Category Evangelizm

Sep 29 2007

How to build a 1st Century church in the 21st Century


 “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19) Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. (Matthew 16:18) It is clear that Jesus is in the church building business. He came to earth to seek and to save the lost. His mission is plain, His plan is sure. 

When you set out to build a great church like the ones you read of in the book of Acts your motive should be “redemption”. If it isn’t perhaps you should pursue some other endeavor. Tens of thousands of folks have set out to build churches and some of them had a measure of success. Many of them reached their stated goal, to build a church. In my view the goal should always be reaching folks with the good news about Jesus, the goal should not be building a church. If the job of presenting Jesus is done right the church will happen with little effort. 

Jesus mapped out a plan that was magnificent. Every time it has been tried it has been successful and when His plan is not followed there is little success. Matthew 28:18-20 is where we begin. “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen”

 Before we “go” we must get Jesus’ “therefore” settled first. “All authority in heaven and on earth” is the most overlooked aspect of evangelism. In previous posts I have made the Bible case for having Holy Spirit power before you begin. I have heard possibly scores of sermons and Bible lessons on this great passage in Matthew 28 and almost all of them overlooked the most important part of the formula for success. We can only go and tell because of Jesus’ authority. If you and I will join God in His redemptive work we must go in His authority and power. It is precisely because He who commissions also gives authority. As the Apostle Paul pointed out in Ephesians 6 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”. In 2 Corinthians 2:4 Satan is referred to as “the god of this age”. We must understand that when we go to the lost with the message of reconciliation in Christ that we are invading a wicked, spiritual kingdom controlled by Satan and we can only do this work in the “authority” and “power” of Jesus Christ. 

The “go” of the great commission is assumed. There is no “opting out” of the command. The emphasis is not on going but rather, “making disciples”.  How do we then make disciples? The same way Peter, Paul, Phillip, and others made them. One only has to read through the Acts to see that the message, the only message, was the good news about Jesus. When the apostles were put in jail it was for preaching about Jesus. When the Ethiopian did not understand the book of Isaiah the Holy Spirit sent along Phillip to preach Christ to him. There is no message other than Christ. 

Building a church that is like the 1st Century one must follow the same formula. You will not build a Bible church, focused on Christ, by preaching the church. Many church planters have as their goal a church and their message reflects that goal. In churches of Christ much of our historic ministry has been “corrective” rather than “redemptive”. The most common method employed is to lay out a logical argument in favor of the church of Christ as the only true church, for water baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and to finally win the argument. The result in my view is that our churches are populated by many people whose security is tied to the church of Christ and the fact that they have been immersed and not to Christ alone. 

 While I am on this subject, I am reminded of the seriousness of preaching the pure, unadulterated, good news about Jesus. In Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia he gave this chilling warning. “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8, 9) This is pretty serious language! “If I, an angel from heaven, or anyone else..” preaches anything other than Christ “Let him be accursed”! Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul was pretty upset that some were not preaching Christ and Him only. In verse 7 Paul spoke of those who “want to pervert the gospel of Christ”. What had they said or done that was so offensive that Paul would make such a strong defense for the gospel? The Jews who had given allegiance to Christ were teaching Gentile believers that faith in Christ is not enough, to really be saved you also need to be circumcised. That was it? Yes, that was the “perversion” of the gospel in this case. At first glance this doesn’t seem to be that bad, after all we of the faith have Abraham as our father, our history goes back to the old covenant, so what is so wrong about having some foreskin removed? Wouldn’t that be more proof of one’s allegiance to God? Paul would have none of that! The Holy Spirit through the pen of the Apostle says to those who preached circumcision in addition to faith “Let him be accursed”! 

 I ask this with a pure conscience and with love. Am I treading on the same ground if I tell people they are not really saved unless they are members of a local church of Christ? Is it a perversion of the gospel to tell a person they must be re-baptized to really be saved? Is a person in danger of being accursed if he preaches that only people who sing in worship without the accompaniment of instruments are going to heaven? These are serious matters not to be taken lightly.  One more quote from Galatians chapter 1. In verses 3 through 5 Paul clearly lays out the gospel story. “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen”. The reason we must preach only Christ is that only He can save; only He can deliver us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. No church can do that, no religious act can do that, no pattern or from of worship can do that, and water baptism cannot do that. Jesus saves! Nothing or no one else does. 

Building a 1st Century church in the 21st Century requires the right motive, the right authority, the right message, and also the right ministry. We go in Christ’s authority and power, we preach Him and make disciples or (learners), we baptize them in water, and then we begin to teach them ALL Jesus commanded. The model is laid out clearly in Acts. These men and women, including Peter, who were prayed up and filled up with the Holy Spirit, preached Christ, baptized believers, and then the Scriptures say this of those new Christians, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship..” (Acts 2:42)What was the “doctrine” of the apostles? Christ! Read it for yourself. They taught that salvation was only though Him and were convinced enough to endure jail, whippings, hunger, and finally death rather than compromise the message of the gospel.

