Category: Theology

The fountainhead, the roots of all human rights progress in the West can be traced to biblical influence.  Only nations that have these biblical roots have embraced the quest for human rights and outside of this influence, it is unknown.  So, historian Tom Holland, an atheist, in England argues. The magnificent writings of the great scholar Rodney Stark shows this in several books.   See his, For the Glory of God, How Monotheism led to Reformation, Science, Witch Hunts, and the End of Slavery.  Fighters for human rights on a biblical basis have been the key to real progress. Of course, not all professors of faith had any real commitment to human rights, but those who were motivated by God and biblical teaching to fight for progress were greatly influential.  Here are two examples of the kind of biblical teaching that got seeded into the world through the spread of Christianity,  

“From one he made every nation of men to live on the face of the earth, having set appointed times and the boundaries of their territory.  They were to search for Him, and perhaps grope around for Him and find Him.  Yet He is not far from each of us.” Acts 17:26,27 TLV

“With it (the tongue) we bless our ADONAI and curse people, who are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26, 27 ref.) . . .  these things should not be so.  James 3:9,10.  TLV

Search as you will the ancient traditions and literature of the world and you will not find the idea that every individual is of special importance as crated in the image of God.  We can not make progress by persecuting and mistreating others!

Christian rooted cultures (those who were historically Christian influenced) produced two kinds of movements for human rights.  First are the movements whose vision and values are in accord with Scripture.  They are best led by committed Christians like Martin Luther King.  Sometimes people in these movements are not Christians but so influenced by the Bible that their movement has a biblical character.  (Gandhi).  Others have a vision for a society and how they want the world to be.  However, there are often strong departures from biblical norms and values.  These movements become very destructive.  They are like cults from Christianity.  

The greatest example of the destructive cult movement for equality, Marxism, has done untold damage.  Whenever a society goes Marxist it must enforce its authoritarian order by oppression and violence.  The great adversarial relationship with China is due to its Marxist leaders from the early days of the Communist state, though China today is hardly true to Marxism though it is brutally authoritarian and oppressive.  Tens of millions have been slaughtered in the quest for equality in human rights.  The idea of equality in regard to equal outcomes in income, wealth accumulation, and more as a state policy leads to terrible destruction, though of course as Messiah’s followers may voluntarily give up wealth for higher callings.  We think of the revolutions. Whether or not we think the United States revolution was justified, Christian or Judeo Christian values dominated the leaders.  In the French Revolution, a wholesale rebellion against God and biblical values were ensconced.   The slaughter for equality is terrible. Sometimes you can tell the difference easily.  More biblically rooted movements value human life and eschew violence and oppression as a way to a more just society.  However, for Marxist and other evil supposed equality movements, violence and death for those in the way is accepted.  For Marxist equality, millions can be slaughtered. Marxism always leads to great oppression and more poverty in Cuba, Venezuela, N. Korea, China, and Russia.  China now moves away from Communist equality toward enterprise and wealth disparities but they maintain the authoritarianism. (See my book Social Justice.  Justice is not equality generally but only in biblically defined contexts)

One other key to biblical human rights is that they are based on biblical norms of morality.  Fostering destructive patterns of life cannot be fostered as human rights.  Today so-called human rights are toward destructive behaviors being celebrated and an enforced affirmation of these behaviors.  These behaviors will lead to family destruction and greater poverty.   Yet, we are to treat people who hold to such wrong ideas and foster such destructive movements with love and dignity since they are created in God’s image. The battle is fought on the basis of ideas and not on the basis of their oppression and persecution. 

I recently got a message that Paul David Yonggi Cho, the former pastor of the World’s largest church died. 

