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Different people have different opinions about worship style. I tend to emote quite freely; and like to close my eyes, raise my hands and sway (or even dance a little) during praise music. In most charismatic churches I have attended, the stranger manifestations of the Spirit, (e.g., prayer languages, mass "slayings" in the Spirit, the "jerks", and uncontrollably laughing) are the exception rather than the rule. When I am at the height of expressing love to my wife, I am not stoic and controlled; I am quite enthusiastic and passionate; as is she. I wouldn't be surprised if I uttered some undecipherable stuff during this moments. I wouldn't be surprised if I collapsed in a temporary stupor afterwards. If I am at the height of expressing my love and adoration of my God, should it be any different? After all, He will one day be my "husband" (although picturing myself in a wedding gown is quite uncomfortable). If people are uncomfortable with this type of worship, they can go to another, more traditional church. I'm comfortable in either setting. I will admit, I learn more at a traditional service than at a charismatic service. But I have more fun and come away more spiritually satisfied at a charismatic service. IMO, they both have their place in the body of Christ.

Recently I was party to a strange but interesting conversation. I have recently read Nikola Tesla's autobiography entitled, "My Inventions." Tesla had extraordinary powers of intuition and visualisation as well as an enhanced sense of hearing. He desired to use his inventions for the betterment of the world. Even his "death ray" device was intended as a defensive weapon in the light of the newly-formed and threatening Third Reich. His greatest idea was the transmission of wireless power. He foresaw back then wireless communication which would include images and dissolve the problem of distance that they faced back in his day. Occultism raged during his time. He mentions once nearly tossing out a delegation from Henry Ford for some occultic suggestion within a business proposal. He felt that occurrences deemed to be occultic would eventually be explained through science and did not believe them to be spiritual. This discussion morphed into one of dimensions. It brings to mind a talk by Rob Bell where he pictured that in a two-dimensional world if you stuck your 3-dimensional hand into the plane of existence of someone in a two-dimensional world, all that person would discern of your hand would be a line. Your fingers would appear to them as 5 lines. But you with your 3-dimensional existence know for certain the appearance of your hand. God inhabits a dimension that is beyond us, where time and matter are different and transcend what we are able to understand. He calls us just to believe and trust what He tells us in His word. It sounds spacey but scientifically-speaking, Why not?

A new book on justice has come off the press in Australia: Nathan Brown & Joanna Darby, Editors. DO JUSTICE: OUR CALL TO FAITHFUL LIVING. Signs Publishing Company, Australia. 2014, 182 pages. I had planned to write a review of this book. Instead, the link below will take you to a much better review than I would write at this time. http://atoday.org/book-biblical-justice-available-adventist-book-center.html I strongly suspect that some of you will want to purchase it.

AMEN Rachel! I have had that experience. It is only after I quit trying (i.e., relying on my own strength) that I started experiencing victory in Christ! Scuba - Great post! For me, love is the basis of the entire Law(love God; love your neighbor) - not love as we define it; but love as Jesus demonstrated for all.

There are two sides to God's Law. One side defines righteousness and the other side defines love. If we view the Law as the means to righteousness it's like trying to push that boulder up to the top of the hill to please God. God needs and wants to show us that the boulder is way too big and heavy for us, He even makes the boulder heavier and the hill higher to take all our hope away of ever making it to the top. Why in the world would He do such a thing. The Devil tells us that God does this because He is a mean and angry God who wants us to fail but in reality, God making the boulder heavier and the hill higher is a great demonstration of wisdom and love. God wants and needs to show us the hopeless state of being we are in. He wants and needs to take away all our strength and ability to live so that we can give up and die because in death there is the abundant life. We truly must die to any and all our efforts to be righteous before God apart from Christ. When we remove the side of God's Law that demands perfect righteousness to please God, the same side that breeds guilt, condemnation, shame and bondage the only side that is left is love. Let that boulder roll you over and kill you. Stop tying to push that boulder up hill to please God because the more effort you put into it, the heavier God makes it and the closer you get to the top, the higher God makes the hill. He is trying to tell us that in Christ we are already righteous, in Christ we are already accepted. So what does this plan of God do for us and His creation? First of all we will stop drawing our value and self worth by how well we keep the commandments. Drawing our value and self worth by how well we keep the commandments breeds pride and a critical, judgmental spirit towards others. It's also the breeding ground for failure, guilt, shame and self condemnation. When we view God's Law as the Law of love we obey God from a different motive. We allow others to grow and experience God's love. It's the kind of love that changes lives. God will conform us to the image of His son through love working from the inside out. God will write His Law of loving God and loving others in our heart and mind and we will be His people and He will be our God and it won't be because we got the boulder to the top, but rather, it will be because He will bring us to realize that in Christ the boulder is already at the top.

