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Post by Admin on Apr 29, 2024 11:25:38 GMT -5
Worthy Partaking: Examining the Heart
Tom Ascol
TOM ASCOL
Worthy Partaking: Examining the Heart
Participation in the Lord’s Supper is serious business. At least it is to God. That is not, however, the impression that is given by the way many churches approach this sacrament today. Too often the observance of the Lord’s Supper is tacked on to the end of a worship service, and efficiency, not seriousness, is the main concern.
Consequently, many church members have never been encouraged to think very deeply about the nature of this ordinance, much less about the need to make proper preparations before participating in it. It is easily dismissed as a religious ritual that can be ritualistically observed.
In his instructions to the Corinthians on this subject, Paul issues both a severe warning and a clear admonition about coming to the Lord’s Table. It matters to God. When Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” He was issuing a command to His followers to come to His table. Later, through the apostle Paul, He tells us how to come.
In 1 Corinthians 11:27 Paul writes, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.” The very fact that it is possible to eat and drink “in an unworthy manner” should be enough to make every thoughtful Christian pause when approaching the Lord’s Table.
When we read that this particular sin makes one “guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord,” we should not merely pause but come to a full stop until we make sure we know exactly what Paul means and are certain of the pathway that avoids this serious failure.
In verse 29 Paul explains his meaning, both the sin involved and the consequences that result. “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” To commune unworthily, then, is to eat and drink the elements without properly regarding what they represent and the purpose for which Christ calls us to remember His death.
Paul earlier explains that whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup we are proclaiming the Lord’s death (v. 26). The Lord’s Supper is a dramatization of the Gospel. It is a visible testimony of God’s gracious provision for the salvation of sinners. The elements, our Lord teaches us, are designed to call to mind His painful and shameful death on the cross for our sins.
To commune unworthily is to eat and drink the elements without properly regarding what they represent and the purpose for which Christ calls us to remember His death.
The very fact that Jesus instituted this practice for His disciples is an indictment of our own tendency to forget the reality, necessity, and cost of our redemption. It is also a testimony to His wisdom and love in providing us with an ongoing, regular, and dramatic reminder of these saving truths.
Paul’s warning, then, should not be misconstrued to mean that really bad sinners are somehow unworthy to come to the Lord’s Table. Those are the only kind of people who are legitimate candidates. Worthiness is not to be found in some kind of supposed level of personal righteousness in the communicant. Rather, a sinner comes to the table “worthily” when he soberly remembers his sin and the great cost that Christ paid to redeem him from it.
The Heidelberg Catechism makes this point very clear in response to the question, “For whom is the Lord’s supper instituted? For those who are truly sorrowful for their sins, and yet trust that these are forgiven them for the sake of Christ; and that their remaining infirmities are covered by his passion and death; and who also earnestly desire to have their faith more and more strengthened, and their lives more holy….”
To come without serious reflection and intentional remembrance is to eat and drink judgment on oneself. It is to treat the redemptive work of Christ on the cross with contempt.
That was happening at Corinth and Paul says that such unworthy communion was the reason that so many of them were weak and ill, and some had died (v. 30). God killed people for coming to the Lord’s Table in an unworthy manner. We may take it lightly. He never does.
The severity of Paul’s warning underscores the significance of his admonition. Heeding God’s Word at this point is not only a matter of piety, it is also a matter of self-preservation.
Where faith and repentance are being strengthened there will be ongoing renunciation of sins and continued effort to see and find joy and hope in all that Jesus Christ is and has done for us.
To keep us from eating and drinking unworthily, thereby profaning Christ’s death and invoking God’s discipline, Paul commends self-examination. “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (v. 28). He admonishes us to set up a court in our own consciences, to initiate an investigation into our own lives (notice that he says each person is to examine “himself”).
What are we to put on trial? Our whole lives. What is the object of our investigation? To see if there is a right relationship to Jesus Christ who shed His blood for our sins. What will this relationship look like? A life of faith and repentance — not in perfection, as Calvin wisely warns us, but in reality.
