Bible Study With Jairus

Bible Study with Jairus - Acts 25

Acts 25 is like a tug of war.  Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea, a place Northwest of Jerusalem.  The Jews insisted that Festus send Paul back to Jerusalem for trial, hoping to ambush and kill Paul on the way.  Festus tried to please the Jews and asked Paul if he was willing to return to Jerusalem for trial, but Paul insisted on appealing to Caesar.  So after Festus conferred with his council, he accepted Paul's request.

Looking at it from here, Festus, as the Roman Governor of Judea, was a person who didn't take sides, or we could say that he was a bit of a fence sitter.  He tried to please the Jews, saying he was using a conciliatory approach to rule the land of Jerusalem.  His treatment of King Agrippa's argument about Paul and the Jews allowed us to see that he didn't think their case was that important.  He told King Agrippa that the dispute between Paul and the Jews was merely a matter of disagreement about their own religion and the fact that Paul declared that Jesus died and was resurrected.  His heart was perplexed over this situation.  He asked Paul if he was willing to go to Jerusalem for trial, but Paul wasn't willing.  So he planned to keep Paul.  He said, "hold him until I can send him to Caesar" (Acts 25:21, NIV).

I didn't pay attention to this sentence before.  Festus had already planned to send Paul to Rome.  But after King Agrippa interrogated Paul, he sighed, saying if Paul hadn't appealed to Caesar, he could have been set free (Acts 26:32, NIV).  Acts 27:24 records an angel of God standing beside Paul and telling him he would stand before Caesar.  This may be why Paul stood trial before Caesar later, but the Bible doesn't record the specific details of Paul and Caesar's meeting.  Instead, it just recorded the experience of Paul, Festus, and King Agrippa meeting each other.  Caesar here is said to be Nero Caesar.  But this is only according to historical legends.  When Nero persecuted the church later, Paul was martyred.

With the Holy Spirit's help, we noticed that God predestined Paul's journey from Jerusalem to Rome to spread the gospel to Rome.  As Acts 28 records, after Paul came to Rome, he rented a house there for two years, "to proclaim the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance" (Acts 28:31, NIV).  This shows that the gospel Paul spread in Rome had laid a good foundation for evangelizing Europe.  Therefore, in the development of the kingdom of God and the spread of the gospel, it was crucial for Paul to arrive safely in Rome from Jerusalem.

Satan attempted to stop Paul from going to Rome.  He incited the Jews to kill Paul in Jerusalem.  But Paul's nephew heard their plan and reported it to commander Lysias, and Paul was arrested.  Then the Jews went to Governor Felix to complain, and Felix asked Paul to defend himself.  Paul gave testimony to Felix, saying that he "keeps his conscience clear before God and man" (Acts 24:16, NIV, and that he did not commit any wrongdoings.   Later, Felix, who was well acquainted with the Way, adjourned the proceedings.  "When Lysias the commander comes," he said, "I will decide your case."  He ordered commander Lysias to keep Paul under guard but to give him some freedom and permit his friends to take care of his needs" (Acts, 24:22-23, NIV).  

Later, Felix and his Jewish wife listened to Paul, who continued to talk about Jesus Christ.  "Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come" (Acts 24:25, NIV).  Felix was scared and sent Paul away.  He was hoping that Paul would come to him later and give him some money.   But the Bible doesn't say whether Felix was saved or not.  At least from the story here, Paul's testimony to Governor Felix touched him a little, but Felix hadn't decided whether to accept Jesus Christ.  At the end of Chapter 24, it records that after two years, Festus took over Felix's Governor position.  He wanted to please the Jews, so he continued to imprison Paul.

Many people opposed Paul's trip to Jerusalem.  This included the prophet Agabus who prophesied that Paul would be bound in Jerusalem, but he did not prevent Paul from going.  People in the modern prophetic movement believe that Agabus' prediction was half accurate and half inaccurate because Agabus prophesied that Paul would be bound by the Jews in Jerusalem.  But in the end, Paul was bound by the Romans.  Paul teaches us in the Bible not to treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:20-22, NIV).  Paul has done this with Agabus' prophecy.  In the end, it turned out that Paul was right.  Because it was recorded in Acts 23:11 (NIV), "The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, "Take courage!  As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome."  This is the key sentence.  It proved that Paul's decision to go to Jerusalem was encouraged by the Lord and that he would also testify in Rome as well.

This explains why Paul had to appeal to Caesar.  God's word prophesied and told him that he would go to Rome to testify about the Lord.  The angel provided the direction he was to go in.  Going to Rome was the will of God.  But Satan tried his best to oppose the will of God by using the Jews in Jerusalem to attempt to kill Paul.  After God defeated Satan's schemes through Paul's nephew and commander Lysias, Satan tried to use the Jews again to accuse Paul before Felix.  But God used Paul to preach the gospel to Felix and his Jewish wife allowing Felix to hesitate and not agree with the Jew's request.

After Festus took over Felix's Governor's position, he wanted to please the Jews in the beginning, so he kept Paul in prison.  He also tried to persuade Paul to go to Jerusalem with him for trial.  If Paul went to Jerusalem, he would definitely die.  So Paul firmly refused and insisted on appealing to Caesar.  After Festus had conferred with his council, he decided to send Paul to Caesar.  The attitude of the council also affected Festus.  Later, King Agrippa came and put Paul on trial.  Paul gave Agrippa a good testimony.  He talked about his experience where Jesus Christ appeared to him.  Later, King Agrippa wavered from his position.  Although he did not fully accept Jesus Christ, he was sympathetic towards Paul.  In the end, he said that if Paul did not appeal to Caesar, Paul could have been set free.

Acts 27 describes Paul boarding a ship and encountering a storm on his way to Rome.  At first, Paul advised the centurion not to continue sailing, but they didn't listen.  Later the soldiers planned to kill the prisoners when the storm continued to rage.  But the centurion wanted to bring Paul safely through, so he kept the soldiers from doing it.  In Acts 28, Paul was bitten by a snake, but God kept Paul safe again.  Through God's signs and wonders, it opened the door to evangelism, and the gospel was preached to the Jews and others in Rome.

From our description of Paul's journey, we can see Satan's actions - he tried to kill Paul or prevent him from going to Rome.  God overcame Satan's schemes and brought Paul to Rome safely.

 The journey from Jerusalem to Rome was arduous for Paul.  Jerusalem can be said to be the place where Paul was called since he was born and raised there.  Although he met the Lord in Damascus, Paul also said that God had set him apart from his mother's womb.  Rome was the last place where Paul preached the gospel and was martyred (this is where Paul had completed his mission).  It could be a difficult journey from our calling to completing the mission God gives us.  Through your journey, you may encounter many obstacles like the Jews trying to kill Paul or a wavering dignitary like Felix, Festus, and King Agrippa.  God may send people to protect you and strengthen your faith, like Paul's nephew and the centurion.

Peter spoke hastily to those who received the temple tax by telling them that Jesus would pay taxes.   Jesus gently rebuked him but told him to throw a line into the water, and the first fish he caught would have a silver coin in its mouth to pay the tax for Jesus and Peter.  I like fishing, but at times I spend the whole day and catch nothing.  Even if Peter were a master fisherman, it wouldn't be easy to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth, but he caught one since the Lord declared it.  The Bible doesn't say how long it took him to catch this particular fish.

According to what Peter said in 2 Peter 1:19 (NIV): "We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts," Peter said, "No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things.  For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21, NIV)

Jesus gave Peter God's prophetic word when he told him to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth.   Imagine Peter, who had fished for many nights without a catch receiving this word from the Lord.  I'm sure it was difficult to accept, but knowing that all things are possible with God encouraged Peter and gave him confidence amid a depressing time.  Peter was able to speak these words confidently because of his experience.

Similarly, Paul faced so many obstacles and a lot of people trying to kill him.  But he still firmly believed that he could reach Rome safely and testify before Caesar.  What is the reason behind this? The reason lies in Acts 23:11 (NIV), which says, "The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, "Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.  "No matter how many challenges he would face, he knew that he would reach Rome safely because the Lord told him so. I've experienced God's promise in my life during my wife's ten years of infertility.  In January 2016, I heard the Lord say that I would have a child that year.   I returned to China in February and announced it to my family.   Over time I experienced many people's unbelief and opposition, but I firmly believed it would happen because God said it.  Before my wife's miraculous pregnancy in May, I experienced numerous attacks and ridicule from the enemy, but I persevered.  Why?  I stood on the word that the Lord gave me.  By sharing my experience, I hope that the Lord will use it to comfort and bring hope to those who are facing difficulties and trying to hold on to God's promises.   Hudson Taylor was an English missionary, who as a young boy, saw visions of countless Chinese people going to hell.   He accepted the call to preach the Gospel in China.  Unfortunately, he contracted a life-threatening disease while in medical school.  A doctor declared his case hopeless and told him to go home and prepare to die.  Hudson told the doctor that he would not die because God wanted him to preach the Gospel in China.  The doctor refused to believe him.  After miraculously surviving this disease, the first thing Hudson did was to testify to this doctor.  The doctor was surprised and prayed to receive Christ as his Lord and Savior.  Hudson encountered a severe storm after boarding a ship to China.  He firmly declared that nothing bad would happen because God wanted him to go to China.

On the evening of March 16, 2020, we prayed online with some members of our Bible Study group.  We mainly spent time praying for China and the spread of the novel coronavirus.  That night, I was taken up to heaven in the spirit, and I saw various spectacular scenes of China's future revival.  The activities of worshiping God in different parts of China could only be described by the phrase "in full swing."  In the end, I saw that the angels bound the opposing forces against God in China.  God has enlightened me many times about China's great revival through dreams.  I was in this vision and dreamed for two hours, from two to four in the morning.

This experience, along with many other dreams, is God's promised word to me in these difficult circumstances, especially in the coronavirus outbreak.  These words from God are like a light shining in a dark place.   I value them even though I've encountered unbelief and derogatory remarks.  I believe these difficult times will eventually pass.  After the cleansing work of God is completed, a great revival will be released.  I prepared myself for this, and I hope to encourage many Christians to see a bright future and not focus on the negativity around them.   

We are all like Paul.  Our life is a process of walking from our call "Jerusalem" to the mission and end of our life, "Rome."  Our mission is to come to Rome (which represents the world) to testify about the Lord.  On our way there, we will encounter danger and opposition like what Paul experienced.  But if we hold on to the words God has promised to us, we will be able to persevere to the end.

We must also pay attention to prophetic words, just like paying attention to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

I hope that many fellow believers will see a bright future in the fog caused by the coronavirus.

Bible Study with Jairus – Acts 20

Matthew 10:8 (NIV) says, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”  This sentence is what the Lord Jesus told the twelve disciples when He sent them out to preach. It seems that "raise the dead" is somewhat of an obscure command. Even among the twelve disciples, there is not much recorded of them raising someone from the dead.  But there are a few examples, including Acts 9, where Peter raised Dorcas from the dead, and Acts 20, where Paul raised Eutychus from the dead, which we will read today.

Nine people in the Bible were raised from the dead.  This includes the prophet Elijah who raised the widow's son, Elisha, who revived the woman's son, and the man who revived by touching Elisha’s bones.  Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain and Lazarus. God raised Jesus from the dead, plus the examples of Peter and Paul above.

We will not discuss the other resurrections during this study. We will only discuss the resurrection of Eutychus. Why did God arrange for Eutychus to be raised from the dead?  After this story, Paul arrived in Jerusalem.  Was this because of God's leading, or because Paul made a mistake?

From what I’ve studied and the teaching I’ve received, Paul made a mistake here.  The prophet Agabus had prophesied in Acts 21:10-11 that Paul would be bound at Jerusalem.  Agabus took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’” (NIV) Then Luke 12:15 records the following:

12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?  I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. ” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.” 15 After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. (NIV)

I was saved in the Local Church movement and accepted their teachings for many years. I remember reading something about this subject.  Witness Lee thought Paul made a mistake here. When he was asked by others why Paul made such a mistake here, Witness Lee replied that only Jesus is the perfect saint.  What he meant is that everybody makes mistakes.  So this comment made a strong impression on me.  But ever since the Lord led me to learn about the prophetic gifts in the Pentecostal Movement, I felt more confused when I heard their different interpretations of this verse. Many people with prophetic gifts hold similar views.  They believe that Paul did not make any mistake here; he was just following the Lord’s leading.  Because Paul was doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus, not only was he bound, even if he died in Jerusalem, he was also ready. Also, Luke mentioned afterward, “May the Lord's purposes be accomplished.”

Acts 21:4 also says that “We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” (NIV)

But Paul said in Acts 20:22-24, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.  I only know that in every city, the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (NIV)

So at least from here, the biblical record is contradictory.  On the one hand, the Holy Spirit reminds him not to go to Jerusalem through people who have prophetic gifts.  On the other hand, Paul said that the Spirit compelled him to go to Jerusalem.  It’s just that the Holy Spirit told him that he would face difficulties.

The question is, does God want Paul to go or not?  This is a tricky situation, and there is a lot of debate about this.

The reason people thought Paul was wrong and shouldn’t have gone to Jerusalem stems from a prophetic word from the disciples in Acts 21:4 as well as Agabus’ prophesy in Acts 21:11. Agabus was thought to be a reliable prophet because he prophesied in Acts 11 that there would be a famine that happened during Claudius's reign.  I thought the same thing, but when I was learning the gift of prophecy, some teachers who were gifted prophetically taught on how to avoid giving wrong prophesies and talked about Agabus making a questionable prophesy and how we should learn from it.  I was surprised. It never occurred to me that a prophet in the Bible could make a wrong prophesy.

Let us not talk about whether Agabus is wrong or not.  Let’s first talk about whether the prophet's prophecy in the New Testament can be false or not. Paul said, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good.” (NIV, 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).  Paul also said that "Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said." (NIV, 1 Corinthians 14:29). From these two verses, we can see that Paul's attitude towards people who prophesy was not to despise them but to test them all.  In other words, Paul didn’t just believe everything the prophets would say.  It seems from Paul's attitude, the prophet of the New Testament sometimes makes inaccurate prophecies.

Let’s look at the difference between the prophets in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Kris Vallotton is a prophet in Bill Johnson’s church (Bethel).  He often teaches prophetic gifts, and I have participated in his training classes.  One of his views left a deep impression on me. He said that in the Old Testament, the prophets are "visitational."  When the Holy Spirit is falling on people from outside, whether Elijah or Balaam, when the Holy Spirit was falling on them, it was considered to be God’s words without a doubt.  But in the New Testament, the prophets and the prophetic gifts are "habitational," that is, the Holy Spirit lives in the Spirit of the prophet, and he speaks through our Spirit.  As He speaks, it goes through our soul and mind and then uses our mouth to prophesy. So in this process, our soul, mind, and expression may filter these prophecies.  It is not that the Holy Spirit cannot fall on people from outside today like the Old Testament.  The Holy Spirit can do the same.  But since He lives in us and not in the Old Testament, He chooses to speak through us because He is willing to train us, and He would rather be subject to some of our limitations.  Hebrews 1:1-2 (NIV) also confirms that "God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son."  He spoke through the prophets in ancient times, but now He is speaking to us through His Son.  We know that the Lord is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17) and that the Lord and the Holy Spirit live in us.

One of the textbooks we used in our prophetic gift class is: "You May All Prophesy," written by Steve Thompson.  He and many prophets hold the view that prophecy is divided into three stages.  The first stage is to receive a revelation from God, or a sentence, a picture, or an animated vision. In this stage, you must confirm that it comes from God and not from the evil spirits.  The second stage is to interpret this vision.  What does God mean? Our spirits have to pray; our souls have to think. In the end, we hope to get an accurate understanding. The third stage is to apply this vision, which is how to use or apply to whom and what situation.  At each stage, mistakes are possible.

If you think that the prophets just say what God says and that he doesn’t need to think or digest, I would suggest that you need more study on prophetic gifts.  Taking an example from the Bible, Jeremiah was called by God to be a prophet.  Jeremiah said that he doesn’t know how to speak; he is too young; he doesn’t want to do it (Jeremiah 1:6). God said, “I will train you.”  Then he let Jeremiah see a picture and asked him, "What have you seen?" Jeremiah said, “I saw the branch of an almond tree.” Jeremiah 1:12 (NIV) says, “The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.”  What does this mean?  This is God’s explanation of the meaning of the vision of this almond branch to Jeremiah.  God not only used pictures to speak, but He also used puns in human language to communicate.  In Hebrew (language), the pronunciation of "almond branch" is similar to "watching over."  God uses puns to tell Jeremiah, “Don't worry, I will watch over you; I will take care of you; I will help you.”  The hidden meaning is “I will pay attention to my words and make it happen.”  Then God asked Jeremiah, “What do you see?” Jeremiah answered, “I saw a pot that is boiling, and it is tilting toward us from the north.” (Jeremiah 1:13, NIV).  At this time, God continued to explain to Jeremiah that what He means is that, “From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land.” (Jeremiah 1:14, NIV).

Besides Jeremiah, Daniel also saw a lot of visions. But he did not know what they meant.  He needed the angel to explain.  The prophet of the Old Testament is like this, and so is the prophet of the New Testament.  In the book of Revelation, John saw many visions, and he didn’t know what they meant. He also needed the angel to explain.

Some people with prophetic gifts in today’s church agree that the prophesy telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem was a mistake.  They believe the prophesy came from the Holy Spirit but was misinterpreted.  How do we make sense of the fact that prophets can make mistakes?  If a Bible teacher misinterprets the Bible, that seems to be a forgivable offense, but if a prophet makes a mistake we call him a false prophet and are ready to “stone” him.  This shouldn’t be.

 Of course, this view is controversial.  Some scholars think that Agabus did not make a mistake here.

A British prophet, Graham Cooke, is also a recommended teacher in our prophetic class.  He gave an example of the mistake that prophets make when they are explaining the prophetic Word of God.  He said that prophets could get either information or revelation from God.  These two are different. The former may be a fact, but the latter may be God's heart.

One day God revealed a secret weakness of pornography in a fellow believer.  Graham and this person had some issues between them at the time.  Graham thought to himself, “Haha, I finally caught you.  He was ready to go straight over and tell him what the Lord showed him, but the Lord rebuked him immediately and said: “what kind of spirit do you have?”  The Lord wanted Graham to have an attitude of prayer for this man’s sin condition and not blame him.  He felt terrible and began to cry over his own attitude.  Then God told him to go to the man and tell him. Graham didn’t want to go.  The Lord told him he had to go, so he bit the bullet and went. When he got there, he couldn’t even speak; he could only cry.  The man was baffled as to why Graham was acting that way and asked him what was going on.  Graham had no choice but to tell him what the Lord showed him about the pornography as well as his own bad attitude. After listening and being in shock, he repented, and he and Graham reconciled.  This man was also saved out of the sin he was in.

