Blog

One of the joys of regular Bible reading is the way that we get to see pictures of and references to Jesus that had previously not gotten our attention. In my reading through Isaiah, I find myself noticing more and more of how the prophet said things that are about the Lord Jesus, things that speak to the deity and glory of the Son of God.

 

Isaiah 45:22-23

 

22 “Turn to me and be saved,

all the ends of the earth!

For I am God, and there is no other.

23 By myself I have sworn;

from my mouth has gone out in righteousness

a word that shall not return:

‘To me every knee shall bow,

every tongue shall swear allegiance.’

 

 

In verse 22, we see a couple of things that are undeniably happening. God is clearly declaring his own identity. There is one God. There is not another. And watch as the descriptions continue. The one God, the only God, says that to him every knee shall bow and all tongues swear allegiance.

 

But wait, that sounds familiar.

 

Philippians 2:9-11 – 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 

Here we see a New Testament usage of Isaiah’s prophecy. But we see that this text is not only applicable to God the Father. Instead, the Father is clear that the honor due his name is also due the Son. The Father is making it clear that, though the Son humbled himself and gave up his rights (Phi. 2:5-8), the Son is restored to his position of glory. The worship due only the Father is also given to the Son. This identifies the deity and glory of the Savior, as to him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess him Lord, swearing allegiance.

 

If the Scripture is true, if Philippians is accurate, if Isaiah is inspired, then there is only one conclusion for us to reach: Jesus is God. If Jesus is God, he is truly the only way for mankind to have grace and eternal life. We must bow to him as the Father says, declare our allegiance to God through Jesus, and find our hope and our life in him.

We expect different behaviors from different people. If a person runs on wobbly legs, falls down, gets up, runs again, falls down again, and continues the process, our reaction is completely different based on the person’s age. If it is a toddler learning to walk, we love it. We applaud. WE voice words of encouragement, “You’re getting so big!” But if it is a 25 year old with no physical disability, we immediately want to know what is wrong.

 

In the life of a believer, there is a different standard for what we should expect of a person based on their spiritual age. If a person has just become a believer, we do not expect them to be able to recount for us a systematic theology. WE are happy if they grasp the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We are happy if they know that the Bible is the word of God, trustworthy and authoritative for all of life. And when they make mistakes in their thinking or reasoning regarding Christian truth, we are gentle in helping them along.

 

But what about the person who should be growing in faith? What about the one who should be mature? What about the one who has been a believer for years and is still walking like a toddler when it comes to biblical truth?

 

Hebrews 5:11-14- 11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

 

The author of Hebrews says that he wants to share some deep and powerful spiritual truths with the Hebrews, but he can’t. They are not ready. Though they should be ready, they have not worked to grow in their understanding of the faith. Their knowledge is lacking. Their ability to distinguish good from evil is lacking. They have continued to eat baby food when they should have progressed, and it leaves them at a disadvantage.

 

Christians, milk is fine for babies. But milk is not the diet of a grown-up. And if you are a believer, know that God wants you to grow up. That means that you cannot sit still in your learning. You cannot slack off on your discipleship. You should be studying. You should be reading. You should be listening to good teaching. You should be challenging your intellect. You should be shaping your thinking more and more to match the word of God. You should never think you know enough. And you should be giving yourself to growth for the good of your soul and the glory of God.

 

How do you grow? Sit under good teaching. Read good books. Have deep conversations about hard things. Stop choosing to do the minimum. Stop choosing to settle for fluff. Connect with a strong church where the word is faithfully taught and where people are involved in one another’s lives. Do not make excuses for why you can’t learn, just battle to know and to grow and to obey.

One of my favorite movie lines is, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does.” Often people will say the same words but mean something completely different. And nowhere is that more true than when people are speaking of God.

 

This is not a new problem. In around the early seventh century B. C., the king of Assyria sent a representative to spout propaganda to dishearten the people of Jerusalem. The king threatened the city that was being ruled over by King Hezekiah, and his envoy spoke some very false things about God to try to convince the people to surrender.

