Category: holiness standards | Page 12

Five Different Experiences…One Result Pt 4

Part 4 of 4, continued from here.

In Acts 10:44-48 we find the conversion of Gentiles with Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Regiment. He was a devout man and feared God with all his household and prayed regularly and gave alms. This is another miraculous conversion since Cornelius and Peter were visited by an angel prior to Cornelius sending for Peter and he went as requested and while Peter preached, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.

Peter’s crew were astonished as they heard them speak in tongues and glorify God. Then Peter commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. (Acts 10:45-48)

Cornelius and his household’s conversion:
1. Faith in Jesus and
2. Reception of Holy Spirit (speaking in tongues)
3. Water baptism in the name of the Lord. (MacDonald, William p.1588)

A final group of believers, that was made up of disciples of John the Baptist conversion, was noted in Acts 19:1-7.

Paul was passing through the upper regions, came to Ephesus and found some of John the Baptists disciples. He asked if they had received the Holy Spirit since they believed. They replied that they hadn’t heard about the Holy Spirit. Paul told them that John baptized unto repentance, saying to believe on Him who would come after him, that is Christ Jesus. When they heard this they were re-baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (they were re-baptized to show they were now disciples of Jesus) and when Paul laid hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied (Acts 19:1-7).

The conversion of John the Baptist’s disciples:
1. They believed
2. They were re-baptized (in Jesus’ name)
3. The Apostle Paul laid hands on them
4. They received the Holy Spirit (speaking in tongues) (MacDonald, William p.1588)

So does this mean there are five ways of salvation? Of course not, salvation is and always will be on the basis of faith in the Lord Jesus and I think that during the early church transition, God varied the events connected with the recipients of that time. (MacDonald, William p.1587).

Throughout the book of Acts every baptism was in the name of Jesus or in the name of the Lord. Except for the Ethiopian Eunuch, there was nothing spoken when Phillip baptized him. So does this void Matthew 28:19? Not necessarily, this scripture is given when Jesus was telling the disciples that all power in heaven and earth had been given to him. He had all authority. Thereby baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is just another way of recognizing that Jesus has all authority. This is one of those mysteries that we accept on faith.

In Matthew 28:19, Christians are identifying with the name (singular) of God as their Father, Jesus as the Son and the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell inside the believer to lead and guide. Many call this the Trinity, meaning 3 persons. But Christians identify themselves with a Triune God with one name but three essences or personalities. (MacDonald, p. 1313)

Today, God is continuing to call out a people for his name from the Gentiles (Acts:15:14). Some denominations try to ‘add’ to the Gospel and how to be saved, requiring heavy burdens to be carried, strict dress codes and putting the law back into play, ignoring the fact that Jesus stated his yoke is easy and his burden is light. While others try to ‘take away’ from the Gospel and not do enough, just so happy-clappy and not preaching or teaching the words of Christ. There is always balance and moderation with God through his grace.

Therefore, what should be the order for today? I think the order for today is the same as it was for Cornelius and that is found in Acts 10:44-48:

1. They heard the word and believed with faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior
2. Reception of Holy Spirit (some may speak in tongues or not)
3. Water baptism (in Jesus name or name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as an outward sign of being committed to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. But baptism does not save you! It is just an outward sign to all men that you are committed to Jesus.

“This is the order of events that prevails for Jew and Gentile alike in this dispensation, when God is calling out a people for His name.” (MacDonald, William p. 1614)

To the United Pentecostal Church, who like to put heavy burdens on their people and teach and preach using fear tactics, this way is much too easy. You need to be holy because God is holy, so they have holiness dress standards for their women to follow because she causes men to sin. She won’t be saved if she doesn’t follow them. And the men need to stand up and be a man and take the reigns of the marriage and be the boss of his family and enforcing the rules to his wife and children. Chaining them in bondage until they can’t wait to escape. It sounds unreal but I tell you this goes on in many UPC churches as well as other Oneness groups. If the way of salvation is easy, these churches will make it hard. But it’s not hard and Jesus paid the price on the cross for our salvation! I was under that Pentecostal bondage and abuse until I finally got myself out of it. I finally found true freedom in my faith in Jesus Christ. That is why it’s called Amazing Grace.

Note: The majority of what is included in this part comes from the Believer’s Bible Commentary by William MacDonald.

