I don’t doubt that there are real cases of abuse and intimidation and oppression out there. There always have been. What’s different is that due to the current ‘intersectionality’ culture, everyone feels like they have a victim story to tell, and that it’s all valid and without scrutiny, thank you.
Do I know what I’m talking about? Yes. I’m personally familiar with various abuses.
But you know what? Because I am not a snowflake, I don’t focus on any of that. It happened, it’s real, it hurt me or my family members, but it’s in the past. You move on. I am a new creature, a new creation, with a bright future to look forward to. I have a Father who will not disown me, who understands me because He made me, a church family, riches in heaven, fruit of the Spirit growing every day. I have a sweet life in Christ, and being a victim is not a part of that.
Some of the things I read women claiming is misogyny or oppression or abuse, just isn’t. It isn’t ladies! People like Beth Moore don’t help when she writes about her experiences of being “ignored” or “made fun of at team meetings”, “dismissed and ridiculed and talked down to”. Ladies, being talked down to is not abuse, it’s not misogyny, it’s not oppression. When someone “disrespects” you it isn’t necessarily “because of gender”, and even if it is, so what? No need to make a federal case. Ladies, just get on with things. It’s inconceivable that someone with the (sad) amount of influence Beth Moore has in our evangelical world would make a federal case of ‘being disrespected’.
Christian women in other parts of the world are being persecuted to such an extent that to be ‘ignored’ would be a blessing. One woman pseudo-named Maryam for safety purposes talks of her father being put in jail for complaining to police about the Muslims that block his store, and the threats of acid attacks on her sisters, and the Muslim gang of men that tried to stone her as she walked down the street.
One thinks of the Christian women that have come before us in history, like Amelia E. Barr in the 1800s, who with her husband emigrated to the US from England, lost the business opportunity they emigrated to, moved to Texas where her husband and 4 of her sons died of yellow fever. She was left alone to raise her daughters, and she worked tirelessly to do so- successfully, Barr had no time to whine about not being heard at team meetings. As a matter of fact, she said this:
“In my life I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me.”
As I discussed these things with some younger women on Twitter, the longest conversation I’ve had on Twitter for the last ten years, none of them got it. As a matter of fact, one woman posted the Wonder Woman gif (not this one but similar.)
I replied that they’re funny, thinking they’re all warrior princesses, while no one is making the armor, cleaning up after Wonder gal, or cooking her meals. Everyone is a warrior princess. No one is a servant. In today’s cultural language of “I’m empowered, because I recovered from my abuse” stances, being a servant (slave, gasp!) without an abuse story is distasteful and frowned upon. We’re all chiefs, no one is a bottle washer.
Amelia Barr was a warrior princess. So was Susannah Spurgeon, Katy Von Bora, Gladys Aylward, Susanna Wesley. They got on with things. They got things done. They didn’t have time to write whiny blogs and post gifs of Wonder Woman. I don’t mean to be mean, or dismissive, but I do mean to exhort our ladies for greater strength and restraint in touting one’s self, even when speaking of the negative that needs (does it really?) to be told.
I read this of the Apostle Paul’s constant thankfulness. Here was a man who really was abused, oppressed, and hated. He endured so much for the sake of the Gospel. And yet he never called himself a warrior prince, he never set out to grab empowerment from telling his story, never boasted except in Christ. John MacArthur Romans Commentary:
During his second Roman imprisonment, he may have spent time in the wretched Mamertine prison. If so, we can be sure he was thankful even there, although the city sewer system ran through the prison. I was told on a visit there that when the cells were filled to capacity, the sewage gates were opened and all the inmates would drown in the filthy water, making way for a new batch of prisoners. But Paul’s thankfulness didn’t rise or fall on his earthly circumstances but on the richness of his fellowship with the Lord.
Even if Paul was never incarcerated at Mamertine prison, you know for sure other Christians were, and more thanlikely died that way.
Do you know what Christian women do? They persevere. They endure to the end. They forgive. They know that love covers a multitude of sins. If there’s abuse like physical beating, we go to a shelter. If there is rape or harassment or stalking, we go to the police. But not every slight is abuse. Not every want that’s denied is oppression. What we do is as Jimmy Buffett sang.
“Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”
Let’s stop gazing at the lint in our bellies and thinking it is the thorn in our side. The American-female empowerment through abuse-story telling culture has to stop. Women, Sisters, breathe in, breathe out, (tell the authorities if necessary) and move on.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Hebrews 12:1)
We have a sin-nature. Everyone born after Adam (except Jesus) inherited it.Before salvation when we flowed along with everyone else int he world who wasn’t saved, we never noticed it. After salvation when we turned 180 degrees and faced the full brunt of the flow of the world’s enmity against God, then we felt it.
We feel it every day inside of us. Paul certainly did. In Romans 7:15 he pleaded out loud,
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
And he definitely had been a Christian a long time and had lots of practice at it.
Believers can never conquer the sin nature. We can subdue it, wrestle with it, have some small victories over it. It might retreat to a dark corner of the heart for a while until a more opportune time, but we can’t be victorious over it.
With the Spirit’s help we can grow in righteousness, putting the squeeze on the remaining space in us that the sin-nature has to make room for. It might shrink back, but it can never leave us. Why?
The sin-nature is part of our flesh. Like this:
We can chip away at it, but the sin-nature remains an integral part of our biology.
After the resurrection when Jesus gives us new bodies in eternity, and we are glorified with no sin particle left in us, we will stand tall and proud, trophies of His glory. Like this:
Our roots in Christ, our sap His righteousness, our leaves His mercies, beautifully made and reaching for the Son.
Until then, we continue killing the sin in us-
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)
We’re losing the meaning of our uniquely Christian words.
I listened to a Phil Johnson interview where he talked about being caught off guard this spring with the flooding-in and vehemence of the social justice movement and the racial equality woke movement.
It is a true fact that many of our younger people think that ‘social justice’ is the same thing as ‘biblical justice’ when they certainly are not.
Biblical illiteracy is high, and with the lack of actually reading the Bible, younger people are losing the meaning of foundational words like justification, sanctification, glorification. It doesn’t help when venerable theologians choose to use phrases like “future justification; instead of ‘justification’ and confuse, well, just about everybody.
Some years ago I enjoyed the Apologetic Index’s listing of the Emerging Church: Glossary of Emergent Terms For Those New to the Conversation. It was funny, if you were up on the movement. It was also sad to see how devastatingly accurate those writers were about the co-opting of normal terms and made to mean something new. Like this entry to their ‘dictionary’-
Christ – An incredible, outstanding man in the Bible who left behind a valuable story that enables us to make the world a better place. Some people (including some in the emergent conversation) say he is a divine being, but this concept is subject to deconstruction.
Since we in our native countries speak a language to each other and are subsequently understood, we tend to think that language stays the same. It doesn’t. Language isn’t static. Meanings shift and move all the time. Hogwash was a word that came into use, rise int he 1700s, peaked in the 1800s and now you rarely see it written anymore and even more rarely, spoken. Lots of words that are currently in use weren’t a existence when I was a kid, because the thing the word refers to wasn’t invented. Compact Disc (and even that is dwindling as digital music takes over), surf-n-turf, head trip, grok, miniseries, and biohazard were words that were new when I was growing up.
New words today would include adulting, sup, suh, trill…sigh, are currently trendy words.
Or words still exist but change meaning. When I was growing up, incontinent means liable to pee one’s pants. 2 Timothy 3:3 uses the word incontinent-
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
No it does not mean that men everywhere will be dribbling. The word in the 1300s-1400s used to mean without self-control emotionally and physically, now it evokes only the lack of control over the bladder. We don’t use the word dayspring much anymore. Suffer in the old translation of “suffer the little children to come unto me” has a different meaning now. We don’t see words like froward, graven, cleave, or husbandman in common use these days.
So words fall in and out of use, new words emerge, and old words shift meaning.
However the thread of Christianity depends on a unity from one generation to the next of mutual understanding of our important words. Words handed down that form the bricks of our faith must be used, taught, and widely understood. We must understand the important terms.
Defined by Baker’s Exegetical Dictionary, public domain. More at link
Justification is the declaring of a person to be just or righteous. It is a legal term signifying acquittal.
Accordingly it is not surprising that salvation is often viewed in legal terms. The basic question in all religion is, “How can sinful people be just (i.e., be justified) before the holy God?” Justification is a legal term with a meaning like”acquittal”; in religion it points to the process whereby a person is declared to be right before God. That person should be an upright and good person, but justification does not point to qualities like these. That is rather the content of sanctification. Justification points to the acquittal of one who is tried before God. In both the Old Testament and the New the question receives a good deal of attention and in both it is clear that people cannot bring about their justification by their own efforts.The legal force of the terminology is clear when Job exclaims, “Now that I have prepared my case, I know I will be vindicated” ( Job 13:18 ).
