Gospel Herald

and The Sunday School Times

Summer Quarter 2014 Minute Meditations Priorities for the People of God

BY JOHN LINEBERRY , M.S.

June 1, 2014— Read Haggai 1:3-4. Haggai was God’s the worst in us. God tests us to bring out the best in us. messenger with the Lord’s message (vs. 13). He called When tested, we have the assurance that God will be with upon Israel to refocus on finishing the temple, which was us. central to Israel’s life. With the Babylonian Captivity over, July 27, 2014— Read I Corinthians 14:19. The local Israel had started to rebuild sixteen years earlier. But when church affords an opportunity for growth and service. they became more interested in caring for their own When we go outside ourselves to minister to others, our dwellings, they became neglectful about finishing the lives are enriched. Paul spoke to the use of words in the house of the Lord. Are we focusing on God or ourselves? church, saying that fewer words with understanding are June 8, 2014— Read Haggai 2:9. The postexilic temple better than many words without understanding. would be a special honor to God as Israel gathered for August 3, 2014— Read II Corinthians 1:7. Consolation worship, trusting in the Lord for direction and guidance. is comfort. Prayer is an uplifting spiritual exercise. In Those who could remember the previous temple mourned prayer, it is good to focus on encouraging others in the because of the inferiority of the new in comparison; but ways of the Lord. God comforts us so that we may pass the new temple would be greater because of the presence it on to others along the pilgrim pathway to glory. of the glory of the coming Messiah. August 10, 2014— Read II Corinthians 2:10. To forgive June 15, 2014— Read Haggai 2:19. Is it not a little another for wrongdoing is a difficult task for many. Look - strange to remind farmers about seed stored in barns? ing at what Christ did for us at Calvary helps us to forgive Seeds needed to be planted to bring forth a harvest for others. He who will not forgive destroys the bridge over Israel’s sustenance. The parable of the sower (Matt. 13:3- which he must someday walk. Sooner or later, everyone 24) speaks to the issue of a harvest. Our lives will be en - will need forgiveness. couraged when the seed finds acceptance in hearts. August 17, 2014— Read II Corinthians 4:8-9. Only by June 22, 2014— Read Zechariah 4:6. Deliverance from God’s proferred grace do we have treasure in clay jars. Tri - sin opens the door of opportunity to live for and serve the als and trouble are a part of life. The Lord sends trials Lord. However, we cannot please God in the flesh. We across our pathway to make us better, not bitter. Trials need the enabling of the Holy Spirit for daily triumph and come our way so that we might seek the Lord of refuge victory. Hope for a new day has come in the ministry of (cf. Ps. 18:2). A challenge is before all of us—to glory in the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to honor God in tribulations (Rom. 5:3). Trials are building blocks to make thought, word, and deed. us strong in the Lord. The word “escape” in I Corinthians June 29, 2014— Read I Corinthians 1:10. The church at 10:13 tells us that God will always provide a landing place Corinth was divided into at least four groups (vss. 10-13). for assurance and security. God calls His people to walk in unity and peace. Disunity August 24, 2014— Read II Corinthians 7:2. Paul ap - brings confusion and heartache, robbing a church of the pealed to the church at Corinth for reconciliation. Wrongs Lord’s blessings. It has been determined that geese are in the form of hasty words bring about disharmony among 70 percent more effective in distance flown when flying in believers. When a wrong forms a wedge between Chris - the V-formation than when flying alone. The skill to work tians, the matter should be settled posthaste for the well- with and get along with others is a sign of maturity in the being of the church and the honor of the Lord. If wrongs Christian. are left to fester, the church could suffer as it waits for rec - July 6, 2014— Read I Corinthians 6:19. When a person onciliation. is saved, the Holy Spirit comes to live in him, enabling the August 31, 2014— Read II Corinthians 8:2. The law of born-again child of God to serve the Lord by bearing fruit. the harvest is that God’s people are to be faithful in giv - The Lord desires that we bear fruit for His glory (cf. Rom. ing to Him. We give of ourselves first and then of our 6:22), putting belief into behavior, doctrine into deed, and means according to how the Lord has blessed us. Giving precept into practice. We then become on the outside is a grace (cf. vs. 7). Paul wished that we would abound what God has made us on the inside. in this grace, for then joy and gladness in the soul will July 13, 2014— Read I Corinthians 8:9. The words “take come. A rural church in Michigan elected a new treasur - heed” mean to give earnest contemplation to, to weigh er. The church’s offerings did not meet the budget needs. carefully how one behaves. Mature believers are to build The new treasurer owned a grain elevator. When farmers up weaker believers in loving care, in the grace of the Lord brought in grain, the new treasurer set aside 10 percent Jesus. This process will strengthen the immature Chris - of the fee they paid him (a tithe) for the church. At the next tian in his commitment to the Lord, helping him to grow in business meeting, the treasurer’s report said that all bills his faith. had been paid, with money left over. The people were July 20, 2014— Read I Corinthians 10:13. Facing temp - amazed at the good report. The explanation caused tation is in itself not sinful. Satan tempts us to bring out everyone to rejoice in the Lord. # 2 (130) Summer Quarter 2014 Volume 32 Number 3 Gospel Herald and The Sunday School Times

NONDENOMINATIONAL RELIGIOUS QUARTERLY

CONTENTS

FEATURE ARTICLES CHRISTIANITY IN STORY FORM 4 An Earthly Father Taught by His Heavenly Father 32 Adults: Finding God’s Answer 6 And Then I Shall Be Free 36 Teenagers: Bumps, Detours, and Exit Signs 8 Career Transitions 40 Boys and Girls: Garden of Grace 10 What God Hath Joined Together 12 Beersheba: Israel’s Southernmost Outpost 14 The Eternal Word 16 Ministering Through Music 29 Help Me, God 48 Men’s Priorities 49 Lifelines for the Soul DEPARTMENTS 50 First Word in Ministry (Part 2) 2 Minute Meditations 51 Small but Weighty 4 From the Editor’s Desk 52 Common and Ordinary 7 Our Doctrinal Statement 53 The Power of Prayer 18 Christian Psychology 54 The I AMs of the Gospel of John 19 What’s in a Word? 55 Ways to Share Faith in Christ 25 Bible Bookmark 56 Unprofitable Servants 30 Missions 57 God’s Unlimited Blessings 34 Counseling Corner 58 C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce 34 Book Reviews 59 Jehovah Jireh 35 Timely Tips for Working with Youths 38 For Teens Only WORD OF LIFE 39 Teen Scene 20 Sermon: When Opposition Comes 41 Noah’s Ark 22 Biblical Snapshots of People Who Prayed 42 You and Your Bible 23 The Life and Times of Jesus 43 Wit and Wisdom 24 Meditations in Psalms 43 Quote-ables 44 Dad’s Den TESTIMONIES OF FAITH 45 One Mother to Another 26 Dr. Marlene Bagnull, Founder of Write His Answer 46 Family Life Ministries 60 Christian Education 28 Francis Schaeffer—God Expanded His Ministry 62 The Pastor’s Study

Photo Credit: Mitzi Smetters

Editor in Chief: Grace M. Todd Rev. W. B. Musselman, Founder

GOSPEL HERALD and THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES (ISSN 0746-0880) is edited and published quarterly by THE INCORPORATED TRUSTEES OF THE GOSPEL WORKER SOCIETY, UNION GOSPEL PRESS DIVISION, 2000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44109-5812. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, Ohio. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the GOSPEL HERALD AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES , P.O. Box 6059, Cleveland, Ohio 44101-1059. PLEASE SEND CHANGE OF ADDRESS four weeks in advance for uninterrupted service. Include old address label with your new ad - dress. www.uniongospelpress.com An Earthly Father Taught by His Heavenly Father

BY PAUL R. B AWDEN , T H.M.

EING a father is one of the great- The years passed quickly, and soon As my wife and I parented our B est thrills that a man can have. our girls had graduated from high children, I learned much about my I remember vividly when each of our school and college. Our first daughter Heavenly Father. three daughters was born. Their pres - teaches second grade. Our second First, I learned something about the ence caused my wife and me to ap - daughter, a speech pathologist, has creative ability of our Heavenly Father. preciate God’s awesome creative three children, making us grandpar - When each of our girls was born, power and to be grateful to Him for giv - ents—which is so much fun. Our third everything was there that she needed ing us such beautiful children. They are daughter is married and is in the de - to grow to maturity. In addition, each of a heritage from the Lord (Ps. 127:3). velopment department of a major them had a different personality. Their What a privilege God had given us to United States medical facility. We are uniqueness certainly pointed out to me be parents, with the responsibility of grateful to the Lord that our three girls the reality of God’s ability to put His raising our daughters in the nurture and love the Lord and are serving Him unique touch on each of our daugh - admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). faithfully and enthusiastically. ters. It is no wonder, then, that David penned in Psalm 139:14, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” From the Editor’s Desk Second, as an earthly father, I learned something of God the Father’s eternal love for me. I came to know Christ as my The Father’s Love Saviour when I was seven years old. I knew that my father loved me by his words and what he did for me. He would BY DON RUFF get up at night and come take care of me when I was not feeling well. VERY day I tell my children that I (Ps. 8:4). He was asking God why He One time he went to the bank and E love them. One time, my son re - pays attention to or cares about man. paid off a small loan that I had. I be - sponded with the question “Why?” He Scripture gives us the answer—be - lieve that he did this because of what wanted to know what it is about him cause He loves us. First John 4:10 he had learned as an earthly father that I love. If you have children, per - states, “Herein is love, not that we about his Heavenly Father’s love for haps you have heard that question. loved God, but that he loved us, and him. My earthly father left me an in - I initially responded to his question sent his Son to be the propitiation for credible example to follow. by pointing out the characteristics he our sins.” Verse 19 says that God first As I stated earlier, eventually I be - possesses that cause me to love him. loved us before we loved Him. came a father of our three daughters. I told him I love him because he is fun - There are many more passages and Did I love them? Of course I did! When ny, kind, handsome, and, most impor - verses from which I could point out they were small, I would get up at night tant, because he is a gift from God. more about God’s love (John 3:16 be - at times when they were crying and While all this is true about him, I left the ing perhaps the most popular to mem - needed to be comforted. I would take conversation wondering whether orize). I hope that it is not too simplis - care of them to give my wife a break to those answers were enough for him. tic to say that when we wonder why go shopping for herself. As they grew, I I thought over my answer and went God loves His children, His people, the would play with them. My wife and I at - to the Bible for help. I am a father, and answer is simply because He does. tended the different activities they were God is our Father. His Word tells us Perfect love is one of His attributes. in at high school and college. I had the that He loves us. We could ask God I shared those thoughts with my privilege to perform the wedding cere - the same question my son asked of son. When it comes down to it, there monies for two of our daughters. I me. Why does God love me? Why really is nothing in me that is worthy of would do anything for our three girls. does He love anyone? God’s love. I do not know why God In the power of the indwelling Holy The Bible has a great deal to say loves me or my son. He just does. To Spirit, I love my daughters through the about God’s love. God is love (I John me, that is wonderful! love of Christ that lives within me (Rom. 4:8). When God chose Abraham and I also explained to my son that my 5:5). But I am reminded that the Heav - his descendants to be His people, it love for him is like that, although it is enly Father’s love for me is even greater. was not for any reason other than that not perfect, as God’s love for us is. The love of Christ within me becomes He loved them. There was nothing no - Why do I love my son (and my daugh - dull at times because of my selfishness. table about them (Deut. 7:7-8). ter)? I love him because he is my son, God’s love, on the other hand, is never Later on in the Bible we can read given to me by God. I love him (and dulled, is never selfish. God the Father’s that David wondered: “What is man, my daughter) because I just do. love in Christ is always constant and re - that thou art mindful of him? and the Hopefully, that is good enough for my liable. No one and no thing can separate son of man, that thou visitest him?” children. # the believer from the love of God in 4 (132) The day came when our girls began to talk and walk. Before we knew it, they were off to elementary school, then junior and senior high school. They learned to play the piano and dif - ferent instruments. Soon they entered college and then discovered what God had for them after that. All of these stages of development in the lives of our children caused me to realize how my Heavenly Father must delight in the children He gave us. The psalmist penned, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Ps. 127:3). Cer - tainly, my Heavenly Father’s heritage— the children He gave us—must have brought great delight to Him as He saw them grow to adulthood. Finally, I learned as an earthly father what joy it must bring to the heart of my Heavenly Father to see our chil - Christ (Rom. 8:38-39). His love is always epitome of patience and long-suffering dren develop spiritually. All three of our unconditional, sacrificial, and forgiving. with me. In fact, in my lack of patience, girls came to know Christ as their Sav - It lasts forever. As an earthly father, I He was still long-suffering with me. He iour at an early age. My wife and I were learned something of the amazing, eter - never gave up on me. Even when I delighted and grateful to the Lord that nal, and unchanging love my Heavenly sinned, my Heavenly Father provided each of them made that personal Father has for me and for my family. His forgiveness when I confessed my commitment to Christ. Third, as an earthly father, I learned sin to Him. Sometimes He had to disci - Indeed, their decision to follow Christ how patient, or long-suffering, my pline me, but His purpose in doing so was the beginning of their spiritual jour - ney with Him. In that journey, our girls Heavenly Father is with me. Being an was to produce holiness in my life so learned to memorize Scripture and to earthly father has its challenges. If you that I would continue to glorify Him as sing Sunday school songs. As they are a father reading this article, that is a father of the children He had given to grew older, they participated in AWANA not news to you. It is a statement with my wife and me (cf. Heb. 12:10-11). and in our church’s youth group. They which I am sure you would agree. Fourth, as an earthly father, I learned went on missions trips during high In the midst of the fun the father has that my Heavenly Father is always school. In college and after college, they with his children as they grow up, there ready to forgive me for disobeying or again were involved in missions trips. In are always times when the children get sinning against Him. My wife and I fact, our first daughter served with the into disagreements as they play with worked with our children to learn to Navigators in Russia for several years. one another. One of the children may sincerely say “I’m sorry” and to ask Today, our three daughters are serv - try to blame the other for something forgiveness when needed while realiz - ing the Lord with gladness. My wife and that has happened. In times such as ing that they were ultimately responsi - I were filled with joy as we saw them ma - those, I was challenged as a father. My ble to the Lord for their actions. ture in the Lord in our home, and that joy first instinct was to try to correct the sit - At the same time, I needed to keep my continues as they live for Him. uation without really finding out what attitude right toward our children when Our daughters’ spiritual growth and had happened. I soon learned that the disciplining them. Again, I learned to ap - continued faithfulness to the Lord most profitable way to deal with con - preciate in a greater way God’s forgive - caused me to think of what John wrote flict was to have the children sit down ness, which was available anytime and in his third letter: “I have no greater joy and try to get to the issue at hand. Ar - anywhere. I was reminded that God’s than to hear that my children walk in riving at the truth of the matter helped grace was always greater than our chil - truth” (1:4). As John’s heart was filled in dealing with what had occurred. dren’s mistakes and times of disobedi - with joy when he heard about the growth In such circumstances, my patience ence. As their father, I needed to exhibit of the believers he had interest in, so my at times was challenged, and I was not the same forgiveness to them that Christ Heavenly Father’s heart must be filled as patient as I should have been. One has exhibited toward me (cf. Eph. 4:32). with joy as He sees our daughters ma - fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 is pa - Fifth, I learned as an earthly father ture in Him and serve Him faithfully. tience, or long-suffering. At times, I did how much my Heavenly Father must As I wrote at the beginning of this ar - not exhibit that fruit of the Spirit. Again, delight in the physical development of ticle, being a father is one of the great - as in displaying Christ’s love, my self - our children. I think of when our girls est thrills a man can have. My Heav - ishness reared its ugly head, and I be - began to smile and then to eat solid enly Father, though, provides the came impatient. I am grateful for God’s food. Eventually, we could put them in greatest example for me to follow be - forgiveness and that of my children. a high chair when we went out to eat cause His example is perfect. That is a My impatience at times caused me to at a local restaurant. These were ex - daily challenge to me. May it also be to realize that my Heavenly Father is the citing developments for us. you if you are a father! # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (133) 5 And Then I Shall Be Free

BY DARRELL W. M CKAY , M.A.

N the Fourth of July, the United mean by this statement? What did it ognize that he is a lost sinner and, with O States of America will celebrate mean for His listeners (Pharisees and a repentant heart, to place his faith the 238 th anniversary of the adoption of other Jews), and what does it mean for and trust in the finished work of the Declaration of Independence. It is people today? Christ. Any and all who do that will a holiday of utmost importance to As always, the context of the saying find Christ true to His word and re - Americans. It is the national holiday of is vital to its interpretation. Even a cur - ceive God’s gracious gift of forgive - the United States. Fireworks, parades, sory reading will show that Jesus was ness and eternal life. It is not merit for concerts, and picnics are common - speaking about freedom from sin some grand work that God looks for place throughout the land as people (John 8:21, 24, 34). The Apostle Paul in sinners, but faith placed in His Son. celebrate the birthday of the nation, was in full agreement with Christ when Those who have done this often won - free from foreign rule. he penned his epistle to the Romans. der why they did not come to faith For Americans, the freedoms He spent all of chapter 6 on the topic. sooner than they did because of the owned by them as citizens are highly Since the Garden of Eden, mankind liberty and peace their souls have valued, and many are concerned has been captive to sin. Even those found. when they see an erosion of some of who feel so privileged to live in a free Once a person has the bonds that them for whatever reason. Christians society are actually in captivity to sin had yoked him to sin broken and re - especially lament the attempts by until the Son shall set them free. moved by Christ, he discovers that some to quash their witness for Jesus. When Jesus said such freedom was even though he may still commit sins, The very reason disciples of Christ to be found only in Him, meaning be - he does not do it as habitually as be - seek to tell others about the Lord is to lief in Him and His Word (John 8:32), fore. The chains of bondage to sin see them released from spiritual He was simply stating what had been have been severed. The more a person bondage into the freedom of Christ, prophesied in Isaiah. The Messiah rests in the truth of Christ’s promises, thus fulfilling the Great Commission would come “to proclaim liberty to the the less attraction sin holds for him. (Matt. 28:19-20). captives” (61:1). When in His home - Where in times past he would have town synagogue, Jesus read that very regulary given in to temptation be - FREEDOM IN CHRIST passage from Isaiah, stating that Mes - cause he was in bondage, now he As the day for the nationwide cele - siah would “preach deliverance to the does not have to commit a “besetting” bration of America’s birth approaches, captives” (Luke 4:18). Some felt it (Heb. 12:1) sin as before. Its power has let us think also about the freedom Je - meant freedom from a foreign power been broken. sus promised for all who would place like Rome, but both then and now it The eternal aspect of sin’s penalty their faith and trust in Him. In the means release from sin’s power. was paid for by Christ on the cross; yet Gospel of John, Jesus said, “If the Son The first way today’s reader should there may well be a temporal penalty, therefore shall make you free, ye shall apply John 8:36 to himself is in terms even for Christians. For example, be free indeed” (8:36). What did He of salvation and eternal life. It is to rec - health consequences may arise be -

6 (134) cause of mistreatment of one’s body unto me, all ye that labour and are “Make Me a Captive, Lord.” prior to coming to Christ. Perhaps a heavy laden, and I will give you rest” Make me a captive, Lord, sinner has done something requiring (Matt. 11:28). The invitation to yoke And then I shall be free; Force me to render up my sword, confinement under the law before he with Him in all of life’s events and find And I shall conqueror be; trusted in Christ (for example, Charles rest is both loving and gracious. No I sink in life’s alarms Colson). Christ forgives the eternal believer in Christ need be left to his When by myself I stand; penalty but may well allow the person own strength or wisdom or resources. Imprison me within Thine arms, to go through the earthly conse - And strong shall be my hand. quences of sin. FREEDOM BY GRACE ALONE The final verse of the hymn says: My will is not my own There is in Christ’s offer of freedom The Apostle Paul spoke bluntly to Till Thou hast made it Thine; the freedom from sin’s presence. the believers in Galatia when he wrote If it would reach the monarch’s throne, Surely every Christian would like it if to them upon hearing they were on the It must its crown resign. sin’s presence were removed the mo - verge of leaving the freedom they had It only stands unbent ment one comes to Christ, but that in Christ for the bondage of legalism. Amid the clashing strife, When on Thy bosom it has leant, must wait until glory. Sin’s power is He strongly asserted that any form of And found in Thee its life. broken, its eternal penalty is removed, religion that adds some work of man Hopefully, you are one who has been and its presence will be done away to the work of Christ is a different freed from the bondage of sin and with; but for that one must be patient gospel and should be avoided. The revel in the liberty He graciously pro - and lean heavily on the Lord until then. moral of the whole epistle to the Gala - vides. Hopefully, you also very much Those living in Christ’s freedom tians is succinctly stated in the open - detest the old life, when sin held you have the wonderful privilege of being ing verse of chapter 5: “Stand fast captive. Cry out, “Make me a captive, able to say no to Satan. The supreme therefore in the liberty wherewith Lord, and then I shall be free.” # example of this is when Christ was Christ hath made us free, and be not tempted in the wilderness. Satan entangled again with the yoke of came to Him with some very enticing bondage.” temptations (Matt. 4:1-11). Each time This was a warning not only for the the temptation came to Him, Jesus re - Galatians but also for believers of any sponded with firmness, quoting the generation. Christ offers freedom from Word of God. The sword of the Word the bondage to sin; to add some hu - Our Doctrinal was too much for the devil to deal with, man work to what Christ accom - and he ceased his efforts. plished by His death is to sin against Statement Christians are those who are “in Him. It is saying that His work was not Christ” and therefore have the right 1. We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- enough—that it is not “finished,” de - ments are verbally inspired by God, are inerrant in the original and the ability to tell Satan to get away spite what Jesus said, but needs writings, are the Word of God, and the final authority in faith and just as Jesus did. James wrote, “Re - something more. Let all remember the conduct. sist the devil, and he will flee from you” apostle’s words in Ephesians 2:8-9— 2. We believe in one God, the Creator of man and all things, eternally existing in three Persons in a threefold relationship, that (Jas. 4:7). The first part of that verse is “For by grace are ye saved through of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. also important as it tells us, “Submit faith; and that not of yourselves: it is 3. W e believe that Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit, yourselves therefore to God.” Sadly, the gift of God: not of works, lest any born of the Virgin Mary, and is God incarnate, the God-Man. sometimes a person does the oppo - man should boast.” 4. We believe that man was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also site of each admonition, and he resists The anniversary of a nation’s free - spiritual death, which is separation from God; that Adam’s sin is God while submitting to the devil. dom will soon be observed again— imputed to the whole race of mankind; that all human beings are born with a sinful nature; and that when they reach the state of and rightly so. But every citizen needs moral responsibility become sinners before God in thought, FREEDOM FROM WORRY to be on the alert to ensure that the word, and deed. The freedom Christ offers those who freedom we cherish and enjoy is pro - 5. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins ac- cording to the Scriptures as a substitutionary sacrifice, and that come to Him applies also to the issue of tected so that it may be a precious all who believe on Him are freely justified before God and stand worry. Some may not be overly prone to possession for generations to come. before Him accepted in the character and merit of Jesus Christ. worry, but others seem to have been Likewise, each believer needs to be 6. W e believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, in His ascension into heaven, and that in His present glorified body He born worriers. Those are the people alert to the freedoms he has in is the Head of the church, the Lord of the individual believer, the who believe the glass is half empty, at Christ—those mentioned above and High Priest over the house of God, and the Advocate in the fam - best, and what remains is evaporating! others—and take care to abide in the ily of God. 7. We believe in the personal, imminent, pretribulational, and To such a person the Lord gently says, freedom granted by Christ. We cele - premillennial second coming of Christ; first to receive His own “Take no thought for your life, what ye brate that gift when we worship Him, to Himself, and later to set up His earthly kingdom and to reign over redeemed Israel and all nations; that is, to bring peace and shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet when we serve Him, when we resist blessing to the whole world. for your body, what ye shall put on” the evil one, and when we choose to 8. We believe that all who by faith receive the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 6:25). The succeding verses re - turn our backs on temptation and to as Saviour are born again of the Holy Spirit and Word of God, re - ceive the Holy Spirit and a new nature, and also are baptized by veal a truth that should chase away the trust that God has something better the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. worries of every believer. God knows for us. 9. We believe that God is the spiritual Father of only those who our needs, and He will see to them. The heart’s cry of every believer trust His Son, Jesus Christ, as Saviour, and that only those saved For those whose lot in life seems should be that of the blind Scottish through faith in Christ are spiritual brothers. overwhelming, Christ freely offers His preacher George Matheson, who, in 10. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the un - just; the everlasting blessedness of the saved and the everlast - presence, strength, and grace in that addition to writing the hymn “O Love ing punishment of the unsaved. most wonderful of invitations: “Come That Wilt Not Let Me Go” also penned —Union Gospel Press Division SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (135) 7 Career Transitions

BY JANE CHASE

GENERATION or two ago, it was A common for a person to spend his or her entire working life employed by one company. Today, this is rare. When a company changes the way it manufactures goods or provides serv - ices, employees who do not change with the times are let go. Often, a new employee can be hired for a lower wage. Automation and computer technology may be able to do the same job faster or cheaper. In cases like these, a person may have a hard time finding another job in the same field. It may be time for a career change. In other cases, a person may make a career change voluntarily. After years in the same job, the person may have lost the enthusiasm he or she once had. Perhaps the job is causing health problems or stress at home or is no longer reflecting the person’s values. In any case, a change is in order. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that people born between 1957 and 1964 held an average of eleven jobs from ages eighteen to forty (bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsoy.pdf). Usually it was the occupation handed rich life of court to a place where he Statistics from 2008 show that adults down from father to son for genera - would be receptive to His next step. in the United States keep a job for an tions. For a person to change from be - If you or someone you know is in the average of 4.1 years (askville.ama - ing a wealthy Egyptian to a poor shep - midst of a career change, take heart zon.com). A more detailed analysis herd to a religious activist and prophet from Moses’ situation. From his point shows that 23 percent keep a job one was rare, to say the least. of view, life had taken a sad turn. He year or less, 13 percent have the same was an outcast from all he knew, des - job one to two years, 17 percent keep MOSES tined to live as a shepherd for many their job three to four years, 20 percent This is what happened to Moses. He years. Yet his faith remained solid. He - stay five to nine years, 17 percent stay began life as an abandoned child (for brews 11:25 shows that Moses knew ten to nineteen years, and only 10 per - his safety), who was adopted by he was doing the right thing in not liv - cent of the adult population keeps the Pharaoh’s daughter. He grew to adult - ing as an Egyption. He chose “rather same job for twenty or more years hood knowing the riches of life in to suffer affliction with the people of (Bialik, “Seven Careers in a Lifetime? Pharaoh’s household. Moses’ first ca - God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin Think Twice, Researchers Say,” online reer transition was of his own volition. for a season.” Moses was content to .wsj.com). After impulsively killing an Egyptian, stay where God had placed him for as The numbers show that roughly 90 he fled for his life. A series of circum - long as God wanted him there. Moses percent of all people will face a job or stances led to his new career—being took a wife and had a son, evidence career change at some point. Are you a shepherd. that he accepted his place. ready for it to happen to you? During this time, Moses may have No matter where you are in your ca - In the Bible we find several exam - felt his life was out of control. As a reer path, honoring God is the goal. ples of people who were forced into a wealthy young man in Egypt, he cer - Whether you have recently quit a job career change with little or no warning. tainly had had no aspirations of be - or been fired, keep an open mind. You In those days, it was customary to stay coming a shepherd. Yet this was God’s may find yourself in a situation that in the same career one’s whole life. plan. God removed Moses from the does not seem to fit your skills or de - 8 (136) sires, but be patient. God may have sider a new job or a totally new career, careers required years of schooling more in store. He certainly did for consider the skills you have developed and paid little. Moses. and the types of things that excite you. Then she looked at the listings for Moses’ next career move was not of Questions to ask include: “What do I re - civil engineers. She found she could his initiative. We are familiar with the ally want to do?” “What am I good at?” choose a specialty that worked out - story of the burning bush and how “Where does God want me?” doors and required only a bachelor’s God spoke through the bush to give Listen to the counsel of those who degree to qualify. She attended school Moses his next job. Moses did not know you well. Listen to the nudging part-time for two years and full-time for want to confront Pharaoh and lead the inside that tells you what is right. Your three years to get her degree. After thir - Israelites to freedom. He had all kinds new career may be simply a new slant teen years of directing theater, she of reasons not to do it. God talked him on your current job, or it may be some - landed her first job as a civil engineer. into it. thing completely different. Today she enjoys the work and the pay. While Moses did not feel qualified Was Saul nervous on his first day at As we have seen with Moses and for the job, God had prepared him in his new job? When he stood in front of Saul, God can prepare us for a new ca - many ways. Moses’ Egyptian back - believers for the first time, how did he reer without our realizing it. For San - ground made him more comfortable in feel? The Bible gives no indication that dra, the skills she learned as a theater the courts of Pharaoh, and his experi - Saul was fearful in any way. Yet we director translated well to engineering. ence as a shepherd taught him pa - know that the first crowds listened to In theater work, she had to manage tience and compassion for dealing him with skepticism. They could not the skills of many people and get them with the Israelites. be sure that this new preacher was working as a team to have the show Moses followed God’s commands sincere. After all, only a short time ear - ready for opening night. As an engi - and successfully led his people to the lier he had been persecuting the peo - neer, she also has to coordinate the border of the Promised Land. Again, ple he was now supporting. Was it a skills of her team to meet a client’s Moses’ faithfulness for these years of trick? Moses too must have been deadline. In the past, her team coordi - diligent labor is noted in Hebrews nervous when facing Pharaoh for the nated props, costumes, sets, and 11:26-29. first time. scripts. Today her team deals with You too may be hesitant about start - pavement markings, highway lights, PAUL ing something new. Your first day at embankments, and storm sewers. your new job could be more frighten - It was a total change for her, but her Paul is another example of someone ing than exciting. Do not let fear con - underlying strengths are still being who changed careers. He changed trol you. If you have prayed, looked at used. When she was studying theater, not only his career but also his entire your God-given talents and skills, and Sandra had no idea she would one day belief system and worldview. Before followed God’s leading into your new be an engineer; but God knew and led his conversion experience, the man position, you do not need to fear. You her in the right direction. known as Saul sincerely believed he may be wondering, “Will I be able to do No matter how many years you was defending the true God against what is expected of me? Will I do spend in one job or how many job the heresies of the disciples of Christ. something really stupid the first day?” changes you make, God is in control. When he heard the voice of Jesus, he These are normal fears of normal peo - When Moses faced Pharaoh time after suddenly realized he had been wrong ple. For situations like these, God gave time, God was in control. When Paul all along. He wholeheartedly changed us Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light was in prison, God was in control. On allegiance to the side of Christ. and my salvation; whom shall I fear? your hardest day in your new job, God As with the case of Moses, Saul had the Lord is the strength of my life; of is in control. “For I know the thoughts no warning of his impending career whom shall I be afraid?” that I think toward you, saith the Lord, change. Yet God had prepared him If something does go wrong on your thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to well for his new job. first day, do not let it get to you. Take give you an expected end” (Jer. 29:11). Having been raised under the a deep breath, laugh it off, and vow to God has placed you in your job, and teachings of the law, Saul knew the do better the next time. If Saul or He will let you know when it is time to Old Testament well. Once his eyes Moses had any worries on their first move on. were opened, he was able to see how day, they overcame them. You can too. God has ordained us to work, to the Old Testament foretold Christ as My sister, Sandra, changed from be - earn our own way. Paul told the Thes - Messiah and how Jesus’ life and death ing a theater director to a civil engi - salonians, “For even when we were fulfilled the requirements for salvation. neer. She did not hear God speaking with you, this we commanded you, Saul spent only a few days with the out loud to her, but she knew when it that if any would not work, neither disciples at Damascus (Acts 9:19) be - was time to make a change. Sandra should he eat. For we hear that there fore beginning to preach Christ in the enjoyed theater work, but it entailed are some which walk among you dis - synagogues. God had prepared Saul great labor for little pay. She wanted fi - orderly, working not at all, but are his whole life. When God called, Saul nancial security. She began her career busybodies. Now them that are such was ready. search by asking, “What do I like? we command and exhort by our Lord What will provide the financial securi - Jesus Christ, that with quietness they PERSONAL APPLICATION ty I need?” work, and eat their own bread” Today God may not announce your In her off hours, Sandra enjoyed (II Thess. 3:10-12). new career by talking through a burn - camping, hiking, and being outdoors. In any job, whether king or slave, our ing bush or a blinding light, but He may She first considered work in forestry or duty is to be living examples of Christ speak to you in other ways. As you con - natural resources. Regrettably, those and glorify God daily. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (137) 9 What God Hath Joined Together

