(1 Cor 12:8 NRSV) To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
As we get into the manifestations of the spirit, I will deal with each one separately. There seems to be only nine different manifestations at first, but with a closer look you could conclude that the list represents nine areas of manifestations. I don’t think one could make the case that each manifestation looks exactly alike. Then you should also make note of the diversity of the spirit working on different believers in the body of Christ as the spirit chooses. Could a person experience all nine areas in different times or in a couple of them at once? Upon close study of the New Testament and the book of Acts you should be able to conclude a resounding yes!
Every believer thinks differently, has had different life and spiritual experiences and we should understand that God‘s spirit works with that in each one of us. So God’s spirit will always know how best to get His message out and through whom it would work best at the time it is needed. Let’s take a look at something Jesus told the disciples in (Luke 12:11-12 NRSV) When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; {12} for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say." Then lets look at (John 15:26 NRSV) “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. (John 16:13 NRSV) When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. These very words need to resound in every believer. That the gift of holy spirit wants to be a witness in and through us for the message of Jesus Christ. Then when you read the account of the early church’s exploits you can see this at work. One good example is how God used Peter over the other disciples when it cam to speaking boldly. To start with this was Peter’s nature and God used Peter in the area that fit him best. All the other disciples work in areas that fit them as well.
I said all that earlier to show you that God works in each person differently and in each group differently. Just because you have experienced the manifestations in your group one way does not mean the other groups should do the same. Even in a local group how God works through one person does not mean that is how He is going to work in another. In a local group God does not need to manifest all the same in every person. It should be different and out of different categories. The holy spirit may give one wisdom, on someone else knowledge, then another maybe speaking in tongues, or prophesying. We just have to trust God’s spirit and the ability He gave us to think and judge a matter. The point is the whole body should be involved in the manifestations of God’s spirit not just a few or the preacher. As we learned last week this is a sign of spirituality. (1 Cor. 2.13-3.1)
So, from my perspective I see nine areas God’s spirit manifest and we will start with the first, wisdom.
You should note that the word utterance is used with this manifestation. This is a speaking with wisdom manifestation. Despite what some may think God does not take our tongues and make them speak things we can’t control. It takes a partnership with God’s spirit for this to work. This is not a wisdom that can be learned or comes by experience, but to be manifested in times of need. If I may, let me say something here that the manifestations or for the common good of the whole body of Christ and to share God’s message with the lost. This is not for any personal gain. I do not believe God is going to show you how to win at the stock market, which is something you can learn and it brings no glory to the Kingdom message. However, in time of need God may have you speak wisdom into an area of need that brings him glory and advances His kingdom message. Peter is a good example when he was brought before the Jewish leaders. Always remember this is a speaking manifestation and not a personal revelation.
What should this manifestation of wisdom look like? I think as well as you should, it is found in God’s own word. James wrote in chapter one, that if anyone lacked wisdom they should ask God in faith or in a complete trust in God that He will give what we need. James tells us that God will not hold wisdom back, so could we say that God wants wisdom to be spoken in our churches? I think so! If what we are seeing is not fitting God’s plan or Word and it brings harm or takes away peace, could we say that it is not God’s wisdom? I would say so! Let’s look and see what the Word does say.
(James 3:17 NRSV) But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
Look at the qualities of God’s wisdom. When a person says they are operating in the manifestations or speaking a word of wisdom will it pass the James three test? Does it produce good results? Some people need to stop being naïve and believing everything someone says came from God. Remember, Paul was correcting the Corinthian church for their abuse of God’s manifestations. Paul was not taking them away but setting the record straight. Today, instead of finding truth and setting things straight, when we find abuse in the manifestations we take them away. I think every believer needs to be willing to let God’s spirit manifest in them and open their mouth and let it work. Then with the brain God gave them think through what is said and or heard and see if it passes the James three test.
(Eph 3:9-10 NRSV) and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery (secret) hidden for ages in God who created all things; {10} so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Emphasis mine)
God wants his wisdom to be made known through His church. Over the years many churches have looked like fools in how they handled God’s manifestations. Notice, that Paul is telling the Ephesians that God’s wisdom is rich in variety; also could we say here in different ways. This speaking manifestation is for the church to declare God’s plans that were held secret through the ages until Jesus. Then this same Jesus manifested God’s heart and mind to those who would receive. Especially to the powers of evil, this is what Paul was telling them.
(1 Cor 2:6 NRSV) Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish.
Once again Paul is saying wisdom is spoken. God’s wisdom does not come through learning or experience. This is where the church began to mess up in the second century when higher learned men began to apply their own wisdom to the gospel message and a distortion of truth was produced. If this wisdom from God could be learned from a teacher or from a book then there would be no need for God’s spirit to manifest it. Notice all of man’s wisdom is doomed to perish with men.
