“Finding Freedom” – Galatians 5:1-13

flagWhat does it REALLY mean to be FREE? The flag of the United States of America has been for generations a symbol of freedom all over the world. Its vibrant colors signify a land where a small group of men realized their dream for a government that has protected freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press as sacrosanct ideals. Those men prized these human freedoms so much that many were bankrupted or died defending them. Oddly enough, in the long history of man, there is no record before their document that recorded them all as God-given rights before the one penned by them. No one thought, in the ions of the past, those simple but vital freedoms were worth enshrining in a document, until this group of gentlemen farmers, shop keepers and tradesmen sat together to form a government that offered a profound statement of man’s best intentions.

No sensible person would argue that these freedoms were not costly. At the same time, no thinking man or woman would deny these freedoms aren’t absolute – they have limits. I may have free speech, but I cannot yell, “Fire!” in a public place no fire exists. I will be arrested if I claim to possess a bomb on a plane (even if there is no such device). Why is my free speech curtailed? The simple answer is that it is reined in by well-placed and defined limits. True freedom provides civil society protections by limiting personal freedoms only when failure to do so will cause significant harm to others. I have the right to disagree with you, but not to cheat you and swindle you out of your money. I have the right to articulate a contentious position, but not to alter the facts before a court of law or the Congress of the United States. At the same time, it is worth noting that civil freedom isn’t the only realm in which freedom must be carefully defined.

Freedom has limits, and freedom has rules. Freedom is not a “free for all” in behavior, but rather a state or environment that is made safe by appropriate limits. In fact, I want to make an observation. I believe that no one can successfully navigate the tough circumstances of life if they don’t recognize that freedom has limits and rules, and we must learn to act within appropriate guidelines. We need to both learn the appropriate ground rules for interpersonal relationships, and regularly have a loving person hold us accountable for our actions. Today’s redefinition of LOVE as TOLERANCE OF ALL BEHAVIOR is as weak as yesterday’s definition of LOVE as LUST – so frequently stated on the radio of my youth. This fad will perhaps fade, but its thinking is enslaving the current generation into a kind of politically correct speech, while their uncivil behavior astoundingly increases but goes almost unabated. We need instruction, and we need correction. The Bible defines freedom, and it makes clear how people who are free should use their liberty – especially that spiritual liberty found in Christ!

Key Principle: True freedom is found in intimate attachment to God initiated by faith in Christ alone, and lived out by careful diligence in following God’s Spirit.

Because freedom in Christ isn’t a trip to Outback with their famous motto: “no rules” – we must challenge a spirit permeating the theology of the twenty-first century American church. There is a serious error that has been allowed to grow in our most hallowed halls, and some of it seems to stem from a misreading and misapplication of Galatians. It can be found in the misunderstanding of Paul’s words at the beginning of Galatians 5 – it “was for the sake of FREEDOM that Christ set us free!” Yet, what he meant by this claim may NOT be what people use the statement to justify!

Paul made clear that Christ offered justification and freedom from the atonement system’s bondage of continuous sacrifice – but it did not mean that believers were to devolve into undisciplined or loose living. To grasp his argument, we have to tear down some mythology, and then see what God really wanted us to become as a result of the truths about freedom He uncovered for us. Let’s start with a myth that keeps popping up, as we lay to rest for one last time what Paul was, and was NOT saying about keeping the Law.

Myth #10: The Law is worthless (circumcision, etc.) because no one can keep it! If you break one law, it is as though you broke them all – so Jesus made it all pointless.

No matter where I go, I find people that use the verses at the beginning of Galatians 5 to justify practices that have little or nothing to do with Paul’s argument. He wrote:

5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Before we go any further, let me say it clearly. Paul NEVER made this statement to justify ANY behavior that was morally forbidden in Scripture. Jesus didn’t free us from the expectation before God that our walk of life would include immoral behavior, lying, cheating, stealing, disrespect of authority, immodesty, etc. For illustration purposes, you can see this kind of thinking in places like www.christianswingers.com, where you will be able to read:

Christian Swingers – New Dating Site For Faithful Couples: For Christian Swingers things are not easy – often other religious people judge you, out of ignorance or envy, telling you that your lifestyle and love practices are wrong. But the Bible teaches us ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ and there’s that verse about the first stone… but if you’re keen on keeping your privacy, well – yours, and don’t want your friends, coworkers, other PTA members or just about anyone else to know that you don’t have a problem with faith and enjoying free love with other couples, this site can help you! It’s designed to cater to the needs of those like you: devout Christian couples who still want to have an active love life and share it with another, in good faith! … Visit our club and discover other Christian couples with the same interests and desires who find you hot – Christian Swingers website will make your life easier and give you more access to potential dating partners!

Again, let me be clear. There is Christian, there is love and there is freedom – but what these folks are talking about is neither free, nor Christian (Jesus didn’t authorize a brothel nor visit one), nor is it love – it is spelled L-U-S-T. I know some of you may think this is a hoax, and that I am being extreme, but I assure you the changes that are happening are very real all around us, and the resistance of the church is growing extremely thin.

Let’s get back to Scripture in Galatians 5:

2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. 7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion [did] not [come] from Him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump [of dough]. 10 I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is. 11 But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. 12 I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves. 13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only [do] not [turn] your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

We have carefully explored the argument in the letter, whereby Paul reasoned that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross alone provided the means to satisfy God and the old atonement system was finished and replaced. The freedom Paul spoke of in that context was NOT from RULES OF THE BIBLE. But we do have to answer some questions:

What WAS the issue?

The entire argument of Galatians has been about the “formula of salvation”, not a manifesto to get Jews to quit doing things God told them to do perpetually. Paul said, on the basis of everything we have seen (in Galatians 1-4), you should throw out those who are trying to place you under the thumb of the old atonement system (as he said at the end of Galatians 4) and take a stand (stay’-ko – stand fast, persevere) in the cancellation of the obligation (the word “free” is eleutheróō – properly to be released from obligation or restriction) to the atonement law and those who run it in the Temple of Jerusalem. In short, Paul said, drop them, and don’t feel any obligation to their beckoning to become enslaved by them or their teachings.

Paul moved on from his “drop them” to one final and clear statement about the defunct atonement system, He said:

5:2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

Obviously, Paul didn’t want Galatian Gentiles to start getting circumcised. Why would circumcision (something God commanded Jews to do as a prerequisite for a walk with Him) suddenly hinder the work of Christ in the Galatians? Essentially, there are two reasons. First, God didn’t tell GENTILES to do it, and second, if they started into the old and defunct system to please God, they would be drawn from the right way to satisfy God.

Imagine for a moment you are out west in a remote area. The last gas station you saw was more than an hour ago. You are on remote and winding mountain roads. The signs along the road are shot through with shotgun holes. The whitened skull of a bull is lying beside the road with the horns sticking out. As you drive, you pass over one old bridge after another – what appears to be the work of Roosevelt’s WPA. There have been only slight repairs for years. As you come upon a curve, you see a fork in the road. The left side of the fork is blocked with old and deteriorating barricades. The right side of the fork is open for “traffic”, but you are the only one you have seen along this road since you got on it. The closed side of the fork leads to the old main road, but was closed by the severing of a bridge that happened years before. The right side was the newer road, and it was open and safe to connect you to your destination… Now suppose you were being waved past the barriers into the broken road by someone who wanted to call you down the road to the broken highway, so that their gang could overtake you and get the benefit of your half tank of gas and the food items in your trunk. That was the argument Paul was making.

What the issue WAS NOT (but people try to say it is!):

It is clear that Paul was speaking about “salvation” or “justification” and not lifestyle issues after salvation (what theologians call “sanctification” issues). In 5:3, Paul makes a reference of circumcision as the “entry point” of the system of laws found in the Torah. Was he saying that circumcision was not appropriate for any believer because it forced the circumcised one into the keeping of the Law, be he Jew or Gentile? If that verse stood alone, or if it gets quoted alone in an article or theological statement it could easily seem that way – but I would argue that is NOT what he is saying at all. In fact, if you keep reading, it becomes clear that Paul was concerned NOT about the practice of circumcision (something he has done to Timothy AFTER he led him to Christ for salvation (Acts 16:1-3), but about the ISSUE OF JUSTIFICATION, as he makes clear in 5:4.

Let me be exacting in this: Paul wasn’t destroying the value of a symbol of circumcision that God told Jews to do for all their generations” (Genesis 17:12) at all. He was making clear that circumcision has ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE in the cause of satisfying God concerning a man’s fallen condition, nor did the entire atonement system to which it belonged. In other words, Paul said circumcision had NO EFFECT on anyone’s acceptance before God because of the full cleansing through faith in Jesus that replaced the former atonement system. I DON’T NEED circumcision to be saved, and nor does my Jewish neighbor. At the same time, if my Jewish neighbor trusts Christ and stands in that alone for salvation, he is not exempted from doing those things God called on his people to do “for all their generations” if he cares about being obedient to God’s Holy Word. He doesn’t keep Sabbath or get circumcised to be saved – he does those things God told his people to do BECAUSE he is saved and wants to honor the unique place God gave His people for all their generations, looking to a future time when God will turn His eyes back to that nation. Along with that, he doesn’t try to get those (i.e. Gentiles) who WEREN’T born under those commands of obedience to START keeping them.

Paul’s distinction is clear: Jesus alone saves. After salvation, it matters WHAT YOUR IDENTITY WAS WHEN you were saved as to HOW YOU SHOULD WALK. Sanctification is dependent upon God’s assignment to you in your birth identity. How do I know? Paul made it clear in 1 Corinthians 7:

1 Corinthians 7:17 Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches. 18 Was any man called [when he was already] circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but [what matters is] the keeping of the commandments of God. 20 Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called.

The distinction between those who were called to salvation in Christ as Gentiles and those who were called to salvation in Christ as Jews was to be maintained after salvation in daily life. Jews and Gentiles became ONE in Messiah’s salvation, but they were as distinct in lifestyle as bondmen and free men, as men and women. Each had restrictions and parameters of service, and these were determined by where God placed them in society when they came to Christ. In a unique distinction from the others on the list, bondmen (slaves) were encouraged to take advantage of any legal way to change their estate if an opportunity was presented (1 Corinthians 7:21).

As a result of all this detail, what we know is that Paul was arguing that circumcision has no effect on salvation whatsoever, regardless of WHO you are, where you come from, or what your background has been. At the same time, Paul wasn’t trying to get Jews to STOP following these commands of God to the Jewish people. The book of Acts makes clear that Paul was concerned that people who thought such things about him be corrected by a public display. Do you recall the scene? Paul returned from his third mission journey. He arrived in Jerusalem, and the believers were EXCITED, but there was a murmur in the room. Let me remind you of the story from Acts 21, as Dr. Luke, the writer, reminds us:

Acts 21:17 After we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. 18 And the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. 19 After he had greeted them, he [began] to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 And when they heard it they [began] glorifying God; and they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law; 21 and they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. 22 “What, then, is [to be done]? They will certainly hear that you have come.

Paul didn’t defend that he was doing any such teaching – to get Jews to stop keeping the things God told them to do forever, but took a public vow to show THAT HE WAS NOT teaching Jews to stop circumcising. He was not saying “Jews are OUT and church is IN”. He was not exclaiming “Law BAD, grace GOOD.” He was NOT just placating Jewish sentiment for the sake of making them happy. If that is true, Paul was a political animal, not to be trusted because he wrote one thing to the Galatians, and lived the opposite before the Judeans. That isn’t Dr. Luke’s view, and that isn’t a true retelling of the story – but it IS the popular mythology in a great many church circles.

Look back at Galatians 5. Paul talked about JUSTIFICATION in 5:4, and connected it with CIRCUMCISION. Since circumcision started long before the atonement system was defined in the Torah, why did Paul connect circumcision with the sacrificial system?

To a Jew, circumcision was part of the sacrificial system.

It didn’t START there, but it eventually became indelibly linked to it. Some Bible students struggle to reconcile how the issue of circumcision has ANYTHING TO DO WITH the issue of sin satisfaction or atonement. They may have trouble making the connection in their mind that would not have been troubling for Paul, or any educated Jew. The reason is simple: In the sacrificial system, only circumcised people could fully participate. In places like Exodus 12 – the famous passage on the Passover, God said:

Exodus 12:48 “But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.

During the days of the atonement system, the “ticket in” to be able to be a part of the Israelite system of sacrifice under the First Temple system was circumcision. By the time of the Second Temple (what many call the NT Period), there were two kinds of “proselytes” to Judaism – a proselyte of “righteousness” and a “proselytes of the gate”. The term “proselyte” is from an ancient Greek term for “stranger” or “newcomer”. Rabbinic Judaism separated them into two types; ger tzedek (proselytes of righteousness) and ger toshav (resident proselyte, proselytes of the gate, limited proselyte, half-proselyte).

• A ger tsedek was a gentile who came under the covenant God had with the Jewish people in the atonement system and was bound to all the doctrines and precepts of the Torah, considered a full member of the Jewish people. They were circumcised as adults and immersed in a mikvah in order to participate in the system of sacrifice.

• A ger toshav was a resident alien who lived among the Jews in Judea and was learning to follow the Torah, but were not required to be circumcised nor keep all the Torah commands. They were bound to the Noahide Laws (do not idolatry, worship idols, blaspheme, murder, commit Biblically immoral sexual acts, steal, etc.) to be assured of a place in the world to come. One NT ger toshav was likely the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:22) who was referred to as a “God fearing man”. Another was likely the “Ethiopian Eunuch” (Acts 8) who could not be fully embraced in the Temple because of his deformity (Dt. 23:1).

Paul made clear the entry to a defunct system was no help for salvation, and allowing the people who are offering this confusion to stay would only hurt them:

Galatians 5:5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. 7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion [did] not [come] from Him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump [of dough].

Paul was SO DISTURBED by the people pulling them off track, he spoke rather graphically and said: Galatians 5:12 I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves. If they are SO BENT on getting you to do this, let them cut themselves!

Jesus didn’t make the Law pointless – he made the sacrifices pointless. He didn’t strip the symbol of circumcision from the Jewish people. He put it back in the category of unique identity commands and cut it away from anything that was required by God for justification of ANYONE and for practice of Gentiles under any circumstances. Jews can do it to show they are Jews, but not to get to Heaven. Gentiles shouldn’t feel pressured to do it at all – since it is meaningless in their direct access to God.

SO WHAT?

I have poured out, in exacting detail, a passage that is used to open the door to countless permissions of bad behavior among believers. The “liberty in Jesus” is cited often in debates where people decide that rules of behavior of any type have been eliminated in the “destruction of the law” by Paul – a wholly misunderstood approach to God’s Word.

Let’s be clear: God’s limits aren’t bondage – the sacrificial system’s incompletion was. Liberty isn’t a release to engage in moral filth that which God forbade people of the past to do – it was the freedom to directly access an intimate and personal relationship with God through belief in Christ and His saving blood. Practicing a symbol God gave people to do for their unique and enduring identity wasn’t a description of some “cultural practice” – it was a description of God’s command to Abraham repeated over and over as a measurable symbol of identity. Paul wasn’t arguing to chop out parts of the Bible or become complacent in following God completely – he was making a distinction between the formula of salvation and the distinctive forms of sanctification.

Paul never argued that the life of a follower of God was marked by never denying any physical desire. He never meant by “yoke” that the Law was the problem – only that it couldn’t provide, even in the scores of animal sacrifices – a permanent and complete solution to sin.

Listen to the the subtle way this is confused: David Guzik, a commentator of enduringword.com wrote: “If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing: When we embrace the law as our rule of walking with God, we must let go of Jesus. He is no longer our righteousness, we attempt to earn it ourselves.”

That is dangerous speech in its implications, and it wasn’t Paul’s argument. If it were he needed to apologize for the confusion he made to that very point in Jerusalem in Acts 21. Paul didn’t want people to strip an allegiance to living life according to the standards of the many books of the Bible that preceded his writing career. What he wanted to do was clarify that the atonement system was broke and replaced. That is about justification, not about whether “doing the things God’s Word teaches in the first half are cancelled in the second half.”

• I want deliberately to defend Jewish believers who keep Sabbath and are improperly called LEGALISTS – Paul called them JEWISH BELIEVERS. If that isn’t true – he should have corrected the people in Jerusalem who knew Christ and yet were “zealous to keep the Law – but he didn’t correct them, he joined with them (Acts 21). They were saved by the cross and lived as believers by the standards God gave to their fathers.

Legalists aren’t people who DO what God told them to do – they are people who try to gain control of others by taking standards God DID NOT SET ON THOSE PEOPLE. Legalism isn’t having rules – it is misapplying them for the purpose of gaining control of another’s actions.

• Paul closed the section with an admonition: Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only [do] not [turn] your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. The freedom from the continual sacrifices of the atonement and all the labor that goes along with it was not given to us so that we may release ourselves to inattention to our walk with God, nor waste our stewardship on personal extravagance – it was a unique opportunity to allow us through our walk with Jesus to SERVE ONE ANOTHER.

The point of the Law was NOT to destroy one another by consuming each other in the arguments over the Law. When we do, we are adopting standards without the objective they were ever intended to produce – a community! When those who were never given the Law try to make it the standard in their lives (to become a new version of the Jewish people) they corrupt the binding influence the Spirit of God should have on their lives – to bind them to each other and to help them consistently be pleasing to God. If you allow the Spirit to lead you in your relationships, you will follow all that Jesus is concerned about for your building a community as Gentile believers. You will see the flesh without learning every careful distinction of the Law. There are many who live godly lives without a thorough knowledge of the Law – a with little desire to keep it. The following of the Spirit should produce bonds that will not come with angry disputing and boasting!

We will need to revisit this passage to look more closely, now that the atonement argument is finished. You have been patient through all of this. I wonder if, in all the words of Galatians 5, you see the clear point of the end of the chapter.. God had a goal with the Law, and it is the SAME GOAL that He has with His Spirit’s leading – to produce a loving, active, vibrant corps of people that live joyfully for Him!

I want to close this lesson with a plea. It comes in the form of a story, but it really IS a plea. Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist issued a challenge wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free quickly and easily. Always he kept his promise, but one time something went wrong. Houdini entered the jail in his street clothes; the heavy, metal doors clanged shut behind him. He took from his belt a concealed piece of metal, strong and flexible. He set to work immediately, but something seemed to be unusual about this lock. For 30 minutes he worked and got nowhere. An hour passed, and still he had not opened the door. By now he was bathed in sweat and panting in exasperation, but he still could not pick the lock. Finally, after laboring for 2 hours, Harry Houdini collapsed in frustration and failure against the door he could not unlock. But when he fell against the door, it swung open! It had never been locked at all! But in his mind it was locked and that was all it took to keep him from opening the door and walking out of the jail cell.

I plead with you to stop struggling with ANY LIST that you think keeps you from God. Open the cage. Jesus unlocked it. There is no longer condemnation for those who trust His completed work. If you think you need to earn God’s love, you haven’t checked the cage door. It is now unlocked. Come on out!!! True freedom is found in intimate attachment to God initiated by faith in Christ alone, and lived out by careful diligence in following God’s Spirit.

Renewing Our Values: “Redefining Standards in Relationships” – 1 Timothy 5:1-16

Adult and Daughter (9-10) Holding HandsBeyond showing a child how to relate to the God that created them, the next most significant lesson a parent has is to teach their child how to navigate life with proper behavior and consideration toward others. That interpersonal task is not disconnected from walking with God – it is related to the knowing and following Him. A child that learns to reflect God’s love to others will grasp much more quickly that happiness begins where selfishness ends. Meaning is found in walking according to the Creator’s purpose. Our richest delight can be found by following God’s deepest desires for His Creation as expressed in His Word.

When a child doesn’t learn to hold God’s love tightly, they don’t understand their own intrinsic value – because the value of a human being is found in the breath of the Creator within. When a child doesn’t learn that same value extends to all the others in his village, the child doesn’t learn boundaries and respect. Without an intimate knowledge of respect and value, behavior increasingly violates others and becomes caustic…On a societal level, as America shifts from our once assumed foundational morality to a different ethical environment – behavior is noticeably changing.

As the Creator’s authority was stripped from classroom, courtrooms overflowed… it was inevitable.

As Biblically molded structures are removed from the public eye, Biblically acceptable public behaviors devolve. So that I don’t speak in abstract terms, let me offer the picture from a “real life” story:

You are really tense from long hours at work, so you decide to go out with your spouse for the evening, onto the “red hot” town that is Sebring, Florida. As you get out on US 27, someone in the lane in front of you rolls down their automobile window and tosses a full bag of fast food trash from their car onto the median. You watch, helplessly, as the leftover soda cup falls out onto the highway, and the bag breaks apart. You deliberately try not to notice, because you are trying to have a good time. In a few minutes, you arrive at one of our little restaurants, and begin to look over the menu. It has been a day, so you pick out your favorites, and then start a conversation with your date, trying to talk about something other than your work and tension related issues of life. A minute into the conversation, you both are consciously struggling to hear each other because a man across the aisle is yelling into his cell phone about his work troubles, and trying to get someone to give him a break on a late fee. You suffer through the meal, listening to details of his life, payment history and many troubles – when you don’t know him and don’t intend to. Dinner ends, and though the evening has been “bumpy”, you want more from your date experience – because you both need to relax. The two of you decide to make your way to a movie for a diversion, but five minutes into the movie the group of children in front of you have decided they don’t want to watch the feature, and you shouldn’t want to either. They get up and down, make noise all the way through the movie, and distract everyone around them. You cannot find anyone claiming to be a parent. You miss critical scenes with them standing up and blocking you, and by now both of your blood pressure numbers cancel any plan for stress relief. You move elsewhere in the theatre, but they just get louder. Your complaints to the management obviously fall on deaf ears, so the two of you leave never seeing the end of the movie. Wound up tighter than a clock spring, you both decide to stop off for a cup of hot tea before heading home. You walk into the restaurant and sit as far as you can from anyone else. “Good!” you say, as you see only a handful of people in the whole place. As you sit down with your hot cup and begin another attempt at quiet conversation, a roar overtakes the room as a very loud woman two booths down shares a funny story with her small group of friends. You try to smile and think, “At least they are having fun!” Then you both notice it. Apparently, the poor young lady suffered some lapse in education, because she appeared to only be able to express happy thoughts in sentences thoroughly mixed with vulgarity – she has far too many words that contain four letters to keep in her head. Embarrassed at the crude speech, you both decide to go home, and you admit the time to relax somehow just didn’t do the trick.