Justification means that God brings down the gavel and declares a person righteous, despite their crimes, because they have passed through the Righteous Door of Jesus. This was enacted when Jesus died on the cross, becoming sin for us, and then His righteousness was imputed to us. Therefore God can and does declared His elect justified, i.e. no longer under penalty for their crimes.
Phil Johnson wonderfully explains it here in this sermon-
Our church has a healthy demographic of college kids. The other day 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 CVS 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 a few days ago 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.
It 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 58 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.
Not me. Yet.
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 CVS at midnight with pals, they’d lock me up for being crazy. Why? That’s not how older women act.
They line the wall at dances sitting in folding chairs, purses firmly atop lap. They tut-tut at the beauty and litheness of the young ones sailing by. They cook and serve the meals with a knowing nod and quiet hospitable satisfaction. They accept collect calls from grandkids at midnight when the car breaks down on the way home from hi-jinks. They rearrange the potlucks on the sagging table, they form the cleanup swat team afterwards. I should say instead, 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 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 (in addition to all ages of men). 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 about our conduct. 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 womenhood, I’ll try to be mindful of how the Bible expects me to behave, so as not to discredit the ministry. Plus, I’ll try not to be a trope!
Further Reading
This makes a nice companion piece. Jared Wilson, that whippersnapper at age 42, not only muses on growing old, but provides some helpful tips to grow old gracefully.
I spent 42 years striding the earth, self-satisfied with my smartness and artful living. I was at enmity with Jesus, hating Him and loving self. I sinned, sinned some more, and sinned again. I deserved a meteoric projectile to the head. Like this guy:
A man managed to escape the first eruptive fury of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, only to be crushed beneath a block of stone hurled by an explosive volcanic cloud, new excavations at the site suggest. Archeologists working at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, Italy, found the man’s remains almost 2,000 years after he died.
Stunning pictures from the scene show a skeleton pinned beneath the stone. The impact crushed the top of the man’s body. His head might still be buried beneath the block of stone.
Instead, what I received was patience for over four decades, and protection from death (which I deserved, Romans 6:23). At the moment of appointed time for Jesus to come into my life, I was given grace, the Spirit of repentance, salvation, justification, adoption, eternity in glory, co-heirship with God, righteousness imputed, spiritual blindness lifted, the indwelling Spirit…and so much more.
As a craven wretched sinner, I deserved a meteor to the head. Instead, I received loving tender reconciliation.
Let the image above, which is dramatic enough as it really happened to an unfortunate citizen of Pompeii in 79AD, sink in. Don’t let a day go by without praying in thankfulness to Jesus for salvation, and not getting what we really deserved.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— (Ephesians 2:8)
I was destined for great things. My mother promised. Women can do anything. My mother said. We should be feminists. My mother urged. All in our family are successful- entrepreneurs, professors, businessmen, doctors. So that was proof.
I was indeed on that trajectory when Christ interrupted my plans, humbled them, humbled me, and plucked me from the secular notion of success and began the long road of transforming my mind into acceptance of Christian success.
It took a long while of shaving, sharpening, and altering before I ceased to yearn for the worldly conception of fame, honor, and prosperity. Perhaps that is why I’m so sensitive to unsuitable female Christian yearning. Perhaps there are still vestiges of the old yearnings in me still. Likely both.
It’s been discouraging to see the speed with which women who claim to be Christian push and clamor for secular notions of worldly success. They set aside the Bible’s promises, commands, and duties for greener grass. They know not that the grass will wither and burn. The biblical framework for female duty and contentment is no longer enough, if it ever was, and swing out sister there they go into the world of fame, honor, and prosperity.
We read recently of so-called Bible teacher Beth Moore’s yearning for opportunities for leadership she lamented would never come her way, so she quit seminary.
1988:
“After a short time of making the trek across Houston while my kids were in school, of reading the environment and coming to the realization of what my opportunities would and would not be, I took a different route.” (source)
And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15).
We read of author Sarah Young, author of Jesus Calling, and her yearning ‘for something more’ … because the Bible wasn’t enough.
2004:
I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16).
We read of Elizabeth Graham’s letter to the Southern Baptist Convention, and her yearning to be more than just a wife and mother, sent in 2009 and resurfaced this week.