I think the two different shapes for the letter 's' might have corresponded to slightly different sounds: German uses two different 's' characters, one for a more z-like sound and one for a more sibilant version. Maybe English made this distinction in writing at one time but later simplified?

It was only when I gave up in utter frustration, that Jesus showed me what He could do in my life. My advice to those who wish to please God, is to give up. Stop trying. Tell HIM you now realize that ANY goodness, or righteousness you display - is His work in you.

I knew a Seventh day Adventist evangelist who I believe was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was fairly well known and is now deceased. He once was stranded in an African country when the meetings he was supposed to preach were canceled by the government and he could not catch a flight for a day or two. He witnessed to a prostitute (with some caution) who knew only Swahili I think it was, which he did not know. He spoke in English, which she did not know, but when he was preaching, she understood him. She wept and was converted. …7They were amazed and astonished, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8"And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 9"Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia Acts 2:7-8

Thanks for that. I bookmarked a web page so I could get back to it later. God is Love! Jesus saves!

Over about the past 35 years there has been some amazing discoveries in the life of Paul. It has been pointed out that while we have been reading Paul's words, that we have tended to read into them the events of the Church-Synagogue split of 135 AD, the views of St. Augustine and the views of the Reformers, especially Martin Luther. Thus despite reading his words we have not been getting very much of Paul's theology. Things are starting to change. There are a number of new books out. Of course I'll refer here to Jim Fleming again: http://www.biblicalresources.net/product.cfm?product=37 http://www.biblicalresources.net/product.cfm?product=64 http://www.biblicalresources.net/product.cfm?product=57 Dr. Fleming (and also these newer studies) point out that Saul use to belong to the synagogue of the freedmen. Archaeology has discovered more about this group. They were people either taken in to slavery or the children of those taken into slavery, who after a certain number of years of work they were set free and given full Roman citizenship and full Roman Citizenship to their children. However during those years they had to work 7 days a week, thus no Sabbath keeping. Those who joined the Synagogue of the Freedmen wanted to make up for those years of Sabbath breaking and other ways they were not able to be faithful, but joining a right wing, fanatical synagogue where the people wanted to prove that they were better law keepers than the Pharisees. They were a hate group. They would learn Hebrew and Aramaic and refuse to speak any other language and wanted the Hellenistic Jews to get in line. They wanted to prove that the were more Jewish than the Pharisees or any other Jew who lived in the land of Israel. The Pharisees and other Jews saw them as an extreme group, similar to our KKK or the Westboro Baptist Church. The term "Under the Law" was frequently (not always but frequent enough to consider this was what Paul had in mind as he wrote these words) not talking about the 10 commandments or the Torah, but these unique far right wing extras that this Synagogue did to prove that they were better Jews than anyone else.

We here continue Dave Thomas’s guest blog on the impact of business language on the nature of the church. Very significant stuff (Jon Paulien). The second primary factor in organizational change has to do with what we call infrastructure. The kinds of infrastructure a church organization develops as it ages become major factors in determining […] The post How the Organized Church Changes, Part 3 appeared first on Jon Paulien's Blog. View the full article

Jen You came across the actual book? It would be nice to get better shots of this, and actually print it. Sometimes it can be so refreshing to see others, not related to adventist come up with similar viewpoints.

I would love to see it printed with one page in the original and the other page with modern spelling.