Freedom Christian Fellowship

There is a mountain of books out there on Church History.   Each comes from a different perspective, however, which makes it hard to figure out which one to read.  For people just getting started, I recommend the exciting and truly motivating Series by Roberts Liardon.  They give you a flavor of several of the most important moments:  Pentecostal History, Reformers and Revivalists.   There are a number of motivating biographies out there including 50 years on the battlefront by Mordecai Ham,  the Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, The Heavenly man and others.   The Ten Greatest Revivals ever by Towns and Revival Fire by Duewel are also stirring starters on Revival history.

For those looking for a more comprehensive Church History textbook to understand the big picture, I think the best place to start is Church History in Plain Language by Shelley.  Of the several standard introductory texts out there, I appreciate it’s perspective and readability the best.  The entire history of the church is covered quickly, and that serves as a good jumping off point.   For a strictly mission perspective, I also liked A Concise History of the Christian World Mission by Kane and found The Dynamics of the Christian Mission by Paul Pierson most fascinating.

More recently, historians are starting to realize the significance of talking about the chuch’s impact on culture not just the church itself.  There are several good books on this topic.  For the more academic types, I really like Rodney Stark’s “Victory of Reason” as a bold presentation of the importance of the church.  The documentary “The Birth of Freedom” by the Acton Institute is really fabulous and worth ordering if you haven’t seen it.    Alvin Schmidt also did one called “How Christianity Changed the World” which is a good starter text for this kind of approach.

One of the results of addiction is that your view of money and ability to handle it is often ruined.  In addition, people who are in poverty situations often have very different views of money than those in the middle class.   This is a huge challenge to unravel, but one that must be done if the person hopes to climb out.   There are a lot of principles that responsible  people operate by that are non-obvious to others.   For example, the principle of saving as much as you can on every single purchase, and only purchasing things you need.   Others may just use whatever money they have to buy something to make their life feel better.   For example, cell phones.  When a responsible  person gets strapped for cash, they will often dump their cell phone to save money.   Someone with bad financial skills might forgo food before a cell phone.   That’s just one example.

So good resources are needed to help people.   The Total Money Makeover and “Financial Peace Revisited” by Dave Ramsey are actually really good resources in this department.  What is so good about them is not that they teach advanced strategies, but that they teach basics in a way that can really be grasped.   All of the testimonies in Total Money Makeover and it’s push to get you out of debt are very effective motivators toward doing the right thing with your money.

There are a number of foundations books out there.   The good news is that when you are a new believer the main “foundations” book you really need is the New Testament.   Especially Matthew, John, and Romans.  If you can get the message of those 3 books, you have a lot of the really important stuff.    As our team has been working with newer believers that we cannot personally disciple we have looked for resources that we can hand to them to do some basic work on their own.

As far as “workbooks” go, the “Handbook for Christian Maturity” by Bill Bright and Campus Crusade is probably the best one available.   I have looked at Derek Prince’s material, Bob Weiner, and a number of others, but Bright is just very easy to understand, straightforward, etc.   I like Weiner personally, but the money teaching in the book really blows it for me.  Prince’s book is actually very good, but it is not simple enough for true  intro material.  It is a better “intro” for someone coming in from the evangelical church, not a raw recruit.  A very recent alternative that I’m excited about is Larry Kreider’s “Discovering the Basic Truths of Christianity”  We may be switching to this after I have a chance to review.

The first thing an entry level student of the Bible needs to own is a “Handbook.”   Henrietta Mears and Henry Halley did a great job by creating “Bible Handbooks”  which are kind of condensed commentaries.  They just give you a “road map” of what is in the Scripture.  Mears’ work is to be recommended for it’s devotional and practical qualities.   People are rediscovering the value of these two books and they have both been republished in recent years in multiple editions by Zondervan.  Owning one of them is an outstanding way for regular people to start to study the Bible.

Most commentaries do not really help you much.  They either give esoteric comments about the text itself which are only useful to someone who has done extensive study, or they give kind of cheesy comments about non-central topics.    The modern publishers have not figured out why Matthew Henry keeps outselling anything they produce — but this guy became legendary because he specifically does what all of the modern commentators don’t — he gives meaty heart applications to every text.

For a nice summary of modern evangelical scholarship at an entry level the “New Bible Commentary” is definitely without peer.  It’s really worth owning for those with serious questions and serious investigation of the Word going on.    There are others out there, but this one is the best, and the others generally just repeat similar ideas.     Again, you are not going to find “application” here like you do with Henry, but you will find a lot of insightful thoughts about the structure and purpose of the text.