In 1986 I was part of a committee of leaders that sponsored a church growth conference with Dr. Cho.   Several hundred pastors came, some noted, including Dr. Richard C. Halvorson, before he became the Chaplain to the U. S. Senate.   Cho spoke about how God had spoken to him when he was pastor of a little church that he would pastor the largest congregation in the World.  What an outlandish word to receive.  Yet the proof of the pudding is in the eating.  In his presentations, Cho asserted that God gave him this huge church and ministry to convey two messages.  The first was that all churches were to grow through cell groups that were both pastoral to the people in them, and evangelistic.  The second was the importance of prayer.  Early morning corporate prayer was central. Cho joked that one time he was so tired but left for prayer just the same and did not realize he was in his pajamas.  They also created prayer mountains for prayer retreats.  We were privileged to minister many times in Korea and experience Korean prayer. However, I think there was a third message.  It was supernatural signs and wonders flowing from prayer that is a key to evangelism.  Cho told many stories.  He was unassuming and delightful.  Those of us who applied his teaching were very blessed.  

However, I have one personal story, an amazing one.  Patty was nursing our youngest son, Samuel.  We came to the restaurant where the committee was to meet and have lunch with Pastor Cho.  Somehow, Patty and I were the first in the room, so we thought we would just wait for the rest of the committee.  At that moment, Patty was overwhelmed with thirst and just had to have a drink of water.  She decided to sit down at the table and drink the water which had been poured into the glasses.  As she was drinking, Dr. Cho walked in but there were still no others.  He decided to sit down opposite to us.  We introduced ourselves and I explained our Jewish ministry.  Dr. Cho remarked that in some ways, Israel is like Korea, between Empires that want to take them over, China and Japan with Korea, like Israel with Egypt and Assyria and fighting for their independence.  

Then out of the blue (I think the Spirit of prophecy came on him), he pointed his finger at Patty and said, “You must praise your husband.”  This was a shock.  Patty asked, “What do you mean.”  He said, again, “You must praise your husband.”  Then Patty, of good English stock with stiff upper lip  said she was taught, “If I praise him too much he will get a swelled head.” Cho responded that she should not worry about that, for “Other people will pop his bubble, but you must praise your husband.” Needless to say, I was not unhappy about the pastor of the largest church in the world giving Patty this prophetic word. 

In December 1971 we were married just less than six months.  We were having a great struggle.  The fault was mine. I was trying to criticize my dear bride that she might conform to some of my ideals (not from God but what I wanted).  She was wounded deeply, and we were alienated.  I went for a walk and got a big rebuke from the Spirit.  He spoke to me and said that I was destroying my marriage.  I was commanded to not focus on what displeased me but on all the good that Patty was and did and ignore the other.  I was told to praise her and that paise was the soil in which she would grow.  Some years later at a leadership conference with Myles Monroe, the famous late pastor from Nassau, Bahamas, he taught this as a principle for husbands and laid the primary responsibility on them for the success of their marriage. But now, in 1986, almost 15 years later, Patty was given this message.  

When I received this word from the Spirit in 1971 (and I claimed to not be charismatic!) it turned our marriage around dramatically. I deeply repented to Patty.  Then Patty received her word from Cho.  It does not mean that we do not discuss issues, or problems in ways that we behave that are not helpful, but the soil of our marriage is mutual praise and growing in gratitude.  As we did this, year by year we grew in perceiving the treasure of the other.  We learned to serve the other first and not ask how well we were being served.  Some of you read that after 50 years of marriage, the passion of our love is sometimes like infatuated young lovers, but with a stability of life experience and appreciation and depth that young love can not know.  

Thank you Dr. Paul David Yonggi Cho for giving a push in this direction of praise toward the joy of love.  We are thankful for your life. 

I am sitting in my study.  This morning during devotions, I was reflecting on Rosh Hoshana. Once again, this year is not the normal Rosh Hoshana where were we go to services, sing liturgy and hear the sound of the shofar.  The Delta COVID spike has changed that for us. I loved our gatherings when I was leading our congregation in Maryland.  We had such wonderful times of worship with a Yeshua-centered liturgy. The presence of the Spirit was so precious.

