My Thoughts as I Read Through the Bible

When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. -Acts 2:1-4

Storytime with Sara: I grew up in what is still a very conservative church.  I can remember around 15 years ago talk of needing to report a man to the elders because he, God forbid, raised his hands during worship.  Don’t you know you’re supposed to stand stick straight and show no emotion when praising the creator of the universe?  (An issue I’m still battling and get made fun of quite a bit when I’m on stage helping lead worship at my current church.)  There were no mentions of tongues in my church growing up.  That’s what the crazy people who are on tv at three in the morning do when they scream, shout, and have seizures all over the place.  We found that to be unacceptable.

Fastforward to two years ago.  I was attending a Current conference at the Columbus Vineyard, the church I attended in college and I guess my gateway drug in attending Vineyards.  Current conferences are put on by the Holy Spirit Task Force.  Despite what the name sounds like, they’re not a band of superheros like the X-Men or something.  Instead they’re a group of people who lead churches in learning more about the Holy Spirit and all the gifts associated with it in our Great Lakes region.

It’s funny how you hear about all these crazy stories happening to other people, but when you have a crazy story of your own it doesn’t seem to satisfy you.  At least that’s how it feels for me.  My senior pastor was on the stage and said he felt like there were people in the room who wanted the gift of being able to pray in tongues and the Holy Spirit was going to make that happen.  Deep inside me, I had a desire for this, but I’m extremely shy and have issues of going unabandoned after things usually because of issues I have with battling fear.  I was standing in between two friends and felt it would be too awkward to excuse myself to get around one of them, so I decided I would just stay put and let it pass me by.  God had other plans.  Without being prompted, by me anyway, one of my friends took a step back and unblocked my path to the aisle.  I’m pretty sure I gave her a look of “Are you kidding me right now?” as I passed her.   I made my way up front, closed my eyes and outstretched my hands, and then things happened.  I remember a woman and man praying over me (found it later it was actually two women) and I remember hearing my pastor call me out from the stage with “Speak, Sara.”  So I did.  In tongues.  

There was no seizing, no shouting, no falling down, no screaming.  It defied what my brain thought to be true and instantly rewired it.  Two people immediately came up to me afterwards to tell me “I think I’m supposed to tell you not to be afraid of this and to keep practicing.”  Essentially telling me don’t let my brain rule over my heart, which is something I’m prone to do.

A few hours later, I called my dad and briefly relayed the story to him.  His response: *Pause* “Well, your grandmother had some tests run this week…”.

For the record, while our church obviously believes in the existence and use of this gift, we do keep our services what we like to call seeker-friendly.  We don’t want to scare off anyone who is coming to church for the first (or seventieth) time, so we are told that if you are going to pray in tongues you do it silently under your breath so as not to scare the bejeezus out of the person next to you.

Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?”

 Others joked, “They’re drunk on cheap wine.”

That’s when Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out with bold urgency: “Fellow Jews, all of you who are visiting Jerusalem, listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren’t drunk as some of you suspect. They haven’t had time to get drunk—it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. —Acts 2:12-15

I’m always grateful to read sarcasm in the Bible.  It makes me feel better about myself.

“In the Last Days,” God says, 
   ”I will pour out my Spirit 
      on every kind of people: 
   Your sons will prophesy, 
      also your daughters; 
   Your young men will see visions, 
      your old men dream dreams.  —Acts 2:17

This would be another issue I now have with the church I grew up in.  I was raised that a woman can only teach children and other women.  It took me a few years to look at things for myself and realize that this idea isn’t true.  I think the capstone for this realization came at a women’s conference.  Three of the staff members, all female, were on the stage doing ministry time and it just clicked in my head that they were doing exactly what they were created to do.  It wasn’t because they were being allowed to do so because there was only women in the room; it wouldn’t have mattered who they were preaching to.  They were going to do it no matter what because that was what God had built them to do and he had obviously blessed them to do it.

This is now one of the things that irks me whenever I go back to the church I was raised in.  Every Christmas Eve, the story of the birth of Jesus is read and somehow every year they skip right over the section of Anna the Prophetess.  Really?  One of the very first few people to preach and praise that the Messiah had finally arrived, and you’re going to ignore it?  Why?  Because the person doing it has ovaries?

