Growth: It Is a Matter of Biblical Interpretation and (sigh) Electric Guitars

A year and a half ago there was a story from the Guardian.com that required a little bit of background checking before posting it here. Their report on research into the characteristics of growing and declining mainline Protestant churches in Canada piqued my interest,

"Among the key findings are:

• Only 50% of clergy from declining churches agreed it was 'very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians', compared to 100% of clergy from growing churches.
• 71% of clergy from growing churches read the Bible daily compared with 19% from declining churches.
• 46% of people attending growing churches read the Bible once a week compared with 26% from declining churches.
• 93% of clergy and 83% of worshippers from growing churches agreed with the statement 'Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb'. This compared with 67% of worshippers and 56% of clergy from declining churches.
• 100% of clergy and 90% of worshippers agreed that 'God performs miracles in answer to prayers', compared with 80% of worshippers and 44% of clergy from declining churches."

These findings would seem to be self evident to my fellow reasserting Christians. This type of research generates hypotheses which The Guardian must have been thinking about when they jumped the gun and titled their piece, "Literal interpretation of Bible 'helps increase church attendance'". That is called drawing a conclusion based on an association, and the findings are not proof of the hypothesis.

Alas, the social sciences and The Guardian were never really big on science, so they might also have felt free to conclude (they didn't) that "electric guitars and drums help increase church attendance" if they had written about more of the data in the original paper,

 67 %  of growing churches always used drums or other percussion instruments compared to  8% of declining ones.

 78 %  of growing churches always used Electric guitar or bass compared to  8% of declining ones.

I encourage readers to read the paper by Haskell, Flatt, and Burgoyne in order to better appreciate the magnitude of difference between growing congregations and declining ones. The main differences appear to be along the lines of "revisioning" versus reasserting historic Christian beliefs. It is sad that so many declining churches have to say the Nicene Creed with their fingers crossed.

I think the problem begins with the clergy's beliefs, or lack thereof, for they are the ones who should be teaching their congregants that Gospels are true. The presence or absence of electric guitars is not going to influence the Gospel message unless the music is done poorly or the words of the songs contain false teaching.

Bible study and small groups, and evangelism are found more frequently in growing churches. I remember going to my revisionist priest and asking to start a small group Bible study since he had not led a Bible study in 20 years and attendance was declining. I wound up leading that small group with no input from my rector, but I did have help from a priest in another state with whom I was in communication and who helped provide study questions.

As far as evangelism goes, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard revisionist priests and bishops state, "Numbers (of people in the pews) are not important!"

In a way they are correct. The fewer people under their charge, the better.

Work and the Sabbath

This Sunday's Gospel reading is Mark 2:23-3:6,

"One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’ 

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him."

Both of these passages have to do with violations of the Sabbath rules against work. The Pharisees would enforce the rules to the point where a physician could not care for the sick or a hungry man could not find something to eat. A friend once related a story of when she was a waitress and a Jewish customer made her open a container of sugar and pour it into his coffee because it was the Sabbath. I told her that I was surprised he did not ask her to spoon feed him as well. I use this illustration to point out the problem with carrying a rule to the extreme.

I pointed out once before that Jesus' healing of the man with the withered hand did not involve anything that the Pharisees would technically consider "work" as the man himself did all of the physical activity. The only way a Pharisee would consider the healing to be "work" is if he actually believed that Jesus was the one doing the healing.

In either case, it is wrong to say, as I have heard some preachers in their sermons teach, that Jesus was a lawbreaker. He is showing us that when there is a moral imperative to act for the well being of another, the Sabbath rules are of secondary importance. This is honoring God, by loving your neighbor first, and then taking a rest.

Matthew Henry (1662-1714)  in his Commentary gives a more in depth interpretation

