God's sense of humor

I have a story to tell...a true story, as it happens, but one which I do not have permission to tell unless I do so without revealing the identity of the friend to whom it happened. So, I vouch for the truth of the basic story, and the details are as accurate as I could get them established; but I can't tell you whom it happened to -- names have been changed to protect the innocent and all that.

So, to my story. Let's call the mom in this story "Sandi," and let's call her son "Kyle". The way Sandi tells it runs something like this, or at least it would if she had my narrative style:

Kyle came into the house really excited the other day, because he had found a perfectly good [some kind of fancy iPhone or something, I don't remember the brand name] in the parking lot at Target. And he thought this was just great because he's been pestering me for a new cell phone for months, and it hadn't gotten him anywhere. He told me there wasn't anything wrong with the phone, except that it didn't have a SIM card -- but it was a Verizon phone just like ours. So he took the SIM card out of his old phone and put it into the one he'd found, and it worked great.

I asked to see it, and he happily handed it over for my admiration. I opened the phone book, and there was this long list of somebody else's contacts that I knew weren't Kyle's -- people like, say, "Tia Francesca." You should have seen his face when I said, "Okay, Kyle, here's what we have to do -- we have to call these people and find out whose phone this is so that we can give it back to them."

For a moment he was literally speechless, and then he said, "It's my phone! I found it!"

"No, honey, it's not your phone; it's somebody else's phone, and we have to give it back to them."

"But I found it!!"

"Look, Kyle," I told him, "it's just the Golden Rule. If this was your phone, and you were the one that had lost it, and somebody else found it, wouldn't you want them to call you and say, 'Hey, I found your phone'?"

He just glared at me.

"Of course you would. So that's what you have to do for the person who did lose it."

Well, he was not happy, but he didn't put up a fight, and I called up "Tia Francesca" to start trying to return the phone, which was complicated because Tia Francesca didn't speak any English...but anyway, here's where it gets interesting.

That was on a Thursday night. On Friday night I carelessly set my company BlackBerry down in a restaurant after getting a late text from a co-worker, and forgot all about it until the next morning. I called the restaurant...and nobody had turned in a phone. It was gone. And it wasn't even my own phone I had lost.

I was pretty upset, obviously, but at the same time, what a great lesson for Kyle! So I looked at Kyle and said, "Wouldn't it be nice if whoever found that phone in the restaurant, would start going through my contacts and calling people until they found me? Because otherwise I'm going to have to pay my company for that phone and we'll be out $400 or so."

[giggling] Kyle just rolled his eyes and looked kind of embarrassed, because really, what's he going to say?

I even added, "Well, maybe God will honor our faithfulness: we tried to do the right thing, and He knows that; so maybe He'll make sure the person calls us back."

That was, I suppose, unwise, and I'm afraid that by Saturday evening it had sunk in on all of us that the person who "found" my phone was taking exactly the same attitude that Kyle had taken. And I was pretty upset about it, because we don't have a lot of money right now. So I started complaining about it, and then tried to catch myself and stop. But I couldn't help but tell Kyle, "See, you know why I made you call those people to give the phone back? It's because you don't want to be like the person who stole my phone, do you? Do you?!" [Sandi's "Do you?!" is spoken in that This-Is-A-Statement-Not-Really-A-Question voice every mom seems to possess]

And again, really, what's he going to say?

Well, we went to church on Sunday, and I was still really upset about the phone, but you know how church reminds you that you need to pray about things, not be mad about them? Yeah, so I said, "Okay, Lord, I really can't afford to pay for that BlackBerry. So please convict the heart and conscience of the person who stole it, so that he'll decide to give it back to me. But if that's not Your plan, that's fine. Either way, please help me stop worrying about it."

About 2:00 that afternoon, the home phone rang, and some woman whose voice wasn't familiar asked, "Is this Kyle Penders?"

I told her, "No, Kyle's outside; this is his mom."

"Oh," the lady answered, "then I think you're the person I want to talk to...are you Sandi Penders?"

"Um..ye-e-s."

"Then I think I have your phone."

Turns out her son had come up to her that afternoon and given her the phone and said, "Hey, mom, I found this phone at Chili's." And she had started going through the contact list looking for people who might be close relatives.

She told me she lived close to Chili's and would just drop it off there that afternoon. So when Kyle came in I told him, "Guess what...?"

And sure enough, that evening I swung by Chili's, and they had my phone. I came back to the house and Kyle was sitting at the kitchen table. He asked, "Did you get your phone?" and I answered, "Yes."

Then he looked down at the table and grinned and said, "So I guess there's something you want to say to me..."

I laughed and said, "I don't think I have to," and that was the end of the conversation.

I just think that's the most delightful story of how one kid learned a proverbial Lesson He'll Never Forget.

Hmmm...I suspect this of being a very good point

Kenny

The visiting pastor at La Casa today had a very interesting take on God's revelation to us. To sum up the points that struck me the most forcibly:

• He distinguished between "private" (or "particular") and "general" revelations. Thus when Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman, "I who speak to you am he" is a general revelation, whereas, "You've had five husbands and the man you're 'having' now is not your husband," is a private/particular revelation. That's pretty straightforward. But then interestingly he maintained...
• ...that our "general" revelations have no power unless they are undergirded by "particular" revelations.

In other words, if I may put it this way, theology about what "God always does" is just theology and words until it is infused with our joy and wonder over what "God did for me."

