With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his proclaiming the good news (2 Cor 8:18)

This famous Amos has been on my mind all week. How did he get so famous? Was it by the therapeutic gospel? “Good morning everyone. How are we all doing? You know what, God’s going to meet all our needs this morning. Yes, that’s right. He’s going to meet your needs, whatever they may be. Need healing? He’s here for you. Broken marriage? He’s here to help you. You know, I was reading Psalm 88 just the other day and it spoke to me so powerfully. David is in this cave, and he feels like it’s this dangerous pit. He prays to the Lord and he feels that the Lord put him back on his feet. Yes, he felt stronger. He felt like he could do all things through Christ. Right? That’s the way we should be. Well, God is going meet us right where we are this morning and help us out of our pits.” Hardly.

Was it because of his seed-faith sermons? “Good morning everyone. You know, God is the God of increase! Yes, that’s right. Increase. Increase in all areas of your life. Your relationships. Your family. Your personal life. Yes, and even your business. That’s right. He’s concerned about your business and how it honors God. Now, I know that this is the beginning of the service, but I want you all to take out your wallets. Yes, go ahead, take them out. Those of you who are in debt, guess what? God’s going to supernaturally cancel your debt. What did he say in Malachi? He said, ‘Prove me in this.’ Prove him in the tithe. You bring tithe into the storehouse and he’s going to rebuke the devil and get him off your back. Your debt is going to be gone in no time. God’s about to do a breakthrough, and I want you to get in on it. How do you do that? You do it by sowing into good ground, and my ministry is good ground.” Doubtful.

Was it because of his take on divine election? “Good morning everyone. Today we’re all going to glorify the Lord. Why? Because everything is for his glory. He has chosen us, the elect ones, in him so he can be glorified. Not everyone will be saved. Not even everyone here will be saved. He’s chosen his people before the world even began, and that we can’t change. But he requires that we praise him for his unlimited wisdom in choosing who would be saved and who would be damned. God is all in all. And he will be glorified in it.” Not a chance.

Amos proclaimed the good news, Paul says. What’s that? Paul summed it up quite nicely in the first sentence in his letter to the Romans.

Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his son, who was descended from David according to flesh, and was appointed to be Son of God in power according to a spirit of holiness through the means of his resurrection of dead ones–Jesus Christ, our Lord.

God initiated a covenant through Abraham to save not just Israel but the whole world. Through the ensuing years he elaborated on that covenant, what he called the gospel of his son, through his prophets. When Jesus appeared, he was a descendant of David, the faithful Israelite to whom the promise of salvation for heathen was made. He faithfully and selflessly offered himself on the cross, to die cursed of God with all of our sins laid on him. After wholly yielding himself to the divine plan, God resurrected him on the third day—the moment when every man and woman could be justified and born again—and appointed him to be the Son of God in power through the means of that resurrection. Jesus’ faithfulness paved the highway of our hope of resurrection and life everlasting. This is what Amos preached. This is what made him famous. ∗

Note: Paul didn’t ever identify this famous brother. We don’t know who he actually was.

For 39 years, the New York Times reports, Trinity Broadcasting Network has urged viewers to give generously and reap the Lord’s bounty in return. The paper recently broke a story about a family dispute that has offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the television ministry’s operations, which appear to provide the Crouch family quite an opulent lifestyle if the reports are true. The Times’s article follows on the heels of other critics of the so-called prosperity gospel, like Ross Douthat who authored Bad Religion, and Hanna Rosin, an Atlantic writer whose essay asked, “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?”

The prosperity gospel, as it’s called, has been around, so to speak, at least since 1977 when Oral Roberts published a little book he called The Miracle of Seed Faith. The premise of seed faith is that everything in life starts with a seed, which includes everything that a Christian receives by faith.  Roberts’s protégé Kenneth Copeland, who has said that God called him to teach the body of Christ how to prosper, refined the teaching with his book, The Laws of Prosperity. Their ideas of seed time and harvest as relating to money sown into the kingdom of God have permeated the body of Christ, at least in America, for the last thirty years. Writers such as Duthot and Rosin view the doctrine as a way for preachers and ministries to enrich themselves at the expense of their followers. Copeland, and other ministers such as Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, and Paula White argue that seed faith is needed for the spread of the gospel, and that critics will never understand the workings of the kingdom (1 Cor 2:14).