 

Isaiah 36:7, 10, and 18

 

7 But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”?

10 Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ”

18 Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

 

Note the three falsehoods that the man spoke. First, he accused Hezekiah of removing the high places of the Lord, though the high places were never commanded by God. In a simple yet dangerous move, the Assyrian representative attempted to redefine who God is so as to make the people give in to the desires of the invaders. The representative declared God to be someone God is not and to desire things that God does not desire.

 

Second, the Assyrian said that God had told the king of Assyria to invade. Once he had redefined God, he claimed to have knowledge of the will of God that the people of God lacked. He claimed extra, supernatural revelation to make his own evil cause right.

 

Third, the Assyrian then redefined God by declaring God to be too weak to stand against the Assyrians. This claim, as much as any other, would lead the Assyrian army to their downfall. These men will not win the victory, as God will not have them boasting of besting him in a contest of strength.

 

Why point this out? The tactic of redefining God is not a new move, nor has it gone away. In our world today, people use the word “God” to justify whatever opinions or desires they have. People often declare God to be for something that God has forbidden in Scripture. They declare to have heard from God permission to do things that actually violate Scripture. Or they simply declare God not to be there or not to be strong enough to make a difference.

 

But, if you read on in Isaiah, you will see that God proves that the attempt to redefine him does not work. The Lord is. The Lord is holy and mighty. God will not be mocked. God’s will is revealed in his word, and we dare not attempt to warp that word or manipulate it to say what it does not. Instead, we must allow God to reveal himself in his word. WE must allow God to be who he is (as if we could stop him from being who he is). And we must bow to him, get under his rule, and seek his mercy. God is the King of kings, and he has the right to tell us who he is, what he demands, and how he is to be approached.

How does man get to God? Is there more than one path to the Lord? Are people of all religions, so long as they are sincere, OK? Or is there a particular way to be made right with God that is exclusive?

 

Scripture is plain to us that we have a great salvation given to us by the Lord. But Scripture is also clear that there is only one salvation available.

 

Hebrews 2:1-4 – 1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

 

Let the question of verse 3 ring out to you: How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? God has given us a salvation, one salvation. He has sent to us a Savior, one Savior. And the Lord has inspired his authors of Scripture to point out to us that, if we neglect that way, if we ignore what God has given, we do not have another option. We are not free to tell the Lord how he must respond to us or to the rest of the world.

 

Consider what the Father did. God sent to us his Son. Jesus willingly laid down his life to bear the wrath of God that had to be taken away for us to be saved. Jesus suffered in a way that no human being has or ever will suffer. Jesus took upon himself more hell, more pain, more spiritual sorrow than any other person ever will face.

 

Knowing what the Father did and knowing what the Son did, we have a very legitimate question to ask. How can we hope to escape the wrath of God if we reject such a great salvation? How can we expect that God is going to welcome us to himself if we look at what his Son did, decide that is not for us, and then try to make ourselves spiritually sound through our own efforts? The Bible is clear that this will not work.

 

God has the right to set up his parameters for how he will receive people to grace. Either he has spelled them out in Scripture, or all the Bible is a lie. What cannot be true is the idea that the Bible is true and other world religions are true too. This is not me trying to be mean or arrogant, it is simply logic. The bible declares Jesus the only way to God. That cannot be true if there are other ways to God. So my heart’s desire is that none of us, none of you, neglect so great a salvation. God the Father sent God the Son to pay for our sins and grant us life. Believe in Jesus and turn to him as Lord. This is our hope. 

How would you like for other Christians to describe you? How do you think they describe you? Are you a breath of fresh air? Are you a constant complainer? Do you bring life into a conversation? Do you make it hard for people to smile?

 

When Paul wrote to his friend, Philemon, with a major request, he first described Philemon in a way that should make us want to imitate Paul’s Colossian companion.

 

Philemon 7 – For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.

 

Paul, describing Philemon, says that the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by Philemon. That, my friends, is something we want said of us. We want to become the kind of people who, when other saints see us and are around us, they are glad for the time. We want to pour into each other more than draw life out of them. We want to brighten and not darken each other’s day.

