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Keep
on Feeding the Foolish Ox Last Sunday I was feeling pretty good about myself. When I got up to preach I was "In the Zone," which means that everything was working. I even managed to keep the attention of the members of the junior high class (my toughest critics). I felt like what I did was really important, really relevant, really significant . . . for one brief moment I felt extremely good about myself and my preaching. Well, the good Lord decided that it was time, once again, to make sure that the preacher got a good dose of humility to keep him from being "puffed up." The next night, we went out to dinner with our good friends, who also happen to be members of our church. After dinner we were visiting over a piece of king cake (a New Orleans tradition). Suddenly, their precocious nine-year-old daughter asked me, "Brother Jeff, do you have a job?" Now, as I recalled, she had been sitting in church the previous day when I "wowed" everyone with my dazzling sermon. I smiled and reminded her, "Why, yes, I'm the preacher." She got a puzzled look on her face. "You mean you get paid for preaching?" That left me a little flustered as I tried to explain the value of my job. I spent the next few hours trying to think of all the clever things I should have said and all of the biblical arguments I could use to justify my preacher's salary. As it turns out, I could only come up with two. In 1 Corinthians 1:21 Paul writes: "God decided, through the foolishness of our preaching, to save those who believe." Well, if Marshall McLuhan was correct and "the medium is the message," what does that say about the messengers? When it comes to preaching, in the eyes of the world, and those of children, what we preachers do seems pretty foolish. Why should people pay us just to stand up for 30 minutes a week and talk about God, faith, hope, crucifixions and resurrections? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Perhaps that's why the apostle Paul felt the need to justify paying us preachers when he wrote in 1 Timothy 5:17-18 that those "elders who labor at preaching and teaching" are worthy of "double honor" (honor meaning financial support). He then gives a scriptural justification by quoting Deuteronomy 25:4: "Don't muzzle an ox while it is threshing." Now, an ox is a mindless, hard-working beast of burden, an emasculated bull. To thresh means "to beat the stems and husks of (grain or cereal plants) with a machine or flail to separate the grains or seeds from the straw." According to the Law, the ox was allowed to eat those pieces of grain which fell to the ground while he was doing his work. Speaking as a preacher I must say that this is not a very flattering comparison, and I think it proves that despite evidence which might appear to the contrary, the apostle Paul did have a sense of humor. Well, after my little study the best I can say is "We preachers may appear to be pretty foolish, but even a dumb ox needs to eat." I guess that's why churches go on paying us. Humility is a requirement for an effective preacher, and as long as nine-year-olds continue to ask such penetrating questions, God will keep us humble. Thanks, Emily, for helping me put things in perspective. This issue of THE RESTITUTION HERALD is filled with many excellent articles written by preachers, teachers and other honorable men and women engaged in the pursuit of truth and in helping you to deepen your relationship with God. And there's not a single ox among them. Enjoy and may God bless you as you sample the grain of their efforts.
Faith,
Works and Doctrine My purpose in this short article is to bring some clarity to the popular discussion about how we are to be saved. The use of certain "buzzwords" tends to cloud otherwise simple issues. "Doctrine" is often thought of today as a bad word. But the word really means nothing else than "teaching." If "teaching" is a bad thing, then Jesus was at fault when He told the church to go and "teach" (Matt. 28:19, 20). "Doctrine" is therefore a most biblical concept. The whole Bible is a teaching and therefore a doctrinal book. One has only to look up the scores of references to "preaching and teaching" (these two words are not clearly distinguished in meaning in the NT) to see that without such doctrinal activities there would be no Christian faith. "Heresy" in the NT is simply false teaching, which causes a division in the united church. Peter says "There will be false teachers among you who bring in destructive heresies" (2 Pet. 2:1). When Jesus said "Beware of false prophets" (Matt. 7:15), He could just as well have said, "Beware of those who teach falsehood or heresy." It is popular today to decry "proof-texting." Usually this actually means, "I don't like the way you are using the texts of Scripture to prove your point." Anyone who teaches from the Bible uses texts to prove his assertions. The Bible writers did it all the time. Look for example at Hebrews 1 where a whole lot of "proof-texts" are used to support an argument about the role of Christ. It is also popular today to say that the early Christians had very little systematized doctrine. Scholars recognize this to be untrue. Paul speaks about "the outline" of sound words which Timothy was to retain. This word "outline" means "standard," "form" or "shape." It suggests a system. It is hard to see how any unified system of teaching can proceed if there is no recognized standard. When the Bible writers speak of "knowing the truth," or "coming to a knowledge of the truth," they obviously have a certain corpus of Christian information and teaching in mind. We sometimes hear today that "propositional" theology is a bad thing. The cry is for "heart knowledge," not "head knowledge." The distinction between head and heart reflects the vocabulary of our western world, but not that of the Bible, where the heart is often a synonym for what we call the mind. All propositions in the Bible are addressed to the whole person. Belief and faith are inevitably based on some propositions to be believed. Believing propositions inevitably involves the intellect (often another "dirty" word in the contemporary discussion). But Jesus' purpose was to bring us "an understanding" so that we may know God (1 John 5:20). No wonder Jesus rejoiced that the disciples were those to whom "the knowledge of the open secrets of the Kingdom of God" had been given (Matt. 13:11). We often hear that "works" play no part in salvation. This statement contradicts what James said: "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone"(James 2:24). James was an immensely important person in the early church. Having known Jesus as his half-brother he was well placed to speak for the Lord. Jesus taught that failure to use one's talent for Christ results in exclusion from salvation (Matt. 25:25-30). Notice that it was Christian talent which went unused. Insofar as the use of talent is "work," it follows that without such work you cannot be saved. Paul also said that failure to measure up to certain standards results in exclusion from salvation (1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5; Gal. 5:21). It is by "patient continuance in well-doing" that we will enter the Kingdom of God (Rom. 2:7). Doing well certainly implies work. It is by grace that we are empowered to do work for God. I suspect that a lot of the confusion in the contemporary debate stems from a confusion of biblical dogmas and post-biblical dogmas. By dogma I mean a firm basic creedal statement. The Bible is full of dogma in this sense. When Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, it was on this confessional, doctrinal statement that Jesus said He would found His church (Matt. 16:16). In post-biblical times a lot of false dogmas were introduced which were not based on the Bible. "The doctrine of the Trinity," says the Oxford Companion to the Bible (1993) "cannot be clearly detected in the canon of Scripture." The idea that man is immortal and survives as a disembodied soul at death is another unbiblical dogma, often thought to be Christian, while it is actually Platonic and philosophical in origin. The teaching that the church is to be led by a single "monarchical" bishop/pastor, rather than a plurality of experienced "elders/pastors" is also not found in Scripture. It dates, along with many other "dogmas," from the second century. Christians cannot shirk the responsibility of believing the right "doctrines." The alternative to believing true teachings is believing false ones. The mind cannot be a vacuum. Paul knew well that creed leads to conduct. Creed is very important and is integrally related to the right Christian walk. Paul believed that failure to believe Truth was the same as unrighteousness and wickedness (2 Thess. 2:12). How important, then, is Truth? A good place to start in the quest for Truth and true teaching is the teaching of Jesus Himself. The "constitution" of the New Testament church goes back to Jesus and the traditions inherited from Him (Heb. 2:3; 1 Tim. 6:3). Jesus has the final word in the debate about what we should do to be true disciples. He began by commanding repentance and belief in the Gospel about the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14, 15). This was an urgent call for a wholehearted response to a proposition which demanded intelligent belief and action. Jesus did not call for a vague change of heart in regard to certain sins. He called for belief in a specific Gospel Message about the Kingdom of God. This pattern of preaching was carefully followed by the New Testament church. They had a well-recognized pattern of instruction (not steamrollered into a written code which had to be followed like a rule book). The basis of New Testament teaching is summarized in a form which some scholars recognize as an early creed. "When they believed Philip as he proclaimed the Gospel about the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, both men and women" (Acts 8:12). Baptism in water was of course an essential part of the pattern of apostolic teaching. It was commanded by Jesus and, following Him, by Peter (Matt. 28:19; Acts 10:48). After the Gentiles received the gift of the spirit no one was able to stand in God's way, so Peter proceeded to baptize them as a sign of their membership in the body of Christ (Acts 11:17). It is well for us to remember that evangelism as done by Paul involved a lot of "proof-texting," the use of Scripture to explain, even argue the faith. Note a typical example of what Paul did in Rome for two years. Paul "solemnly testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and the Prophets from morning till evening. And some were won over to his point of view, but others would not believe" (Acts 28:23, 24). This tells us what it means to believe: to be won over to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles about the Kingdom of God. Notice what an excellent model of service Paul presents. He followed