Lewis, in one of his poems, meditates on the limitations of apologetics and muses,

"Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their time-worn image of Thy head."

I wonder how true it is that even the coin of theological truth is tin and brass until transmuted into gold by its incarnation into our own lives -- and to what extent this is what we try to capture by the word "unction" (one of those theological words that fortunately for my Sunday morning edification is the same in Spanish as in English). I wonder to what extent the pastor is right that the General Revelation of God goes out in power only, or at least ordinarily, when it passes through, when it is as it were focused like a laser by, a Particular Revelation that impels one person to share.

For the pattern in John 4 is the pattern this morning's pastor sees in all witnessing in power: Jesus speaks to the woman and breaks through to her wonder and awe and joy by means of a particular revelation. She goes back to the people and shares a general revelation ("Can this be the Messiah?") driven and empowered by the conviction of her particular revelation ("He told me everything I ever did.") Then those who hear her come to speak to Jesus themselves, and find Him speaking directly into each one's own soul, and finally tell the woman, "At first we believed because of what you said, but now we believe because we have heard him for ourselves."

I'm not sure that the pastor is right; but thoughts have been provoked, and I'll be turning this one over in my mind for a while.

John Wesley on the charismatic gifts

Kenny

Would that every preacher in the charismatic movement had the good sense and Scriptural grounding of Wesley!

From his sermon "Scriptural Christianity," preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, before the University, August 24, 1744:

The text: "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Acts iv.31.

...In this chapter we read, that when the Spostles and brethren had been praying, and praising God, "the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Not that we find any visible appearance here, such as had been in the former instance: Nor are we informed that the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were then given to all or any of them; such as the gifts of "healing, of working" other "miracles, of prophecy, of discerning spirits, the speaking with divers kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues." (1 Cor. xii. 9, 10.)

Whether these gifts of the Holy Ghost were designed to remain in the Church throughout all ages, and whether or no they will be restored at the nearer approach of the "restitution of all things," are questions which it is not needful to decide. But it is needful to observe this, that, even in the infancy of the Church, God divided them with a sparing hand. Were all even then Prophets? Were all workers of miracles? Had all the gifts of healing? Did all speak with tongues? No, in no wise. Perhaps not one in a thousand. Probably none but the Teachers in the Church, and only some of them. (1 Cor. xii. 28-30.) It was, therefore, for a more excellent purpose than this, that "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost."

It was, to give them (what none can deny to be essential to all Christians in all ages) the mind which was in Christ, those holy fruits of the Spirit which whosoever hath not, is none of his; to fill them with "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness;" (Gal. v. 22-24;) to endue them with faith (perhaps it might be rendered, fidelity,) with meekness and temperance; to enable them to crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts, its passions and desires; and, in consequence of that inward change, to fulfil all outward righteousness; to "walk as Christ also walked," in "the work of faith, in the patience of hope, the labour of love." (1 Thess. i. 3.)

Without busying ourselves, then, in curious, needless inquiries, touching these extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, let us take a nearer view of these his ordinary fruits, which we are assured will remain throughout all ages; -- of that great work of God among the children of men, which we are used to express by one word, Christianity; not as it implies a set of opinions, a system of doctrines, but as it refers to men's hearts and lives.

Now about this I offer the following brief comments:

1. I think Wesley unduly pessimistic, and unduly impressed with the importance of "Teachers," when he says, "Perhaps not one in a thousand," etc. But Wesley, in taking seriously the obvious intent of Paul's rhetorical question, "Do all speak in tongues?" is at least dealing honestly with the text, in marked contrast to such persons as Dennis Bennett.

2. I am not nearly as certain as Wesley that it "is not needful to decide" whether the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, used by God to edify His infant Church and thus produce in her the fruits of the Spirit, "were designed to remain in the Church throughout all ages." In fact I think he is wrong; I think that they were designed to remain, that it is needful to understand their nature and uses, and that a Church that refuses to avail itself of the gifts of the Spirit properly used cripples its own ability to produce the fruit of the Spirit just as surely as a Church that comes to adore the gifts rather than the Giver, most surely will end in dividing the Church rather than edifying it, as has been the case from the days of Corinth to the days of the all-too-frequently self-congratulatory and schismatic "renewal" movements of the twentieth century.

3. But I hold very strongly indeed to the belief that Wesley is absolutely right in demanding that our focus be on the ordinary fruit of the Spirit rather than the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, and there can be no excuse for those large contingents within the charismatic movement who insist, in effect, on rewriting the very words of Christ Himself to say, "By their gifts you shall know them." Nay, to those who proclaim, with all the vehemence of a Corinthian, that one can tell which soi-disantes Christians have the Spirit and which do not, by the presence or absence of supernatural gifts of the Spirit, I urge meditation upon the following words of Christ Himself.

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit [not, you perceive, by their gifts] you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

It's a simple question, really: did Jesus spend more time talking about Spiritual gifts -- or Spiritual fruit?

Thus I personally believe there is a proper middle ground between Wesley's apparent desire to minimize the importance of Spiritual gifts (understandable given his desperate desire to head off schism between the Wesleyans, many of whom were demonstrating ecstatic gifts, and the Church of England), and the charismatic movement's glorification of gifts beyond all rational or godly measure. And there are many persons within the renewal movement who have remained responsible and Biblical and godly, and who have born much fruit.

But if I were forced to choose between the two, I would trust my children in a heartbeat to a Wesley rather than to a Bennett.