 

So, perhaps a good and godly application question here would be, “What can I do to refresh the hearts of the saints?” Take some real time to pray it through. Brainstorm some ideas. Let the Spirit of God help you to be able to help others.

 

What are some starters? Perhaps consider the following simply as a way to get your mind working in this direction:

• Offer a compliment instead of a criticism.
• Choose to talk about something positive rather than complaining about what you do not like in the local church or the political scene.
• Choose to point humor at yourself instead of teasing your friends.
• Talk about what you like in the worship service or in the local church rather than focusing on what is wrong.
• Ask your friend how you can pray for him or her.
• Give someone a gift for no reason.
• Make a phone call to someone who could use an encouraging word.
• Share with a friend what you are learning in Scripture instead of keeping it to yourself.
• When you find a small problem, something that is not a major sin issue, pray about it and let it go rather than feeling the need to aggressively correct every problem.
• When someone around you does something you do not understand, believe the best about them rather than assuming the worst.

 

Make your own list. Do it however works for you and your personality. But why not make it a goal in your life to have other Christians say of you that you refresh the hearts of the saints?

My city is heartbroken. A man has chosen to do great evil, murdering more than fifty people and wounding more than four hundred people. Nobody knows why. And, honestly, I do not care why. The actions of this man, deranged, insane, unstable, whatever, are simply evil. One evil man has chosen to take lives of people created in the image of God. It is wrong.

 

John 11:35 – Jesus wept.

 

The Bible reminds us that Jesus is the kind of person first to weep with those who weep. This is good. At the funeral of a friend, a friend Jesus would soon bring back from the grave, the Savior wept. He is not cold to us. He is not unwilling to feel our sorrow with us. And may we be like him. May we first and foremost mourn with those who mourn. Let us be loving before we are anything else.

 

Colossians 3:1-2 – 1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

 

And we must set our minds on things above. Without heaven, without eternity, without God on his throne, there is no way to handle the broken world in which we live. Mankind’s heart is evil. People are broken. WE are fallen, and we do evil as a human race. And we cannot pretend that we can solve this problem on our own. WE cannot do justice in our power. There is no justice that man can dispense to an evil gunmen who has already taken his own life.

 

Hebrews 9:27 – And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

 

But we know this to be true: God is just. The Lord will do rightly. The man who chose to try to destroy those made in the image of the Lord is now facing the Lord he has tried to attack. God will do rightly. God will be just. God has the power and the authority to do what we cannot.

 

Our world is broken. We must show one another kindness. We must seek to do good to our fellow man. But we cannot find healing there alone. We need the Lord, enthroned, eternal, holy, just, gracious, to remind us that this world is not our home. We need God to remind us that this life is not all there is. We need God to call us to himself and grant us the ability to see the world we live in from eternal eyes.

 

If you want to talk about what has happened, I’m happy to talk with you, to grieve with you, to listen to you. If you have questions about God and his justice, I’m happy to hear them and to try to answer what I can. If you want to know about the God who has forever in front of us, I would be happy to help you know how to know him. If you would like someone to pray with you or for you, I am happy to do that. Send me a message here or give me a call, and I will help however the Lord will allow.

 

Let us not allow one evil man to have victory over us. Instead, let us be reminded of eternity, let us mourn with and pray for those who have been impacted by this evil, let us trust that God will do a justice we can never bring, and let us seek to know the God who will love and comfort all who seek his mercy. 

I grew up in a Southern Baptist context, and I’m very much grateful for that. I learned Scripture from godly men, I went to a wonderful seminary, and I saw a denomination at work caring for the needy and taking the good news to the nations. So, when I say that there is something biblical that I seldom saw in my SBC time, please understand that I say that from a position of love and not of sniping.

 

What I never saw in SBC churches growing up was a church operating under the leadership of a plurality of elders. Every church I grew up in had a solo pastor, perhaps associates under him, and a board of deacons. But none of them did what we see Paul say that he instructed Titus to do.

 

Titus 1:5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—

 

Titus was to appoint elders (plural) in every town. That means that every individual church on that island was to have more than one elder in leadership. And if you follow that command with the remaining verses, you see that the call for elder leadership is the call for pastoral qualifications and the pastoral role in more than one man.

