Category Archives: Thoughts From Scripture

Spurgeon on criticism

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Someone posted this quote on Facebook recently:

“Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.” Spurgeon

The first sentence especially resonated with me. I was just discussing with my son yesterday that the first response to any criticism should be to examine it to see if there is any truth to it. I’m amazed at people who can’t take the merest suggestion that they might be doing something not quite right without becoming defensive and blowing up, or, in opposite fashion, becoming wounded and closing in on themselves.

Yet I have to admit, my first response to criticism isn’t, “Thank you: you’ve give me something to think about.” I might not say so out loud, but my first thoughts are likely to be something like, “You don’t understand,” or, “How DARE you!” or, “Oh yeah? Well take a look at yourself and deal with your own faults!” Not very pretty, is it? My first response should probably be, “Yes, and you don’t know the half of it!”

It should be no surprise to us that we’re not perfect, and no surprise that someone else notices that fact from time to time. Proverbs has much to say about hearing reproof:

For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life. Proverbs 6:23.

He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth. Proverbs 10:17.

Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured. Proverbs 13:18.

The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. Proverbs 15:31.

He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding. Proverbs 15:32.

A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool. Proverbs 17:10.

We can take comfort in the fact that God sees believers through His Son, Jesus Christ, and that once we savingly believe on Him, His righteousness is transferred to our account because He took our sinfulness on His. Because of His amazing grace, those who have believed on Christ for salvation become God’s children, and will have a home with Him in heaven. Our eternal life begins NOW, not when we die.

Yet until we get to heaven, we have a sin nature to contend with, and we’re instructed to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). II Timothy 3:16-17 tell us: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (ESV). Part of that growing, completion, equipping, is realizing those areas where we have a problem and then seeking God’s grace and relying on His Word to change us. So when we receive a criticism, instead of just brushing it off, we can see if God means to use it to show us something we need to know about ourselves.

There is only one perfect person in the universe, and as we behold Him, He changes us to be more like Himself:  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. II Corinthians 3:18.

Book Review: Introverts in the Church

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IntrovertsI came across Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam S. McHugh around the same time that I came across Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (linked to my review). Susan’s book was somewhat clinical and historical, and I thought Adam’s would be a nice complement to hers, with spiritual applications.

It was and wasn’t. Some parts of the book were extremely helpful, but some of it totally turned me off.

One of the main characteristics of introverts is that they’re energized by solitude. They’re not hermits, not all are shy, they do like socializing to a degree, but it drains them, whereas extroverts are energized by socializing. They also process things differently. Extroverts process by talking with others: they can speak and think at the same time, though sometimes they are more prone than introverts to speak before thinking (e.g., Peter). Introverts process things internally and take longer to do so, so sometimes they miss speaking up because they’re still trying to figure out what to say. Extroverts can handle a lot of stimulation: introverts, only so much. Introverts also “prefer depth over breadth” (p. 41). That doesn’t mean that extroverts have no depth: it just means that introverts may have only a few very close friends rather than a great number of casual friends, generally hate small talk, prefer to fully explore a few interests rather than experiencing a smattering of interests.

McHugh starts off by making the case that church life seems to be set up more for extroverts than introverts (see the post on his blog, The Top Five Things Introverts Dread About Church, one of my all-time favorite posts ever). He cites a survey indicating more people than not thought Jesus was an extrovert (though McHugh lists several qualities of both the introvert and extrovert from what we see of Jesus’s life and suggests that Jesus was the perfect balance between the two), examples of equating spirituality with sociability, of a church atmosphere resembling a “nonalcoholic cocktail party” where “there is a chatty, mingling informality…where words flow like wine” (p. 21) rather than quietness and reverence.

Introverts tend to process things slowly, so they might lag behind in conversation and therefore be uncomfortable. They prefer having more involved, meaningful conversation with one or two people rather than glad-handing everyone they see. They “can faithfully sit in the back pew of worship services, rarely talking to anyone and still feel a genuine connection to the community (p. 93). They probably prefer quieter forms of church worship and wouldn’t mind some intervals of silence in order to think and process.

McHugh emphasizes that neither approach is right or wrong, and most of us have some mixture of introvert and extrovert in us, though most of us are usually stronger one way than the other. He asserts that, just like there are a variety of spiritual gifts withing the church that are supposed to interact to make up the body, so the church needs different personality types, partly so that we can minister to different personality types. There are valuable ways introverts can minister that may not look just like the way extroverts do, and that’s ok. An introvert doesn’t have to change his personality to “fit in” God’s kingdom, though McHugh acknowledges that we all need to be stretched out of our comfort zones sometimes.

