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by Bobby Price
There are many biblical examples of the Spirit leading people geographically (Luke 4:1; Acts8:29, 10:19-20, 16:6-7) and behaviorally/vocally (Mat. 10:19-20; Jhn. 16:12-14; 2 Pet. 1:21). The question is, are Christians today "led" by the Holy Spirit in the same way the Apostles and prophets were of the New Testament? Is 2 Peter 1:21 the same as Romans 8:14? [2Pe 1:21 ESV] For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. [Rom 8:14 ESV] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. The key to the discussion of what it means to be led by the Spirit is determining the difference, if there is any, in these two passages. What is the difference between being led by the Spirit and being carried/moved by the Spirit? Are they the same? Many denominational Christians conflate these two. They suggest that we as Christians are moved by the Spirit in the way that the prophets were moved by the Spirit in being told where to evangelize or what to say. The Greek for the term in 2 Peter 1:21 "carried/moved" (φερόμενοι G5342) implies the Holy Spirit was the actor, and the prophets were the passive object. The Spirit picked them up and put them in a new location, but not physically--in their minds. The Spirit guided them into all truth, like Jesus said in John 16. Many of these truths were not already in their minds. Jesus said he had more things to teach them but couldn't (v12). There were lessons that the Apostles needed to learn but wouldn't learn from Jesus. These lessons would be taught to the Apostles by the Spirit in place of Jesus. 2 Peter 1:21 is in the context of prophecy which can be trusted and is written by eyewitnesses of Jesus' majesty. That prophecy is produced apart from mankind's design, not by "the will of man." It was produced through men but by the work of the Holy Spirit. Again, the word for "carried/moved" implies the Holy Spirit was the actor, and the prophets were the passive object. Romans 8:14 is in the context of living a life in the life of Christ, free from sin and death. In this chapter, walking by the Spirit (v4) is the same as being led by the Spirit (v14), and the same as living by the Spirit (13). As opposed to the concept of being "carried" or "moved" by the Spirit, Paul here says we are "led" by the Spirit. The word for "led" is much more passive (ὅσοι G3745). It can mean "lead, guide, direct; of an animal: to lead by laying hold of, and this way to bring to the point of destination." This word is often used for leading animals. If you've ever led an animal you know that it isn't always smooth sailing. If the animal fights against you, it makes things very difficult and at times impossible. There is a big difference in these terms; notice the difference between the Spirit picking someone up and taking them, and the Spirit leading and guiding someone. The first is more forceful while the second is more cooperative. The Holy Spirit took the Apostles' minds where they needed to go for revelation; the Holy Spirit guides our minds to where they need to go for living by faith. by Esther Inglis-Arkell, edited by Bobby Price
Crucifixion remains a familiar idea, even though it's a punishment from the distant past. It's so familiar that we no longer consider the physical realities of it. Those realities are some of the most gruesome ever known. Here's how crucifixion actually kills people. Crucifixion stopped being a regular practice long before anyone cared how it killed people. This was good news for all of humanity, but it did leave scientists speculating. The method of crucifixion is brutal, but in terms of wounds and exposure people have survived worse. How did crucified people die? The Method of Crucifixion To understand how people died, we have to look at the many methods of crucifixion. Today we have a very limited idea of crucifixion. There was no official, regularly-practiced method. Historical records say that people were not just nailed in the pose we see on religious crucifixes, but were "caught to the crosses in different postures by way of jest." People were crucified upside down, or with their hands together. Even when people were crucified in the way we imagine the process today few victims were crucified with nails through their hands. Putting a person's whole weight on a relatively delicate piece of flesh would tear the hand enough that the person could pull the nail through the whole hand and free their upper bodies. People were crucified through the wrists, which were harder to tear loose. Nailing a person's feet to the upright section of the cross wasn't an afterthought. Precisely how the lower body was treated could affect how long a person lived. Most victims simply had their feet nailed into the wood so that their knees were bent at forty-five degree angles. Some had their legs broken. Whether this was an act of cruelty or mercy depends on one's perspective. Hanging from the arms for any considerable length of time is painful. Once the muscles give out it is excruciating. Shoulders separate from the sockets and the