What the Lord revealed to Graham about his friend’s pornography addiction was just a message or information.  It’s almost like a doctor meeting a patient with a diagnosis.  The diagnosis is only information about the person’s condition; it’s not God’s prescription for the patient.  God’s heart for Graham’s friend was for him to be delivered from that sin. Graham shared that in his experience as a prophet, often the first information that the Lord gives him is just information. He learned to take the information, prophetic dream, or vision to the Lord in prayer, asking for revelation.  During that time of prayer, he often understood God’s intention for the information. A common problem of prophetic people is that they are too eager to share what they get from the Lord, often revealing private sin or negative information about others, bringing pain and damage to churches and individuals.

I was inspired by learning about these people’s experiences and my own experience in learning about the prophetic gifts.  Perhaps the teaching that I initially believed in makes the possibility of Paul's mistake worth discussing, and maybe the prophets of these modern churches have reasons to criticize Agabus.

I think that the message that Agabus and the other disciples received was indeed correct.  That is, the Holy Spirit reminded Paul not to go to Jerusalem, and if he did go there, he would face imprisonment.  The message was correct, and Paul had also confirmed it.  But why did Paul say, "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24, NIV). In other words, regardless of danger, Paul was determined to go to Jerusalem to accomplish the ministry he received from the Lord Jesus.

Moreover, when Paul was later arrested in Jerusalem and was sent to Rome, the following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage!  As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” (Acts 23:11, NIV).  In other words, the Lord had not only praised Paul for testifying about Him in Jerusalem, He also wanted Paul to testify in Rome.  The Lord Jesus affirmed what Paul did.

If Paul had done something wrong, the Lord Jesus should have said to Paul when He appeared to him, "You stiff-necked person, why didn’t you obey My Holy Spirit?  Why did you go to Jerusalem? See, now you are caught.  The other ministry that I prepared for you in other places has been delayed. You are stubborn!"  The Lord didn’t say this. Instead, He praised Paul for testifying about Him when he was in Jerusalem.

Isn’t this a contradiction?  Through the mouth of the disciples, the Holy Spirit reminded Paul not to go to Jerusalem.  The prophet Agabus also said that Paul would be bound if he went to Jerusalem. But now the Lord Jesus has appeared and said, “Paul, you did an excellent job!”  Did the Holy Spirit quarrel with Jesus?  No.

My understanding is this.  There is a very dynamic and deep friendship between Paul and God. It’s like a woman who was very eager to get the snow lotus on the mountain cliff.  But the warrior, who loves her, must go through the threat of icy cold mountains and avalanches and the possibility of falling off the cliff to get this snow lotus.  So when the man said that he was willing to risk his life to get the snow lotus to prove his love, the woman who loves the warrior said, “You absolutely can’t go.  I don’t want the snow lotus either, even if you pick it.”  But the warrior still went to the mountains and picked the snow lotus despite all the danger.  Aside from being moved, this woman rebuked the man, saying, “Didn’t I say that you shouldn’t go there?”

The relationship between Paul and the Lord is intimate.  They are very close to each other.  The Lord was concerned about Paul's safety, so he told Paul through the Holy Spirit, “Don't go to Jerusalem.”  Paul reacted, “Do you consider my life as important?  The interests of the Lord are more important.  His most precious treasure, Jerusalem, is more important.”  If you are familiar with the Bible, you know that God sees Jerusalem as the apple of His eye. It is the most precious treasure of God.  Therefore, Paul was ready to risk everything, even his life, to take care of God’s feelings and His chosen people.  I think what Paul did touched Jesus so much that He stood beside Paul at night to boost him up, confirming that his testimony in Jerusalem was worth encouraging, and permitted him to do the same thing in Rome.

Therefore, this is God's intention toward Paul.  Paul lives in the heart of God.  His attitude towards prophets and prophetic words is stated in 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 (NIV), “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all and hold on to what is good.”  Paul said this from his own experience. This has many implications for us Christians today. No doubt, many evangelical believers don’t accept the words of the prophets or that prophets still exist in churches today.  They reject and even accuse prophets of having evil spirits in them or declaring that they are false prophets.  At the same time, many believers in the Pentecostal Movement believe in the prophets' words too quickly, causing loss/damage or even getting hurt.  However, I feel that we shouldn’t just accept the prophets and treat the prophecies with contempt, but we also need to test them.

After going through the analysis above, I conclude that Agabus and the disciples' prophecies are all messages received from the Lord.  But Paul lived in God's revelation and in His heart, which is why he had an unswerving determination in going to Jerusalem and Rome to bear solemn witness of the Lord.  This may be one of Paul's highest spiritual experiences.  So, Paul could calmly say calmly before he died, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; From then on, there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.” (2 Timothy 4:7-8, NIV).  Paul also said, "But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.  And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.” (2 Timothy 4:17, NIV)

How does this revelation pertain to our ministry to the Lord today?  In this era of information flooding and the following the herd, if you are the church leader, no matter how big the challenge is to be a servant leader, how do you face the complicated and different opinions? Can you firmly live in the will of the Lord?

Let’s go back to the story of Eutychus who was raised from the dead at the start of this chapter. This story is not casually placed here.  The experience of Eutychus being raised from the dead happened before the disciples and Agabus warned Paul not to go to Jerusalem.  When Paul was preaching, Eutychus fell asleep and fell three stories down to his death.  Paul went down to check, and it records in Acts 20:10-12, “Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him.  “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!”  Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate.  After talking until daylight, he left.  The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.”

If I was Paul, I might not have been in the mood to continue preaching.  Either I would have been excited that I just raised somebody from the dead or fearful that somebody almost died in my meeting.  My concern may have been about the maximum occupancy allowed in the building at that time.

If this happened in the United States today, I don’t know if Paul would still be so calm.  Almost in every elevator or hotel conference room, there is a clear indication about the maximum occupancy.  We took our daughter to a big American church. My daughter was playing with other children there.  The first form we filled out was a disclaimer, saying that the church could  not be held responsible for what may happen to our child, because they were afraid of being accused.  Think about it. A man had already fallen and died when Paul was preaching.  Even though Paul raised him from the dead, according to the United States' current laws, Paul could be accused of child neglect and even be sued for millions.  What if someone else falls? What if Eutychus had side effects from the fall?

But Paul handled the situation very calmly.  If Paul was not absolutely sure that he was living in God's will, how could he be so calm?  This is a confirmation that Paul knew that God was with him on his upcoming trip to Jerusalem.  The Bible only records the experience of Paul raising someone from the dead this time. Why?  I shared in the meeting that if you have the courage or the heart to risk everything for God, He will have your back, even to the point of raising people from the dead.

In seeking healing for our infertility, I often went to the park to pray.  I asked countless times, “where is the God of Abraham who raises people from the dead?  We are infertile, but you can raise the dead.  You can also create things out of nothing.  I believe in your existence and the Bible.  I believe that you can heal us. I also believe that everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:8, NIV).”  I also believe in what Romans 10:11 says: “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” Although others may have laughed at me as I seemed to be beating my head against a wall with all of this, God healed us and gave us a healthy baby girl.

We have friends who were also dealing with infertility.  They listened to our testimony and went to the same prophet who prayed for us.  After one time, there was no positive result, and they gave up.  I felt sorry for them because God is no respecter of persons.  We shouldn’t give up because of what the environment says, the doctor says, or even fellow believers.  The key is what God says to you.  During our time of infertility, we heard many things.  Some said it was God’s discipline and punishment, so just accept it. Some said it’s better not to have children so you can devote more time to serving the Lord. Some told us that God doesn’t heal people today. He performed signs and wonders back then to prove Jesus’ divinity and the authority of the Bible.  Now that this is established and the apostolic era has passed, there are no more signs and wonders.  All healing miracles are fake and come from evil spirits.  This is not the truth, and we will continue to believe what God says in His word.  In the end, He has done wonders.

Brothers and sisters, I hope that we as Christians can learn to live in God's heart and intimate communication and fellowship with God just like Paul.  Even if you are overwhelmed with information from the myriad of voices out there, allow God’s leading to create certainty within you.  Let’s learn to be like Paul, who can be both soft and strong in broken circumstances.

Sometimes we say that we are following God, but it’s really our stubbornness or flesh. Other times we have no clear answers and say we are willing to look at other people’s views.  When serving God, there are times when we shouldn’t be listening to others, but instead, we should be pressing in to hear God’s leading.  The important thing is to be humble and broken before God, making sure we don’t follow our own stubborn will.

Listening to one of Pastor Grace Chiang’s testimonies made a deep impression on me.  She said that because she was a female pastor, she often disagreed with some of the men's opinions when she started to build the church.  They may have had more worldly experience, so they felt that what she was proposing was unreliable, but she heard the Lord speaking to her.  So after some battles and a period of confrontation, these men found out that she was right.

Watchman Nee said that sometimes, some beleivers in the church do not take responsibility when the situation calls for it.  The damage they cause to the church is much more than the damage caused by those who instead overstep their authority.  In other words, being a good man, or evading responsibility in the name of humility, or fake humility will bring more damage to God's interests.  The church needs more people like Paul, people who will set their faces like flint, bravely face opposition and different voices, and even live out the will of God and His call to them regardless of danger.

We have now entered an era in which all political correctness must be broken.  Yes is yes, and no is no. Jesus says, “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)  Our position must be clear.  All fear must be removed.  We have to stand on the mountain, and not under a bushel.  We need to be the light and salt and be a strong witness for God in this world.

We are not just making irresponsible comments.  Rather, no matter where we are, when we as Christians face coercion and imminent danger, we should be like Paul, who risked his life for the interests of God. God will indeed back you up.  Whether it is raising the dead, turning the bitter water into sweet, or creating things out of nothing, nothing is too difficult for God.

So, in my understanding, this is the main reason why God allowed Eutychus to rise from the dead before Paul entered Jerusalem.  This is both a testimony and an encouragement of God to Paul. It is also evidence that Paul lived in close communication and absolute faith in God.  I repeat, this may be one of Paul's highest spiritual experiences.

Bible Study with Jairus – Acts 27

Acts 27 records Paul’s voyage to Italy.  This journey involves a variety of places, and often people don’t understand the details of Paul’s journeys and the spiritual significance behind them.  Paul’s four journeys encompassed many different locations and can be confusing to those who haven’t studied it to the point of understanding.  When we were reading the Bible this time, we got the illumination of the Holy Spirit; thus, we had a clear understanding of Paul’s fourth journey and had a deeper understanding of the spiritual significance behind it.

We won’t focus on the names of the locations at this point.  Instead, let’s pay attention to the problem of the winds blowing against the ship.  In this story, a centurion named Julius listened to the words of the ship’s pilot to continue the voyage.  Paul advised him not to sail on, but he didn’t listen, and they encountered a storm that nearly cost them their lives.  But because Paul received a word from God, he told them that they would not lose their lives, but would just run aground on some island.  In the end, as expected, things happened according to Paul’s prophecy, so everyone’s lives were saved.  God used the shipwreck so that through Paul, the tribal people on the island of Malta in Chapter 28 were healed and saved.

This is the rough outline of the story.  But the details are very important.  Acts 27:1 mentioned, “it was decided” that Paul was going to sail to Italy.  Who decided that?  Was it King Agrippa and Festus? Was this decision correct? Did it come from God? Although the Gentiles made this decision, God’s sovereignty may have come into play, because Jesus told Paul that he would stand trial before Caesar in Rome to testify (Acts 23:11).

They started from Caesarea, which was north of Jerusalem, where Paul was imprisoned in Acts 26.  They found a ship from Adramyttium, which was about to sail along the coast of the province of Asia.  Paul and others boarded the ship.  The Bible also specifically recorded that there was a Macedonian from Thessalonica who was with them (NIV, Acts 27:2).  All Scripture is God-breathed (NIV, 2 Timothy 3:16) so this seemingly insignificant information is worth its weight in gold.   We felt that the Holy Spirit hinted to us that Paul might have planned to travel to Rome through Macedonia. Thessalonica was near Macedonia.  Perhaps Paul would have visited the church he established in Thessalonica.

The third verse also seems to confirm this speculation.  This verse says that they landed at Sidon, and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they could provide for his needs. This meant that Paul might have had some freedom to arrange this trip according to his liking.  Sidon is north of Caesarea and on the coast of Israel, near Tyre.  Verse 4 recorded that the winds were blowing against them, starting from here.  Why were the winds blowing against them? Did it come from God, or was it an obstruction from the enemy?

These are all questions we have to think about.  These questions apply to our current situation. For example, did the coronavirus come from Satan’s attack or God’s judgment? Should we engage in spiritual warfare against the enemy or repent and ask God for forgiveness? The Bible tells us that Satan comes only to steal and kill and destroy (NIV, John 10:10).  We know that bad things come from the enemy. The Bible also tells us that no sparrow will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care (NIV, Matthew 10:29) and that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (NIV, Romans 8:28). We know that because of this wind, Paul took a path that was not planned.  This may be what the Holy Spirit wants us to see in this chapter.  We surmised that Paul wanted to take the way he was familiar with, which was to go to Rome through Macedonia.  But because of the wind and the fact that the centurion did not follow Paul’s advice, they had to take a new path.

Verse 4 went on to say that because the winds were against them, they sailed against the lee of Cyprus, a small island in the Mediterranean.  Then verse 5 says that they had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia to Myra in Lycia.  The three places here, Cilicia, Pamphylia, and Myra in Lycia, are all within the borders of today’s Turkey.  Macedonia is probably today’s Macedonia, and the south of Macedonia is today’s Greece.

Verse 6 says that while in Myra, the centurion found a ship that would sail for Italy, but they made slow headway and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus.  Cnidus is located southwest of Asia Minor, and it is close to Turkey.  Paul had changed course here.  Verse 7 says that, because the wind did not allow them to hold their course, they had to sail to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.  Crete, an island south of Turkey and Greece, belongs to Greece.  It would be equivalent to blowing them to a small island in the south due to the wind.  Then verse 8 said that they had difficulty coming to Fair Havens.  Fair Havens is south of Crete, and Lasea is west of Fair Havens.  Here Paul advised everyone not to continue, but the centurion did not obey Paul.  According to natural knowledge, the captain and the ship’s owner may have had their reasons.  It also mentions in verse 12 that Fair Havens was unsuitable to winter in, and they hoped to winter in Phoenix. It specifically indicates that Phoenix was a harbor in Crete, facing both southwest and northwest.  The recovery version of the Bible that we are reading, has a note on the phrase “facing both southwest and northwest.” The note reads: “or, facing the southeast winds and the northeast winds.” After the south wind began to blow, they felt confident to set out. It just so happened that Phoenix was northwest of Fair Havens.  They wanted to take advantage of the south wind to sail to Phoenix. As a result, verse 14 says that a wind of hurricane force called the “northeaster” came up, and the explanation of the recovery version of the Bible said that this was a northeast wind.  I checked the translation of the said verse on STEPBIBLE.ORG, which is also translated into a northeast wind, but the website notes that the original Greek text can also be translated as “southwest wind.” This contradiction seems to echo the fact that the harbor in Crete faces both northeast and southeast.

In Fair Havens, Paul encouraged the centurion not to continue sailing, but the centurion obeyed the captain’s words and continued to Phoenix.  As a result, a south wind came, but it became a north wind. They wanted to take advantage of the south wind to go to Phoenix in the north, but the north wind blew them to an island called “Cauda” in the south.  Then their journey was changed entirely.  In the end, they were blown southwards by the wind, taking a path that they had never intended, nor traveled by many, to an island in the south of Italy called Melita.  They went to Italy from there.  This trip was not planned by Paul, nor by the captain and the centurion.

We briefly talked about the details of Paul’s journeys and applied them to our spiritual experience.  Have you had a similar experience? Have you reached a crossroads in your life? This crossroad may look like Phoenix, with one side facing northeast and one side facing southeast.  It seems like you can go in two different directions.  Have you encountered circumstances or storms in your life that make you head in a different direction? Or did you think that God was leading you in one direction, but when the circumstance arose, you had to go in another direction? After time has passed and you look back, do you see God’s wonderful leading instead?

I was saved in the Local Church Movement, so I received a lot of help from Watchman Nee’s and Witness Lee’s ministry.  Watchman Nee has an article that says that God has Plan A and Plan B. The general idea is that sometimes God will have different plans for us and will lead us to accomplish His mission.  Watchman Nee said that after praying, he had the burden to go to an island to spread the gospel.  He was confident that it was God-inspired.  God also encouraged a man to donate money to help him go to the island.  He also promised this man that he would go.  But difficult circumstances were rising, and Watchman Nee’s mother felt that it would be unsafe, so she objected.  He was in a dilemma at this time, just like the situation of Phoenix depicted here.  If he didn’t go, he would lose credibility with this man who had already donated money.  Plus, he had agreed to go according to God’s leading.   If he did go, he wouldn’t be honoring his mother, and the Bible teaches us to obey the elders.  He was in a dilemma.  Later, he decided to put the trip off temporarily due to the difficult circumstances.  Of course, the man who donated money was angry and misunderstood him, thinking that Watchman Nee couldn’t be trusted.  However, Watchman Nee applied the lessons of the cross and did not justify himself.  Later, his mother’s attitude changed, allowing him to go to that island and spread the gospel. When he got there, the Holy Spirit had already worked and opened the hearts of those people, so the gospel was very effective.  If he had arrived earlier, he might not have been as effective.  Watchman Nee cited his own example and said that sometimes God has Plan A and Plan B.  Although they may all come from God, sometimes they have different results.

I told this story at the meeting and asked the people who participated in the Bible Study a question.  Was there any plan A and plan B during Paul’s journey to Rome? What was God’s original plan? When Paul tried to persuade the centurion not to go to Phoenix in Fair Havens, did it come from Paul himself or God? If they didn’t go to Phoenix, what route would their voyage have taken? The Bible doesn’t tell us, so we have no way of knowing.  It is just mentioned in verse 2 that “a Macedonian from Thessalonica” was with Paul.  I guess that Paul may have wanted to pass through Thessalonica to visit the church there and then through Macedonia to Italy.  Paul may have hoped the journey to Phoenix would be delayed.  We don’t know for sure, so we can only speculate.  We do know that they were forced to take an unfamiliar path. 

Watchman Nee also had a very famous quote, “If God leads you to walk in a way that you know, it will not benefit you as much as If He would lead you to take the way that you do not know.  This forces you to have hundreds and thousands of conversations with Him, resulting in a journey that is an everlasting memorial between you and Him.”

By the summer of 2015, I had been attending services at the Local Church Movement for about 13 years.  I reached a turning point in my life, which was the “Phoenix” of my spiritual experience.  I loved my church and had no thoughts of leaving it.  Unfortunately, after nine years of marriage, my wife and I were unable to conceive children.  This was like a “northeaster storm” in our lives.  In 2015, I went to a special meeting of the Local Church Movement in California as a last resort hoping to get spiritual help from some trusted believers but was disappointed.  This was the turning point for me.  I was blown into Charismatic meetings by a spiritual “northeaster” in search of divine healing and help to understand the gift of prophecy. 