Today’s reflections were on the meaning of this day.  Biblically, I think that the meaning of the day was just to bring an exclamation point that on the Jewish biblical calendar, this month was of crucial importance.  The first month, Passover, and now the seventh month are most important times on the calendar.  In seventh month, we were to experience forgiveness on the Day of Atonement and all that is connected to it. (Lev. 16, 23)   The 15^th to 23^rd centered on the great harvest festival, Sukkot, and its concluding time of the 8^th day sabbath celebration, Shemini Atzeret.  Rosh Hoshana, (not the biblical name) is the wake up call of preparation and accentuates the whole month. Maimonides noted this wake up call for sleepers, a key meaning of the sound of the Shofar.  The actual biblical name is the day of the blowing of the Shofar, Yom Teruah.   

Yet, I am not averse to the Rabbinic meaning given to the day, the memorial of the first day of creation.  There is no proof that the first day of creation was on Tishri 1.  The Sabbath is a memorial of the 7 days of the Genesis account of God creating the heavens and the earth.  However, it does not commemorate first moments of creation, “In the beginning, God created.”

The Genesis account now has an agreement with scientists.  Orthodox Jewish scientists and conservative Christian scientists and other theists are happy about this agreement.  Atheist scientists, not so much.  I want to write about the Genesis 1:1.  The Universe had a beginning.  The famous astronomer, Frederick Hoyle, posited the steady-state theory of the universe.  It was the preferred view of atheists and agnostics.  The universe always just was, is and will be as it is now, everlasting cycles as in Hinduism.  Galaxies, stars and solar systems come into being and pass away in an everlasting process with no beginning or end.  Today, no one holds this view. The scientific evidence is so very strong against it.  The Universe had a beginning.  Some have called it the big bang theory since the universe constantly expands from a tiny point beginning smaller than the ballpoint on a pen.  From that concentration of matter, all has come.  There really was no bang, though the idea of an explosion fits the expansion.  It is rather a singularity event of beginning. It fits Genesis 1:1 perfectly.  This is so upsetting to some!  They even posit multiple universes and many such singular beginnings in some other unmeasured or undetectable dimension (It can never be discovered since it is beyond our universe to which we are limited.)  They will appeal to it for their defense of evolution.  It is special pleading with no evidence at all.

The argument for the existence of God from design is the second part of my article today.  Not only is there a beginning, but there is simply no way to account for the universe and life on planet earth including human life without positing an intelligent designer.  The idea of chance evolution is not new.  It was posited by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras.  A chance evolution view was put forth as well by Epicurious, the Greek, and by Lucretius in Latin.   For the latter two, chance assembled all that exists by tiny particles colliding and joining.  Darwin sought to give chance more sophistication but it really was the same argument ultimately as these ancients.  He posited the idea of survival of the fittest once life came into being to explain the upward line of development ending in human intelligence.  Of course, this did not fit the fact that on a survival and adaptive basis simple celled animals have greater survival capability.  Today, Darwin’s simplistic view and all other iterations over the years have now been found to be bankrupt since the simplest cell is as organized as New York city.  That the organization of the cell is a most complex integrated reality that cannot evolve from simpler forms shows the impossibility of evolution. There is no simpler form that a cell can evolve from. 

However, there has not been a catch up in the culture to what some know for sure, a paradigm shift.  You can read about the impossibility of naturalistic evolution and the irreducible complexity (Michael Behe’s term) or specified complexity (William Dempski’s term) that show it to be impossible.  It is summarized in Orthodox Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder’s writings.  The evidence is so irrefutable that two of the most notable atheists have concluded that naturalistic evolution is impossible.  Antony Flew, the leading atheist philosopher in Britain, wrote a book asserting God Exists near the end of his life. This was a bombshell considering Flew’s history.  Then Thomas Nagel, whom some consider to be the greatest American philosopher, now emeritus, from New York University, historically an atheist, has argued that naturalistic evolution is impossible in his important book Mind and Cosmos.  Read a few of these sources and be amazed!

How can this be answered?  Again, only with special pleading speculation.  Maybe if our universe is one of an almost infinite number of universes that come into being and pass away, then what is impossible according to chance statistics becomes possible.  This does not work, not at all, since the issue is that in an evolutionary view, life had to arise spontaneously from inorganic life.  The first cell was so complex that it could not be done.  Therefore, the impossibilities of evolution from simpler to complex life based on the possibilities given this world’s beginnings according to the theory of evolution, is again impossible.

