Paul's Passing Thoughts

CLICK ON TO ENLARGE:

Well, here we are, at least in the American church. More than 2000 years after the birth of Christ’s assembly most Christians can’t define what the Bible is and what it should be used for. When using the term “law” in a conversation with a well-known pastor of our day, he asked, “Paul, when you use the word, ‘law’ what are your referring to exactly?”

My answer to him is my first point. The Bible is God’s wisdom that answers life’s questions. Sorry, but people don’t believe in a god that can’t answer life’s difficult questions. People may be lost, but they aren’t stupid; a god that can’t save your marriage probably can’t save your soul. In our first TANC conference, my wife Susan shared, according to her research, why most people give up on church. By and large, the reason given was the church’s inability to answer life’s difficult questions.

But what can we know and not know, and what should we do with it? The Bible answers that question also:

Deu 29:29 – The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

There is your answer. Some knowledge belongs to the Lord, but we can understand much and we are responsible for it. In this verse, we also see its principle purpose—to change our lives. We are to do the words. We are to learn them and do them. By the way, that is the very definition of a disciple. A disciple is a learner.

So here we are today. The discussion even rages over the very meaning of the word “gospel.” In another conversation with a pastor, I asked him the following: “Is the ‘gospel’ simply the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, or is it something more?” His answer: “That’s a good question.” No it isn’t—that’s a stupid question, and we don’t know the answer. Many bemoan the reality of our youth fleeing church when they graduate from high school. But why would they want to hang out with us? We can’t even define the word gospel! This is why we addressed the definition of the gospel in our Romans series—it’s our very first lesson of that series by the way.

This laity ignorance is by design. Knowledge empowers, and Protestantism is an institution predicated on the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Baptism is our membership, the tithe is our membership dues, and death is our retirement. The laity has become the audience of clergy performers. They revile duty to personal responsibility while insisting on duty to the institutional church. Of course they do, if you attended your own personal duty, you soon wouldn’t need them. There is no money in discipleship, the big bucks are in salvation and the keeping of it. Clearly, I repeat, CLEARLY, Augustine, Luther and Calvin taught that duty to the institutional church is efficacious to keeping your salvation.

This could be yet my third point: does the Bible reveal to us what church is and how we should do it? Absolutely. In short, the Bible answers all of life’s questions that God wants us to know, and this is a very deep well. Christians are called on by God to be thinking disciples. As church historian John Immel stated in our first conference, this is a moral issue, and also a matter of life and death. Should wives always obey their husbands? Brother Andy addressed that in last week’s Acts series. To find the answer to that question, read the historical account of Ananias and Sapphira. Peter even gave Sapphira an out in not lying for her husband, and unfortunately she made an uninformed choice. The Bible is a lifesaver, Moses continues from the aforementioned citation:

Deu 30:15 – “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Let’s go back and answer the question from the first pastor. What do we mean when we speak of “the law.” Well, the law is all of Scripture. That is how Moses uses that term. Law is the full counsel of God. The law is how to do life. And as an old friend of mine from Texas used to say, “boy howdy” do I get a lot of grief  when I posit this idea. The pushback primarily comes from the Reformed peanut gallery. They have the Bible dichotomized into all sorts of different covenant theologies and uses of the law. It’s all very complicated so the average parishioner just shuts up and takes their word for it. The right way to look at the Bible is also very complicated, but here is the key; for the Christian and mankind in general—it’s intuitive, i.e., it’s a common sense issue. And the former controls how we interpret life, and the latter frees us to interpret life wherever the Bible takes us. Whether you are a Christian or not, letting others think for you has always been a matter of life and death. This is fairly apparent from a cursory observation of history.

And here it comes: “Oh, so we shouldn’t work on the Sabbath, snicker, snicker.” “You’re saying we should wear seamless clothing LOL!” “Oh, so we should stone rebellious children.” Etc., etc., you have heard them all. Let’s first back up a little and establish the fact that ALL Scripture contributes to knowledge concerning how we live our lives.

2Tim 3:16 – All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

In regard to the idea that all Scripture is breathed out by God,

Matthew 4:3 – And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,

Due 8:3 -“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Every word that comes forth from God’s mouth as recorded in Scripture contributes to life in some way. ALL of it is profitable. Parsing Scripture according to relevance for our lives is taking away from it—an act sternly warned against in Scripture itself. Now, let’s establish the fact that the law is a word that speaks to all of Scripture.