BY GEORGE A. D OWNES

ARRIAGE began in the heart of ignored, and man set his own stan - century, moral values were changing, M God. Adam, having been made dards of right and wrong. and society accepted a new standard in the image of God (Gen. 1:26), was Slowly but surely, the standards of of degrading behavior. There was given a heart with the passion to love marriage began to change, until now more wealth, and people’s priorities as God loves. But nothing was found there are hardly any standards at all. turned to pleasure. Speakeasies were for Adam to exercise this gift toward. The intended harmony of the home one example of places of pleasure. Il - “Adam gave names to all cattle, and to has been plagued by lust and faith - legal alcohol was at the heart of cheap the fowl of the air, and to every beast lessness. God’s intent for the union of social and moral values that encour - of the field; but for Adam there was not a man and a woman was to be found - aged corrupt lifestyles. found an help meet for him” (2:20). ed on God’s inspired love, but in to - When the Great Depression came, God’s creation would not be com - day’s concept of marriage we see that money was scarce. Poverty changed plete until this need was fulfilled. “And lust (for possessions and people) has lavish spending to frugality. Once the Lord God caused a deep sleep to replaced the purity of genuine love. more, people began to seek God. fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he We often hear a young man or God’s standards of righteousness took one of his ribs, and closed up the woman say, “I have fallen in love.” Our were respected. It is typical in soci - flesh instead thereof; and the rib, thoughts turn to romance and happi - eties struck by poverty to see a cultur - which the Lord God had taken from ly-ever-after and all that goes along al shift toward God and morality. Many man, made he a woman, and brought with it. were coming back to God’s healing her unto the man” (Gen. 2:21-22). Now We often hear about three Greek love and walking in holiness. The the complement of Adam was found in words for different kinds of love. The home once more became holy ground, Eve, who was taken from Adam so that first is usually given the attributes of marriages were being salvaged, and she would be from the same creation God’s love ( agap e¯ ). This is the highest the family was once more the center of as Adam. “And Adam said, This is now love. It is gracious and reaches out to spiritual values. bone of my bones, and flesh of my meet the needs of its object without However, faith in God was soon to flesh: she shall be called Woman, be - selfish motives. The next is love for be challenged in the aftermath of war. cause she was taken out of Man” (vs. mankind ( philanthropia ). It denotes The world and our nation would be 23). loyalty and kindness to others. The forced to make severe changes in Adam had it all; now he and Eve next type of love ( er o¯ s ) can be defined lifestyle, and great sociological were commanded to multiply and re - as sensual desire and longing. Eros changes happened when men were plenish the earth (Gen. 1:28). Creation love has an ungodly grip on our soci - called up to serve their country. There was complete, and harmony between ety. Our problem is that we have left was a shortage of workers in the work - God and mankind would be enjoyed in behind agape love and too often only force. In many places, women were filling the earth. Love was to be ex - know eros love. Hence, the passions called upon to assume the roles of pressed in the power of childbearing. of the flesh dominate. men to fill the need. As God brought forth life out of the Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, This cultural event was a noble one. abundance of His love, so Adam and man has yielded to the lusts of his This new workforce of women met the Eve were now to be the seed from flesh and turned away from God’s needs of our community; but it creat - which all the land would be populated. truth to follow the false promises of ed a cultural shift in the role of most When there are only two people, it is Satan—that they would not die and American women. They would now fairly simple to come to an agreeable that they would be capable of dis - add to their roles as wife and mother solution to most issues. With Adam cerning right from wrong and truth in the home, and they would be earn - and Eve, since they had no model to from error apart from God (Gen. 3:5). ing their own income. As with all new draw from, life was just a matter of The rules regarding marriage and experiences, this soon possessed the agreeing on issues of domestic regu - gender roles in the West changed little society with a new attitude about lation to keep their house in order. Eve, until the twentieth century. The moral men’s and women’s roles. After the being the childbearer, would care for standards of marriage were, for the war, some women found it difficult to the domestic needs, and she would be most part, accepted. American socie - go back to the singular role of home - the homemaker. Adam would be the ty once kept a hedge around the sanc - maker, but that was the norm in 1950s provider, remembering that God had tity of marriage. Divorce was almost America. Most working women quit ascribed to him the role of farmer (cf. nonexistent, and the roles of husband employment once they got married Gen. 3:18). God had intended the mar - and wife were not often blurred or and had children. ried couple to have defined roles but compromised. Tradition in marriage But the 1960s and 1970s saw an - to selflessly love each other. However, was accepted and respected. Howev - other cultural shift. More women en - ever since mankind fell into sin, the er, there were periods of time that tered the workforce, and “househus - sense of obedience to God changed. strained the social atmosphere, when band” became a new word. These Man now looked to his own power of attitudes about love and marriage changes in gender roles added strain reasoning, and this became the order were looser. to marriages. Divorce rates increased of the day. God’s formula for life was At the beginning of the twentieth in the 1970s. Couples also became 10 (138) accustomed to double incomes, in - ness—to turn our lives over to a new by choice is now an accepted mode of creasing their wealth and living at Master, Jesus Christ, forsaking the living. Marriage itself is no longer con - higher standards. They bought better standards of the world’s values, and sidered mandatory for living together, cars and bigger houses, and they returning to God’s original rules of and our young people are mimicking spent, spent, spent. With the definition marriage. society’s acceptance of noncommit - of the roles of men and women be - Men and women are spiritually ment to God’s rules of marriage. coming blurred, the harmony of mar - equal (Gal. 3:28). We all are made in Love needs to be addressed in the riage became compromised. It would the image of the Creator. But men and light of truth. Love is alive and has a not be long before divorce would be women are obviously different. We birth experience, as seen in “falling in accepted as the solution for men and must function in the roles He has or - love.” However, that is only the begin - women dissatisfied with their mar - dained. ning. Love needs to grow. It cannot re - riages. Children born in this type of en - In many homes, children are being main just that emotional experience of vironment would assume the same reared without the authority of both a the heart. In time, little things that were marriage values as they witnessed in father and mother. In most cases, the not noticed before, like leaving the top their home and in society, perpetuat - role of the parent as the authority figure off the toothpaste, become annoy - ing the divorce rate. is nonexistent. In many cases for the ances. This is when a couple should Mixed values regarding love have sake of living up to society’s standard realize that marriage takes effort. Dif - become accepted as the norm, and of prosperity, both parents are working ferences must be settled. Selflessness God’s values have been left out of the full-time. So who is raising the children? and maturity should be part of the dis - marriage concept. Sexual norms shift - Someone other than the parents or no cipline to make a marriage work. Je - ed in the 1960s and 1970s, and the one! Because of this new arrangement, sus Christ in the lives of the family can bring these about. value of the importance of marriage children are living by the standards and What has really happened to mar - changed, affecting society today. To - values of their peers and accepting riage in our society? God is no longer day, more than 7.5 million couples in whatever rules are set by their friends. the authority of human behavior. Man the United States are just living to - These will be the rules of living. has overruled God and set his own gether. We often hear of misinterpreta - Without the moral values that God standards of right and wrong. The tions of Scripture being used to pacify has set forth, there will be no values at home builds children’s values, and consciences and justify new marriage all, and young people will live accord - what they witness there will mold their values. What more could anyone ing to their feelings. A young person concept of right and wrong. If God is want? Couples seem to have all that who sees no godly values at home will not evidenced in the family activities, their hearts desire, and now even only imitate the values he does see. the children will look to others for the God’s true values are no longer a ma - Not seeing God’s love, he will accept answers to their questions. The bibli - jor concern to their lifestyle. what society offers. To fill his empty cal bonding relationship of two par - With this changing cultural trend, heart, he will seek acceptance in the ents needs to be in evidence for a child American society has sunk deeper offerings of today’s free-love society. to understand the foundation of the and deeper into sin. The only hope is Babies born out of wedlock are no home as God intended it to be. to come back to God’s call of holi - longer a stigma, and single parenting Falling out of love is not an option. God said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Jesus said it this way: “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6). God has established rules, not just suggestions. He is the Parent. As a good Parent, He desires His children to prosper and do well in life. When a child refuses to listen to the instruc - tions of his parents, he loses the foun - dation of their experience and love and will, no doubt, find life to be one difficulty after another. God’s rules are not hard. They will always prove to be the answer to the frustrations of life’s problems. God has given us His Book, filled with wisdom, so that we can meet the challenges of life successfully. The power of life’s victory is found in Psalm 119:11: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (139) 11 Beersheba: Israel’s Southernmost Outpost

BY LARRY V. C RUTCHFIELD , P H.D.

BACKGROUND AND GEOGRAPHY the water-starved Negev region to the THE HONORED ALTAR OF In Old Testament times, during the south. Overall, the Negev receives BEERSHEBA reigns of the kings, Israel was protect - only two inches of annual rainfall, A photo of the most significant and ed by a number of fortified border while Beersheba averages ten to dramatic find at Tell Beersheba ap - towns. At its location some twenty-five twelve inches (DeVries, Cities of the peared on the front cover of the very miles due north of the Sea of Galilee, Biblical World, Hendrickson). first issue of Biblical Archaeology Re - the town of Dan was Israel’s northern - view (BAR ) in March 1975. The photo most defensive outpost. At the south - THE EXCAVATION OF BEERSHEBA caption declared, “The first horned an - ernmost extremity of the Israelite king - Beersheba was excavated for eight imal altar ever unearthed in ancient Is - dom, the town of Beersheba (also seasons, from 1969 to 1976. Professor rael was recently excavated by Pro - Beer-sheba) guarded the nation. Thus, Yohanan Aharoni directed the work for fessor Yohanan Aharoni at Tell the expression “from Dan even to Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Ar - Beer-Sheva. The excavator dates the Beer-sheba” (Judg. 20:1; I Sam. 3:20; chaeology until his death in 1976. Aha - altar from the 8th century B.C. and pos - II Sam. 3:10; 24:2) came to designate roni also served as chairman of the in - sibly earlier” (Shanks, ed., “Horned Al - the whole nation of Israel. It was a dis - stitute’s Department of Archaeology tar for Animal Sacrifice Unearthed at tance of some 150 miles from north to and Department of Near East Studies. Beer-Sheva”). south, border to border. Dr. Ze Јev Herzog, a coexcavator with Scripture frequently refers to altars In light of Beersheba’s geographic Aharoni at the three-acre Tell Beershe - with horn-like protrusions on each of location at Israel’s southernmost bor - ba site, explained the primary focus of their four corners. However, these al - der, the town gained significance as a the work there. He stated, “Most of the tars are not all the same size or used political or administrative center and dig was devoted to uncovering the for the same purpose. As BAR editor as a religious center as well. Its impor - great, fortified, Israelite city dating to Hershel Shanks explained, “The Bible tance very early as an administrative the United Monarchy of King David (his describes several kinds of altars: small center of the Negev region is demon - reign being dated from 1000 B.C.) and, altars on which incense is burned; strated by Samuel’s appointment of later, to the kingdom of Judah (980 –701 larger altars [like that at Beersheba] on his two sons, Joel and Abijah, as B.C.). This period of time is called Iron which the fat of a slain animal is judges at Beersheba (I Sam. 8:1-2). Age II by archaeologists” (“Beer-sheba burned and its blood sprinkled or The town’s continued importance in of the Patriarchs,” Biblical Archaeology where a grain offering is left; and final - this role during the united monarchy Review, March 1977). ly the still larger altar on which the an - and in the southern kingdom of Judah Excavations revealed a well- imal is actually sacrificed.” during the divided monarchy period is planned city with very impressive Excavations in Israel have produced validated by Scripture, which associ - structures during this period. The Ar - several of the smaller horned incense ates Beersheba with the reigns of Saul chaeological Study Bible summarized altars. Even while the Tell-Beersheba (II Sam. 3:10), David (24:2), Solomon the primary features uncovered by ex - work was underway, archaeologist (I Kings 4:25), Jehoshaphat (II Chron. cavators at Tell Beersheba this way: Avraham Biran uncovered a sixteen- 19:4), Hezekiah (30:5), and Josiah “The city was laid out in an oval shape, inch square altar of this kind in his (II Kings 23:8). with a ring of typical Israelite houses 1974 season at Tell Dan. But the Beer - The biblical town of Beersheba is abutting its casemate wall. Streets ra - sheba altar was unique in that it was identified with the mound of ruins diated out from the town gate and “the first large horned animal altar ever called Tell es-Saba (which preserves plaza, with three large government discovered” (Shanks). the ancient name), or Tell Beersheba. storehouses located near the gate. Since the Beersheba altar was not This site is located three miles east of One large structure from stratum uncovered intact, its size only gradu - modern Beersheba and fifty miles II [monarchy period], dubbed the ally became apparent. The ashlars south of Jerusalem. The name itself is ‘Governor’s Palace,’ was an impres - (hewn blocks of stone; sandstone in related to Abraham’s treaty with the sive administrative building featuring this instance) with which the altar had Philistine king Abimelech and means three large reception halls. It was built originally been built were found in sec - “well of the seven” (Gen. 21:28-30) or of ashlar (cut stones), in contrast to the ondary use to repair the walls of a “well of the oath” (vs. 31). Both Beer - other buildings, which were construct - nearby storehouse. Michael D. sheba and this well are sandwiched ed of field stones” (Garrett, gen. ed., Coogan noted that after these stones between the more hospitable central “Archaeological Sites: Beersheba,” were collected and the altar was “re - hill country of Judah to the north and Zondervan). constructed, [it] was remarkably large: 12 (140) roughly 63 inches high [three royal cu - bits of 21 inches each, as in Ezek. 40:5] by 63 inches wide by 63 inches long” (“10 Great Finds,” Biblical Ar - chaeology Review, May/June 1995). Its height is identical to that of the tab - ernacle altar (Exod. 21:1).

HEZEKIAH’S RELIGIOUS REFORMS Coogan stated, “Sacrifices had ap - parently been burnt on the [Beershe - ba] altar, for the top stones were black - ened. The Beersheba altar, then, provides rare evidence of religious rit - uals carried out in a Judahite city oth - er than Jerusalem.” The religious ritu - als to which Coogan referred and their conduct at worship centers other than Jerusalem could well explain why the Beersheba altar stones were disas - sembled and reused elsewhere. These factors are specifically identified as part of King Hezekiah’s reason for en - acting religious reforms in Judah. This altar bore a glaring and graph - ic symbol of the need for such reforms on the lower right ashlar. As Shanks believed that it was probably during Beer-sheba. That none of the walls explained, “One of the [altar] stones that time that the eighth-century wall built on the site were cut by the well has clearly engraved upon it a curling of Beersheba was destroyed (Shanks). establishes that it was incorporated snake. The snake was a fertility sym - into the very first settlement and that, bol widely employed throughout the THE ANCIENT WELL OF in later phases, the houses were built ancient Near East. The staff which BEERSHEBA at locations relative to the existence turned into a serpent was a symbol of One final discovery of importance and use of the well.” Moses’ power (Ex. 7:15). Later, in the deserves attention, especially as it re - Herzog went on to explain that an wilderness, when the people were at - lates to the Patriarchal Age. Beershe - attempt to clear and examine accu - tacked by poisonous snakes from the ba’s water system was uncovered on mulated debris from the well met with Lord, the Lord ordered Moses to make the eastern edge of the mound. In de - only limited success. This task was a bronze serpent. Those who had sign, it was comparable to those ex - undertaken with a winch and bucket been bitten looked at the bronze ser - cavated at Megiddo, Hazor, and other system. However, at a depth of ap - pent and were cured (Num. 21:4-9). sites in Israel. But of particular interest proximately one hundred feet, techni - This bronze snake later became an in the Beersheba waterworks is a well cal problems developed and brought object of veneration to which sacri - centrally located in the mound’s east - the clearing process to a halt. Conse - fices were offered even to the time of ern slope. quently, the oldest debris deposited Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4). Hezekiah de - Dr. Ze Јev Herzog took special note down to the water level could not be stroyed and presumably suppressed of the well’s “unusual” location. It was recovered. the elements of this serpent-worship.” situated “just outside the ring of hous - Herzog lamented the fact: “Unfortu - Amos, specifically naming Beershe - es that fortified the city [for the first nately, we cannot conclusively settle ba among other cities, had warned the time] in Stratum VII [early eleventh the many questions regarding the ex - people that their paganized worship century B.C., Iron Age I].” Herzog istence or the dating of the Patriarchal would bring God’s judgment upon added that the well’s location is also Age on the basis of the evidence from them. That judgment first came from unusual in that “it was cut on the hill Beer-sheba.” However, the archaeolo - Assyria in 701 B.C. As the Assyrian king and not lower down in the wadi. There - gist optimistically suggested that “it is Sennacherib prepared to besiege fore it had to be four times deeper than tempting to conclude that this well Jerusalem, his military commander a well dug at the base of the hill. The was—whether in the 13th century B.C. taunted the fearful residents of the city shaft of this well on the hill was hewn or at some earlier time—the ‘Well of about the loss of their “high places” from solid rock.” the Oath’ where Abraham and Abim - and “altars,” falsely suggesting that as In conclusion, Herzog wrote, “We elech made their covenant (Genesis the reason their God would not save believe this well was dug during the 21:32).” Aharoni himself believed that them now (II Kings 18:22). According period of Stratum VIII or IX [the two the “ancient well near the city gate was to Sennacherib’s annals, during his earliest strata], and therefore pro - the one attributed to the patriarch” Judea campaign, he destroyed forty- vides additional evidence regarding (Vos, Archaeology in Bible Lands, six of Judah’s fortified cities. Aharoni the dating of the Patriarchal Age at Moody). # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (141) 13 The Eternal Word

BY RICHARD FALCONER

N the beginning was the Word, and third day. Those who oppose the au - a manipulator. The deceived will only I the Word was with God, and the Word was thenticity of the truth of the Word of become worse, but believers are en - God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him God do so mostly in rebellion and be - couraged to continue in the things we was not any thing made that was made. In him cause the Word is spiritually dis - have been assured of (II Tim. 3:13-17). was life; and the life was the light of men. And cerned, outside of secular education - It is a detrimental thing to be “ever the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness al intelligence and definition. learning, and never able to come to comprehended it not. That was the true Light, Therefore, those to whom Christ has the knowledge of the truth” (II Tim. which lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:1-5, 9). not revealed Himself cannot know Him 3:7). But the true Word of God, the That which we have seen and heard declare we or the revelation of His words. “And I Sword of the Spirit, is our only offense unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with will pray the Father, and he shall give in the spiritual battle to destroy our de - us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father you another Comforter, that he may ceptive enemy (cf. Eph. 6:10-17). The and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full abide with you for ever; even the Spir - Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated the (I John 1:3-4). it of truth; whom the world cannot re - proper use of the Sword when Satan Initially, the believer and the nonbe - ceive, because it seeth him not, nei - tried to tempt Him with the lust of the liever must consider that the sixty-six ther knoweth him: but ye know him; for flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of different books that make up the Holy he dwelleth with you, and shall be in life, misusing God’s own words. Christ Bible form one continuous story of hu - you” (John 14:16-17). knew the Word (the Word was God), manity in relationship to God and have Some people will not accept that the and He stood on it so that the tempter progressively unfolded the truth in an Bible is the truth of Christ from God. could not manipulate or destroy His incremental, time-appropriate man - Now, as a rule, we cannot simply go mission to do the Father’s will (cf. ner. One theologian who offered an ex - around quoting II Timothy 3:16-17 Matt. 4:1-11). planation of this was the Reverend C. without reading and understanding We have to do the same with faith, I. Scofield. In the early 1900s, he pre - chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the same book. sincerity, and security in what God has sented the Scofield Reference Bible, The Apostle Paul’s life was about to already said and done. Otherwise, it is in which he promoted a pano ramic, or end; so he warned the young preach - like bringing a butter knife to a tactical “big picture,” view of the Bible. The er Timothy about apostasy. Chapter 2 gun fight or sending a young David to Old Testament—which he divided into deals with the instruction to stay on face Goliath with no faith or sling pow - the sections of redemption, organiza - the correct path. If my goal is to travel ered by God. tion, poetry, and sermons—is a prepa - from Mississippi to Ohio via a motor The Lord said, “It is written, Man ration for Christ. The Gospels bring vehicle in a certain amount of time, I shall not live by bread alone, but by about the manifestation of Christ; in have to stay the course. Otherwise, I every word that proceedeth out of the the Acts, the propagation (spreading might end up in the Pacific or the At - mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). That state - or multiplying) of the gospel takes lantic with more water than I can drink. ment should cause us to reject all the place; the Epistles provide explana - Second Timothy 3 foretells the poison of false teachers and focus on tion of the gospel; and the Revelation apostasy and allows us to see a spiri - the truths of the Word. The Word or Apocalypse brings about consum - tual picture of why verse 13 is being strengthens the inner man, nourishes mation or completion of the purposes fulfilled during this present time. “In the mind, and aids in the correction of of God in Christ. the light of the working of deceiving our behavior. The “doctrines of devils” The Lord Jesus Christ is depicted— spirits, and their methods of decep - (I Tim. 4:1) being spoken by false whether spiritually, historically, physi - tion, it is also becoming clear that teachers will make us spiritually sick, cally, metaphorically, or in a future close examination is needed of the anemic, and too weak to resist or de - sense—throughout the entire Bible. modern theories, conceptions, and feat our enemy. Even the genealogies and the Chroni - expressions concerning things in con - The Word of God comes with re - cles of the Old Testament make a con - nection with God, and His way of sponsibility as well as accountability crete statement regarding the actual working in man; for only the truth of and must be used properly. I can go mortal life of the Saviour, along with God, apart from ‘views’ of truth, will out and buy tapes, CDs, MP3 down - every Christophany and theophany. avail for protection, or warfare, in the loads, and read my Bible through (See Genesis 18:1-33, 32:22-30, and conflict with wicked spirits in the heav - every year, but God wants the Word to Deuteronomy 31:14-15 as a few ex - enly sphere” (Penn-Lewis, War on the come alive on the inside of me so that amples among many.) Saints, Thomas E. Lowe Ltd.). it may be manifested outwardly. I may John, the author who wrote a Any revelation apart from the truth of be “eating from the wrong table” if my Gospel, three epistles, and the book of the Word is a lie. The serpent said to life does not bear real fruit and others Revelation, explained to mankind the Eve, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not cannot see even the tiniest inkling of importance of recognizing Jesus eat of every tree of the garden? . . . Ye growth and development in the things Christ as Truth. He explained the im - shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:1, 4). He is of God. Matthew 7:16 teaches us, “Ye portance of fully accepting the One still deceiving the world and those who shall know them by their fruits.” (Word) he and other witnesses had cannot distinguish between the voice The Word of God is not just to be seen crucified and resurrected on the of the Good Shepherd and the voice of hidden in our hearts and minds; it must 14 (142) also be used in the same way we use is the Word of God (cf. John 1:14-15, before the world unto our glory: which the nutrients of natural foods. The 17; I John 5; Rev. 19:11-16). none of the princes of this world knew: Lord used the analogy of the vine and The essence of false religions, hu - for if they had known it, they would not the branches to express the fact that manism, nihilism, scientology, and have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . But we can do nothing (bear spiritual fruit atheism, along with every aspect of God hath revealed them unto us by his that reflects the character of God) life, science, and death are mentioned Spirit: for the Sprit searcheth all things, without His assistance. “Now ye are or dealt with in the Holy Bible. Those yea, the deep things of God. . . . But clean through the word which I have questionable circumstances in life that the natural man receiveth not the spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in do not seem to be directly addressed things of the Spirit of God: for they are you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of (usually bondages, hindrances, foolishness unto him: neither can he itself, except it abide in the vine; no weights, or idols) are not stones un - know them, because they are spiritu - more can ye, except ye abide in me” turned, because God is not mocked. ally discerned” (2:7-8, 10, 14). (John 15:3-4). The word “abide” here The Lord gives us a good enough Those who oppose the Holy Bible means “to dwell” or “to live in or with.” blueprint, along with the power of His are more than likely those who oppose Our foundation is sure if it is rooted Holy Spirit, to enable us not to be chil - the divinity of Christ by the same spir - and grounded in the promises of God dren of foolishness and excuses but it as those who do not want the name by faith in Christ through the Holy Spir - mature sons and daughters of God of Christ displayed in absolute truth. it. who discern what the will of the Lord Such an individual will see the warning During the time of Jesus’ earthly is. signs but will purposely lean on his life, the disciples more than likely did The great men and women of the own understanding because he can - not fully understand what it meant to Bible were not at all perfect or the not see. The day before Hurricane Ka - dwell in Christ and to have Christ same, but their message is a com - trina wreaked havoc in Laurel, Missis - dwell in them, just as Nicodemus did plete, collective whole pointing to the sippi, on August 29, 2005, I made the not understand about being born One who verbally spoke into their foolish choice of ignoring the local again (John 3:1-21). The Lord God minds and hearts. Historians, schol - news, not preparing a storm kit, and (the self-existent One who reveals ars, and skeptics who discredit the not fueling up my vehicles. The storm Himself) could have done various Bible or argue about what has been happened even though I figured it things about this, but He chose to re - changed, included, or excluded do not would only affect New Orleans and the veal Himself through the Holy Bible really understand what Paul meant Gulf Coast. It happened regardless of and even more so through the life of when he stated that the foolishness of whether I believed the warnings or the Son. God is much wiser than men (I Cor. what my opinion of the storm was at Although we do not fully understand 1:25) and that God has chosen the that time. The same is true with the all the aspects, thoughts, and ways of foolish things of the world to confound truths in the Word of God; many will God, we must be fully convinced that the wise (vs. 27). “But we speak the not hear even if one would come back Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit are wisdom of God in a mystery, even the from the dead to warn them (cf. Luke one. He was, is, and is to come. Jesus hidden wisdom, which God ordained 16:19-31). The Word of God is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path (cf. Ps. 119:105). It is also like an IV that ben - efits us regardless of the discomfort that the needle causes. The Bible tells us many stories and reveals to us both the internal and the external aspects of ourselves so that the Holy Spirit may renew our minds. “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain de - scended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was found - ed upon a rock” (Matt. 7:24-25). The Lord Jesus spoke many radical things that He alone had the authority to speak (Matt. 5 –7), just as He speaks to the hearers of His words to - day. There are many voices in the crowd beckoning us to make many choices, but we have to choose to build on the solid Rock, the Word of God. He is our final authority, and we will one day rule and reign with Him throughout all eternity. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (143) 15 Ministering Through Music

BY JOYCE E. B AILEY

ing for the listeners or for their own glory. Your passion will make a difference; so use the gifts God gave you (I Pet. 4:9-11). It is incredibly satisfying to do what God created you to do and to know that God promises eternal fruit for Spirit-filled service. Make the most of every opportunity for positive spiritual impact, for we live in a society that is addicted to readily accessible and intense entertainment. Let the Spirit guide your planning, and choose the very best music! Meaningful lyrics married to a mem - orable tune are quite powerful. How - ever, some contemporary songs are better suited to special music pro - grams than to congregational ones. Often the melody is too complicated or has too wide a range. If you are leading, please choose music in singable keys! I have noticed, especially with guitarist song leaders, that keys are chosen for their ease of playing rather than for what the singers can realistically manage. When planning a service, selecting REATED in the very image of our fulfill His calling (I Cor. 12:11). How do a variety of keys, meters, styles, and C God, we respond in inexplicable your unique gifts mesh with what God tempos will help people stay alert and ways to the expression of music. In a is doing? Ask God to help you under - interested. There is also value in occa - profoundly mysterious way, it can stand His central purpose and role for sionally singing a well-known song a awaken our connection to God and you in your church or community. capella or varying the voices on a communicate beyond our intellect, Also, we are motivated by our deep stanza or refrain. carrying truth deep into our inner be - desire to obey the Lord. All parts are In setting the tempo, be mindful of ing. It can help us get in touch with our necessary for the body to function the style and purpose of each piece. emotions—to express delight, release (I Cor. 12:21-26). If someone attempts One song leader always led the con - sorrow, or dispel confusion, anxiety, to recruit you, prayerfully consider it! temporary songs faster, but every and fear. Music is a creative outlet, a Get involved, but be motivated into hymn just dragged along. I have also healing therapy, a learning technique, service by passion, not duty or guilt. seen directors lead all the music far and a powerful means of inspiration, Even children and teens can be en - too fast for fear of boring the congre - motivation, encouragement, and wor - couraged to serve the Lord with music gation. ship. while they are still students. For ex - Introduce new music purposefully. Ephesians 5:17-20 connects the ample, a budding pianist could start Use a new piece as the prelude or of - filling of the Spirit with singing, and playing along with the regular musi - fertory, providing the lyrics on a screen Colossians 3:16 links music with spir - cians on another keyboard. Even if he or in the bulletin (and draw the con - itual growth. As believers, we have an is playing only melody or chords, ex - gregation’s attention to it). You could incredible opportunity to partner with perience is gained and confidence have a group or a soloist sing the new the Holy Spirit to minister through built. Having students play a Christ - song first. Using it several times in a music. mas carol in a service is another way month or quarter will give everyone an We are motivated by the knowledge to get them involved. Teach them to opportunity to really learn it. that God has gifted us so that the give their best to the Lord as their au - Please remember that you are lead - church body fits and works together to dience of one instead of just perform - ing and serving others, not just per - 16 (144) forming your favorite genre or choos - In many churches, the great hymns page as possible. Some backgrounds ing pieces simply because they are fun of the faith are falling by the wayside. or colors or fonts are much easier to for the musicians to play. Try to meet If you introduce them with enthusiasm, read than others. Special instructions the needs of everyone in the congre - sincerity, and deep appreciation, you such as “Men,” “Ladies,” “Worship gation, not favoring a particular age- can preserve their rich heritage for the Leader,” and “Interlude”—should be group or style favorite. You cannot next generation. For maximum im - boldly specified. please everyone all the time, but the pact, remember to explain the mean - Help those who may be unfamiliar needs of all should be prayerfully con - ing of the terms and concepts to chil - with contemporary songs by grouping sidered and respected. dren and those who may be new the words according to how the musi - First Corinthians 14:15-16 mentions believers with no church background. cal phrases are sung. Many contem - singing with understanding; so the ac - Consider occasionally using a great porary songs have unexpected paus - companiment should never overpow - hymn text set to a more contemporary es, continuations, or instrumental er the voices. Some musicians seem tune, or vary the rhythm a little for a interludes that should be clearly indi - to think that their music is not good fresh approach. I offer a caution, cated by dashes between syllables or unless it is very loud. Let us strive for though, because drastically changing words, ellipses, spacing, or instruc - moderation here! Too much volume is a beloved and familiar hymn (either tions in parentheses. physically harmful! rhythmically or harmonically) could Teach your audiovisual technicians Considering the message and doc - cause frustration in the congregation to forward the slide at least two words trine of the lyrics is also extremely im - and therefore lose its intended effect. from the end. This is essential to read - portant. Especially when working with Combine traditional hymns and con - ing the next set of words. children, it might be tempting to do temporary pieces on the same theme If you are a leader, disciple your mu - what has always been done or to pull in a medley, or use a hymn in its tradi - sicians! Grow together spiritually by out something you learned as a child tional setting and then have a soloist studying and praying and sharing. in Sunday school, regardless of its val - or group sing a contemporary Make it a priority for you and your team ue. If you actually think about it, some arrangement for one stanza, followed to submit to God, and ask for His fill - of these jingles are basically pointless by the traditional again. ing every time you rehearse or lead in or so symbolic as to be quite confus - If you are running a rehearsal, be worship. ing to children. Do we really want to completely prepared ahead of time— Perhaps you have been thinking spend valuable spiritual training time have the music printed, special parts about getting involved in a music min - on anything less than understandable written or planned out, the sound sys - istry, but you feel intimidated. Ask to truth? tem set up, and the equipment ready. try out the job or ministry first. If it is a Choose a variety of songs. Select Start on time, even if some musicians good fit, accept it. Volunteer to be an those that are rich in doctrine (we des - are late! This shows respect to the vol - assistant initially, and then step into perately need strong teaching), that unteers who cared enough to be leadership. express love to the Lord, that highlight prompt. Enlist volunteers to assist with If you are talented and capable, Christian living, or that have words setup and teardown or in other sup - continually direct your heart to depend straight from Scripture. port roles. on God. Be on guard against pride. Prayerfully consider the use of lyrics Plan ahead when you want to use Are you skilled but a new believer? containing recurring phrases. We have unfamiliar or difficult music. Do not Learn the basics of the faith first, and all heard criticisms of repetitive wor - present it on Saturday and expect ask for God’s direction and timing. ship songs; but what some reject as everyone to have it ready for the next Christ-centered servants need humili - annoyingly repetitive, others find to be morning. The only thing worse would ty—the opposite of the world’s drive meditative and meaningful. Be careful be bringing it to them the morning of! for self-glory. here—the psalms frequently repeat You may be able to pull it off musical - There are many options for music phrases, and Scripture instructs us to ly, but it is unfair to expect that of oth - ministry. The healing powers of music meditate on the Word. Our cluttered ers. How can they lead if they are are now used in therapy. Simple minds need ways to focus on truth and stressing about the correct words and rhythms and musical instruments let it deeply root. When necessary, you notes in your last-minute selection? (such as drums, recorder, or a song can omit and edit until it works. Be sensitive to the needs of your card guitar) can bring hope and en - Be purposeful in your planning. For musicians. Do they need merely lead couragement to retirees, the elderly, young children who need an activity vocal charts, or might they actually and those confined by illness or acci - song, choose something with instruc - need to see a full score as well as vo - dent. Music therapy has had a positive tional value, not just a silly time-filler. cals? Others might not be as comfort - effect in drug and alcohol treatment Elementary ages also need some able counting the measures of an in - facilities as well as with patients suf - movement as well as quiet times for troduction or interlude. Some fering brain trauma. instruction. Consider using sign lan - musicians may struggle with a full Music is also a wonderfully creative guage, which can be quite valuable score of music. Others may not be outlet. We are made in God’s image; and effective, or other meaningful mo - able to play chords from a chart. Pro - therefore, we are creative. Compos - tions. Many teens are naturally drawn viding musicians with what they need ing, singing, playing an instrument, to contemporary sounds; so prayerful - builds a stronger, more cohesive team. chanting, moving to a rhythm, clap - ly choose pieces with the most value, Be sure that words projected on a ping, or even whistling can energize not just those that are on the top of the screen are large enough and clear the human spirit and well up into Christian charts or follow the latest enough to be seen easily. Resist the praise for our God. Thanks be to God trend. temptation to cram as much onto each for His incredible gift of music! # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (145) 17 Christian Psychology

Whatever Happened to Sacrifice?

BY A. K OSHY MUTHALALY , P H.D.