As far as full length, multi-volume commentaries, the only one I can recommend for use by pastors and lay people is the Pulpit Commentary.  This massive work is remarkable for it’s devotional quality.  It actually makes an effort to apply and draw meaning out of the Scripture.   It includes both comments and sermon ideas sections, and you will find lots of fascinating ideas in its pages. Most of the big modern multi volumes, however I really would not recommend for any kind of every day use.   Only if you are researching out an important issue.  If you want to get access to some of the best classic multi-volume commentaries, I strongly recommend downloading e-sword (www.e-sword.net) and all of the commentaries.  It has most of the best ones.

Yes, there is such a thing as “spiritual” abuse.   It is when a system is set up in the name of God that hurts people.  The Pharisees were the original spiritual abusers.  A lot of people think that Jesus was upset with their legalism, and there is no doubt that he was, but really that was just a part of a larger problem .  They were taking advantage of people in the name of God.

Not everything bad that could ever happen to you in a church setting is really spiritual abuse.   Even in a healthy environment people hurt and get hurt.  It becomes abuse however, when the person who is hurt is blamed, when their value is based on performance (against a standard that can’t be met),  when they are afraid to leave but hate to stay.  These are the kinds of features that you find in a spiritually abusive environment.

Unfortunately it is not just cults that treat people this way, it has become all too common to find in more mainstream settings.  If you have been a participant in a system like this, you need healing.    Every system is unique, but the essential features which cause it to hurt you are pretty much the same.  For this reason, I recommend “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” by Jeff VanVonderen as a starting point.   It is a very effective description of all of the components of an abusive religious system, and it is good reading not just for those who have been abused but also for the average person.   Equally as good is Ken Blue’s  “Healing Spiritual Abuse.” Being aware of how these systems work can help us avoid making a wrong turn into trap that has God’s name on it.

One of the most common forms of spiritual abuse within the charismatic movement is based on the theology of the “Shepherding Movement.”  There are a number of different books which deal with the Shepherding movement from different angles.   David Moore’s book “The Shepherding Movement” gives the full history, although it is somewhat sympathetic to the leaders.    “Damaged Disciples” by Ron and Vicki Burks gives  a compelling personal account of how the system worked as does Adam Harbison in his more recent book “Savage Shepherds.”   The systematized abuse of the  Shepherding Movement made it worse, but sometimes there are abusive people in systems that are themselves not as abusive.   Jesus brings freedom not bondage.

Learning to derive meaning out of the Bible can be very difficult, especially if you come from a religious background. I personally spent quite a while trying to get deep meaning out of the Scriptures. Those from a more fundamentalist or dispensationalist heritage will value the actual words of the Scriptures and memorize them. Those from an evangelical background will work with them at a rational level. Charismatics may welcome exciting, but “hyper-spiritual” interpretations. How do we find a method of reading Scripture that is life giving, but does not lead to false interpretations?

This is a complex issue, but I recommend a method that values the types and images in the Bible.   Recently the trend of “Biblical Theology” has been changing the playing field.  This a scholarly approach which has revived and validated the study of types and images because they are part of how the apostles themselves preached.  The text that every serious student of the Bible needs to start with is Dennis Johnson’s “Him We Proclaim”  This masterwork explains it all and demonstrates the principles of apostolic intepretation from the book of Hebrews.  This book might be a little academic for those without seminary training, however.    If you can get through it, this is definitely the best starting place.

Kevin Conner’s Interpreting the Scriptures, is the only text I am aware of that really tries to provide an end to end Charismatic approach to reading the Bible.   It follows in the a tradition of Bible interpretation going back through J. Edwin Hartill to the early methods of the Moody Bible Institute and A.T. Pierson.  Conner attempts to blend mainstream interpretation with the interpretive methods highlighted by George Warnock in his famous “Feast of Tabernacles” book.  These methods became the basis for much of contemporary Charismatic movement.  Conner has also written a number of other books related to this subject.   Conner himself is an amazing Bible interpreter, but it is hard to get from his books to his methods. He has a “key to knowing scripture” seminar where he explains it all, but I had to contact him directly in Australia in order to get it.   Get “Interpreting the Scriptures” and work through the principles slowly until you understand it.

I explicitly do not recommend the highly popular “How to Read the Bible for all it is Worth” by Fee and Stuart because they make too much effort to tell us not to apply the Scripture, when in reality we need to learn how to apply it.  As an alternative you can try  “Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind” by Longman but it is a little more advanced.     “How to Apply the Bible” by Dave Veerman, the force behind the Life Application Bible, is a short and helpful treatment of application. As a side note, if you are going to buy a study Bible I do recommend Life Application as one of the few that provides helpful practical insights.

Once you learn how to read the Scriptures through images and themes, the “Dictionary of Biblical Imagery,” is a must have.  This dictionary is an invaluable resource, perhaps the most important resource on your shelf for discovering what God is saying in the Scripture from beginning to end.

