Month: April 2011

Abundant Life

Teaching: Is the Day of Pentecost the “Birthday of the Church”?

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

FAQ: I have heard it said that the Day of Pentecost (in Acts 2:1 and following) was the “birthday of the Church”?

Words have specific meanings, and in any biblical discussion or exposition, defining our terms is critical. The three key words in the above question are “Pentecost,” “birthday,” and “Church.” Let’s start with the “Church.”

The Greek word for “church” is ekklesia, and in Scripture it simply means a group of people called out for a purpose. In its 89 uses in the epistles written to Christians, it refers either to individual groups of Christian believers or to all Christians as a body. When we in Spirit & Truth Fellowship refer to the latter group in our writings, we choose to capitalize it as a proper noun. 1 Corinthians 10:32 lists the only three kinds of people in history, biblically speaking, and distinguishes this group of people from the other two groups: “Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God” (KJV).

As per Ephesians 1:22 and 23, the “Church,” i.e., all Christians, is synonymous with the “Body of Christ” (also a term we capitalize as a proper noun, though most Bible versions do not): “And God placed all things under his [Jesus’] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Virtually all Bible commentators agree with the above definitions, but not all agree upon when the Church began, that is, when the first people became “Christians.” OK, then we’d best look at what it takes to become a Christian, and Romans 10:9 is perhaps the key verse in that regard: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

That verse makes it clear that no one was “saved” by being “born again of incorruptible seed” (1 Pet. 1:23), that is, becoming a “Christian,” prior to the resurrection and subsequent ascension of Jesus Christ. Salvation has always been available ever since Adam’s sin necessitated it, but never until after Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and exaltation as “Lord” (Acts 2:37) did salvation consist of being “born again” of God’s spirit, receiving His “divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4) and being “sealed with that holy spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13).

The Four Gospels basically end with Jesus’ ascension (Luke 24:51-53). If we then go to the book of Acts, we join the timeline with that same event in Chapter 1, verse 9, after which his disciples chose a replacement for Judas, who had committed suicide. And then comes Chapter 2, which begins as follows:

Acts 2:1-4
(1) “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
(2) Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
(3) They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
(4) All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit [more accurately: “filled with holy spirit” (the gift from the Giver) and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

Obviously, this was a monumentally significant event. What happened? Acts 2:33 gives us more information, as Peter explained: “Exalted to the right hand of God, he [Jesus] has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit [holy spirit—once again the gift, not the Giver] and he [Jesus] has poured out that which you now see and hear.” It was that same holy spirit of which Jesus had spoken to his disciples prior to his death, as well as after his resurrection, and his words in Acts 1:5 (see also John 14-16; Luke 24:49) are especially significant: “For John [the Baptist] baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit [again, holy spirit, the gift of God’s divine nature].”

Certainly the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 is the only biblical event that meets the criteria as the time when the first people ever were “baptized in holy spirit,” setting the pattern for each person thereafter who makes Jesus Christ his Lord. 1 Corinthians 12:13 confirms that: “For we were all baptized by [in] one Spirit [spirit (the gift)] into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” To be sure, let us look at the opening of Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians in order to determine who the “we” is in 12:13 who were baptized in holy spirit. Chapter 1, verse 2 reads: “To the church in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours.”

It is clear that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord by confessing Jesus as Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead joins the ekklesia of those born again of God’s incorruptible seed and filled with the gift of holy spirit. It is also clear that the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 was the first time this happened. As such, it is the “birthday” of the Church, that is, its beginning.

So what was “Pentecost,” when the birthday of the Church took place? In the Old Testament, Pentecost was one of the major Jewish feasts that occurred annually as per God’s directive for His people. These holidays were designed to keep God in people’s minds and to promote national unity. Pentecost was also called the “Feast of Weeks,” the “Feast of Harvest,” or the “Feast of Firstfruits,” and was held on the 50th day after Passover.

What a perfect day God chose to bring in the “first fruits” of the Church, the eventually global Body of holy spirit-filled believers who would sow the good seed of His Word throughout the world. And, unknown to anyone until later in the Acts period when the Lord Jesus revealed the Sacred Secret to the Apostle Paul, the whole Church itself now enjoys in our “earthen vessel” bodies the same “first fruits” of the gift of holy spirit that all resurrected Jewish believers will one day have in their new bodies in the Millennial Kingdom.

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page, their YouTube Channel, or follow them on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.

(Comments have been turned off. The information is here to inform and bless you. God granted you the gift of free will – take it or leave it).

