Rom 8:15

(Rom 8:15 ESV) For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Paul had used slavery as a metaphor back in chapter 6. He reminds his readers that we shouldn’t go back to the slavery we escaped — the law of sin and death — or the fear of damnation that he described in chapter 7. Rather, we should stick with the Spirit.

He refers to the “Spirit of adoption” and emphasizes our relationship with God as “Father” and “Abba.” It’s by the Spirit within us that we can cry, “Abba! Father.” What does that mean?

This passage parallels,

(Gal 4:6 ESV) And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

But in this passage, it’s the Spirit who cries, whereas in Romans, we cry.

The word translated “cry” referred originally to the cry or caw of a raven. It came to refer to anything like that. Hence, it’s “cry” as in “town crier.” It’s to call out. The word doesn’t mean “cry” as in sobbing — although one could certainly cry out while crying. In fact, “cry out” might be a better translation.

Abba is, of course, Aramaic for “father,” and so Paul uses both the Jewish and Greek forms, showing that God is father of all nations — and just as close to one as the other. Some dictionaries add that “Abba” is a more intimate term than “Father” is in English. In fact, a son of an earthly father would rarely call him “father” in modern America. He’s say “Dad” or “Daddy” or “Papa.” And “Abba” is the word a child would use of his father in Aramaic, making “Father” a bit too stiff of a translation.

It is, of course, the constant delight of young people to pray to God in congregational settings as “Daddy,” and there is nothing wrong with that so long it’s from the heart. Paul refers to our having a “Spirit of adoption,” and an adopted child would call his new father “Daddy.”

Some take offense at this, thinking this is too familiar for a personage as august and mighty as God — but this is sheer confusion. Someone as august and mighty as God gets to decide how he’ll be addressed!

But Paul tells us that we address God as Abba “by the Spirit.” What does this mean? Well, I think, at least two things. First, it means it’s the Spirit who changes our hearts so that we want to be God’s children. This is not entirely our doing. After all, a rebellious child isn’t looking for an Abba-sort-of relationship.

Second, it means that it’s only by the Spirit that we can feel about God as our father. It’s the Spirit that drives away the fear and allows us to crawl up into God’s lap and take comfort there. It’s not that God isn’t fearsome. He’s the same God whose wrath we escaped when we were saved. But our relationship with him has changed and so our feelings toward him must also change.

Rom 8:16-17

(Rom 8:16-17 ESV) 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  17 and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

V. 16 is very controversial. What on earth does it mean that the Spirit bears witness? The verb “bear witness” means to confirm by testimony, as opposed to being the primary evidence. We might better translate “corroborates.”

Well, if the Spirit is the corroborating witness, who is the primary witness? Evidently, “our spirit.” Now, “spirit” can carry many different shades of meaning in the Greek, and different authors use it differently. But in Romans, Paul only uses the word a few times to refer to a part of the Christian other than the indwelling Spirit.

(Rom 1:9-10 ESV) 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you  10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

(Rom 11:7-8 ESV)  7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened,  8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”

(Rom 12:11 ESV) 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Rom 11:8 is a quotation from the Septuagint, and so not necessarily representative of Paul’s use of “spirit.” In 1:9 and 12:11, “spirit” means something like “will” or “passion.” It’s the part of us that drives us to behave a certain way.

Therefore, in 8:16, “with our spirit” does not mean that the Spirit testifies to our spirit (taking “spirit” to mean something like “mind,” I suppose), but that our spirit testifies to our adoption, and this is corroborated or supported by the Spirit’s own evidence. More precisely, the idea is that our spirits and the Spirit jointly testify to our adoption.

But how? Well, by what Paul has just said. We have the Spirit of sonship. We are led by the Spirit. Our hearts have been circumcised. And when our hearts are circumcised by God, when are paths are led by the Spirit, and when we have an Abba-relationship with God the Father, well, people can tell. Or they should be able to.

This is not a warming or fuzzy feeling that surely I’m saved. Not mainly. Paul isn’t worried about you know that you are saved. He’s wanting other people to see it! And they should be able to see the work of God’s Spirit on your spirit.

The thought Paul tosses in is heirship. By becoming God’s children, we gain an inheritance, which Paul had earlier described in –

(Rom 4:13-14 ESV) 13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.  14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

Our inheritance is the world. We are the meek! We inherit the earth!