(Col
(Col 1:28 NRSV) It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
(Col 3:16 NRSV) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
I brought this verse up for you to see that if wisdom is meant to be spoken then and as we will see next week knowledge is also spoken then we should conclude for us to gain understanding and spiritual overcoming lives we need to have God’s manifested wisdom spoken in our groups on a regular basis. I feel it is because this has been cut off from the church we are seeing a spiritual and moral decline among believers.
We need the wisdom of God spoken in every gathering and service. For to long it as been stopped up and prevented from coming forth. It seems to have been hijacked by leaders and reduced down to catch phrases and platitudes. God still wants His message to be heard in a lost and dying world. Here lately I keep hearing from various groups that we need to change our message to reach this world. The message is not the problem but how the church projected the message and lived it out. We don’t need to change the message we need to get God’s wisdom back in and start hearing what God has to say on all matters. We need the manifestation of wisdom now more than ever. We are in a world today where there is so much man made wisdom and this causes rejection of God’s truths. Let’s stop making excuses for where we are at in the body of Christ and seek Him for the manifestations in the church.
Thy Kingdom Come (Part 1)
ReplyDeleteIn a Day when the foundations of society are crumbling, a day of gathering storm and deepening gloom, a day of unprecedented peril in which thoughtful men speak of the collapse of civilization and the possible annihilation of cities and nations; even of mankind, the sovereignty of God is an unfailing encouragement that light the path of the just and affords assurance to all the faithful, who take great comfort in the words of James in the historic council of the assembly at Jerusalem: “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the ages” (Acts 15:18).
God, who has “declared the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done,” has said, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). He who “works all things after the counsel of His own will” is at work in the world in these momentous times, moving inexorably toward fulfillment of an eternal purpose that antedates creation and gives meaning to human history. History, by divine appointment, is teleological, and the sweep of human events, whatever the sound and the fury, moves toward the appointed end: Thy Kingdom Come.”
Nothing in the course of events can alter the appointed outcome. The unfolding of the days and years, whatever their number, ultimately will issue in all that was foretold by the prophets of old, by our lord and by his apostles. The witness of history past, confirming “the prophetic word made more sure (1 Peter 1:19), attests that human events ever move toward the inevitable denouement on which creation itself is predicated: the coming of “the Kingdom prepared from the foundation of the ages” [disruption of the ages].
There is, of course, a sense in which the Kingdom of God is eternally present rather than prospective, co-existent with Him who “before the mountains were brought forth or ever He had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting is God” (Psalm 90:2). But the Kingdom of God, as proclaimed and anticipated by both Jesus and the apostles and prophets of old, is yet future and awaits its manifestation at the end of this age, to appear in a moment of spectacular divine intervention at the coming of God’s anointed one, the Messiah, in power and judgment… but appearing also as the consummation of a long process, as implied in our lord’s parables.
Why a long process? Why not, instead, instant Kingdom? Could not God, in the act of a moment, have created the everlasting Kingdom He purposed from before the foundation of the ages? Are not all things possible for God?
All things indeed are possible for God, but only within the limitations of consistency with His own nature and being. All His actions are consistent with the nature of His being, a fact which is essential to His integrity and which does not in any way impinge on His sovereignty. God cannot lie, for example, nor can He change, nor can He deny Himself. We may reverently assume that, for the kind of Kingdom He intends, God is following the only possible course, the process of human history.
Thy Kingdom Come (part 2)
ReplyDeleteThe process comprehends all that God has done, beginning even before His mighty acts of creation when He “laid the foundations of the earth and the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:4, 7). It comprehends the creation of angels before earth itself and the origin of sin in the transgression of angels against the will of their Creator. It comprehends the creation of man in the image and likeness of God and the entrance of sin into human experience in the disobedience of man to the word and will of His Creator.
The process comprehends the moral self-discoveries and the redemptive revelation and encounters experienced by the patriarchs of old and all the faithful of their generations. It comprehends the experiences of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and a nation descended from them, and the judges and kings and prophets who appeared among them.
The process comprehends the redemptive mission of Jesus, unfolded in his special creation in the womb of his mother Mary, life, ministry, death as a sacrificial sin-offering, resurrection, ascension to the right hand of his God and his Father, and ultimate return in righteous judgement. It comprehends the labour of the apostles and the witness of the assembly to eh Messiah and his saving good news [gospel] message about the coming Kingdom of God in all generations until the coming of the King and the Kingdom of God, which he will rule over as God‘s Vice-Regent.
The process whereby God is bringing about the Kingdom which He purposed before the ages began comprehends “all nations of men… on the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26) and involves every man and woman. Human history in its totality is the milieu in which the age upon age lasting Kingdom is to be wrought… and in which the election determined by God from before creation; an election wholly identified with the Kingdom; is realized.
“Thy Kingdom Come”; the Kingdom which was the concern of Jesus all the days of his life, and was the burden of his preaching, the subject of splendid promises and solemn warnings, and the central theme of all his teaching from the beginning of his ministry to the time of his ascension (Acts 1:2), and that message will be proclaimed and published by all those who are faithful in him until the end of this age.