More from Write From Karen

Life-condensed

My New ‘Do

Karen

New Haircut - April 16, 2011

This is the shortest I’ve EVER had my hair.

*commence freak out here*

I like it, but WOW, this is going to take some getting used to!! It’s actually a little too short, in fact, the gal that cut it was being conservative! She said, “Wow. I’m glad I didn’t cut it any shorter!”

You and me both, sister!

But it’s okay. It’s hair, it’ll grow out. She gave me a razor cut – I’ve always liked razor cuts, I think my hair handles those types of cuts the best. (It looks “piecey” instead of blocky, if that makes sense). I’m thinking it’s going to look pretty cool in about two weeks and I’ll just have it trimmed from that point on – so it’s all good. She also gave me a color and highlights. I sort of freaked out when she rinsed my hair out and it was ORANGE!! No joke, it was orange.

“You don’t think that’s a little orange?” I asked her.

“Oh no! I think it looks really good. It’s the fluorescent lights,” she said.

Yeah right, I thought.

“Let me blow a little of it dry and then we’ll go outside and look at it in natural light.”

So, she did. And we went outside. And I calmed down because it didn’t look NEARLY as orange away from the salon lights.

I watched her style my hair like a hawk. I have no idea if I’ll be able to get the height she got out of it, but I’m going to try. I’m going to buy some root lifter and a skinny flat iron (she used the flat iron instead of a curling iron and it really gave it some curl without going bonkers), so we’ll see how it looks tomorrow after I wash it.

But I like it. It feels so LIGHT. And I feel so COOL. As in literally – I didn’t realize how much heat my hair trapped on my neck. This is going to be so awesome for the summer months. And maybe I’ll actually be able to wear scarves in the winter time without feeling like I have a nuclear power plant inside my core.

I’ve always wanted to go this short, I’ve just never had the guts to go this short before. I think it makes my face look fat, but oh well, I’ll use the height to offset that little flaw.

If you live in the Springfield area, I went to Latter Rain Salon – HIGHLY recommend them. Sweet gals and reasonable prices.

Day-By-Day

New ‘Do, New Uniforms, New Patio, New Job?

Karen

Well I’m doing it. I’ve made an appointment to get my hair whacked off tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

Hopefully, it’ll look something like this:

That’s my goal, at least.

I’ll post a picture of the new cut as soon as I can. (And that’s code for: if I can make it look right. If not, you’ll just have to use your imagination. ha!)

I’m looking forward to having it short again. I had it this short years ago and loved it. The only problem is, I’ll have to go to the salon more often for trims and well … yuk. But I want a STYLE. Something that looks professional and will be easy to take care of.

At any rate, I’m cutting it off … again.

Jazz’s marching band is getting new uniforms next year! YAY!!!!! I’m SO EXCITED to see what they look like. I hope they aren’t dorky looking. Their past uniforms looked pretty snazzy, if not a little space-suit-ish, but we’ll see. I really like his band director – he’s a man of taste and always comes up with really cool ideas for the performances, so it’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with this time.

The band only gets new uniforms like every ten years or so (they’re SOOO expensive), so it’s awesome that Jazz will be one of the first classes to wear the new uniforms.

They’re supposed to have a fitting next week some time, so Jazz wanted me to weigh him and chart his height.

Jazz now weighs 118 pounds and is 5’8 without shoes on. WOW! He’s only a few inches shorter than I am now. That’s so WEIRD when your baby is nearly as tall as you are.

Of course, I had to see what Dude’s weight and height were … he weighs 131 pounds and is 5’10 1/2 without shoes on.

I’m hoping the boys grow taller. Kevin said that was one of the things he liked about me, was my height. He figured if he married a tall person, then he would have tall children. Which is cool for boys, not so much for girls.

Trust me. ha!

Kevin was issued a subpoena today. He’s scheduled to testify against the woman who ran him over on his motorcycle last year. (She left the scene of the accident – which is a felony, in case you didn’t know that).

I will go with him to support him, of course.

It will be really weird for Kevin because this will be the first time that he will face the woman who nearly killed him.

It’s probably a good thing it has taken so long to bring this to court because if it had happened a few months after the accident, they would have had to restrain me from attacking this woman, I was so angry. I’m still angry, but it’s more of a simmering anger now and I just want this woman off the streets. She’s a menace to herself and to other drivers. (She’s been picked up for a DUI SINCE the accident, believe it or not). She needs to be punished and she needs to learn there are consequences for her actions because up until now, this woman has been free to drive around and resume her life as if nothing catastrophic happened.