Do you recognize “stressers” you have been facing this week? Public behavior is becoming a problem as the moral base of the country frays and recedes.

We all readily admit this is a problem, and there is little we can do to address it beyond reciting the “Serenity Prayer” and letting go what we don’t control. Now… if that is truly the case, why did I bring it up? Our text for study today reminds us that long ago, Paul recognized that behavior was a matter of training, and church behavior was a matter of church teaching. He spelled out relational behaviors for a younger Pastor, because he knew we would never be able to learn from the world the standard for the church.

Key Principles: Relationships are often defined and always guarded and preserved by proper behavior (right actions). For what is RIGHT, we should look to God’s definition of GOOD BEHAVIOR.

I have an app on my iPad called “Seven Little Words”. Today, we are going to take the complexity of relationships within the context of the Christian community and organize the teaching from God about this important subject around some little words that preserve the essence of the instruction to each of the people mentioned. For the sake of this lesson, let’s key in on TWO small but powerful relational WORDS – “Respect” and “Value”.

First, people must be RESPECTED:

Let’s start where the text starts with relationships…Paul opened in 1 Timothy 5:1-2 with two verses about four kinds of people that are grouped by their sex and age, and Paul related them to family relationships to help illustrate a single truth: relationships between believers must be based on proper respect boundaries. He wrote:

1 Timothy 5:1 Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but [rather] appeal to [him] as a father, [to] the younger men as brothers, 2 the older women as mothers, [and] the younger women as sisters, in all purity.

Respect in the context of the older men looks like asking them, in an appeal for help, not presumptive or angry correction (5:1). Address them the way you would address your father as you try to honor him.

Paul told Tim to be careful with older men (presbuteros) and not sharply rebuke them (lit. epiplasso: mold by striking with hard mallet, used only here and referring to “mallet speech”). Rather call him alongside to help (parakaleo) as you would your father! The idea is that you will gain help by humbly asking for it, not by demanding it. Good fathers don’t mind helping their children when the children don’t present an attitude of entitlement or demand, but they won’t be barked at and called to “jump through hoops”. Respect looked like Tim lovingly and humbly recognizing their value as a gift from God to the church as men that possessed skills essential to the community. Respect begins with recognition of intrinsic value.

Respect for younger men looks like comradery and brotherhood that can be drawn in when treated with the respect you wish to get (5:1b).

Younger men are to be treated as brothers (adelphos). The verb parakaleo (used as “appeal” to the older man earlier in the sentence) is grammatically linked and carries the verb to young men as well. In other words, Tim needed to “appeal” to younger men as he would to a brother he grew up with, and deeply loved. Brothers are part of that attachment we have to our past and our heritage. They are part of our blood, and (if yours were like mine) sometimes they drew blood just to prove it! Seriously, they are a part of us, and their success is familial success. They carry (along with us) the family name, and they are a direct extension of who we are.

Respect for an older women in the church looks like one who is treated with the deep respect one should give to their mother (5:2a).

So central was this respect, that it was part of the core standards of the civil code of Law, often referred to as the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20). It was repeated in constitutional law in Deuteronomy. Striking a parent was a capital crime. The Scriptures were filled with strong words about this, and Timothy knew them well:

• Leviticus 20:9 ESV: For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.
• Exodus 21:15 ESV: “Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.
• Proverbs 20:20 ESV: If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness.

These words represent violation, but given a few minutes we could amass a great repository of stories of care for mothers by sons – so the point need not be expounded.

Respect for younger women looks like treating them with PURITY as one would toward a sister (hagnia: purity, 5:2b).

Our culture has (sadly) objectivized women, and in doing so it has made them less than they were created to be. God didn’t create women as objects – but as His treasured, beautiful and wondrous human creation. She was made second – so some would be inclined to point out that usually a builder does a BETTER JOB the second time around. (Of course, since the Creator is perfect, that truth of human creation may not apply!). Seriously, men (and in this context in particular to a Pastor) need to be careful in their relationships with younger women.

Men, relationships with women begin with discipline of mind. God made you to desire them, and made their form beautiful in your eyes. I have it on good authority of men much older than I, that attraction does not leave us all our days. Because that is true, we must change our thinking about those dear younger women God has entrusted to our care and fellowship. We must see them differently – and that is about YOU and not THEM. Let me illustrate:

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. ‘That laundry is not very clean’, she said. ‘She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap’ Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments. About one month later, the woman was surprised to see nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: ‘Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?’ The husband said, ‘I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.’ And so it is with life. What we see when watching others, depends on the purity of the window through which we look. (from sermon central illustrations).

We need the “spirit of windex” to descend upon our thinking. We need to see these dear ones not in FORM, but as substantive, rich, promising parts of the community of faith!

While we are dealing with the subject of purity, I want to offer something that may be helpful for some of our younger believers to bear in mind. Tim White wrote this:

Where at one time, having sexual relations outside marriage was considered liberating, current studies show that it damages one’s ability to trust, affecting future relationship, one’s respect for self, affecting every decision and diminishing the value of right decisions, and one’s respect for health. Liberating? At what cost? Drs. Freda Bush and Joe McIlhaney released a study at Harvard University that shows that exposure to immorality and participation in sexual acts during childhood years actually changes the brain, interrupting the normal production and usage of dopamine, vasopressin and oxytocin in the brain for the remainder of the life. These chemicals, when released properly, create the “monogamy syndrome”, in that moment bonding the person to another. … According to the study, … “But that bonding, which acts like adhesive tape or Velcro, is weakened when people tear away at its power by breaking off with a sexual partner and moving on from one to another to another. So when it does finally come time to bond permanently with a spouse, the ability to bond is damaged. The brain actually gets molded to not accept that deep emotional level that’s so important for marriage. When they do marry, they’re more likely to have a divorce than people who were virgins when they got married…”

Purity is an issue on many levels – but it always, always ALWAYS begins in the heart and mind Deal with it there before it grows.

The bottom line is that people need to be respected – or the church will fall apart.

Respect in the public square sounds like civil discourse that adds substance, but is careful about attacking people. Respect in the church sounds like “Yes, sir” and “No, sir”. It can be seen when we hold doors for one another, when we get a chair for the one who is struggling to walk, when we control our children so that they don’t (in their youthful enthusiasm) create a hazard for an elderly person by running about unsupervised. Respect in relationships looks like deliberate focus on careful relationships, never creating a situation that could lead another to sin in thought or action. Thinking purely adds sanctity to this whole body. Defiled TVs lead to defiled churches – because a guttered mind won’t raise because the room is filled with hymns. We must be honest with ourselves, and careful with our minds.

Now stop for a second. With all that I just mentioned in mind… don’t forget that we don’t do ANY of what we do out of obligation – we do it out of LOVE. Biblical LOVE means that I see you as one that I can HELP, not as a plaything or toy. Biblical LOVE means that I get to show my King how I feel about Him by reflecting His character in my life and His Word in my value system. I AM TIRED OF OBLIGATED BELIEVERS- I want love-sick ones!

Second, people who are in painful and disadvantaged situations need to be VALUED. They are not a “problem” or a “ministry” – they are a valuable part of the family of God!

In the rest of our remaining study, I want to focus on the words of Paul about WIDOWS in the section between 1 Timothy 5:3-16. It is obviously a primer on who qualified for assistance and specific parameters of that help. At the same time, there is a larger theme that made it fit beautifully into the passage. In ancient society, a woman’s familial relationships defined her in even a more profound way than in modernity. Women deeply desired to have children – for it was their best opportunity to contribute economically to the family’s long term benefit. Many are the stories of women in the Bible that LONGED for a child – like Hannah, Sarah, Rebekkah, and Elizabeth – just to name a few. They “hard wired” their identity to their spouse and their family. I shouldn’t smile at this point, but it reminds me of a cute and pointed little story about a widow I read some time ago:

A dear woman had “Rest In Peace” put on her husband’s tombstone. A few days after his passing, she discovered that he left her out of his will. She had added to the tombstone inscription: “Till we meet again!” (Sorry! I couldn’t resist!)

In all seriousness, we cannot be glib with the fact that widows are women who suffered a seismic shock to their identity – and that is my real point. Today, we also could perhaps include a substantial number of women who have suffered the loss of their partner by divorce – who have also survived a shock of great import. In a very real way, the Biblical period “widow” was usually quite economically challenged, as well as grappling with facing life without her soul mate. There aren’t words I can use from a pulpit that would convey that deep sense of loss and pain. What I CAN do, what I am COMMANDED to do – is to recall the unique tenderness such a woman would require from both her Pastor and the congregation of fellow believers.

In short, people must BE VALUED.

If you look at this closely, you may be surprised at what Paul said. He offers us a very special nugget from an unlikely place – and it all starts with a person shattered by events beyond her control.

Many widows, if you take the time to listen, will admit they went through a time when they felt like a “fifth wheel”. Couples they and their spouse spent time with can turn into strained relationships, because she is ALONE, and that is awkward for some. In truth, there is little we can do about that but help her gain a sense of identity apart from her late husband. Paul told Timothy he was to honor her (timao: from to set the cost of; from temeos, to value or view as precious) widows (khayrah: stripped ones, reduced ones) 5:3. Here is exactly what Paul wrote:

1 Timothy 5:3 Honor widows who are widows indeed

Immediately, Paul had to establish WHO qualified for specific aid as a widow, and it is not simply anyone who has lost a spouse to death… that made them widows, but eligibility for assistance was another matter.

Paul sought to make believers place their families in the first position in regards to their own care.

He wrote: 5:4 but if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God.

There are perhaps two ways to understand what 5:4 actually addresses – but both lead to the same place in principle. If, in the grammar of the passage, the intended subject of the passage is the “children” or “cousins” (translated and updated by the proper word “grandchildren”) – then the issue is that children that can care for their widowed mother should be instructed to do so. That is certainly a true statement, but may NOT be the primary issue involved in the passage.

Look at the statement again. If the subject of the Greek sentence were supposed to be the “widow” – the issue of the text changes significantly. The issue was that in many Roman homes, parents sent their children to their parent’s home while the parents served in army duty, or did hard labor in a field, working outside the home for long hours. This allowed the younger family to have their children cared for by trusted “daycare” workers (that raised them years before) and yet establish stability without the extra issues created by raising children at home. In such cases, widows had to be instructed to send home their children’s children – thus allowing the family to take responsibility in a new way – similar to the teaching above in principle. The problem would have been that the women would feel GUILTY and not want to BURDEN the family. The had to be instructed to practice piety (eusebeo: act out properly and dutifully the right order from God) and to return value to (apodidomee: restore, repatriate or give back what is rightfully owned) to their families (5:4).

Don’t get lost in the verbiage. Paul wanted the woman without a family to help her to know that the church would be called up to “step up”. Those widowed believers without families needed to live out their faith and not waste their unique opportunity. Paul said:

1 Timothy 5 Now she who is a widow indeed and who has been left alone, has fixed her hope on God and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day. 6 But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives. 7 Prescribe these things as well, so that they may be above reproach. 8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

That unique place of becoming a picture is what brings about in Paul’s writing the warning: A widow who lives with extravagance, rather than caring for others about her, has missed the point of God’s blessing in this life! (5:6). Rather than become an example of God’s blessing, and an opportunity for a church to show their love to God, if she behaves badly she will create “handles” on their lives that the enemy can use (note the word anepileptos in 5:7).

Timothy was to expect believers to provide for their own families before anyone else helps them (5:8). The church could and SHOULD HELP – but must first must make clear standards for that help – because that was part of the display of God’s lesson through their lives.

Go back to verse 5 and note the words: “left alone” (mono-o, used only here) fixes her hope on God’s constant provision for her and others around her, asking God to care for them tirelessly.

Here is the heart of the teaching: The woman with the need becomes a picture of God’s provision before the whole church, as God uses the church to help her live day by day.

She becomes God’s teaching tool to her family to learn to care for her needs before asking for others to do so. She becomes a unique and deliberate tool in God’s hands to call those in the church to caring and loving acts of service. God grant that He will always raise up among us some with deep compassion who ask if needs are met!

Here is the point of God’s desire to USE HER. Her NEED isn’t a PROBLEM, it is an OPPORTUNITY for the church to learn to BE THE CHURCH. It is a display to the church of the need to slow down and not allow those who hurt to be trampled by the world with no recourse.

The widow is not a problem, she is a gift of God for a congregation to MEASURE its trustworthiness, its true desire to LIVE OUT God’s Word, and not just study its theory. Let me see if a story will make the idea of a SACRED TRUST more clear:

An elderly man was desperately ill. Knowing the time for his departure was near, he called for his closest friends to come see him one last time. Attending him were his doctor, his pastor and his business manager. The old man said, “I know you can’t take it with you, but who knows for sure? What if the experts are mistaken? I want to account for all possibilities. So I’m giving you each an envelope containing $100,000. When I die, I want you each to slip the envelope in my jacket pocket at the funeral service. Then, if I do need money in the life to come, I’ll be ready. And I’m giving the envelopes to you because you are my most trusted friends.” Shortly thereafter, the man did die. Each of his three friends was seen slipping something into the deceased’s coat pocket as he walked up to the casket to pay his final respects. Following the service, while these friends were visiting with each other, the doctor, with a sheepish look on his face, said, “Guys, I have a confession to make. You know with the cost of medicine today, I don’t make that much money. The hospital is desperate for funds. We can’t even replace the CAT scan machine that’s broken down. So, I took $20,000 for the new CAT scan and put the rest in the coffin.” The minister cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes. He said, “I, too, have a confession to make. As you know, our church is seriously overburdened by the needs of the homeless. I couldn’t just see burying that money. So, in hopes of helping the homeless, I took $50,000 out of the envelope and put the rest in his pocket.” Looking sternly at the doctor and the minister, the businessman exclaimed, “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I am astonished and deeply disappointed that you would treat a solemn trust so casually. He was our friend. I want you to know that I placed in his casket my personal check for the full $100,000.” (From Sins We Love, by Randy Rowland, p. 125-126).

People that understand a SACRED TRUST will see the widow as what she is – a special gift of God. Every needy person we meet is an opportunity for believers to show how much God has provided for them, and how much they trust His ability to provide for them in the FUTURE!

Keep reading about these precious “unlikely treasures” that God supplies to the church:

1 Timothy 5:9 A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, [having been] the wife of one man, 10 having a reputation for good works; [and] if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, [and] if she has devoted herself to every good work. 11 But refuse [to put] younger widows [on the list], for when they feel sensual desires in disregard of Christ, they want to get married, 12 [thus] incurring condemnation, because they have set aside their previous pledge. 13 At the same time they also learn [to be] idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper [to mention]. 14 Therefore, I want younger [widows] to get married, bear children, keep house, [and] give the enemy no occasion for reproach; 15 for some have already turned aside to follow Satan. 16 If any woman who is a believer has [dependent] widows, she must assist them and the church must not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are widows indeed.

Paul clarified some guidelines:

• The woman must be sixty plus, and a one woman man (5:9; cp. Titus 1:6).

• She must have been consistent in her walk and have witnesses (marturia) of her work for God (5:10):

a. showing a pattern of care (hospitality)
b. showing a pattern of service (nipto: washing of feet)
c. showing a pattern of sacrifice (aiding in care of distressed ones: (thleebo: pressed down and crushed as in the case of grapes).
d. Showing a constant readiness to be on board to serve (“to be on the heels of”) the work that needs to be done.

• Young widows must be held off the permanent list, as they are not ready for this distinction (5:11-12). They are not wrong for their desires to remarry, but the list is to be solemn and permanent. It isn’t just short term assistance; it is a long term symbol!

• If added permanently to the list before the age, they are enabled to misplace priorities (5:13-15)

Paul ended by reminding believers in the congregation that they should individually care for those they can BEFORE enlisting the whole church’s support (5:16).

The point was that just as the men and women of the church are to be RESPECTED, so widows are to be moved from a “liability” and “ministry” to a place of TREASURED WORTH – because God set up a special place for the church to pour out physical assistance on them as a display of His hand working through the congregation.

Have you ever thought of widows as having a SYMBOLIC OFFICE that God established? They do. They, and others who have needs in their lives not created by their choices, but by an act of God, offer the church a unique opportunity to show LOVE for Jesus by showing LOVE for THEM!!

I need to close, but before I do, give me just a minute and let me tell you what happened to Ted Forbes back in 1984. “While walking down a street in Chicago…Ted found a wallet. Being an honest Christian man he wanted to return it to its owner. So he opened it to look for identification. The wallet contained just $3.00. No driver’s license…no Social Security card…no pictures…nothing to indicate who owned the billfold. Looking through the wallet a little more, Ted found and an old envelope. It was wrinkled and looked as if it had been carried there for years. The only part of the writing on the envelope that could be read was the return address. To find more information, Ted opened the envelope, and to his surprise, the letter was dated June 6, 1924. The letter had been written nearly 60 years before. It was a “Dear John” letter. It was written to a man named Michael, and it was from a woman named Hannah. She explained that though she loved him, and she would always love him, her parents had forbidden her to see him any more. Ted Forbes wanted to locate the owner of the lost wallet. He drove to the location listed on the return address. He parked the car and walked up to the door. A woman answered the door. Ted asked the lady if she knew a Michael or a Hannah. He was told that 30 years ago she had purchased the house from a family whose daughter was named Hannah. She said that Hannah had placed her mother in a nursing home just a few blocks down the street. Ted drove down to the nursing home. He explained the story to the Nursing Supervisor. She told Ted that the lady he was trying to find had died. However, she gave him a telephone number where he might locate Hannah. Calling that number he learned that Hannah was not living there anymore. The person answering the phone said Hannah was now in an apartment house for the elderly. Ted began to wonder why he was making such a big deal out of an old, lost wallet which contained only $3.00 and a crumpled up old letter. But he decided to keep looking until he ran into a dead end. He finally tracked down Hannah and went to visit her at the elderly apartment house. She had an apartment on the 3rd Floor. Ted knocked on the door. A gray-haired, alert, bright eyed lady with a warm smile on her face answered the door. Yes, it was Hannah Marshall. Ted told her about finding the wallet and, showing her the letter, asked if she knew someone named Michael. Hannah took the letter. Tears filled her eyes. She told Ted that the letter was the last contact she had with Michael. She said that she had never married because she never met anyone she loved as much as Michael. Then she asked Ted if, when he found Michael, he would tell him she still loved him and that she thought about him every day. Ted thanked her and left. As he was walking down the apartment house hallway, he was carrying the wallet in his hand. The janitor saw the wallet and stopped Ted in the hallway. “Let me see that wallet.” Ted handed it to him. “Why, that’s Mr. Goldstein’s wallet. I’d know it anywhere. He’s always losing it.” Ted asked where he could find Mr. Goldstein. The janitor said he lived in Apartment 6 on the 8th Floor. So, Ted quickly made his way to the eighth floor. He found Apartment #6 and knocked on the door. Sure enough, an old man named Michael answered the door. Ted showed the wallet to the old man. He asked if it was his. Yes, it was. Ted admitted reading the letter to seek identification of the owner. Mr. Goldstein asked, “You read it?” Then he told Ted that his life nearly ended many years ago when he lost Hannah. He had never married and had never stopped loving her. Then Ted said, “Mr. Goldstein, I think I know where Hannah is.” The old man became very excited. Ted simply took him by the hand, led him to the elevator and down to the third floor to Hannah Marshall’s apartment door. When she opened the door, they looked at one another in disbelief. Michael Goldstein walked slowly to Hannah. He took her in his arms. And the 60-year separation evaporated in the warmth of their love. About three weeks after Michael and Hannah were reunited, Ted got a call asking him to be their best man. They were to be married after years of separation. It must have been some sight: a 79-year-old man and a 76-year-old woman acting like teenagers. A perfect ending to a tragic separation. They had every reason to celebrate.” (From a sermon by David Rigg, When a Lost Person Is Saved, 3/30/2011)

Relationships are often defined and always guarded and preserved by proper behavior (right actions). For what is RIGHT, we should look to God’s definition of GOOD BEHAVIOR.

Renewing Our Values: "A Place for Truth" – 1 Timothy 4

phoneAs I sat down to put this lesson into final form I got a call from someone with whom I am in the middle of an important business arrangement. She called in a panic to leave a message on my voicemail, when I picked up my phone – she was flabbergasted. She almost couldn’t get her words together. She stammered, and I said her name and asked, “Is that you? Is there a problem?” My mind was rushing through what could have been wrong with her… Was she being assaulted and hit her speed dial on her cell? Did she mean to dial a woman and was surprised to get my voice? I had no idea what the problem was. In a few seconds, she recovered and began to speak, “Dr. Smith… where are you?” I answered: “Sitting in my office at my computer. Why? Are you ok?” She said, I called very upset with you because the bank officer told me that you were cancelling our appointment together with them because you are out of the country. I couldn’t believe you would LEAVE like that and NOT tell me! I called to really let you have it!” I sat puzzled. I replied, “Well, I didn’t tell you I was going anywhere because I WASN’T going anywhere. I am not sure where the wires got crossed here, but I was planning on the meeting just like you were. I think I should make some calls and find out what is going on. I will get back to you.” When I did, I was even more disturbed. The bank officer I spoke to stammered a bit, and spoke in the way you speak when you are trying to make something incredibly clear sound fuzzy. They were caught with hand in cookie jar. In a few minutes they went from passing blame to the other party, then trying to blame me for a delay I played no role in. They suggested I was holding out crucial documents. Unfortunately for them, I keep copies of most everything digitally, and have records of most all that I do in business. It is a reality of modern business and leadership.

