Martin Luther's Spark and an Explosion that Changed the World

October 31st is the day that we remember as the beginning of the Reformation — the day 500 years ago that the corruptions of the Church of that day began to be exposed for all to see. 

Lucas Cranach's painting of Martin Luther

Traditionally, October 31 was the day that Martin Luther “nailed his 95 theses to the door” of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. 

It was the beginning of a powerful change that restored to Christendom Jesus’ message of faith as the pathway to God, rather than the stony and impossibly uncertain path of works. (Romans 1:17) 

Eric Metaxes puts it this way, “the reason the story of Luther is unlike any other, is that he felt that after tremendous and agonized searching he finally—by God’s grace—had found that thing for which every human since Eden had pined. He had found the hermeneutical lever with which the whole world could be raised to the height of heaven. This had been the principal problem of all humanity—how to bridge the infinite abyss between imperfect mankind and a perfect God, between earth and heaven, between death and life.” (Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World) 

The reformation was many things, not just a few changes in how we are the Church. Metaxes again: “the quintessentially modern idea of the individual—and of one’s personal responsibility before one’s self and God rather than before any institution, whether church or state—was as unthinkable before Luther as is color in a world of black and white; and the similarly modern idea of “the people,” along with the democratic impulse that proceeds from it, was created—or at least given a voice—by Luther too. And the more recent ideas of pluralism, religious liberty, and self-government all entered history through the door that Luther opened to the future in which we now live.” 

It is safe to say that the reformation made possible the democracies of the West, with their vast advances in civilization. Freedom of religion, and even the freedom from religion, that we experience in the West today springs from the changes sparked in those momentous days half a millennium ago. 

And it’s not over. The recent explosion of the Gospel across the earth, the rising again of apostles, miracles and prophecy, and a great growth in love in the Church are a few of the signs of world-changing seasonal shifts happening in our day. 

The best is yet to come!

The Revolutionary Treatment of Women in Early Christian Communities

"Husbands have the obligation of loving and caring for their wives the same way they love and care for their own bodies, for to love your wife is to love your own self." 

In the West of the 21st century, those words have lost much of the punch the original audience must have felt. This sentence does not feel very revolutionary to me and probably not to you either. But not so for the AD 60 readers of this letter from Paul (Ephesians 5:28) to the growing church in Ephesus in present day Turkey. Paul's words would have offended many of the men.....and felt like the dawning of a new day for many of the women. 

In those days, in that part of the world, the value of women was low, as just two examples illustrate: One rabbinical prayer went this way, “Blessed are you, O God…that I’m not a brute creature, nor a Gentile, nor a woman.” And in Jewish society of the day, men could divorce their wives....but not the other way around. 

Paul's words were revolutionary, and helped bring about the more equitable treatment women enjoy today in the West. And the Gospel will do the same for women as it permeates cultures that still today hold women behind the veil and in low esteem. 

Today, his words are good medicine for me and all who are husbands. He is giving us a yardstick to measure how we treat and love our wives: as well as we treat our own selves.

What Did Paul Mean When He Wrote "The Head of a Wife is Her Husband"?

We all use metaphors to abbreviate communication, or to make it more interesting or meaningful.  For example, if my friend asks me if I am going to the meeting this afternoon, and I respond, "no, I'm going to save my bullets for the game tonight", he'll know right away that I'm going to miss the afternoon meeting so I can save my energy for more exertion later.  My answer has nothing to do with storing up ammunition for the game.  That's a metaphor: we say or write something, but use it to refer to something else.

Metaphors are common in languages other than our own, and they have a long history around the world.  Biblical writing is sometimes metaphoric.  How Biblical metaphors are interpreted makes a LOT of difference in the meaning of the passage.

Here, for example, is 1 Corinthians 11:3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.  How are we to interpret the word "head" in this passage?

