as i travel thru ThisPilgrimLand

In dealing with some of the people who believe that the face and presence of God can be felt outside of the study of His word, one thing has become obvious to me. People no longer hold the Holy Bible to be sacred. Despite the Biblical charges to study the word and to teach the word (ALONE, in and out of season, 2 Tim. 4:1-2) there are some who count themselves among the ranks of Christian that have decided to discard this idea.
They, speaking specifically of the “charismatic,” base their belief that man’s prophecy somehow trumps proper Biblical teaching and instruction, on what is historically a new doctrine.  Without exploring that history, their beliefs in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit based upon signs and wonders such as speaking in tongues and other subjective experience-based phenomenon stems from a movement that began in 1906 and really “caught-fire” in the last 1960′s. 

Little attention is paid to New Testament scripture in these groups from my study and observation, but what is most disturbing is how much trust these people place in other men, or their leaders.  Rather than expository teaching, what is most often pleasing to the ears of these people is a seemingly corrupt form of eisegesis in which they make scripture fit around their thoughts, dreams, visions, or even worse, carnal desires.  If one listens to their speaking, there is almost a Catholic tone to the teaching of their leaders.  Rather than direct their followers to explore scripture along with them, long, vehement, and emotion-laden diatribes are given to them, while at times a verse or scripture is mentioned or quoted, but the reference is rarely given to the congregants.  What I have witnessed to be the case many times is the fact that these leaders encouraged their followers to read themselves into the scripture and rather than learning to study and understand scripture from the scriptures original context, rather they are instructed to reshape the scripture into their own social or, even worse, emotional context. 

This is a type of Biblical study that flies in the face of proper Biblical interpretation. It is a handy tool though in dragging individuals into following their new revelations as, more than anything, this type of handling of God’s word reduces the value of scripture to an old revelation.  Something new is always more desirable than something old (unless you’re dealing with baseball cards). 

This degradation of scripture sets the stage for the “watch this” moment, where faux emotion and relentless screaming, moaning, and honestly, out right whining takes place.  Often times seeing this makes me think back to my travel to the wailing wall in Israel, but rather than banging their heads against a wall as the Jewish men do there, these people are banging their head to thin air, or even against the floor.  Is their banging of their head any more a sign of their reverence or spiritual “connection” than those wailing Jews though?

What is strange is that when you call for these people to get into the scripture, they report their experience or state that they are in the presence of God during these shows.  What they fail to recognize is the Divine Book, the Holy Bible and the power therein.  They treat their “spirituality” almost like a contagious disease that they can pass to one another by simple bodily contact.  All the while, failing to understand that the true pathway to the Holy Spirit is the scripture.

They base much of their beliefs on the account of the day of Pentecost found in Acts 2.  What is erroneous about this is that they stop after the first few verses of Joel’s prophecy.  Yes, Joel’s prophecy about the Holy Spirit was fulfilled at that moment and the signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit were evident.  However, that is not what saved the souls of the 3000 baptized that day.  What saved the souls is what Peter said next.  The miracles of the Holy Spirit were simply confirmation to those in attendance that the word was indeed correct.  The saving grace took place when Peter began to preach from scripture along with the help of the Holy Spirit, who, as scripture tells us, can only tell of Christ 

There was honestly no new revelation in Peter’s sermon.  There was no new dream or vision.  He spoke of Christ and of David’s pointing to Christ’s coming.  That is what saved those men. The other was simply window dressing.  The power was in the word of God, and there today it still resides. 

James Egbert published a book in 1909 entitled Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty.  In this book, Egbert explores the heart of the restoration movement that called for the removal of creeds and other objects which separate Christians and a call to move back to the Bible.  Campbell, as does any true New Testament Christian, holds the scripture in the highest regard and understands that by no other means is God known, is man known, or is salvation found because this is the only place that the story of Christ in all His wonder can be found.  Is the book written by humans and therefore a human book?  Yes, indeed it is.  Is the book also a divine creation in which the full and complete revelation of God can be found?  Yes. 

The Bible is both human and divine, finite and infinite.  That is why there is no longer need for the signs and wonders that these people profess to be real but never document.  That is why there is no need for the teaching of dreams and visions that when upon inspection and time prove false.  It is a practice in futility.  Teach the word.  It is all that is needed and will provide the very thing that these people are so desperately seeking.  The call of the restoration movement is to stop the chaos that has ensued as a consequence of creeds and the tendency of many to take scripture and form it around their own wants.  The call is one of unity, not division.  This unity is only found in the New Testament which shines the brightest of lights on ou Savior Jesus Christ.

