Meeting in Homes

Home is the place where we like to meet with friends, so it is the best place to have fellowship. Being the body of Christ will be easier, if we go back to meeting in homes. Most Churches will meet in the lounge in the home of one of its members.

The early Christians were devoted to fellowship, so they met in their homes. Every day they continued to meet together… They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts (Acts 2:44, 45).

Many Churches were known by the name of the person in whose house they met. We have a record of the Church in the house of Nympha (Col 4:14) and the Church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (1 Cor 16:19). Each Church will be based in a house close to the home of one of its leaders.

In a city where the people live in apartments, Churches will look different, but the same principles should apply. The aim should be to have at least one Church in each apartment block. If a large number of people become Christians, each housing block might need several Churches on different floors of the building.

Revival requires Relationships

Many Christians believe that revival will come as the Holy Spirit moves in power in the body of Christ. We do need the Spirit, but this is not Ezekiel’s message. He warned that the Spirit cannot come in power until the body of Christ is joined together in strong relationships.

Ezekiel’s message is challenging and requires radical change. We will not experience the revival we long for until the body is joined together according to God’s plan (Eph 4:16). “Going to church” will not produce a revival. We cannot expect revival until we develop real fellowship based on strong relationships with other Christians.

This is a disturbing truth. If we are unwilling to be joined together in strong relationships, God’s ability to send revival is severely limited. He can pour out his Spirit, but he cannot force people to connect with each other. We have to decide to make that happen ourselves. We have to choose to be the body of Christ, by committing to strong relationships with other Christians.

Revival requires strong relationships,
not going to church.

The first step to building strong relationships is to do to other Christians the things that the New Testament requires. Doing the One Another Stuff should bring a radical change in the way we relate to other members of our Church.

Dry Bones

If the parts of the body are not joined together permanently the body becomes dysfunctional and the bones get dry. Ezekiel understood this very well. He saw a valley full of dry bones (Ezek 37). After he prophesied, they were joined and raised to become a mighty army. Ezekiel’s vision frequently quoted as a picture of the revival, but we often miss the key point.

When Ezekiel prophesied, the bones came together and tendons and flesh appeared. The bones were joined together and skin covered them. The breath of the Spirit could not come until the bones had to come together, bone to bone in a body. When Ezekiel prophesied again, the breath came into the bones and they stood up and became a mighty army.

A body is not built by throwing some bones in a basket.

To become a mighty body empowered by the Spirit, the bones must be joined together. Each bone must be joined to at least two others by muscles and tendons. The correct bones must be joined in the right place. A body becomes dysfunctional, if just one bone is missing or is joined to the wrong bone.

Was it Finished?

Christians all over the world are celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. As he was dying on the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished”, but most of his followers do not believe this. They believe that Jesus had not finished the job. They believe that he died on the cross for our sins, but he did not do enough to get rid of sin and totally destroy the power of the devil. He did not do enough for the Kingdom of God to be established. Most Christians believe that Jesus will return at the end of the age to complete the job that he has not finished. His first effort did not the trick, so he will have to come back and finish it properly.

When Jesus said, “It is finished”, he was not speaking idle words. He was declaring that he had completed the task assigned to him and that he had done it properly.

The New Testament teaches that Jesus totally dealt with sin. He destroyed the power of the devil. He ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to live in every believer. He had done everything necessary to roll back the damage that had been done by the fall and bring in the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he sat down at the right hand of God, who seemed to be pleased with what he had done. The common idea that Jesus has to return to complete his work is a lie of the enemy.

Revival is Personal

Here is a personal question. You will have been to church meeting and prayer meetings many times in the last year, but when did you get together with a couple of believers in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and go the place where he was led and look for a person he wanted to touch? Your answer to that question probably explains why you have not seen revival.

The Holy Spirit generally touches one person at time. However, a multiplication process, allows the number of being touched can increase rapidly. If the number of people willing to carry his presence into the world increases quickly, the process can snowball and grow into a mighty move of God. However, the pattern remains the same. A couple of a people are used by the Holy Spirit to touch another. Revival comes as that process is repeated thousands of times among many people in many places.

Instead of looking for bulk Holy Spirit moves, Christians should get together in pairs or trios and be led by him to the place where he wants to move and to the person that the wants touch. They Holy Spirit moves when two or three people get together in the place where he wants to be. If a couple of them are filled with the Spirit and one is hungry, the Holy Spirit can do his stuff.

Revival His Way

If the Holy Spirit prefers to work through two or people who are committed to serving Jesus, then we need to find ways to get together with Christian friends. If the Holy Spirit wants to minister to another person, the pair of Christians will have to go to the place where they can find the unbeliever.

