Reading Scripture as a whole
Recently my home church has been doing a series on “Listening to God” and looking at various genres of Biblical literatures. It gave me an excuse to use an old school Bible Bookcase image!
The pastor is on sabbatical so I got to do 3 of these on Old Testament themes: history, wisdom and prophecy.

With that fresh in my mind and listening to some stuff (not least some of the revivalist stuff around Lakeland) I was struck by how Christians either ignore the OT or get really into it. It’s not an original thought (I may even have been taught it at Spurgeons) but it is amazing how much “leftfield” teaching and biblical justification for stuff is based on the OT, and often without reference to (or interperting in light of) Jesus and the NT.

You can see that in everything from prosperity teaching to liberation theology. And it seems to me a lot of “anointing”, “glory”, “presence”, "impartation" stuff that is popular in the revivalist circles is very OT, without acknowledging the difference the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost makes. Seems to me the Epistles place little emphasis on this stuff (and yes I know it is there a bit e.g. 2 Tim 1:6), and more on faithfulness to Christ and the church living out the gospel.

More on Florida and all that
Following up a previous post on Lakeland, Florida, Todd Bentley etc.
Still lots of conversations and blog talk about this.
I guess having 24-7 God TV coverage, You Tube clips, makes this a media event and different even to the Toronto stuff.
Dan has added some helpful thoughts.

Related or unrelated to this stuff, I do hear of things "stirring" in churches, coming to life, the Spirit moving etc.
What does/will/could revival look like in post-Christendom?
Or do we need a new word?

Perspective
This video brings a poignant, sobering global perspective to notions of God's blessing and the purpose being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Charismatics, Florida and the "R" word
Lots of blog chatter about Todd Bentley and the stuff happening in Florida (here's the offical site, lots on You Tube). Seems stuff also happening in Dudley (yes the West Midlands!!).
Such things leading again to talk of revival and renewal. I guess it's over 10 years since the peak of the Toronto and Pensicola stuff...
Most helpful reflections I've come across are here from Dr Bendan McCarthy and here from RobbyMac.

Be interesting to see where this goes...