Where faith and repentance are being strengthened there will be ongoing renunciation of sins and continued effort to see and find joy and hope in all that Jesus Christ is and has done for us. There will be genuine love for and gratitude to God for the work of Christ on the cross.
So in preparation for communing at the Lord’s Table we should examine our attitude toward our own sin and toward Christ’s redeeming work. And we should do so with the clear understanding that we cannot delight in both at the same time. J.C. Ryle puts this very plainly: “Sinners living in open sin, and determined not to give it up, ought on no account to come to the Lord’s Table. To do so is a positive insult to Christ, and to pour contempt on His Gospel. It is nonsense to profess we desire to remember Christ’s death, while we cling to the accursed thing which made it needful for Christ to die.”
In this way the Lord’s Supper serves as a means of God’s grace being strengthened in the life of a believer. Self-examination is not to be a barrier to communion, but preparation for it. “And so,” Paul writes, after we have examined ourselves, let us “eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”
With renewed hatred of our sin and dependence on our Savior, let us take the bread and the cup and with joy and hope commune with our Lord at His table.
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Post by Admin on May 3, 2024 12:27:37 GMT -5
TOM ASCOL
Yes, We Have All Quarreled with God
Henry David Thoreau was an eccentric 19th century American author, philosopher, and naturalist. He spent 2 years, 2 months and 2 days living in a small cabin he built himself outside of Concord, Massachusetts. He chronicles his reflections during that experience in his 1854 book, Walden. He explains the rationale for his exile in the wilderness in the following words.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
Thoreau commendably wanted to live life to the fullest, to experience its richness at its deepest levels so that when he died, he could die without regret. Eight years after publishing Walden, on May 6, 1862, after a lingering case of tuberculosis, he did die. While on his deathbed, his Aunt Louisa asked him if he had made his peace with God. Thoreau’s response was, “I did not know we had ever quarreled.”
Those words, no doubt spoken in sincerity, reflect the kind of willful ignorance that has tragically plagued mankind since our first parents turned away from our Creator. I call it “ignorance” because it reflects a lack of knowledge about the way things actually are.
The Bible teaches us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 6:23) and that because of sin we are all “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), that is the wrath of God. The Apostle Paul says that we are all naturally “enemies of God” (Romans 5:10).
That is undeniably the way that life is now. But it is not the way it was in the beginning. Originally, God made Adam and Eve “upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29) and enjoyed perfect fellowship with them. Sin caused them to be separated from Him and at odds with Him. Failure to acknowledge that is to be ill-informed. It is ignorance.
Such ignorance is willful because, as Romans 1:18-20 says, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
So yes, we all have quarreled with God—including those who, like Thoreau, are willfully ignorant of it. Sin has placed everyone in jeopardy and exposes us all to His wrath. The result is that, left to ourselves we cannot ever have peace with God.
But the good news that is revealed to us in the Bible is that God has not left us to ourselves. On the contrary, in our weakness and helplessness, He has come to us. Through His Son, Jesus Christ, He has provided salvation for us—a way for us to be restored to Him; to have our sin forgiven and to experience genuine peace with God.
Because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God now reconciles to Himself all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus as Lord.
That truth is what empowered the Apostle Paul to live the way that He did as a minister of Jesus Christ. And that truth is the very foundation of His church throughout the ages. It is what Christians live for; what we stand for. It is the one message that we have that we must declare to men, women, boys and girls today: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
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Post by Admin on May 6, 2024 17:05:46 GMT -5
Resignations from Founders Ministries’ Board
Tom Ascol
TOM ASCOL
It is with sadness that we announce the resignation of three members of the Founders Ministries board. Drs. Fred Malone, Tom Hicks and Jon English Lee have resigned this week after lengthy conversations about the release of and responses to a trailer for the planned documentary, By What Standard?