 There was an air of excitement in the air! These new believers met every day to break bread (possibly to share the bread and cup of communion remembering the Lord), the praises of God were on their lips, (they even had the favor of outsiders), they exhibited the unselfish love of God by pooling their resources for the furtherance of the gospel and the care of fellow believers, and the church grew like a prairie fire driven by the wind. There was no focus of how to “do” church; there was no preaching about the church. The church grew because of the Christ who was the focus of their faith, their love, and their surrendered lives, and He alone was their message. 

There is no question in my mind that any people who go into a community any place on the earth and follow this ideal will find God’s blessing and the church will grow, multiply, and men and women will become children of God. If the meetings take place on the patio of a Starbucks, in a rented saloon, in an abandoned theater, or in a beautiful church facility, the results will be the same if Christ is central in every message, motive, and mission. 

 Churches that make much of Jesus grow, and those whose focus is elsewhere do not. Admittedly, there are still false prophets and those who follow them. And the way to mark them out is the Jesus test according to 1 John, Paul’ and Peter’s letters, and Jesus’ own words. 

My prayer and sincere hope is that we will see scores of churches rise up whose only goal is the one Paul talked to the Corinthians about. I close this post with his words.    

                            “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 
(2 Corinthians 5:18-21) 

Grace to you,
Royce Ogle  

Sep 21 2007

3 Baptisms in Acts 2


 

Based largely on one statement in Ephesians 4 many Bible teachers insist that there is only one baptism in the New Testament, water baptism. The passage states “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”(Ephesians 4:4-6) The words I have in bold fonts are the focus. If taken out of context and used as a stand-alone text many verses in the Bible can be construed to mean any number of things which are not true. This is one of those examples. The context is “unity” among believers and here Paul is attempting to get everyone on the same page. The baptism referred to here is almost certainly believer’s baptism in water. The point is that we who are saved share a common faith, in a common God, and have had a common baptism. We are together as one in Christ.

 

In the 2nd chapter of Acts there are clearly two distinct baptisms and another implied. There are 3 specific baptisms related to every believer. Unfortunately not all believers experience them the way God designed.

 

The first of these three baptisms is mentioned by John the Baptist and recorded in Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16. The Luke passage says “John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” The “He” of this verse is Jesus. Later Jesus commands the disciples in Luke 24:49 “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” They did wait as instructed and Acts 2 gives us the story of the sound of a rushing wind, tongues as of fire, and preaching in different languages with great power. When Peter recounted these events to the Jewish brothers as he defended baptizing Gentiles he said to them “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?”
When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.” (Acts 11:15-18) So according to Peter the first baptism in Acts 2 is the “baptism with the Holy Spirit”.

 

In the act of this baptism, Jesus is the baptizer and the Holy Spirit is the medium. Jesus is the “who” and the Holy Spirit is the “what”. (It is worthy of notice that Peter’s testimony was that he received the gift “when (he) believed on the Lord Jesus Christ”. And further those who were saved had been “granted repentance unto life”. Is it possible then that the more important word in Acts 2:38 is “repent” rather than “baptized”?)

 

Most of our Pentecostal and charismatic friends teach that the Holy Spirit is the one who does the baptizing which is only one of their mistakes on the subject of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Among those mistakes is that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and in addition may teach that the sin nature inherent in the flesh is completely eradicated in conjunction with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Both are false and easy enough for almost any Bible student to refute.

 

The 2nd baptism is the one that gets most of the attention, baptism in water. When Jesus gave the great command of the great commission He said “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) Here the Scriptures cannot be clearer. 1. Go make disciples. 2. Baptizing them (disciples) 3. Teaching them (disciples). The disciples were to make more disciples by preaching the gospel, baptizing those who believed it, and then teaching them to obey all that Jesus had commanded. Interestingly, no plan for world evangelism has been devised that beats that plan. It is the only one that is tested and proven and mandated by Jesus Himself. It worked in Acts 2, it worked with the man from Ethiopia, it worked with the house of Cornelius, and it worked for the Apostle Paul. Preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) in the power of the Holy Spirit, baptize those who believe, and then teach them to be obedient to all Christ taught. This is not complicated.

 

In this baptism the baptizer is the disciples, Apostles, or any other believer, and the medium is water. The “who” is the person immersing the new believer and the “what” is water. Water baptism in the New Testament is clearly immersion. I can find no other method. Baptism is only for believers. It is only for those who believe the facts of the gospel or “good news” about Christ. The criteria is not church membership, what one believes ought to be said at baptisms, or even what one believes about baptism.

