Divine Intention: How God's Work in the Early Church Empowers Us Today
224
Divine Intention: How God's Work in the Early Church Empowers Us Today
224eBook
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Overview
Larry Shallenberger takes a fresh look at the book of Acts to help you gain a deeper understanding of how God moved in the early church and what that means for you today.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781434765604 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | David C Cook |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Larry Shallenberger is the pastor of Children's and Student Ministries at Grace Baptist Church. He oversees ministries that touch the lives of churchgoers ages 0 to 25. Larry is also the author of Lead the Way God Made You and a monthly columnist on churchvolunteercentral.com. Most importantly, Larry is passionate for the future of the church and is eager to enter his thoughts into the conversation.
Read an Excerpt
DIVINE INTENTION
How God's Work in the Early Church Empowers Us Today
By Larry Shallenberger
David C. Cook
Copyright © 2007 Larry ShallenbergerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4347-6560-4
CHAPTER 1
Signs of Life
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.
There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn't for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, "Aren't these all Galileans? How come we're hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?
Parthians, Medes, and Elamites;
Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene;
Immigrants from Rome, both Jews and proselytes;
Even Cretans and Arabs!
"They're speaking our languages, describing God's mighty works!"
Their heads were spinning; they couldn't make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: "What's going on here?"
Others joked, "They're drunk on cheap wine."
Acts 2:1–13 MSG
* * *
I guided my late-model minivan into the crowded pizzeria parking lot and found a spot between two German sports cars. I checked my watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. I inspected my hair in the rearview mirror, stepped out of the van, and gave my middle-aged waistline a disapproving look.
This wasn't a good idea. It has been twenty years since Alice, Ron, and I last spent any time together. In Bible college, we were inseparable: the three musketeers. We spent late evenings at the all-night coffee shop with biology, Greek, theology, journalism, education theory, and free refills. I was studying to become a pastor. Alice had dreams of a Pulitzer in journalism, and Ron wanted to become a teacher. Bleary-eyed, we each pored over our study notes and chili fries, breaking whenever a wave of giddiness caused by sleep deprivation overcame one of us.
On Friday nights we rode the "L-train" to downtown Chicago in search of Rush Street's finest deep-dish pizza.
We daydreamed about the future of the church with wide-eyed idealism; we were going to change everything. Ron, Alice, and I were the student leaders at our campus ministry. We struggled to pull our classmates away from their books and stereos long enough to attend our small meeting and listen to our "Acts 2" dreams. We euphorically dreamed of a community of Christ-followers who were "completely sold out for Jesus" and who lived in constant community—praying, eating, and worshipping together. Ron, Alice, and I were either brave or foolish enough to believe that together we could rekindle the embers of this first-century church community and spark a Spirit-filled revival in our own days.
That was twenty years ago. I wonder, all that spiritual power we thought was running through us, was it nothing more than postadolescent hubris? What if we were merely intoxicated on youthful exuberance?
I gave the college-aged hostess my vitals. "Jonah Adams. Party of three."
I waited for Alice and Ron parked in a corner booth with one eye on the door. How am I going to start this conversation? I'm the pastor in the room. I had found Alice and Ron as a result of idly Googling them on my laptop. The three of us started catching up electronically. Alice had married an artist who built a studio into the house so he could paint and watch their two children while Alice worked in the district attorney's office. Ron reported that he was divorced but dating again. His only consolation from the first marriage was that he and his ex-wife were unable to have children. None of us had strayed too far from our alma mater; however, the demands of each of our lives had caused us to drift apart. I suggested we meet at our old haunt to catch up.
Ron and Alice entered together. I studied their faces and saw signs of age. Ron sported white-walled temples. Alice's hair, once shoulder length, was now cropped in a practical bob.
Am I really going to go through with this? I have to tell someone that I feel trapped by church life, but it's not safe to tell my congregation. My people drive dozens of miles every Sunday to hear my carefully crafted sermons about how to live the Jesus-shaped life under the power of the Spirit. If only my people knew what I was experiencing ... I feel like Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring when he tells Gandalf of the effects the magic ring is having on him: "I feel like butter scraped over too much bread." I am stewarding the Word for God's people, and the task is turning me into vapor.
I wasn't honest with Ron and Alice about why I wanted to get together. They didn't know I was about to unload my neediness on them. I promised a night of laughter and old times, but now I'm about to deliver a confession. And Ron and Alice are going to confess too. I need to know that there's really something to this "abundant life." My days are filled with the pressure of cranky church members, sermon deadlines, unscheduled counseling sessions, and contentious church meetings. I can't remember the last time I felt alive. Ron and Alice are going to confess, and I need to hear that one of them is living out our Acts 2 dream of life in the Spirit.
I rose to embrace them with a smile as they found the table. We placed our order—one extra-large, deep-dish pizza—everything on it.