WILL change when he (or she) this is not how God proceeds. The buy us back to Himself. I does!” How often have we heard Bible reveals to us the supreme exam - Men and women think differently. that! Human relationships are tough ple of sacrificial love coming from God What is important to a man is often not to sustain. When we enter into a to a broken people despite man’s fail - as important to a woman. God made covenant of marriage, it becomes ures. It is a love that keeps loving no us that way (and then had the sense of even more difficult. Often the result is matter what the other party does. humor to put us together). But when that relationship coming to an end. It is in this kind of context that we we sacrifice our needs for the love of Difficult as it is, in Christian marriage need to examine the concept of sacri - the other person in the relationship, we we are called to live with each other fice in marriage. Many church tradi - have learned the essence of sacrificial in an attitude of constant forbear - tions espouse the marriage vows that love in marriage. Again, that is exactly ance, loving one another and forgiv - state “Till death do us part.” But the di - what Jesus did for us (Gal. 1:4; Titus ing one another at all times (cf. Eph. vorce rates we see in our communities 2:14). He bought us back with the 4:2; 5:22-25; Col. 3:13). do not testify to a love that is sacrifi - price of His own blood. Sacrifice, then, When we read reports of couples cial in nature. Sadly, many couples go calls for daily, selfless giving. who have stayed together fifty or sixty into marriage believing that if it does Sacrifice in marriage is often the years, we are prone to ask ourselves, not work out, they can quit and find training ground for the harsh realities “How did they manage that?” The an - someone else. An attitude like this of life that we might confront in the fu - swer often boils down to one powerful sets up a marriage for failure before it ture. Jesus reminds us that true sacri - word—“sacrifice.” Someone has has even begun. This does not agree fice for Him will never go unrewarded. wisely said that we are to keep both with the biblical idea of marriage. Matthew 19:29 thus reads, “And every eyes open before marriage and one The biblical standard for marriage one that hath forsaken houses, or eye shut after that. There is a lot of calls for daily sacrifice. That is honest - brethren, or sisters, or father, or moth - truth to this statement. The flip side is ly difficult to do for anyone. We cer - er, or wife, or children, or lands, for my that we are to constantly sacrifice our tainly cannot sacrifice consistently in name’s sake, shall receive an hun - own interests in order to sustain a mar - our own power. Our carnal human na - dredfold, and shall inherit everlasting riage. That is the reality before us. ture calls for the immediate satisfac - life.” In short, sacrifice equals eternal Paul talked about this in Ephesians tion of our own needs before those of blessing. 5 when he compared the love of a hus - someone else. The very word “sacri - If we truly seek to honor God in our band for his wife to what Christ did for fice” calls for giving something up for marriages, it will take real sacrifice. the church. We are to love our spous - the sake of someone else. That is the What about giving up our own de - es “even as Christ also loved the idea throughout the Bible. If we look at mands? It might mean putting aside church, and gave himself for it” (vs. Christian marriage as a life of consis - our own preferences, our own ideas. It 25). How did Christ love the church? tent sacrifice for the one we married, could even involve giving up our own He did not spare even His own life. He we have captured the essence of this personal goals for the sake of those voluntarily gave Himself up for the idea. we love. church that He loved so that it would In the broader sense, sacrifice in the One characteristic of human nature be sanctified. His sacrificial love led to Bible evokes images of bloodshed we must give up is bitterness, which the cross. It was there that He died for and death. In the Old Testament, we includes unforgiveness. Bitterness is a the church that He loved so that He see that animals were sacrificed. canker on marriage. When we hold on might present it to His Father as glori - Blood had to be shed before sins to our grudges, we are putting our - ous and perfect. could be covered. In the New Testa - selves on the road to destruction. In the Bible, we read of a covenant- ment, we have the picture of Jesus on If we are honest with ourselves, we keeping God. A covenant is a promise the cross. He did not hesitate to give must acknowledge that often we at - between two parties. The usual under - His life for us because we are His tempt to exert a certain power over the standing is that if one party does not bride, the church. He knew how un - other people in our lives by holding on keep his end of the bargain, the other faithful we are, but He gave His life for to our grudges. We seek to punish the does not have to keep his end of it. But us because there was no other way to other person, and we do not want the 18 (146) other person to ever forget what he did to us. What’s in a Word? Jesus gave up His power so that He could save us. He gave up His throne in heaven to become like a man so Rapture “that we might be made the right - eousness of God in him” (II Cor. 5:21). Even though we cannot sacrifice on BY DARRELL W. M CKAY , M.A. that level, is not this example of sacri - ficial giving worth following? HE word “rapture” is not found in the phrase “take him by force” is what Romans 12:1 puts sacrifice even T the Bible. That may come as a sur - we are considering here. The just-fed more into focus for every aspect of our prise to some, since in some Christian multitude wanted to make Jesus king, Christian lives. Paul reminds us, “I be - circles the rapture is preached, written even to forcefully impose it upon Him. seech you therefore, brethren, by the about, and expected at any moment. He then isolated Himself by going off mercies of God, that ye present your Actually, the word “rapture” is derived alone into the hills. bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accept - from the Latin word raptus, which In John 10:12, Jesus used the word able unto God, which is your reason - means to be carried away with over - harpazo to refer to what happens to able service.” Then he calls us to fall in whelming emotion. Hymn writer Philip believers when the enemy (“wolf”) of line with “what is that good, and ac - Doddridge (1702 –1751) utilized the God’s people (“sheep”) is afforded the ceptable, and perfect, will of God” (vs. word in that sense when he penned, “O opportunity to attack, scatter, and 2). True sacrifice puts us in the path of happy day, that fixed my choice. / On seize (“catcheth”) the sheep. Shep - the perfect will of God for us. Jesus set Thee, my Savior and my God! / Well may herds hired to watch the sheep have us the example and called us to follow this glowing heart rejoice, / And tell its no vested interest in the sheep and in His footsteps (Phil. 1:29). raptures all abroad” (“O Happy Day”). flee. That is something Jesus, the To reiterate my point, true sacrifice When Christians are not using the Good Shepherd, would never do. means that we are ready to play sec - word to speak of emotions, they usual - The third and fourth times we find ond fiddle, to take second place, to ly mean the sudden departure of believ - the word in John’s Gospel, it is ren - give up our own plans and goals so ers to meet Jesus in the air. This is de - dered “pluck” (10:28-29). Jesus holds that someone else might get the hon - rived from Paul’s comment to the believers so securely that no one can or and recognition that we might have Thessalonian Christians in his first epis - take them away. tle to them (4:17). He used the phrase The book of Acts supplies us with deserved. In a marriage relationship, “caught up” ( harpazo ) to speak of a two instances of the word we are study - this becomes even more relevant if we meeting of believers and Christ in the air. ing. The first (8:39) is where the Spirit of are to succeed as Christian husbands The Greek word usually implies a God “caught away” Philip after he had and wives. sudden, often forceful action imposed witnessed to and baptized the Ethiopi - Sometimes we are prone to think on someone. The meaning of the word an eunuch. The second (23:10) is where that because He was God, Jesus’ sac - in Greek, as noted from I Thessaloni - soldiers were sent to rescue Paul (“take rifice was not that hard. That is not so. ans 4:17, is to catch, take, pull, or him by force”) from those who threat - When He went to the rugged cross, He snatch. A survey of the usage of the ened to pull him apart. was absolutely human. Read about word harpazo is instructive. Paul is quite assuredly the subject of Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane, where The word is found thirteen times in the next two times the word is found He concluded, “Not my will, but thine, the King James New Testament. In (II Cor. 12:2, 4). In both instances, the be done” (Luke 22:42). His sacrifice for Matthew 11:12, the context is the man - word is rendered “caught up.” For the higher cause of saving the world ner in which the kingdom of heaven is Paul, it was a personal rapture. had brought its own rewards. If our met both by those opposing the Jude 1:23 shows the urgency of own Lord Jesus, in the flesh, has set preaching about it and by those ener - one’s efforts to win the lost. Here wit - us the supreme example of sacrifice, getically desiring to enter it. The word nessing is described as “pulling” them we should dare to follow Him. If our we are considering is here rendered by out of the fire, since an unsaved sinner marriages are to work properly, we the phrase “take it by force,” an exam - is always on the threshold of hell. must be prepared to sacrifice every - ple of which is given by Jesus when He The last reference for the word harpa - thing for the ones we love. spoke about John the Baptist, who was zo is found in Revelation 12:5, where it If you continue to believe it is easy, imprisoned because of his preaching. refers to Jesus’ ascension (rapture, if remember that the very concept of Another instance in which we find the you will). The phrase used is “caught sacrifice is often foreign to us. It in - word is Matthew 13:19, where it is ren - up.” He is raised and exalted by God. volves consciously disciplining our - dered “catcheth away.” It refers to what In these passages we have seen that selves to give up our own wills, plans, happens to the Word of God when it is the word indicates a sudden action, of - and desires. Paul teaches us that he heard but not understood (cf. vs. 4). As ten with force. We close where we be - was “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). birds quickly pick up seeds, so the gan, but we have been encouraged to be Jesus’ death on the cross has brought “wicked one” (Satan) quickly takes away always ready to meet our Saviour in the about the deaths of our former selves. the seed of God’s Word when the human air and be with Him forever. Should we We must be willing, as He was, to give heart is too hardened to receive it. die before the rapture (I Thess. 4:17), we our all for others. That is the extent of Four uses of the word harpazo are will not miss out. That was Paul’s point true sacrifice. # found in the Gospel of John. In 6:15, to the believers in Thessalonica. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (147) 19 Sermon

When Opposition Comes

BY JARL K. W AGGONER

RUTH or Consequences was a ducees dominated the Jewish San - we are to honor God and maintain a T television game show. Contest - hedrin, which was instrumental in Je - consistent Christian testimony in this ants who were unable to correctly an - sus’ arrest and crucifixion. In particu - world. swer a question had to suffer the con - lar, they were “grieved” that Peter and sequences, which usually involved John were teaching “the resurrection WHAT ACTS 4 TELLS US ABOUT performing a silly and embarrassing from the dead” (vs. 2), a doctrine they RESPONDING TO OPPOSITION stunt. rejected (cf. Matt. 22:23; Acts 23:8). First, the example of Peter and In real life, following Christ is not a No one is more antagonistic to the John reminds us that our response matter of truth or consequences but Christian faith than religious people to persecution of any kind must be rather of truth and consequences. who reject the gospel. Jesus and the governed by the truth. When brought There are always consequences for early believers found their greatest en - before the Sanhedrin, Peter told following Christ, the One who is the emies to be the Pharisees, Sad - these educated religious leaders truth. In fact, II Timothy 3:12 says, “All ducees, and Judaizers. We should not that they were mistaken about Christ that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall be surprised to find that much of the and that they were, in fact, murder - suffer persecution.” The way we re - opposition we face today comes from ers (Acts 4:8-12)! Even after being spond to opposition and persecution unbelieving “church people.” It is sad threatened, his boldness did not di - is crucial. Indeed, had the early church but informative to see that the first minish, for he and John both de - not responded properly to persecu - ones to criticize Christians who stand clared that they would not heed the tion, the church would not even exist up publicly for godly principles and threats but would continue to preach today. morals are often those who claim the Christ (vs. 20). This was the same name “Christian” while denying the Peter who had denied Christ just two WHAT ACTS 4 TELLS US ABOUT truth of Scripture. months earlier! OPPOSITION 3. Opposition may take any of sev - Peter’s response was not reckless Opposition to the newly formed eral forms. In the case of the apostles, or hateful. It was simply a proclama - Christian church arose almost imme - there was active opposition. The tem - tion of the truth that issued from a diately as the apostles began pro - ple police, under the “captain of the boldness produced by the Holy Spirit claiming salvation in the name of the temple,” took Peter and John into cus - (Acts 4:8). crucified Lord. Acts 4 recounts the tody (Acts 4:1-3). We must always respond to opposi - first persecution of the church. In do - Opposition also took the form of tion with the truth, regardless of the ing so, it outlines some typical marks official censure. The Sanhedrin or - consequences. But this can be done of opposition that we may face even dered them “not to speak at all nor only by the power of the Spirit. When today. teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts we rely on the Holy Spirit and answer 1. Opposition often comes at the 4:18). This was accompanied by with the truth of Scripture, there will be height of success. Peter took advan - threats (vs. 21). no hatred, vindictiveness, or pride. We tage of the miraculous healing at the For most Christians in Western na - will speak the truth in love (cf. Eph. temple to preach Christ (Acts 3:12-26). tions, arrest is probably not an immi - 4:15), and this is a response that hon - As a result of his sermon, the number nent concern. But we have probably ors our God. of “men” (males) who believed “was been told, either verbally or by sug - Second, in responding to persecu - about five thousand” (4:4). As the ear - gestion, not to “talk religion” in the tion, we must have God’s perspec - ly church experienced tremendous workplace, at school, or in public set - tive on it. We have noted briefly Pe - growth, however, opposition also was tings. Increasingly, bigotry toward ter’s response to his arrest; now let growing. Christians is becoming common - us consider how the church as a 2. Opposition often comes from re - place, and our freedom of thought and whole responded to the attack on the ligious people. Leading the opposition speech is challenged because it of - church and the gospel they pro - to the apostles were “the priests, and fends those who wish to throw off the claimed. the captain of the temple, and the shackles of biblical morality. It is im - When Peter and John reported to Sadducees” (Acts 4:1). The Sad - perative that we respond properly if the church “all that the chief priests 20 (148) and elders had said unto them. . . . “Why me?” We will not give in to the portunities are always available. We they lifted up their voice to God with threats. We will not deny the truth in or - just need boldness to proclaim the one accord, and said, Lord, thou art der to avoid the consequences of message. God, which hast made heaven, and speaking it. And why should we? The The early believers in Jerusalem earth, and the sea, and all that in them opposition is pathetic and impotent. In desired boldness to continue to pro - is” (Acts 4:23-24). fact, God has allowed it for His own claim the message and minister in Interestingly, they did not address purposes, and He will give us the the name of Jesus. Their prayer was the Lord with the most commonly grace and boldness and power we immediately answered, for “the place used Greek word for “Lord.” Instead, need to endure the consequences, was shaken where they were assem - they used the word despotes, from whatever they may be. bled together; and they were all filled which we get the word “despot.” This This reminds us too that doctrine with the Holy Ghost, and they spake word refers here not to a tyrant, but to is always practical. The doctrine of the word of God with boldness” (Acts one who has absolute authority. They God’s sovereignty provides per - 4:31). The verb translated “spake” in - recognized the Lord as sovereign spective on our circumstances. It dicates that this was a continuing ac - Ruler over the entire universe that He gives us hope and assurance in our tion; that is, they continued speaking had created. Only when we see the daily walk that He is in control of the truth with boldness. As was the Lord for who He truly is will we gain everything. We need not fear any - case with Peter earlier (vs. 8), this perspective on our own circum - thing or anybody. stances. When we understand that He Finally, we need to respond to op - boldness was produced by the Holy is the sovereign, all-powerful Creator, position prayerfully. The church re - Spirit. it puts our problems in proper per - sponded to what happened to Peter So it was that the believers in the spective. and John with concerted prayer. Ac - Jerusalem church acknowledged That is what the believers were do - tually, their prayer began in Acts 4:24 God’s sovereignty. They understood ing. They were stepping back to put as they addressed God as sovereign who God was, and they asked for the what might have seemed to be insur - Ruler in verses 24-28. Their actual re - boldness they needed and that He mountable problems into a clear, bib - quest is found in verses 29-30. In alone could provide. And they contin - lical perspective. This is evident from light of the threatenings from their ued to fearlessly speak the truth with - the fact that they quoted Psalm 2:1-2. enemies, they asked the Lord to out compromise, just as Peter and What David described here is exactly grant them boldness to speak God’s John had said they must (Acts 4:20). what Jesus’ followers had witnessed, Word. Had they cringed in fear and kept as the “heathen” raged and “the kings Notice that the church did not pray silent their testimony, it would have of the earth stood up, and the rulers for the removal of opposition. Un - been an acknowledgment that they were gathered together against the doubtedly, this was because they had did not fully trust God. And the gospel Lord, and against his Christ” (Acts God’s perspective on the situation. He message itself would not have left 4:25-26). Herod, Pontius Pilate, the is sovereign, and they were convinced Jerusalem. Gentiles, and the people of Israel had that He would do what was best. If He As Christians, we say we are com - gathered together against the Lord’s chose to remove the persecution, He mitted to the truth. But how commit - Anointed to do what God had already would do so. ted are we? How do we respond when determined they would do (vss. 27- We are quick to pray for deliverance opposition arises? Are we overcome 28). from uncomfortable circumstances, with fear? Do we shrink into silence? These Christians understood that but it may be that God wants us to re - Do we express anger and seek re - everything, including the crucifixion main in them, at least for a time, in or - venge? The principle we see illustrat - of Christ and the persecution they der to accomplish His purposes. While ed in the early church is this: We were now facing, was (and is) in the we may not know all of His purposes, should respond boldly with the truth of hands of the sovereign Lord. And He they almost always involve our devel - God’s Word in the power of the Holy works all things according to His opment and growth into worthy ser - Spirit, recognizing God and His sover - will. vants of the Lord. If God answered our eign purposes. The rest of Psalm 2 tells us that every request for deliverance, we The believers in Acts 4 responded while God allows opposition to His would be very ill equipped to serve properly, and the result was a contin - people, His plan, and even His Son, Him. He actually laughs at the pathetic re - The early church realized that uing ministry that spread from bellion of wicked people against Him what they needed most was bold - Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and (vs. 4). He does not laugh at their ness to continue to spread the good to the “uttermost part of the earth” wickedness but rather at the very news in the face of opposition. Even (1:8). It was a ministry that ultimately thought that such weak, ignorant if the persecution subsided for a brought the gospel to us. Perhaps creatures would in their pride raise time, it would return. Likewise, our most of us will never face the intensi - their voices in opposition to their responsibility as followers of Christ ty of opposition the early believers Creator, who can with one word de - is to faithfully carry the gospel to the faced. But the same Word of God, the stroy them. world—the world across the street same power, the same privilege of The same God still reigns. When we and around the globe. We must prayer, and the same Holy Spirit are truly understand that He has all au - speak the truth and speak it in love. available to us today. Opposition is an thority as King over all creation, we will But that takes boldness; so that is opportunity to trust God and to see have the proper perspective on our what we especially need to pray for. Him work in our lives in marvelous troubles and trials. We will not ask, We know the message, and the op - ways. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (149) 21 Biblical Snapshots of People Who Prayed When God Said No

BY R. L ARRY OVERSTREET

OW do you respond to God “mighty hand,” and His “works,” and he God chastens for sin (Deut. 3:26). H when you pray and He does wanted to see more. He recognized God was “wroth” with Moses, an em - not grant your request? What if it is an that God is unique; no other being in phatic verb meaning He was furious. earnest request? What if it has a solid heaven or earth exists to compare with God “would not hear” Moses’ request, basis in God’s character, but God still Him. Moses clearly knew God had said indicating that He refused to grant it. says no? How does that affect your at - earlier that he could not enter Canaan, Moses’ prayer may have been earnest, titude toward Him? Do you think Him but that was before God had shown based on God’s character, and direct in unfair, or do you seek to find out why this great power. God’s greatness and its nature, but it was still out of God’s God responded as He did and then ac - faithfulness form a solid basis on which will. Sin leads to chastening, and the cept His decision? to make a prayer request, and now God consequences must be endured. An event in the life of Moses illus - had shown that to Moses. Moses, God further responded, however, by trates this very experience (Deut. 3:23- therefore, based his prayer on this re - adding, “Let it suffice thee” (Deut. 3:26). 28). Moses requested to enter vealed character of God. This was “substantially equivalent to 2 Canaan, and God said no. Prayer should be direct (Deut. 3:25). Cor. 12:9, ‘My grace is sufficient for This is the third characteristic. Moses thee ’” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary MOSES’ REQUEST—Deut. 3:23-25 asked to “go over” so that he could “see on the Old Testament, Hendrickson). These verses demonstrate three ex - the good land” and “that goodly moun - This communication of God with cellent characteristics of prayer. We tain, and Lebanon.” The Hebrew text of Moses also shows the intimate rela - should apply them to our prayer lives. the Lord’s answer to “speak no more” tionship Moses had with God. Prayer should be earnest (Deut. 3:23). (vs. 26) indicates that Moses had con - God’s mercy tempers chastening Earnestness in prayer is the first charac - tinued to speak, that he had asked re - (Deut. 3:27). Moses had devoted his life teristic. Moses “besought” the Lord in peatedly. Moses did not ask to be a ruler to fulfilling God’s promise for Israel. This prayer. The Hebrew verb used is a strong in Canaan, but just a sightseer in the may have contributed to Moses’ prob - one with the idea of pleading. It was land. He wanted to see Canaan all the lem. The expectation—the vision of en - used by Joseph’s brothers when they re - way north to the area of Lebanon. He tering the Promised Land—was great. In membered how he had pleaded with also wanted to see “that goodly moun - Moses’ mind, “the vision had slipped them to release him from the pit and not tain,” which “is supposed by Jewish from the Lord of the promise to the sell him into slavery (Gen. 42:21). writers to have pointed to the hill on promise itself” (Craigie, The Book of Moses also came to the Lord “at which the temple was to be built” (Deut. Deuteronomy, Eerdmans). In His mercy, that time” (Deut. 3:23). This was not 12:5; Exod. 15:2) (Jamieson, Fausset, God granted Moses the opportunity to the time of God’s initial refusal to let and Brown, A Commentary Critical, Ex - view the land from afar, from Mount Pis - Moses enter Canaan (Num. 20:7-13), perimental, and Practical on the Old and gah. Scholars differ on precisely where when God chastened Moses because New Testament, Zondervan). Moses Pisgah is, but it is probably identical to he had disobeyed and struck the rock had been consistently faithful to God, or closely connected with Mount Nebo. twice (instead of speaking to it) to pro - but he had disobeyed God’s instruc - This is about ten miles east of the Jor - vide water for the people. tions in the instance at Meribah. How - dan River at the northeast end of the In Deuteronomy 3, however, Moses ever, God had shown Moses grace by Dead Sea. From its peak (2,680 feet), recounted how God had shown His allowing him to still be part of His plan Moses could see from Mount Hermon to power in giving the tribes of Reuben to bring the people into the land. As a the north, to the Jezreel Valley south - and Gad and the half tribe of Manas - result, Moses asked to enter Canaan. west of the Sea of Galilee, to the central sah the land of Sihon and Og. God per - Moses’ prayer was earnest, solidly hill country, and to Engedi, along the mitted Moses to be an integral part of based on God’s character, and direct western shore of the Dead Sea. God this victory. Since God had begun to in its nature. These are elements that thus showed mercy to Moses, but His give Israel the Promised Land through many of us strive for in our prayers. mercy was limited by His justice. Moses, perhaps God was now willing When we pray this way, we strongly God’s work continues (Deut. 3:28). to permit Moses to “witness the end of hope that God will answer favorably, in Since Moses was not permitted to go the great pilgrimage which had begun accordance with our desires. into the Promised Land, he was told to under his leadership” (Thompson, make certain that Joshua was pre - Deuteronomy: An Introduction and GOD’S ANSWER ANNOUNCED— pared for the task of leading the peo - Commentary, InterVarsity). Deut. 3:26-28 ple there. Moses had already commis - Prayer should be founded on God’s God expressed three principles in His sioned Joshua for this position (Num. character (Deut. 3:24). This is the sec - response to Moses’ prayer. We should 27:18-23). Two other times in Deu - ond characteristic of prayer. Moses had add these to our understanding about teronomy, God had referred to Joshua seen some of God’s “greatness,” His how God sometimes answers prayer. (Continued on page 31) 22 (150) The Life and Times of Jesus

Jesus and the Living Death

BY LYLE P. M URPHY

WAS assured I would see more of hair disheveled, and the lower part of his Tregelles found that tsaraath, leprosy, I the African way of life in the market - face and upper lip covered, . . . while the is from the root meaning “to strike place than anywhere else. I was in Ba - mournful words, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ . .. down, whence . . . a scourge, applied mako, Mali Republic, to see our mis - proclaimed that his was both living and to diseases.” A leper, he added, is sionaries at work. The missions moral death” (Edersheim, The Life and “‘one stricken (by God) ’” ( Gesenius’ society has been in that West African Times of Jesus the Messiah, Longmans, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, Eerd - country for more than a hundred Green, and Co.). mans). years. We have many churches there The Lord cleansed a leper the rabbis An exposition of Leviticus 13 indi - to reach Muslims and animists. would have said was under divine chas - cates five kinds of skin diseases, some The marketplace was alive with tisement. The Midrash lists the poor, the of which could change characteristics sights and sounds. The country was in blind, the childless, and the leprous as over time. First, “in the skin of his flesh the throes of drought. Little food was under this sentence. In effect, they be - a rising, a scab, or bright spot” (vs. 2) re - displayed, and what there was was lieved and taught that these troubles quired a priest’s diagnosis. If unsure of closely guarded. were an indication of individual corrup - the affliction, the priest could quarantine Then we heard them. It began with a tion and immorality, not just a result of a person for up to two weeks before a hum in the air, which grew with an ad - original sin. Adding to this merciless in - final decision was made on the disease vancing group of leperous beggars dictment, the rabbis admitted they were (vss. 4-8). If the hair in this swelling skin flanking the main square. Some were powerless to deal with leprosy (Eder - was white, the person was unclean. blind, and some had mutilated noses, sheim). Normally, Israelites had only black missing teeth, and nodules all over their No doubt the rabbis arrived at their hair. If in the “rising” there was raw flesh skin. I was ready to return to our com - conviction regarding the leper’s chas - and it was white and the hair had turned pound. I had a lot of studying to do! tisement due in part to three cases white, it was an “old leprosy” and he Were the lepers of Jesus’ day victims recorded in the Old Testament. Miri - was unclean (Lev. 13:10-11). A sufferer of the same disease that afflicted those am, Moses’ sister, spoke against the with a disease such as measles was in - Malians I had seen in the market? The leader of the children of Israel and her spected if “raw flesh” appeared in the respected American Leprosy Missions own brother. An angry God smote her ailment (vss. 13, 16-17). If healed of the reports that “nothing of the disease we with a temporary judgment of leprosy primary disease, he could be clean read about in the Old and New Testa - (Num. 12:1-15). (Lange, Commentary on the Holy Scrip - ment, fits the clinical description of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, used tures, Zondervan). modern leprosy” (Letter, American guile to obtain money from Naaman, a A boil on the skin is the subject of Leprosy Missions, July 16, 2012). Syrian general. Gehazi was stricken Leviticus 13:18-23. The same word, There are thirteen references in the with Naaman’s leprosy, which would shchiyn, is used of Job’s affliction, and New Testament to the disease that has be passed on to his descendants for - one of the plagues of Egypt was boils. A been labeled “leprosy” by translators. ever (II Kings 5:25-27). person would be pronounced unclean Jesus confronted leprosy in His first King Uzziah, one of the most out - when white hair and reddish spots were healing recorded in Matthew (8:1-3). standing of Judah’s rulers, excelled in present. King Hezekiah suffered for a The Messiah had just returned from giv - many areas, but he defied Mosaic Law time with a boil that developed into an ing the Sermon on the Mount when a and entered the temple to offer in - open lesion (II Kings 20:1-6). God spared leper worshipped him and said, “Lord, if cense-a priestly function. Under judg - Hezekiah. Isaiah ordered figs applied to thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” ment, he was a leper for the rest of his the boil, and the king recovered (vs. 7). Jesus at once “put forth his hand, and life (II Chron. 26:16-21). A fourth leprosy arose out of a burn touched him.” Dr. J. Sidlow Baxter We have no specific information on (Lev. 13:24-28). It was diagnosed like the wrote that Jesus “‘touched him’—the the details of what Naaman’s leprosy first case, a rising, scab, or bright spot unheard of, the impossible miracle!” was. He was healed by ritual immer - (vss. 2-8), and could include the two- (Explore the Book, Zondervan). sions in the Jordan River (II Kings 5:1, week quarantine if infection occurred. The touch overshadowed the cleans - 14). Similarly, we know nothing of the Leviticus 13:29-44 concerned sores ing because rabbinic authorities had disease of “Simon the leper” (Mark on the head or chin. A quarantine was made life for lepers so difficult. Lepers 14:3). Dr. Merrill F. Unger offered the employed when the hair of the head or were charged with the safety of the un - opinion, “It is not improbable that he beard was thin and yellow in color. It was afflicted. Separation was scriptural, but had been miraculously cured by Jesus” a sign of infection that could spread. a distance of six feet was added. There (Unger’s Bible Dictionary, Zondervan). Jesus had no trouble dealing with he would be, with “his clothes rent, his The Hebrew scholar Dr. Samuel (Continued on page 33) SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (151) 23 Meditations in Psalms A Righteous Cry in a Wicked World

BY ARLIE D. R AUCH

INTRODUCTION This is God’s world, and all live by wicked world around him; but in these We do not know the human author of His administration, even if they deny times of personal shortcomings, Psalm 94, and its historical background Him. They will be saved or lost on the God’s mercy supports him. “Mercy” is is unknown. However, the content basis of their response to Him and that covenant loyalty of love that God quickly establishes a common setting. what He has done. has for His own. The righteous man’s It is not unusual for believers in Christ thoughts of verse 19 sometimes have today to be concerned about injustice in THE RIGHTEOUS RECEIVE a disquieting or anxious nature, but society, especially against Christians. TRAINING FOR THE LONG TERM even then God provides comfort. The writer goes full circle by calling for The focus changes starkly in Psalm So whatever troubles the righteous divine vengeance on the wicked in the 94:12 to all who are the recipients of suffer while in this wicked world, the first verse and assuring destruction for God’s instruction. The word “chasten - Lord is there to provide the solution. This them in the last. But in between the first est” is a broad term for total training, but is similar to some of the promises of rest and last verses is truth that instructs and it can include chastisement. It is a bless - and peace Jesus made in places such comforts the believer. ing to be trained by God, even if that as Matthew 11:28-30 and John 14:27. training includes rebuke and correction. THE WICKED DESERVE DIVINE Jesus noted in John 6:44-45 that those THE JUSTICE OF GOD AFFECTS VENGEANCE who come to Him have been taught and THE LIVES OF THE RIGHTEOUS The wicked are described by their drawn by the Father. Psalm 94:12 as - AND THE WICKED deeds against others in Psalm 94:1-6. sumes that not all are so trained by the The closing verses of Psalm 94 make They use their mouths to oppose others. Lord. So the blessed one, who has a right it clear that there is a distinction between Even worse, they are murderous toward relationship to God, should be grateful. the righteous and the wicked. Some - God’s people. God’s people are the The wicked will eventually die (Ps. times in this world those distinctions are covenant people of Israel. We can apply 94:13); but in the meantime, the right - blurred, but in God’s sight there is al - that today to believers in Christ. The eous, whose souls are plagued by the ways clarity. Verse 20 portrays the in - wicked dominate disadvantaged ones wicked (cf. Ps. 119:136, 158; II Pet. ability of the wicked to have fellowship by killing them. They do as they please. 2:7), will find rest in the Lord. Psalm with God. They may even use legislative In such a setting, it is not a surprise 94:14 emphasizes that our hope is and judicial means to achieve their ends. that the psalmist called upon God to grounded in the promise that the Lord In doing so, they act against the right - execute vengeance. It is right that he always supports His people. eous. But in verse 22, the psalmist af - should call upon God rather than seek Psalm 94:15 indicates that a time will firmed that the Lord would defend him vengeance himself (Rom. 12:19; Heb. come when righteous judgment will ex - against all such onslaughts. In the end, 10:30). ist on earth. Christ’s millennial reign the Lord our God will finally judge them. We should pray that God will bring comes to mind (Isa. 9:7; 35:5; Jer. 23:5- The expression “cut them off” (Ps. wicked people to faith in Jesus Christ 6; 33:15-16; Dan. 7:13-14). Then God’s 94:23) could refer to a judicial death and transform their lives. But if they re - people will be able to live righteously to here on earth, but the finality of it cor - sist, the just answer is divine justice. the fullest degree without hindrance. responds well to the second death (Rev. 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). It is punish - THE WICKED SHOULD THE RIGHTEOUS HAVE HELP ment in hell forever. ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR CREATOR LIVING IN A WICKED WORLD We who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ The attitude of the wicked against There is a promise of righteousness live in a world that is hostile toward God merits the term “proud” (Ps. 94:2). in a future time, but Psalm 94:16 asks, Christianity. Individuals and govern - In verse 7, these people assume immu - What about now? The individual be - ments may oppose us. But God will nity from judgment because they think liever appears to be outnumbered and care for His own in this life and vindi - God is unaware. But the author called overpowered by the enemy. Is there cate them in eternity. That should en - on them to recognize that Jehovah is help for him? In verses 17-19 the courage us to be faithful to Him always. the Creator (vss. 8-11). Is it possible to psalmist exults in the help the Lord Those who are the wicked need to think that the Creator of the ear and the gives. Without His help, the writer consider their position before God. eye is unaware? The psalm portrays would have almost come to silence. They may seem to have their way; but God as the Teacher of nations. Is it pos - “My foot slippeth” (Ps. 94:18) is an this is God’s world, and divine justice sible that He cannot rebuke them in expression that covers a range of will be served. If God’s justice means such a way that they should either re - meaning. It refers to some calamitous anything, it means that those who trust pent or expect punishment? The event that might—but does not nec - His only begotten Son will have eter - thoughts of the wicked are impotent in essarily—involve sin. The righteous nal life and those who do not will be re - comparison to God’s omniscience. one has enough trouble from the cipients of wrath. # 24 (152) to Adam, and he took a bite for the rest Bible Bookmark of us (Gen. 3:6; Rom. 5:12). Our first par - ents were removed from the perfect life God had designed for them. Adam and How Do I Deal with Suffering? Eve were escorted from the garden, and their disobedience brought a curse BY JOSEPH E. F ALKNER upon the earth and its inhabitants that affects us all (Rom. 8:22). It is not a difficult concept to under - Q. How do I deal with the pain and suf - 1. We no longer reside in Eden. stand. We are no longer residents of fering I have faced in my life as a be - 2. We do not yet live in heaven. Eden. Pain and suffering have replaced liever in Christ? Consider those two points for a mo - the pleasures of Paradise. While the con - A. Your question is one that every be - ment. It is obvious we are no longer in cept is simple enough to understand in liever has probably struggled with at Eden. The garden our Creator planted in itself, the results of the Fall go far beyond some time in his or her life. Trying to Eden was perfect, and Adam and Eve the discomfort of thorns and thistles (cf. reason through it sends our minds enjoyed Paradise. Every biblical pas - Gen. 3:17-18). Far worse is the fact that through so many spin cycles that it sage describing the Garden of Eden Adam chose for all of us to be citizens of can be dizzying. Some reason that if portrays an environment that was ini - the kingdom of darkness and brought God is all-powerful, He must not be tially free from the curse. But it also was condemnation and death, resulting in loving; otherwise, He would not allow where human pain and suffering began. separation from God in the place He has us to hurt so badly. Perhaps He is lov - prepared for the devil and his angels— ing but not all-powerful. He wants to The new heaven and earth described by the Apostle John in Revelation 21 gives the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14-15). help us but is not able to do so. While it is not hard to understand why In spite of man’s reasoning, the Bible a glimpse of the kinds of conditions earth’s first couple must have enjoyed— we are citizens of a doomed society, it is clearly teaches that God is love (I John truly difficult to understand why our eter - no sorrow, crying, pain, or death. How - 4:8) and that He is all-powerful (Rev. nal Creator and Father would want to ever, continued residency in Eden’s 19:6). How do we deal with the confu - save us from the judgment we so obvi - bliss hinged on obedience to God’s di - sion we face in life when we smack our ously deserve. God simply describes heads on the hard walls of reality? How rective regarding the tree of the knowl - His decision as the result of His love do we handle the seeming inconsisten - edge of good and evil. (John 3:16). cy we perceive in God’s dealing with us? You remember the story. Eve had a We no longer reside in Eden, and we Two statements may help us deal rendezvous with the master tempter have not yet arrived in the celestial city with the matter: and ate the forbidden fruit, gave the fruit God has prepared for those who have trusted in His Son for salvation. Our Father gives us but glimpses of the coming joy, which is beyond our abili - ty to truly comprehend (I Cor. 2:9). Walking in the Light We are caught in the middle—living in a cursed and broken environment, but Our God is light, and Christ is light, awaiting the promised joy. While we are And we are light in Him; here waiting, there is one further difficul - Though oft we walk in darkest night, ty with which we must contend—the cit - Our light will ne’er grow dim. izens of the kingdom of darkness who refuse the offer of life in another king - We walk in light with Christ our Lord, dom. They hate us for our association In fellowship divine, with the King and kingdom of heaven. Our spirits one in sweet accord, Instead of being bewildered by the In faith and name and sign. suffering we currently face, we should understand that our sin actually makes And by the Saviour’s precious blood such suffering rational and logical. What He shed on Calvary’s tree, should throw our brains into amazed Our sins are cleansed by that pure flood, gratitude is considering why God would And we are ransomed—free! choose to enter into our suffering and pay for it with the life of His Son. Believ - His light gives guidance for our needs ers are called to bring people out of the In all the steps we take; suffering into a life of wonder. # In righteous paths He always leads In peace, for His name’s sake. If you have a Bible question you would like us to answer, please send Dear Father God, to Thee we pray: it to: Bible Bookmark, Union Gospel Help us to walk in love Press, P.O. Box 6059, Cleveland, Ohio And serve our Master every day, 44101, or e-mail us at theoed@union Till we go home above. # gospelpress.com (subject line: Bible —J. Harold Gwynne. Bookmark). SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (153) 25 Testimonies of Faith Dr. Marlene Bagnull, Founder of Write His Answer Ministries

