Who’s Responsible for Our Families?

It appears that the Sunday School blog has gone cold, so I apologize for heating it up again in advance. Some of our discussions on Sunday, however, prompted some critical thought on my part and I wanted to share what I’ve been thinking about to get some of your thoughts.

I was listening to a sermon series today by Voddie Baucham entitled “Family Driven Faith” (If you’ve never heard him preach before, I encourage you to visit his website and download or order one of his CDs or DVDs). He challenged some of my perceptions about what the Christian faith should look like in both the family and the church.

Specifically, as a man, this series probably hit me harder than even our discussions regarding how we are to love our wives as Christ loved the Church. As if we weren’t already bloodied by that little nugget of truth, Voddie dropped an anvil on my head by saying that we (as the fathers and husbands) are “called by God to be the Priest, Prophet, Provider and Protector” for our wives and for our children. I don’t know about you, but I struggle just to be the Provider for my family and completely fail at the other three.

We are called to be the primary spiritual influence in our wives’ and children’s lives and to equip them with spiritual knowledge, understanding, and wisdom thru nurture in the Word of God. We are to disciple our children in the faith and train them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We are to be involved in leading home worship as the primary means of catechizing our children into the Christian faith. We are to provide for our families financial needs and to protect them from harm, which includes training them to be obedient to their parents, protecting them from the lies of our culture as well as from those who would prey on their youth and naivety.

I will be the first to admit, I am not a very good spiritual leader to my wife. I have been of the belief that “she’s an adult, she can fend for herself”. I was wrong, she needs me to be the spiritual leader, not just for the kids, but for her as well. It is my responsibility, not the Church’s, to ensure that my family is taught righteousness and sound doctrine. My kids are a little young, but I almost shy away from talking to them about Christ because I honestly don’t want the hassle of explaining things that can’t be summed up in a few words. I have done my wife and my children a huge disservice and will, if not corrected, set up my family for disaster.

We, as men, have a much greater responsibility than we even thought. Not only do we have a high standard to achieve, but our wives have a high standard to hold us to. We are to be the Pastors of our family. I’ve been a lousy Pastor… how ’bout you?

I want to encourage you all to step up to the plate and be the Priest, Prophet, Provider and Protector for your family and to help keep me accountable to do the same.

ed·i·fi·ca·tion

I don’t think we’ll have time to cover everything, but… Here’s the text for Sunday: 1 cor 14 (ESV) The purpose of the gifts (v. 12) is for the “edification of the church“. I think we fall into a trap here thinking we do what we do for the improvement of the physical space we occupy on Sunday morning. The story of FRWY is a great example of “Intellectual, moral and spiritual improvements” made to the church. FRWY (short for Freeway) is a Salvation Army church plant in one of the poorer cities in Canada. Their purpose is to be neighbors in the community.

1 Cor 13 – for 5/6/07

Not sure if this really is the passage for this week, but it wont hurt to read it…

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

from ebible.com

I Corinthians 12:12-31

For the sake of further discussion, here is the passage that we went through last week.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. (From the English Standard Version)

One thing I wanted to bring up in Sunday School, but didn’t have the time to, was the assumption that it seems Paul makes in this passage. In reading it, there seems to be a clear message that every believer is supposed have a spiritual gift or role in the Church. However, I have known believers (and have been guilty of this myself) who had no desire to be a “body part” or have any kind of service. What do we do when we encounter this in others, or see it in ourselves? Now I am not talking about giving all of our available time to the church or it’s activities, but more in the sense of seeking what spiritual gift(s) the Holy Spirit has for us (12:31, 14:1) that can be used when we come together. It often seems like in many of today’s congregations there are a lot of people who just want to be an unseen member. Does anyone have any opinions about this?

[cough]…hello, anyone out there?

I’m dusting off this old blog in hopes that we can spur on discussions in our class. We’ve had great conversations in our class in the past and my hope is that by posting the scripture (whenever possible) for our next Sunday meeting we’ll be more prepared to work through the text. As a help you can download E-Sword. It’s a free, high quality study aid. You can grab several translations (CEV, ESV, GNT, ISV, KJV…) and read them in parallel. From the author:

The fact that e-Sword is free is just one of the blessings and does not speak of the quality of the software. I make my living writing software and I believe I have put forth my best effort in this endeavor. The real work, however, was put in by the godly men and women who devoted countless years creating the texts that have been made available for our benefit.

While it is free, he does accept donations. You can download it here.

Test for [[Echo]] Thoughts from 1 Corinthians

Does anybody come here anymore? Is this thing on??

Here are some thoughts on what we talked about Sunday in SS about 1 Corinthians and some stuff that maybe we can explore in future SS classes or maybe on this board. Tell me if I am way off here. . .I am really curious about what others think.

1.] The typical evangelical view of “separation” in light of 1Cor. 5:9-13

2.] The “weaker brother stumbling” business of chapter 8.

Regarding “separation”

It is fascinating to me to see that in most evangelical circles the clear teaching of 1Cor. 5:9-13 has not been ignored but COMPLETELY inverted. We are scared of/revolted by/attempt to be isolated from the world, [which Paul points out as really ridiculous] while sin goes relatively unchecked among believers. Oh, our sin is obvious to unbelievers but not to us. Beyond how this inversion really undercuts our ability as the church from being a redemptive agent in the world, as if that wasn’t enough to ponder, one is also left with the difficult task of how to rightly apply:

But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

This would seem to cut into the attendance of pot-luck suppers. Seriously, how do we live this out? This passage freaks me out. In a typical week I am probably all of those things. . . often in the same day. . .and I am really nervous about making any judgment about whether another believer is being greedy or idolatrous. Bottom line I guess, at least on some level and in some way, we are called on to take sin in the body of Christ very seriously, and conversely, perhaps not to bother boycotting Disney. Whatever Paul is talking about, it is seems a long long way from “church discipline” as practiced today in many churches. How do we live out this passage in our friendships and relationships?