He cites various ways introverts can be misunderstood or can feel they don’t fit in. He tells of a few people whose pastors thought that fostering community meant having a lot of church activities and groups, and one was thought less than spiritual if one did not attend all or most of these, yet the introverts found them exhausting.  Introverts may be thought standoffish. I admit I have seen some of this. Recently a pastor who is usually very gracious equated being “quiet and bashful” with being “self-absorbed,” and the solution seemed to be to stop being quiet and bashful rather than to find ways a quiet and bashful person can minister (although, as I said above, we do need to extend ourselves past our comfort zones sometimes, but anyone can be self-absorbed, introvert or extrovert). Those kinds of things hurt, yet I can’t say I carry the sense of woundedness McHugh seems to, but he does have a chapter on “Finding Healing” for those who do.

He does have some admonitions for introverts that I found helpful:

“It is natural for introverts to distance themselves from others to do the necessary work of internal processing, but too often we use that as an excuse for avoiding others, even when we have the social energy to engage” (p. 52).

We are “susceptible to an unhealthy degree of self-preoccupation” and “become mired in our inner worlds, to the exclusion of relationships and actions that would bring …healing and joy” (p. 59).

“Our inner reflections can become excessive to the point of inaction. Introversion should never be an excuse for laziness or sin. Understanding our introversion is not the end of our self-discovery and growth; it is a beginning point for learning to love God and others” (p. 59).

“The love that is the ultimate goal of the Christian life cannot be restricted to inner stirrings, but it must be expressed in self-sacrificial action. Healing will come en route. We stretch as we take risks and move beyond our comfort zones” (p. 59)

“We bless the body of Christ when we express our gifts within community and when we love at personal costs to ourselves” (p. 60).

“When we use our introversion as an excuse for not loving people sacrificially, we are not acting as introverts formed in the image of God. We who follow a crucified Messiah know that love will sometimes compel us to willingly choose things that make us uncomfortable, to surrender our rights for the blessing of others. We worship a God ‘who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine’ [Ephesians 3:20]. We must be always be open to the sovereign God who can shake us to our cores, who gives us the strength to transcend our humanness and to do things we never thought possible” (p. 63).

“Even when our resources are at their lowest point, even when we have nothing to offer, we work out of a power that can take our scant reserves and overwhelm people with a mercy that heals both body and soul” (p. 65)

“Sometimes we play the ‘introvert card’ in order to avoid taking a risk or doing something uncomfortable” (p. 136).

“Introverts may need to keep struggling through greeting times at church, because we need the constant reminder that the Christian life is never lived in isolation” (p. 193).

“God may call some people into a work for which they are not perfectly suited, for His greater glory” (p. 138).

“When Moses objected to God at the burning bush, saying that he was a clumsy speaker, God did not disagree with him…The power of the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to do things we couldn’t do otherwise” (p. 138).

But while we need to extend ourselves, there are things churches can do to minister to introverts and enable them to connect and minister. He doesn’t suggest that churches should “coddle” introverts or “create yet another target audience” (p. 193), but one of the main things churches can do is to recognize that there are different ways to energize, lead, worship, experience community. He spends much of the book discussing these factors.They can stop “communicating to introverts that their ways of living and relating and worshiping are inferior or unfaithful” (p. 193) and realize that though we hold to the same “paramount, indispensable values” (p. 23), we may have different ways of expressing them. “The truly healthy church is a combination of introverted and extroverted qualities that fluidly move together. Only in that partnership can we capture both the depth and breadth of God’s mission” (p. 30).

Someone I read thought he focused too much on leadership rather than lay people, but I didn’t think so personally: there are two chapters specifically on leadership, and many of his examples involve pastors, but I found much I could glean and apply to myself even within those chapters.

I found the majority of the book very helpful, but I had major problems with the chapter on “Introverted Spirituality” and some of the chapter on “Introverts in Church”. He recommends several Eastern practices that “move beyond the senses” (p. 70) and mystical and Catholic practices that I would be uncomfortable with. I do agree that “words and tangible images are signs pointing to God, but they are not God Himself” (p. 71), and that God said, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9), but I very strongly disagree that “words have a way of trying to control Him” (p. 71) or that we need to seek Him beyond words, especially the very words that He breathed out for us to have until we see Him again. A former pastor used to call the Bible “divinely brief” – of all the infinite number of things God could have said and conveyed to us, this is what He wanted us to know and think about and learn from. In the chapter on “Introverts in the Church,” he opens the chapter with a quote from Neil Postman that “If an audience is not immersed in an aura of mystery and symbolic otherworldliness, then it is unlikely that it can still call forth the state of mind required for a nontrivial religious experience” (p. 187). Though there are times when we can be humbled and amazed by God’s “otherworldliness” and transcendence, and though there are mysteries in the Bible and about God Himself that we can never fully fathom, I don’t think worship is “mystical.” A speaker I used to hear in college called worship “worth-ship” – ascribing to God and acknowledging His worth, His majesty, glory, holiness, and His abundant other qualities – which we learn of through His Word, not “beyond our senses.” Peter, James, and John had one of the most amazing spiritual experiences ever when they saw Christ transfigured before their very eyes, yet when Peter referred to it, he went on to say we have a “more sure word of prophecy” in the Scripture than even that experience. I am also wary of a prayer form that involves “silence to quiet the mind and focus on a sacred word or phrase. Apophatic prayer tries to rid the mind of all images and forms so as to be open to encounter directly the Mysterious One. It is the desire of the meditator to listen to God rather than talk to God” (p. 71). I have read suggestions that the focusing on a single word or phrase while meditating may be an occultish practice. I don’t know about that, but I do know that Biblical meditation is not an emptying of the mind but rather a using the mind, mulling or thinking over. Right when I was in the midst of this book, I was at home from church sick one day and listened to a sermon by Jim Berg on “Let the Word of Christ Dwell in You Richly” from Colossians 3:16. He defined meditation as “peering intently with purpose” involving concentration, purpose, and focus on a particular passage. I’m not saying that every single practice McHugh mentions is wrong (though there are some I am more uncomfortable with than others) or that Christians might not be able to use some of them in beneficial ways, but I am very wary of extra-Biblical practices, and strongly disagree that introverts need to seek this kind of spirituality. Besides all of that, I am just more practically minded. When he was writing of a specific form he likes to use in prayer, my thought was, “Well, ok, if that helps you. But some of us just like to talk to God in prayer.” Admittedly sometimes my thoughts get scattered in prayer, and when they do I go back to what we call the Lord’s prayer (not to say it in a rote way, but to use it phrase by phrase as a jumping-off point) or the Psalms or one of the New Testament prayers like Colossians 1:9-14 or Philippians 1:9-11.

