Reading the book of Acts out loud is actually not as easy as you might think. Its author – Luke, the beloved Physician – is meticulous in recording curious detail, foreign names of people and places, and generally very comprehensive in narrative detail.
But this should be no wonder to us as we recall the opening words to Theophilis from his gospel account:
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
Luke 1:1-4 (ESV)
It is Luke’s following of things closely that should explain to us why his second book of Acts (of the Apostles) is comprehensive in both its content and style – it was inevitable.
It follows that Luke’s compassionate, tender-hearted desire is also that we should know certainty about what we have become persuaded of as absolute truth. In other words, comprehensiveness = certainty.
But this is more than merely form. The bed-side manner of any good doctor concerning physical and mental ailments finds its zenith at the points regarding matters of the human heart, the very wellspring of all things (Proverbs 4:23).
As we continue to commit our Friday evenings to a privileged devotion to the public reading of Scripture, we are reminded time and time again of the difference between engaging in the Bible in this way compared with silent, personal reading alone.
Parts 1 and 2 (chapters 1-13 and 14-28) are available to watch/hear below and you can find all other readings here.
Do you know anyone who would benefit from these resources? Please do forward to them.
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Mairi and I have just started a new podcast series on eschatology and will be doing our best to help us all to think more robustly (and honestly) about our various “positions”, even if that includes not having a clue what our position is.
Here’s the first intro session, below.
Eschatology Explained #1
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Any questions or testimonies that others need to hear, please let us – and everyone else – know via Firebrand Notes.
To prove that even what I say in this episode doesn’t go far enough, please read this.
Today we go through vv12-19 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians and ask ourselves, “What could it mean for us all to be redeeming radicalisation?”
Look out for a new book project of this same title later in 2022.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19
As we continue into this 51st episode of City of Temples – and the great crescendo of the book – you can listen to a full reading of 1 Corinthians here.
As this teaching series finishes in the next month or so, please look out for the 50+ sessions in study-guide/commentary form towards the summer of 2022.
There is also a playlist of other Bible readings forming here. If you’d like to be a reader, please let us know, and please consider sharing to your networks.
Please consider supporting our work here and/or here.
Any questions or testimonies that others need to hear, please let us – and everyone else – know via Firebrand Notes.
This is a special devotional episode of the podcast to encourage all true soldiers of Jesus Christ: J C Ryle’s “The Fight” as found in his book, Holiness.
The Fight by J C Ryle
I hope this is a deep encouragement to all who listen. (A real sense of spiritual struggle was evident outside our home as I was recording).
You can also listen to Bible readings here and order our new gospel tract for your parish here.
Let’s smash this fake gospel up.
If you’d like to support our work you can do so here and/or here.
Are you bored of weekends? Are you tired of the unsatisfying, predictable routine? Do you pray that the Lord would lead you into more of the supernatural reality of being a disciple of the Coming King?
One of the most painful and disorientating moments of my life was back at the beginning of 2018 when I had been led by the Holy Spirit to face the realisation that the so-called “Bible-based” role that I had undertaken for the so-called “Bible-based” organisation for whom I was then working, was utterly incompatible with the Kingdom of God.
Both nations and individuals have tried Christianity and abandoned it, because it has been found too difficult; but no man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure.
Oswald Chambers
You can listen to this podcast if you prefer:
Men of the Letter or Men of the Spirit?
The Holy Spirit had seen fit to show me that the reality in which I found myself was certainly not as most of us tend to peaceably think of these things – i.e. that the role and organisation were quite understandably imperfect, that, with regards to the Kingdom of God, they were essentially legit’ and that, basically, it was just “not for me”.
Rather, this crescendo and crisis of “kingdom trauma” was showing me that it was an employment and an organisation that were obstructive of the Holy Spirit, actively opposed to the Kingdom of God and, ultimately therefore, anti-Christ in both root and effect.
This proved to be a final straw, precisely and carefully placed by the Dread Warrior of Israel onto the back of this willing Kingdom padwan.
In short, this job and this organisation was very much a matter of the “Letter” but not truly of the Spirit.
Are you open today to hear the traumatic message that you’re quite possibly not functioning in the Spirit as much as you are the Letter?
(Listen here to the podcast version of this post for powerful excerpts from T A Sparks’, Prophetic Ministry).
