God Is Jealous...
by David L. Hatton
Exodus 34:14 says, "Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." An idol is basically a lie, a falsehood. God is not called a "jealous" God because He's selfishly possessive, but because He's zealously protective. He understands the true meaning and value of His own glory, and in that holy knowledge, must prohibit us from attributing that glory to lies, to false gods, or to things and people that displace Him in our devotion. Worship and devotional trust belong uniquely to the Lord. He is also "jealous" for us to reflect the glory of being created in His image. The "glory due His name" is for us to be surrendered to no one and nothing else but Him alone.
The First Commandment is "You shall have no other gods before me,"(Ex.20:3). While we are quick to claim that our sole allegiance is to our Lord, John warned the early believers, "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols,"(1Jo.5:21). We are immersed in a self-seeking modern culture that does not honor the God we serve. Unconsciously we easily soak up many of our environment's social values. How do we prevent this? How do we keep ourselves from idols?
In ancient times, good things, such as things in nature or creative works of art, were often made into idols. Creation and creativity are for our enjoyment, but not for our devotion. Today people devote much time and energy to houses, cars, VCRs, computers, and many other material creations. While these aren't evil in themselves, preoccupation with them, whether for reasons of status, entertainment, or even efficiency, can become idolatry. Yet there are other idols more subtle than these. Some are so closely related to the Christian walk that it seems sacrilegious even to suppose that they could ever become idols. I am talking about work, marriage, and family.
Work! Isn't work enjoined by God's commands, especially careful, diligent work? Yes, but when jobs or careers become the central focus of our lives, work can become an idol. God is a jealous God. He will not have work taking His place as our "provider" or as our identity. If we begin to see our job as the hope of paying the mortgage or putting groceries on the table, we have exalted it above our true Provider. Or if we find our identities in our work, that is, if we see ourselves as nurses or truck-drivers or salespeople, instead of as children and servants of the Most High God who are presently nursing or driving or selling, then our work becomes an idol. We are unwittingly making ourselves in the image of our job. Does this offer any insight as to why people sometimes lose their perspective and sense of usefulness once they retire? Work, even good work, does not define us. We do not find our true selves until we find ourselves in God.
Marriage! Isn't marriage close to the heart of God? He chose it as the symbol of Christ's relationship to the Church! Yes, and exactly for that reason God is jealous for all who corporately constitute Christ's Bride to remain absolutely faithful to their real Husband, while they play out their roles in the dramatic earthly performance called "marital union." On each wedded drama, whatever its combination of comedy, tragedy or melodrama, some day the final curtain will drop. Ultimately the entire cast of couples will leave this earthly stage for the great wedding party of the Lamb of God. Earthly marriage is a temporary blessing, or for some, a temporary trial. But in either case, it becomes a form of idolatry when it is placed on a pedestal as the fountainhead of human happiness and fulfillment. This is exactly what modern society has done with marriage. Today's mythological marriage religiously preaches the expectation that spouses should meet our deepest personal, emotional and sexual needs. This erroneous concept has proven itself utterly bankrupt in our culture. Yet such a false idea, or false god, remains enthroned in the minds of many. When this idol of marriage is not being passionately worshiped or prayed to with aching desire, it is conversely being verbally cursed and damned for not supplying what's personally demanded of it. Yet who but the true God can meet the deepest needs of the human heart? And as the many celibate spiritual leaders of past ages proved, Christ's spousal affection as the Lover of our souls is sufficient to nurture personal wholeness for a lifetime of either singleness or marriage. But remember, He is a jealous Lover. His love relationship with us must come first! If it does, health and love spills out from our love of Christ into all our other relationships.
Family! How could the family ever become an idol? Aren't we supposed to have our focus on the family? Today God is specifically targeting the family as a major area needing revival. Yet, even the family can become a form of idolatry. One problem in evangelism, especially in foreign missions, is how an allegiance to family keeps people from accepting Christ. In our culture a false concept of the family tempts us to demand of it more than it can give. Like marriage, the family is a temporal institution where we cannot discover our identities or life's ultimate meaning. But what is closer to us than blood-ties? Yes! What? The eternal blood-tie in Christ is closer than all flesh-and-blood ties, and His blood has purchased for us a place in His family of born-again ones, the Church. "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name." (Eph.3:14). Many families experience breakdown, and, as time passes, eventually all our earthly families will be separated. This is why our commitment to the Family of God, the Community of the Faithful, is so important. God's Family is the larger, eternal context in which He intends all earthly families to find their ultimate fulfillment and blessing. No human family may usurp the place of honor that belongs to the Eternal Family in whose image it was created. God jealously protects that honor and reserves it for His Family alone.
