Healing and the Atonement on Today's Dividing Line

And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday, the only program this week. I'm going to be traveling tomorrow to Spain and we will certainly attempt to do our best to make sure the links are up on the blog in time for you to watch the debates that will be taking place Friday and Saturday evenings.

The order has been reversed from what we had initially thought it was going to be. On Friday night we will be debating the subject of the extent of the atonement. Obviously, as I will comment later on, it's difficult to name debates like this.

The issue of the atonement is much more than extent. Meaning of the atonement, the intention of the atonement, the extent of the atonement, the application of the atonement, it's all relevant and must be taken into consideration to seriously engage the topic.

But anyway, that will be Friday and I think if someone would like to figure out exactly what time it is in Spain right now, I'm assuming it's an hour earlier than London. That's my assumption. I could be wrong.

It could be UTC. I don't know. But those debates will be live on the Revelation TV website. So that would be around two o 'clock in the afternoon or so, something like that. Maybe earlier, depending on where you are.

We'll get that figured out before then. And then they'll be repeated later on. And they'll be repeated at 9 p .m. Eastern Standard Time, 7 p .m. Mountain Standard Time. So it'll be on twice. So if you can't catch it during the day, then you can catch it during the evening hours at that particular point in time.

The first debate on the extent of the atonement, the second debate on the subject of healing in the Church today. And those will be two topics I will be addressing. But two things to get to first. Number one, we are arranging a stop on my trip to and from Kiev, Ukraine next month.

We have an opportunity to go to London and to do some unbelievable radio broadcasts. And a lot of you have really enjoyed those programs. They are an interesting opportunity to address an audience we normally don't get a chance to address much.

And this particular trip, the subjects evidently, at least as they're scheduled at the moment, will be primarily focused upon Reformed issues, including a discussion of middle knowledge. No, not with William Lane Craig, but with someone who knows Craig, let's put it that way.

So here's the situation. Obviously, it gets really complex to try to fly across the United States and then across the ocean and then to Kiev and then from Kiev to London and London back. There's lots of connections.

There's time issues involved as far as, okay, once you get to a place, do I need to get there a day earlier? So now I need to have some place to stay and there needs to be transportation and food and all these other things need to be taken care of.

In other words, there is going to be a cost to building in the trip to London. And so I'm not, are we just going to put a link in the dividing line thing? Yeah, when you blog the show later today, after we're done, I'll be sure to add in a link for the travel.

Yeah, we have a donation link that you can help make this possible, make it possible for us to get to London and to do the programs and make that available. It's not going to be a huge, massive amount of money, but it does complicate things and it is amazing how fast things add up when you start running around London.

So that's only going to be next month. So that's a real quick upfront need. If you can help out to make those available, that would be great. So we will put that on the blog. Next, I wanted to address the event yesterday.

I had been told, I think on Friday, I think Michael Brown told me on Friday, that Steve Camp would be on the line of fire on Monday to discuss the Benny Hinn issue. And I knew that was going to be very, very interesting.

I did not know how it would go. I just did not know how it would go at all. But I was extremely pleased with the conversation. I really was. I guess partly because I knew all the different directions it could go and how badly it could go.

And so when you had two hours, and there were a couple times where it could have gotten off the rails, but it didn't. And I really appreciated how both brothers approached this. Steve doesn't back down on anything, and he was very straightforward.

He explained himself. There was maybe a little more definition needed to given to the issue of the definition of what a false prophet or a false teacher is, because Michael insists that that's an unbeliever.

And hence, well, what do you call someone who is a believer but teaches something that's wrong? And obviously all of this then comes back to, okay, how much can you teach wrong? And one thing has certainly surfaced in this particular discussion, and that is there are a lot of people who are orthodox in their understanding of what the gospel is, but they will make a person's standing before God dependent completely on secondary issues.

I mean, there have been people who have just, if you don't agree with me on this issue, you can't be a Christian. Obviously, you cannot be a Christian. And you're like, okay, where does that come from exactly?

I mean, I know in certain fundamentalist circles how that works, the concept of separation, being separate from the world. And so you've got to know who you're going to be separate from. And so it's really easy for fundamentalists to have a very long list of who I'm separate from.

And that really becomes the means by which they define themselves is, I have nothing to do with this person or that kind of person. And inevitably, all sorts of things start getting added to the gospel, not officially and confessionally, but functionally.