2009
“I have aspirations of being a wife and mother, but I also desire to be more than that, and I see very few opportunities within the SBC to do so.”
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Discontent! Feminism, First Wave, Second Wave, Third Wave, wave upon wave of secular assault has taken its toll. It has infected women. Gangrenously killing the healthy flesh even while it races about the body calling for more, ever more yearnings that suck the blood from healthy tissue and turns it dead as it stands.
Discontent is a killer.
Satan whispers to women that being a wife and mother isn’t enough. That unless you are a leader, out there, in front, you’re behind. That staying at home means you are missing all the opportunities, all of them! … for what, he doesn’t say. He just stirs up discontent with where women are, with what they have.
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. (1 Timothy 6:6-8).
If there is great gain in contentment, there is great loss in discontentment. It’s safe to say that is a corollary.
From the 1990s television comedy show Seinfeld, we see a conversation between Kramer and George. It takes Kramer less than a minute to infect George, who goes from jaunty and content, to craving, to yearning, to having no reason for getting up in the morning. Discontent works just that fast in the Christian body.
How long has this discontent in women been present on earth? Since the beginning. Eve had a conversation with Kramer, the serpent, and suddenly she was discontent because she wasn’t like God, she didn’t know good and evil. She yearned.
In researching for this essay, I discovered an incredible, hilarious, and bulls-eye essay about the poison of “Discontented Women”. It was written in 1896 in the height of the Suffragette movement of First Wave Feminism. Its author Amelia Barr (1831-1919) was a mother, widow, and novelist. The 10-page essay is found easily online in lots of places, and I am also going to quote liberally from it below. It was published in the North American Review in 1896.
Discontent is a vice six thousand years old, and it will be eternal; because it is in the race. Every human being has a complaining side, but discontent is bound up in the heart of woman; it is her original sin. For if the first woman had been satisfied with her conditions, if she had not aspired to be “as gods,” and hankered after unlawful knowledge, Satan would hardly have thought it worth his while to discuss her rights and wrongs with her. That unhappy controversy has never ceased; and, with or without reason, woman has been perpetually subject to discontent with her conditions and, according to her nature, has been moved by its influence. ~Amelia Barr, 1896
Puritan Thomas Boston argued that discontent is actually a violation of the Tenth Commandment, expressed in his monumental sermon “The Hellish Sin of Discontent.” He wrote:
Question: “What is forbidden in the Tenth Commandment?” Answer: “The Tenth Commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying, or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his.” … [Discontent] is the hue of hell all over.
Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
“But, but”, women say, “changing diapers and wiping noses is boring! Tedious! Monotonous! Being out in the world is better!” Mrs Barr replies,
In the van of these malcontents are the women dissatisfied with their home duties. One of the saddest domestic features of the day is the disrepute into which housekeeping has fallen; for that is a woman’s first natural duty and answers to the needs of her best nature.
It must be noted that this revolt of certain women against housekeeping is not a revolt against their husbands; it is simply a revolt against their duties. They consider house- work hard and monotonous and inferior, and confess with a cynical frankness that they prefer to engross paper, or dabble in art, or embroider pillow-shams, or sell goods, or in some way make money to pay servants who will cook their husband’s dinner and nurse their babies for them. And they believe that in this way they show themselves to have superior minds, and ask credit for a deed which ought to cover them with shame. For actions speak louder than words, and what does such action say?
In the first place, it asserts that any stranger — even a young uneducated peasant girl hired for a few dollars a month — is able to perform the duties of the house-mistress and the mother. In the second place, it substitutes a poor ambition for love, and hand service for heart service. In the third place, it is a visible abasement of the loftiest duties of womanhood to the capacity of the lowest paid service. A wife and mother can not thus absolve her own soul; she simply disgraces and traduces her holiest work.
Mrs Barr pulls no punches! Of these women who eye the world as their salvation and a salve for their discontent, I am reminded of one of the women of the She Reads Truth Bible study online organization. Diana Stone loves to write, so much so that at first she employed a nanny in the home part-time to help with her daughter, and then decided to load her daughter to day care, so Diana could return home and write. And so, any stranger could and did substitute a poor ambition for love.
Mrs Barr continues:
Suppose even that housekeeping is hard and monotonous, it is not more so than men’s work in the city. The first lesson a business man has to learn is to do pleasantly what he does not like to do. All regular useful work must be monotonous, but love ought to make it easy; and at any rate, the tedium of housework is not any greater than the tedium of office work. … And as a wife holds the happiness of many in her hands, discontent with her destiny is peculiarly wicked.
