I don’t mean to overdo the point, but I wanted to share this e-mail as an update on the family of Steven Curtis Chapman (SEE BELOW).  I received this e-mail on Thursday, May 29.  This is an encouraging example of grieving with hope.  On a side note, but related, please be in prayer for aunt, Pat Coleman, as she fights for her life after a massive heart attack.  Especially remember her two sons, Steve and Josh, and the rest of the family as they stand by her side.

 
It has been a little over a week since the accident that put Maria Chapman in Jesus’ arms. These have been dark and trying days of deep sadness. The Chapman family is struggling with grief and wrestling to come to terms with the new normal, a world without Maria. It will be a long road.  And yet, I want you to know that they are holding on to the truth of Gospel, just as I hope I would, just as you expect they might. It is not a false strength, nor a false hope. It is authentic sorrow and true belief simultaneously. Steven, Mary Beth and the entire Chapman extended family has asked that I thank each of you who have prayed for this family. They are overwhelmed with your good care and unearthly strength to carry on that they believe is from your prayers sustaining them.

Your condolences do comfort and if you’ve not yet had the opportunity to drop a note and “meet Maria” through a short video clip we’ve posted, I’d encourage you to visit the In Memory of Maria page. Please stay in touch by passing this e-mail on, asking all to sign-up for this blast to receive additional updates, click here, and by visiting the blogs click here.

In closing, it seems awkward that we released an album, The Cinderella Edition of THIS MOMENT, just days after our loss of Maria. As I mention on my blog at StevenCurtisChapman.com, an additional edition of the album had been planned for months. (click here to view ) Under normal circumstances, you would’ve gotten an e-mail from us telling you about the new edition and it’s new songs content, and a picture of the album cover. I won’t do that on this day. While I am excited for the new edition to be available, and believe that the song “Cinderella” is more important than ever…it doesn’t feel right. I guess I’m still struggling with the new normal myself.Again, we’re so grateful for your prayers for the Chapman family,

May God be Glorified,

Jim Houser (Manager)

Death. An enemy. A defeated enemy. But it sure does hurt when someone you love is suddenly gone.

Death is all around us on a daily basis; however, we often are so consumed in our daily lives that we hardly notice. That is, until it hits close to home and then it stops us cold in our tracks. It also seems, for me at least, that is comes in waves. Nothing major for many weeks and then you have one tragic circumstance upon another.

This past couple of weeks has been like that. It started nearly two weeks ago with the news of Dr. Forrest Polluck, Pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Florida. He was a pilot on the side. He had taken his 13 year old son with him on a plane he was flying. They left Asheville, NC and then went missing only to be found a few days later…no survivors. http://www.bellshoals.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=35862

Then came news this past Thursday that Steven Curtis Chapman lost his 5 year old daughter, Maria, in a tragic car accident. http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/inmemoryofmaria/?roi=farm-12740500-88803-09f85a281c0f14b0198bdb1a347feaea&

That same Thursday my Youth Pastor’s wife had a checkup, her baby is due in a little over three weeks. Everything looked fine. By yesterday morning, Saturday, she had not felt the baby move in awhile. They went to the hospital and found that there was no heartbeat. That evening she had to go through all of labor and delivery to give birth to Nathaniel Philip - who was already in heaven.

Don’t ask me why? I don’t know.  I like to be the problem solver.  I like to fix things for folks.  Nothing doing here.  I am at loss for answers to the why questions.

That said, there are a few things I do know for sure.

1. Some ask “Where was God in all of these tragic situations?”  God was in the same place He was when His innocent Son hung on the cross in our place.  The tragic rain of difficult circumstances falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.  The only difference is that the righteous walk through the storms with the Lord as their rock and their anchor.  As believers in Jesus, we are promised both trouble and victory (John 16:33; 1 John 4:4; 5:4-5).  We can confidently cast our cares upon Him because of His great love for us (1 Pet. 5:7).

2. Some think, “How sad that these young children missed out on life.” Please don’t think that anyone who goes to heaven, regardless of age, missed out on anything.  At its best, this world is a shadow of the glory in heaven.  We still grieve, but for ourselves, not those in heaven (2 Sam. 12:21-23).  We grieve because we have missed out on their life here on earth.  How sad for us.  How glorious for them.

3.  Grief is normal, natural, and even necessary.  Death came into the world as a result of sin.  It is not pleasant; it is an enemy.  However, because it is a defeated enemy, we can grieve with hope.  (1 Thess. 4:13)  Christ has defeated death with His victorious resurrection (1 Cor. 15:55-57).  Death is no longer an end for the believer, rather it is simply a transfer of address (2 Cor. 5:6-9).