These gifts to us, our families, our marriages (or singleness), our work, and anything else that might become a form of idolatry, must all be placed properly into the safety of God's revealed will. Our primary allegiance is to the Lordship of Christ, and from that loyalty all our earthly blessings should find their limitations and their fulfillments. We serve a loving God Who is jealous for our happiness and our holiness, both of which flow from His glory. He will not sanction our making the good things He has created into idols that displace Him as the true Source of our identity and our blessing. If you have sacrificed your all on the altar of work, marriage, or family, and have been disappointed, now you know why. Let the Word of God guide you in how to lay all these and other good things before the altar where God alone is exalted and worshiped. You will not succeed in trying to serve this God, "whose name is Jealous," in any other way.
The creatures will not alter their voice -- that is, their beauty of form -- if one man simply sees what another both sees and questions, so that the world appears one way to this man and another to that. It appears the same way to both; but it is mute to this one and it speaks to that one. Indeed, it actually speaks to all, but only they understand it who compare the voice received from without with the truth within.--Augustine's Confessions (X,vi,10)
Part of adolescent growth is learning to think independently. For me, that growth led to doubts about my Christian beliefs and the validity of the Bible. My decision at age nine to ask Christ to enter my life was rooted more in the fear of hell than in a love for God. At thirteen I even had a mystical experience called "being filled with the Holy Spirit." But at the same time, my introduction at high school to the theory of evolution overshadowed these experiences with doubt.
During those years I began to study philosophy, which I learned meant "love of wisdom." I knew that seeking to discover the truth was the wisest path that I could choose for my life. The Greek philosopher Socrates became my hero, and I wanted to follow his maxim, "Know thyself." Oddly enough, philosophical thinking led me to question evolutionary theory.
Evolutionism as a belief system required too much faith! If the theory had included an Orderly Force producing higher forms of life out of a chaotic world, it would have made sense. But studying the actual theory in depth, I found that it was based on chance and accident. There was no Intelligent Power behind evolution at all. With enough time and haphazard, good mutations, life in all its dynamic diversity had evolved from a single cell! But could random reproductive mutations, a chance gamma ray passing through a frog's gonad, a rat's testicle, a monkey's sperm, here and there in time, produce the wonder of humankind on earth?
In biology class one day I became convinced that evolutionary theory took more faith than a religion. We were studying breast-feeding in mammals, and a riddle came to me that my biology teacher could not answer. Mutation was the key to change, and chance was the source of mutation. Then how could these anatomically unrelated but mutually essential features, the rooting and sucking reflexes in infant mammals and the letting down reflex in the female, possibly be simultaneous accidents? All mammals required both at the same time for survival! It was too fantastic for belief, the reflexes too intertwined to be accidental. Back then, statistical analysis had not yet been used to refute the basis of evolutionary theory. Computers fast enough to simulate the odds of successful evolutionary development were not yet in existence. Statistical numbers describing the chances of such complexity coming from such randomness were too astronomical. But I could see even then, with something as simple as breast-feeding, how these one-in-a-million chance occurrences were far too frequent in nature for evolution to be a valid theory of life on earth. My original faith in a Creator was returning. The Author of nature could not be Mindless Chance: there had to be an Intelligent Designer behind all this. A Supreme Being with a brilliant mind had to exist!
Again, philosophy helped me here, as did science. Both in casual contemplation and in mathematics, there is a place for the concept of infinity. We can imagine limitless space or a line going in opposite directions forever, without actually knowing what infinite distance really is. In other words, we have an ability to accept infinity even though we do not understand it. Before Einsteinian physics, the universe itself was thought to be that "infinity." The discovery that our universe is "on a curve" showed that the universe was not infinite. But that fact cannot remove from our hearts the question, "What is just beyond the rim of the universe?" Within us is a puzzling question which no theory or discovery in the material world can eradicate. We have a place inside us that asks about an Infinite Something, even though science cannot show us its existence in terms of the limited material universe. In knowing myself, then, as Socrates encouraged, I found the possibility for belief in an Infinite Being beyond this finite world. Room for belief in a "God" was a built-in human trait. The human heart has an innate openness to faith that a "Creator" exists. But which God? The God of one of the religions?