Our conversations led to an impasse regarding the nature of sin, unintentional sin, unwise acts and what faithfulness to Christ requires in the wake of each. Though each of these three men formulated his own arguments, their views led them all to conclude they could not conscientiously continue to serve Founders without agreement on these points as it relates to elements in the trailer. As the statements of Fred Malone and Tom Hicks below indicate, they believe we have sinned in how the trailer portrayed certain people and issues. Tom Nettles, Jared Longshore and I do not believe that. This is the fundamental point of the impasse that we reached.
All three brothers who resigned have served this ministry with faithfulness and integrity. They have resigned not because they disagree that the present challenges related to social justice are a serious threat to churches. Rather, each determined that he could not support everything in the clarifications that Founders published.
As anyone who is familiar with this ministry in general or with Fred, Tom, and Jon English in particular can easily surmise, this is a painful separation. By God’s grace it has taken place without acrimony or bitterness but with deep conviction wedded to deep sorrow on the part of everyone involved.
Founders Ministries is continuing with the film project unabated, convinced that the issues we are confronting are of vital importance.
On a personal note I want to express publicly my great love for these men and gratitude for their impact on my life and the lives of my children. My admiration for their integrity and honor could not be greater. The sorrow of these events gives me a deeper longing for heaven when all confusion will be cleared up and there will be no more sorrow, because we will all be gathered around the throne of Him whom we love and have tried to serve to the best of our abilities by His grace and according the light and power given to us.
Tom Hicks has issued the following statement which is printed below at his request and with his permission.
I’m writing this with a heavy heart. Earlier this week, I resigned from the Board of Directors of Founders Ministries. My relationship to Founders is long and deep, and I owe them more than words can express. I have the highest respect for the men who remain on the board, and I believe them to be men of honor, integrity and conviction. I agree with them that the issues of “social justice” are some of the most serious threats to the gospel and to the unity of the church in our time. I believe that these matters must be addressed.
However, after the release of the recent trailer, I came to a strong convictional impasse with others on the Founders Board. We disagreed in love. We all tried to accommodate each other’s consciences as much as possible. We labored to work through our differences, but our respective differences remained. I was particularly concerned about the inclusion of Rachael Denhollander in the trailer, whom I did not see when I first watched it. Her presence in the trailer, along with other sexual abuse survivors, seemed to conflate sexual abuse with other problematic views of social justice. Jacob and Rachael communicated to me that her primary concern was not her portrayal as much as the portrayal of sexual abuse survivors and the conflation of sexual abuse with other issues. All the board members agreed that sexual abuse is very different from social justice issues, but we disagreed about how to go forward in light of the trailer. Thus, with great sorrow, after a week of thinking and praying, I resigned from the board. I love the men of Founders Ministries, and I am grieved that we cannot walk forward together.
I also need to own my own sin in this. I had the opportunity to view the trailer in advance of its public release, but I did not watch it carefully enough. I neglected my duty as a board member. I had a number of concerns and hesitations after viewing the trailer, prior to its release, but I did not voice those concerns. My conscience is convicted that my failure to give full voice to my concerns was a form of lying. I am grieved over my sin, and I have reached out to Rachael and Jacob and asked them to forgive me. They have graciously granted their forgiveness. I would ask you to forgive me as well.
Fred Malone has issued the following statement which is printed below at his request and with his permission.
This past Monday, I grievously tendered my resignation as a Board Member of Founders Ministries. I have loved and participated in the work of FM for almost 36 years with great joy and thanksgiving. Much good has been accomplished for spreading the doctrines of grace held by our Baptist forefathers, upholding the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, teaching biblical holiness, encouraging pastors, and teaching the Baptist doctrine of the local church. Tom Ascol’s leadership in all this has been vital and faithful to our purpose. I am grateful to him and to the other Board Members for allowing me to participate in this noble cause. I love these men as brothers in Christ and wish them well.