 

What about “baptism for the remission of sins”? John the Baptist baptized “unto repentance”, (Matthew 3:11). His water baptism was not actual “repentance” but was “unto” repentance. Those he baptized desired to be identified with the community of faith who had chosen to repent (change their minds) and follow the one who would come, of whom John preached. Being immersed in water was not the cause of repentance; it said to the onlookers “I have repented”. In exactly the same way baptism “for” the remission of sins is not a mechanical action that obligates God to forgive sins in conjunction with immersion. Over 50 times in the New Testament it is made plain that salvation is by faith. Obedience always comes after faith in Christ, not before. The “natural” or unregenerate mind is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can he be (Romans 8:7). Those who teach that no person can be saved until he or she is immersed also teach that only after baptism will they receive the Holy Spirit. That is inconsistent with Peter’s statement quoted above when he declared clearly that he received the Holy Spirit when he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and the experience of Cornelius and those at his house.

 

When the believer is immersed in water he is saying to the world and to God, I am dying to myself and my way of doing things and I am being raised to live my life God’s way. We thus reenact the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and are “marked out” as followers of Jesus and of the household of faith. Water baptism never stands alone and one baptized 100 times will still be lost if he or she did not first have faith in Christ. In baptism we look to Christ and what He accomplished on our behalf when He died for our sins, was buried, and raised from the dead. Water baptism does not join us to the church nor does it join us to God but it does cry out to a watching world “I belong to Christ and I purpose to live only for Him!” So we correctly sometimes say he or she was “baptized into Christ”. Of course we speak figuratively just as we do when we eat the bread and drink the cup. We are not literally eating the body of Christ or drinking His blood. We know that we receive Him by faith, not by physical eating. The symbols are not nearly as important as what they represent. We might eat unleavened bread, a cracker, or some other bread. And, we likely drink Welch’s grape juice, or perhaps even wine, but not literal blood. So the elements of the supper, when we commune with our Lord and His people, only represent His body broken for us and His blood shed for us until He comes.

 

In my view, water baptism is much the same. We are not literally dying when we go under the water, we are symbolically dying. We are “baptized into His death” in a figurative way, we are not literally dead as He was. We are symbolizing our death to self and sin and our being raised to live the new life He gives. Thus it was necessary for Paul to say right after he talked about being “baptized into His death”, “reckon yourselves to be dead” (Romans 6:11). We are baptized “for the remission of our sins” by submitting to immersion in the watery grave of baptism.

 Just as Adam was our head before we became Christians so now Christ is the “new Adam”, our federal head. As in Adam all die, so in Christ all live (1 Corinthians 15:22). Because Christ is now our representative, when He died we died with Him (2 Timothy 2:11), and when He was raised we were raised with Him. Baptism is a beautiful and holy reenactment of those truths. Thus our eternal salvation was completed before we were born, completely outside of us or our abilities. “This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him,We shall also live with Him.”(2 Timothy 2:11) 

There is a 3rd baptism that took place in Acts 2 and following in the story of the growth of the church of Christ is the world. I call your attention to 1 Corinthians 12:13. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit”. It is the blessed Holy Spirit who regenerates and creates a “new creature”. It is the third Person of the godhead who causes one to be “born from above”. And, it is He (the Holy Spirit) who places that person into the body of Christ, the universal church of Christ on earth and in heaven.

 

Here the baptizer is the Holy Spirit and the medium is the body of Christ. The “who” is the Holy Spirit and the “what” is the body of Christ.

 

  1. Baptism by Jesus with the Holy Spirit. The result is an empowered witness to Christ.
  2. Baptism by Christians of disciples in water in obedience to Jesus command in Matthew 28. The result is the identification of the disciple with Christ, with the body of believers, and separation from the world.
  3. Baptism by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. The result is the new disciple is “one” with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and with every other believer. The Holy Spirit Himself is God’s guarantee that person is safe for eternity. 

I know many who read this will disagree with my conclusions. That is fine with me. I only ask this of you. Do I have as much right, and responsibility, as any other Christian to search the Scriptures and then teach what I find there? And, when we disagree shouldn’t we do so in a gracious way? Without question we should.

 

Next post: “How to grow a 1st Century church in the 21st Century”

 

Grace to you,

Royce Ogle

Sep 4 2007

The purpose of Pentecost


 

 

A fire department sub-station finally gets the long awaited new fire truck. It is delivered late in the afternoon and parked in the place of the old, worn out truck. At 7:00 a.m. the next day, just as the 1st shift gets to the station there is an alarm; there is smoke coming from a building at 10th and Main. The firemen rush to their gear putting on fire proof overhauls, the long coat, the helmet, and the long boots. Out the door they go and they see the shiny new fire truck. “Man, look at that chrome!” one exclaims. Another shouts, “Check these seats out, they are plush!”. Yet another can’t resist taking a quick peek under the hood. “it’s a Cat engine” he adds to the excitement.

