go quite late...too whom else shall we go, I had little ideas about it...kind of the lie, what good can come of the common churches...
I looked a little up the aspect of joy and the deepest joy, profoundest is apparently agalliasis along with the common chara in Lk 1: 14 announcement of John the baptist' birth...amazing...that's when woman are glowing the most too...have that extra happiness ...then Lk 1:44 John the baptists joy in the womb...Jude 24 is about our future...hasn't happened yet...again the same joy in the strongest form ..like jubilating...and compare that with Acts 2:46...that's the great joy of the early Christians together.
I rely on my dictionaries ...few consulted...telling me, that this is the strongest form...then comes chara...then euphrosynae...again amazing how the Greek for the matters of the soul and spirit has enough different words...the most apparent it is with love...where Berg so greatly erred and that's where it would have paid him, to have learned more Greek then he did...too bad for him and us.
Anyway...it really seems to me at first glance, that the greatest joy is linked with HIS presence...being at times of birth...shortly after departure...infilling of the Holy Spirit...and then transformed as new beings before HIM.
Regarding the counterfeit -mechanisms ...well...I wanted to hint at it, that much being done in the charismatic movement seems not to be the real thing...my take...my worry...concern => therefore my distance.
I agree about being lead by HIM...nonetheless HE is also the Word and being lead by HIM..it suffices me mostly to be lead by HIS Word...what more hints in the Spirit there could be...could be another thread or whatever.
It took me a while to see clearly in the Word...that TF hasn't got the right thing so to speak....added to that were circumstances and I believe...HE allowed these circumstances...protecting His children from further damage...just HIS mercy.
Regarding Eph. 4...it's quite a central chapter for the charismatics ...besides 1.Cor. 12 of course...since we do have Eph. 2:20...showing us, where the apostle-office-time belonged...to the beginning...it's similar with the prophets...
Now Jesus is also called an apostle:
Hbr 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
We see, how signs and wonders are linked to this apostle-office:
2Cr 12:12 Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.
The problem is, the prophets in rev. 11 are kind of not fitting...I know the dispensationalists take, that it's not the era of the church anymore...something I am not yet too certain or totally certain about
In any event...some speak of empirical cessationism...meaning, that by witness of the divers churchfathers, there were not "things" reported anymore, from a certain point onwards...ok...some would argue, that people became less ardent in their devotion to the Lord..lack of faith etc...
I would not follow that too much...first, I hesitate to malign the era of fellowchristians too much, plus gifts and callings come from HIM and the first Christians weren't perfect either...
bit of uncertainty remains...but back to "holy laughter"...I don't dismiss deep joy, but what I've seen on youtube strikes me rather as foolishness...although I am sure laughing a lot can mean a wonderful release...it happened to me as well, at least for some minutes...but I am far from calling it holy...it was just refreshing. The triggering was more thinking about the foolishness of the world...even God seems to do that:
Psa 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
So...ok.. in that sense it was holy laughter...but it's not the same as the deep joy I was initially mentioning
I have no ultimate proof for it...but the reverse is also true..."the other side" can't justify that either...it seems to me.If something is not explicitly mentioned or 100% traceable through the verdict of HIS Word...by sheer conclusion...step after step...verse after verse...then I just leave it out for the time being.
Last not least I wanted to comment a little on "soteriology"...as you know..I am sure...sozo can be used in all kinds of connotaions/meanings:
1) to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction
a) one (from injury or peril)
1) to save a suffering one (from perishing), i.e. one suffering from disease, to make well, heal, restore to health
1) to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save or rescue
b) to save in the technical biblical sense
1) negatively
a) to deliver from the penalties of the Messianic judgment
b) to save from the evils which obstruct the reception of the Messianic deliverance
So also saving from physical perils are included...so when the whole of Israel is saved...it begs the question, what is meant
Rom 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
I see the salvation of Israel on different levels: the messianic ...jewish..believers/saved Christians...shall be inside of new Jerusalem...
Israel as a nation in trouble in the very endtime shall be saved as a whole...reaching the millenium...the era of Christ's reign on earth...but this is another "level" of salvation...just my take for now.
Difficult is the aspect of salvation for the other human beings...universal reconciliation was/is taught bei TFI and many others...however I must say Berg had a simple logic analysis: what are the leaves to the healing of the nations there for?...the saved are inside and to my opinion don't need it...so outside must be a lot of people who are ministered too...in the era of the new world...after the millenium.
I knew a brother in TFI-times...who would argue, that every donation people would give, would be written in the book of life...to their favour at judgement day
Well, I certainly agree, the more positive there is therein the better...vast subjects...but must leave for now