I was reading an article sent to me by Bob Burton a few days ago. He knows my penchant
for information about the Moravians in general and Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf
(their leader) in particular. It is my own conclusion that the Moravian movement
modelled so much the touch of God's heart through the combining of a commitment to
the power of the Spirit, unity and worldwide evangelism with a commitment to give
servant leadership to the whole church.
The article traced the origins of the pentecostal and charismatic outpourings in the
evangelical movements of the church of former generations. Having made comments
about various movements, the writer of the article comes up with this succinct summary
of God's sovereign hand in the unfolding of church history: "God writes straight with
crooked lines. He used the ascetic movement to establish Trinitarian orthodoxy and
preserve the church from being dissolved by the influx of half-converted pagans1.
He used Luther's solafideism2 to offset Catholic legalism, and Puritan spirituality to rebuild an understanding
of holiness. He used Edwards to fight the Enlightenment's confidence in reason and
human ability, and Finney to counter the hyper-Calvinist passivity Edwards had failed
to correct.
"He also used Charles F Parham and William J. Seymour3 to break through the church's resistance to the supernatural gifts listed in 1 Corinthians
12 4."
Church history is the history of "crooked" lines. No one got it totally right, and
no one was totally "balanced." All of them "saw through a dark glass." All of them
knew in part and prophesied in part (cp. 1 Corinthians 13). The reason why some believers
make history and others just watch it being made is because their heart for God, their
desire to see the Word becoming reality in their own time and experience and their
unwillingness to allow the status quo to assume the status of God himself, drove
them to all kinds of extremes of endeavour and conflict with the powers of darkness. Those
powers could as easily be the institutional church, the political rulers, the culture,
the prevailing religious beliefs and so on. But these precious people must become
our fathers and mothers in the faith. We must adopt them as such and receive from God
through their heritage. We must learn much from them, as much from their mistakes
as their achievements.
Let's make some mistakes together trying to follow totally what God has told us to
do. Maybe our crooked lines will be the straight line of God to others of our own
generation as well as those who will be our children.
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