Leaders Are to Be Holy, Righteous, and Good
Whether you are a Superior by choice (Father/Mother/Politician) or by call (Minister/Elder/Deacon) there is a seriousness to the responsibility you take on by answering the bell. There are no accidents in God’s kingdom. Acting as one in charge means you are in charge. As Hebrews 13:17 reminds us our King of Kings will hold us to account to how we used our place of authority. The question for Superiors is straight-forward and laid out succinctly in our Catechism for today. Do you understand what it takes to be liable for those under your care?
Fathers, Husbands, Presidents, Leaders of all stripes should be holy men, who seek the spiritual and physical well-being of their people and those to whom God in His wisdom has granted them oversight. Failure to be men of valor, of truth, and of righteousness is sin, not only personally in that all human beings regardless of position or title are to be holy, but it is a transgression with malice in that those given the charge of headship are to be examples in how they walk in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Our Larger Catechism queries for today detail for us myriads of ways that the kings of old and the politicians (as well as ministers and patriarchs) of today are failing to keep their covenantal responsibilities to God and man.
Here are the Q/A’s:
Q. 129: What is required of superiors towards their inferiors?
A. It is required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God, and that relation wherein they stand, to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors; to instruct, counsel, and admonish them; countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well; and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill; protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body: and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary carriage, to procure glory to God, honour to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which God hath put upon them.
Q. 130: What are the sins of superiors?
A. The sins of superiors are, besides the neglect of the duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure; commanding things unlawful, or not in the power of inferiors to perform; counselling, encouraging, or favouring them in that which is evil; dissuading, discouraging, or discountenancing them in that which is good; correcting them unduly; careless exposing, or leaving them to wrong, temptation, and danger; provoking them to wrath; or any way dishonouring themselves, or lessening their authority, by an unjust, indiscreet, rigorous, or remiss behaviour.
In a subtle reminder of the nature of the wickedness to which we will be speaking today we hear at the introduction of every evil king of Israel this familiar phrase, “And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin by which he had made Israel sin.” (1 Kings 15:26). There is a both/and that needs explained further. In this case, Nadab, is convicted by the writer of two crimes. His own individual sin and the sin he committed against God by making Israel to sin. This kind of sin by proxy is quite foreign to our libertarian ears.
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Without the Shedding of Blood
Written by D. Eaton |
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
When Hebrews says, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin,” it means without Christ’s blood. If we deny Jesus and his death on the cross, we have no forgiveness. We stand guilty before God himself, and we will bear the wrath we deserve. Many years may now stand between you and your greatest sins, but time does not erase guilt. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. You might think you can come to a point where your good deeds will outweigh your evil deeds. It will never happen. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.When the author of Hebrews makes the negative case concerning the blood of Christ, its significance is far-reaching. Throughout the book, he makes the positive case that Christ’s blood can cleanse us from dead works. Still, later he says, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin” (Heb. 9:22). By saying it this way, he cuts off any other options we think we might have, yet we live in a world that believes there are many roads to God.
Earlier in the chapter, he tells us that God makes no covenants with man that do not require the shedding of blood. He goes on to say that almost everything was cleansed with blood in the Old Testament. The Tabernacle, the Book of the Law, and even the people were sprinkled with blood (Heb. 9:21). There could be no ceremonial cleanliness in the Old Testament unless a death had occurred, and these Old Covenant ceremonies were types and pictures of actual heavenly realities (Heb. 9:23).
Blood was required under Old Testament worship because the wages of sin is death. If God was going to paint a picture of the only way man could be right with God, death was a necessary component of that illustration. However, the pictures themselves were not sufficient. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take our place in bearing the wrath of God. They are not valuable enough to pay our debt.
If it was necessary for the Old Testament copies of the things in heaven to be cleansed with blood, how much more the heavenly things themselves, with a better sacrifice (Heb. 9:23). Christ did not enter an earthly copy of the Holy of Holies on our behalf to put away sin, he entered the presence of God (Heb. 9:24).
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The Light of the Knowledge of the Glory of God
What is your own perception of God? Do you find Him glorious through and in the Lord Jesus? And isn’t that what we need for salvation and for all the walk of faith? For repentance. For humility with hope. For worship. For stability. For courage. For perseverance. For gentleness. For faith’s endeavor. For generosity. For compassion. For mercy and forgiveness. For purity. We must taste and sense His glory if we are to glorify Him.
The Apostle Paul’s description of God’s grace in his salvation, in 2 Corinthians 4, reveals a most significant truth about what our souls need. We need to see and know God’s glory through and in Christ.
Believing, hoping, and trusting in God have everything to do with perceiving in Him goodness, worth, majesty, excellence, capacity, holiness, beauty, mercy. And, of course, not all regard God or His Gospel as glorious. Pauls’ words in 2 Corinthians 4 are especially helpful, because he reflects first on those among his own kinsmen who were not perceiving the GOOD NEWS as good. In chapter 3, Paul affirmed that, yes, God had shown himself glorious at Mt. Sinai. God had delivered His LAW…
2 Corinthians 3:7 …with such, glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ f ace because of its glory…
But as Paul compared the function and impact of the LAW, which he called a “ministry of death” with the ministry of the Spirit and Gospel, a ministry of life, of conferred righteousness, of freedom and transformation, he held out before them a surpassing glory.
But some were not seeing it.
Even though the very word of God through Moses was being read always in their synagogues, Paul described them like this:
2 Corinthians 3:15 … a veil lies over their hearts.
The Apostle went on to say…
2 Corinthians 4:4 …the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
And here is where the wording touches what is so helpful. What was it that Satan sought to prevent them from seeing? Christ’s glory, which is good news. Christ’s glory was real and objective, seen or not. To hope in it required seeing it, tasting and perceiving Christ’s grace and worth and the goodness of His good message.
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Leaked: Teachers Reveal How They “Stalk” Kids, Sideline Parents To Pull Middle Schoolers Into LGBT Groups
After [teachers] Baraki and Caldeira angered parents by using an “anti-bullying” presentation to teach kids what it means to be gay or lesbian, they explained to conference attendees that “Next year, we’re going to do just a little mind-trick on our sixth graders.”
Members of California’s biggest teachers union plotted how to push LGBT politics on children and undermine concerns about their tactics from parents, principals, and communities, reveals leaked audio from an October conference of the California Teachers Association (CTA).
“Speakers went so far as to tout their surveillance of students’ Google searches, internet activity, and hallway conversations in order to target sixth graders for personal invitations to LGBTQ clubs, while actively concealing these clubs’ membership rolls from participants’ parents,” Abigail Shrier reported on Thursday.Three people from the “2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference” in Palm Springs, Calif., titled “Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities,” sent recordings to Shrier revealing the radical content of some of the workshops.
Multiple seminars at the conference encouraged hosting LGBT clubs for middle schoolers. An audio clip reveals teacher Lori Caldeira explaining why such clubs keep no rosters, noting, “Sometimes we don’t really want to keep records because if parents get upset that their kids are coming? We’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe they came?’ You know, we would never want a kid to get in trouble for attending if their parents are upset.”
Caldeira has noted in a separate podcast appearance that, in the club she runs that includes other people’s prepubescent minors, “What happens in this room, stays in this room.”
At the CTA conference, Caldeira and another teacher, Kelly Baraki, led an additional seminar about “How we run a ‘GSA’ [Gay-Straight Alliance club] in Conservative Communities,” and discussed their strategies for how to “get the bodies in the door” and ensure kids keep coming back when “we saw our membership numbers start to decline.”
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