[1.] Whom the sabbath was made for (Mark 2:27); it was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. This we had not in Matthew. The sabbath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery. First, God never designed it to be an imposition upon us, and therefore we must not make it so to ourselves. Man was not made for the sabbath, for he was made a day before the sabbath was instituted. Man was made for God, and for his honour and service, and he just rather die than deny him; but he was not made for the sabbath, so as to be tied up by the law of it, from that which is necessary to the support of his life. Secondly, God did design it to be an advantage to us, and so we must make it, and improve it. He made if for man. 1. He had some regard to our bodies in the institution, that they might rest, and not be tired out with the constant business of this world (Deut. 5:14); that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest. Now he that intended the sabbath-rest for the repose of our bodies, certainly never intended it should restrain us, in a case of necessity, from fetching in the necessary supports of the body; it must be construed so as not to contradict itself—for edification, and not for destruction. 2. He had much more regard to our souls. The sabbath was made a day of rest, only in order to its being a day of holy work, a day of communion with God, a day of praise and thanksgiving; and the rest from worldly business is therefore necessary, that we may closely apply ourselves to this work, and spend the whole time in it, in public and in private; but then time is allowed us for that which is necessary to the fitting of our bodies for the service of our souls in God’s service, and the enabling of them to keep pace with them in that work. See here, (1.) What a good Master we serve, all whose institutions are for our own benefit, and if we be so wise as to observe them, we are wise for ourselves; it is not he, but we, that are gainers by our service. (2.) What we should aim at in our sabbath work, even the good of our own souls. If the sabbath was made for man, we should then ask ourselves at night, “What am I the better for this sabbath day?” (3.) What care we ought to take not to make those exercises of religion burthens to ourselves or others, which God ordained to be blessings; neither adding to the command by unreasonable strictness, nor indulging those corruptions which are adverse to the command, for thereby we make those devout exercises a penance to ourselves, which otherwise would be a pleasure.

[2.] Whom the sabbath was made by (Mark 2:28); “The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath; and therefore he will not see the kind intentions of the institution of it frustrated by your impositions.” Note, The sabbath days are days of the Son of man; he is the Lord of the day, and to his honour it must be observed; by him God made the worlds, and so it was by him that the sabbath was first instituted; by him God gave the law at mount Sinai, and so the fourth commandment was his law; and that little alteration that was shortly to be made, by the shifting of it one day forward to the first day of the week, was to be in remembrance of his resurrection, and therefore the Christian sabbath was to be called the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10), the Lord Christ’s day; and the Son of man, Christ, as Mediator, is always to be looked upon as Lord of the sabbath. This argument he largely insists upon in his own justification, when he was charged with having broken the sabbath, John 5:16.

Bishop Michael Curry's Problem with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Let me start out by saying that Bishop Michael Curry does not have a problem with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as he referenced him during the wedding sermon for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently.

"French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was arguably one of the great minds, great spirits of the 20th century. Jesuit, Roman Catholic priest, scientist, a scholar, a mystic." - Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

Well, the rest of the world has a problem with the late Jesuit. There is a papal warning on Teilhard's books, a warning that some are trying to remove. It seems that great minds like Teilhard's and Curry's are not immune to false teaching. A couple of years ago, Crisis Magazine published an article, "Challenging the Rehabilitation of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin", that documents some of the problems with Teilhard's thinking and why the Pope slapped the warning label on his work. I have selected a few quotations from that longer critique,

"The problem with Teilhard’s 'scientific theology' is not evolution per se but the definition or interpretation of such a term and its application to Christian theology. According to Smith, Teilhard artificially rules out God’s intervention and insists that God can only create through evolution. First, Teilhard limits God’s providence by following a deterministic view of physics (entailing a closed universe) without real justification. The science of quantum mechanics was already in existence during Teilhard’s productive years. A view from quantum mechanics would not support a neatly fashioned deterministic biosphere as Teilhard envisioned. Nor could a professed Christian assert that the universe is a closed system disallowing outside intervention from God. In his work, Christianity and Evolution, Teilhard implicitly asserts this",

"In the earlier conception, God could create, (1) instantaneously, (2) isolated beings, (3) as often as he pleased. We are now beginning to see that creation can have only one object: a universe; that (observed ab intra) creation can be effected only by an evolutive process (of personalizing synthesis); and that it can come into action only once: when ‘absolute’ multiple (which is produced by antithesis to trinitarian unity) is reduced, nothing is left to be united either in God or ‘outside’ God. The recognition that ‘God cannot create except evolutively’ provides a radical solution for our reason to the problem of evil (which is a direct ‘effect’ of evolution), and at the same time explains the manifest and mysterious association of matter and spirit."

"It is clear that Teilhard has an agenda to reconstruct the traditional conception of God, one in which eventually even God must bow down to the process of evolution and goes from being the evolver to part of the evolved."