4. As difficult as it is to go through tragic circumstances, it sure is an opportune time for the Family of God to show what they are really made of.  We rejoice with our brothers and sisters in Christ in the triumphs of life.  We grieve and support one another during the tough times (Rom. 12:12-13, 15; 1 Cor. 12:25-26).  Sometimes we are intimidated because we don’t know what to say.  But that is just it.  You don’t have to say anything (in fact, it often is better if you don’t).  Just be there.  A shoulder to cry on.  A hand to hold.  An embrace.  A tear.  A prayer.  Those simple things speak volumes to those who are in the midst of crisis.  It is times like this that I have seen the love of God shine forth in brilliance - through His people, loving one another.

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

54 Now when this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility,  and this mortal is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory.

55 O Death, where is your victory?  O Death, where is your sting?

56 Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

First things first, read part 1 before you read this if you want to see it all in context.

After laying the foundation for my interpretation of the nature of baptism of the Holy Spirit, I now want to address the three passages that are often used to present a view that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is some kind of second blessing or initiation. This view often sees speaking in tongues as one evidence of the gift.

At the outset, let’s remember what Luke’s purpose was in writing Acts. The book of Acts is really a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. Luke follows Christ from birth to resurrection in his Gospel and then shows the growth of the church from Christ’s ascension through the last few years of Paul’s ministry. Luke is giving a detailed and orderly account of what happened as the Gospel of Jesus Christ spread and the church was birthed. It is probably unwise to root a theological doctrine in passages Luke uses to describe events that he considered significant in the initial spread of the church. This in no way implies that Acts is untrustworthy nor is it unuseful for doctrine. Of course it is both. It should, however, lead us to use the definitive teachings of Scripture to help us interpret the narrative accounts.

1. Does Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 represent a two-stage process? No. As the passage says, Saul was blinded for three days waiting in the house of Judas. Ananias is sent by the Lord to go to him. He lays hands on Saul who then receives his sight back and is filled with the Holy Spirit. We could speculate on the three day delay, but ultimately we do not know. What we do know is that in Paul’s own writings he teaches that we are sealed (baptized in the Spirit) when we believe (Eph. 1:13-14). Luke even sees the whole three day experience as one event. In 22:10ff and 26:12ff, Luke’s account of Paul’s conversion puts all of the elements together. The emphasis in all of it is that Saul, the church persecutor, had a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Were the dozen disciples in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7) believers who then received a second blessing by being baptized in the Spirit? No. The text is pretty clear. Paul probably initially thought that these disciples were believers. He quickly found out, however, that they were disciples of John. They had not even heard of the Holy Spirit. They had experienced the baptism of repentance but not the baptism in the Spirit, which comes when you place your faith in Christ. They were then baptized in the Spirit as they placed their faith in Christ. They then manifested their new faith in tongues and prophesy. This was very much a one-stage affair.

3. The final passage, Acts 8:4-25, is the most difficult to understand. Here, Luke tells of the Gospel spreading to Samaria. Philip was preaching and performing miracles. These miracles gave visible evidence to the truth of his claims. People were delivered from demon possession and others were healed and there was great joy in the city. Then a man named Simon, who was a sorcerer, comes along. He had long been looked up to in the city. Now, people were focused on Philip. Simon was astounded by the signs and the passage says that he, along with many others, believed and was baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. When word got back to the apostles in Jerusalem, they sent Peter and John to check it out. And “they prayed that they might receive the Holy Spirit for He had not yet come down on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. In this instance, the Spirit came through the laying on of hands. Simon was severely rebuked when he offered money to have the same power in his hands. What do we do with this passage?

• It would be foolhardy to say that the baptism in the Holy Spirit has to come from the laying on of hands. The apostles did not have hands laid on them at Pentacost. Cornelius did not either. In the next passage, the Ethiopian Eunuch did not. In fact, we don’t see the laying on of hands associated with the baptism in the Holy Spirit in overwhelming majority of recorded conversions in the Bible.
• Some have stated that the Samaritans were caught up with the moment but were not really believers. This interpretation struggles because it clearly states that they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Simon? He may be a different story. His actions bely his heart, and he is chastised for it. We don’t see that in any of the others, though.
• Here is an explanation that makes more sense to me. This delay could be a visual evidence of the bridge that the gospel was creating between two historically opposed groups of people: Jews and Samaritans. In this instance, God delays the coming of the Spirit on the new believers precisely so that representatives of the apostles from Jerusalem can witness Samaritans being fully initiated into the Christian community - the family of God. The testimony that Peter and John would take back would go a long way toward reconciling the schism between these two groups.

Is this exactly why it there is a delay? I don’t know, but I do know what the clear teaching of Scripture tells us about the sealing and baptism in the Spirit: He comes when we believe, placing our faith in Christ. Could it be that Luke includes this event precisely because it is so unusual? To take this event as normative for Christian walk in the Spirit, we would need more evidence. The evidence we have points to its rarity not its frequency.

By the way, as stated in my previous post, the filling of the Spirit and the baptism in the Spirit are two different things. As I preached this past week, we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes moment by moment type of thing.