If the pair of Christians are not together, then the Holy Spirit cannot move. If the pair of believers are together but not in the same place as the unbeliever, the Holy Spirit cannot move. If the pair are in the right place, but they do not identify the person that the Holy Spirit wants to touch, the Holy Spirit will not be able to move.

Being led by the Holy Spirit is essential:

• The two or three Christians that the Holy Spirit wants to work through must come together

• They must come together at the time when the Holy Spirit leads.

• They must go to where the Holy Spirit wants to move. That place will usually be in the world, not a church or homegroup.

• They must find the person that the Holy Spirit wants to touch.

• They must know what the Holy Spirit wants to do, so they do not get in the way.

• The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

For this to happen, we must learn how to recognise the presence of the Holy Spirit. We will need to learn how to sense what he wants to do and who he wants to touch.

One day as Jesus was teaching….. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick (Luke 5:17).

The presence of the Holy Spirit was there for a different purpose that day. Often he inspired Jesus to teach. This day he was there to heal, and Jesus recognised it.

This is the way that things happened in the New Testament. This is the way that the Holy Spirit prefers to work. If we want to be part of his move, then we must be willing to do things his way.

Two and Three Revival

The usual experience in the New Testament is quite different. God mostly touched people one at a time in twos or threes.

Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them (Matt 18:20).

The Holy Spirit prefers to work with groups of two or three. They must come together in Jesus name. That means that they are acting on his behalf, representing him to others. When a couple of people come together to represent Jesus, they Holy Spirit will be present with them.

Here is how it works. One person, or two friends, who are walking in the Spirit meet another person. That person is touched by the Spirit and turns to God. For example, in Acts 3 describes an incident where Peter and John met a lame man. They prayed for him and he was healed. I presume that he decided to follow Jesus. Only three people were involved, two of them Christians.

Philip was full of the Spirit when he met the Ethiopian politician on the South Road (Acts 8:26-40). The Holy Spirit touched the Ethiopians heart and he was baptised.

Even the 3,000 people, who were baptised on the Day of Pentecost would have been baptised one at a time by a couple of Christians. As they prayed for each person, they were filled with the Spirit.

In most the events described in the Book of Acts, one or two people walking in the Spirit ministered to an unbeliever. The person touched, healed, delivered chose to follow Jesus.

Sometimes a crowd would watch. Some would to go a Christian or pair of Christians and ask them about what they had seen. If the Spirit is with them, the seeker will be drawn to Jesus.

Sometimes the person touched will tell their friends. If someone is interested, the person who was touched will take them to meet with another Christian. If the Holy Spirit is present, the inquirer will be touched by him.

When Jesus sent out the seven-two disciples, they went in power pairs. They were his representatives. The Holy Spirit went with them and did mighty works. The key to his presence is two or three Christians going out into the world as representatives of Jesus.

These articles are here.

Bulk Action Revival

Many Christians are looking for revival. Unfortunately, they do no understand what they need, so they are looking for the wrong thing. Most expect a bulk movement of the Holy Spirit in which millions of people will be touched by God in an instant. One reason that Christians like this form of revival is that it comes spontaneously from the outside without us need to do anything. That last point may be the reason why it has not happened.

The Holy Spirit sometimes hits a big group of people altogether at once, but that is relatively rare. The Day of Pentecost is one example. The Holy Spirit fell on 120 people all at once, but that is not normal. God was kicking of the age of the Spirit with lively start.

The other bulk ministry is described in Acts 10, when Peter was preaching to the family and friends of Cornelius. The Holy Spirit hit all the believers at once, but this situation was unique, because God was trying to “kick start” the apostles to take the gospel to Gentiles.

Seeking for a revival in which God does bulk action will lead to disappointment. It probably will not happen.

Problems in Jerusalem (3) Property Prophecy

Many citizens of Jerusalem had heard Jesus’ prophecy that Jerusalem would be destroyed (Matt 24:1-35, Luke 21). The outpouring of the Spirit showed that Jesus was in heaven at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:32-33). This confirmed the truth of his prophecy (Matt 24:30).

After Pentecost, many Christians living in Jerusalem heard of this prophecy and sold their land. They understood that the day was coming when their property would be worthless, so they sold out while the market was still good. They used their money to provide food for people the visitors living in Jerusalem during a tumultuous time.

Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need (Acts 2:45).

There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales… and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (Acts 24:34-35).

