If we are speaking about another brother or sister in Christ remember that Jesus died for them, as much as you. Honor them in light of that mercy. There is nothing that destroys the Church more than the childish garbage of holding grudges and feelings of anger and jealousy towards others in your local congregation.

We’re almost done with the Ten Commandments. Only two left! In some ways out of all the laws of God summarized in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 the call to not bear false witness has some of the most sticky wickets of all Biblical ethics, it also has some of the most pointed toe-stepping of all the statutes of the LORD. For example, the most common question posed here is was it acceptable for the Dutch man to hide Jews in his attic and lie to the Nazi’s about their presence. It’s a hard one, because bearing false witness is a sin. However, deeper in the midst of the answer is does that SS officer deserve the truth? We’ll get to that here in a minute. Before we go further here are the catechism Q/A’s for this week:
Q. 76. Which is the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment is, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Q. 77. What is required in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment requires the maintain­ing and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbor’s good name, espe­cially in witness bearing.
Q. 78. What is forbidden in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment forbids whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or in­jurious to our own or our neighbor’s good name.
The Ninth is in some sense a corollary to the 3rd commandment, the only difference is this deals with not using your own or your neighbor’s name in vain. While we mainly think of “bearing false witness” as to having to do with court rooms, it really is much more about how we treat one another in truth. People made in the image of God are of value and are worth honor and respect. That dignity is not based on how much you like that person or grounded in the way they have acted toward you. In fact as a Christian if John or Mary does nothing but create disorder and cause trouble it is ever more the reason to not return evil for evil. We are to turn the other cheek, especially against our “enemies”. Christ’s Golden Rule applies to the worst individual you know. To pass blame for your sin to someone else is demonic. That’s what Adam does to Eve in Genesis 3. Doing well to those who mean wrong toward you is part of your witness of the gospel in real life. We expect the world to act like the world. Believers must be above that nonsense.
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Written by S. M. Baugh |
Friday, July 15, 2022
Christ’s death was not a death like ours. It was a sacrifice. His body was symbolized in the animals which Abraham cut in two, so that through Christ’s substitutionary death as an “eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12) through the “eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14) we might enter into an “eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15). All this is sealed to us with an imperishable promise because the new covenant has been inaugurated now and into all eternity by his “blood of the eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:20).

I corresponded with John Hughes recently and complimented him on a detailed scholarly article he wrote some years ago where he gave a most helpful treatment of Heb. 9:15-22. He mentioned in return that it was disappointing that his work seems to have made no impression on English translations that have appeared subsequently. Let’s look the passage over (going only to v. 18 for time’s sake). I will rehearse the heart of Hughes’s interpretation of Heb. 9:15-18 and zero in on one phrase in particular that I find especially illuminating for accepting his conclusions.
Here is Heb. 9:15-18 in the English Standard Version (ESV), an excellent newer translation, but it does not adopt Hughes’s interpretation. The issue revolves around the translation of one Greek word, diatheke, that occurs several times in these four verses and is translated as either “covenant” or “will” (and are highlighted here):
Heb. 9:15-18: “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. [16] For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. [17] For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. [18] Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.”
It seems rather odd that the author of Hebrews should speak of Christ as “mediator of a new covenant” (v. 15) and then switch to discussion of a seemingly unrelated “will” in vv. 16-17. More odd is that the author draws out from his discussion of a “will” in vv. 16-17 a conclusion about covenant inauguration practice in v. 18. Why discuss a last will to make a point about a covenant?
The answer to this last question receives some interesting explanations in the literature, though even the best of them are not convincing. It is true that the Greek word diatheke may legitimately refer to either an OT type of “covenant” or to a “last will and testament.” These are two established meanings of this word.
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Jennie’s team of female missionaries also set up centers for the elderly and a vocational school to prepare the orphaned girls to find occupations (at a time when education for women was limited in China).  At the same time, Timothy Richard held regular worship services and trained the boys. The center taught the women to sew, embroider, spin wool, and braid straw. While they worked, the women were encouraged to discuss the “wordless book” first created by C. H. Spurgeon.

In 1875, a serious drought in the north of China gave way to a dreadful four-year famine, with millions of deaths and a huge migration of people. Most casualties were in the province of Shanxi (an estimated 5.5 million deaths in four years). Timothy Richard, a Welsh Baptist missionary who had opened an orphanage in the area, wrote the renowned Hudson Taylor asking for some female missionaries to run it.
Brave Women
Taylor had a reputation for sending single female missionaries at a time when the concept was largely criticized. At this time, he was in England, nursing his failing health. After discussing this with his second wife, Jennie Faulding, she offered to go while he stayed in England with their children. She left with two single women, Anna Crickmay and Celia Horne. Anna and Celia were the first unmarried western women to go as missionaries into deep inland China.
Their courage was typical of female missionaries in China. Taylor’s first wife, Maria Dyer, had fought off a group of rioters in their home by stopping the hand of a murderer, grabbing and dragging into the house a man who had tried to throw a missionary off the roof, and then jumping off a fifteen-foot-high window to save her life. All this, while being six months pregnant. About ten years earlier, she had escaped from the same window by a rope on the day before she gave birth to her first daughter.
One of her predecessors, Mary Ann Aldersey (the first single woman missionary in China), helped two girls to escape their persecuting families by smuggling them out of their country.
The stories of these strong women could make for an exciting action movie. I might describe them more carefully in other articles. Here, however, I will focus on the work of Jennie Faulding.
Moving to China
Born in 1843 in London, Jennie graduated in 1865 from the Home and Colonial Training College. Graduating with her was her inseparable friend of thirteen years, Emily Blatchley. The same year, Jennie and Emily met Hudson and Maria Dyer Taylor at a prayer meeting. Deeply moved by the Taylors’ appeal for more missionaries, the young women continued to attend their meetings. By October, Emily had moved in with the Taylors as Hudson’s secretary and governess for their children: Grace, Herbert, Frederick, and Samuel.
In 1866, Jennie and Emily joined a group of volunteers in accompanying the Taylors back to China. Emily’s parents, who didn’t profess to be believers, didn’t have any objections, while Jennie’s father, a long-time supporter of Hudson, was hard to convince. The team finally left in May the same year, on the Lammermuir.
Once the ship arrived, all the missionaries dressed in Chinese clothes (the men even wore a fake braid, with the intent of letting their hair grow). This raised outraged objections from missionaries who found their attire unnecessary and demeaning, as well as a compromise with an idolatrous culture.
But Jennie soon discovered what Hudson had believed from the start: wearing Chinese clothes fostered acceptance and removed unnecessary obstacles. “If I had on English clothes,” she said, “the [Chinese] women would at first be afraid of me and, if I succeeded in winning their confidence, my dress would be the one subject of their thoughts.”[1]
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