Though I’m not holding my breath that this hearing will actually take place (it’s been granted a continuance now every few weeks for a year), I’m really hoping it happens – mainly because we just want it to be over. We’ve already moved past this accident and to be forced to relive it again will be uncomfortable and painful for Kevin, I’m sure.

At any rate, that’s where we stand on the issue. We’ll see what happens.

Kevin has been busy digging our backyard up. He’s putting in a patio. He borrowed his sister’s Roto-Tiller and that really helped move things along. I’ll take some pictures of it this weekend.

We went to Lowe’s last weekend and picked out the pavers. We’ll likely order those sometime this weekend, (if Kevin feels up to it, he’s got a gig tonight and tomorrow night, so he’ll probably be worn out from that).

He still needs to dig the rocks out next to the house, then we’ll order some gravel, put that down, smooth it out, then top it with sand, smooth that out before putting the pavers in. We’re hoping to have the patio done before Dude’s graduation reception next month. It would be really nice to have his party outside, weather permitting.

My job situation … geez, I’m so frustrated with this whole thing. For one thing, I’m in limbo. I just don’t know which direction to take on this job thing.

First of all, I never heard back from the place I had my three interviews with. Which was very disappointing because I really thought they liked me. It was between me and one other person – I guess the other person was a better fit. I have an application in for three more positions with the same company but so far, I haven’t received a call, though all three positions are still in the “open” status on their website. However, they’ve been listed for a while, so I’m thinking they are probably interviewing and I just wasn’t picked. Maybe I’m not meant to work for this company, I don’t know. I’m not giving up, but I am a little discouraged.

Kevin suggested that I apply for a temporary employment agency. They would call me whenever someone needed someone to work in their office and I would do … whatever they needed me for. The pros of doing this would be that I would be working for several different companies and would have a chance to “try” them out, so to speak. Kevin’s company used people from this temporary employment agency quite a few times and often times, they would like the person so much they would offer him/her a full-time position.

The cons would be that I would be working for several different companies. I would be walking into a brand new situation and working with brand new people all the time. I’m sure that would be disorienting. Also, I would have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Which is really not that big of a deal, now that I think about it, because I’m at the office every day anyway, I would just have to make sure I’m wearing more office-appropriate attire. (Slacks as opposed to the jeans I wear every day now).

So, I don’t know. It’s definitely something to think about. I’m pretty sure I’m going to try it, just to see what happens.

Another option is to try and get a job at Missouri State University. They require all of their clerical applicants to take a test in Word, Excel, basic filing abilities and bank reconciliations. I suppose your chances of getting called back for an interview depends on how well you tested. I’d like to try this, too. Although I’ll have to work a bit more within Excel and Word 2007 as I haven’t really used those programs all that much (I have those programs, but they’re older versions and there are quite a few new features in the ’07 versions). In addition, and don’t laugh, I haven’t reconciled a bank statement in, oh gosh, YEARS. I haven’t had to, Kevin has always taken care of that stuff (there are some perks to being married to an accountant), so I’ll definitely have to brush up on that skill before I take any sort of test.

And I could always fall back on the tried and true job option – retail and/or restaurant. I have a lot of experience in both and I know those industries are ALWAYS looking for people. But the question is: do I really want to work evenings, weekends and holidays? Answer: no. I’ve had my fill of doing that (21 years worth, thanks), and I’m ready for a 9:00 to 5:00 job. I have a lot of office experience and know my way around office-related programs, SURELY someone out there wants me. Surely. 😐

So I have options, it’s just a matter of time before I get off my lazy butt and take those options. I’m nervous. That last interview process was a bit of a blow to my pride, quite frankly, and now I’m a bit more nervous about putting myself out there again. However, I’ll get over that. I’ll work myself up to it, believe me.

In the meantime, I come to the office every day and keep Kevin company. I write and work on websites and will likely continue to do those things even after I get a job. I do have one mark against me, though. We plan on going on our family vacation in July, which I have to disclose at the onslaught of an interview because I don’t want to spring anything on them at the last minute, and companies probably aren’t going to like that they will hire me, only to have to let me off for one week of unpaid vacation.

I wonder if that was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t get that last job.

*sigh*

Oh well. I just have to be patient and put myself out there. Nothing is going to happen just talking about it.

Can We Talk?

Getting Plastic Surgery to Avoid Bullies

Karen

So let me ask you …

My first reaction is OH HECK NO. How lame! How superficial! What a waste of money!

