Tag Archives: apostolic

Jul 11 2022

Before Abraham Was, I Am: 'Monday Morning Musing - July 11, 2022'

Of all Jesus’s I Am statements, this is perhaps the most easy to understand, and it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. In this statement Jesus engages in something called “challenge and riposte” which in an honor-shamed based society was a formal and public dispute before a crowd, with winners and losers. Jesus and his opponents are locked in a fight about identity and lineage “from God.” After this episode in John 8, the skids toward Calvary were “greased’ so to speak. In the previous chapter, Jesus was a hero with crowds still following him. But after this statement, his death sentence was sealed. He went from hero to zero all over claim to spiritual originations: who had claim to Yahweh as Father?

 

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Feb 8 2022

The Reign and Rule of Love – Father/Son Ministry: Part 14: 'Monday Morning Musing - February 14, 2022'

 

When the central theme of Christ-crucified and risen in the power of self-giving love ceases to be our only metric, motif, and model of ministry, we have lost our way. When subordinate themes (legitimate or otherwise) take its place we are unnecessarily complicating things. When things which only possess transforming and liberating life and power when they derive freshly from the Holy Spirit are systematized and reduced to protocols of ministry, the logical outcome is human pain. This is simply because even something from Scripture, without the animating power of of the life and love of God, becomes a dispenser of misery. So it is with so-called father-son ministry motifs.

 

Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Feb 7 2022

Honor Titles: 'Monday Morning Musing - January 17, 2021'

The mandatory use of honorific titles of position, hierarchy, rank and authority, do not create honorable hearts nor honorable cultures. Honor that is demanded or forced from a position of superiority, may work in the military, but that is not the motif for the new covenant family of God.

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Feb 7 2022

Spiritual Abuse – Spiritual Predators: 'Monday Morning Musing - January 10, 2022'

So-called “spiritual sonship” can be nothing other than a predatory practice where human lives, gifts and talents become the fuel for a carnal leader’s ambition. Like throwing coal in a furnace, you will be consumed by another person’s “drive for success,” “need to be needed,” persona or charisma. They successfully recruit you by appealing to your ego and promising you special spiritual status as one of their “sons or daughters.”

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Feb 7 2022

Spiritual Abuse: 'Monday Morning Musing - February 7, 2021'

Sadly, spiritual abuse abounds in many organizations and universes that identify with the Name of Christ. In many independent/Charismatic-leaning/”Apostolic-Prophetic/or so-called New Apostolic Reformation cultures, the father-son ministry paradigm is an unhealthy and unsafe environment of subtle manipulative psychological abuse. This is especially so when dealing with late adolescents or young adults.
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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Dec 6 2021

Father-Son Ministry – Limits for Safety: Part 4

It is a mishandling of Scripture to take something that was unique, precious, and limited to specific human beings, at a specific place, at a specific time, in specific circumstances and turn it into something universal for all believers for all time. This is a mistake many make when it comes to “spiritual fathers and sons.”

 

Photo by Héctor J. Rivas on Unsplash 

 

Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

 

 

Jan 25 2021

Meekness – Jesus Style: 'Monday Morning Musings - January 25, 2021'

Biblical meekness, like humility, is also not a personality type. It has nothing to do with an external demeanor of diffidence. It does not involve being an emotional eunuch. It is about being fully alive, experiencing all range of emotion, but having those emotions under the rein of the governance of Christ. It does not mean I live as a doormat for others to abuse or degrade me.

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Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Nov 16 2020

Defining Orthodoxy Relationally: 'It Takes More Than Correct Doctrine to be Truly Orthodox'

Orthodoxy Relationally Defined

Defining Orthodoxy Relationally

“Objective historic theology is Reformation theology.  It is historical evangelicalism.  It is historical orthodoxy.”  So says John MacArthur (Charismatic Chaos: 32). If John’s lips are moving, there’s a good chance I don’t agree with much of what’s coming through them! The narrow and sectarian nature of that statement is appalling. But John is just following in the footsteps of his spiritual forefather, Martin Luther.  Luther said that in the history of the church no one–not Augustine, not any of the Church Fathers–NO ONE other than himself–ever understood “pure doctrine.” He called everything before himself “great darkness.” (Table Talk: §530)  

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Nov 16 2020

Individualism and the Kingdom – A Clash of Cultures: 'Monday Morning Musings - November 16, 2020'

At the foundation of Western thought, political and religious, are certain presuppositions about the supposedly self-evident nature of human existence as “individuals.” Individualism as a belief system referring to the “autonomous self,” is not a value found in Christ’s kingdom. Ephesians 4:25 says: we are “of one another, members.” That is, our existence is social. The life of Christ and his kingdom is only fully experienced socially. This is threatening to deeply held Western cultural values, but none-the-less, Christianity 101.

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Copyright 2020. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Oct 16 2019

So You Think You are an Apostle: 'Reflections on Modern Day Claims of Apostleship'

Apostle or Poser?

Reflections on being an apostle of Christ

Many today (especially in Charismatic and non-denomination circles) claim for themselves the title and ministry of apostle. Most I have met do not claim equivalency with the twelve disciples of the Lamb. Yet they seem to invariably claim for themselves rights, privileges, primacy of place, and “positional governmental authority in the church” to which others must yield. The phenomenon is sometimes couched in language of “spiritual covering.” What they espouse and claim for themselves as apostles has no biblical legitimacy.

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