Finally, there is the issue of an anthropic universe.  Astrophysicists use this term to demonstrate that the whole universe seems specifically designed to support human life on earth.  The very forces of basic physics, strong and weak forces in atoms, gravity and the effect of galaxies on this earth, show an exact confluence of mathematical chance impossibilities that occur none the less.  Paul Davis, Michael Denton and Gerald Schroeder and many others argue this.  The answer of the atheists?  The same special pleading of multiple universes.  Yes, they will say, it is extraordinarily unlikely that such a universe that is so fine-tuned so as to support human life would exist.  However, if many universes exist and come into being and pass away, over infinite time, one would exist that is fine-tuned and really looks designed.  Of course, there is no evidence for this at all.  Again, on the idea of the complexity of the cell itself it is impossible within the universe that does exist.

So, from the big bang, or the singularity event of the beginning, to the complexity of the cell to the fine tuning of the whole universe, it is certain that the universe exists only by the will of an infinite intelligent designer.  Why is this now denied?  In the year 2021 the evidence is overwhelming.  Is it because these folks do not want to believe in God?

When I was a young leader in Chicago at Adat HaTikvah, we rented from a Presbyterian Church.  I was at that time an ordained Presbyterian minister with hopes of influencing the Church to return to a more Evangelical orientation.  The Pastor of the church was a homosexual who argued that the Bible was written a long time ago before our more advanced knowledge of psychology and genetics.  We would have to adjust our moral stands to take into account this greater understanding.  We maintained a friendly relationship.  I did not know any details about his personal life.  However, in the Presbytery of Chicago, I was part of a vocal contingent that argued against this new re-adjustment.  Most of us who so argued had a high view of Scripture, that every text taught the truth when understood according to the claim of the author in context (inerrancy-see my summary in Dan Cohn-Sherbuk, Voices of Messianic Judaism, “Biblical Authority” 19-28).  Those who argued against our view had a lower view of Scripture as containing revelation, but an imperfect book.  Though we held off the moral revisionists for a season, they eventually prevailed.  They controlled 6 of the 7 major seminaries of the denomination.  Then I observed the rapid decline of the denomination (I left in 1981 on good terms).  From 5.5 million members to under 2 million, but in real terms today, maybe only a million.  There was a profession of respect for the Bible, but generally, the idea was that we must negotiate a position that accommodates modern culture.  Many other mainstream denominations also took this direction with similar declines, such as the Episcopal Church, from 3 million to under 1 million.  It was then that Dean Kelly wrote his monumental study, Why Conservative Churches are Thriving.  This is not as much today as conservative churches in America have switched to a feel-good Christianity rather than the radical call to the cross and discipleship.  However, we learned from those years of steep decline from 1975 to 2005.  

Many of the early leaders in the Messianic Jewish world were trained in the best of Evangelical institutions.  They entered their work of evangelism, planting, and pastoring holding to a high view of Scripture with confidence that on the foundational issues of theology and morals Scripture was clear (the two are intertwined) and that the consensus of the Church throughout history on these matters was firmly established.  My own professor and mentor on biblical authority was the Dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Dr. Kenneth Kantzer, whom I consider the finest teacher on these issues in the 20th century.  Dr. Walter Kaiser, who later became the President of Gorden Conwell Seminary, was also an influence.   Dr. Kaiser was one of the early teachers in our Messianic Jewish yeshivot.  

One other book was a seminal influence, Christ and Culture, by H. Richard Niebuhr.  Niebuhr argues for respecting cultures but with the centrality of Christ and his teaching being the key for what is discarded and what can be redeemed and transformed.  He argued against the liberal orientation where Christ is subsumed under culture so that what is left is not a vibrant biblical orientation.  

