How is it that everything came to life wherever the apostles preached? They
were not great men; they had no earthly wisdom and cleverness, no special
way of speaking or gift of oratory. No, it was simply the glory of God,
which, in Greece and Rome, in Macedonia and Asia Minor, in Palestine and
everywhere, was bearing fruit to his honor.
[As with Paul in 2 Cor. 12], it is quite natural that the extraordinary
should come forth in a person who is truly freed and born again as a new
creature, standing, therefore, in a new, totally different relationship to
God from that of most people. If something striking did not show itself,
we
would have to doubt whether a new creature actually was present.
Now we must generalize this thought and say that, if in a Christian
community nothing of the extraordinary is experienced-that is, nothing
extraordinary in a recognition and experience of God, as also in a
recognition and experience of the opposite, of sin and its power-then that
community is in fact incapacitated.
--
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
www.blumhardts.com
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