However, the recent trailer about the upcoming video on “By What Standard” has created a growing difficulty of conscience within me which resulted in my resignation from the Board. Although I originally approved the trailer as a Board member, I did not exert my due diligence beforehand to closely examine it and to speak clearly about the “tone” of it. That is my failure as a Board Member. So, after I came to the knowledge of a confusing image which was Mrs. Rachel Denhollander (now removed from the trailer by Board agreement), I came to the conviction that I had sinned unintentionally in my approval and that the trailer itself committed a sin unintentionally of false witness against Mrs. Denhollander based upon the 6th and 9th commandments (see Westminster Larger Catechism; Lev. 4:2-27; Num. 15:24-29; 1 John 1:9). By associating her image closely with a confusing statement about powers of darkness, it appeared to many that we were somehow disapproving of her work against sexual abuse. No one on the Board intended this to be the message, yet it was confusing to many and especially to several sexual abuse victims with whom I have spoken. This confusing association brought into question our intentions and motives. I have been an advocate against sexual abuse, a counselor of numerous victims for almost 35 years in my pastoral work, and a reporter of several cases. Further, I know that each Board Member hates this great sin as much as I do, having seen the devastating damage done to its victims. However, since the Board could not agree that this 1-2 second image was sinful, and publicly ask forgiveness as a Board, my conscience about the matter led to my sad resignation.
I want it to be clear that I agree with the Founders Board that the Social Justice Movement contains a subtle invasion of faulty hermeneutics into our thinking which undermines the inspiration and sufficiency of Holy Scripture; and, therefore, the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have enough history to show that such a re-interpretation of the Bible has led to church and denominational splits among Baptists and Presbyterians in the 20th Century (i. e., the SBC battle for inerrancy was because of this Social Gospel hermeneutic invading our seminaries and denominational missions). However, how we advocate for truth and grace must be consistent with the teachings of our inerrant and sufficient Bible.
Therefore, I reached a point of conscience and subsequent disagreement which we could not resolve. Since I had not exercised my due responsibility as a Board Member, and since I participated in what I now believe to be a sinful misrepresentation of one of the subjects in the trailer, I resigned before “About the Trailer” was released last Monday. I am in the process of seeking forgiveness of my part in this unintentional sin in the trailer and hope the documentary carries the “firm but gracious” attitude which has characterized Founders Ministries for so many decades.
May God help us all to speak the truth in love, to forgive as we have been forgiven through Christ’s blood, and serve one another as joint-heirs of life. May Christ be praised,
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2024 9:02:42 GMT -5
Theoretical Inerrantists
Tom Ascol
TOM ASCOL
Theoretical Inerrantists
One of my growing concerns about American Christianity (and I include myself and the congregation that I serve in this analysis) is that we have been blessed with ready access to the Bible for so long and have seen reaffirmation of its full authority so boldly declared by many of our pastors, churches, and institutions that we have made the affirmation of its inerrancy almost meaningless. I am not saying that a full-throated affirmation of biblical inerrancy is unimportant. On the contrary, I contended for that very thing in the so-called “Conservative Resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention during the last two decades of the twentieth century.
I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in May 1979, having been convinced by a prominent member of that faculty that inerrancy was at best unimportant and that the “Fundamentalists” were storming the walls with the intent of firing all of Southwestern’s faculty and turning it into backwater Bible College intent only to indoctrinate and not educate.
So I showed up to my first class loaded for bear with reassurances for my professors that I would lead my church and our ten messengers to Houston in a few weeks and would vote against that “young man from Memphis” (Adrian Rogers) who wanted to fire them. By God’s grace, my first class was a survey of church history with Tom Nettles. Early in the term I offered him my reassurance in his office. He cocked his head, got a consternated look on his face and asked me, “Who have you been talking to?” When I told him and explained how I understood the situation in the SBC he got up from his desk, walked to his door, and closed it. The moment he sat back down marked the beginning of my real theological education.
As I grappled with the nature of Scripture, its authority, power, and sufficiency, and the implications for my life and ministry, my world was rocked. I had been raised by a godly mother who taught her children to believe the Bible but I had never thought deeply about the nature and implications of divine revelation. As I did, I found myself coming to see the simple, clear testimonies of Scripture concerning itself such as Paul makes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Once convinced, I did my best to contend for this doctrine and to lend my small voice to those calling the SBC back to an unashamed affirmation of biblical inerrancy. I did so because I believe it to be true and vitally important for healthy Christianity. Consequently, I rejoiced to see the SBC turned around such that now all of the Seminary presidents, entity heads, seminary professors, and denominational leaders unashamedly affirm inerrancy. In fact, no self-respecting Southern Baptist pastor or leader would dare deny it.