his master the Lord Jesus: "Jesus welcomed them and began speaking about the Kingdom of God" (Luke 9:11). "Paul welcomed all who came to him, preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28:31). Faith and obedience are closely linked in the Bible. The church's marching orders are quite clear. We are to take "everything that Jesus taught" the disciples and, like them, go into all the world "teaching and baptizing" (Matt. 28:19, 20). This is how a relationship of intimacy is built with Jesus. It is by doing what He commands. Sometimes it seems that Christians are looking for a problem-solving revival when what is really needed is believing and doing what God has already commanded. Do we have to be constantly looking for what God desires to be done, when He has already told us what to do? "Go and make disciples." This implies a major orientation outwards from the church, not just maintaining the status quo within the church. We are living in times when the "Word of the gospel" as a direct statement from God is being questioned just as the "Word of God" was questioned in the Garden of Eden. People sometimes intimate that they would rather have an experience than hear about the Word. But hearing and doing the Word of God is still the will of Jesus as it always was. Genuine relationship with Jesus is built on careful listening to His Word and performing it. The rewards are great: "If you abide in me and my teachings [=doctrines, summarized under the gospel about the Kingdom] abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it will be done for you" (John 15:7). Who can say that "doctrine" is unimportant? The teachings of Jesus are the lifeline of the Christian, the only means of relating to Jesus. The question is, are we faithfully teaching the right teachings, those which originated with Jesus and His preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Luke 4:43, etc.)?
Give
and It Shall Be Given Unto You January 2, 1997 I just wanted to share an experience we had over the Christmas holiday. Friday evening, December 20th, as I was going home after work, I noticed some confusion on Henry Street -- at first I thought it was in front of the church, but in trying to get around the police, fire trucks, etc, I discovered that a house just past the church was on fire. I later discovered that the lady of the house was a waitress at Ryans whom we had known casually for some time. She is a great worker -- holding down two jobs to support her three children (her husband doesn't work). I called Ryans to see if this truly was Kim's house, and to see if there was anything we could do. I asked the assistant manager to call me with this information. Saturday afternoon, as we were practicing for the Christmas program, a lady came in the door of the church with an envelope that she had intended to tape on our door. This letter informed us of the fire, and told us that she listened to our radio station every day, and since we were in the neighborhood, she thought maybe we could help Kim. I again called Ryans for more information. We as a church decided to write her a check for $50, and to keep in touch so we could help on a more regular basis, rather than one larger contribution. When practice was over, Loyd and I decided to go to the Venture store in Festus and buy some Christmas gifts for the children. We had our basket rounding over, and as we approached the registers, I remembered the store Christmas policy -- every 50th customer receives their purchase free. I turned to Loyd, and told him about it, but he didn't think it was likely to happen. I asked God to lead me to the right lane, and got in line. Loyd told me that the next lane was shorter, but I chose to remain where I was. He said he was going to go get the car. And I remember thinking that he was going to miss the excitement. I continued my thought conversation with God, and as I approached the register, I got this strange "uptight-tingly" feeling, like I get before I get up in front of an audience. Just then a lady came up to me and said she'd like to ask me a few questions. I readily agreed. She asked if I had any family members working for Venture -- I don't -- and then told me that my entire purchase was FREE. All $87 in gifts was FREE. I started crying, and proceeded to tell her about my prayer, and the family that had lost all of their Christmas presents. Everyone in the immediate vicinity was listening as I was able to witness about God and the way He answers prayer. Loyd was of course amazed that it had really happened. We were able to witness everywhere we went that evening. When we got home, we picked up the check from the church and took it and the gifts to Ryans for Kim. We were able to witness again to the employees at Ryans. Kim had come in to work that evening -- as she needed the money. When we gave her the check and the church card, along with the presents, she was almost in tears. She said she had received one of our cards (with our tip) the previous week, remembered our church from that, and would see us in church. We look forward to seeing her and her three children in church and will keep in contact with her on a regular basis. And we will keep handing out church cards with every tip we give -- and every chance we get. This experience really made our Christmas joyous. Christmas is for giving -- giving Christ. Miracles still happen -- when we pray and believe and wait on the Lord. Now if He would just send us a pastor . . . I know . . . In His Time!
