Charismatic Tradition

1. What faith group do you think of when you hear the word charismatic? Pentecostals?

2. Who is charismatic? – In fact, all believers, those filled with the Holy Spirit, are charismatic. Our society associates the word charismatic with the sign gifts (i.e., miracles, healing, tongues, interpretation of tongues). The reality is all spiritual gifts are charismatic.

3. Foster states, “the Charismatic Tradition centers upon the power to do . . . upon the empowering charismas or gifts of the Spirit and the nurturing fruit of the Spirit.” (SLW, 99)

4. A Theology of Spiritual Gifts
A. History of Spiritual Gifts
1) The Early Church
a) Pentecost - Holy Spirit comes on believers and supernaturally empowers them (Acts1:8; 2:1-4)
b) Gifts of the Spirit were exercised in the early church:
1) Languages (Acts 2:4)
2) Healing (Acts 3:6-10)
3) Prayer and Preaching (4:24-31)
4) Miracle, signs, and wonders (Acts 5:12)
2) Roman Catholic Church
a) Gifts were being suppressed by the church as early as AD 100.
b) Gifts were seen as for the clergy only.
c) Gifts were passed to clergy by laying on of hands.
d) During Middle Ages (AD 450-1517) spiritual gifts were almost totally suppressed by the RCC.
3) The Reformation
a) The great Reformers, Luther and Calvin, taught about the Holy Spirit but said little about spiritual gifts.
b) Marginal groups came into being who began to teach and use spiritual gifts. They were seen as fanatical and even heretical by mainstream Christians of their day.
4) The Modern Era
a) Twentieth Century Pentecostalism refocused interest and study on the Holy Spirit in the 1950s.
b) Lay Liberation Movement in the 1960s revisited the role of the laity in ministry including the use of spiritual gifts. An important work is Ray Steadman’s book Body Life and the Body Life Movement.
c) C. Peter Wagner in Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow states, “Rarely, if ever, in the history of the Church has such a widespread interest in moving beyond creeds and theologies to a personal experience of the Holy Spirit in everyday life swept over the people of God to the degree we have been seeing over the last two decades or so. One of the prominent facets of this new experience of the Holy Spirit is the rediscovery of spiritual gifts” (Wagner, 13).
B. Defining Spiritual Gifts
1) Definition from Scripture - 1 Corinthians 12:1-7; 12-27.
a) Paul uses two words in this passage to refer to spiritual gifts.
➢ Both give us unique insights.
+ pneumatika (1 Cor. 12:1) – “the spirituals” - The gifts Paul speaks of in this passage are spiritual manifestations from God=s Spirit as opposed to natural talents of the individual.
+ charismata (1 Cor. 12:4) - charis – “grace gifts” -Spiritual gifts are a manifestation of God’s grace in a gift to each of his people. This is the word most commonly used in the NT to describe spiritual gifts.
b) Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4, 11)
c) Spiritual gifts are given for service to Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 12:5)
d) Spiritual gifts are made effective by the energizing power of God the Father (1 Cor. 12:6)
e) The Trinitarian God is at work in giving, directing, and energizing the spiritual gifts of his people. (1 Cor. 12:5-6).
f) Spiritual gifts are given to each believer (1 Cor. 12:7).
g) Every believer gets at least one, but generally we have multiple gifts or combinations of gifts (e.g., leadership/administration, faith/leadership, teaching/knowledge, preaching/evangelism)
h) Spiritual gifts are given for the common good of all believers not as selfish personal possessions (1 Cor. 12:7).
i) Spiritual gifts are grace gifts received from God to be freely given away in service for the good of others and the church (1 Cor. 12:7).
j) No single believer has all spiritual gifts. Believers are dependent on God and each other to provide the spiritual gifts necessary for the whole Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-27).
2) Other Definitions - A spiritual gift is . . .
a) “. . . the primary channel by which the Holy Spirit can minister through the believer.” --Larry Gilbert, How to Find Meaning and Fulfillment through Understanding the Spiritual Gift within you, 33
b) “. . . a special attribute given by the Holy Spirit to every member of the Body of Christ, according to God=s grace, for use within the context of the Body.” --C. Peter Wagner, Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow, 34
c) “. . . a significant ability given to each believer by the Holy Spirit, who thus equips and moves members of the church to serve in special ways for Christ and his kingdom.” --Discover Your Gifts, 8
d) “. . . a supernatural endowment of God=s grace in the life of a believer.” - Bill Bryan
3) Spiritual gifts are distinct from natural talents.
a) God’s Holy Spirit working through a believer enables the believer to accomplish more than he or she could have accomplished through the exercise of natural human talents.
b) Natural talents and spiritual gifts may align, but they may not. God determines what is needed in the Body when he gifts new believers.
c) “You are given natural talents at your natural birth and spiritual talents (spiritual gifts) at your spiritual birth” (Gilbert, 27)
4) Spiritual gifts are not the same as the fruit of the Spirit
a) Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
b) Fruit relates to attitude and gifts relate to service.
c) All believers are to exhibit all the fruit of the Spirit all the time, but no believer can exhibit all the gifts of the Spirit all the time.
C. What are the gifts?
1) Rom. 12:6-8 - prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, showing mercy
2) 1 Cor. 12:8-10, 28 - wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues, apostleship, administration
3) Eph. 4:11 - evangelism, shepherding
4) Are there more than 19 spiritual gifts?
a) There is no exhaustive list of spiritual gifts in the New Testament.
b) marriage and celibacy - 1 Cor. 7:7
c) voluntary poverty and martyrdom - 1 Cor. 13:1-3
d) music - 1 Cor. 14:26-33
e) hospitality - 1 Pet. 4:9-11
D. If you have never taken a spiritual gift inventory to begin the process of identifying your spiritual gifts, contact me and I will help you begin the process.