At long last, the banker as much as admitted in a round-about way they did not tell the truth and the postponement was because they could not be prepared for the meeting. Putting off the meeting was going to cost me some discomfort with the other party, but it was nothing insurmountable, if they had told the truth. The problem is, in spreading stories that weren’t actually the facts they made me look irresponsible in a relationship that can only be maintained with TRUST. They undermined my negotiating position. I wasn’t impressed, but I was STUNNED. I couldn’t believe two things: 1) that someone would make up something rather than simply explain they got behind and couldn’t get everything done as agreed; and 2) that someone would make up a story so easy to check and confirm. Obviously I wasn’t overseas as they said, and it wasn’t going to be hard to figure that out!

I think we all understand the desire to hide when we don’t get something done and we feel like we dropped a responsibility that we had. We alI recognize the temptation to lie to cover actions that were wrong or would cause us trouble. These tempting circumstances exist in all of our lives. Yet we are called to tell the truth. We are not to lie to protect ourselves from the consequences of our own wrong behaviors. What I find significant today is the brazenness with which even public personalities will say things that are cover up the truth, even when we have solid evidence they are lying. It seems like truth has been a commodity traded for lie when the price for truth is felt to be too high. Deals that are forged in a five inch pile of signed papers don’t seem to keep the erosion of truth at bay.

We cannot win in a fight to get fallen people to speak the truth even to their own hurt – and we shouldn’t waste our time trying to do it – unless we work in a law enforcement office charged with the responsibility to do so. What we can do is look within our own hearts and ask the Spirit to shine a light on any lie that may be lurking within, standing guard over our laziness and protecting our inflated ego. After that, we are to can look to the body of believers and make sure we understand what the truth is, and WHO the Truth is. That is what today’s text is all about.

Key Principle: Believers must cherish the truth, and unite behind it. The hallmark of the church must be to train people to recognize truth and walk in it.

You will, no doubt, recall that the letter to Timothy is not an evangelistic one – for Tim knew Jesus and led a group that knew Jesus. The letter was chiefly directed at RENEWING PROPER BEHAVIOR AMONG BELIEVERS. It is important to recognize that the ENEMY of the church is NOT NEW. The issues of SIN are NOT NEW… and the solutions for the problems we face as believers is NOT NEW. Even though the problems aren’t new, we have to admit the resurgence of the enemy’s old strategy is laying gloves on us these days. A study in 1 Timothy offers an opportunity to examine eight specific problems that believers have faced through the centuries, and apply God’s prescription for both preventative care and serious correction of each. This is our sixth study out of eight. As we look over the book:

• We started the series by talking about the kind of faith that changed how we live as recorded in 1 Timothy 1.

• We saw that living that kind of transforming faith makes men able to stop being stirred by struggles on earth, and see a Sovereign God that is at work above them and pray confidently in 1 Timothy 2:1-8.

• We recognized the need for affirmation in our wonderful women, and saw how a transforming faith works to bring happiness to Christian women and fulfillment to that need as recorded in 1 Timothy 2:9-15.

• We saw the important role character plays in leadership in light of God’s Word and His work of transformation in us in 1 Timothy 3:1-7.

• Then we saw how that character shows itself in service in the body as recorded in 1 Timothy 3:8-16.

Now we want to grab hold of the heartbeat of the church, and allow the number one priority in these days to emerge clearly. We want to realign the priorities of the church to one important and elevated task – to guard the Truth as Paul reminds in 1 Timothy 4.

The passage helps us directly confront the assault on truth and deliberately and measurably take a stand again the erosion of truth that is hindering our society from recognizing basic principles that will lead them to God. The text of 1 Timothy 4 can be easily split into two parts: the first addressed the problem the church faced and will continue to face in increasing ways before the King comes (1 Timothy 4:1-5). The second part related the prescription (as a medicine sometimes prevents and at other times treats illness) God offered to inoculate the church against a slide into error, or to help it recover when she stumbles (1 Timothy 4:6-16). Each of these sections deserves a few minutes of explanation…

The Problem the Church Faces (1 Timothy 4:1-5)

Paul made clear to Timothy the days ahead would be challenging in regard to truth. He wrote:

1 Timothy 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 [men] who forbid marriage [and advocate] abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

The Fact of Deception (4:1)

These aren’t words about people who DON’T believe – but the departure of people and institutions that ONCE PROFESSED BELIEF! The first words of Paul concerning this subject are emphatic – the Spirit has made this perfectly clear – the time of failing away from the truth is a CERTAINTY. It is NOT based on the work that Timothy was doing – it would happen regardless of his effectiveness. I find those words helpful, and somewhat comforting. Why?

I could fill my desk with articles, books and editorials about how the church has failed. Twenty-somethings are abandoning the church! Morality in America is dying! Atheism and agnosticism is rising! Americans are flocking out of the traditional church… we ought to be ashamed. We have been doing this “oh so incorrectly” and now we have lost our place… Wait a minute! I know of literally hundreds of solid Pastors and Youth workers that are pushing as hard as they can to bring the truth of the Gospel. I know some that could walk into this room and light up the place with their love for the Savior. They are doing the work well, and many of them are still finding fields white unto harvest. As Americans hurt more in an uncertain economy, more doors open to serve Jesus by serving people. Some of my friends are doing that incredibly well.

Are we losing the cultural blessing? Probably, but that isn’t just because we didn’t do as much as we could have or should have. God told us that defection from truth would come, and he took the time to say it so clearly that Paul could only point out that it was “explicitly communicated”. This is not to offer an EXCUSE when we do things badly, but let’s be open to the idea that the SKY IS NOT FALLING, it is PREPARING TO BRING A PRINCE WITH A TRUMPET. We aren’t DONE yet, but we are promised that at some point in the life of the church of Jesus Christ, there will be those who abandon truth for deception – that is just a fact.

Let me remind you there are only a few appeals a church can use to get people to follow God, including obligation, fear and love.

• Perhaps the Puritan church used fear in days when preachers like Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) spoke to the people of Connecticut as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. He cried out: “…let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: “Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.”

• The post-revivalist generation of the World War II returnees used “obligation” in a Wilfred Brimsley “Oatmeal. It’s the right thing to do!” sort of way. Messages from the church in the fifties made sense to fathers that had served in war, and mothers who helped at home to keep the effort going. There was DUTY, and that is what kept church people serving and preachers preaching.

• Our churches must focus on the supreme calling of love for our Savior. This is the message for our time. We don’t obey the Word of God from a mere fear of judgment or sense of obligation. People won’t respond, on the whole, to those calls. We call upon the church to follow God’s Word out of a sincere love for the One Who gave Himself for us. We want the world to behold a PEOPLE SMITTEN WITH LOVE. Jesus loved us first, and still loves us best. No other motivation will is stronger than a love for Him, and no other people will be more pleasant than those who serve the Lord out of such a love, not just of His approval, but of HIM.

Yet, in spite of the fact that we know many in love with Jesus – the defection was explicitly prophesied by God’s Spirit, and Paul made it clear. We need to be settled in the process. That is not a call to laziness. We need to fulfill our responsibility and reach out in love, but not accept responsibility for everyone else’s decisions as to whether they will walk in truth. Our role is to love them, share with them and care for them. Their role is to find and follow the Christ that motivates us. It is THEIR decision. Don’t be defensive in spirit when offering a cogent defense of the Gospel. Jesus isn’t less Lord in a room where He is NOT believed.

The Force Behind Deception (4:1b)

If the deception is a certainty, WHO will bring it in? Where will such a deep deception have its origin? What will fuel an exodus from truth? Why would people trade truth for a lie? These answers have also been clearly revealed in the end of verse one (4:1b): “paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons”.

The rooms where a departure from truth has occurred, if carefully examined, give evidence of cast off scaly skin from the serpent of old – because he has been there. The fingerprints of various demons can be found behind the lesson plans of false teaching. People are wooed away by the common and sympathetic rebellious tones played by demonic sirens.

The term deceitful spirits is “pneuma planos” – or “wandering or straying spirits” and may refer to demonic presence, or could equally mean a “spirit” within a person to wander. To make sure that we wouldn’t be confused, the text clarifies the meaning to be DEMONIC instructors.

The church does not merely wrestle with the state. The believer does not merely wrestle with an immoral educational establishment. The seminary doesn’t merely fight the influence of poorly formed doctrine. There is a concerted effort, a demonic plan, behind these forces. Knowing that will cause us to focus our energy as MUCH ON PRAYER as on protest, and as MUCH ON INTERCESSION as on apologetic debate.

The Fellowship of Deception (4:2-5)

YES, they have a club and a “motto”!! Who will be the human tools of this demonic power? Where will I see deception at work in my daily world? These opponents of truth have been clearly revealed (4:2): “…by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron…”

The text reveals that most often the voices of those who have been used as “puppets of dark thinking” will offer arguments that are both factually misleading and don’t match their own lifestyle. They will proclaim themselves victims of discrimination, and then create discriminatory laws against those who hold truth. They will fall victim to the mentality that because they have a STRONG OPINION, they must have the RIGHT OPINION. I am seeing it more and more – evangelists for evil. These are people who insert themselves into conversations to share falsehood, all the while complaining about how Christians keep bothering them with attempts at outreach. Let me illustrate what I mean…

Pastor Bill Hybels, of Willow Creek Church in Chicago tells the story of an encounter he had with a young woman: “I recall one time being in a restaurant studying for a message, and a gal looked over from her table and saw me reading my Bible. She said, ‘Why do you study that stuff?’ And I thought, just to stimulate a little discussion, I’d try to knock her off balance. So I said, ‘Because I don’t feel like going to hell when I die.’ I was going to be really blunt, but I took the edge off it a little bit. And she said, ‘There is no such thing as heaven or hell.’ I thought, Well, I got something going now. So I turned in my chair and I said, ‘Why do you say that?’ She said, ‘Everybody knows that when you die your candle goes out — Poof ’ I said, ‘You mean to tell me there’s no afterlife?’ ‘No.’ ‘So that means you must be able to just live as you please?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Like, there’s no Judgment Day or anything?’ ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s fascinating to me. Where did you hear that?’ She said, ‘I read it somewhere.’ ‘Can you give me the name of the book?’ ‘I don’t recall.’ ‘Can you give me the name of the author of the book?’ ‘I forget his name.’ ‘Did that author write any other books?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Is it possible that your author changed his mind two years after he wrote this particular book and then wrote another one that said there is a heaven and a hell? Is that possible?’ ‘It’s possible but not likely.’ ‘All right,’ I said. ‘ Let me get this straight. You are rolling the dice on your eternity predicated on what someone you don’t even know wrote in a book you can’t even recall the title of. Have I got that straight?’ I was playing a little Columbo act with her. She looked me right in the eye and said, ‘That’s right.’ And I said back to her, ‘You know what I think, sweetheart? I think you have merely created a belief that guarantees the continuation of your unencumbered lifestyle. I think you made it up, because it is very discomforting to think of a heaven. It is a very discomforting thought to think of a hell. It is very unnerving to face a holy God in the day of reckoning. I think you made it all up.’ We had quite a conversation after that.”

Our world is filled with people who believe themselves to be experts. They are all for tolerance, as long as it agrees with their point of view. The caricature people of faith, and rehearse their rebellion with eloquence. Where do you see it?

The battle ground has been clearly revealed (4:3-5): 3 [men] who forbid marriage [and advocate] abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

Notice the first place you see it is in teachings concerning the redefinition of relationships like marriage, and move to the placement of new moral restrictions unsupported by God’s Word and real spiritual life.

• The first area, that of relationship boundaries, is clearer in the original language of the text. The terms “forbid marriage” is actually ko-loo-o – to prevent or hinder. This isn’t simply that they “stop people from being able to marry” (though that can be included). It is literally that they hinder the proper form of marriage by offering other rules concerning the practice. They blur the lines on what is RIGHT in God’s sight, so that they can spread a new moral code and rewrite the definition of FAMILY to conform to their own cause.

• Next, the deception moves to restrictions on foods that God has not forbidden. They reframe moral issues away from God’s Word and place them in areas that suit them. They create religious sounding “absolutes” that substitute themselves for the Word of God.

In summary, God warned beforehand that individuals and then whole communities, churches and even nations would defect from the truth, even when living in the truth brought great benefits. The enticement to rebellion, the magnetism of baser instincts and the downward demonic pull would drive men to become darker – a term they would cynically call “enlightenment”. They would carefully construct lies out of a desire to do as they please and reframe morality on the basis of their fallen tastes. When they did, they would teach a defiled view of the world from a sincere and yet wholly rationalized perspective. Calloused and tough to anything of the spirit, their hearts being deadened by rationalized morality, they would set out to redefine relationships and societal boundaries, creating new religious sounding moral restrictions that fit their newly made code, even when in direct violation of the Word of God. Shamelessly, they will declare their new ethic, though founded by men who violated even the nature’s laws of decency, as superior to the antiquated morality of the Bible.

The Prescription God gave (4:6-16)

God offered a recipe to inoculate the church against a slide into error, and to help it recover when she stumbles (4:6-16):

It required the constant challenge of the Word from the church’s pulpit (4:6)

4:6 In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, [constantly] nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.

• The process was in verbal instruction: “pointing these things out” is a way of noting that Tim was to teach them, and others were to hear what he said (4:6a). Note that it was to be done “constantly”, not just occasionally.

• The standard was found in the Word: Mature believers calling attention to the God’s Word among those who come behind them is not a luxury, but a requirement (4:6a).

• The practice was to include example: Timothy was to be continuing to live the practical relationship principles and truths in his daily life (4:6b).

In short, Tim was to live consistently, speak directly and gauge his words by the truth of God’s previously revealed Word. That wasn’t all…

It required deliberate distance from nonsense (4:7a).

4:7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women.

Because right thinking requires focus, we must learn to clean out the constant fouling of nonsense that clogs up our thoughts and lives (4:7a). Many people in our society have too much time on their hands (in the ancient world it was old women). Perhaps we should look in another direction now!

Many young people seem to have hours and hours to wander the web and find distraction there. I know some who can spend hours with nothing of consequence to show. They cannot vacuum, and they do not know how to bake something and bring it to someone in need – but they have HOURS to offer armchair philosophy to those they haven’t met in person. I want to call out anyone who is doing that kind of thing and ask you directly: “Are you willing to be involved in caring for people in life, or are you content to sit on the sidelines and sling advise at passers-by?”

Godliness requires saying NO to impulses and deliberately turning away from continual nonsense. It requires staying out of nonsense discussions in favor of actively caring for someone. Lack of discipline in life is a sign of an uncontrolled, unruly and rebellious spirit.

It required regular exercise of godly disciplines (4:7b-11).

4:7b”…On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and [also] for the [life] to come. 9 It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. 10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. 11 Prescribe and teach these things.

Paul called for Timothy to discipline his body for the work ahead (4:7b-11). Note the commands:

• The Discipline is Personal: “discipline yourself” (4:7b) – a simple statement to remind us that no one is responsible to do it for is! I am supposed to take on the responsibility of my own healthy growth in the Lord!

• The Discipline is Purposed: “for the purpose of godliness” (4:7b)- a reminder that disciplines for the sake of gaining prominence, securing health, wealth and prosperity are all set aside. My purpose is “eusebia”: reverence. If I discipline my life to gain anything but a greater sense of God’s ownership, even this is going off in a wrong direction. It is not for my affirmation or comfort. I walk in disciplines of life for HIS PLEASURE. Don’t forget, relationship with God is worth the sacrifice involved. There is an old story that may help:

In a Japanese seaside village over a hundred years ago, an earthquake startled the villagers late one autumn evening. Being so accustomed to earthquakes and not feeling another follow, they soon went back to their activities without giving it another thought. An old farmer was watching from his home on a high plain above the village. He looked out at the sea and noticed that the water appeared dark and was acting strangely, moving against the wind and running away from the land. The old man knew what that meant. His one thought was to warn the people in the village below. He called to his grandson, “Bring me a torch! Hurry!” In the fields behind him lay his great crop of rice that was piled high in stacks that were ready for the market; it was worth a fortune. The old man hurried out to the stacks with his torch. In a flash the dry stalks were ablaze. Soon the big bell pealed from the temple below: Fire! Back from the beach, away from the sea, up the steep side of the cliff came the people of the village, running as fast as they could. They were coming to try to save the crops of their neighbor. “He’s mad!” they said when they saw that he just stood there watching them come and staring out toward the sea. As they reached the level of the fields the old man shouted at the top of his voice over the roaring of the flames while pointing toward the sea, “Look!” At the edge of the horizon they saw a long, thin, and faint line – a line that grew thicker as they watched. That line was the sea, rising like a wall, getting higher and coming more and more swiftly as they stared. Then came the shock, heavier than thunder; the great wall of water struck the shore with a fierceness and a force that sent a shudder through the hills and tore the homes below into matchsticks. The water withdrew with a roaring sound. Then it returned and struck again, and again, and again. One final time it struck and ebbed, then returned to its place and its pattern. On the plain no one spoke a word for a long while. Finally the voice of the old man could be heard, saying softly, gently, “That is why I set fire to the rice.” He now stood among them just as poor as the poorest of them; his wealth was gone – all for the sake of 400 lives. By that sacrifice he will long be remembered, not by his wealth. He was not saddened by what his sacrifice cost him; he was overjoyed at what was saved. (from A-Z Sermon Illustrations).

• The Discipline is Promising: Note the phrase “promise for the present life and life to come” (4:8-10)- We live the truths of God’s Word for His honor and pleasure, but we do so with the absolute and unshakeable promise that these truth WORK in this life and are REWARDED in the life to come. We don’t do them for the reward, but we celebrate that they are rewarded with life now and life then!

• The Discipline is Passed: “prescribe and teach” (4:11) – the terms “paraggel’o” and “didasko” are terms that share how the disciplines will be instilled in those who follow after us. They literally share the idea “mark out the trail before them with truth” by verbally sharing each idea and concept. The truth is, words aren’t enough! Paul followed up this idea with “don’t let them discount you because of your youth – live so they will see your example (4:12). To pass the truths of the Word we must verbally rehearse them, but also outwardly live them. Modeling is essential for the words to have life!

Charles Swindoll wrote, “To walk by faith does not mean that we stop thinking. To trust God does not imply becoming slovenly or lazy or apathetic. What a distortion of biblical faith! You and I need to trust God for our finances, but that is no license to spend foolishly. You and I ought to trust God for safety in the car, but we’re not wise to pass in a blind curve. We trust God for our health, but that doesn’t mean we can chain smoke, stay up half the night, and subsist on potato chips and Twinkies without consequences. …Faith and careful planning go hand-in-hand. They always have.” [Charles Swindoll. Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication. (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1999) p. 27]

Paul continued with other encouragements about the disciplines of the faith Tim was to exercise as he closed the chapter:

12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but [rather] in speech, conduct, love, faith [and] purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. 13 Until I come, give attention to the [public] reading [of Scripture], to exhortation and teaching. 14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. 15 Take pains with these things; be [absorbed] in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. 16 Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.

• The Discipline is Public: As a teacher of the Word, Tim would face the attacks of men. Some would try to diminish his words based on some lack in his resume (4:12). There was a way to combat those detractors – by living out truth in an exemplary way.

• The Discipline is Powerful: Look at the terms “give attention”. This could be rephrased “put your energies into”. In other words, Timothy was to openly read the Word (4:13) – because the power of the Word was to be given prominence. Believers must always remember their persuasiveness is nothing compared to the sheer power of God’s truth. By reading it aloud, he allowed the audience to hear it as God revealed it, and to test whether he was telling the truth about what it said. He was also to give attention to “exhortation and teaching”. Exhortation is the term “paraklesis”: to summon or persuade to action. It is sometimes used as “encouragement” and other times in the sense of warning to return.

That wasn’t the only source of power. He was also EMPOWERED with gifts, and he was called to use them openly (4:14)

Step away from the last part of the chapter and look for a moment at the broad sweep of what Paul told Timothy. He listed some things that should be the priorities of the younger believer that was called to lead others:

• Read the Word in front of the people (4:13).
• Encourage, persuade and instruct the people (4:13).
• Work the gift God put inside you and prophesied over you (4:14).
• Meditate and ponder (take pains is melatao: to deeply ponder – 4:15) The term “absorbed” is not in the text, but a comment to help you see the Greek says “be all about this”.
• Pay close attention to yourself (4:16)
• Watch your teaching (4:16)

One cannot read these reiterations and fail to understand the weight of what Paul was saying. The truth is in the Word. Know it, share it, work it, ponder it, watch out for it, teach it, trust it. Without it you will fall. Without it you will become confused and stare at the churning of men’s false ideas and opinions. In confusion you will stumble, and those you carry will fall in with you. The truth is worth standing up for, but we must first truly pull in our hungers for other things…

Believers must cherish the truth, and unite behind it. The hallmark of the church must be to train people to recognize truth and walk in it.

The Calendar Myth – Galatians 4

christmas doorTis the season to be Jolly! I love the sound of that! Holiday…doesn’t that simple WORD make you feel good? The word is a contraction of two old English terms – “holy” and “day”. It was a term to denote a special remembrance or celebration, originally related to religious things – hence the term “holy”. It is a time filled with excitement, a kitchen oven warming the cool of the morning and the smell of delights that no one can resist! What a JOYOUS time of year.

Holidays are at the heart of our identity. They are what communicate our connections that we feel strongly about.

• We stop our normal life to go to a wedding because we have a connection to the people who are joining themselves together.

• As Americans, we have a picnic at the Independence Day because we want to show that we value the Declaration of Independence written by men long ago, and identify with the country God used them to create.

• We eat cake at a birthday party to signal a special connection to the one that has made it to the milestone of another year on the planet!

• We have our turkey at Thanksgiving to recall the miraculous survival of a small band of Christian pilgrims to the shores of what later became the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

• We gather in our churches and in our homes at Christmas to recall a day, long ago, when God broke into human history to replace the sacrifices of bulls and goats made by one small group of people in Judea with a perfect one time sacrifice through Messiah that offered a direct connection through faith in God’s promise – apart from the Temple calendar and the animal sacrifices.

Holidays show allegiance. They symbolize commitment to something or someone. They announce connection to events and people both in the past and in our lives that have significance to us.