Learning
to Fish from the Master I must admit I've never been a particularly effective fisherman. In fact, it's safe to say that at times I've been downright pitiful. In fact, in past years on our family fishing expeditions to Canada, about all I accomplished was to provide a bit of comic relief to the other fishermen, as on more than one occasion I managed to drop my fishing rod into the lake. Yes, some of my greatest personal frustrations have come in attempting to catch fish, but then, some of my best memories in life have also been at the end of a fishing pole, as a five-year-old boy catching a fish while sitting on grandpa's knee. The same has been true when it comes to fishing for men and women -- what the Bible calls evangelism. I have known times of tremendous frustration as I have opened up the pages of the Bible and shared the glorious truths of Jesus Christ and His salvation, of the hope of God's kingdom on earth to begin at the coming of Christ, of the blessings of having one's sins forgiven and emerging from the waters of baptism cleaned from the stains of sin -- only to have the fish turn his nose away from the bait and swim away. But I have also known the great satisfaction of sharing those truths from God's word, having them be heard, accepted and believed, and assisting in the new birth. There is no greater privilege on this earth than to help someone come to Christ and receive eternal life through His name. If that is true, and I believe it is, why haven't we in the church been more successful at it? Why haven't more people come into the faith? Why don't more of our church members actively share their faith and witness to others? Evangelism is kind of like the weather -- everybody talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it. In Luke 5:1-11 we read about an event that Luke records as having taken place early in the public ministry of Jesus, as He began calling the disciples to follow Him. The story takes place along the shores and in the middle of a lake called Gennesaret, which is more commonly known to us as the Sea of Galilee. In this story Jesus provides us with a powerful object lesson that shows us how to go about the business of doing evangelism. If we pay careful attention to the leadership of Jesus, and follow His leading instead of our own ideas, we will learn how to be more successful in winning men and women into the kingdom of God. The first important principle we learn from Jesus is very basic: understand your objective. 1. It's not to go for a boat ride. 2. It's not to form a fisherman's club. 3. It's not to debate the correct philosophical foundations for fishing. 4. The objective is to catch fish. In order to catch fish we must go to where the fish are. "Put out into the deep" (v. 4). Too often the church has made the mistake of expecting the fish to come to us. We build an aquarium which is called a church. We fill it full of fish (church members) and then we sit back and wait for other fish to jump into our fish tank. What's happening in American churches is not very encouraging. When one church experiences growth it's usually because another church is experiencing decline. The fish in one tank get tired of the fish food they're being offered, or they don't like the color of the rocks at the bottom of the tank, or they don't get along with some of the other fish in the tank. So they go off swimming around for another aquarium. Then when they've found what, for them, is a more suitable aquarium, they jump in. Many times the fish are leaving small aquariums in favor of larger ones that have a larger variety of fish and more types of fish food to eat. This is all well and good for the larger aquariums -- who celebrate their increasing numbers of fish in their tank. But have they really been catching fish, or simply transferring fish from one tank to the next? Let there be no mistake: if the water is polluted in another tank, or if the fish aren't being given the proper food, then we should welcome those fish to come into our tank -- but let's not kid ourselves by thinking that we've been fishing. The fact is that when Jesus went to the aquariums of His day and offered them fish food, most of them didn't like it. When Jesus preached His radical message of salvation in the synagogues, some folks wanted to kill Him. When Jesus went to religious places, like the temple in Jerusalem, trouble soon followed. Those fish didn't want His food. They didn't want Him disrupting the balance in their aquariums. Jesus spent most of His time fishing out among the common folks. He went into the small towns and villages. He went to where the people were. He talked to people at weddings and funerals, He went to people's homes, He talked to ostracized prostitutes who had to draw their water from wells outside the city gates. He visited with the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. He rescued the fish that had washed up onto shore. He went out into the deep, murky, unknown waters far out from shore. He reached out to the demon-possessed man, the half-breed Samaritans. His message to Simon Peter and the others was simple: "How on earth do you think you're going to catch any fish just standing around here along the shore, cleaning your nets and drinking coffee? If you want to catch fish you have to get into your boat and go out into the deep water where the fish are -- then you will catch some fish." Once you get out to where the fish are you've made a good start, but you're far from finished. Next, you have to