5. Foster points to three functions of the charisms of the Spirit (SLW, 126):
a. leadership
b. ecstatic empowerment – to show us God is present where we assume he is not
c. community building

6. Essential Principles for Exercising Spiritual Gifts (SLW, 127-28):
a. Taking Responsibility – Every gift is needed no matter how insignificant it may seem.
b. Accepting Limitation – No individual Christian has all the spiritual gifts.
c. Esteeming Others – Gifts are used in community with all believers dependent on each other.
d. Maintaining Unity Within Diversity – Believers have different personalities, spiritual gifts and talents but function as a whole and are linked in suffering and
rejoicing.

7. Major Strengths of the Charismatic Tradition (SLW, 128):
a. It offers an ongoing correction to our impulse to domesticate God.
b. It offers a constant rebuke to our anemic/powerless practice of religion.
c. It offers a continuing challenge toward spiritual growth and development.
d. It offers a life of gifting and empowering for witness and service.

8. Potential Perils of the Charismatic Tradition (SLW, 130-31):
a. Danger of trivialization if we focus on gift vs. Giver
b. Danger of rejecting the rational and the intellectual
c. Danger of divorcing the gifts of the Spirit from the fruit of the Spirit
d. Danger of linking our walk in the Spirit to highly speculative end-time scenarios that lack theological foundation.

9. Practicing the Charismatic Tradition (SLW, 131-32):
a. Draw near to those who have experience practicing the charismas.
b. Don’t fear that some aspect of what you do is in the flesh – It is!
c. Follow your leadings with a teachable spirit and no fear being misled.
d. Test your leadings and experiences in the Spirit and discern the Spirit’s direction and correction.

10. Foster points out three historical practitioners of the Charismatic Tradition. Which example spoke most powerfully to you and what did you learn?
a. St. Francis of Assisi
1) Power in the Spirit surrounded all he did and said.
2) Power in the Spirit is tied to spiritual growth. The Holiness and Charismatic Traditions are linked and fuel each other.
3) Holy joy is one of the most common marks of those who walk in the power of the Spirit. Remember Francis’ fist Christmas crèche at Greccio.
b. Apostle Paul – “(H)e had a well-nigh amazing balance between the rational, objective apprehension of the gospel and the ecstatic, subjective charismas of
the Spirit—enveloping both in the nurturing, maturing fruit of the Spirit” (SLW, 106)
c. William J. Seymour – The Azuza Street Revival
1) Seymour understood the implications of glossalalia for interracial reconciliation and community.
2) Seymour exercised an equality and acceptance of each person under God as potential participants in leadership.
3) Seymour stressed genuine Christian love above all else, even glossolalia.
4) The personal holiness of Seymour was critical for the leadership and growth of the Azuza Street movement.