I never imagined serving the Lord on a larger scale outside of my denomination.  I planned to focus on providing services for overseas Chinese students within the framework of the Local Church Movement.  I had no thoughts of traveling to China and serving churches there or churches in the United States.  This ten-year infertility crisis became the “northeaster” of my life and completely blew me into a new life and spiritual direction.  Though I received a lot of spiritual growth in The Local Church Movement, they focus more on how to live and share the gospel.  I couldn’t get any help with healing or prophesy. This was God’s secret plan B for my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

In regards to our infertility problem, we had exhausted Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine without results.  I had to put my total trust in God.  I secretly sought healing and prophetic help from Charismatic churches.  I found a Korean evangelical pastor, Li Che, near Washington, DC, who pastored a Chinese church and preached in Chinese.  His sermons online were about inner healing and spiritual healing.  He is not gifted in prophecy but he warmly welcomed us and prayed for us.  After comforting and encouraging us, he said that he wasn’t sure when we would have children.  Still, he felt that God would significantly use me because my situation was similar to others in the Bible, like Abraham, Isaac, and Hannah, the mother of Samuel.

I eventually sought out the Charismatic church and received prophetic words that we would have children.  More importantly, God activated my gift of healing and prophecy.  I began to pray for my wife every day.  I also began to experience spiritual encounters and was able to hear God’s voice more clearly.  In January 2016 God told me to get ready to have a child this year.  I traveled to China in February and announced the prophecy to my family, but they didn’t believe me.  I prayed for two of my cousins to be healed of infertility during that trip.  My mother was upset.  She said I couldn’t solve my own problems so why was I showing off and praying for others.  It was on May 12, 2016 that God appeared to me in a dream and told me we would conceive a baby in the next month.  My wife found out she was pregnant on May 28th.  Our baby girl’s birth in 2017 caused a radical change in my family.  My mother, who held superstitious beliefs about Bodhisattva all of her life, was set free from idol worship and became a believer in Jesus Christ.  Ten years of witnessing to my family had not availed much but God’s prophetic word and the subsequent birth of our daughter changed everything.  I baptized my parents when I returned to China in 2018.  They both pray for me every night before they go to bed.

The prophetic word I received in 2016 is similar to the prophetic words that the angel spoke to Paul in this chapter.  As I mentioned previously, The Local Church Movement doesn’t encourage believers to pursue the gift of healing or prophecy.  We have members in our Bible study who are trained in this movement, so I asked them a question.  What if Paul didn’t get a prophetic word from the angel and didn’t know in advance what would happen?  Would his testimony have been as effective?  In Acts 28, if Paul didn’t pray for the father of the tribal leader and others to be healed, would the gospel be spread as effectively?  One man who still belongs to The Local Church Movement said Paul might have been able to do that, but he felt like his relationship with God wasn’t close enough for God to speak to him.  I corrected him saying that a fundamental principle of the Bible is that everyone who asks, receives.  I told him to believe that God would give him a prophetic word, and he would get one.  God is not holding out on us; it’s our mind that hinders us.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He used Paul to heal and prophesy, and he will use us to do the same.

Though the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements do involve some inconsistencies and chaos, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Although many don’t get healed or prophecies are inaccurate, we should not refrain from pursuing these gifts.  We must lead a balanced life by pursuing our relationship with God first and his gifts second.  It’s not biblical to do one or the other exclusively.  I was saved in The Local Church Movement, and when I left, a well-meaning brother told me not to forget the life lessons that I had learned.  I promised him I would not forget.  In the process of pursuing spiritual gifts, I encountered evil spirits that tried to deceive and attack me, but I held on to the life lessons learned in the Local Church Movement. My relationship with the Lord was held above all else. I’m not pursuing gifts for the sake of pursuing them.  Judging things carefully has kept me safe.  It also makes me victorious over the deception and attack of the evil spirits.  It’s important to grow spiritually and pursue gifts.  Believers in the Local Church Movement don’t pursue gifts because they are afraid of being deceived by evil spirits.  This logic stems from unbelief and the lack of being baptized in the Holy Spirit.  The Bible tells us to trample on snakes, scorpions, and evil spirits (Luke 10:19).  Our destiny is to judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:3).  We cannot be afraid of being deceived.  This would hinder our spiritual growth.  It is clearly a sign of immaturity.   A mature believer has the courage to pursue gifts, not to exalt himself or herself, but to use the tools God gave us to help others.  The fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit come from the Holy Spirit and shouldn’t be neglected.

After sharing my experience, I realized that it was actually similar to that of Paul in this chapter.  A wind of hurricane force called the “northeaster” rose in my life.  It took me in a different direction than what the Local Church Movement taught me.  There are many truths of life in the Local Church Movement, and they hope that many Christians will accept them, but the church was misunderstood and opposed instead.   After I researched the Pentecostal Movement, especially after studying Doctor of Ministry at the United Theological Seminary, which has a background of Methodist and John Wesley,   I met many American Christian friends.  I often had the opportunity to share with them some of the truths I learned in the Local Church Movement.  Most were very curious and open.  God has appeared to me in dreams many times, assuring me that the Local Church Movement will one day receive the fullness and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I was led by the Holy Spirit on a path I never planned on.  But as the saying goes, “All roads lead to Rome." “God’s wisdom is higher than our wisdom; His ways are higher than our ways.  His thoughts are higher than our thoughts” (NIV, Isaiah 55:9).

I shared a truth I learned from Brother Witness Lee at the meeting.  He taught that Christians should learn how to hear from God in three different ways.  First, we must read God’s Word in the Bible and get inspiration from it; second, we must learn how the Holy Spirit moves within us to get illumination; third, we must learn how the circumstances that God arranges for us can lead us where he intends for us to go.

I went to California in the summer of 2015, hoping to get help from a fellow believer.  He was relatively indifferent to me.  I knew that this was God speaking to me through the circumstances.  God didn’t want me to find help through the Local church Movement for our infertility issue. It’s like when Jacob saw Laban and his sons look differently at him; he knew that it was God telling him to return to Bethel.  God could certainly have used the Local Church Movement to pray for us and give us words of knowledge about our desire to have children.  He didn’t do this because we would never have left our church.  My wife and I have always said that if we have a few children as soon as we get married, we will never leave the Local Church Movement because there are rich truths there, and the people love us.  Our minds were entirely shaped by the Local Church Movement, so leaving was never an option we considered.  If we hadn’t left, I would have missed out on the truths that the Pentecostal Movement and other churches have taught, and my spiritual growth and faith would have been stunted. 

This is similar to when Joseph was abducted to Egypt.  He later told his brothers that their intention was evil, but God’s intention was to use it for good.  He was brought to Egypt in advance to prepare food and provide salvation for the Israelites. God’s plan always exceeds that of man’s.  Because I walked an unfamiliar path, it forced me to pray to God continually and have fellowship with Him thousands of times.  Through this, not only did I get a miracle baby, this experience has also become the most beautiful memory between God and me.

I will never forget the time that I was praying in the park every afternoon in 2014, pouring my heart out to God by confessing my sins, repenting, dedicating myself, and praying for healing.  Many times after praying, I felt like I came down from the clouds because I had unknowingly entered God’s presence.  I told my wife that if I had to do it over again, I would choose this current path because our ten years of infertility and prayers have allowed us to experience God and increase our faith.  These can never be replaced.  I gradually grew spiritually due to these sufferings and hardships.

Therefore, I speculate that perhaps Paul’s plan here was also to follow the original path that they were familiar with, which was passing through the old road to Thessalonica and Macedonia. But circumstances changed, and God led them along an unfamiliar path.  Though it was an unfamiliar path, God’s presence kept Paul and his fellow shipmates safe, and through Paul’s prophetic words and final achievements, these fellow shipmates were saved.  Perhaps they are in heaven with Paul today.

My mind was so deeply influenced by the Local Church Movement that it never entered my mind to look for help from the Charismatic church.  God changed the circumstances and blocked me from getting help from my church.  The spiritual storm that He arranged took me to the Pentecostal Movement, which activated my gifts.  This showed me how important it is to balance both life lessons as well as spiritual gifts.  They are both necessary for spiritual growth.  We cannot neglect one for the other.

Similarly, Paul may have had his own idea to follow the original road to Rome.  This was plan A, But God’s wonderful plan B achieved greater beauty.  Perhaps the centurion, soldiers, and other shipmates, and even many people on the island of Malta, were saved. This was God’s leading through circumstances.  God often leads us in the spirit, but our soul, which is made up of our mind, will, and emotions can’t always keep up with God’s leading because of religion, culture, personality, etc., so He often has to change our circumstances to guide us.  Through all of the wonderful experiences that God has given me, I’m seeing His plan for my life unfold in the different paths that he has led me.  The Local Church Movement’s vision is to spread the truth that God gave to Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.  They believe we are in the age of body ministry and do not encourage individual ministry.  The heart of this vision is right on, and I was prepared to serve this church for life.  Things changed in 2016 when God told me that Jairus Bible World Ministry came from Him.  The Holy Spirit told me that China would have a great revival in the future.  Many Charismatic prophets, apart from Pastor Li Che, prophesied that God would greatly use me.  I was also told by a Korean prophet that God would allow me to travel all over China to serve Chinese churches as well as serving American churches.  God has established many vital connections through my experiences in the Pentecostal movement as well as through the United Theological Seminary, where I am studying my Doctor of Ministry.  All of these connections, many of which have become friends, are part of the future path that God has prepared for me.

On December 31st, 2017, I was taken to heaven in a dream.  The Lord Jesus affirmed that He would greatly use me.  I don’t say this to promote myself.  Instead, I want to show that God’s call on our lives goes above and beyond anything we can imagine.  Though we aren’t worthy in ourselves, through His righteousness, nothing is impossible as long as we are surrendered to Him.  God is not limited, but our thinking may be keeping us from doing all that He has purposed for us.

Living in God’s presence is what’s most important.  In His presence, it’s possible to go both North and South.  The GPS may be set at a particular address, but as storms arrive in our lives, we may have to deviate from the original path.  If we live in His presence, being filled with the Holy Spirit and His gifts, God’s good intentions for our lives will come to pass, and we will reach our destination safely.

Bible Study with Jairus – Acts 24

Acts 24 tells the story of a Jewish high priest, elders, and a lawyer named Tertullus accusing Paul when he was brought to Governor Felix to make his defense.  

The verse that we are discussing this time is:

24:15 and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. (NIV)

A member of our bible study asked, "What did Paul mean by this statement?" In particular, we are questioning the phrase: "the same hope in God as these men themselves have." Who are "these men" referring to?  As we were discussing this verse, the Holy Spirit gave us insight. A person who experientially knows and understands resurrection was being accused by people who only knew about the resurrection written in black and white.  They had no personal experience to back it up.  This is true of those in churches today. Some experientially know the power of the resurrection, and others only go by the written letter.

Let's discuss this.  I think that "these men" refers to the Jews. Paul's name was Saul before he became a Christian.  He was a Pharisee like them (Philippians 3:5). The Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but the Sadducees didn't.  Even though the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, they didn't accept Jesus, who proclaimed himself to be the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). They knew the doctrine of the resurrection but failed to see Jesus, who was the resurrection.

There is a parable in China called "Lord Ye Loves Dragons." The parable is about a person who loves dragons so much that he fills his house with them, but when the dragon visited him, he was terrified and drove the dragon away.   A person can be full of positive talk about a particular thing but, in actuality, not like it at all. The dragon is a negative image in the Bible and Western culture. I used the Chinese parable to illustrate a story. The Pharisees are "Lord Ye who Loves Dragons." They outwardly spoke of their hope for resurrection, but when Jesus came to them as the resurrection, they rejected Him.

Paul was like this before his conversion.  He passionately defended Judaism, even calling for the arrest of those who believed in Jesus.  Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and transformed his life.  He went from a persecutor of Christians to an apostle of Christ.  Paul finally understood the resurrection not only in black and white but from personal experience.

What happened here? Why can a spiritual experience completely change a person, yet the wealth of knowledge that he possessed before conversion didn't change him?

Do you really know the resurrection through experience or only as words on the page?

If Christians today truly understood the power of the resurrection, their attitude about life would be totally different.  They wouldn't be so eager to cling to the things of this world.

For example, there was a story about a Christian couple whose young daughter passed away while exercising.  If you were the pastor of this couple's church, how would you comfort them?  Christians often try to comfort by saying, "she’s in God’s arms and is so happy.”  Unfortunately, many who say such things really aren’t sure if this is true, and it comes across to the grieving parents as a Christian cliché rather than comfort.  If the pastor really believes and understands the resurrection experientially, he’ll be able to communicate it in a way that truly comforts.  When there is no experiential truth, there is a lack of boldness and a sense of helplessness.

Felix was a Gentile governor. He was a sinner. When Paul preached the gospel to him, he was afraid on the one hand, but on the other hand, he hoped that Paul would offer him a bribe. He is an example of a person who doesn’t know the resurrection at all, but he was the judge here.

The Jews who accused Paul were like Saul, which was Paul’s name before God changed it.  They were zealous for God, but they did not know the resurrection through experience. Instead, they accused Paul, who had seen the risen Jesus appear with his own eyes. This gave Paul a chance to testify to the resurrection of Jesus before Felix and these Jews, who didn’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection.

Paul isn’t the only one who experienced this.  Many Christians today have experienced the power of the resurrection.  Let’s look at the example of the couple whose daughter died.  Suppose they had unbelieving relatives at home.  We can liken them to Felix, a judge, and the couple would be the accusers or the Jews.  The pastor was in Paul’s position.  The couple complains to the pastor asking why a loving God allowed their child to die when He could have prevented it.  If this pastor knew the power of the resurrection as Paul did, he would be able to comfort this couple, and perhaps even the unbelieving family would be saved.

In 1 Corinthians 4:9, Paul said, “we have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.”  Paul needs to show by example, the resurrection power of God to the judges who didn’t believe in the resurrection as well as those Jews who only had book knowledge of the resurrection without experience.  Whether or not Felix or the Jews were persuaded, Paul lived out the power of the resurrection.

Katt Kerr, an American prophet, told the story about the couple losing their daughter.  As she was praying, she had a vision.  The Lord told her that He didn’t cause the accident, but in his wisdom and authority, He allowed the girl to remain in Heaven.  In her vision, Katt saw that the little girl had become a young adult leader in Heaven and was mentoring many young people.  The couple was comforted when Katt shared the vision with them.

I was saved in the Local Church Movement but joined the Charismatic church in 2015.  I began to have prophetic gifts activated and started to have many dreams of Heaven.  Jesus has appeared to me several times also.  When I was trying to share my experience of seeing Jesus to a former friend at the Local Church Movement, he politely interrupted me and said, “Let’s just talk about the Bible.”  In other words, he wasn’t interested in my experiences.  This situation may not be unique to the Local Church Movement.  Some evangelicals hold similar views.  The interesting thing is that the Local Church Movement is not opposed to spiritual experiences.  They place special emphasis on spiritual growth and spiritual life experiences.  I led some fellow believers in a study on “The Experience of Life” by Witness Lee, and we gleaned much from it.  The Local Church Movement doesn’t deny Watchman Nee’s spiritual experiences and Witness Lee’s dreams.  Why was this fellow believer not willing to hear about my personal experience? This may seem like a small issue, but it is actually a big one. Many Christians in traditional churches do not deny Paul's spiritual experience in Damascus, nor do they deny the special spiritual experiences of some of the great spiritual people who have been universally recognized and accepted. However, many traditional churches have a more cautious and skeptical attitude towards the special spiritual experiences of unimportant people or regular members of the church.   They are reluctant to talk about these experiences, and they don’t encourage those in their fellowship to pursue such experiences.  According to my observations, because they lack encounters with the risen Lord, some churches will follow the ways of the Israelites in this chapter.  They discuss the resurrection and possess a lot of head knowledge about it, but they haven’t experienced the power of the resurrection in their own lives.  

On the contrary, the Pentecostal Movement encourages individuals to pursue spiritual experiences.  I have heard many testimonies of people who have seen the risen Lord in dreams or visions.  These visions and dreams changed their lives.  Tom Jones, one of my teachers in the doctoral program, even wrote a dissertation on how an encounter with the Lord can profoundly change a person’s life.  Many evangelical Christians don’t believe in some of these personal spiritual experiences, but it’s difficult to deny them when so many people are having these life-changing experiences.

These observations lead me to believe that many evangelicals may fall into the trap of having much book knowledge without experience, which can lead to staleness in their Christian walk.  They highly value the Bible and despise experience because they are afraid of being deceived by evil spirits.  What they may not realize is that they can easily be deceived through erroneous Bible teaching if they aren’t renewing their minds.  There is a balance in all of this.  Christians who are only seeking after spiritual experiences but lack a solid Biblical foundation can also be deceived.  They may get excited about their experience yet lack the maturity to discern what is from God versus the false experience of the enemy.  I’ve seen examples of this.

So how should we deal with the relationship between knowledge and experience of the resurrection?  I believe that we must strive to understand the knowledge of the resurrection, just like Paul, who studied the knowledge of Judaism in the school of Gamaliel, Israel’s best teacher. But when the time came, he saw the risen Lord appear to him on the road to Damascus. Therefore, not only did he have an understanding of the knowledge of the Bible, but he also had an understanding of the experience of the Lord’s resurrection.

My experience is the same. I believe it was the Lord’s sovereignty that brought me to the Local Church Movement. The Local Church Movement places great emphasis on studying the Bible. The Christians studying the Bible there are one of the hardest working groups I have ever seen. But because I could not have children, I was compelled to ask for help from the Pentecostal Movement.  

I experienced being filled with the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal Movement, which began my charismatic experience. I have been taken to Heaven many times and observed what goes on there as well as seeing those who live in the Garden.  Jesus has appeared to me in dreams several times as well.  These experiences have helped me to understand the Bible better.

For example, some of the Bible teachers I had early in my Christian life taught the importance of the spiritual side of Heaven known as the New Jerusalem but denied that there is a material heaven. In my dreams of Heaven, I saw buildings, carriages, trains, and other means of transportation.  Jesus took me behind the glass in a building and showed me how people had gone up to Heaven one by one.  There were also meetings with someone preaching. Many times I’ve been brought to Heaven to observe some Chinese people’s lives who not only have houses, but they grow vegetables and plant fruit trees.  I’ve been invited to taste the fruit and Chinese food.  These experiences have helped me to see that material and spiritual are not separable. The Lord Jesus could walk through walls after he was resurrected. The disciples thought He was a spirit, but Jesus asked for a piece of fish and ate it.  This story shows that material and spirit is a mystery after the resurrection.

