discernment – Page 3

Puritan Wives: Anne Hutchinson- Screeching usurper, or passionate devotee?

Posted on April 22, 2024April 22, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

You know how some people jokingly say he or she ‘broke the internet’? Well, Anne Hutchinson broke the colony.

History hasn’t been that balanced to Puritan wife Anne Hutchinson. She is either portrayed as an religiously oppressed early feminist denied her identity, or a screeching harridan who deserved what she got. She has been called a heroine, an American Jezebel, an instrument of satan, poison, and a great imposter (the negative ones were all from Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop).

Of course the truth is somewhere in the middle.

This is the fourth entry in my Puritan Wife series. I’d written:

Introduction
Margaret Winthrop and her extraordinary love letters
Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse

Sometimes we think of our historical brethren as backward or uneducated, but in fact Puritan Massachusetts was populated with highly literate people, and that included the women, unusual for the time. The 1600s was an era when women were mainly quiet at home, revered, but out of the public eye. We only know of Anne Bradstreet because her brother-in-law copied her poems and published them in London without her knowing. We only know of Margaret Winthrop because her letters between her and her husband were preserved. And we know of Anne Hutchinson because of the trial transcripts! The two years she stirred up controversy reverberate to this day, I am not kidding.

In her religious outworkings and domestic life, Hutchinson was loud and active. An intelligent, complex, wayward mother of 15 children, she was tried and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Exiled at age 47 in 1638 and left with nowhere to go, she traipsed to Rhode Island where she was welcomed by that colony’s founder, the also-exiled Roger Williams.

That was the end of the end of the Antinomian controversy but not the end of Anne Hutchinson.

Anne was born Anne Marbury in 1591 in Alford, England. Her father was an Anglican cleric. Being literate himself and a teacher, he educated Anne to the fullest.

The family moved to London and lived there a while, but when Anne married childhood friend William Hutchinson she moved back to Alford. There, they enjoyed John Cotton’s sermons. Cotton was an outstanding theologian and a dynamic preacher, a combination not often found. Cotton was extremely well thought of.

Cotton was an Anglican preacher who had served for 20 years by the time the Hutchinsons met up with him. He peached much on grace in justification as well as the usual works being the fruit of it. Anne liked the grace part.

He believed the Church needed reforms, such as divesting itself of ritual and ceremony, but did not want to separate from it. He wanted to change it from within, or, “purify” it. Hence the moniker Puritans. As time went on, though, his consistent attitude against the framework of the Anglican church and his continual speaking against it eventually exceeded the leniency his overseers gave him, and pressure forced him out. He sailed for Massachusetts in 1633.

Devastated, Anne prompted her husband to follow Cotton. In 1634, the Hutchinsons packed up their 14 children and decided to follow Cotton to the new Colony that had been established just 13 years prior.

The Hutchinsons and William’s brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, were quickly accepted into the life of the colony. Anne was a midwife, and she met and discipled many women on her normal rounds. Being articulate and a deep thinker, many women sought her commentary on the Bible. Anne soon began holding weekly meetings for women at her home, repeating and commenting on Cotton’s sermons.

So far, so good. A woman ministering to her fellow sisters in body and soul is what the Bible tells us ladies to do. (Titus 2:3-4). Mothering in midwifery and ministering spiritually to sisters in the colony is a good thing.

However, it wasn’t long before Hutchinson expanded the discussions of the week’s sermon into her own exposition on them. Notoriety and interest caused men to attend her meetings, which were ever-expanding. Anne’s commentary was insightful, but a woman leading men in preaching and teaching, even in the privacy of a home, is a dangerous endeavor spiritually. (1 Timothy 2:12). The tendency to usurp is great, and that is what Anne did when she taught and preached to men. Some say that up to 60 people flooded her home to listen to Anne’s opinions and expositions. And it was definitely Anne they came for, not her husband John. (the sin of passive Adam, Genesis 3:6).

Does sin ever only get worse? Yes. Eventually, Anne did not restrict her home meetings’ topics solely to dissecting/discussing her pastor’s sermons, she strayed into dissecting other ministers’ sermons, too, usually negatively. Believing only she and her small circle of supporters were the only ones in the right, she criticized heavily, violating Titus 2:3 not to be slanders and Colossians 4:6 to let your conversation be gracious.

Remember, these were emigrants defying death in England for their views, defying death aboard the ships that brought them, surviving the first winters of privation and starvation. The one thing they needed was trust in their leaders’ stances and that is the very thing Anne destroyed.

More men began showing up, women too. Her ‘talks’ gravitated to mainly criticism of everyone else besides her favorite, John Cotton. She began to call names, and impugn character.

A soothing tongue is a tree of life, But perversion in it crushes the spirit. (Proverbs 15:4)

She hinted that some were antichrists and not saved. She said that these other pastors were preaching a covenant of works, while the only true pastor, Cotton, was preaching rightly, the covenant of grace. Anne over-focused on grace and was against Law. She was an antinomian.

Definition Antinomian: Anti means against, nomos is law. It’s “relating to the view that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law.” Oxford Dictionary

In looking at the two sides of the theological debate, it seems to me that both sides were right and both sides were wrong. Anne thought that the Holy Spirit indwelled, which is true, but, she taught that a person could live as they pleased under grace because assurance of salvation was known to the individual, therefore no external moral proof was necessary to evidence justification. Anne took this as far as it could go- where Cotton had been careful to link the Spirit with the Word, Anne decided that the mystical union with the Spirit was so close, one did not need the word, and could rely on “immediate revelations” from Him.

John Winthrop’s reply to a person receiving personal revelation from God was that it is “the most desperate enthusiasm in the world.”

Several of the named pastors naturally took a dim view of her preaching, and there was a meeting held to discuss what to do. John Winthrop, the Governor and spiritual leader of the Puritans at that time, was equally, if not more angered. Anne refused to listen.

And the sin deepened. Soon Hutchinson began to encourage women to rise up and walk out of sermons that preached doctrines with which she did not agree. Walking out is a disdainful, rebellious act. Elders deserved double honor. (1 Timothy 5:17). But many women did it. Men too.

The meetings continued, only growing in number. Anne’s dissections of others’ sermons, were not God-glorifying nor encouraging to pastors. Nor did they focus on educating the attendees and enlighten them as to Jesus as Savior. Nor did they prompt the people to good works and moral restraint. They were simply to point out the pastor’s errors and to cement her own position which she believed to be righteous. Think of the worst discernment ministries running today, who lack love, and who never lift up but only tear down, and that was the situation between 1636-1638 with Anne.

