Neptune's Passage -

        My family and I were having coffee this am out by our pool. We have two yucca trees which bloom about this time every year. They are beautiful white blooms that stand silhouetted against a clear azul sky. I mentioned that I always associated their blooming with the beginning of school like the Jacaranda's purple blossoms during the season when school winds down to a close. The mechanics of the blooming I reasoned were the slight changing of weather in Southern California. If you live here long enough you can recognize fall and spring by the slight variations of weather and that certain feeling that you have from nature or from nurture (I never figured out which). I am not sure what inside of me is telling me that a change is happening but I can feel it in the air.
         While we all sipped our coffee and ruminated on this thought, my son mentioned that Neptune was nearing its first year's journey around the solar system's helios since it was predicted in 1846. It takes about 165 YEARS (earth years) to cycle around the sun. Our family has a way of extrapolating any subject to its absurd. So in keeping, my son continued  that you could be born on the planet of the sea god and live your life in winter and spring, and possibly see summer. After a pause to let that sad thought settle, he furthered, or worse you could be born in fall and live only through winter, dying without ever seeing spring or summer! That saddest of all thoughts rebounded causing me immediately to be grateful for our earth and the wonderful rhythms of its seasons. I was so thankful we get to see them year in and year out.  These seasons and their blossoms express a quiet deep constance of God. They are an expression of Him.
       The seasons of life are important. The author of Ecclesiastes tells us that;
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven". Are these appointed times? The writer uses two Hebrew words for time. One is said to be more general, like a season N¡Dm◊z. The other is more specific like "right now", t¶Eo. The latter is the one he uses when pointing out all the specifics of cycles that people go through. "A time to be born, a t¶Eo to die...."
      But how do we know these times? We may know the season for birth, but do we know it for death?  I may even know when my tree is going to bloom. But if I knew what caused it, I would feel more, well, wise. Aren't we to know?  Is it all to do with the sun? Does the plant know to bloom by the sun's position? Or is it temperature change, or barometric change or moisture content?  How does the flower know to bloom? Just or more importantly do we have seasons of blooming? If yes, then I really want to know what triggers our seasons of blooming in God.
        Are they dependent on our efforts? I know you think I have an answer, but the answer I had was thrown off this year. Summer this year was cool and overcast. It started to warm up in the middle of August. Usually this time of year it starts to cool down from a very hot summer. So my theory of temperature change was busted.
       I have a more personal example. I have just finished a "season" of classes about preaching, called homiletics. We had two practicums that accompanied the course in which I composed 6 sermons and listened to 40 others. It was an awesome time of expanding my understanding of "preaching" and its power in the Protestant tradition. When I finished my last sermon it was my last class at the school and it ended a five year cycle for me. The same week I was cleaning out some old junk in our attic and found the first sermon I ever preached in the bulletin announcing the revival  at which I was speaking. Inside the bulletin was the note card with my sermon outline on it! The year was 1968. I was 19. The next day I found a cache of sermons that were my father's going back to the days when he was a chaplain in WWII. The notes and manuscripts were in "War Department" brown envelopes!  I spent a couple of hours pouring over those sermons. My dad filed all his sermons and used them periodically through the years. Some were typed, some were in my dad's handwriting. Equally as fun was the paper he used for some of his notes. They were bulletins from old churches, note cards, and one had a ballot with deacon candidates' names on it. Most I knew from my youth. It was a very precious time.
        Obviously, this is a time for me. Was this ordained? Predestined? Or just a coincidence? Were the tumblers waitng for the right combination to fall into place? Is it time for me to sermonize? Well again I re-read Ecclesiastes and this verse hit me, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end"(NIV).  No man can fathom what God has done.  That is the beauty of it all. Mankind would want answers and explanations. I want answers!  But in the end, it is best if we just sit back and let God show us His marvelous works. MÊ`DlDv…wryI;b JKRl™Rm dYˆw∂;d_NR;b tRl∞RhOq ‹yérVbî;d "The words of the preacher, son of David, king of Jerusalem" (Eccl. 1:1).

Faithful Preaching

Foolishness to those that are perishing.

But unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 

1Corinthians 1:18.

