Monthly Archives: September 2008

Good and Perfect Gifts

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James 1:17 reminds us:

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”  (NKJV)

The Father, through the Holy Spirit within each believer, has given each of us some kind of spiritual gift.  He wants us to use them for His glory to build up the body of Christ.  God gives each of us gifts.  There are no gift-less Christians.

1 Corinthians 7:7 (NKJV) … each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (NKJV) There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

Gifts are something we need to use intentionally.  Every Christian has a gift, but not all use them.  We need to “stir them up” and make sure that we don’t neglect them – just as Paul had to encourage Timothy.

1 Timothy 4:14 (NKJV) Do not neglect the gift that is in you, …

2 Timothy 1:6 (NKJV) Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you … 

If you’d like some help in determining your gift(s) here’s a link to a little test that just may do the job.

www.spiritualgiftstest.com

Palmer St. Podcast: Acts 6

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This is a key chapter in that it introduces the role of the deacon or “servant” within the early church.  From this point on, we’ll see church leadership separated into the roles of elders and deacons or shepherds and servants.

One of the first deacons, Stephen, had a remarkable ministry, which brought him to the attention of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council in Jerusalem.  He was eventually brought before them where he was falsely accused.

Audio: Acts06.mp3

Notes: Acts06.pdf

No Intelligence Allowed

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Remember Ben Stein – the excruciatingly dull teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?  He’s also a former presidential speech writer (Nixon!! and Ford), an economist, author and an attorney (Yale Law School valedictorian 1970).  He writes regularly for NYTimes and Yahoo! Finance.  I want to recommend his recent controversial movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.  It’s about to come out on DVD and you can advance order it.  By the way, Ben adamantly denies writing the line “I am not a crook” for R.N.

Expelled is a humorous, maybe even sarcastic, documentary examining the exclusion of intelligent design from the mainstream academic world, despite some reasonably intelligent advocates.  The film is extremely polarizing – because the subject is exptemely polarizing.  You will like it if you put your faith in an intelligent Creator who is behind all that exists.  You will hate it if you put all your faith in Darwin.  Amazon rates it at right about 2 1/2 stars – probably the average of lots of 5s and 1s.  Again, I recommend the movie, though I’m sure it’s made a Ben Stein a lot of enemies.

If you want to check it out here’s a website:

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

If you want to go so far as to advance order it, here’s a link to Amazon.com:

Order Expelled on Amazon.com

If you want to read an interview with Ben in the Toronto Star here it is:

Toronto Star Interview June 2008

 And then there’s Ben’s own website:

http://www.benstein.com/