Now, this is a surprising thing, because we normally think of Christians leaving the world for a better place. And besides, the earth is pretty messed up. Surely, God has something better in mind for us! But “world” means world.

We start by looking back to God’s promise to Abraham –

(Gen 15:18-21 ESV) 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,  19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,  20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,  21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

(Gen 17:4-8 ESV)  4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.  5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.  6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.  7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.  8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

God’s original covenant with Abraham was not for the entire world, but for Palestine and surrounding territories only. Bobby Valentine considers this question in detail in a recent post, and I’ll not repeat his excellent analysis here. I would add that although Abraham is promised only certain land, he is also promised that all nations will be blessed through him.

(Gen 12:3 ESV)  3 “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Paul evidently took this as requiring that the inheritance ultimately include where all the families on earth live — which makes sense. What also makes sense is a separate line of prophecies -

(Isa 66:18-23 ESV) 18 “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory,  19 and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.  20 And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.  21 And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the LORD.  22

“For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain.  23 From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD.”

In a prophecy frequently referred to in the New Testament, the end of time is pictures as the creation of new heavens and a new earth (a re-making of the Genesis 1 creation!).

(Rev 21:1-3 ESV) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

The Revelation in fact concludes with the making of the new heaven and new earth (“new” meaning renewed or refreshed) and God leaving heaven to dwell with man. And so it’s easy to see how Jesus, Paul, and John all conclude from the Old Testament that the “inheritance” is not just Palestine, but the entire world.

Finally, Paul says we must “suffer with” Jesus to be glorified with him. To be “glorified” is to be taken into the immediate presence of God. And suffering is to be like Jesus, the suffering servant of Isaiah –

(Isa 53:11-12 ESV) 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

We are called to be like Jesus — to also be suffering servants, willing to die to help God redeem the world.

Now, to borrow a lesson from Ray Vander Laan, we Americans feel blessed not to suffer as the early Christians did, and often thank God for that. What we don’t do is feel the pain of those who do suffer for the gospel today. If we mourned with those who mourn, we’d suffer. But we are far too comfortable to pay much attention to the Christians who are being persecuted all over the world today for their faith.

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[It's a bit of a challenge to write about vulgarity without alluding to vulgar words, especially when the question is about a particular vulgar word. I'm hoping I've pulled this off. I mean, sometimes you just have to give examples.]

I get emails –

Just curious–

How would you understand Eph 5:4 in such a way that it doesn’t condemn Paul in Phil 3:8?  I’ve found a handful of scholarly sources over the years that claim that “rubbish” in Phil 3 is equivalent to what we would consider a ‘cuss-word.’  I was reminded of this just the other day because a guy at my church said that he took a class from Curt Nicum at OC who claimed “rubbish” was best translated “s**t.”  Do we raise too big of a fuss over a list of words?

There are many verses teaching us not to be vulgar in our speech — …read more

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Beyond the Misguided Spiritual Disciplines

We Will Never Be United As A Nation As Long As There Are Other People Besides Myself

What Happened to the Land? An Exercise in Probing

A Hand Up: Aid for Trade in Mozambique

Do You Do DENOMINATIONAL?

Jesus: The Discernment Artist

Getting Off the Bus …read more

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I get emails –

Jay,

I have done some counseling with people in the church. One brother in his 60’s told me recently that he had been very unhappy and even miserable in his married life for over 35 years. They stayed married but now his grown children are fairly miserable and depressed themselves. This man told me he wonders if he will go to heaven because he was such a bad father (not abusive or a drunkard, just ineffectual and unhappy). Have we (Christian teachers) led people to believe they would be better off being miserable for 40 years than getting a divorce and going to hell?

I am so blessed to be with someone I could love for many years. But not everyone is so fortunate. Is it right for me to tell someone less fortunate you must remain in this  wretched, pathetic marriage for the rest of your life because you made a bad decision when you were a 19 year old?  In fact, I haven’t said that , but that is what most church of Christ people believe and if a preacher told them differently it would start a firestorm of trouble.

I usually say something like, “knowing that God wants you to be faithful and happy, what do you need to do for that to happen?” Any further feedback or advice from scripture you or your readers can give me?

Marriage is a covenant. The scriptures often speak of God’s relationship with the church as a covenant, which is an extension of God’s covenant with Abraham and later Israel. And we know from the Old Testament that God was faithful to his covenant with Israel despite its unfaithfulness. Just one particularly graphic example would be –

(Hos 1:2 ESV) When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”

Despite God accusing Israel of whoredom, God was faithful to his covenant — but no to every single Jew. Rather, some Jews were lost because of lack of faith or deliberate disobedience.

