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Discussion Forum : General Topics : Five Fold Ministry; is it back?

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intrcssr83
Member



Joined: 2005/10/28
Posts: 246
Logan City, Queensland, Australia

 Re:

Quote:
by CJaKfOrEsT on 2007/9/18 23:47:25

Secondly, these people assume that the "five fold" went somewhere, to be replaced by people like themselves. This easy when you try to define the "five fold" as "gifts given to people", rather than "people given as gifts". Why do they think that people hadn't bean sent of God (apostles)? Or that no one has been making bold declarations, contrary to the world (prophets)? People have always been preaching the Gospel faithfully (evangelists), loving their flocks sacrificially, by example (pastors), and regarding teachers, need I say more?



Sounds like some form of... "Post-Cessationism" i.e., "The gifts ceased in the 1st Century AD, but now they're back... for - Us!"
Such an idea is indeed arrogant as it suggests a degree of chronological and historical exclusivity.

Has anyone read Jack Deere's books?


_________________
Benjamin Valentine

 2007/9/20 10:48Profile
PaulWest
Member



Joined: 2006/6/28
Posts: 3405
Dallas, Texas

 Re:

Quote:
On the forum people are more likely to be blunt and strong about their beliefs but if you PM the people with whom you disagree or are offended then you'll find them ever so gracious and loving I assure you.



I can attest that this is true. If you find yourself in a heated discussion and getting nowhere, try PMing your opponent in gracious humility and with unfeigned love...and watch and see something wonderful happen. You will gain a dear friend, and when you meet again in the forum there will now be an unspoken bond of respect -- even if you still can't seem to see eye-to-eye. There is a way to disagree in love, and in the midst of peace, and such a spirit is well fostered in the private chambers of the PM. Some of my staunchest theological opponents here are my dearest friends, and are among my most respected and beloved brethren because of the PM.

Brother Paul


_________________
Paul Frederick West

 2007/9/20 11:03Profile
CJaKfOrEsT
Member



Joined: 2004/3/31
Posts: 901
Melbourne, Australia

 Re:

Quote:

intrcssr83 wrote:
Sounds like some form of... "Post-Cessationism" i.e., "The gifts ceased in the 1st Century AD, but now they're back... for - Us!"
Such an idea is indeed arrogant as it suggests a degree of chronological and historical exclusivity.



That is a very good way of putting it. Some of these guys even put dates on the return:

1960s Evangelists
1970s Teachers
1980s Pastors
1990s Prophets
2000s Apostles

On an interesting side, when I read [url=http://www.benisrael.org/writings/online_books/apostolic_foundations/af_contents.html]Apostolic Foundations[/url] by Art Katz, I went to my pastor and said told him of the "great book about Apostolic Christianity" that I was reading. His eyes lit up and said, "Wow, me too. I'm reading one by Peter Wagner."

Lets just say, I quickly changed the subject.


_________________
Aaron Ireland

 2007/9/20 11:17Profile









 Re:

Quote:
I can attest that this is true. If you find yourself in a heated discussion and getting nowhere, try PMing your opponent in gracious humility and with unfeigned love...and watch and see something wonderful happen. You will gain a dear friend, and when you meet again in the forum there will now be an unspoken bond of respect ...



May the Lord continue to bless you dear brother.. these words are cause to put many here, including myself to shame. I remember the first time that you PM'd me :0)

(Dont go getting puffed up now either)

love in Christ - Jim

 2007/9/20 11:49









 Re:

Tim-

You started your first post with name calling

Quote:
There will be pharasaical "fundies" who will argue against this movement of God, but they will find themselves at odds with the Holy Spirit.



and continued on here

Quote:
You Pharisees have no idea what you are talking about. What do televangelists have to do with the Latter-Rain movement?



defended and furthered your cause here

Quote:
I use "fundie" because I think it's cute and humorous. But you are far too serious to see that, I believe.



and yet wote this?

Quote:
I was hoping that this would be a chat site that would be educational and where people would be treated with love



then for the grand finish, drag me back into it!

Quote:
That would make "jimdied2sin" happy, I'm sure. To be honest, I am not interested in participating on this site, so I am "out of here".



Oh dear brother, with a smile on my face and love in my heart can I tell you how absurd this is! Know this though, many people on here including myself have been just as absurd at one time (and some may still consider me to be).