Lest one think that Mrs Barr was writing from a catbird seat, she emigrated to New York from England with her husband, leaving her home country behind forever. Her husband’s business prospect failed, so they moved from New York to Texas, where her husband and four sons promptly died of yellow fever, she lost many other of her 12 children, she managed on her own, eventually moving back to NY and began teaching and writing novels and poetry. She never remarried.
Mrs Amelia E. Barr wrote, like Sarah Young, Beth Moore, Diana Stone wrote. Mrs Barr did it out of necessity, working away so as to put food on the table for her children. Not, as Diana Stone says, because she made writing a priority over her children and returned to a comfy home after unloading her kids at a daycare. Not like Beth Moore, who wanted ‘opportunities’ but quit seminary because those opportunities (read, teaching men) were denied her because she is a woman. Not like Sarah Young, who yearned for more besides the only truth given to us (the Bible). Writers all. Whiny discontents, all.
Mrs Barr wrote in her autobiography,
“In my life I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me.”
She did it, and she did it cheerfully and wholeheartedly. In 1850, without air conditioning, without kitchen appliances, without word processors, without a smart phone, and with 12…9…6…3 kids under her feet. She wrote:
Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing. ~Words of Counsel: 9 Tips for Success, Amelia E. Barr
Mrs Barr concludes her essay Discontented Women,
In conclusion, it must be conceded that some of the modern discontent of women must be laid to unconscious influence. In every age there is a kind of atmosphere which we call “the spirit of the times,” and which, while it lasts, deceives as to the importance and truth of its dominant opinions.
Many women have doubtless thus caught the fever of discontent by mere contact, but such have only to reflect a little, and discover that, on the whole, they have done quite as well in life as they have any right to expect. Then those who are married will find marriage and the care of it, and the love of it, quite able to satisfy all their desires; and such as really need to work will perceive that the great secret of Content abides in the unconscious acceptance of life and the fulfillment of its duties — a happiness serious and universal, but full of comfort and help. Thus, they will cease to vary from the kindly race of women, and through the doors of Love, Hope and Labor, join that happy multitude who have never discovered that Life is a thing to be discontented with.
Happy is the woman who unashamedly says “I am a wife.” “I am a mother.” If we are not ashamed of the Gospel, we are not ashamed of any element within it, including the role He has given us to reflect His glory and image. ‘Just a mom’? Might as well say ‘Just a Christian’ when in fact being a woman, a wife, or a mother is all, because we have all, in Christ.
Further Reading
I heartily recommend the full Amelia Barr essay Discontented Women. And these other items as well
I want to accomplish a lot this summer, and not slide into laziness as I usually do. There are many temptations. The Tony Reinke book 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You spoke to me. I don’t have a smart phone but I do have a laptop and I enjoy being online all day. But I succumb to distractions just as the Reinke book noted people do with smartphones. I need discipline, and I also need to re-invigorate the atrophied “reading books” muscle I’ve let shrivel.
I noticed that my lengthier reading times, with hard copy in hand, seems to be shrinking as I absorb much smaller bytes in shorter bursts on the screen either on the laptop or Kindle. It bodes ill for lengthier Bible reading, Commentary reading, and so on. This needs to stop, and stop now.
Therefore, I made a schedule to determine if it’s even possible to read 7 books, listen 34 seminary lectures, and learn 90 pages of complicated biblical doctrine, plus continue blogging each day and keeping up with my own Bible reading, and all of it absorbed comprehensibly. The answer is to schedule it out over my summer vacation and then ‘just do it.’
The Romans day is due to a new class being offered at church, led by our elder who is a Middle School Bible teacher who specializes in teaching Romans. John is because our teaching pastor is preaching through John this summer (and beyond).
The Chou lecture days are tough as is the Biblical Doctrine day so I scheduled an easier day on Friday. Seems to be working so far. I’m going through Exodus with Dr Chou of The Master’s University and Seminary. Many of his lectures are online *(but hurry, WikiSpaces is being shut down. Download the lectures to your computer before July 31). Pairing Lundgaard’s Enemy Within and Owen’s Indwelling Sin, which Lundgaard’s book is based on, seems to be a good idea so far. Or, apparently I need a double dose of learning how to slay sin, lol.
The goal is to glorify God and enjoy Him, by learning about Him and retaining and then acting on what I’ve learned. I want to aid my sanctification in as many ways as possible. As I grow and mature, I hate my sin worse and worse.