No doubt, God doesn’t want us to live according to the flesh in this life. God's purpose is not to destroy our bodies or bodily sensations. One of the bodily sensations is the pleasure of enjoying good food. Heaven has a lot of food for us to enjoy. If you don’t believe it, you can look at Revelation 22:2. The tree of life has 12 fruits, yielding its fruit every month for us to eat. There are also buildings in Heaven. I was allowed to see the heavenly house of a Christian lady who comes weekly to our bible study. Her house in Heaven was big, and it resembled a brick structure. The vine and wall had grown together as one, and it was filled with a lot of grapes. The wall next to the main entrance could be opened, and it was a music box that could play music. I can’t explain whether this is spiritual or material, or both spiritual and material.

For example, Christians have another theological controversy, which is whether a person will go to hell after they die if they didn’t’ believe in God when they were still alive or whether they still have the opportunity to come to know God in the afterlife. I know this is a very controversial issue. Many times, in my prophetic dreams, I was brought to a valley where diseased Chinese people were living, including my fourth aunt, who had died of breast cancer.  I don’t believe she was saved before she died, but she received and welcomed me. She gave me a fruit similar to a mulberry, but it was like the size of a mango. Her house was as small as the apartments on earth, which is in stark contrast to the big house of the Christian lady mentioned above.  These people live in a deep valley.

I was brought to a similar place in my dream. In this dream, my wife and I were together looking for her father, who had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The sudden death of her father, while she was in college, caused her deep emotional pain. I have never met my father-in-law. In this dream, when I got to this place, many people were there, and they excitedly welcomed and received us. Someone brought my wife inside. I was chatting with an old Chinese lady sitting at the door in this building. She showed me the large print edition of the Bible she was reading. After this experience, my wife's heart was completely healed because she was worried that her father would go to hell because he had not believed in God before He died.

I am not trying to arouse a theological debate when I talk about these experiences, nor am I encouraging people to neglect receiving salvation in this life and to suggest they wait for the afterlife. Rather, I’m saying that many things are beyond our imagination.  There are many mysteries that we don’t understand, so we can’t easily say that we understand everything the Bible is saying.

I have just cited a few examples. These spiritual experiences helped me to re-understand the Bible. But on the other hand, I am very grateful for the truths and spiritual practices I learned in the Local Church Movement, including calling on the name of the Lord, pray-reading the Word of God, morning revival, and so on. I keep practicing them every day, and I don't let my new spiritual experiences take the place of me establishing a closer relationship with God. On the contrary, I still give top priority to maintaining a close relationship with God. I worked hard to combine the methods, habits, and attitude of studying the Bible diligently that I learned in the Local Church Movement with the prophetic gifts of the Charismatics. The Lord appeared to me in a dream, telling me that the two rivers would converge. This may be a confirmation from God.

Not only do we need to know the intellectual knowledge of the resurrection, but we also need to try our best to pursue the experience of the risen Lord. If you don’t read the Bible, you won’t know its truths. If you don’t dare to pursue spiritual experiences, you won’t have many experiences. This is a basic law of nature. The muscle that you regularly train will become stronger. If you never train a certain muscle, naturally, that muscle will become weak. Also, the Bible clearly says, if you didn’t get it, it’s because you never asked for it (John 16:24). The principle of the Bible is if you ask, it shall be given to you; if you knock, the door shall be open; if you seek, you shall find (Matthew 7:7–8). These spiritual experiences are not reserved for special people. Because of wrong teachings and fear toward these spiritual experiences, many believers were never taught to pray or ask for these experiences. But I can guarantee you that you would become a totally different person if you have a genuine encounter with the Lord. God wants you to encounter Him powerfully, but some will let fear keep that encounter from happening. Personally, I was very intrigued but wary when hearing about other people’s encounters, but I asked God to show me the heavenly realm, and He did.

When I was a kid, I often saw electricians in my village climbing up the electric poles making repairs.

They have a tool on each foot. They would hang the tool first on the electric pole; then they would move their other foot to a higher place, and hang this tool again on the electric pole, then move their other foot. They could only do one step at a time. Their left and right feet alternate back and forth, and the gap can’t be too large; otherwise, they would fall from the electric pole.

The electric pole is a very good picture. Our pursuit of biblical knowledge about the resurrection is like our left foot; our Charismatic and spiritual experience of the risen Lord is like our right foot. When you lack one foot, it will make you unbalanced, making it impossible for you to climb to the top of the electric pole and complete the task of repairing the electric wires.

If you only seek the intellectual knowledge of the Bible and neglect the pursuit of the Charismatic and spiritual experience, you will be like the Israelite high priests, elders, and lawyers in this chapter. Although they had a lot of knowledge about the resurrection and hoped for it, they didn’t know the risen Jesus who is the resurrection even when he stood before them. They even persecuted Paul, who knew the resurrection. When they accused Paul, the Gentiles, and Felix, who didn’t have the knowledge of the resurrection and lacked the experience it, became the judges. Many times, our knowledge and truths cannot save people like Felix. Instead, these would become a stumbling block to them. But Paul, who possessed both the knowledge of the resurrection and the experience of the resurrection, was able to witness the power of God's resurrection.

We simply cannot afford to belittle these kinds of spiritual experiences. Fear must be eliminated. Without these spiritual experiences, we could end up like the Pharisees.  We are not encouraging people to seek experiences and neglect the Bible.  I’ve witnessed many churches and individual Christians who are lukewarm because they lack a deep encounter with the Lord.

Those of us who have experienced the power of His resurrection may find ourselves in situations similar to Paul.  God’s purpose is not to harm us but for his power to be shown to unbelievers as well as skeptical believers who lack spiritual encounters.

We need to break free from fear and courageously pursue spiritual experiences as well as a deep knowledge of the truths in the Bible.  Evangelicals and Charismatics should not be enemies.  We are all part of the body of Christ.  We need to unite, merge truths, and break the boundaries of a denominational spirit for churches to be one in Him to accomplish His purpose.  If the church isn’t united in the knowledge of God, they won’t be united in other aspects.  We must come to a place of unity in understanding the Bible.

Bible Study with Jairus - Acts 23

Let's look at a rough outline of Acts 23.  Paul was imprisoned but uses his identity as a Pharisee to his advantage to defend himself and cause division amongst the Sadducees and Pharisees. The Lord Jesus appeared to Paul later that night assuring him that He would be with him and not to be afraid. The chapter ends with a group of Jews taking an oath to kill Paul but were unsuccessful because Paul's nephew heard about the plot and reported it to the centurion.  The centurion snuck Paul out of the city in the middle of the night surrounded by soldiers to protect him.  He was kept in Herod's palace.

The revelation we received from this chapter is that God will use us to change society if we don't compromise with the religious spirit of the church. What do I mean by this? Listen carefully, and I'll explain.

One man in our study shared that he felt Paul was using the conflict between the Pharisees and the Sadducees to divide them. Scripture says, But the Lord appeared to him at night, stood near him and said, "As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome." (NIV, Acts 23:11)

We know that Jerusalem was the center of religious power at that time, and Rome was the center of secular power.

I think this man's analysis makes some sense. I call the Pharisees' sect "Vigilantism". They are neither Levites nor priests, and they consider themselves to be defenders of the Jewish law.  They incorporated hundreds of laws that went far beyond the Law of Moses. Their laws were intolerable. Thus, when the Lord Jesus came, He criticized them for being hypocritical and blamed them for putting heavy burdens on people. They also opposed Roman rule. This represents religious power in  the Jewish religion.

Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They even challenged the Lord Jesus on the resurrection of the dead. They did not believe in resurrection and angels, but the Pharisees did believe these things were true.   The Sadducees were known to have vested interest in Roman rule, so they had a mixed bag of secular power among the Jews.    

  Paul was breaking the traditional boundaries of Judaism by spreading the Gospel to the Gentiles, so both groups joined forces against him.  There are religious and secular forces here. The main issue is the religious spirit stirred the Jews up against Paul. Instead of giving in to the religious spirit, Paul bravely fought the spirit of the religion, which stirred the Jews into making a vow to kill him.

I shared my experience of leaving one evangelical church and moving to a Pentecostal church to learn more about what they believe.  This caused a lot of trouble because my original church didn't understand or accept the Pentecostal Movement.  The rise of the religious spirit in several members of my former congregation caused many arguments.  If you've ever left a traditional church and moved towards Pentecostalism, you understand what I mean.  If someone as unimportant as me can cause such opposition from this religious spirit, you can imagine how an important figure like Paul, who was steeped in Judaism, was strongly opposed for converting to Christianity and preaching the Gospel.

I went to the Pentecostal Movement to seek prayer for healing and prophetic guidance because my wife was unable to conceive.  Over time I learned many new truths from this movement.  I understand that there is a lot of the enemy's infiltration as well as human flesh that can get in the way but there are many truths that are important to examine and study.  The baptism of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, healing, spiritual gifts and worship are a few to consider.  I tried to explain to my former church members what I was learning but some believed they possessed the only truth and didn't accept what I was trying to get across.  Others were too afraid to accept it.

I realized that one of the reasons that my evangelical friends who are older than me cannot accept the Pentecostal Movement isn't necessarily because it teaches the wrong doctrine. It's because they may pay a price for joining this movement.  Some will lose family or friends through this association.  An evangelical pastor runs the risk of losing his congregation.  In my situation, I wasn't a pastor or elder, and the price I paid was to have several evangelical friends who no longer talk to me.  That was a low price to pay compared to some. Older members of the evangelical church I belonged to spent their whole lives believing that they hold the only truth.  If I come along and challenge these truths with what I'm learning in the Pentecostal Movement, it has a great psychological impact.  If they admit I might be right, they have to face the fact that they have actually been deceived. It's so much easier for them to say that I'm wrong and deceived by evil spirits.  Unfortunately, their minds will be closed to seeking out truths that may not be comfortable to them, which can lead to spiritual stagnation.

I have challenged their comfort zone and what they have been taught to think for so many years.  The religious spirit immediately tries to convict and stigmatize.  Isolation is the next step that keeps them from being "defiled." In places where an extreme religious spirit operates, such as the one Paul faced, they will try to destroy or eliminate you physically.  Although not common in modern Christian civilization, historically, it has happened and still happens with extreme Islamists.

 Paul was facing the counter-attack of the religious spirit. Remember, the religious spirit comes from Satan, and it is pervasive in this world and in the church.  This doesn't mean, however, that our fellow believers, Jews or Muslims are the initiators.   They are just victims who were used. The master behind it is Satan. Paul said that our struggle is not against flesh, but against the spiritual forces of evil (NIV, Ephesians 6:12). In my personal experience, many fellow believers have triumphed over this religious spirit. Wherever we are, they love us with the love of Christ. They realize that each person has a different calling from God that they need to lay hold of.  Judgment is not the aim here.  The point is to show how the religious spirit operates.

Fear of confronting the religious spirit can be terrifying.  I faced it when I left the church where I was saved. They didn't encourage people to step out into their own ministry because they taught that it was spiritual pride.  They were afraid you would get more caught up in your own ministry and neglect the church.  I started my ministry secretly using the pseudonym "Jairus" rather than my real name.  In January 2016, I attended a prophetic conference.  God told me that I was going to have a child that year and that Jairus Bible World ministry came from Him.  In 2017 we ended our ten-year infertility trial and had our miracle baby girl.  What God spoke to me gave me confidence and encouragement to break through the traditional teachings and openly start my own ministry.

The religious spirit controls people through fear. Wherever fear exists, there is a lack of God's love.  Psalm 65:3 tells us that the love of God covers all of our transgressions and 1 John 4:18 says that there is no fear in perfect love.  Many of the Jews thought Paul was wrong and wanted him put to death.  I don't think that everyone believed it, but many jumped on the bandwagon out of fear.  Perhaps they were worried they would be kicked out of the temple or excommunicated from their family or community.  I think that many of our fellow Evangelical believers may reject the Pentecostal Movement because they fear evil spirits or are afraid of what people would think of them, not necessarily because they feel the movement is heretical.

The United Methodist Church will be voting in May, 2020 to formally split.  The church has been divided for years regarding the biblical authority and acceptance of homosexuality.  The division is between conservative and liberal Christians and both sides have decided it would be better to separate.  The seminary I attend has a United Methodist background, so I understand some of the feelings behind the controversy.  A fellow student in my doctoral program, a Methodist pastor from Virginia, believes that what's happening in the Methodist church today stems from the church's compromise on white racism in the early years.  He told me that when African-American Methodist churches were first being formed, the church leaders would not allow African-Americans into their congregations.  They feared challenging the racism amongst white believers which led the church to compromise and divide into white and African-American churches.  This pastor believes that such a compromise led the church to repeatedly compromise on other issues, and eventually, homosexuality.  His perspective really helped me to understand the problem.  Religious spirits often use our narrowness, including racism, to keep us divided, not accepting other nationalities, races and various Christian denominations.  What if the leaders of the Methodist Church had included the African-American believers into their fellowship according to the Bible?  They may have gone through challenges and experienced persecution due to racism, but if they stood firm perhaps the spiritual condition of the Methodist Church would be very different today.  Remember, the religious spirit often cooperates with the spirit of racism and cultural superiority to control the church.  I realize racism exists in many different forms. I'm only using white racism as an example here. The decline of Christianity in the United States can be traced back to Christian leaders compromising and embracing the religious spirit.  One compromise causes the religious spirit to grow and require more compromise.  The morality of American society has gradually fallen, starting from the 1950s.  In 1963 prayer and Bible reading were not allowed in schools which caused further decline. On January 16, 2020, National Public Radio news published an article about President Trump supporting kid's rights to pray in school and warning those schools that they may lose federal funds if they hinder students from their first amendment rights. It's good to hear that this is changing.

The church overall, as well as each individual Christian, must overcome the religious spirit in order for the power of the Gospel to transform society.  When the church continually compromises with the religious spirit, it will lose the ability to be the light and salt to those around us, and our influence on society will weaken.

That's why the Lord Jesus came to stand near Paul at night to encourage him. The Lord said to Paul, "Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome." (NIV, Acts 23:11).

Our spiritual journey is also from Jerusalem to Rome, with Jerusalem being the church and Rome the world around us.  This is what God ordained for us.  The church and its believers must be able to overcome the persecution of the religious spirit within Jerusalem before it can go to Rome and change the world through the Gospel.   To the extent that we can transform and influence the church by overcoming the religious spirit will determine how effective we will be influencing society.

How does the religious spirit control the church?

I've already shared the first angle of how the religious spirit controls the church through fear.  If you come against the traditions of the Jews or Christian denominations, you will be eliminated, defiled, and rumors will be spread about you.  You may eventually even be killed.  Although people may know the truth, fear of persecution keeps them silent.  This cowardly spirit is pervasive in the church.

Lance Wallnau, an American prophet, shared a story about Donald Trump when he was running for President.  Donald invited several Christian leaders to a meeting to exchange views.  They discussed the Johnson Amendment, which is a bill that stipulates that if a church or nonprofit organization publicly supports a candidate, the IRS can revoke their nonprofit, tax-exempt status.  If this happened, the church wouldn't be able to accept donations, and the pastor's income would also be affected.  Lance noted that Trump said something to the effect of "Why are you guys so weak?  You let the Left-Wing and homosexual forces persecute you without fighting back." Many priests in this meeting were silent because this Johnson Amendment is like a gag order on churches and pastors.  They fear taking any risks and possibly losing their careers.  Trump mentioned in this meeting the he would help the church by repealing the bill.  When he became President, he didn't repeal it, but he issued an executive order prohibiting its execution.

This bill and many other similar things have allowed the religious spirit and the spirit of this world to restrict and persecute the church.  If the church compromises, it will be grabbed by the throat and not be able to refute its biblical position regarding homosexuality publicly.  Fear will force the church into a corner over time.  Many Christians believe that President Trump has intervened for Christians against the left-wing politics in the United States.  President Trump has one quality that many Christians lack. He's bold and not afraid to be politically incorrect.

Around the same time that Trump came to power, I was struggling with whether or not to start my own ministry.  I was filled with fear and uncertainty. In addition to God's confirmation that this ministry came from Him, Trump's experience also encouraged me.  He was brave enough to go against the establishment and say what he thought in spite of being seen as politically incorrect.  I do feel that God called me and inspired me to start my own ministry.  I decided to break through the traditions of my former church and bravely follow God's lead.  Through this process, I also achieved a spiritual breakthrough.

Besides fear, the religious spirit uses confusion to suppress believers and the church.  Many of the Jews who plotted to kill Paul were not necessarily bad people.  They were just confused because of the religious spirit.  They believed they were honoring and serving God.  Once a person is confused, it's difficult to pull them out of it.  We need to have compassion for those who are confused, just like when Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).  However, we must understand that the religious spirit is against any new work of God that would link people together, breaking down the barriers of race, culture, and denominations.  This spirit wants to keep us bound to old traditions that keep us divided.

Consider Paul's example.  The Jews had been worshipping the same way for thousands of years, when suddenly a new move of God called Christianity arose.  This new move of God allowed you to eat pork and didn't require keeping the Sabbath.  This was heretical to the Jews.  Through the traditions of the Jews, the religious spirit was used to persecute God's new move. It's not that the Jews weren't God's true children.  They couldn't look beyond their traditions to see what God was doing.  This allowed the religious spirit to take over.  This same thing is what happens in churches today.

Through God's sovereignty, Paul's nephew was able to protect him from the Jews who planned to kill him. Through God's sovereignty, Paul was taken to Rome and imprisoned in Herod's palace.  This was God's plan to allow Paul to preach the Gospel in Herod's house and bring them to salvation.  Herod was an ungodly man but it says in Acts 13:1 that Manaen, had been brought up with Herod, the tetrarch.  This shows that some in Herod's family were saved, possibly as the result of Paul's testimony.

To a certain extent, God permits the persecution we face from the religious spirit to help us become stronger.  When we can take a stand and testify in our own Jerusalem, we may then be taken to Rome to affect the world and possibly save many people like Manaen.  On the contrary, if we compromise to this religious spirit, we will gradually lose the ability to testify to unbelievers in the world.

We need to cast down the fears of offending church traditions and fear God alone. Let's break off that religious spirit so the church can have a glorious testimony in the world.

Bible Study with Jairus - Acts 18

As we mentioned last time, Paul met Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They were Jews coming from Rome to Italy. Paul had already left Athens and they all came to meet in Corinth. I’ve said before that their meeting was a turning point in Paul's spiritual life. Why do I say that?We usually think that Paul is an apostle, so he is always better than others and there is no need for him to learn from others. This isn’t the case. All of us have a learning process. Even when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He needed to learn to grow in the grace of God and man.  Similarly, Paul also went through a learning process. In our study on Acts 17 last time, we mentioned that Paul may have made a mistake of being rash in Athens. He may have been influenced by the environment possibly having a negative rather than positive effect on evangelism. But in Acts 18, it shows the process by which the Holy Spirit further led and perfected Paul through the circumstances.

Let's take a closer look.

The Holy Spirit patiently leads us into God's will for our lives.