BY VERINDA M. B IRDSONG

lene Bagnull, founder of “No one helped me work through all Write His Answer Min - that grief.” In time, however, God’s istries, located in Lans - plans would prevail, and the little girl dale, Pennsylvania. who did not have a loving earthly fa - Starting from humble ther would find true, unconditional beginnings, Marlene love in a God who, as Marlene pro - was born in Chicago, Illi - claims in her writing ministry, “is real, nois, and raised in reachable, and who changes lives.” Grayslake, Illinois. She During the summer of her thirteenth did not come from a year, through the outreach of the local Christian home. Her church and through time spent with ex - family life, like those of tended-family members, she learned most of us from similar about the saving power of Jesus Christ, backgrounds, had some our Saviour. In the midst of a chaotic struggles and some family and inner turmoil, Marlene ex - secrets. claims, “The power of His story, His suf - She was raised with fering and death on the cross, [and the half sisters, one of whom tomb] that is now empty because He was fifteen years her has been raised from the dead, became senior and with whom the catalyst (for her confession and be - she shared the same fa - lief in Jesus’ atonement for her sins).” ther; with the other, fif - A precious pastor’s wife affirmed her teen years her junior, she decision for Christ. “She told me that if shared the same mother. I had been the only person on this earth, Marlene juggled several Christ would have died on the cross for Dr. Marlene Bagnull extended family situa - me.” As a child, Marlene wanted to work tions. She recounted her in full-time Christian service. She be - N the book of Proverbs we find one atheist father calling her stupid and the lieved God was calling her to be a mis - I of many Scripture texts that ask a challenge she had as she grew in the sionary. “If anyone had told me that God question and provide the answer with - Christian faith to foster a true picture of was leading me to be a conference di - in the context of the verses that follow. the Heavenly Father who loved her. “I rector and author and to a full-time Proverbs 31:10-31 is an example. In never called my father ‘Dad’ or ‘Dad - teaching and writing ministry, I would verse 10 we see asked, “Who can find dy’—he was always ‘Father,’” she re - have said, ‘You’re kidding. A loving God a virtuous woman? for her price is far called. Besides being a nonbeliever, her would never do that to me,’” she said above rubies.” father had many health issues. with a chuckle. A detailed description of the sort of The struggle to find her true worth “I know it’s an awful admission, but woman who exhibits the type of con - was difficult as Marlene endured fre - I hated English in high school: I did not duct and character that exude virtue is quently being called “bad.” There was enjoy diagramming sentences and given through her relationship to God, some physical abuse, but the emotion - parts of speech . . . and I didn’t like the her husband, family, work, and com - al wounds were deeper. There were classics. And English was something munity. A virtuous woman “girdeth her even times her father threatened to call you had to take. Studying the classics loins with strength, and strengtheneth the police about her because “she was and writing essays just were not for her arms” (Prov. 31:17). She “stretch - a bad little girl, and we don’t want her me; but I did get through high school eth out her hand to the poor; yea, she anymore,” she recalled. Words such as and earned good grades,” Marlene reacheth forth her hands to the needy” those left emotional scars. In remem - reminisced. “I also had to take a pub - (vs. 20). “She openeth her mouth with bering her childhood, Marlene said, “I lic-speaking class, and for a teenager, wisdom; and in her tongue is the law was a brokenhearted little girl.” that is as fearful as the fear of death. It of kindness” (vs. 26). Marlene’s father died when she was also did not help that I was not in the These few verses answer the ques - eleven years old. She recalls being upper echelon of the popular kids.” tion of what are some of the character - glad that she “had been a good little Marlene planned to study to be - istics of a virtuous woman. They also girl the day before he died so that she come a teacher; however, as Isaiah describe the life and ministry of Dr. Mar - wouldn’t feel guilty.” Marlene shared, 55:8 says, “My thoughts are not your 26 (154) thoughts, neither are your ways my would not have been doing these two she is well into her prayer to God. Mar - ways, saith the Lord.” God wanted conferences (annual writer’s confer - lene says, “They’ll figure it out” (that Marlene to be a teacher and a writer— ences), because she loved teaching so she is praying), and they can bow their and so much more—for His glory! much. As Marlene submitted to God’s heads and join in at any time!” Truly, our Fast-forward to today. Marlene Bag - will for her life, He opened many doors Heavenly Father has become a pre - null is now looking in the rearview mir - for her to write, as she did as a regular cious jewel in her heart—a true ex - ror of her life at God’s goodness and His contributor to Billy Graham’s Decision pression of what a loving Father is! plan at work in her. She did not have the magazine. She also continued to teach Her conferences also have a strong confidence to go to college because and mentor other writers at various con - social justice emphasis. She is clear she struggled with low self-worth. Mar - ferences around the country. that God is a God of justice and that lene married Paul, a wonderful Christian In 1983, God led Marlene to form God is calling us to be advocates for man. They have three children, Sharon, “Write His Answer” Ministries those in the world who need our help, Rob, and Deb ra, who were able to get (www.writehisanswer.com) to create a especially children. “Children should - good educations. One became an engi - network and fellowship for writers. n’t be hungry,” said Marlene. Since neer and another a pediatrician. Marlene’s heart to encourage other she came from abuse, it is easy to see God continued to show His grace to writers to share God’s answer in the why God has given her a heart to en - Marlene as He led her to pursue writing Person of Jesus Christ is real. She courage other writers to talk about as a way to serve in full-time ministry. knows Jesus is the only answer for a their experiences. “We can write out of Even without the college education she dying world. “God’s ways are much that pain to encourage and help oth - personally longed for, God used her in greater than our ways,” says Marlene. ers to shine His light in dark places.” the local churches she attended and in The call to write “does not get any She continued, “It is in the power of developing her Christian walk through easier,” Marlene shared. But she is clear our stories that people will connect with divine appointments. Through those about the mandate of the Lord on her more than our theology. Look at Jesus. encounters, God healed the hurts a lit - life and for the army of writers to “write He told stories because people remem - tle girl had experienced and led her to my answer on a billboard, large and ber the stories. There is power in the know her true identity in Christ. clear” (cf. Hab. 2:2). As the founder and written word.” Marlene also empha - One such divine appointment oc - director of the Greater Philadelphia sized, “Writers can have a great influ - curred in a restaurant many years ago. Writer’s Conference (since 1983) and ence even in our editorial pages of our Marlene said about this encounter, “It Director of the Colorado Christian Writ - newspapers. Christians need to address was never very hard back in those ers Conference (since 1997), she relies the issues of the day with a biblical view - days to discover that I had a huge chip on the leading of the Holy Spirit to cre - point. With credibility, honesty, and the on my shoulder because I only had a ate the workshop offerings, general truth of God’s Word, and with the help high school education.” sessions, and faculty choices, which in - of the Holy Spirit, we can reach others.” A sister in Christ reminded Marlene clude national editors, publishers, What else has God’s plans wrought of God’s sovereignty. “Do you believe agents, and authors. for this woman of virtue? Besides be - God is omnipotent?” her friend asked Marlene said, “He knows what His ing a conference director, author, and her while they dined. “Since God is people need to hear.” Many conference a speaker at more than seventy omnipotent and He chose for you not attendees have testified that the meet - writer’s conferences, she holds fellow - to have a college education,” the ings are great, refreshing times in the ships for writers and edits and com - friend continued, “why are you griev - Lord. With help from family and choice piles books. She is the founder of Am - ing over what God did not give you?” friends who are staff persons, Marlene pelos Press. She was awarded an Convicted, Marlene recognized that encourages the participants to have a honorary doctor of letters in May 1999. she was grieving her Heavenly Father real experience with Jesus Christ—to She also serves in her local church. by not accepting His plan for her life. “It make Him—not “selfish ambition” to Dr. Bagnull has indeed become one was instant repentance in that restau - get published or to meet with an of the Lord’s servants, a literary mis - rant!” she exclaimed. “I started crying, agent—the center of the conference. sionary whose words for Christ have ‘Oh, Father, I didn’t know I was grieving In sharing why the conferences are been heard in nations as far away as You, ’” she stated soberly. “But I began Christ-centered, Marlene said, “If we the Netherlands. to experience freedom. I shared my did not have time with the Lord, peo - She is a lover of Christ and a servant struggles of inadequacy with others ple would be walking around the con - who wants to share His love with during future speaking conferences.” ference competing with each other.” everyone. She believes that the Other writers appreciated her hon - Anyone who attends a conference church of Jesus Christ should get esty when she spoke and wrote about learns firsthand that it is about lifting ready for the coming of the Lord. She her struggles. Marlene learned that up Jesus Christ, not the next great also believes that God is raising up an God’s Spirit dwells in her and that He writer. She is known at all of the con - army of writers. Her life has become a can teach her anything He wants her ferences she directs and the ones testimony to the greatness of God’s to know. The Lord also confirmed this where she is the guest faculty as a per - plan for our lives and a reflection of an - to Marlene with a word from Psalm son who will pray to the Lord without other of Dr. Bagnull’s favorite portions 81:10: “I am the Lord thy God, . . . open notice. of Scripture: “For when I am weak, thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” In the middle of giving some instruc - then am I strong” (II Cor. 12:10). God In fact, Marlene attests that it was tion or introducing the next event, she has made Marlene Bagnull a woman God’s divine order that she not pursue a will say, “Father,” and then she is off of virtue. “Give her of the fruit of her college degree, for had her plans come into prayer to God. Those looking on hands; and let her own works praise to pass the way she had desired, she do not even know she is praying until her in the gates” (Prov. 31:31). # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (155) 27 Testimonies of Faith

Francis Schaeffer—God Expanded His Ministry

BY LORELLA ROUSTER

O other human author has had as in Grove City, Pennsylvania, a tiny Trouble began during their furlough N great an impact on me as Francis church of eighteen members. Under year of 1953, when they returned to Schaeffer. He helped me in a time Schaeffer’s ministry, membership grew America. Schaeffer taught theology at when I was struggling with the temp - to 110 in three years. He also served as Faith Theological Seminary and spoke tation to overthrow my Christian faith associate pastor of the Bible Presbyte - in churches. Some of his teachings because I did not like certain passages rian Church of Chester, Pennsylvania. were misunderstood, as were his mo - of Scripture. Later, while serving with the Bible tives. Some thought he was trying to Schaeffer recommended serving Presbyterian Church in Saint Louis, Mis - take over the denomination. After fur - faithfully in lowly places, and he set an souri, he and Edith started a children’s lough, the family returned to Europe by example of that. His quiet, home- Bible club ministry called Children for praying for God to provide the money based ministry was gradually expand - Christ. At the same time, Schaeffer be - for passage to Europe. God provided ed by God and has yielded immense gan working with his church group at the funds without the Schaeffers ap - results worldwide. both the national and the local level. He pealing to churches. One of the things that drew me to also began his writing ministry with the It was then that some of their most in - Schaeffer’s work—in addition to his pamphlet “The Bible-believing Christian fluential works were started. They amazing insight into Scripture, history, and the Jew.” He wrote it to combat the founded L’Abri (French for “the shelter”) and culture—was his respectful way of anti-Semitism prevalent in Europe. in 1955. A home-based ministry of hos - thinking through things with you instead After the end of World War II, the pitality and honest discussion of the of preaching at you. I always felt he was American Council of Christian Churches faith, the ministry was based on and taking my hand on a journey of explo - sent Schaeffer to Europe for three guided by prayer. It was meant to be a ration rather than pointing a finger at me. months to see how the church could demonstration of the reality of God. It One of the hallmarks of Schaeffer’s help the rebuilding process. He had simply grew out of personal relation - life was a firm grasp on truth; another been involved in efforts to stand for bib - ships of the family. Intellectuals and oth - was his willingness to face himself lical doctrine, and he found the influence ers seeking truth were drawn to their honestly, to repent, to change, and to of unbiblical theology even more perva - out-of-the-way home, and many found grow in godliness. sive there than in the United States. Christ there. The Schaeffers relied on Francis August Schaeffer was born Schaeffer returned exhausted and God to meet their every need. on January 30, 1912, in Germantown, took a few months to recover. Soon, In the early 1960s, Schaeffer began Pennsylvania. Despite not being however, the International Council speaking at universities all over the raised in a Christian home, he became asked him to be their missionary to Eu - world. He was very successful in de - a Christian at seventeen. A study of rope. The family went in 1948, first to bating. At Cambridge, he won a debate philosophy had convinced him that Holland and then to Switzerland. The with a humanist so completely that the God did not exist, but Schaeffer real - Schaeffers’ first ministry there in - man was embarrassed. Schaef fer felt ized he had never read the Bible or tru - volved Children for Christ classes like ashamed and decided to lay aside de - ly considered its message. He spent those they had in the United States. bate and winning the argument in favor about six months reading the Bible Around 1950, Schaeffer began to be of discussion and winning the person. with the aim of rejecting it and ended troubled by what he saw as an unchar - Schaeffer saw the inerrancy of Scrip - up discovering it gave real and plausi - itable spirit in the church. This was fol - ture as the watershed issue of the day. ble answers to the basic questions of lowed by a year of crisis and revival in Through lectures, radio talks, published life. He came to faith in Christ and his life. In this time of serious reflection, books, and personal contacts, he soon made a public profession of faith Schaeffer began to seek biblical bal - helped churches and individuals main - at a tent-meeting revival. ance between truth and love. He ended tain that doctrine. The ministry at L’Abri Schaeffer met his wife, Edith, while up rethinking his whole Christian faith expanded into Sweden, France, the studying at Hampden-Sydney Col - and experience. Wavering for a while, in Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and lege. She had been born in China, a the end he came out more convinced the United States. daughter of missionary parents. In than ever that the Bible is true. In the later years of his life, he finished 1935, after graduation, they married. Schaeffer was invited to speak at a two landmark projects involving a book, Schaeffer then attended Westmin - Christmas service at a small Protes - film, and discussion. The first of these ster Theological Seminary, helped tant chapel at Champery, Switzerland. was How Should We Then Live? (re - found Faith Seminary, and became the He was then asked to speak weekly at leased in 1977). In it, Schaeffer showed first pastor to be ordained in the Bible the church for as long as they lived the influence of Christianity on culture. Presbyterian Church. His first pastorate Meanwhile, in 1952, the youngest of He showed that the lordship of Christ was at Covenant Presbyterian Church their four children, Franky, was born. (Continued on page 37) 28 (156) Help Me, God

BY CYRIL LATZOO

EAR GOD, sometimes I get so Help me remember that Jesus Stephen, consoled and comforted the D frustrated with Your church here on promised He would be with us until the disciples, enlivened Thomas, accom - earth. Sometimes I am troubled by what end of time (Matt. 28:20) and that Your panied Apollos, strengthened Timothy I see, feel, and hear in and about it. I am church is always guided by the Holy and Erastus, and encouraged Philip. perturbed by a church community that is Spirit (cf. Acts 1:8), even if it is hard for It is the same Spirit who is with us elitist and is into wealth and shows no me to see. Sometimes change hap - today. This same Spirit led a young concern for the poor. I am saddened by pens suddenly, and the Spirit aston - lady named Vicky Phillips and some a community of believers who know and ishes us, but often in the church it hap - believers from Farrell in western Penn - recognize my face only on Sundays. pens slowly—in Your time, not mine. sylvania to travel to Jinja in Uganda, in I know that I am not alone. Many be - Help me know that the seeds I plant eastern Africa, to preach the good lievers who love Your church feel frus - with love in the ground of this earthly news. Your Spirit has lost none of His trated with the body of Christ on earth. realm will one day bloom. Give me the power. Please give me faith. Preachers and ministers, deacons and patience You blessed Simeon with. For Help me remember all of Your Sunday school teachers, fathers and years, Simeon waited in pious hope for saints—believers who never lost sight mothers, and young men and women the coming of the Saviour. He finally of you. Most of them have had experi - can feel frustrated too. We grow wor - saw Jesus with his own eyes and held ences worse than I ever have. They ried and concerned and bothered and Him in his hands (Luke 2:21-35). were frustrated with your church at angry and sometimes dismayed be - Help me understand that there has times. They struggled with it and were cause Your church is filled with men never been a time when there were not occasionally persecuted for believing and women who behave sinfully. (Re - arguments and disputes within Your in You. If those believers could trust in mind me that I am one of the sinful church. We see examples of believers’ You in the midst of those difficulties, so members of Your Christian assembly.) arguments in Your Word. Peter and can I. Please give me courage. I get frustrated most of all when I see Paul and Paul and Barnabas debated Help me to be peaceful when people and feel that while there are things that one another. We argue because we are tell me that I do not belong in the church need to be changed, I do not have the sinful (cf. Jas. 4:1). There is a long track or that I am not a good Christian be - power to change them. I recall Your record of Your saints sinning going cause I care about justice for people admonition to trust in You with all my back to the Fall of man in Genesis, in - who are treated unfairly. I know that I was heart. You cautioned me about self- cluding the people of Israel’s failures in baptized and received the Holy Spirit. complacency. You promised me You the wilderness and Peter’s denying Je - You called me to be in Your church, God. would always have my back. You as - sus during His passion. Why would to - As long as I draw breath, help me re - sured me that trusting in You would day’s church be any different from the member how the holy waters of baptism not be in vain. You invited me not to way it was for people who walked with welcomed me into a local body of be - lean on my own understanding but to God in years past. Please give me the lievers. Let the voice that called me into always trust and acknowledge You. wisdom I need to not be in a dispute Your church be what I hear when other You will direct my paths (Prov. 3:5-6). with my brothers and sisters in Christ. voices tell me that I am not welcome in I need Your help so that I can accept Help me trust in the resurrection the church. Give me peace. the things I cannot change. Give me the hope. The risen Christ reminds us that You, Lord, know the history of my life. courage to change the things I can and there is always the hope of something Help me place all of my hope in Your the wisdom to know the difference. I new. Death is never the last word for us; Son. My faith is in Jesus Christ. Give me must admit that I am struggling with the nor is despair. And help me remember only Jesus’ love and grace. His grace difference between knowing the things that when the risen Christ appeared to was there for humankind even before I cannot change and having the courage His disciples, He bore the wounds of time began (cf. Eph. 1:4). It was only ful - to change what I can in my Christian His crucifixion. The church is often ly revealed “by the appearing of our faith community. That adds to my frus - wounded, but it is also a people and Saviour Jesus Christ” (II Tim. 1:10). You tration. But I trust that with You as my place of grace. Please give me hope. have always cared for the church here focus rather than the sins of Your Help me believe that You can do on earth. You have always picked up church, I will be just fine. After all, we anything (cf. Matt. 19:26): raise up Your church when it fell, cared for it come to seek healing in Your church, saints when we need them most; soft - when the people were in need, and of - not to deepen our wounds and hurts. en hearts when they seem hardened; fered it life in the face of death. And so, Father, I need Your guid - open minds when they seem closed; Help me, God. Enlighten me with ance now and always. I need to be inspire confidence when all seems Your Word. May I see You glorified. Fi - ever mindful that we can find cleans - lost; help us do what seems impossi - nally, embolden Your church to proclaim ing and sanctuary in Your church. Your ble until it is done. Yours is the Spirit the uprightness of Your Word and the Son, Jesus, came to gather us sinful who inspired the first Christians, con - trustworthiness of Your work even in the men and women to be healed in Your verted Saul, dedicated and called face of challenges. It is to a life of holi - church (Matt. 9:12-13). Barnabas and Paul, emboldened ness that we have been called. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (157) 29 largest island in the world, after Green - Missions land. It is located in the southwestern Pacific Island region known as Melane - sia, in Oceania, north of Australia. Why Bible Translation? Leaving the capital, Marilyn flew for an hour to Wycliffe’s field headquarters in BY DR. E ARL PARVIN Ukarumpa in the Eastern Highlands of the island. Here, during orientation, she met Judy Rehburg, who became her fel - HEN Noah and his family disem- us go down, and there confound their low worker to begin a work in an isolat - W barked from the ark after the language, that they may not under - ed village in the interior of the Sepik Riv - Flood, God told them, “Be fruitful, and stand one another’s speech” (vs. 7). er area. The Sepik meanders 700 miles multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen. God’s intent was that men would scat - through the tropical rain-forest highlands 9:1). In obedience, Shem, Ham, and ter all over the face of the earth (vs. 8- to the coast, just south of the equator. Japheth, Noah’s sons, and their wives 9). We observe that those who migrate They asked permission to live among did increase in number as recorded in today tend to congregate with those the Sepik Iwam people group. These the Table of Nations (chap. 10), giving who speak the same language and en - people were scattered in numerous vil - rise to the Semitic, Hamitic, and joy similar cultural mores. The confu - lages on a tributary, thirty minutes by Japhetic nationalities. sion of languages worked, for the peo - canoe from the Sepik River. The ladies However, within a few hundred ple did scatter over the face of the flew in an SIL airplane from Ukarumpa years, Genesis records that the people earth. Today there are some 200 sov - to Ambunti, on the Sepik River, landing said in disobedience, “Go to, let us ereign states or countries, in which on one of 578 unpaved airstrips on the build us a city and a tower, whose top around 6,900 living languages are be - island. From there they began a four- may reach unto heaven; and let us ing spoken (www.ethnologue.com). day, 110-mile motorized canoe ride to make us a name, lest we be scattered SIL International’s Ethnologue: Lan - locate the tributary on which they would abroad upon the face of the whole guages of the World is a book that lists find the Sepik Iwam people’s villages. earth” (11:4). those spoken languages. These lan - After forty-five minutes on the tributary, That is exactly what they did. Amaz - guages are divided into 116 language they located Hauna, the main village. ingly, the remains of thirty-two baked- families. Of the 6,909 languages, 300 By using Tok Pisin, or the Melane - brick towers, now known as ziggurats, have one million speakers or more, but sian Pidgin trade language, they have been discovered scattered over only around 30 languages are most of - sought to introduce themselves and Mesopotamia and Iran, where these ear - ten spoken in our world (www.ethnol ask for permission to live among them ly peoples settled in Shinar (Gen. 11:1). ogue.org). and learn their language. Imagine the Archaeologists speculate that the top of The Ethnologue catalogue of lan - scene: two Caucasian women, which the ziggurats contained a temple to the guages was created by SIL Internation - the people had never seen before, in a city gods the people had divined for al, formerly the Summer Institute of Lin - sea of Melanesians, seeking to com - themselves. Is it not amazing how quick - guistics, a Christian linguistic service municate with a tribe only recently re - ly sinful men forget the God who creat - organization that trains linguists to facil - moved from a culture of head-hunting ed them and desires their unadulterated itate the translation of Scripture where and cannibalism and still living in a cul - adoration and humble submission? translation of Scripture has been identi - ture of animistic fear of strangers. The fact that the whole world had fied as a needed resource for spiritual About 400 people from the village, one common language (Gen. 11:1) development (www.sil.org). Ms. Marilyn living in fifty-four houses, fifty to eighty made it easy for men to congregate in Laszlo is one of those SIL-trained lin - feet long, perched on twelve-foot-high cities; therefore, God said, “Go to, let guists. Marilyn originally wanted to go to stilts, began a lengthy discussion a tribe in Mexico, but she was led by about these visitors. After some time, God, in His own spectacular way, to one they decided that these visitors were of hundreds of tribes speaking 862 in - neither male nor female but were spir - digenous languages located in Papua its. They determined that there were New Guinea (PNG), the most “linguisti - only 2 of these spirits and 400 of them; cally diverse area in the world” therefore, the spirits could stay! Mari - (www.wikipedia.org). This fact is fasci - lyn and Judy were given an old house nating, since this country is located in on the high ground, which was a the smallest of the five major areas of cemetery—a logical place for “spirits” our world, the Pacific Islands. to live. Marilyn, a single lady, flew to Port Marilyn and Judy hung their mosqui - Moresby, the capital of PNG. It is a city to nets and sprayed to keep the malar - without roads linking it to any other part ia-carrying mosquitoes and the cock - of the mountainous island. Transporta - roaches at bay. They discovered how tion to and from this island port city is ei - noisy the jungle nights can be. The ther by boat or by air. PNG occupies the thatched roof easily shielded them from eastern half of the island of New Guinea. the torrential rains; however, it also be - Some say the island has a bird shape, came the habitat for various other jun - but it more clearly resembles an ancient gle inhabitants, including a python. The Marilyn Laszlo dinosaur. New Guinea is the second twelve-foot stilts on which the houses 30 (158) perched were necessary during the six dermic shot. It was most mystifying to discover they are a Christian people months of the year when the area was them, however, that a shot in the rump group living in PNG. You can also find flooded by the overflowing tributary. could alleviate the pain in one’s head. Web sites with information about Mari - It was not long before the ladies faced Boar hunting was an exciting aspect lyn’s ministry in Hauna Village. One site their first real trauma. They had been of village life. They would cook the boar provides a video of the Sepik River. trained to face isolation, loneliness for over an open fire and invite everyone for There are many languages that re - one’s own culture, and the struggle to the feast; but after such feasts, many vil - main to be translated. Wycliffe Global communicate in a new, uncodified lan - lagers would sicken and die. Marilyn Alliance is a family of organizations in - guage with no written alphabet. The was invited to a feast on one occasion, cluding, among others, Wycliffe USA strain of seeking to hear new sounds and although she noted that the meat and Wycliffe Seed Company, a net - and then determine what they meant was not thoroughly cooked, she did not work of Bible translators who envision was expected. They had even been told know the danger lurking. She soon fell accelerating Bible translation into the how to cope with the frequency of death deathly ill and had to be flown to Amer - 2,100 languages that are without any in a primitive setting. ica for treatment. She was told that of God’s Word—languages spoken by However, one day when they heard there was no cure available for trichi - 350 million. There are over 1,500 death wails, they went to a gravesite to nosis at that time, but by God’s grace translation programs where Wycliffe discover that the person in the grave she recovered a year later. Through this and its partners are at work. was moving. The person was slipping harrowing, near-death experience, she Wycliffe has initiated a program into a coma, induced by malaria, but the helped the villagers discover the cause called Vision 2025. It is an initiative to shaman had determined that he was al - of death from improperly cooked pork. see a Bible translation program in ready dead and told the family to “plant” After seven years of translating the progress in every language still need - him. He was being buried alive, and Bible, the women finally discovered ing one by 2025. there was nothing they could do to per - how to translate the concept of the soul. Are we able to say, “Here am I; send suade them otherwise. These people A young man who went hunting be - me”? Marilyn inspires many with her believed that the principle of life was in came disoriented and lost in the jungle. spirited stories of how God protected the throat; therefore, if a person could The villagers tried in every way to help them in that primitive culture. After not speak, he was dead. him find his way back to the village, but nearly twenty-five years, today it has The experience so demoralized the they were afraid that he would die. the New Testament. All up and down ladies that they left the village for a time. When he was found, he said, “I was the river, a new biblical worldview per - They spiritually recuperated with senior afraid I would lose my name.” This gave meates a people who once were ritual missionaries at the mission station. the women an idea about how to trans - cannibals and carved into the backs of Translating the Word of God into a late the concept of a soul. Mark 8:36 their young people the outline of a new language is a complicated respon - says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he crocodile or other jungle animal that sibility, especially in a primitive culture. shall gain the whole world, and lose his they considered to be their ancestor. It took the ladies eight years of learning own soul?” They connected the idea of Marilyn is now on home assignment the intricacies of the culture before they losing one’s soul with the Hauna peo - with Laszlo Mission League. She in - could tackle the ordeal of finding equiv - ple’s concept of losing one’s name. spires the young and the not-so- alents of biblical truth in a culture where Language is a cultural phenomenon. young with the way God can and does that concept was completely foreign. Without a full understanding of what use anyone. Her whole story is avail - The Sepik Iwam people had never seen meaning is attached to everything able in her book, Mission Possible: a pencil or pen; therefore, they per - learned, it is impossible to communi - The Wonderful Story of God and a ceived a pen as a thorn, a concept they cate, let alone seek to convey biblical Wycliffe Translator in the Jungles of understood. The paper on which the truth by translating the Word of God Papua New Guinea (Tyndale). # ladies wrote was likened to a banana into a people’s heart language. Marilyn, leaf, with which the people were famil - a Hungarian from Indiana, invested iar. Writing on the leaf was perceived as twenty-three years of her life, forgoing carving, for these people are well- marriage, to become a very real part of known as wood-carvers. Sepik Iwam culture. Together, Marilyn When God Said No In an animistic culture, the shaman is and Judy translated Papa God’s Carv - (Continued from page 22) the medicine man or the doctor. There ing (what they called the Bible) into the were 160 shamans in the Hauna village. native’s language so that the people The shamans were called “spitters” be - might understand and be gloriously taking over the leadership role (1:38; cause they chewed gingerroot. After saved. They discovered that Jesus is 3:21); now He did so a third time. having cut the person they were “heal - the “real Spitter” and that He brings ing,” they spit the juice into the bleeding true healing to both body and soul. God’s people needed to see that a wound. They also knew about natural It was a glorious occasion when the new leader was ready, and Moses was herbs that were beneficial, but it was dif - Sepik Iwam began to understand to ensure that the new leader was en - ficult for them to understand the won - about salvation by grace through faith couraged and strengthened. ders of modern medicine. Through vari - and invite Jesus to come and “live in Moses’ prayer was not answered ac - ous situations, they eventually learned their throat.” It was a day of significant cording to his request. He saw Canaan, the importance of simple hygiene, the rejoicing when the New Testament ar - but never entered. Later, however, necessity of pure drinking water, and rived in the Sepik Iwam language. Moses did enter Israel. He spoke with how the ravages of malaria were treat - Today, anyone can search for the Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration able with medicine from a simple hypo - Sepik Iwam people on the Internet and (Matt. 17:3). God’s grace is amazing. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (159) 31 Adults

Finding God’s Answer

BY SHARON B. M ILLER

EESA stared at the clock on her touch. The car had finally turned off Amber’s laughing voice came L bedside table. The bright numbers the highway, leaving Amber to con - through the phone. “You would think read 11:47 P.M. Slowly, she slid back the tinue the remainder of the trip un - that at midnight, most of the tourists covers and rolled out of bed, careful not bothered. in a lakeside town would be in bed to wake Ned, her husband. As she qui - Just as her eyelids began to droop, and asleep in their motels or cot - etly closed the bedroom door, she felt for the cell phone rang. It was Amber’s tages—but not so in Sarnia. Mom, her cell phone in the pocket of her robe. cell number in the caller ID space. you would have to see it to believe it. Her eyelids were heavy as she “Hi, Mom. It’s me.” Amber’s clear, There are a zillion cars parading up turned on the living room lamp. She wide-awake voice came cheerfully and down the streets with people took a seat in Ned’s favorite reclining across the telephone. enjoying the beautiful weather. But chair. “I’m just now leaving the parking lot. once I am out of town, the drive will “Lord, I’m not sure just how much We were really busy today. They’ve set be free of traffic.” longer I can do this,” she whispered, up a new computer system, and it’s Leesa jerked awake when she heard praying softly. She desperately need - something I’m not at all familiar with. Amber’s key in the front door. She had ed more than five hours of sleep a The whole office spent the day adjust - not intended to fall asleep. Hopefully, night, and yet falling asleep before ing to it.” she would not have a difficult time get - midnight meant having to set the “Are you tired?” Leesa asked, con - ting back to sleep once she was back alarm so that she could be awake for cerned about the long drive ahead of in bed. Amber’s phone call letting her know her daughter. “How did your room hunting go, her daughter was leaving work for the “No. Actually, I’m still pretty hyped honey?” Leesa questioned as Amber forty-three mile trip home from her job up from the day,” Amber explained. hung her sweater over the back of the in Sarnia. There had not been a need “Driving home won’t be a problem sofa. to interrupt Ned’s sleep. tonight. I’ll see you in less than an “It didn’t,” Amber replied glumly. “I Leesa sighed deeply. Amber’s job at hour, I hope.” checked all of the ads that came out in the Huron Lake Nursing Home in Sar - “Wait!” Leesa said quickly. “I today’s newspaper. There is simply nia had been a definite answer to thought you said the drive home nothing available, not even short term. prayer. Fresh out of college, there were would not be a problem.” I don’t think it’s just the fact that I’m a few jobs to be had, even with a quali - fying administrative degree. An after - noon shift was not exactly ideal, espe - cially when Amber had to travel so far to her place of work; but she did enjoy the work. The only real drawback was the travel home after her shift ended at midnight. Leesa took a deep breath and glanced at the clock. Amber would be calling any moment now. It was a small sacrifice to wait for the phone call that let her know that Amber was on her way home. Yes, they both prayed dai - ly for God’s protection, but there still had been some frightening experi - ences on the road home so late at night. Only last week, Amber had called her mother a second time to report that a carload of teenagers was fol - lowing her on I46. Leesa shuddered. It had been difficult, knowing Amber was driving by herself, but it was also reassuring to know that they were in 32 (160) single girl looking for a place to live.” Huron Nursing Home there,” she ex - sible, and I suspect she is a lot like her Leesa grinned. “You should be able plained. “She graduated from Central mother. Would it be possible for me to to find a place.” University last spring.” meet her?” Ellen asked suddenly. Amber shrugged. “It is the tourist “It’s a lovely place to work,” the For a moment, Leesa could not find season. I guess a person needs to own woman said. “My husband and I run a her voice. Then she glanced at her a place to live if she wants to work in bed-and-breakfast on the south end watch. “I have to get back to work. My a lakeside resort town.” of town, about half a mile from the lunch hour is over. I volunteer at the li - “Let’s keep praying about it,” Leesa home. Does your daughter live near brary two days a week,” she explained, told her daughter as she kissed Amber the home, or does she live here and smiling. “But if you’re going to be in on the cheek. “The job at the nursing drive all that distance?” town for a while, Amber should be rest - home was a definite answer to our “I am afraid it is the latter,” Leesa ed and up by now. I’m sure she will be prayers. I have to believe that God will said ruefully. “Amber has answered provide a place for you to live so that dozens of ads, trying to find a place delighted to meet you and discuss any you don’t have to continue making this to live. There just doesn’t appear to possible arrangements as far as a place late-night drive every day.” be anything available. She works the to stay in Sarnia. The long drive back Amber returned her mother’s kiss late-afternoon shift in the office, so and forth is the only downside of her as she headed to the kitchen for a she has quite a long drive home in job.” late snack before retiring to her own the dark.” Ellen reached into her purse. “That room. Leesa put her hand to her mouth. sounds perfect,” she said, handing Leesa quietly went back to her bed - Why was she talking so much? It Leesa a business card for the bed- room, careful not to disturb Ned. Just was quite unlike her to volunteer in - and-breakfast. as she had feared, she did not fall back formation about her family to a Quickly Leesa jotted down her to sleep. She could not help wonder - stranger. phone number and address on a piece ing how God was going to provide “I’m Ellen Swartz,” the woman said, of paper and handed it to Ellen. “Could housing in Sarnia for Amber. It was a offering Leesa her hand. “Your daugh - we meet at 4:30 this afternoon?” she question not only of how but also of ter is driving home every night and asked. “I’ll be home by then.” when it was going to happen. Thank - back again the next day?” she ques - “That will be just perfect. It will give fully, she knew that God was in total tioned. me plenty of time to check out the rest control of Amber’s life and that of the Leesa nodded. “I’m so sorry; I did - of the booths here in the park,” Ellen family. The Lord would provide in His n’t intend to bother you with our said, smiling. perfect time and in a way that was for problems. It’s simply on my mind a Leesa felt as if she were flying as she the best for all. lot. I wait up until she gets home It was lunchtime before Leesa real - safely. We’ve been praying that she hurried back to the library. She need - ized the time. She was so busy work - would find someplace to live near ed to call home with the great news. ing at the library media center where her job.” She also wanted to be certain Amber she volunteered two days a week that “Well, I can certainly understand was up. “Oh, thank You, Lord!” she she had not had time to be hungry. your concern for her traveling that far prayed as she hurried into the library. She smiled to herself. She could eat in the dark each day,” Ellen said, nod - Once again, the Lord had answered her sandwich from home, and then ding. “Perhaps I can help,” she added, their prayers. They had asked, and she could catch a few winks or walk to looking intently at Leesa. God was providing for what had the park and browse through the ven - “As I said, we run a bed-and-break - seemed an impossible situation! # dors at the Art in the Oaks event being fast—the Sunnyside Inn. While we don’t held there. have any vacancy right now—” The quick sandwich energized Leesa could not keep her expres - Leesa, and she grabbed her purse sion from falling. She had felt an im - from the locker and headed toward the mediate surge of hope. Jesus and the Living Death park. There were many small white “We’re booked until the end of Oc - tents with attractive items for sale as tober—you know, the summer season (Continued from page 23) she wandered along the well-worn on the lake. And then folks will begin paths in the park. arriving for the fall colors,” Ellen ex - The soft tinkle of wind chimes plained. any scourge of unknown origin with no caught her attention. She stopped to Leesa nodded. “I’m sure you are known treatment or cure. How we get a better look. They were simply ex - very full.” marvel at the way the Lord responded quisite. A well-dressed woman stood Ellen smiled. “That’s very true. How - to the needs of the afflicted (Luke beside her, also enjoying the sound of ever, our son Jason is away at college 17:12-19)! Ten lepers correctly “stood the chimes in the soft breeze. for the entire school year.” Ellen afar off” and called out to the Master “They are so beautiful,” Leesa said, paused. “Normally, I wouldn’t even for mercy (vss. 12-13). Jesus simply making small talk. consider putting a guest in his room sent them to the priests (vs. 14). All “Oh, yes!” the woman exclaimed. “I while he’s gone. But this is his senior were cleansed on the way. have several from this vendor already. year, and he has pretty well cleared his One man, a Samaritan, returned to I used to live here in town. We moved personal effects from the room.” glorify God. Jesus said, “Thy faith hath to Sarnia five years ago.” Leesa held her breath. Oh, Lord, is made thee whole” (Luke 17:19). Ten Leesa smiled. “Our youngest this the answer? she prayed silently. were cleansed, but only one was daughter, Amber, just got a job at the “Your Amber sounds quite respon - saved! # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (161) 33 Counseling Corner Book Reviews