However, in recent years I have come to a sad, yet unavoidable conclusion. When many Southern Baptist leaders and pastors of today affirm biblical inerrancy in theory but not in practice. That is, they will make the affirmation, sign the Baptist Faith and Message, Abstract of Principles, or Chicago Statement on Inerrancy without hesitation or mental reservation and then will go right on thinking and living in ways that are contrary to the Word.
They are theoretical inerrantists.
What do I mean? I mean that the spirit of the evangelical, inerrantist age in which we live is increasingly characterized by a satisfaction of verbal affirmations and signatures on documents rather than by lives lived in humble submission and conformity to Scripture.
What good is an inerrant Bible if you refuse to read and heed it? Who cares if a person has signed ten thousand affirmations of inerrancy and orthodoxy if he does not seek to order his life according to the plain teaching of Scripture?
What difference does your affirmation of inerrancy make if…
you endorse a conference that promotes “gay Christianity”
you bring godless entertainment into your services of gathered worship of the Triune God
you cover up the abuse of victims in your church or institution
you are content to have half or more of your church members never even attending gathered worship
you refuse to lead your church to obey Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:15-18
you refuse to repent honestly and straightforwardly over sin and choose rather to offer half-hearted apologies or excuses that attempt to cloud over or mitigate your offense
you hesitate or even refuse plainly to call sin what the Bible calls sin
you advocate as righteousness what the Bible does not call righteous
you imbibe ideologies that are not according to Christ rather than exposing and contending against them
you refuse to embrace your God-given role in the family, church, and state
Theoretical inerrancy is killing the church in America. It is spreading like stage 4 cancer. Only God can stop it. If He does, it will be through the Spirit-empowered preaching and teaching of His Word. If He does, there will be deep repentance among pastors, leaders, and churches where sin is confessed, new resolve is given, and new patterns of living and ministering are embraced.
In 1958 J. I. Packer wrote, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God in order to contend for the basic authority of Scripture against those who argued that “Fundamentalists” were mistaken in their approach to the subject. What he wrote then could not be more important and relevant for evangelicals today.
We have to choose whether we will accept the biblical doctrine of Scripture as it stands or permit ourselves to refashion it according to our fancy. We have to choose whether to embrace the delusion that human creatures are competent to judge and find fault with the words of their Creator or whether to recognize this idea for the blasphemy that it is and drop it. We have to decide whether to carry through our repentance on the intellectual level or whether we shall still cherish our sinful craving for a thought-life free from the rule of God. We have to decide whether to say that we believe the Bible and mean it or to say it and look for ways whereby we can say it without having to accept all the consequences.
If the human mind is set up as the measure and test of truth, it will quickly substitute for man’s incomprehensible Creator a comprehensible idol fashioned in man’s own image; man wants a god he can manage and feel comfortable with and will inevitably invent one if allowed. He will forget (because he cannot understand) the infinite gulf that separates the Creator from his creatures and will picture to himself a god wholly involved in this world and wholly comprehensible (in principle, at any rate) by the speculative intellect. It was no accident but a natural development that made the liberal theology of the nineteenth century so strongly pantheistic. Once people reverse the proper relationship between Scripture and their own thinking and start judging biblical statements about God by their private ideas about God, instead of vice versa, their knowledge of the Creator is in eminent danger of perishing and with it the whole idea of supernatural religion.
Read that last sentence again. Slowly. Echoing Packer I say to my fellow inerrantists, Today we also must choose. And we don’t have much time to do so.
