The Bible is always cultural as God speaks to people in their culture and not in the vacuum of it. And so when we read it, we need to keep in mind that the Bible was written “for us,” but not “to us.” It was written for us to read, but not directly to the…
Tag: Paul
One Prophetic Word, Two Opposite Interpretations
This may sound odd, but we can actually hear an authentic word of God and somehow misunderstand or misconstrue it. This is evidenced by an interesting story from Paul’s life towards the end of Acts. On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist…. and…
Should My Church Service Be Seeker-Sensitive?
It ends up that a seeker-sensitive model of the church has been practiced since the very beginning of the church, even though it looked nothing like our seeker-sensitive models today. Paul’s idea of being seeker-sensitive was that we don’t come across as raving mad in our supernatural practices at church and also that we prophesy…
Should I Speak in Tongues at Church?
Right from the get-go of 1 Corinthians 14 we’ve got this understanding of a hierarchy within the gifts: Paul wants us to desire the gift of prophecy over the gift of tongues. However, it’s important to understand his reasoning for this as he is not actually downplaying the importance of tongues or trying to belittle…
The Bible’s Schools of Prophets
I truly believe that with the Spirit’s gifting and guidance, we can learn and grow in the prophetic (see 1 Corinthians 14). Therefore, I have no problem seeing this kind of learning to be a practice in the “schools of the prophets” at Bethel (2 Ki 2:3), Jericho (2 Ki 2:5), and Gilgal (2 Ki…