This all produced a foundation for me and many others where we seek to understand the universal absolutes of Biblical teaching according to its own context of cultural background for interpretation.  Then we seek to present those claims, including the claims of the Gospel, in the most relevant way, but without compromising those absolutes.   Many who do not believe in the full trustworthiness of Scripture cannot over the long time succeed in this work but will in the end compromise Biblical teaching to accommodate the culture.  It is not that there is new evidence in the culture really refutes biblical teaching.  Rather the strong cultural push against historic biblical morals is a matter of propaganda.  

Today we face a new shaking, and the Messianic Jewish world is not insulated from it.  The center of it connects to sexual identity agendas which are being given an enormous propaganda push by the left.  It includes such matters as the push back against the traditional teaching of Yeshua that God’s standard was lasting marriage without divorce of one man and one woman for life (Matthew 18); the rejection of pre-marital sex and cohabitation without marriage, and the clear standard of Torah that rejects confusion in regard to the identity of male and female.  This also includes a more tolerant acceptance of abortion. Those denominations that have embraced a cultural accommodation in steady decline.  No Church stream that is growing in evangelism and discipleship (Kingdom expansion) has embraced the cultural accommodation.  This includes Africa, India, China, East Asia, Southeast Asia and South America.  For all who are confused or in these wrong orientations, the power of the Gospel offers deliverance though repentance and submission to Yeshua.  His word remains, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  I just do note that the formation of the new Anglican association, GAFCON, our of African and Asia is now the growing segment of Anglicanism and has totally rejected the liberalizing trends. 

This also relates to the Messianic Jewish approach to halakha.  I accept the fact that there are new situations presented by today’s society that require thinking about how biblical principles apply to new situations.  How do we apply the principles of the Sabbatical year and Jubilee to a modern age when the situation of agriculture is so different and wealth distribution cannot be done by a return to ancestral land?  How do we deal with medical issues that were never even considered in ancient days such as artificial insemination, or genetic medicine to produce cures?  What about cloning?  What about extending life through genetic manipulation?  Also, how do we apply biblical injunctions on caring for the environment?  What is consistent for Jewish people in keeping the Sabbath today and not working and what is not under the New Covenant consistent with Shabbat observance.  But halakha must not come up with adjustments or changes in Biblical absolutes such that spoken by the word of Yeshua that we make void the Word of God through our traditions.  Rabbi Lawrence Schiffman in his From Text to Tradition,  clarifies that though the Torah has a high place of authority in Rabbinic Judaism, Rabbinic authority superseded biblical authority.  This we must not allow.  If we do, we will slide into decline just like the mainline denominations.  Of course liberal Judaism has made this radical adjustment.  

All of this relates to how we approach all the issues of LGBTQ people.  Reaching out in compassion is crucial.  Accommodation in a way that could be taken as accepting ways of life that violate absolute biblical norms must not be done.  Not only would such accommodations lead to our decline, but we would be lending ourselves to the possible damnation of those Yeshua came to save, whose salvation depends on repentance and seeking to live by biblical norms.  I am for the accommodations that welcome inquirers into our midst, but our evangelism to these groups will no doubt be much more connected to developing relationships outside of the meeting spaces of our communities.   

On a practical note, the fact of aberrant sexual orientations should be understood in a multifaceted way.  There are many factors that aid in ministry.  Some can be due to just being born after the fall such that design in creation is marred.  God has power for us to overcome such handicaps.  Secondly, there are environmental factors, upbringing, and the earliest memories.  Thirdly, there is demonic power though in a modern world we do not like to realize that there is very powerful demonic forces at work.  There are intergenerational negative inheritances.  Then there is a too rigid cultural definition of what counts as male and female ways of living.  On a ministry-level, there is much needed.  I recommend studying the writings of Messianic Jewish Scholar Michael Brown, Albert Moeller (former head of the Southern Baptist Association), and the pastoral writings of Leanne Payne. 

Imagine the Gospel story if it read like this.  

Yeshua called his 12 disciples and brought them to a special retreat in Galilee.  The trauma of Roman occupation and hard dealings with zealot terrorists was such that these disciples would not be able to do ministry for some years. After a few years of intense ministry for inner healing and deliverance, he established some communities where others could find the same benefits.  