overall arm can lengthen by inches. Most people would try to support themselves by putting pressure on their injured feet, but with their legs bent and their feet nailed through it was only a matter of time before their leg strength gave way as well. Breaking their legs was horrible, but on the other hand, allowing them to support themselves prolonged their suffering. The Medical Side of Crucifixion What part of their suffering led to death is debatable. Through the centuries doctors have looked into it, and come to different conclusions. Some say that crucifixion alone wasn't enough to kill a person, and so the victims probably died of exposure or thirst after days on a cross. One doctor believed that crucified people, after much torment, died via a "voluntary surrender of life." Some think that the wounds elsewhere in the body sent a blood clot to the heart. One expert in forensic medicine, Frederick Zugibe, actually tied himself and volunteers to a cross to monitor what physically takes place during a crucifixion. He concluded that victims died from "hypovolemic shock." This condition sets in when a body has lost so much blood and fluid that the heart can't continue to function. If any of these are the case, it's the injuries and exposure that determined the cause of death by crucifixion, not the position of the person on the cross. Most experts agree, though, that what ultimately kills a crucified person is suffocation. Either the body loses so much oxygen that the person smothers, or the carbon dioxide level in the body goes up so much that the body tissues turn acidic and destroy their own cells. How fast it happens depends on a lot of factors. One common form of crucifixion didn't involve a cross. A person was crucified with their hands over their head. This made it so difficult to breathe (once their strength had given out) that they were dead within an hour. Being crucified with arms outstretched was comparatively much worse. After a person's arms had come out of their sockets the chest would sag downwards, stretching out to its full extent. If you strenuously stretch out your arms, even while seated, you'll recognize the difficulty. It's easy to inhale with arms fully outstretched, but difficult to exhale again. The body needs to work its muscles to breathe in and out, and it is used to doing so with little resistance. Once the chest is fully expanded, it's impossible to breathe in anything more than sips of air. The victim slowly suffocates, unable to get enough oxygen, over the course of a day. There are probably more painful, and horrible ways to die. Let's not look for them. As a preacher I am always trying to make things easy to understand. With every sermon I am trying to avoid those five-dollar words like antinomianism or ecclesiology (sometimes I throw them in there to impress people demonstrate credibility). But one of my favorite ways to simplify things down is to create lists. These lists help me memorize and retain information and hopefully they help the people listening to my lessons too.
I created an acronym for the proofs of God's existence, COMET, (cosmological, ontological, moral, experience, teleological--$5 words!) and one for the proof of the Bible's inspiration, HICCUPS (historical, intact, cohesive, cogent, unexplainable, predictive, supernatural). Sometimes the lists don't conveniently make up a word. In memorizing the Beatitudes (Mat. 5:3-10), I memorized the order of the first letter of each characteristic: P2MHM3P (poor in spirit, mourn, meek, hunger/thirst for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaker, and persecuted). But the lists that I really enjoy and that I have been thinking about this week are three.. First, I think of the six works of the church. What makes a healthy church and what works make a church grow? I think Acts 2:42-27 is a perfect description of the church and every congregation should strive to emulate this description. All the things we do as a church should be in the name of at least one of these works. The SIX WORKS OF THE CHURCH in Acts 2:42-47: ● Worship (breaking of Lord's Supper, filled with awe, praising God, having His favor) ● Relationships (fellowship, being together, in one another's homes, with glad hearts) ● Word of God (devoted to the apostles' teaching) ● Service (giving to those in need, having people's favor) ● Stewardship (having all things common, giving to those in need) ● Evangelism (adding to their number) Another list I have been thinking of is one of personal health. A healthy person is a person who grows and enjoys life. Often we are off balance, focusing on one and ignoring the others. Jesus grew in four areas and these are FOUR AREAS OF HEALTH in Luke 2:52: ● Mental (wisdom ie. judgment, the ability to make good choices in life) ● Physical (stature, physical health like eating right and exercising) ● Spiritual (favor with God, worshiping Him and living by faith) ● Social (favor with people, relationships with others, showing kindness and service) One more list I have been enjoying is the list of the "seven ones." This list is the essential doctrines that create and unite the church. Every bible lesson I preach needs to have at least one of these subjects. The seven are tied for importance and the eighth is last in importance but still important. The EIGHT DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL in Ephesians 4:1-6: ● One Body (the church) ● One Spirit ● One Hope (to which we are called) ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God (who is over all) ● Last, Unity (in the bond of peace) These three lists help me answer the question, "What are my priorities supposed to be?" By John Rigolizzo, edited by Bobby Price