In Matthew 5:17,18, Christ refers to all Scripture canonized at that time as “the law or the prophets.” But then in verse 18, he refers to everything as “the law.” In Luke 24, we have “the prophets [v.25],” “Moses and all the prophets [v.27],” “the scriptures[v.32],” “the law of Moses, …the prophets…the psalms[v.44],” “the scriptures [v.45],” “the writings [v.46],” all used interchangeably in this chapter. As a matter of fact, verse 27 officially calls the whole cannon of that time, i.e., the Old Testament, “the scriptures.” In the first part of the verse, Christ refers to the Scriptures as “Moses and all of the prophets.” In the second part of the verse, it calls Moses and all of the prophets “the scriptures.” Here is my point: It’s all the same . It’s all the “law.” There is no way you can take the Decalogue, the prophets, the Psalms, the wittings of Moses, or any other segment-like-chapters of Scripture and relegate it to less significance for faith and order. I even take exception to a present uselessness for parts of the law. Though we would not stone rebellious children in our day, the fact that God at one time did command his people to do so should teach us how much God loathes rebellion in any form. Certainly, we are not obligated to the Old Testament law that commands us to let the poor glean what’s left of our harvested fields, but does it teach us what God expects concerning our attitudes toward the poor? Absolutely.

It’s all the same. It’s all “scripture” with equal authority. According to Matthew 22:23-33, Jesus argued with the Sadducee’s from the writings of Moses and called it “scripture.” He even based his argument on the present tense verb “am” to argue for a resurrection. Scripture is also called the “law [Psalms 1:2, James 1:25].” Christ called Scripture “all that I have commanded you” in Matthew 28: 20. The Apostle Paul proclaimed his writings to be “the commands of the Lord” in 1Corinthians 14:37.

Bottom line is this: “All scripture” is profitable for the things that make a person of God complete and equipped for every good work (2Timothy 3:16). So, how should the Bible be interpreted and applied to life with EVERY verse? Well, how did the apostles do so?

1Tim 5:17 – Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says,

Deu 25:4 -“You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and,

Deu 24;14,15 -“The laborer deserves his wages.”

A question: at the time God published the law to not withhold food from a working ox, did that have anything to do with paying elders? Of course not. So why does Paul cite that Scripture in regard to this problem that needed to be corrected in the early assemblies?

First, know that this was a problem in the early assemblies because it was a departure from institutional academia. The home assemblies were less formal and teaching elders were not seen as paid professionals, and indeed they were not. But the problem is that the ministry of the word is a full time job, and these elders were burning it at both ends because they weren’t being paid by the laity. Hence, the ministry of the word suffered.

The early assemblies were non-institutionalized  synagogues that met in people’s homes. There was a disdain for the paid clergy, so paying lay elders was a sticky wicket. And frankly, this is an obstacle that the home fellowship movement will have to overcome in our day as well. In cases where a professional clergyman has started a home fellowship this seems not to be a problem, but unfortunately such fellowships often obtain a building which defeats the purpose of the model.

But in returning to our original point, what was the application of that text originally? Answer: the proper treatment of animals. A working animal should not be deprived of food to cut cost—that’s animal cruelty, and greed. What does the Bible say about cruelty to animals? Plenty.

However, Paul cites this same verse to make a point and application in our day. It’s not a direct or specific application because we don’t use oxen anymore—we use rototillers. But the general principle is that if you shouldn’t deprive a working ox of needed provisions, you certainly shouldn’t deprive a working elder of provisions. It may be possible that some of these elders were nevertheless putting ministry first and going without food!

Now, let’s look at the following chart to get a visual idea of this interpretive concept.

The pixels demonstrate Bible verses. The words represent different categories of subjects that the verses speak to in some way. The three columns represent applications in the past, present continuous, and future. This is how the Bible works. Let’s look at another example; the New Covenant. This covenant was made to Israel.

Jere 31:31 -“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Jer 31:38 -“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah. 40 The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever.”

This covenant is obviously to Israel and future. The promise of it was to give them hope when it was published. The Messiah executed the covenant when He came to die for the sins of Israel (Acts 5:31, 13:23, 28:20), and it will be fully consummated at the end of time.

This is how we use the Bible. It is God’s full philosophical statement to man concerning reconciliation to God and living as a kingdom citizen. With the aid of the Holy Spirit and elders we do such, and are responsible individually for the study, understanding, and application to our lives with God’s word and the Chief Shepherd as our only authority.