Selling property was a sensible response to Jesus prophecy, but some people misunderstood his warning signs and sold to soon. This left the Christians living in Jerusalem without land, which was the main form of capital in those times.

Without capital, Christians were not economically productive. The end result was that the Jerusalem church continued in poverty up until AD 70. The Jerusalem church continued to be dependent on donations from other Churches in Asia. This was not an ideal situation.

These factors mentioned in the last three posts mean that the Jerusalem Church cannot be used as an ideal on which to base a Christian approach to economics. The unique situation in that city means that the very Jerusalem church does not provide a model that can be directly copied.

Problems in Jerusalem (2) Christian Overstayers

Although they should have taken the gospel back to their home towns and villages, people from all over the world stayed in Jerusalem. On the day of Pentecost, thousand of people were still in Jerusalem, after coming their to celebrate the Passover.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven….Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome; Cretans and Arabs. (Acts 2:5,9-10).

Many of these people responded to the apostles preaching and received the gospel. Some of these people, like the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:39), immediately took the gospel back to their home as God intended.

This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every nation under heaven. (Col 1:23).

However many more of these foreign Christians remained in Jerusalem. I presume that they remained, because the Apostles remained, making Jerusalem the centre of the action. New Christians naturally wanted to be close to the action, so they stayed to see what would develop. This slowed the spread of the gospel.

The large number of visitors staying on in Jerusalem after they received salvation caused a serious economic problem, as the church was committed to providing them with food. It meant that the church was always short of money and needed donations from other churches.

Problems in Jerusalem (1) Apostles at the Centre

The church in Jerusalem is not the perfect model for innovative churches or Christian economists. Many wonderful things happened in Jerusalem, but several serious problems arose, despite the glorious blessing of the Holy Spirit.

The first problem was that the apostles stayed at the centre, when they should have moved out to the cutting edge. The word apostle means “one who is sent”. That means a true apostle must be sent out. Apostles should always be out at the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is doing. When apostles sit at the centre and give orders and direction, things start to go wrong. They quickly morph into modern day bishops, and the expansion of the church collapses.

Jesus had told the apostles to go out into all the world.

Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:47-49).

Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised… in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit….But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:4,8).

Jesus told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem, but they were to wait “until”…. They were to wait until the Holy Spirit had come. Once they Sprit had come, the waiting should have ended. The apostles should have been sent out into Judea, Samaria and then the rest of the world.

Jesus had taught his apostles how to go out and stay in a village with a person of peace and preach the good news and heal the sick. Although they had practiced this method (Luke 9:1-6) and understood that it worked, the first apostles seemed to be reluctant to adopt it.

Peter and John just did not get it. God had to send persecution to get his disciples to move out in obedience to his commissions.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1).

This is amazing. The disciples moved out, but the apostles did not get the message. They stayed in Jerusalem, despite their calling and Jesus’ clear commands.

The Holy Spirit had a dreadful job getting Peter to go to Caesarea to share the gospel with Cornelius and his household. Luke takes a whole chapter to describe the incident. Peter had a vision. The Holy Spirit spoke to him. The prediction of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled (Acts 10:19-21). Even after all that, Peter launched into his sermon by saying that it was against his law for a Jew to associate with a gentile. While Peter was preaching, the Holy Spirit interrupted and filled the people so they spoke in tongues.

Peter did not have a clue about what the Holy Sprit was doing in Caesarea and struggle against. He just did not want to go there and he did not stay, when the Holy Spirit started moving. Peter went back to Jerusalem and an opportunity was lost.
Paul initially made the same mistake and went to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit had to put him into a trance to get him to understand that he should be getting out of Jerusalem.

When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. “Quick!” he said to me. “Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me”….. Then the Lord said to me, “Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.” (Acts 22:17,18,21).

Paul left for Tarsus and then went on Antioch. The apostolic ministry he launched demonstrated that Jesus method is effective (Acts 28:1-10).

Eschatology and the Kingdom

The increasing interest in the Kingdom of God is exciting, but we cannot focus on the Kingdom of without a change in eschatology. A vision for the Kingdom will gradually move us away from the Jesus is Coming Any Minute teaching. While we believe that Jesus is returning in the next decade, we will not get serious about the Kingdom.

Trendy Adjectives

Christians should be careful about using fashionable adjectives.

A number of years ago, “prophetic” was the trendy adjective, as in prophetic leadership conference, prophetic evangelism.

More recently, “apostolic” became the in adjective, as in apostolic anything, eg apostolic reformation.

Now “Kingdom” is the adjective that is being used everywhere, as in kingdom economics, kingdom government, etc.

We need to be careful that we do not devalue these words by just attaching them to any idea that we think is trendy.