Houghton, Myron. Law and Grace. Schaum - berg, Illinois: Regular Baptist Press, 2011. A Measured Christian Response OUGHTON is Senior Professor H and Chairman of Systematic The - BY DAVID H. W ILCOX , D.M IN . ology at Faith Baptist Theological Sem - inary, Ankeny, Iowa. In this book, he has given what the Bible teaches about liv - Q. Many of my friends at church ex - hort therefore, that, first of all, suppli - ing under the dispensation of the Law press anger at the media, our culture, cations, prayers, intercessions, and and what it teaches about living under and even the government. I know we giving of thanks, be made for all men; the dispensation of the grace of God. should hate sin and speak the truth in for kings, and for all that are in author - The author stresses in separate chap - love. Does the Bible give guidelines on ity; that we may lead a quiet and ters how he believes that Reformed how we should respond to the ram - peaceable life in all godliness and hon - Theology places the believer under the pant ungodliness in our culture and esty.” Law and legalism. He also stresses government? Peter echoed those words: “Submit how he believes Dispensational Theol - A. I find myself asking similar ques - yourselves to every ordinance of man ogy brings the believer under God’s tions. Several years ago, I ministered for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the grace and to joyful obedience. at a Bible college located near a beach king, as supreme; or unto governors, In another chapter, Houghton where the authorities tolerated what as unto them that are sent by him for shows clearly and forcefully how dis - most of us would call sexual perver - the punishment of evildoers, and for tinguishing between the Law and sion. When I returned home and spoke the praise of them that do well. For so grace influences other issues in Scrip - out at our church about the sin I had is the will of God, that with well doing ture. Some of these issues are justifi - ye may put to silence the ignorance of witnessed, I offended several people. cation, practical sanctification, the dif - foolish men” (I Pet. 2:13-15). I was surprised. That experience ference between Israel and the Above all, we must demonstrate taught me to measure my words care - church, and keeping the Sabbath. faith in God alone, place our hope in fully. “Walk in wisdom toward them This work will be welcomed by pas - the confident expectation that God that are without, redeeming the time. tors—both Reformed and Dispensa - will do what He has promised, and Let your speech be alway with grace, tional—and church leaders, and by all have love for one another. seasoned with salt, that ye may know those preparing for ministry in conser - When the German government im - how ye ought to answer every man” vative, evangelical circles. I heartily prisoned Dietrich Bonheoffer for (Col. 4:5-6). recommend this volume. Every four years we have a major plotting to overthrow it, he posed a election in the United States. Radio question about whether it is ever Scudder, Jim. Why Life Hurts. Lake Zurich, talk-show hosts, Internet posts, and right to speak out against authorities Illinois: Victory in Grace, 2012. who have seized power by lying, people on the street judge and con - Jim Scudder, Jr., hosts Victory in cheating, and murdering dissenters. demn our culture, government, and Grace radio and TV with his father. He is From prison, he wrote about the nation. Suddenly, everyone becomes the executive pastor of the Quentin Road peace he experienced in doing what a pundit who knows what is best for Bible Baptist Church and the president he did. At the same time, he eagerly our country. of Dayspring Bible College, sponsored served God during his incarceration. If we really believe that the Bible has by the church in Lake Zurich, Illinois. the best answers, let us speak the The German guards and fellow pris - oners gave testimony that he en - The title and the subtitle, Under - Word of God. standing Why God Allows Pain, Suf - Consider this when responding to couraged them, strengthened their faith, and lived a life of devotion to fering, and Evil, state clearly what this cultural issues: “Be ye angry, and sin little book is all about. Down through not: let not the sun go down upon God before them. When Paul penned the words of the ages and continuing to the pres - your wrath: neither give place to the ent, the question of why the God of the devil” (Eph. 4:26-27). That means we Scripture, he was living under one of the most oppressive governments of Bible allows pain, suffering, and evil in are not to carry anger from one day to his day. Yet he affirmed his leaders as His world keeps being asked. the next. Uncontrolled anger that servants of God. We must honor them. The author doesn’t claim God causes sees no resolution for weeks on end God never removed the admonition very hard times, but he argues that our is ungodly. that we should pray for leaders in po - sovereign God is fully aware of them all Remember this: “Let every soul be sitions of authority. # and allows mankind to experience hard subject unto the higher powers. For times for His own glory and praise and there is no power but of God: the pow - Do you have a question you would for man’s growth and maturity in Christ. ers that be are ordained of God” (Rom. like answered? Send it to: Counsel - In eight short chapters, Scudder 13:1). Check the context in Romans ing Corner, Union Gospel Press, gets to the heart of the matter by 13, and recognize that we must obey P.O. Box 6059, Cleveland, Ohio pointing out that what God allows, He the government even when it does not 44101 or e-mail us at theoed@ intends for good. I heartily recom - follow God’s Word. uniongospelpress.com (subject mend this study. # Try applying I Timothy 2:1-2. “I ex - line: Counseling Corner). —Robert P. Lightner. 34 (162) Timely Tips for Working with Youths

Helping Teens Understand Mass Violence and the Nature of Evil

BY JAMES P. E CKMAN , P H.D.

INCE the Fall, physical violence ic killings. Hence, we refer to the mur - the human condition. The most techno - S against fellow human beings has derers as “monsters” or declare that logically sophisticated, best educated, been a given (cf. Gen. 4). There is prob - they must be mentally ill. Perceptively, and wealthiest century in human history ably no greater evidence of human re - Mark Galli, in Christianity Today, con - up to this point in time, the twentieth bellion against God’s moral law than cluded that “we label them to suggest century was also the century of Adolf man’s inhumanity to man through war, they are not like us, for we could never Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol state terrorism, and premeditated mur - do such a thing. But of course we could; Pot, and Charles Manson. der. But the cause of such violence is the routinization of murder under Stalin Second, God established His world difficult to pin down. It is correct to ar - and Hitler, among other regimes, sug - with certain basic institutions that are to gue that all human violence is due to gests that any of us can be enlisted to restrain the human propensity for evil. sin, but that does not solve much; nor, wipe out fellow human beings, doing so These are the family and the state. The for most, does it satisfy as an explana - with routine efficiency. Death camps are family is to train, equip, and provide the tion; nor does it bring much comfort. run by everyday people like us just do - framework for discipline to restrain evil. Many people attempt to attribute hu - ing their jobs” (www.christianitytoday If the family is not working very well, its man violence to the economy, to pover - .com, July 25, 2012). restraining influence will not be felt. ty, to living conditions, and so forth. But We long for explanations, but we The state, according to Romans 13:1- in one sense, none of these explana - quickly come to understand that there 7, is principally to promote justice and tions truly answers the question of why. is no educational or psychological and restrain evil. When it is not working very The murder of human beings—either certainly no political solution to such well, it will not perform this basic role that individually or in a mass-murder set - evil. Galli concluded—correctly—that is so central to civilized society. ting—is mystifying. Consider the fol - “evil is fundamentally irrational; it simply In addition, the church has an im - lowing statistics. The homicide rate in cannot be grasped by means of our in - portant restraining influence as well. the United States in the early 1990s tellectual categories. Evil is the very de - As the church acts as salt, it preserves was at about 10 per 100,000 people; nial of rationality, because it is a rebel - culture from further deterioration and today it is half that (bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov). lion against the Logos, the very principle decline. As its serves its function as But mass murder has had no corre - of the good, the true and the beautiful light, it exposes evil for what it is (cf. sponding decline. Between 1976 and who created and sustains the universe.” Matt. 5:13-16). 2010, the United States experienced We therefore cannot “explain” Aurora, Further, if I am correct in my under - 645 mass-murder events—killings with or Columbine—or Hitler, Stalin, and standing of II Thessalonians 2:7, every - at least four victims. The total killed dur - Mao, for that matter. And there are no thing is under God’s direction. Satan ing this period was 2,949 (www.theolo - simple solutions to prevent such a hor - can promote lawlessness, but until gyonline.com). There is no correlation ror from occurring again. A better edu - God’s decreed moment, the evil one is between mass murder and any causal cational system, more counseling cen - restrained from bringing about terrible factor (for example, the economy, law ters, and a series of new congressional wickedness. enforcement strategies, poverty levels, laws will not protect us. Third, the death, burial, and resur - education, and so on). What, then, can we say? Where is rection of Jesus Christ are God’s an - For Christians, such horrors are diffi - our source of comfort? There are three swer and final solution to evil. In short, cult to explain. Christian teens are con - fundamental theological principles Jesus became a victim of the most hor - stantly bombarded with taunts such as that we know. They do not complete - rific evil imaginable in order to eradi - “How could a good God allow such ly explain mass murder, but they do cate evil from this world. Theologian evil?” Effective youth ministry must provide doctrinal bricks on which we Albert Mohler liked to quote Henri equip teens to have an answer for the can build a foundation that brings Blocher, who wrote, “Evil is conquered hope that is within them (cf. I Pet. 3:15). some degree of comfort and offers a as evil because God turns it back upon Over the last fifteen years, the United starting point for intelligent praying. itself. He makes the supreme crime, States has seen monstrous mass First, Jeremiah 17:9 states that “the the murder of the only righteous per - killings at Columbine High School in heart is deceitful above all things, and son, the very operation that abolishes Colorado, Virginia Tech, and, more re - desperately wicked: who can know (un - sin. The maneuver is utterly unprece - cently, at a movie theater in Aurora, Col - derstand) it?” Until humans are re - dented. No more complete victory orado, among others. For most of us, it deemed and transformed by Jesus could be imagined. God responds in is impossible to conceive of such horrif - Christ, the irrationality of evil is basic to (Continued on page 47) SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (163) 35 Teenagers Bumps, Detours, and Exit Signs

BY PATRICIA OVIATT

Then she replied, “Yes. I was born here, and I’ve lived here all my life. I’ll gradu - ate here and maybe even go to college here. It is a boring life, right?” Heather shook her head. “No. From my viewpoint, I think it would be won - derful not to have to change so many things. I absolutely hate change.” Melanie slammed the door of her locker shut. “I’ll finish later,” she said. With her back against the locker, she slid down to the floor and leaned against the door. She gestured with her hand and said, “Here. Have a seat in our private living room.” Heather kept a pile of papers from falling and then smoothly let herself down. There would be time at the end of the day to get everything finished. EATHER used a fingernail to un- beautiful redhead was attacking clean - Her brother, Mike, would be picking H tape the motto she had attached ing out her locker. She had put a wool her up in his car. There were only two to the inside of her school locker. Mrs. cap on her head and a baseball cap on half days of school remaining. West, her former Bible school teacher, top of that. She swung a scarf around “You said you hate change,” had given her the colorful, plastic-coat - her neck, then removed it to tie up a Melanie said. “You mean you don’t like ed motto before Heather and her family stack of papers. It was obvious that the to move? I think it would be exciting to had moved from Nebraska to Illinois. other girl’s aim was to empty her locker have a new house, a new school, and “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and in the least amount of time. new activities to join.” he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:6). “Do you have an extra trash bag?” Heather shook her head. “It seems Today was the day for all the high the girl with the red hair asked, looking that as soon as I get settled, there’s school students to clean out their at Heather. change—like a monster bulldozer— lockers. They seemed to be treating Heather bit her lip to keep from laugh - pushing me off balance. Last fall I had a this day as the actual end of the school ing at the careless way the other girl had broken ankle. My father’s job changed, year. Textbooks had been turned in. removed everything from her locker. so we had to move two states away Now, anything left in the lockers would Now she was taking things out one at a from where I was born. We had a great be considered disposable. time, sorting papers to throw away. teen group in our church, and we were Heather carefully slipped the motto “Sorry—I didn’t bring another bag,” going to go on a missions trip this sum - into a notebook. She would use it she told her neighbor. “I haven’t been in mer. But here I am. Life is never normal.” again next year. As far as grades were this school very long, so I don’t have “Of course not,” Melanie stated. concerned, she was on a smooth road much to throw away.” She stretched the “Do you want to stay in school all your to success, keeping a straight-A top of the trash bag. “But there’s plenty life? Don’t you want to do some differ - record. She had to admit that she did of room to put your papers in my bag.” ent things? I think unexpected events not have to work very hard to get good “I’m Melanie McFall, by the way. I can be like gifts.” grades, but her parents warned her know you’re Heather—everybody Heather took the rebuke. Then she that when she got into college, she knows you. Your brother Mike is a sen - reached into her notebook and would need all her skills for study. ior, right? I’m sorry I haven’t talked showed Melanie the verse she had She reminded herself that next week with you before. I’d shake your hand, taken down from inside her locker. she would seriously look for some kind but if I do, my empty soda cans will fall “Yes. That’s neat. That’s what I of part-time job. If her family had not out and go rolling.” mean. Do you have anything lined up been forced to move two states away Heather burst out in laughter. She felt for the summer? I could get you a job from their home base, Heather could it was necessary to make some sort of at the state park nearby. My dad is in easily have found summer work. reply, so she asked Melanie, “Have you charge. They are hiring teens for the A junior girl whose locker was next to lived in this town all your life?” summer.” Melanie told Heather all hers had been taking her belongings out Melanie’s long hair escaped one of about the job and its requirements. of her locker. Heather was silently the hats and blew across her face like a When the bell rang, Heather lugged amused to watch the unique way the bright red mustache. Both girls laughed. her trash bag out to her brother’s car. 36 (164) From the glass doors, she saw Mela nie sooner did I get my cast off than we knows how you want everything to wave to her. She waved back. It looked found out Dad was going to have to stay the same.” like Melanie was watching Mike. move.” Heather reached over the seat to re - Heather could hardly wait to talk to her Traffic was moving at an almost nor - trieve her notebook. “I think it’s time I brother about the exciting news Melanie mal speed at this point. Mike shifted his put this motto up in my bedroom. ‘In had shared. The possibility of a summer position and stretched. “Tell me about all thy ways acknowledge him, and he job at the state park sounded fun. They this possible job that Melanie told you shall direct thy paths ’” (Prov. 3:6). were hiring responsible teens to help about. Do you have to wear special As they unloaded their school clear out a new area to expand the park. clothing? You’d be working around things, Mike unexpectedly gave his “It’s hard work, Mike,” she said. “But brush and poison ivy, and it would be tir - sister a hug. “Aunt Laura may be a de - I’m not afraid of hard work.” She ing. Is your ankle healed enough?” tour—or maybe even a speed bump— looked ahead. The traffic had come to Heather sat up straight. “I will be but we can adjust. Are you OK?” a complete stop. glad to do some hard work, especial - Heather’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m “It looks like an accident or something ly if it means I will be outdoors all day. more than OK,” she said. “I feel as if a up ahead near Fifth Street,” Mike said. Melanie told me there are a lot of rules. huge burden has been lifted off my “There are police cars, and an ambu - We’ll have brown uniforms, and I have shoulders. It should be a great sum - lance just arrived. We are not going any - to buy a pair of steel-toed shoes, but mer, whether there are exits, detours, where fast. We might as well settle in. Melanie thinks the state may pay for bumps, or smooth highways.” What do you think about asking Melanie them. Dad and Mom will have to sign Their mother was watching them to our teen group on Sunday night?” an agreement to allow me to work. Do from the front door. She looked worried. “You would like that!” Heather said, you think they will?” Poor Mom, Heather thought. I’m going giving her brother a soft punch on his Mike nodded. “They’ve been wor - to put my motto on the refrigerator, shoulder. “That pretty redhead is a re - ried about you with all the moping where all of us can be reminded about ally nice girl. But remember that I around the house and sighing and al - # haven’t joined the youth group yet.” ways texting your old friends. You who’s in charge of the road ahead. Mike frowned. “You said you didn’t need to make some new ones.” want to get involved in meeting a “Like Melanie?” she teased. bunch of new kids. There are only six “Well, that’s a start. Ask her whether of us.” He gave his sister a disapprov - she’s already involved in some teen ing look. “There would be seven if you group. I’m thinking we might have a came; and if you could bring Melanie, hot dog roast after next week’s meet - Francis Schaeffer— there would be eight. I’m inviting some ing. Or, if Mr. Jones likes, we could God Expanded His Ministry of my school friends too. I don’t intend have it at our house.” to waste my time moaning about what Suddenly, a strange feeling came (Continued from page 28) we left behind.” over Heather. It was almost like letting “Do you see the sign? Detour Ahead,” go of something and reaching out to Heather read. “Mike, do you think our something new. “I can’t wait to get over all things is a reality. lives are like a road or a path? Everything home and tell Dad and Mom. You His last major project was Whatever is going along nice and smooth—” know, they asked me whether I’d like Happened to the Human Race ? (cre - “Like riding swiftly down the inter - to decorate that small bedroom I had ated together with his son Franky). The state,” Mike broke in. “Boring but to have, but for some reason I wanted project upheld the value of human life moving along.” to wait. I think I really hoped that Dad created in the image of God. While he “And then something happens to would lose his job here and have to was working on this project, he was change the course. The car might move back to Mooresville.” also struggling with advanced lym - break down—” “I’m glad you’re snapping out of phoma. He went to and from one of “Bite your lip, girl. I don’t want to thinking like that,” her brother de - the filming sessions in an ambulance. deal with another repair job,” Mike in - clared with a grateful voice. “Why With the cancer in remission a couple terrupted again. don’t you ask Mom for some advice? of times, Schaeffer kept ministering “Or maybe there is a sign saying She was a teenager once, you know. where he was till the end of his life. While Bump Ahead. Or you mistakenly get Have you seen how they’re decorating in cancer treatment, he began ministry off at the wrong exit. Do you think God their room? Its red carpet and black- to medical workers at the Mayo Clinic. keeps track of our daily lives and and-white wallpaper.” He continued to speak about the Bible’s knows where we are?” Before she realized it, they were relevance to our culture and politics. “It’s better than that,” Mike said. He pulling into the driveway of their new From his hospital bed he proofread his put the car in gear as the stopped traf - home. Mike said, “Wait, Heather. I’ve collected works. His best seller A Chris - fic began to move slowly. “I like to think got to tell you something about anoth - tian Manifesto was published in 1981. In that God gave us the Spirit to be kind of er—well, like a detour. Mom’s hesitat - 1984, doctors told him there was noth - like our GPS. We could call the Spirit ed to tell you, but I said I was sure ing more they could do to sustain his God’s Positioning System. Clever, huh? you’d help out.” life. Schaeffer went home to be with He guides us on the road of life.” “Another detour?” Heather asked. family and died peacefully on May 15. “I don’t know what God intended “Yeah. Mom’s aunt Laura is going to Schaeffer never strove to put him - when I broke my ankle,” Heather said, have to come live with us for a while. I self forward—only to serve faithfully. “but I did make a lot of new friends at don’t know for how long. Mom is real - God Himself expanded and multiplied school. They were so helpful. But no ly having a hard time, because she his work. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (165) 37 For Teens Only

Yes, No, Maybe So

BY CHANTELLE CUDGER

ONTRARY to what many believe, Do not get me wrong. I wanted to be tient correction through some of the C the life of a teen is not always an able to go out and do more with my worst decisions. easy one. It seems that today’s youths friends; but if it meant breaking the Somehow we have this view that have far more things to worry about Lord’s heart, I chose to do what would God’s correction is a horrible thing, but than I remember having to consider please Him and what would make Him it is not. He wants us to have His very during my childhood years. Choosing proud of me instead. best in every area of our lives, so He to do what is right can prove to be one I chose to take the road less traveled uses discipline to teach us life lessons of the most difficult decisions to make because the stories of the Bible, as about His character, His Word, and His for teens and adults alike. well as those told to me by my parents will for our lives. I have to admit that if I could travel about how making the wrong deci - As with my parents, God’s discipline back in time, I would definitely make a sions affected their lives, were vividly did not always feel good at the time pit stop at my old middle and high ingrained within my heart and con - (cf. Heb. 12:11), but today I love Him schools to undo some of the poor stantly in the forefront of my mind. Al - wholeheartedly for it. God’s correction choices I made. Of course, this kind of though I was well-known to my class - strengthened my ability to discern be - thinking focuses too much on the mates, popularity did not matter to me tween right and wrong. past, but regrets are learning tools. as much as doing the right thing did. As a result of those experiences, I As young believers, it can be easy However, I did not make the best spent less time contemplating what to forget that you are a living, breath - choices all of the time. Trust me when choice should be made in certain situ - ing example to your peers. The words I say that I did make wrong choices ations. I was more aware of the con - you speak, the actions you take, and and that there were some heavy con - sequences associated with the deci - the decisions you make are all ex - sequences. I could not say it then, but sions I chose to make. All thanks be to tremely important because they have I can certainly say now that I am glad God that I learned from my mistakes! an impact not only on your life but also for those consequences, for they were As a teen, I did not think my parents on the lives of the people closest to a reminder to me that every action re - and teachers—or any other adult, for you. quires accountability. that matter—understood how much All decisions, whether right or I can recall one time during my pressure I had to deal with daily. I wrong, have consequences (Gal. 6:7). sophomore year of high school when I thought there was no one who could For the most part, we want to fit in with did the unthinkable—I talked back to possibly know about trying to fit in, our peers; so we find ourselves having my French teacher! I felt no shame for making friends, and wondering to make a sound determination on what I said, and I made sure that the whether I was ever pretty enough—or whether maintaining some friendships entire class heard it too. The words I whether I was pretty at all. is worth jeopardizing our own integrity spoke were cruel and harsh. As an What if I said no to something that and morals (I Cor. 15:33). adult, I still remember that moment— my friends really wanted me to do, and As a pastor’s kid, I found myself in a and it breaks my heart. they decided not to be my friends any - struggle with trying to please God and I wonder whether my French more? I had to deal with this quite of - trying to please others. I would often teacher remembers the incident as ten. get the two confused. However, the distinctly as I do. Even now I am curi - Despite that, at the end of the day I more I asked for the Lord’s guidance ous as to how many of my classmates decided that if what my friends want - through prayer (Jas. 1:5), the easier it can also recall the things that I said ed was wrong and I knew deep in my was to realize that doing what pleased and what image etched into their heart that it was wrong, I would Him was more important than any - minds about the type of person I was. choose what was right. I chose right thing else (cf. John 8:29). If only I could relive that moment! I even if it meant losing a friend. Perhaps the most difficult lesson would have simply kept quiet, being I do thank God, for even though I that I learned during my teenage years more respectful of my teacher’s au - lost some friends, He placed true, life - was that making the right decision thority and feelings. long friends into my life. These were sometimes meant doing what was not Sometimes life allows do-overs, friends who were OK with my decision so cool or popular to others. There and sometimes it does not. That is to be me. They did not make fun of me were parties that I did not attend be - why it is so important to always treat or put more pressure on me to do cause I knew that the things that others the way we would want them to things that I did not want to do. would take place would not be things treat us. However, the best part of it all My very best friend is one of those that I would want to be part of. is that God loved me and provided pa - people I thank God for. We have been 38 (166) friends since the sixth grade. Even when she chose to do the things that I Teen Scene said no to, we remained friends. The good part is that as we became adults, I could use some of those ex - periences as a means to share with her how the Lord had been working in my Integrity Matters life (cf. I Cor. 10:33). I could even use the consequences of my bad choices BY JED N. S NYDER ,D. MIN . to encourage her to keep moving for - ward and accept God’s conse - Q. What is integrity? Why does it mat - being truthful is a major part of being quences as life lessons when she be - ter? a Christian. Is your integrity known? Is gan to experience them as well. A. it showing? We now attend church together. We These questions go to the very heart have served as Sunday school teach - of life for all of us and in all societies. It Q. What is tolerance, and what does ers together, and she has prayed for is ancient, but it is also current. You have the Bible say about it? me and supported every missionary probably heard it said more than once that integrity is doing the right thing A. In its essence, tolerance means en - endeavor that the Lord has called me during ideas or actions with which one to. She has been my greatest support even when no one knows that you have done it. The word carries the ideas of disagrees and having a fair attitude to - in prayer and encouragement every ward opinions and behaviors that are time I have needed it. sincerity, truthfulness, righteousness, and simplicity. In other words, “integri - in conflict with one’s own. Sometimes making wise decisions As with many other words, the defi - triggers good reactions from others, ty” is the characteristic of a good per - son, whose word can be trusted be - nition of “tolerance” has changed in and sometimes it does not. Regard - the way it is commonly used in daily less of how others choose to react, al - cause his living matches his talking. It is good to see what the Bible says conversation. Dorothy Sayers once ways remember that God is still allow - gave a definition of tolerance that fits ing you to influence the people around about important issues. King David spoke of his own integrity. “Judge me, quite well with how the word is being you. used today. She said that tolerance Making the right decision can be - O Lord; for I have walked in mine in - tegrity: I have trusted also in the Lord; “believes in nothing, cares for nothing, come difficult at times. Standing firm seeks to know nothing; interferes with on a decision can sometimes be just therefore I shall not slide. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and nothing, enjoys nothing, hates noth - as hard; however, God knows that too ing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for (cf. Matt. 7:13-14). God loves us so my heart. For thy lovingkindness is be - nothing, and remains alive because very much! God does not expect us to fore mine eyes: and I have walked in there is nothing for which it will die” always be perfect, but He does want thy truth. I have not sat with vain per - (The Other Six Deadly Sins, Methuen). us to strive toward perfection in doing sons, neither will I go in with dissem - Even though we might not agree with what pleases Him (5:48). Our obedi - blers. I have hated the congregation of her on many issues, her point about ence to God makes His heart smile evildoers; and will not sit with the with pleasure, rewards us, and wicked” (Ps. 26:1-5). tolerance today is very correct. In oth - changes the lives of others because As David said, integrity involves our er words, tolerance as it is used today they desire the joy that we share in relationship with the Lord. God ex - assumes that almost all things that are having a relationship with our loving pects us to strive for purity in all as - not directly harmful should be consid - Creator. pects of our lives. He looks deeply into ered acceptable. Never allow anyone to make you feel our lives and sees what we are really Today it is assumed by many that bad about doing what is right. Instead, like. A person with integrity, like David, “faith” is good even if “faith” is fo - keep your heart open and your ears at - invites God to examine him to help him cused on something that the Bible tentive to receiving any valuable life les - know himself. calls an idol or false god. “Just have son that the Lord may be teaching you The person with integrity learns to faith” is often the advice that is given. through those around you. love what God loves and to hate what However, the Bible makes it clear Sometimes the most unforgettable God hates. God desires that we have that God does not find all attitudes and lessons are taught through the stories good friends whom we can trust. He actions tolerable. The Sermon on the of others. We do not always have to says that the person with integrity Mount speaks of “wise and foolish make the same mistake that someone avoids the company of evildoers. A builders” (cf. Matt. 7:24-27). Jesus else has made and suffer the conse - person recently told me that as a spoke even more powerfully about not quences to learn the lesson. In most teenager, whenever he was with two tolerating false religion. “Many will say cases, it is simply a matter of opening other teens the three of them would to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we up to our parents, teachers, siblings, get into trouble. He finally decided that not prophesied in thy name? and in thy and other adult mentors about some he would have to stop hanging out name have cast out devils? and in thy of the decisions that we are currently with these young men; otherwise, he name done many wonderful works? facing. In doing so, we will be amazed would not be able to serve God. Like And then will I profess unto them, I by the stories they will share with us David in Psalm 26, he learned that in - never knew you: depart from me, ye regarding their own experiences. I tegrity required him to stay away from that work iniquity” (vss. 22-23). know because those stories made a evildoers. God does not tolerate evil. Jesus told world of difference to me. # Integrity is part of a holy life. Indeed, (Continued on page 47) SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (167) 39 Boys and Girls

