The Father’s words in Matthew 17:5 were a mouthful! Jesus is the promised king, servant, and prophet. He fulfilled those Old Testament expectations, and the Father himself claimed that it was so.

When Jesus shone on a mountain and a cloud overshadowed the disciples, the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matt. 17:5). The transfiguration was glorious because glory was there.
But did you hear what the Father said about his Son? There is glory in what was heard as well as what was seen. I want to look at the Father’s words in three parts. First, “This is my beloved Son.” Second, “with whom I am well pleased.” Third, “listen to him.”
When the Father said “This is my beloved Son,” the language alluded to Psalm 2. In Psalm 2:7, the Father said, “You are my Son.” The recipient of those words was the Davidic king, the promised descendant who fulfilled the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12-13). In the context of Psalm 2, the promised king was God’s Son, and this sonship would envelop a royal rule. The Son would rule the nations with a rod of iron (Ps. 2:9). When would this king come? The Father declared on the mountain that Jesus was this king. Jesus was the promised royal Son.
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Bede tells us “her prudence was so great that not only indifferent persons but even kings and princes asked and received her advice.” In fact, “all who knew her called her Mother.” And her influence spread much beyond Whitby. “For her singular piety and grace,” Bede continues, “was not only an example of good life to those that lived in her monastery, but afforded occasion of amendment and salvation to many who lived at a distance, to whom the fame was brought of her industry and virtue.”[7]

The name of Hilda of Whitby is almost legendary in English history. She ran two abbeys, educated some of the finest minds in England (including five bishops), discovered and sponsored the first English poet, and convened the crucial Synod of Whitby. Her authority and accomplishments are especially impressive when we think that Christianity was still quite new in England.
Hilda’s Early Life
Hilda was born in a renowned family around the year 614. Her father, Hereric, was a prince of the royal family of Deira (whose territories covered approximately modern Yorkshire). He was also a nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria, who is usually considered the first Anglo-Saxon Christian king.[1]
While Hilda was still a baby, her mother Bregusuit had a dream where she was looking for her husband and couldn’t find him. Instead, she found a precious jewel under her gown, which “cast such a light as spread itself throughout all Britain.”[2] That jewel represented Hilda – although her mother might not have lived to see its fulfillment.
Bregusuit’s dream was correct about the loss of her husband, who was at that time living in exile at the court of Cerdic, king of the Britons. She couldn’t find her husband because he had been poisoned. Due to these dangers, Hilda was brought up at King Edwin’s court, where she encountered Christianity and was baptized, together with Edwin and many of his court, on Easter Day 627.
We don’t know anything about Hilda’s life between then and 647, when she decided to move to a monastery in France where her sister Hereswith lived. She might have been married and become a widow. In any case, Aidan of Lindisfarne, an important Irish bishop and missionary to England[3], noticing “her innate wisdom and inclination to the service of God,”[4] advised her to join the monastery of Hartlepool instead.
The monastery of Hartlepool, a port town in County Durham, had gained a notable reputation for the devotion and learning of its members. Founded jointly by Aidan and one of his disciples, Heiu, provided a place of training for Hilda, who by that time (possibly the year 647) was already 33 years old.
Teacher and Influencer
A natural leader, Hilda became abbess of Hartlepool in 649, when Heiu moved elsewhere. In 657, she moved on to become the abbess of a community of both men and women at a seaside town in Yorkshire known as Streaneshalch (later called Whitby by the Vikings). Due to her connection to royal families, she soon became the preceptor for many young men and women of the nobility.
According to Bede, who devoted many pages to Hilda’s life and accomplishments, she placed both monasteries “under the same regular discipline,” teaching “the strict observance of justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, and particularly of peace and charity; so that, after the example of the primitive church, no person was there rich, and none poor, all being in common to all, and none having any property.”[5]
Five of her pupils became bishops.
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Written by Thomas D. Hawkes |
Monday, May 9, 2022
Slander is so effective because we often want to believe the worst about others. Why is this so? People want to feel good about themselves by judging themselves right or righteous. “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom. 10:1) Rather than looking to Christ to make us righteous, we pursue self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the basis of all human-made religion, and indeed, much of human activity that drives us into conflict.

