As a charismatic Christian, I’ve heard over and over again the talk about the “Five” fold ministry. However, a closer reading of Ephesians 4:7-13 reveals that the “five” fold ministry is actually the “four” fold ministry.

Note that each the apostle, the prophet, and the evangelist are listed separately, however the pastor/teacher is listed together. Also note that the word “some” is before apostle, prophet and evangelist in a one to one ratio. However, “some” is only stated once before “pastors and teachers.” This makes sense since those who pastor must teach.

Another insteresting tidbit is that there isn’t any other place in the NT that uses the term “pastor,” yet we do find examples in the NT of the terms apostle, prophet, and teacher.

Thus, the five fold ministry is debunked.

Tags: pastor, five fold ministry

For those who don’t know, I went to Virginia Beach
]on Thursday for a Friday appointment with court. In Virginia, if you get a speeding ticket going 20 over the speed limit, you have to go to court, even if you live in another state. Fun huh?

For the curious, I was going 83 in a 55, on an interstate. What ended up happening was that the judge gave me 60 days in jail, 58 days of that suspended, 2 must be served, with a two year probation. Crazy!!!

So, now I’m hiring a lawyer and appealing…

Tags: Virginia Beach

Recently, I was listening to a news channel on my sirius radio, and heard Tony Blair respond to a reporter’s question about America’s lack of influence when it comes to the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon. I’m not a big political person, though I’m trying to understand, but this response struck me as having TRUTH written all over it. Especially pay attention to the end of his statement, about not giving up even though it is hard (Transcript of July 28, 2006 Bush/Blair press conference):

BLAIR: I don’t think it actually has anything to do with a loss of American influence at all. I think we’ve got to go back and ask what changed policy, because policy has changed in the past few years.

BLAIR: And what changed policy was September the 11th. That changed policy. But actually, before September the 11th, this global movement with a global ideology was already in being. September the 11th was the culmination of what they wanted to do.

But actually, you know — and this is probably where the policymakers such as myself were truly in error — is that even before September the 11th this was happening in all sorts of different ways in different countries.

I mean, in Algeria for example, tens and tens of thousands of people lost their lives.

This movement has grown. It is there. It will latch onto any cause that it possibly can and give it a dimension of terrorism and hatred.

You can see this. You can see it in Kashmir, for example. You can see it in Chechnya, you know? You can see it in Palestine.

Now, what is its purpose?

BLAIR: Its purpose is to promote its ideology based on a perversion of Islam and to use any methods at all, but particularly terrorism, to do that. Because they know that the value of terrorism to them is — as I was saying a moment or two ago — it’s not simply the act of terror, it’s the chain reaction that terror brings with it.

Terrorism brings the reprisal; the reprisal brings the additional hatred; the additional hatred breeds the additional terrorism, and so on.

In a small way, we lived through that in Northern Ireland over many, many decades.

Now, what happened after September the 11th — and this explains, I think, the president’s policy but also the reason why I have taken the view and still take the view that Britain and America should remain strong allies, shoulder to shoulder, in fighting this battle, is that we are never going to succeed unless we understand they are going to fight hard.

The reason why they are doing what they are doing in Iraq at the moment — and, yes, it’s really tough as a result of it — is because they know that if right in the center of the Middle East, in an Arab Muslim country, you’ve got a nonsectarian democracy — in other words people weren’t governed either by religious fanatics or secular dictators — you’ve got a genuine democracy of the people: How does their ideology flourish in such circumstances?

BLAIR: So they have imported the terrorism into that country, preyed on whatever reactionary elements there are to boost it. And that’s why we have the issue there.

That’s why the Taliban are trying to come back in Afghanistan. That is why the moment it looked as if you could get progress in Israel and Palestine, it had to be stopped.

That’s the moment when, as they say there was a problem in Gaza, so they realized: Well, there’s a possibility now we can set Lebanon against Israel.

Now, it’s a global movement. It’s a global ideology.

And if there’s any mistake that’s ever made in these circumstances, it’s if people are surprised that it’s tough to fight, because you’re up against an ideology that’s prepared to us any means at all, including killing any number of wholly innocent people.

And I don’t dispute part of the implication of your question at all in the sense that you look at what is happening in the Middle East, and what is happening in Iraq and Lebanon and Palestine, and of course there’s a sense of shock and frustration and anger at what is happening, and grief at the loss of innocent lives.

BLAIR: But it is not a reason for walking away. It’s a reason for staying the course and staying it no matter how tough it is: because the alternative is actually letting this ideology grip larger and larger numbers of people.

And it is going to be difficult. Look, we’ve got a problem even in our own Muslim communities in Europe who will half buy into some of the propaganda that’s pushed at it — the purpose of America is to suppress Islam; you know, Britain’s joined with America in the suppression of Islam.

And one of the things we’ve got to stop doing is stop apologizing for our own positions. Muslims in America, as far as I’m aware of, are free to worship.

BLAIR: Muslims in Britain are free to worship. We have plural societies.

You know, it’s nonsense. The propaganda is nonsense. And we’re not going to defeat this ideology until we in the West go out with sufficient confidence in our position and say, “This is wrong. It’s not just wrong in its methods; it’s wrong in its ideas, it’s wrong in its ideology, it’s wrong in every single wretched reactionary thing about it.”

And it will be a long struggle, I’m afraid. But there’s no alternative but to stay the course with it. And we will.

Tags: Tony Blair, Terrorism, Taliban

Last night Abby and I were at a our church, “The Gathering Place“, assembling for the kick off of a new group called “InFlux,” which is for college and career age people (18-29). I heard the leaders speak at church two weeks ago, and they mentioned a vision for “relationships” and seemed to speak to what couldbe similar to my vision.

Thus, my interest was peaked.So, anyway, we went. I was nice to hear that they wanted to empower the people in the group to do what was in their heart from God to do. Desires ranged from the overtly “Christian” (missions, nursing home visits), to the “mundane” (surfing, talking, drinking coffee). To each desire, the leader stated, “that will happen.”

This made me excited.

Of course, I’ve had this house church thing on my heart for a few years now. Abby and I even e-mailed a contact to find house churches in the area, and we found quite a few. However, I didn’t have a peace about going to them. Talking to Abby, we decided that maybe God was still working on us–getting us ready for the next step.

Last night, I had the opportunity to tell the leader my vision, and I only generalized. I told him my desire was to see people grown up as a Christian. I wanted to see 1 Cor 14:26 happen, “When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.” I want to see a setting where people are comfortable enough to do share what God has given them.

Well, we’ll see what happens. I’m not going to market myself and talk about my seminary education or ministry experience unless it comes up. I’m not into promoting myself. If God wants, it will happen, and it will happen naturally.

It’s nice to see someone trying to break out of the chruch “cliche” box, and it was cool to see a whole bunch of middle school through college students worshipping together (with students leading them).

Tags: church, house church