(Psa 95:7-11 ESV) Today, if you hear his voice,  8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,  9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.”  11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Compare Heb 3:8 ff.

Although some argue that we must be as faithful to our marriage covenants as God is to covenants, I think the better analogy is at the individual level. How faithful is God to his covenant with individual Christians? Well, those of the Calvinistic school of thought would argue that God is so faithful that no one can fall away so as to be lost, but as regular readers know, that’s not by view. But neither do I believe people fall away for every mistake or sin.

Rather, as I taught at GraceConversation, there are three ways to fall away –

A Christian falls away when he no longer has faith. “Faith” means faith in Jesus.

A Christian falls away when he is no longer penitent. Equivalently, a Christian falls away when he no longer submits to Jesus as Lord. Equivalently, a Christian falls away when he willfully continues to sin.

A Christian falls away when he seeks to be justified other than by faith in Jesus.

Now, Todd Deaver and I defend those propositions at GraceConversation, and I’ll not repeat the many pages of argument here. Rather, let’s see what would be analogous to those breaches of covenant in a marriage?

Faith/faithfulness

A spouse no longer has faith in his or her spouse. It’s hard to find an exact equivalent, as we normally think of “faith,” but the word in the Greek also means “faithfulness,” and it often carries this double meaning in the New Testament — although rarely picked up by the translators. Indeed, the “faith of Jesus” mentioned in Rom 3 and Gal 2 is his faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham.

(Rom 3:22 ESV) the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for [Greek: "faithfulness of Jesus Christ to"] all who believe. For there is no distinction:

(Gal 2:16 ESV) yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ [Greek: "faithfulness of Jesus Christ"], so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ [Greek: "the faithfulness of Christ"] and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Therefore, the marriage-equivalent of “faith” would being faithful to your spouse. Now, this is more than sexual faithfulness, but it certainly includes that. Rather, “faithfulness” means honoring your covenant with your spouse. This includes several things.

(Exo 21:10 ESV) If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.

Moses states that a man taking a second wife must not deny the first food, clothing, or “marital rights,” that is, sexual relations. Paul likely had this passage in mind when he commanded that spouses not deny each other sexual fulfillment in 1 Cor 7. This was standard rabbinic teaching in Jesus’ day, and a close study of rabbinic debates shows that rabbis who insisted on this (all of them) also debated the grounds for divorce found in Deu 34 — fornication vs. any ground at all — without mentioning these, and yet the rabbis of both schools of though routinely allowed divorce (and remarriage) for a breach of these commands. David Instone-Brewer covers this in remarkable detail in Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context. I summarize his work in much more detail in my ebook posted online But If You Do Marry … and the earlier series on divorce called “MDR.”

The deeper teaching is found in Ephesians –

(Eph 5:21-33 NIV)  21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.  24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her  26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,  27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church–  30 for we are members of his body.  31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”  32 This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church.  33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

My views on this are detailed at –

Ephesians 5 Part 1 (“Head”)

Ephesians 5 Part 2 (“Submission”)

Additional Material on Ephesians 5:21

Suffice to say that Paul compares the relationship of husbands to wives to Christ’s sacrificial relationship to the church — supporting the overall thesis of this post. The key command is: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The reference to the crucifixion is explicit and routinely ignored. The covenant of the husband is submission just as Christ submitted –

(Phi 2:5-8 NIV) 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!

Surrender, self-emptying (making oneself nothing), and humility reflect the nature of Jesus as shown by the cross.

Wives, of course, are taught by Paul to submit as their husbands, but husbands, to be like Christ, must also submit –

(Heb 5:7 NIV) 7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

And, I believe, the command of mutual submission ultimately subsumes the commands for food, clothing, and marital rights — they are still true, of course, but the principle is much, much deeper.

Repentance

To repent is to live what you confess –

(Rom 10:9-10 NIV)  9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Now, only Jesus is Lord, but both husbands and wives must be faithful to their covenants and must submit to one another. This submission is the essence of marriage in Christ.