Obviously, the fact that I was raised in a Christian family did not make my former religious beliefs any more valid than those of other religions. And who was to say that any of the world's religions were right about the nature of God anyway? How could I discover the truth about the true God?
In developing a philosophical world view, we all start with a few presuppositions. My heart was leading me to accept the major premise that a Creator God exists, but I also assumed what seemed to be a logical corollary: that all in the universe, including my own person, is God's creation. What then could I learn from the world of nature and from my own human nature that could tell me about the Author of both? First, in the material and biological world, I saw order, law, and design. This betrayed something about the nature of the Creator: God is a Mathematician, a Legislator, and an Artist.
Turning my gaze inward, I knew that I was more than a physical being under laws of compulsion and instinct. I had internal laws or aspirations that transcended definitions in material terms. Human intangibilities, such as freewill, honesty, pride, guilt, honor, happiness, sorrow, love, etc., were more real and meaningful parts of human life and existence than even our physical makeup. Humanness, as expressed by these inner characteristics, could tell me the most important thing I needed to know about God. Since I was a person who could feel, think, choose, and even create, then I could logically conclude that my Creator was also a Person. I rejected the idea of God as an impersonal force, for it would give these inner experiences of personality no Source, no Prototype, and would make the personal creature more advanced than such an impersonal creator.
But if a Person, then what kind of Person was God? In my own estimation, which met consensus with the majority of thinkers in history, the highest of virtues in this intangible realm of the soul were those which stem from "unselfish love." And if we humans esteemed "love" so highly, then God must surely be loving. How could I know this? Well, this God of order put a strong law within my heart that made me feel good about loving actions, but uncomfortable with my unloving or selfish deeds. In fact, I had to battle this sense of guilt with rationalizing efforts to bring my mind to accept any of my unloving acts as being "okay." And just by studying life, I observed that when love is the rule, humanity is in order. When selfishness rules, destruction and disharmony follow. So, just from these two observations, the outer world and my inner world, I could learn that God was a very wise, powerful, loving Person.
There was actually a time when I thought of making my own religion based on such mental reasoning. Many people do just that, and have been doing so for ages. In a sense, that is what the intellectual construction of a philosophy can become. But my reasoning took a different path. As a finite being, I had some wisdom; but God's wisdom would be, by nature, infinite. I had a measure of love; but God's love would be, by nature, perfect. God's perfect love, then, would far surpass even the love I had for myself, and God's absolute wisdom encompassed the very wisest choices I could ever make. If I could learn God's will, rooted in such infinite wisdom and love, then I would be a fool not to yield my own will to God's. I had already learned some general things about His will through nature and my own heart. Was God the kind of Person who would make His will known? Would He spell out His specific desires for humanity, especially His will for individual human beings, like myself?
Something true about the nature of human love is that love communicates. Without communication, a relationship of love breaks down, whether it is the patriotic love between citizens, the friendly love between neighbors, the familial love in clans and homes, or the romantic love between lovers and spouses. So, the God of love would have to be a Communicator. It would be His nature to communicate with us, and the perfect God would do so reliably and unambiguously. His love would mandate a Divine communication, a Personal revelation that went beyond His hints about Himself in the design of the physical world and the nature of the human soul. Such a Self-disclosure by God would be the only sure foundation of a true religion, or more properly, a true relationship between God and humanity.
If you have followed my reasoning up to this point and see its logic, I think that on your own, staying honest with yourself and what you see in nature, you will arrive at the same conclusion I have reached. I looked among the world's religions for a revelation of the God of infinite love which my heart taught me about. If such a God existed, that God would love to the greatest degree imaginable. That last step of reasoning led me beyond my old doubts and fully back into my original faith in Jesus Christ. I cannot reproduce here the details of my religious research or of my study of Christianity in particular. I believe you must seek the truth for yourself for it to be really meaningful to your life. But I do challenge you: search through earth's history for a religion whose center is a God who loved humanity so much that He "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). God's word in nature is nice, His word in the mouths of divinely illumined prophets is better, but becoming one of us is the platform for communication par excellence! God's loving act of Incarnation has to be the ultimate in divine Self-revelation. And yet, His becoming human just to say "I love you" would not be the kind of love our world really needed from God. What about the disorder, the hurt, the loss caused by mankind's greatest problem, the selfishness of sin? The answer of Christian Scripture is this: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us," (Romans 5:8). The ultimate proof of divine, self-giving love was the Cross of Christ. In a marvelous way, His death for our sins and His victory over the grave have released into this world the fountainhead of peace and healing that all humanity longs for. Most of all, Christ's dying in our place paid for the reconciliation between a loving Creator and us, who have often rebelled against His laws of love. Selfishness brought us only ruin and death. But God's love, reaching out to lost humanity and experiencing death in our place, brought us the offer of life and wholeness.