 

Why would God design the church so that a plurality of elders lead? The Scripture does not tell us, but it makes sense. No one man has the wisdom and perspective to faithfully shepherd an entire congregation. WE all have weaknesses. We all need others who can see our situation differently than we do. We all have emotions, and we need others to let us know if our reactions are too driven by self than by the truth. We need the strength that comes from working on a team instead of being the Lone Ranger.

 

The beautiful thing is, a plurality of elders actually allows the church to have deacons who do what deacons are called to do—serve. The word deacon means servant. The first deacons in the church were men appointed to care for physical needs in the church so that the leadership could devote themselves to prayer and ministry of the word. It would have been inconceivable to the first century church to have a solo pastor and a board of deacons serving as an oversight committee.

 

In the churches where I grew up, the role of deacon had become a sort of hybrid role combining the spiritual oversight work of elder minus the teaching role with the task of serving in some areas of the body. Looking back, I see that this mixture actually prevented qualified men from serving as deacons and prevented qualified men from becoming elders. Many men have the character and heart to serve as deacons, but do not want the burden of spiritually overseeing the church. They will not become deacons in the hybrid model. At the same time, there are men who are appointed as deacons whose qualifications better fit that of elder. They are better teachers and overseers, but they are burdened with types of service that do not fit their gifting.

 

The church functions best when it is shaped as the Scripture lays it out. We need more than one man serving in the elder role. These need to be godly men, able to teach, living lives of character, and praying and ministering the word in the body. We need godly men to serve as deacons, men of character who meet the physical needs in the body without exercising oversight of the spiritual life of the congregation. When we separate those roles correctly, we are more biblical and we are far more efficient.

 

If any of my SBC friends read this and wonder if this is not consistent with Baptist doctrine, understand that it perfectly fits the model in the Baptist Faith and Message. Elder leadership, even a plurality of elders, does not in any way require a surrendering of congregationalism. In truth, no church that is larger than a handful of people is totally congregational in every decision. WE trust leaders to make day-to-day decisions, and we then affirm those decisions in our congregational meetings. We discuss major issues in the meetings under the guidance of leaders. And a plurality of elders, rightly functioning, can work through elder-led congregationalism. So, there is nothing at all unBaptist about a plurality of elders. But there is something less than biblical and less than helpful about only having a single elder and a hybrid model of deacon.

 

The most biblical way to structure a church is to have a plurality of elders and a plurality of deacons. Other things may be debated here, but this is what we see clearly in Scripture. I love that we have this happening in our church. I would love to have even more deacons and more elders in our congregation to share the responsibilities of ministry. This has been good, and it honors the Lord we represent.

I think that many of us have seen the TV broadcasts of faith healing evangelists. These men, often gaudily dressed and with some really odd hair, travel the world claiming that they have been gifted with the power to heal. Somehow, these same men have that gift in the arenas where they are speaking, but they do not carry it to the hospitals and nursing homes in the cities they visit.

 

But I also know that, if we are honest, in the quiet of our minds, we wonder. Could it be that this is how spiritual gifts work? Are we missing something? Is our biblical conservatism keeping us from something special? And if you come from a cessationist point of view, you really get uncomfortable.

 

The problem is, no matter how much people want to be fascinated with the notion of a modern day healer, we need to let Scripture speak to us about the spiritual gifts, especially the boldly miraculous. Are there or are there not men and women gifted by God to be able to heal at will? It certainly seems that Peter and Paul were gifted in that way, at least for a time. Did that gift remain on those men?

 

Look at this little note at the end of Paul’s second letter to Timothy.

 

2 timothy 4:20 Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus.

 

We often read through the closing of Paul’s letters quickly, and we do not always pay attention. Paul left Trophimus behind because he was ill. Paul left a friend sick. What must that say about the power to heal? Paul had it at one point. Paul, however, did not heal his friend. Why? Did Trophimus lack the faith? I doubt that very seriously. Did Paul lack the faith? Again, that would be hard to swallow. Or is it more likely that the gifting that Paul had to supernaturally heal did not rest on him for all of his life and ministry after conversion.