Anne was spurred on by people who should know better. A male admirer put it this way-

“I’ll bring you to a woman who preaches better gospel than any of your black-coats who have been at the ninnyversity, a woman of another kind of spirit who has had many revelations of things to come….I had rather such a one who speaks from the mere notion of the Spirit without any study at all than any of your learned scholars.” (Source)

See how personal revelations take a person AWAY from the word of God as it did this admirer?

Left, the statue of Hutchinson on the Massachusetts State House at 24 Beacon Street, Boston, MA. Still so controversial 375 years after death, and almost 100 years after the statue was commissioned, the original recipient, the Public Library, refused it and the Legislature ignored it for 2 years. It was finally installed in 2005. Story here: A heretic’s overdue honor

And Anne’s sin just deepened and deepened. It wasn’t long before Hutchinson began spouting personal revelations and prophecies. The apex of this was at her trial for sedition and heresy. Anne’s behavior had spawned a schism, had encouraged women to rebel, and caused a region-wide argument on the finer points of works v. grace. It also exiled her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright. It damaged Cotton’s reputation for years to come. The colony itself was suffering over this to the point of collapse. Winthrop’s “city on a hill” was only after a few years mired in petty bickering and politically unstable, caused by Anne. She had to be stopped.

Hutchinson was put on trial, after various attempts to get her to stop, recant, and repent. Hutchinson held firm. In her trial, she bested every single man in a theological debate, including Winthrop, who never forgave her, as we’ll see later.

It might have gone her way, except at the last, she overstepped, and claimed that God Himself had told her these things, and worse, that He told her He put a curse on them all. The initial charge of sedition was not met with a preponderance of evidence, due to her skill in theological combat. However when Hutchinson insisted God spoke to her personally, she was charged with blasphemy and exiled. In the spring, she moved to nearby Rhode Island and founded Portsmouth. Her husband and many of her children were already there.

Anne Hutchinson is noted as “a woman of conscience who yielded to no authority”, as quoted in this book about fellow Puritan preacher William Wentworth. Today’s feminists laud Hutchinson’s stance, but Christians know that is not the way. Of course we yield to authority.

Hutchinson rebelled against the scriptures, namely 1 Timothy 2:12 by teaching men. She and was unconcerned and unrepentant about it. She also failed to submit to her leaders, as Hebrews 13:17 says to do. Open and constant criticism of your leaders by disparaging them and encouraging walk-outs, is sin. (Also 1 Thessalonians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 16:16). Anne seems to have been unconcerned about the rift she was causing, and the word submit didn’t seem to be in her vocabulary. When she knew she was causing a problem, she did not repent, but persisted. This violated Romans 12:16, as she did not live in harmony with one another and failed to be humble. See also 1 Peter 3:8.

Above, John Cotton by John Smibert

How many Proverbs did Anne Hutchinson violate? She was not the meek, kind, quiet woman Proverbs calls us to be. She did not tend to her house (Proverbs 14:1). She was contentious, quarrelsome, and loud. She was overly proud of her own theological positions AND her ability to not only express them but to defend them.

The woman of folly is boisterous, She is naive and knows nothing. (Proverbs 9:13).

Men are supposed to lead the household. John Winthrop wrote of Anne’s husband William,

a man of very mild temper and weak parts, and wholly guided by his wife,

[Of interest: Where is Beth Moore’s Husband? 90-second NoCo Radio video clip]

Anne’s positive influence could have been great. She was mother of 15 children, many of them boys. Her insights and strong theological knowledge could have raised up a new generation of founding fathers for our nation. If Anne had remained in her mid-wifery and women’s Bible study sphere, and tended to her home, who knows what might have come of it.

As it was, there were a few positives from the negatives of the Anne Hutchinson Antinomian controversy. Winthrop sought a colonial confederation to unite the colonies. The men banded together and established Harvard College, initially a seminary to train up the generation of men, as this quote indicates,

To provide a bulwark against remnants of Hutchinson’s free-grace theology, just two weeks after she was banished the General Court of Massachusetts finally released funds in November 1637 to establish the “College at Newtowne” (renamed Harvard in 1639)

Third, it spurred Roger Williams to deepen his conviction that there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state. Hutchinson was tried as a seditionist and a heretic, and eventually convicted of blasphemy. Williams thought that-

the magistrate should not punish religious infractions—that the civil authority should not be the same as the ecclesiastical authority. The second idea—that people should have freedom of opinion on religious matters—he called “soul-liberty.” It is one of the foundations for the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Williams’ use of the phrase “wall of separation” in describing his preferred relationship between religion and other matters is credited as the first use of that phrase, and Thomas Jefferson’s source in later writing of the wall of separation between church and state in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.

In addition, the controversy illuminated the fact that there was no perfect uniformity of doctrine among the men, which caught the leading Puritans off-guard. Winthrop thought that “The society must not only function as a unit, but in order to do so, must remain narrowly exclusive in content.” (Emery Battis, Saints and Sectaries). Whether this is ever possible, only God knows…

Debating whether to bring Anne to trial and during the trial, it became clear that there was no uniformity of content.

banished — Banishment from Mass. Bay Colony. Wikimedia. It took 6 days to walk to RI

Hutchinson was not the only bad actor in this debacle. John Winthrop behaved badly too. (Among others). Anne was in her mid-forties when the trial occurred. She was either pregnant during the trial or shortly after. She emigrated to Rhode Island the spring after the trial ended and shortly afterward, gave birth. The issue from the birth was not a baby but what is believed to have been a hydatidiform mole, or molar pregnancy. It was a mass of tumors, not a baby. Knowing what would happen if it became publicly known, the Hutchinsons had it quickly and secretly buried. However, Winthrop heard about it, sought the grave, got it exhumed, and used the tragedy as ‘proof’ that his stance was right. He wrote of it widely: ‘see how the wisdom of God fitted this judgment to her sin every way, for look—as she had vented misshapen opinions, so she must bring forth deformed monsters.” Not cool.

[Of interest: Anne Hutchinson’s Monstrous Birth and the Pathologies of Obstetrics]

This to me, is a total lack of charity and speaks ill of his own character.

Yet, William Coddington quoted a friend reminiscing about the controversy: “We were in a heate, and chafed, and were all of us to blame. In our strife, we had forgotten we were brethren.“

Later, when it appeared that Massachusetts was set to annex Rhode Island (it never happened), fearing reprisals, Anne and her children (her husband had passed away by then) moved out of Winthrop’s reach and into New York, the Netherlands’ territory. A year later, Anne and all but one of her children were killed in an Indian massacre. Many New England pastors wrote gloating reports of her death. Winthrop called her upon her death “An American Jezebel.”