Anyway, that’s what I’m up to this summer. What’s on your plate this season?
Tackle Biblical Doctrine along with Jessica Pickowicz and the study guide she created especially for this monumental book. It’s here.
Paul opens his massive and majestic letter to the Romans with effusive rhapsodies of his love for the Roman believers and his gratitude for their faith- which he said is known the world over. He speaks of his intense desire to come to them so that he can be encouraged by their faith. Paul mentions them all the time to everyone. And so on.
First, we note Paul’s ministerial desire for his flocks and his obedient submission to his ordained role as Christian, pastor, sufferer. He is surely a super-Christian, if one such designation existed.
In the iconic movie The Princess Bride, Inigo is sailing a boat with all due speed in attempt to get away with a kidnapping. He looks back at one point and sees a distant boat on the horizon. The breeze is gentle and the night is long, so he has no worries. When he looks up again, he sees the boat is now close. And after a while, closer, then closer… This perplexing phenomenon causes him to utter the well-known line,
It’s like that with Paul. We might say, “I wonder if he is using the same Spirit we are using?” and the answer would be “Yes”. I am awed by Paul’s fervor, dedication, diligence and deep obedience never having wavered. He died poured out as a drink offering, a rushing torrent of obedience and love spilling across the altar of his beloved Savior.
Then in verse 15 of chapter 1, Paul says this-
So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. (Romans 1:15).
Wait, what?
Hadn’t Paul confirmed the Roman believers’ solid faith, their well-known faith, their doctrinal and loving faith? Yes.
Some could interpret the verse as Paul being anxious to come minister to them, which is definitely true. But he didn’t say only that. He said he is eager to come preach the Gospel at Rome to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish, “and also to you.” The Greek word for Gospel in this verse is euaggelizó which means bringing or preaching the full Gospel of Christ.
Some could interpret this as Paul’s eagerness to preach the Gospel indiscriminately to all, and that would also be true.
But do believers need the Gospel?
The answer would be “Yes.”
The Gospel is not a once-for-all mechanism that saves a person from the wrath of God and installs him into the kingdom as a child of God. Not only. It is the launching pad, and the eternal linchpin. It is the indispensable necessity for life eternal in the believer on earth and forever. The Good News is always Good News, and it continues being so, even for believers. Especially for believers.
The Good News is the fullness of Jesus, the encompassing message, the total plan of God, the victory of Jesus over sin, death, and hell. It is a message of resurrection, triumph, power, and abundant life. We all need this message, every day! Paul knew this. The Gospel is the mighty rushing wind of power and sustenance for every believer on earth who lives by the Spirit. We are reminded of the verse from 1 Thessalonians 1:5a
because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.
Paul said in the very next verse, Romans 1:16 these famous and everlastingly glorious words:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,e as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
The faith we live by is that Gospel, Good News of the savior Jesus Christ. We needed it when we were foolish, wise, Greeks, and barbarians. Now that we are saved, it’s a message “And also to you.” The gospel necessity never ends.
They were urged to buy not ordinary gold, but refined gold, referring to that which would glorify God and make them truly rich. Through its banking industry the city had material wealth. But the church lacked spiritual richness. Though they had beautiful clothes, they were urged to wear white clothes (cf. v. 4), symbolic of righteousness which would cover their spiritual nakedness. As wool was a major product of the area, Laodicea was especially famous for a black garment made out of black wool. What they needed instead was pure white clothing
Then Christ exhorted them to put salve … on their eyes. A medical school was located in Laodicea at the temple of Asclepius, which offered a special salve to heal common eye troubles of the Middle East. What they needed was not this medicine but spiritual sight. The church at Laodicea is typical of a modern church quite unconscious of its spiritual needs and content with beautiful buildings and all the material things money can buy. This is a searching and penetrating message. To all such the exhortation is be earnest, and repent. Christ rebuked them because He loved them, which love would also bring chastisement on this church
Walvoord, J. F. (1985). Revelation. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 940). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
I like watching real estate shows on TV, especially British ones. I was watching a show the other day about a European couple with an adult daughter who wanted a specific view. They desired to hear and see the ocean off California, wanted long stretches of beach in their immediate proximity. They were moving to CA to indulge their daughter, who was attempting to become a Hollywood actress.
