Andrew Murray
And God Created Woman
Difference between Anabaptists and Evangelicals
Kingdom
Mysteries
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Part 2
Anabaptist
Voice
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The Writings of Ulrich Stadler
Volume 1
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The Anabaptist Voice
03/11/2009
Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God: Love, Joy and Peace in
Jesus.
Dear friends,
How are you? It is March, so can you see the signs of spring outside
even up north? We here in southern Arizona had a little rain Sunday night. We
could hear the gentle raindrops, and it was so peaceful and also it was a
special gift from our Heavenly Father. Tucson is in the desert and seldom have
we had rain. Thank you, Lord, for this special treat for us.
Don had an episode of atrial fibrillation Sunday night for several hours,
but he is fine now. Thank you, Lord, for healing him. Michi needs him. We
need each other.
Michi and Naomi went to Linda Dowdle’s house again for the weekly ladies
worship meeting on Monday morning. They felt the love of God, and it was
wonderful. Naomi had physical therapy in the afternoon, so they had to leave
early. Just before they left, they sang ‘Jesus loves me’. Michi felt so
wonderful especially, thinking about 
our
grandchildren Titus and Elizabeth singing that for us over the phone. We do
sing it once in a while as we are going to the church. We do feel the love of
Jesus often, and then we want to sing ‘Jesus loves me’. We are blessed.
The photo shows Grandma Michi with Titus and Elizabeth.
Michi is to give her testimony at the Wednesday evening Bible study at
Elizabeth Willott’s house. God has showed His love to her in such wonderful
ways that she is praying that the Lord will speak through her and share what
wonderful God we belong to. She feels that the Word in Jeremiah 1:5 is for
her: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart.”
We attended the Sunday afternoon Vineyard SHAPE class at Elizabeth
Willott’s house with 14 other people. We discussed our personality tests that
we took during the week and it was interesting to learn about the different
personalities in the class and how it is effected by being an only child, by a
person’s IQ and the strength of a person’s bonds to God (God rules, or should
rule, our spirit, our spirit controls, or should control, our soul [our mind and
emotions] and our soul controls, or should control, our body).
Mormon Missionaries
In the past ten days we’ve had the same set of
Mormon missionaries, three young women, come to our house six times. They want
us to pray and ask our heavenly Father if what they say is true. Don’s response
is that they haven’t shown us that the Mormon people are Christ like, that they
live in obedience to the teachings of Jesus. He asked them to show us if that
is true by going through some of the commands of Jesus in the Gospels with us
and explaining how the Mormon church teaches obedience to the commands there.
They are not willing to do that.
True Christianity is to be Christ Like
The term Christian in its most simple form means Christ like.
If the believers in Christ are Christ like that makes them Christians.
To help us understand what that means Christ has given us many teachings
of what it is to be Christ like. So it is good to reflect on them. Here are
five of the teachings of Christ on how to be Christ like:
1. Jesus said, "Do not
swear oaths." (Mt 5:34) Jesus says that oath swearing is of
the devil (Mt 5:37) and James says that swearing an oath can lead to
condemnation. (James 5:12) Therefore to be like Christ a person will not swear
an oath. Now this is an easy, clear command, no problem with obeying it and has
very clear problems for those who disobey it.
2. Jesus said, "Do not
resist
an evil man. Love your enemies." (Mt 5:39, 44) Therefore to
be Christ like, a person will not resist an evil man, but will show love to
him. Now this is a challenging command so we need help in understanding it.
Can a Christ like person join the military and kill people? Can a Christ like
person honor those who do join the military? Can a Christ like person honor
those in the past who have blood on their hands? This command can be understood
by learning how the apostles and those whom they taught understood it.
3. Jesus said, "Love
your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27) The central theme of
the preaching of Jesus and His apostles was love, God's love for His people and
His people's love for God and for each other. A Christ like person will live
like those people in the New Testament who were taught to love their fellow
Christians as they love themselves by sharing all material goods in
common. (Acts 2:44, Acts 4:34)
4. Jesus said, "You
can not serve both God and wealth." (Mt 6:24) Therefore a
Christ like person will serve only God and not store up wealth (Mt 6:19), will
sell his possessions (Luke 12:33, Luke 14:33, Mt 19:21, etc) and share finances
with other Christ like people. (Acts 2:44, Acts 4:34)
5. Jesus said, “If you belonged to
the world, it would love you as its own. You do not belong to the world because
I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
(John 15:19) Therefore to be like Christ is to be hated by worldly people.
How to be Christ like is a very narrow, difficult path, just as Jesus
said. However it allows us to experience the love, joy and peace that Jesus
gives to His people.
An Example of Being Christ Like
Dirk Willems, a 16th century Anabaptist martyr, lived in
Asperen, Holland. According to the Martyr’s Mirror, Dirk was imprisoned as a
heretic by the Catholic ruler of that area because he rejected infant baptism.
Then one winter day he managed to escape from prison. Pursued by a guard, he
was able to cross a river covered with thin ice. However, the guard following
him on the ice fell in and was on the point of drowning. Then Dirk came back
and saved the man, who was very grateful and would have let him go, but other
police arrested Dirk again and brought him back to prison where he was burned at
the stake as a heretic on May 16, 1569. The picture above shows Dirk rescuing
the guard.
Anabaptist History
The Anabaptist religion is generally considered to have started on
January 21, 1525, in Switzerland. They wanted to restore the beliefs and
lifestyle of the Church founded on the teachings of the Lord Jesus and described
in the Book of Acts.
This included believer's baptism, non-resistance, no oaths, the two
worlds (kingdom of God ruled by Jesus and the kingdom of the world which is
ruled by Satan) and love one another to such an extant that they shared all
material goods in common. They called themselves "Brothers in Christ".
It is amazing to note that in the next few years there were many groups
who rejected the civil religions of the Catholic and the Protestants. Their
common belief was in the rejection of infant baptism so the Catholics and
Protestants called them all Anabaptist, meaning baptized again.
There was a wide variety of beliefs among those called 'Anabaptists' by
their enemies. Some were even 'sword carriers' for example.
But the mainline Anabaptists, the 'Brothers in Christ', kept to the
original beliefs. A number of communal Anabaptist groups sprang up and because
they were visible to the civil governments they were intensely persecuted,
thousands were tortured and killed by the Protestants and Catholics.
Jesus said that the world would hate His followers and that certainly was
true in the 16th century. They had to flee to escape and they tended to stick
together, forming large communal groups in places where the local lord would
tolerate them for a time.
Jacob Hutter was a charismatic leader of one communal Anabaptist group
and he succeeded in uniting most of the communal Anabaptists, which eventually
were called by his name, the Hutterian Brethren. They exist today in about 500
church communities (like small towns).
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. (2 Cor
13:14)
your brother and sisters in Christ,
Don, Michi & Naomi Murphy
Tucson, AZ, phone 520-297-1639
www.AnabaptistChurch.org
"Do not store up wealth on earth… You can not
serve both God and mammon.” (Mt 6:19)
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