Anne Hutchinson was an amazing colonialist who had much to offer the colony and her church. Unfortunately, she went outside the bounds of the ordained spheres for a woman and she caused upset, schism, and was a negative role model that reverberates 387 years later!! There’s no doubt though, she was formidable and earned a place in American history. As a wife, though, the more negative Proverbs speak of her and women like her than do the positive ones.

Unlike the positive example of Anne Bradstreet and Margaret Winthrop, whose excellence as wives and contributors to their family and community are noted to this day, Anne Hutchinson is the anti-wife whose contentious spirit and pride caused much harm to all those around her.

Be peaceable, And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, (2 Timothy 2:24)

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A few resources I used for background, sources for you too-

‘Revising what we have done amisse’: John Cotton and John Wheelwright, 1640
The William and Mary Quarterly

The Antinomian Controversy 1636-1638: A Documentary History, by David D. Hall, Editor

William Wentworth: Puritan Preacher, by Susan Ostburg

Rebels and Renegades: A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent in the United States by Neil Hamilton

Saints and Sectaries: Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, By Emery Battis

Anne Hutchinson Preaching in Her House in Boston, illustration published in Harper’s Monthly, circa February 1901 http://historyofmassachusetts.org/anne-hutchinson/

Previous Puritan Wives entries:

Intro: Puritan wives: literate, capable, and invisible in history?

Puritan Wives: Margaret Tyndal Winthrop and her extraordinary love letters

Puritan Wives: The Tenth Muse, Anne Bradstreet

discernment, Uncategorized

Discerning Christian fiction, & a book review

Posted on March 13, 2024March 13, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I love to read. With the New Year and all the ‘Reading Challenges’ that emerged in January as people make decisions back at the start of the year, I’d decided to go back to reading for pleasure. This is an activity that had fallen by the wayside as I got busier, and my eyes grew more tired at night. Aging. It’s not for sissies, lol.

I do need more often to shop my own shelves rather than buying more books! But I’m weak, lol. If I am of a mind to read fiction, I usually stick with the same novelists I’d read before (Grisham, Charles Martin, Will Thomas, and the like). When I find one author I like I tend to read more of their books, because the first one was ‘safe’ so I figure subsequent works have a higher likelihood of being be ‘safe’ too.

A while ago I had read The Rain, a self-published work by Chris Skates and Dan Tankersley. It is a fictionalized recounting of the Biblical Flood. There is a lot of ink in the Bible about the lead-up to the flood, the flood itself, and the aftermath. The authors didn’t have a lot of holes to fill. But still, dialog must be constructed, extra-biblical characters created, and some gaps must be filled by imagination. I thought they did a great job. I enjoyed the book.

That’s why I was disappointed in their sequel, The Tower. To be sure, there is little ink in the Bible about the Tower of Babel. Only 245 words, I’ve heard. So the authors had to invent more. Theirs IS a book of fiction. So I get it. I am not quibbling about filling gaps in a fictionalized biblical story.

But two things bothered me about the book. Full disclosure: I read very little of it. First, the modern language. In The Rain, the dialog, while imagined, was of a tone that seemed old timey. It wasn’t stilted, but the authors kept modern words and idioms out of the characters’ conversations. They didn’t put idioms into the characters’ mouths that a person would say today. As a reader visualizing any scene in The Rain, I could picture the characters saying what they said.

In The Tower, the idioms, words, tone, and language were very modern. It was jarring. As an author, what you want to do is create a bubble for the reader to relax into. It’s a delicate bubble, but if you can hold the reader’s attention, they will descend into your world and stay IN the bubble. You don’t want to jar the reader out of your constructed reverie and become distracted. A distracted reader stops reading. This is what I learned in journalism class. You do not want to do anything to break that bubble.

Turris Babel from Athanasius Kircher, source wikipedia

In addition to modern language in The Tower that jogged me out of the bubble I was trying to stay inside of, the authors needed an editor. Badly. It was a self-published book as mentioned, and often than means not employing a skilled or professional editor, or even a copy editor. Copy editors check copy for wrong words, punctuation, mechanical errors in the text.

The authors used wrong words several times in the few pages I read. For example, gig for did. Site for sight, twice. Ugh. There is nothing that gets me more irritated than wrong homophones, unless it’s spelling errors. So this book had issues with the text itself. That, combined with the issues of language, meant I couldn’t read in relaxed fashion, I kept being booted out of 2300BC. I quit reading won’t pick the book up again.

If you would like information on the Tower of Babel from a credible Bible-based ministry, here is Answers in Genesis’ answer to the question, “When was the Tower of Babel Built?“

Some people object to fictionalizing stories from the Bible. Can we fictionalize biblical stories by recounting them and filling in gaps with our own imagined characters or situations? Hmmm, yes and no.

The most important point is, have you read enough of the Bible, OT and NT, to be familiar with what SHOULD be presented in a work of fiction based on a biblical story? If you’re reading a fiction book about Rachel, have you first read and are familiar with the actual Rachel of the Old Testament? If not, then you are at risk of accepting the author’s version of a true biblical person.

I thought The Rain did a good job of sticking to the biblical concepts. Though I personally have not read The Chronicles of Narnia, people tell me CS Lewis did a credible job with creating a biblical allegory that mirrored biblical concepts. As did John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress. The television series The Chosen did not do a good job of gap-filling, but twisted the Bible to suit man’s desire to diminish Jesus and hide attributes He has which make man uncomfortable.

The problem with fictionalizing, or making plausible leaps where the Bible is silent, is that very thing- our flesh gets in the way.

And our flesh has an agenda. So does satan.

So in a way, Christian fiction books are the most unsafe books of all. Take the book The Shack, for instance. This was a runaway bestseller back in 2007-2008 and onward. It was sold in Christian bookstores as a Christian book. Its author, William Paul Young, wrote about a man who was staggering under heavy grief due to the kidnapping and death of his little daughter, her death had occurred in a derelict shack.

One day the man received a handwritten note in his mailbox to go to the same shack. Reluctant but curious, he goes, and there he ‘meets’ Jesus and the Holy Spirit in addition to being greeted by ‘God.’ It turns out that according to Young’s presentation of the Trinity, God is a woman, as is the Holy Spirit. The book goes on to present discussions between the persons of the Trinity and the man, regarding sin, evil, salvation, judgment, and other doctrines. The book teaches that sin is its own judgment and there is no other, that hell exists to purge away unbelief (not punish for sin), that there is universal reconciliation, among other aberrant, non-biblical doctrines.

Many credible leaders in the faith negatively reviewed the book. I reviewed it negatively also. A common rebuttal to our negative view of the book was, “Lighten up. It’s only fiction!” Or, “It’s only a novel!”