Of course, there were many traumatized in first-century Israel, but those who were called by Yeshua entered the work and were healed as they walked in the power of God and were able to see God work through them as He worked through Yeshua.  This level of power in the Gospel is something that in the American Church, we do not know well. 

Yeshua’s ministry was primarily and first to those we call marginalized.  Early in his ministry, Yeshua announced the character of his work in these terms, 

“The Ruach ADONAI (Sprit of the LORD) is on me,

Because He has anointed me

to proclaim Good News to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim 

release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free the oppressed,

and to proclaim the year of 

ADONAI’S favor. 

This quote is from Isaiah 61.  The context of the Jubilee reset where lands returned to their original owners such that the whole country experienced a new economic reset.  Though the ministry of Yeshua invited all, the focus was on the marginalized and He indeed set them free as did the Apostles and the 70 in Luke 9, 10.  The Beatitudes of Matthew 5 should be understood in the same way. 

The American Church has pursued all kinds of goals but has not generally put the focus where Yeshua placed it.  He expected those who ministered with him to find healing in the “As you go,” ministry to others rather than a focus on self.  I have often asked the question.  What if the American Church was filled with Holy Spirit power and focused its efforts on the marginalized with effectiveness?  Would we still have a Black Lives Matter Movement and an increase in neo-Marxist ideas today?  I think not.  What if the Church was effective in power with those who are bound by drugs, or those with gender dysphoria?  What if even the blind would be healed, and the lame would walk?  Imagine the credibility of the Church and the progress of the Gospel in American society!

There is a new growing emphasis on Luke 4:18. I was focused on this when I heard that our friend Mike Bickle of International House of Prayer was embracing a prophetic time of focus on Luke 4:18 to be one of the defining foundations of their ministry.  Though it is not large at this point, this emphasis is growing and could be part of revival and restoration in the American Church.  

Luke 4:18 presented a ministry vision for the marginalized in Israel in the first century.  We have so many that are marginalized in Israel today, and some congregations and ministries are giving themselves to a Luke 4:18 focus.  I hope that this will be a growing key to the Messianic Jewish movement in Israel.  

A few years back, our friend Mike Bickle recommended a book that had greatly increased his understanding of the beauty of the LORD and beauty itself.  It was by the Catholic Theologian Thomas Dubay.  Patty, my wife, first read this book and was very enthusiastic about it.  Then I read it.  It almost takes your breath away.  

In Dubay’s presentation, beauty, truth, and goodness are intertwined.  The beautiful is the true.  He even notes scientist after scientist who declared that the theory more likely to be true is the most beautiful one.  This is also asserted in the very difficult but amazing book by chemist philosopher Michael Polyani, Personal Knowledge.  

Dubay presents the evidence of beauty in the world of art including music and presents the nature of beauty as a reflection of our being created in the image of God.  He presents the evidence of science.  The macrocosmic, that is the universe of galaxies and the amazing order. Yes, it is order and not something random, and all is ordered in a way to support life on earth.  He presents the microcosm, each cell an ordered and beautiful complexity that is as complex as New York City.  This has prompted America’s most famous philosopher Thomas Nagel in his book, Mind and Cosmos, to declare that the Darwinian theory of evolution is systematically impossible.  Then he describes the amazing beauty of the midcosm, creation on the plain of our normal existence, plants, animals, rocks, and trees.  By the time he is done, if you are not jaded by a weak life upbringing and disappointments, you are greatly inspired.   Great athleticism is also part of this realm of beauty. 

However, he leaves the greatest description of beauty to be the life of Yeshua, his amazing death for our sins and his resurrection.  It is the beauty of the LORD revealed in fullness.  

In our days at Wheaton College, Professor Clyde Kilby, a friend of C. S. Lewis, sought to awaken students to beauty, to open them to wonder, and then to the reality of God perceived in the experience of wonder. The great Rabbi scholar, Abraham Joshua Heschel, spoke of human beings finding themselves in a universe that shows grandeur everywhere. I am well aware of our struggle with the problem of evil and doubt.  However, the grandeur and beauty of life is much the greater reality.  