"Teilhard has also a peculiar vision of Christ in lieu of his views on evolution. He sees Christ as an evolving Christ, much as his vision of God becoming part of the evolutionary process. Christ is dependent upon the cosmogenetic process, as Teilhard intimates himself a month before his own death, in a quote found in The Heart of Matter: 'It is Christ, in very truth, who saves—but should we not immediately add that, at the same time, it is Christ who is saved by Evolution?'” 

"Teilhard’s views in fact have no place for the Incarnation in the traditional Christian sense since nothing can ultimately enter up in the universe unless through a process of evolution since all is reducible to a cosmic evolution. Teilhard’s metaphysical impositions of evolution on the divine nature are completely heterodox because they overthrow the traditional conception of an eternal transcendental God. Teilhard’s heterodoxy extends beyond God’s nature. He accepts the separation of the soul from the body at death but does not allow for its origin via ex-nihilo through God’s creation but instead through gradual physical evolution."

"In The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard theorizes that all matter is in the process of becoming spirit through progressive complexification that entails 'matter [giving] birth to life, consciousness and thought—in a word, gives birth to ‘spirit.’”

Lets list some of the problems we have with Teilhard,

1. God can only create through evolution.
2. It is Christ who is saved by Evolution.
3. "Spirit" is born of matter, consciousness, and thought. 

I admit that I have not done an extensive review of all of the man's works, but I do see enough here to be concerned when the leading Episcopalian Bishop claims in front of an audience of perhaps two billion that,

"Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was arguably one of the great minds, great spirits of the 20th century" 

Episcopalians fall too easily under the spell of false teaching, and since Bishop Michael Curry has clearly demonstrated that he is under the spell of his denomination's teaching on same-sex marriage, is it any wonder that he would quote from a discredited Catholic priest in an important sermon?

At least he didn't quote Bishop Spong or Bishop Gene Robinson.

On Being Born Anew

This Trinity Sunday many churches will hear John 3:1-17 and the story of Nicodemus.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind* blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Last Sunday we learned about the Pentecost which is often referred to as "the Church's birthday". This Sunday, we learn that individuals must have a second birthday in order to celebrate eternal life with God the three in one. Yes, we have to be born again. Born of water by baptism, and born of the Spirit which is the tricky part.

Not all of us experience a moment of religious conversion in which one is aware of the Holy Spirit washing over their soul, changing their lives forever. In fact, most of us who claim to have had such an experience are usually looked at as strange sort of ducks. I am guilty of sometimes thinking that when people say someone is full of the Spirit, they actually full of something else.

Similarly, when a denomination claims that the Holy Spirit is leading them to a new understanding of the Bible, how are we to know what they are full of?

I look around and see several denominations that are not going to have eternal life. Their numbers are falling, funerals outnumber baptisms, and their ministers are nothing more than attendants at a nursing home. These denominations hope for renewal, hold revivals, proclaim that they are the owners of the "Jesus Movement", but they refuse to admit that they have been baptized in the muddy waters of revisionism, and that they have been following an unholy spirit.

What do they need to do in order to "see the Kingdom of God" as Nicodemus desired?

Phony "Revivals" won't do it.

These denominations need to be born again. How is that possible?

Are they not teachers of Israel?

Yet they do not understand these things.

Bishop Curry: All You Need is Love

This week everybody seems to be talking about Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's expressive sermon that he delivered at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Many people loved it, but I thought it was weak in spite of the forcefulness with which it was delivered. 

While Bishop Curry sounded nice, his sermon was a bit too nice. Like the serpent's words, "Taste it, you will like it" they are awfully tempting. While there is nothing wrong about preaching on love, it requires a deeper exposition. The love of God and the love of Christ for the world, God's love for the Church, and God's intended love between one man and one woman are things that most Episcopalian Bishops are incapable of communicating. No one expected Bishop Curry to talk about complementarianism, and no one expected any major digressions into his favorite themes, so his sermon appeared benign if not great to most of his viewers. It had to sound benign you see, because  he could not say the words that he really wanted to say about his novel ideas about what makes up a Christian marriage in front of an audience of two billion people because those words are so unbiblical that the effect on his sect would be ruinous.

