Text:
Proverbs 3:13-18, focusing on verse 16
Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.
V. 16 Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called blessed.
There are so many, especially it seems in the church, who refuse to apply verse 16. They refuse to create a culture of honor.
Today is a day where churches place a high value on their pastors teaching them how to apply what Scripture teaches. Well, first, we must get the basics. Wisdom is basic to the faith of Christ.
And honor is a basic aspect and application of wisdom. Scripture teaches us to honor others. Honoring parents (Exodus 20:12, Ephesians 6:2) comes to mind as a good example. Honor in the church is a natural extension of this principle, as we are to honor those in authority. Likewise, those in positions of authority are to honor and minister to those under their care, given leaders are ministers who watch over us (Hebrews 13:17) and do so for our good (Romans 13:4).
I observe, perhaps, that the lack of honor appropriated in churches is rooted in rampant lack of wisdom. When Scriptures exhort us to cry out for wisdom in the areas where we lack it (James 1:5), are we following through, or are we refusing to do so? I speak to myself as much as to my audience.
I will share an example of this culture of dishonor.
One pastor who I know told me that the church of which he was part was “a graveyard for ministry callings”. He was acknowledging that his church had a way of swallowing up people who were called and gifted.
But something else was present when I conversed with him. I picked up that it was not accidental, but rather it was a tool the enemy could use to keep people from advancing into their callings.
One person at this church, in an example of that graveyard mentality, along with her family, has been called to missions work. However, this person has led another ministry at the church for a number of years, and is now recognized not as called to missions work, or for that zeal for teaching the Scriptures, but as the head of that ministry.
This individual has long since grown tired of this work, but the church has continued to only recognize the ministry title. They have felt trapped in an assigned identity. The church has left this person in place, without giving this person or their family a platform for the outworking of their calling.
This is a subtle form of dishonor that happens in churches everywhere.
It is dishonor to say of a woman who happens to play violin in your church, but may have a calling to preach, “Oh, that’s just our church’s violin player”, when the church may not provide a platform for her to excel at her calling.
When we grow to admit that a church is a graveyard for something, we admit we have death in our presence in that aspect. We resign ourselves to this fact and instead of fighting to change it, allow that death to repeatedly take place. Jesus, the author of life, is no author of death.
It is dishonor to allow Lazarus to moulder in the grave.
So, what is the antidote?
How do we honor others?
Churches, all, each, and every one of them, are put in place to build platforms underneath individuals for their success in whatever ministry to which the Father of Lights (James 1:17) has called them.
Jesus places us on a platform called the Cross, for our success in the ministry He chooses for us. This platform involves death to self and giving life to others. He gives only good and perfect gifts, and he gives them without repentance or variance. It is our responsibility as churches to follow His example and to do the same for others. It is our responsibility to give that life to others in the same way He gave it to us.
This is wisdom and this is honor.
Honor is found in wisdom. Where honor fails to flow, there is a good chance that wisdom is not present. When wisdom takes hold of a congregation or pastor, then honor is sure to follow.
If your church, pastor, is not doing this, not honoring, not seeking godly wisdom, you need to fight for it to do so. Cut whatever needs to be cut to make this happen. Arrange to meet with people who are not working according to their gift sets, and reorganize your staff, if need be. Reorganize your church’s leadership around the gift sets that are present. A missionary is not just a Sunday School Teacher, a violin player, a nursery coordinator, an usher, a greeter, or a youth pastor.
Acknowledge the gifts present, ALL OF THE GIFTS PRESENT, and use all of those gifts, even if you don’t understand one or more of those gifts, like prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues, discerning of spirits. These often-seen-as-weird gifts have a place, even in a non-Pentecostal or non-Charismatic church. So, place them and place them well. And, if you are not familiar with them, then ask someone who is familiar with how those gifts can be used, and then begin to place those gifted people throughout your church.
A second responsibility of a pastor, which will keep that graveyard mentality at bay, is that, as honor toward others and their callings is developed, we should also help develop life-giving relationships among our congregation. Life fights and overcomes death. Biblically, death is swallowed up in victory. The grave has no more stinging capacity in either the life of a believer or a church. It is time we started walking according to that principle, and stop allowing the spirit of death to have so much territory in our churches because we allow for and practice a culture of dishonor.
A third responsibility of the church is to encourage individuals to discover and acknowledge their G-d-given gifts and callings, and to develop those, even if they do not seem relevant to the ministry in which those individuals are currently serving.