So…as I said at the beginning, much of the book was extremely helpful, but some of it raised some red flags for me.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Hidden Art of Homemaking: Gardens and Gardening

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It’s Week 6 of  The Hidden Art of Homemaking Book Club hosted by Cindy at Ordo Amoris where we’re discussing Edith Schaeffer’s book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking a chapter at a time.

Chapter 6 discusses “Gardens and Gardening,” and Edith applies some of the same principles as in other chapters, that people don’t necessarily need to become experts, get a degree, start a farm, etc., to participate and benefit by doing a little gardening, but they can start small, as she did with what we would call now container gardening, or with a small space of land. She lists many of the benefits of gardening (exercise, contributing to rather than taking from the environment, the pleasure and anticipation of planting something and watching it grow, etc.) and a few of the many Biblical allusions to planting.

And while I understand and agree with all of that, I have to confess, I am no gardener. My husband had a garden for a few years, but it was a battle royal to keep bugs from destroying it, and at certain times of the year it was more pressure that relaxation to keep up with it. I have not been able to spend more than a very few minutes on my knees since TM, even with a pad, so I am not keen to go start a garden myself. I have thought of starting some squash growing in a container or two, since often what I find in the store is so sad-looking, and have also thought of growing some herbs. I’d have to figure out better ways of battling the bugs – I cringe at spraying pesticides over something I am going to eat.

I do a little better with ornamental plants. Somehow both at our former house and this one, rose bushes have flourished despite me, not because of me. I think some of my first plants were hanging baskets, just the basic petunias, impatiens, and begonias. Last year I tried verbena for the first time, and this year some blue lobelia and pink Gerber daisies. At our last home there was a purple hydrangea bush that I just loved and wanted one here: the one I planted last year is putting forth buds (I can’t remember what color I bought, though. 🙂 Either pink or blue, as they didn’t have purple, but I think the color of the bloom primarily depends on the soil, anyway. I’m excited to see how they turn out). I do want to plant some bulbs some time for early spring blooms.

With this chapter, as well, as the others, if we have little or no experience at all in the given topic, we can start out small, learn as we go, and expand. I do enjoy walking around the plant sections at stores and seeing what kinds of things are there and wondering how I can incorporate them.

I do love how flowers can brighten up the area. We had none right next to this house, and I’ve enjoyed planting some since we’ve been here (oddly, the previous owner planted daffodils and a few other things behind the shed and in an area of the back yard that can’t be seen from the windows. Haven’t figured that out yet.)

Barbara's Cell phone pics 191

Patio flowers

This one came with this variety of plants all together: all I had to do was transplant it into this container. It has filled out nicely.

Planter

One of the spiritual parallels I’ve learned most with the small experiences I’ve had with plants is that of John 15:2b: “every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” The few that I have worked with need to be cut back sometimes. If they’re just let go, they may continue to grow to an extent but will look scraggly and sick or may even stop growing altogether. Cutting back – pruning or “deadheading” the spent flowers and even sometimes cutting back what looks like perfectly good growth – makes the plant, full, lush, bushy, healthy, ad produces many more flowers. This is one of the most comforting truths concerning suffering and loss: we may not know why God took a certain person or thing or closed a certain door, and there are many Biblical reasons for suffering, but one is this: we will grow spiritually in ways we would not have without that “pruning.”

More discussion on this chapter can be found here.

Lead Me Back

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For all who need to come back home —
“I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions,
and, as a cloud, thy sins:
return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.”
Isaiah 44:22
Lead Me Back
Lead me back to my home, I have wandered far away.
I’ve been gone for far too long. Will You welcome me today?