use the right bait. Use the Right Bait -- "Let down your nets for a catch" (v. 4) The fish aren't just gonna jump up into your boat just because you've shown up. You have to let down your nets; you have to minister to people at their point of need. You have to come to them right where they are and offer them an alternative to the life they are currently living -- in the midst of their hurts and hopes. Jesus knew very well a principle of human nature that it took psychologists nearly 2000 years to discover. This principle was clearly laid out by the psychologist Abraham Maslow earlier in this century. Abraham Maslow recognized that human beings have a basic hierarchy of needs. He illustrated these needs in the form of a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid are physiological needs -- hunger, thirst, pain. When those needs are not being met they become a driving force in man's life. When you're tired, hungry or sick you care about little else than meeting those needs. Once they are met, then you can go on to other needs: safety/security needs -- insecurity, anxiety and fear. Next are love/affection needs -- loneliness, rejection, isolation. Next are self-esteem needs -- guilt, failure, inadequacy, embarrassment, lack of recognition. Finally, at the top are what Maslow called self-actualization needs -- frustration, emptiness, uselessness, boredom. Self-actualized people are those who have found true satisfaction in their lives. They feel complete and useful; they sense their lives have purpose and meaning and fulfillment. But people are not likely to arrive at this level until they have first been able to meet their physiological, security, love and self-esteem needs. Jesus had keen insight into human nature and knew this to be true, so His ministry reflected this understanding. Jesus came to the hungry and fed them. Jesus came to the sick and healed them. Jesus came to the fearful and offered them assurance. Jesus came to the lonely and rejected and offered them companionship and acceptance. Jesus went to the guilty and offered them forgiveness. Jesus went to those who were empty and offered them wholeness, to the bored and offered them meaning and purpose in life. Jesus used the appropriate bait and He taught His disciples to do the same. Jesus well understood the modern-day theory of evangelism that "People won't care how much you know until they first know how much you care." All of our attempts to self-actualize people with the message of the Gospel aimed at a person's intellects won't matter a hill of beans to them if they feel hungry, afraid, lonely and inadequate. Jesus taught the importance of understanding the objective: to catch fish; of going to where the fish are: in the deep water; and of using the appropriate bait -- by letting out our nets and meeting people where they are. But He stressed something further -- the need for patience as we wait for God's good timing. Wait for a Response -- "Master, we toiled all night" (v. 5) Simon argued with Jesus that they had been working unsuccessfully all night to catch fish. They were tired and frustrated at their lack of results. They had given up. All they wanted to do was go home, get cleaned up and rest. Too often we Christians are the same way. We know we should go fishing, but we don't really want to go to where the fish are and we're uncertain of which bait to use. But eventually, when the pressure of others or our internal guilt gets to us, we make a feeble attempt at fishing. When the results don't come right away, we get frustrated and give up. Jesus said, "Come on, let's go fishing." The difference between their previous fishing trip and this one was profound -- this time, they had the Lord in the boat with them. They trusted Him to provide the results, and they were willing to wait for it. How often have I attempted to go fishing on my own, without bringing the Lord along, and without waiting long enough for the fish to swim into the net? How much has impatience cost me? I wonder how many times I have given up fishing just before the fish was about to take the bait. Once the fish are in the net, however, the job isn't quite finished. They have to be pulled into the boat. Pull the Fish in -- "They came and filled both the boats" (v. 7) Simon and the others began pulling the fish into the boat, and to their surprise and amazement the nets were absolutely filled to overflowing. There were so many fish that they almost sank the boats. Once they got back to shore, shaken and afraid, Jesus calmed them and said, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." Here Jesus offered them all that they needed: fish to feed their hungry bellies, safety and security to calm their fears, acceptance, companionship and inclusion -- "come, be my disciple; be a part of this group; we want you." He offered them self-esteem, achievement, confidence and success. He had shown them that they could do it. Finally, He was offering them self-actualization -- He was giving them a purpose in life beyond simply surviving. He was offering them an opportunity of a lifetime. He was inviting a group of poor, smelly old Galilean fishermen, working class people, unlettered and uncultured, to become His assistants in calling men and women into the Kingdom of God. How Can We Respond to the Message of Jesus? We in the Church of God faith of Ahraham have been around for a long time, since the middle of the 19th century. And yet our efforts at growing our denomination have been less than satisfactory. Our