As one person said, you came on throwing punches yet claiming you were looking for peace. I hope you do stick around, I am learning a lot here and as brother Paul well said we do ourselves a great honour when we get to know the people behind the screen names, and a bond of respect, if not brotherly love, is built up even if in the midst of disagreement.

Blessings to you in Christ Tim-

Jim

 2007/9/20 12:08
Compton
Member



Joined: 2005/2/24
Posts: 2732


 Re:

Quote:
I am learning a lot here and as brother Paul well said we do ourselves a great honour when we get to know the people behind the screen names, and a bond of respect, if not brotherly love, is built up even if in the midst of disagreement.



Well put Paul and Jim.

Kindness is evidence of a spiritual man. Our triump isn't in gifted demonstrations, but in the sweet aroma of Christ...

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing...

Nor is our spiritual maturity demonstrated in simply having the best understanding of spiritual things, because at the end of the day...who is adequate for these things?

Christ's kindness, his love, is the sharpest most penetrating rebuke. ". . . love one another as I have loved you" ( John 15:12 ).

Really, I confess that all my 'lessons' seems to boil down to not learning this lesson....untill I learn it I remain a novice. Words here cannot convey the heartbreak this realization of my own character brings to me right now.

When I finally hear Jesus's command to love as he loved, I am stumped and see that all my striving to be wise has only been making me the worst kind of fool; an articulate fool. :-(

Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.

Blessings my dear brothers.

MC


_________________
Mike Compton

 2007/9/20 13:22Profile









 Re: Truth in Love = Love the Truth.

On the topic of this thread - what breaks our hearts is that people like Tozer and Ravenhill had hoped to see our day - yet I believe if they were still here with us - they'd have had it with the amount of self-proclaimed "apostles and prophets" that we have now.
I do believe that the five ministerial gifts were listed in the order they were for a very good reason - but Jesus warned us, that in these last days - that the increase in "prophets/teachers" would be part of the grand deception.
I didn't mean to contradict Paul on the other thread by saying that we need "discernment" more than prophets - because prophets are [should be]the "discerners" - but again, never in all my years have there been so many of those claiming to be prophets, of one sort or another - yet I feel as Ravenhill and Tozer did - of the need for this ministry to be included with the other 4. But such discernment is needed, as never before, to discern which are the true voices.

This posted with prayers by Tozer.

The Gift of Prophetic Insight A.W. Tozer

Excerpted from Of God and Men

"A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.

What God says to His church at any given period depends altogether upon her moral and spiritual condition and upon the spiritual need of the hour. Religious leaders who continue mechanically to expound the Scriptures without regard to the current religious situation are no better than the scribes and lawyers of Jesus' day who faithfully parroted the Law without the remotest notion of what was going on around them spiritually. They fed the same diet to all and seemed wholly unaware that there was such a thing as meat in due season. The prophets never made that mistake nor wasted their efforts in that manner. They invariably spoke to the condition of the people of their times.

Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.

There has probably never been another time in the history of the world when so many people knew so much about religious happenings as they do today. The newspapers are eager to print religious news; the secular news magazines devote several pages of each issue to the doings of the church and the synagogue; a number of press associations gather church news and make it available to the religious journals at a small cost. Even the hiring of professional publicity men to plug one or another preacher or religious movement is no longer uncommon; the mails are stuffed with circulars and "releases," while radio and television join to tell the listening public what religious people are doing throughout the world.

Greater publicity for religion may be well and I have no fault to find with it. Surely religion should be the most newsworthy thing on earth, and there may be some small encouragement in the thought that vast numbers of persons want to read about it. What disturbs me is that amidst all the religious hubbub hardly a voice is raised to tell us what God thinks about the whole thing.

Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?

Not the fact that the churches are unusually active these days, not what religious people are doing, should engage our attention, but why these things are so. The big question is Why? And no one seems to have an answer for it. Not only is there no answer, but scarcely is there anyone to ask the question. It just never occurs to us that such a question remains to be asked. Christian people continue to gossip religious shoptalk with scarcely as much as a puzzled look. The soundness of current Christianity is assumed by the religious masses as was the soundness of Judaism when Christ appeared. People know they are seeing certain activity, but just what it means they do not know, nor have they the faintest idea of where God is or what relation He has toward the whole thing.

What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present. Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late for us. We should know right now.

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.

We need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy."

 2007/9/20 15:50





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