Being filled with the Spirit means: I empty myself of the things that separate me from intimacy with the Lord and, to the fullest of my conscious knowledge, I give the fullest control of my life over to Jesus.

Well, don’t you love it how a plan comes together?  Do you ever suffer from “tyranny of the urgent?”  That refers to those times when your schedule seems to be continually deterred by the needs and demands of the urgent.  I had a plan for this week and it totally took another direction.  Don’t get me wrong.  Most of these scheduling detours were for good things.  Most of them had ministry written all over them.  Good things?  Definitely.  Best things?  Not so sure.

So, here I am within a half hour of Friday and I have not accomplished hardly anything that I set out to do this week.  It has just been one of those crazy weeks.  I feel like I have definitely been a Martha this week in desperate need to follow Mary’s example.

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

I really feel that the Lord is telling me: “Bill, Bill.  You are trying to do so many things and accomplishing none of them with excellence.  Choose the one thing that is needed.  Seek first Me and everything else will fall into place (Matthew 6:33).”

So…I am going to seek Him first and invest some time in fellowship with my Lord.  I “plan” to get out that second part on the baptism of the Holy Spirit on Monday, but we will see.

In the meantime, if you are like me - a little frazzled and frustrated with your schedule - then take a breath, kick back, dig into the Word, and snuggle up in the loving embrace of your heavenly Father.

I am preaching a series on the Holy Spirit The second sermon in the series was this past Sunday, May 11, and it was entitled “The Seal is For Real!” Can you guess what the sermon was about? You got it: The sealing of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. In that sermon, I mentioned that I believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit happens at the point of conversion for the believer. This view contrasts many today who say that the baptism of the Spirit is some sort of second blessing that comes at some point after conversion and is often evidenced by speaking in tongues. They often see salvation as being a two-stage initiation. During my sermon I did not have time for fully go into detail regarding the foundation for my view, so I wanted to use my blog as an opportunity to do so.

To keep this simple, I’m splitting it into two blogs. Today’s will be showing the Scriptural support for my views. The second (coming Friday) will address the three passages in Acts that are often used to support the second blessing view.

For starters, let me state just a couple of relevant exegetical or hermeneutical (biblical interpretation) principles.

1. When the common sense reading of the passage makes perfect sense, then seek no other sense.
2. Narrative passages are often descriptive rather than prescriptive. They still contain valuable principles for us and have been included in the Word for a purpose, but that does not always make them normative for daily Christian living (Hello, Onan!).
3. Scripture helps interpret Scripture. Passages that are clearly teaching truth and giving us instruction should be used to help interpret narrative passages…not vice versa.

So, here is why I believe the baptism of the Spirit occurs at the moment an individual places his or her faith in Christ.

• There are only seven explicit references to the Spirit baptism in the Bible. All seven represent initiating individuals into the New Covenant (a.k.a. salvation). We find that the first six all compare/contrast the baptism of John the Baptist (repentance and water) with the baptism of Jesus (Spirit). [Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; Acts 11:16] There is no mention of Jesus saving individuals and then the Spirit comes later. Obviously, the Holy Spirit first came down to baptize believers at Pentecost (Acts 2). This was the initial coming. Now, however, Jesus is baptizing the believer in the Holy Spirit at the time of conversion.
• The seventh reference is found in 1 Corinthians 12:13. “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” It is precisely in the context of speaking about diverse spiritual gifts within the body of Christ that Paul states we are all baptized by one Spirit…regardless of the gift any individual has received. It is not merely those speaking in tongues; it is all believers. We all “drink” of that one Spirit.
• Jesus told Nicodemus that to be born again and see the Kingdom of God, one must be born of water and the Spirit. The presence of the Spirit is essential in salvation.
• I preached this past Sunday out of Ephesians 1:13-14 (2 Corinthians 1:21-22 is somewhat of a parallel to these verses). Neither of these literally refer to baptism in the Spirit, but both speak to an important role that the Holy Spirit plays in our lives when we give our lives to Christ.
• Ephesians 1:13 states: “In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation - in Him when you believed - were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” (bold italics mine) When you heard and believed, you were sealed. Done. Finished. You were marked with the Holy Spirit when you came to faith in Christ.
• 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 states: “Now the One who confirms us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God; He has also sealed us and given us the Spirit as a down payment in our hearts.” There is no indication here that the seal, the presence of the Holy Spirit with us, is after salvation. The sealing is part of our salvation.

I will stop there for now. I want to say that even though we are baptized in the Spirit at conversion, there is still a daily need for the filling of the Spirit. The filling and the baptism are very different aspects of our life in the Spirit. At salvation, we get all of the Holy Spirit (not just an installment). With the filling, the Spirit gets all of us. That is what I am going to preach on this coming Sunday (May 18).

Check out Friday’s blog as I address the passages in Acts.