The host showed them a 4.5 million dollar home, which they took in stride, a 5.5 million dollar home, the cost of which they never batted an eye, and a 9.4 million dollar home, to which they mildly remarked, “That’s quite a price.”
They bought the 9.4M home.
I got to thinking about what it might be like to have that amount of money. To be able to indulge large desires and to have no worries about high prices.
I didn’t let my thinking go too far with that, lest it would raise covetousness or greed in me. I really am content with what I have, and the Lord provides for me very well. But still…
My mind turned to wondering if they were saved. I think about that a lot these days, and increasingly so. An American celebrity dies and I muse, ‘Well, they know the truth now…’ Alan Bean, Margot Kidder, Stephen Hawking… dead, dead, dead.
They had much, also. Fame, renown, professionalism in their craft, money. But what good did it do if they lost their souls? Sir Anthony Hopkins, the actor known for the movie Silence of the Lambs and many other productions, was interviewed by The Guardian this week. He spoke about his upcoming role of King Lear, and how it would be for him to play it now that he can see life spanning backwards from the vantage point of being 80 years old. He said,
You know, I meet young people, and they want to act and they want to be famous, and I tell them, when you get to the top of the tree, there’s nothing up there. Most of this is nonsense, most of this is a lie. Accept life as it is. Just be grateful to be alive.
Easy for Hopkins to say, he got to the top of the tree. Someone on Twitter said, ‘It’s almost as if the Bible is true or something’ having noted that King Solomon said much the same in his book of Ecclesiastes. Would they be so equanimous if they knew the truth about their approaching death? That their life goes on, and unless they had been declared righteous by God having repented and come through the Door of Christ, they will be eternally gnashing their teeth in pain and torment, in hell?
As for money or riches or things (like houses) Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 speaks of the vanity of toil. The top of the tree is empty for Hopkins, and the house with a view will eventually UNsatisfy the European family, because the point of working for Jesus is eternal joy in pleasing the eternal savior, a legacy that extends to heaven, and expansion of the kingdom, and pure joy in serving for His sake. Everything else is striving after wind.
When life inevitably ends, all those who are outside of Jesus will find that a life philosophy of of toil…or riches…or fame… was wildly off the mark. Being in Jesus, I know where ‘the top’ of the tree is, and that makes all the difference.
The Laodiceans had everything, fame, wealth, trade, but Jesus called them poor, blind, and naked.
Prayer:
Lord, help me be satisfied and content with what You have given me, and help me deal well as a wise steward of it. Let me not be covetous nor discontent. You truly are a God Who Sees and a God Who Hears, you have given all the portions as you deem according to Your plan. Ultimately I have received the best portion, I have it all: YOU.
1 Kings 13 has an interesting little scene. The book was written about 550BC. It’s rich with drama, meaning, and life lessons even for us at this telescoped end of time. The chapter 13 I’d read yesterday regarded the coming destruction of the false altar at Bethel, and the king Jeroboam, who’d allowed it and even served as priest there. “A Man of God” was tasked with bringing the King a message about the false worship at Bethel and God’s extreme disapproval of it.
There are so many lessons in this chapter. We could look at the chapter in terms of the idolatrous worship … or the precision of God’s pronouncements …or how we must believe His word … or what constitutes right worship … or how God formerly authenticated His word by signs … but I’m not focusing on any of those wonderful lessons today. First, I’ll recap.
God sent a Man of God (AKA prophet) to speak truth to King Jeroboam. ‘Man of God’ is a title Paul designated to Timothy (1 Timothy 6:11) and also was given in the Old Testament to Moses (Deuteronomy 33:1), David (Nehemiah 12:24), Elijah (1 Kings 17:18) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:7). The phrase designates the man as set apart and having a unique relationship with God and bringing missives originating in God and from God. The Man of God AKA prophet is God’s special representative, one whom God has personally chosen and sent.
The Man of God pronounced judgment upon the King by prophesying a future King emerging from the house of David (which Jeroboam hated) who will be born 360 years into the future named Josiah who will pull down the false altars, pour out the ashes onto the ground (unclean) and burn human bones on them (indicating a slaughter of the false priests).
The King did not take the message lightly and stretched out his hand, pointed to the Man of God, and said ‘seize him!’ The King’s hand withered, a sign that the messenger was true. After some pleading and tears, the King’s hand was restored and the Man of God went his way.