Garden of Grace

BY ELIZABETH SHULTZ

OORAY! We are going to Grand- H dad’s house!” Michael cheered that Saturday morning when Mom told the brothers to get dressed in their farm clothes. “We are going to Grand - dad’s farm!” Michael repeated happily. “It is nothing to be happy about,” Charlie said sadly to his little brother. “It is not Granddad’s farm anymore. Grand - dad died, and new owners have bought the farm. Granddad will not be there.” “Please help your brother get dressed,” Mom told Charlie; then she hurried to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. Charlie followed her. “I don’t want to go to the farm to - day,” Charlie said while Mom mixed pancake batter and poured it into the frying pan. “I want to go to Adam’s house and play baseball.” “I know you have been sad since Granddad died,” Mom said as she plate. Mom poured him a glass of milk. “Who will take me fishing at Grand - flipped the pancakes. “It is important “May I go with Brandon’s family to - dad’s pond?” Charlie asked while Dad for us to help your grandma with the day instead?” Charlie asked hopefully. pulled the car out of the driveway and farm until the new owners can take “They’re going to Adventure Park to drove up the street. over. Please go and help your brother ride the coaster, and they said I can go “We won’t have time to fish today,” get dressed,” she added gently. with them if I bring money.” Dad said quietly. He turned the car at Mom put the pancakes on a plate “Please eat your breakfast,” Mom several corners and then drove quick - and poured more batter into the pan. said. “We want to get to Granddad’s ly out of town. Charlie argued, “But Adam said he early to get as much work done as we “If Granddad is not there, who will might go swimming today, and I haven’t can before the weather gets too hot.” push me on the tire swing?” Charlie been to the new pool. I know Adam’s fa - Charlie slowly ate his pancakes while asked anxiously. “Who will catch the ther would take me with them.” Mom hurried to clean the kitchen and baby piglets and let me pet them?” Mom said firmly, “Please help your Dad loaded tools and boxes into the car. “We won’t have time to play today,” brother get dressed as I asked you to Before Charlie finished eating, Dad Mom said from the front seat. “We all do.” and Mom hurried Michael into the car. have a lot of work to do and not much Charlie walked slowly back to the They were waiting for Charlie. time.” bedroom. Michael was already “I don’t want to go to the farm,” “We are going to work on Grand - dressed, but he had his shirt on back - Charlie said sadly as he walked down dad’s farm!” Michael sang from his car ward and his shoes were untied. the driveway to the car. Dad held the seat beside Charlie. “Let me fix your shirt,” Charlie or - door open while Charlie climbed into Charlie twisted his seat belt in his dered. He roughly turned Michael’s his seat. “You can drop me off at hands. He angrily kicked the back of the shirt around. He then tied his brother’s Toby’s house,” Charlie suggested. seat where Dad was driving. “I don’t shoes, pulling the laces too tight; but “Sorry. I can’t do that,” Dad said. want to go to the farm!” he muttered. Michael was too happy to notice. “Grandma is moving to town, and she “Charlie, don’t kick my seat again,” “We are going to Granddad’s farm!” needs a lot of help packing and getting Dad warned. Michael sang as he ran down the hall ready. We need everyone to help today Charlie sat quietly, but he was not to the kitchen. while we mow the grass and get the happy. I don’t want to go to the farm! “It’s nothing to sing about,” Charlie vegetables out of the garden. You will he thought angrily. It won’t be the muttered as he slowly got dressed and be so busy helping Grandma that you same without Granddad! I don’t like tied his own shoes. are sure to have a lot of fun.” the farm anymore. Charlie went to sit at the table. He Dad closed the door and got into the The family drove outside of town put pancakes and sausage on his driver’s seat to start the car’s engine. and down winding roads toward 40 (168) Grandma’s house. The roads turned to to walk toward the tire swing where he gravel, and the car bumped quickly was sitting. Charlie put his head down Noah’s Ark along under the trees. and pushed the tire swing around with Charlie twisted his seat belt and the tip of his foot touching the ground. whispered that he wanted to go home “I’m sorry you didn’t want to come to and read a book instead. the farm today,” Grandma said when Dad parked the car in the farm drive - she got close to Charlie. “I’m sorry you way. Grandma was waiting on the don’t like the farm anymore. I know you porch and waved at them when the car miss Granddad and wish he were here.” stopped. Mom helped Michael out of Charlie slowly turned the tire swing his car seat, and Charlie slowly got out around to look at Grandma. “Were you of the car. sad when Granddad died?” Charlie Charlie looked around, wishing to asked quietly. see Granddad walking toward them as “I was very sad when Granddad he used to, but Granddad was not died,” Grandma said. She set the bowl there. The farm seemed empty and of beans down on the ground and quiet. The grass was too long and picked one bean from the top. With her whispered when the wind blew fingers, Grandma split the bean open through it. The empty tire swing twist - and showed Charlie the green seeds ed in the breeze. inside. “Grandma!” Michael shouted. He “Last spring I planted many seeds in The Roadrunner ran across the yard to the porch. Char - the ground. The seeds died and grew lie followed him slowly. into new life in this garden,” Grandma BY WANDA ERBSE Grandma came down the steps and said. “It is like when Jesus died to give gave everyone hugs. “There are bas - all people who trust in Him new life kets by the garden,” she said. “I HE roadrunner is a swift-running with God. I know Granddad trusted bird, and it really lives up to its thought you boys could help by pick - Jesus as his Saviour. I know someday T ing strawberries.” name. They can often be seen in I will see Jesus and Granddad in heav - states like Texas or Arizona, racing “Strawberries!” Michael shouted and en.” ran toward the garden behind the house. down a road in front of moving vehi - “Will I be able to see Granddad “I don’t want to pick strawberries,” cles and then darting to safety in the again someday?” Charlie asked sud - Charlie said quietly, but no one heard brush. Even though the bird has denly. “Will I have new life with you and him. Grandma took his hand and wings, it seldom flies. It will fly when in Granddad and Jesus?” walked him toward the garden. She danger. They are built for speed and “You will if Jesus is your Saviour,” handed Charlie a basket and pointed can run at speeds of up to twenty to a row of strawberries. Grandma said. “You have to pray to miles per hour. “Only pick the red ones!” Grandma God and tell Him you are sorry for your There are two types of roadrun - called to Michael. Michael had already sins. You must ask Jesus to be your ners. They differ chiefly in size and in eaten two strawberries and only had Saviour and say that you want to fol - where they live. The greater roadrun - one in his basket. low and obey Him. When you say that ner is the larger of the two types and “I don’t want to pick strawberries!” you want to trust in Jesus, you will lives in Mexico and the southwest - Charlie shouted suddenly. He threw have life with Him forever in heaven.” ern United States. The lesser road - the basket as hard as he could, and it Charlie put his feet down and runner is found in Mexico and Cen - flew across the garden. stopped swinging in the tire swing. tral America. “I didn’t want to come here!” Char - “Grandma,” Charlie said, “I want to The roadrunner is a ground- lie yelled. He turned and ran away from have life forever with God. Will you help dwelling bird and a member of the the garden. He ran to the tire swing he me pray? Will you help me say I’m sor - cuckoo family. It has two feet with sat down in the heavy old tire and ry for my sins and help me obey God?” four toes on each foot; two face for - cried. “I will be happy to pray with you,” ward, and two face backward. Its leg - Across the yard, Charlie heard Dad Grandma said. She prayed with Char - endary appearance helped make it turn on the tractor and begin to mow lie while he asked Jesus to be his Sav - famous, as does its ability to eat rat - the tall, waving grass. Charlie heard iour. Charlie said he was sorry for his tlesnakes (it is one of the few animals Mom and Grandma talking while they anger and sins. He promised to obey that prey on rattlesnakes) and its began to pick beans. The sun climbed God, and he asked God to give him life preference for zipping across Ameri - higher in the sky, and Charlie began to forever in heaven. can deserts. feel hot. He wiped his face on his shirt “Amen,” Grandma said when Char - Roadrunners have lightning-fast re - and twisted slowly on the tire swing. lie finished. She wiped his face clean flexes. They can snap up a coiled rat - I wish I could see Granddad again, with her apron and hugged him in her tlesnake by the tail, crack it like a whip, Charlie thought sadly. I wish I hadn’t warm, soft arms. “Are you ready to and repeatedly slam its head against yelled at Grandma. I’ll be punished help with the strawberries now?” the ground until it is dead; then they when we get home, and everyone will “Yes!” Charlie said happily. He ran to swallow it whole. They also eat lizards, be sad and angry with me. the row where Michael was picking spiders, locusts, grasshoppers, and Charlie saw Mom begin to walk to - and eating strawberries. “I want to smaller snakes. ward the house. He saw Grandma begin help now,” Charlie said. # Roadrunners make their nests in SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (169) 41 dry and open country that has scat - tered brush. They are easily seen be - You and Your Bible cause of their size. They can grow to a length of eighteen to twenty-two BY FAITH STEINKRAUS inches. Their bodies are brown with black streaks and white spots. They have a crest of brown feathers on their heads, strong feet, a long, strong tail, and an oversized bill. They make an The Lord Spoke to Samuel unusual sight. Wildlife has always played a role in Read I Samuel 3:1-20. Find and circle the following words in the puzzle. the culture of Native American peo - ple, and they enjoy the antics of the SERVANT LORD DOWN ELI CHILD THIRD roadrunner. The Hopi of the Pueblo GREW SLEEP PROPHET SAMUEL Indians believed roadrunners pro - ASLEEPZCH I LD tected them from evil. The English- ZAMCLXTH I RDZ speaking people of the southwest frontier believed roadrunners would BMTG I H I PDGAD help lost people find their way. The SUPROPHETRPO roadrunner is the state bird of New SERVANTQHEJW Mexico. ZLORDL I TEWFN The roadrunner can adapt to hot and cold temperatures. God designed Fill in the blanks with the words from I Samuel 3:1-20 used in the puzzle above. the roadrunner with the ability to low - 1. The ______Samuel served the Lord by helping Eli (verse 1). er its body temperature during the very cold desert nights. Roadrunners do 2. Samuel lay down to ______(verse 3). not migrate to warmer climates. In 3. The ______called Samuel, and he answered, “Here am I” (verse 4). cold weather, the birds roost in thick trees or shrubs that shield them from 4. Samuel ran to ______and said, “Here am I; for thou calledst me” (verse 5). the open sky and night winds. 5. Eli said, “I called not; lie ______again” (verse 5). The roadrunner’s morning sunning ritual is probably the most important 6. The ______time the Lord called Samuel, Eli realized that it was the factor in warming itself. The bird ruf - Lord who was calling (verse 8). fles its feathers and uses the early morning sunlight to absorb the sun’s 7. Eli told ______to lie down and what to say when he heard the voice rays, making an efficient use of solar again (verse 9). power. 8. The Lord spoke again. Samuel said, “Speak; for thy ______In the spring of the year, a male and female roadrunner can be seen heareth” (verse 10). building a nest in a bush, cactus, or 9. Samuel ______older, and the Lord was with him (verse 19). small tree. The female roadrunner then lays two to nine eggs. About 10. Samuel became a ______of the Lord (verse 20). eighteen to twenty days later, the eggs hatch. The male and female share the hunting duties to feed their Samuel Anointed a New King babies. The roadrunner faces the danger of being eaten by raccoons, skunks, Put the following events from I Samuel 16:1-12 in the correct order. coyotes, hawks, and house cats. 1. ____ Jesse’s sons walked before Samuel. The Lord refused each one. They use their quickness and ability 2. ____ Jesse sent for his son David. When Samuel saw him, the Lord said, to fly to get away from those preda - “Arise, anoint him: for this is he” (verse 12). tors. Christians also have a predator. 3. ____ The Lord spoke to Samuel and told him to go to Bethlehem to anoint The devil looks for ways to make us one of Jesse’s sons to be the king of Israel. do the wrong things. When we do the 4. ____ Samuel asked Jesse whether there were any other children. wrong things, we get into trouble. 5. ____ Jesse said there was one more son, the youngest, who was taking God wants us to do what is good and care of the sheep. right. We can protect ourselves from the Answers:

devil by doing what Ephesians 6:13

. 4 . 5 ; 3 . 4 ; 1 . 3 ; 5 . 2 ; says: “Wherefore take unto you the 2

. 1 . t e h p o r p . 0 1 ; w e r g . 9 ; t n a v r e s . 8 ; l e u m a S . 7 : g n i K w e N a d e t n i o n A l e u m a whole armour of God, that ye may be S

; d r i h t . 6 ; n w o d . 5 ; i l E . 4 ; d r o L . 3 ; p e e l s . 2 ; d l i h c . 1 : l e u m a S o t e k o p S d r o L e h

able to withstand in the evil day, and T having done all, to stand.” # # 42 (170) Wit and Wisdom Cartoons Quote-ables

“Whene’er a hen lays eggs, with each The Growing Season / She is impelled to make a speech. / The self same urge stirs human bones / Whenever men lay cornerstones.” Lehman Strauss: “Christian maturity may be tested in how one answers the following questions: How do I react to * * * trials? How do I resist temptation? How do I respond to truth? How do I restrain my tongue?” “That speaker certainly made a hit.” “What did he talk about?” “About five minutes.” * * * Oswald Chambers: “Jesus said there * * * is only one way to develop and grow spiritually, and that is through focusing and concentrating on God.” “Three hints for making a speech: 1. Be sincere. 2. Be brief. 3. Be seated.” “Will you please stop muttering ‘We haven’t * * * got a prayer’?” * * * J. H. Jowett: “In my trifles I can pre - pare for emergencies. Along a com - monplace road I can get ready for the “Life is like a grindstone, and whether it hill.” grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on the stuff he is made of.” * * *

* * * Elisabeth Elliot: “I think growing old - er is a wonderful privilege. I want to learn to glorify God in every stage of “When it comes to helping others, my life.” some people stop at nothing.” * * * * * * Anonymous: “One of the marks of spiritual maturity is the quiet confi - “Before I got married I had six theories dence that God is in control—without about bringing up children. Now I have the need to understand why He does six children and no theories.” what He does.”

* * * * * *

F. B. Meyer: “Let us not be afraid of “The real problem of your leisure is how Him, as though He must use some ter - to keep other people from using it.” rible anguish, some heartrending grief. He will not shrink from this, if all other * * * methods fail; but He prefers to achieve His purpose by gentle, tender, peace - ful means. He is the God of the sum - “Obstacles are those frightful things mer evening; of the bursting spring; of you see when you take your eyes off the slumber of the little babe.” the goal.” * * * * * * First Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood “Some people don’t put their best foot as a child, I thought as a child: but forward until they get the other one in when I became a man, I put away hot water.” “Hello, dear—I’m hung up at the church and childish things.” —Compiled by Donna Poole. will be late for dinner.” —Compiled by Donna Poole. SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (171) 43 Dad’s Den

How a Father Should Pray for His Children

BY PAUL R. B AWDEN , T H. M.

OME time ago I was descending in Jesus also prayed for those who were small. Now that they are grown S a hospital elevator. With me in the would believe in Him in the future and no longer at home, I still pray that elevator were a new father and moth - (John 17:20). Fathers should pray for God will keep them from the evil one. er. They were in the process of taking the salvation of their children. When a 4. Sanctify them through Your truth home their newborn baby. father comes to know Christ as per - (John 17:17). Jesus prayed, “Sanctify The mother was holding a beautiful sonal Saviour, he should pray contin - them through thy truth: thy word is little girl, and I could just see the pride ually that the Heavenly Father will save truth.” “Sanctify” means to separate written all over their faces. I could not and then keep his children in Jesus’ from sin unto God’s purity. A life of ho - resist making a few comments. I began name and that He will enable them to liness and godliness comes about by mentioning that I had three grown grow spiritually strong in Jesus Christ through reading God’s truth, the Bible, daughters. I added that it is hard to be - so that they always honor His name. and obeying it. lieve how fast children grow up. 2. Have Jesus’ joy (John 17:13). We Dad, when your children are young, The father turned to me and asked, read, “I speak . . . that they might have what an opportunity and challenge “Well, what advice do you have for us?” my joy fulfilled in themselves.” To know you have to spend time reading to “Play with them, praise them, and Jesus’ joy, one must abide in Him (15:7- them from the Bible and from chil - pray for them,” I answered. 11). To abide in Christ means we must dren’s books. Foster a love for Bible “Sounds like good advice,” he keep His commandments—doing what stories and truths! In this way God’s replied. God teaches in His Word (I John 3:24). truth will be made meaningful to them. Fathers should definitely find oppor - Jesus’ joy comes when He is obeyed. I cherish the times I read to our girls. tunities to get involved with their chil - A child learns to obey the Lord by first As children become older, they can be dren; but which of the three items— obeying his father and mother. Dad, led to memorize Scripture and make ap - play, praise, or prayer—in the advice I pray daily that your children will be quick plications to their lives. Dad, you should gave to the new father deserves the to obey the Lord so that they can expe - be the spiritual leader. You should take highest priority? rience the joy of the Lord in their lives. the lead in having the family gather for As I look back on my Christian ex - An obedient child is a joyful child. Bible reading. The family should pray to - perience, I think the answer should be 3. Keep them from the evil one (John gether frequently. Remember that chil - easy for a believer. Prayer definitely 17:15). The text states, “I pray not that dren love to act out the events written needs to be at the top of the list. The thou shouldest take them out of the about in the Bible. reason is that without prayer, a father world, but that thou shouldest keep After you read the Bible with your cannot accomplish what God wants them from the evil.” The Greek word children, pray that the Word of God him to do. for “evil” can be translated “evil one.” your children are learning will sanctify Jesus Christ set the example for fa - Jesus knew a spiritual battle was go - them. Pray that they will have discern - thers in His high priestly prayer in John ing on in the world. The same battle ment to do what is right, to hate sin, 17. In that prayer just before His death, continues today. and to have a greater hunger to know resurrection, and ascension, He Satan desires to control our children God and to do His will. prayed for His disciples and those who for his evil purposes. In contrast, our 5. Experience oneness in the Lord would yet believe in Him. What Jesus holy God desires that our children glo - (John 17:21). Christ prayed that all be - prayed should be prayed by fathers for rify Him. The battle is not to the swift lievers would be one: “[I pray] as thou, their children every day; and, yes, the or to the strong but to those who hold Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they mothers should pray it as well. up their children daily before the also may be one in us.” Dad, pray that Let us look briefly at our Lord’s in - throne of grace in prayer. your children will sense a spirit of unity tercessory prayer in John 17. I encourage you, Dad, to pray faith - in your family as each one submits to 1. Keep them in Your name (John fully. Pray that your children will trust in Jesus Christ and you lead the way. 17:11). The text reads, “Holy Father, the blood of Jesus Christ each day (cf. Pray that your children will experi - keep through thine own name those Rev. 12:11). Ask the Lord to put a hedge ence Christ’s unity in your local church whom thou hast given me.” The Greek around your children so that the evil one and be excited about learning and word underlying “through” also can be will not be able to bring harm to them serving there. translated “in.” This request assumes physically or spiritually. Dad, enjoy praying for your children. that those for whom Christ was pray - Stand in the gap for your children (cf. Praying is the best thing you can do for ing had already believed in Him. Ezek. 22:30). I did this when our children them. # 44 (172) One Mother to Another

Nightly Ritual

BY SHERRY NEWCUM

NE of the joys of growing older is and learning to trust God and each oth - ued. Lessons he had learned from O being able to look back on life. er. Our prayers started with the simple Bible readings guided his life and One is able to assess what worked in memorized prayers that all children say. shaped his character. A time of shar - life, how it played out over the years, As he grew, our prayers became open ing thoughts, experiences, problems, and what did not work. Some things communication with God. It was almost and laughter never gets old. are planned, and some things occur as though Jesus were there with us and Even when my son went off to college, “by accident.” Having a plan is good, we both were talking to Him. he would call me to pray before his big but do not discount the things God Spending time with your child (or chil - tests or to tell me his plans. When he can use that we do not expect. The dren) one-on-one like this develops a graduated from college, there was a real joy, however, comes in being able sense of security and love. It opens the tough job market and he had trouble to share how God has used our plans door for communication when your finding a job. We were sitting on our deck and our accidents for His glory. child’s life becomes more complicated. studying I Kings 3. Solomon had just When I was a young mother, I was The tender, young years are a good time taken over the throne of his father, David, away from home for twelve hours a to develop the habits you want your and God appeared to him in a dream. day because of my job. I longed to be teenager to have. It will be much more Verses 5 through 9 are about how with my preschool-age son. Although natural to talk to you about their teen Solomon realized he was uncertain I had a wonderful babysitter who lived problems if they already know that you about how to rule the successful king - two houses away, I wanted to be the have listened and valued them all along. dom his father had left to him. When God one who guided my son and assured Deuteronomy 11:18-19 says, “There - asked Solomon to ask for anything he him he was loved. But the babysitter fore shall ye lay up these my words in wanted, Solomon asked for wisdom. was spending far more time with him your heart and in your soul, and bind Then we turned to James 1:5, which than I was. I wanted to be the one my them for a sign upon your hand, that says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let son connected with. they may be as frontlets between your him ask of God, that giveth to all men I knew there was a difference between eyes. And ye shall teach them your chil - liberally, and upbraideth not; and it quality time and quantity time, and I dren, speaking of them when thou shall be given him.” I knew this verse chose to make our time together quality sittest in thine house, and when thou well, for I had relied on it all through my time. After dinner we would cuddle to - walkest by the way, when thou liest son’s growing years. gether in a chair and read books. Dish - down, and when thou risest up.” Communication is one of the best es could wait, and TV was not needed. Of course, I had only one child, and ways to build a relationship. Children “Read one more book, please, Mom!” it is easier to find an hour an evening if commonly have no problem commu - “OK, but let’s put your pajamas on there is only one. Susanna Wesley gave nicating when they are young. As they and read the last one in bed.” birth to nineteen children in the eigh - learn they have value to the people This turned into a wonderful nightly rit - teenth century, and ten of them lived to they most depend on and trust, that ual that evolved into the most wonderful adulthood. (I know! I cannot imagine it, sense of value and communication hour of the day. I say “hour” because we either.) In recent years I have read that spills into all parts of their lives. Their literally started this bedtime ritual an Susanna spent an hour a week with need to be heard and truly listened to hour before bedtime. We both loved this each of her children, giving them one- is important. Listening fosters a sense time. As my son grew older, we put aside on-one time with her. She wanted to in - of security and peace. the little Golden Books and other simple fluence each of them as an individual At a young age, your child is open to children’s books, and we started reading and to make sure that each one of them Christian teaching and wants to learn a chapter a night of the Little House on knew the Lord and was growing in faith. how to put those teachings into prac - the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder She also knew that to really know each tice. When you can listen and under - or the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. We of them, she had to invest time with stand the emotions and thought would talk about the characters in the them, listening to their hearts and hear - processes of your child, you can more book and how they handled things or ing their thoughts. readily apply the Scriptures to his par - about our day, about life, and about Je - The value of a nightly ritual happened ticular situation in a way that makes sus. We would pray and sometimes sing. unintentionally for me with only one sense and prepares him to apply that Whatever we did, it was a tender time. child. I think that with more children than same teaching to a similar situation on It was a time when our souls touched, one, it would have to be a deliberate in - his own. When he learns through expe - and we could talk about anything his tention, as Susanna Wesley exemplified. rience to apply Christian principles to heart was feeling. We could take those As the years went by, our nightly rit - his life as a child, it will prepare him for concerns to God in prayer. It was a time ual of reading together ceased, but the the tough decisions he makes as a teen of guidance and great communication communication at a heart level contin - (Continued on page 47) SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (173) 45 Family Life

Family Forum

BY JOHN MAY , E D.D.

F a person listens to the daily news- His children, and He made us to be no I believe that for a person to truly I cast or reads the local newspaper, different. The importance of belonging show respect, he or she must take into things that are going on in this world to a family and to a group of friends is account feelings, thoughts, needs, can seem overwhelming. Wars, fam- seen in the relationships between and preferences when making deci - ine, continual violence, and divorce Adam and Eve, Abraham and his fam - sions. It means placing a value on the are rampant. Families are struggling ily (troubled though they were at other person’s thoughts and feelings. physically, emotionally, financially, and times), David and Jonathan, and Je - While it is true that respect is spiritually as never before. sus and His disciples. People need re - earned, it is equally true that there is a How can parents provide for their lationships (cf. Eccles. 4:9-11). very fine line between respect and children—and for each other—a firm fear. It is a proven fact that we earn re - foundation that gives both faith and FLEXIBILITY spect by showing respect. Paul taught hope for the future? Being flexible does not mean an believers to live in a respectful manner I believe that gathering a family to - end to order and structure in a family. that will earn the respect of both be - gether for a daily or weekly time of dis - Structure and order set boundaries lievers and unbelievers (I Thess. 4:12). cussion and activities is invaluable. with consequences; however, too It is also true that children learn to There are several things we can do to much structure and an unwillingness respect or disrespect others by the make that time more meaningful and to give a little can result in a lot of un - way parents act toward those outside to build faith. happiness and resentment. The more and inside their immediate family. The flexibility family members have in de - only sure way to earn and keep some - BELONGING cision making, the happier they will one’s respect is to first show him re - It is important that each member of be. spect yourself. Respect has an intan - a family feels that he or she is loved, Imagine one member of the family gible value that will extend from the that he belongs, and that he matters. always thinking he knows what is best home and into school, work, and oth - A person who is isolated, without fam - and then enforcing his way of doing er social settings and into the fabric of ily and friends, tends to be socially un - things. This attitude would not lead to our lives. fit and can be a danger to himself and a family gathering that would be con - to others. ducive to growth. HONESTY While some people believe that be - Setting guidelines that incorporate Honesty is the foundation of any re - ing a family means that every spare both flexibility and belonging will make lationship that is meant to last. Re - moment is spent together in a family your family gathering a place of peace, gardless of whether we are talking activity, reality dictates that this is im - not discord. Conflict and discord are about a marital relationship, a sibling practical—if not impossible. Work and never enjoyable. Harmony in our rela - relationship, or a friendship, without school activities take the majority of tionships is a biblical goal (cf. Rom. honesty the relationship will remain our time and should not be considered 12:18). superficial. A deeper connection will problematic. not form and certainly will not last, for Involving the whole family in activi - RESPECT honesty is the foundation on which our ties will help create a strong family Everyone in the world desires re - relationships are built. unit, but each person should also be spect. Sometimes respect is paid be - It is hard to build a family unit to - allowed the space and freedom to ex - cause of the office a person holds gether if any member has proved to be plore the activities he thinks he might (such as president). Sometimes chil - dishonest in his dealings with busi - enjoy doing on his own. It is a balance dren and teens show respect to a per - ness, family, or friends. Honest actions that must be struck. son because of his age. Some people and dishonest actions directly affect Each family member should feel se - demand respect through unnecessary the elements of trust, respect, belong - cure enough in the family setting to displays of force. This is unhealthy and ing, and forgiveness. present his ideas and what he would unproductive in creating strong and Being honest means that you hold like to do without fear of condemna - loving relationships. to a standard in the way you live your tion or derision. It has been proved The Bible teaches us that we should life. You desire to be ethically and spir - that people are more courageous and show respect to those in authority itually good in your private and public more willing to take chances if they and, most important, to God (cf. I Pet. life. know they have a safe place to voice 2:17). Those who occupy positions of The Bible teaches that Christians their opinions. earthly authority should be shown re - must live honestly in word and deed God cherishes His relationship with spect (Rom. 13:7). (Rom. 12:17; 13:13, Col. 3:9). Jesus 46 (174) frequently condemned those who Communicating is a lot more than were dishonest and hypocritical (Matt. simply speaking your mind. In addition Helping Teens Understand Mass 6:2, 5; 23:14). to spoken words, communication also Violence and the Nature of Evil extends to tone, volume, expression, FORGIVENESS eye contact, body language, and ef - (Continued from page 35) Forgiveness is a choice, and we can fective listening. Proverbs 25:11 choose to totally forgive or to carry a teaches us that “a word fitly spoken is the indirect way that is perfectly suited bitter grudge. Jesus told Peter to for - like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” to the ambiguity of evil. He entraps the give seventy times seven times, thus We learn from James 1:19 that all of deceiver in his own wiles. Evil, like a ju - revealing the importance of forgiving us should be “slow to speak, slow to doist, takes advantage of the power of others. A lack of forgiveness directly af - wrath.” If your family can meet and good, which it perverts; the Lord, like a fects a person’s prayer life and fellow - everyone there feels that what he says supreme champion, replies by using ship with God (Matt. 6:15; Mark 11:26). is both heard and understood, a the very grip of the opponent” (www.al While everyone says things they stronger foundation will be developed. wish they had not and none of us is bertmohler.com, July 25, 2012). perfect, it is best to get issues out in TRADITIONS In short, to bring people to Jesus, even in the midst of national grieving, the open, gain understanding, and Traditions are what make a family is to bring them to the ultimate solu - move on. Life is too short to allow a unique. Your family participates in hol - tion for evil. May God in His grace en - lack of forgiveness to become bitter - iday events in different ways from oth - able us to do just that! # ness. er families. Traditions will draw people together and create a sense of be - GENEROSITY longing for everyone. This is one of the more difficult traits Some people are under the impres - to illustrate in any relationship. It sion that traditions must be expensive Integrity Matters seems normal to consider what we are in order to be meaningful. That is sim - (Continued from page 39) going to gain instead of giving without ply not true. Some of the most mean - any thought of reward or compensa - ingful times I had as a child occurred tion. However, to be responsible when I participated in a family tradition the rich young ruler to keep the com - adults, generosity must become part as simple as a Sunday dinner or a mandments (Matt. 19:16-22). Murder, of our character. Wednesday night prayer service or a Being generous does not mean sim - including abortion, is not to be tolerated. Christmas Eve service at church. ply giving things that are tangible— Sexual immorality, including homosexu - A tradition can be something as such as money or food or clothing—to al behavior, is not to be tolerated. We are simple as lazy Saturday mornings sip - a person. It can also include giving our to be kind, to be firm in following the ping coffee and eating doughnuts at a time, love, attention, and sympathy to good, and to agree with our Lord. # pastry shop. It can be a time for father those we meet. True, godlike generos - and son or mother and daughter to If you have a question you want an - ity causes us to feel empathy toward swered, send it to: Teen Scene, P.O. those we meet. This, in turn, motivates just spend an afternoon together. All Box 6059, Cleveland, Ohio 44101, or us to seek ways to meet their needs. traditions should be followed regular - e-mail us at theoed@uniongospel The word “generosity” is not a bibli - ly or for particular reasons. cal term, but the concept is clearly If you do not currently have tradi - press.com (subject line: Teen Scene). shown throughout Scripture. Jesus’ tions in your family, create them! You life and death are our greatest exam - will discover that children and teens ple. He taught us to do good by giving often have many ideas about what and expecting nothing in return (Luke they would like to do as family tradi - Nightly Ritual 6:35). This must be incorporated es - tions. (Continued from page 45) pecially into the family unit, but is also essential in any relationship. Matthew SUMMARY 10:8 states, “Freely you have received, The eight items listed above are by and an adult. Turning to the Bible be - freely give.” Because God has been so no means offered as an exhaustive list comes a common practice, not a last- generous to us, we should be gener - of important elements of a family ditch effort to make a good decision. ous to others. meeting or gathering. As a family, you Prayer time can start simple and be - may add elements to this list and come more in-depth as your child gets COMMUNICATION modify the list in a way that bests suits older. When he hears you pray and ex - Communicating is as much listening your family. periences the reverence in your pos - as it is talking. A failure to communi - No two families are exactly alike, nor ture and voice, he will be naturally cate verbally will most likely lead to un - will all families have children the same guided to do the same. He will look to happiness and misunderstandings; age. Thus, what is included in one you and mimic you as he learns to pray being inattentive to a person can family might not work in another fam - and apply Scripture. It is important to cause similar problems. Small issues ily. It is my hope that you will pray and be in God’s Word so that you can com - grow into larger ones, and these are be open to the leading of the Holy Spir - fortably model a sincere heart. But if not easily resolved without a display of it as you begin to meet together as a any of you lack wisdom, you can ask anger and/or resentment. family unit. # God, who gives liberally. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (175) 47 Men’s Priorities

BY FRANK SCHMITT , E D.D.

BOUT thirty-five years ago, as I The priorities I suggest will not be fine us by it. We are defined by our re - A approached my fortieth birthday agreed on by everyone; however, lationship with Him. The work He gives (and middle age), I began some serious read ing and reflecting on them will us is just part of that relationship. But reflection about my life; where I was go - give added insight for developing your the more diligent I am at work, the ing, and what I wanted to accomplish. I own personal value system. more success I can achieve and the had been teaching at Liberty Baptist better I can provide for my family. Theological Seminary for several years. GOD One of the courses I taught every year During the time that I was dealing SELF was Christian Leadership, which includ - with setting priorities for the rest of my Self is hard to place. Perhaps it ed a unit on time management. I felt life, my pastor, Dr. Jerry Falwell, was should be last, as we are told to always strongly that time management needed sending out thousands of lapel pins put ourselves last; but there might be to relate to goals and priorities. with two words on them: “Jesus First.” some things to consider. The Bible I have come to realize that this was This was based on Matthew 6:33: teaches that Christians should die to not a unique experience; instead, it is “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and self, but it also teaches that we should really a lifetime pursuit for all men. his righteousness.” The individual’s care for our bodies, which are the tem - Young men in high school and college personal relationship with God should ple of the Holy Spirit. Men who refuse are struggling to decide what they will be first, with no other purposes of any to take time off for some physical exer - do with their lives and what career path kind before Him. If a man is really go - cise, personal recreation, and personal they should follow. In the middle years, ing to make Jesus Christ his Lord and mental enrichment are putting self at men are struggling to remember what Master, then Jesus must be the most too low a priority. Those types of men they wanted to accomplish in life and to important thing in his life. often experience burnout. People who decide whether there is still time to do leave self out of their priorities may find it. A term that has been used often in re - FAMILY that their minds and bodies are be - cent years is “bucket list.” This term has Family should be second, because coming worn-out and useless vessels its origin in the phrase “to kick the a person is more directly responsible long before they should. If we take care bucket,” or die. Crossing things off a for his family than for any other group of our bodies, we can live longer, more bucket list means accomplishing some of people. Dr. Jerry Falwell strongly effective lives and accomplish more for desired goals before you die. emphasized this and often said, “What God in our vocations and with our fam - “What to do” is really a lifelong pur - does it profit a preacher if he should ilies, Lord willing. suit. Discovering what to do today, this save the whole world, and lose his week, this year, the next decade, and own son?” A man is to love his wife as THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY the rest of our lives is something with Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25). This must be considered in our value which we all struggle. The Bible never says to love your job system. Not all Christians go out into the Getting back to my story, while as Christ loved the church. The Bible world as foreign missionaries, but the struggling with the idea of priorities for plainly says that a man is to provide for commission Jesus gave us means to be my life I attended a conference and and protect his family. For example, witnesses for Him in our Jerusalem and used my free time there to write about I Timothy 5:8 says, “But if any provide Judeas and all the way to the uttermost twenty pages of goals that I wanted to not for his own, and specially for those parts of the world (Acts 1:8). accomplish in my life. I quickly realized of his own house, he hath denied the Every man who has trusted in Christ that I needed to organize all my goals faith, and is worse than an infidel.” as his Saviour has received a spiritual in some fashion. I had read about us - gift (I Cor. 12:7, 11), and that gift is to ing priorities and numbering goals or VOCATION be used to build up the church. We are alphabetically listing my goals. There In our society, a man’s identity is re - not to neglect assembling with other were too many goals that seemed to lated to his vocation. Men identify Christians at church (Heb. 10:25), and be very important, and listing them nu - themselves as preacher, teacher, we should look for opportunities there merically or alphabetically did not lawyer, truck driver, carpenter, and so to serve the living and true God work for me. Something else was on. When being introduced, a man will (I Thess. 1:9). needed. almost always include his vocation. When a person starts deciding on the It is through our vocation that we THE WORLD COMMUNITY relative importance or priority of his can provide for our families. It is im - We are instructed in Scripture to be goals, he gets right into his personal portant that we be diligent in our vo - good citizens, to pay our taxes, and to value system, which involves his per - cations, and that means doing all that pray for and follow our political lead - sonal priorities. What things should be is expected and a little bit more. I think ers. In the United States, we can also the most important in a Christian’s life? the principle Jesus taught of going the have a voice in the election of our po - In reality, before he can begin to deter - second mile (Matt. 5:41) relates litical leaders. There are many worth - mine the priority of various goals in his strongly to our work. Of course, even while places where we can volunteer life, he must know what the priorities though work is a means to an end and our time and talents and where we can are in his personal value system. a blessing from God, He does not de - be a witness for our Saviour. # 48 (176) Lifelines for the Soul