BUT … then you watch the video about this girl …

… and I don’t know.

Her ears WERE pretty misshapen. This wasn’t just an issue of whether they thought they were too big or simply ugly, this was a physical malformation. (The experts say that when you’re a kid, your ears are already 90% the size they’re going to be when you’re an adult, so they don’t grow much. This was the reason they could perform the surgery on this seven-year old girl. Obviously, they couldn’t do plastic surgery on noses, chins, etc. at seven years old. So maybe, not THIS young, but you get the idea).

I think I could agree with this decision. This wasn’t something she would grow out of and since they were so different, she WOULD likely get teased and possibly bullied because they were so different from “the norm.” (Whatever that is, I suppose).

Before you completely disagree with me, think about people who take their kids to the orthodontist. *raises hand* Isn’t that a variation of plastic surgery? Correcting crooked teeth? Or people that buy their kids contact lenses. It’s not surgery, but it’s another physical enhancement so they don’t have to wear glasses and stand out from their peers.

I guess it would depend on the situation. If the physical malformation was slight (and again, who decides that, really?), I’d say no. But if it was something as apparent as this poor girl’s ears, then I might have made the same decision.

Granted, kids need to learn to deal with difficult people no matter what they look like – there are mean people in the world who will pick on someone for any little thing because they’re insecure about their lives or something about themselves, but I guess, why make it harder when it’s something that CAN be fixed?

Boy, I don’t know. This is a toughie. I really think it’s a case-by-case situation.

What do you think?

More from Write From Karen

A to Z Challenge

M is for Moves (NSFW – Unless Your Boss Has a Sense of Humor)

Karen

Oh yeah. I just went there.

NEVER say I don’t put myself out there for you people.

Or I will hunt you down and make you watch me dance again.

And just think! This nonsense goes on for a nearly a FULL three minutes!!

I was CLEARLY on a caffeine high.

Or just plain crazy. (Let’s go with that).

(By the way, this sexy song is called “Crazy” by Jem).

I’m participating in the A to Z challenge. Just post something every day with the appropriate letter (except for Sundays), and then submit your link to one of the hosts and don’t forget to visit other participants! Also, you can find other A to Z participants on Twitter via the #atozchallenge hashtag. (This trying to relate the alphabet to your life thing is HARD. It’s taxing my brain and oh look! A puddle of brain mass. Sweet).

A to Z Challenge

L is for (a Mother’s) Love

Karen

I’ve been scanning old pictures today (my goal is to digitize all of our photos and videos then store them in a safe deposit box because if something happened to any of these old pictures and videos I’d …………. well, let’s not talk about it).

I posted this picture on Facebook and thought I’d share it with you all, too.

young-parents

This is me and Kevin holding our premature first born son (Dude) in the hospital in late December 1992. He was eight weeks early. No explanation – my water broke and *POOF* he arrived. (Well, it wasn’t that quick or that easy, though he was only 4 lb and 12 oz so it wasn’t really that hard to push him out. I’m sorry, too much information?)

He stayed in the hospital for six weeks because his lungs hadn’t developed. He came home December 28, 1992. He was in the hospital over Christmas – we have a picture of him with Santa.

That was one tough Christmas, let me tell you.

But here we are, eighteen years later and on the verge of graduating from high school in five short weeks. It doesn’t seem possible.

Holding this child in my arms … it’s incredibly hard to explain, not to mention frustrating, especially for a writer, but there is something special and precious about a mother’s love for her child. The emotions, they’re raw, tender, consuming, instinctual, fierce … you absorb all of these new feelings so deeply for this new person YOU HELPED TO CREATE and before long, you don’t know where you end and where your child begins.

Even though my first born and I have had our problems over the years, we’ve had fights, disagreements, connections, shared jokes, laughs … I can’t imagine my life without him or my youngest son. It simply isn’t possible for me to see a life without them in it.

We’ve had quite the journey to where we are now. I’m sad to see him grow up, but at the same time, I can’t wait to see where he goes.

Pass the popcorn won’t you? The next scene in this child’s life is about to begin.

P.S. This was the early 90’s, big bows were IN back then, people. Stop with the snickering. I can hear you. Sheesh.

I’m participating in the A to Z challenge. Just post something every day with the appropriate letter (except for Sundays), and then submit your link to one of the hosts and don’t forget to visit other participants! Also, you can find other A to Z participants on Twitter via the #atozchallenge hashtag. (This trying to relate the alphabet to your life thing is HARD. It’s taxing my brain and oh look! A puddle of brain mass. Sweet).