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Christianity Today, February, 2008 |

CHRISTIAN VISION PROJECT

Singing in the Chains

To be saved means more than we might think.

Mark Buchanan | posted 1/30/2008 08:44AM

The waters off Vancouver Island, British Columbia, are clear and cold, making for some of the best scuba diving in the Northern Hemisphere. The weather can be cloudy, making the ocean steel gray with ...

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justgroovy

Posted: February 04, 2008 8:53 PM

My take on the "Miracle in the Jail" is this; the miracle was not that the doors were opened and the chains fell off. The miracle was that under the most difficult circumstances they were doing behind bars what they would have been doing with the other believers in some upper room. They did not let their circumstances dictate their actions. They let their "vision" that Christ had imparted to them lead them to live a live of fellowship and devotion wherever they were. The gospel was truly a new way of being and they embraced it without hesitation. What could Man truly do to them that Christ had not already endured? Could they do no less? That is the mark of faith that the world marvels at when they get a glimpse of it.

Tim Stradling

Posted: January 31, 2008 12:09 PM

"Buchanan is blessed because he believes and has not seen nor heard the voice of Christ and so he receives blessing upon blessing upon blessing." "Has not seen nor heard" ... I don't understand why the writer makes this conclusion. Buchanan seems to be seeing and hearing quite well to me. I have been seeking God's wisdom on this subject for weeks prompted by a conference with Steve Deneff. His book "More Than Forgiveness" might be helpful if you are interested in why the gospel today seems weak and ineffective. Also, it's interesting to note that to the Gentile mind of the Philippian "to be saved," Greek "soteria," had to do with being "released from the governing the fate of man and the material world" Longenecker, Expositor's Bible Commentary Acts. So, the jailer (and/or Luke) was certainly alluding to the girl who had been delivered from the power of the spirit in the beginning of the passage. And, to be saved means more of being delivered from the "powers" that control us.

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: January 31, 2008 3:00 AM

The Jews, the Muslims and the Christians all have what it takes not just to know about but even to know personally and firsthand Jesus Christ as the immortal God with the self-sufficient life revealed, first, in the burning bush and, lastly, in the unique and absolutely stunning manner of His exclusively self-inflicted and self-revealing death on the cross --a mystery which, strangely enough, is today more in the minds of Muslims than Christians. To judge from the Book of Acts and Paul's epistles, this is the power and the glory he had earlier seen in vision on the road to Damascus and now together with Silas acknowledged in singing and praise; and for which they deemed themselves honored to be beaten and imprisoned. It is this explicit praise to the supernatural demonstration of the living and immortal Christ who was crucified in public only recently and, therefore, still fresh in the minds of the inmates and jailer that elicited the question "What must I do to be saved?"

Olaf Raasch

Posted: January 31, 2008 2:59 AM

Heb.12:14 tells me follow peace with all men, and HOLINESS without which no man shall see the Lord. After this perhaps read the epistle of Diognetus and see for yourself how the early Christian lived their daily lives (Apostolic Fathers trans. J.B. Lightfoot) Take a look at the Amish Community, (nothing to do with horse and cart) but support for the murderer who killed their children.Yes indeed, true Christianity can be found also in these days but only in numbers we can count. Your messege is good, but needs to be stronger to a deaf and blind Christian Church.

AMEN AND AMEN!

Posted: January 30, 2008 5:07 PM

The gospel in its simplicity is indeed incredibly powerful and the world today seriously complicates things in the process of spreading the Good News. If more people today, especially Christians, can come to know the true God and what it REALLY means to be SAVED, then those people will be able to live abundant, successful, transformational lives and be a blessing to others simply by being around others, i.e. Paul and Silas. Wonderful, inspiring article!

the very least

Posted: January 30, 2008 2:51 PM

Buchanan is blessed because he believes and has not seen nor heard the voice of Christ and so he receives blessing upon blessing upon blessing. But I have seen and heard and, before my conversion was utterly miserable. Now I am even less of a person because I have seen and heard Christ with my own eyes and ears. I am now less and less. I stepped down from my career and now I have just been retrenched from in a Christian organization! I have at my age few job prospects and yet Jesus grips my soul and he has bonds upon my heart and steel pins on my mind. He even gave me a dream last night before I read this article of me being led down powerless to an ocean which is grey and murky and then swimming underwater to come up to Christ's voice saying in the murk that here are fish and me then seeing teeming colored fishes just after his voice spoke. It is almost as if he tears my mind with his visions and his voice. Here I am the very least of them! What power Christ has and how little I am.

Pedro Gromyk

Posted: January 30, 2008 1:32 PM

Thank you, thank you, thank you. As a pastor in Buenos Aires Argentina, I so much agree with this fantastic message. What a blessing!!!. Always wonder what would really happen if we would act, sing, and pray as Paul and Silas did. Yes, we do not want to make the gospel more complicated, we just want it to be "the gospel", the church to be the church, the songs of praise just that, songs of praise, and yes, we should all pray Arthur Burns prayer. Thank you again and God bless you.

Avalon

Posted: January 30, 2008 11:09 AM

Fantastic! I LOVE IT! LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT! YES! Amen! Thank you so much for bringing this message home to us in such a poignant way. Powerful! I was that slave girl and now I am free. I pray that we will all strive to be like Paul and Silas. The freedom that we have in Christ is so profound, let us never forget to sing, no matter what our chains, that others might be free as well. I will remember this, and the next time I find myself having a hard time, I'm going to sing. Thank you. God bless you.

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