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About the Book
"Encounters with Jesus" by Timothy Keller explores the stories of individuals in the Bible who had personal encounters with Jesus and how those encounters transformed their lives. Keller examines the deep meaning and relevance of these encounters for our own lives, highlighting the power of Jesus to change hearts and bring about true spiritual transformation. Through these stories, Keller helps readers gain a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and invites them to encounter him in a personal and life-changing way.
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory the Wonderworkerâs Early life
Gregory was born in a Pontus, a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey, around 212-13. His was a wealthy home and his parents named him Theodore (Gift of God) despite their pagan beliefs. When he was 14 years old his father died and soon after, he and his brother, Athenodorus, were anxious to study law at Beirut, Lebanon, then one of the four of five famous schools in the Hellenic world.
Influence of Origen
However, on the way, they first had to escort their sister to rejoin her husband, who was a government official assigned to Caesarea in Palestine (modern Haifa, Israel). When they arrived they learned that the celebrated scholar Origen, head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, lived there.
Inquisitiveness led them to hear and speak with the Origen and his irresistible charm quickly won their hearts. They soon dropped their desires for a life in Roman law, became Christian believers and pupils of Origen, learning philosophy and theology, for somewhere between five and eight years. Origen also baptised Gregory.
Pastor (then Bishop) of Neoceasarea
Gregory returned to his native Pontus with the intention of practicing oratory, but also to write a book proving the truth of Christianity, revealing his evangelistic heart. But his plans were disrupted when locals noticed his passion for Christ and his spiritual maturity. There were just seventeen Christians in Neoceasarea when Gregory arrived and this small group persuaded him to lead them as their bishop. (âbishopâ simply meant a local overseer). At the time, Neocaesarea was a wicked, idolatrous province.
Signs of the Spirit
By his saintly life, his direct and lively preaching, helping the needy and settling quarrels and complaints, Gregory began to see many converts to Christ. But it was the signs and wonders that particularly attracted people to Christ.
En route to Neocaesarea from Amasea, Gregory expelled demons from a pagan temple, its priest converted to Christ immediately.
Once, when he was conversing with philosophers and teachers in the city square, a notorious harlot came up to him and demanded payment for the sin he had supposedly committed with her. At first Gregory gently remonstrated with her, saying that she perhaps mistook him for someone else.
But the loose woman would not be silenced. He then asked a friend to give her the money. Just as the woman took the unjust payment, she immediately fell to the ground in a demonic fit, and the fraud became evident. Gregory prayed over her, and the devil left her. This was the beginning of Gregoryâs miracles. It was at this time he became known as âGregory Thaumaturgus,â âGregory the Miracle Workerâ (or Wonderworker).
At one point Gregory wanted to flee from the worldly affairs into which influential townsmen persistently sought to push him. He went into the desert, where by fasting and prayer he developed an intimacy with God and received gifts of knowledge, wisdom and prophecy. He loved life in the wilderness and wanted to remain in solitude with God until the end of his days, but the Lord willed otherwise.
His theological contribution
Though he was primarily an evangelist and pastor, Gregory also had a deep theological understanding.
His principal work âThe Exposition of Faithâ, was a theological apology for Trinitarian belief. It incorporated his doctrinal instructions to new believers, expressed his arguments against heretical groups and was widely influential amongst leaders in the Patristic period: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa (The Cappadocian Fathers). It was the forerunner of the Nicene Creed that was to appear in the early 4th century.
In summary
He gave himself to the task of the complete conversion of the population of his diocese. The transformation in Neocaesarea was astonishing. Persuasive preaching, numerous healings and miraculous signs had a powerful effect. Such was his success that it was said that when Gregory became bishop (c 240) he found only seventeen Christians in his diocese; when he died only seventeen remained pagan (Latourette 1953:76).
Basil the Greatâs Testimony
Basil the Great (330-379, Bishop of Caesarea, in his work âOn the Spiritâ wrote the following account of Gregory the wonder-worker.
âBut where shall I rank the great Gregory, and the words uttered by him? Shall we not place among Apostles and Prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they; who never through all his days diverged from the footprints of the saints; who maintained, as long as he lived, the exact principles of evangelical citizenship?
I am sure that we shall do the truth a wrong if we refuse to number that soul with the people of God, shining as it did like a beacon in the Church of God: for by the fellow-working of the Spirit the power which he had over demons was tremendous, and so gifted was he with the grace of the word âfor obedience to the faith among. . .the nations.â that, although only seventeen Christians were handed over to him, he brought the whole people alike in town and country through knowledge to God.
He too by Christâs mighty name commanded even rivers to change their course, and caused a lake, which afforded a ground of quarrel to some covetous brethren, to dry up. Moreover, his predictions of things to come were such as in no wise to fall short of those of the great prophets. To recount all his wonderful works in detail would be too long a task. By the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit, in all power and in signs and in marvels, he was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the Church.
Thus, in all that he through grace accomplished, alike by word and deed, a light seemed ever to be shining, token of the heavenly power from the unseen which followed him. To this day he is a great object of admiration to the people of his own neighborhood, and his memory, established in the churches ever fresh and green, is not dulled by length of time. (Schaff and Wace nd., Series 2. 8:46-47).
âGregory was a great and conspicuous lamp, illuminating the church of God.â âBasil the Great.