We have only sketchy views of such holidays that were celebrated by ancient human beings– and most of that comes from the Bronze Age. Most any scholar, whether secular or Christian, will likely tell you that the most complete information available on ancient holidays is from the Bible. The “feasts of the Lord” represent the most clearly explained early documentation concerning festivals and feast days. The Chinese, Hittites, Indus River civilization and Egyptians certainly had many festivals, but we have much less detail on most of them than what is included in the Bible from the Late Bronze period (that Bible students know as the time of the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan). Long ago, in the wilderness desolation of the Sinai Peninsula, the Bible records that God took an extended family that had been oppressed in Egypt and turned them into a nation. He gave them a central worship place, a set of unique God-given Laws, and a series of memorial holidays. Leviticus 23 and passages like it called the Jewish people to these “Feasts of the Lord”. Those holidays were a connection marker to God that included a weekly Sabbath – something God called Jews uniquely from among men to keep for “all their generations” (Ex. 31:31). When the direct access to God opened, many Jews wanted Gentile born believers to simply “act like Jews” because that was what made sense to them. Today in the church, many wrongly teach that Jews need to simply “act like Gentiles” to join the church. Neither is a proper reflection of the text of the New Testament if viewed up close.

Key Principle: God kept in place unique markers for the Jewish people (because He has a future plan for them) that the church around the world need not be concerned about adopting, no matter what pressure they received to do so.

As we have been studying in Galatians, a NEW COVENANT system was being set in place that not only encompassed the Jewish people, but prior to their national embrace (that hasn’t happened yet) it gave direct access for salvation to anyone on earth apart from Israel – if they would only believe what God communicated about justification. Every man, every woman, as well as every child old enough to discern truth – are called to simply trust that what Jesus did at the Cross of Calvary was sufficient for their salvation, whether of Jewish or Gentile background. One day, that same New Covenant forged in the blood of Messiah will lead even the most stubborn hearts of Israel back into the arms of God the Father, Who now patiently awaits the humbling of His estranged wife, the nation of Israel.

Yet, during this time of direct access to God through Christ, God kept in place the unique markers for Israel they were commanded to obey.

• Hebrews 4 reminds the Jewish believer that there was still a Sabbath “on the day that God rested”. It was not replaced with Sunday, for that was not the same day of the week, nor is there any command to do so in Scripture. At the same time, Colossians 2 sternly warned the Gentile church not to allow Jewish people to tell them what day to meet – for that command was not given to them but to Jews who would follow God.

• The circumcision commanded to Abraham for “all his future generations” in Genesis 17:12 continued to be a marker for that unique people, even with the coming of Jesus. To make that clear, Paul circumcised his disciple Timothy (Acts 16:3) because his mother was Jewish but his father was Greek, and therefore he had not been circumcised. Yet his other disciple, Titus, was not circumcised as a man born of two Gentile parents.

• Certain celebrations were commanded to be a part of Jewish life “for all their generations”. One such command regarded Passover and Unleavened Bread (Ex. 12:14 and 12:17). Another, the “Day of Atonement” or “Yom Kippor” was also specified to be continued “throughout their generations” (Lev. 23:41). Paul kept the feasts as best he was able. Acts 20 relates that Paul was counting on making the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) in Jerusalem (20:16) and was counting the Sabbaths (20:6-7) to make the journey, according to the Jewish reckoning of time – because he was a Jew. In Acts 21, he went to the Temple to take a public vow AFTER his three mission journeys in the name of Jesus.

Paul understood the difference between God’s Jewish program and His direct access program in Messiah and wanted that clear in his ministry, to be an offense to no one in areas of obedience given to the Jewish people for all their generations, while not allowing Jews to bind over the symbols of the now defunct atonement system of the Temple to the new Gentile church. Those symbols would confuse the Gentiles, and place them under the control of the Sanhedrin – many who did not know Jesus and did not acknowledge (or perhaps even know) that a replacement of the atonement system had already been completed.

Churches that do not distinguish between how Jews and Gentiles are called to live AFTER they are saved by the blood of Jesus invite error, just at those who replace the unique people of the sons of Abraham with the spiritual sons of promise in the Gentile church. Both Jew and Gentile are one in Messiah, but not one in lifestyle – for God told one group to do things forever that He never told the other group to start. That is what caused confusion in the first century, and what gave rise to most of Paul’s epistles. It was the largest problem he faced, and we are still facing it today –only with the church now holding the upper hand and Jews being relegated to replacement of lifestyle. That mistake has led to two other myths that many believers follow that are worth exploring, as Paul offered insight in Galatians…

Myth #8: New Calendar! The Gospel cancelled the feasts of the Lord and freed all believers from the Hebrew festival calendar.

There are three groups of people in church circles that I run into today in regards to the feasts and the calendar:

• One group simply says it was abandoned, a relic of another time, not to be used as anything but a teaching device from history. They really don’t offer a great answer to the “for all your generations” issue – but say Jesus replaced that without any grammar support for their position. That is what I was taught growing up in the faith, and I find it to bypass a literal view of Scripture. If that view is right, forever might mean temporary – and that troubles me. “All your generations” might mean “til Jesus comes” – and I cannot reconcile that problem.

• Another group insists that since God set them up, they must be for everyone today. They point to the church’s position as one of compromise and error, if we don’t build sukkahs (temporary shelters associated with the Feast of Tabernacles) and light candles for Sabbath on Friday night. These believers try to get their church to look more like a synagogue and do things that are associated with the Jewish people. Yet, when I examine the Scriptures carefully, I wonder why we would need the New Testament at all. Why didn’t Paul simply write to every congregation, “Come to Jesus, then keep the Law!” The complicated formula of two ways of following one single Savior seems to speak against that view. This group doesn’t have a cogent view of what a Judaizer is – and that troubles me as well.

• A third group, well known to many who study the Bible south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the cultural Christianity of the Bible belt are those who believe we “spiritually keep Sabbath”, except the day got moved and the restrictions got dropped. This group represents most of the believers you will meet in town who say “My Sabbath is Sunday!” Yet, they cannot point to any command that moved the day, nor can they show that they restrict themselves on Sunday in a way that marked true Sabbath observance. They routinely do forbidden things for a Sabbath on a day other than the one specified and claim they are “keeping their Sabbath”. I am absolutely confident that Paul would not identify with that in any way.

What IS God calling a believer to do regarding Sabbath and festivals?

4:1 Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. 3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. 8 However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. 12 I beg of you, brethren, become as I [am], for I also [have become] as you [are]. You have done me no wrong; 13 but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time; 14 and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus [Himself]. 15 Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. 16 So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them. 18 But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you. 19 My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—20 but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Paul’s basic argument is that God gave to the Jewish people pictures that forecast the future. He left them under a temporary system of atonement (sacrifice) to teach them about sin and the blood required to satisfy Him in light of the mutiny.

A Picture: (4:1-2) In the Roman system, certain domestic slaves were given the work of watching over children. In the case of male children, and in particular the master’s sons, a paidagogos (sometimes translated a “tutor”) was placed in a position of responsibility over the child’s behavior, instruction and development (both physical and social). That tutor exercised control over the child when necessary, in spite of the fact that the child would later (upon reaching the arranged age set by the Paterfamilias “father” of the household) be his master. Atonement was our slave-master until the time of its replacement.

A Point: (4:3) Mankind was set under a temporary guardian in the atonement law, bound to the blood and livestock sacrifice – an earthy, gritty, bloody arrangement.

A Promise: (4:4-8) At the appropriate moment God sent Jesus through a young Jewish mother who kept that atonement law (and paid careful attention to the raising of a lamb all her days in her home). That child grew to be the Lamb of sacrifice, and in His sacrifice the door opened for direct connection to God through His death, even for those who were formerly under the atonement sacrifice for salvation, the Jewish people. Those who believe are “adopted” into the place of sons, though they weren’t born naturally to that place. As sons, we can cry out directly to our Father, and He hears us! Because the direct door is open and we can (by belief in the sacrifice of Jesus) be full sons apart from the atonement system, the new adopted sons have been named as full heirs – a far cry from their former estate as simple slaves of another master.

A Problem: (4:9-11) How can those from the old atonement system now entice you to go back to keeping track of sacrifices and joining a fully replaced system? If you go back to the sacrificial calendar and all the feasts and offerings, you plunge backward into a system that was never given to you, and cannot help you. I fear all the ministry to you will be wasted when you turn your back on God’s full acceptance by grace through faith in Jesus, and His blood sacrifice alone!

Paul made clear there were Jews that arrived in Galatia and implored them to abandon the “by the blood of Jesus, once for all” plan of salvation and go backward into the atonement system of sacrifice and the control of the Temple in Jerusalem. These Galatian, Gentile born, spirit-filled believers were being pulled back to a system that no longer held the key to a relationship with God, by a people who wanted to control their lives. Paul pleaded with them:

A Plea: (4:12-20) I am begging you to become like me (one who does not trust the old atonement system for justification at all). You received me so well, in spite of the fact that I was sick when I was with you in the beginning (you know how I struggled). Where is that reception now? You know I would have given you anything then, so how is it now you struggle to trust me? (4:17-20) Let me be straight with you – the men from Judea are working hard to block you from hearing me because they want you to seek them alone. I am deeply concerned about you, that your trust in Christ will be diverted.

Some get thrown off by the phrase “become as I am” because there is abundant evidence in the book of Acts that he kept the feasts and vows all the way through his career. The issue wasn’t whether or not Jews kept the Sabbath, circumcision and calendar given to them “for all their generations”, it was whether the plan God had for that obedience had anything to do with the justification formula. When people read this, they are quick to want to DO the things Paul did – but that isn’t what he was saying. It was never wrong for Jews to keep observing their feasts or vows as a Jewish believer. What WAS wrong, was to mistake those things as having any bearing on the formula for justification – Jesus alone saves. He saves Jews – for the Gospel “is the power of God to save, to the Jew first…”. He saves Gentiles – “then also to the Greek.” – all the same way (see Romans 1:16-17). Beside that, no one was to appropriate Jewish sanctification standards into the life of the Gentile – they weren’t given to Gentiles. The only Gentiles that were told to keep them were the one living AMONG THE JEWISH PEOPLE, and that wasn’t the case in any Galatian church.

Remember, though obedience to the “forever” commands like Sabbath, circumcision and the Feasts of the Lord were not dismissed from the Jewish believer, they weren’t to be observed for salvation – but rather for showing a unique Jewish identity. Interestingly, that system will show up again in the Millennial Rule of Christ – where Jesus demonstrates how He intended it all to show a perfect picture of His work.

What Paul said was essentially this in 4:1-20: God set up an atonement tutor that has been set aside now that we have reached the time God set to open direct access to men everywhere to Himself without the Jewish people and their leaders. Come to know God through Jesus, and you will have a direct, complete and full relationship with a Loving Father. Don’t try to tie yourself to the defunct atonement system – that is finished, replaced, and utterly unnecessary!

Myth #9: The Law enslaves! Heaven broke the curse of the Law and set us free from all its restrictions.

Again we see how easily this myth could grab hold of people. Jews were pressing Gentile believers to act like Jews, and Paul was pressing them to be distinct as followers of Jesus without regard to following the way Jews signified their allegiance to the Temple system. The issue was the appropriation of the atonement covenant standards to those who were not Jews and never a child of them. They didn’t know what they were asking for!

4:21 Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. 23 But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. 24 This is allegorically speaking, for these [women] are two covenants: one [proceeding] from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. 25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. 27 For it is written, “REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN WHO DOES NOT BEAR; BREAK FORTH AND SHOUT, YOU WHO ARE NOT IN LABOR; FOR MORE NUMEROUS ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE THAN OF THE ONE WHO HAS A HUSBAND.” 28 And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him [who was born] according to the Spirit, so it is now also. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “CAST OUT THE BONDWOMAN AND HER SON, FOR THE SON OF THE BONDWOMAN SHALL NOT BE AN HEIR WITH THE SON OF THE FREE WOMAN.” 31 So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

If you read this the way I was taught to read it, you would think it said that the Torah was dispensed with in Jesus. Yet, on closer inspection, we have to understand that Jews didn’t lump all the Law together, and the COVENANT of Abraham was not the same thing as the LAW of Moses.

The Abrahamic Covenant of God was the access agreement to God through faith – long before the giving of the Law. Before Moses, it was by grace through faith in whatever revelation God gave a man or woman. For Abraham it was the promise of a son and then a nation. For Jacob, it was the reality of a connection between Heaven and earth in a stairway to Heaven vision. After Moses, the way to access God’s satisfaction, as best the Word revealed it, was by coming under the covenant of God with Israel and showing one’s faith through a series of specified actions that included Sabbath, circumcision and celebration of sacrifices. To meet and follow God, a man needed to come to Judea and hear of the God of Israel, and serve Him. He needed to participate in the sacrificial system to abate the wrath of God, while he believed all that God said in His revealed truths of that day. That was what is termed the FORMER COVENANT or OLD COVENANT.

From the Hebrew prophets (particularly those who declared the future for the exiles) there emerged word that God would offer Israel a NEW COVENANT whereby the whole of Israel at one point in time would be completely saved and filled by God’s spirit (Jeremiah 31, Isaiah 59). On His way to doing that, God later revealed that He would put blinders on Israel because of their sin (called the “shame” of the people, see Joel 1-2; Romans 10-11) and they would hear men of a foreign nation that would know their God when they did NOT know Him (Isaiah 28, Acts 2). When they heard the people of another tongue speaking truth, they would know their days of shame had begun. Yet, in the end, the New Covenant would release them from their shame, after it opened salvation to the world. The New Covenant had, in effect, two stages – one where the Savior gave direct access to the world while Israel languished largely in spiritual darkness, and the other where Israel is renewed at a time in the future when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled and God can renew the Jewish harvest.

In the beginning of the move from Old Covenant to the New Covenant there was strife as Jewish leaders wanted to co-opt any growth from Paul’s movement into their own.

A battle ensued, and the Galatians were caught in the crossfire in a war of words. Paul called them to another picture:

A Picture: (4:21-26) Those who desire to follow the old atonement system, have you ever really read the Torah? Let me remind you of an old story…Abraham had two sons. One came from Hagar, but was not the one God gave in His promise. The other one came through His promise. This is like a picture of two covenants of God – one from Sinai which enslaved people into continual sacrifice, pictured by the Temple sacrifices and controls of the atonement system in Jerusalem. The other covenant is direct from Heaven, a freedom from that perpetual sacrifice, a direct connection of justification.

A Point: (4:27-28) The truth is like the song that calls for rejoicing among the outcasts – the direct adoption plan of Heaven will now yield vast fruits! They will be like Isaac – children of God’s promise!

A Parallel: (4:29-5:1) The picture of Isaac being picked on by Ishmael is the picture we see today as those from Judea come to bind you who have been accepted by God through faith alone to an old system that has no power to save.

A Plea: (4:30-5:1) Throw them out the way Sarah cast out Hagar. You are children of Sarah, and they don’t belong camping in your tent! Don’t let them throw a yoke of continual sacrifice and Temple control over you, your calling is in Messiah as one free from all of that!

Paul essentially said this: Jerusalem on earth (with its atonement sacrifices run by Sanhedrin controllers) is at war with a spiritual Jerusalem in Heaven, where direct access to God is available through the now completed sacrifice of Jesus. The atonement system wants to dominate the direct access to God – and that is backwards. The response of the people should not be to tolerate the deception, but to clarify, teach, plead, implore… and then if there is stubbornness – to throw out those who refuse to do right. That wasn’t un-Christian – it was necessary and Biblical.

As you have patiently waded through this Biblical debate with me, perhaps it is only fitting that we more closely connect the dots to where you live and I live today. We aren’t often debating whether or not Jewish leadership in Jerusalem should take control of the message of the local church. We haven’t had a really good theological argument about killing bulls and goats for centuries. We don’t really struggle with the notion of circumcision, and we don’t check when you join the church – just so our visitors know. We meet on Sunday, and support Jewish groups that meet on Sabbath, along with Non-Jewish mission points around the globe that do NOT. These issues seem distant and mind-numbing to many – but they are not.

In a world that wants equality of value to mean that everyone must be made to do everything the same – God has a response. Both men and women are equal in value, but they are made to do different things. The stronger frame of most men was given to match their strong inner drive to protect a family and eventually become an elder in the community that protected with wisdom the whole of the tribe. As a general rule, men were better designed for war. Their bodies did not demand such painful cycles and they would never be called out of the line because they carried another human being within. Women were uniquely privileged to bear a child, while their man bore a spear, arrow or sword. Putting women in combat isn’t freeing them, it is creating an expectation they were not designed, on the whole, to carry. They stand in unique danger of molestation and misuse because we want them to see equality of value in equality of work – but that is a mistake that will cost many of them dearly. Agree with my illustration or not, that isn’t my point. My point is that God made people of equal value but didn’t tell them all to do the same things in their walk with Him. I can be a parent, but not bear a child. I can teach mixed audiences, but am not to teach young women in the quiet intimate settings that older women are to handle. I am equal to my wife, but I cannot do everything she is told to do as an experienced woman of God. That doesn’t make me worth less – it makes me what I am called to be before my Creator.

In a time when tolerance replaces critical thinking and careful study regarding what God has said in His Word – God has a message. We need to be careful not to sound defensive, but to defend truth. We need to be open to discussion, but unwilling to tread on the text for the sake of good feeling in the room. We need to walk a road with those with whom we acknowledge a disagreement, but we cannot (for the sake of peace and tranquility) sit still while those who are teaching false doctrines to our people are allowed to remain in our midst. They can come and worship with us, because the doors are publicly open. Yet, when they want a platform for teaching in this place, we will graciously but pointedly refuse them a voice. One of the functions of teaching truth is spotting error – and that may offend some and may cause them to walk out the door. The longer I serve Jesus, the more I understand that there is a critical difference between someone who rejects me or my personality, and someone who refuses our message without carefully engaging the text. We live in a time with many self-ordained and self-proclaimed prophets. It seems that many do not understand that a viewpoint isn’t RIGHT because they are CONVINCED of it. The substance of the argument is what must be deemed right or wrong, not the amount of belief in it. Lots of belief that eating pomegranates cures colon cancer won’t make it so. It isn’t the SIZE OF BELIEF, it is the OBJECT of it that makes it true or false. We stake our claim on this: The Bible is truth, and it is THE rule of faith and practice for a people that want to wholly honor God. It cannot be dismissed as a relic, nor ignored as a boring piece of literature. If it is God’s Word, then it communicates God’s message. If that message delineates differences between people – then it is what God said. No council of men should be able to dissuade us from our allegiance to God’s message. No culture should wear down our sharp understanding of what it takes to please God.

In a generation that has sought to “dumb down” the harder process of deep thinking and careful research and replace it with platitude filled messages of personal comfort and repetitious songs with little substance – God has a requirement. We are required to study the Word that He has kept for us. We are required to answer the queries of life with His stated answers. No siren call of culture should convince us to call unimportant what He deems as important. Life planted in the womb, not by mere chemical process, but by the hand of a Creator, must be maintained as sacred. Marriage, not a contract between people, but a judicial joining in Heaven of a woman under the covering of a man, must be held as sacred. Worship of God must be maintained at the center of civic life for moral decisions to rule the day. These aren’t options, and ignoring them has devastating consequences.

At the same time, we must recognize that truth isn’t simple. Ask a calculus student – finding the answers can be complicated. That doesn’t mean they aren’t true. God didn’t try to reduce His Word to fortune cookie wisdom. There is a need to study carefully, and to observe it wholly. In the end, we see from a careful view of the Scripture…

God kept in place unique markers for the Jewish people that the church around the world need not be concerned about adopting, no matter what pressure they received to do so.

The Replacement Myth – Galatians 3

espresso machineThe other day a box arrived at our front door. The days of anticipation were over, as the long awaited replacement espresso machine was carefully exposed to the light of our dining room lamp. We were thrilled! The machine it replaced was a good one, but it died and we were left alone, espresso-less. In the beginning of our journey toward great coffee, my wife carefully researched online to find the best machine for us – because we take coffee seriously. She found what we both agreed was the perfect machine, but unfortunately someone forgot to tell the assembly line to make it perfectly. After two years, we found ourselves with a kitchen counter “boat anchor” – a machine that wouldn’t produce the coffee we bought it to make. Because we had it for a couple of years, we thought we were just going to have to bury it, move on past the period of mourning, and go buy another one. We are a tough lot, so we thought we could just bare it and move on. My sweetheart decided she would try to see if repairs could be made, and she called the company that made the machine. Answering the call was a thoughtful man who was obviously passionate about his morning espresso. She shared that our machine never seemed to quite work properly, and that it was now dead. He asked about the lot and registration number. “Were there parts?” my wife asked. The customer service representative’s answer stunned her. “No, but I am sending you a label. Box the old unit and send it back to us. We are replacing the machine with a new one at no cost to you!” WOW! We were excited. Weeks passed… at long last we were unboxing a new one, and it works very well! My point: some replacements are thrilling.

On the other hand, some replacements aren’t a GOOD thing.

If you are a starting quarterback and you are moving the ball successfully down the field, you don’t WANT to be replaced. If you are a middle child, a pet, or a spouse – you probably don’t want to be replaced by someone or something else. It is a painful turn of events, and requires some justification – if any can even be made.

The strange thing is that so many Bible students and believers think God replaced His people. They think that His people, Israel, misbehaved and He replaced them with the church. Yet God expressed an undying love for that people. He spoke of her as a bride, and (because of what I believe is a mishandling of Scripture) they have concluded that God tossed out His wife when her behavior became so wrong, and she was replaced by Him. This isn’t a new teaching, but it is a WRONG TEACHING. The Scripture says otherwise…

Key Principle: God the Father has a permanent irrevocable call to Israel that is entirely separate from the call of the Savior to His church.

Think about that principle, and don’t drop away at this point. What has God’s choice of Israel to do with YOU? Perhaps you are encountering God’s Word today and you have a physical problem that your doctor cannot easily diagnose and resolve. Perhaps this month seems much bigger than the pile of money you have to cover the needs of it. Maybe you are worried about a child or grandchild, and you aren’t sure they are making good decisions. Perhaps you are struggling with God about a blow you have had to your life recently. How is learning about myths and misunderstandings from Galatians 3 going to help you with anything YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT?