A fourth responsibility is that we need to develop others who can take over for those who have callings elsewhere besides their current area of service.
Consider these for today.
Honor is in the hand of wisdom. The one who finds wisdom will practice honor of others. The one who honors others will find life, wealth, and blessing.
Author: theparacleteshammer
The Misuse of Job 1:21
Matt Redman wrote a song based on it.
Newsboys has done a cover of that song.
It has entered into our pop culture, for better or worse, and we often have it devoid of its context.
I speak of Job 1:21b
The L-RD gave and the L-RD has taken away; blessed be the name of the L-RD.
Now, while I have no problem with this verse on it’s own, I do have a problem with its over-application and misapplication to an abundance of situations.
The L-rd does give us gifts and callings. Yet, many times, I have heard pastors say that G-d can take our gifts away if we abuse them. However, this is nowhere supported in Scripture. Rather, the Word teaches that they are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). He gives gifts, and, under His covenant, does so without repentance.
As I was in my devotional time this morning, I thought about circumstances in which G-d might take something away from us. A couple of good examples of this follow.
First, if Hebrews 11:6 tells us that it is impossible to please G-d without faith, then I would imagine G-d would seek to remove obstacles to faith in our lives. If something keeps us from trusting G-d, then G-d might remove that, and so cause us to trust him.
This does not include our callings. The reason for that is that G-d is faithful to execute his word and keep us with the gifts that come from him. Now, he might remove us from the scene where we are doing damage and abusing with our gifts, but He does not remove our gifts. He has no need to remove our gifts.
Why?
Because, sooner or later, if we walk in gifts combined with bad character, then despite our gifts, our character will show who we truly are, and people will distance themselves naturally from us.
If we keep operating in our gifts and bad character, either one of two scenarios usually results.
Either our opportunities for ministry will eventually dry up, or we will end up with a ministry to people who still see us as anointed without seeing our faults, and who end us as radically deceived as we are. I have witnessed this phenomenon in churches before, sadly.
Secondly, G-d will frequently remove from us things that keep us from new levels of trust in Him. This might be an unhealthy relationship, a job that distracts us from His calling on us, a wrong priority, or something that we hold as an idol.
But it is not a spiritual gift.
Moreover, G-d does not steal, kill, or destroy. That is Satan’s job (John 10:10).
G-d does not kill off our family members or destroy the lives of others, nor does He steal our dreams and hopes in order to force us into a place of despair. His way is the way of breathing life into us.
I have seen people who attribute the loss of their child or the loss of an opportunity to the L-rd’s doing.
“We don’t know why it was their time. We don’t know why G-d called my baby home. The L-rd gave and the L-rd took away.”
Nothing is further from the truth. We can have a calling and a dream and a child that is from G-d and any attacks on those callings and dreams and children are not from the L-rd. Rather, they are from the enemy, who is allowed to attack us.
Now the reasons for those attacks are numerous, but G-d is not responsible for those attacks. He is not culpable. We need to understand and call attacks on things that give us life as attacks of the enemy.
And G-d desires us to handle these battles, not by getting bitter or angry at G-d, but by doing some spiritual warfare to stop Satan in his tracks and pull down some strongholds. G-d wants to use all things to breathe life into us.
And one aspect of G-d’s breathing life into us is by making us, as His sheep and flock, into His majestic warhorse (Zechariah 10:3b). He wants to take you, His sheep, and make you a vessel a weapon in His hand to destroy the works of the devil (Isaiah 54:16-17, 1 John 3:8, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5). And He will do and use whatever it takes to ready us for battle, even an enemy attack.
So my question is, who is really reaponsible for that attack in your life?
Is it an attack on some aspect that breathes life into you? If yes, then go to the Scriptures and go to the L-rd and handle the battle that awaits you.
It is time for us to quit treating Job 1:21 as a fatalistic refrain and behaving toward life with apathy. It is time for us to take an active stance and label that death in our lives as the work of Satan and go after him and teceive the abundant life the Father has for us. It is time for us to become the warhorse he wishes us to become (2 Corinthians 5:17).
In His Rest…
So, today I was in the middle of writing a series on Proverbs 3:5-6, in which I was expounding on various ways we trust the L-rd and do not lean on our own understanding.
One of those ways is the way we trust the L-rd and allow him to direct our paths when it comes to our rest in him.