Dear reader, novels teach an author’s point of view, either subtly or overtly. It’s no different for Christian novels. Novels with Christian themes use narrative to teach. We must all be Bereans and check to see that these things in the ‘Christian’ book are so, in whatever form the doctrines are coming to us. Doctrine is taught in songs, poems, sermons, lessons, theological books…and fiction.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Mohler offers thoughts on the missing art of evangelical discernment as encapsulated by evangelical response to The Shack. He wrote:

“In evaluating the book, it must be kept in mind that The Shack is a work of fiction. But it is also a sustained theological argument, and this simply cannot be denied. Any number of notable novels and works of literature have contained aberrant theology, and even heresy. The crucial question is whether the aberrant doctrines are features of the story or the message of the work. When it comes to The Shack, the really troubling fact is that so many readers are drawn to the theological message of the book, and fail to see how it conflicts with the Bible at so many crucial points.” [underline mine]

In that article, we see that Christian fiction is deliberately used to bring heretical ideas to the masses and worse, popularize them. Christian reader, beware! It’s not “just fiction”! Simply because a book is listed as Christian fiction does not mean we can let down our guard. We need to put up higher guards!

“When we think about the role of reading in our spiritual formation, we generally think of non-fiction books that help us understand scripture and theology, but fiction powerfully shapes the ways in which we think faithfully about God and the world.” C. Christopher Smith

Fiction is storytelling. Christian fiction walks a thin line between green pastures of heaven and boiling hot lava, in that the story an author is telling is based on the Bible but the Bible is not fiction. It’s history; true, and real. It’s dangerous to tinker with God’s word, yet stories must be told. CS Lewis did it well with Screwtape Letters and Bunyan with Pilgrim’s Progress. William Paul Young did it badly with The Shack, Dallas Jenkins with The Chosen.

Be discerning. The worst Christian fiction often popularizes heresy. The best Christian fiction prompts a reader to run to the Bible to absorb more truth. It also glorifies God.

Dr. Mohler said that even Christian fiction is a work of sustained theological argument. Let’s compare two books to see how this fleshes out: Elmer Gantry and The Shack.

One of my favorite books is Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis. It tells the story of a false convert who rose to fame and celebrity pastor status, all the while not being a believer in any sense. The Bible tells us that this will happen, it’s a biblical concept. The message of the book was to illustrate how this can happen, not to promote that hypocrisy is to be accepted. The sustained theological argument of Elmer Gantry is that hypocrisy happens in religion and it is always bad. It wasn’t promoting hypocrisy or apostasy as good. Meanwhile, the sustained theological argument in The Shack is that God does not punish sin and everyone will eventually be reconciled to God.

We must be Bereans and test every theological argument that we absorb. If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. Paul repeatedly advised his readers to be vigilant. (For example, 1 Corinthians 16:13). We are on a battlefield in a war, and we don’t only hear the cannons booming, but we must be alert for snipers, too. When it comes to accepting things not of the Lord, it all matters. Christian books are never “just fiction.”

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Further Reading

Discerning Christian Fiction, 3-part series

The “dangers” of Christian fiction. Good article.

How Can I be Discerning about Books? Michelle Lesley

CS Lewis, The Space Trilogy, Christian science fiction, a trio of words you don’t see often.

The Rain, Skates & Tankersley book. See what you think

Pilgrim’s Progress: (book free online)

discernment, theology

A new thought on spiritual armor

Posted on March 7, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I used to study King Arthur, chivalry, armor, and heraldry. I think the Age of Chivalry was fascinating.

Getty Art website explains, “Chivalry first developed as a code of honor that emphasized bravery, loyalty, and generosity for knights at war in the 11th and 12th centuries. By the later Middle Ages illuminated manuscripts had helped establish chivalry as a system of values that permeated almost every aspect of aristocratic culture.“

During this age, chain mail was common until plate armor became more popular. Popular because it protected the knight or soldier better. Chain mail was then often worn underneath the plate armor.

Armor requited constant upkeep. It needed polishing (usually the squire’s job). Its attachments needed mending. The knight could not gain weight, the metal didn’t stretch or grow with him! And it was expensive, so acquiring another suit of armor at the drop of a hat (in just the right size) for purchase was unlikely, and obtaining one as booty even more unlikely.

You know the paragraph at the end of Ephesians, right?

The Spiritual Armor section from chapter 6. Here it is in case you’re not familiar-

The Whole Armor of God

10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

**The Spiritual Armor section has usually been taught that we, the believer, possess various pieces of armor which we put on (as verse 11 says). Each piece corresponds to a different aspect of the believer’s life. It is not solely defensive. Spiritual warfare is actually offensive, too.

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discernment, jesus, spiritual gifts, tongues

Be children in mischief, adults in righteousness

Posted on February 22, 2024March 14, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. (1 Corinthians 14:20)

Childlishly enthused with his new toy,
Opie killed the mama bird, leaving 3 orphans

In the verse above, Paul is admonishing the Corinthians for over-valuing tongues (glossolalia). The church was entranced by the ‘show’ of tongues and interpretation of tongues. They had become unduly entranced by this next ‘shiny new thing’ (kind of like a mega-pastor with a fog machine or a boy with a new slingshot).

Pulpit Commentary says-

The Christian should always be childlike (Matthew 11:25; Matthew 19:4), but never childish (1 Corinthians 13:11; Ephesians 4:14).

Good advice. To often in this day and age, pastors leave one fad to leap on the next so as to appear relevant. Surfing from Jabez Rugs to Daniel Fasts, Courageous Resolutions to Love Dares, Promise Keepers to Beth Moore bracelets, Be Still meditations to Labyrinths, Seeker Sensitive to Emergent, tongues to healings, it often leaves out the most important: JESUS.

Pastor Phil Johnson speaks harshly about the Flaws of a Fad Driven Church. A Charismatic fascination with tongues had swerved the Corinthian Church from its underpinnings and caused all sorts of divisive issues.

Going further, Gill’s Exposition says,

The apostle here has chiefly reference to the gift of speaking with tongues, these Corinthians were so desirous of; which when they had it, was only to talk like children; and for them to prefer it to other gifts, which were more useful and beneficial, discovered their judgment to be but the judgment of children; and if they desired this, and made use of it for ostentation, it showed a childish vanity, from which the apostle here dissuades.

Matthew Henry says –

Children are apt to be struck with novelty and strange appearances. They are taken with an outward show, without enquiring into the true nature and worth of things. Do not you act like them, and prefer noise and show to worth and substance; show a greater ripeness of judgment, and act a more manly part; be like children in nothing but an innocent and inoffensive disposition. A double rebuke is couched in this passage, both of their pride upon account of their gifts, and their arrogance and haughtiness towards each other, and the contests and quarrels proceeding from them.