Mandatory

We should be careful about saying an action is mandatory, without further qualification. Mandatory often means different things to different people.

1. God requires this action from all people

2. God requires the action from all Christians

3. The state can penalise those who fail to comply with the standard and compensate those who were aggrieved.

4. Active state action to make people take particular actions.

5. The state can take action to achieve a general goal, eg taxing people to achieve inequality.

When saying something is mandatory, we should be more precise about what we mean.

Price Indexes (13) Shooting the Messenger

Some economists are pretty hard on statisticians. They see them as a government tool for manipulating the masses. This statement is a little unfair. Most of the statisticians that I know are very independent thinkers determined to measure the economy accurately. Most have an obsession with detail and a fixation with doing things accurately (other personality types find the work boring). They put enormous effort into producing correct estimates.

Statisticians actually have a prophetic role. They are often the only ones who can expose the full impact of government’s monetary policies. The central bankers are the ones who inflate and devalue the currency. I suggest that we concentrate on getting rid of them, rather than attacking those who measure the damage they do. Until we have sound money and inflation disappears, we will need statisticians to measure the impact of monetary manipulation.

I agree that a government monopoly is wrong and dangerous. The best way to get reliable statistics would be to have various providers competing in an open market for statistics. This is what economists should be arguing for, rather than undermining the practice of statistics.

Developing measures that are as accurate as possible is not easy, and there will always be debate about methods. Statistical journals are full of debates about the merits and problems of different methods, including hedonic adjustment. Rather than complaining about the work of statisticians, economist should be glad that they are exposing the damage done by monetary inflation.

Another good example of the prophetic role of the statistics profession is the manual for Government Financial Statistics. This is a system developed by statisticians for measure government income and expenditure. This system exposes the multitude of sins that are hidden by the cash based accounts kept by most modern governments. If all governments adopted these standards, there economic management would be much more transparent.

To those looking for a conspiracy, I am sorry guys, but I don’t think it is there. You should about be careful about the way you use statistics, and make sure that you understand what they measure, but encouraging conspiracy theories adds more heat than light. Statistics and statisticians actually expose the consequences of politician’s actions.

Price Indexes (12) Statistical Monopoly

One reason for the concern about the validity of price inedexes is that we do not have a free market for statistics. Monopoly governments have crowded out most private operators, so users have very little choice.

If the government stopped producing statistics, there might be a market for privately produced statistics. If inflation of the money supply continued, I suspect that there would still be a demand for price indexes and measures of GDP estimated by private suppliers.

Private production would be preferable, as any incentive to cheat would be removed. However, we would still need independent private experts to monitor the work of the private statisticians to assess the quality of their work.

Price Indexes (11) Deflating Output Measures

Economists are often concerned about the impact that quality adjustment or hedonic adjustment might have on the measurement of real GDP. Given a certain nominal GDP (in dollars or any other currency unit), the number for the price deflator determines the size of real GDP and its real growth rate. If the measured inflation rate is low, the real GDP will be higher and vice versa, and along with that one also gets higher or lower numbers for productivity changes.

This statement is correct, but misses an important point. When applying a deflator, if improvements in quality are not adjusted in the deflator, they will not appear in real output measure. The best way to explain this is to consider a Ford factory that produced a million Model T Fords in 1920. The same factory is now producing a million Ford Mustangs. Say the price of Model T was $300 and the price of a Ford Mustang is now $30,000, the value of the output of the factory has increased from $300 million to $30 billion. However, the price index of these cars has risen one hundredfold.

If this price index is used as a deflator without any quality adjustment, the real value of the output of the factory will be.

30b/300m*300/30000 = 1

This result indicates that the output of the factory has not changed. If the number of people working at the factory was the same, no increase in productivity would be recorded. Most people would find these results hard to accept and claim that developing a Mustang took a lot of research and development and provides greater utility to the car owner. Although the factory is still producing a million cars, it is producing better quality cars.

The reason that output does not change is that all the quality improvements were captured in the price index. Although part of the increase in price from 300 to 30,000 is the result of an improvement in quality, no adjustment was made to the price index. Because all the quality improvement was captured in the price index, it is excluded from the resultant measure of real output.

The only way to feed to quality improvement into the real output measure is to quality adjust the price index. If it is assumed that a Ford Mustang is ten times better than a Tin Lizzie, the price index will show a only tenfold increase (rather than the hundredfold used above). The factory will now show a tenfold increase in real output. This is a more sensible result.

