0 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:08,000 Do you ordain persons? Are you ordained? 1 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:18,000 This question comes up from time to time, and I don’t know exactly what a person would be wondering when they ask it. 2 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:24,000 It perplexes me. Why is it important? 3 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:32,000 And the answer to my question about why a person would need to know that information, 4 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,000 is probably more important than my answering the original question. 5 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:47,000 I would simply encourage you to look at the New Testament record. Don’t try to punch a square peg into a round hole. 6 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:53,000 Acts 6--describing the appointing of the Seven--was not an ordination ceremony. 7 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:58,000 You quickly see Stephen going one direction and Philip going another. 8 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:05,000 These guys were recognized and there was something imparted to them by the laying on of the apostles’ hands. 9 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:13,000 There was something special already in their lives to have been recognized previously as men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. 10 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:22,000 There certainly is a transaction of men being recognized, and the laying on of hands is certainly a biblical idea. 11 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:28,000 All of that is very proper, good, and right. God works through those kinds of things. 12 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:35,000 But ordination with a certificate specifying that a person has completed some academic criteria? 13 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:40,000 There’s no indication whatsoever that a man has any relationship with God at all 14 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:45,000 if he’s able to academically handle the curriculum of a bible school or seminary. 15 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:47,000 That has nothing whatsoever to do with it! 16 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:56,000 And to lay hands on a man suddenly, who isn’t demonstrating the life and the fruitfulness and character of Christ… 17 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:01,000 and a knowledge from heaven (versus something that flesh and blood has revealed to him in a classroom)… 18 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:13,000 is a grotesque mistake -- a mistake that is at the very root of why so many problems exist all over the world right now in Christendom. 19 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:22,000 So there’s a Right way in the Spirit. And then there’s a totally wrong thing, which is a practice of men in religion. 20 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:28,000 You can at least catch the spirit of the difference enough to think about it and pray through it. 21