Been real busy to blog. Hopefully I can get into the hang of it again

This is a study of a sermon that I attended. So far, in this entry I’ve only managed to cover the initial part. Not sure if I have the time to cover the rest

Let me state my current stand. Who knows, it might even change after my study of what the pastor said. But I doubt it. Anyway…

I believe in cessation of certain gifts. (namely, tongues, gifts and healing). This doesn’t mean the cessation of miracles happening though. We’ll explore further as we go on.

On hindsight, I realised I shouldn’t be blogging in parts, because the full picture is not presented. But going all at one go would be too much, and would take too long

At one point, the pastor decided to warn against an EVIL doctrine.

Evil doctrine?

He said that the day before, he had gone to a varsity to talk to a christian group, and one of the staff had mentioned that a student had left the group because the pastor of that church has taught the cessation of healing and miracles.
cessation of healing and miracles -> An evil doctrine? I suspect he was misquoting, and that the stand of the student is similar to mine. Am I believing in an evil doctrine. Yeah.. he used the words evil doctrine.

And on the weight of scriptures, healings and miracles are going to increase

Hmm….. anyway. let’s move on

He started off with an introduction of the Gospel Message and Man’s rebellion. Resulting in the problem of Spiritual Death and Physical Death. The solution of Spiritual Death is pretty obvious. Rom 10:9-10 John 1:12

So knowing the the dire consequences of sin, the pastor says we should thus go out ,

share the gospel to the masses, lay hands and heal the sick.

Uh. Right.

Jesus died for the healing of our bodies. And he then list a series of verses that indicate that Jesus died for both our spiritual salvation and healing of our earthly bodies

• Psalms 103:3
• Jeremiah 17:14
• Luke 5:24
• Isaiah 53:4-5
• Matthew 8:16-17
• 1 Peter 2:24

Psalms 103:3 This verse is pretty straight forward. I think obviously both would have to go hand in hand. Salvation is not a 50% thing. And in a way, the guilt of sin is taken away, and so is the power and consequence of sin. But when this healing of diseases will occur is unknown. My understanding is that it’ll take place in sanctification; when sin is mortified, the disease is healed.

Jeremiah 17:14 Uh. I read that Jeemiah was talking about spiritual healing. And also about healing from sin. I guess you can argue either ways. However, again, the passage doesn’t say anything about when the healing takes place. Same greek word healing as used in psalms

Luke 5:24 Hmm. I don’t see how this verse relates to what’s being preached. I thought this was about how forgiveness of Sin is more important. er. but without a deeper study inthis passage, I can’t say more.

Isaiah 53:4-5 While the it’s the same root word for healing as used in earlier verse, I don’t see how you can draw the conclusion that it’s physical healing. The hebrew word has the meaning of to mend, to repair, to make whole.

Matthew 8:16-17 Jesus healed the physically sick. Straightforward. But how does it apply to the point the preacher is trying to make

1 Peter 2:24 No indication that the verse is refering to physical ailments.

Oh yeah, later on in the sermon, the pastor mentioned that healing is for now on earth, because well, you won’t need healing in heaven with your new body. I disagreed with this point. Because… well.. the new body is the act of healing!

Anyway, I don’t know if I have time to cover the rest of the sermon. I’ll try though.

BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

I just keep coming across these articles, not that I’ve got anything special against catholics.

Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled “Why the Pope has an Astronomer”, said the idea of papal infallibility had been a “PR disaster”. What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept “somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority”.

“It’s not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear,” he said.

But the idea is that we have the word as the final authority that we check against, somethign that’s totally infallible. Not a guy who is fallible, and made to be the final authority.

¹This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

1 Cor 4:1

Since we’re called to be stewards of the mysteries of God, we should be aware of what these mysteries actually are.

Mystery of Godliness 1 Tim 3:16

Mystery of Iniquity 2 Thes 2:7

Mystery of Christ Eph 3:4

Mystery of Christ and the Church Eph 5:32

Mystery of the faith 1 Tim 3:9

Mystery of Israel Rom 11:25

Mystery of the Second Coming 1 Cor 11:26

Mystery of Babylon Rev 17:5

All the basic truths of the Bible