BY KRISTIN REEG

AVE you ever longed to be under- it has been said that some people are again that God will never leave us or H stood? Have you wished for a so heavenly minded that they are of forsake us. safe place to expose your heart? Have no earthly good, it could also be ar - The Bible tells us, “Confess your you ever wondered whether true gued that others are so intense in ful - faults one to another, and pray one for friendship exists? filling earthly spiritual obligations that another, that ye may be healed. The ef - Women were created for relation - they too are no earthly good. “The fruit fectual fervent prayer of a righteous ship; yet today’s women wear so many of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long - man availeth much” (Jas. 5:16). different hats that it is often difficult to suffering, gentleness, goodness, Once an atmosphere is established find time to cultivate friendships. This faith, meekness, temperance: against and people feel safe, they will begin to is why having a women’s ministry in such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22-23). expose their hearts. As we learn to be our local churches is so vital. When women fellowship, we do more transparent with each other, we The writer of Hebrews urged, “Let us what we do best—talk. We will un - will confess to one another. Ministry is consider one another to provoke unto doubtedly share our hearts. We may not a place of judgment or condemna - love and to good works: not forsaking not reveal our deepest secrets the first tion. It is a place of love where we keep the assembling of ourselves together, time we meet, but we will offer some no record of wrongs. We do just what as the manner of some is; but exhort - level of transparency. A wise woman James said—we pray for one another ing one another: and so much the once said, “What the Lord reveals, He that we may be healed. God can do in more, as ye see the day approaching” heals.” one prayer session what therapists (10:24-25). Sometimes we are unaware of what cannot do in years! We live in evil days. If the churches daggers are buried in our hearts. There What is the difference between do not provide an avenue for women are areas of our hearts that have died, women’s ministry and friends getting to build relationships, they will find and we are afraid to love again, to trust together? When we gather with our friendships elsewhere. However, such again, to be ourselves again until friends, we are often exclusive, choos - associations may not be ones that will someone lovingly pulls the daggers ing only a few whom we want to be edify and encourage them to press on out. Sometimes women can be equat - around. When we do ministry, we are in the Christian life. ed to Lazarus after Jesus resurrected all-inclusive, extending the invitation What does a women’s ministry look him. The man was full of life; yet he to all who may wish to attend. Hope - like? Some ministries are geared to - was still covered in death. “And he fully, those who come to a women’s ward a certain stage of life, like Moth - (Lazarus) that was dead came forth, ministry will become friends. ers of PreSchoolers (MOPS) or Chris - bound hand and foot with grave - Many people can slip in and out of tian Business Women. Other clothes: and his face was bound about our churches on a Sunday morning ministries are based on common in - with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, without ever speaking to a single soul. terests, like quilting, cooking, or Loose him, and let him go” (John Lonely, maybe afraid of rejection, scrapbooking. Still others are formed 11:44). searching for religion yet needing a re - for the seasoned and the studious, Lazarus needed assistance remov - lationship, these people are looking such as in-depth Bible studies. There ing the graveclothes so that he could for a vital sign of hope. They just need are also women’s groups that just get move freely. We too need help letting a reason to keep going. Too often we together expecting God, in His mercy, go of our past, our pain, and our fears look at I Corinthians 13, the love chap - to change them. No matter what the so that we can move forward with ter of the Bible, and view it as the way format, you can guarantee that the Christ. We help each other with our we should treat our spouses. The def - women will laugh, talk, and pray. truthful conversations, our testi - inition of “love” provided there is to be Sometimes we get so focused on monies, and the Word of God. applied to everyone we meet, know, studying the Word and striving to be No ministry is complete without the and love, not to just a select few. “good” Christians that we forget to element of prayer. It is essential not A women’s ministry that strives to have fun. Romans 14:17 says, “The only for the ministry but also so that love others as Christ loved can be a life - kingdom of God is not meat and drink; lives can be transformed. We do not line for the soul of the wounded. Keep but righteousness, and peace, and joy always need another sermon; some - it simple. Do not try to do too much in in the Holy Ghost.” times we just need to hear someone a single meeting. Be flexible, and allow Joy and laughter can soften even standing in the gap on our behalf. the Lord to guide the discussion and the hardest of hearts, which is why Sometimes our souls are so empty prayer time. Watch what God will do in they are so essential to ministry. and dry that we just need someone to and through those who participate in a Laughter creates an invisible bond remind us that God loves us with an women’s ministry. Lives will change, that enables people to feel safe. While everlasting love. We need to be told and God will be glorified! # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (177) 49 First Word in Ministry cook and decorate. Use their culinary and creative skills. Do not forget to in - (Part 2) clude women of all age-groups, mar - ried, single, and widowed. BY KATHY SCOTT ENCOURAGE GIFTS One thing Carol liked about the S I drove to the last session of papers. The local newspaper might Study ’n Share program was that it en - A Study ’n Share, which would in - even do an article about your group. couraged spiritual gifts. Women now clude a picnic brunch, I saw an older Contact the religion editor. use gifts (talents) they did not know woman raking grass with a large bam - WHO SHOULD BE IN CHARGE? they had because they never had a boo rake. Next to her was a small girl place to discover and use them. holding a bamboo rake that was just In a small church, there probably is When I was in a college church her size. not a woman in charge of ministry. group, we went to many Christian While they worked side by side, the Some pastors’ wives fulfill this role; service events. Through those oppor - girl had a wide smile as she mimicked others do not. If there is someone who tunities, I discovered some of my spir - her grandmother. She may not have ac - leads the women, go to her first. If she itual gifts. And as I used them, I dis - complished as much of the task of rak - catches the vision, you will have covered other gifts. ing up the grass, but she was having a gained an ally. If not, find someone great time trying. I immediately com - who will pray with you. Then approach SERVICE AND OUTREACH pared that scene to the Study ’n Share the pastor or the leader of your church. sessions I had attended the last se - My church is large, but it is only in Women also like to serve. Provide mester—the younger learning from the the last decade that we have had a opportunities for them in the church older: a picture of Titus 2:3-5 in action. women’s ministry leader. Before that and in the community. They could pro - It is a blessing to learn from older time, most programs were started by vide funeral lunches and church meals Christian women who have tested someone with a burden or a vision. for special functions. Find out whether God’s truths over a lifetime and found a local hospital or other organization victory. They know the Lord as we long WIDOWS has sewing projects in which your to know Him. They encourage us by In my large church, which has 250 women’s group could serve. example and show the importance widows, it took a widow to start a min - Some of these activities also provide and necessity of prayer. istry for widows. Despite the teaching women with a way to reach out, espe - For a long time I had wanted women of Scripture (cf. Jas. 1:27), widows are cially at community events. No church like Betty W., who raised quite a few still neglected in many churches. or group is ever too large to grow. Bible missionaries from her nine children, to In the early church, the Hellenist study programs are an excellent place teach the younger women of my church widows were overlooked in the daily to invite others. Sue asked many how she did it. What might have hap - ministry. When they complained, the women to join her each week and saw pened if we had had a Bible study pro - twelve apostles did not rebuke them a number of these women come to faith gram back when I was younger? but rather took care of their situation in the Lord Jesus Christ. At the picnic brunch, however, I was (cf. Acts 6:1-2). also impressed when Marian B. testi - My other reason for citing this ex - PRAYER fied that the younger women had ample is to show that a new ministry Prayer might be hard for some to do, taught her. This too expresses what may be more than the pastor can han - and prayer groups are often the least the church should be to its members: dle. Whether he leads a small flock or attended services of a church, but do I love you, you love me; I encourage a large one, he is busy. The apostles not let that stop you from praying and you, you encourage me; I exhort you, were in a similar situation with the gathering others to pray. God answers you exhort me (cf. Heb. 10:24-25). If I tremendous growth of the church in prayers whether there are many or could make any improvement in Study Jerusalem. So they appointed other few. Jesus promised to be in the com - ’n Share, it would be to add one word men to handle the care of widows. pany of two or three who gather to - to its name—“care.” While they should not have to seek to gether in His name (Matt. 18:20). Some who read this may be put off by get care from the church, widows often Carol began her vision for women the thought of not knowing how you do have to. What practical ways can a with prayer. For several months, she could adapt this program to a small church minister to widows? Initiate so - prayed to God to allow her to launch a church. cials just for them. Provide transporta - Bible study group. After her vision was tion to church and for errands. Help care approved, Carol still prayed—this time SIZE for their property. Give financial guid - with other women. Begin small, and pray for growth. ance. Be alert to those who are recent - Prayer is not new to the church. But Your core group might be five ladies ly widowed. See to it that they receive often, like widows, prayer is neglect - instead of twelve or more. Actually, cards or flowers for special occasions, ed. The success of any ministry begins five ladies might be your whole Bible and invite them to church with you. on our knees. study program, but God can grow your The first word in ministry for women faith and your numbers. Invite ladies SOCIALS is “pray”; it is foundational. Then from the neighborhood and even oth - Most women enjoy social events. study, share, care, grow, serve, social - er churches where study programs are Plan teas, garden parties, book clubs, ize, reach out, and encourage gifts not available. Advertise in community and outreach events. Women like to and each other. # 50 (178) Small but Weighty

BY CHARLOTTE U. S YME

HO hath despised the day of of the apostle’s ministry in Ephesus. Paul’s letter, in Philemon’s Christian W small things?” (Zech. 4:10), It is generally believed that during charity, and especially in the mercy of asked the Prophet Zechariah. Our those Ephesian years, Paul and his new Master. Lord must love even the smallest some of his converts also evangel - In his letter, Paul did not downplay things of His creation, and He found ized the neighboring towns of Onesimus’s guilt or demand that them worthy to teach some important Laodicea and other churches named Philemon overlook any debt. He even lessons to us. For example, the spar - in Revelation 2 and 3. (Check your offered to pay it personally (Philemon row (Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7), the map of Paul’s missionary journeys to 1:18-19). He did not ask what seems ant, the coney, the locust, and the spi - find Colosse at the southeast end of to have been in his heart—that Ones - der (Prov. 6:6; 30:25-28) are all con - these churches.) imus be set free and allowed to return sidered worthy of our attention. Paul intended the Colossian letter to to Rome to continue ministering with Such small creatures were not the be read also at Laodicea. The leader of Paul (cf. vss. 13-14). Lord’s only means of packaging His that church, Archippus, may have Paul had written to the Colossians big lessons in small containers. Scat - been a son of Philemon (Col. 4:17; to explain that all believers—regard - tered throughout His Word—among Philemon 1:2). less of nationality, wealth, position in such beloved giant works as Psalms, life, or former lifestyle—were united, Isaiah, and the Gospels—are five tiny ONESIMUS one body, in Christ (Col. 3:11; cf. 1:18; books of just one chapter each that Philemon’s runaway slave (and pos - 2:19). Now, with his relationship to teach us important truths. One of sibly thief) had made his way to Rome. Onesimus, he was demonstrating them, Obadiah, is in the Old Testa - He had come in contact with Chris - such acceptance to the congregation ment. The other four—Philemon, tians there and been converted. Hav - of which Onesimus would become a II and III John, and Jude—are in the ing somehow become acquainted part. New Testament. with Paul, he became a valued aide to Paul also had a special message for This article will consider an impor - the apostle, perhaps as a courier be - any servants in the congregation of the tant lesson to be found in the book of tween Paul and the local churches. Colossian church. They were to obey Philemon. It is one that every teacher Paul would have kept him if it would their masters and to perform their of the truth must take to heart. have been fair to Philemon (Philemon services as wholeheartedly as if they 1:13-14). were working for the Lord Himself BACKGROUND Now Onesimus was returning to the (Col. 3:22-24). By accepting Paul’s Paul, the author of this small epistle, scene of his crimes as one of the par - counsel and returning home to face was a prodigious letter writer. Except ty carrying Paul’s letters. his wrongs, Onesimus became a living for this brief example, all of his pre - Look at how Paul described him to example of that teaching. served correspondence was written to the local church—not as a reformed Paul also had a lesson for the mas - churches or pastors (Timothy and Ti - thief or a converted runaway but as “a ters. They were to deal justly with their tus) and discussed various matters of faithful and beloved brother, who is servants (Col. 4:1). In his personal let - doctrine, church discipline, and Chris - one of you” (Col. 4:9). ter to Philemon, however, he was ask - tian living. ing that Philemon go well beyond jus - At the time of this writing, Paul was THE LETTER tice by practicing the kind of mercy a prisoner in Rome, living under house In this personal letter to a dear friend and long-suffering that are becoming arrest but free to receive visitors (Acts that asked a huge favor, Paul is re - to a Christian (cf. Gal. 5:22). 28:30-31). It is generally accepted that vealed as a man of the utmost integri - Finally, Paul demonstrated the ex - Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, ty. In this smallest epistle, he has tent to which a believer could go in and Philemon were written during this demonstrated the same integrity that bearing another’s burdens (cf. Gal. period. his other writings describe as expect - 6:2). By calling attention to his per - ed of a follower of the Lord. It is clear sonal signature, he was legally binding PHILEMON, THE MAN that he would have liked to keep himself to pay Onesimus’s debt (Phile - The closing verses of the letter to Onesimus with him and continue to mon 1:18-19). It is safe to assume that the Colossian church shed some un - enjoy his services. Philemon never collected the debt. derstanding on Philemon, its small No doubt Onesimus needed a little Paul was undoubtedly the greatest companion book. Both epistles were persuading to understand that as a teacher the church has ever had after apparently sent by the same courier, follower of Christ, he needed to face our Lord Himself. In this very small let - Tychicus (Col. 4:7). the one he had sinned against, con - ter, written to make a personal request Philemon was an important citizen fess it, and make any possible restitu - of a friend, he taught by example the of Colosse and a leader of the church tion. He knew that his wronged mas - basic lesson every successful teacher there. They met in his house (Philemon ter had the legal right to punish him must learn and practice. Teach God’s 1:2). He was one of Paul’s converts (mutilate or torture) or kill him; so he Word without compromise, and prac - (vs. 19), possibly won during the years must have put a lot of confidence in tice it in every aspect of your life. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (179) 51 Common and Ordinary most of the missionaries I had heard about worked in Africa and told stories of dangerous people, animals, dis - BY DAVID A. H AMBURG eases, and so on, I was not so sure I wanted to do that. But this man had said I was born in Kansas. A year later, we whatever and wherever God chose. I re - moved to Denver. Five years later, Dad ally could not argue against that; so at and Mom split. Mom took my sister and the end of the invitation, I responded. me to Massachusetts. During this time, I did not tell anyone, but I knew I had I do not recall that we were involved in a made a commitment to Christ and church. Both Dad and Mom had reli - there could be no turning back. Where gious backgrounds, but spiritual things God would lead I did not know, but I were not that important to them. One knew wherever it was, He would sup - sidelight is that sixteen years later, they ply what was needed to do what He remarried. I was then able to say, “My wanted. parents got married the year after I did.” God led me to Washington Bible At some point, we began attending a College, where I met a lovely girl local Baptist church. During an evening named Sarah, who became my life service when I was nine, the pastor partner. We married after my third year. preached on the subject of judgment. I She was a year ahead of me, so, as knew I was a sinner, and from what he many of us said, we struggled to get said I was headed for a terrible future. I through college by the “sweat of our responded to his invitation at the end of frau” (a pun about a wife working to David and Sarah Hamburg his message. The pastor counseled me help the husband through college). from Romans 10:9-10. I admit that I did After graduation, I was called to an Y wife and I were in Ukraine on a not really understand much of what he independent Baptist church. At the M short-term missions trip at a was talking about, but I knew I had made same time, I enrolled in the brand-new Bible college. One Sunday, we went to a commitment to Christ. Capital Bible Seminary developed by church, as was our regular practice. My spiritual growth was not spectac - Washington Bible College. The service was led by two men. The ular. I simply continued going to Sunday Since then, I have served as pastor pastor was named Slavic, and the oth - school, church, and the junior youth of two other churches, one in Queens, er man was named Volodya. Volodya group. We had family devotions, but New York, and the other for twenty- had picked us up and was now driving these were more endured than enjoyed. seven years in northeast Connecticut. us back to our apartment. My wife I read a Bible storybook a few times, but God blessed us with two children, a son asked him how he had come to faith. my relationship with God was mostly we adopted from Colombia, South Volodya’s car was small. He and our mechanical. I do not recall reading the America, and a daughter who was a interpreter were in the front, and we were Bible much. After all, it was a big book surprise in our old age. Our friends re - squashed into the backseat. With great with small print and no pictures. Comic ferred to us as Abraham and Sarah. enthusiasm and a loud voice—using books seemed more interesting to me. In 1995, our missions conference fea - both hands and weaving through city Growing up without a father in the tured short-term missions and ministries traffic—Volodya told us that one Satur - home was not easy. One of the bless - available to retirees. One speaker told day a few years earlier he had had an aw - ings of a small church was that we about going to Ukraine to help open a ful feeling of dread and anxiety. No one knew everyone. Some of the men were Bible college. He said that the courses else was home, and he was very fright - willing to talk to a young boy. Later, dur - would be taught by visiting professors in ened. Somehow in his misery he re - ing high school, one man I knew was re - two-week modules. Then he said, “Your membered that one should call upon the covering from tuberculosis. He was pastor and wife should go and teach.” Lord. He did. The next day he went to home during the day. I often stopped by Sarah and I thought that would be a church and repented, which is the way his home, and he discipled me, even fine thing to do. We felt sure we could Ukrainians speak of receiving Christ. though neither of us called it that. handle the airfare. When we talked with We marveled how God had touched During my high school days, our the people involved, we learned that his heart. He had grown up in atheis - church sponsored a Christian Service they wanted teachers to bring a contri - tic communism, without much gospel Brigade battalion for boys ages twelve bution to help with the school’s expens - input. Now he was an enthusiastic through eighteen. It offered Bible es. We had often told others to pray and Christian, a leader in his church, and a study and activities designed to de - trust God to supply, but all of a sudden bold witness for Christ. His testimony velop Christian leaders. we hesitated. We wondered whether we magnified God and His grace. No, he When I was fifteen, I went to a Brigade would be able to meet the requirements. did not say that he had been saved Camp in Maine for three weeks. One Finally, after three years of hesitation,

from great debauchery, but his life had day the evening campfire meeting was we decided to put our faith into action been transformed. held inside because of rain. The speak - and sent letters seeking prayer and

Some people have dramatic stories of er challenged us to serve God, and he funds for the school. God graciously deliverance from great depths of sin. Oth - closed with the invitation “Would you be supplied—not once but twelve times. er stories are less spectacular, and those willing to serve Christ, wherever He God gave us great experiences, and to - may be the norm. Mine is like that—sort might want?” Earlier, I had thought God day we have many friends who are serv - of ordinary. But how did I get to Ukraine? might want me to be a missionary. Since ing God in the former Soviet Union. # 52 (180) The Power of Prayer

BY WILMA J. W ILLIAMS

NE of the blessings of knowing ceive but is also our spiritual Counselor. Since we have faith to trust Him with O God is the privilege of answered Jesus also stated that we are to ask the salvation of our souls, we should prayer. And to me, the most effective God to help us not to be led into temp - trust Him with all matters in our lives. prayer is personal prayer. That is when tation—into the devil’s trap. Satan de - If we fail to consult Him, our lack of I, alone, pray directly to God for some - sires to trip us up, causing us to stum - prayer could result in a lifetime of thing that concerns me. Of course, we ble and fall into sin (cf. I Pet. 5:8). heartache—the sad penalty of not can and should pray corporately and Jesus assures us, though, that we can finding God’s will in every situation publicly, but the Word does admonish ask and expect our loving Heavenly and circumstance. us, “When thou prayest, enter into thy Father to deliver us from evil (Matt. How many of us know sincere, won - closet (private place of prayer), and 6:13). What Jesus taught His disciples derful Christians who accepted the when thou hast shut thy door, pray to in the Lord’s Prayer is for believers to - first job that was offered to them, thy Father which is in secret; and thy day. bought a house before they were fi - Father which seeth in secret shall re - Christians have in Jesus Christ the nancially secure, moved to a new city ward thee openly” (Matt. 6:6). greatest example of someone who only for monetary gain, or perhaps In prayer, we seek divine wisdom prayed to the Father. He prayed that made the biggest mistake of all—mar - from the One who has all the answers. His disciples would be one as He and rying someone without first seeking If we want to obey and please God by the Father are one (John 17:21). He the Father’s will in prayer? When we doing His will, we must seek His face. prayed in solitude (Mark 1:35). He do not ask, we are on our own. This is In our times of greatest need, we can prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane why Jesus instructs us to ask God that confidently take our concerns directly before His crucifixion (Matt. 26:39), His will (not ours) be done on earth (in to the Father in earnest prayer. The and before He ascended back to our personal lives) as it is in heaven Bible states, “After this manner . .. heaven, He prayed that the Father (Matt. 6:10). pray” (Matt. 6:9); and “whatsoever would send the Comforter (the Holy How do we apply what Jesus in - things ye shall ask in prayer” (21:22); Spirit) to be with and dwell within the structed His disciples over two thou - and “his ears are open unto their cry hearts of each and every believer sand years ago to our lives today? I (prayers)” (Ps. 34:15). “The effectual (John 14:16). believe we begin by understanding fervent prayer of a righteous man It may come as a surprise that the that there is no distance or space in availeth much” (Jas. 5:16). Son of God prayed, but He did. If He God’s time frame. Jesus Christ is the When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to needed to pray, how much more do same yesterday, today, and forever teach them how to pray, He also gave we? The morning that the Master (Heb. 13:8). Whatever He said then is us a model in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus chose His twelve disciples, He had valid today. Whatever the early disci - instructed us to acknowledge our re - spent the previous night alone in ples could pray, we can pray today. lationship to our Father. He said, prayer, seeking His Father’s will (Luke Whatever their needs were back then, “When (not if) ye pray” (Matt. 6:7), 6:12). If Jesus knew He needed to pray our needs are basically the same to - “pray ye: Our Father” (vs. 9). Prayer is before making a life-changing deci - day. So when Jesus told His followers based on our relationship with the Fa - sion, so should we. what to pray, we can put ourselves in ther, and that relationship comes from There are some hindrances to our their place and pray the same prayers. being born again. Because we are prayers. One of them is refusing to for - For many years, I have kept a daily Christians, we can pray directly to our give others. Jesus sternly warns us journal in which are highlighted an - Father without any human intercessor. that forgiving others is as much a part swers to my prayers. Every child of Jesus also told His disciples that it of prayer as asking Him for things. As God should have testimonies to God’s was their Father in heaven whom they a matter of fact, He lets us know that faithfulness through answered were addressing, not any other person if we want our prayers answered, not prayers. or thing in heaven or on earth. Christian holding another person’s transgres - I was going on thirty years old and believers, unlike those who worship sions against him is a must (Mark had never been married. To make a false gods, do not pray to statues, dead 11:25). We are praying when we ask long story short, when I sought God’s ancestors, idols, or anything made by God to forgive us our trespasses. We will concerning marriage, He brought man’s hands. We pray to the living God, are also praying when we say that we the man I would marry into my life. the Creator of heaven and earth, the forgive those who trespass against us That was over thirty-three years ago. only one capable of hearing and an - (Matt. 6:15). It goes without saying that prayer is swering our prayers. When we pray, we On this Christian journey, we will an integral part of the believer’s spiritu - acknowledge our trust in and depend - have difficult choices and decisions to al life. Prayer is our lifeline to the Father ence on our Heavenly Father. He not make that only the all-wise and all- and should be considered even more only is the source of everything we re - knowing Father can help us with. necessary than our daily bread. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (181) 53 The I AMs of the Gospel of John

BY JOHN METZGER

E cannot fully understand the these lampstands symbolized the I AM THE WAY, AND THE TRUTH, W significance of Jesus’ I AM state - Shekinah-presence of the Lord. It was AND THE LIFE ments without going into the back - during this time that Yeshua said, “I am This saying in John 14:6 gives us the ground of an earlier I AM statement. It all the light of the world” (John 8:12). He is nature, the will, and office of Christ. He starts in Exodus 3:14 when Moses the Shekinah-glory of God, the One is the Way—the only way—and no one asked the name of the One speaking to who met with Moses on Mount Sinai can approach the Father except him from the burning bush. Three and gave the Law. This is a powerful through Him (cf. Acts 4:12). Picture the names are used to describe who the statement. tabernacle entrance. There was one Speaker from the burning bush is. In way in to make the offering for sin, and verses 2 and 4, the Speaker is called the I AM THE DOOR there was only one way for the priest Angel (Messenger) of the Lord, the Lord In John 10:7, 9, Yeshua’s statement is to enter the tabernacle building itself, (Yahweh), and God (Elohim). God, who in the context of a shepherd and a where God’s presence dwelled as the spoke to Moses, said His name was I sheepfold. He is the door to the sheep - Shekinah-glory. AM THAT I AM, meaning He is the eter - fold. The shepherd becomes the door Second, He is the Truth. There is no nal, ever-present, and self-existent One. while he inspects the sheep as they re - falsehood or unrighteousness in Him In the Gospel of John, Yeshua (Jesus) turn from grazing. He is also the protec - at all (cf. Jer. 23:5-6). He is the em - declared He is Yahweh. He deliberately tor of the sheep at night. Nothing can bodiment of truth. Third, again He is echoed the theme of I AMs that are enter the sheepfold unless it goes the Life, the One who breathed life into unique to Jehovah, therefore express - through him. You cannot get to the Fa - mankind and made us living souls ing that He is God. Some in the crowds ther except through Jesus, the Door. (John 1:3; cf. Gen. 2:7; Zech. 12:1). listening caught His intent, and some of them became hostile. We will examine I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD I AM THE TRUE VINE the I AMs found in the Gospel of John, In John 10:11, Yeshua stated that He In John 15:1, we read that Yeshua giving the Jewish background from the is the Good Shepherd. He is the One presented Himself as the True Vine. Hebrew Scriptures of each. who shepherds Israel. The prophets Jer - The Jews were familiar with the sym - emiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah all refer - bolism Christ used here. In Jeremiah I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE enced the God of Israel as their Shep - 2:21, Israel was called a “noble vine” In John 6:35 (cf. vss. 22-59), Yeshua herd. Now, the Second Person of the and the “right seed.” But it was also a stated that He is the Bread of Life, who Godhead pictured Himself as Israel’s “degenerate plant” because of its came down from heaven to meet spiri - Shepherd. The Shepherd of Zechariah stubborn, sinful ways. Christ is the tual needs. Throughout the wilderness 11, who is betrayed for thirty pieces of most excellent Vine. From Him, His wanderings, God gave the children of silver, is the same Shepherd who is disciples receive the nourishment Israel manna to meet the physical need equal to the Father in Zechariah 13:7. needed for spiritual strength. of food. It was the Second Person of the The Father told the sword (the divine jus - Godhead who was interacting with Is - tice of God) to slay the Shepherd. The BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM rael—not just in the wilderness but Shepherd of Israel became the vicarious Back in John 8:58, Yeshua made a throughout Scripture. volunteer sacrifice for sin (Isa. 53). He statement that infuriated the Phar - truly did give His life for the sheep. isees: “Before Abraham was, I am.” I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD They understood clearly what He was In John 8:12, Yeshua called Himself I AM THE RESURRECTION AND saying, and they took up stones to the Light of the World. As John record - THE LIFE stone Him to death. From rabbinic Ju - ed this passage, he was referencing a In John 11:25, Yeshua told Martha daism’s perspective, He was blas - subtheme of light and darkness that is that He is the Resurrection and the pheming God by making Himself equal evident throughout his Gospel. But the Life. There are two points to be made with God. They clearly understood the context of this passage has a direct here. First, He is the Resurrection. term and its reference to Exodus 3:14. connection to Exodus 3:14. The context When He calls the dead to come forth, in the Gospel was the Feast of Taberna - as He did to Lazarus, they come. He is I AM, AND THEY FELL TO THE cles. During this feast, there were two the One who is involved in all the fu - GROUND important ceremonies. One was the ture resurrections of all the righteous In John 18, Yeshua asked the cohort pouring out of water from the Pool of saints from both the Hebrew Scrip - of Roman soldiers whom they wanted, Siloam into a silver basin beside the al - tures and the New Testament. and they said, “Jesus of Nazareth” (vs. tar in the temple. The other ceremony The second aspect of His statement is 5). He responded by saying, “I am he.” was the illumination of the temple. Dur - that He is the Life. Notice the reoccur - But the “he” is not in the original text. The ing this ceremony, the religious leaders rence of this word in I AM the Bread of I AM statement was a statement of de - would erect four large lampstands in the Life and I AM the Good Shepherd who ity respecting His name “Jehovah.” No - vast outer court of the temple (the Court gives His life for His sheep. Now He is the tice the response of the Roman soldiers. of Women). In the evening, they would I AM the Resurrection and the Life. This They fell backward to the ground by His light them and say that the lighting of will be further developed in the next I AM. (Continued on page 61) 54 (182) Ways to Share Faith in Christ

BY CAROLINE L. K RISE

PERSONAL MINISTERING work. He was ninety-six years old, and I hope that souls were saved EXPERIENCES he was blind. Despite his physical tri - through that ministry. However, look - Since childhood, I have had a gift for als, he never seemed sad or despon - ing back, I wish we had done some fol - writing poetry. The Lord has blessed dent. Joe always had a smile for every - low-up. Even though that was years me with many opportunities to share one who greeted him. We talked a lot, ago, I still feel the joy that we experi - my poetry with others. I use it as a wit - and he told me about his love for golf. enced in what was my first ministry as nessing tool. Several nursing homes I shared with him my love for Jesus. a new Christian. have invited me to read to their resi - Joe told me he too had trusted in Je - dents. God has given me this ministry, sus as the Lord and Saviour of his life! PREPARATIONS FOR MINISTRY and it has been a blessing to me. One evening I went up to Joe’s room Prayer is essential before starting Whenever I visit nursing homes, the to check on him. I opened the door a any new ministry. God’s Word teach - Lord impresses upon my heart the little to see whether he had fallen es, “For without me ye can do nothing” need to share a Bible verse and the asleep yet. As I peeked in, there he (John 15:5). Attempting a ministry Scripture reference after each poem I was, sitting on his bed with his arms without seeking God’s guidance and read. All of the poetry I read at nursing reaching upward, praying aloud to power will not bring good results or homes is scriptural and uplifting so God. That image of him praying to his blessings. that it might encourage these dear Lord and Saviour has stayed with me I offer a prayer for the individuals I folks to come to know Jesus as their ever since that night. will be ministering to and trust that Joe died two months later. He was Saviour. God will prepare me for His use. I pray content and ready to die. He left me I often find that some of the resi - that God will also prepare the hearts of with a quote from a Helen Steiner Rice dents I visit already know the Lord. the unsaved to bring them to Christ poem titled “When I Must Leave You.” This is a blessing to me, but I also find and that Christians will be encour - The line was “And never, never be that these fellow Christians need aged. afraid to die, / For I am waiting for you some encouragement in their lives due When preparing my poetry and an in the sky.” accompanying Bible verse, I type up to the situations in which they find I shall remember my ministry at the both in large print to make it easier on themselves. nursing homes for as long as I live. Of my eyes. Doing this helps me read During one of my visits, a dear old - course, I mostly look forward to the er woman took my hand and looked time when I will see Jesus face-to- without mistakes. me in the eyes as tears of joy fell down face. “Then we which are alive and re - I ask the Lord to help me compose her cheeks. She knew that God loved main shall be caught up together with at least four new poems monthly. I also her, and my heart overflowed with joy them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in search for poetry by other Christian to be able to encourage her in God’s the air: and so shall we ever be with the writers. love for her. Lord” (I Thess. 4:17). My neighbor gives me copies of Our There are people everywhere who In my teenage years, a dear Sunday Daily Bread in large print to pass out need to hear about the Lord. I have school teacher invited me to share in a among the residents. I also take jigsaw found that being willing to do one’s ministry with her. She had seven dif - puzzles to leave in the nursing home share of work and take on responsibil - ferent paperback books that were in - for anyone to enjoy. ity is one way of showing God’s char - tended as tools in winning souls to Some of the residents come to me acter to those who do not know Christ. Christ. The books also taught how to with requests for prayer. It is always Character is important to people. grow as a new Christian and have real good to inform your church about the Hard work and strong character can purpose in life. times that you will be reading at the begin conversations that lead to wit - We went door-to-door selling the nursing homes so that your church nessing for the Lord. It is the Lord who books for a reasonable price. Before family can be praying for you as you instills in us the spirit to work hard for we set out to do that, however, we minister to the residents’ spiritual His glory. prayed. We asked God to use us and needs. When I worked in a nursing home to use the books in the lives of the Any way that we can help people years ago, I once took care of an eld - people in the neighborhood where we come to the knowledge of God and erly man named Joe. My work with were distributing them. We explained the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, on the him turned into a ministry. While car - that what we charged for the paper - cross can be a ministry. Encouraging ing for his physical needs, my heart back books went back into purchas - fellow Christians is also something was at prayer that this dear man might ing more books. We sold our books that we need to be doing. know Christ. and continued to pray for those who May God richly bless you in any way I was by his side regularly in my would read them. He chooses to use you! # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (183) 55 Unprofitable Servants

BY JACK RIGGS

N the Gospel of Luke, Christ gave work. The Greek term translated were to act toward God. The ser - I His disciples instructions on four “feeding cattle” (Luke 17:7) means vant’s attitude expected on the hu - matters relating to discipleship. He taking care of sheep. Jesus asked man level was transferred to the rela - first warned about the danger of whether any of His disciples would tell tionship between the Lord and His causing someone to stumble into this servant to recline at the table to servants. God exercises His sover - doubt (17:1-2). It would be better if eat. Would a servant’s master have eign right to command His disciples the offender were dead than that he prepared an evening meal for his ser - to obey Him as He chooses. The dis - should cause someone else to falter vant? ciples are to do all that the Lord ex - in his faith. Second, a person must be Jesus answered the question with pects of them. They cannot pick and forgiven, regardless of how many “And will not rather” (Luke 17:8), choose what to obey. times he sins against you, if he re - which we can paraphrase as “but in - When the disciples had done what pents each time after being rebuked stead, to the contrary.” In contrast to was required of them, they were not to (vss. 3-4). the master preparing supper for the think that they should be rewarded in Third, if giving unlimited forgiveness servant, the servant would prepare a special manner. Christ instructed proves to be difficult, the need is not the master’s evening meal. He was to them to say of themselves, “We are necessarily a greater quantity of faith gird up his clothes by tying a belt, or (Luke 17:5-6). A very small amount of sash, around himself so that he would unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10). faith—which the disciples already be able to move about freely to serve. The word “unprofitable” refers to be - had—in God’s commands can ac - The servant was to prepare and serve ing unworthy of special praise or com - complish tremendous things. Fourth, the meal and then wait until the mas - mendation. We cannot merit God’s fa - obedient disciples cannot boast ter had finished before he himself ate. vor. Service to Him profits us. Grace is about their service, for they have done The word “serve” refers to render - our reward. He bestows abundant that which was expected of them (vss. ing service or to help through special grace on us because we are of infinite 7-10). Jesus told a parable to illustrate duties (Luke 17:8). The word “dea - worth to Him. this last point. con” is derived from this term (Acts Jesus wanted His disciples, who The parable begins with the phrase 6:2; I Tim. 3:10). Once the meal was lived in a religious environment of re - “Which of you?” (Luke 17:7), which of - served, the servant was to give his wards and demerits, to understand ten introduced the Lord’s parables master personal attention until he had what it meant to be His servant. The (11:5; 12:25). Jesus asked the ques - finished eating and drinking. Then the Lord’s disciples are His servants who tion of those who may have had a ser - servant could eat his supper. His mas - labor faithfully (cf. I Cor. 4:2). Obedi - vant. When Jesus called James and ter’s wishes were his first priority. The ence is not the cause of merit but the his brother John, they left their father humble servant depicted in this para - fulfillment of duty (cf. 9:16). The Lord and the hired servants to follow Jesus ble did only what he had been ordered does not engage His disciples to serve (Mark 1:19-20). Whether they had had to do. Him in order to pay them for services servants in the past or not, the disci - Jesus asked His disciples whether rendered. No disciple can ever press a ples would have understood Christ’s the master would thank his servant for claim for doing his duty. illustration because they lived in that doing what he commanded him to do A disciple’s humble self-esteem is culture. (Luke 17:9). The answer was no. The another important theme in this para - The word “servant” (Luke 17:7) re - servant had done that which was his ble. Obedience to the Lord is a matter ferred to a slave. A servant was duty to do. When a servant completed of duty. God is gracious, but a disciple someone who was completely con - all his daily tasks, his master would not is not to presume on His grace. God trolled by his master. Paul often ap - give him attention as though he de - does grant rewards (Mark 9:41; I Cor. plied the term to himself as a servant served special rewards for finishing his of Christ (Rom. 1:1; Titus 1:1). The duties. 4:5), but He does so purely out of idea of a servant being bound to the Jesus applied the parable to His grace and not because of debt or mer - will of his master is a central thrust of disciples by comparing the servant’s it. the parable. The master would in - responsibility to his master to the Serving Christ as believers means struct his servant to prepare his sup - disciple’s service to God (Luke doing His will from our hearts (Eph. per so that he would dine before his 17:10). Jesus’ statement “So like - 6:6). Our obedience to His instruc - servant could eat ( Luke 17: 8). Christ wise ye” clearly placed His disciples tions is an expression of our love for applied the parable to the disciples in the role of the servant in the para - Him (John 14:15). Because we love as His servant (vs. 10). ble. Him, His commandments are not The parable begins with a scene The disciples knew that a servant burdensome (I John 5:3). All our near the end of daytime tasks. A ser - was to give priority to his master’s in - words and deeds are to glorify vant who had plowed a field or tend - structions. Now they had to face the Christ, and not for personal gain ed sheep returned from a full day’s reality that this is exactly the way they (Col. 3:17). # 56 (184) God’s Unlimited Blessings