The answer is both simple and direct: God’s call and God’s promises are what you stand in, and what you need to be able to unreservedly trust in order to walk in confidence this week. If God is true to His Word, and His Word is not some kind of shell game or Ponzi scheme – you will be able to rest and face your problems with the confidence of His words like: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” However, if His Word is steeped in some unrecognizable code, and that simple promise we just stated is a cryptic reference to “I will never leave someone who may or may not be you but may forsake you if you don’t behave”, then let the worry begin.

In the simplest terms, God keeps His Word to the One He gives it to. He isn’t fickle, and He isn’t trying to be unduly complicated. That doesn’t mean the Bible is full of monosyllabic words, but it does mean He isn’t intentionally misleading people. The story of sin and redemption is complex, I will admit. At the same time, the promises of God are clear, trustworthy and straightforward. The twisting of God’s Word has largely been due to either the misunderstanding of the poorly taught, or the torqueing of the text by those who have an agenda, and find an ally in the enemy of God’s people – the Deceiver. Let’s look at the myths, and remember they are much more relevant than they first appear. To begin, let’s look at a popularly believed myth rooted in a misreading of Galatians 3:1-14…

Myth #6: There are New Jews- the Gospel permanently cancelled the Jewish marriage contract and replaced them! By faith the Law was rendered meaningless and the Spirit made believers in Jesus into the new Jews, the new chosen people.

Where would one get such an idea? Many reformers of yesteryear thought it was, at least in part, the point of these words…

Galatians 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed [as] crucified? 2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain– if indeed it was in vain? 5 So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 6 Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. 8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, [saying], “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. 10 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.” 11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” 12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”—14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Look closely at the text and what it DOES say:

• It begins with some questions. The first is “Who tricked you?” (3:1). You heard of the Crucifixion when we preached it to you, and now you seem to have need of something else. Who convinced you of that need?

• A second question followed. “When did you receive the empowering work of the Spirit of God?” (3:2-3) If the Spirit moved at the time of coming to Christ, than why would they seek another form of justification, or go backwards into the now cancelled atonement system (remember the context of the verses is set in verse one in relationship to salvation through the Crucifixion). If a relationship with God is found at Calavary, than the atonement system is a step backward.

• A third question was posed: “Was all the suffering to stand apart in the teaching of salvation through Jesus alone a waste?” (3:4).

• A fourth question followed: “Did God require you to keep or even know about the works involved in the atonement system for you to have both His Spirit and His miracles?” (3:5)

• From the four questions emerge an underlying principle that Paul wanted to make plain: God used simple trust in His revealed Word as the standard of justification long before there ever was a set of revealed atonement laws (3:6). The only way to God has always been a matter of surrender to His Word and its truth – but the content of that truth has been expanded carefully over the ages. Belief, the surrender that God is telling the truth and I must live accordingly, has ALWAYS been the standard by which God accepted man.

• Because the issue has always been trust in what God revealed to a particular generation that they must believe, you Gentile believers are spiritually “children of Abraham” by means of your surrender to God’s promises apart from any system God gave to anyone else. (3:7)

• Despite claims of Judaizers, there were promises found in Genesis that show that God is not acting outside of His Word saving people outside the atonement laws given to the Jewish people (3:8).

• Gentile believers today, Paul said, are offered justification (a relationship with God whereby He is utterly satisfied by the payment for sin) just like Abraham was – because of surrender to God’s Word to them (3:9). Abraham didn’t need any atonement system beyond trusting what God said, and neither do Gentile believers who are reading this Epistle in Galatia.

• Joining the atonement law system of the Temple, where there is always a continued need for more sacrifices and more observances for justification is stepping backward into the curse of continuity that has been fully satisfied (3:10). In the Temple atonement system, the minute you stop doing it, God’s satisfaction is left unsatisfied, and the penalty of sin is left upon you.

• The simple fact is that the atonement system has been replaced, because it did not have the ability to justify – it simply atoned (and even that was temporary). Your FAITH in Messiah’s completed work is the key to God’s full satisfaction (3:11).

• At the heart of the atonement law is a series of continuous performances – practices of the law. They were fine to cover sin in atonement, but there are many who mistook the practice for what energized God’s satisfaction. That is, and has always been, faith – the belief in what God said. Perfectly good bulls and goats, carefully sacrificed, were of NO EFFECT on God’s satisfaction over man’s sinful mutiny in the Garden if the spilling of their blood was not done by someone who truly accepted God’s Word, and practiced in faith. The WORK of sacrifice wasn’t designed to replace the FAITH surrender to God’s truth (3:12).

• Jesus’ work fully purchased us, removing us from the temporary atonement system by becoming the sin-laden sacrifice – and in that He removed the “curse” of needing constant new installments to satisfy God throughout our life (3:13).

• Jesus paid for sin as a substitute in order that God may fulfill His promise to offer a direct blessing to the world by faith that did not require coming under the atonement Temple system of the Jewish people (3:14).

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the point that Paul was making to the Galatians is to look at a candle or an oil lamp.

For cecandle1nturies, if you wanted to light your home, you used an oil lamp or a candle. They work well – so well that we measure light output in candlepower. Yet, they had a troublesome shortcoming. They didn’t work well in drafty rooms or outside in the wind. A wind screen lantern was developed, but that cut down significantly the amount of light one obtained from the candle or lamp. More recently, inventors offered us the more reliable alternative of the flashlight. It works indoors and out, and it doesn’t flicker in the wind. It is a BETTER LIGHT. That is not to say that lamps and candles are BAD – they aren’t. It does mean they were temperamental in a way that flashlights are. I know the analogy has a breakdown because flashlights have bulbs that break and batteries that fail – but I think you get the point. The atonement law was fine to save someone, but it was part of a system that required constant maintenance. That had the benefit of allowing people to feel deeply connected to the constant maintenance of their soul, but it also meant that many things could go wrong in their ability to truly maintain their standing before a satisfied God. Jesus came to end all of that uncertainty, and offer a single sacrifice permanent solution. He didn’t replace His people, He replaced the atonement system they trusted in to satisfy God.

The point of Galatians IS NOT that the Law of God was bad, but that the atonement laws of God were deficient in the sense of permanency, which God built into the system so that He could later open a direct door to the whole world for a time, so that people could for a period be saved without direct connection to the Jewish people at all. A villager along the Coco River between Honduras and Nicaragua need not know a Jew or even truly understand much of the sacrificial system in order to come into a relationship with God in which God is fully satisfied. They need only know Jesus.

Lest we misapply Paul’s statements about the atonement law’s deficiency, and we inadvertently take a swipe at the whole of the Torah, remember that God GAVE the Law of Moses, and Jews loved that Law even AFTER JESUS CAME (Acts 21). The perfection and holiness of the Law is oft celebrated in the Scriptures. The part of that law that was wholly replaced was atonement law, how a mutinous rebel comes into communion with God and satisfies the debt of sin before Him. Jews were given a temporary system that THEY NEEDED for a time. While Moses was getting Levitical Law and plans for a Tabernacle, the people were at the bottom of Mt. Sinai making a calf and devising their own system of sacrifice – because they NEEDED ONE. It worked for as long, and as well as candles lit homes, and it was replaced by something better.

Keep a keen eye on the context of Paul’s argument. He isn’t addressing whether Jews should keep a Sabbath or circumcise their children – he is arguing whether the symbols of the atonement laws were helpful or harmful in a Gentile context. The Sabbath, circumcision and feasts of the Lord were the only ties that Jews in the Roman world outside of their homeland had to hold them together – and Gentiles joining in those symbols would find themselves entering an atonement system that placed them back under the Temple system of authority, and the sacrificial system of satisfying God. It negated one reason for the work of Jesus. It shut off the direct door between the Gentile world and God – and truncated salvation back through the Jewish people – which wasn’t what God wanted for this age.

Misunderstanding the limited argument Paul was making is what caused the next myth to flow..

Myth #7: Fulfilled: The Law has accomplished its mission! The law of Moses was just a tutor that brought the world to the Savior, but is now retired – so we can live life without the constraints of the Hebrew Law.

Galatians 3:15 Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is [only] a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. 16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as [referring] to many, but [rather] to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ. 17 What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18 For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise. 19 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. 20 Now a mediator is not for one [party only]; whereas God is [only] one. 21 Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. 22 But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. 24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor [to lead us] to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

If what Paul was addressing in the TUTOR of Galatians was what we now call the “Old Testament”, then we can toss it out of our Bible, because it doesn’t mean anything now. I hear this all the time. “Capital Punishment”? Don’t worry, Jesus threw out the Law. The tutor is dead. “Sexual Standards”? If it isn’t repeated in the New Testament, it isn’t really something we need to worry about. Really? I would argue that Paul said those observations are 100% true of atonement law, but totally and utterly UNTRUE of the lifestyle principles derived from the rest of the Torah Law. If the tutor is the Old Testament, the sexual practice of bestiality is IN (because it is only specifically addressed in the OT) and 2 Timothy 3:16 is OUT (because those Scriptures from the Old Testament are ALL retired with the tutoring that led us to Christ). The church that teaches this view of the tutor are opening the door to a whole generation of people who will believe they are following Jesus Christ by doing things the author of Scripture completely abhorred and called despicable. The argument is: Jesus came, so all the laws that let us know we are sinners are now only important if repeated in the New Testament. That will leave us with a Christian message that doesn’t take MOST of what God said seriously, because of their misunderstanding of the argument of Galatians 3.

What DID Paul say in the passage?

• God’s words were exacting in his promise about atonement law – He promised ONE would come to open a direct door for the world to Him through a specific Jew – in place of the door only available for centuries through the atonement system of a Temple operated by and for Jewish people (3:15-16).

• The promise was made before the atonement system was set in place, and that promise was not negated by the institution of the sacrificial system that came after it (3:17-18).

• Why create an atonement system that wouldn’t last forever? (3:19-20) God’s promise lived beneath the whole sacrificial system to prepare us for the One who came to be our sacrifice. It dealt with sin at the time, and set up the substitutional atonement system so we understood the meaning of the death of Messiah when it happened.

• If atonement law was complete, no other way would have been opened (3:21). The message of the promise of satisfaction by trusting the payment of Jesus opened the direct door for all men without the need for the Temple atonement system (3:22).

• Under atonement law, men were in the custody of the atonement law, waiting the system that would open direct access to God from anywhere in the world apart from atonement law (3:23-24).

• The full satisfaction of sin through complete trust in the payment by Jesus’ blood has swung the door wide open to a relationship with the Living God for all who trust this message (3:25-27). All come in the same way, no distinction as to how we get to God – rather all clinging to the same promises and using the same door – the door long ago promised (3:28).

• Spiritually, we who know God through Jesus are “faith descendants” and “promise inheritors” – a position to be celebrated (3:29).

Does that mean Paul thought God was done with the Jewish people? Was this a REPLACEMENT POLICY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE?

Does that mean Paul believed that followers of Jesus became the NEW SONS OF ABRAHAM displacing the old sons of Abraham? Not at all. Paul said just the opposite in his argument in Romans 10 and 11:

The context was Israel’s rejection of the Gospel and their need to understand the justification message of the church. He wrote:

Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for [their] salvation. 2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. 3 For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Clearly, Paul said that a right relationship before God in salvation (justification) comes ONLY through the sacrifice of Jesus – no animal atonement works because that system was OVER. Jews were clinging to sacrifices of atonement and denying cleansing in Christ – and that snubbed God’s gift and continued the rebellion against following God’s Word as it became available to them in their day. He went on to point out how offensive the Gospel was, because the direct door of salvation bypassed the system that Jewish authorities continued to control…

Romans 10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same [Lord] is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13 for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”

Many Jews saw this as a negative, God took them from the center stage, but the opposite was true – the Gospel is GOOD NEWS. Far more could have a relationship with God than ever before around the globe. Still it stung… because God now had a direct relationship with the world apart from them, and it made them mad…

Romans 10:19 But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, “I WILL MAKE YOU JEALOUS BY THAT WHICH IS NOT A NATION, BY A NATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WILL I ANGER YOU.” 20 And Isaiah is very bold and says, “I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME, I BECAME MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME.”

At that point, Paul addressed Israel’s future with God. He started with a question in Romans 11:1:

Romans 11:1 I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

He made clear that a remnant of Jews already recognized that justification (full cleansing in Jesus) replaced atonement (temporary covering of animal sacrifice). He made clear that God had long before promised a time when Israel’s eyes would be dark for a time:

Romans 11:8 just as it is written, “GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT, DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY.”

Paul renewed a sense of hope for his fellow Messianic believers about their brothers and sisters in the flesh who did not yet believe in Messiah’s sacrifice, but kept pushing ahead with the atonement system. He wrote:

Romans 11:11 I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation [has come] to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. 12 Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be!

He clarified the coming salvation of the Jewish people as a people a few verses later. He wrote:

Romans 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery– so that you will not be wise in your own estimation– that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.” 27 “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.” 28 From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of [God’s] choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; 29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. … and then Paul breaks into praise for God’s marvelous plan!

Let’s close up this lesson where we opened it:

God didn’t replace Israel with the church – He replaced the temporary atonement system with permanent cleansing and removed Israel from the center role she played until her time comes back.

God means what He says. When He called Israel His beloved, the apple of His eye, His everlasting love – He wasn’t speaking metaphorically. He spoke of the promises as coming “from the loins of the Patriarchs” – not some spiritual hocus pocus about someone else. God promised Abraham that He would bless the world with a direct line to Him that was available after Adam and before Moses – but was truncated through Israel after Moses. God was going to open the door through One Israelite, for a period of time, before he made all Israel return to Him.

He has a future for Israel – the literal, physical children of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. He isn’t done with them yet. Paul knew it and made it clear in Romans 10 and 11.

Why should you care?

Because the God you trust for salvation and eternity is exacting in His desires, specific in His communication, and ever faithful in His delivery. He isn’t fuzzy on truth. God knows when He is satisfied with a payment for sin. God isn’t interested in our devising a different system to be acceptable to Him other than the one He laid out in His Word.

The God that is still at work over generations and thousands of years to specifically fulfill every detail of His promises is also preparing the place you are heading if you know Jesus. Look up, home is under construction and the builder won’t leave a single knob off the cabinets.

God the Father has a permanent irrevocable call to Israel that is entirely separate from the call of the Savior to His church… and that is good for all of us. It reminds us of the faithfulness God pledges to His every promise.

Renewing Our Values: “To Protect and Serve” – 1 Timothy 3:8-16

protect-and-serveYou’ve seen it many times on the side of a police officer or sheriff’s deputy automobile. It is the simple motto: “To protect and serve” or some version of that. Though he was not a sheriff, perhaps no American has ever filled that role more consciously and effectively than our first President of the United States, George Washington. His reputation as a soldier and later a statesman are both the stuff of legend. Yet, underneath the accomplished career of the public figure, lay a gentleman of sincere character and stern self-discipline. Today we want to look more closely at a pattern set in Scripture of leaders…

Key Principle: Effective leadership flows from intentional focus on character to deliberate actions of practical service.

GeorgeWashingtonHe was born in Colonial Virginia, the son of a wealthy tobacco plantation owning father. Both his father and older brother died when he was still young and Washington became mentored primarily by William Fairfax, a professional surveyor. Washington seemed to be adept in army service, and joined the ranks of a fighting Provisional British force, rising to become a senior officer in the early stages of the French and Indian War. Much later, he was selected in 1775 to become commander-in-chief of the Continental Army of the American Revolution, and the rest, as they say, is history. Yet those were his accomplishments, not a survey of his character. Look closer at his portrait. Peel away the layers of mythology and veneration, and what appears to remain is a picture of a good man who understood the value of humility and hard work.

One particular value statement may be found in the hand written record that Washington kept from his school days – a document that survives to this day and offers a window into his value system. The document called “One hundred ten Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation” is a manuscript from the Jesuits of the sixteenth century, copied by a young Washington, thought to be at age sixteen. It is worth reviewing a few of the points found on that list (and linguistically updated for modern understanding):

Rule 1: Treat everyone with respect.
• Rule 3: Don’t frighten people.
• Rule 5: If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately; and Speak not in your Yawning, but put Your handkerchief or Hand before your face and turn aside.
• Rule 6: Sleep not when others Speak, Sit not when others stand, Speak not when you Should hold your Peace, walk not on when others Stop.
• Rule 35: When you speak, be concise.
• Rule 40: Do not argue with your superior. Submit your ideas with humility.
• Rule 45: When you must give advice or criticism, consider the timing, whether it should be given in public or private, and above all be gentle in the manner of delivery.
• Rule 47: Do not make fun of anything important to others.
• Rule 50: Do not be quick to believe bad reports about others.
• Rule 56: Associate with good people. It is better to be alone than in bad company.
• Rule 68: Do not go where you are not wanted. Do not give unasked-for advice.
• Rule 70: Do not correct others when it is not your place to do so.
• Rule 79: Do not be quick to talk about something when you don’t have all the facts.
• Rule 110: Don’t allow yourself to become jaded, cynical or calloused.

There are many others that I found helpful, but these are sufficient to make clear my point: Behind great men and women of accomplishment are thoughtful and deliberate disciplines of character. That was the main point of the first part of 1 Timothy 3 that we looked at in our last lesson. In this lesson, we want to finish the words of that third chapter, and move from character to service, particularly as we engage the words of Paul concerning the Deaconate in 1 Timothy 3:8-16.

The text of 1 Timothy 3:1-7, when taken as a whole, makes an important argument.

The desire for character must precede the display of competence. We must learn to think and prioritize rightly before we learn how to respond rightly. What we accomplish should be an extension of what we know is truly important. Character should precede competence in construction, but it always supersedes accomplishment in importance.

Let me say it another way: Whatever we produce in life is of little lasting value if we don’t take into account the model we are displaying as we craft it. The greatest leaders are the ones that keep a focus on the model they are creating for followers. Our chief accomplishment won’t be a product we invent, but the people we impact with our value system and character. Accomplishment is, in many ways, less important than example. The most impacting people in history, the people who REALLY were the game changers over the long haul, were the ones who knew that their leadership wasn’t just about the goal in front of them, but about the team around them. They wouldn’t simply be measured by the thing they created, but the lives they sculpted in the process. That is the message behind verses one to seven…

The second half of the chapter (directed at the office of Deacons) builds on the character argument.

Paul explained that because the currency of leadership is trust, we must build the trust to lead people. The way to deposit trust in a relationship is meeting the needs of those we would lead. In other words, people need more than theory to trust those who would lead them – they need actions that are designed to meet their needs. People need leaders that SERVE THEM.

The passage on the Deaconate is obviously offered by God to settle what kind of people should be called to that post by the congregation. At the same time, the principles offer something all believers can identify with – the CONDUCT, CAUSE and CONFESSION of the Godly servant. The motto of a vibrant believer should be “serving Jesus by serving others”. How do godly servants act? What should stir them? What singular cause grips their heart and spurs them to action? These are the questions answered in the next few verses…

The Conduct of a Godly Servant (3:8-13)

What does a true servant of God look like? With all the hucksters and fakes around us, is there some way to sketch out what a godly servant should strive to be? Look at the passage:

1 Timothy 3:8 Deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued, or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, 9 but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 These men must also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. 11 Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. 12 Deacons must be husbands of only one wife, and good managers of their children and their own households. 13 For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

Since both men and women are mentioned in these verses, and because Scripture often divides the commands and requirements along these lines, let’s look at them separately for a moment…

To be a godly servant, men must be:

1. Careful in action: Dignity (8): semnos is august, respectable from sebomai for reverenced or treated with great respect and care. The idea is that a servant is one who has a spiritual depth about them that causes others to have a sense of deep respect when around them.

2. True in word: not double-tongued (8): di-logos or “two words” as in duplicitous – saying one thing with one person another with another (with the intent to deceive or avoid clear presentation of the truth). He speaks with integrity, consistency, and grace.

3. “Uncrutched”: (not) addicted to much wine (8): addicted is the word “prosecho” – to attach one’s self to, hold or cleave to a person or a thing.

4. “Biblical value” focused: (not) fond of sordid gain (8): the phrase is found in a compound word – “ai-skhro-ker-dace’” or eager to gain things of this world, as in greedy for money. Godly servants see only temporal value in money and should not use the respect they garner from service to gain an advantage in business. They serve to honor God, not worship gain.

5. Grasping deep the truths of God: holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience (9): mystery is “musterion” – hidden thing, a secret, used in pagan rites as “religious secrets confided only to the initiated”; the secret counsels which govern God in dealing with the righteous, which are hidden from ungodly and wicked men but plain to the godly.

6. Examined and Proven: first be tested, then serve (10): tested is from the word dok-im-ad’-zo, was a metallurgy term to heat a metal and see whether a thing is genuine or not; to examine, prove, place one’s self in a position of scrutiny and be measured. Servants must not have a blot on their lives for which they could be accused or disqualified.Obviously in the context of Deaconsthis is required, but in a general sense it is the goal of all true godly servants.

7. Intentionally Vetted: beyond reproach (10): this is NOT the word ‘unhandled’ as in the leadership quality in 3:2. The word here is “asan-eng’-klay-tos” – an adjective that means “cannot be called into to account, unreproveable, unaccused particularly in relation to the examined testing mentioned above. Since the Deacons were vital to the handling of assets and resources in the early church, they needed to be impeccable. Should a godly servant on any level of ministry strive for less? No.

8. Unquestionably Faithful: husbands of only one wife (12): the phrase is the same as with the leaders above in 3:2, but is posed in an emphatic style preceded with “Let them be (estosan)”. This is an important marker of a danger area, apparently because of the depth of contact in meeting needs. When a servant has an ulterior motive of the flesh, their service is for SELF and not godly at all.

9. Properly Prioritized: Servants should be good managers of their children and their own households (13): the key word here is manager, or “pro-is’-tay-mee”, a verb used to denote ‘to set or place before’, to superintend, preside over, be a protector or guardian over.

