Moving to Wordpress

Hi all,

I moved the website to a Wordpress platform. The URL is the same: http://theJesusMethod.com .

Please note that the new website has a new Subscription button. Google's Feedburner is way better than Google Groups. If you have the time, please go there and subscribe to the new format. Or click here. I apologize for the inconvenience, but my hope is that the reading will be easier.

Also, I'm still waiting for some graphics here... so if anyone can help in that area, it'd be greatly appreciated!

With love!

Stop Praying for the Sick

I was reading this passage today, and something jumped out and hit me:

"When the days drew near for him [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village." Luke 9:51-56

There's something very interesting about the nature of authority in this passage. Read the disciples' question again, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

This occurs soon after Jesus gave the apostles "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases" in Luke 9:1, and then sent them out to "proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal" Luke 9:2. In his commissioning speech, Jesus tells them "Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgement for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town [any town that rejects their message]" Matt 10:15. And what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Consumed with fire.

So, a little sanctified imagination here: the apostles have been with Jesus from near the beginning. They have now seen Jesus heal the sick, cast demons out of folks, curse fig trees, calm storms and raise the dead. Often times he performed these awesome miracles with simple commands, "Child, arise" Luke 8:54, "Peace! Be still" Mark 4:39, "Stretch out your hand" Luke 6:10, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again" Mark 11:14, "Be opened!" Mark 7:34, and "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" Mark 5:8.

The disciples have seen the power of God in Jesus Christ. They have witnessed his authority. They were there for the miracles of their Rabbi - the one whom they longed to be like. And then the day comes: Jesus gives them authority and power and turns'm loose. What do you think happened the first time they encountered a blind man in a village? What do you think they said? How do you think they went about healing him? How do you think they prayed? Could you even call it prayer?

Now, back to our original passage:

"Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

Now, let me ask you: where in the world did James and John get the idea they could tell fire to come down from heaven and consume a village? It's clear that they got the idea that rejection of their message was punishable by fire from Jesus in Matt 10:15. But where did they get the idea they themselves could just, well, tell fire come down and consume a village? I mean, these guys didn't have any intention to ask God to send the fire down. They weren't going to ask Jesus to do it for them, either. And they certainly weren't going to ask the fire itself if it would come down. No, they were going to tell it to come down themselves.

Do you see it now? What do you think that would have sounded like? Maybe something like, "Fire, come down here and consume these people!" Look, I know Jesus rebuked them for their attitudes here. I'm not condoning any kind of destructive behavior by any means. Rather, I want you to learn something very important about our authority.

You don't have to pray. You don't have to ask God to do it. Jesus didn't, and it's clear that the disciples didn't either. Jesus didn't tell his disciples to go out and pray for the sick. He told them to go heal the sick. There's a difference.

This might seem like a little thing, but it's not. Prayer involves communication. It's a two-way street. Healing the sick doesn't. The only communication involved is a horizontal communication: you telling the sickness to get lost. It's a resident authority based on your relationship with Jesus Christ.

So, what's the point? The point is: You don't have to pray to God and ask him to heal the sick, because he's given you authority to do it yourself! What an exciting privilege we have! God has given us everything we need to co-labor with him and build the Kingdom!

Praise the Lord!

RP: A 21st Century Reformation: Recover the Supernatural

An article by Hwa Yung:

A 21st Century Reformation: Recover the Supernatural
Leaders from Malaysia, Argentina, Nigeria, and the United States share their dreams for major changes in the global church.

To facilitate a truly global conversation, we ask Christian leaders from around the world to respond to the Global Conversation's lead articles. These points of view do not necessarily represent Christianity Today magazine or the Lausanne Movement. They are designed to stimulate discussion from all points of the compass and from different segments of the Christian community. Please add your perspective by posting a comment so that we can learn and grow together in the unity of the Spirit.

The Reformation of the 16th century was a revolution of mythic proportions. Scholars and pastors with fresh scriptural insights took advantage of revolutionary changes in the arts, science, humanities, politics, travel, and commerce to turn the Western world upside down. It marked both a return to biblical roots and a leap into the future. In the 21st century, what major changes in the church should Christians be hoping and working for? In the final installment of the Global Conversation, four key leaders from four continents reveal their hopes.

One big surprise of the 20th century was the dramatic growth of churches in the non-Western world. A bigger surprise was that the fastest-growing churches were strongly supernaturally oriented. "In this thought world, prophecy is an everyday reality, while faith healing, exorcism, and dream visions are all basic components of religious sensibility," religion historian Philip Jenkins has noted. This is true of African Initiated Churches, Pentecostal churches in Latin America, house churches in China and India, and numerous others.

I grew up in a thought world where ancestral spirits, demonic powers, "gods," and miracles of all kinds abounded. Modern education, the most powerful force behind secularization, almost succeeded in getting me to toss out everything as superstition. Some of these supernatural elements clearly are, but not all. A careful reading of the Bible and the sheer weight of empirical evidence eventually brought me back to a supernatural Christianity. In this, I found myself out of sync with much of Western theology. Here liberals were at least consistent, but not evangelicals. Most liberals denied the supernatural both in the Bible and in the present; evangelicals fought tooth and nail to defend the miraculous in the Bible, but rarely could cope with it in real life.

It is now recognized that much of Western thought has been domesticated by modernity, with its roots in Enlightenment thought. The autonomous rationalism initiated by Descartes and the narrow empiricism pioneered by Hume have so emasculated the modern worldview that a mechanistic universe is all that remains. The resultant denial of the supernatural has crippled much of theology, leading to at least two serious consequences.

First, most present-day Western systematic and pastoral theologies fail to address the demonic at both the personal and cosmic levels. Many scholars deny or ignore the whole subject, explaining away numerous related biblical passages: Paul's references to "principalities and powers" are reduced to sociological structures; sin and evil are discussed without reference to the demonic. Such theologies sit well with modernity, but they provide no help for evangelists and pastors ministering to people who are under spiritual bondage. If these issues are not properly addressed, many non-Westerners will find the gospel impotent and irrelevant.

The other consequence is that Western Christians often fail to fit the "signs and wonders" of the Holy Spirit into their theological framework. Up until recently, they have treated classic Pentecostalism as some form of aberrant religion, along with various versions of non-Western indigenous Christianity that also take the New Testament teaching on spiritual gifts and miracles seriously. But today, with Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement increasingly accepted in the West, and most of the dynamic non-Western churches taking the miraculous seriously, it increasingly looks as if the real aberration is "mainline" Western Christianity.

A 21st-century reformation will demand reinserting the supernatural into the heart of Christianity. This will result not only in a sounder biblical theology but also a more powerful missional church. The world will then understand what Jesus meant when he said, "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Matt. 12:28, ESV).

It's exciting to me that even in intellectual circles the supernatural trademark of Christianity is gaining prominence. The reality of modern day signs and wonders are being discussed, written about, and debated. Fortunately, there's not much skeptics can do about the tidal wave of miracles sweeping the globe. Soon, it will be on their very doorsteps.

Just in recent months, there has been a surge of interest in healing and the miraculous. Multiple blogs, YouTube Channels, and websites have started. Oftentimes the founders are normal, everyday believers like you or I, living in America. In fact, your reading one of those blogs right now.

In my opinion, one of the sad consequences of naturalism, at least as it relates to Western Christianity, is that there are many pastors, and Christians, who themselves suffer or have loved ones who suffer from demonic influence, attack, and sickness and disease. All the while they had the authority and power of Jesus Christ at their disposal to set them free, heal them, and together live a victorious Christian life.

Things are changing though, and the future is promising. Let's go get'm! Praise God!