Maybe you are open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit but you are not sure about tongues.  Either you believe they are over emphasized or they are not for you.   If that is you, then you I recommend you read “They Speak with Other Tongues” by John Sherrill.   He  was a secular and skeptical journalist who was sent to investigate the “tongues” phenomenon. The results of his investigation were not only shocking to him, but his book has ministered to millions of people for whom tongues and the supernatural were foreign.

We recently had one of our members who felt like tongues were real but his family was saying it wasn’t good.  On the one hand he felt skeptical, on the other hand he felt like there was power in it that he needed to overcome the flesh.   We gave him this book, and it really helped him to work through his concerns.   By the time I saw him next, he was ready to go for it.    It seems that doubts about tongues are a big stumbling block for people, and that this book helps work through them, so that they can receive them, and the power that goes with them.  I highly recommend this as a primer for any pastor trying to help people get filled, as well as people who are searching.

Knowing God is a lifelong task. There is no one silver bullet that will suddenly cause you to know Him deeply. Ultimately the biggest part of knowing God has nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with character and our response to Him.  The more we humble ourselves the more we will experience his closeness. The more we pursue encounters with Him, the more we will experience Him on a tangible level. The spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and worship help this to happen. This cultivates a heart that makes reading the Bible very profitable and enjoyable too.   People often have misconceptions of God, though and so having a right view of Him can really help speed the process along. A.W. Tozer has written two books on the attributes of God that we recommend. Knowledge of the Holy and the longer version Attributes of God.

Pride is one of the most difficult issues for us to deal with, because it is very deceptive. In fact, someone with a major pride problem is less likely to realize they have it than someone who has a small problem. It can even go under cover masking itself as humility. Contrary to popular belief, not all pride manifests itself as arrogance. Pride is our need to look good for others. The more concerned you are about what others think about you, the more pride you have. Therefore, someone who thinks very little of themselves can actually have pride. Humility is when we both admit our faults, and stop trying to fix them to look good and be acceptable for others.
A good quick self test of pride then is how bad do you feel about letting others see your weaknesses? Although even this is not a fool proof test, it is a good one that might help you discover where you are. Another one is, are you afraid to be wrong, or afraid of looking like you don’t know something? I’m sure there are others, but for those with pride I have seen two books really help. Holiness, Truth, and the Presence of God by Frangipane, and Humility by Andrew Murray. I recommend one of these as a basic part of discipleship and training.

Many Christians today have a great deal of anxiety over the end. Throughout history, as we have entered fearful times, the Christians have turned to the expectation of Christs return as the ultimate hope. In Matthew 24, Jesus tells us that we will hear of “wars and rumors of wars” but that the “end is not yet.” He goes on to list a number of other things that do not in themselves signify the end — famines, false prophets, martyrdom, and lawlessness. These things are endemic to history, and they are not a guide to Jesus return.

The end, Jesus goes on to explain, will come when the “gospel is proclaimed to all peoples.” This process of the gospel going to every people group has been 2000 years in the making, and only really picked up full speed in the last 100-200 year. Since that time, an urgent mission movement has gone around the world touching even the remotest parts of the Earth with the message of Christ. There is no better sign than our progress in advancing this mission. Watching the Joshua Project website, then, might be a better way of tracking the end times than the headline news.

Underlying this question though is the very complex issue of eschatology – or study of the end times. This study is important not for calculating dates (as many do) but for understanding what we are supposed to be doing. This is a very complex topic which often takes months for a person to fully understand and take a position on. Few will do this, yet everyone wants to understand their own personal mission, and more generally the world they live in. Just as significantly, our eschatology has a surprising impact on our reading of Scripture — where you see the church ultimately going is what you will see it doing in the Scripture too. And the method you use to support your view in the Scripture, is the method you will use with the rest of the Bible.
My own extensive study has led me to the position known as “amillennialism.” In most simple terms this means that I believe we are now ruling and reigning with Christ. There is no future 1000 years after he returns, and there is no “take over” by the church before he returns. This was essentially the position held by St. Augustine in his master work City of God. We are despoiling the enemy’s kingdom by winning lost souls, freeing them from demonic oppression, and healing the sick wherever we go. The victory of the church is spiritual, not natural. This does not mean that we ignore cultural transformation, it is just that we do not do it for the purpose of “take over.” We do it to help reach lost people, which is ultimately how the devil’s Kingdom is destroyed. A good book that I recommend to help you get started understanding the scriptural basis for this view is by Kim Riddlebarger: “A Case for Amillennialism”  You might also want to try Book XX of Augustine’s “City of God.”  Take a look at Book 7 in particular.