Revolution of Ordinaries

You can make the Bible say anything you want if you try hard enough. What's the wildest out of context thing you have ever heard?

4 hours ago | [YT] | 0

Revolution of Ordinaries

Stephen had been martyred.

Saul was persecuting the church.

Christians were being put in prison.

All those amazing early days of temple and homes...scattered out of Jerusalem.

And it was the best thing that could have happened to the early church.

"Now those who were scattered went from place to place proclaiming the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed, and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. So there was great joy in that city." - Acts 8:4-8

The Western church has gotten really good at collecting Christians but not so good at scattering them.

Maybe it is time for a good scattering.

21 hours ago | [YT] | 7

Revolution of Ordinaries

Do we still have apostles and prophets?

I asked you your view on APEST in Ephesians 4:11 and now I am going to share my thoughts,

"He himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers..."

I read right past this verse for over 30 years. I didn't give it much attention because I thought we don't have these "roles" anymore. But I have changed my mind and here is why.

Words have meaning in context. In the first century, there were capital "A" Apostles and there were apostles. Big "A" Apostles were witnesses of the resurrected Jesus who went out and spread the word. These were people like the 11 when Jesus was raised from the dead.

In Acts 1:21-22, Judas is replaced and their criteria for the replacement Apostle was,

"So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection."

Then you had people like Paul, Barnabas, Junia, etc who were apostles but not one of the 12.

I don't believe we have people who meet the qualifications of Acts 1 today (Big "A" Apostles) but I do believe we have little "a" apostles today because that word in Ephesians 4:11 just means "a sent one". The verb form of the word means "to send". We would call them missionaries but it is all the same thing.

Those who are sent on mission for Jesus are in an apostolic (sent) function. That shouldn't raise any eyebrows.

What about prophets? Do we have prophets today?

We see prophets in the Old and New Testaments. We see them in Acts. We see them in the letter's of Paul (chapters 11-14 in particular).

According the BDAG (one of the most widely respected Greek-English Lexicons) the word here for prophet means, "a person inspired to proclaim or reveal divine will or purpose." This is not always about future telling. This is about God revealing things to people.

At the end of Ephesians 1, Paul prays for,

"the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints," - 1:17-18

Does God reveal things to people today? And if someone passes on those things to other, are they in a prophetic function?

I can only speak from my own experience and from that experience, I now do believe God reveals things to people. I have experienced it in my own life in ways that were clearly from God (several stories here and some of you will have your own stories). If you don't believe this happens, then you are convinced I am either mistaken or lying and I am okay with that at this point in time.

But here is where I draw a distinction - I am far more skeptical of someone who stands up as a prophet to say prophetic things than someone who says prophetic things that turn out to be prophetic without them claiming to do so in that moment.

I believe prophetic things are spoken in the church today. I believe there are "sent ones" in the church today. I also believe we have evangelists, shepherds and teachers.

I do not believe APEST is an organizational leadership hierarchy or structure. I believe these are giftings God gives the body to be used for the purposes Paul goes on to outline (which I quote below).

So yes, I believe APEST still exists today and let me share one last thing...some context!

Here is the whole passage,

"He himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity,[e] to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love." - Eph 1:11-16

APEST helps the church:
- be equipped for ministry
- build up the body
- unity in faith
- maturity to the full measure of Christ
- not be tossed around by false doctrine
- be joined together
- be built up in love

Final point - In my experience those who deny APEST (I am speaking generally here) struggle in all the areas God put APEST in the church to help with (see the list above). And that makes sense...if you deny what God is doing, you are going to not get the effect/impact of what God is doing.

Thoughts? Where do you believe I am off here?

1 day ago | [YT] | 4

Revolution of Ordinaries

Over 120 people have signed up for the Home Church Training Prepwork!

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You can dive in here - home-church-resources.circle.so/join?invitation_to…

5 days ago | [YT] | 7

Revolution of Ordinaries

A call to action for the body of Christ!

Have you allowed others to be faithful for you? It doesn't work!

https://youtu.be/0GmF0LnsyVo

5 days ago | [YT] | 1

Revolution of Ordinaries

Has God Stopped Revealing Things to People Since the Bible is Complete?

I have a question for those of you who believe that there is no further revelation since the Bible has been completed.

There are thousands of testimonies coming out of areas of the world that are incredibly hostile to Christianity. These testimonies are all very much the same. And they involve people who have no access to Scripture or anyone to teach them the good news.

They’re having dreams of Jesus. He is coming to them in their sleep and revealing himself to them. They are converting to Christianity, initially, in the absence of the Bible. Often times Jesus and the vision helps them know where to go and wait for someone to come and share more with them.

So people are turning from Islam to Christianity in droves in the absence of Scripture through dreams of Jesus, revealing the gospel to them.

If you believe there is no more direct revelation from God, do you believe that this is really happening or do you deny it is real? Are these people just mistaken, are they liars,

Why would someone just make this up and risk the very life in the lives of their children? And why would this be made up so consistently and disconnected countries around the world from people who never met each other?

What are your thoughts on that, since the Bible is all anyone in the entire world needs?

I agree with the premise that the Bible is sufficient to come to the knowledge of the truth and salvation, however, I also believe that God is not limited to only using the Bible.

Both can be true. It is not picking one or the other and that is often how I see this debate framed - "If you think God is still revealing things to people, then you believe the Bible is not sufficient."

So what are your thoughts on these experiences? These dreams? Are they real or fake? Are these people telling the truth or are they lying?

If these people are deceived and/or lying...Satan is doing a horrible job on this one.

Thoughts?

6 days ago | [YT] | 12

Revolution of Ordinaries

In Roy Moran's book "Spent Matches" he talks about a dream he had, a literal dream, of trying to get the entire city of Kansas City to come to the church building on Sunday. There were so many logistics and so little space that it proved to be an impossible task.

And he wasn't okay with that.

He realized that the church needed more diversity of approaches in order to be faithful to our calling and command to go and make disciples.

The church can become something that makes obedience to what God said hard. It is important that we wrestle with that idea, evaluate what we are doing and eliminate any friction our systems cause to the commands of God.

What are some systems, beliefs or mindsets that can actually hinder rather than help us do what God said?

1 week ago | [YT] | 8

Revolution of Ordinaries

It is easy to think what makes it hard to love another person is something about that person when the real reason it is hard to love another person is more than likely something in me, not something in them.

1 week ago | [YT] | 10

Revolution of Ordinaries

A lot of former ministers I talk with tell me the same thing - that they are now doing more ministry in secular employment than they did when working full time for a church.

I have heard this more times than you would believe.

First, if you are a former minister, do you agree or disagree and why?

Second, what does this tell you about the ministry machine that has been created and perpetuated?

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 23

Revolution of Ordinaries

This is a bit too general but Judaism was a bit easier to put the brakes on via persecution because you could remove the priesthood. You could remove the temple. You could stop the sacrifices because they required specific things that could be halted.

Then comes the church where everyone is a priest (1 Peter 2) and everyone is the temple (1 Cor 3,6). There is no building. There are no special robes. Jesus is the once for all sacrifice so you can't stop what already happened.

God created a persecution proof system in the new covenant...not that it couldn't be persecuted but the impact of any persecution was limited by dispersing things out to the whole.

Then here comes us humans and we take that persecution-proof system and go back to temples and altars and priests. I am not sure that is the step in the right direction as a whole.

How did God design the church and is what we see and do today aligned with that? Thoughts?

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 31