I just finished Kingdom Triangle today. I will be meeting with some fellow elders from our church on Wednesday to talk about it.The first 140 pages were pretty typical Moreland- great stuff on the need to engage our minds and be more aware of what we believe and why. That will always be prophetic to me and my fellow Americans. We need to be a little less amused and um you know a little more smarter BTW- I need to quick finish this post so I can get to my free redbox movie- Spiderwick Chronicles.
But the last 60 pages are truly prophetic for the American church. I think I would consider these "must read"pages from Moreland, one of the great Christian thinkers of our time. Some highlights:
"However unwise, we Evangelicals are often too quick to dismiss healing, demonic deliverance, miracles, and prophetic words of knowledge and wisdom..."
"In imitation of Jesus' ministry, the church is invited to exercise the miraculous power of the Spirit in the service of the Kingdom."
[he addresses people and churches who are not as open to the supernatural signs, wonders and gifts of the N.T.....] "frequently you are too cautious and too concerned about 'being in control' to allow things to get messy and to take risks where you may look foolish if God's manifest presence does not show up. Too often, there is a rigid, controlling, fearful spirit among you. Too often, you are defensive and stuck in tradition for its own sake. There is too little power in your churches, too little extravagant worship in which your people pour out their hearts to God on Sunday. Too much of your church's accomplishments can be explained without there needing to be a God to explain them. Things are too predictable and too, well, American."
[to the charismatic bros/sisters] "You are too anti-intellectual. If I hear another Third Wave or Pentecostal/charismatic speaker say, 'God offends the mind to reveal the heart,' I think I'll scream... why don't we also hear you say that God offend the heart to reveal the mind? I fear this statement is often an excuse for intellectual laziness."
"Dallas Willard says that we should come to the point that we expect to see the miraculous outbreak of the Kingdom take place as an 'ordinary' part of our 'extraordinary' Christian lives."
Here are some important questions we will surely discuss on Wednesday:
"To what degree will we expect to see the Spirit work in miraculous ways?"
"To what degree should we encourage people to seek miraculous works today?"
"To what extent do we see church life in the N.T. as a pattern for us to imitate today?"
"How much 'space' will we provide during services for the miraculous work of the Spirit beyond just the teaching and singing?"
He has some great book recommendations, and I've got Convergence: Spiritual Journeys of a Charismatic Calvinist by Sam Storms on order.
3 comments:
Great book (praise God for Jeff Dodge giving Mo his copy before Mo went overseas so Curtis could borrow some of his books). Great recommendation. Great Quotes. Yay for the C-Stone Elders! Yay for Sam Storms (a great guy many have never heard of)! Yay for not having to be too scared to talk about this stuff! Yay!
Markie,
I finished last week as well. As you might guess, I liked the last section of the book much better. I didn't think his treatment of postmodernism was that great. I thought his treatment of naturalism was powerful.
Look forward to talking to you more about this.
I'm on to Greg Boyd's Myth of Xian Nation.
Ed
Ed-
I couldn't agree more w/ his stuff on postmodernity. I read pretty quickly through that when it was clear that was not my main reason for picking up the book.
I can't wait to hear your cliff notes of Boyd's book. Will you post on that when you're done?
Post a Comment