Justification by works

Galatians teaches that our salvation is by faith in Jesus and not works. Indeed, seeking justification by works rather than faith causes one to fall away. It’s a scary book! Works salvation is also known as legalism — the idea that there are a bunch of rules we can obey and so deserve salvation or that there are rules other than faith in Jesus that define the boundaries of the kingdom.

The marital equivalent of legalism is seeking to earn your spouse’s love or, much more commonly, demanding that your spouse earn your love — that is, making your love conditional on meeting some standard of behavior.

Now, there is, of course, a standard we really want our spouses to meet, right? We really want them to be sexual faithful. We want them to carry their share of the load. There are many, many standards we want our spouses to meet. Just so, God has extremely high expectations of us his children. But God’s covenant is not legalistic.

Rather, God acts first. He pursues us and gives us grace. We respond in obedience, but a very imperfect obedience. Nonetheless, as God gives himself to us, even living in us to form a kind-of unity through his Spirit, we grow in our obedience and love, and the relationship deepens.

I’m no marriage counselor, but many a counselor gives this advice: pursue your wife or husband. Don’t demand her or his love. Rather, be the first to love, the first to serve, the first to submit — asking nothing in return other than the opportunity to love. And, the counselors teach, no spouse can resist such unconditional love. Love changes people.

You see, we must learn from God’s grace how to be gracious to others — especially to our spouses. Submit by being willing to sacrifice for the other first. It’s works for God. It’ll work for you.

Christian marriage

There are three kinds of marriages — marriages between non-Christians, marriages between Christians, and mixed marriages. Let’s take them one at a time.

For non-Christians, the Bible doesn’t really have a lot to say. Obviously, God deeply cares how the spouses treat each other and their children, because God love them all. But the church can’t do much for non-Christian couples, nor can we call them to live like Jesus.

For mixed marriage, the Bible is quite clear.

(1Pe 3:1-2 ESV) Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

(1Co 7:12-17 ESV) 12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.  13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.  14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.  15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.  16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?  17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.

The believing spouse must remain married in hopes of converting the unbeliever. The failure of a spouse to convert does not, by itself, justify a divorce. But where other grounds exist, they’d certainly apply.

Now, for marriages between Christians, the rules are as discussed above, and absent disease, God and the church insist that the spouses treat each other as described in Ephesians 5. And when spouses do this, they’ll get along — especially if they are part of a Christian community where good marriages are modeled and the leadership supports them in their efforts to make a good marriage.

I’m convinced that virtually all miserable marriages are miserable because of one or both spouses’ selfishness. I mean, self-giving, Christ-like spouses can make a marriage work, even if they aren’t intrinsically compatible. They just have to grow up and do what the Bible says.

The sad truth, however, is that our churches are pretty good at producing spiritual midgets because we teach a selfish Christianity. Indeed, our marketing often emphasizes what the convert gets out of Christianity, rather than the joys of missional living. When the church is selling coffee in the lobby and child care and great worship rather than mission with Jesus, it’ll produce selfish Christians and failed marriages.

I have nothing against coffee, child care, and great worship. I just don’t think they should be the reason anyone joins my church. If they join because of what they get out of it rather than because of how well they’ll be equipped for ministry, well, we leaders aren’t doing our jobs.

Therefore, the most important cure for miserable marriages is Christianity — the Phillippians 2 kind, not the marketing kind. Get that right, and we’ll not fix them all, but we’ll fix a whole lot of them!

Discipline

If a Christian spouse insists on being a selfish jerk to his wife, he should be counseled, prayed with, and warned. Professional counseling should be made available. We may even need him to take a physical and make sure his problem isn’t due to some disease. But after everything else has been tried, he may need to be disfellowshipped. (Obviously, the same rule applies for wives who are selfish jerks.)

Very understandably, elderships are reluctant to get involved in such matters, because there will always be a lot of “he said, she said,” and most of us aren’t qualified counselors. But, ultimately, a church that won’t insist its members stop being selfish isn’t really much of a church. It’s not optional behavior.

(Phi 2:1-4 NIV) If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Christianity changes hearts and lives. And we should certainly treat our spouses at least as well as Paul tells us to treat our fellow church members. This is the heart of Christianity.

(1Co 13:1-8 NIV)  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.  4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  8 Love never fails.

Again, this passage is about how to treat your fellow church member, and we can properly insist that spouses do at least as well with each other.

I’m convinced that countless marriages could have been saved and many a husband or wife spared untold misery by a church that teaches a Christ-like Christianity, that insists that we honor these commands, and that is willing to discipline those who refuse. I doubt many will refuse if the teachings are taught properly.