Caught in the middle of this maelstrom are ordinary believers, the folks who donate their hard-earned money to these ministers. Should they stop donating because Douthat believes that the prosperity gospel is heresy? Or should they continue to give because Copeland says it’s the primary way for believers to store up treasures in heaven? Although many prosperity preachers lay claim to special revelation regarding prosperity, they also say that it is well-supported in the Word. Over the next few weeks (or months), I’ll compare the doctrines (seed faith and its tithing derivatives) to scripture to Paul’s admonition that we follow “nothing outside the text” (1 Cor 4:6).

A week or so ago, I finished up my little book called Tongues in Plain English. Finishing that book cleared my desk a bit, and I took the opportunity to kind of revamp some of my study materials. I decided finally to let go of the King James Version and adopt the New Revised Standard Version instead. I know that this puts me outside the gates of my particular camp in the body, but I thought it was time. Like everyone else, I like the KJV’s prose and its direct translation of the Greek, but the English is archaic and most of the scholars I read after use the NRSV.

After spending some time scouring the internet for an NRSV Bible, I decided on the New Interpreters Study Bible (NISB). I read through a number of the reviews (77 5-star ratings) and thought that the study notes would be a real aid. It boasted having over 90 top theologians as contributors. It came the other day and yesterday I had some free time so I took it with me to a coffee shop where I planned to map out my new book project on the sign of Jonah.

I sat down with my French-pressed Guatemala with my notes on Jonah and Jesus in hand. I pulled out the brick of the NISB out of my backpack to see what it had on the sign of Jonah. Okay, the book of Jonah had some notes, not very helpful ones, but at least some. But here is what it had on the sign of Jonah, what Jesus grilled the Pharisees with when they demanded a sign from him (“You want a sign? You want a sign? I’ll give you a sign! Jonah! Just as he was in the sea monster’s belly for three days and nights, so I’ll be in the heart of the earth. How’s that for a sign?”). The special note is what one of those 90 theologians had for Jonah, and the second paragraph is what another had for Matthew 12:40.

Special Note

Three days and nights Jonah became a symbol for the resurrection because early Christians saw a symbolic parallel between this phrase and Jesus’ death, three days in the tomb, and the resurrection. For this reason, Jonah was often depicted in early Christian art. See also “the sign of Jonah” in Matt 12:38–40.

…

The request for a sign evidences their resistance. Jesus has provided numerous signs that attest his identity as God’s agent in whom God’s empire is manifested (12:28). He offers the sign of Jonah, rejection experienced in death yet God’s victory over it (12:39–40). Nineveh repented when given the chance, unlike these leaders. On the queen of the South, see 1 Kgs 10:1–13. Jesus is in continuity with Jonah and Solomon, yet greater in announcing God’s empire yet to be completed.

This took me back a bit. I mean, the sign of Jonah is one of the most awe-inspiring of the types of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection that we see in the Word, and this is the best of what two of the top 90 have to offer?  Just a couple lines about a symbolic parallel and rejection in death (whatever in the world that means)? Are you kidding me?

Well, come to think about it, I guess if you preach that Jesus skipped off to heaven right after he died you’re just not going to understand why God would go to all that trouble to get a fish to swallow a man whole for three days and nights. Me? I’m up to my eyeballs in prefiguration, prophecy, and double cross references. I spent the whole week working through the sign, scribbling over 30 pages of notes from Psalms and Hebrews and John and I can’t remember what else, and I’m not even close to done. (Look for a not-so-little book sometime in the fall.)

I’m not sure where the NISB fits on the theology spectrum, but I’m afraid it’s is going to become another brick in my never-to-be-used–again Bible wall soon.