Question 2: Are You Governed Increasingly By God’s Word?

The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you and do what the Bible bids you.
--Thomas Chalmers

Are You Governed Increasingly By God’s Word?

What do you believe the most valuable tangible object in the world is?

--The Hope Diamond
--The Mona Lisa
--Michelangelo’s sculpture of David
--The gold mask buried in King Tut’s tomb

As costly as these are the cost of some enormous skyscraper would be higher.

And yet, offer any of these to a man who is hours away from death and I’m sure that he will say no.

Therefore, I submit that the single most valuable item on the earth is the Bible. God’s word is like water, according to Ephesians 5:26. It is also food.

As the prophet Jeremiah said to God, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16).

Jesus himself proclaimed that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

It is true that without physical food our bodies would die in a matter of days. But without soul nourishment, we perish forever.

Food and water are essentials, but there are other things basic to life, and the Word of God is compared to these as well.

--It is called light (Psalm 119:105)
--A fire and a tool (Jeremiah 23:29)
--A weapon (Ephesians 6:17)
--Seed (I Peter 1:23)

Moreover the Word of God is perfect, sure, right, pure, true, and righteous, sweeter than honey, and to be desired more than much fine gold (Psalm 119:72)

It can convert the soul, make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, and enlighten the eyes (Psalm 19:7-9)

The Bible is unlike any other book, religious or secular, “for the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit. and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12)

Given the incomparable value of Scripture, the Christian’s need for its constant influence cannot be overstated. God’s Word s the manna by which the Heavenly Father feeds His children so that they can grow more into the likeness of His perfect Son. That is why the Lord has told us to “desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby” (I Peter 2:2)

While the Pharisees of Jesus’ day and certain cult groups in our own are evidence that more is needed to become Christlike than megadoses of Scripture, still it is true that little input of God’s Word results in little resemblance to God’s Son.

So one question by which you can evaluate your spiritual health and growth is, “Are you governed increasingly by God’s Word?

Like The Imprint Of Words Upon the Air

Do you find yourself inquiring –consciously—how the Bible speaks to specific areas of life? Do you ask others, perhaps those in spiritual leadership or who are mature, to help you apply Scripture in particular situations? Is it your practice to actually turn the pages of the Bible in search of the will of God?

In his nineteenth-century book Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul, British minister Octavius Winslow further described those in this spiritual regression:

When a professing [Christian] man can read his Bible with no spiritual taste, or when he searches it, not with a sincere desire to know the mind of the Spirit in order to [walk] a holy and obedient walk, but with a merely curious, or literary taste and aim, it is a sure evidence that his soul is making but a retrograde movement in real spirituality. Nothing perhaps more strongly indicates the tone of a believer’s spirituality, than the light in which the Scriptures are regarded by him. They may be read, and yet be read as any other book, without the deep and solemn conviction that “all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (II Timothy 3:16-17). They may be read without a spiritual relish, without being turned into prayer, without treasuring up in the heart and reducing to daily practice its holy precepts, its precious promises, its sweet consolations, its faithful warnings, its affectionate admonitions, its tender rebukes.

The person who can content himself with few or routine contacts with Scripture may be manifesting something far worse than spiritual decline.

The Bible characterizes a genuine believer as not merely an admirer of God’s truth, but one who loves it.

The writer of Psalm 119 said repeatedly:
--And I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love. V. 47
--My hands also I will lift up to Your commandments, which I love. V. 48
--Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. V. 97
--I hate the double-minded, but I love Your law. V. 113
--You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross; therefore I love Your testimonies. V. 119
--Therefore I love Your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold! V. 127
--I hate and abhor lying, but I love Your law! V. 163

Conversely, Scripture speaks of the non-Christian as “those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (II Thessalonians 2:10).

John Piper noted;
“Loving the truth is a matter of perishing or being saved. Indifference to the truth is a mark of spiritual death.”