Clearly, Paul (author of this letter to the Corinthian church) is not talking about a literal head with hair, a mouth, ears, eyes, nose and teeth.  That makes no sense.  Therefore, he must be using the word head as a metaphor.  So, what is the metaphoric meaning of "head" in this case?

Meanings of words and metaphors change over time. Before we assume that today's use of "head" as a metaphor is correct, we need to understand what Paul meant with his metaphor, and what his original audience would have understood him to be communicating to them. More on this in a minute.

In 21st century English usage, the obvious interpretation of Paul's metaphor is "leader."  We use it all the time.  For example, if I write,  "Sue is the head of the purchasing department" it is clear to us that Sue is the leader of that department.

That is our understanding today, and it is easy to project our understanding of that metaphor onto Paul's words.  I know I have.  It is easy to assume that he meant something like this: ".....the leader of every man is Christ, the leader of a wife is her husband, and the leader of Christ is God."  And from that interpretation of "head" as "leader," we might chart our interpretation in a hierarchy something like this:

God is leader over

|

Christ, who is leader over

|

Man, who is leader over

|

Wife

But there is an interesting problem with at least the first half of this interpretation:  it is heresy!

Arius, an Egyptian Christian leader and theologian of the 4th century, had been teaching that Christ was subservient to God; a teaching that the Council of Nicea deemed heretical in AD 325.  Since then, the Church has taught that the three persons of the Trinity are co-equal, and that any other teaching is dangerously wrong.

If the hierarchical interpretation of "the leader of Christ is God" is probably not what Paul intended, then what about the rest of the passage?  Note that the same Greek word, "kephale", is used throughout this verse.

Here's where understanding what the metaphor meant to Paul and the original readers in the church at Corinth will help.  We can't ask them, so anything we come up with will be informed speculation at best.  Nevertheless, there are clues.

Some commentators (examples appended below) write that a common understanding of the metaphoric usage of the word "head" to 1st century Greeks was "source".  Actually, we still use that meaning today; for example, the headwaters of the Sacramento River are the source of that river.


Perhaps what Paul was telling the Corinthians -- and us today -- is this: ....the source of every man is Christ, and the source of woman is man, and the source of Christ is the Godhead.  (Suggested by Phillip B Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ).  That perspective might make our chart look like this now:

The Godhead is the source of 

|

Christ, who is the source of

|

Man, who is the source of 
(God took Eve from Adam's side)

|

Woman

If that is a more accurate interpretation of Paul's metaphor, it opens the door to a different view of the order of men and women in the Kingdom than perhaps most of us have understood.  

Maybe Paul wasn't commenting at all on who should lead in a marriage.


Thanks to Rich Schmidt for showing us this for the first time.

See, for examples:

• The Human Body Metaphors, p3
• What About the Meaning of the word Kephale ("head") in the New Testament?

Serve Your Employers Wholeheartedly and with Love

Never saw it quite this way before....

"Serve your employers wholeheartedly and with love, as though you were serving Christ and not men. Be assured that anything you do that is beautiful and excellent will be repaid by our Lord, whether you are an employee or an employer."

This is Ephesians 6:7&8 from a recent translation of the earliest and best Greek and Aramaic texts of this letter from the Apostle Paul. As I read that this morning it spoke directly to me more clearly than ever before.

What I found as I compared it to a more familiar English version of the Bible is the words "slave" and "master". I have read this passage many times over the years, and I have always understood the point and tried to follow this instruction.

But I never felt it so directly pointed at me as I did today. Then it hit me: always in the past I have, at some level, seen this instruction as written to slaves. And while "slave" is the actual translation of the Greek word that Paul used, this instruction really applies to anyone working for someone else, as this translation points out.

Chalk up one more reason for reading the Bible in various translations!

What is it about Bethel: Thoughts on the Revival at Bethel / Redding

The revival going on at Bethel Church in Redding California has been a subject of growing interest to many Christians in America and around the world since the late 1990's.  It is a long-lasting revival by any measure, and continues to grow in impact.  Linda and I relocated to Redding in September 2012 for personal revival and to get a much more intimate view of this church and its culture.  We have graduated from 1st year of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, and that shapes our viewpoint, of course, but the culture of the church shines through everything Bethel does.  This is my perspective on the church as I see it today.