       What is Paul talking about here? Do you ever long to go and have the pastor, elder, imam, preach to you? Probably not your favorite thing. But it might be. Maybe you have learned the need for sitting under a living word.  It is the power of God to those being saved. It is the form and substance of God being spoken to us, the listeners.  It is the mechanics and substance that can change our lives. It cleanses us. It keeps us. It imparts life to us. The Greek uses a present participle for the word "saved". The word is sw/zome√noiß.  It can be translated being saved. This of course has theological undertones but can simply mean that God uses this method to save people. If you are under the more Holiness teaching then you  it can mean those in the process of being purified. Either way preaching is necessary tool for salvation.          
         After reading how Luther and the reform brothers thought about preaching I went and looked up kerusso in the Greek Bible. It is used more times in the gospels than salvation! Jesus continually was described as preaching here and there. He commanded the disciples to preach to the ends of the earth. That is a lot of preaching!
       I have a new appreciation of the simple act of going with a community of believers and sitting under the anointed word being preached. It creates the obedience, the love, the community of service to God. Luther thought just listening to the word of God being preached was service to God! Just listening was service! Wow! Worship and service to God. "Hear O Israel", wait for it, here comes the sermon,"The Lord your God is one"(Deuteronomy 6:3).  The famous omv  begins with just listening. Who knew it could be so simple? Who knew that God was so gracious. Who knew that he was that powerful. Well I guess we all should have.
Paul exhortation to Timothy, preach the word. Be instant in season and out of season. Rebuke, exhort and correct.
        Application of this word is simple. Find some faithful scripture teaching/preaching community and go sit in their mist, especially when the word is being preached. That is all. It has the power of God.
In my tradition, we have a father to us in the word, John Robert Stevens. John would often tell us to make sure the kids were in service. Train them to be in service. Let the little ones sit on the floor and color or draw, but let them be there. I see his wisdom now. It is the preaching of the word that is the power of God. Let the word be preached over them as they lay there squirming. It will be power in their lives. I work with youth as a teacher and minister and I am just now realizing that maybe we have missed the mark some what. There will come a time when they will not endure sound doctrine. I hope that is not about our young generation. Can they hear? Do they listen? Can they follow a thought  through  a sermon? Maybe we should realize it is foolishness to those who are perishing. Make them sit there and listen. It is the power of God, it will create faith in the hearer. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by a word form God" (Romans 10:17). If that is true then we need to put ourselves in a place of hearing the word.

You can learn more about faith, preaching and the word in The First Principles.

Keruzon ton logon

To Martin Luther there were few things that he held to be sacramental. One of these things was preaching. Actually communion and preaching he felt were the two sacramental offices of the church. Granted he was responding or reacting to the Catholic Church which had not a few sacramental offices and at that time were abusing a good many of them.  But Zwingli, Calvin and Hobbs all felt that preaching was a major important indispensable part of the Christian community.


Examining the scriptures I find that kerusso Greek for preaching, is found sixty times in the NT. That is more times than the word "salvation". On closer reading we find amazing usages of the word.  Many times in the NT it records Jesus preaching to the people. In Matthew 4:17 we see Jesus preaching and again in Mark 1:14, John is thrown into prison and Jesus is preaching the kingdom of Heaven. In Matthew 10:7 and Mark 3:14 Jesus is sending forth the disciples exhorting them "to preach". The scriptures record the command form of the verb, imperative of the word, keruzon. We see this in Mark 16:15 when Christ was commissioning the disciples to go into all the world and yes, preach. Again in Matthew it is preaching of the kingdom of God in all the world that precipitates the ending of the age. 
So why is preaching soooo important. It can be soooo boring. I know I've listened to myself. And we have listen to others or not, like our mothers and wives and again I said "or not". But there seems to be plenty of it going around. So I guess by how much it is used makes it important?


But there certainly is another reason it is important. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by a word from God (Romans 10:17 ). And in another place Paul said "...how shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). Preaching the living word creates faith in the heart of those who hear. But why has God chosen this way to communicate? Because God wants to communicate with His creation. He wants to live in community and in communication. Remember the reformation fathers ...and Hobbs : ), believed that preaching was in dispensable to the community. God not only by a word created all things, he by a word became flesh and lived with us in community. He wants to be Immanuel, God with us. Talking to us, living with us, and loving us as our Father, His word in and among us. 


Preaching becomes one of the main vehicles for creating this communication within the community.
There are those who want to down play preaching. There was a movement in '30s to put a moritorium on preaching in the Catholic Church. A mother of five, Helene Froelicher, declare "no". She said preaching was Reformatio Sacrae Eloquentiae.  This began a movement to put more emphasis on preaching. What timing was that! At that same time, Hitler was showing all the world what preaching has the power to do. The  force of the tongue put to destructive use. James was right. It can set a whole world aflame! If that is the power it has with Satan what power does hit have with God?  Paul said "it is the power of God!" (1Cor.1:18). The speaking of the Word of God created all things, it can save all things. Paul exhorts Timothy to preach the gospel in season and out of season. And applying that to himself in 1Corinthians 9  he says "Woe to me if I preach not the gospel of Jesus Christ." 


John Robert Stevens in his book entitled Living Prophecies  said "for this is the day that the word of the Lord shall come in creative power from the lips of the humblest saint."  We are living in the days when the word of God is going to be spoken, preached, by humble saints and His Kingdom will come. The fulfillment of our Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, On this earth...." The power of God is returning to you and me. Paul said it to the Athenians, "the word is near you, even in your mouth".  Paul in Corinthians 12 said again,"let everyone prophecy".  We should be speaking the word with all boldness. It is how the new age is going to come.