I looked down and searched the face of my watch for an excuse not to say anything. There was really no good way to start this conversation, so ... "Ron. Alice. I need to get something off my chest ..."
* * *
You're reading this book with the hope of discovering what it means to be alive to God as an individual and as part of a community. Before Jesus accomplished his mission on earth, he gathered his inner core of followers and began to coach them on what life would be like relating to God after he left them. Jesus would no longer be at their disposal to answer their questions. There would be no more parables or sermons from their rabbi. Jesus' band of twelve, and every Christ-follower who would ever be added, would need to discover how to maintain a close friendship with God through the person of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus described the quality of life that we could expect as his followers as "abundant." "Abundant life" is an awkward phrase—it's as if Jesus was pressing against the limits of language to describe a manner of living that his disciples had never experienced. They had no point of reference to comprehend the intensity of being that comes from a vital relationship with God. Within the confines of the Aramaic language, Jesus spoke in terms of volume to communicate what was coming. In essence he was saying to them: "You're going to get life, lots of life, life overflowing in buckets. Life force rising over the banks of your personhood."
Before we dive into Acts 2, I need to borrow a play from our fictional Jonah and blurt out a confession of my own. Experiencing this "abundant life" has been an elusive experience for me. I was raised in a faith tradition that emphasized the importance of Scripture. I was taught to turn to Scripture for guidance and wise principles. However, I'm not as instinctive when it comes to relating to the God of Scripture. Jesus once chided the religious leaders of his day for being fluent in the Scriptures without realizing that the Scriptures were pointing to a person—Jesus himself. I'm afraid that too often describes the quality of my connection with God. I've slowly learned, and am still learning, that "abundant life" is a relational term. It's when I unintentionally substitute my Bible knowledge for a relationship with the Holy Spirit that I get cynical and assume that terms like "abundant" and "Spirit-filled" are bad punch lines. The truth is that when I feel most spiritually disjointed, it's usually because I'm attempting a personal relationship with the message and not its author. My wife, Amy, puts it this way: An all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent Being is hard to love. I've tended to overcome this difficulty by settling for his literature.
Since you and I are attempting to understand the dynamics of a relationship, let's agree not to read Acts 2 in search of some behavioral modification program to improve our lives. The relationship between Amy and me can't be reduced to a collection of formulas, how-tos, or to-do lists. It's too dynamic for that. But we can describe our relationship through a collection of metaphors: We are dance partners, coservants, one flesh, or even two strings of a tied knot. Amy and I can discuss the health of our marriage in terms of how well these metaphors seem to resonate with our relationship. I know some who describe their marriages in terms of disfunction—they talk about the "ball and chain," "the split," or the "breakup." We can't quantify our relationships, but when we describe them with metaphors, we know exactly what we are dealing with, don't we? For example, if a friend tells us that her marriage is "on the rocks," we don't need her to give us any specifics to know immediately that she and her husband are not getting along together.
Acts 2 is the account of how God gave his people the gift of a relationship with the Holy Spirit. God's divine intention is that we have abundant life by experiencing the closeness of the Holy Spirit in our cells, synapses, thoughts, dreams, attitudes, and emotions—in our entire being. Just as in our relationships with our marriage partners, God gave us markers on how to relate to the Holy Spirit; however, it wasn't in the form of a to-do list. God implanted three unforgettable metaphors that guide us as we attempt a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Breathing God
When God the Father sent the Holy Spirit to the believers at Pentecost, special effects—gale-force winds and firelike lights—accompanied his arrival. God wasn't engaging in melodramatic showmanship; he was supplying his people with instructive relational word pictures.
Commentator F. F. Bruce sees the galelike sound that filled the disciples' house as an allusion to Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel's surreal vision was probably set in Gehenna, a valley outside of Jerusalem that was converted into a garbage dump. The corpses of the criminals and the poor were often discarded at Gehenna. Fires were constantly lit there to burn off the disease and stench. In Ezekiel's vision God breathed life into a pile of human bones that lay scattered on this heap. The bones sprang to life and regrouped into skeletons. Ezekiel watched in amazement as muscle, sinew, and skin reformed on these once lifeless bones until he saw an army before him.
Ezekiel was comparing sinful Israel to the fire-dried skeletons of Gehenna—Israel's rebellion against God had drained it of all its life-giving marrow. The nation was without life or hope.
God told Ezekiel: "Prophesy over these bones: 'Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!' God, the Master, told the dry bones, 'Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life'" (Ezek. 37:4–5 MSG). Ezekiel spoke to the four winds, and they resuscitated the lifeless corpses and raised them to their feet as a mighty army.
God then turned his attention to lifeless Israel. He promised to revive Israel and fill his people with his breath: "And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live" (Ezek. 37:14 ESV).