This is what saves you. But if you don't agree with me, well, I remember, for example, oh man, this is years ago, it was in downtown Glendale. I don't remember why I was even there. I thought you were there too.

Might've been Mike, I'm not sure. But we were at a Baptist church in downtown Glendale and we were reading something that was in the pews. And as a part of the statement of faith of the church, there was a very specific and very strongly worded eschatological portion.

And it was very, very clear that for these folks, there are folks, and most of us sit back and go, ha, ha, ha, until we do it ourselves. But there are folks out there that'll go, if you don't accept the idea of a seven-year tribulation period and a pre-wrath rapture and this stuff, I just really doubt you're a Christian.

Now, what's the necessary corollary of that? The necessary corollary of that is that that particular perspective is a part of the gospel. Because if they're a Christian, they just don't agree with you on that, then what you're saying is this is a part of the gospel and you're rejecting a part of the gospel.

You're rejecting an important aspect of the gospel. And most of us can see that and go, well, you got to be really careful, until it's our own pet topic. And then it's just so easy to go, well, if you don't agree with me, then clearly you're not a Christian.

Evidently, there are folks who are not hyper-Calvinists, but they think along those lines. And there are certainly hyper-Arminians. I mean, I'm used to the people who say, I can't possibly be a Christian, but I sort of like to think that most people would realize that someone who says that is really, really way off base.

They're not really thinking very clearly. But unfortunately, this particular issue has raised all sorts of specters of people who say, hey, you know what? If you don't agree with me on X, Y, and Z, and if you can't see that this is wrong and that's wrong, then you're probably just not a Christian.

And it's a little scary and problematic. But anyways, yesterday, if you haven't heard it, it was on Line of Fire. Let's start off giving props to Steve Camp. He was focused. He had an advantage over me during the conversation.

He pointed out that at the end of last week, I guess on Friday, they had done four programs and I did a fifth program that was supposed to air another time. And on Friday, in the same slot that Michael Brown had been on, was some guy, I don't even remember the guy's name.

I had never heard of this guy in my life. I do not travel in those circles, know nothing about him. Thankfully, Steve Camp did know about him. And he is a clear and from what I gathered, Michael agreed that he is a clear, unquestionable, prosperity preacher.

Sow your seed, get your harvest. God wants everybody to be healthy, wealthy, and wise type guy. And he was the next guy on. Now, he wasn't on with him from what I could tell. But he was in his seat with his approval.

And there you had it. There you had him preaching and teaching. And that definitely added an interesting conversation. So I wouldn't have even known that. I didn't watch it. I don't watch it. And I wouldn't have known who the guy was in the first place.

I do not. The only time I watched TBN is the last time I literally purposefully dialed 2 -1 into my remote, which is the channel here in the Phoenix area. I think I've done it a couple of times here at the office during lunch, just because I wonder what's going on over there.

But the first time I did it purposely and actually watched something, I think I was making a model rocket years ago. And Paula White was on, ironically. And she was going on, rattling on. I mean, she can talk so fast.

And it was something about Psalm 69 and how we need to give 69 dollars based on some outlandishly absurd interpretation of something in Psalm 69. And I remember listening to the whole thing and just going, wow, that's absolutely amazing.

But that's why I don't know who these people are. So that was interesting for me to learn and that conversation. You've also got to give Michael props as well. He had Steve on. There is no way anybody could say that he controlled the conversation or was constantly interrupting or anything like that.

I mean, Steve got some long periods of uninterrupted, this is what I'm saying, time. Really did. And I think he bent over backwards. I think he certainly heard the complaints of people in regards to what happened when Phil Johnson was on.

And of course, Steve was on for both hours. I think Phil was only on for a much briefer period of time because he had two other guests. So it was probably about half an hour, 40 minutes, if I recall correctly.

So Steve got two hours. And there was, again, I think it was just an excellent conversation. So if you listen to yesterday's, that would be the 20th, January 20th, 2014 line of fire, you'll be able to hear Steve Camp on.

And it was a very good conversation. And I think it bodes well for the conversations this coming weekend as well. Speaking of which, here is my situation today. Obviously, for the past couple of weeks, once this particular trip was organized, it was organized very late, very quickly.

When I was contacted about doing it, the guy who contacted me said, I know that this probably isn't going to work out. This is real brief notice. But would you be willing to come to Spain and to record these programs?