Note, Christians should be harmless and inoffensive as children, void of all guile and malice; but should have wisdom and knowledge that are ripe and mature. They should not be unskilful in the word of righteousness (Heb. 5:13), though they should be unskilful in all the arts of mischief.

In today’s cluttered world, there are many things that compete for attention. In the Church it is the same. Fads, things that seem good or even biblical, are simply stumbling blocks. It’s hard to understand how a Spiritual Gift could be one of those stumbling blocks, but this simply proves that satan can make hay out of anything. He made a piece of fruit Eve saw every day look so good that Eve was drooling over it and with her husband caused the downfall of man! Disobedience can come anywhere at anytime.

The childish mischief is complicated but the solution is simple. Jesus. Stay in your word, stay praying, stay streamlined in your quiet time. Strip away the clutter, lay aside every weight, focus on the Holy One.

discernment, Uncategorized

Act your age

Posted on February 12, 2024February 12, 2024 by elizabethprata

Our church has a healthy demographic of college kids and young marrieds. Some time ago I was watching an Instagram video story a young friend posted of a bunch of the youths in high spirits romping around the college campus at midnight, then heading to a local store for sodas, laughing and pushing and giggling.

I smiled, remembering my own hi-jinks and clean fun- road trips and loud laughter and silly fun. Ahhh, youth.

Those kind of memories are satisfying because that is how youths act, college or no. They’re boisterous, they’re lively, they’re carefree, they’re happy.

Kim Shay at The Upward Call blog published a good essay about older women not being a trope. (In TV or Movies a trope is a common overused theme or device). In many TV shows, the older women is depicted as silly, or a gossip, or a busybody. Think Hyacinth Bucket (Bou-quet) or the sanctimonious Church Lady of Saturday Night Live by Dana Carvey. Or Mrs Bridgette McCarthy on Father Brown, a church secretary, gossip, and often at odds with and acerbic toward other characters.

Shay’s essay was a look at how older women should act according to Bible verses that command reverence and sober-mindedness.

I’m an older woman now. I’m almost 64 years of age. I have completely white hair, overweight, a lumbering stiff walk, and oh my achin’ back. All the things that come with old age, including sagging skin, age spots, and general droopiness.

I remember being a teen at a friends’ house listening to the latest music laying upside down, college road trips, my car stuffed with gangly youths, a young adult with my posse playing bar trivia…it was yesterday. Ladies, age creeps up on silent cat feet (with apologies to Carl Sandburg). The boisterous hi-jinks no longer suit. If I were to gadabout at midnight with pals, they’d lock me up for being crazy. Why? That’s not how older women act.

We line the wall at dances sitting in folding chairs, purses firmly atop lap. We tut-tut at the beauty and litheness of the young ones sailing by. We cook and serve the meals with a knowing nod and quiet hospitable satisfaction. We accept collect calls from grandkids at midnight when the car breaks down on the way home from hi-jinks. We rearrange the potlucks on the sagging table, they form the cleanup swat team afterwards. I say, we. I’m a we now.

I know some of these are a writing trope in themselves, but they are tropes because they are true.

Kim Shay wrote: “My husband once asked me with regard to the women who have spoken at my church’s women’s conferences: “Why is the speaker always young and beautiful instead of old and plain?”

I was noticing that, too. So many of the speakers at conferences now are younger women. Do younger women have something to say? Yes, but so do older women. And the elder females have been at it longer.

So since we have been at it longer what do we say about how to conduct ourselves? Well, whatever the Bible says we are to act.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of biblical behavioral standards, I’ll mention that whenever I discuss behavioral standards, particularly applied to false teachers, these comments receive the most negative feedback of all the kinds of comments I make online. People hate to be reminded that the Bible endlessly outlines behavioral standards of any kind. There are general calls for certain kinds of good behavior, there are specific calls for individual demographics, and there is a reminder that we will be judged on how we behaved as well as what we believed.

In one set of verses we read about how we are to act, and the reason for it-

as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, (2 Corinthians 6:4-7a)

Why?

“so that no fault may be found with our ministry” (2 Corinthians 6:3b).

But what specifically of elder women? If we are married to a overseer, act in ways that aid him in keeping order in the household. (1 Timothy 3:4). If married to a deacon, the same, (1 Timothy 3:12. Additionally, deacon’s wives must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. (1 Timothy 3:11). I am assuming that wives of pastors and deacons aren’t entirely youthful because the qualifications for pastors are not to be recent converts (1 Timothy 3:6) and to have built up a good reputation- which takes time. (1 Timothy 3:7).

If we are a widow, Paul in 1 Timothy 5 described real widows as: “Now she who is a widow indeed and who has been left alone, has fixed her hope on God and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day.” Which reminds me of Anna at the temple in Luke 2.

A widow could be put on the list for church aid if she had behaved in the following way-

A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, 10having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work.

An elder married woman is not to be contentious, as Syntyche and Euodia were. (Philippians 4:2). Titus 2 is the famous verse that outlines how older women are to act-

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Reverent in behavior. Self-controlled. Kind. These are not hard to understand and not unreasonable to ask. When I write about behavioral standards other women rush to scream and rant, but really, what is there to rant against? They want to lose control? Be irreverent? Unkind?

Anyway, the Bible outlines behavioral standards for all ages. As I pass through the aging eras and enter the golden gate of elder womanhood, I’ll try to be mindful of how the Bible expects me to behave, so as not to discredit the ministry. Plus, in the Lord’s grace, I’ll try not to be a trope!

Further Reading

This makes a nice companion piece. Jared Wilson, that whippersnapper at age 49, not only muses on growing old, but provides some helpful tips to grow old gracefully.

Growing Old Gracefully

beth moore, bible study, discernment, hermenutics

When teachers rely on word studies to create lessons

Posted on January 27, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The Master’s Seminary published an essay titled “Exegetical Fallacies: The Word Study Fallacy” by William Barrick

I found it interesting because much of women’s ministry teaching comes from this kind of study. The Grandmother of word studies is Beth Moore. Her proteges are following suit and her proteges’ proteges, third generation Bible teachers for women, are following suit also.

I attended a BM Living Proof “study” in North Carolina years ago. I had begun going to church regularly only a few years prior. So I was a newbie to church and to the faith. I was totally new to discernment. Most of my earliesty blogging had to do more with prophecy than discernment or encouragement.

I re-read the discernment essays I had written back then regarding Moore’s teaching and I am proud of the Holy Spirit because I think they hold up over time. I believe I was on the money with my concerns to a degree that only the Holy Spirit can take credit because, as I said, I was new and fairly unlearned. I had written a review about my concern with how Moore approaches a teaching she said she constructs for delivery at Living Proof.