Is it possible You can hear me after the way I turned from You?
Is it possible that You’re near me, that You never went away,
And You’ll lead me back today?

The life I spent, the days I lost, I have lived them all in vain.
Now I hold nothing to show but a heart that is full of pain.

Lord, I know that You will hear me although I turned away from You.
Lord, I see that You were near me, and You never went away,
And You call me back today.

Lead me back to my home, I have wandered far away.
I’ve been gone for far too long. Will You welcome me today?

Now I come to You today.

~ Words and music by Pepper Choplin

As sung by the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team on their CD, Creator Of It All.

Book Review: His Ways, Your Walk

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HWYWHis Ways, Your Walk by my friend Lou Ann Keiser focuses on Bible passages written specifically to women. It grew out of Lou Ann’s long experience as a missionary wife, counseling many women and seeing the types of problems and struggles that regularly arise, and out of her years of Bible reading and study.

It covers a lot of ground for 244 pages: how to become born again, how to know God’s will for one’s life, singleness, romance, marriage, motherhood, women in the church, spiritual gifts, dress, entertainment, dealing with emotions, abuse – and that’s not even half the topics discussed. There are “application” questions after major sections, to process and apply what one has read. It is very practical, straightforward, balanced, chock full of Biblical wisdom, and laced with humor.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is that most of the time, when Lou Ann is discussing a passage, she includes the whole passage right there in the book rather than just a reference (though sometimes references are listed for further study).

One of my favorite quotes is in the chapter on dress: “We shouldn’t call attention to ourselves by looking tacky any more than we should call attention to ourselves by wearing too much bling. We need to find balance” (p. 152). Another, in a section on the husband’s headship over his wife, quotes I Corinthians 11:3 (“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God”), and then observes, “Is it negative to have a head? Obviously not, since Christ has one! Here, we have a glimpse of God’s order of authority. God the Father is in a position over Christ. Is God the father more important or better than Christ? No. They are equal; both are God! But Christ was obedient to His heavenly Father” (p. 72).

This book is good not only for personal study, but it would be good to share with daughters, a Sunday School class, or in a mentoring situation.

This book also represents a few firsts for me: this is the first (and only, so far) book I was asked to read and critique before publication, the first book in which I was listed in the acknowledgments, and the first book in which I am actually quoted. Thanks, Lou Ann!

You can read more of Lou Ann’s writings at her blog, In the Way.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Why I Wear a Hat to Church

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Every now and then someone sends around those “getting to know you” questions, and I’ve answered them a few times on my blog. Sometimes one of the questions is “What is one thing people might not know about you?” One good answer to that question is that I wear a hat, or headcovering, to church, but I have never mentioned it on my blog because I don’t want to be thought weird or misjudged because of it.

But in real life, of course, a hat in church is obvious and sticks out like a sore thumb, even though I try to keep them unobtrusive and not overly decorative. My husband and I don’t want to make it our “pet issue,” soapbox, or hobby horse by bringing it up and discussing it excessively with people, so we usually only explain it when asked. I don’t think we have ever been asked, though I was once accused of “formalism” by someone who pronounced that judgment without trying to find out our reasons.

Online discussions of those who wear headcoverings often pronounce them as legalists. Since I am neither a formalist or a legalist, I thought perhaps an explanation would be in order.

The practice comes from I Corinthians 11:1-16, which I’ll include here for easy reference:

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

There are several different ways of interpreting this passage, so I’ll just go through them to explain the conclusions we came to.

1. It’s a cultural issue. I’m told that in the days in which this was written, respectable women wore veils in public and women of ill repute did not, so it was a matter of good reputation to be veiled in public. While that may be true, that’s not the reason given here (and the apostle probably would not have needed to encourage them to do what they were already practicing as a culture anyway). The reason given here for a woman to wear a head covering is to illustrate that her husband is her head and she is honoring him, and she is specifically to have it on when she is “praying or prophesying” in a public assembly of the church.

2. It’s just talking about hair. Verses 14-15 cause some people to attribute the whole discussion to hair length. There are a few reasons I don’t agree that that’s the case. The phrasing of the passage seems to indicate that this is an example of the same principle in nature, not the culmination of the discussion. And if it is talking about hair, wouldn’t it be saying that men should be bald when they pray (verses 4 and 7)? When it says a woman should have her head covered when she prays or prophesies, that seems to indicate something she puts on at that time.

3. Women should cover their heads all the time. Some people who do believe in using head coverings take this view because a woman needs to be ready to pray or prophesy (verse 5) at any time. However, the context of the passage is public worship (verse 1 talks about keeping the ordinances, then the remainder of the chapter after this discusses communion [or the Lord’s Table or the Lord’s Supper, whatever you choose to call it]). The early New Testament church participated in the Lord’s Table much more often than modern churches do (I was told once that they did so every time they met, but I don’t know how to find out whether that is true). Therefore, since the context of the passage is public worship with both men and women present, I don’t wear a hat around the house or at the grocery store or to women’s meetings at church.