In closing, read this portion of Egbert’s book:

“He (Campbell) found the Bible to be divine as well as human.  He found Divinity breathing everywhere from its pages.  He found himself in a new, a different, a heavenly atmosphere.  It was like stepping out of night into day.  It was like stepping out of the fogs into sunshine.  It was like getting a view of the universe from the mountain tops above the clouds after having been in the valley beneath the clouds.  The change was as from the cold white silence of winter to the warmth, beauty, and music of the springtime…Not the intellect alone becomes captivated and held under the spell of wonderful ideas.  But this Book enraptures the soul.  It fires the will.  It touches the whole man.  His vague longings and dreams, his aspirations and ideals, his present need, comfort, and joy, are all met and satisfied in this blessed volume.  There is a response of life to life, of soul answering to soul.  Yea, this book so human is found throbbing with Divine Life.

This is what Dr. William R. Harper was feeling when he stepped out of the Assyrian and Babylonian writings into Hebrew Scriptures ‘We..find in one a something which seizes hold of us, moves us powerfully, elevates us, inspires us.  We look for the same element in the other, but it is wholly lacking.  Instead, there is a dullness, a flatness, an insipidity, which disappoints, and at times almost disgusts.  Why this difference?  There is  but one possble answer.  This writing, or series of writings, is human, only human.  The other is human, to be sure, but also divine.  The evidence is direct; it is absolutely conclusive and must be convincing.’

So this becomes the ultimate purpose of the Bible and the true end of all interpretation; to bring the person face to face with the Infinite Father, under the spell of his inspiration, his love, and his purpose.

Therefore to Mr. Campbell the Bible is not only ‘the book of humanity,” but “the book of Divinity.’ {posting author note, this is the two aspects that Christ put on as well, the whole revelation of Christ} He says:

‘The divine mind, the eternal spirit, breathes through the signs of that book – through its words, its types, its figures, its principles, its precepts, its examples – upon our moral nature.  It quickens, animates, purifies, enlarges, and dignifies it by an assimilation of it to an incarnation of the Divinity itself; and capacitates man and woman for higher joys, purer delights, and a more efficient agency in imparting bliss to others, than all the documents, volumes, facts, an events in all the other records of man, or developments of God visible to mortal eye.’

To his thought the Bible contained no more a revelation of God than of man.  Side by side runs the process, God gradually and progressively disclosing himself to man, and man slowly comprehending himself and his significance in the light of the revealed God.  Such a progressive insight is absolutely necessary for any true life, for, as Lotze says, ‘any one who could see quite through himself would seem to us to have come to an end of himself; he alone who is gradally discovering himself is entitled to take an interest in his own existence.’ This ‘dark core of our being’ then has its real value, even with all its seeming unreality.  We are constantly driven to God to know ourselves.  If the Bible would meet us here we must see the revealed man, as well the revealed God. Says Mr. Campbell:

‘It is such a revelation of God and of man, such a record of the past, and such anticipation of the future, as meets all the intellectual wants and moral exigencies of the human race… We need as much revelation in respect to the latter asto the former, and we are glad to know that these views are not peculiar to us, but that in the march of science, and the growth of human understanding, their correctness is being more and more realized…Human nature is here as fully revealed as the Divine.  They are revealed in comparison, in contrast, in things similar, in things dissimilar.  The fountains of the great deep of human thought, of human motives, of human action, are broken up; and man, inward and outward, is contemplated not in the dim taper of time, but in the strong, bright light of eternity; not merely as respects his position on the terraqueous globe, nor in human society, but as respects all his positions and attributes in a whole universe, a boundless future, a vast eternity.

No man ever saw himself, ever knew himself, who has not stood before this mirror (Bible).  It is as much a revelation of man to himself as of God to man.’” (Egebert, 231-233)

Now, ask yourself why you would need or want anything more taught to you than the Holy and Divine Word of God.

- Egbert, J. (1909). Alexander Campbell & Christian Liberty: A Centennial         Volume On His Controlling Ideas – Enforced By His Own               Words.  St. Louis, MO: Christian Publishing Company.