10. Standard Bearer: obtain high standing and great confidence in the faith (13): to obtain is to peripoeomai – a verb to make to remain over; to reserve, to “lay away” or purchase in time. The term “high standing” is two words that can be translated “Beautiful threshold step” (from kalos and bath-mos’ ) figuratively meaning they raise the bar of all.

To be godly servants, women must be:

1. Careful in action: likewise be dignified (11): in the same exact way, act in “semnos” is august, respectable from sebomai for reverenced or treated with great respect and care.

2. Slow to Conclude: not malicious gossips (11): diabolos: a word from with the title devil comes, it means “prone to slander, false accuser.

3. Clear thinking: temperate (11): nay-fal’-eh-os is sober, abstaining from cloudy thinking particularly associated with wine and its immoderate use.

4. Reliable: faithful in all things (11): as consistent about responsibilities as one could expect. Not rash or given to impulsive directions.

It isn’t clear if the women in this passage are the wives of the Deacons, or if they are women selected for the position apart from that relationship. Scholars disagree on that point, but do agree that the women are evaluated carefully, as is obvious by the writing of such standards in the text.

The Cause of a Godly Servant (3:14-15)

There is more to godly service than simply a shopping list of ideals. There is a driving passion that must also be present. Some will serve to be noticed and personally affirmed – that isn’t Godly. Others may serve in public, but be sloppy in private – making more a show out of a title than a true dedication to serving with their best effort. Paul offered another element – they need to have a PASSION to do things the way God said, and to the limit of their ability:

1 Timothy 3:14 I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; 15 but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (upright column that supports the protective covering over) and support (hed-rah’-yo-mah: building term for “stone course that supports”; from the word for firm, immovable, steadfast) of the truth.

Three important truths to consider that are revealed in the verses:

1. There is a standard in God’s Word as to how we ought to act in relation to one another. When churches don’t behave, it isn’t because God didn’t offer us instruction on how to behave, it is because we don’t immerse ourselves in learning His Word, or we refuse (whether passively or defiantly) to do what He commands.

2. When servants of Jesus act as we should in the church, we hold the roof on the protective covering over the tent in which we live. It will have many holes, but one less for every believer that upholds the godly standards marked for a servant we have just annunciated.

3. The foundation of the church is the work of God in us and through us – it becomes a stable influence and example as we become a firm course that supports His work among others. Soft foundations in the church lead to collapses in the society!

We must be passionate about serving, to do God’s work God’s way. Haphazard service for the King must be rejected. Do what God called you to do with all your might. At the same time, regulate the HOW from the directions of Scripture. You aren’t SERVING when you enable people to do wrong – even if that makes the NEEDY HAPPY. The test is simple: “What did God say?”

The Confession of a Godly Servant (3:16)

It is very easy to get caught up in the requirements and passion for the Word and miss an absolutely essential element of godly service – the energy source of a well-spring of thankfulness for God’s goodness in meeting our needs. Look at this reminder of what God did for each of us.

1 Timothy 3:16 “By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.”

Jesus came as a SERVANT to any of us who claim to be servants of God today. His service SAVED us, and RESTORED a crushed relationship with the Father leftover from the mutiny in the Garden of Eden. Without what Jesus did for us, none of us would be servants of God today – because we wouldn’t know Him.

To grasp the text, we need to grab hold of what a confession truly is. A confession is a unified statement. It comes from “hom-ol-og-ow-men’-oce”, an adverb that modifies a “given word” and adds this sense – something that is spoken by consent of all, confessedly, without controversy. It is the word in the phrase of a judge to the unanimous verdict of a jury, “So say you all?” which is matched by the response, “So say we all!” Paul had in mind, “What the church says together about the truth”.

Six truths held in common by the church include:

God’s truths are private to the family: Note the term “mystery of godliness”: Deep revealed private markers of how God works in our life to set us free are given through God’s Spirit and His Word that cannot be understood by unbelieving people.

Jesus perfectly showed who the Father is, and what He desires. Revealed in the flesh: The church believes and knows that God was accurately and wholly revealed in Jesus. He is not an imposter, nor one of us. He came as God in human skin. The high place of Jesus is central to the whole Christian message. Mess with Jesus and His place and you destroy the heart of the redemption message. He is not the illegitimate son of a young Israelite girl raped by a Roman soldier. He is not a “good man” Who came to show us how to love one another. He was, and is, God revealed by putting on human skin (Hebrew 1:1ff).

Jesus’ work was God’s plan, not man’s device. Vindicated in the Spirit: vindicated is “dikao-o” meaning to show, exhibit, evince, one to be righteous, or show as he wishes himself to be considered. Within the work of the Spirit of God, Jesus was shown to be exactly Who He is, and how He wishes you to see Him. Without the Spirit working in full within your life, there will be a marred view of Jesus.

All Heaven gasped at the Father’s plan as it unfolded. Seen by angels: horao is “gazed at in wonder” by angelic beings. A truth of the church that was common was the knowledge that every power in Heaven was amazed as they observed what Jesus did for man. It was completely beyond their expectation!

The Gospel’s power is known. Proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world: persuasively preached (kerudzo) or officially heralded, with authority which must be listened to and obeyed. The church does not own the message. It cannot decide the necessity of lost men to come and be saved. It is God’s message and has become powerful in nation after nation, when they bowed to Christ.

The disposition of our Savior is as a Heavenly contractor! Taken up in glory: It sounds like the historical passage in Acts 1:11 “and they also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” The Ascension was part of the early church’s unified statement concerning what happened to Jesus. Jesus said He was “going to prepare a place for us.” When mine is ready, He will send for me!

That is the text. It offered notes on the CONDUCT of Deacons, which we applied to godly leaders in a general way. It offered a CAUSE, a burning passion to do the right thing by the right standard, and it offered a glimpse at the glorious CONFESSION – the heart of the message of the servant.

I wanted to save a few paragraphs at the end to address some practical aspects of servant hood that should be grappled with while we are in the text and exploring the subject. I think in a day when we are trained to look at life through eyes of convenience and BEING SERVED, we need to remember why SERVICE IS SO VERY IMPORTANT in the cause of Christ today…I am offering three thin-lined sketches that offer my best understanding of what true service looks like:

First, when we truly serve people, we expose the value system of our heart reflected by the hours we serve faithfully and dutifully with no strings attached.

We need to guard our hearts…Our world is filled with causes, and many of us are in danger of an emotional “heart attack” that will diminish our effectiveness. Follow the wall posts of people on social networks, and you will see some of your friends are driven more by rage than by love. They float from one injustice to another, projecting anger as though they are just now learning that life isn’t fair, and a fallen world isn’t just. Now continue down the page and look at the posts of the “hurt-related” causes. There are puppies that are abused, dear victims of terrible weather systems that are pictured sitting on a pile of rubble, and truly heart-wrenching stories of those nearly shattered by the hardships of a broken world. For all these, we are invited to hit “like” or offer a witty comment. Hitting “like” may make us believe we are making a public statement of values – but it is a cheap substitute for action by an overwhelmed population that finds itself unable to invest much more emotion in all the injustices, let alone able to “ante up” cash for tragedies. Sometimes it feels like a global hurting village is too large a chorus to pick out individual voices and really hear them.

What we can do, what we MUST do, is pick out the call of God for each of us and serve people according to that call. The call is directly connected to our GIFTEDNESS by the Spirit of God. We are personally empowered by God’s Spirit to do what God has called us to do, and His voice will tug on us to get it done – if we don’t drown it out with the screeching sounds of the many other good causes we are NOT called to be involved with personally. Service requires the ability to prioritize and protect a call. When we do that, we will be able to invest emotion, energy and effort into serving specific people in places that need our help – and our effectiveness will increase.

• We will work at a pet shelter five hours a week instead of simply looking at pictures of abused animals online for the same amount of time.

• We will serve in a soup kitchen one day a week instead of reading articles about America’s struggling populations and wishing somebody would help.

• We will look at the buildings and assets of the local church not as projections of our corporate importance in the community, nor as our private clubhouse, but as a base of service to meet the needs of our town. We will look for ways to use what God has given us to care for people around us, and we will drive that involvement not simply to grow the number on Sunday, but to let those who live in the shadow of our church to see Jesus in action in their lives, no matter what they do on Sunday morning.

• We will search for the needy who are near where we live that have a need instead of being enraged about some injustice done to someone far away. One homemade meal for an elderly person delivered one afternoon does more direct good than one thousand “likes” on social media.

• We will set aside time to deliberately work in a children’s ministry instead of spending our time grousing about why “these kids today” don’t think the way we believe they should.

• Some who are talented will initiate a gathering of like-minded friends to learn a specific piece of worship music to lift others instead of sitting Sunday after Sunday in the congregation allowing those abilities to grow lethargic. You will prepare well, and then share that blessing with the rest of us.

• Some who are deeply wounded by the tragedy in the Philippines or troubled by the horror of the storms in the Midwest will gather to pray for the needs of those regions, and ask God how they can be engaged in the coming months to help.

• Some who have weathered a personal storm, a divorce or the passing of your loved one, will look for others who are currently passing through that stormy season, and offer some help in the practical ways that only YOU can – because you know what it takes to get through.

My point is this: A generation of programmed church events seems to have left local church people anemic in ministry – unable to serve without a sponsored slot in the bulletin and a meeting room. Why? Why can’t a mechanic give one night a week to caring for specific people that need help with an oil change without having a committee turn it into a program? Why can’t a nurse just decide to stop in and check on those who are high risk without anyone telling them to do it? Why can’t a small group of people form to meet a need, and seek God as to HOW they should tackle it without any specific move from leadership.

I want my life to reflect my values. I want the hours I spend to line up with a life message that my children can see, my wife can perceive, my friends can recognize. If I believe that discipleship and mentoring is truly important, if I believe equipping believers by use of the gifts bestowed by God in my life is really what honors Jesus, then that is where I should spend my life’s energy.

Now let me ask a pointed question: What is YOUR CALL in service to the King? What gifts have been given to YOU to be stewarded, and what are YOU doing with them? Is God getting back on His investment of gifts a good return from you? How do YOU serve Jesus with your life?

Second, when we truly serve people, we expose an essential truth – that God made them with intrinsic value, and we should long to help them restore themselves in that instilled dignity.

When we see them slumped against the wall of trouble and despair, we have an opportunity to sit with them and befriend them. When we do, we are not standing above them talking down, but sitting beside them reaching over. We communicate that they are NOT our project, on the order of some stray pet or some sad reason for pity. They are God’s creation. His image is stamped in them. They are a “work in progress” by a Master hand. They are worthy of love because they hold within them the breath of the Divine One. The weariness they project is a plea for a strong hand to hold. We must seek ultimately to place that hand in our Master’s hand, but we are going to need to lovingly and deliberately clasp it ourselves first. People find the tenderness of God when believers model that tenderness. Hurting people learn to trust God when they first feel the trust of people who claim to know and represent Him.

Finally, when we truly serve people we remind ourselves that the most important things in life are found in relationships, not in the accumulation of accolades, awards and diplomas by those who barely know us.

It isn’t awards that are life’s true reward – it is real connection to people that honors a REAL SAVIOR. That was the point of Paul including the CONFESSION in the text. When Jesus is served, life is valuable. Where Jesus is served, He will look like a small child that is hungry, a lost co-worker who is crying because his wife just walked out, an abused woman who needs our protection and our love. I would rather make a friend that touches my heart than win a trophy that collects dust.

The believers must be the ones in a “society gone crazy over stuff” that make it clear that life is MORE than the accumulation of estate sale items. I don’t want a trophy case in the room where I lay dying. I want my family, my friends, notes and cards from real people that mean a great deal to me. Plastic trophies given by jealous co-workers applauded by anonymous onlookers are no comfort them. The hand I hold is worth more than the money in my wallet.

Jesus is about serving – and I want to be about Jesus. He was about sacrificial giving of Himself for my need and yours. Can I claim a faith in His name that does less? No, or I should call myself by a different name.

Effective godly leadership flows from intentional focus on character to deliberate actions of practical service.

Dispelling Myths of the Gospel in Galatians 2

anne-hutchinsonTo anyone studying modern American trends, the story of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Puritan controversies will probably sound like a strange history of an entirely different people, but those struggling colonists are a vital part of our own history. They came to America largely FOR religious freedom, and their early struggles are some of the reason people today abhor any crossover between state authority and church dogma. Let me illustrate that by retelling a story that used to be a part of our common American History curriculum, but has since been dropped. That is the story of an Antinomian Controvery of 1636-38.

The setting was the village of Boston of the seventeenth century. At the center of the controversy was a woman named Anne Hutchinson, a strong-minded Puritan daughter of an Anglican minister. Before she came from England she embraced a Christian view that celebrated freedom in the Gospel from what they called “the Moral Law” of the Hebrew Scriptures. Her Puritan minister was John Cotton who was forced to leave England, so Anne Hutchinson followed him to New England. She became influential among the settlement’s women as she hosted them for a weekly Bible study in her home. She disagreed with the prevailing Pastors of the colony that taught that in Christ one should embrace the lifestyle standards of the Hebrew law, and she criticized them openly, saying that they were preaching a “covenant of works” in denial of the “covenant of grace” she felt was true. So biting was her criticism, and so stirred were the women, that the colony’s ministers held meetings in the Autumn of 1636 hoping to regain unity. They began with a day of fasting and repentance on 19 January 1637. Sadly, they couldn’t agree and the religious argument took on political ramifications. In the election of May 1637, these so-called “free grace” advocates were defeated in the gubernatorial race and magistrates who supported Anne Hutchinson and her friends were voted out of office. Her criticism didn’t stop, and Anne Hutchinson was eventually held in detention in 1638 and excommunicated from the colony by a religious court. It seems hard to believe our pre-American colonial history tied the church so close to the state, but that is part of the historical pressure that Jefferson felt in the crafting of the Constitution.

Why did I start with a Puritan history lesson? Probably part of me is anticipating Thanksgiving coming soon, but that is not all. I recall that story to remind us of the issue we will examine today in our series on the “myths of the Gospel” in Galatians 2. Today’s lesson is about antinomianism. The “over sized” term comes from two words: anti (against) and nomos (Greek for “law”). The theological concept means “one who holds to the belief that the message of the “Gospel of grace” cancels any allegiance to the previous moral laws and precepts of lifestyle formerly taught under the Hebrew Law, because they believe that are both of “no use for salvation” and offer a contradiction to the message of “faith alone” for salvation.

Let me get off the big words and simplify the problem.

No sooner did the reformer Martin Luther explain that salvation was not earned, but a “gift of God” that came through simple faith in the completed work of Jesus on the Cross, a problem began in some groups that reacted to the “works” based churches they came out of into Protestantism. People grew up being told that they needed to keep the moral standards revealed in the Hebrew laws of the Bible, or they would go to Hell when they died. When Luther’s preaching hit their ears, they realized that there was no work they could do to earn God’s salvation, and they needed to trust the work that Jesus did dying in their place. They celebrated that as a Gospel of grace, and began a walk with Jesus. In short order, some who did not want to live according to the standards of Scripture picked up on the message and began to sculpt a theology that taught, “Accept Jesus and live any way you want – because you are saved.” They carefully divorced any lifestyle practice from the simple act of “receiving Jesus”. Already at the time of Luther in the sixteenth century, they were dubbed by Luther and his followers in Germany as “antinomians” – against any rules. By the time of Anne Hutchinson, that was old news… and they are with us to this day.

They make resurgence every time a movement wants to allow practices clearly not acceptable in the Scriptures. Today, they are all over the internet. Their message is simply this: You get salvation by believing that Jesus paid for your sin, not by surrendering anything. Surrender is a work, and Jesus doesn’t save by works.” They get that idea, in my view, from misreading places in the Bible like Galatians 2, and they don’t represent the true presentation of the Gospel from the New Testament. Let’s say carefully what the Bible truly teaches:

Key Principle: The Gospel teaches that we don’t earn a relationship with God through works (because it is a gift given to the undeserving) but we do offer God our lives and seek to obey Him in our walk now that we have been purchased by Him.

Let me unpack that.

• First, we are saying that a right relationship with God comes only when we accept that the payment made by Jesus as He died on the Cross as complete and full – nothing else needs to be accomplished to satisfy God for the mutiny of mankind in the Garden. The way became available by one and only one way – Jesus.

• Second, we are saying that payment can only be applied to our lives when we ask Jesus to do so. That act is more than a decision to acknowledge what He did in history, it is an act of opening ourselves to His leading, a surrender to His mastery, as we believe what God says concerning the payment for sin in Jesus.

• Third, the act of surrendering our mind and heart to God’s Word concerning the Gospel continues as we take on a new life in Christ. That life is informed by the Scriptures, all of which are God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, correction and encouragement. In obedience to the Word we earn no salvation – but in our saved state we desire to live obedience.

What does that mean?

It means that people who want to walk in disobedience need to really look deeply within to see if they truly want to confess Jesus as Lord or not. It means that believers DO live under a code of obedience that can be generally gauged by the Word of God. Let’s look at the passage, and see if we can discern where the myths come from, and then we will answer them with a more accurate rendering of those same passages of Scripture. There are two myths we want to examine in addition to the three we saw in our last lesson…

Myth #4: Subversive- Paul’s Gentile version of the Gospel was different! Paul gave a different Gentile version of the message of Jesus that Jerusalem believers didn’t agree to.

Some people acted as if Paul had a different message to Jews and to Gentiles concerning salvation – but he did not…

2:1 Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. 2 It was because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but [I did so] in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain. 3 But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. 4 But [it was] because of the false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. 5 But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. 6 But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)– well, those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me. 7 But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter [had been] to the circumcised 8 (for He who effectually worked for Peter in [his] apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), 9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we [might] [go] to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 [They] only [asked] us to remember the poor– the very thing I also was eager to do.

There are a few initial observations we should mention before we get too far from our reading of the text:

• First, Paul began in the middle of a defense that his Gospel didn’t come from man in verse one, and we dealt with that in our previous lesson (2:1).

• Second, Paul made clear that he was not offering a Gospel message to the pagan world that was not fully inspected by church leaders. He said in verse 2 that he “submitted to them the gospel which I preach” in the confines of a private chamber (2:2).

• Third, the Apostles that reviewed the message agreed that Titus, because he was not a Jew, did not have the need to be circumcised in order to be saved (2:3). God’s commands to the Jewish people informed the Gentiles of principles of what was important to God, but did not make them carry a law that was given as part of the unique covenant God held with the Jewish people.

• Fourth, there were some who wanted all of the church to be under the Law God gave specifically to the Jewish people (2:4-6). Paul affirmed that acquiescing to them would have corrupted the very core of the Gospel itself.

• Fifth, the Apostles recognized that God had a message to the uncircumcised that included the SAME PAYMENT FOR SIN in Christ (justification), but did not include the same lifestyle requirements (sanctification process) that God required of Jews for “all their generations” in issues like Sabbath and circumcision (2:7-9). They recognized both groups existed and were one in Messiah’s blood, but not the same in lifestyle. God told Jews to keep Sabbath for all their generations. He told them to circumcise their children as a unique sign forever. Gentiles didn’t need to start doing those things, because they came under a different sanctification message. Everyone was saved the same way, but after salvation, bonded slaves lived differently than freedmen, men differently than women, Jews differently than Gentiles. Each would find sections of the New Testament defining specific calls for their group – though all were saved and “one in Christ”.

• Sixth, the Apostles DID require that Paul attach the new work of care for the poor through giving (2:10). This probably referred to the offerings taken up for the Jewish believers that were, at the time after Pentecost in Acts 2, still living in common in Jerusalem.

The point Paul was making was simply this: I didn’t tell Gentiles they needed to do the things God kept for the Jewish people. I told them Jesus paid for their sin, and the sacrificial atonement system of the Jewish people would be of no use to them – along with all the other things Jews were told to do. I made clear to them they had a path of obedience to follow, but it wasn’t the path of the Jewish people. At the same time, we need to be careful to underscore that Paul KEPT the Law and honored Jews to did so. He wasn’t against keeping what God told them to keep for “all their generations”. He wasn’t embarrassed about honoring the Law. He was instructed by Jesus not to force Gentiles to keep that Law because it wasn’t made for them.

Is there evidence for these statements? Yes, there is. I will offer it very briefly:

• First, Acts 15 sets out the standards of the Jerusalem Council on Gentiles and their walk as a believing group. The group of Apostles told the Gentiles in a letter from James that they would not make the Gentiles do the things Jews were already called to do. Jews wouldn’t STOP doing them, but Gentiles didn’t need to START doing them.

• Second, Acts 21 made clear that thousands of Jews kept on clinging to the practice of the Law after they came to Jesus, and the Apostles honored them in front of Paul, while Paul had no problem publicly affirming them in taking a vow to clear up any MISCONCEPTION that he was teaching Jews to STOP keeping the Laws God commanded them to do forever.

• Third, in Acts 23:6 Paul claimed he continued to function as a Pharisee AFTER his mission journeys, making the overt claim to remaining Kosher and keeping Sabbath. If he didn’t maintain the standards, he was flatly telling a lie to keep people happy. Does that sound like the Paul that was repeatedly beaten and stoned for NOT keeping people in authority happy?

Myth #5: Liberating: The Gospel frees men from any requirement of obedience! Because we are saved by grace trough faith, we can live as we please and just believe in Jesus to get into Heaven.

There was a more important myth that developed – that of antinomianism – that Paul said Jesus wiped away all connection of believers in Jesus from the moral principles found in the Law.

2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he [began] to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. 13 The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how [is it that] you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? 15 “We [are] Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; 16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. 17 “But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! 18 “For if I rebuild what I have [once] destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the [life] which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness [comes] through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.

Again, before we address the myth, we must make some careful observations about the text:

First, Peter was making a mistake that required correction by Paul. The essence of the mistake was allowing Gentiles to be confused about their complete acceptance under the Gospel of Grace by their believing Jewish brothers. Peter confused rabbinic standards with the Law, and was embarrassed to eat in the presence of Gentile background Christians when being observed by Messianic Jews from Jerusalem that came for a visit. This wasn’t the first time Peter made this particular mistake, as he verbalized an inaccurate statement in Acts 10 (2:11-13). There is no Hebrew Law that says a Jew cannot eat with a Gentile. There are laws about what can be served and how it is killed, but that wasn’t the issue – it was the rabbinic standard of separation that was the mistake. It wasn’t WHAT they ate in the text, it was that they ATE IT TOGETHER – and that was a rabbinic issue not a Biblical one.