4. A head covering in Bible times is like a wedding ring now, just a symbol that a woman is married. They may both indicate marriage, but the instruction in this passage seems to me to go beyond just being married, particularly since the head covering seems to be something they put on while meeting together, not something that is kept on all the time.

5. Woman should wear a headcovering in a public assembly of the church to illustrate that she is under the headship of her husband and honoring him. That’s obviously the view that I hold.

What is the verse about angels referring to (verse 10)? Some think that is a reference to pastors, as the angel of each church in Revelation is its pastor. Some think it refers to actual heavenly angels and that God shows something of Himself to them through us (“so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places,” Ephesians 3:10, ESV).

To me the cultural difference comes in the type of head covering. Woman in Western societies don’t wear veils, so at some point they began wearing hats. Amish and Mennonite women wear prayer kapps. In some Eastern European churches, the woman wear scarves over their heads. Some of the women who wear headcoverings all the time here use a bandana style, though often they use white fabrics.

Women wearing some type of head covering in American churches was practiced up until the 50s or 60s, not that long ago. Somehow the practice fell away, maybe because it was no longer taught. Gradually people forgot the basis for it, and then didn’t see a need to keep on with it. Or maybe the practice was rejected because the world in general rejected the idea of man being head over a woman. Oddly, society has kept the practice of men praying with their heads uncovered. You do still see men removing their hats when during public prayer, though I think even that is beginning to decline.

There are some fundamental Biblical issues for which there is no wiggle room: the Deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith, and others. But on other issues, Romans 14 has instructions for those who come to different conclusions about what the Bible teaches in those issues that aren’t fundamental to the Christian faith (though the passage is discussing weaker brethren, I think some of these overarching principles apply). Some people can read the same passage, like this one, and come to different conclusions about what is taught or meant. Each should do whatever they do as unto the Lord (verse 6), not judging or condemning each other, (verses 3, 10,13), being fully persuaded in their own minds (verses 5, 22), remembering they’re accountable to the Lord (verse 12), not being contentious about it (verses 1, 17-19).

As I said at the start, this isn’t a soapbox issue and I rarely mention it. I don’t judge other women who don’t wear hats or headcoverings because I understand that they may read the passage differently. But because I see the passage the way I do, I need to follow what I believe it is teaching. I thought perhaps explaining where the conviction comes from would help others not to judge the practice unfairly.

This post will be also linked to Women Living Well.

Myths and Maxims of Ministry

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Recently a friend told me that she was somewhat overwhelmed with the details of a particular ministry she had started and had trouble finding joy in it until she reminded herself of the reason she began it in the first place. That got me to thinking about some of the misconceptions I had about ministry over the years, and  I thought I’d share some of those here. I’m not talking about “the” ministry: the paid professional, full-time minister of some sort, though some of these may apply there as well, but rather I am talking about the average Christian who participates in some ministry and then gets dismayed with it.

Here were some of my faulty assumptions:

1. Since this is being done for the Lord, everything should go smoothly. I can picture some of you smiling. Though I don’t see the devil behind every little problem, we do have an active enemy behind the scenes, and we do live in a fallen world where things break down and problems occur. The icemaker doesn’t know it’s in a church and shouldn’t fall apart just before a banquet that has been planned for months (just one of my “things gone wrong” scenarios.) The microphone makes an excruciating noise just as the soloist steps up, the babysitter forgot she should be there, etc. etc. It just happens.

2. Since we’re all Christians here, we should all agree on how everything should be done. If you read through the book of Acts, you see that the early church leaders had to hammer some things out. Even Barnabas and Paul had a major disagreement, causing them to part ways (and the Bible doesn’t really say who was right and who was wrong there. Some have faulted Paul for not being gracious, but maybe John Mark needed to know how serious his previous failure was. At any rate, they all reconciled later and God used it to multiply the number of people sent out). Leaders should not expect a panel of “yes men” (or woman), no one should be oversensitive about their proposals or ideas, we should all be open to differing opinions but be prepared to stand firm when something needs to be done a certain way.

3. Since we’re all Christians here, we should all have the best attitudes and act in an exemplary way. We should. But we don’t. We’re sinners. That’s not an excuse, but it is a truth. We fail. We disappoint each other. We display selfishness. We need to react to each other with grace, remembering our own faults and failures and need for grace. We might get our feelings hurt, but we need to take it to the Lord: we might need to go to the other person and let them know and try to explain and apologize to each other, or we might need to just let it go, but what we should not do is get bitter and drop out of church or avoid that person forevermore.

