God devoted three chapters of Acts to explain the temporary, prophetic work of the Spirit among the Gentiles. Should we not find it very strange that in the same book He did not devote even more attention to the permanent, non-prophetic work of the Spirit, which is at the heart of most modern teachings about the Spirit?
Progressives have successfully shifted our language. We have ceded ground to them they do not own. Their efforts have created enough ambiguity and fluidity around the nature of the church that many no longer believe in the concept of a non-denominational church of Christ.
Several verses from Isaiah – Malachi, which deserve some comment, were not included in the main body of Essay #2. These verses were excluded from the primary text because there exists in them some ambiguity about whether the “spirit” in the verse is actually the Holy Spirit, the Spirit’s function in the text may not involve man, or some similar consideration.
What does the audience hear in the debate? It hears inconsistency. Our argument sounds contrived. It contradicts their own experience. The singing they have done for their entire life has been helped by instruments of music. Now, we are compelled to convince them that their perception contradicts reality. It is a tough sell. The progressive has placed us in exactly the right position to sway the undecided in our congregations.
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Overcoming this prejudice was the first major hurdle for Christianity. The prophets proclaimed the universal nature of the body of Jesus. All nations would come to be a part of this body (Isaiah 2:2-4). The Gentiles who were not God’s people would be His people in this church (Amos 9:11-12, Acts 15:16-18). Until this was accomplished, the church would not fulfill God’s eternal purpose to unite all things under the authority of Jesus.
Our tendency in reading through Joel’s words is to emphasize the prophetic terms contained within them. However, to do so is to miss the point. The words that need our attention come before the mention of prophecy, dreams, and visions and are repeated afterwards as well. What makes Joel’s prophecy so amazing is that the promised prophetic abilities are guaranteed to “all flesh.”
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This is a personal ministry of Eric Owens and Jonathan Jenkins. We started our web streaming efforts in about 2002. DBS has been through several phases for the years. When 2020 turned upside down on all of us, Eric and Jonathan thought that an ongoing series lessons focused on connecting God’s people to Him and each other would be encouraging in hard time. For 4 years we ran the nightly CONNECT online gospel meeting featuring over 200 gospel preachers. Most of those lessons are preserved in the video library on our site. We continue our 20 year history of livestreamed Bible studies today.
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