numbers today aren't much more than they were 50 years ago. Why? Is it because of our doctrinal beliefs? Are they so counter to mainstream Christianity that people simply won't accept them? No -- groups like the Mormon Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses are far more radical then we are, yet their numbers have swelled in that same time period. The Muslim religion is drastically different from most of mainstream Christianity, and yet they are the fastest growing religious movement in America. In fact, at current growth rates it's estimated that the number of Muslims in America will exceed the number of Presbyterians by the year 2000. If it's not our doctrinal beliefs that are keeping us from growing, then what is it? Could it be that we are afraid to go out into the deep water where the fish are? Are we too content to stand along the shore and watch the other fishing boats go out -- while we criticize them for using the wrong kind of fish food? Could it be that we have failed to use the appropriate bait? Are we so focused on changing people's minds -- self-actualizing people with correct doctrine -- that we have neglected to minister adequately to people's physical, security, love and esteem needs? Have we been impatient and failed to wait for a response? Or worse, have we failed to bring Jesus with us in the boat? Or have we become afraid at the numbers of fish swimming around and simply failed to pull on the nets and bring them into the boat out of fear that all these new fish will cause us to sink? As we approach the 21st century we must remember that we have been given a mandate by Jesus Christ to go into all the world and create disciples. Jesus told us that if we would simply listen to His voice and follow His example as recorded in the Gospels we would become fishers of men. It's time for us in the Church of God to stop standing around the shore washing our nets. It's time for us to climb into the boats, to head into the deep and murky waters of our communities where the fish live, to let down our nets into their messy lives and offer to meet their needs for food and health, for security and peace of mind, for companionship and acceptance, for forgiveness and recognition, and for the purpose and fulfillment in life that can come through faith in Jesus Christ.
Faith
in the Living Water In John 4 we find Jesus leaving Jerusalem, going northward to Galilee. On the way He passed through Samaria. He came to a town called Sychar where Jacob's well was. There at the well He met a woman. Jesus asked her for a drink. She was shocked right down to her sandals. "You are a Jew," she said, "and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." She responded: "Where can you get this living water?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water [in Jacob's well] will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst." Water is used in Scripture to represent eternal life. "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22:17). "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! . . . Come, without money and without cost" (Isa. 55:1). A thirsty man does not drain this river by quenching his thirst. There is an adequate supply for all who choose to drink. Someone said: "Some Christians drink deeply at the fountain of God. Others just gargle." Perhaps the latter is more often true than we care to admit. On the basis of God's limitless grace and Christ's sacrifice, sinners are urged to accept God's benefits. Christ's provision satisfies the needs of the believer's heart. We accept it by faith. Faith is a concept more easily demonstrated than defined. You are exercising faith when you fly in an airplane, visit a doctor, or drink from a fountain. Chances are you can't land the plane or diagnose your illness or analyze what you are swallowing. Yet you are confident in the strength and skill of someone who can. How much more reasonable to trust God who has infinite power and loves us with an everlasting love! Faith never judges God by circumstances. If you get your theology from circumstances, you won't know from one day to another what is going on. Faith is the ability to accept from God whatever He gives us. It is often supposed that when people stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. Alas, it is worse than that! When they stop believing in God, they believe in anything. Four times Scripture says: "The just shall live by faith" (Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38; Rom. 1:17; Hab. 2:4). What is faith? "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). Faith is the absence of sight. Moreover, without faith we cannot please God (v. 6). Then of course the next obvious question is, how does faith come? "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). A prayer of an old mountain man might apply to all of us: "Lord, I don't pray for a faith that would move yonder mountain. I can take enough dynamite and move it, if it needs moving. I pray, Lord, for enough faith to move me." That gets right down to where the rubber meets the road. Real faith is not bringing God around to our way, but coming around to His way. Reach up as far as you can by faith and God will reach down the rest of the way. God does not say that we must be successful, but we must be faithful. Let's work on that. God sees tomorrow more clearly than we see yesterday. Let Him lead. Christ can satisfy us as He did the woman at the well. "Our Lord knows the way through the wilderness; all we have to do is follow."