The Lord Jesus said that, “Everything is in the hands of the Father. No two sparrows will fall to the ground without His consent.” (Matthew 10:29). Aquila and his wife Priscilla had just left Rome to Corinth because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul also came to Corinth from Athens. Is it accidental that they met there? No. Everything is arranged by the sovereignty of God. The purpose was to let Paul be further perfected and receive help from others in his ministry.

There is some deeper insight here that the Holy Spirit allowed me to see while reading the Bible.  It takes time for a person to completely follow the Lord and walk on the predestined path that He has laid out for us.  However, often at the beginning we might not have a clear idea about what God’s will is or how to obey it; so we spend our time and energy following another path and are unable to unleash the gift that God has given us.  For example, If you are called to minister in music but you spend all of your time learning to paint because you didn’t follow your heart, it results in failure and has very little effect for the kingdom.  When you finally understand that music is your gift and you throw yourself into it, you will find that God has opened all the doors.  Another example would be if God called you to be a cartoonist but instead you studied finance because your parents wanted you to be able to support yourself.  When you realize that there is no joy in finance and you return to the industry you love, things will flow and you will be successful in the end.  There are many examples like this.

So was Paul like this?  In modern times we tend to over exalt Paul’s writings as though he could never be wrong.  Actually this isn’t the case.  Paul is human and has shortcomings. He was on a continuous journey learning to know God in a deeper way.  Even in his old age he admitted that he hadn’t completely taken hold of it, but forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, he presses on toward the goal (NIV Philippians 3:13-14).  This shows that Paul was continuously learning.

Let’s take a look at how Paul gradually learns to obey God's will and walk on the predestined path that God has planned for him.

When Paul recalls his experience of being called by God in Acts 22, he said that the Lord said to him, “Go, I will send you far away to the Gentiles." If you recall the contents of Acts 17, it   said in the beginning that Paul had passed through a couple of towns, and he went on to Thessalonica to preach the gospel in the Jewish synagogue. After being rejected, he went to the Jewish synagogue in Berea to evangelize. In the end, the Jews in Thessalonica had stirred up trouble and he was forced to go to Athens. He preached the gospel to the Gentiles in Athens, but was not very effective. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that Paul had made a great turn here. At that time, Paul didn’t exactly do what God told him to.. God's will for him is just what Jesus said to him, “I will send you far away to the Gentiles” (NIV, Acts 22:21). God chose him to be an apostle of the Gentiles, but he couldn’t bear the thought of not preaching the gospel to the Jews. If you look at his description in Romans chapters 9-11, he said that he would rather be cursed so the people of Israel could be saved. You can understand Paul's burden for the Jews. But unfortunately, this was not God's call for his life.

The Bible has explicitly stated that God called Peter to be the apostle to the Jews and chose Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13, Galatians 2:8). This is very odd. If you were God, would you choose Paul or Peter to be the apostle to the Jews? If I was God, I might choose Paul because Paul is familiar with the Jewish scriptures and was taught by Gamaliel. He is even a Pharisee from the tribe of Benjamin. He was also circumcised on the eighth day. No one was more qualified and suitable than him. In contrast, Peter was a fisherman who had didn’t have a high level of education. There are scholars who say that Paul’s level of proficiency in Greek was far higher than Peter's. But God didn’t choose Paul to be the apostle to the Jews. Instead, he chose Peter to be the apostle to the Jews. For the Gentiles, I also think that Peter was more likely to be accepted because he was from Galilee where there were mostly gentiles, and Paul was a strict Pharisee. He was also enthusiastic to persecute the church. So naturally, Paul was more qualified to be the apostle to the Jews than Peter. But God didn’t arrange it like that.

There are people who believe that the reason why God arranged it that way is for us not to use what we are naturally good at. He wants us to do things that we are naturally not good at to force us to trust the Lord. We shouldn’t do things based on our ability, but by faith and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We all have fleshly and natural choices. Often it’s not that we don't know God's will and path for us. Rather, our flesh, human nature, and habits often hinder us so we have a difficult time quickly following God's call  . God understands us, so the Holy Spirit often patiently waits and leads us. But the Holy Spirit often tells us through the environment that "the road is blocked" encouraging us to   "turn back." The same is true of Paul’s experience here. We mentioned in the previous message that maybe because of Paul’s attempt to persuade people to accept the gospel through debate, it wasn’t very effective. But actually, our understanding at that time was not comprehensive enough. In this reading, we can see more light. It was not because Paul’s debate had gone wrong, but because Paul wasn’t living completely in God’s will so God blocked him in all aspects, making his evangelism ineffective.

Therefore, Acts 18 is a turning point. It is recorded in 18:5 - 6 that:

5 When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. 6 But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”(NIV)

It was possibly here that Paul may have recalled what the Lord Jesus said to him, “I will send you far away to the Gentiles to preach the gospel.” He had just realized that God’s call to him was to become the apostle to the Gentiles. Even though he was reluctant to leave his fellow Jews  who had rejected the gospel, he had no choice but to go to the Gentiles. In this way, he was forced by the environment to go to the Gentiles to preach the gospel. It looks like he was forced by the environment, but actually it was all the wonderful leading of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, in Acts 18, it was definitely not accidental for Paul to encounter Aquila and Priscilla from Rome. Rather, it was arranged by God’s sovereignty. Think about it. When Aquila and Paul were weaving tents together, don’t you think they talked to each other? In the content of their chats, is it possible that Aquila talked about his life experience with the Gentiles in Rome and his experience of dealing with the Gentiles? there’s a good possibility some of that was talked about. Paul's experience of evangelizing the Athenians in the previous chapter was not very successful. Maybe one of the reasons is that he didn’t understand the Gentiles and was not familiar with how to preach the gospel to them.

Became like a Gentile to win the Gentiles

When some Western missionaries first came to China to preach the gospel, they adopted an aloof attitude, as if to say, we are preaching the gospel, you guys are barbarian idol worshippers, so you have to give up your faith and accept ours. Some of these missionaries often have deep relationships with Western colonizers and officials. They will therefore use Western diplomatic and military power to force the Chinese to open their ports and accept the gospel, which caused a lot of resistance from the local Chinese. Consequently,   preaching the gospel to them was not very effective. But when Hudson Taylor came to China to preach the gospel, he adapted to the Chinese culture. He dressed in Chinese robe and grew a pigtail like the Chinese. He   also lived with the Chinese. His living and eating habits were the same as those of the Chinese, sohis gospel work in China was very effective. He preached the gospel to many places in China.

  Paul’s experience of evangelism in Athens seems to be somewhat similar to the attitude of Western missionaries when they first arrived in China. Perhaps he was feeling superioras he wastrying to persuade these people to turn away from idols to Jesus Christ through debates. Unfortunately it didn’t work out well. Is it possible that after his failed attempts to evangelize that Aquila taught him how to witness to the Gentiles and inspired him?  I believe that Paul was able to get inspiration and learned something from his experience in Athens. He said in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22:

20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. (NIV)

From Paul's words, we can see that Paul had learned how to become a Gentile in order to win the Gentiles. He learned that he shouldn’t be aloof when he preached the gospel, and he shouldn’t persuade others to believe in the gospel through debate. Rather, he should humble himself and put himself on the level of the Gentiles, live and eat with them, and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in a language acceptable to them.

God's later confirmation

I   had a special experience recently.   I met a prophet who said that God wants me to be a U.S. citizen because this will help me in my service in the future. However, because I am a Chinese citizen and I also have a U.S. green card, it is more convenient to visit China plus I feel that the chance that God will call me to serve in China in the future is huge, therefore, I have been living in the US for a long time and not been naturalized as a US citizen. f  After hearing the prophets words I spent time in prayer but didn’t receive any confirmation from God.  I reluctantly submitted my application for US citizenship anyway.   Not long afterwards, I had a prophetic dream. I found that the Chinese characters on my Chinese passport were altered, and a lot of English letters were written, and I saw a seal falling down from above with the words "U.S. Citizen" above. I felt that this was Lord’s confirmation that the submitted application was directed by Him. The prophecy of this prophet may be correct. But when I prayed for God's leading, God never gave me any confirmation.

This was my own experience, but actually, I’m also explaining Paul's experience here. When Paul didn’t completely live in God’s will, he seemed to be running up against a stone wall everywhere he went. His evangelism in the synagogues in Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens was not smooth. Of course, the Lord told Paul before that God's purpose was to send him far to the Gentiles to be a witness for Him. So this was imprinted in Paul's spirit. Therefore, at the beginning of chapter 18, Paul met Aquila and his wife Priscilla who came back from Rome. This might further remind him of the command he heard from the Lord. When Paul swears to turn to the Gentiles from then on, he went next door to the house of Titius Justus. Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized (NIV, Acts 18-8:9). Afterwards, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid, keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” (NIV, Acts 18:9-10). I called this God’s later confirmation. When Paul finally walked on the right path that Jesus told him, Jesus appeared to him, confirming that he was walking in the will of God. We often have such confirmation in our spiritual experience. The Lord will give us a prophetic word in the beginning. The Holy Spirit will then secretly lead us, give us limitations and leading through the environment. And finally when we walk on the predestined path that God has laid out for us, God will often prove to us again that we are indeed walking on His predestined path.

Acts 18:11 records that Paul lived there for a year and six months, teaching God's words among them. This sentence is definitely not accidentally recorded here. Rather, the Holy Spirit further confirms that Paul came here to preach the gospel and live according to God’s will.

Of course, we are not saying that Paul could’nt preach the gospel to the Jews. In the latter parts of Acts 18, it’s even recorded that when Paul arrived at Ephesus, he went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. But I guess perhaps the emphasis of Paul's ministry had turned towards the Gentiles. In particular, chapter 18:19 records that after Paul had reasoned with the Jews in the synagogue in Ephesus, when they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. This is a clear contrast to what is recorded in 18:11 where Paul stayed there for a year and a half.

Prior to this, Acts 18 also recorded that the Jews had attacked Paul, but the local official did not interfere. After this, Acts 18:18 (NIV) recorded that, “Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila”. But because of a vow he had taken, he had his hair cut off at Cenchrea before going to Ephesus. But he did not stay in Ephesus for a long time. He left to go to other places.

The matching of the different parts of the body to Christ's body

In 18:24, it started to introduce a Jew named Apollos. The Bible specifically mentioned that he was an eloquent man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. The Bible didn’t use these words to describe Paul. So looking at this description, Apollos had a gift that Paul may not have. In addition to Apollos' eloquence (that Paul may not have), it is specifically recorded that Apollos had vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ (NIV, Acts 18:28). These records are in contrast with the limited effects of Paul's evangelism before the Jews. These have indirectly proved that God's call to Paul was mainly for the Gentiles because God raised up people like Apollos to preach the gospel to the Jews, and it seems that their work was more effective than Paul’s.

Of course, the Bible has also recorded the limitations of Apollos, that is, he only knew the baptism of John. But Priscilla and Aquila, who were perfected by Paul, had helped explain the way of God to Apollos more adequately (NIV, Acts 18:26). This again shows that the principle of God's work is through the matching of the body; allowing different members of the body of Christ to match and complement each other.

Paul came to Ephesus again in Acts 19. There he found some disciples of Apollos' ministry who only knew John’s baptism; they didn’t know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Paul prayed for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This   also paved the way in the beginning of verses 20-21, where he declined the invitation of Ephesians when they asked him to stay there for a while. Instead, he said that, "I will come back if it is God's will."  (NIV, Acts 18:21). It is something that the Holy Spirit mentioned specifically here so that Paul later can come back to help those who are under the ministry of Apollo’s.

Why did God arrange for Paul to come back later? What is the meaning and implication of Paul's making up for the lack of Apollos' ministry in Acts 19? Why is it that   Apollos’ ministry only knows John’s baptism and not the baptism of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit? This has   profound spiritual significance. We hope to continue sharing our understanding in the next reading.

Bible Study with Jairus- Acts 17

In the beginning of Acts 17 it tells us that Paul and Silas came to the synagogue in Thessalonica to preach the gospel. Some people were persuaded, but it also led to the opposition of many Jews. The Jews wanted to bring Paul and Silas out to the crowd but could not find them. Because of this, the Jews dragged Jason out who had received Paul and Silas. Because of this, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea, and upon their arrival, they started to preach the gospel in the synagogue. The people there were more open-minded than the Thessalonians. When the Jews in Thessalonica heard about it, they came over to stir up trouble again. The believers then sent Paul to the coast and escorted him to Athens, while Silas and Timothy remained in Berea.

When Paul arrived in Athens, he asked the people who escorted him to let Silas and Timothy come over. Then the Bible records:

17:16 (NIV) While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

17:17 (NIV) So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

17:18 (NIV) A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

The Christian woman who was leading our Bible Study asked, “Why is it that the Jews of Thessalonica were so opposed to Paul's evangelism and when Paul arrived in Berea, why did the Jews from Thessalonica travel to Berea to oppose Paul? Why is it wherever Paul and Silas went, they went to the synagogue first to preach the gospel? And why is it when Paul arrived in Athens, he still let Silas and Timothy to come over? It seems that Timothy had always been with Paul, but why is it he didn’t mention Timothy when he was in Thessalonica and Berea? After the Jews brought Jason to the crowd, why was it recorded in Acts 17:7-8 (NIV) that: "Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus. When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil." Why were they thrown into turmoil?

There are a lot of questions here but we can only answer one at a time so let’s start with why the Jews were thrown into turmoil when they heard Jesus was king.

I shared that there was a historical background to this which I learned while I was studying Christian theology. During the time when the Israelites were against Roman rule, there were several different Jewish factions. The Herodians and Sadducees mentioned in the Bible were Roman advocates; but the Pharisees and the Zealots advocated for independence and were opposed to Roman rule. In particular, the Zealots advocated the use of violent and revolutionary means to overthrow Roman rule, and they launched violent uprisings against Roman rule but were brutally suppressed by the Romans. After the brutal crackdown, the Zealots were almost completely exterminated. The Pharisees were basically politically cautious. They didn’t fiercely advocate revolution, and thus survived. But the faction that advocated cooperation with the Romans occupied a large part of Israel's upper class.

Why were the Jewish crowds and the city officials thrown into turmoil when they heard that Jesus was another king? One of the reasons may be that many Jews advocated cooperation with the Romans. It can be said that they were "Jewish traitors”. So, if Jesus (another king) came and if He was able to lead the Israelites in a successful revolt, would they have to liquidate the history of these traitors? And Jesus is really the king of Israel. Not only were these Jews afraid that He would become king, but even his disciples were hoping that He would really be king in order to lead them to revolutionary success and to drive the Romans out and restore Israel's glory. Looking at these two examples, the identity of the Lord Jesus as a Jewish king does bring hope but it also poses a threat to some groups of people.

Although Jesus had already been crucified when Paul preached the gospel, talking about Him as another king of the Jews could have caused another Jewish revolution.  The revolts might have been successful and the Roman advocates would be called traitors.  If the revolution wasn’t successful the Israelites would be brutally suppressed by the Romans again.

Therefore, there were valid reasons why the Jews fiercely opposed evangelism. It could even be said that it was a very legitimate reason to protect the Israelites from harm. Those who hold this view believe that the people who were opposing Paul's evangelism were actually protecting ordinary Israelites from the Romans, because the history of the fierce suppression of the Zealots was still fresh in their memory.

It may be for these reasons, plus several others, that these Jews from Thessalonica had gone to Berea to oppose Paul's evangelism. In both places, Paul was forced to leave. Please note that the first time Paul was forced to leave Thessalonica and flee to Berea, he was with Silas. The second time Paul was forced to leave Berea and was escorted to Athens while Silas and Timothy remained in Berea. When he arrived in Athens, the one who escorted Paul had taken orders from him and went back to call Silas and Timothy to come over Athens, and left. Here, I guess the person who escorted Paul is just one person, or even if it’s a few people, they were all gone. After Paul was left alone, he encountered a lot of difficulties. Herein lays the problem.

When American pastors and teachers travel to other countries to preach, they spend many exhausting hours on the plane and then often proceed directly to the place they are to preach.   Many times they are already exhausted when they reach their destination. They need to be strengthened by the Lord before they can finish their sermon. Even though we have airplanes and better traveling conditions, a long flight is still exhausting.  If that’s the case, imagine that if you were Paul, and you traveled long distances to evangelize and you were continuously being chased. Now you are alone in Athens, and Athens is full of idols. How would you react?

Let’s look at Paul’s reaction.

Acts 17:16-18 (NIV) says that:

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

How should we look at this passage?

The church that I was saved in was more in favor of Paul's work. In my spiritual education, Paul was rarely criticized. But when the Lord led me to look at the teachings of some of the Bible teachers outside the traditions of my evangelical church, I heard some criticisms towards Paul.

I heard a message from Rick Joyner that there are statistics showing that 80% of the Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Bible after Martin Luther’s Reformation have been about Paul. Rick saw Paul once in a vision. Paul told him that everyone has highly exalted him. They should not take his work to analyze the four Gospels. Instead, they should use the words of the four Gospels to measure his works.

Rick Joyner also said that Paul’s life has undergone three stages of growth and change. The initial stage seems to be what he said in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians (NIV), “My immediate response was not to consult any human being.” There seems to be some pride in saying these words; but in the second stage, he claims that “For I am the least of the apostles” (NIV, 1 Corinthians 15:9) and “I am less than the least of all the Lord's people” (NIV, Ephesians 3:8); Later he said, “I am the worst sinner of them all.” (NIV, 1 Timothy 1:15). These verses show that Paul had also undergone a process of constant humility.

There is some controversy that arises when reading Paul's work. The controversy revolves around the issue of Paul’s teachings being infallible. Paul is a human being and all human beings are bound to make mistakes. But if Paul was used to write the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, could there be any errors? If you believe that Paul can't be wrong, that doesn't really make sense because humans are bound to make mistakes. If you believe that Paul can be wrong, then how do you decide which subjects he was right or wrong about? This is an issue in particular with the controversy about Paul's prohibition of women preaching. Was Paul wrong to base it on the customs of that time, or were his words the revelation of the Holy Spirit? How we should view Paul’s teachings? Whether Paul is right or wrong in this matter has become a big debate in Christian exegesis. But for now, we won’t discuss the issue of whether women should or shouldn’t preach.

We certainly believe that Paul's words are the revelation of the Holy Spirit, but we also believe that Paul went through a learning process because he experienced failure. Although the Biblical education I received did not say that Paul's experience in Athens was a failure, I have heard other Bible teachers mention that Paul's attempt to win people's hearts in accepting Christ through debating at Athens was a failure. They specifically compared what is written in Galatians 3:5 with Paul's experience in Athens. Paul says in Galatians 3:5 (NIV), "So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?" Here, Paul specifically mentioned that the Galatians started with the Spirit so that they should not fall into the flesh. He preached the gospel by relying on the Holy Spirit. He had also performed miracles to bring the Galatians to salvation.

