Genocidal Maniacs or God Called Men

Much of our talk of callings here and there is nothing more then men using God and his Book as their authority and justifications for whatever kind of orthodoxy they invent in their own minds! But sufficed to say, and without going into a full blown expose on Fundamentalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, a lot of our talk and terms are just that, talk, and terms! 

We have mixed some mysticism with all the talk of a “call of God” and have made ministries out of the blue, by distorting passages.  There is a constant barrage of pressure among Fundamentalist and Baptist circles to “be called” to something!  It’s why we create all these diverse ministries, people have to have a calling or a position to fulfill.  And they have to be fully supported as well in their endeavors, to funnel and propagate the working systems. So men just keep inventing new tactics and ways to get that support.  Hence, things like faith promise and other gimmicks.

Who needs faith anyways?  We have Bible Colleges, Bible Institutes, and Bible schools pumping out 1000 young 20-somethings every year, running everything like a business, or a corporate engine, perpetuating the machine as their teachers taught them.

Let me ask you this; concerning our calls of God that we claim, how are we different from some North African Jungle warlord who claims he had directive from God to commit his genocide?  How are we different from some Cameroon warlord who thinks God told him to perform ethnic cleansings?

"Established in the Faith"

There is only one place in the entire word of God where people are said to be “established in the faith”!  It is found in Acts 16. After the councel in Acts 15 at Jerusalem, where the decrees were carried to all the churches.

Jews or Gentiles are not considered established in the faith until Acts 16. In Phillipians 4:15, Paul refers to his leaving Macedonia, which correlates historically with Acts 16, and this is referenced to being “as the beginning of the gospel.”  

This is not the beginning of the body of Christ, but the beginning of the gospel, Paul’s gospel, the gospel of grace!  Here, it was established.  It is where it began to be accepted by all the churches, after it was decreed and delivered by Paul!

Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.

The gospel of grace was set into motion, so to speak, in Acts 15 with Peter before the councel in Jerusalem.  He declared that mans salvation was by grace through faith.  The decrees were delivered of the elders to the churches, and the gospel of the grace of God was finalized and began in Acts 16.  They were established in the faith in Acts 16!  I make this point to say that the gospel was NOT established in the great commission passages and early Acts.