Hiding

If you look at Genesis 3:8 (here @ Bible Gateway), you will note that Adam and Eve had a personal relationship with God.  They walked with Him in the garden.  They knew His sounds.  The cadence of His stride.  The sound of His voice.  They probably knew His scent.  It was a close personal, somewhat casual, relationship.

When they disobeyed; when they violated His trust; when they heard their close friend, their creator, their Lord, coming; they hid.

In Exodus 20:19 (here @ Bible Gateway), when that same Lord continued His self-revelation through giving His Law, again the people, His chosen people, hid.  They wanted Moses to deal with God for them.

In what ways are we doing the same thing today?  During the time that the Bible was being written, those who wanted to follow the Lord were dependent on others, prophets, apostles, and others to whom God spoke directly.  They were dependent on circular letters that apostles wrote.  By the end of the first century the gospels and epistles were treated as a whole.  By the end of the second century all but 3 John had been quoted as Scripture.  By the end of the fourth century the books we have now are widely mentioned and recognized.

The point?

For the last 2015 years we have had the Word of God.  Now in our time, we have unbelievable access to that Word.  I have 27 different physical New Testaments.  I have over 3000 books about the Bible on my computer.  I have a program that will tell me all of the Greek or Hebrew words that are in any passage.  I can export that list to Excel and sort it anyway that I wish.  I can point at any word in the text with my mouse and find out the part of speech, the pronunciation, and with another click, get a hyperlinked list of all of the resources in my library that will give me insight into the development and use of that word.

That does not begin to address the resources we have on the internet.  There are free programs available that will do much of what I just described.  Further there is an uncountable number of messages ranging from extraordinary to heretical available in our browsers.  In church many are no longer carrying a Bible because they use the app on their phones.

So with all these incredible resources we should have incredibly Biblically literate believers, right?

I work primarily with leaders.  Both here and overseas.  That is not the case.  Many if not most of the pastors that I have worked with overseas spend more time reading books about the Bible to craft their messages than spending time in the Word of God.  Many download messages that others have given and share those.  Why?  They do not know how to study the Scripture, or do not have confidence that they are able to do so with any degree of accuracy.

If they do not know how, will the people in their communities?

The answer to that should be obvious.

I have had members of good, no great, churches tell me that they do not want to study the Bible for themselves, it’s too much work.  They want someone to tell them what it says, what to believe.  They are committed to allowing others talk to God.  Like the Israelites at Sinai hid behind Moses, to a great extent aren’t we, those of us who are not personally engaged in the Word, hiding behind pastors and teachers?

If this isn’t true of you, awesome!  If it is and it’s because no one has shown you how, let me know, I will.

That is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

Waiting

I am not patient.  As a pilot I was trained to think quickly, precisely, and then to act immediately.  That does not translate well into life outside of the cockpit.  Further, it does not translate well into following the Lord.

Psalm 27:4 (here @ Bible Gateway) was the first passage I ever memorized.  Later I memorized all of Psalm 27 (here @ Bible Gateway).  Psalm 27:13 (here @ Bible Gateway) is one of my wife’s favorite verses.  Psalm 27:14 (here @ Bible Gateway) is one of those verses that I love but are a consistent challenge to walk out in my life.

Waiting and impatience are not compatible bedfellows.

Yet, throughout the Word we are called to wait.  Consider this list (click here).

Look at the advantages of waiting:

• Salvation
• Strength and Courage
• Rest
• Inheritance
• Honor
• Hope
• Favor
• New Strength
• No Shame
• The Goodness of the Lord
• Being Heard by the Lord
• His Return

So even for one like me who is not patient and has been trained to act quickly, the lesson is clear.  I am to wait on Him.

People not Parchment

In the past several weeks issues have surfaced at churches, with individuals, and with groups concerning what is right or correct in either our understanding of what our Lord requires, or our understanding of what the Bible says.  One could describe these as doctrinal or theological issues.

I have seen a myriad of ways in which people have attempted to address these types of issues.  In some cases organizations craft detailed doctrinal/theological position papers by which they attempt to define and control the understanding of those involved in said organization.  Others will have seminars or classes to teach what they believe.  Some will share a message or series of messages intended to “correct” misunderstanding of one or many facets of the group’s theological understanding.

From a Biblical point of view I am not sure that any of those are effective means of transmitting either correct doctrine or understanding of the Scripture.

In the past year or so, in four different Bible studies, the books of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus have been the focus.  In each study the three books were studied as a unit.  The idea was to look for common themes, directions, or suggestions which Paul shared with his protégés.

At the beginning of each book it is clear that one of the major issues Paul addresses is the engagement of his key men with false teaching and false teachers.  Throughout the three books there is a consistent call to engage and refute false teaching.

In several of Paul’s epistles, he explicitly calls his readers to imitate him (click here for a list of references), implicitly in 2 Timothy, he exhorts his closest coworker to do so (2 Timothy 2:2, 3:10 – 13 (here @ Bible Gateway)).

So what is Paul’s charge to Titus and Timothy?  How does he exhort them to combat false teaching and false teachers?  There is much in these three books that is worthy of our attention concerning this crucial aspect of leadership, much more than can be addressed here.  There is one aspect of Paul’s instruction to which he invests proportionately more of his exhortation, which is to invest in the equipping of others in the truth.

In all three books Paul gives explicit instructions on the types of men Timothy and Titus are to select, and the importance of building into them the truth that was to be preserved.

In 2 Timothy 3:10 – 13 (here @ Bible Gateway), Paul exhorts Timothy to follow Paul’s example.  If you scan through Acts 16 – 20 (here @ Bible Gateway) you quickly pick up what it was that Timothy experienced as he accompanied his mentor for six and a half to seven years in their journeys around the Mediterranean.

Paul’s answer to how to deal with false teaching, seems to be to invest in people not parchment.  That is, rather than writing down what is the true doctrine, impart it, entrust it into the lives of those whom you are called to serve.

For those of us who are fathers, that certainly includes our wives and children and if we have them, grandchildren and the spouses of our children.  But it also include anyone in our sphere of influence.  We are called to put His Kingdom, His Truth, first in our lives.  That suggests that we are to make the proclamation and transmission of those our first priority.

I need to do better at this.