Triple Jump Christianity
Three phases 1054, 1521, 1906.
An Introduction
Fifty days after Passover, during which Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected, the disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit:
‘When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Tongues of fire sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.’
Acts 2 v 1-4
Christianity was born
The book of Acts records how the message of the resurrection, of the promised Messiah, the gift of the Spirit spread around the Mediterranean from that explosive beginning.
By the end of Acts we find fully formed churches in Jerusalem, Antioch, Galatia, Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, and Rome and with St Paul hoping to take the gospel to Spain.
We also read how the church came under tremendous persecution from external political powers such as the Jewish Pharisees, or from Roman emperors, and cities, such as Ephesus, where the whole political and economic institutions were maintained by occult power.
Pressure also from within: Judaizers attempting to enslave believers under Mosaic law, Gnostics wrapping up the faith in mystery whereas Paul taught that the ‘mystery’ of the gospel and Christ had been revealed and made known.
Nevertheless, in city after city, the apostles appointed elders (same word as ‘bishops’ or ‘presbyters’) to oversee the one church in the city. There were no divisions or denominations like we see today; CofE, Baptist, Methodist, Vineyard, New Frontiers, Kingdom Faith… All the letters of the New Testament are addressed in the same manner to the one church in a location e.g. to Corinth:
‘Paul…to the church of God at Corinth to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all…who call on the name of Jesus Christ’
From heaven’s perspective, this is still the case.
The ‘church history’ books will tell a different story. In 1054 the schism between East and West occurred and Orthodox churches of the East developed on different lines to the West under Roman Catholicism. Then in 1521 Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church and his ‘protest’ became the origin of the Protestant movement and the recovery of such doctrines as Justification by Faith.
In 1906, in Asuza Street, Los Angeles, during the preaching of a one-eyed, former slave, William J Seymour, scenes very similar to Pentecost in Acts 2 were witnessed and the Pentecostal churches were formed which then spawned the Charismatic Movement characterised by the recovery of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit such as healings, miracles, prophecy, and speaking in tongues.
It’s not that the history books are wrong. All the facts are verifiable with dates and places. But there is another history which is less well known, that tells the story of the continuation of the living ‘body of Christ’ the church through all the centuries. E H Broadbent’s book The Pilgrim Church is an excellent portal into this way of looking at church history.
To give just one example; The Camisards in the rugged mountains of SW France in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries were Protestant believers who spoke in tongues and prophesied. When speaking in tongues they were enabled to speak in fluent and highly developed French despite French not being their native language. It is estimated that 500,000 Camisards were either murdered or fled, along with virtually all French Protestants (called Huguenots), to Protestant England or elsewhere.
For further reading: Camisards tongues and prophecy
Concluding Comment
At each point of church history, the same pattern emerges…suffering before a new phase emerges:
Jesus – it cost him his life to inaugurate what we call the New Testament, the New Covenant, in which each individual believer receives the Holy Spirit
The apostles – continuing rejection and persecution
Luther and Protestants (later ‘Evangelicals’) including the Huguenots – extraordinary persecutions the Roman Catholic church outlawing, excommunicating, suppressing, and slaughtering those who dared to ‘protest’.
Pentecostals and Charismatics – often thrown out of existing churches when the life and gifts of the Spirit were resisted and banned in traditional churches.
Current day. The ‘apostles’ of the charismatic renewal and churches in the 1970s in Britain and elsewhere often, at great cost to themselves, had to leave the structures they were in to form ‘new wineskins for the new wine’. But most of these pioneers have died:
Michael Harper, David Watson, Colin Urquhart, Bryn Jones, Arthur Wallis, Terry Virgo, David Pawson, Dennis Bennet, and others you may wish to add to the list.
Questions arise – where are we now? Where are we heading? Are we at a fresh departure point? If so, will it be costly? New wine, new wineskins?
I’m hoping I can share some answers to these questions. My first destination is Paul’s letter to the Romans. For Luther, Wesley and so many others, Romans proved to be the launchpad for the future not a tired framework for old arguments.
Hop: Romans 1-5 Skip: Romans 6 & 7 Jump: Romans 8+
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