Are you indifferent to the truth of Scripture? Or does God’s word have a growing influence in your life?

Aren’t we here because we want to be more like Christ? What influence did Scripture have on His earthly life?

The Word Governed By The Word

Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God (John 1:1), was continually governed by the inscribed Word of God.

Just before He started His earthly ministry Jesus went to be Baptized and then came His temptation by Satan. When Satan tempted Him, Jesus went straight to the scriptures. Repeatedly He repulsed the tempter’s crafty beguilements with the words “it is written” (see Matthew 4:1-11).

Jesus could have reasoned:

--Look, Satan, you know that I’m not only a man, I am God. Fully God. God cannot be tempted. You’re wasting your time
--Don’t you realize by now that you can’t win
--Maybe he could have said, My power is greater than yours. He might have challenged Satan to a contest of supernatural abilities, similar to the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal (I Kings 18:20-40)

Jesus found all the he needed in what God the Father had spoken. For it was here that He hurled Deuteronomy 8:3 at His wicked enemy: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

All throughout the Gospels we find Jesus quoting scripture.

Thought He was undiminished deity, Jesus quoted Scriptures He had memorized as a man, learning them from childhood in the same kinds of ways people like ourselves can.

As it was for Jesus, it is normal for Jesus’ followers to be governed by Scripture.

And those who are becoming more like Jesus will, over time, live more and more “ by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

To The Law And To The Testimony

The prophet Isaiah lived in a time not unlike our own. People commonly sought answers in all the wrong places. “To the law and to the testimony!” the prophet directed his hearers (Isaiah 8:20). “If they do not speak according to this word,” he warned, “it is because there is no light in them.” In other words, if people’s lives aren’t guided by God’s revelation, it’s because they are spiritual darkness. The light of God’s Spirit has never dawned within them.

As Spirit-Indwelled people grow to resemble Jesus more and more, they should think more quickly and more often, “to the law and to the testimony!” This means immediately asking yourself, “What does the Bible say?” when dealing with even the common issues, whenever you have a question about anything.

All of life—events and choices great or small—should be governed by the Word of God.

To live this way requires the constant consultation of Scripture. And this is exactly what the well-known words of Psalm 119:105 imply:

Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.

Wherever we go, whatever decisions are before us, the way of life should be illuminated by God’s Word. To live otherwise us to walk in darkness.

No Christian, of course, always and perfectly lives in accordance with Scripture. Only Jesus has done that.

So we speak of being governed by Scripture as:

1) A general characteristic of a true follower of Jesus

2) Something that increasingly characterizes the growing Christian.

The Bible should be the measure and evaluator of all things in the life of every believer. God categorically claims that His Word can equip us for EVERY good work:

II Timothy 3:16-17
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Developing Your Dependence On God’s Word

Deepening your desire for God’s word.

I Peter 2:2
2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

Without spiritual food there is no spiritual growth. And the best way to cultivate this is to feast on the Word of God.

Don’t simply read the scriptures but meditate on it.

What do the words tell you about Christ?

How can you experience deeper communion with Him because of what’s written there?

For what situation or person could you use the passage as a basis for prayer?

Try rewriting the verse in your own words.

Find at least one way you could apply it.

Make time for God’s Word.

Read the Bible daily and do not close it until you know at least one thing God would have you do in response to your reading.

Five areas to consider for a biblical perspective.

➢ Church: attendance, baptism, membership, serving in, giving to, learning in, praying with, fellowship, Lord’s Supper, promoting unity
➢ Discipleship: meditation on Scripture, prayer, evangelism, missions, priorities/stewardship
➢ Family
➢ Money
➢ Word

Train yourself to ask, “How does the Bible speak to this?”

Qustion 1: Do You Thirst For God?

So Holy desire, exercised in Longings, hungerings, and thirstings after God and Holiness, is often mentioned in Scripture as an important part of true religion.
--Jonathan Edwards

“Lord I want to know You more…”

Didn’t Paul at near the end of his life write about the passion of his life:
“that I may know Him.” Philippians 3:10

What is meant by this statement? I mean didn’t Paul already know Him more closely than just about anyone else who had ever lived?