She explained how she arrives at the lessons she teaches on her tour. She said that when she prays the Holy Spirit will deliver a word to her. [This is an extrabiblical, Mystical practice] In the case for the teaching in Charlotte, it had been “Hold Fast.” In the case of her next tour in Columbia, it will be “Prepare.” She then creates an acrostic of teaching points that begin with each letter in the main word. In that long-ago Living Proof conference I attended ours was –

His affection is set upon us
Only He is your praise
Loving Him awakens your true heart
Doing His will does us good
Fleeing to Him means fleeing with Him
Any tighter embrace will also replace
Satan wants what we have
The Lord is your life

Looks kind of OK, doesn’t it? I won’t explain each of the eight mantras point by point, but share with you some of what troubled me most. I think word studies are good, and I like when teachers look into the Greek or the Hebrew meaning. This manner of exegetical study, finding all the words that relate to a subject and building a lesson out of it is fraught with danger. You lose the context of each passage you are extracting the word from. If you cross OT to NT that context gets more complicated because you have to research whether the word used in a context was meant only for the Jews in the Old Covenant or can be extrapolated into the New Covenant for the Gentiles. Getting meaning from the Hebrew-to-Greek is also problematic for a layman.

This approach also means that you wind up using a LOT of verses in one study and that tends to feel cobbled together and superficial. Rick Warren does this constantly and he has been called out for it. You can’t really explain to full depth each verse so you simply refer to them, and there winds up being a lot of different points. It gets unfocused, really fast.

What is Hermeneutics? from Ligonier, “the art science of biblical interpretation” … more at link

Moore had said that she found every ‘hold fast’ in the Bible, OT or NT, and she put together a lesson from that. A lot of people in the audience were so impressed with her mention of the Greek word for this or the Hebrew word for that. Even at my naïve state years ago, ripping out a word from its context and matching it to other words it may seem like, wasn’t a good approach. Context is everything.

The Master’s Seminary article explains in detail just why students should not absorb lessons from teachers who crafted lessons based on these kinds of word studies, nor should teachers create lessons based on studies of these kinds. Below are two short excerpts from the short version of their article. If you want to go deeper into the whys and wherefores, there is a fuller, lengthier version of the same article, here.

When it comes to studying Scripture, word studies are popular, easily obtained from available resources and an easy way to procure sermon content. However, word studies are also subject to radical extrapolations and erroneous applications. It is not always possible to strike exegetical gold by extracting a word from the text for close examination. Word studies alone will not suffice. Indeed, over-occupation with word studies can be a sign of laziness and ignorance involved in much of what passes for biblical exposition in our times.

Study of the words alone will not present us with a consistent interpretation or theology. This is one of the misleading aspects of theological dictionaries/wordbooks. One learns far more about obedience/disobedience or sacrifice and sin from the full statement of a passage like 1 Sam 15:22–23 than he will from word studies of key terms like “sacrifice,” “obey,” or “sin” in the text.

The most important thing about studying the Bible is actually reading the Bible. Too many people spend too much time warming up first. Getting the right chair, the cup of coffee, the notebook, the pen, the devotional, the book about how to read the Bible … all fussing over the preparations and never digging into the main event.

Be a good Bible student. And watch out for shallow word study teachers. Just because they mention “Greek” or “Hebrew” doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve delved deeply. Many times it means the opposite.

Recommended resources:

Hermeneutics: her·me·neu·tics- ˌhərməˈn(y)o͞odiks/
noun. The branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts.

Short book: How to Eat Your Bible: A Simple Approach to Learning and Loving the Word of God by Nate Pickowicz

Grace To You/John MacArthur-
Essay: How to Study Your Bible
Essay: Simple Steps to Solid Study
Book: How To Study the Bible

Article by Tim Challies: How To Study the Bible

Book by Richard Mayhue How To Interpret The Bible By Yourself

Challies Review of Mayhue’s Book

Article by Focus on the Family: How to Study the Bible

Lesson series Herman Who? by Wretched/Todd Friel

discernment, Uncategorized

“The Holy Spirit really showed up!” and “A big move of the Spirit!” = crass emotionalism?

Posted on November 8, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

We hear a lot about the big moves of the Holy Spirit. We see Youtube clips of young millennials falling to the floor, or standing with arms upstretched in front of smoke filled stages, pulsing lights, glitter, laughing and sobbing. Afterward they smile tiredly, saying “The Holy Spirit really moved!” Or, “The Holy Spirit really showed up!”

As an aside, I dislike that phrase, ‘The Holy Spirit showed up.’ It’s crass. It’s akin to attending a funeral and saying to the bereaved, “So your wife croaked, eh?’ The Holy Spirit doesn’t ‘show up.’ He isn’t hailing a taxi running late, throwing a scarf around his neck while jumping out of the cab and huffing into the church. The Spirit doesn’t ‘show up’. The Holy Spirit governs the universe.

To the main point regarding big moves of the Spirit. Successive years of successive generations of younger church-goers have twisted Hebrews 11:1’s statement of what faith is:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Into –

Now faith is the substance of things we’ve come to tangibly possess, the evidence of things seen and experienced.

Spurgeon had something to say about these “Christian emotionalists” in Sermon 898, A Word with Those Who Wait for Signs and Wonders,

There are some, and these are generally the most uneducated, who expect to experience remarkable dreams or to behold singular visions. Others we have met with, who suppose that in order to being saved they must feel some very peculiar physical sensation. Now you must not look for this. You must not put physical contortions or sensations as a test before the Lord, and say you will not believe in Him otherwise.

You seek what is quite unnecessary. What do you want a sign for? You want, you say, a token of God’s love. What token of God’s love to you can ever be wanted, now that He has given His only-begotten Son, first to live on earth, and then to die in pains extreme, the just for the unjust, “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”! I blush for you, that you should ask any token of God’s love while Jesus Christ is before you…

I must tell you what is more, you are acting the part of an idolater. What does an idolater do? He says, “I cannot believe in an unseen God; I must have a golden calf or an image, that I can see with my eyes and touch with my hand.” You say just the same. You cannot believe God’s naked word, you demand something you can feel, something you can see. Sheer idolatry.

And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign... (Luke 11:29-30)

You might feel an overwhelming sense of joy, or peace, or well-being, or love for Jesus at times. These emotional times can occur when prayer is answered, providence is seen, worship is genuine, or Bible reading has deepened your view of the Savior. Strong emotion is good and appropriate. But to rely on such moments as proof of the Spirit’s presence casts a vain hope upon the shores of the Rock which stands above all. Your sure faith is in Him and His word that reveals Him.

Depending on signs is seeking a golden calf of experience over faith.