One of the very sad aspects of the generation growing up is a jadedness that cannot perceive beauty and the grandeur of creation.  They are jaded by hours of brain-deadening screen time and coarse musical entertainment.  I wonder how much unbelief is rooted in a culture that cannot perceive beauty.  Higher education seems to have lost the quest for truth, beauty, and goodness.  This follows along with one of my recent articles.  Our calling is to become a counter-culture where our young are educated and trained to recognize beauty and to be moved by it.  We have to overcome a culture where nothing wonderful captures the imagination of our young.  So many commit suicide because they are just blind to the reality of that which gives joy.   For us who follow Yeshua, the greatest revelation of truth, beauty, and goodness is in the Scriptures, brought to their height in the New Covenant Scriptures.  As we read them, we should ask, how is it possible that something this wonderful can be written.  Amazement at the person of Yeshua, the ideals, the morals and ethics of the text, the power of the Spirit, and more should capture and move us.  May it be so.  I do recommend to you all this wonderful book.  I want to read it once a year. 

Before Messianic Judaism in our lives from about 1970-1971, Patty and I were on a quest to ask, “What really is the nature of the Church?”  This question came in a context where secular writers were ringing alarm bells on the social trends in America, the loss of the stability of place, friendships, extended family, and local neighborhoods.  We were mere economic pawns in the system and we were allowing our lives to revolve around money and the ease of mobility for seeking greener pastures.  The end of these trends was deep alienation and loss.  Surely, we thought, the Church must have an answer to this problem.   We were also very discouraged by what we experienced as we looked for a church and experienced only what I now call “Go to meeting church.”  Sit down, stand, sing a hymn, have announcements, have a hymn, an offering, have a special music piece, have a sermon, an invitation, then a benediction, and go home.  The special music might have been really special and the sermon quite good, but … but.   “Where was the community?” We asked.  

Then we discovered Acts 2:42 ff. and groups of people who believed that the local churches should build communities of relationships that last, like an extended family, and that these churches were the key to discipleship.  Without committed lasting covenant relationships, discipleship would be greatly hindered.  We had to be committed together to make disciples and to motivate one another to deeper discipleship.  We anticipated the great teaching of Dallas Willard in his Divine Conspiracy, that one is discipled when he or she generally obeys the commandments of Yeshua.  We have sought to apply this throughout our ministry.  To mitigate against congregational hoping and moving away, we sought to encourage the people to only leave the community if convinced of the leading of the Spirit. Ultimately a person has to obey what he or she thinks the Spirit is saying.  However, to put a governor on this and the human ability to rationalize carnal desires, we asked all to test what they said the Spirit was saying and to seek confirmation with their closest friends and leaders.  Ultimately it was their decision without any negative onus.  This has worked well for us for over 49 years.  We found that a Messianic Jewish pattern of life was greatly helpful in community building.  

Today there is a new movement that adds to our knowledge of discipleship in community. One of our leadership couples in Tikkun America, Daniel and Berilyn Gillespie encouraged us to look into it.  The leaders of this movement teach that without bonding in a community where all embrace mutual encouragement and correction, discipleship does not usually take place.  This movement grew out of a ministry in Pasadena, California, the Shepherd’s House.  The center of the teaching of Shepherd’s House is that the heart is the key to discipleship, not just the head or intellectual content as is the emphasis of many churches.  They call this right-brain discipleship.  To make sure we avoid philosophic materialism, I like to speak of it as right-brain/soul or heart since all that we see in the brain exists in another dimension in the spiritual realm.  A simple introduction for understanding this teaching is the book The Other Half of the Church by Michael Hendricks and Jim Wilder.  In his last years, Dallas Willard embraced Shepherd’s House and the organization that grew out of it, Life Model Works.  This is now growing into a movement including networks of congregations.   The goal is quality discipleship.  This takes place by developing bonded relationships of love and kindness, hesed, in Hebrew.  This leads to a community where the habits of the heart are in accord with the Word and Spirit.  It is a community where the love of enemies prevails and the narcissism in all of us is overcome.  