I just finished and published (sounds so much better than uploaded, doesn’t it?) a little book on the baptism of the Holy Ghost entitled Tongues in Plain English. It should be available on Amazon’s Kindle by the end of the day (here). It isn’t meant to be a comprehensive study, but a good short read that summarizes the baptism and accompanying evidence of tongues. It’s about 20 pages long, and I’ve priced it at 99¢. Here is an excerpt (probably the most controversial chapter of the book).

A Second Definite Experience

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Gn 3:7)

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” (Jn 20:22)

And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. (Lk 24:46–49)

These three verses demonstrate the framework for the baptism being a second definite experience for the believer. In Genesis, Moses writes that God made Adam’s body from the dust of the earth, which is how he appears to have made the animals, too. But Adam was different. Once God had fashioned him from the ground, he blew into his nostrils the breath of his own life and spiritual materiality. Adam became a living soul, a natural being animated by an inner man. He had a spiritual body that infused his natural body, cell for cell. We understand this by the Bible’s progressive revelation of man’s nature. For instance, Luke gives us Jesus’ account of a rich man who died, how he lifted up his eyes in hades, how his throat burned with thirst, and how he spoke to Abraham and the beggar Lazarus (see Luke 16). His spiritual body appeared to have the same range of motion in the spiritual world as his natural body had had in the physical world. Three of the gospel writers relate how Moses and Elijah met with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration and talked with him about his upcoming death and resurrection. Moses, at least, had died 2,000 years earlier, but here he was speaking to Jesus like he was an old friend. Finally, Paul recounts his own visit to Paradise, the third heaven (many theologians assume it was Paul), and says, “Whether I was in my body, or out of my body, I couldn’t tell.”

This spiritual man, the inner man, was Adam’s predominant feature until he rebelled against God with unbelief. Sin caused it to become polluted and impure, subjected to a sinful nature and lordship of God’s adversary.

God sent Jesus to redeem mankind out of that condition. Jesus told us that no one could experience God’s kingdom unless he had been born again, and, fortunately for us, he had come to pave the way for that new life. He died on the cross so he could be resurrected as a high priest and ascend into heaven to present his blood on the mercy seat there. Once he had done that, and had obtained salvation for us all, he reenacted Genesis by blowing his God-life into the disciples (the Greek literally says “into” them), and they were reborn, which is why Paul calls Jesus a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 14:45).

After they were born-again, there was still spiritual work to do. Jesus told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem, but to stay until they received the promise of the Father. He’d dress them with power. And in Acts 2 they were. As they were gathered together for prayer, the Holy Spirit fell on them. They had what looked like licks of fire appear over their heads and the intensity of the power made them appear like drunks, but the primary evidence of this baptism was their new-found ability to speak in other tongues, tongues powered by the Spirit (the Greek literally says, “as the Spirit gave them continual utterance”).

This baptism of power echoes Christ’s own ministry. He was born sinless, but didn’t enter into public ministry until John baptized him in the Jordan river. There, the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form like a dove, and he was anointed with the Spirit and with power. Peter put it this way, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, who went about [penetrated] doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.”

The “upon” baptism is the anointing of the church for spiritual action. A quick read through Acts shows that its manifestations of the Spirit are the very same that Jesus experienced in his ministry—works of miracles, gifts of healings, words of knowledge, etc.—with the exception of other tongues. (Jesus didn’t need tongues, because he always prayed in line with the Father’s perfect will.)

Some Bible teachers say that Pentecost was the birth of the church, not Jesus’ “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” that we see in John. Jesus’ blowing, they say, was a mere predictive prophecy that was fulfilled at Pentecost. They’re wrong. This teaching not only ignores the Genesis echo and and the scriptural pattern we see in Jesus’ own baptism, but it doesn’t jive with the Greek, either. When Jesus said, “Receive the Holy Ghost,” the Word says that he used the present tense imperative of“receive.” This imperative is like a captain’s orders to his crew: “Lift that hoist!” “Mop that floor!” “Walk the plank!” It’s supposed to be performed right away, not just at some indeterminate time in the future. Greek, in fact, doesn’t even have a future imperative. So Jesus didn’t say, “Receive later the Holy Ghost.” The disciples were supposed to receive the gifts and operations right then and there. And that means that they were born-again believers when the power fell on them on Pentecost. After all, Jesus had said that the world—sinners—couldn’t receive the Holy Ghost, only the church could: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter, that he may live with you forever, even the spirit of truth whom the world can’t receive.” The baptism isn’t about salvation (you have to believe on Christ for that); it’s a definite second experience for the Christian for service, prayer, and ministry.∗