As I was in Psalm 95:7-9, the passage that begins:
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…
I had always read this passage independent of the rest of the Psalm, and even the second half of verse 7 apart from the first half. The whole of verse 7 alone reads,
For he is our G-d,
And we are the people of his pasture
And the sheep of his hand
Today, if you hear his voice
The rest of the passage finishes the rest of the familiar segment “do not harden your hearts”
As I was reading this passage, John 10:27 came into memory. Specifically the following phrase
My sheep hear my voice.
Psalm 95 says we are his flock and sheep. John 10 says we hear his voice.
Hearing the Father’s voice is critical to entering his rest. And as his sheep we can hear that clvoice, but we often harden our hearts against obeying that voice,
So there is an connection between Psalm 95:7-9 and John 10:27-30.
If we are his sheep, then we hear his voice. If we obey that voice then we enter the rest that he has for us, and it is not just a one-day-a-week rest. If we refuse to obey, then we refuse his rest.
Are you hardening your heart, or are you obeying what you hear?
Be doers of the word [of the voice that you hear] and not merely hearers, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:22
1 Samuel 2:10
Today I was reading 1 Samuel. I was wondering why I hadn’t seen it before. After all I have read it before. But it jumped off the page at me, 1 Samuel 2:10, and as a result I decided to post my thoughts.
I think the ESV Study Bible commentator got the interpretation wrong in some places.
The text reads:
“The adversaries of the L-RD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven; the L-RD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his annointed.”
Now a couple of things I noted.
1. Hannah’s husband was likely from the tribe of Judah and the same clan as David and Jesse. (“…an Ephrathite.”- 1 Samuel 1:1, cf. Micah 5:2). So, Samuel was also likely from Judah. This is important because of several prophecies tied to Judah that have kingly aspects.
2. Hannah’s words read similarly to portions of Psalm 2, a messianic Psalm that discusses the Messiah breaking the nations in pieces.
No king had yet been born in Israel. My thought, however, was that a kingmaker and an king-annointer, Samuel, had been born. Moreover, an annointed priest had been born. Hannah’s prayer was therefore prophetic of what would come to pass as a result of this birth.
Thoughts?
For Joel Watts
Just thoughts you would like to see where, “From Fear to Faith Landed on my bookshelves. This is evidently because Travis Milam’s name appears first. Many good things to come.
World Vision
I do not usually have the best logic, but when I write, I occasionally have the witty gem. Perhaps this shall be one such post.
Recently, World Vision, an organization that provides opportunities to sponsor children in Third World countries, made headlines when it permitted its US branch to hire those who both confessed Christ and were married homosexuals.
This set off a firestorm of controversy, and a few days later, the same organization retracted this decision, calling it a mistake.
Following the reversal, one respondent, popular blogger Rachel Held Evans, commented (http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/world-vision-update):
This whole situation has left me feeling frustrated, heartbroken, and lost. I don’t think I’ve ever been more angry at the Church, particularly the evangelical culture in which I was raised and with which I for so long identified. I confess I had not realized the true extent of the disdain evangelicals have for our LGBT people, nor had I expected World Vision to yield to that disdain by reversing its decision under pressure. Honestly, it feels like a betrayal from every side.
I have to say, I do hold Ms. Evans in some measure of respect, on the recommendation of others, even though I have not read much of her work. That said, as a confessing evangelical, I reply to the statement “disdain evangelicals have for our LGBT people”, with some concern that it is a generalization.
Personally, I do not hold any disdain for LGBT people, and I know several other evangelicals who do not.
But they are out there. There are evangelicals who do, by their actions, disdain the homosexual community. They hate getting their hands dirty.
What I do observe is that, sadly, a number of pro-homosexuality people seem bent on accusing those of us who “love the sinner, but not the sin” of homophobia, condemnation, and judgment, and responding to the Phelpses in our midst, demanding that we not judge. I can say that, to a large extent, we may have earned that reputation.
We have to learn how to minister to the homosexual community, and be with them. This scares some Christians. I confess that, having never grown up around the LGBT community as a native of the Deep South, this does scare me. But fear keeps us from having power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Fear also keeps us from making a difference (Jude 22).
A problem with liberals and conservatives is this problem, perhaps. Maybe we have right practice and right belief. Conservatives have more or less right belief, but shoddy practice, afraid to get their hands dirty, while liberals have more or less right practice but wrong belief, and so, in addition to getting their hands dirty, they get every part of their body dirty, including parts that were not supposed to get defiled. Just a thought. Perhaps there is a proper balance somewhere between. Jesus melded both right practice and right belief. And his is a faith with works, that is not dead.
