Are we encouraging the sons of Sceva (Acts
19:13-21)
----------------------------
They wanted to drive out the evil spirits. They did it in the name of
Jesus whom Paul preached. But they were overpowered by the evil
spirit. What went wrong?
Note the question of the evil spirit" Jesus I know, Paul I know, but
who are you?"
The sons of Sceva were not ordained, not commissioned, to drive out
the evil spirit in the name of the Lord. The evil spirit can easily
recognize the truly ordained ones from those with false claims.
The context in the Scriptures above was excorcism. Let us apply this to another
field being talked about a lot today - evangelism. Evangelism is the duty of the
Church. It is a task to be
done through the Church and with the Church. Without the Church, if
we attempt this, we will be asked the same question as the evil
spirit asked the Sons of Sceva.
Evangelism is a mission of the Church. There are too many liberal
minded and ecumenically inclined souls at the helm today who feel
there is no need for evangelism for the Church. Evangelism is
spreading the good news in the world - about the Kingdom of God,
about God's Love, about the death of the Son of Man on the Cross for
the redemption of the World, the significance of that death, and the
Life in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The world today yearns for
Christ's Love just like 2000 years ago. Sure,today there are a
zillion and one 'Christian' faiths out there, and still counting -
but the Indian Orthodox Church, as she claims to be the custodian of
the True Faith in the Lord, cannot shirk from her responsibility to
show the Light, to spread the Word.
The Church is doing all this in very meaningful ways by means of its
many many charitable deeds and humanitarian efforts. Feeding the
poor, sheltering the homeless, parenting the orphans, educating the
society, healing the sick, these are worthy acts of witnessing. Still
we need to create a wing for creating "missionaries" who can be
trained in the Orthodox thinking, who can go out into the society to
spread the Word - who can be taught to be firm to show Christ, while
being respectful of the other faiths, still being sensitive to the
secular fabric of India. Especially in the face of the Protestant
propoganda at work - we need a wing of this kind - something like the
St.Paul's Mission Center in Mavelikkara - done at the Church level.
It must be popularised and interested young and old must be given
training.
The training, and blessings of this kind of work by the Church is
especially important - else individual flirtings with Evangelism by
passionate but misguided young people can bring harm to the name of
the Church and ultimately to Christ's name. Also they face the risk
of being asked by the evil spirits at work in the world - "Jesus I
know, Paul I know, but who are you?"
While on this topic, I would like to say (and I have said this on
this forum before, and I am sure I will become unpopular because of
this) that the Church gave blessings to Bro. Paul Ciniraj as
the 'Malankara Sabha Missionary' some time back - but without
adequate support and guidance from the church - Bro. Paul Ciniraj
today has developed his 'mission' at an individual level - sometimes using the
title, sometimes using several other titles, sometimes referring to himself as
"Rev" sometimes as "Pastor" etc etc. I can imagine that the Church is in a fix -
not knowing whether to support, or to stay away. Let us take lessons. We can do
without half hearted initiatives from the Church. These things are like playing
with fire, so extreme caution needs to be excercised. We need trained and
ordained missionaries (by ordained,I do not mean clergy alone - but those with
blessings and support from the Church). The Sneha Sandesham started by
Osthathios Thirumeni is a good model to adopt and use Church wide.
This does not mean that we should wait for the church to tell our neighbors
about Christ or to show them Christ in any other way if we get an opportunity.
No, we are all missionaries for Christ in a sense(royal priests), and we all
share the responsibility to show Christ to the world. What I do mean however is
that the Church should not be absent even in our individual ministries. The
Church must be visible in what we say, what we do, and we should be excercising
this mission work as part of the Church, not apart from it (and surely not
inspite of it!). If this is done in this manner, the next logical step would be
to bring any interested person to the Church for catechism and baptism.(in lines
with the Great Commission in the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew - 'baptizing
them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit'). Then we start
practising Evangelism in the way God intended. But in many instances what we see
today is the so called "Christ only" ministries. There is no sight of the Holy
Church which Christ built giving His blood. Thus we play into the waiting hands
of Satan.
Just some thoughts to share.