A year and a half ago, when I discovered that Kindle was available to independent writers, I didn’t think that I’d ever find the need or desire to publish a paperback book. Ebooks, after all, were gaining double-digit market share, Borders was headed for bankruptcy court, and famous writers were jumping their publisher ships to get in on the new action. Some pundits predicted that it was only a matter of time before paperbacks would go the way of film and Kodak. Those pundits may eventually win out, but a good many people still like to read physical books more than they do ebooks. Fortunately, both of my books are now in both forms.

Sometime a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I reworked Jesus in the Now and published a paperback version on CreateSpace, a subsidiary of Amazon. It went live on Amazon’s site about a week ago. This morning I made the final approval for Christ our Healer. It should be coupled with its ebook version on Amazon in a week or so. It’s available right now on CreateSpace’s site here.

So what’s next? More books. This week I’m finishing up a mini-book on other tongues. I don’t believe that we’ll do a paperback version because it’s going to be only about 27 pages or so, and I’m setting the price at 99ç (Jesus in the Now is at 99¢, too, but I’ll probably move that up to $2.99 soon.). I plan to follow it up with a mini-Bible study and a mini-book on New Testament forgiveness.

Why all the mini-books? Well, they’re great for Bible study. Short and to the point without much complexity. And they’ve helped me reintroduce myself to non-legal writing. Once I get these three out I plan to tackle the outline I’ve made on the believer’s authority. That will be a much longer book. I’m thinking of posting excerpts here as I go along because it will deal with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and I’ve had a number of readers ask me for old posts on that subject.

If you have any suggestions for books on Bible subjects that you’d like to see, I’d like to hear’em. I took a short hiatus this past year, but I’m back and ready to write again.

This morning my wife and I did our usual routine—up at 4:15 to run, shower, coffee, and then Word study. I’ve got a couple of writing projects in the works, and my mornings are reserved for books on Paul’s prison letters. Normally I use the King James version for my books because of its English structure, literal translation, and popularity, but I decided to do my own translation for these books to make them easier reads. This morning I translated Philippians 1:12–14:

I want all you brothers to know that my circumstances have turned out for the greater advance of the gospel. You see, my bonds in Christ have become known among the entire Imperial Guard, and all the rest. And the greater part of the brothers in the Lord here have become even more emboldened by my bonds, daring to speak the Word without any fear.

It’ll be a while before I set down my thoughts on paper, but I’ve had a little bugger of a thought following me around all morning. It’s how Paul’s testimony appears to fly in the face of everything that we hear on Christian TV, radio, and church every Sunday. Our popular theology says that God does everything he can to promote us—better jobs, more pay, nicer neighborhoods. And he does this so he can expand our area of influence to “affect” more people or at least impress our new-found friends with all the fringe benefits that go along with being a believer. Over the years this promotion type of theology has spawned corporate-style ministry organizations with sophisticated direct marketing campaigns, iPhone apps (usually at a cost), entourage-styled ministry teams, and jet-set contributors. The irony is that it’s all based on Paul’s letters, mostly 1 Corinthians 9, but also Philippians 4.19.

When we read these couple of verses in Philippians, we see that Paul’s been stripped of any of these gospel accoutrements. He hasn’t been promoted, isn’t getting paid, and is wasting away in a prison cell where he has to rely on friends to feed him. Many of our popular preachers would have written him off—they would have had more influential people to see, better strategic places to go, and many more important things to do. Seeing and supporting a common Roman criminal wouldn’t fit in their ideas of divine contacts, spheres of influence, or mass media.