I could not invent or imagine a religion that deals with the human condition in terms of greater love than the love we discover in the New Testament. So, I gave up the idea of establishing my own world view and turned my life over to the God who revealed Himself in the Bible. My life philosophy is now based on a relationship to Christ as my Master, Savior and greatest Friend. My religion is to do my best to return the love He has shown me. Not all my intellectual questions are answered yet, but I would be a fool to let my unanswered questions rob me of enjoying my answered ones. And I have something now much greater than intellectual satisfaction with a set of religious beliefs or philosophical conclusions. I have come to know the Personal-Infinite Being behind creation. With this wonderful God I have an ongoing love-relationship, based not on my hopeful wishing, but on how God proved His love in Christ's Incarnation and Self-sacrifice. The more I learn about this earthly life and the human condition, the more I see how the Christian faith makes so much sense. I was searching with my best and most honest reasoning to find the truth, and I found that the Truth was a Person. I was seeking the God that my heart hoped was there, and the God of love who revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, was all the time hunting for me.
God is hunting for you, as well. Are you searching with all your heart for Him? If you would like to
read more about the Christian faith or about how to become a Christian, write or email me. I will try to
answer your questions, suggest books for reading and send Christian literature. God bless you!
(2204 Rene Ave., Sacramento, CA 95838 -- dlh1029@email.com)
* * * * *
THE ANSWERING
by David L. Hatton
Is there any meaning, a purpose why we're here,
A reason for our living and dying day by day?
Could there be a message that comes from the beginning,
Outside our world of striving? Is someone there to say?
If it is all illusion, if we are just machines,
How can we measure value? Are we worth more or less?
If we are merely atoms that clumped by time and chance,
Why deem ourselves so precious upon vague hope and guess!
If only Someone's out there to speak His love by word,
To tell us who we are; if only Someone came,
Then we'd have an answer: (religion gave too many--
Science forgot our souls), but He'd have to leave His name.
Science said, "Keep searching," religion said, "Try harder."
Some said, "Do your own thing," and others said,"Be brave!"
But tell me how to listen: the voice of pain is loud!
The wounded scream around us: we face an open grave....
But One came speaking purpose and wept at pain and death
And healed the brokenhearted: "A lunatic," said some.
But He said Someone sent Him named Father God and Love.
He claimed to seek the lost ones; that One who came said,
"Come."
© 1991, Poems Between Heaven and Hell
I had just finished reading a very interesting little book by Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Magna Carta of Women. It was basically a synopsis of a larger book by Dr. Katharine Bushnell, God's Word to Women, a scholarly exposition on several Pauline Scripture passages that have often fortified the practice of relegating to women a minor, even subservient, role in church ministry.
Then I slept and had a peculiar dream. Troubled by the details of this dream, and that the dream was
not complete, I tried to sleep again. In doing so, in a half-asleep-half-awake level of consciousness, I
began to see what seemed to be an interpretation. I'm writing this while it's still all fresh in my mind,
before the details of the dream fade. First, I'll put down briefly what I dreamed, before giving the
subsequent understanding that came to me about its meaning.
I was on a private tour with a small group of Christians with whom I was in some way connected
officially. We were visiting a locale somewhere in Africa, probably South Africa because there were
many whites among blacks, and they spoke Dutch and English. I somehow knew that I was on this tour
to learn about the church in that culture. But I immediately remember missing my wife, Rosemary,
who in the dream was still my fiancée. I wanted to mail a letter I'd written to her. I needed postage,
and even though it was Sunday, a store was open. When I entered, I found it had many church-related
items. I was surprised to find a large altar off to the side, and nearby, shelves of articles for sale that
were used for worship services. -- even freshly baked bread to be used in Holy Communion.
When I noticed the bread, I remembered that it was Sunday, and our group was to be at a church service somewhere. Then a priest appeared dressed in a white robe with a red liturgical stole. He held up a long trumpet and blew it in four directions into four open horns that curved upward into the ceiling and outside the building. People, blacks and whites, were starting to come into the building, which made me realize that the store doubled for a Catholic church. Some of my companions nudged me to exit with them, and I did, but there was an intense longing to stay for the service.