Let's take a look again at Chapter 17 verses 16-18 (NIV):

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

I agree more with the argument that Paul’s debating may not have had good results here. Allow me to explain my thoughts. 

As I mentioned earlier, Paul was chased twice by the Jews. He was accompanied by Silas the first time, and the second time; he was accompanied by an escort. When he arrived in Athens, the person who escorted him went back to assist Silas and Timothy so they could come quickly to Athens. In this interval, Paul was alone. Even if Paul possessed remarkable abilities/powers, he would still feel lonely when he was alone. The Bible tells us “How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight?” (NIV, Deuteronomy 32:30). The principle that God established was to partner us with the body of Christ. At this time, when Paul was left alone, he might have faced an attack and incitement of the enemy.

My personal view is that after Paul experienced the continuous attacks and rejection of the Jews plus the fact that he was left alone in Athens and saw that the city was full of idols, he became greatly distressed. Then I think he started to reason and ask himself, was he still in the spirit? The Bible does not explain this so we do not know for sure. But the view I mentioned before, that is, the result of Paul's hopes of spreading the gospel to the Athenians through debating did not go very well. So Paul's experience in Athens is regarded as one of his failures.

Let me discuss the inspiration that I received during this meeting. It can be said through the word "react" or more appropriately, "to be influenced by the environment". In our spiritual experience as Christians, we should be seated in heavenly places in Christ, but sometimes our flesh or minds are provoked and make us react in our minds and in the flesh. Afterwards, we often regret the experience.

I recently listened to a very early message from an American pastor named Jack Deere about the discipline of the Holy Spirit. He mentioned a very interesting experience that he had. He said that he is a pastor in a not so well-off place in the United States. As a pastor, he is often misunderstood and attacked by others. One day, a female Christian, in a church where he served as a pastor, said to him, "You are just serving as a pastor here for the money." He was very angry and he answered her back. Things like this seemed to happen all the time. He asked the Lord, “What is going on?” The Lord said that this is the discipline of the Holy Spirit. He said, “When will it end?” The Lord replied, "When you can treat those who criticize you with a gentle and kind spirit." Jack Deere is a pastor who moved from the evangelical church to the charismatic movement. He is well-known in the Christian world in the United States. He is also one of the few American pastors I know of that teaches the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Supposedly, he’s also a person who pursues deeper spirituality, but he shared this experience to let us see that a person who pursues spirituality is often influenced by the environment especially when they are not mature enough.

When Jack Deere’s spiritual discipline was more mature, he would respond more gently and lovingly to those who criticize him.

When a Christian is practicing to be more spiritual, we need to learn not to react to the environment or be influenced by the environment. Instead, we should react to the heavenly reality and our communication with the Lord, and out of our position of sitting together with Christ in heavenly places.  Reacting to the environment or what you see will end up pulling you down to the level of the environment itself.

Can Paul’s experience here be pulled down by the surrounding environment? We know that Paul is a man with heavenly experience and vision, but there are times that people become weak, especially when he is constantly attacked by Jews, and his co-workers Silas and Timothy are not beside him to assist him. He might have been very knowledgeable since he received training from Gamaliel, and he was good at debating. After he was enraged in the spirit, his soul also became agitated: "You guys know how to debate, I also know to debate. Your philosophy is great. My philosophy is also very impressive."

As you can see here, not only did he debate with the Jews and God-fearing people, but he has also debated with the people he met in the marketplace every day, and some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who have argued with him. We are not sure whether Paul is like this, but those who hold the view that Paul has done nothing wrong is untenable because Paul is a human being, and every human being has a process of learning and continuous maturing. In his later years, Paul did not think that he was fully mature yet, saying that “I press on toward the goal to win the prize.” (NIV, Philippians 3:14). If Paul's later years are not fully mature, then Paul's experience should be a process of continuous maturity. The only difficulty is how we see Paul’s continuous maturity process with the help of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time not be affected in accepting the fact that the Holy Spirit has spread the Word of God through Paul's mouth.

Judging from my limited personal evangelistic experience, many times we encounter some atheist Chinese, who often debate with the people who are preaching the gospel. I personally feel that these debates are often not very effective. The best way is to influence them through prayers and testimonies of love. Of course, among many Christians who advocate Power Evangelism, there are many who use the power of the Holy Spirit to let the atheists be convinced. The debate is usually not very effective. Debates often let us fall to the battlefield of the mind, and debates are things that often happen after we have fallen into a reprobate mind. I slowly learned a lesson, that is, when a person is not ready to accept Christ, or the Holy Spirit hasn’t yet reached a point where he has begun to work on the person to open up his/her mind, we don’t need to have too much debate with him/her. Instead, we can silently pray for the person with an attitude of give and take in the service of love. It has a better effect as time passes.

In addition to this it’s important to be spiritually paired with other believers no matter how knowledgeable or spiritual you may be.  Paul knows this very well. But does the absence of Silas and Timothy affect Paul's judgment? Although Paul is an apostle, the Bible clearly says that Silas is a prophet. If Silas is there, will Silas pray to God to get any prophetic revelation on how to do the work of evangelism in the city of Athens? Or if Timothy is there, will he be more eloquent to deliver and preach the gospel? Although Timothy is younger than Paul, we have seen how young people can do many things better in the church. When people who don’t know much about God come to church, the effect when the pastor preaches a profound sermon is often not as good as the testimony of a few Christians who have faith in the Lord from the very start. The latter is more appealing to those who have just come into contact with the gospel.

This is also my personal point of view. I think that Paul may be more suitable to teach those who want to seek and experience the truth on a deeper level, but Timothy may be more suitable to test the waters first in Athens. Their human hearts are not prepared yet for the idol worshipping people so we should let Timothy pave the way through his words. Or let Silas pray to God to see what strategic or spiritual guidance God has, and then find ways to preach the gospel here. But it seems that it wasn’t mentioned here that Paul has received any revelation or God's guidance. Instead, the Bible mentions that he had reacted because he was angry in the spirit. Is this reaction completely from God?  We don't know.

But I think that those who hold the view that since Paul was an apostle, everything he did was right and he didn’t need to seek God's guidance, and he won’t ever make mistakes is untenable. Although Paul was an apostle, he has the ability to make mistakes and will need a process of learning from them. I personally think that Paul should not be in a rush and do things hastily. He should take a rest and wait until Silas and Timothy come to discuss the matter together and then take action. In other words, Paul is too rash here. This may be one of Paul's weaknesses.

Of course, our analysis is not necessarily right, but it can provide us with another idea, that is, to understand the process of Paul's growth in God. Paul was a person, not a God. Did he have any shortcomings? It’s safe to say that it’s very natural for everyone to have weakness. Did Paul have any weaknesses? If what we propose here exposes the weakness of human nature, what is Paul’s weakness? What effect does Paul's weakness have on his ministry?

We don't know the specific weaknesses that Paul had, but it’s impossible for a person not to have any weakness. Even if people don’t have obvious weaknesses, they need to be paired with other believers who have different giftings.  Therefore, the pairing of Silas and Timothy to Paul is very important.

Of course, we are not totally negating the effect of Paul's evangelism in Athens. Although he wasn’t good at convincing the Athenians through debating, he had attracted some people who were seeking the truth.

Acts 17:19-21 (NIV) says: "Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?  You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)”

You can see that the explanation in verse 21 is that the Athenians and the foreigners who live there are very busy, and they have no time to take care of other things. So these people took Paul and brought him to Areopagus to talk about these new lessons/ideas which stood out to us. Going back to what we mentioned earlier, Paul may not have the silver tongue of Timothy, or the effect of preaching the gospel to the newcomers or those who are occupied by the world’s affairs, but Paul didn’t fail to attract those who really seek the truth. Paul’s personality may be more suitable to people who are diligent seekers of truth.

Paul spoke a very famous passage in Acts 17:24-27 (NIV) which says that: "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

We have no intention of belittling Paul, and the experience here is also the highlight of Paul's experience in Athens. But I personally don't think that idolizing Paul or assuming that he doesn’t have a process of continuous maturity, is correct. Paul is a human being. When he is continuously attacked and left alone, he will be weak and will be incited by the environment to react. And such a reaction usually pulls us down to the level of the environment or the enemy, letting us lose the commanding heights of victory in Christ. An example is Pastor Jack Deere that I mentioned earlier. When others criticize you, don't rush to react. Instead, rest in the Lord and ask His wisdom and follow his leading to deal these criticisms. Similarly, I think that Paul should not be rash here. He should seek the Lord on how to evangelize Athens which was occupied by idols. He should also wait for Silas and Timothy to come and discuss first before making any decisions. It’s not that Paul has no wisdom, but Paul was constantly attacked and alone. He needs to get a good rest and to be taken care of.

We have a new couple coming to our Bible study. I hoped to give them a prophetic word before the end of our meeting. I prayed to God and asked Him, “Are there any prophetic words to give and bless them?” I heard the Holy Spirit say two names, Aquila and Priscilla. I prophesied by faith that:

I feel that God believes that you are Aquila and Priscilla. They have the same line of work as Paul, but they have also taken care of him. Although Paul is an apostle, the apostles also need to be cared to and helped by people. I feel that God called you to be Aquila and Priscilla to train the Paul of tomorrow, because in this era, God will raise and widely use many Paul-like apostles. God called you to be Aquila and Priscilla to cherish those who are serving as apostles. Whether this person is still your child, or a little brother or sister in your church, God will use you to fulfill them in order to make them become servants like Paul. As we saw in this chapter, Paul also has weaknesses and there are times that he needs help and to be paired with other believers. Paul’s encounter with Aquila and Priscilla was a turning point in Paul’s spirituality, because the couple, Aquila and Priscilla, is very compassionate. They were tentmakers just as Paul was and they had received Paul. We believe that Aquila and Priscilla have tended Paul to a large extent, so after Paul met Aquila and Priscilla, it could be said that spiritually, he became more mature. How God used Aquila and Priscilla to take care of and complete Paul’s ministry, God will also use you two to come along side and complete the Pauls of tomorrow.

I prophesied that according to the principle that “everyone can prophesy” (1 Corinthian 14:31), it’s not because I am a prophet. I was saved in an Evangelical church, but I learned the gift of prophecy after I first came into contact with the American modern prophetic movement in 2015. Of course, I studied five courses at a prophetic school, and their teachings helped me to go and activate this prophetic gift.

I prophesied with inspiration and faith. I don't know if these words are correct for the couple because they didn't give me feedback. However, after other friends who were in the meeting with me verified Acts 18, they began to discover Paul's experience of encountering Aquila and Priscilla. It seems that perhaps, I am speaking by the Holy Spirit. Because when I prophesied, I was not sure when Paul met Aquila and Priscilla, nor was I very familiar with the content of Acts 18.

I hope that when we have the opportunity to read Acts 18, we can learn more about how Aquila and Priscilla have tended and helped Paul with the help of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for reading, listening or watching.  

Bible Study with Jairus- Acts 16

The verses of Acts 16 begin with Paul coming to Derbe and then traveling to Lystra where he met Timothy. The brothers at Lystra and Iconium had spoken well of him. Paul intended to take him along on the journey but his father was a Greek (which is the Greek of the Gentiles). He took Timothy to be circumcised for the sake of the Jews who lived in that area before they began their travels. Paul traveled with Timothy and they went to different cities, and they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem for the disciples to obey. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.

At this time, the flow of the writing of the Bible had suddenly changed and it began to describe how the Holy Spirit did not allow them to preach in Asia. They had no choice but to go through the region of Phrygia and Galatia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

Because many of us are not familiar with the geography of ancient Israel, when we hear these names, we may feel confused or overwhelmed trying to understand the story.  As a result, the names of these places will not leave a deep impact on us. This is one of the difficulties in reading the Bible. We have a relatively poor understanding of ancient geography and historical knowledge, so it causes some difficulty understanding the Bible. When the author of the book was writing these, the original readers would understand these differences, so no special explanation was needed.

I studied the map and found when you travel from Derbe to Lystra, you’ll be going from west to east, and then north to Iconium. Then from Iconium, you go west before you arrive in Asia. This time, Acts 16:6 says that the Holy Spirit forbids them to preach the word in the province of Asia. The location of Asia is in the south, so this means that the Holy Spirit does not allow them to go south. Then they went to the region of Phrygia and Galatia, which were in the north of Asia, but it’s located in the south of Bithynia. They tried to go north to enter Bithynia from the border of Mysia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them to go again.

If you are confused, Galatia, Phrygia, and Mysia are lined up from east to west, and north of them is bordered by a place called Bithynia. In other words, Paul and others went from the southeast of Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium to the northwest, and then they tried to go south to Asia until the Holy Spirit forbid them so, they had no choice but to go northeast and go to Galatia, then go west and continue to go to Phrygia, and then continue west to Asia, and then continue to go north to Bithynia, but again, the Holy Spirit would not allow them to.

During this time, Paul had a vision, that told him the Macedonians needed them to preach the gospel. Macedonia is closer to the west. At that time, Macedonia was a place where the message of the gospel had not yet reached. Therefore, this so-called "Macedonian Call" is often used in Christian history to describe the call of God to His servant to head to places where the gospel had not yet been preached.

Even though we discussed the locations, order of travel, and names of the various places unless you are looking at a map now, it may still be a bit confusing. Because of this we thought of an analogy. It’s like Paul went to Washington DC (the capital of the United States) from Florida. But he also hoped to go south to Virginia, which is south of Washington DC, but the Holy Spirit did not allow him. So he had to go northeast to New York and then go west to Pennsylvania (which has the same latitude as the State of New York) and Ohio. Throughout this process, they tried to go north to Canada, but the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. Then suddenly Paul had a dream at night. From the other side of the Pacific Ocean, he dreamt that a Chinese person said, "Paul, we need you to come to China to preach the gospel."

My analogy may be over-exaggerated, but perhaps you can understand the difference in this journey. That is, Paul came from the southeast. If you go out to preach the gospel, you may not want to use the original route to come back, so you wouldn’t go southeast. At the same time, the road to the south was blocked by the Holy Spirit, and the road to the north was blocked by the Spirit of Jesus. Then he had a dream at night, and a man from Macedonia in the west came to call him to preach the gospel. We should clearly understand what this means now. It is God who wanted them to go to the west of Macedonia.

This was an example of the environmental stewardship of God leading them. There was a Pastor who said that God is present in all our environments. If you know God, every tree, wood, and flower has His traces. If you don't know God, you won’t recognize Him, even if you see the thorn bush where He appeared to Moses. For you, it’s just a pile of thorns.

But how to recognize God in an environment, especially in a difficult environment, is not an easy task. Let’s take a look at Paul's experience after he came to Macedonia to follow God’s lead.

They sailed from Troia, and passed through Samothrace, Neapolis, and finally to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district in Macedonia. The transportation during Paul’s time was not as developed as it was later on. We’re not exactly sure how long it took them to get there. In short, it could have been a very difficult trip. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when Western countries such as Britain and the United States sent missionaries to third world countries, it took about a month for people to sail from the United States to China. After a long journey, many people had still not arrived in China or they’d just arrived in China, and were infected with diseases and died. From this example we can see the challenges that the missionaries faced when going to foreign missions. If this was true in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we can say that during the time of Paul, it was even harder and the conditions were even worse.

When we think that God is calling us to do something, to go to Macedonia to preach the gospel, we’re   hoping that just like Lord Jesus entry to Jerusalem, someone will shout: "Hosanna, praise to the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” And lay the palm branches and clothes on the ground to let the colt pass through. Of course, we know that we can't compare with the Lord, but we hope to gain some respect and be well-received.  Many preachers go to work in the mission field hoping that others will praise them as servants or messengers of God.

Even if we don't want material blessings and praise from people, we may hope that at least, we can be greatly blessed to be working for the Lord.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was as powerful as when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost and 3000 people were saved?

Let’s look at Lukes narrative in Acts 16:13 next.

On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. (NIV, Acts 16:13).

The word "expected" is very interesting. They thought that it was a place to pray, but maybe it wasn’t because this is just one of the places where women gathered. They began to talk about Jesus Christ. Lydia, a dealer of purple cloth, who was a worshiper of God and whose heart the Lord opened, had accepted the gospel. In other words, when they arrived in Macedonia, they did not preach in the Synagogue or stadium. They just preach the gospel in the market. This is the “Marketplace Gospel” that is often mentioned in churches now. The "Marketplace Gospel" is very difficult. I’ll give you an example and you’ll see why.

I often take the subway to Washington, DC, and occasionally meet people who preach the gospel on the subway. Once there was a woman who stood up on the subway and said that everyone should accept Jesus Christ or else he/she would face judgment. The tone and the way she talked were very unnatural as if she was memorizing a speech. The people on the subway ignored her and treated her as though she were crazy. Although there was no objection at the time, there was dead silence. I also often see an African American man preaching the gospel at Union Station in Washington, and passers-by seem to treat him the same way. The United States is a Christian country. Street gospel or marketplace gospel is still very difficult. What’s more, Paul came to a city where there was little preaching of the gospel.  You can see that Paul’s difficulty in preaching the gospel in Macedonia was not much different than someone preaching on a subway.

Later, Lydia insisted they live in her house, and then they went to the “Place of Prayer.  They went there because they were still looking for places where the Jews gathered.  These Jews may have feared God, but they did not know Jesus Christ. They had first preached the gospel among the Jews in order to win some converts.  They didn't expect that they would encounter a female slave, who was possessed by an evil spirit, and who shouted all day long: "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." (NIV, Acts 16:17). Paul became so annoyed that he commanded the spirit to come out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.

What’s going on here? Why did they encounter this slave girl who was possessed by the evil spirits? And isn’t what the evil spirit said (through the slave) actually   true? They were indeed slaves of the Most High God promoting the way for people to be saved. This problem was very confusing for the members of this meeting.

My understanding is this. I said that based on the experience of Lord Jesus’ deliverance of demon-possessed people, even a demon-possessed person has a chance to be wide awake; the person could seek help from Jesus. Although this female slave was possessed by evil spirits, it’s possible that she hoped to be delivered.  Her repetitive monologue was not necessarily from the evil spirits. Even if this was what the evil spirits said, we should not rule out the possibility that this woman was asking for help. Paul’s annoyance was directed at the evil spirit. He was not necessarily annoyed by this female servant.

The Bible does not tell us what happened to the woman after the evil spirit had been cast out.  Was she saved or did the story have another outcome? The ending is left to our imagination.

I often say that the Holy Spirit is the best screenwriter. When a good screenwriter creates a script, he/she always creates new drama in order to grab your attention. The people here didn’t have much time to consider the situation of this female slave before the conflict escalated, and a new contradiction suddenly emerged. Therefore, the dramatic conflict in this chapter had entered a new climax.