Second, full acceptance by God is at the heart of the Gospel message. Paul knew that ANY teaching that made those who were not required to keep the Law feel less than adequate before God required immediate and clear correction – because it would taint the Gospel message of salvation by full payment at the Cross (2:14a).

Third, Peter and Paul lived in the diaspora, and were forced to make compromises in visiting Jerusalem for every feast, as Deuteronomy 16:16 commanded. They were born Jews and struggled to maintain strict obedience in the days of the spread of the Roman Empire. Frankly, without the rabbinic dispensations allowing an “anshai ma-amad” or “bystander” to take the place of a Jew at a feast, they would have been bound to Deuteronomy 16:16 and had to be in Jerusalem in person three times a year. Paul made clear it was nearly impossible for THEM to keep the Law, and they were BORN INTO IT. Paul could not believe Peter would force his Christian brothers from Gentile backgrounds into these problems (2:14b-15a).

Fourth, Paul made clear that even the Jewish Apostles that were raised with a love for the Law had long since concluded that the atonement law – offering blood of bulls and goats to God in the Temple to appease His wrath for a time – was no longer necessary. This is at the heart of the argument of the entire letter. Jesus paid for enough once for all, so that such installment payments were no longer valid to pay for sin (2:15b-16). Hebrews 9 made the same point. The old system was sacrifice, but it was incomplete because it never took care of ALL SIN. It needed to be repeated over and over. Jesus paid it all, once for all. The incomplete atonement of the Jerusalem Temple system was replaced by COMPLETE CLEANSING. No sacrifice (work of the Law for atonement) works – Jesus replaced the whole system.

Now look at the end verses again:

Galatians 2:19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the [life] which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness [comes] through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

Many people read those words and think, “There it is! I am DEAD to the Law! The Spirit will speak standards of living into my life and I no longer need those old musty Hebrew Laws anymore.

Is that what he said? No, and I can prove it…

• First, the writer is Paul, and we know from Acts that he didn’t stop keeping feasts, taking vows and even going to the Temple. The whole story of his arrest in Acts 21 at the Temple happened because he was AT THE TEMPLE TAKING A VOW – and that was after he traveled all three of his mission journeys.

• Second, Paul and the other Apostles structured many of their arguments in the Epistles based on that Law in their writings to churches. In one example, for instance, Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians: I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? (1 Cor. 9:8). Why argue a point based on dead and ineffective old law?

• Third, God used later HIM to record these words – 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Why didn’t Paul make clear that only New Testament writings were included when most of what was called Scripture was the Hebrew Law and Writings?

What WAS he saying?

Look at the end of the statement. Paul made clear WHAT LAW he was referring to – the kind that dealt with JUSTIFICATION. He said in 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness [comes] through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

The issue was this: Did Gentiles need the Temple system with the atonement sacrifices that were symbolized in the dispersion by Sabbath keeping and circumcision – since people couldn’t PHYSICALLY GO TO THE TEMPLE from all across the Roman world. When Jews spread far across the Mediterranean, the Temple pilgrimage became a lifetime goal, not a three time a year experience. As such, the signs that you were under that system needed to be local and known.

Paul argued vehemently for the same truth that was revealed in Hebrews 9, that the Temple, the Priesthood, the atonement of animal blood –and all that went with it was no longer necessary because the full satisfaction for JUSTIFICATION was met at Calvary. On the cross of Messiah, Jesus died in my place – but in my salvation I ALSO DIED- to the command of Christ my Lord. I am now dead, and Christ’s control dominates me. He lives in me. He rules me.

Let me restate those ending verses again, slowly and with my own paraphrase to aid in our understanding:

Galatians 2:19 “For according to the demands of the Atonement Law I was executed under my own sin according to the “blood for blood” requirement – so that I might live a new resurrected life full of God’s empowering. I died with Christ on the Cross when I surrendered to Him. I am not my own, my life is now HIS. The life I continue to have in the flesh is one of believing what He says is true and trusting the payment He made in love for me. I do not cancel God’s gift of Jesus by trusting in any animal’s blood anymore, or Jesus could have avoided the Cross and left the old atonement law in place.” [My paraphrase].

Now let’s go back and consider the myth.

Can we honestly say these verses teach: The Gospel frees men from any requirement of obedience! Because we are saved by grace trough faith, we can live as we please and just believe in Jesus to get into Heaven?

Of course we can’t. They say the OPPOSITE of that. They teach that coming to Christ is DYING TO SELF. It is letting Jesus take my life and steer it to where He wants it to go. Let’s say it plainly:

Jesus is in charge of my wallet. I will make choices as to where I will work and how much, based on His command. I will choose to spend based on His leading. I will give back to Him according to His guidance.

• Jesus is in charge of my entertainment. I will laugh at what He laughs at, because He is alive within me. I will sing what honors Him, because He hears every bar and note. I will watch what He would want me to watch, because He is sitting beside me as I look at my computer screen or into my flat screen.

• Jesus is in charge of my sexuality. I will find my fulfillment where He says I should, so that I can lay my head on my pillow without shame or guilt. I will allow my heart to desire what He has said I may, and will carefully discipline my thoughts in areas He has forbidden, because He is alive in me and He is my King.

• Jesus is in charge of my reputation. I will spend time serving people no one else cares about, and won’t worry if people don’t like their smell or their appearance – because I serve the Lord Christ. They are His children, and I am His servant!

• Jesus is in charge of my schedule. If that means that He determines that my new assignment is 1000 hours in doctor’s offices, I will go with the JOY that Jesus is represented wherever He sends me. I may not like the pain involved in the note I was sent to appear there, but I accept that my Savior knows where I need to be and when – because the moments of my life only have meaning because of Him.

• Jesus is in charge of my goals. Whatever I can accomplish, whatever I can dream, whatever I can fulfill – I will pass every goal under His approving eye before I launch out as though I am my own – because I am HIS. He paid for my life. He paid for my accomplishments. All of them will be placed in front of Him at the end anyway – and only the ones He delights in will have any meaning!

There is no sense in which I am left to my own devices, but Jesus alive in me does not leave me in heaviness, but in JOY. I can BECOME Jesus in my office, in my community. I can show His love, and recall His promises to the hurting. I can also walk uprightly and according to His Word. I don’t do it to EARN His love. I do it by His empowering and in His life flow – to His honor and His glory. Now, THAT is living!

The Gospel teaches that we don’t earn a relationship with God through works (because it is a gift given to the undeserving) but we do offer God our lives and seek to obey Him in our walk now that we have been purchased by Him.

Renewing Our Values: “A Question of Character” – 1 Timothy 3:1-7

character 1Over the past few weeks, some in the press have been remembering the shooting of President John Kennedy in Dallas fifty years ago, and that thought led me to the bookshelf of “old reads”… Dr. Thomas Reeves may not be a household name across America, but he is very well known in Wisconsin, as a thoughtful academic, and an accomplished writer. In the dawn of the twenty-first century, he wrote an unusual book about President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That work, A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy measured a staggering 544 pages in the paperback edition, and included a riveting study of the disparaging differences between the public persona and the private man behind the mythology. Reeves offered specific evidence for the picture of the President’s father, Joe Kennedy’s almost total control of his son’s behavior and political development throughout his career. One comment about the book that stuck out to me was that of the LA Times: “The John Kennedy who emerges from these pages was not a man of good moral character. He was reared not to be good but to win.” That alone made the book a promising read – because it didn’t celebrate the iconic President as a hagiography paying mythical homage to him, nor did it vilify him for some cheap political end. The tone of the book seemed more sorrowful than angry. The body of the book explored the question of how we ought to judge the relationship between personal character and national leadership – a lesson larger than a mere collection of anecdotes about a man who left our world fifty years ago.

In the end, we are left with the conclusion that in an age of controlled messages, very bad men can be made over to look like good ones – something we have learned over and over. We admit there is a flawed system to offer us a window into the real men and women behind the leadership images that are projected to us. We have to learn to recognize that what we see is a carefully tailored, produced and edited form of our leaders. Just like the ad agency airbrushing and manipulation of the models we see in print ads that make young ladies wish for the impossible, so the carefully sculpted form of politicians is offered to us in a packaging that may be nothing like their actual person. A Question of Character is a subtle warning to look beyond the packaging for the real man. Two thousand years before that book, a first century author offered the same warning: Look under the hood, not only at the package. Long before image consultants and focus groups, there was already the need to examine more than the public image and presentation to determine who was right for leadership.

More than any other place in the New Testament, the so-called “Pastoral Letters” offer words of solid council on the recognition of godly leaders and the standards of character qualities that should be sought as markers in them. They are both goals for the development of leaders and bench marks for people undergoing the process of recognition. Today’s lesson exposes a “shopping list” of such character qualities in 1 Timothy 3. The principle is very simple…

Key Principle: The foundation of leadership is character development, not merely a pragmatic ability to solve problems.

We cannot just choose the guy or gal with the best current solution. Why not? The truth is, we don’t know what problems will face those who enter leadership today. Think about new leaders and what they may face:

In business: The continual printing of money with no backing will eventually give way to a currency tumble in the dollar. Everyone agrees it will happen, the only question is WHEN. When the American Dollar loses its ability to drive the world economy, what will a leader need to do to keep bread on the table of American homes? How will we as a nation function when we aren’t making and bursting false bubbles of economy, but are actually forced to have only things we can actually afford to pay for? How will that affect the other countries that we purchase goods from?

In government: What will a leader need to be able to do when the increasing complexities of moral issues assail a government that has socially programmed its citizenry to look to Washington for answers to all moral, ethical and medical issues? In an age when legislators are expected to understand everything from high tech developments to designer babies and genetic selection, how will a leader know what is necessary to make good choices for the long term?

In the home: What skills will be necessary for the parent of a child that comes home from a school that encourages him or her to explore all kinds of perversity regardless of what the parent at home believes? What will a parent need to watch for in their child’s public exposure through TV, internet, social media, classmates, etc? How will the parent that is branded as “intolerant” in the coming wave be able to keep their own children from being sucked into the system that is increasingly taking his or her powers away?

In the church: What will the leader of tomorrow’s church in America need to have to make a difference and affect others for Christ? In an environment hostile to absolutes, particularly in the area of morality, how should future leaders be trained to handle audiences that are less accepting of Biblical standards? As public etiquette changes, and people become more hooked on the idea that their public comment is equal in value to the trained and skilled around them, how will the church change?

Here is my point: We don’t know what events are around the corner. Simply preparing people to have a pragmatic solution to each situation will be short-lived and in the long term be utterly ineffective – because we don’t know the nature of the problems just past the horizon.

We live in a world technologically dominated by tablets and smart cell phones that didn’t exist a decade ago. Both the future’s problems and the resources available to answer those challenges are a mystery to us right now. How then do we prepare leaders? The answer, in short, is that we carefully train them in relation to character. We develop, sculpt and encourage traits that will be essential regardless of the problems they face. That is the essence of what Paul taught when he wrote to Timothy about leaders in 1 Timothy 3. Let’s look at it together:

1 Timothy 3:1 It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires [to do]. 2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 4 [He must be] one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity 5 (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?), 6 [and] not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. 7 And he must have a good reputation with those outside [the church], so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

The Prerequisite of Leadership (3:1)

Paul began the whole discussion on character leadership with one prerequisite that should not be overlooked – the future leader must desire to become one. Leaders must CHOOSE that path, not be voted reluctantly into the line of fire. Paul began (3:1): “It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires [to do]. The text uses pointed words. If a man “stretches out” (orego) to become an overseer (episkopeo), he is seeking a good work and his desire (epithumeo) is a positive impulse. He assured those who desired the office of overseer in relation to the church that such desires were NOT WRONG. Here is my question: “Why would they think it was a WRONG THING to desire to lead?”

I suspect there were two reasons. First, some believers have a misshapen idea of humility. They believe that self-evaluation of one’s gifts and preparation for a task that involves leading is a statement of EGO, and should not be a part of the Christian’s development. That is simply not part of the humility equation. To be humble in the sense of the New Testament, a believer needs to set his or her desires as second behind that of Jesus and His people. That is the teaching of Philippians 2. One who identifies their gifting in areas of leadership is not being egotistical, but practical. God gifts everyone in the body with some part of what is necessary to the whole.

A second reason some may object to the impulse to lead as a positive one can likely be found in a latent but close to the surface false theology about striving. Some believers act like working toward a goal is the cancellation of the Spirit. Throughout my career I have encountered Christians that seem to suggest that preparation is a lack of trust in the Spirit of God. I call them “spooky Christians”. They seem believe the Spirit is only available during meeting, not in the study preparing for the meeting. The more they prepare, the less they feel “led by the Spirit”. I can only respond this way: I want my surgeon to pray and trust God during my surgery, but I am glad he studied before he got in the room. I am thankful that he spent hours learning all the parts of the body, the pharmacology, the techniques, etc. I am looking for someone who is more than spontaneous, I desire one who is trained, disciplined and prepared for what will happen in the operating suite. I want no less in the Bible study room or the pulpit.

Preparation isn’t a sign that the Spirit cannot and will not be trusted – it is a sign that the believer will take heed to the Word’s warning to “study to show ourselves a workman approved and rightly dividing the Word of truth.” Spontaneous statements in a teaching of message can (and in my experience often DO) overshadow the real intent of delivering reliable truth statements. Let’s say it plainly: Preparation isn’t unbiblical, and desire to lead isn’t unspiritual. The leader must WANT the work before they prepare for it, and must enter the work prepared and knowledgeable about the nature of it. The seven passages where Joshua was in the scene with Moses before he became the leader is an exacting example of that idea.

The Pattern of Leadership (3:2-7)

What followed the simple statement about the desire to lead was a list of fifteen traits that have become the backbone of the character training of leadership in finer organizations of the faith. Each trait is essential, and failure to heed the warning of the need poses a specific danger to the organization. Let’s look at each of the fifteen, and then summarize the picture of character development before we go any further in our leadership discussion:

1. Above Reproach: “anepilemptos” is a term from a jar or container, and refers to one that is without handles. The notion of “unhandled” is NOT that the would be leader has never done wrong, but that he has taken the necessary steps to clean up the mess he created and not allowed that mess to follow him through his life. People who owe people are handled people. They can be pulled about by the debts they created prior to coming into the position. Do you want a President that is owned by big corporations? No. It is the same principle. To train a leader to be above reproach is to train them to clean up after themselves, fixing what they brake, and completing their commitments before moving on. Character trained leaders have to pay their debts, and keep their desk clean of old strings and loyalties that will compromise their office.

2. Husband of one wife: The phrase has been translated as a “one woman man” and rightly has an emphasis on loyalty and fidelity to marriage. If God intended marriage in the Hebrew Scriptures to be a picture of the Father’s undying love for Israel, and in the Christian Scriptures he intended it to be a reflection of Jesus’ love for His Church – there can be little doubt that God intended that picture be clear in the lives of our leaders. In both the imagery of Hosea and Ephesians the BRIDE may have been fickle, but the husband was steadfast – and that is the basis of the requirement. Let me be clear about this: Marriage wasn’t just a cultural convention that became the root of the nuclear family – it was created by God as a picture of something greater. As such, God has as many requirements on its clarity as He did on the exacting standards of the Tabernacle of Bezalel, who was copying the one in Heaven. God’s models are exact replicas, and He wants them to reflect precision.

In the first century church, as closely as I can discern the history, the issue wasn’t divorce of leaders from their wives for another woman – it was a legal form that no longer exists. One of the types of Roman “marriage” that existed in the past (though it has not made its way in modernity) was that of the “coemptio en manum” marriage – the ability for one to trade his child or slave to another in payment of a debt for a time in what was called a “pleasurable service” arrangement. That allowed a man to have a young woman in his home that offered regular conjugal and sensual fulfillments to a man who was already married. This was allowed under Roman law, and a normal convention among the wealthier families of the Roman world. Some of those men, no doubt, entered leadership in local churches. Paul made it clear they were not to have such arrangements. In the end, we learn that leaders can’t just do what is LEGAL, they have to care about what God said was RIGHT.

3. Temperate: The word can be translated “vigilant” (nephalios), but sometimes is translated “sober”. Ironically, the term may have originated from the vintner’s mixing of wine. The idea is one that is “clear headed”, not cloudy nor “frivolous”. To lead, God requires one that is able to clear the nonsense out of the discussion and see the issues clearly. Leaders have to be able to settle down and discern what is serious. Some people get attention by being an adult version of the “class clown” – but they aren’t character leaders. It is essential that leaders know how to both have a good time and laugh, and how and when to settle down and get serious about a problem. They cannot be disengaged or clouded, but must focus on the issue and be able to think wisely about it.

4. Prudent: This word prudent; sober or self-controlled (sophronos) is literally the legal term “of sound mind”, and means that character leaders make a judgment without any defect of mind. This is a careful warning: sin is rooted in deception. Those who are hung up on a “pet sin” are living a deception and are not “of sound mind”. Prudent leaders seek to curb inner desires and impulses. One writer says this means to have a “soundness and balance in judgment, not unstable; and not given to quick and superficial decisions based on immature thinking”. I like the words of the Pastoral sage Warren Wiersbe when he comments “He must have a serious attitude and be in earnest about his work. This does not mean he has no sense of humor, or that he is always solemn and somber. Rather it suggests that he knows the values of things and does not cheapen the ministry or the Gospel message by foolish behavior.”

5. Respectable: The term “respectable” is sometimes translated “of good behavior”. It is the word (kosmios) that we mentioned in our previous study about women’s dress as “modest” in 1 Timothy 2:9. The basic idea was they were not ostentatious, but desired the focus to be on Jesus and not them. We don’t have the ability to truly measure people’s intentions, but it is possible to detect a person who is consistently drawing overt attention of a room to themselves. They have inner issues that must be addressed before they are ready to lead.

6. Hospitable: The word hospitable (philoxenos) actually means “loving strangers”. Tough we are to desire a level of comfort and care from any leader, the primary function of the leader in this statement is NOT to build ever deeper relationships to the flock. This ISN’T about how often the leader “comes calling” on those who are in the flock – it is about the winsomeness of the leader to reach the “strangers” and draw them in. Some of this certainly is relational evangelism, but other parts of it include offering ministry and counsel to those on the edge. The character leader must aim at more than maintaining the group; he must expand their view to the hurting world outside by taking an active role in it. We can’t just read about hurting people and preach about them, we have to engage them.

7. Apt to teach: is sometimes translated “able to teach” or “teachable”. The term didactikos does not simply mean able, but ready with practical and spiritually powerful teaching rooted in the Word. Character leadership training must focus on the expounding of God’s truth so that a leader will be prepared with ANSWERS FROM GOD, and not just more pragmatic programming. Because of that, leaders need training time, and need to ready some parts of their teaching ahead of the experience of leadership. Further, they need to teach each page already knowing what happens on the next already. They are not always leading by discovering. To be sure, they continue to grow in the journey, but they have done much work to become ready before they begin the process of leading others spiritually.

8. Not addicted to wine: Grammatically, the next few words of the text seem to be LINKED to this one. “Not addicted to wine” or “not given to much wine”: is actually all one Greek term – paroinos translated literally “beside wine”. Greek records indicate that Aristotle used the word to mean “tipsy; lingering with his wine”. The issue was that wine was regularly consumed by Romans, but some over-indulged and hung out beside the wine bar the way some office workers hang out in the break room or at the water cooler. They dull their minds and allow disciplines to slip away, and what follows is TROUBLE. The words that express trouble are the next few character traits that seem to be related to their over-indulgence.

9. Not pugnacious: The character leader must distance themselves from the wine bar and not allow themselves to become argumentative or hostile because of wine or lack of some self-control issues. They cannot push off study time for incessant Facebook voyeurism, allowing themselves to become angry and overwhelmed with inflammatory writing and issue barrages. Someone who is pugnacious “carries a chip on his shoulder and is quick to get into a fight”. A character trained leader seeks to be a peacemaker instead of a troublemaker – to speak truth, but find a loving way to do so. It isn’t as easy as it sounds, so it takes training.

10. Gentle: This term in English isn’t the best way to think of what the author has in mind, in my view. The term epieikḗs is an adjective, derived from epí ” fitting” and eikos “equitable, fair”. One commentator suggests it is the idea of “true equity that appropriately fulfills the spirit (not just the letter) of the law”. The term isn’t WIMPY, but rather PRINCIPLED and REASONABLE. As we pass through the Scriptures together, lesson by lesson, the principles are deep and sometimes require time to search and apply. That is what a character must do, first in HIS LIFE, then in his teaching.

11. Peaceable: This is a great term! The word is amachos, or literally NOT MACHO. By that, we aren’t saying the character leader is indecisive or a “push over”, but simply that his impulses and ego are in check such that he will not answer with brawling of violence. This term also used in Titus 1:7 and appears to be linked to the wine issue above grammatically as well.

The point is that some leaders lingered over their wine and let their flesh take control of their decision making processes. Nadab and Abihu got tipsy and took the fire into the holy place from a strange place, displeasing God and bringing death and condemnation on themselves. In 1 Timothy, Paul warns of a more subtle result – an argumentative, unreasonable and ego-filled response that can follow in the footsteps of an undisciplined lifestyle.

12. Free from the love of money: The quality of self-control in material things is an issue of contentment. The phrase “free of the love of money” (also translated “not guilty of filthy lucre”) literally means not covetous: not a lover of money (one compound word in the Greek- aphilargyros). The idea of money love is broader than just the love of the bills or the silver, but the love of things material. For some leaders, they seem to get their esteem from new buildings or new parts and pieces of ministry. They cannot help but “take pride” in buildings, budgets and number of bodies. The truth is these are manifestations of the same spirit of love of things physical in places spiritual. Character leaders must measure success by obedience and growth by God’s delight, not simply take out a physical yard stick and start feeling more worth based on outward increase. We serve the Lord, and He alone knows our value.