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Post by Admin on May 14, 2024 17:52:04 GMT -5
Elders Are Not Quarrelsome
Tom Ascol
TOM ASCOL
Elders Are Not Quarrelsome
King David’s words describe the goodness and blessing of well-exercised authority:
The Spirit of the LORD speaks by me; his word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. (2 Sam. 23:2–4)
Rulers who rule justly and humbly spread blessing and hope among those they serve. This is true not only in the civil arena but also in the church. Paul says that elders who rule well should be “considered worthy of double honor” (1 Tim. 5:17). For a man to do this, he must not be quarrelsome. That is one of five negative qualifications that Paul lists for overseers in 1 Timothy 3:1–8.
“An overseer must be . . . not quarrelsome” (v. 3). That is, he must not be the kind of person who is always angling for a fight. He must not be irritable. To state it positively, he must be a peaceable person.
This is an important character quality for every Christian because it is a reflection of our Creator, who Himself is the “God of peace” (Rom. 15:33). He makes peace between Himself and sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (5:1) and through Him creates the basis on which believers can live in peace with each other (Eph. 2:14).
Believers are called to “strive for peace with everyone” (Heb. 12:14) and to seek to live with that wisdom that comes from above that is characterized as “peaceable” (James 3:17). As we do so, we will be enabled to stand firm with readiness to share the “gospel of peace” with anyone and everyone (Eph. 6:15).
It is particularly important for elders not to be quarrelsome. As men who are called by God to shepherd the church into greater conformity to Christ, they themselves are to be exemplary in Christian character. The way of Christ that they teach and commend to others should be noticeably evident in their own lives. A contentious, quarrelsome spirit will undermine an elder’s effectiveness in leading the church.
It will also affect the work of the eldership as a whole. A church is greatly blessed to have a team of competent, qualified men to serve as elders. A plurality of elders can watch over the flock far more effectively than a single elder or pastor can. As a church grows, the need for more elders grows.
An elder must love and contend for truth without being quarrelsome.
Serving well as part of church eldership necessarily involves dealing with delicate, complex, and confusing issues. Those issues are important to the health and vitality of the church. The collective wisdom of those whom the Lord has called to serve together in the eldership is required to navigate such issues with grace and biblical fidelity.
A quarrelsome elder can short-circuit the process of cultivating that wisdom. To pursue wisdom with others, there must be the freedom to speak candidly, to make suggestions, and to entertain points of view that may not be familiar. Humble, considerate, respectful men who love and trust each other will welcome this type of interaction in an elders’ meeting because they have a common goal, and they will not ignite controversy by thinking out loud. Add a quarrelsome man to the mix, however, and an eldership can find itself hamstrung and its ability to work through difficult cases stifled.
If an elder is confident that a suggestion or idea is going to provoke the ire of a fellow elder, he may be tempted to leave it unspoken or, at best, to voice it with such caution and so many qualifiers that its meaning is clouded or significance blunted. The result is that the eldership—and thus, the church—is robbed of potentially helpful insight.
If nothing else, a quarrelsome elder can cause what often are already long meetings to drag on unnecessarily without benefit. Weariness and a sense that one’s time is being wasted combine to inhibit the kind of joyful service that a church needs from those who watch over their souls.
This does not mean that an elder must simply be a yes-man or be hesitant to contend for what is right and true. Rather, not to be quarrelsome means that a man is committed to contending for right causes without being contentious.
The best elders are like Valiant-for-truth, a hero in The Pilgrim’s Progress. But like Bunyan’s character, elders must also learn to contend to the death with those three enemies who represent the greatest threat to all who love and stand for truth: Wild-Head, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatic (which in Bunyan’s day meant “meddlesome”).
When we first meet Valiant-for-truth, his face is all bloody and his sword is drawn. He has just finished an intense, three-hour battle with those foes. What Bunyan wants us to see is that those enemies reside not out there somewhere, but within the very soul of the one who is valiant for truth.
An elder must love and contend for truth without being quarrelsome. The way he does that is the same way that every Christian must do it—by seriously applying the Word of God to himself before he applies it to others. In this way, the Word operates as the Holy Spirit’s sword in his own life, and he will be empowered to put to death the pride that makes a man always ready to argue. It is also through the Word that the Spirit cultivates His fruit in an elder (as in every believer): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Where these prevail, a quarrelsome spirit cannot survive.