The Definition And Use Of Slander
Slander is powerful, effective, and deadly. Slander, to be slander, must meet two simple criteria: it must be false, and it must damage the reputation of the person slandered. Miriam Webster defines it thus: “The utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another’s reputation.” One minor note: slander is spoken, and is generally distinguished from libel, which is the written form of slander.
Why is slander so often used? Simply because it is amazingly effective. In politics, slander often takes the form of a science, called negative campaigning, or more popularly, mudslinging. Rick Farmer, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science at the University of Akron who has studied the impact of negative campaigning ads, says, “They’re very effective . . . people have a cynical view of politics and tend to believe the negative very quickly.” Research has shown that people remember longer and are more deeply swayed by negative statements.
Slander is as old as humanity, literally. Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve included a slander against God. “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Gen. 3:4–5).
Satan slanders God by subtly suggesting that God’s motive in forbidding them to eat the fruit was actually self-protection, not protection of them. Satan impugns God’s motive for giving his good command. Satan’s accusation was a lie. God’s motive was not self-protection, but rather love for his creation, humanity, to protect them from sin and death.
Satan’s lie also harmed their view of God. This first lie meets both the criteria for slander.  And it worked. Adam and Eve stopped trusting God and trusted Satan instead, following his leadership to sin, death, and destruction. We see the result of the first slander all around us! Slander’s impact is unchanged today: sin, death, and destruction follow slander, naturally.
Slander is also as current as the cancel culture. At the very heart of the modern, social-media-enabled cancel culture is good old-fashioned slander. Why reason with an opponent when one can just obliterate him on a blog? Why bother to engage with another human being when one can entirely dehumanize them with lies on Twitter? Cancel culture has perfected and legitimized slander as the art form of the day. Invited by the attack of one person, soon a virtual mob assembles to finish off the hapless victim, much like a pack of wolves descending on its prey.
Why Slander Is So Effective
Why is slander so powerful? At least two things make slander so effective: the power God has given to the spoken word, and our sin nature which welcomes slander.
God has given great power to the spoken word. He spoke and all creation came into being. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb. 11:3).
Jesus demonstrated the power of the word when he calmed the sea. “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39). He demonstrated the power of the word when he raised Lazarus from death. “‘Lazarus, come out.’ The man who had died came out” (John 11:43–44). Jesus was the Word incarnate. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
Created in God’s image, God has given astonishing power to our words. God has given us the power to speak and define reality by naming things. “And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (Gen. 2:19). God has given us the power to speak and with our words to bless or to curse. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom. 12:14). While we often discount the power of our words, God has given the spoken word great power.
Second, slander is so effective because we often want to believe the worst about others. Why is this so? People want to feel good about themselves by judging themselves right or righteous. “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom. 10:1) Rather than looking to Christ to make us righteous, we pursue self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the basis of all human-made religion, and indeed, much of human activity that drives us into conflict.
Apart from faith in Christ, there are two ways we seek to judge ourselves righteous. We may pursue it positively, so to speak, by achieving, or appearing to achieve, through boasting. Or we may try to feel right about ourselves by tearing others down, through negative comparisons or outright slander.
Although we are not supposed to find our worth in this world by tearing others down, our fallen human nature, even the remains of it in believers, is eager to do so. “There have been men in the world that have sought to make themselves out of the ruins of other men. This did Judas, and some of the Pharisees” (John Bunyan, Seasonable Counsel or Advice to Sufferers, 23).
It is easy and efficient to build ourselves up by tearing others down. It is even easier to allow others to do it for us. Hence our proclivity to believe slander.
The slanderer does our work for us. All we must do in order to feel better about our rightness in the world is to simply accept the slanderer’s critical evaluation of their target. This has the added benefit of making us appear to be a caring and concerned listener, supporting the “victim” who has been “wronged” by the person being slandered. It is a win for the slanderer and a win for the person accepting the slander. And a loss only for the target of the slander. This is why we relish slander: it enhances our sense of self-righteousness.
Because of our desire to feel self-righteous and the power of the spoken word, slander works with deadly effectiveness. Consider the case of Naboth and Jezebel. In 1 Kings Chapter 21 King Ahab tries to buy the vineyard of Naboth. Naboth refuses to sell it because the land is his family’s inheritance.
King Ahab goes home sulking. His Queen, Jezebel, hearing his dilemma, proposes a simple solution. She wrote letters, in her husband’s name and with his seal, to the elders and leaders of the city where Naboth lived, Jezreel. “And she wrote in the letters, ‘Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth at the head of the people. And set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out and stone him to death’” (1 Kings 21:9–10). She tells a lie designed to destroy the reputation of Naboth, a slander.
The plan worked perfectly. For the simple effort of a little slander, Jezebel and Ahab destroy the reputation and life of Naboth and steal his inheritance. Jezebel and Ahab win without breaking a sweat. We see the power of slander at work!
Dr. Thomas D. Hawkes is a Minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and serves a Director of Church Planting for the ARP Florida Presbytery, and as Lead Pastor of Christ ARP Mission in Fernandina Beach, Fla.
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