Pete's Blog

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." (Proverbs 17: 17)

"A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18: 24)

On the 9 Marks blog, Church Matters (a good double entendre):

A good quote from missiologist George W. Peters:

An unfortunate and abnormal historic development has produced autonomous, missionless churches on the one hand and autonomous churchless missionary societies on the other hand.

No further comment needed.

Taken from Mark Dever's Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2000):

Yes, in 1 Corinthians Paul uses the expression "carnal Christian." He writes, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly ["carnal," KJV]—mere infants in Christ" (1 Cor. 3:1). But who are these people? Are these carnal Christians a "middle category" of people who have Jesus in their life but not on the throne? It sounds like a strange idea, doesn't it? On the one hand, you've got Christians who have Christ as Lord, with Him on the throne. Then, on the other side, you have non-Christians. But, it is argued, you also have this interesting middle category where Christ really is in the person's life but He's not on the throne. These are the "carnal" Christians. Well, that's one way you could read this verse.

I think a more natural way to read the verse is that Paul is shaming his readers by speaking of these self-confessed Christians as worldly. In calling them "worldly" or "carnal," Paul is intentionally using an oxymoron. An oxymoron is the joining of two words not meant to go together. In that sense, a carnal Christian would be like hot ice. It's just not supposed to make any sense. By writing in these terms, Paul is basically telling his readers, "Get off the fence! You are living differently than you are professing. You cannot do that. Those horses go in opposite directions—so jump on one or the other!" That's what Paul is saying. (p. 217)

That having been said, the best treatment of the filling of the Spirit that I know of is found in Dr. Andreas Kostenberger's article entitled, What Does It Mean To Be Filled With The Spirit?: A Biblical Investigation. Given that the Holy Spirit is God, and His filling is the ministry He does in our lives, Christians should not be ignorant on this subject. I recommend this article for all Christians.