4. I should always feel joyful in my ministry. There are times when we get bogged down in details, feel overwhelmed, get tired of it, just don’t enjoy it, wish we hadn’t signed up, etc. And if we think about it a minute, we can feel that way in other areas of life as well. We don’t always respond to our loved ones with love and joy, though we want to and strive and pray for help to. We can get bogged down in the daily duties at home and get irritable about them instead of lovingly ministering to our families. A lack of joy in a ministry may be an indication it’s time to make changes, but more often than not it just means we’re human and, like my friend at the beginning, need to remind ourselves of why we’re doing what we’re doing and for whom we’re doing it. And I usually find that the joy comes not before or even during a task, but afterward.

5. If God calls me to do something, I should always feel sufficient for it. I have found just the opposite to be true. Usually, like Moses, I feel insufficient for it even before I start, but sometimes even if I am asked to do something that I feel God has equipped me for, there is always a point where I feel overwhelmed (I mean locked in the bathroom crying type of overwhelmed). But that’s a good place to be, because that’s when we learn by experience and not just principle that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

6. If this ministry is in God’s will, there should be plenty of people willing to help with it.  Not necessarily. A lot of ministries end up being understaffed because others don’t catch the vision or feel just too busy. Once when I needed to round up some helpers for a particular endeavor, I asked someone who looked to me like she’d have time, but she didn’t feel she did. Then another lady whom I would never have asked because she had so much on her plate volunteered. You just never know, but instead of getting frustrated, just pray about whom to ask. In some cases, it might need to be laid aside until enough people get burdened for it. Once when we were part of a Christian homeschooling ministry, the lady who had started it had her seventh child and just could not carry on with it. We went without it for a year, and then several ladies volunteered to take it up again, breaking it into more manageable pieces for each one rather than having the whole thing on one person’s shoulders. Praying for laborers isn’t restricted to the mission field.

Those are some myths, or misconceptions. Here are the maxims, which will overlap a bit with the above.

1. Something will go wrong, some times worse than others, no matter how well you plan. Take it patiently and pray for wisdom about what to do. God’s given me some marvelous ideas right in the midst of a crisis. And on the other side, if a lady comes tearing out of the church asking you if you’d be willing to go buy some ice because the icemaker  stopped working and the banquet starts in half an hour and 100 ladies are coming — please don’t act grumpy and displeased and take 20 minutes to get going (yes, that happened). You don’t know what a balm you can be for someone in the throes of a major problem. And if you come to an event and it’s starting late, don’t be critical: you never know what has happened behind the scenes.

2. Disagreements will occur no matter how much you prayed beforehand. But don’t just dismiss them: sometimes they are God’s way of showing you an aspect you may not have thought of. Even if you can’t make a change and do what the other person suggested, you can make sure they feel heard and respond graciously.

3. You won’t always feel like doing whatever it is you’ve agreed to do. Pray for grace and do it anyway. You’ll probably feel better about it afterward.

4. Realize you can’t do it on your own. Jesus said, “without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5b), but “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

5. People will fail you. They failed Jesus, too. We have failed Him and others. We may need to discuss the specific matter with the person involved as part of their growth and training, but we also need to forgive as we have been forgiven.

6. People will surprise you with sometimes with their willingness to pitch in and help, to support you, to do what needs to be done, to have a great idea just when you can’t think any more, to say a word of encouragement to edify you.

7. Ministry will stretch you. If we never venture out of our comfort zones, we’ll never grow. It’s scary, but we can find God meeting us in our need and providing in the most wonderful ways when we let Him stretch us.

8.Get adequate rest before or in the midst of extra-busy or pressured times.

9. Delegate. Easier said than done sometimes, but pray not only for helpers, but the right helpers. Be prepared that they might not do everything just the way you would and pray for wisdom about when to insist on something being done a certain way and when to go with the flow.

10. Sometimes it is best to say no or step down. A principle instilled in me early on is not to say “no” unless I’ve prayed about it. But sometimes the answer should be No, and sometimes the desire to step down from the ministry is from the Lord. I don’t know how to tell you five easy steps to discern that, but as you walk with the Lord, He’ll show you. Don’t throw in the towel at the first sign of weariness or problems, but take it to Him to see whether he wants you to lean on Him more to carry on, or whether He wants you to make way for someone else to step in.

11. There is nothing like seeing God provide strength and ideas and and even tiny barely-significant details that make you marvel at His attention and care.

12. There is nothing like being used of God (which is what ministry comes down to: allowing God to work through you in some way to minister to another). When someone lets you know that they were blessed or instructed or encouraged through some small thing you said or did, and you know it was only through His grace that it was accomplished, it rejoices your heart, encourages your faith, and spurs you to minister for Him even more. And even if no one else notices, you can be sure that God does.

13. We’re all called to ministry. We may not be a part of an official ministry within the church, but all those who know God are called to minister to one another, to exercise the spiritual gifts He has given, whether in an official church-based capacity or just quietly behind the scenes.

14. Keep first things first. Like Martha, we can be “cumbered about much serving,” “careful and troubled about many things,” and forget the one needful thing: fellowshipping with our Savior. Serving is no substitute for engaging with Him, getting to know Him better, growing in love for Him, believing in Him. Sometimes weariness in service is an indication we’re off track just here.

