Let Us Become Like Little Children
Jesus Himself became a little child; He served and loved and trusted too. He was subject to His parents and knows the paths our children trod. He forgave while freely giving up His life to grant our own. He took the time to bless and care for children, and blesses us with ours as well.
Let us become like little children, singing freely to the King of Kings. Faces lifted, voices ringing, unconcerned with notes and rhythm, twisting melodies in swirls of wonder, joy in every note they sing. There’s no embarrassed silence, self-conscious mumbling or comparing of their voice to others. The joy within is echoed in the voice without and warms the hearts of those who listen.
Let us become like little children, free to glory in their father’s care. Children do not seek to earn the love and favor of their parents – instead, they glory in belonging, full of joy in simple pleasures. When they’re naughty, they do not fear being abandoned or disowned. They are secure in love and know it.
Let us become like little children, forgiving faults without a grudge.
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Acts 11:29-30: The Earliest Christian Elders
The elders mentioned in Acts 11:30 by definition are Christian as the relief sent from Antioch was intended for “brothers and sisters living in Judea” (Acts 11:29). While there weren’t clearly defined distinctions between Jews and Christians by the Roman authorities until the reign of Nero, there was early on, within the first days after Jesus’ resurrection a clear distinction made between the followers of Jesus and the established Jewish religious community.
In Acts 11:29-30 (narrative, descriptive) we’re given the first explicit mention of New Testament Christian elders:
Acts 11:29 The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. 30 This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.
Prior to Acts 11:30 the term for elders is used as a reference to Jewish elders, not members of the believing community following in faith the resurrected Jesus (1). The elders mentioned in Acts 11:30 by definition are Christian as the relief sent from Antioch was intended for “brothers and sisters living in Judea” (Acts 11:29). While there weren’t clearly defined distinctions between Jews and Christians by the Roman authorities until the reign of Nero, there was early on, within the first days after Jesus’ resurrection a clear distinction made between the followers of Jesus and the established Jewish religious community.
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How John’s Gospel Helps Us Understand God’s Mission
Written by Justin A. Schell |
Friday, July 12, 2024
Jesus’s mission, according to John’s prologue, is to reveal God the Father. John 1:18 seems to imply that humanity needs the incarnation, not only to make possible the sacrifice of the Lamb of God but more fundamentally because humanity needs to see the Father: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” How can humanity come to the invisible God? In the Old Testament, the Lord appeared in fire in the bush and at night, in smoke behind the veil, and in lightning on the mountain. He may even have taken on angelic or human form as the angel of the Lord (e.g., Gen. 18, Judg. 13), but he was always veiled. But now the Son has revealed the Father. “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), his “exact imprint” (Heb. 1:3).Theology of Mission
Let’s zero in on the aim of God’s mission. Why did he create the world? What is his plan for humanity? Why send Jesus? We must start with these foundational questions before exploring how God accomplishes his mission and what role the church may have in it. Doing so will be a safeguard for us, ensuring that our theology of mission has God as its foundation. And to do this, let us turn to the Gospel of John.
The Revelation of God
John’s Gospel helps us understand God’s mission because he is writing it in order to advance that mission. John says he has “written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). John is writing so that men and women would be drawn into relationship with God. How does John go about that evangelistic work? By revealing the character, the very glory, of God.1 For John, revelation is the only thing that makes communion possible.
John’s prologue prepares the reader to see how God’s revelation opens the door for divine-human communion (John 1:1–18). Jesus is the Word, the Logos, of God (John 1:1), the one who will help us understand (the logic of) God. The very God who “in the beginning . . . created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) is now being revealed by the one who was “in the beginning with God” (John 1:2). Jesus is God and was with God, and he is now revealing the glory of God to the world in his incarnation.
In this way, Jesus is the true light coming to help humanity see God (John 1:4–5, 9). We read that the Word took on flesh in such a way that men could “see his glory” (John 1:14). It is likely that John expected his readers to know the book of Exodus, for this enfleshed one came and “tabernacled among us” as the one who is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Indeed, Jesus is “the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex. 34:6).
Jesus’s mission, according to John’s prologue, is to reveal God the Father.