But God untied the death ropes and raised him up. Death was no match for him. David said it all: 

   I saw God before me for all time. 
      Nothing can shake me; he’s right by my side. 
   I’m glad from the inside out, ecstatic; 
      I’ve pitched my tent in the land of hope. 
   I know you’ll never dump me in Hades; 
      I’ll never even smell the stench of death. 
   You’ve got my feet on the life-path, 
      with your face shining sun-joy all around. —Acts 2:24-28

This is just beautiful; a prayer I need to pray more, and a lifestyle I need to live more: pitching my tent in the land of hope.

He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, “Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!” —Acts 2:40

Something I want to shout at my young, still impressionable students every day.

And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.

They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved. —Acts 2:44-47

As someone who has been in church since I was conceived, I cannot fully express how amazing this is.  It might be one of the greatest miracles in the Bible.

Starting off in alphabetical order is the book of Acts.  I’ll be using the Message translation for now.  Yes, not always the most accurate version, but since I’m human then neither am I.

After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God.           —Acts 1:3

I bash on the apostles and their seemingly constant lack of faith often, but really if roles were reversed I would be in the exact same place.  You watch a man die, three days later he’s up and fine and then spends the next month just randomly popping up and hanging out with you.  When you look at it that way, it’s a little weird.  I’m sure I would’ve been right there with Thomas in needing proof there weren’t any shenanigans going on.

When they were together for the last time they asked, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?”

He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business.           —Acts 1:6-7

Raise your hand if you hate the answer of “I’ll give you what you want when I see fit, not the exact moment you want it.”  If you’re hand isn’t raised, I’m calling you a liar.  It’s a common idea that there are three answers to prayers that ask God for something: yes, no, and be still and know that I am God (aka—be patient).  But as Virginia, a character from the TV show Raising Hope, said on a recent episode, “I asked the Magic 8 ball, but it said ‘Ask me later’ and I don’t have time for that.”

The only answer we ever want to hear is “yes”, and thank God there are other options available as much as we may hate it.  If the only answer we received was “yes” what a bunch of spoiled brats we would be.  (Think about the movie Bruce Almighty.)  

I don’t know about your family, but mine kind of sucks at patience.  I don’t even want to think about the number of speeding tickets we’ve collectively accumulated.  As for me, I’m currently in my fourth school year as a substitute teacher trying to find a full-time teaching position.  If I had a nickel for each time someone has said to me, “Oh, God must just want you to learn patience right now” I could possibly put a dent in my massive student loans.  Every time I hear that I have to immediately plaster a fake grin on my face because what I really want to do is throw an elbow at their head.  Which is quite possibly a very strong argument for the whole I-need-to-learn-patience thing.

I think the outright “no” is so much easier to deal with than the “be still and know that I am God”.

These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, “You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left.          —Acts 1:9-11

Again, another passage where I want to mock the apostles, but I would’ve done the same thing.  It would take angels, soldiers of God, to shake me out of my trance of staring up at the sky with my mouth hanging open trying to process what I just witnessed.

Judas was one of us and had his assigned place in this ministry.

 ”As you know, he took the evil bribe money and bought a small farm. There he came to a bad end, rupturing his belly and spilling his guts. Everybody in Jerusalem knows this by now; they call the place Murder Meadow. It’s exactly what we find written in the Psalms:

   Let his farm become haunted

   So no one can ever live there. “And also what was written later:

   Let someone else take over his post.          —Acts 1:17-20

Fair warning: my brain is screwed up.  Here is your first taste of that.  What do I think of when I read this?  I wonder if the apostles had the idea to run (possibly) one of the first haunted houses (don’t know exactly when they originated) using Judas’ land.  Yes, this is kind of blasphemous since Judas for picking money over Jesus, so it wouldn’t have been the most logically sound idea to then make money off of his death, but how alluring is the name Murder Meadow for you scary movie fans?  I personally would never visit it; not for moral reasons, I just don’t like haunted houses or scary movies.  

Just because I have ideas doesn’t mean they’re all good ones.