Clarifying Controversy

Hey Friends…

 Have you ever wondered who was the person that actually threw their baby out with the bathwater? You know that every warning label has a story behind it, don’t you? No joke: there’s a warning label on certain jet ski and ATV fuel caps that reads, “Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level.” Who did this once, prompting corporate attorneys to compel the ATV manufacturer to clarify this? So, when we use the phrase, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” who actually did this? And is there any chance we are doing this very thing with aspects of our spiritual lives? Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below…it’s important.
 
But first…
 
·      Are you praying with us every day this week? Jesus told us if we pray together, God will answer. The Mt. Hope family desperately needs God’s power and direction as we search out His will for our future. Click here to see our call to 40 days of special prayer emphasis and join us by praying daily!
 
o   I trust you’re also praying boldly for the many people throughout the Southeast struggling to recover from two back-to-back major hurricanes. Let’s add to our prayers asking God for what our part should be to help!
 
·      Mark your calendar for a 24-hour prayer vigil November 9 – November 10 with 30-minute time slots for people to cover our church in bold prayer. We’ll provide guided ideas on what and how to pray. Then we’ll wrap up with a mighty prayer meeting and worship night, Sunday, November 10 at 5:00 p.m.
 
·      Trunk or Treat!! Sunday evening, October 27, 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. for fun, games, candy, costumes, and decorations. We need your help! Volunteer to decorate a car and hand out candy, help with set-up/tear-down, or greet guests. Click here to let us know… or sign-up at church on Sunday! Be sure to invite your non-church neighbors and friends!
 
·      Ladies: Our one-day women's retreat featuring Cynthia Campbell and "The Steps to Freedom in Christ" and forgiveness is Saturday, October 19, 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Click here to RSVP!
 
·      ALSO… it’s not too late to join our 7-week Ladies Bible Study on Tuesday nights exploring “Jesus & Women in the First Century and Now.” Click here for details and to RSVP!
 
·      Don’t forget “The Daily Six”, our 6-minute video released every Monday through Thursday as we study through the Book of Acts together. Click here to sign up for daily reminder emails—or you can just find the videos on our YouTube channel each morning.
 
·      Click here for a personal update video from our Family Life Ministry Resident Chris Bowen as he and his wife work through her health crisis with leukemia.
 
OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who don’t enjoy baths or babies.  BUT…
 
 
Some Deeper Thoughts…
 
How about this one: On a Vidal Sassoon hand-held hair dryer, there is a label that offers “Instructions for use: Do not use while sleeping.” Or this one: on Nytol sleeping pills, the caution reads, “may cause drowsiness.” Or a placard on a chain saw that says, “do not hold the moving end of the saw.”
 
Are people really so unwise that such warnings are necessary?
 
It’s doubtful that anyone knows who it was that once threw a baby out as they drained their bath, but there must have been someone who did. The phrase first appeared in 1512 in a German writing called “Appeal to Fools.” The value of this warning stuck for centuries, to include an 1849 writing in the United States that recommended: “Fling out your dirty water with all zeal… but try if you can to keep the little child.”
 
Regardless of where it started, the warning resonated because there is indeed a tendency in human nature to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Hopefully for you parents, we’re just proverbially speaking.
 
Tragically, friends, I fear we’ve done this with more than one aspect of the Word of God and spiritual power.
 
Let’s talk.
 
We’ve been studying the bible book called “The Acts of the Apostles” in our quest to understand “The Normal Christian Life.” We’ve challenged you to read every verse of this book, two chapters each week. We’ve put together daily six-minute videos to model how to pull a present application from this important biblical text. We want to discover what normal Christianity is—not the Americanized, neutered, watered-down version of following Jesus, but rather the original Christian life initiated and empowered by Jesus Christ himself.
 
As the very first church lived out their new relationship with Jesus, we see over and over again how the Holy Spirit filled the believers. This “baptism of the Holy Spirit” was promised by Jesus and would lead to profound power (see Luke 3:16-17 and Acts 1:4-8).
 
But somewhere the universal body of Christ-followers abandoned this teaching altogether. Most of us have grown up in churches that never taught on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and God’s power. Why?
 
Truth? The Church threw the baby out with the bathwater.
 
Now don’t get me wrong. There has been plenty of foul water throughout the Church that desperately needed to be changed. “Drain the swamp,” is a popular partisan phrase decrying bureaucratic malaise often found in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. But can I tell you that a far more prolific swamp of spiritual disease has existed throughout the history of the broad and universal church of Jesus Christ?
 
On the one hand, the vibrant power of the early church was quickly traded for a wretched politicization of Christianity not long after Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christ. Popes and bishops saw their opportunity to gain power, and for more than a millennium the Church controlled the governance of most of Europe, imprisoning and torturing anyone who did not follow both their strict doctrines and their political demands. The Crusades, the Inquisition, and all manner of spiritual darkness enveloped the Church for over 1,000 years. There was no room for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in this Church. The Holy Spirit does not share His power with power mongers. Ever.
 
On the other hand, there have been great awakenings and outpourings of the Holy Spirit throughout the Church’s history that have rescued pockets of believers from spiritual malaise. Their impact has been profound; their revival long-lasting; the transformation palpable.
 
One of those awakenings nearly revolutionized western culture with a Holy Spirit-empowered deliverance from racism, prejudice, and hatred. I taught on this three weeks ago—if you missed it, click here for the video. (If you were there and want to brush up on the story, jump to the 23:00 mark.) But as we learned in that teaching, this early-1900s awakening was destroyed by the vile hardness of one pastor who split the church and headed off in a terribly unbiblical direction.
 
The result? Churches in our tradition threw the whole thing out. That water needed to be changed, no doubt. It was filled with despicable ideology and a faulty interpretation of scripture. But there was a baby we shouldn’t have tossed down the drain along with it.
 
This Sunday, would you allow me to delve into a somewhat academic discussion on what we have discarded and why, and to see if there is anything we should revisit in the revelation of scripture? We will clarify for you some controversial matters revealed in scripture that have often been misunderstood and misapplied in the Church—perhaps even in our church.
 
You in? Do a little advance reading--which I hope you already did with me in Wednesday’s “Daily Six” (click here)--Acts 8:4-25. Broaden your view with Acts 10:44-48 and Acts 19:1-7. Then, let’s meet!!
 
Much love…
 
Chris Eads
Mt. Hope Pastor
Friend