Suddenly, a jump to a new location occurred, as often do in dreams, and I was in a crowd of blacks and whites meandering around the outside of a large, several-storied building. There was nothing I could understand about what was going on. Actually, nothing purposeful seemed to be happening; just a lazy, movement to an fro around the building. The one exception was at one corner where people seemed to be gathering. I gravitated there and found a few of my colleagues talking to people. Some of them were sick. Some were poor and homeless. Others were just ordinary people standing around talking. In looking again at the building, I thought it was a hospital or hotel. For some reason I knew I lived there. All this time I was feeling lonely, missing my fiancée, wishing she could be with me. Then my colleagues hurried me along.
I found myself, again very suddenly, entering and sitting down in a very pleasant church. It was an extremely warm group, with many friendly faces, and they were all female. I wondered, at first, if I would look strange being a male among all these happy women. And again I felt my loneliness for Rosemary. I wanted her with me to enjoy this place. Yet, some of these women looked so familiar, as if they were some of the nurses I worked with in my job as a male labor and delivery nurse. The spirit in this assembly was exceptionally caring and inviting.
Then, a crippled woman entered, coming from the crowd of people outside the big building I had just left. She was welcomed in and helped over to a seat where a woman lifted her lame legs lengthwise comfortably on the pew. Next, a slightly obese lady, who seemed to be very ill, arrived from the same crowd. When she sat down in the pew in front of me, she had a sudden, messy accident with diarrhea. She appeared helpless and embarrassed. Being a nurse, and sitting so close, I felt responsible to assist her. Strangely, I found at hand what I needed for the task of cleaning her up. Immediately I started working in much the same way I would in my nursing job. Then, I wondered if I had overstepped my bounds, for I was just a visitor. But others around me at once joined in to help, so I persisted. After she was thoroughly clean, the floor beneath her was a mess. But I noticed that the minister of this congregation, a lady dressed in a white robe and green liturgical stole, was down on her knees with me, wiping up the dirty water that had dripped from the wooden pew onto the floor. When the job was finished, everyone was still in the same joyous spirit of sweet fellowship and worship, as if nothing uncommon or extraordinary had just occurred.
How I wanted to stay for this church service! But I was removed and joined with my companions in the one we were scheduled to attend, a traditional Communion service in a Plymouth Brethren church. I remembered once thinking that this model was the closest to that of the early church service described in 1 Corinthians 14. Distribution of the elements had not yet started, but there was time still open for public sharing by men within the assembly. A man would stand and speak when he felt he had something the Holy Spirit wanted him to share with the congregation. When another man felt the same spiritual prompting, he would stand, and the other one speaking would recognize the need to conclude his words. In the midst of watching this process occur in my dream, I noticed that a woman in the congregation stood. It sent a murmur throughout the assembly and confusion to the man who was speaking. Everyone looked to the leading elder of the assembly, to see what he would say. And suddenly I realized they were looking at me. I believed, in my own thinking, that the woman should be allowed to speak, but I was hesitant to state my ideas about the traditional viewpoint in the midst of that male-dominated assembly. The woman was still standing, waiting to be recognized as having a message from the Holy Spirit.
The young man who had been speaking was also still standing, and he quoted the familiar words from 1 Corinthians 14, "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says."
I addressed the woman, "Do you really have a message for us from the Holy Spirit?"
She nodded.
"What's the message?" I asked.
She smiled, "There is only one way for you to find out."
And that was where my dream ended. I awoke.
What a dream! Yet I was still so tired, and the dream seemed unfinished. So, I tried to sleep again.
But, while unable to really sleep, and in a kind of half-dozing state, I began to get insights into the
meaning of the dream. I believe that some of the following thoughts, which seemed to press upon me
during this half-sleep, point to an interpretation.
What about this African tour to learn the state of the church? Without any personal knowledge about
South Africa, this unfamiliar environment of the dream seemed a platform of objective learning.
Although all the other symbols in the dream were familiar and personal, I was consciously in the role of
an observer, a reporter, a learner. A foreign land made it so.
Back in the store, in my dozing review, I remember my great attraction to the element of the bread. I intuitively knew that this was where everyone of the other churches were buying their supply of this element for their Communion services. The focus in Catholic worship is built around the ministry of the Eucharist. I had learned, when attending weekly "High Church" services in a Canadian Anglican church, that such an emphasis was "in the catholic tradition," as compared to the "Low Church" or reformed tradition, where the worship centers around the pulpit ministry. My desire to linger at the Catholic altar was a longing that is mirrored today, I believe, in many denominations where an absence of meaningful art and ritual fail to adorn doctrine, even failing to appropriately embellish those doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement and the Indwelling Christ, buried within the Eucharistic meal.