"You
Make Me So Mad!" There are very often two parts or two meanings to what we say. There is usually an intent and a content -- particularly when we are upset. A man may say to his wife "You really make me mad when you do that!" Content -- you make me mad. Intent -- I want you to stop doing that! In this case, the content is not true. He, by a default or habitual decision, allows or chooses to make his angry response. He is totally responsible for his anger -- she is not. But he tries to transfer that responsibility to her. She resents and resists and maybe retorts. The intent is true, and he needs to address that intent directly and mean what he says: "I would really appreciate it if you didn't do that." She then has a much better opportunity to consider and perhaps discuss the issue with him without the resentment and resistance generated by his inappropriate attempt to make her (feel) responsible for his anger.
God
is One Person According to the Bible, there is only one God. The Old Testament frequently affirms that God is one (cf. Deut. 6:4). I believe the one God of the Old Testament is identified in the New Testament as the Father and the Father alone. No passage of Scripture teaches that the one God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal, co-eternal persons in one God. In fact, this theory is refuted by the very language of the New Testament itself. Paul prefaced each of his letters with a formula that carefully distinguishes between "God the Father" and "our Lord Jesus Christ."1 Not only is the Father God (Phil. 4:20); the Father is the only God ("one God and Father of all," Eph. 4:6). This Father is the God of Jesus Christ. "We always thank God," Paul writes, "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Col. 1:3; cp. Eph. 1:17). There is one God, the Father, and this God is distinct from Jesus, His Son. This observation is not new. In 1531, Michael Servetus wrote: "For that only the Father is called God by nature is plainly enough shown by Scripture, which says, God and Christ, Christ and God. It so joins them as though Christ were a being distinct from God."2 Servetus went on to quote (among other verses) 1 Corinthians 8:6, which states that "there is but one God, the Father . . . and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ." Similarly, 1 Timothy 2:5 states that "there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." God and Jesus are two separate beings. Jesus Himself referred to the Father as His God. In John 20:17, He instructed Mary Magdalene to tell His disciples that "I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." In John 17:3, Jesus said in prayer to God: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Jesus carefully distinguished between the only true God and Himself. This distinction is clear on nearly every page of Scripture. The most famous verse of the Bible proclaims it: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (John 3:16). Notice what that verse does not say. It does not say that "God so loved the world that he went down into it"; nor does it say that "God so loved the world that he sent himself." It does not even say that "God the Father sent God the Son" or that "the Father, who is God, sent the Son, who is also God." There are two persons in this verse: God and Jesus. God is the one who sends, and Jesus is the one who is sent. God is one person; Jesus is another. Not only is God distinct from Jesus; He is superior to Jesus in rank. Jesus said "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). Paul wrote: "For he 'has put everything under his feet.' Now when it says that 'everything' has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:27, 28). Can these verses be reconciled with the teaching that the Son is co-equal with the Father? I do not believe they can. Jesus' human experience differentiates Him from God. "Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:52). God, on the other hand, possessed wisdom already (Prov. 8). Jesus "learned obedience from what he suffered" and was "made perfect" (Heb. 5:8, 9);3 God was already perfect (Matt. 5:48). Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and died on the cross; God cannot be tempted (Jas. 1:13) and cannot die (1 Tim. 6:16). Jesus "became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs" (Heb. 1:4); God was superior to the angels already and has "inherited" nothing. The Father, and the Father alone, is God. If only one person is God -- and that one person is the Father -- then who is Jesus? Again the answer is clear from Scripture. Jesus is God's Messiah, the Son of God. This was Peter's confession of faith (Matt. 16:16). The Gospel of John was "written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:31). Jesus everywhere claimed to be the Son of God, but neither He nor the writers of the New Testament proclaimed Him to be God Almighty. "If the New Testament writers believed it vital that the faithful should confess Jesus as 'God,'" G. H. Boobyer asks, "is the almost complete absence of just this form of confession in the New Testament explicable?"4 On rare occasions Jesus is called "God" in a secondary sense as a representative of God, such as in John's Gospel (20:28). But "it is a misunderstanding to believe that the Gospel of John makes Jesus into God, or identical with God," writes Jacob Jervell. "Jesus is not God but God's representative, and, as such, so completely and totally acts on God's behalf that he stands in God's stead before the world."5 This is what Jesus meant when He stated that "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). He