Here's the full transcript of Curry's "The Power of Love" sermon as recorded by NPR:

"And now in the name of our loving, liberating and life-giving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
From the Song of Solomon in the Bible: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
The late Dr Martin Luther King Jr once said, and I quote: 'We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world, for love is the only way.'
There's power in love. Don't underestimate it. Don't even over-sentimentalize it. There's power, power in love.
If you don't believe me, think about a time when you first fell in love. The whole world seemed to center around you and your beloved."

I think he is equating two different types of love.

"Oh there's power, power in love. Not just in its romantic forms, but any form, any shape of love. There's a certain sense in which when you are loved, and you know it, when someone cares for you, and you know it, when you love and you show it - it actually feels right."

Uh oh, following "it feels right" can lead you into all kinds of problems.

"There is something right about it. And there's a reason for it. The reason has to do with the source. We were made by a power of love, and our lives were meant - and are meant - to be lived in that love. That's why we are here."

It would have been helpful if he had defined what type of love he was talking about, and that is one of the major weaknesses of his sermon. 

"Ultimately, the source of love is God himself: the source of all of our lives. There's an old medieval poem that says: 'Where true love is found, God himself is there'.
The New Testament says it this way: 'Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and those who love are born of God and know God. Those who do not love do not know God.' Why? For God is love."

Never ask an Episcopal priest to expound on what he/she/it means when they get started on "God is love." They would probably have a meltdown.

"There's power in love. There's power in love to help and heal when nothing else can.
There's power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will.
There's power in love to show us the way to live.
Set me as a seal on your heart... a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death.
But love is not only about a young couple. Now the power of love is demonstrated by the fact that we're all here. Two young people fell in love, and we all showed up.
But it's not just for and about a young couple, who we rejoice with. It's more than that.
Jesus of Nazareth on one occasion was asked by a lawyer to sum up the essence of the teachings of Moses, and he went back and he reached back into the Hebrew scriptures, to Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and Jesus said: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.'
And then in Matthew's version, he added, he said: 'On these two, love of God and love of neighbor, hang all the law, all the prophets, everything that Moses wrote, everything in the holy prophets, everything in the scriptures, everything that God has been trying to tell the world ... love God, love your neighbors, and while you're at it, love yourself.'"

Whoa! Did Jesus say that? "And while you're at it love yourself"? I think NPR messed up on the punctuation, but the Bishop did add a new layer of meaning to Matthew's Gospel.

It was only a mater of time where the power of this version of love will be used by the Bishop to try to stir people to political action,

"Someone once said that Jesus began the most revolutionary movement in human history."

Wait a second! God revealing himself, and dying for us was the number one world changing event in human history.

"A movement grounded in the unconditional love of God for the world - and a movement mandating people to live that love, and in so doing to change not only their lives but the very life of the world itself.
I'm talking about power. Real power. Power to change the world.
If you don't believe me, well, there were some old slaves in America's Antebellum South who explained the dynamic power of love and why it has the power to transform.
They explained it this way. They sang a spiritual, even in the midst of their captivity. It's one that says 'There is a balm in Gilead...' a healing balm, something that can make things right.
'There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.'
And one of the stanzas actually explains why. They said: 'If you cannot preach like Peter, and you cannot pray like Paul, you just tell the love of Jesus, how he died to save us all.'
Oh, that's the balm in Gilead! This way of love, it is the way of life. They got it. He died to save us all.
He didn't die for anything he could get out of it. Jesus did not get an honorary doctorate for dying. He didn't... he wasn't getting anything out of it. He gave up his life, he sacrificed his life, for the good of others, for the good of the other, for the wellbeing of the world... for us.
That's what love is. Love is not selfish and self-centered. Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, becomes redemptive. And that way of unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive love changes lives, and it can change this world."

Next we get echoes of John Lennon's "Imagine",

"If you don't believe me, just stop and imagine. Think and imagine a world where love is the way.
Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way.
Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way.
Imagine this tired old world where love is the way. When love is the way - unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive.
When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again.
When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.
When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.
When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more.
When love is the way, there's plenty good room - plenty good room - for all of God's children.
Because when love is the way, we actually treat each other, well... like we are actually family.
When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all, and we are brothers and sisters, children of God. My brothers and sisters, that's a new heaven, a new earth, a new world, a new human family."

It sounds like we can make heaven on earth, all we need is love. Curry's gospel sounds a lot like the sixties gospel of love.

Next he switches gears into a lengthy digression at about the time people are ready for the wedding to go on.