And it's not just going to be the debates either. I saw the itinerary today and I hadn't seen it. We hadn't been told about this, but there's actually going to be a couple of other programs during the day that we're going to be doing.

And they're not going to be debates, there's going to be discussions, but they'll probably end up being debates. I'm not sure what. So it's going to be a lot of work, let's put it that way. But the two subjects, if you want to go online, go to Revelation TV.

Revelation TV is a charismatic television station. So I am not the home team here. I am the visiting team. There's no two ways about it. Maybe I should make sure to wear visitor colors. I'm not sure how that would work.

Well, wear a Coogee. Yeah. Well, no. This is going to be broadcast all across Europe. I'm not even bringing a bow tie. I'll have to admit, I'm going to break my own rule there and I'm going to wear a regular tie just because I don't want to provide any stumbling blocks to Europeans who are going to be observing this.

But anyway, so I'm the visiting team. And so it's going to be interesting. It's definitely going to be interesting. I'm not sure exactly how to handle the situation. But the two topics that we are going to be debating, extending atonement and healing.

Now, I'm going to approach those backwards in the program today. If you go to Revelation TV, this is what I was going to tell you. If you go to Revelation TV, watch the recent debate. I don't know how you find it, but I would imagine it's not that difficult to find.

Between David Robinson and Peter Tatchell. Now, I think it's the same David Robinson, I think, who got me into all sorts of trouble last week when I read his article. Man, that took up half the weekend with everybody.

Oh, the stuff about Tony and getting arrested. I spent a few minutes on the subject, raised some questions. And again, it's, no, you can't talk about stuff like that. Oh, and everyone's circling the wagons and getting out the catapults.

And I'm just like, oh. I almost feel like completely giving up on social media because it's just, it's a good way of, you know, people send me stuff and it does help me with show prep. But other than that, I'm almost ready to just go, forget it.

There's just, it's just ridiculous. Anyway, that particular program is on Revelation TV on the redefinition of marriage. The profaning of marriage is what I always say. We'll give you an idea of the format that we're going to be using.

And basically it sounded like it was sort of like an hour of just the two people debating. And then I guess there's phone calls or studio audience, which is a little bit like, now that I think about it, which is pretty much like Jack Mormon and I was pretty much that way.

Yeah. Getting the audience involved and stuff like that. So that's what we're going to be doing. And that means in some ways in the first debate and look, I was not, and he was honest telling me this, but the fellow from the TV stations, I was not their first choice.

And I fully understand that and appreciate that. And I wouldn't be my first choice on this either. Healing. When have you heard me address it? We dug out an old cassette tape from 19, how old was Josh in that?

I think it's 10 months. That'd be 87. No, no. Yeah. Early 1987. Okay. So we're talking a long time ago now. I mean, there's a kid and that's all we've ever had was one Bible study lesson that I did. That's all that we've ever listed or it's not my field.

It's not now I'm an elder in a church. And if you're an elder in a church, you have responsibility to have some knowledge of the scriptures. And obviously I have worked as a hospital chaplain. I've written a book on grieving.

I therefore have, it's not that I've never considered the issue. And as an elder in a church, you think over the, well, we've been at the church now for 25 years in one place and there have been deaths and there have been sicknesses and there have been people who have had long-term health issues during that.

There have been people in our congregation, uh, we just had, uh, a, a young lady who was blind, just moved back East, but, uh, she was in the congregation and, and everybody, you know, really appreciated, sat down the front row and she sang out and, and, uh, could read her braille thing and, and sing the hymns.

And, and so obviously the issue of healing is not something that I've just never thought about that before, but Michael Brown did his PhD in the Hebrew term for healing, Rafa. And so wrote a book and I was going to bring it in here and forgot to do so.

Um, Israel's Divine Healer, I think is what it's called. And, uh, I'm sorry. No. Uh, and, uh, so this is, this is his area of expertise. Now that may be to my advantage, to be perfectly honest with you.

Interestingly enough, the second debate, or which will actually be the first debate, the second topic, the atonement is really a little bit more of my area where I have focused, especially with Roman Catholicism and the mass and the whole nine yards of that for years and years and years.

Could that be a disadvantage? What do I mean by that is that if you've got a very small amount of time and you've got a huge amount of material, sometimes trying to synthesize that in a meaningful fashion can be extremely difficult to do.