Walk the War Before You - What It Means to Live by the Spirit
Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. âGalatians 5:16â17 In seminary, this passage reshaped my vision of the Christian life. At one level, the passage is simple. It contains an exhortation (âwalk by the Spiritâ), a promise (âand you will not gratify the desires of the fleshâ), and an explanation or rationale (the conflict described in verse 17). But as we meditate on this passage, we discover that it also offers a threefold vision for the Christian life as a whole. Acknowledge the War Within First, Paul insists that the starting point for the Christian life is recognizing the war between the flesh and the Spirit. I say âstarting pointâ because of the logic of verses 16 and 17. In seminary, I was taught that one way to clarify the logic of a passage like this is to read the verses in reverse order while keeping the logical relationship intact. In other words, turn an âA, because Bâ argument into a âB, therefore Aâ argument. âI eat, because I am hungryâ becomes âI am hungry, therefore I eat.â When we do that, the passage looks like this: (Verse 17) The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Verse 16) Therefore (thatâs the logical connection) walk by the Spirit, and you will certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh. As Christians, we wake up every day in the midst of a war. Fleshly desires pull us in one direction; the desires of the Spirit pull us in the other. The status quo is a frustrated stalemate in which we are kept from doing what we want to do. Spiritual desires frustrate fleshly desires, and fleshly desires frustrate spiritual desires. Starting with this recognition means we can be realistic about the difficulty of the war. The frustration we feel in the face of the passions of the flesh is real, and Paul encourages us to be honest about it. Thatâs where we begin as Christians. Staggering Promise of Not But according to Paul, we donât have to stay there, because, second, we have a new destination. We donât have to surrender. We can live a life in which we absolutely donât gratify the desires of the flesh. This is a staggering promise. The ânotâ in verse 16 is intensified in the original Greek; itâs whatâs called an emphatic negation. Paul essentially says, âIf you walk by the Spirit, you will absolutely and certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh.â Now, itâs important to be clear about what Paul is and isnât promising. Heâs not saying that our fleshly desires disappear altogether. Instead, he promises that we will not gratify or complete those desires. In other words, the desires may still be present and still at war with our spiritual desires, but now, as we walk by the Spirit, we wonât indulge them. The basic idea is that all desires have a direction, a destination, a trajectory. They incline us towards some perceived good, some object that we believe will satisfy. In short, desires want to take us somewhere. Where Do Desires Lead? In Galatians 5, the desires of the flesh lead to the works of the flesh: âsexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.â Paul is clear that those who practice such things â by habitually gratifying those desires â will not inherit Godâs kingdom. On the other hand, the desires of the Spirit lead to the fruit of the Spirit: âlove, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.â So again, desires, whether of the Spirit or the flesh, have a destination, and when that destination is reached, the desire has been gratified. The itch has been scratched. Notice, however, the critical assumption Paul makes: the presence of the fleshly desire doesnât mean that we have to indulge it. Itâs possible to resist where our desires want to take us. For Paul, walking by the Spirit doesnât remove all fleshly tendencies and inclinations in this life. Instead, it interrupts them. It redirects them and reorders them so that they no longer dishonor God or harm people. Itâs important to be clear on this point so that we donât erect impossible and unrealistic expectations for the Christian life. In this life, the desires may still rise up, but according to Paul, they donât have to master us. They donât have to rule us. We donât have to gratify or indulge them. We donât have to scratch. We can be free. But only if we walk by the Spirit. Essential Bridge Walking by the Spirit is the third element in this vision of the Christian life, and the bridge between our present struggle and the future victory. Itâs the path that gets us from frustration to freedom. Which means that the pressing question for us is this: What exactly does it mean to âwalk by the Spiritâ? The image is clear enough. Walking is a form of movement. Itâs neither standing still nor running. Itâs steady movement, in a particular direction, under a particular power (in this case, the Spirit). Galatians 5:24â25 sheds further light on the image: And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. âWalk by the Spiritâ corresponds to âkeep in step with the Spirit.â Itâs as though the Spirit sets the pace and we keep up. Thereâs a rhythm to our walking. Like a drummer, the Spirit lays down the beat, and we march along. This basic idea appears in various forms throughout Paulâs letters: Walk rightly with the truth of the gospel (Galatians 2:13). Walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). Be led by the Spirit (Galatians 5:18). Keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:26). Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called (Ephesians 4:1). Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord (Colossians 1:10). âWalking by the Spirit is the bridge between our present struggle and the future victory.â Other phrases that appear throughout the New Testament include walking in love, walking in the light, walking as children of the light, walking according to Paulâs example, and walking in the truth. In all of these examples, the idea is the same: there is a conduct, a âwalking,â that accords with the gospel, the Spirit, and the truth. There is a way of life that fits the gospel. Before We Can Walk Walking by the Spirit flows from something more fundamental, though, and this is crucial. Before we can keep in step with the Spirit, we must first âlive by the Spirit.â That is, we must possess life by the Spirit. The life in question is resurrection life. We possess it because we belong to Jesus and have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Itâs what Paul elsewhere describes as âbeing made alive with Christâ (Ephesians 2:4). This is conversion, when God raises us from spiritual death by grace through faith in Christ. He elaborates on this reality in the great gospel passage of Galatians 2:19â20: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. âThe Spirit is the animating power in our lives, shaping our daily decisions as we wake up in spiritual war.â Crucified with Christ so that the flesh has been killed. Raised with Christ so that he lives on our behalf and we possess life by his Spirit. This is the good news which so transformed Paul and is able to transform us. So, then, walking by the Spirit refers to our daily conduct, rooted in our union with Christ in his death and resurrection and empowered by the Spirit who redirects our desires to godly fruitfulness. The Spirit is the animating power in our lives, shaping our daily decisions as we wake up in the midst of the spiritual war. Paulâs call is for us to daily take up arms in the battle, to encourage and gratify our spiritual desires, and to keep in step with the Spirit because we belong to Jesus. Article by Joe Rigney Teacher, desiringGod.org
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