13. Manages his house well: The idea of proistémi is that a character leader learns to take responsibility for what God puts in his care. He doesn’t pass off his problems or overlook them, but addresses each one. That doesn’t imply that he doesn’t face the same problems as anyone else. Budgeting will be as necessary in his home as any other, and the invasion of ungodly belief systems will attack his children as much as any other. The issue isn’t that what attacks is different, but that he handles it differently. The term pro-istemi is to “take charge over”, to be assertive and not ambivalent in the face of challenges. Every character trained leader will find it hard to both live the truth and reflect that truth throughout their home. They will want to entertain the stranger, but that has the potential to open the home to unsavory visitors. They will want to study hard, but that will bring the danger of being too distant and removed from the daily goings-on in the home. This is a balancing act at times, because that is what stewardship truly is.

14. Not a neophyte: The terms “not a new convert, or not a novice (neophyte, new planted) are used in a restrictive sense. Those new to Jesus are not to have the yoke of leadership placed upon them. The idea is that one that is new has not learned the longer lessons of stewardship. All plants look green when first planted, but managing the watering, the soil and the sun steward the plant to long term heath. New converts aren’t ready because they don’t see the maturing process yet. They can feel a sense of deserving and entitlement that is not real (3:6) and the Devil will surely use this.

15. Good reputation to those outside: The phrase translated “good reputation with those outside the church” is NOT “well-liked by the world” but rather those who are well thought of in places where the societal values match the Word of God. They pay their bills on time. They keep appointments. They act responsibly in public. The term MARTURIA is the Word “reputation”, and refers to the public’s view of their steadfastness and reliability in what they SAY they believe. The world will forgive imperfection far faster than hypocrisy.

When a congregation refuses to remove leaders who have Biblically disqualified themselves or does not hold to the high standards of the ingredients of this passage the result will be that they will undermine the moral and spiritual vitality of the whole congregation, as well as destroy the congregation’s influence in the community. It is fine to have the world stand against their leaders in areas where the world conflicts in values to the truth of the Word, but not in the etiquette and responsibility areas that are not conflicting with Scripture.

The Product of Leadership

Step back from these verses and you will see the pattern begin to define the CHARACTER TRAINING, but say precious little about the JOB DECSRIPTION of the leader. We need people who are able to apply the guidelines to the ever-changing work of leadership.

They can’t be in anyone’s pocket. They need to be loyal people who understand boundaries and live inside of the one’s established by God. They need to know what is serious and be able to focus on the right issues at the right time. They need to be orderly, not haphazard about their lives. They need to have many hours of hard work in the Word before they take the office of leadership. They need to have regular connection to those outside the circle of the faith and be developing relationships beyond the group they lead. They need to reign in physical disciplines and keep emotions and ego in check. They need to be secure in what God has given them, and not in love with external measures of wealth or success. They need to steward their lives and families well. They need to be seasoned with time, and reputable.

• If a leader has a contentious spirit, his followers will become bitter and fight oriented.
• If a leader is cold and removed, his followers will become unfriendly and uncaring.
• If a leader loves money and stuff, his followers will become worshippers of pleasures physical.
• If a leader does not act sensibly, balanced, and self-controlled, followers will become bewildered at the extremity and imbalance, and they will attract the strange and repel the normal.
• If a leader is not faithful to their spouse, they will be unfaithful to the Lord that called them.
• If a leader does not cling to the Word of God in their own walk, their followers will not treasure the Word.

The foundation of leadership is character development, not merely a pragmatic ability to solve problems.

If there is any single misunderstanding I have observed in my years of ministry, it is the stark difference between the call of leaders in the world and that of the Kingdom of God. I love that Chuck Colson years ago left these prophetic words:

Nothing distinguished the kingdoms of man from the kingdom of God more than their diametrically opposed views of the exercise of power. One seeks to control people, the other to serve people; one promotes self, the other prostrates self; one seeks prestige and position; the other lifts up the lowly and the despised…Power is like saltwater. The more you drink, the thirstier you get. The lure of power can separate the most resolute of Christians from the true nature of Christian leadership, which is service to others. It’s difficult to stand on a pedestal and wash the feet of those below.”

God called godly leaders to learn character, and to show it in serving others. They are to do, and then do it again and again and again. They are to be careful to do it His way. They are to lead by serving a great and marvelous God with their every effort. May we train such for the future of His great work until the trumpet sounds!

Dispelling Twelve Myths about the Gospel – Galatians 1 (Pt.1 of 6)

star wars Opening_crawlVery few movies can begin in the middle of the story, but Star Wars did just that. I was in High School when the “Jedi knights” were first heard of on our planet. The words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..” entered vernacular speech in a new series of movies that has seemingly refused to die. What was really curious was the idea of starting on Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977, and then working forward for a few years in the storyline. After a hiatus, the film makers came back to the series decades later and offered a new set of prequels (a word I had never heard before these films), ending in the now proposed final installment in 2015. The galaxy is big, but this story has really taken a LONG TIME to tell… Many of the movie goers to the last episode weren’t even born when the first episode came out!!

I didn’t come to criticize the Sci-fi film series. Rather, I want you to think about a real message from far, far away. From the edge of space, far beyond our galaxy a message has come. It is real, reliable, exciting and an unbelievably helpful message. It isn’t the stuff of science fiction – but a communication that will make more difference to you than an announcement that we have found sentient life on Mars, and they’d like to meet us for coffee. The message I am speaking of arrived two thousand years ago, and though many in the world have desperately tried to silence it, mar its credibility and indict its authenticity – but it is a message that has changed literally billions of lives. It is the message of the Gospel, and it is a message alive and moving out, shattering darkness with its light. It is piercing the armor of the rebellious men with the arrows of truth – and it is a threat to them. For that reason, it is also a message under attack. It is a message that must be held at the center of the church and recited by each generation of Christians. It is a message easily burdened with mythology, and only carefully cleansed by re-examination of the ancient texts that revealed its truth to us.

That is what this series is designed to do. We will look, line by line, at one of the most complex arguments about God’s acceptance that has ever been penned. It will take time, and it will cover some things very familiar – but it MUST be re-examined. Some of it may even surprise you! As we start out examination, let’s begin with a definition of the Gospel derived from the Bible, and use it as our key principle.

Key Principle: The Gospel is God’s good news. It is the story of how God broke into history and offers a restored relationship between God and man based solely on trust in the full payment for sin in Jesus Christ – a payment effective to reconcile the world to God and each other.

Because of the importance of the message, we need to be sure we have not allowed the message to be stained with modern popular mythology. We need to answer some specific myths that some have tried to stick to the message as far back as the first century – and some are trying even today. What is surprising is how little has changed in the attack of false ideas over the last twenty-one centuries! Let’s filter out mythological stains and see the Gospel as it was intended to be!

Myth #1: Afterlife Insurance- It’s all about Heaven! The Gospel isn’t about this world, but the next.

We have all heard the saying: “So Heavenly minded they are no earthly good.” Often that saying was offered on behalf of one that seemed disengaged. Now we may say it but mean something different – saying those who DISENGAGE GOD’S WILL from daily life, and emphasize the Gospel’s provision of “afterlife insurance”. Many mistakenly emphasize the afterlife in relation to the Gospel, but that is understandable. After all, it is no small thing to have one’s eternal destiny changed by means of accepting Christ. At the same time, an over emphasis on the afterlife can lead to a Gospel that is ineffective this side of Heaven. Listen to the letter in Galatians 1:

1:1 Paul, an apostle (not [sent] from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), 2 and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom [be] the glory forevermore. Amen.

Before we can explore his presentation of truth of the Gospel, we need to meet the author and review his expertise. Without a ‘book jacket” the Biblical author could only introduce himself inside the letter, and then launch into the burden of his heart for the recipients. Paul opened the letter with a different twist than his normal self-introduction. There was a purpose behind each statement in the opening, and in this letter he made clear that he was three things:

An ambassador of God (apostello, cp. 1:1). Paul wasn’t writing simply because he was disappointed in the state of affairs among the believers in Galatia – though he was. He wrote on behalf of another – God Himself. If that wasn’t so, nothing in the letter truly matters. Truth of Scripture is God’s truth dispensed through the human quill. These aren’t the collections of Paul’s sage advice, or management tips based on his experience. These are words of one of the “holy men moved of God’s Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21) to offer direction from God’s Spirit.

This understanding is critical for the presentation of everything we will examine over the next six studies in this letter. Either these are God’s carefully exposed truths, or they are the words of a man who gave “his best shot” at explaining truth as he saw it. Churches divide exactly on this issue. We believe and teach without apology that Paul was what he claimed to be – an Apostle, an ambassador. When he wrote things that challenge our culture, we cannot simply dismiss them as “bad ideas” as some who claim Jesus today readily do. Paul claims to be speaking for God in the way an ambassador of our country speaks for our President. In that way, Paul’s words are God’s Words.

Appointed without human agency directly by Jesus and the Father (1:1). Paul claimed in the letter that he was not “voted in” to his position by a council or a committee. He was appointed by God, and specifically engaged by the risen Jesus Himself. These words are also chosen carefully, because the message of this letter is going to challenge assumptions. At some point in the reading of the letter, any first century reader was going to be challenged by the direct tone and unshakeable presentation of Paul. The writer wanted to make one thing clear: He was speaking from the highest authority, utterly certain of the Savior’s true wish in regards to the issues plaguing the group of believing recipients.

In harmony with his brothers (1:2a). Paul emphasized that he was not writing from a faction that stood in opposition to all others. He was not some subversive dissident; he was standing with the main stream. The fact that many agreed with him and that he walked in harmony was not the proving factor to Paul – his relationship with Jesus and commission from Him was. Why mention it then? Because it is important sometimes to show that when you are challenging assumptions you are doing it from a body of wise counsel, and not taking shots on your own. The phrase: “all the brethren who are with me” implied that Paul was writing with the knowledge of others, and in harmony with their view as well.

Let’s also be clear about the recipients of the original letter, because it will answer some queries as to why he chose to say certain things the way he did. Paul was clearly writing to BELIEVERS. This letter isn’t designed to simply expose the way to FIND GOD for those who do not know Him, it is a careful explanation of how they found Him already, and why their pull from the Gospel is a pull from the truth (1:2b-3). They are IN the churches of Galatia, not in the fields to be reached – but even they were struggling to see the truth of what the Gospel means.

Here is the point: Even the church can struggle to truly grasp the truths they have already proclaimed. False teachers abound – some proclaiming thoughts in ignorance and causing confusion, and others deliberately enticing people into compromise, empowered by God’s enemy. Because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t mean they are. Because someone claims to be telling the truth doesn’t mean they are. Because someone mentions Bible verses in their message doesn’t mean they are speaking from the truth of those passages. Paul largely addressed this writing to people who knew him. He wrote to people who followed his career well enough to know his honesty, integrity, authenticity and sacrifice for the truth.

By verse four (1:4), Paul arrives at the first truth concerning the Gospel that many of us observe has been mishandled, creating a mythology about salvation. Paul wrote: “4 who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father…” With those words, Paul makes clear that those who respond in faith to the Gospel have more than received a change in their eternal destiny, they have allowed the Spirit of God to change their lives in their present earth walk. The Gospel doesn’t engage us at physical death, it is the device that replaces our spiritual death.

In the Bible, the word “death” is used of different things. Its primary meaning is the cutting off of the flow of spiritual life – the severing of the umbilical cord with God – that happened at “The Fall” in the Garden of Eden. The Bible tells the story of our progenitor, Adam, and his wife, Eve, and their rebellion. In the earliest chapters of the Genesis (2 and 3) we read of the sentence of “death” that passed immediately upon them when they rebelled. That spiritual disconnection is used of “death”, and the physical death that we recall at a graveside is a reflection of that spiritual one. To the Ephesians (in the beginning of chapter two), Paul made clear that believers in Christ “Were dead, but are now made alive.” In that sense, the Bible’s primary use of death (in the theological sense) is not about the body, but about the spirit.

Let me say it another way: Before you asked Jesus to enter your life in a deliberate act of surrender, the Bible says you were “dead” in relationship to God. That doesn’t mean that you didn’t believe that God existed – it means that His existence had little to do with how you lived your life, made your choices or declared your personal values. You knew God like I know celebrities from the movies. We KNOW they exist, but we don’t have a relationship with them that changes how we do what we do. The Bible calls a man or woman that may have a vague notion of a God in Heaven but has not entered a deliberate relationship with Him “dead” to God. They walk and talk in this life, but they are spiritually “dead”. The interesting thing is that Biblically, this kind of “death” precedes “life”. The decision to surrender one’s heart to Jesus brings LIFE, the choice to live life on one’s own is “death”.

In the opening of the letter, Paul made clear that NEW SPIRITUAL LIFE BEGINS NOW, as our walk with Jesus was to “rescue us” from this age. You may not know it, but the Bible says that you are in peril right now. The current of this age is strongly pulling you in a direction toward destruction. The self-made men and women of our day, who are proudly attempting to create a morality without God are filling your ears with anti-surrender, anti-God rhetoric. They may not be shouting “We HATE God” (though some certainly are, but they are making clear they neither NEED HIM nor DESIRE THE MORAL CONSTRAINTS that come from a relationship with One Who created us, and will hold us to account of His directions.

The Gospel is a deliberate surrender to the One Who made us. It is NOT simply a “get out of Hell free” card – it is the response to God’s goodness in receiving the gift of the Savior’s full payment for salvation and beginning a deliberate and conscious relationship with God in Christ. The Gospel changes my decision making process NOW, not just my eternal destiny THEN. It is a Gospel that changes what I laugh at, how I maintain my body, what priority I give to knowing His Word, and how I engage people. It is a Gospel to rescue me from the drowning currents of self will and arrogance all around me. It is clutching the hand of a God that grabbed me when I wasn’t even sure I was drowning in this life. The Gospel isn’t just “AFTERLIFE INSURANCE”; it is the CHANGE AGENT of my life now, rescuing me from godless thinking and selfish decision making.

Myth #2: Fuzzy- The message is very subjective! You can’t really tell if people are preaching it properly.

Another myth bandied about in circles that claim to be Christian is that the Gospel is a fuzzy body of information – that you cannot tell if someone is truly preaching and teaching it or not. Paul wrote:

1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is [really] not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! 10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.

Paul’s statement is straightforward – I preached a Gospel that you MUST NOT exchange, amend, alter or confuse. It was truth then, and it is truth NOW. You cannot weave new requirements INTO THE GOSPEL nor can you extract components of it. The stature of the one who would oppose it doesn’t matter – you must stick to what you were told. Some men will adjust the message to make it more palatable, but they serve men and not Christ. They don’t want to take a stand on the truth, so they ease off the specifics.

When Paul explained the Gospel, he specified what he was talking about.

The term gospel is found ninety-nine times in the NASB and is normally the translation of the Greek noun euangelion (which occurs 76 times), the others are simply translated “good news”. The verb form of the word is used another 54 times as euangelizo, which means “to announce good news.” These words grow from the noun angelos, or “a messenger.” The point is that such extensive use of the word reminds us that the main message of the church is not sinfulness, nor condemnation, but GOOD NEWS of reconciliation made possible.

A careful study of the Gospel will yield some of its chief components that were repeated many times in Scripture. The gospel is the message of good news that God has provided a way of salvation for men through the gift of Jesus’ payment to the world. Jesus died as a sacrifice for sin, overcame death and walked out of the tomb, and now offers reconciliation to God to all who will accept the payment He made on their behalf. It is by grace – an undeserved gift of God, and it is through faith – energized by belief that what God says is true is true. It cannot be attained by any form of penance or work of self-improvement. It opens the door to a permanently reconciled relationship to God, and offers an eventual restoration of man to all Creation.

The Apostle offer Ten Facts concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-11) that caused the formation of a body of “believers”.

1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 15:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then [it was] I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Look closely at the specifics from the verses above:

1. It was brought to them in content and ANNOUNCED (euangellion – cp.1). It is found in a good message that can be verbally communicated. The Gospel isn’t a harsh message that brings condemnation – but a liberating message of full payment. We aren’t sharing RULES with people – we are declaring their bondage ended!

2. The hearer had to CHOOSE to “take it along with them” (receive is the term “paralambano” – 1b). It was an active reception. The Gospel requires response and grasping. It is an active and deliberate process – not a passive one. No one gets to Heaven by accident, stumbling in the pearly gate. They must decide to receive the message.

3. The choice caused the recipient to “take their stand” or “FIX THEIR HOLD” on it (stand is the term “histemi” – 1b). It changed the recipient in future action. Having decided on the veracity of the message, they must cling to that message. The life perspective changed, they are not fickle – but cling to the Cross.

4. The choice to receive the announcement and fix hold on it SAVES the recipient (save is “sozo” – from to rescue or cure – v.2a). If sin is the sickness, the Gospel is the cure. One must understand that without the Gospel a man or woman is not simply “impaired” but LOST. In John 14:6 – “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” The issue of SAVED and LOST is technically separation from the Father in Heaven.

5. The salvific effect occurs only for those who POSSESS the Gospel (the terms “hold fast” are a translation of “katecho” – to firmly bind to). This is not a casual acceptance of the concept – but a binding to the life of the recipient. A second emphasis of the BINDING nature of the recipient (after #3 above) should help to clarify that it must be a serious and real choice to be effective.

6. The Gospel was the HIGHEST PRIORITY message for the Apostle to bring to the Corinthian people (the term “protos” is translated “of first importance” – 3a). He taught them much over the one and one half years he was with them – but nothing was of higher importance in the public ministry.

7. Paul POSSESSED the Gospel before he shared it with them (the term “received” is again the term from verse one – “paralambano” – or choose). Though this isn’t essential, it shows that it was intentional on his part. The Gospel, because of its importance in HIS LIFE, was a burning message in the face of lost men and women.

8. The message includes DEFINED HISTORICAL FACTS: the substitutional atoning literal death of Jesus for SIN (not politics), the fact of His physical burial in a tomb and the literal understanding of the physical body’s Resurrection from the dead (15:5,6). A message without the components is a different message.

9. The facts were PROPHESIED from the Scriptures – the very Word of God (15:5). The narrative of Jesus’ ministry was drawn from the Prophets of old – and not some contrived story. In fact, without an understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, one could not grasp the judicial terms of sin’s separation, and a sacrifice’s atoning nature.

10. The facts of the case were VERIFIED by many in the early community, and in Paul’s personal experience (15:8-11). Peter offered (2 Peter 1: “16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” Without predictive prophecy, the Gospel is just a story made by men. Because God made promises, and God keeps His promises, and the Bible contains His promises – we can see that Jesus fulfilled God’s promises. No Bible – no salvation.

The message is spelled out in the Word, and is not fuzzy. People who preach the facts of the history with the call to surrender are offering the Gospel. People who don’t – aren’t. There is still one more myth I want to explore in the rest of the first chapter…

Myth #3: Political- Men put the whole thing together! The message of Jesus was a contrived political control.

Dan Brown asserted the Bible was put together by men for political control. Many a professor today will accept and teach a version of that notion – that the Church gave us the Bible, and the Apostles contrived it. Others place the message later in the hands of Church Councils. What is the testimony of Paul?

11 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but [I received it] through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. 15 But when God, who had set me apart [even] from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. 18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. 20 (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was [still] unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; 23 but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they were glorifying God because of me.

Paul said that he didn’t GET the Gospel from a man, nor COLLABORATE with another man or committee to put the message together. He got the message when Jesus gave it to him. People can accept that as truth, or they can reject it – but that was his claim. He said he sought to destroy the work in ignorance, and God grabbed his heart and showed His Son to Paul. Rather than send him to a school to learn of Jesus, God offered him a unique discipleship sitting in the desert at the feet of the Risen Jesus. Three years passed, and Paul still didn’t “check in” – he simply learned from Christ. When that time was over, Paul visited Peter and stayed in Jerusalem for fifteen days. He spoke to Peter and was encouraged by James, but the others didn’t meet him. He kept a low profile until God called him out of a prayer meeting as a missionary to the Gentiles.

The myth that the Gospel message was contrived by men is at the heart of the message of non-believers. If the message didn’t come from God, as they claim, then we offer nothing in the church by way of a true path of reconciliation to God, if there even is one. Let me say it another way: If men made up the story of God sending His Son to earth to die for the sins of man, then we are all lost. We have given ourselves to a well-crafted lie. The changes you have seen happen in your life aren’t real. That healed marriage – that was just your imagination. That imprisoned criminal that is now out and serving God in his community – no, he is a fake. That moment when you heard God speak into your heart with the assurance of love and felt His touch as He pulled you to repentance – that was all a farce. You and I are just lost and hopeless. Good news is a myth. Nothing awaits us after this life but an end, period.

Let’s be as clear as possible: Either there is a God or there is not. If there is NOT than we are observing a highly ordered universe that emerged without plan or purpose from chaos, organizing itself on the basis of random principles that gathered by happenstance to bring all things together. Star dust from an unknown source delved into an accidental “big bang” – with dust that eventually came together and made planets, lakes, fish, monkeys and man. The thousands of molecular systems of one human body just developed as genes sorted themselves out by no particular plan. You and I are a cosmic accident, a joke going nowhere. We live today, and die tomorrow, and none of it has any meaning whatsoever. Love, joy, art, progress – these words have little meaning beyond the pitiful one hundred years we walk on the planet. Those who went before are forever GONE and all we have are the memories and shreds of material work they left, until we ourselves fall to the earth. What does all that sound like? To me, it sounds like the depression of Solomon spilled out in Ecclesiastes.

He kept seeing no purpose, no meaning, no end, no justice, no light at the end of the tunnel. He said it many times in many ways – that life “under the sun” was vain, empty and useless. He was absolutely right…it is! If we seek truth “under the sun”, inside the heliosphere of our solar system, life will not offer us sufficient truth to find meaning – because life’s meaning is found in our Creator, and His purpose for us! The good news is there is GOOD NEWS!

The Gospel is God’s good news. It is the story of how God broke into history and offers a restored relationship between God and man based solely on trust in the full payment for sin in Jesus Christ – a payment effective to reconcile the world to God and each other.