And having a less complicated perspective might actually come across better in a televised situation. We'll see. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know. We will, we will discover, uh, very, very quickly how that's going to work.

But here's a couple things. In both debates, the issue is the definition of terms. In regards to healing, and specifically what I was initially contacted to debate was, are there Divine Healers in the Church?

I don't think that's what we're going to be debating. The issue in everything since Strange Fire, yesterday I finished reading Authentic Fire, so it's not like I have not engaged these subjects. I certainly have had some time to do some preparation, at least, for these particular debates.

But as soon as I'm done, then I've got to be looking to the unbelievable debates and the teaching of Church history and teaching on grieving in Kyiv and so on and so forth. So it's just keep on going.

It's a very short period of time between the trips. But in the whole debate that has been raised over the past number of months by the Strange Fire conference, on both sides there has been a woeful lack of specificity.

For example, I'm not sure how anybody can just simply talk about the charismatic movement. That's like talking about Baptists. The people who come after me more than anybody else, the nastiest, meanest, low-down, skunkiest people that have ever come after me are Baptists.

But I'm a Baptist, and the people who are close to me are Baptists. So obviously, if you just simply say, well, Baptists believe, you're probably, unless we're talking about specific things like Baptism, you're going to be misrepresenting somebody somewhere along the lines.

And unfortunately, again, it seems to be human nature when circling the wagons to not be overly concerned about the accuracy of what you're saying about the people you disagree with. So first and foremost, in both debates, definition will be the issue.

For example, what's the big terminology discussion that has blown up? Are you a continuationist or a cessationist? I'll be honest with you, until Strange Fire hit, I never even thought in those lines.

I mean, I know what the terms mean. I know where I fall in that spectrum. But the idea of defining an entire group of people on that, that's just not how I think of myself. And as I pointed out at the time, I had always said, well, I'm a cessationist, until I discovered there were people who actually believe that there are no gifts whatsoever given by the Holy Spirit to the Church today.

So the gift of discernment, which I think is absolutely necessary in our day, and it's necessary, for example, for elders to be able to do what they are commanded to do in the midst of the flock. I mean, how are you supposed to determine what is truth and error, to be able to guide the flock in understanding these things?

That requires discernment. And I think that's a spiritual gift. There are people in the flock that just aren't very discerning. And then there are other people who are just right there. There are people who do not believe that there are any gifts at all.

There's no gift of discernment, nothing like that. And I did not know that until, I don't know, about seven or eight years ago. And I was like, whoa, I didn't realize that I wasn't at the far end of that spectrum.

I'm actually not in the far end of that spectrum, because I believe the Holy Spirit gives gifts as He wills. Well, that makes you charismatic. No, because I believe in the freedom of the Holy Spirit to give gifts as He wills.

And He gives those gifts to benefit the church. And just because a gift was beneficial to the church at one time does not mean that it will be beneficial to the church at all times. Combine that with the fact that very clearly there was a gift given to the church in the early days that's not today.

And that is the gift of apostleship. The can of Scripture is closed. Revelation is not ongoing. And much of what the apostles did, I don't believe there's any person on this planet whose shadow heals.

I think there was a... But I believe that it did happen. I believe it happened in history. I believe it happened in time. And it had a purpose. God is a God of purpose and order. And so I believe in the cessation of the apostolic sign gifts.

That is, if there were certain gifts given to the apostles, which demonstrated that they were apostles of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ was the Lord, that He had died, He had risen again, He had ascended to heaven, and now the Spirit has come, and God is doing something great in this world, and the gospel is to go out to all the people, and that that message needed a particular authority at that particular time, then the Spirit of God can do whatever He wants.

He gives the gifts as He wills. But the problem is, my continuationist friends seemingly assume that the situation of the church can never change. It's always the same. We always need to have the exact same gifts.

And I'm saying, no, we need gifts. We need the Spirit. Anybody who has ever listened to me pray on Sunday morning at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, if I'm not preaching, I lead the pastoral prayer.

I got a little long this last Lord's Day. I normally, when I sit down, I glance back at the clock, see where we are in the service, and I went long. No two ways about it. I probably prayed at least 10 minutes, maybe longer, this past Sunday.

It wasn't my plan when I started. Believe it or not, I don't have notes. Some people think that Reformed Baptist, everything's scripted, and no, no, that doesn't actually work that way. But anyone who's ever heard me pray knows that almost every single prayer, it may be a major portion, maybe a minor portion, but almost every single prayer, I'm going to say something along the lines of, Lord, unless your Spirit comes and ministers to your people, then we can do nothing.