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Post by Admin on May 14, 2024 19:16:48 GMT -5
Godly Mothers
Tom Ascol
TOM ASCOL
Godly Mothers
One of the greatest challenges that a child can face is growing up in a home where dad is either absent or spiritually disengaged. The Bible is clear that fathers have the responsibility to take the lead in guiding and governing their homes. God’s design for families provides for children to be raised in two-parent families with dads at the helm.
A growing body of research has confirmed the wisdom of this design. According to the National Father Initiative, a father’s presence and involvement in the lives of his children diminishes poverty, abuse, neglect, sexual promiscuity, and criminal activity, and it enhances a child’s physical health and academic performance. This should come as no surprise to Christians because we know that God’s ways are both right and good.
But what about the children that grow up in homes where dad is absent (physically, spiritually, or both)? Are children bereft of the spiritual leadership of a father doomed to a life of failure? Must a mother who has no support from a husband in raising children resign herself to her children turning out badly?
Hardly. A godly mother can have a powerful influence over her children even in the absence of a fully engaged dad. The New Testament church leader named Timothy demonstrates this in a significant way.
In 2 Timothy 1:5, Paul reminds his young colleague of his spiritual heritage. “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” The lack of any reference to Timothy’s father is striking. Evidently, Timothy grew up in a home where his dad was not much of a spiritual leader.
Some of the most useful servants of God throughout history owe a great spiritual debt to their mothers.
In fact, his dad was probably not a believer at all. When we first read of Timothy in Acts 16, he is described as “the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek” (v. 1). He was the child of a religiously mixed marriage.
Timothy’s mother, Eunice, married outside the faith in clear violation of Old Testament law (see Deut. 7). Perhaps she grew up in a home where the Jewish faith was only nominally practiced or maybe she simply rebelled against her parents. Somewhere along the line, perhaps on Paul’s first missionary journey (Acts 14:6), she became a believer.
When Paul writes his last letter to Timothy, he can describe Eunice’s faith as “sincere” and as having begun prior to Timothy’s. The silence with respect to the man of the house is deafening. Whether he was dead or alive, religious or not, Paul gives no hint that Timothy’s father provided any spiritual guidance to his son.
The earliest lessons in spiritual formation that Timothy received came from his mother and grandmother. Paul reiterates this when he reminds Timothy that “from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings” (2 Tim. 3:15). Who taught Timothy the Bible when he was a child? Not his dad. His mother and grandmother saw to it that he learned the Scriptures as a boy.
Some of the most useful servants of God throughout history owe a great spiritual debt to their mothers. The great fourth and fifth century church leader, Augustine, had a violent, unbelieving father and a godly, faithful, Christian mother. It was the tearful prayers of his mother, Monica, that God used to arrest him from his profligate ways as a young man and turn his heart toward the grace of God in the gospel.
Similarly, John Newton, the author of “Amazing Grace,” was raised by a godly mother and ungodly father. From his mother he learned to memorize hymns, catechism answers, and Scripture, all before she died when he was seven years old. It was those early lessons that God brought back to his mind as a young man and used to save him from a life of slave trading and debauchery.
Though Charles Spurgeon’s father and grandfather were both pastors, he regularly refers in his sermons and books to the spiritual influence exerted on him by his mother.
Even when the home life is fraught with difficulties and challenges, a Christian mother has a great opportunity to influence her children for Christ.
On one occasion, Eliza Jarvis prayed these words in the presence of her children: “Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish. And my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.” Spurgeon later wrote about that prayer, noting that the “thought of a mother’s bearing swift witness against me pierced my conscience and stirred my heart.”
The call to be a mother is a high calling indeed. Even when the home life is fraught with difficulties and challenges, a Christian mother has a great opportunity to influence her children for Christ. Her family is her mission field, and like all faithful missionaries she should trust the Lord to supply grace to meet all of the challenges as she seeks to seize all of the opportunities to impact the rising generation with the gospel.
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