 

When the apostles and those connected to them in the 1^st century church healed, they did so for a reason. The supernatural power of God was displayed through them to lend credibility to the gospel message of the risen Lord Jesus that they were preaching. The power to do the miraculous testified that these men were men of god, bringing the truth, and eventually authoring divinely inspired Scripture. Their gifts were not for show. Their gifts were for gospel. Their gifts were never about entertainment or about making money so they could live lavishly.

 

Do the supernatural gifts continue today? I do not think so, at least not in the way that they were on the apostles. WE do not have modern apostles today. We do not have modern folks who will need the Spirit of God to testify to their right to write Scripture, as the canon of Scripture is closed. I do not deny at all that God may, in a moment of grace and generosity, heal someone of a disease—otherwise we would have no reason to pray for the sick. But I do deny that the charlatans on the religious broadcasts have a personal, continuing, supernatural gift of healing. I think that it is most likely that, if the supernatural gifts such as healings are occurring today, they are occurring on the front lines of evangelism as the gospel of the Lord Jesus moves into cultures and nations that have no prior gospel witness. But none of those miracles are going to be on public display, as doing such for showy entertainment has never been God’s way.

 

If Paul left a friend sick, Paul who healed so often, we ought to conclude that no person is going to carry on himself a gifting for healing in the way that the televangelists claim. Where does that leave us? It leaves us seeking the Lord for the glory of the Lord instead of seeking the excitement of the mysterious and miraculous apart from the Lord. It leaves us living by the grace of the Lord, knowing that his grace is sufficient for us whether we are healed or not. It leaves us knowing that God can heal, but that such is the work of the Lord and not of men. It leaves us fully denying that there is a special class of healer who has received a secret gifting, faith, or knowledge—which is, by the way, Gnosticism. It leaves us rejecting a modern handling of the gifts that is not consistent with biblical practices. It does not leave us doubting that God does the supernatural or that he takes action in the modern world. But it most certainly leaves us praying, as the Savior taught us, “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Mentoring is a big thing in Christian circles. We tell our folks that they need to be raising up leaders. Pastors go to conferences where big-named speakers tell them that they have to open up the leadership pipeline so that the church can grow. And we read book after book about new mentoring strategies.

 

In truth, the call to be a mentor is clear in Scripture.

 

2 Timothy 2:1-2 – 1 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

 

Paul told Timothy to take the truth that Paul had taught Timothy—Paul mentored Timothy—and teach others—Timothy would be a mentor to others—who would in turn teach others—Timothy’s protégés would mentor still others. So there is a clear intent of a chain of mentoring in the church.

 

So, let’s ask questions about mentoring from two angles. First, are you a mentor? I’m not talking about some sort of formal, book-driven process. I am simply asking if there is someone into whose life you regularly invest. Do you open your home and your heart to someone to help them learn to navigate life? If you are a mature believer, you need to be investing in others as Paul invested in Timothy.

 

 

On the other side of the coin, are you looking to anyone to mentor you? Who do you go to in order to have them look into your life and offer you wisdom? At whose feet do you sit and learn? Are you wishing someone would invest in you, but you do not have anyone? For the mentoring pattern to work, we need both students and teachers.

 

So, ask yourself if you are playing the role that God might have for you in the church. You need to be invested in. find a mature believer who can teach you something about life, about marriage, about friendship, about purity, or about doctrine. And you need to be investing in others. Find someone into whose life you can pour the faithful teaching you have received. You should be receiving from above and passing knowledge down. If you are not involved in this in some form, you are not helping the cause of the church as well as you could be.

 

The thing is, mentoring is not complicated. It does not require a seminar or a book set. To mentor is to do what Paul just said: Learn from the more mature, pass it on to the less mature, and help them pass it on even further. This is hard, not because it is complicated, but because it requires us to invest our time and our hearts in each other. May we be a people willing to be open to one another as we pass on biblical counsel from man to man, from woman to woman, and from generation to generation.