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UPC Unpardonable Part 2

Continued…

Well sure enough, we got a call from the assistant pastor to come into his office before church the following Sunday night. The pastor was out of town but was grooming his son to take over the church and since he came on board, the church took on a stricter tone. One night, he was preaching and began boasting about measuring his wife’s hair and how long it was. I remember being sickened by this talk. I knew God was bigger than the length of my hair! We went in to see him that evening and he told us due to the fact that I had cut my daughter’s hair, my husband would have to step down from his position in the church leadership and I could no longer teach Sunday school. You can call me naïve or stupid, yes, I admit to being both concerning what would happen if I broke the rules or maybe, by this time, I just didn’t care.

Now, during this period of my life, I was just beginning to hear the message of God’s grace. I heard the story of the woman caught in adultery and how Jesus told her “to go and sin no more!” One of the grace filled preachers I was listening to on the radio put it like this “the only one worthy to condemn you, won’t.” I was not stepping down without speaking my mind, so I pulled out some of my new found grace speak. I told the assistant pastor that I felt like the woman caught in adultery except instead of “saying, go and sin no more, you are saying pick up the stones and throw them.” He did not like my protests and insubordination, it was plain to see. To reinforce his position of dismissal, he told me that he knew of my past experience with scissors in cutting my oldest daughter’s hair. Then he proceeded to tell me that cutting my suffering baby’s (not even two years old) hair was just as bad as if I had given her alcohol and cigarettes! (In a works based church, alcohol and cigarettes rank right up there with lying, cheating, and stealing.) Yes, that I had harmed her in the same way as if I had given her abusive substances! It is interesting to note here: the senior pastor called me when he got back in town and told me that he would never have done what his son did!?!

We left church after the meeting, not staying for the service, went home, and went to bed. While lying there in the dark, a certain kind of death like silence fell between my husband and me that would affect us for the next two years that we stayed in this church. We could never tell our family members who did not go to a United Pentecostal Church what happened. To verbalize such a trivial thing as cutting a baby’s hair to cause such a reaction was unthinkable and would have made our church look bad to those unfamiliar with the rules. We did not get support from our relatives or friends in the church either. I remember one family member, who is a pastor’s wife saying, “We would have done the same thing.” Other friends said, “They knew the rules.”

To stay in this church for two more years was one of our biggest mistakes. I bravely wore the scarlet letter on my chest and grew further and further away from this ideology and these people, as they drew away from me. I wasn’t cutting hair and I still looked the part but inwardly I came to see that there was no love in this church. By the end of these two years, my depression over my baby’s illness and the death of all that we had lived for up to that point caused me to want out of my marriage and out of life as I knew it. The pain my husband and I were going through kept the veil of silence over our marriage; we were just going through the motions. If we hadn’t left when we did, I firmly believe our marriage would have ended as did the marriages of many of the couples we knew in this church, including the assistant pastor; who eventually took over the church.

Later, I would learn what church discipline should look like. Jesus didn’t leave us clueless about how to handle discipline for believers who were truly sinning. It was so important that He gives us step by step instructions. Reflecting back on the teachings of the United Pentecostal Church and all the things I have learned since leaving makes me realize that they never really emphasized Jesus that much. Oh, they loved His name for distinction purposes but His death on the cross or any of the words He spoke, not so much.

Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Matthew 18:15-17 NKJV

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UPC Unpardonable

Okay, I did it. I admit it. I cut my hair and my daughter’s hair. I can still remember the first time I cut my hair. We were probably about six years into the United Pentecostal Experience, when I was sitting on the toilet and fearing my hair was going to go in, I grabbed a pair of scissors, sat back down and cut the tail end that could get wet. I don’t remember feeling guilty or that it might not grow after anymore. This fear of hair not re-growing after trimming had been expressed to me by another woman in the church. Yes, Pentecostal women talk about cutting their hair. Oddly, her hair was only shoulder length. I guess it was due to the teasing, etc. that goes into maintaining the elaborate hairdos she wore. I also remember while sitting in a restaurant one lady sighing “if we could only get enough grace to cut our hair.” This woman was one of a group of older women in our church who resorted to wearing those Gibson Girl style wigs all the time. Honestly, I think they just got tired of dealing with all that hair!

