That’s Not in the Bible!

I had to laugh out loud today when I overheard someone listening to a very popular teacher on Youtube. The teacher was upset with people like Peter Wagner and Chuck Pierce and John Dawson teaching believers about what they perceive to be proper spiritual warfare over cities and nations and businesses and congregations, etc.

He said that there was no New Testament precedent for what they were teaching. I had to wonder where he had found a New Testament precedent for a few of his habits: teaching anything from the New Testament (NT writers didn’t know that a New Testament would exist over a millennium later, and therefore failed to give us a manual for how to teach it); selling books and videos and audios of his teaching (most people couldn’t read in the first century, and people usually had to be present when someone was teaching, then those people spread it to other people, but, still no rules on how to do it anywhere between Matthew & the Revelation); there is no instruction in the New Testament regarding the work of a pastor or a teacher or an apostle or any of the rest of it. Instead, there are a few descriptions of certain people doing ministry. I trust that if there were rules about how each of those ministries worked, we would be even less likely to want to hear from the Spirit of the King with regard to our work. We wouldn’t need Him because we would have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Book; I could go on, but may be boring you already…

What is the problem with the possibility that the Holy Spirit might have something to say to the church that really is a word that is appropriate for current events and problems and opportunities?

The Bible is not a Book of Rules; it is Revelation of a Ruler. He might have something to say today that He hasn’t said yet. He certainly isn’t boring!