If you’re looking for a move of the Spirit, a miracle, sign, or wonder, there are many that we can name which exalt Jesus. Unsaved men are helpless and unable to come to God unless the Spirit draws them. (John 6:44). He saves by grace. Any new believer is a miracle, because they cannot save themselves. Sanctification is a miracle of God, because only by the Spirit can we resist sin and grow in His likeness. Providence is a miracle of God because He sustains the universe by the power of His word every minute, and He ordains every event that happens to all 8 billion people on earth at every second.

Stop looking for glitter dust falling from the ceiling, for personal prophecies, and visible signs when we already have the redemptive, sanctifying, providential work of the Lord occurring all over the world every second.

I’ll leave John MacArthur with the last word-

For all those true believers who love the Lord, the promise is a wonderful promise. … I think it’s time in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to give honor to the Holy Spirit, to worship Him, to love Him, to ascribe to Him the glory that He is due and to stop the nonsense that brings dishonor on His holy name.

discernment, false teachers, God in a box

“God can use it…” Yes He can. But will He?

Posted on November 1, 2023November 22, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“I don’t agree with everything [insert false teacher’s name here] but there are some good things he/she says. God can use it.”

No.

For people who say, well, ‘Don’t put God in a box, He can use anything’, you’re right, God can use anything. He can turn me into a giraffe. But will He? No, He created animals after their own kind. Just because God CAN turn me into a giraffe doesn’t mean He will.

There is the story of the demon-possessed slave girl in Acts which relates here.

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. 17She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” 18And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. (Acts 16:16-18)

Why didn’t Paul say, as so many pastors and teachers and women say today, “She is speaking truth. I don’t agree with everything she says, but God can certainly use her”?

Because it isn’t about the words such a person says, it’s the source. Paul taught,

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15).

He made four explicit points:

Righteousness v. lawlessness
Light v. darkness
Christ v. Belial (satan)
Believer v. unbeliever

He made four implicit points. The goal among believers is to be in:
partnership
fellowship
harmony
in common

Whatever flavor your favored partly or all-false teacher demonstrates from the second column, God will not use it. The dividing line is clear. Have nothing to do with those who are lawless, or dark, or of satan, or are an unbeliever.

He can do anything, even use a demon-possessed girl speaking truth – but He won’t. He didn’t. The Holy Spirit inside Paul was tormented hearing the slave girl speak heavenly glories from a satan-polluted mouth! (Acts 16:18). Any false teacher is demon influenced. In Galatians 1 Paul was astonished they were deserting the Gospel so quickly. In 2 Corinthians 11 he chastised them who put up with a different Gospel so easily. In Revelation 2, Jesus threatened the Thyatirans for tolerating a false prophetess. No, God won’t use falsity. His Son is too beautiful to Him and His Gospel is too pure. Why should he?

God chose to speak thru His Son (Hebrews 1:1-2), not through satan. So why would you limit God and put Him in a box by saying He can’t follow through on what He said He will do? Trust Him. If He said He will work through the Gospel given rightly, He will.

And what if…”God can use” a false teacher’s words not to draw women to Christ but to harden them in their sin? Be careful what you say “God can use.” God DOES use sinners, wolves, and false doctrine, but not in the way most people think.

I’ll end with a best quote from a sister in Christ. When the TV series “The Bible” was released by Roma Downey, Sunny Shell reviewed it. She put in a Q & A to her review. She was asked,

Q. “Even though there’s a lot of error in this movie, still, don’t you think it’s a great way to show people who God really is, I mean, can’t God use anything to save someone?

A. No, I don’t think this movie is a great way to reveal the truth about God since it’s filled with lies about God. And yes, I realize God can use anything to save someone, but He only chose to use the message of the true Gospel to save all men (John 14:6, Acts 4:12). Nowhere in Scripture does God command or allow His children to use the work of Satan to proclaim His truth. And God is clear, anyone who denies Him and defiles His holy character or word, works for the devil, not for God.

Since the beginning of time, the devil has attempted to minimize and blaspheme God’s holy character by lulling us to disregard His holiness, justice and righteousness. God has never called His children of light to partner with the works of darkness (2 Cor 6:15-16). As God’s children, we are commanded to pursue holiness, rather than try to find a way to compromise the glory of Christ in order to “reach more people”.

If I hear a woman saying “I know [such and such false teacher] doesn’t teach everything according to the Bible, but I like some things she teaches” then I know one thing for sure. Something in that false teacher’s doctrine appeals to her flesh and she is unwilling to give that up.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

discernment, Uncategorized

Satan can snatch away the seed from the hard ground – but how?

Posted on October 7, 2023October 7, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

In one of Jesus’ parables, we read,

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. (Matthew 13:19).

In the beginning parts of the parable, Jesus had given the vivid picture of the sower scattering seeds along the ground. The seeds fell on different types of ground, hard, rocky, thorny, and good. Later, the disciples asked Jesus to explain the meaning of the parable. He did, and His explanation of the different types of ground and the destinies of each seed is above.

The “path” mentioned is the path that the farmers and other people would walk in between fields. It was so heavily trod that they became hard packed, almost like cement. In Leviticus 23:22 it’s mentioned as a rule that the farmers were not to harvest to the very edges of the field, so that those who are traveling or poor could glean from the stalks that were alongside the path. You might remember Ruth gleaning Boaz’s field. (Ruth 2:2-3). As Jesus and His disciples walked along the fields, they plucked some grain to eat as they passed. (Matthew 12:1). These paths were very hard and well-traveled.

In Barnes’ Notes it’s explained about the paths. As expected, the vivid picture of the hardened path, the seed, and the birds scooping away the exposed seeds is visually understandable.

He is represented by the fowls that came and picked up the seed by the way-side. The gospel is preached to people hardened in sin. It makes no impression. It lies like seed on the “hard path;” it is easily taken away, and never suffered to take root.

But I’d like to focus on the part of the parable verse that mentions that the evil one comes along and snatches the seed away. I ask myself, how does the evil one do this? In what manner? Thanks to the visual nature of the parable we can readily understand that he does, but how?

Someone asked me recently how does the devil do his work, how does spiritual warfare operate. It’s a good question and it is something that though the parable’s images are understood, it what is meant by ‘digging deeper.’ Ask yourself questions as you read. Listen to others ask questions. Pray and ponder a while. Do a parallel verse search. Look up the important words in the verse in Greek or Hebrew. Consult commentaries.

In the Greek, the word for hearing is in the continuous present tense, setting an immediacy to the situation. As stated here in Vincent’s Word studies in the New Testament, “the action is exhibiting action in progress, and the simultaneousness of Satan’s work with that of the gospel instructor. ‘While any one is hearing, the evil one is coming and snatching away, just as the birds do not wait for the sower to be out of the way, but are at work while he is sowing.'”