When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized and dragged Paul and the others into prison. (NIV, Acts 16:19). Some of our members asked why these things happened. The reason is very simple. You’ll understand when you look at the experience of Jesus. Wherever Jesus went, there was still opposition. Jesus himself said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (NIV, Matthew 10:34).Why? Because wherever there is light, power and the authority of the gospel, darkness, evil spirits, and people’s sin will be the exposed. Evil spirits like to act secretly and lurk in the dark. If we go to a place and the evil spirits are still hiding within people, this means that we do not have the light, power, and authority of the gospel. The opposition that Paul encountered here is actually evidence of them being filled with the Holy Spirit.

When we talked about this, I mentioned that Paul’s experience is actually intertwined with our lives today. The members in our study were confused when they heard this. How can Paul's experiences be applied to our lives today? They didn’t see the connection.

In my experience every time we read the Bible, it can be applied to our lives because the Word of God is not limited by time. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (NIV, Hebrews 13:8). The Holy Spirit is also with us. He is always ready to shine on us

If we read the Bible and it feels like just words on a page that don’t stir up our spirits within us, we are missing the Holy Spirit’s illumination.  The same goes for attending a Bible study and coming away empty. 

I said that I would give you a few examples of this, and then you will understand why Paul’s experience can be applied to our lives today. I’ll start with an example that I mentioned earlier. During the 19th and 20th century, an American Christian felt that he had heard the call of God and saw the vision of Macedonia. He traveled by boat to China for a month. In the end, he died of illness shortly after landing. Does this help you understand how to apply Paul's experience to our lives today? Our Bible study group still didn’t quite understand.

Let me give you another example. When Hudson Taylor saw a vision at the sea of England and saw thousands of Chinese people heading for hell, then he moved to the slums of the East End of London. He lived on nothing but bread and water every day and endured a lot of hardships in order to evangelize in China. He also established the China Inland Mission in China to preach in places that were inaccessible. He also called many Christians overseas to participate in the service in China. As a result, many Western Christian Missionaries were killed in the subsequent emergence of the Boxer Rebellion. The vision that Hudson Taylor saw is often called his Macedonian Call.  But what he experienced in China was almost opposite to God’s calling to him. He did not understand why God allowed the boxers to kill these dear Christian workers.

Sometimes you may feel that you have seen visions and you think that this is the Macedonian Call that God has given you. You may also feel that you’re following God's lead to your Macedonia. But you may find that the environment you face is very different from what you’ve imagined or expected. How would you deal with this? Especially when you experience being locked up in a prison? How would you face this?

By this time, our Bible study members began to understand what I meant about Paul's experience being practically applied to our Christian life.

I have further stated an example, saying that once we encounter a situation like this, most people’s reaction is to doubt whether they have really heard God’s voice, or whether they feel that God’s leading is really God’s leading. Most people begin to doubt.

For example, I heard the testimony of a preacher, Benny Hinn, who divorced for some reason and later remarried. After he remarried his wife, he testified that he clearly heard God telling him to marry his wife when he was young. But after the marriage, he was busy with ministry and he had neglected his wife. His wife was then determined to file for a divorce. During the most painful period after the divorce, he often wondered if he had heard God saying that He wanted him to marry his wife in the first place.

This is an example of a person who serves the Lord. I have further examples of some circumstances from our Bible study members.

For example one Bible study member thought that God was telling him through prophetic words and visions that he would have financial blessings in his business.  Unfortunately, in actual life he experienced customer fraud and payments in arrears quite contrary to the visions and prophetic words.

Another lady thought that God promised her that she would marry this year. There was also another woman who had a prophetic dream that her marriage would take place soon, but it has not yet appeared in actual life. This is the difficulty we encountered in real life. This is our Macedonia. When we are led by the Word of God or the environment leads us to some point, we thought that we were riding on the crest of a success or achieving our dreams, but we find ourselves trapped in prison. What should we do at this time?

Several Bible study members commented that they didn’t feel like they were held in prison today.

I told them this. Though we don’t have a tangible prison today, we have all kinds of invisible prisons, and we are being held in various invisible prisons. For example, our wrong understanding of God, our misconception about ourselves, and our wrong perception of others are all cages. All of these have locked us up in our invisible prisons.

I’ll use my personal experience to give an example.  Because I lacked my father's love   since   childhood and grew up in the countryside as a peasant’s son, I gradually began to develop a misconception that I was extremely inferior. Whenever I encountered difficulties, I was fearful and ran away from them. Everything was blamed on our background - that I was the son of peasants. But God has made many callings and promises to me. God tells me through visions and touches that He will use me to preach the gospel for His kingdom and bring about the revival of churches. But my actual situation is the opposite. I am full of fear and have low self-esteem. If I can't live out God’s great calling for my life, is it because God has not promised me anything or my Macedonian Call is actually false? Or, is my own misperception limiting myself?

The issue that I had is called the Orphan Spirit. It’s like the Prodigal Son written in Luke 15, who is a typical representative of the orphan spirit. He does not feel that God loves him, so he goes wandering. It’s when he is financially destitute that he finds out that Our Father is actually God and He loves him. This led him to return home and repent. I was a person with an orphan spirit, but God has done a lot of inner healing and deliverance in my life. I’ve broken free from the orphan spirit to a certain extent, and I’ve gradually learned to enjoy the love of God and rest in the Lord.

Another woman in our study had a different situation. In English, it is often called “Performance Orientated”. The reason why she had this issue was because of her experiences as a young girl. When she was young, her mother loved her brother. The family was also poor, so she felt that she could only receive the love of others if she did everything to the best of her ability. Therefore, this type of person is very concerned about the attitudes and praise of others and they live very a tiring life. These people are also weary and burdened. They are like the eldest son in Luke 15, desperately trying to get the praise of his father. When he thinks that he can’t get anything, he becomes extremely angry and embarrassed. He doesn’t realize that his father has always loved him. You don't need to work hard to get God's love. God has loved you to the point where he gave his one and only son. Many people work to win people's praise. However, a person who rests in God's love does not need it. He doesn’t need to be concerned about the praise and denial of others. He is very relaxed in God’s love. But there are some who don’t know how to rest because they care deeply about what others think of them. These are people who have no experience or who lack the experience of unconditional love.

I have analyzed these two situations and showed you invisible prisons that bind us. You may have one of them - the orphan spirit or the spirit of performance. Or your prison could be your unforgiveness towards others. The call of God and the Macedonia Call are the same as the call of God to the Israelites to enter the Promised Land. Both the call and the promise are there, and the Promised Land is indeed the land of milk and honey. But if you don't have the faith when you go in all you see is that the enemy is tall as a giant. Where is the difficulty here? The difficulty lies in our lack of faith.

God often gives us a call, a Macedonian vision that takes us to a certain place. It’s as if the whole environment is full of our enemies and darkness, and God's presence does not seem to exist. We seem to have been abandoned by God but actually, God did not leave us. God is just hiding to see how we react. If we have faith, it can bring us to the Promised Land. If we are full of unbelief and disobedience, we may die in the wilderness.

Let's see how Paul reacts. Paul preached the gospel before the evil spirit had come out of the female slave. Consequently, he and Silas were opposed by people who were stirred up by the evil spirits and unbelievers, and they were beaten and put in prison. But around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and praising God. The question that we discussed in the meeting was how could they still pray and praise in such a difficult situation?

My understanding is this. Paul and Silas were able to praise because they really knew God from within. They didn’t just see the hardships in the environment, the attacks of evil spirits, and the opposition of the people, but they saw the impact and power of the gospel and the truly impactful power which brought about the opposition from their enemies.

Earlier, I said that we will face some difficult situations, but what Paul and Silas have done is actually what each one of us can do. We have God living in us. We have victorious Christ living within us. The key is to release this power through faith and praise.

Paul seemed to be stuck in jail. He had only saved one person named Lydia and driven out an evil spirit from another slave girl. Then he brought a jailer and their family in prison to salvation later. This was like a snowball effect. This snowball will just get bigger and bigger.

Many times, it’s not about what we can do or how much we can do for God. One of the principles of how God works is to allow us to be placed in a difficult environment in order for us to show our true understanding and faith in God. This becomes a powerful testimony that can open our prison, break through all the darkness that binds us, and release the power of the gospel.

We may face the same situation as Paul today, but we may not have the knowledge and experience towards God like Paul and Silas, so we may not be able to live out our lives just like the testimony of Paul, and have the prison doors open up for us. We often think that they are able to do this because they are apostles; they are Paul and Silas or Peter. However, the Bible clearly tells us that God is no respecter of persons. The principles established by God are the same. If you have the same understanding and faith towards God as Paul, the prison you are in today, whether it is tangible or an invisible prison, will open itself for you.

No matter what kind of circumstances and hardship you are in now, don't be discouraged. Don't feel that God has abandoned you. The darker the times, the more that God will secretly watch you and see how you react. Your unbelief and disobedience will shut you down in the wilderness just like the Israelites. You should know that the Israelites were not able to enter the Promised Land, not because they don’t have God’s promise. They have God’s promise there but they did not go in. If you don’t mind the darkness and you put your hope in God, He will treat you in the same way He treated Caleb and Joshua. No matter how hard your circumstances are, how big the darkness is, and how impossible the situation is, God can lift you out of the predicament and let you enter a blessed state.

This is how my own experience proves this. I felt that the all of hell was attacking me when I was suffering from ten years of bitter trials of my wife’s infertility. Especially the two weeks before we found out that my wife was pregnant with our miracle baby. On one side, I was shedding tears because of the difficult environment, and on the other, I was praising and expressing my earnest gratitude to God. I was shedding tears while I was praising. God then supernaturally healed my wife, gave us a miracle baby, ended the ten-year hard trial, and I walked out of my prison. For more information, please go to the website and YouTube channel of Jairus Bible World Ministries to hear my testimony of the birth of our miracle baby. We will continue our fellowship next time. Thank you for reading and listening.

Bible Study with Jairus - Acts 14

Today we will share some understanding from our recent study on Acts 14.

Acts chapter 14 talks about the story of Paul healing a man who was lame from birth in Lystra.  Paul preached the Gospel in the city of Lystra and then Derbe. He won many converts in Derbe and then returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch (verse 21).

In verse 22 it says, “Strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’. （ESV）

There are many different translations of this phrase “strengthening the souls of the disciples”. For example, the NIV translates it as “strengthening the disciples” and the New Living Translation translates it as “they strengthened the believers”.  But the English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible and King James Bible all pointed out that they strengthen the “souls of the disciples.”

The English Standard version and others   translate this phrase as strengthening the “souls” of the disciples. But some of our Bible study group members use the Chinese Union Version which translates it as “strengthening the hearts of the believers”.

The woman who led the Bible study this week asked a question “why does the Bible say strengthening the ‘soul’ here rather than the ‘spirit’?” This question has its legitimacy as we can learn from the famous verse in Ephesians 3:16:

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” (NIV)

The “inner being” here often refers to the spiritual man inside of us or our spirit. This seems to be a pattern in Paul’s speaking.   He often mentions the Lord will be present or strengthening our spirits. For example, 2 Timothy 4:22,

“The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.”

Galatians 6:18 also says,

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers, and sisters. Amen.” (NIV)

I am not sure if this question makes sense to you or not but it does make sense to some of our members in this Bible study. Some of them were saved in a church movement where they stressed the importance of exercising our human spirit strongly. This teaching stresses that once we pursue the growth in our inner spiritual life, other problems in our soul will be solved. Gradually this teaching becomes focused on the development of our spiritual man but neglects the issues in our soul. Whenever someone has troubles in their soul, someone in the church may ignore it by just considering this person has not fully reckoned his or her death in Jesus Christ.

But this verse says these Apostles strengthened the souls of the disciples which bothered this woman. So, she asked this question. Why does here stress the word “soul” instead of the word “spirit”? Why does the Bible just say “strengthening their spirits”? What are the significances to mention “souls” here?

We recognized a pattern in doing the Bible study the way we do. Often a question raised by a member, in the beginning, is the very question that the Holy Spirit wanted to answer us in that meeting. In other words, the Holy Spirit will often cause someone to ask a question.  When we try to understand this question more, the Holy Spirit will release the answer gradually in the meeting and speak a Rhema Word of God to guide us, comfort us and strengthen us. I will explain this more in the following part of this study in the hope that you will understand what I am talking about.

This problem seems simple, but this is the timely words of the Holy Spirit, at least for the Christians who are studying the Bible together with us. Why did I say so? First of all, the Bible is incomparably rich. Every time when different people read the Bible, the things that may be read out are different. This doesn’t mean that everyone’s understanding is different, but rather it means that the illumination of the Holy Spirit is not the same every single time. There are so many scriptures in Acts 14 that may touch us, but this time, we are particularly moved by Acts 14:22.

The daily life of Christians on earth is actually a battle, and your battle is to fight against the unseen spiritual forces of evil. At the end of age, one of the greatest tactics of the enemy is to make the saints feel tired and exhausted. In English, it’s the term “worn out”. As the saying goes, it is to make you feel annoyed, or busy, and finally totally worn out. This is also the traditional military tactic or the delaying tactics mentioned in Chinese sayings. Using this tactic, evil spirits can keep Christians from accomplishing God’s calling.

The members who gathered in our Bible study have shared their respective experiences in this aspect. One woman mentioned that her child has been coughing for a lengthy period and this made her feel tired and troubled. Another woman, who is a doctor, said that she has a lot of patients every single day which made her feel exhausted.

Then she comes home from work and her child is whining which almost puts her over the edge emotionally.  She would like to relax and just read social media updates but gets inundated with ads and spam making her more tired and depressed.

A man, who is a part-time translator, shared that the Holy Spirit reminded him through a strange dream that someone would swindle his money in business. In the end, a customer had defaulted on his payments which made him very upset. The Lord originally called him to learn management skills through business for future service in the ministry. However, because of the attack of the evil spirits, he became a little disheartened for a few days.

These seem to be small things in life, but they are actually not. Daniel 7:25 (NIV) says, “He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time." The term "oppress" here is the “oppression " of the holy people of the Most High; in English, it’s sometimes translated as "wear out". Another translation of this sentence in English is "shall wear out the saints of The Most High". You can see this translation in the English Standard Version and many other versions as well. This term “wear out” actually means torture. In other words, how does the Antichrist or the evil spirits oppress the saints today? You can't do much after your enemies have worn you out. It’s just like playing basketball. You may be a good shooter, but your opponent has guarded you closely which keeps you from making a basket. Thus, naturally, your team loses the game.

You may know the Bible truths and also be very enthusiastic in serving God, but your daily experience in life has exhausted your soul, and through the influences of many negative emotions, thoughts, and wills, your life and service have been affected to a great extent. The man shared that he was supposed to serve the Lord in business. The Lord called him to learn business and management skills, but because the evil spirits provoked some people to disturb his business, it brought a lot of confusion to his soul. He said that he didn't want to do anything for a while, because his soul was very disturbed, and he continuously thinks on how to solve this matter, which made his soul totally exhausted.

Returning to the verses in Acts 14, Paul is in a spiritual battle when he was preaching the gospel there. There are evil spirits fighting against them in the spiritual realm. In the physical world, some Jews and some Gentiles were also stirred up against the disciples. But Paul has a strong spirit and his soul is strengthened as well. He was stoned and people thought that he was dead but he got up again. Not every saint has a strong spirit and soul and had the experience of bodily resurrection as Paul did. When many disciples encounter the same spiritual warfare, their souls will be wounded. If this psychological trauma is not treated in time, it will eventually affect the spirit of the people and keep their spirits down.

We know that not only the physical pain will make our soul sink, but the pain in the spirit will also affect our soul. Although spiritual warfare is in the spiritual realm and we are wrestling with the invisible forces of evil, it will still affect our soul. The soul including the thoughts, emotions, and the will inside our soul are the battlefields of this spiritual warfare. I mentioned in the meeting that if you can change a person’s mind and how he/she thinks, then you can completely change the person. If you can change the collective thinking of a culture, then you can change the ethnicity as a whole. For example, if you can change the collective thinking of the Japanese and get rid of their tradition of ancestor worship, then you can change Japanese attitudes towards the gospel. Many people who have been to Japan to evangelize have mentioned that the Japanese worship their ancestors as God. This is one important aspect that prevents the Japanese from accepting the gospel.

If you can change the Chinese way of thinking, then you can change them as a whole. Every culture has its collective way of thinking, and many of these are used by the evil spirits so that they will not know Jesus Christ. It is the same in the US.

Paul said that spiritual warfare was to demolish these strongholds and bring down the high-walled fortress in our minds. If you can take these strongholds and high-walled fortresses captive, that’s the time that you can evangelize them. Paul is an apostle and apostles get their power and authority from the Lord. They can break free from the control of the evil spirits in a certain area by releasing people from this area to turn to Jesus Christ. But at the same time, Paul has also undergone a fierce resistance with the evil spirits.

One country is like this, and so is every individual. The strongholds and the high-walled fortress in our minds are used by the evil spirits to control us. The wife of the man I mentioned earlier said that one of the reasons why her husband was so distressed was because of the high-walled fortress and strongholds in his mind. Ever since he was a child, his father has never protected him. His family also came from the countryside and thus, he was bullied and became frustrated. He then developed a misconception that others are always bullying him due to his foolishness. It’s normal for us to encounter deception, but this brother actually suffers from "internal injury" or “internal trauma”. He needs inner healing. He thinks that he was deceived because of his stupidity. The more he thinks about it, the angrier he gets. Actually, others did not owe him a lot of money but the extent of damage to his heart or soul was a lot more.

In deliverance ministries and inner healing ministries, these are considered as wrong judgments of a situation which eventually caused people to have the wrong way of thinking. Over time, they become strongholds in the minds of people. These strongholds give the evil spirits a status to possess or influence us. We all know that Jesus Christ has defeated the devil through the work of the cross, but why are we still deceived and tortured by the demons and evil spirits today? The problem is because of sin, flesh or ungodly thoughts within us, which formed the strongholds, thus giving opportunities to the enemy.

The wife of this man said that when a child faces hurt in this world, he is often not mature enough to judge and distinguish the situation which leads him to develop wrong thinking. He thinks that the whole world will hurt him and even develops hatred towards the world. When people get hurt during their childhood, it is easy for them to develop this wrong way of thinking. For example, some unfortunate women who have encountered sexual harassment from men when they were young, will think that all men are bad people. These are the situations that often occur in inner healing and deliverance ministries. But are all men bad? No, but a young heart that has had a traumatic experience before, can cause them to develop erroneous thinking.

These are just a few examples. Everyone has some ungodly thoughts that are governed by the high-walled fortress in his/her mind or soul, and this is not in accordance with the teachings of the Bible and God’s will. But because this part of the soul has not been completely sanctified, Christ and the Holy Spirit have not fully taken power yet in this part of the soul; therefore this part of the soul will be wounded and used by the enemy. Therefore, it is not enough to just strengthen the disciples in the spirit and teach them spiritual knowledge and truths. We also need to be able to help the saints to see and demolish the ungodly thoughts, strongholds and high-walled fortresses within their minds. For disciples, if you can do this, then you can strengthen their souls; for unbelievers, if you can do this, then you can let them repent and eventually turn to God.

