Combined Meeting*
05 June 2006
The combined churches meeting last night was fantastic. I left greatly encouraged. It was great to have a big group (about 400 maybe?) all singing and God's praises in one place. I saw heaps of old mates and friends praising God united by the gospel. It was really good. The other cool thing is that it was real "gospel" unity that brought us together. I really can't stand polite showiness that brushes important theological differences under the table.
Rob White preached from Acts Chapter 2:1-13. I was a little under whelmed. Not because I think that he's a necessarily bad preacher. In fact I've heard him do a number of really challenging sermons especially early on in my Christian life. (I also thought that he was under appreciated my many of us at Crossroads especially early on).
Having said that though I found the structure of his talk confusing. Essentially we were to look at the Acts passage and see "vital signs". That is signs that bear witness to the power and purposes of God. Two of the OT signs seen in Acts were, firstly the "wind noise" linked to the wind in the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37 etc) and secondly the tongues of fire were linked to the burning bush (Moses etc) and Isaiah and the coals on his tongue. He also talked about speaking in languages (tongues) as a reversal of the tower of Babel confusion stuff. I wasn't sure about these connections and earmarked them for further investigation.
Also being a heavily evangelical gathering he spent considerable time on traditional "evangelical whipping boys". Conversion and baptism of the spirit go hand in hand, we shouldn't expect this stuff today blah blah. These seemed a little predictable for me and took up too much of his time. The rest was a little foggy. I also was a little foggy as to the exact take home message. But in all a good experience.
*This is NOT meant to be a bagout. I would have no idea how I'd go about preaching a sermon based on this passage and I respect Rob greatly. I'm merely trying to use the wisdom and discernment God has given me.
tags christian, church, review, thinking
Posts
Pentecost as the reversal of Babel is a strong interpretative link, I've heard it several times, and I think it's sound. But don't take my word for it, go meditate on the scriptures
- Seumas
You think you can catch Stephen Neal? You think a guy like that comes this close to getting fingered and sticks his head out? If he comes up for anything, it will be to get rid of me. After that, my guess is you'll never hear from him again.
And like that ... he's gone.
Of course, the best sermons are those in which you earmark things for further investigation. :)
Wind and Spirit are certainly connected - after all, they are the same word in both Hebrew and Greek. Fire is also used a lot in the OT to point to God's presence.
I think I understand what you're getting at - it isn't obvious how they would be signs of God working today. But hearing people speak the gospel in other languages certainly is.
Mike,
Its been a long time buddy! Nice to see you have started your own blog. Chris told me about it. What exactly are you holding in that picture of yours?
So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo.
Humpty you'll have to forgive me I'm a little puzzled as to who you are. Welcome anyway. Welcome slickster.
The items in my hand are window cleaning tools. The picture is one of my many "glamour" shots.
It sounds like half of the sermon was stuff you'd heard before, and the other half was stuff you weren't expecting?
Thanks for the comment Radagast.
I guess it was sort of something like you said. I really like it when those combined meetings go off with a bit of bang. It would have been better if the preach had had a bit more oomph.