We can't understand. We cannot preach. We must have your Spirit amongst us. I guess for some people, that makes you a charismatic. I don't think that that kind of utilization of language is useful. But we obviously and clearly teach and believe that there are certain gifts that were given to the apostles for a particular purpose, for a particular time, and it's up to the Spirit of God.

It is actually, on our part, a denial of the freedom of the Spirit for us to demand that if the Spirit of God has ever given a gift, you've got to keep giving it. It does not matter if that was a period of time where there was no New Testament Scripture.

It does not matter that there were apostles and that there were witnesses of the Resurrection. No, no, no, no, no. It has to be today. We demand it. And I go, don't think so. And the question is, what are these gifts?

Now, when it comes to healing, I believe God heals. I believe every single time I have ever been healed of anything, God was the healer. Now, did I use means? Sure, I did. Sure, I did. But I believe God's a healer, and I've seen miraculous healings.

Not in the Benny Hinn sense of waving an Armani coat at somebody and their right leg now is as long as their left leg. I mean, I just saw my character on the way here. Awful glad that I did. Man, if I didn't see my chiropractor every single week, I would be a mess.

I beat myself up. I rode 100 .5 miles yesterday. And my right shoulder starts hurting after a while, and I'm not as young as I used to be. And guess what? One leg was shorter than the other. I've been healed.

I get healed every time I see my chiropractor. But that's because the chiropractor knows what to do and sees that and recognizes it's not good for you to be walking around on uneven legs. That puts unleavened pressure on your spine and blah, blah, blah.

And I got fixed. Now, obviously, the issue becomes, well, what are we talking about? Divine healing? Are we talking about someone who's in end-stage cancer and one day, and they don't have cancer the next day?

That's totally different than the eye-twitching thing or the one leg longer than the other thing, all right? We're talking about miraculous healing. And there have been times when God's people have gathered together and they've prayed, and God has healed.

Now, sometimes it's done very quickly. Sometimes it's not. No one's going to tell me that when you have prayed and prayed and prayed for someone over the course of months and literally years, and they're eventually healed, that that's somehow less of God than the, boom, right now.

Now, that's much more showy, much more flashy. But it's all God's act of healing. The real issue, folks, real simply, is this. And Michael touches on this in his books. And this is where I hope the conversation is going to focus, because both of us are saying God can heal.

God is sovereign over the events in this life. The question is this. From Michael's perspective, disease is never, ever a good thing. It's always a part of the fallen world. It's never a good thing. But he admits that sometimes there are saints, and they are afflicted, and they are never healed.

But he's basically saying that should be the rarity. The norm should be the miraculous healing. The norm should be the faith. Well, I think praying for someone who has a long-term illness for years requires a whole lot more faith than the big emotional explosion demanding right now.

I think it needs to be brought out, and hopefully it will be. But here's the issue. I believe that when we look back across church history, we see an explosion of the miraculous in the ministry of Jesus.

Continues to be miraculous in the life of the church. Not to the level of Jesus' ministry, but I think we clearly see a diminishment in that area, even in the New Testament itself. And that the norm for Christians is patience, even in the midst of suffering, and a patient acceptance of God's providence and God's sovereignty.

Yes, we pray for the healing of the sick, but we recognize that God uses everything in our lives to conform us ever closer to the image of Jesus Christ. Let me just point out just a couple texts because I still need to get to atonement issues.

There are a couple of interesting texts in the New Testament that I just point your attention to. I'm not going to have time to expand upon it right now, but I think they're important. It does not surprise me that Michael does not believe that the thorn in the flesh of Paul was a physical ailment.

He believes, I guess, it was a person or someone along those lines. But you're familiar with 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7 through 9, because the surpassing greatness, the revelations for this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.

Considering this, I implored the Lord three times that might leave me, and he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. The term there is asthenia. Asthenia means weakness.

It is very, very often associated with physical sickness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my asthenia so that the power of Christ may dwell in me, is Paul's statement. Now, from Michael's perspective, you'd have to say that that was not some type of physical ailment.