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Rom 8:10

(Rom 8:10 ESV) 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Some have argued that “Christ is in you” means we are indwelt by the Spirit in the same sense we are indwelt by Christ — through obedience to the “law of Christ” or “law of the Spirit.” That reading, of course, is entirely out of context. Christ is in us because his Spirit is in us. The same thought appears at –

(Joh 14:20 ESV)  20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

– which is another passage dealing with the indwelling Spirit. But the most explicit statement is found in — …read more

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I get emails –

Jay,

I have done some counseling with people in the church. One brother in his 60’s told me recently that he had been very unhappy and even miserable in his married life for over 35 years. They stayed married but now his grown children are fairly miserable and depressed themselves. This man told me he wonders if he will go to heaven because he was such a bad father (not abusive or a drunkard, just ineffectual and unhappy). Have we (Christian teachers) led people to believe they would be better off being miserable for 40 years than getting a divorce and going to hell?

I am so blessed to be with someone I could love for many years. But not everyone is so fortunate. Is it right for me to tell someone less fortunate you must remain in this  wretched, pathetic marriage for the rest of your life because you made a bad decision when you were a 19 year old?  In fact, I haven’t said that , but that is what most church of Christ people believe and if a preacher told them differently it would start a firestorm of trouble.

I usually say something like, “knowing that God wants you to be faithful and happy, what do you need to do for that to happen?” Any further feedback or advice from scripture you or your readers can give me? …read more

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Rom 8:5

(Rom 8:5 ESV) 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

“Set their minds on” is a single verb in the Greek, and it’s present, active, indicative. As Zodhiates explains the Greek, present, active, indicative expresses action that is occurring while the speaker is making the statement. Hence, “have their minds on,” as in the NIV, is more precise. In other words, this isn’t a command; it isn’t a condition; it’s an observation on the difference between our natures without and with the Spirit. If we have the Spirit, our minds are set on the things of the Spirit. This is about a change in our natures, not a change from one law to another. …read more

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Understandably, given how many readers are in Restoration Movement denominations or else have Restoration Movement roots, the question of baptism keeps coming up when I propose treating other denominations as fellow believers and Christians. Baptism has long been a boundary marker for those in the Churches of Christ and independent Christian Churches.

I addressed the question from a theological standpoint in the series on Imperfect Baptisms, but there’s another way of looking at the question that is rarely addressed. You see, it wasn’t that long ago that I also believed that those not baptized by immersion were lost even if they had a submissive faith in Jesus. And it was during that phase of my study that I learned something very interesting: we are not alone. …read more

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It’s been a while since I put up the last post in this series, on Romans 1 – 7. So let me remind you of a few things.

Deuteronomy

First, up to this point, Paul’s discussion of the Spirit in Romans has been built heavily on the Old Testament prophecies related to the Spirit, especially Deuteronomy 30:6 –

(Deu 30:6 ESV)  And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

This passage refers back to the beginning of the second giving of the Law in chapter 10 of Deuteronomy — just before the Israelites were to cross the Jordan River and begin the campaign to conquer the Promised Land — …read more

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Imagine, if you will, a community without denominations. Here in West Alabama, for example, imagine that all the congregations of Christ’s church decide to cooperate in all things. They begin with the easiest form of cooperation: benevolence. They begin small, working together by coordinating Celebrate Recovery efforts, food distribution to the poor, and the like.

Leaders from the churches decide to meet periodically not just for prayer and encouragement, but to coordinate and plan their efforts. With over 100,000 volunteers available, they realize that the church in Tuscaloosa is capable of far more than it’s even imagined in the past.

The leadership encourages some of its members to move to impoverished communities to become beacons of light and serve in God’s redemptive mission there. Over time, many are rescued from poverty and addiction, from broken marriages and failed families, and many turn to Jesus. Racial divisions weaken and the town changes. …read more

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(Col 1:24-26 ESV) 24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,  25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,  26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.

Suffering

There is a strong element of Christian suffering in the gospel — and Paul celebrates his suffering because it’s for the cause of Christ. Compare — …read more

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It’s ironic that our (in the narrow sense) insistence on cooperating only with those as doctrinally pure as we violates our founding principles. Yes, really.