Worship at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.  The first
year school is held at the Redding Civic Center to allow space for
the 1,100+ students.  

It is easy to see that something extraordinary is going on just by visiting a church service: if you want a good seat in the main auditorium, plan on arriving about an hour early for the 10:30 AM Sunday service.  If you want any seat at all in the main auditorium, don't be late.  Lines form outside the auditorium to get in and claim a good seat.  The church has added an additional campus a few miles away to serve the growing membership.  A much larger campus will be completed not far away by 2020.

Furthermore, people move to Redding, a Northern California community, just to be part of this church.  We have met several couples who sold out, uprooted family, and moved here to be part of what God is doing. We know from conversation that  many have come in just this way.  We will be in their number this year.  We are in the process of selling our home in Anchorage, Alaska and moving to Redding where we are enrolled in the 2nd year ministry school, and where we intend to live until we know it is time to move again.

The Bethel ministry has global impact.  Bethel leaders travel frequently all around the world.  Thousands of churches are in relationship through the Bethel Leaders' Network.  

There are number of characteristics of the revival that has filled Bethel with holy fire.  Probably the most significant from my perspective is a powerful emphasis on seeking more of the Presence of God.  Senior Leader Bill Johnson, a sixth generation pastor, made a vow at the Toronto Blessing in 1995: "Lord, if You touch me again I will never change the subject".  He has kept the vow, and so has the church.

The Presence of God is valued above all else. While there are obviously tensions in church service timing, I have no doubt that in the event of a Holy Spirit move at any given church service, Bethel leaders would make space for Him and let everything else work around what He is doing.

Revival is the main Kingdom push.  Everything supports revival and/or flows out of revival.  There are MANY ministries in the church with MANY talented workers covering every aspect of the work of a local church.  But revival remains the main thing.  The signs, wonders, miracles and healings, for which Bethel is widely known, support revival, and flow from it.  The Church leadership team is working diligently to create a culture that will facilitate this present revival to continue and spread indefinitely.  Jesus is preached, not the Bethel way. Kingdom is what is important, not Bethel culture. 

Love undergirds the ministry.  The surpassing, unalloyed love of God is a major theme and is very visible in how people treat one another. The very visible culture of honoring one another is a practical outworking of God's kind of love.  Because of honor, Bethel relationships are low control and high accountability.  The church works hard to love and honor the Redding community in practical ways.   Bethel culture is highly relational.  Relationship has priority over structure.  Spiritual fathers and mothers are important; both broadly (e.g. Bill Johnson, Heidi Baker) and personally with individual relationships.  Family is key.  Children are celebrated and actively trained, not warehoused.  

The entire five-fold ministry is powerfully in operation.  The five-fold ministry is led by a strong apostle (Johnson) and a gifted prophet (Vallotton).  There are also: strong pastors (Silk, Backlund and many others)  exceptional teachers (Farrelly and others) and gifted evangelists.  Johnson and Vallotton have worked together for over 30 years, and have been in covenant working relationship since 2001.  This long term, covenant relationship, and other strong, decades-long relationships are a large stone in the foundation.  The apostle has transferred day-to-day decision making in the local church to his son, Eric Johnson.  Senior Bethel leadership is in relationship with other like-hearted ministries through the Revival Alliance.

The Bible School is focused on inner transformation pointing to a revivalist lifestyle.  Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) is designed to bring students to a place of understanding their identity as believers, and their place of significance in the Kingdom of God.  Practice of Kingdom lifestyle is emphasized more than learning Bible facts, although Bible reading and intense study is required, and principles for understanding the Bible are strongly taught. Activation is key.  BSSM1 focuses on identity, core Kingdom values, and practice.  BSSM2 focuses on Kingdom practice, ministering to others, and leadership.  BSSM3 places graduating 2nd year students in intern positions at Bethel and in other ministries.  There will be around 2,000 students in all three training years in 2013-2014.  More than one-third of the students come from overseas; most from Europe, but also from Oceania, South America, Asia, and Africa.