F. F. Bruce is hinting that when the highly Scripture-literate believers in the room experienced the sound of the rushing wind, their minds likely made a connection with Ezekiel's vision and the way God had breathed life into his people. The rushing wind let the first believers know that "breathing in God" was a key to life in the Spirit. This metaphor helps us understand and express our relationship with the Holy Spirit in the language of dependency. The Holy Spirit offers life; we inhale the Spirit as if our spiritual life depended on it. Leonard Sweet, in his book SoulSalsa, writes,
The word spirituality comes from the Latin spiritus, which means "breath of life." In Hebrew it is ruah; in Greek, pneuma; in English, wind or breath. The body is God-breathed. It cannot help but breathe with regularity. The soul must will itself to breathe and live. It gasps for air until it finds breath.
God animated Adam by breathing into him. Since that day, we stay animated by breathing in God.
Imagine a person in a hospital with a respirator forcing air into her lungs. Every life-giving breath is a gift from the life support machine. If the machine were to become unplugged, the woman lying on the table would die in minutes.
This is the type of dependency you and I need to learn in order to experience the abundant life God desires for us.
We breathe in God's moral nature because our own goodness is not enough to sustain us.
We breathe in God's wisdom because our own ideas leave us stifled.
We breathe in God's strength because our muscles have cramped from living an anaerobic life.
Mike, the pastor who works one office down from me, is the best example I know of a person who strives to breathe in God every moment. Mike knows how many times in the book of Acts it says that the Holy Spirit led or guided someone to do something. Mike reminds me to stop trying to do God's will without stopping to hear from the Holy Spirit. He is convinced that if he stops and listens, God will breathe a whisper into his heart and tell him what to do next.
I could stand to be more like Mike. We all could.
At this point in the chapter it's tempting for me to lapse into a behavioral modification program and give you "Nine Steps for a Better Relationship with God." I could remind you to set your alarm for 6:00 a.m. so you have time to read the Word or keep a prayer journal, etc. The problem is that relationships can't be reduced to mere checklists. It's possible for me to buy Amy flowers on the first of the month, have a date with her on the second and fourth Thursdays, and take out the trash faithfully every morning. But our relationship can't be reduced to the sum of those behaviors. The same is true of our relationship with God.
Instead, we must ask ourselves, does our relationship with the Holy Spirit work like breathing does?
A few years ago, I trained in tae kwon do. There's so much to think about when learning a martial art—how to stand, the body mechanics of kicking, how to position the arms to protect the torso, the proper footwork—that it's entirely possible to forget to take in deep, regular breaths. Early in my training I found myself winded because I didn't remember to breathe. I have a similar experience with my spirituality; I can get so consumed with the mechanics of discipleship—that divine to-do list—that I forget to breathe. You see, we can get so caught up with the "doings" of faith that we forget to just take in God.
Don't scramble to make an action plan. Just hold this breathing metaphor against your relationship with the Holy Spirit, and test it for fit. Does this word picture resonate with your personal experience, or does it just cause dissonance?
If the metaphor doesn't fit you well, try asking the Holy Spirit some questions: "Now what?" "Where do I go from here?"
Tell the Holy Spirit how you are feeling about your relationship with him. Ask him for help.
Then trust the Holy Spirit to be your live-giving air supply. Trust him to tell you what he thinks about the relationship, how he would like to guide you, and how he would like to direct your prayers. I guarantee that if you listen, if you breathe him in, he will fill you with his answers.
The Burning Bush
New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce sees another allusion to the Old Testament in the Acts account of Pentecost. Luke wrote that a luminous, firelike object hovered over the head of every believer present (Acts 2:3). Bruce sees God placing these lights over the disciples' heads as a way to get the eyewitnesses of the event, as well as Luke's first-century readers, to understand their relationship with the Holy Spirit through the metaphor of Moses' burning bush.
The burning bush is a symbol to help us understand that the Holy Spirit works through our brokenness. For instance, in Exodus chapter 3, God used a burning bush to end the alienation of Moses from himself, his people, and his God.
Moses fled Egypt because he killed a slave master in a misguided attempt to liberate his people. He fled from Pharaoh and his royal destiny to work as a shepherd and live a peaceful life in exile. God watched Moses languish for forty years and then arrested his attention with a burning bush. Moses took notice of the bush because it was covered in flames but wasn't consumed by them. God's voice emanated from the middle of this impossible scene.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from DIVINE INTENTION by Larry Shallenberger. Copyright © 2007 Larry Shallenberger. Excerpted by permission of David C. Cook.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword,Introduction,
1. Signs of Life,
2. An Incomplete History of Suffering,
3. "At Least We Aren't ...",
4. The Heart of Change,
5. Love without Partitions,
6. The Church Chaotic,
7. Magic Apples,
8. Revolution,
9. Friends, Critics, and the Quest for Success,
10. Prisons, Earthquakes, and Other Angels,
Epilogue,
Acknowledgments,
Notes,
About the Author,