A beloved former pastor, Jesse Boyd, once said:

Worship without service is a hollow farce.
Service without worship is a hectic fervor.
But worship which issues in service is a holy force.

There is much more that can be said about ministry: there are whole books written on the subject. But I hope some of these thoughts help encourage you in your ministry for the Lord.

What have you learned about ministry along the way?

Other posts about ministry here at Stray Thoughts:

Am I Doing Any Good?
Women in Ministry.
Why Older Women Don’t Serve.
How Older Women Can Serve.
God’s Help for God’s Assignment.
Whose life is it, anyway?
Mentoring Women.
Church Ladies’ Groups.

This post will be also linked to  Women Living Well.

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Book Review: Betrayal

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BetrayalBetrayal by Robin Lee Hatcher is the second in her Where the Heart Lives series about three orphans who were separated and try to find each other as adults. Each book focuses on one of the siblings: the first book in the series, Belonging, reviewed here, featured older sister Felicia.

In Betrayal older brother Hugh Brennan has just been released from prison where he had served as a result of his father’s betrayal. He has heard that Felicia is in Idaho and sets out to find her, but then his horse is injured and he has to stop for a while. He comes across the ranch of Julia Grace who, though wary, offers him food, a place to stay, and a few days work while his horse heals. Hugh, of course keeps his background as private as possible.

Julia has secrets of her own. She was plunged into a marriage of convenience to escape a lifetime of shame, but her husband abused and belittled her. He has passed away, and her one security is the ranch he left her, which she steadfastly refuses to sell to her husband’s brother.

Can these two wounded souls ever come to trust each other with their futures as well as the  secrets of their pasts?

I enjoyed the story and the journey Robin led Hugh and Julia through and the things they learned along the way about trust and true security.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Comforts From Romans

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ComfortsComforts From Romans: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time by Elyse Fitzpatrick wasn’t originally on my radar, but I saw that the True Woman site would be going through Romans 1-8 in the four weeks preceding Easter, using this book as a supplement. I had been wanting to do something a little different in my pre-Easter reading, and I had been wanting to read something by Elyse Fitzpatrick, so I ordered the book. In the meantime, I decided to do a different reading plan for Easter, so I saved this book for afterward and caught up with the weekly discussion about it at True Woman (under Romans Reboot).

The book is not a thorough exegesis or commentary of all of Romans 1-8, but rather a “devotional taste” of its truths. Elyse mainly just pulls out those parts of it dealing with “the absolutely shocking message of grace” (p. 13). The gospel isn’t just for the obtaining salvation at the beginning of our Christian lives: we need to hear it and think about it daily. Why? To stir up praise and gratitude to God for it, but also to remind ourselves, because we’re too prone to forgetting that our relationship with God is based on Jesus’ righteousness and not our own even after salvation.

If you’re familiar with Romans at all, you know that the first three chapters start with very bad news: the fact that we are all sinful, that our sin deserves judgment from God, and there is nothing we can do in ourselves to deliver ourselves. Even if we could perfectly obey every command of God from here on out (and we can’t), that won’t erase the sin we’ve committed up to now. It’s hopeless — which is why the gospel is very good news: Jesus kept every law of God in our place, and because He was perfectly righteous and the eternal Son of God, He was the only One who could take our sin and punishment in our place so that we could be saved when we believe in Him. Elyse discusses all of these factors in more detail: our “ruined righteousness,” our inability to keep God’s law, the great grace of God in Jesus Christ, what He accomplished in our salvation, and the implications of grace in our everyday lives. It is very refreshing and encouraging: even having known these truths for decades, it has been good to meditate on them again, to be reminded of the freedom we have in Christ.

One aspect of that freedom that particularly resonated with me was when she discussed receiving an email from a friend about something she had done wrong. Elyse writes that she was able to receive the criticism, acknowledge its truth, confess and apologize for it without negative feelings for the messenger: “Because the gospel tells me that I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, I am no longer entrapped in trying to prop up my former flawed identity…I can freely admit my failure without needing to cover up, be defensive, or beat myself up…Rather than raking myself over the coals, wondering, How could I be such an idiot and sin like this? I am now free to say, Of course I sinned like this! It’s just God’s grace that I don’t get e-mails like this every day! I am, after all, a very great sinner…but I’ve got a very great Savior” (pp 79-80).

There are a few places I have some quibbles with. One is in an otherwise very good series of chapters about “One Man’s Obedience,” Jesus’s having fulfilled all of God’s law perfectly every single day of His life. How He interacted with His siblings is conjecture, of course, since the Bible doesn’t say much about His childhood, but we can imagine what He must have encountered showing love to His siblings, yet being laughed at, misunderstood, sinned against, and so on. When she gets to His baptism, however, she says, “At that moment He knew without question who He was and why He’d come” (p. 86). I don’t think He doubted it or didn’t know until then: I don’t think His Father’s voice saying, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” was meant to reassure Him, but rather to be a testimony to those witnessing it. She goes on to say that “The Spirit, His Spirit, was finally released and flew to Him like a dove, granting Him the power to live and die and rise again.” I don’t think that’s what the Spirit was doing, but what exactly was going on and signified at Christ’s baptism is a discussion for another time, and I do understand good people can differ in their opinions about it.