I confess that I have too often walked with a right belief but wrong action. As have many of my brothers and sisters in the evangelical community.
On another aspect of this issue, I agree with James Dobson that homosexuality could likely be rooted in some form of abuse, whether emotional, verbal, physical, or sexual.
One other very important thing, though, in working with the homosexual community. Some of them do love Jesus, and are working through a tremendous boatload of pain and suffering and raping at the hands of some right-believing Christians who practiced a sort of “scorched earth” policy when dealing with sin. That is, they may parrot the “right things” but they screw up the execution when it comes to walking faith out.
Your responsibility, Christian, is to WALK with that homosexual neighbor, love them, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, and if he says speak, then speak ONLY what he says to speak. Too often we speak too bloody much, and then we act as if we are clear, now that we have preached the appropriate level of damnation to them. But the L-rd does not let us off the hook with the lost or the hurting with a tract from Jack Chick. The L-rd does not give us an easy way out to dealing with those who need a light. Lights burn for the long haul. “Fire shall be left burning on the altar. It shall not go out.”
You must be in it for the long haul. You must show them you are in it for the long haul. You must be in it for the long haul, and if they never change, your object ought always to be to love them. You should seek Christ for a portion of that love that never fails. You must never waver in your constancy with them. If there is an abuse history, they may need someone to help unpack, work through, and seek healing from whatever abuse they have handled by their family, friends, and church.
Theparacleteshammer
And…
So it would seem that I am back in the saddle. Soon I will begin posting regularly. This shall be my ruminations on scripture
Review of From Fear To Faith
I received a review copy of this work while still a minister in a large denomination.
Authors Watts and Milan have complied a solid group of testimonies belonging to some of the most wounded and recovering victims of church abuse.
These testimonies show us what can happen in various denonimations when the men and women of Christ’s church refuse to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk in humility (Micah 6:8).
Watts’ own testimony, in particular, shows us what can happen in the worst segments of the Pentecostal movement. While there is some notable life in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, there are some very real ugly sides as well, and many of these sides I have seen.
We need to know that there are members of Christ’s own body who share solidarity with us from the process of spiritual abuse.
Granted, Watts is a liberal in many ways, and I am still very much a conservative in many ways,and we have some sharp disagreements about matters of faith, but his soul-bearing is extremely cathartic for those who feel alone and brutalized by the church at large, and even by legitimate Bible-believing, non-cult, denominations. Abuse can happen in even the most Christ believing traditions, as my own testimony shows.
For many of us, we have seen the church is sick and wish to speak the warnings that the Lord has for the church, in order that the church might be whole. Sadly, there are places where the church has rejected that message of correction.
Bottom line: Get this book.
I received a review copy, and was paid no money or compensation in return for this review.
Thank you, Mark Hausfeld, Reasons I Love Chicago
You know, I am a huge gun-rights advocate, with no apologies to those who are not.
However, when I took an Urban Missions course in the city of Chicago, I immediately fell in love. Having only been in one other large city, Los Angeles (also gorgrous in her own right) I never imagined that I, a man from rural Florida, would enjoy the same type of experience, a week in the city. Well, below I wax nostalgic on all the reasons I love thr Windy City, with thanks to Mark Hausfeld for introducing and endearing me to this place.
Reasons I would choose to live in Chicago over any other place in the U.S., except for maybe Florida (in no particular order)
1. Fat Johnnie’s Famous Red Hots
2. The walk along Lake Michigan
3. Devon Avenue-50 Nations in 50 Blocks, an eye-opener for my southern colleagues, and no mistake
4. Navy Peir
5. American Islamic College
6. The cultural diversity
7. The cleanliness of the city. Sure, there is trouble if you go looking for it in the murder capital of the U.S.. There are always difficult spots in every city. That is the nature of sinful, fallen humanity. But during the week I was in Chicago, I walked the 16 blocks down Michigan Avenue towards the financial dostroct to prayerwalk downtown, after 1:00am, and not one person bothered me, mugged me, harmed me, or tried propositioning me for sex. Well, thst is not entirely true. One woman did drive by and make a catcall at me, but, otherwise, no incidents and I felt very safe, confident, amd protected. As a young, ignorant, smalltown southerner, who probably had no usual business walking downtown late at night, I enjoy walking into unknown, unfamiliar, and in some cases dangerous places, armed with little more than a motive to pray. I love prayerwalking downtown Chicago late at night. The later, the better.