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Somber Thoughts on a Contemporary Difficulty in the Evangelical Churches
But lay aside the practical consequences of ordaining women pastors, as well as its obvious violation of the clear commands of Scripture….This notion that it is unfair to deny office on account of things outside the conscious control of those that want it if they have the same abilities or moral character that others who attain to it possess. It would be easy to imagine that God is unjust on this point and to ask: why, when all believers participate in the Spirit and receive understanding and spiritual gifts from him, has he not seen fit to enable all people, men and women, to be fit for all the duties and offices of the church? Because God is sovereign, and his will is independent of ours.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2)
Our culture cannot abide the notion that any position should be denied someone who wants it on account of any trait that is outside that person’s conscious will. This is often presented as a just desire for equality between persons, but what it actually represents is the elevation of the individual will and its imagined rights above the will of the corporate bodies of which the individual is a part. The modern spirit of absolute individual autonomy says that the individual has rights where the corporate does not, and that in any conflict it is the corporate that must yield to the claims of the individual. Indeed, it is felt that the corporate body only exists to empower, affirm, and celebrate the individual in his or her attempt at self-realization.
To present an example in the civil realm, there are many who act as though the military does not exist to defend the nation, but to provide an environment in which people can climb the ranks and acquire as much remuneration, prestige, and power as they are able. It is thought unfair to prohibit women serving in the combat arms, for example, for that would limit their opportunities for advancement, as if their career ambitions are the important thing in such cases, rather than the actual needs of infantry or artillery battalions.[1]
That same spirit shows itself in the church. It is felt unfair that women should be denied the ruling and teaching offices in the church if they desire them and show themselves as having excellent moral character and much talent in teaching, administration, etc. Great numbers of people, whose sincerity and good intentions I do not for the most part doubt, are therefore agitating for change on this point, and many have gone ahead and elevated women to positions of leadership.
It is an endeavor which is somewhat understandable, for many of the practical considerations of ministry seem to commend it. We see how badly great multitudes need mercy and the good news of eternal life; and we see how many zealous and compassionate women there are among us; how much more opportunity they have to work than many men; how many of them have many useful talents that can be deployed to this end; how many of the people who need help or who have open ears to spiritual concerns are themselves women; and how many men seem apathetic about the work of ministry, and we think that practical concerns and simple fairness commend extending office to those who are eager to carry out its labors.
And yet to do such a thing encounters insuperable difficulties. Paul’s apostolic instruction concerning such matters is, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12). Elsewhere he says, even more restrictively, that “women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says” (1 Cor. 14:34). Discussing this in a 1919 article, “Paul on Women Speaking in Church,” B.B. Warfield says that “it would be impossible for the apostle to speak more directly or more emphatically than he has d[one] here. He requires women to be silent at the church-[meeti]ngs.”[2] Nor can this be regarded as being non-binding or only the apostle’s opinion, for he explicitly claims divine inspiration for it, saying promptly thereafter in 1 Cor. 14:37 that “if anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.” (And of course, being part of the canon, 1 Corinthians participates in the attribute of divine inspiration with all the other books of the Old and New Testaments, as explicitly declared by 2 Tim. 3:16’s assertion that “all Scripture is breathed out by God.”)
There are practical concerns as well, such as that women seem to not desire office as much as is thought. The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) greatly wishes to achieve a version of equality which includes parity in the numbers of men and women leaders. But their report upon the matter, Gender and Leadership in the PC(USA), says women are underrepresented, accounting for 58% of members and only 38% of active teaching elders in 2016, even after generations of ordaining women. Perhaps the familiar refrain that women are more spiritual than men is false, then, or at least does not have anything to do with their desire to hold church office.
(And as an aside, the picture of the PCUSA’s efforts at gender equality that report portrays does not suggest an equitable or pleasant outcome, but rather a situation characterized by widespread, continuing discord. Either extending office to women has not meant them also achieving the same prestige as their male counterparts, or else such as has been achieved is deemed insufficient. Neither suggests the experiment has been particularly successful: either official equality did not mean actual/practical equality, or else equality really has been achieved and its beneficiaries do not like its true nature in comparison to what their ideal visions imagine it should be like.)