Psalm 42:1-2

Three Kinds of Spiritual Thirst

Everyone has a thirst for something more, what separates these people is the kind of thirst longing in their soul.

Thirst of the Empty Soul

The natural, that is, the unconverted man or woman, has an empty soul. Devoid of God, he is constantly in pursuit of that which will fill his emptiness.

Ephesians 2:3
3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Thirsting and searching…the empty soul is blinded to his real need.

Ecclesiastes 1:9
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:14
14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

The empty soul cannot understand his longing.

John 4:14
14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

God inspired both King David and Paul to write:
“there is none who seeks after God”
Psalm 14:2 Romans 3:11

Until and unless the Holy Spirit touches the spiritual tongue of the empty soul that soul will never want to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8

Jonathan Edwards said:
“So Holy desire, exercised in Longings, hungerings, and thirstings after God and Holiness”

Luke 12:19
19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."

Thirst Of The Dry Soul

Many think that there isn’t any difference between the dry soul and the empty soul, but there is a lot of difference.

John 4:14
14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Pastor and author John Piper was reading this verse one day and started to shout, “What do you Mean? I am so thirsty! My church is thirsty! The pastor’s whom I pray with are thirsty! O Jesus, what did you mean?”

John Piper:
When you drink my water, your thirst is not destroyed forever. If it did that, would you feel any need of my water afterward? That is not my goal. I do not want self-sufficient saints. When you drink my water, it makes a spring in you. A spring satisfies thirst, not by removing the need you have for water, but by being there to give you water whenever you get thirsty. Again and again and again. Like this morning. So drink, just drink.

A Christian soul becomes arid in one of three ways:

1) The most common is drinking too much from the desiccation fountains of the world and too little from “the river of God” (Psalm 65:9)

2) The second cause of dryness in the child of God is what the Puritans used to call “God desertions.”

While there are times that God does flood the soul with His presence there are at other times we feel dehydrated by a sense of His absence. Let me say rather quickly here that it is merely our perception, for the reality is just as Jesus promised:

Hebrews 13:5
because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you

3) A Third cause of spiritual aridity in a Christian is prolonged mental or physical fatigue. Both the cause and the cure should be obvious enough so I’m not really going to elaborate here.

Thirst Of The Satisfied Soul

Unlike the dry soul, and as self-contradictory as it may sound at the moment, the satisfied soul thirsts for God precisely because he is satisfied with God. He has tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Psalm 34:8

The apostle Paul put it this way:

“that I may know Him” Philippians 3:10

But let’s look for a moment what he says right before that:

Philippians 3:7-11
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

The Blessing Of Spiritual Thirst

“How blessed are all those who long for Him,” declared the prophet Isaiah (30:18 NASB). “Blessed are those,” reiterated Jesus, “who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). A thirsting desire for the Lord and His righteousness is a blessing. How so?

God Initiates Spiritual Thirst

Man cannot create this on his own, and God initiates this so He can fill it.

Do you not know that you have two people living inside of you? You and the Holy Spirit

I Corinthians 6:19
19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

And the Spirit is not passive within you.

Practical Steps For Thirsting After The Thirst-Slaker

Meditate on Scripture—spend 20-50 percent of your bible intake time meditating on some verse, phrase, or word from your reading

Pray through Scripture—Let the words of the section of scripture you are reading through become your pray, go back and as you read it a second time let it this time be your prayer to God

Read Thirst-Making writers—Look for Godly writers that cause you to thirst more for God, look for time proven Godly people

Diagnosing Your Spiritual Health

For the next several weeks I will be digging deeper into the 10 questions that help diagnose our spiritual growth as found in Donald Whitney's book. There will be other posting found in between the 10 questions if time allows.

Humorous Lessons from Noah

There is a well-known book titled, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Let me suggest another: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Noah:

1. Don't miss the boat.
   


2. We are all in the same boat.
   


3. Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
   


4. Stay fit. When you're 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something big.
   


5. Don't listen to critics; just do the job that needs to be done.
   


6. Build your future on high ground.
   


7. For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
   


8. Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
   


9. When you're stressed, float a while.
   


10. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
    


11. No matter the storm, when you are with God, there's always a rainbow waiting.