Prophecy is celebrated. Prophecy is thoroughly taught, modeled and practiced.  It is seen as a way of bringing God's heart from Heaven to earth, and of edifying or "calling out the gold" in those around us.  It is one of God's calling cards and is taught as powerfully useful in evangelism and the everyday Christian life. In mid-winter, our daughter visited a Bethel 4th grade class with her baby.  The teacher asked if they would like for the kids to pray and prophesy over them.....and they did. 

Taking risks is encouraged.  Throughout the church, risk taking is encouraged.  BSSM1 students are told that they cannot graduate unless they make at least three mistakes.  "Messes" are not encouraged particularly, but they are expected as a necessary side-effect of risk taking.  Johnson says, "Any rule in the church that prevents a Judas from arising will also prevent a Peter or a John from arising."

Women and men are equal partners in ministry.  Bethel teaches that women can fill any role in ministry.  While women can be found in senior leadership positions of this ministry, the most visible leaders remain men. Nevertheless, the real intentionality test of this teaching is what is happening in junior levels of leadership, because these leaders are the future of the ministry.  What we see here is gifted younger women and men both rising rapidly into the roles that their gifts support.

There is more to report, of course.  And I am hardly an unbiased observer.  Nonetheless, I hope this will give you some useful insight into one of the powerful centers of revival that are rising around the earth in the early 21st century.

What have you heard about the revival at Bethel, and what do you think is its global impact?  Your comments are welcome below.  

Read more in this blog about Bethel and our experience within this community.

Our friend Dani posted these perceptive thoughts about Bethel on her blog:

A New Psalm

Bernie Ooley, one of our BSSM teachers challenged us to write our own psalm. It was a good exercise: it helped us enter the minds of the Israelite worshipers of 3,000 years ago. It helped to see understand a little more of the challenge of balancing praise and the art of framing it memorably.

She suggested no rules, and that's fair, because the Hebrew psalms are an eclectic lot.  Hebrew poems and psalms mostly did not rhyme internally, and even if they did, it would be lost on us, because we read them now in other languages.

The Hebrew poets instead used a variety of other literary techniques.  My worship psalm below uses chiasm and parallelism.  The parallelism reverses at the pivot point.

It turned into more than an exercise for me; it became an act of worship.  I know countless others who have taken pen to paper have had the same experience.

- | -

How is it, O Lord, that you who are so great, are so gracious to us;
why have you been so merciful and kind to us who are so small. 

For our home you crafted a universe beyond understanding;
for our cradle you spun a verdant, moist, warm, life-filled orb. 

You filled the planet with peoples of many tongues;
You chose one to be your own and bless the rest. 

When the time was right you stepped into time;
You came to help us home through your own Son. 

Your fire fell on 120 in an upper room in Jerusalem;
That fire now burns in millions `round the verdant orb. 

The end of the ancient cradle of man comes ever more near;
Yet you decreed the days of your faithful ones will never end. 

Why have you been so merciful and kind to us who are so small;
How is it, O Lord, that you who are so great, are so gracious to us.

A Christmas Story

"Mary, quite big in her last month of pregnancy  was accompanied by over a dozen aunts and female cousins.  Joseph walked alone in front, followed by all of these women  who were chatting and giggling merrily about babies and 'motherly' things.

Nativity scene

A few minutes later the noisy entourage arrived in Bethlehem and were directed to the "sheep pen," crowded with sheep. Soon Mary started labor. Joseph paced nervously back and forth in front of the stable, while the women, several of them midwives, crowded around Mary to help deliver the baby. A short labor ensued, and soon the women all gave a high shrill vibrating cry—the typical Ethiopian joy cry that announces the birth of every child in Ethiopia. The spectators cheered, and the women in the crowd joined in the joy cry with the actors. Hearing the cry, Joseph ran into the sheep pen to see the newborn baby. Later, of course, the familiar shepherds came, followed by the wise men."