BOBBY: Jesus said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Mat. 9:37-38). Nearly three in ten people in the United States don’t identify with any religion, according to a survey published by Pew Research Tuesday. The survey*, conducted by Pew from May 29 to August 25, 2021, found that 29% of Americans identify as religious “nones,” which includes atheists, agnostics, and “nothing in particular.” That number is a 6 percentage point increase from 5 years ago and a 10 percentage point increase from a decade ago. The survey found that Christians still make up the vast majority of religiously affiliated Americans, with 63% of respondents identifying as Christians, but that number is 12 percentage points lower than it was in 2011, Pew notes. The steep decline in religious affiliation among Christians comes from Protestants, which includes mainline Protestant denominations like Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, and others, as well as non-denominational Christians and people who identify themselves as “just Christian.” Protestants have dropped to just 40% of the population, a 4 percentage point decline in 5 years and a 10 percentage point decline in 10 years. Protestants are still currently dominated by evangelicals. 60% of Protestants responded “yes” when asked whether they describe themselves as “born-again or evangelical,” compared with 40% who said “no” or declined to respond. But both evangelical and mainline Protestants have seen six-point declines in their share of the overall population, with evangelicals dropping from 30% to 24% and mainline Protestants dropping from 22% to 16%. Catholics have experienced a decline of about 3 points over the past decade but remain relatively steady. Catholics make up 21% of religious affiliations, and while they had declined incrementally between 2011 and 2019, the number of Catholics has ticked back up and remained steady since then. Mormons and Orthodox have remained steady over the past decade. Mormons experienced a slight dip in recent years but remain at about 2% of religious Christians. Orthodox sit at just about 1 percent. The Pew Survey coincides with a report by The Associated Press that found that “nones" are the fastest-growing religious identity in surveys. “If the unaffiliated were a religion, they’d be the largest religious group in the United States,” Elizabeth Drescher, an adjunct professor at Santa Clara University, and the author of “Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s Nones,” told AP. She also noted that “nones” were once concentrated in coastal urban areas, but have since spread across the country and occupy a variety of ages, ethnic groups, and social classes. BOBBY: This is an important note for our evangelism, The unaffiliated are not entirely atheist, the report notes. A recent poll conducted by AP and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 30% of respondents felt some connection to God or a higher power, and 19% say religion has some importance to them, even though they are not affiliated with a particular faith. About 12% of respondents identified as both “religious and spiritual,” while another 28% identified as “as spiritual but not religious.” More than 50% identified as neither spiritual nor religious. “There are people who do actually practice, either in a particular faith tradition that we would recognize, or in multiple faith traditions,” Drescher told AP. “They’re not interested in either membership in those communities formally or in identifying as someone from that religion.” The AP also noted that there was a significant percentage of “nones” who grew up religious but then disaffiliated. 60% of respondents said that religion was at least somewhat important to their families during their childhood. *(https://www.pewforum.org/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-re ligiously-unaffiliated/) |
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June 2022
Bobby PriceBobby Price was born and raised by Christian parents in Perrin, Texas. Bobby decided early in life to become a preacher of God's word. He attended the Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas where he graduated in 2015 with his Bachelors of Biblical Studies with a focus in Congregational Ministry. Afterwards, he interned for a year at the valley view Church of Christ in Jonesboro, AR. He is currently working on his Masters of Biblical Studies, through the Sunset International Bible Institute Graduate School. |