Aside from the strongholds and the high-walled fortress in our minds and souls that are used by the enemy, it is easy for our emotions/feelings to get hurt. The enemy's attack is often clandestine in nature. He doesn't necessarily have to sit at your bed at night to scare you (although this happens in a prophetic experience), he will use people around you to hurt your feelings which will cause many problems. For example, unforgiveness, after we are emotionally hurt, is the main strategy by which evil spirits attack us. This unforgiveness also becomes the main legal basis for evil spirits to live within us. Unforgiveness will slowly lead us to become stony-hearted and even develop a very stubborn will.

Some people say that the normal state of mind, emotions, and the will in our souls is to have: a sober mind, love what God loves and hate what God hates, and to surrender our will to God but take a determined stand against Satan. However, after the human soul is damaged, we are not sober-minded anymore about the things of God. We tend to forget to read the Bible, but when it comes to sinful or worldly things, we have a remarkable memory.  Our emotions will also tend to hate what God loves and love what God hates; our will becomes stubborn and obstinate to God, but it will become vulnerable against Satan or the evil. These are the conditions after our soul has been damaged.

Our battle with the enemy is indeed a spiritual battle, but this doesn’t that we don’t need the participation of our souls, and we don’t to take care of our soul. The enemy often attacks our souls through various tricks, allowing our soul to be worn out. Therefore, the work of the apostles is definitely not only to talk about the high-level spiritual revelation, but also to be able to touch the problems in the human soul, to strengthen the souls of the people including the mind, emotions and will, and to break through the strongholds and high-walled fortresses that the evil spirits have built within us.

In the process of fighting with the enemy, our soul will be wounded, so we also need healing in our souls. Ignoring the healing of the soul will cause problems. One of the phenomena that I have observed in some churches is that they will regard everything as a cross to learn spiritual lessons. For the problems in the soul, it is often seen as "not fully dead” or "it’s in the flesh.” It’s more about teaching us to "turn to the spirit", and even despise the soul, looking at "living from your soul" as a negative term. But my observation is that these do not solve the problem in the human soul. Although many Christians have been pursuing growth in their inner spiritual life throughout their lives, some of the internal problems (in the soul) still exist after being Christians for so many years. Many high-walled fortresses and strongholds have not been broken and eradicated. This, in turn, affects the extent to which they pursue inner life. Coupled with the physical pain experienced by many Christians, and the "scarred" internal injuries sustained by serving in the church for many years, the life and growth of our spirit is slowly lost.

On the contrary, in some churches, less emphasis is placed on the work of the cross, so there are seemingly more acts of the flesh and the soul than those churches that pursue an inner spiritual life. However, these churches pay attention to the healing of the body, inner healing and casting out demons. Many of the inner healings involve the healing of the soul. Actually, the churches that seek inner life and the churches who stress on inner healing and deliverance can complement each other. But unfortunately, each side has not fully seen the strengths of the other.

Finally, we end with the scripture in Isaiah, “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will run, and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.” (New International Version, Isaiah 40:31). Our soul functions like a runway. Our spirit can fly, but when our spirit is not strong enough to be a helicopter, we often need the help of the soul to pick up speed like an airplane does on the runway before taking off. Therefore, it is vital for us to take care of the soul and strengthen our souls for our spiritual life and spiritual battle.

It’s a bit biased to think that just through spiritual practice or spiritual discipline, to read the Bible more and to have more meetings; it will naturally solve the problem of the soul. Although we admit that this is beneficial, it is definitely not automatic. The problem of not dealing with the soul properly and only focusing on a blind pursuit of spirituality can lead you to become a Pharisee, a religious Christian or a spiritual loony. Failure to properly deal with the problem of the soul will, in turn, affect the extent to which people pursue spirituality. The problem in the soul is an extremely complicated problem involving our misconceptions, false attitudes and emotional damage brought by the strongholds in our minds, cognitive distortion and stubborn will. We need to be careful in uncovering the mess of the evil spirits and driving them out so that our soul will be healed, cleansed, and strengthened. We don't have time to share all of them here. We will just slowly unfold them in future articles.

Bible Study with Jairus - Ruth

The book of Ruth is comprised of only four short chapters, but it’s a very important book in the Bible. It serves as a link between the past and the future. It’s preceded by the historical account of chaotic Israel in the book of Judges for hundreds of years or more. It’s a cycle in which the Israelites turned their backs on God and therefore God judged them, and then they repented and prayed for God's help, so God saved them. In summary, the scene of Judges is not very good. The book after Ruth is Samuel. It describes the birth of David and the wonderful work God did through David.

Ruth was a Moabite gentile. She married Boaz, the descendant of Tamar and Judah (Salmon, the father of Boaz by Rahab). Boaz is the father of Obed. Obed is the father of Jesse, and Jesse is the father of King David (NIV, Matthew 1:5-6). Matthew's genealogy looks very simple, but it’s the condensed version of the entire Old Testament. If you want to figure out this genealogy, you need to be familiar with the history of the Israelites in the entire Old Testament.

Similarly, Ruth’s short description at the beginning tells us that in the days when the judges ruled, Israel suffered a famine. Naomi’s husband Elimelek left Bethlehem in Judah and lived in the country of Moab. In the end, Elimelek and his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, died. These first three verses have simply recorded this story. Actually, this is a condensed summary of the history of the Judges. The history of the Judges is like a severe cold winter, with dead twigs and withered leaves everywhere. But when the earth is in a severe cold winter, new life will be born underground, just waiting for the spring to come. It’s just like the budding plum blossom in China. The Bible is written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I often say that the Holy Spirit is the best playwright and creator in the world. The picture painted by the Holy Spirit in the book of Ruth is like the author of traditional Chinese ink painting. Now there are a few black dead twigs on the Xuan paper. It doesn't look that lively, but it didn't take long for God to draw a few bright red and beautiful plum blossoms, making this painting radiant.

Chinese poet Hai Zi said, "The night has given me dark eyes but I use them to look for light." I am not familiar with Hai Zi's poems, but a good friend of mine who graduated from Beijing Normal University is a fan of him. He told me about Hai Zi’s poems and the story of Hai Zi’s suicide. I don't understand what kind of pain causes a person to commit suicide. I can only say that Hai Zi did not live out the ideals written by his poems. Darkness is temporary. As John says, darkness never overcomes the light (NIV, John 1:5). Dawn is actually very near you when you’re in your darkest hour. The footsteps of spring have already come secretly even in the harshest winter season.

The book of Judges is like a cold, dark winter. Ruth’s appearance depicts a blooming plum blossom before spring. In our speed reading this time, we’ve painted this beautiful picture. I hope to briefly review the contents of our Bible Study.

God's Judgment brought Redemption

I have always said that God's judgment is not the aim, but a means to bring redemption. Many people misunderstand God's thoughts and imagine God as a fierce God. Elimelech and his two sons died because of God’s judgment. Of course, Naomi felt bitter. The name Naomi means blessings from God. Her life was bitter to the point where she even returned to the country of Judah and told other Israelites, “Don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara for my life is bitter.” (Ruth, 1:20).

My wife and I have suffered the painful experience of ten years of infertility. The process is really bitter. The quarrels, struggles, tears, and pain experienced is unimaginable for those who have never experienced it. Another couple who participated in our Bible Study at that time was also infertile for many years.  One day, the wife said to us that she felt that God had done nothing but deprive her. Everything that others have, she doesn’t. Coupled with other difficulties in life, she felt like Naomi who called herself Mara, which meant bitter (Of course, she had a son and a daughter afterward; we also have our miracle daughter). Thinking back, we really learned a lot of lessons. We should keep our eyes open and see the hope ahead of us when we’re in difficult circumstances.

Naomi represents our old man, Ruth represents our new man

Actually, saying that Naomi represents our old man is not very accurate, or perhaps it’s too early to say that. Because the thing that should be said first is that Elimelech and his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, represent our old man. They have been killed by God's judgment. But Naomi can represent the struggles of our old man in our spiritual experience. We all know that once we are saved, our old man is crucified with Christ. But in experience, our old man is still alive. From the spiritual reality, our old man is indeed dead. But in terms of spiritual experience, our old man still needs to be conformed to the death of Christ. In the process, our old man will inevitably complain. This is Naomi’s experience. Ruth represents our new man. While Naomi had experienced death, life was started in Ruth, and it resulted in producing a descendant, which was Obed. Although this child was Ruth’s, people said that he was Naomi’s child, because Naomi became his nurse. Naomi’s and Ruth’s experiences are actually together, or we can say that a person’s two different experiences, when intertwined, produce a new man in the end.

I heard that the author of the book "Dream of the Red Chamber" sometimes applied the story of the same person on different characters. The Holy Spirit often used this writing technique when writing the Bible. It often separates and puts the spiritual experience that one person had on different people. If you have spiritual comprehension, you will be able to understand that they are actually one person, or that the experience of these people can actually be a person’s different spiritual experience.

For example, the Bible records that the families of Saul and David had been fighting for a long time. This experience can represent the battle between a person’s old and new man. In the end, of course, the new man represented by David won. Similarly, the experience of Naomi and Ruth here is intertwined, showing us a picture of how the new and old man reacts differently to things. For example, in facing God's judgment, the old man Naomi said that the Almighty has made my life very bitter (NIV, Ruth 1:20). But the new man Ruth lay at the feet of Boaz (who represents Christ), like Mary of Bethany. The old man Naomi said, “Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?” (NIV, Ruth 1:11). The new man Ruth said, “Unless death can separate me from you, where you go I will go, your God will be my God”. (NIV, 1:16). The old man Naomi complained that her life was bitter so she let people call her Mara. But the new man Ruth never complained. She did not complain that her husband died. She also did not complain that she was born a Moabite. In Deuteronomy 23:3 God said: “No Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation.” (NIV, Deuteronomy 23:3). If she lived today, she would have a lot to complain about, such as: "I was born the wrong color, my race was cursed, my husband has even died etc," But in the entire book of Ruth, you don’t hear any complaints from her. Her words and behavior are very much like what Peter said, "Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." (NIV, 1 Peter 3:4)

Naomi also represents the Holy Spirit, Ruth represents the bride

I mentioned earlier that the Holy Spirit often puts different experiences that a person can have on different people when writing the Bible. In addition, the Holy Spirit often uses the same person, things, or events to represent different spiritual things or experiences. For example, the simplest example is that the Bible uses a lion to describe the Lion of the tribe of Judah - Jesus Christ. It also uses a lion to describe the devil who prowls around looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

Here, in addition to representing the old man, Naomi also represents the Holy Spirit. Ruth represents the bride, and Boaz represents Christ. We know that Abraham's old servant represents the Holy Spirit. He finds Isaac (who represents Christ) a bride named Rebekah. He beautified the bride (gave Rebekah a lot of earrings, nose rings, and other ornaments), and used camels (representing an unclean environment that is a tool in the hands of God) to bring Rebekah to the tent of Isaac. We also know that the eunuch in the book of Esther also represents the Holy Spirit. Not only did he help select Esther, but he also supplied her with anointing oil, so that she could receive beauty treatments (ointments and perfumes), thus exuding the fragrance of (Christ), letting the king (who represents Christ) to be delighted with her. Here, Naomi also represents the Holy Spirit. She has been a helper and a comforter. After our old man is dead, we travel together with our weak new man to bring her to the Promised Land God has given us and help her to know Christ (a representation of Boaz) to please Him. Through his redemption as her relative, she has become his spouse and bride. In the end, a man child (Obed) was brought into the lineage of Christ thus completing God's plan.

Ruth 2:1 says that Naomi had known that Boaz was a wealthy man. But in verse 2, Ruth herself said that she would glean in the fields and she didn’t know who would find favor with her. Note that it doesn’t say here that Ruth knew Boaz. She didn’t know him at all, but the Holy Spirit explained in the first chapter that when Naomi was in the land of Judah, she knew Boaz. Here is the foundation of the writing of the Holy Spirit later in this chapter.

So, how long did Naomi stay away from Judah? The Bible didn’t record it, so we don't know. But we guess that it may be quite a while because both of her two daughters-in-law were married in Moab. We guess that Boaz may be an old man already and perhaps he is a man with wife. We don't know these. It’s just our speculation. Because when Ruth followed Boaz, Boaz said a sentence, “You have not run after the younger men but chose me instead.” (NIV, Ruth 3:10). From here, we can also guess that Boaz might not be that young anymore. But Ruth did not know Boaz (who represented Christ) according to the flesh. It’s through the help of Naomi (who represents the Holy Spirit) that she knew Boaz (or Christ).

Consequently, Ruth went to glean in the fields and it happens to be the field of Boaz. Was this accidental? No, it wasn’t.  The Holy Spirit led her there.

I’ve been a believer for seventeen years now. Looking back at the history of these seventeen years and the years before becoming a believer, I find that the Holy Spirit has been wonderfully leading me. When the Holy Spirit leads us, he often doesn’t speak loudly. Rather, he leads us silently. We may not feel him, or we’ll only discover afterward that it’s the Spirit’s wonderful leading. When I was in college, I went to Peking University to find some friends to hang out with. When I saw that they were preparing for the TOEFL(Test of English as a Foreign Language) test, I was curious to understand why they were preparing to go abroad.  I had thoughts myself of going abroad to study. However, I also wanted to take the national postgraduate entrance exam in China. I had made a plan for myself. If I passed the national postgraduate entrance exam, I would stay and pursue postgraduate studies in China. If I didn’t pass, I would apply to study abroad. In the end, I took third place for my total score in the national postgraduate entrance exam in my major. Ten plus postgraduate students were enrolled in our major. My scores far exceeded the admission score. However, when I was taking the politics exam, I had an extremely bad headache. I didn’t score well on the test. I was only a few points away from passing. So, I missed the postgraduate admission. Only after I was saved, did it occur to me that this might be the Lord intervening. I rarely get headaches so perhaps He wanted me to study abroad.  Later, when I did go abroad to study, I came in contact with gospel believers and began to receive Biblical education. It was only then that I realized that this was part of God’s plan for me.  Even the school choices that I filled out in college were the same. I originally planned to apply for philosophy at a well-known university in China. While I was trying to rest in my dorm room, I suddenly thought of applying to a journalism major in another university. This university was more of a liberal arts college. Because I come from a rural family and wasn’t good at socializing with others, I had a very hard time adjusting to this school and spent a few painful years there. Later, I had worked in the media industry, and I had hoped to make a difference in this area. But because I’m a believer, I was also slowly becoming indifferent to the world's ambitions. But in recent years, God gradually showed me that my ministry will greatly use media and film in the future, and gave me dozens of dreams to encourage me to make films. These are things I never thought of, but I did know that God was the one leading me to study media from the beginning. Often, the way that God leads us is by giving us an idea, and we unknowingly obey the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I shared my own experience here to make a point. The way the Holy Spirit leads us is sometimes very subtle. Here, when Ruth walked in the field, whether she walked to the left or to the right, she was led by the Holy Spirit. In the end, she was brought wonderfully to the fields of Boaz. Things that you often think are accidental are not. It’s just that you haven’t seen the certainness behind the accidental, which is the silent leading of the Holy Spirit.

After Ruth returned, she told her mother-in-law that she was gleaning in the fields of Boaz that day.   Naomi told her, “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative." (NIV, Ruth 2:20). After which, Naomi told Ruth, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.” (NIV, Ruth 2:22). This accompanies what Boaz said to Ruth before, "My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me." (NIV, Ruth 2:8). They said almost the same thing. So how did Naomi know? It’s very surprising. It can be seen from here that Naomi represents the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit often confirms what the Lord says to us.

At the beginning of the third chapter, Naomi was preparing to find a home for Ruth. In 3:2, Naomi said, “Tonight, Boaz will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor.” (NIV). How did she know? It shows that Naomi had inside information or she knew Boaz very well. The same is true of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes from God and Christ. He knows Christ very well. Then in 3:3-4, Naomi told Ruth to wash, perfume herself, dress up, and go lie down in the threshing floor of Boaz. This represents the work of the Holy Spirit. It dedicates God’s church, and the bride of Jesus Christ to her husband without blemish, which is Jesus Christ. Naomi taught Ruth how to get Boaz’s attention and told Ruth (after everything was going according to plan) that Boaz wouldn’t rest until the matter was settled (NIV, Ruth 3:18).

What was the book of Ruth talking about? It’s Boaz (who represents Christ) redeeming us, his lost relatives, which Ruth represents. Christ is our relative and ultimately through the sacrifices He made, we were redeemed to return to God, which is our inheritance (because God is our portion and our inheritance).

Boaz had a relative who was first in line to redeem Ruth, but according to the law, he would have had to marry Ruth in order to maintain the name of her dead husband with his property. But the man said that he was willing to redeem, but he wasn’t willing to marry Ruth because it would endanger his own estate.  According to the law, if he married Ruth, her child would not belong to him, but to Ruth’s dead husband. Thus, his inheritance would be damaged. But Boaz was willing to make these sacrifices. Because of this he was blessed by the Israelites.

In Ruth 4:11-12, the Israelites blessed Boaz and Ruth and said:

11 May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. 12 Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” (NIV).

Later, Ruth gave birth to a son named Obed. Naomi held him in her arms and became his nurse. He was obviously Ruth’s son, but the neighbor women named the child, saying that, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed (NIV, Ruth 4:17). The meaning of Obed is servant, the servant of God. Obed is the father of Jesse. Jesse is the father of David. And Christ is the descendant of David. At this point, Naomi and Ruth’s experiences are combined into one. The previous pain that she experienced has passed, because a son was born, bringing her much happiness. Our old man will also experience pain like this. But our new man will have continued growth. In the end, we will enter the glory. At the same time, Naomi also represents the Holy Spirit. His change in us is now finally completed. He has completed the work of God on earth today, letting Christ be glorified in us. The one who is glorified is the man child, which is a new man in the universe.

 As a new believer attending a special conference in 2004, I didn’t believe that Christ would come back the second time and was unwilling to dedicate my life to Him.  That evening I prayed: “Lord if you show me that you are really coming again, I will dedicate my life to you.” Then, I had a prophetic dream that night. Two people were fighting to get my heart. A man who was stronger took my heart away. The next day, I dedicated myself to the Lord and then I saw a vision. The Lord said to me, “Once the New Jerusalem, the body of Christ in the world is built up, I will come back.” 

Ruth’s experience is our experience as the bride of Christ. May we work cooperatively with the Holy Spirit and gradually transform ourselves into the image of Christ. The book after Ruth is Samuel. It describes the birth and growth of King David, our position of sitting together with Christ in the heavenly and reigning with the king. These two sides complement each other. They are the two different sides of Christian spiritual destiny. Not only are we the bride of Christ, we also have the power to govern and rule the universe with Him.