The one fact is, that Jesus the Nazarene is the Messiah. The evidence upon which it is to be believed is the testimony of twelve men, confirmed by prophecy, miracles, and spiritual gifts. The one institution is baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Every such person is a christian [sic] in the fullest sense of the word, the moment he has believed this one fact, upon the above evidence, and has submitted to the above mentioned institution; and whether he believes the five points condemned or the five points approved by the synod of Dort, is not so much as to be asked of him; whether he holds any of the views of the Calvinists or Arminians, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, or Quakers, is never once to be asked of such a person, in order to admission into the christian community, called the church.

Alexander Campbell, “The Foundation of Hope and of Christian Union,” Christian Baptist (April 5, 1824). Notice that the “synod of Dort” was the meeting of church leaders that adopted the five points of Calvinism popularly known as TULIP. …read more

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Okay. This is the part where we talk some more about what we lose if we give up our denominations. And it’s not as though they serve no purpose at all. In fact, denominations do quite a lot.

1. Missions. Nearly every denomination does a large part of its mission work through its denominational structure. Even in the Churches of Christ, we find we have to cooperate to do missions — and we cooperate within the denomination. And we have supporting organizations that help us — as elements of our denomination.

I mean, the missionaries are usually trained at one of “our” universities or schools of preaching. They are often supported by various para-church organizations, such as World Radio.

One reason we cooperate via our denominations is we want to convert people to our brand of Christianity. I may not think Calvinism damns, but I do think it’s wrong. Why would I spend good money to convert people to a viewpoint I consider error when I could just easily contribute to a missionary who agrees with me? …read more

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I think it’ll help if I say plainly what I’m not saying.

1. I’m not saying that all the denominations should all merge into new super-denomination with a uniform worship pattern, uniform organizational structure, and perfectly uniform doctrine. That was Campbell’s idea, but it’s unworkable; at least it is today.

In a perfect world, this is exactly where we’d be, of course, but this ideal wasn’t achieved even in apostolic times. This is not the cure for division.

2. I’m not saying that we must all become non-denominational community churches — although there’s a lot of appeal to that model. But we can be functionally united without going that far. And one natural result of becoming functionally united is that our old denominational identifiers will not be our self-identities — so maybe something kind of like that happens. But that’s not essential to the proposal. …read more

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[re-written and expanded]
We should not ask the question in terms of the future of the progressive Churches of Christ or the Restoration Movement. To ask about our subgroup is to assume that God wants our subgroup to have a future history distinct from his entire church. It’s a false assumption.

Rather, the correct question to ask deals with the future of the church: the real church of Christ, the church universal. And anyone with a lick of sense knows that it’s presently pretty messed up. We Christians are badly divided into thousands of denominations — and our members have lost patience with the divided leadership. …read more

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For my good friends in the banking industry.

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I’ve been trying to think of a simple way of explaining the idea. Let’s try –

* The churches in each community should feel closer to and work more closely with each other than churches of their own denomination elsewhere.

And

* We have to see God’s redemptive mission and our participation in it as central to our Christianity.

We just need to decide that the mission matters most and that we need to fulfill that mission by cooperating with other Christians in town, even if we disagree with them about apostolic succession. That’s about it. Get that right, and the rest will follow.

Let me explain. …read more

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I get emails –

Hi,

Been reading your posts for a few months; I’m encouraged and intrigued. Do you now of any Progressive CoCs in St. Louis, MO area???

All the best in Christ,

St. Louis is not familiar territory to me — other than the arch, the zoo, the Cardinals, the hot dogs, and Bob Gibson. Can anyone make a recommendation?

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Article by LeRoy Lawson

LeRoy Lawson is an international consultant with Christian Missionary Fellowship International, an agency that supports foreign missions. He writes,

1. We have made our point and it has been adopted by many who are not “us.” We do not now own the movement for restoring New Testament Christianity—if we ever did; and we’re no longer isolated from the larger Christian world—which we certainly were at one time. We find Restorationist soul mates scattered throughout the national and international church scene.

2. We don’t have a distinguishable brand. As has often been pointed out, “Restoration Movement” is a terrible label. So is “Stone-Campbell Movement,” since most people even within the movement don’t know about either Stone or the Campbells. To quote Professor Fred Norris, “Our distinctive is that we have no distinctives.” So, as I said, “they” have trouble figuring out who “we” are …read more

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From the Sacred Sandwich.

And, I might add, the Calvinist responded, “Semi-Pelagian!”

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