In another place, she’s discussing the righteousness we have in Christ and the joy we should feel because of it: “Be done now with all your stupid efforts to approve of yourself and to look good…Be revolted by your own goodness and your love of reputation!…Dance a lot. Brag a ton about how righteous He’s made you. Show off your new clothes! Be as free as a drunk to look stupid and hop about for joy. Weep over your sin. Rejoice over His obedience…All those lessons about how to keep your religion dignified and presentable will be completely blasted away in the raucous party that will be known as ‘heaven'” (p. 100). I get that when we really grasp that we have the righteousness of Christ, when we really comprehend that as much as we’re able, we’ll be exceedingly joyful, but I don’t see anything in the glimpses of heaven the Bible shows us that compare it to a raucous party. Yes, the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7), but I don’t see that rejoicing as “raucous.” Not a big deal or a big quibble — we’ll see when we get there what it’s like. 🙂 I also cringe a little bit at “hopping around like a drunk.” I grew up in the home of an alcoholic: I have seen happy drunks (and other kinds as well), and to me it’s incongruous to think of rejoicing in Christ’s righteousness looking like that. Yes, I do know the Bible says “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) as a comparison of being under the control of something else, and that may be the kind of allusion Elyse means here, or she probably was just getting at the idea of rejoicing with abandon. It just kind of rubbed me the wrong way because of my background, but again, it’s a small quibble, taking more time to explain that it is probably worth.

Another quibble is the interchangeable use of “law” and “rules.” The verses in the Bible about “the law” are referring to the commandments given to Israel in the first five books of the Bible. Much of Romans deals with the fact that we’re no longer under that law, but that doesn’t mean we’re no longer under any “rules,” that rules are evil, etc. The New Testament is full of commandments. I delved into that more here. We don’t keep rules, or even commandments, in order to be saved, because salvation is by grace through faith. We don’t keep them to be “made” or “kept” righteous even after salvation: our walk, our growth, is by faith, not by our own works. But we don’t ditch the NT commands to love our neighbors as ourselves, etc., either: we seek His grace, His power, is strength, His love, to enable us. Commandments and laws can’t produce righteousness, but they show us what it looks like so we can see where we fall short and how much we need help.

The one area I had a big problem with, though, is when discussing Romans 6:12-14, she says, ” My guess is that you’re feeling a little nervous right now and that you’re tempted to ask the same question that Paul does in the next verse: ‘Yes. yes, but, but…are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace?’ to which I respond, ‘You can if you want to. But God forbid that you would want to in light of all He has done'” (p. 112). She then says very much the same thing at the beginning of the next chapter. I do see the “God forbid” in Scripture, but I don’t see the “you can sin if you want to.” That totally threw me.

I wish she had talked a little bit more about sanctification in the book. She does somewhat. She discusses that we “serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6), that we’re motivated to live for Christ not by heaping on more rules, but out of gratitude for what He has done, that we’re dead to sin, etc. I really would loved to have seen a discussion of Romans 8:13 about mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit. I’ve mentioned before that there are action verbs in the New Testament that indicate effort on our part, though it is not an effort to earn righteousness but rather effort springing from His righteousness in us. But I still wrestle with all of that, with what’s my part and what’s His part.

Probably one of the most helpful statements in the book, which ties together much that I’ve mused on here, is this, in a discussion of what it means to have died to sin: “This happened through our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection as is demonstrated at our baptism. Paul doesn’t give us new, more stringent rules to live by. No, he tells us who we are. It is the realization of our new identity that will ultimately and at heart level transform us” (p. 102).

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

To You the helpless commits himself

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I was searching through Scripture this morning, mainly in the Psalms, to try to find something that would both express what was going on in my heart concerning the bombings at the Boston Marathon plus guide my thoughts aright (the Psalms are very good for that). Here is one passage that helps, from Psalm 10 in the ESV:

2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9     he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.

16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Though the poor were not the target in Boston as they are in this Psalm, there are many similarities. Verse 8 particularly seems to describe the cowardly bomber: “He sits in ambush in the villages;  in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless.”

A verse I left off is verse 1: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” We know, as the psalmist did as well, that God does not hide Himself in trouble, that He is not far away. Other Psalms affirm His nearness in trouble. But it can feel like He is far away, and here the psalmist reasons from his feelings to the facts he knows, that God does see, is just, and will some day set things to rights. A good example for us.

And in the meantime, we can rejoice in those who stepped up to help and pray for people to turn to the Lord.

I had particularly wondered about the older racer who fell to the ground at the first explosion: The first and last paragraphs here tell about him: he got up and finished the race.