8. The opportunity for the church to win the lost with the simple message of Christ’s redeeming affection. It is MASSIVE in this town.
9. Honestly, there is a beauty in the black community of Chicago that I cannot describe and is not readily duplicated or appreciated outside of the city.
theparacleteshammer
119 Ministries
There is a phrase in Scripture from 1 Thessalonians 5 that says, “test everything.”
A organization called 119 Ministries has recently been posting several pictures to my Facebook wall. Some of these pictures seem to suggest that the church believes the law has passed away, or that we are still to follow either portions of the Law we currently do not follow, or follow the law in its entirety. Many in the Jewish community refer to this as being Torah-observant. The slant is an argument against the non-Jewish flavor of much of the worship, rites, and observances.
119 Ministries gets its name from Psalm 119, a text notable for not only being the longest Psalm in the Bible, but for also being David’s meditation on the goodness of the statutes and precepts found in the Law. I have some thoughts on this ministry that I would like to share, perhaps for the purpose of stimulating some discussion among my friends.
Now, for those of you that know me well enough, you know that I believe the dividing wall between Jewish and non-Jewish believers has been removed as a result of what Jesus did on the cross.
You also know that I do no subscribe to “replacement theology”, which, in a nutshell, says that the church has replaced Israel in God’s redemptive timeline and that Israel has forfeited her promises because of her stuborn and unrepentant heart, and because of this unrepentance, God has move on and bestowed his covenant promises originally given to Israel, now to the Church.
But what you may not know about me is that I too, seriously explore the relationship between the Jewish roots of the church and the current practice of the church, and our tolerance of one another as practicing Jew and practicing non-Jew.
You also may not know that I do not use the term Gentile because of the context in which the term is referred to in Scripture. “Gentile”, in my understanding of Scripture, is not a safe term to use to describe a non-Jewish follower of Jesus Christ. “Gentiles” are those who do not know God, whose minds are darkened, whose minds are altogether futile.
This is not a picture of the believer who lives in the light of Jesus, and no, before someone throws that text out, Romans 7 does not apply in the life of the believer, or those who are in Christ. Ben Aker is correct.
119 Ministries, publishing one of these images, seems to imply that the church believes the law has been done away with. Last I checked, no church of which I have ever been part has ever made this assertion. We may not be under the law, but the law has not been done away with. Jesus fulfilled the law.
Now, I am currently exploring a little of what that means. And I know there are a lot of Sunday School answers on what that means, but I want the heart. What does it REALLY mean when He said he came to fulfill the law?
The above question cannot be answered in the scope of a single post, so I wont attwmpt that here. But I will say a few things that are backed well in Scripture.
Now, I won’t go off on Judaizing tangents saying that we must keep kosher or any of those other funny ceremonial bits, but I do think there is non-redemptive, dietary value in observing kosher standards, starting with trichinosis, and I also think there is value, if your house has a flat roof, in building a guardrail to keep people from falling off those roofs.
I also would say there is value, if you own orchards and vineyards and orange groves, in leaving a tithe of the fruit on the branches on the borders of your land so the poor may have access to food at need. I also say there is value to letting the land lie fallow one year out of every seven, though I do not have definitive proof the Lord will bless you for observing a comprehensive Sabbath in all areas of your life. But I will say this, believers do not keep Sabbath and kosher and tithes because we are required to to fulfill some good standard to get or keep redemption. Let those of us who do observe these practices do so because we love the Lord, walk in grace, and practice such out of faith according to the dictates of conscience. By the same token, those of us who walk as non-jews, eat pork, etc., let us not judge such who practice these things accuse them of being legalistic. The eating of pork and the drinking of beverage, and the freedom we have that we force and superimpose on others can also be rooted in the outflow of a legalistic spirit.
We must be absolutely careful that we do not superimpose out matters of conscience, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, on other believers. This opens the door of the religious spirit.
We need to, in the body of Christ in many places, leave the fundamentals and move on to the greater things, the greatest of which is love.
The next revival may well not be catalyzed by attention to one standard or another, but by the genuine love and affection we possess one for another, and the genuine devotion we have to the whole counsel of Scripture, whose spirit is charity and motive is affection rooted in the selfless work of the cross.
theparacleteshammer