BY JIMMIE OLIVER FLEMING

OU may have heard it said that if it the God and Father of our Lord Jesus you are a regular walker or jogger, for Y sounds too good to be true, it Christ, who hath blessed us with all spir - instance, there are others who will no - probably is. Sadly, some people also itual blessings in heavenly places in tice what you do. You are sharing use this expression in reference to Christ.” Ephesians 2:6 echoes the mes - God’s blessings by being faithful to God’s blessings. God’s blessings, sage: “And [God] hath raised us up to - your goal of walking or jogging every however, are absolutely true and also gether, and made us sit together in morning. What is more, in doing so unlimited. Given this, we should have heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” you can also thank God for the bless - no hesitancy about receiving or shar - Since these blessings are unlimited, ing of good health to be able to do this ing God’s blessings; nor should we we could go on forever sharing them! particular exercise. Stop and share hesitate to acknowledge our blessings And, yes, they will go on forever, be - God’s blessings with those you en - from God. In his well-known hymn cause we as Christians have trusted in counter. “Count Your Blessings,” Johnson Oat - Jesus as Lord and Saviour and will A friend of mine has shared with me man Jr. gave us the wise advice to re - someday live forever in heaven with Him. that she makes regular visits to a local mind ourselves of our blessings from First Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed be the gym to share God’s blessings. In addi - God instead of burdening our minds God and Father of our Lord Jesus tion to the physical benefits she re - with the cares of this world. Christ, which according to his abundant ceives personally, she also uses this Of course, our action of acknowl - mercy hath begotten us again unto a time to share blessings of hope and edging or counting our blessings is lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus encouragement, as stated in I Peter pleasing to God. So is our praise, as Christ from the dead.” Truly, even as 1:3. advised by Thomas Ken in his lyrics for Christ rose from the dead, so we too I try to do my part as well in sharing the hymn “Praise God from Whom All shall rise. What a glorious blessing! God’s hope and encouragement with Blessings Flow.” For now, however, God wants us to others. One specific way is making In Psalm 68:19, the psalmist gave “rise” in this earthly life to share with regular visits to area nursing homes, this advice as well. He also spoke to others the blessings we have received and especially on holidays. I am al - the fact that God’s blessings are un - from Him. We should strive to do this ways sure to find someone to share limited. “Blessed be the Lord, who dai - on a daily basis. Remembering the God’s blessings with. During this time, ly loadeth us with benefits, even the words of the psalmist in Psalm 68:19, I sometimes smile to myself and think, God of our salvation.” we can put this into action because we You sure don’t have to worry about Another Scripture that can be noted know that God daily gives us benefits anyone not being home when you get regarding the principle of receiving and blessings. there. and sharing God’s blessings is For example, I am receiving a bless - On a more serious note, I have Malachi 3:10. It states, “Bring ye all the ing in beginning my day with prayer. I am learned that some of the residents in tithes into the storehouse, that there blessed to recall the words in Psalm nursing homes do not get visitors. Per - may be meat in mine house, and prove 118:24, “This is the day which the Lord haps it is because they have no fami - me now herewith, saith the Lord of hath made.” After thanking God for His ly, or it may be that the family members hosts, if I will not open you the win - many blessings in my prayers, I also ask do not care enough to visit them. This dows of heaven, and pour you out a Him to show me ways that I can share makes me even more thankful for my blessing, that there shall not be room His blessings with others as I go about nursing home visits. Some of the resi - enough to receive it.” my daily routine. dents also have testimonies of God’s I think I will always remember the God showed me a specific way of blessings to share, and this motivates time when I had to make room in my being a blessing to my nine-year-old me to continue. schedule to accept a certain luncheon granddaughter Yelena by having lunch I usually visit one of the area nursing invitation. It was a blessing to be invit - with her at her school once a week. In homes with members of my church. ed and to go. I had been asked to give addition, I prepare the lunch at home These visits take place each month the blessing for the food, and God to share with her. that has a fifth Sunday. The pastor and gave me a prayer to share with the There is no scarcity of ways for any deacons hold a communion service group. “Dear Lord, we thank You for of us who are called God’s children to for the residents. the food we will receive today. May it share God’s blessings, specifically or The large number of residents at - nourish our minds as well as our bod - otherwise. Perhaps you have this op - tending the service shows that they ies. Help this physical food strengthen portunity on your job. A warm and look forward to this time of receiving us in telling others about Your spiritu - cheerful smile can do wonders in the and sharing God’s blessings as well. I al food. And as we offer this ‘grace,’ way of encouragement to coworkers. am thankful to be a part of their op - help us remember the grace that You Consider that one of them could be portunity for sharing! have already so freely bestowed upon the person whom you have prayed Indeed, God’s blessings are true us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” that God would allow you to encour - and unlimited. Let us not forget that In Ephesians 1:3, the Apostle Paul age. “[God] hath blessed us with all spiritu - gave this particular example of receiv - Another way to share God’s bless - al blessings in heavenly places in ing and sharing. He wrote, “Blessed be ings may be with your neighbors. If Christ” (Eph. 1:3). # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (185) 57 C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce

BY DEREK LEMAN

WAS a student in Bible college when ice. I could enjoy being in a church painter, a true artist in his younger I I first read C. S. Lewis’s The Great service for a few hours; but how would years, used to delight people with his Divorce. It had been recommended to it seem after days, weeks, and years? art. Then he grew older and more cyn - me by a friend, but I avoided it for a Could the great promise of God be ical. In those younger years, people while, thinking the premise of the book boring? loved his paintings. The reason, a res - was unbiblical. “It’s a story about res - Lewis is the one who first made me ident of heaven says, is that “you idents of hell taking a field trip to heav - realize that our future is not just the im - caught glimpses of Heaven in the en,” my friend had told me. mediate time after we die. Yes, we will earthly landscape” (Lewis). The world How could people from hell get a be present with the Lord while absent to come is not unlike this world. “The second chance or a trip to heaven? I from the body (II Cor. 5:8). Yet the ulti - heavens declare the glory of God” and wondered. mate promise is for a future in a glori - “day unto day uttereth speech” (Ps. Finally, my friend told me, “At the fied body and with the Lord: “For this 19:1-2). In this world God has made, end, Lewis says it was all a dream and corruptible must put on incorruption, we see peeks beyond the veil of the a warning sent by God to the main and this mortal must put on immortal - world He will remake in days to come. character in this life.” ity” (I Cor. 15:53). Reading The Great Divorce I am glad I gave in and read the Our glorious future is not just a white book, for it has become the most sig - sea of clouds. It is envisioned as hav - changed the way I look at the world. I nificant book besides the Bible in the ing everlasting hills, tall mountains, now see Psalm 37:4 as a verse about growth of my faith. What could possi - crystal waters, and banquets with the the ultimate promise concerning our bly be so important about a story of a saints in the presence of God. It is not eternal home: “Delight thyself also in dream of heaven? What could some - an unearthly existence but a new the Lord; and he shall give thee the de - one like C. S. Lewis contribute to my earthly one: “Nevertheless we, ac - sires of thine heart.” Proverbs 10:24 is understanding of life lived before cording to his promise, look for new a verse I think of often in daily life: “The God? heavens and a new earth, wherein desire of the righteous shall be grant - I had often heard the expression dwelleth righteousness” (II Pet. 3:13). ed.” Many of the things we truly desire, about people who were too heavenly The main character in The Great Di - especially as our righteous desires minded to be any earthly good. It vorce experiences a view of heaven as overtake less worthy ones, are heav - seemed some people were so focused imagined by Lewis. The point is not enly. on the future or on hidden things that whether Lewis’s imaginative ideas are I enjoy nature more. I see the stars they could miss the practical needs of right or whether they can be proved. at night as if they faced God, their living for God today. After reading The point is that “heaven” ultimately backs turned to me as they praise Lewis’s story, I decided the opposite is means life on the remade earth, life Him. I enjoy people more. Nothing in true. Most of us followers of Jesus are that has all of the blessings we know creation points more to God than peo - too earthly minded to be the kinds of in this one with none of the evil or curs - ple. Each day the glory of the Lord is disciples He calls us to be. es. Everything good in this life will be all around us. We can see the hidden “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” better in the life to come. Everything in what has been made. (Matt. 6:33), said Jesus. Ultimately, the bad will no longer exist. C. S. Lewis’s imagination about kingdom of God is about the future The main character finds that things what life will be like after the resurrec - time when God rules. By making the are more real in heaven. He cannot tion in a remade world is just a guess age to come a way of thinking about move a single blade of grass. The inspired by a few clues in the Bible. Yet life and by focusing our intent on the ground is more solid. At first, he thinks it has increased my desire to live for great promise, we see clearly how to he has become a sort of ghost, but it eternal things. live as disciples now. is really that the grass and the rain in In one scene, the residents of heav - Before I read The Great Divorce, the heaven have more substance than idea of the afterlife was vague and anything on earth. en are explaining that God always even troubling to me. I know we are Similarly, he finds that “all hell is communes with them. Yet His full supposed to think the promised future smaller than one pebble of your earth - presence is away to the west, in the is wonderful, but my ideas about it ly world: but it is smaller than one atom mountains on the western horizon. were unclear. I had grown up outside of this world, the Real World” (Lewis). God is infinite, and even residents of of any kind of faith, but I had seen im - If every ache and unworthy thought in heaven never get to the end of all that ages in pop culture of people with this life were bundled together and He is. So they describe their joy and wings, wearing white robes, playing weighed on a scale, it would not life as a constant journey: “Every one harps, and floating in the clouds. That budge a single moment of the joy of of us lives only to journey further and seemed to me like a future existence the life that God has for us in that time. further into the mountains” (Lewis). that would grow boring quickly. I heard The narrator meets a painter and Being able to imagine the everlasting sermons that made our future home overhears a resident of heaven ex - hills makes me eager to journey near - sound like an unending church serv - plaining something to him. The er to God every day. # 58 (186) Jehovah Jireh

BY FREDERIC R. H OWE , T H.D.

INTRODUCTION he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; that we are indeed talking to the in - Many years ago, I heard a great the - and they went both of them together.” finite God, the Creator of the uni - ologian state, “When we study God, He It is profitable to consider this story of verse! is studying us!” He is evaluating us with unquestioning obedience as typical of As the narrative comes to its con - His omniscience, but also with His kind - God’s own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, clusion, we come to the name of God ness and mercy. Psalm 103:13-14 and His obedience to His Father’s will. that we are studying and its meaning. states, “Like as a father pitieth his chil - Jesus Christ unflinchingly walked the Genesis 22:13 explains, “And Abra - dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear road to Calvary for all of us. He gave ham lifted up his eyes, and looked, him. For he knoweth our frame; he re - His life as the Lamb of God, slain from and behold behind him a ram caught membereth that we are dust.” the foundation of the world, so that we in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham The Lord knows us; therefore, He might be saved! went and took the ram, and offered knows our every need. He provides for The account continues in Genesis him up for a burnt offering in the stead us. He is Jehovah Jireh. The revelation 22:7-8: “And Isaac spake unto Abra - of his son.” The Lord had provided a of the name is found in Genesis 22:1- ham his father, and said, My father: sacrifice. The name “Jehovah Jireh” is 14. The passage can be studied as and he said, Here am I, my son. And now seen in the light of this entire nar - outlined below. he said, Behold the fire and the wood: rative (vs. 14). The name means “The but where is the lamb for a burnt of - Lord will provide.” The phrase became REQUIREMENT OF GOD: EXACT fering? And Abraham said, My son, a proverb with the Jewish people, for Genesis 22:1-2 introduces a striking God will provide for himself a lamb for they said, “In the mount (as God pro - command from God. It is clear that a burnt offering: so they went both of vided for Abraham in his great need) God was testing Abraham’s obedi - them together.” Jehovah will provide for us too in our ence to Him. God stated, “Take now Now the tension mounted as Abra - needs.” thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom ham went about the task of preparing thou lovest, and get thee into the land an offering step by step. Abraham REMEMBRANCES FOR US: of Moriah; and offer him there for a “built an altar there, and laid the wood ENDURING burnt offering upon one of the moun - in order, and bound Isaac his son, and Hebrews 11:17-19 gives the expla - tains which I will tell thee of.” laid him on the altar upon the wood” nation of Abraham’s actions. It reveals (Gen. 22:9). that in the full providence of our sov - RESPONSE OF ABRAHAM: One can only surmise how terrified ereign God, Abraham believed that EXPLICIT both Isaac and Abraham felt! But in God “was able to raise him [Isaac] up, Genesis 22:3 reveals Abraham’s re - faith Abraham “stretched forth his even from the dead; from whence also sponse. Note carefully that there is un - hand, and took the knife to slay his he received him in a figure.” questioned obedience here, no hesita - son” (Gen. 22:10). Just then “the angel The applications for us in our times tion. He went around making the of the Lord called unto him out of of living are abundant and indeed en - necessary preparations. Their journey heaven, and said Abraham, Abraham: during. Consider Philippians 4:19: took them three days. One can only and he said, Here am I” (vs. 11). The “But my God shall supply all your need imagine what went through Abraham’s eternal Lord, the Son of God, called according to his riches in glory by mind day after day! out to prevent the slaughter of Isaac. Christ Jesus.” The Old Testament As the passage unfolds, Abraham Abraham responded in obedience and name “Jehovah Jireh” is magnificent - saw the actual place, and Genesis 22:5 faith, ready to do what the Lord want - ly reflected across the centuries to notes that he said to the young men ed. Paul’s statement that many today can helping him, “Abide ye here with the Abraham is evaluated by God with relate to meaningfully. ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and these words: “And he said, Lay not Romans 8:28 contains another pillar worship, and come again to you.” thine hand upon the lad, neither do of truth in the building of God’s great Abraham’s trust and faith in God are thou any thing unto him: for now I plan: “And we know that all things clearly seen here. Scripture reveals to know that thou fearest God, seeing work together for good to them that us that he knew that, if necessary, God thou hast not withheld thy son, thine love God, to them who are the called could raise Isaac from the dead (Heb. only son from me” (Gen. 22:12). according to his purpose.” 11:17-19)! Abraham’s fear of God was really a God is sovereign, unchanging, and reverential awe, a fervent love, and a constant in His love and care for His RESULTS OF THE DECISION: childlike submission. These traits children. We learn that God will pro - EXTENSIVE would be well incorporated into our vide as we cast all our cares upon Him In Genesis 22:6 we read, “And Abra - Christian lives today. There should (I Pet. 5:7), for indeed He cares for us! ham took the wood of the burnt offer - be no entrance into prayer to God Let us live with confidence as we serve ing, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and without first the acknowledgment Jehovah Jireh! # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (187) 59 Jesus taught with authority. The Christian Education people of Jesus’ day were used to hearing the scribes or Pharisees in - struct them. But Jesus’ teaching was different. “When Jesus had ended Learning from the Master these sayings, the people were aston - ished at his doctrine (teaching): for he taught them as one having authority, BY VALERIE WILSON and not as the scribes” (Matt. 7:28- 29). The Gospels record many times OST of us learn best if someone 4:23; 9:35; 21:23; Mark 2:13; 8:31; Luke when people were amazed (or aston - M shows us how to do something. 5:3; 6:6; 19:47; John 7:28; 8:2. Jesus ished) at Jesus’ teaching. Children learn how to use eating uten - “was often a healer, sometimes a work - Jesus embodied the truth that He sils, how to put on clothes, how to tie er of miracles, frequently a preacher, but taught. He said about Himself, “I am shoes, and how to make a bed as the always a teacher,” wrote J. A. Marquis ... the truth” (John 14:6). Never did er - adults in their lives show them—often early in the last century (Price, Jesus the ror come from His lips. repeatedly—how to do such things. Teacher, Convention Press). Jesus understood His students. In His School-age children learn how to Third, Jesus identified Himself as a omniscience, Jesus “knew what was in print letters, how to work arithmetic teacher. John recorded Jesus’ words: man” (John 2:25). He used this knowl - problems, and how to find places on “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye edge in the way He dealt with people— the map as their teachers show them say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord sometimes tenderly, sometimes with re - over and over how to achieve these and Master” (John 13:13-14). The title buke, and often with patience. educational objectives. They do not ‘Master” is from the Greek word di - How do these qualifications of the learn those skills instinctively. daskalos , which means “teacher” and Master Teacher apply to us? First of all, Student nurses learn from experi - is often translated that way. we need to be students of the Word. We enced instructors; apprentice electri - Finally, Jesus’ closest followers need to keep studying and learning. Fur - cians learn from master electricians; were known as disciples, which thermore, teachers of all age-groups would-be pilots spend long hours in means pupils, or learners. need to memorize Scripture themselves the air with flight instructors. Name the There can be no doubt that Jesus’ and encourage their students to do so. area of endeavor, and you will recog - earthly ministry was marked by teach - While we do not have the same au - nize the role of an instructor. ing. “The supreme glory of the teaching thority Jesus did, we can teach God’s But who teaches church education - profession consists in the fact that when Word with authority. The authority lies al teachers how to do their job? Some Jesus Christ faced his life work—he in that Word, not in us. Similarly, we churches may have a good training chose to be a teacher” (Price). can teach truthfully, not because we program in place, but all too often a Here is a challenge for you. Read embody truth as Jesus did, but be - prospective teacher is handed the through the four Gospels, and under - cause we teach the Word that is truth teacher’s book and told, “Everything line or record all the references to Je - (cf. John 17:17). you need to know is in there.” The new sus the Teacher. Effective teachers know their stu - teacher may have had some excellent dents. They talk to them. They visit role models along the way; so he or JESUS’ QUALIFICATIONS FOR them. They interact with them outside she has an idea what it takes to teach TEACHING the classroom. We must apply our - God’s Word. All of us involved in Jesus knew the Scriptures. We selves to know our students. church education can use more help, would expect that Jesus had gone to Here is a further challenge. As you however. I must say that help is just as the synagogue when He was a young read through the Gospels (perhaps a close as the Book we teach. We can man in Joseph and Mary’s home. He second time), record Jesus’ references learn from the Master Himself! would have learned God’s Word there to the Old Testament Scriptures. Also as well. He also gained wisdom from note the references to Jesus’ authority JESUS THE TEACHER God and His Word. Jesus quoted from and to His listeners’ responses. The Bible establishes Jesus as at least twenty-four Old Testament Teacher in four ways. First of all, Jesus books. JESUS’ METHODS OF TEACHING was recognized as a teacher. He was Perhaps one of His more detailed Jesus taught in discourses, or lec - called Teacher, or Rabbi, sixty of the uses of Scripture was with the two dis - tures. Jesus often used this method of ninety times He is addressed in the ciples on the road to Emmaus follow - teaching with large groups of people. Gospels (www.reformed-church ing His resurrection. “And beginning at The Sermon (or Discourse) on the Mount .com). One familiar reference, which Moses and all the prophets, he ex - (Matt. 5—7) is probably the best known uses both terms, is John 3:2. When pounded unto them in all the scrip - of Jesus’ lectures. It is clearly stated that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, he tures the things concerning himself” He was teaching: “And he opened his said, “Rabbi, we know that thou art a (Luke 24:27). I would love to have been mouth, and taught them” (5:2). The teacher come from God.” on that walk! No wonder the two dis - Olivet Discourse (chaps. 24—25) and Second, the Gospel writers described ciples later remarked, “Did not our His farewell address to His disciples Jesus as a teacher and His ministry as a heart burn within us, while he talked (John 14—16) are two other familiar dis - teaching one. References abound in with us by the way, and while he courses. “When the Master lectured, the each Gospel; for example, Matthew opened to us the scriptures?” (vs. 32). people listened and learned, were in - 60 (188) formed and stirred, and their lives were “lift up [their] eyes, and look on the carefully to achieve the depth Jesus did enriched” (Price). fields” (John 4:35). In order to help His with His questions. Lecture as a method is often overused disciples learn about greatness, “Jesus Create a classroom atmosphere in our day, or it is discarded altogether. called a little child unto him, and set him where students feel respected and ac - But given the right circumstances—and in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:2). cepted. If students feel their answers perhaps combined with other meth - And who was Jesus’ audience in will be criticized or judged, they will ods—it is still a valuable tool in the each of the examples noted above? stop answering. teacher’s kit. We must keep in mind the They were adults! Too often we think In 1911 an educator wrote, “To age and abilities of our students, and we that visuals are only for children. While question well is to teach well” (Zuck). must deliver lectures in ways that entice visuals such as flannelgraph and pic - It was true in Jesus’ day; it is true for the listeners to pay attention. tures are very effective with children, us as well. Jesus told stories. Of all Jesus’ teach - their use does not need to stop there. Here is another challenge for you. ing methods, this is probably the one we Young people and adults benefit just Read the Gospels and list Jesus’ most readily identify. Even people out - as much from a well-chosen picture or questions. You may also want to note side the church can probably name the an appropriate object. Jesus used vi - to whom He asked the questions. good Samaritan or the prodigal son from sual aids with adults—so should we! Several years ago my brother-in-law stories that Jesus told. Jesus assigned homework. Effective was treated by a local doctor. He and Think of the last few sermons you teaching goes beyond the classroom, my sister were happy to learn that this heard. Can you remember the outlines and Jesus knew His followers needed doctor had trained with one of the best or even the main points? Did the preach - to practice what He taught them. Jesus doctors in that field. He had learned er add illustrations in explaining God’s sent out the Twelve with specific in - from a master. Word? Do you remember those? If you structions (Matt. 10:5—11:1). He sent You and I are engaged in a great vo - are like most of us, you would answer no Peter to catch the fish that had the tax cation—we teach God’s Word to chil - to the first question and yes to the sec - money in its mouth (17:24-27). Jesus dren, youth, and adults. And we have ond. Stories are the truth in “skin and sent seventy disciples by twos to min - the opportunity to learn from the Mas - bones.” They help us identify with the ister (Luke 10:1-17). ter Himself. Devote several months— principles we need to learn. Notice how specific these assign - maybe even a year—to accept the Jesus’ stories have several distinct ments were. As we teach, we need to challenges in this article. Obtain a features. (1) They were short. (2) They re - conclude our lessons with specific notebook in which you can record ferred to things common to Jesus’ lis - things students can apply to their your observations as you read through teners—for example, sowers, seed, fig lives. Give them something to do when the Gospels four times. As you study trees, wineskins, coins, foundations, they leave the classroom. the life and methods of the Master, you and vineyards are mentioned. (3) They will be better equipped to carry out His Jesus asked questions. Jesus’ teach - final command: “Go ye therefore, and included the element of suspense. What ing was marked by the questions He would happen to the wounded man on teach all nations, baptizing them in the asked. Roy Zuck, who wrote in depth on name of the Father, and of the Son, the road to Jericho (Luke 10:30-37)? Jesus the Teacher in Teaching as Jesus What would be the father’s response to and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them Taught (Baker), enumerates a total of to observe all things whatsoever I have the prodigal’s return (15:11-32)? How 304 questions in the four Gospels! would the workers treat the owner’s son commanded you” (Matt. 28:19- Asking questions as a teaching 20). # (Mark 12:1-11)? (4) They elicited a re - method is sometimes referred to as sponse from the listeners. See, for ex - the Socratic method since it was em - ample, Luke 10:37: “Go, and do thou ployed by Socrates four hundred likewise.” (5) They covered a wide vari - years before Christ. Learners in Jesus’ ety of topics. We can use stories to illus - day were acquainted with this trate almost any biblical principle. method, but no teacher used ques - The I AMs of the Gospel of John Again, here is a challenge for you. tions as well as the Master. (Continued from page 54) Jesus’ stories are usually identified in Consider these thought-provoking the Gospels as parables. Read questions from Jesus’ lips: “But whom through the Gospels again. Record say ye that I am?” (Matt. 16:15); “How power, not forward to worship. He each reference to a parable or story many loaves have ye?” (Mark 6:38); forced them to the ground by the power Jesus told. Note the reason Jesus told “Who is my mother? and who are my the story and the kind of response He of His word just to let them know that He brethren?” (Matt. 12:48); “Shew me a was in control and that He was permit - wanted His listeners to make. penny. Whose image and superscrip - ting them to arrest Him to accomplish Jesus used visual aids. No, He did not tion hath it?” (Luke 20:24). the will of God. prepare a PowerPoint presentation, but Questions are a key tool in our teach - He used what was available. Since He ing kit, but we must use them carefully. These nine I AMs found in the often taught in an outdoor setting, Jesus Following Jesus’ examples, our ques - Gospel of John all point to the Hebrew would refer to things at hand. In His Ser - tions should be unambiguous and to the Scriptures. They provide a foundation mon on the Mount, Jesus told His audi - point. They should cause the listeners to and basis for showing the deity of ence to look at (“behold”) the birds that think and perhaps ask questions of their Yeshua as He taught biblical truth. He were flying around as well as the flowers own. Factual questions have their place is the One who brought all things into that grew nearby (Matt. 6:26-30). On an - (perhaps in review games or other types existence. He is the great “I AM THAT other occasion, He told the disciples to of review), but they need to be used I AM” of Exodus 3:14. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (189) 61 The Pastor’s Study Shepherd, Know Your Flock

BY BRIAN DOUD

E all understand the picture of some circumstance calls for a deci - schedule. You will be in the Gospels W the pastor and his flock. It is the sion. Before anything comes up, you for about the first two weeks of the shepherd and his sheep. Of course, must make the decision to obey the month. If some unforeseen event in - this is based on the Lord Jesus saying, Lord in all He teaches you about being terrupts your reading, you can take it “I am the good shepherd” (John His man in the pastorate. When a sit - up again with the passages marked for 10:11). He charged Peter, “Feed my uation arises, it is a horrible uncom - that day. Do not get behind and try to sheep” (21:17). Those of us who follow mitted way to approach your calling by catch up. That will be counterproduc - in the long train of pastors from that thinking, Maybe I will obey the Lord or tive. Just start again on the designat - day until this have the same charge maybe I’ll try to find an answer myself. ed reading for that day. and responsibility. That is not servanthood. What you will discover after a longer You have to be called of the Lord to Remember, the Lord Jesus was the period of time is amazing, even revo - be a pastor. No one should take the complete and perfect fulfillment of the lutionary. You will find yourself being call lightly or respond to it without fear Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52:13 able to quote at least the gist of many and trembling! If you do not start that through 53:12. The Lord has given us passages you know you have not con - way, you will soon come to the fear the perfect example of servant and sciously memorized. You will find and trembling part through the experi - pastor in His earthly life and ministry. yourself realizing that each Gospel re - ences of the pastorate. Make sure you Then there are the pastoral epistles, ports another side to the story. You will are called, or forget it. Spurgeon used which you no doubt have studied co - find that you have a clearer under - to tell his preachers-in-training to stay piously. It is not that you have no idea standing and feel for the Person of the out of the ministry if they could. what to do, who you are to be, what Lord Jesus and the way He thought True pastors do not serve for re - part you are to play, or how you are to and worked with people. The Good ward, appreciation, or recognition. conduct yourself as a pastor. So what Shepherd will become closer to you as With rare exceptions, that will not hap - else can you do? your Shepherd. You will start thinking pen, and even then it may be a mixed As a beginning, I suggest putting more as He thought and seeing the blessing. If you are the Lord’s man in yourself on a strict schedule of read - flock more as He does. You will be - that position, your reward will be His ing through the New Testament every come consumed with His love for you “Well done!” Never forget that He will month. I read somewhere that the and for His people. A pastor who loves keep you accountable for what hap - house church pastors in China, under his people and lays down his life for pened while you were pastoring His persecution, did this. Try using a New them has a very special reward here on flock. While He has the final authority Testament without notes and cross- earth. And I think he will have a special and final responsibility, you are ac - references, for you do not want any fulfillment and joy in his heart through - countable for what you did during your distractions. Do not make notes; this out eternity. ministry. A steward is required to be is not sermon preparation or gathering I must warn you that there will be faithful. “seed thoughts” for sermons. You outside forces (unbelievers and Sa - Jesus taught that a servant is not must read as fast as you can and still tan’s armies) that will attempt to defeat above his master; the servant must be get the meaning. You can think at least you from this course of action. They as his master (Matt. 10:24-25). From four times as fast as anyone can talk. know that if you succeed here, you will long observation and experience, I You may think at first that this is dis - help the flock immensely. They cannot can only advise that to be the faithful respectful of God’s Word, but what stand that idea. Your new understand - servant and shepherd you need to be, you are doing here is getting an ing of the Lord Jesus will soon perme - you must become as much like your overview, a feel for what it all means. I ate your preaching and your conver - Master as you possibly can. Part of have a New Testament in which sations with your people and even that is your Master’s responsibility and Matthew starts as page 1, and Reve - those outside the household of faith. action, and part of it is yours. The Mas - lation concludes on page 300; so I You must not become a phony, super- ter’s part He will faithfully execute. read ten pages per day. You can easi - spiritual person. As you saturate your - Your part you may or may not get right. ly work out how an equal number of self with the Scriptures, especially You must make the decision to obey pages per day will work in any text those about the Lord Jesus, your atti - whatever the Lord teaches you in this printing of the New Testament. If you tude and manner should change for regard. You must not wait until some contact me through this publisher, I the better spiritually. But do not even light on the subject comes to you or will send you a copy of my reading think about that; it will come naturally 62 (190) as you change. been spoken of as a mirror that shows I get fed at every service! The pastor So far, I have not written about us who we are. The Holy Spirit can preaches wonderful sermons!” Re - knowing your flock (the title of this ar - take the Word of God and cause us to member that what you preach is not ticle). Well, I am getting to that, but first see much about human nature and the up to you or them. It is up to the Lord. I wanted to talk some about the shep - new nature that we are to grow into as If you are doing the best you know herd before I even consider the flock. we walk with the Lord. So you can to preach the Word, He will honor that, When you meet someone and he learn a lot about your flock from the and the Holy Spirit will use it to feed learns that you are a pastor, there are Scriptures. the flock. It may be that the critic is a couple questions he will probably The other way is to spend quality saying more about himself than he is ask you. One of the usual questions is time with them individually. This might about your feeding of the flock. He “How big is your congregation?” If the be more important than sermon may have some issue with the Lord answer is “75 people,” he may think preparation time. You might prepare about which he is in rebellion. Do not you are not doing a very good job and the greatest sermons the world has yet feel bad that he is not listening to may not want to listen to you at all. If heard; but if you do not know the peo - you—he is not listening to God, either! you say “7,500 people,” he may say, ple in your audience, it might be irrel - He may not even be one of His sheep. “Wow!” and he may think that you evant to them. They may not care He may be a goat (cf. Matt. 25:31-46)! must have a lot to offer, have accom - about the nuances of translating the Remember that you cannot feed the plished much, and are a truly great Scriptures or the intricacies of sys - sheep by stoning the goats. person. He may show you some def - tematic theology, but they do care When you are preaching or just hav - erence. about answers to how to handle their ing a normal conversation with your But that would be wrong! Only the boss and how to relate to their kids. people, never criticize anyone. Your Lord Jesus has any idea what kind of They need to know how to deal with calling is to draw people to Christ, to a shepherd you are or how successful the ethical questions that arise at work grow the flock, and then to feed them. you are. No one else’s opinion is ulti - or at school. They need hints about They are to grow and reproduce as mately relevant. If someone asks how how to love their unlovable neighbor. more sheep. You should be encourag - big your church is, you might respond, Get alongside them. Maybe you can ing them and appreciating them as “Well, as nearly as I can tell, the church visit them at work if that is practical wonderful sheep. of which I am a part, taken across the and will not be an embarrassment to You might warn your flock not to lis - world and down through history, num - them. ten to goats or spend too much time bers in the millions, possibly even bil - As you do your daily reading about with them. Try to do it in a way that is lions.” the Lord Jesus and how He related to encouraging and uplifting, not de - He may ask you, “Where is your people, you will come to understand pressing or discouraging. Do not ter - church?” He may mean that if it were how to relate to people, their prob - rorize your sheep! Remember, “He big enough, in the right neighborhood, lems, and their world. They must come leadeth me beside still waters. He re - or prominent enough, he would know to the realization that you love them, storeth my soul” (Ps. 23:2-3). As they where it was geographically. So again, that you are on their side, and that you follow the Lord, remind them, “Surely he might be considering that you are care even if you do not have all the an - goodness and mercy shall follow me not significant or worth listening to. swers. They will come to really believe all the days of my life: and I will dwell Remember you could have been sent that the Lord loves them. You can be - in the house of the Lord for ever” (vs. by God that day to meet that person come a living example of the Lord’s 6). and give him the words that would love and His relevance to their every - There are two supposedly great old lead him to eternal life by faith in day lives. sayings: “Know thyself” and “To thine Christ. If he rejects it, remember that You will need to learn to ask ques - own self be true.” But I say, “Pastor, people did the same thing to the Lord tions that are not intrusive but do get know the Lord. Apprentice yourself Jesus. to the heart of the matter. You can help under the Good Shepherd. Be true to There is, of course, another mean - them understand where they are and Him.” And some of the best advice I ing to the words “Where is your what the issue really is. You should could ever give you is found in the lit - church?” You could answer it by telling take the time to talk about things that tle chorus that says, “Let’s forget where your church is spiritually—what matter. As you hear them, the Lord will about ourselves and magnify the Lord the spiritual stature of your deacons give you the answers they need then and worship Him” (Ballinger, “We Have and elders are, how the spiritual walk or maybe later in a sermon or teach - Come into His House”). of your people is, and how high their ing. Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettys - ethics and morals are. This might not Do be careful not to reveal anything burg Address, “The world will little be the right time, place, or audience to others need not know. You also can - note, nor long remember what we say talk about this subject. And you might not say something from the pulpit to here, but it can never forget what they not know where all the congregation is an individual when it should be said did here.” To apply this to your min - spiritually, which brings us back to our privately. Feeding the flock takes istry, your people may not take note of title. So far, we have talked about get - place both privately and collectively. or long remember what you said, but ting to know the Good Shepherd, not Use discretion, and feed the flock re - they will never forget that you loved so much about the sheep. sponsibly. them. The world around them does not There are at least two ways to get to Once in a while, someone might love them. Their own family may turn know your flock. The first one we have leave the church (or stay!) and com - on them and refuse to love them. Make somewhat touched on: a knowledge plain that he is not being fed. Others, sure that they know their pastor loves of the Scriptures. The Word of God has upon hearing that, may exclaim, “Why, them. # SUMMER QUARTER 2014 (191) 63 A Reason to Sing

BY KATHY J. M OORE

Oh, sing a song of joy To Jesus Christ our King, To the Giver of all life, The Maker of all things. The Artist who paints the colors Puts the rainbow in the sky. He made the trees that sway And formed the birds that fly. The beautiful, flowing river; The sand upon the beach; The flowers with all their colors; The apple, the orange, the peach; The sun that shines by day; The moon that rules by night; The stars that twinkle merrily— Oh, the wonder of His might! All this for our enjoyment— Sing praises to His name! He is our loving Father. His love will never change! #