Azusa St. & William Seymour

Tomorrow morning I will teach on The Azusa St. Revival in Redeemer Ministry School. No one person in the history of the 20th century captures my interest like Azusa's leader William J. Seymour.


Who is William J. Seymour? He was a one eyed black man that was a son of slaves with no formal education that God raised up to be the greatest civil rights leader you've never heard of. He is the one person in modern Christian history that causes me to feel "something" (I put it in quotes because I can't explain what that thing I feel is) when I look at his picture. The "something" is a mixture of respect, regard, pity, admiration, and maybe even love. But my musings regarding loving someone that was born 100 years before me and only known through the extant testimonies of other people is a topic for another day.

He may very well have been the founder of modern Pentecostalism but he is rarely more than a footnote in Pentecostal literature. I think he was more significant to the cause of civil rights than Malcolm X, and that is no denigration to Malcolm X.

He is best known for pastoring the church that made glossolalia (speaking in tongues) famous but in my opinion that wasn't the defining mark of the revival.

Tonight I am thankful that I get to tell others a story that I enjoy so much.

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Some questions about 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Next Sunday Pastor John will be preaching out of 1 Corinthians 1:26-31. Each week home groups in our church meet together and many of them discuss the verses that are going to preached that coming Sunday. I am putting the questions that will be discussed this week along with the corresponding verses below:

26: "Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.”

Q: How would you describe yourself before you became a follower of Jesus?

Q: What does human wisdom consist of? How does that compare to God's wisdom?



27-29:"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”


Q: Why would God choose foolish, weak, lowly, and despised things to reveal Himself through rather than things that are wise and strong?

Q: What are some examples of God choosing unlikely seemingly unqualified people to show His glory through throughout history?


30-31 “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Q: How specifically did Jesus become wisdom from God? What does that phrase mean?

Q: If you were talking to someone that had never been to church before, how would you explain the meaning of the words “righteousness, holiness, and redemption”?

Q: What are several things you can boast in The Lord about?

Volunteers Needed:

The Salvation Army Warming Center is a facility that gives people without shelter a place to stay when temperatures are expected to be below 32 degrees. The Warming Center is scheduled to cease operating for the season on Saturday night March 12th . If we can find volunteers to monitor the facility from 8pm - 8am each night we could help keep the Warming Center open until the winter weather breaks (which may be within a couple of weeks). There are usually 8 or 9 people on average staying the night at the facility. Sometimes there are as few as 2 or 3 depending on the severity of the weather.

There currently are shelters for women and children in Monroe so the vast majority of the people staying at the Warming Center are males.
If you are interested in volunteering for this in the next 2 weeks please contact me (Josh - 693-1831; joshabentley@gmail.com ) and I will give the specifics of what volunteering would entail. It feels like a Jesus-opportunity to help provide shelter to people without any. Any amount of time you can donate between 8pm -8am would be very helpful.


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C.S. Lewis on God's Humility

C. S. Lewis wrote:
It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose him as an alternative to hell. Yet even this he accepts. The creature’s illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creature’s sake, be shattered. And by trouble, or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of the eternal flames, God shatters it, unmindful of his glory’s diminution. I call this “divine humility”, because it’s a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us, a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up our own when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud, he would hardly have us on such terms. But he is not proud. He stoops to conquer. He would have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is nothing better now to be had.

From "The Problem of Pain"

Tonight at the Cafe

Tonight my wife Beth will be speaking at Newport Beach Cafe about a biblical view of forgiveness. 

Just in case, I've been on my best behavior all week.