Sound familiar, sort of?

The above is part of a story about how one Ethiopian church presented a Christmas pageant not long ago. The not-totally-familiar Christmas pageant story appears in a textbook (Grasping God's Word) we are using at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM).  

You may be wondering about all the extra women.  They aren't in the Christmas story, are they?  No....they are not mentioned in the Biblical text.  But that does not mean they were NOT there.

The point of telling the story in this textbook is to help us understand what WE bring to the Biblical text.  For example all of us come with some "cultural lenses" whenever we read the Bible.  

The Ethiopian culture suggests that of course there are other women along with Mary on the trip to Bethlehem.  After all, who could expect a young first time father to help successfully deliver a baby?  And who among women would not ululate with joy at the birth of a child?

Those of us who have seen many American Christmas pageants come to the Biblical text with the cultural understanding that it was just Joseph, Mary and the donkey on the road to Bethlehem.  But just as there are no extra women in the Biblical text, there is also no donkey.  

The image illustrating this post contributes to faulty understanding of the text.  In this case, "Mary" has a typically European face, wears clothing more typical of a few hundred years ago, there is a cow, and so forth.

The reality is that probably neither the Ethiopian nor the American perspective is totally accurate, but I wonder if those Ethiopian believers may have been closer to the mark.

We all bring our "stuff" along with us when we read the Bible.  Duvall and Hays suggest four influences we bring as we read:

• pre-understandings that come from experiences, hymns, art, literature, etc. that make us think we already understand the text
• pre-forumulated theological agendas that make us look at the text merely to fill in the details of what we already believe 
• familiarity that comes from reading the Bible often -- and makes us think we already understand the passages we read
• culture is almost transparent to us as water is to a fish -- the fish doesn't notice it, and neither do we notice how our culture is projected into the reading process.

I was both dismayed and delighted to study this.  I was dismayed because I realized that I have been guilty of all four of the above flaws in my own Bible reading.   But I was also delighted because knowing these reading traps can help any of us read the Bible without falling into them.  

How about you?  What does reading this do to your thinking about how you read the Bible?  You can post a reply below.

The Book of books

Here's what showed up this week on the NY Times Best Seller list:

1. LIBERTY AND TYRANNY, by Mark R. Levin
2. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell
3. COLUMBINE, by Dave Cullen
4. ALWAYS LOOKING UP, by Michael J. Fox
5. THE GIRLS FROM AMES, by Jeffrey Zaslow

Perhaps these are all good and worthwhile books, but none is familiar to me. Chances are very good in 50 years, they will be more or less unknown. In a 100 years, they will be antiques.

There's another book that isn't on the list. It's the best seller every week of every year. It is not listed because it would always be number one.

That book is the Bible. There have also been more Bibles printed than any other book; I've seen estimates ranging from 2.5 to about 6 billion since the invention of the printing press. It has been translated into over 2,000 languages, and more language versions are appearing every year.

At first it was copied letter by letter onto parchment or papyrus scrolls by scribes who went far beyond careful to insure there were not copying errors. The text we use today has an incredibly small number of differences from copies made almost 2,000 years ago.

The Bible is not just one book; it's 66 different books written over a span of around 1500 years. We believe the Bible was written by people inspired by God.

And what it really is is a love letter from God to man. When you look at it as a whole, what you see is this incomprehensible love of God for humanity. The story line throughout all these books is this: He made us, but we have often turned away from him, still he keeps pursuing us with a love that will not quit. That story continues even today. Here is a very small sample from the book of Jeremiah (29:11):

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

This book of books; this Bible will open doorways for you, as it has me, into a life of connectedness with the God of the universe. All we have to do is read it and let these timeless truths change our hearts.