Then there is the practical concern that the churches that have ordained women as pastors, far from increasing their appeal, have been struggling with severe membership losses. That which was supposed to increase ministerial effectiveness has not done so, at least for many of the major denominations that have pursued it. The PCUSA’s constituent predecessors had about 4.25 million members in 1965. It is now down to 1.14 million, and loses about 110 churches and 50,000 members every year. The national population has meanwhile increased from about 195 million to an estimated 334 million. This represents the PCUSA’s percentage of the population dropping by about 85%. That is not winning the culture, and represents demographic difficulties reminiscent of the Jewish nation during its judgments (Jer. 4:26).
But lay aside the practical consequences of ordaining women pastors, as well as its obvious violation of the clear commands of Scripture, for these objections have often been pointed out before. Consider again the idea upon which it precedes, this notion that it is unfair to deny office on account of things outside the conscious control of those that want it if they have the same abilities or moral character that others who attain to it possess. It would be easy to imagine that God is unjust on this point and to ask: why, when all believers participate in the Spirit and receive understanding and spiritual gifts from him, has he not seen fit to enable all people, men and women, to be fit for all the duties and offices of the church?
Because God is sovereign, and his will is independent of ours. He does not rule to do our bidding (Lk. 17:7-10) or to bring about perfect equality of authority (1 Pet. 5:5) and opportunity (Matt. 19:30) between people, nor to make it so our faith is easily palatable to unbelievers who ascribe to the phantasm of absolute individual autonomy (1 Cor. 1:23; 1 Pet. 2:8). The church belongs to him, not us, as do its offices and gifts: he may give them in whatever amount he wishes to whomever he wishes, and he may deny or withdraw them as he sees fit. They are his to do with them as he pleases.
We cannot say this is unfair because 1) we are creatures, and creatures have no right to criticize or question their creator (Job. 40:2; Isa. 45:9-11; Rom. 9:20); and 2) none of us deserve anything from God except rejection and punishment (Rom. 3:9-20). All we have is a gift (Jn. 3:27; 1 Cor. 4:7; Jas. 1:17), and gifts are matters of grace, not justice (Matt. 20:1-16; Rom. 12:6). For his own reasons God has given office and gifts to some (Eph. 4:7-14) which he has not given to most others (inc. the present author). That is his prerogative, and you can either accept it or rebel against it. You cannot deny God’s rights to freely do with his own whatever he wills, for that is to deny his independence and sovereignty as creator and governor of the world.
And in that is seen the essential evil of rebelling against him by disobeying his commands against women pastors. It is an act of gross impiety that denies essential attributes of his character and seeks to supplant his will with that of mere sinful humans. Now God says in his word that “rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). He forbade such offenses absolutely in the Law, prescribing the death penalty as punishment (Lev. 20:27; Deut. 13:1-18), and in the New Testament says that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6:9; Gal. 5:19-21) but will perish in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8). Let the gravity of that sink in: those that ordain women are engaged in a sin that God regards as the moral equivalent of idolatry and witchcraft (as some translations have 1 Sam. 15:23’s “divination”). If something is the equivalent of such heinous sins we should not toy with or study it, but rather reject it outright without delay.
That may yet be a snare for many, for I fear that some are content to oppose it, but with a manner and conception that is at least partly of their own choosing and not with the full force of Scripture’s denunciations of such open rebellion. There is a brand of conservative thought that desires to oppose what it regards as error, but in a respectable – dare I say, winsome – way that it (vainly) hopes will not be open to the accusation of fanaticism or fundamentalism. But in such matters we ought to oppose wrong in God’s way, not our own, which means describing sins as they truly are, not in a purposefully restrained manner that fears lest it seem too harsh or offensive. The future will reveal whether the opponents of this error oppose it as though it is a matter of life and death, or whether like Joash they fight with less zeal than is required and ultimately fail (2 Kgs. 13:14-19).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, available through Amazon.[1] When all specialties were opened to women in 2015 it was on condition that they be able to meet the standards required for each, which suggests that my perspective here is false, as doing so expanded the available candidates to fill combat positions. I.e., it put the military’s needs first and without compromise. However, there are no shortage of men who could fill those positions – the vast bulk of the military serve in administrative and support capacities – and many of the people who pressured the military to make such changes seem to have been motivated less by a desire to expand our combat forces than by concerns about perceived fairness to women.
[2] The manuscript has a tear where the text in brackets is located above, and the words “done” and “meeting” have been inferred as the proper ones from the context.
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