I am reminded of fishing boats and shrimp boats pulling up a catch, and the cloud of seagulls and other scavenging birds are plucking the fish from the nets even as they are pulled to the boat’s deck. The ground is so hard the seed of the Word never makes any impression in it, and the birds come snatch it almost immediately.

Here is Gill’s Commentary on the subject of how the devil snatches away the seed. This is aimed at the unsaved, but the point has lessons for the saved, which I’ll explore below.

Besides, the word only fell “upon”, not “into” his heart, as into the good ground, as the metaphor in the parable shows; and it made no impression, nor was it inwardly received, but as soon as ever dropped, was “catched” away by the enemy; not by frightening him out of it, by persecution, as the stony ground hearer; nor by filling the mind with worldly cares, as the thorny ground hearer; but by various suggestions and temptations, darting in thoughts, presenting objects, and so diverted his mind from the word, and fixed his attention elsewhere; which is done at once, at an unawares, secretly, and without any notice of the person himself; so that the word is entirely lost to him, and he does not so much as remember the least thing he has been hearing:

The saved can never have the Gospel seed snatched away from Jesus’ hand. This is because it takes root immediately. John 10:28 explicitly says so. But even though satan cannot destroy the salvation of the saved by snatching the gospel seed from the ground into which it is sown, he can diminish our effectiveness. We, too, can be tempted as the unsaved Gospel-hearers can be tempted. The word will never be “entirely lost” to us, as Gill said it will be of the hard ground unsaved, but we can be tempted by–

–various suggestions and temptations,
–darting in thoughts,
–presenting objects,
–and so diverted his mind from the word, and fixed his attention elsewhere
–which is done at once, at an unawares, secretly, and without any notice of the person himself;

Here is John MacArthur on his version of how the devil snatches the seed away from the unsaved, but has application for us in satan’s ever-present attempt to divert us from our effectiveness:

In other words, when someone does not respond to the gospel initially, when they’re hardhearted and stiff necked, Satan just snatches it away. He just blinds them to its true value. How does he do that? Well, there are a lot of ways. One way he does that is send false teachers along to say all of that stuff was lies. Don’t believe that stuff. Another way he snatches the seed is by the fear of man. People don’t respond to it because they’re afraid they might lose their reputation or they might be kicked out of their little group or somebody might think they’re a religious fanatic.

Sometimes Satan uses pride. People are just know-it-alls. They just don’t want to admit that they need some help, that they need some information, that there’s some things they don’t know. Sometimes Satan snatches it away through doubt. Sometimes he snatches it away through prejudice, sometimes through stubbornness. Sometimes through the love of sin the person doesn’t want to give up. Sometimes through procrastination. But one way or another or a combination of ways, when it hits that hard stuff, Satan snatches it away and the person so easily forgets that it ever came.

When we believers procrastinate in repenting, delay reading the word, become only intermittent church-goers, become stubborn, prideful, doubtful, follow false teachers, or fear man, satan is snatching away our effectiveness of His word and our growth. He cannot snatch away the gospel, because that has already entwined with our soul and the Holy Spirit proptects it, but we can reduce our effectiveness for the Lord.

Snatching the seed of the word away from a non-believer and reducing a believer’s effectiveness is spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare isn’t done by being against people. No, our battle is against the evil one who is prince of the power of the air. Also, it is a battle of the mind. Spiritual transformation happens in the mind, and what we think becomes what we say and then what we do. Don’t let satan steal your effectiveness. If we’re saved then that means the word was sown on good soil. Keep aerating the soil of our heart by turning over His word constantly in our minds. Unearth sin and reject it, confessing and repenting. Let the roots of His truths grow deep into our heart and then we will stand like trees beside the waters, and cannot be moved. (Jeremiah 17:8, Psalm 1:3).

Maranatha!

crack Satan snatches away the seed that falls on the hard ground almost immediately as it it sown.

——————————————–
Further Reading

Truth Or Territory: A Biblical Approach to Spiritual Warfare

discernment, Uncategorized

When did co-pastor married couples become acceptable?

Posted on October 2, 2023October 4, 2023 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

In 2007 Thabiti Anyabwile wrote:

It was once a rising trend. It’s now a model for ministry for significant numbers of churches and pastors. It simultaneously offers itself as an example of deep partnership between husbands and wives, and dismisses biblical instruction. What am I talking about? The widespread approach to pastoral ministry where a husband and a wife “co-pastor” a local church.

Co-pastoring in this case refers to churches where the male pastor and his wife are listed as equal pastors of the flock. Since that article above was written sixteen years ago, co-ed co-pastors are touted as something acceptable – desirable even. Recently, then-retiring pastor Rick Warren chose a duo replace him, sparking a brouhaha and subsequently splitting the Southern Baptist Convention meeting over this contentious issue.

These two are not married but are in a co-ed, egalitarian pastorate.

I remember the Presidential election of 1992. Bill Clinton was running. His wife is Hillary Clinton. Clinton used to brag that “America was getting two for the price of one.”

It was during the 1992 presidential campaign that Arkansas governor Bill Clinton — the nation’s first baby-boomer presidential candidate, running against President George H. W. Bush — used the phrase “two for the price of one.” This twofer concept was Clinton’s quaint way of bragging (to the delight of feminists) that his wife, Hillary, an accomplished corporate lawyer and fellow Yale Law School graduate, was going to play a major role in his administration well beyond that of a traditional First Lady. (National Review) emphasis mine

How did that work out for them? Hillary led a Health Care Reform that crashed spectacularly and she was publicly humiliated. Then Whitewater Scandal happened and things got worse.

From the moment she dazzled Capitol Hill last autumn (‘In future the President will be known as your husband,’ Dan Rostenkowski, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, gushed at one appearance) Hillary has been her plan’s most potent weapon. No longer. In Washington more than anywhere, vulnerability equals weakness. Today Hillary Clinton is vulnerable; so, therefore, is Bill Clinton. ‘Two for the price of one’ has turned from blessing into curse. (The Independent UK, 1994

America was not impressed with the twofer Presidency. Even less so, are biblically obedient to the Bible Christians impressed with a twofer pastorate.

Simply put, the Bible forbids women preaching. Church teaching is meant for the men to execute. The leading is to be done by the men.

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:12).

Elders/overseers/pastors are to be “above reproach”, and “a man”. (Titus 1:5-8).

Installing a “twofer” pastorate, whether both are paid or not, formal or informal, defacto or explicit, is unbiblical.

At a Grace Community Church Q&A a man asked John MacArthur,

“Would you ever allow your wife to preach?” His response was of course, his wife would not want to do that, and the Bible forbids it.

Slide to 16:46 for the question & answer

Two pastors for the price of one is a curse, because it is a sin.