Spiritual Sickness
I remember this day when I collected the things from my desk having submitted my letter of resignation. I remember feeling physically sick with anxiety and worry, (what were we going to do for money? How would we be able to honour our financial commitments? How was this going to look on my CV? Am I hearing You, Lord? Is there something wrong with me?).
Back at home, I remember confiding through tears to a colleague on the phone about what I’d observed within the charity, a man who I would later discover was a progressive proponent of LGBT abhorrences, a “senior leader” in a national “Company of the Letter”.
But I remember also being more deeply aware of the nauseating contact with spiritual sickness to which Mairi and I had been repeatedly exposed in the preceding five years, and the clearing storm clouds that had caused so many sleepless nights.
Herein was now a gathering peace that passeth all understanding: No salary, no employment, no colleagues, no CV, no clear practical answers…but peace.
As I strolled past Arthur’s Seat through springtime sunshine, the Kingdom of God seemed to open up before me as I walked and prayed and received profound reassurance that what I (we) had been experiencing over the course of the last 5-6 years was merely entry-level training for the Kingdom of God.
Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence,and the violent take it by force.
— Matthew 11:11-12
Spiritual violence, indeed.
And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
— Matthew 13:52
Treasure that is both old and new, indeed.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
— Matthew 6:25-33
“Are you not of more value than they?”, indeed.
Now the chronic trauma and spiritual violence had started to make more sense, (not that sense is always guaranteed).
Denial of the Kingdom
Following our marriage in 2013, Mairi and I had immediately and repeatedly been forced into contact with individuals, organisations, couples and even family members through whom this “kingdom training” was achieved:
Chaotic churches and employers evidently governed by anything but the Holy Spirit (Denying the authority of the Kingdom).
Christian family members attacking our marriage, refusing to apologise for gross sin, or genuinely listen to our hearts (Denying the honour of the Kingdom).
False doctrine – MALE/FEMALE // health, wealth & prosperity teaching. (Denying the truth of the Kingdom).
False sexual ethics – Lesbians in charge of “christian” pastoral care. (Denying the holiness of the Kingdom).
Systemic organisational cover-ups of gross incompetence, immaturity and corruption of leaders. (Denying the purity of the Kingdom)
Conservative “religious” idolatry tarted-up to look like healthy biblical ecumenicalism (Denying the power of the Kingdom).
Gross sexual sin, cover-up and sullying of the core end-time tenet of the Bride of Christ (Denying the message and reality of the Kingdom).
In a nut-shell, especially regarding Christian leadership: the preponderance of “a People of the Letter” is almost entirely an eclipse of “the People of the Spirit”.
This is why I am publishing this now; I am convinced that either:
The true “People of the Spirit” today will have become so sick of the “People of the Letter” (the processes, the systems, the narratives, the structures and ‘chilled impotence’ of Spirit-less christianity) that they will find themselves in relative, self-inflicted isolation.
OR
The true “People of the Spirit” today will have only, in fact, just become a babe in the Spirit – only just been born of the Spirit. New Christians today are calling to account this gaping Kingdom-disparity between the Bibles that they read and the churches that they wrongly assume they must attend.
When brand-new Christians today highlight the incongruity of a local church that they visit to worship, for camaraderie, guidance and teaching, only to find that it bears little semblance to the unified urgency and yearning of a New Testament congregation, when an intuitive sense of the “denial of the kingdom” is their initial experience of the Body of Christ while walking through the “crisis” of their own traumatic conversion, the Kingdom of God is surely at hand.
In a nut-shell, especially regarding Christian leadership: the preponderance of “a People of the Letter” is almost entirely an eclipse of the of “the People of the Spirit”.
What then for these conscience-conscripted veterans who chose exile rather than compromise? And what to do for the entrenched but rousing leaders of within? And most certainly for the confused bewilderment of new converts?
We must come to the end of ourselves, the end of our traditions, the end of our inheritances, the end of our constitutions, the end of our hypocrisies and comforts and conveniences, our lazy apathy and fear of man and we must fall again upon the Word and the Spirit of God.
We must forsake the organisational Company of the Letter and cleave to the supernatural company of the Holy Spirit.
Will we heed the call out from the Letter? Will we fall on our knees again before the Holy Ghost?
For 10 questions for prayer and reflection, for a finale from J C Ryle on sin and holiness, please listen to this blog in its original podcast form.
We must forsake the organisational Company of the Letter and cleave to the supernatural company of the Holy Spirit.
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