It has never been my goal to build big or to build small but to build faithfully with the people God brings into our sphere of responsibility as elder shepherds. God’s concern is twofold.  One is the quality of discipleship in community, that is what happens to people connected in our congregations.  The second is the ability of the congregation to reach out in love to those who do not know Yeshua and draw them into the community.  When we think of ministry to the Jewish people, there are so many of our people that are wounded, confused, and hurting.  We can be a loving community of healing for our people.  This kind of community will draw them through love that is real.  

    

One of my privileges was to meet and spend time with John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard network.  He actually had a word from God to reach out to me from reading a brochure on a conference I was a part of.  This was quite amazing!  Wimber was famous for revealing the reality of the Holy Spirit, his gifts and his moving through a congregation.  He would say, “Holy Spirit come.”  People would be moved, laugh, cry, prophecy, be healed and so much more.  This was a special calling and gift.  When others asked Wimber about it and how they could see it in their congregations, he said you can do the same thing, just say, “Holy Spirit come.”  Often, they would say this, and little would happen.  More prayer and seeking God was probably necessary.  But back to Wimber: he showed how the presence and power of the Spirit could be shown in large and small gatherings.  He showed how good government could prevent debacles.  As we look beyond Wimber’s central congregation in Anaheim, California, congregations that show the Spirit with maturity also show greater power in evangelism and motivating people to give their all to the Kingdom of God.  I have been observing this now for over 40 years.  This was so true in the days when I pastored. However, most congregations that say they believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit have little in the way of showing the Spirit.  

There are too many reasons why we have so little of the manifestations of the Spirit.  However, I will list a few.  

1. Leaders are afraid that if they open their congregations to member participation that things will get out of hand.  It will embarrass visitors.  Better to have an attractive and ordered gathering. 
2. Leaders have not been trained to govern services that are open to the manifestations of the Spirit.  This ability is caught more than taught.  They need to sit under others who are doing this well to have confidence that they can do it. 
3. Leaders have brought into the seeker-sensitive errors that depend on social-psychological methods to draw people rather than seeing the Spirit as the one who draws and knows how best to bring a reality such that people really do confront the truth. 
4. Leaders have not raised up a core of mature people who can prophesy with accuracy and good impact.  Good prophecy opens up a community and is emphasized in I Cor. 14 as the key gift to desire. 
5. Leaders have not understood that home gatherings are the places where a I Cor. 12,14 type of meeting can take place so that all can participate, and then those who are mature can be released into the larger meetings. 
6. Leaders are afraid to upset people by denying them the microphone.  If only vetted people can speak, then others will be offended.  So, it is thought best to let no one speak from the congregation.  This is a great mistake. 
7. Leaders have allowed unstable and rebellious people to publicly speak and minister. Having brought shame and tension, now the leader decides it is best to allow nothing of the participation of the members spontaneously. 
8. Leaders fear it will take too much time.  It need not if it is governed well, prophecy, some manifestations but ministry during ministry times.
9. Finally, leaders have not led their congregations to seek the Lord with prayer that they might be given the grace of his manifest presence. 

It has been amazing to me to see congregations that grew and prospered with a commitment to showing the Spirit pull back and become completely controlled.  Can the Spirit speak, act and re-direct?  Is He also Lord?  Allowing and welcoming the Spirit and his manifestations is a foundational value in Tikkun.  It is a key to seeing more drawn to the Gospel, more healed, delivered, and encouraged. 

One thing I have found, the Holy Spirit has to be invited and welcomed to show Himself in a tangible way.  Wimber was right in inviting, “Holy Spirit come.”  I am sure you can think of many more examples than the nine I listed.  We read in I Corinthians that “Jews seek a sign.”  I have found the reality of the Spirit revealed has been a key in Jewish people coming to know Yeshua. Members of congregations where the Spirit shows himself learn confidence that the Spirit will show Himself through them in the marketplace and wherever they share with people who do not know Yeshua.