A good way to make this clear is to think about a Russian factory that was producing a million Ladas and a United States factory that was producing a million Ford Mustangs. Is their output equivalent? I suspect that most Americans would think that the American factory had greater output. The difference is a difference in quality.

So in general we expect improvements in the quality of products to be included in measures of real output and real GDP. But as already shown, this can only happen, if a quality-adjusted price deflator is used. It follows that if the quality adjustment in the price index is biased then the resultant measure of real GDP will be biased.

If the measured inflation rate is not adjusted for quality change, the real GDP will be too low, and along with that one also gets lower numbers for productivity changes.
Much of the drive for improving the methods of quality assessment used in price indexes has come from National Accountants who want better deflators for their estimates of GDP.

Price Indexes (10) Quality Adjustment

Some will say that the problem is with quality adjustment, full stop. They argue that the problem is not with the hedonic method, but with all quality adjustments, however they are made. To answer their concerns, I will explain why quality adjustment is necessary. The best way is to look at some examples. These will show that the adjustments made by statisticians actually reflect the way that consumers think when they are making purchases.

The most basic form of quality adjustment is an adjustment for a change in “quantity”. A good example is breakfast cereal. A common trick for cereal manufacturers is to keep both the size of the cereal carton and the price unchanged, but reduce the weight of cereal in the box. Many consumers will not notice, but the astute consumer will consider that the price of the cereal has increased. Some people take a calculator to the supermarket, so that they can get the best deal calculating the price per kilogram. The statistician makes a similar adjustment to the price to allow for the change in volume. If this were not done, the index would not record increases in cereal prices.

Now consider a more difficult example. Suppose a manufacturer of muesli or granola leaves the dimension of the package, the weight of cereal and the price unchanged, but changes the recipe by putting in less high quality grains and replacing them with low grade flour. Some consumers might not notice the difference, but those who do will choose a different product, because they think that the value for money has changed. The price of the granola is unchanged, but the consumer is getting a different product. In practice, these small changes might be impossible to measure, but the principle the statistician should make an adjustment to the price to reflect the change in quality.

These two examples show that the quality assessments made by price statisticians are similar to those make by consumers deciding which product to purchase. With other products the process may be more complicated, but the question is still the same: What value does the change have to consumers? Quality adjustment reflects the behaviour of consumers.

Price Indexes (9) Limited Use

In practice, the hedonic method is difficult to use, as statistically valid results are difficult to achieve. In general, the hedonic method has only been applied to cars, electronic good, and houses, because the different features are relative standard and a large sample of models are available in the market. Four important points should be noted.

1. A quality adjustment is only done when one product in the matched sample has to be changed. This will only be a small percentage of the total sample. Most products have remained unchanged for many years. For example, electricity, meat, milk, toilet soap, haircuts, bus travel have not changed much from when my grandfather purchased them.

2. Overlap Pricing is used in most situations where substitution is necessary. The only subjectivity is in deciding where Overlap Pricing is not possible, because both the old and new products are being sold in significant numbers.

3. The Hedonic Method is only used for products that need direct quality adjustment, so only a very small percentage of prices are adjusted this way. Some critics state that an hedonic adjustment is made to every price collected. This is a great exaggeration.

4. Hedonic adjustment may result in a smaller or larger adjustment than the traditional method. This means that the common complaint that hedonic adjustment method will reduce the increases in a price index is unfounded. The introduction of the hedonic method may actually increase the price index.

Given these four points it is hard to see what all the fuss is about.

Price Indexes (8) Hedonic Methods

Direct Adjustments for quality change are difficult to make without introducing subjectivity or bias. Consider an example. If the only difference between the old and the new car is a catalytic converter, a direct assessment of its value to consumers must be made.

Most information about the cost and perceived value of the catalytic converter will come from the manufacturer, who is likely to have a biased view. This is why statisticians prefer not to make direct adjustments. Contrary to popular opinion, hedonic adjustment has been introduced to make direct quality assessments more objective.

To apply the hedonic method, index statisticians collect the prices of as many cars as possible that are available with and without catalytic converters. A regression is then used to calculate how much difference the addition of a catalytic converter makes to a car.

In principle, the hedonic method is more objective than direct adjustment, because information from the market place is used to estimate the value of a so-called quality improvement. Using information from the market will generally be better than depending on the judgments of statisticians and information from suppliers. For example, critics often argue that statisticians place too higher value on things like extra memory on a computer.

The hedonic method deals with this issue by attempting to use market prices to assess how much consumers are willing to pay for extra memory. If extra memory is of no value to consumers, this should be reflected in the hedonic measure. This should be better than a subjective “direct assessment” by a statistician.