Finally they get to the corner of 10th and Main to find only smoke and ashes and some charred steel girders. It is always best to keep the main thing the main thing and not get overly interested in the details. Many well meaning people approach the Scriptures making the same mistakes as these firemen. They involved themselves with secondary issues at the expense of not putting the fire out until it was too late.

Multiplied thousands of books and articles have been written about the events surrounding Pentecost and the overwhelming majority of them completely miss the reason for Pentecost. The most common reason given is that the birth of the New Testament church was on the Day of Pentecost. Our Pentecostal and charismatic friends focus almost entirely upon the baptism of the Holy Spirit and unknown tongues. Another group finds water baptism the high point of the story and emphasize baptism in an unhealthy way. Then there are the dispensationalists whose focus is the belief that the “church age”, the “dispensation of grace”, or the “last days” should be the important point. And, those Christians who love Bible prophesy might focus on the fulfillment of the prophecy of the prophet Joel.

All of these views have merit but none is the main reason the Bible gives for the happenings on that 50th day after Christ arose from the dead, Pentecost. The reason for Pentecost is recorded by the good doctor Luke.

“and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations…..but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” (Luke 24:47,49)

“And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:4-8)

“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak….and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.” (Acts 2:4,41)

The central theme of Pentecost is that the Apostles and others did, and experienced, exactly what Jesus had commanded and promised. They waited on God in prayer until they were endued with the power of the Holy Spirit to become soul winning witnesses for Christ.

After Jesus gave the disciples the great command of the great commission and promised them He would be with them, He expressly commanded them to do nothing but wait. Can you imagine they were eager to go tell others about the risen Lord? I can just see Peter chomping at the bits to go tell the whole world. No…, not yet….Jesus said WAIT. As eager as they are, as excited as they are, as much as they loved the Lord Jesus, they must wait for the Holy Spirit power necessary to do the job. If you miss this central truth of Acts, you will be like the firemen in the illustration. You will get focused on the incidentals and miss what Jesus wanted above everything else.

A good thing to keep in mind when you read the book of Acts is the word “redemption”. God is always busy with redemption. If you go down a path that is not focused on the redemption of sinners it is a good idea to come back to the main road and try again. If you get hung up on secondary themes you might miss joining God in His redemptive work.

Until next time,

Grace to you

Royce Ogle

Sep 1 2007

Pentecost revisited


 

There is perhaps more sermons preached, lessons taught, and discussions about Acts chapter two than any other chapter in the Bible. I want to devote a few posts to exploring what the Bible says about the events recorded in Acts 2 and expose a myth or two that are accepted as fact but are not supported by the Scriptures.

Our English word Pentecost comes from a Greek word meaning simply 50. It originated in the Old Testament as a festival celebrating and giving thanks to God for the harvest and was celebrated after the 7th Sunday after the beginning of Passover. It is also called the Festival of Weeks. The day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2 happened on the 50th day after the resurrection of Jesus. All of this is very significant and is worthy of study. You will learn from it that Pentecost, Passover, and many other holy days and festivals were shadows of the one who would come to finally take away sins forever.

The day of Pentecost in the context of Acts chapter 2 does not have much to do with the feast of Pentecost but “Pentecost” is the reference point or land mark in history to focus our thoughts on that first Century day when “the day of Pentecost had fully come”. (Acts 2:1)

I purpose to raise some questions and then attempt to answer them from the Bible. What someone said about the Bible, even if that somebody is me, is not nearly as good as the Word of God. In every encounter with the Holy Scriptures we should adopt the mindset, before we come to its pages, that it will be the final authority for both faith and practice, no matter what anyone else thinks or says about what we find there.

(It seems that for many of us the way to know the Bible is to run out to a book store and find out what brother so and so said, or go to a commentary that usually agrees with what I have already decided, or in some other way supplement the Word of God. I promise you that the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. Comparing scripture with scripture is more likely than not the best way to learn its truth. Lazy preachers are a big part of the reason churches are impotent. Lazy preachers make those in the pews lazy as well. Well, I just threw this in and it is well worth the price you paid for it. Nonetheless it is true.)

  • Was the day of Pentecost the first time Christians were indwelt by the Holy Spirit?
  • Was the day of Pentecost the first time Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit?
  • Was the day of Pentecost the birthday of the church?
  • What was the main purpose of Pentecost?
  • How does the events of that day long ago effect you, or should they?

I will post the first of this “mini series” in a few days.

Grace to you,
Royce Ogle