"And let me tell you something, old Solomon was right in the Old Testament: that's fire.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - and with this I will sit down, we gotta get you all married - French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was arguably one of the great minds, great spirits of the 20th century.
Jesuit, Roman Catholic priest, scientist, a scholar, a mystic.
In some of his writings, he said, from his scientific background as well as his theological one, in some of his writings he said - as others have - that the discovery, or invention, or harnessing of fire was one of the great scientific and technological discoveries in all of human history.
Fire to a great extent made human civilization possible. Fire made it possible to cook food and to provide sanitary ways of eating which reduced the spread of disease in its time.
Fire made it possible to heat warm environments and thereby made human migration around the world a possibility, even into colder climates.
Fire made it possible - there was no Bronze Age without fire, no Iron Age without fire, no Industrial Revolution without fire.
The advances of fire and technology are greatly dependent on the human ability and capacity to take fire and use it for human good.
Anybody get here in a car today? An automobile? Nod your heads if you did - I know there were some carriages. But those of us who came in cars, fire - the controlled, harnessed fire - made that possible.
I know that the Bible says, and I believe it, that Jesus walked on the water. But I have to tell you, I did not walk across the Atlantic Ocean to get here.
Controlled fire in that plane got me here. Fire makes it possible for us to text and tweet and email and Instagram and Facebook and socially be dysfunctional with each other.
Fire makes all of that possible, and de Chardin said fire was one of the greatest discoveries in all of human history.
And he then went on to say that if humanity ever harnesses the energy of fire again, if humanity ever captures the energy of love - it will be the second time in history that we have discovered fire.
Dr King was right: we must discover love - the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of this old world, a new world.
My brother, my sister, God love you, God bless you, and may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love."

In sum, heaven on Earth is attainable, all you need is love. What could possibly be holding us back?

Maybe we haven't supported enough liberal causes, maybe we haven't marched in enough gay pride parades, maybe we haven't celebrated enough gay marriage ceremonies in the Church, maybe we have been sending those e-mails from The Episcopal Public Policy Network into the Spam box, maybe we haven't performed enough abortions, maybe we haven't brought enough lawsuits against faithful Christians, or maybe we have been critical of the Episcopal sect in print and on social media.

And you know what they call people who go against the zeitgeist, those who disagree with Bishop Curry and his unbiblical agenda, an agenda that he was afraid to verbalize in front of an audience of billions?

"Haters!"

Looking Bach at Pentecost

Whitsunday is the name we give to the day of the Feast of Pentecost. The name, "White" Sunday, stands in contrast to the red colors that priests wear on this day and may be a more fitting description of the clothes worn by those coming to be confirmed or baptized on Pentecost. I don't know when the custom of having us pewsitters wear red came into being, but having very few articles of red clothing myself, this Sunday always makes me feel a wee bit like the odd person out. This year I found a Hawaiian shirt displaying images of flaming volcanoes to wear. I think I'll go with that and try to fit in with the crowd for once.

Never one to follow the herd, I prefer classical music to modern praise music. For that reason, I may have to put in my ear buds at some point in this Sunday's service and listen to a little Bach.

Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! ("Ring out, you songs; sound, you strings!"), BWV 172, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Weimar in 1714 for Pentecost Sunday.

Enjoy,

While most of us will not be treated to such wonderful sounds, churches that still follow the BCP lectionary will hear either the wonderful good news found in John 20:19-23 or John 14:8-17 as today's Gospel reading.

John 20:19-23

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

or John 14:8-17

Philip said to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."

Just think where we would be today if the gift of the Holy Spirit had not been bestowed upon the Apostles.

Wearing anything but volcano print Hawaiian shirts I suppose.

Having Michael Curry Preach at Your Wedding is Like...

The news that the Episcopal Sect's Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, will preach at this week's royal wedding upset me, but pleased the Archbishop of Canterbury,

@JustinWelby
I'm thrilled that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have asked Bishop Michael Curry to preach at their wedding. @PB_Curry is a brilliant pastor, stunning preacher and someone with a great gift for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

This tells me that Justin Welby tolerates and may even accept Michael Curry's support of same-sex marriage.

I am sorry, but asking a man who does not believe that God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman to preach at your wedding is like asking the wolf in sheep's clothing to give a talk on shepherding to your flock.

I am sure you can think of other analogies.

Go ahead, fill in the blank.