meant that He and the Father were united in purpose (cp. 17:11). His enemies prepared to stone Him, accusing Him of "blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God" (10:33). Many Bible students stop at that verse and assert that Jesus' enemies were correct. If we read on, however, we see that Jesus defined His ministry rather in terms of Sonship and divine representation: "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'?6 If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came -- and the Scripture cannot be broken -- what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'?" (10:34-36). Astonished at Jesus' skillful handling of the Scriptures and enmeshed in unbelief, Jesus' enemies were outraged (v. 39). As God's agent, Jesus functions as God, but He is not God Himself. Nor is the Son "eternal" as is commonly taught. He has risen from the dead and conquered death (cf. 1 Cor. 15:20-26, 57); He is now immortal. But that immortality was given to Him at His resurrection. His existence does not extend into eternity past; He was created at a particular point in time. Luke 1:35 explains the origin of the Son: "The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'" Notice the cause-and-effect relationship here: Mary's child is the Son of God because of the descent of the Spirit, not because His Sonship extends into eternity past. Raymond Brown writes that "the child is totally God's work -- a new creation."7 James D. G. Dunn adds that "it is a begetting, a becoming which is in view, the coming into existence of one who will be called, and will in fact be the Son of God, not the transition of a preexistent being to become the soul of a human baby or the metamorphosis of a divine being into a human fetus."8 The doctrines of the preexistence and deity of Christ are conspicuously absent from the early church's sermons as recorded in Acts. The apostles' biographical sketches of Christ's life (as in Matthew, Mark, and Luke) begin with His earthly ministry. "Jesus of Nazareth was a man" through whom God worked miracles and whom God raised from the dead (Acts 2:22ff; cf. also 10:36-43). Luke recorded no apostolic sermon which began "God came down from heaven and was born as man." What of the Holy Spirit, the alleged "third person" of the Trinity? The New Testament nowhere implies that the Spirit is a divine person distinct from God and Jesus. Unlike God and Jesus, the Spirit has no name. Nor does the Spirit get "equal time" on the pages of Scripture (cf. note 1), which is strange if the Spirit is a separate, co-equal person. Matthew 11:27 states that "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Some Polish Christians in the seventeenth century asked a very good question: Where does this leave the Holy Spirit? "If the Holy Spirit were a divine person, the Father would not alone know the Son and the Son alone know the Father. The Holy Spirit also, without a revelation from anyone, would know both."9 The Holy Spirit is God, but it is not a person separate from God. It is the presence and power of God Himself. "Where can I go from your Spirit?" the psalmist asks. "Where can I flee from your presence?"(Psalm 139:7). Clearly God's Spirit is synonymous with His presence. The Spirit is also the presence of Christ after His resurrection. In John 14:16,17, Jesus told His disciples He would ask the Father to send "another Counselor to be with you forever -- the Spirit of truth." Then He said that "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (v. 18; cp. Matt. 28:20). Lastly, He said that "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (v. 23). The indwelling of God's Spirit is the indwelling of the Father and the Son. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit This brings us to an important point. The Bible does talk about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 28:19). I very much believe in them. I believe that God, the Father, is fully revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ, and that they dwell in us through the Spirit. There is clearly a "threeness" here. However, the Bible does not say that these three are one God, or that the one God includes these three as co-equal, co-eternal persons. Footnotes 1 Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:1, 3; Eph. 1:2, 3; Phil. 1:2; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1, 2; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Tit. 1:4; Philem. 1:3. Notice also the conspicuous absence of the Holy Spirit. 2 0n the Errors of the Trinity, p. 12. 3 Although He was sinless (Heb. 4:15), Jesus had to be tested and tried and had to reach a state of completion so He could "become the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (5:9; cf. 2:10). 4 "Jesus as 'Theos' in the New Testament," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol. 50, p. 253. 5 Jesus in the Gospel of John, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984, p. 21. 6 Psalm 82:6. The reference is to the judges of Israel. They were "gods" in the sense that "the word of God came" to them and they spoke as God's representatives. If a ruler of Israel could be called "god," how much more may we say this of Jesus, the supernaturally conceived Messiah of God? 7 The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1977, p. 314; cf. also pp. 290, 291. 8 Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1980, p. 51. 9 Quoted in "The Racovian Catechism and the Holy Spirit," Wisdom & Power, November/December 1993, Vol. 7, No. 3, p. 7.
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