Regarding the “weaker brother”

Commentator Gordan Fee kinda confesses in his commentary on 1 Corinthians that he is at a loss to come up with a modern analogy to meat sacrificed to idols in 1st century Corinth. I think it’s a good point. I have heard the “offended brother” clause invoked in sooo many different ways, mainly in ways that allow one pious person to hold hostage a larger group of Christians on the basis of what is ultimately one of their own personal preferences. “Well, if we do such and such in Sunday School so and so might be offended.” Not only is that not what I think Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 8, but if it were, that would make these “offended brothers” -at least according to Paul- spiritually “weak.” Ouch.

I think we can deduce from chapter 8 that Paul is talking about knowingly causing another believer [who is perhaps a recent convert] to sin against their conscience. Note: not unknowingly, and not violating a “thus saith the Lord.” I think back to my dear old mother’s reasons not go to the movies. “What if someone sees you going into the multiplex and they don’t know you’re going to see Bambi and they use you as a reason to go see some awful movie.” [Yes, I'm still slightly bitter.] In this example, I would say I am “unknowingly” having this affect on another believer and that believer cannot use me as an excuse to violate Phillipians 4:8. This, I would argue, is far from what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians, and yes, my mother’s logic also applied to video stores.

It is difficult to imagine a modern scenario that duplicates this situation in Corinth. Perhaps alcohol is the closest example: if one knowingly served alcohol at a dinner with a new convert that had battled alcoholism. I really don’t know. . . Any thoughts on what in our day is analogous to meat offered to idols. Whatever Paul is talking about in 8, it seems to be a relatively narrow and specific circumstance, not the broad sense in which it gets invoked today. It is the weaker brother sinning, not the offended brother being angry.

I think these are pretty important passages/concepts to wrestle with that directly affect how we are the chuch.

What thoughts have ye??

Another Related Article

Saw this just this morning. Coincides nicely with our topic last Sunday.

No Ordinary Death

This is what I think of when I think of our Saviour’s final words. The fulfilled promise accomplished through the second Adam. In scripture, I think there is only one other instance where a human being knew what this may have felt like. That is at the fall. These are the only two cases where somebody had a perfect relationship with the Father and then felt the loss of this relationship and the absence of his presence. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Hayden Forte

Hayden Forte was born around 2:00pm She weighs 7lbs. 8oz. Sandi is doing fine. She was eating a cheese burger and Tim was stealing her fries.

In preparation for Missions Conference

I thought it might be useful to look at a book almost a century old. Roland Allen was a missionary in China for just a few years before illness forced him back to England. His experiences changed his thinking about missions, and his thoughts are still valuable today. I’m just going to post a few passages every couple of days. I’m pulling quotes from Missionary Methods: St. Pauls or Ours?. You can read it online or borrow my copy if you’d like to read it.

…people have adopted fragments of St. Paul’s method and have tried to incorporate them into alien systems, and the failure which resulted has been used as an argument against the Apostle’s method. For instance, people have baptized uninstructed converts and the converts have fallen away; but St. Paul did not baptize uninstructed converts apart from a system of mutual responsibility which ensured their instruction. Again, they have gathered congregations and have left them to fend for themselves, with the result that the congregations have fallen back into heathenism. But St. Paul did not gather congregations, he planted churches, and he did not leave a church until it was fully equipped with orders of ministry, sacraments and tradition. Or again, they have trusted native helpers with the management of mission funds, and these helpers have grievously misused them; But St. Paul did not gather congregations, he planted churches, and he did not leave a church until it was fully equipped with orders of ministry, sacraments and tradition. Or again, they have trusted native helpers with the management of mission funds, and these helpers have grievously misused them; but St. Paul did not do this. He had no funds with which to entrust anyone. These people have committed funds in trust to individual native helpers and have been deceived; but St. Paul left the church to manage its own finance. These people have made the helpers responsible to them for honest management; but St. Paul never made any church render an account of its finances to him. Or again, Europeans have ordained ill-educated native helpers and have repented of it. But they have first broken the bonds which should have united those whom they ordained to those to whom they were to minister, and then have expected them to be ministers of a foreign system of church organization with which neither the ministers nor their congregations were familiar. St. Paul did not do this. He ordained ministers of the Church for the Church, and he instituted no elaborate constitution. When these false and partial attempts at imitating the Apostle’s method have failed, men have declared that the apostolic method was at fault and was quite unsuited to the condition and circumstances of present-day missions. The truth is that they have neither understood nor practised the Apostle’s method at all.

Three Questions

I just read Three Questions to the girls. I had seen it at Barnes and Noble and Angie found it at the library. No, not these three questions. It’s a retelling of a short story by Leo Tolstoy.

Muth takes Tolstoy’s original three questions:

1. What is the best time to do each thing?
2. Who are the most important people to work with?
3. What is the most important thing to do at all times?

and changes them to:

1. When is the best time to do things?
2. Who is the most important one?
3. What is the right thing to do?

What was interesting was as I was asking the questions the girls started answering them: <dry tone of voice>Prayer…God…Jesus</dry tone of voice>. It took a few reads of the questions to suppress their answers. As a friend of mine said: “We forget the questions.” If you must know “the answers” read the short story (link).