God had said not to stop for hospitality anywhere at any time, in fact, to go home another way. The Man of God refused hospitality at the King’s table (after the King’s hand was restored), a huge snub in the Middle East and a further message not to consort with Jereoboam. But then we see the Man of God idly sitting under an oak tree. He is not hurrying, he has no sense of urgency to leave the idolatrous area.
Here comes is the interesting part.
“He … found him sitting under an oak” (1 Kings 13:14). It must be considered significant that the man of God was idly resting under an oak tree instead of returning to Judah, and the man could not have been blameless, because God had dearly instructed him to waste no time on his mission. Many a servant of God has been overcome with disaster in a moment of idleness. Coffman Commentary
Compare with Abraham’s servant sent to fetch a wife for Isaac. In Genesis 24:33, the servant would not eat until he had spoken his piece. Afterward, he was urged to delay his departure, but the servant still would have none of it, even though the wife had been obtained and seemingly, his mission was done. He said, “Do not delay me, since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.” (Genesis 24:56).
Abraham’s servant kept the LORD first.
Back to the 1 Kings 13 chapter. There lived another prophet from the immediate area. The prophet’s sons came to him and told what had happened with the King. The old prophet purposed to go find this Man of God. The prophet did not repent. He did not fall on his face. He did not go to the King. He made a plan, a dastardly plan instead, to seek out the messenger.
He asked his sons which way the Man of God went. He asked his sons to saddle the donkey. He went out searching for the Man of God. He took time and effort to seek out the Man of God. Note this. When the prophet found the Man of God, he asked the Man of God to eat with him at his house. The Man of God said no, I can’t. I must go my way.
Here is where the prophet’s plan gets dastardly. Up to now one might defend him, might, thinking he wanted to speak further with such a Man of God, learn from him, pray with him. Perhaps a case could be made for the old prophet’s good will. But here the Bible plainly says, the old prophet lied.
He told a whopper. The old prophet claimed to have heard from God, via an angel, bearing a message that directly contradicts the Man of God’s previous command. The old prophet said the angel told him that God said it was now OK to come and eat and stay.
There is such a thing as an earthly chain of command. The command hierarchy is there for a reason. Even more so in dealing in spiritual warfare. If you have orders from the General of the Army, and you receive a contradictory order from a Captain, what will you do? Seek verification, of course.
One might wonder why the Man of God didn’t seek verification from the LORD of hosts.
In any event, the man of God was quite foolish to believe the words of the lying pretender. Would God have told the man of God one thing and then have contradicted it by sending an authentic word by another? “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). Although not stated, there appears to have been an unworthy desire on the part of the man of God to return, and, where there is an antecedent willingness, there is always provided by the Evil One an opportune invitation to do wrong.
The Bible never said why the old prophet lied. He had his reasons. Likely jealousy, power, or greed, the usual sins behind why people lie. How devastating to know the old prophet used God as a cover in his lie!
As Coffman said above, the Man of God is not without culpability. He lingered, he listened to the old prophet, and he failed to seek verification of the message allegedly from God. He did not keep God first, but disobeyed God to satisfy an appetite. Soon after, he was killed on the road home by a lion.
Today there are a lot of the types of ‘old prophets’ running around claiming to be men and women of God and teaching lies. They say, ‘an angel from God told me to tell you’ … When you listen to one of today’s (false) Bible teachers, and they pronounce some kind of revelation from God they’ve allegedly received, it will be obscure and ambiguous. “I see a coming outpouring…” or “I believe that the Lord has placed it on my heart to tell you…”
Remember the clarity and precision with which the Man of God in this chapter pronounced God’s word to Jeroboam. It was given expressly, authenticated by a miraculous sign, and came true perfectly as stated 360 years later.
Take aways:
–The man (and woman) of God needs to keep God first.
–Obey God as exactly as possible.
–Be purposeful in our duties.
–When listening to other ‘men of God’, verify the message.
–There are people who claim to be of God who are just liars who work hard at catching you in order to speak lies and divert you (and me) from our duties.
–Let us not be caught lingering under a tree. Being purposeful and productive makes us harder to catch.
The warning for present-day Christians in this is clear enough. There are many pious, attractive, and pretentious religious propositions in our own times that, in the last analysis, are nothing but lies, dressed up with every plausible appearance of authenticity by the devices of Satan, but still unqualified lies. Coffman’s Commentary
The Old Testament is a wonderful wonderful book. I’ve been camped out on this chapter for two days and I barely scratched the surface of meaning and illumination. What a great gift the Bible is!
the-end-time.org 