Jun 27 2012
All Gifted All Minister
1 Corinthians 12.1-11, 14.26-33
Some were sceptical. Clearly there was power among them. Two experienced healing as power surged through their bodies. A few spoke under inspiration of the troubles others were engaged in. It was supernatural alright, but was it good. Many in the crowded room had recently abandoned the cults and magic arts to follow Christ. Except for a few Jews among them most had grown up believing in the gods of the temples. Some had even been gifted by these spirits. But this new power felt different; it left them with an inner peace and a bubbly joy. But was it really different? Was it really the Spirit Jesus had promised? Most of them believed it was; most were enthusiastic. But a few were sceptical. More
Apr 18 2013
Our Ishmael and God’s Isaac
Genesis 15: 1-6, 16: 1-5,12, 17: 17-21, 21: 1-7
If God promised you a child would you expect it to happen through your maid? No. You would expect your wife to conceive. Abraham’s decision to have a child through Hagar the maid was an act of impatience. Even in a culture where barren women resorted to having children through servants, you would not expect a promise of God to be fulfilled that way. And Abraham knew this; that is why he initially waited for it to happen through Sarah. But he and his wife started to wonder why it was taking so long, they colluded to have a child through their maid, and Ishmael was born. Ishmael was a work of Abraham not God, and he became a source of trouble even while he was still in his mother’s womb; fruitful Hagar despised barren Sarah. And later he and his offspring became a problem for Isaac and his descendants. The angel of the Lord summed Ishmael up saying he would be a wild donkey of a man, constantly hostile to all around him (16.12).
But through all this God stuck to his promise to give Abraham a legitimate son, and Sarah gave birth to Isaac in her old age; and how different he was. Isaac means ‘he laughs’ and he brought laughter to his parents because they both knew his birth was humanly impossible, he really was a work of the Spirit. In fact when the apostle Paul compares Abraham’s two sons in Galatians 4.21-31 he calls Isaac the son of the Spirit and freedom, and Ishmael the son of the Law and slavery. And he goes on to say “We are not children of the slave woman (like Ishmael), but of the free woman (like Isaac).” Here he opens the story up to contemporary application, and we will too. More