Regards,
Mathew Samuel,
Albany, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/17652
----------------------------
They wanted to drive out the evil spirits. They did it in the name of
Jesus whom Paul preached. But they were overpowered by the evil
spirit. What went wrong?
Note the question of the evil spirit" Jesus I know, Paul I know, but
who are you?"
The sons of Sceva were not ordained, not commissioned, to drive out
the evil spirit in the name of the Lord. The evil spirit can easily
recognize the truly ordained ones from those with false claims.
The context in the Scriptures above was excorcism. Let us apply this to another
field being talked about a lot today - evangelism. Evangelism is the duty of the
Church. It is a task to be
done through the Church and with the Church. Without the Church, if
we attempt this, we will be asked the same question as the evil
spirit asked the Sons of Sceva.
Evangelism is a mission of the Church. There are too many liberal
minded and ecumenically inclined souls at the helm today who feel
there is no need for evangelism for the Church. Evangelism is
spreading the good news in the world - about the Kingdom of God,
about God's Love, about the death of the Son of Man on the Cross for
the redemption of the World, the significance of that death, and the
Life in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The world today yearns for
Christ's Love just like 2000 years ago. Sure,today there are a
zillion and one 'Christian' faiths out there, and still counting -
but the Indian Orthodox Church, as she claims to be the custodian of
the True Faith in the Lord, cannot shirk from her responsibility to
show the Light, to spread the Word.
The Church is doing all this in very meaningful ways by means of its
many many charitable deeds and humanitarian efforts. Feeding the
poor, sheltering the homeless, parenting the orphans, educating the
society, healing the sick, these are worthy acts of witnessing. Still
we need to create a wing for creating "missionaries" who can be
trained in the Orthodox thinking, who can go out into the society to
spread the Word - who can be taught to be firm to show Christ, while
being respectful of the other faiths, still being sensitive to the
secular fabric of India. Especially in the face of the Protestant
propoganda at work - we need a wing of this kind - something like the
St.Paul's Mission Center in Mavelikkara - done at the Church level.
It must be popularised and interested young and old must be given
training.
The training, and blessings of this kind of work by the Church is
especially important - else individual flirtings with Evangelism by
passionate but misguided young people can bring harm to the name of
the Church and ultimately to Christ's name. Also they face the risk
of being asked by the evil spirits at work in the world - "Jesus I
know, Paul I know, but who are you?"
While on this topic, I would like to say (and I have said this on
this forum before, and I am sure I will become unpopular because of
this) that the Church gave blessings to Bro. Paul Ciniraj as
the 'Malankara Sabha Missionary' some time back - but without
adequate support and guidance from the church - Bro. Paul Ciniraj
today has developed his 'mission' at an individual level - sometimes using the
title, sometimes using several other titles, sometimes referring to himself as
"Rev" sometimes as "Pastor" etc etc. I can imagine that the Church is in a fix -
not knowing whether to support, or to stay away. Let us take lessons. We can do
without half hearted initiatives from the Church. These things are like playing
with fire, so extreme caution needs to be excercised. We need trained and
ordained missionaries (by ordained,I do not mean clergy alone - but those with
blessings and support from the Church). The Sneha Sandesham started by
Osthathios Thirumeni is a good model to adopt and use Church wide.
This does not mean that we should wait for the church to tell our neighbors
about Christ or to show them Christ in any other way if we get an opportunity.
No, we are all missionaries for Christ in a sense(royal priests), and we all
share the responsibility to show Christ to the world. What I do mean however is
that the Church should not be absent even in our individual ministries. The
Church must be visible in what we say, what we do, and we should be excercising
this mission work as part of the Church, not apart from it (and surely not
inspite of it!). If this is done in this manner, the next logical step would be
to bring any interested person to the Church for catechism and baptism.(in lines
with the Great Commission in the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew - 'baptizing
them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit'). Then we start
practising Evangelism in the way God intended. But in many instances what we see
today is the so called "Christ only" ministries. There is no sight of the Holy
Church which Christ built giving His blood. Thus we play into the waiting hands
of Satan.
Just some thoughts to share.
Regards,
Mathew Samuel,
Albany, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/17652
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