As time went by, I was blessed with a little girl who had beautiful hair. Again, I confess! I did not want her to have long stringy, scraggly hair, so while she was a toddler to probably age 6 or so, I kept it shoulder length. I stopped trimming it when she got older; when she told me someone said something to her about it. No one ever said anything to me about it; however, there were those who were spying out my liberty! (Gal 2:4 NKJV) Ha-ha, there is no such thing as liberty in the UPC holiness standards. By this time, it was the late ‘80’s when the super curly hairdos were in, and frankly, you could cut your hair as much as you wanted and no one could tell. Those pink sponge rollers, along with the concrete mousse it took to set those curls, could take off five inches of your hair length!

My second daughter was born six years later and while still an infant she developed a health problem. She was a precious baby but she had a mind of her own! She was not going to dutifully wear the barrettes and other hair restraints young Pentecostal girls are forced to wear to hold their hair in place, due to the rules for no cutting or trimming of their hair. She would pull out everything I put in her hair and along with the restraint, out came a handful of hair. When she had pulled out enough hair to create a bald spot on her head, I took matters into my own hands. I did not consult with my husband or anyone else. I found the best children’s salon and had her hair cut, along with (gasp!) bangs. I brazenly took her to church that Wednesday night, not thinking anything of it. I thought she looked adorable! I would do anything to help my poor, precious baby! No one said anything to me about it that night except my husband who said, “You know they will ask us to step down.”

To be continued…

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The outward appearance

Legalists often quote a partial verse, “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart,” to prove they should maintain “standards” of dress and hair. This is a prime example of a partial verse quoted out of context to make a point that is nowhere near the intent within context.

In context, the verse isn’t talking about what to wear or not to, but it’s a warning against choosing leaders based on appearances:

1 Sam 16:6 When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!”
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

In reality, the verse means nearly the opposite of how it is used in performance based churches, where people too often look at the outward appearance to make judgement calls, choose friends and leaders, and determine who loves and serves God and who does not. Eliab looked like the perfect choice to the prophet. So did every other of David’s brothers. But God wasn’t interested in human achievements or appearances. Why should we think this verse indicates that we should be?

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Twisting scripture

As kids, we were playing with some neighbors. We had some cheap plastic bead play necklaces. One of the neighbors decided to twist it around and around her fingers, snapping the beads, glued to the string, together so that they interlocked and made ring-like loops. In twisting them, she wound them too tightly and her finger started to swell. She panicked, trying to get it off and realizing it was stuck. We finally got it off and she was thankfully OK. I don’t think we ever told our parents, and I doubt she ever twisted those strings of beads around her fingers again. That wasn’t the worst knot I’ve ever untangled, but it was the scariest.

The worst knot… There was a woman in our church who got a knot in her hair. Instead of getting it untangled immediately she tried to hide it while she worked on getting it out. Cutting it out wasn’t an option due to our beliefs, and so the knot grew and grew. She wouldn’t wash her hair, afraid the knot would get worse. By the time she finally admitted her problem, it was a nightmare of a 3″x5″ or so mat of hair that started just a few inches from her scalp. We finally got it untangled for the most part. I warned her to braid her hair before washing it so it would have time to straighten and no chance of tangling back up. She didn’t listen, and the knot came back. In the end a whole group of church women (not me) spent hours gathered around her while she yelped with pain, pulling at the knot and untangling it. She lost a lot of her hair in the process.

Some knots are fairly easy to untangle, but some are almost impossible to remove, particularly if they aren’t cared for quickly. When words are tangled into knots, especially when scripture is tangled, it wraps itself not around our fingers but around our hearts. Unlike my neighbor, most of the scripture twisting that binds us is not our fault or something we foolishly choose to wrap ourselves in, but rather it is bound around us by others. Some of them mean well. Others I’m not so sure. What I do know is the harm that twisting scriptures can cause.

It is very difficult to untangle the words that some weave into knots in our lives, particularly when they righteously declare that it is not them speaking, but God. Even if we know that God has nothing to do with what’s being said, if we hear it enough, it may sink into our minds. We miss some of the knots, particularly the smaller ones, and they tangle around us. And like any knot, it will be easier to untangle these words the less we’ve heard them, the smaller the proverbial knot.

Knots can be undone. It takes time. Sometimes it takes cutting a few strands. And many times it takes careful concentration and a frustrating amount of time. But be encouraged, it can be done. And with care, we can rid ourselves of the knots completely while still enjoying the threads or strands that they were woven from. The strands themselves aren’t all bad, just the way they are tied together, and the way they were used, to bind rather than mend.

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