I think a large portion of scholarship down through the years has recognized that it was a physical ailment, that it probably had something to do with Paul's eyes. Remember that strange statement that you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me if you could do so, and the statement at the end of Galatians where he says, see with what large letters I am writing to you, probably the very size of the writing, that there was something about Paul that was sort of repulsive to people.

There may have been some type of disease that he had with his eyes that made him unpleasant to look at, or something along those lines. The point is that even the apostles themselves, who were given miraculous ability to raise the dead or to heal the sick, that exercise of that gift had to be in the context of validating the gospel ministry, and it was limited by God's sovereignty.

So if there was a divine healer today, we would never know who they were. They would not be showing up in baseball stadiums or football stadiums, and you wouldn't have to be passing the plate so that they could get gas their jet.

That's not what a divine healer would be. The only way that someone could be a divine healer today is if God was supernaturally revealing to them His purposes in the lives of His people and using them as a means for bringing healing only to those people that God willed to heal.

You see, that's why the real divine healers, what are they always teaching? It's always God's will to heal. I'll never forget, I was driving to school years ago in my old 72 Buick, and I had, I think it was Charles Capps, or it may have been Papa Hagen, or was it?

No, Pop. Dad Hagen, is that who it was? Yeah, anyways, one of those guys, and this is back, oh, 1980-ish, and the whole thing was on how you absolutely destroy faith if you ever say, if it be thy will.

It's always God's will for His children to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. I didn't use that terminology, but it's always God's will for God to heal. That's the only way you can have true faith. If you say according to your will, you destroy everything, even though that's what Jesus taught us to do.

But anyways, that's what you're supposed to do. So when we look at these, it's interesting. In Philippians chapter 2, verses 25 -27, Paul says,. But I thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need, because he was longing for you all and was distressed, because you had heard that he was sick.

For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him also, but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. Well, Paul, why didn't you just heal the guy? You're an apostle.

That's not how it works. That's not how it ever worked, even during the apostolic age. Here is someone who is sick unto death, and God has mercy on Paul, lest he have sorrow upon sorrow. It doesn't sound like Paul is operating within this context of, well, poor Epaphroditus, he didn't really have sufficient faith, and I was sort of having a low time in my apostolic authority too, and so I wasn't having enough faith.

No, no, God had mercy. We prayed for him, and I'm sure they did pray for him. But the possibility was that Paul might have had sorrow upon sorrow. It might have been time for Epaphroditus to go. We don't control God's sovereignty.

You see, if you really do believe that our days are numbered, that God writes our days in his book, Psalm 139, that would explain why there are times when, with all the faith in the world, it doesn't change anything.

It's that time's person to go. It's that person's time to go. That's the way it is. Of course, it really becomes odd when we have that strange statement of Paul to Timothy, no longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent asthenias, weaknesses.

Same term that Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 12, of his thorn in the flesh, is his weakness clearly here is a physical weakness. Timothy had a bad stomach. Timothy had some type of intestinal problem, as we would use terminology today.

In fact, it's interesting. I love how people say, you know what the Greek word for stomach is? Stomach. We don't even bother. We just transliterate it. Just brought it straight over in English. So, well, here's the leader of the church in Ephesus.

And it was interesting. I think, because he's the only person I've been listening to, so I think at one point, and if I recall correctly, and look, I'm saying right now, I could be wrong about this, okay?

If I recall correctly, at one point, Michael made reference to a story in the ancient church, a tradition in the ancient church, where John was informed that the church at Ephesus had many elderly women in it who were sick and feeble.

And he shakes his head and slaps his face and says, bring them all to me, and he heals all of them, and basically upbraids them for not having the proper attitude. I had never heard that story before.

I tracked it down. It's called the Acts of John. It's a 3rd century Proto-Gnostic collection, which also contains the story about how John was trying to sleep, and the bedbugs in his bed were making too much noise, and so he commanded them all to leave.

I posted that yesterday in the channel. He commanded them all to leave, and the next morning, when everybody got up, there is a bunch of bugs standing at the door in line. And when John wakes up, he says, you obeyed me, so you can return to your place, and they all ran back to the bed, climbed up the legs, and disappeared into the framework.

Same source. Not really what we want to be using as a source of our what? I think I told you a number of years ago about my mom going to a charismatic church and the pastor preaching a sermon about his garden.

Do you remember me telling you about this? I think I know where he got it now. He talked about how he never used pesticides. He just rebuked the bugs. Rebuked the bugs. It comes straight out of the Acts of John.