Reading his letter, we find that Paul isn’t lamenting the error of his divine right of promotion. He’s bubbling over with enthusiam, in fact. He says that the circumstances of his imprisonment have not only not hindered the gospel, they’ve actually advanced it. And, he writes, that many of his fellow Christians had become even more emboldened by his imprisonment which led to the gospel advancing even further. You can almost hear grandstands in the background.

Sure, there is advancement in the kingdom, but it’s not what’s regularly preached from the pulpit these days. Paul didn’t concern himself with the toys of the flesh; he sought a crown of righteousness. He didn’t care for the corner office, the nice house in the suburbs, a couple of cars in the garage, and a tidy bit of savings socked away in a 401k. He had those things as a prosecutor for the Jews, but he counted them all crap (a scriptural word) once he was saved. His sole aim was to advance the gospel any way he could, on whatever road it would lead him on. His just happened to lead to a Roman prison. We’d do well to follow his example (he says we should), and we should be skeptical of preaching of any kind that tends to advance our personal interests more than it does Jesus Christ’s. The gospel isn’t a multilevel marketing scheme.

A few weeks ago I decided to head west. Work had gotten hectic and I needed some time to get away and just drain. I figured that west Texas with its long stretches of blacktop highway and lunar terrain would be just the place for my neurons to regroup. While I was packing my electronic backpack (okay, I was headed towards lunar terrain, but I still needed some connection to civilization) with my iPad 2, my iPhone, and two digital cameras with all their wires, cards, and batteries, I also tossed in my old Kindle just for fun. I hadn’t used the thing in months and months. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I had used it.

After spending seven straight hours on the road, unloading my stuff in the granny room (the hotel had been built in 1902 and I didn’t see where it had changed much since then), and chowing down on some real country cooking, I still had a few hours before the sun would leave the big Texas sky. I could’ve reached for the iPad 2, there was a kid downstairs in the parlor who was playing on his or picked up one of the cameras and scouted around town. But I wanted to get away from an LED screen for a while. I took the Kindle, it’s the old e-ink model, and headed outside to one of the old rocking chairs on the porch.

I rocked and read for over three hours (it takes the sun a long time to go down in west Texas). I started and finished two small books on Bible prophecy (I wouldn’t recommend them), and started Frank Norris’s McTeague. I grabbed a bite to eat from the drugstore across the street (more of a old-fashioned general store) and I read while I ate. I walked back to my room and read for another three hours. Like the terrain, it was almost otherworldly to tune out all the digital noise and wrap myself up in a few books. Over the next few days the iPad saw precious little sun and two rolls of film would have been more than enough for the trip.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I came back from the edge of nowhere and now I carry my Kindle with me everywhere I go. I haven’t counted, but I think I’ve read seven more books since I pulled into the driveway. I got my truck washed this afternoon and cleared twenty pages of N.T. Wright’s Romans for Everyone while I waited.

I don’t know if my neurons had the chance to regroup, but I’m glad I that I reintroduced myself to my Kindle. It’s reignited my love for reading. It won’t be long before I can say that it reignited my desire to write, too.

Tomorrow is another free promotion day for my book, Jesus in the Now. We’ve reworked the cover and plan to have a paperback available in the next few days. We’ve lowered the price to $.99, but will likely raise it back up to the $2.99 range once I finish another book (which should be soon). If you weren’t able to get in on the last promotion, head to Amazon tomorrow. This will probably be the last free promotion that I’ll do for Jesus in the Now for a long time.

A few months ago, I grabbed my homemade latte, fired up my iMac, and got ready to write a couple of blog posts. When I went to my site I saw that it had been hacked. I contacted my host company and David, on the other end, told me what files I needed to delete and reconstruct to get the site back up. I deleted those files and called the host back, but another rep told me that I had only scratched the surface. After figuring out the number of hours it’d take to reconstruct the site, I decided to let it lay for a while. I later called the host company back and asked it to delete everything. It was the easiest thing to do.

So, here it is 2012 and I’m starting from square one. It’s going to be interesting to see where I go from here.