I was attracted to the meaning of the white robe and red stole of the priest, and to his trumpet blowing. The three seasons of the Christian calendar using white are Christmastide, Epiphany and Eastertide. All these could be construed to point toward the celebration of the body and blood of Christ. The abiding presence of Christ in the meal of the Lord's Table, however theologically described by each church tradition, is broadcast in the watchword phrases earmarking those three seasons of the Church --Christmas, "'they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God with us;'" Epiphany, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" and Easter, which includes the Ascension, "lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." The red stole symbolized the Holy Spirit, giving the priest a special anointing to blow the trumpet, announcing and recalling the faithful to this feeding of our souls upon the "living bread" which came from Heaven, the very life of Christ (John 6:32ff). I remembered that this feeding occurs in the gathering of believers, where it is manifested that we, as Paul describes in 1 Cor 10:17, "are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread" (NKJV).
The sharp contrast of the world and the church was in the second location. I remember the feeling of aimlessness that saturated the atmosphere of the crowd outside that multi-storied building, which was obviously the Church. Even the gathering of people at the corner of the building was a very loose association, not genuine unity. A general sense of apathy, even hopelessness, reigned. Looking back on it, I remember not seeing any obvious openings or entrances to the building that were visible from the perspective of this crowd. In fact, although I knew that the building was not hostile to me, I remember wishing that it were more friendly-looking from the outside. It's sad to think that this is likely the true situation, that the church is not reaching the needy world because it's main focus has been on what's happening inside itself rather than on the needs outside. Great things may be happening inside the building, but no one outside knows about it, or has any motivation to look for a way in, when the church has not been working on building good entrances. And I remember how the aura of loneliness outside the building matched a certain feeling of loneliness that I felt because my fiancée was not with me. Reflecting right now on this feeling of missing of my wife, it seemed to be a thread running through the whole dream, perhaps the repeated symbol that unlocks the significance, or emphatically underlines the meaning, of the whole dream.My most enjoyable experience was in the congregation of women. The loving and caring spirit there was so attractive. I reflected on the openness of the meeting, that there were more than one entrance, and that the entrances were so large that the moving crowd outside could look in and see what was happening. There was a naturalness to the practical service demonstrated by the accommodation of the crippled woman and the intimate, unpleasant, but necessary cleansing that we gave to the sick woman with diarrhea. Their needy presence and our combined ministry to their needs as they arose, did not upset the flow of this church service or disturb its joyous atmosphere. I knew that this was where I wanted to be. I was one of them, even though a male. Or was I male? This servant church was the true church, the Bride of Christ. All of us in it are female, in relation to our Head, the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In this servant church, the lady minister in this church had the white robe, which again spoke to me of Christ's living presence in the three seasons mentioned above, but the stole she wore was green, which we use for Kingdomtide, symbolic of the spread of the Gospel and growth of God's Kingdom. The Christmas church of virgin-servants of the King, echoes Mary's words, at the truth of Christ's incarnational presence, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." The Epiphany church of wedding-servants of the King, echoes the experience of Christ's transforming glory revealed at Cana, where the common servants, not the banquet leader, "fill the water jars to the brim" and pour out wine to the guests. The Easter church of follower-servants of the King, believed Christ's words, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also," and now she claims as her own His description that "he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father." This Kingdomtide church ministers both the Word and the works of love: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness." (Prov 31:26-27, NKJV). She willingly rises to enter the white harvest fields that Her Lord prayed over, for the "heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain." (Prov 31:11, NRSV). This is the church that will reach the lost and hopeless crowd outside its walls.
But, I did not get to stay in that church. In my dream the Plymouth Brethren Communion service was where the picture came together. You see, the quotation broadcast from the mouth of the young man who had been speaking when the woman stood up was from a representative man, and literally a man, a male. He represented an interpretation of the 1 Corinthian 14 passage that has kept women silent in the church services of that denomination for years. But it is also an interpretation that has kept women banned from teaching and preaching roles in many denominations that are less rigid than the PB churches. In my dream, when that woman stood, she was stepping into and claiming the liberty of all Spirit-filled believers contained in Paul's instructions in 1 Cor 14:29-33 (NKJV): "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints." She was standing on New Testament ground, on Gospel ground, on the ground of "the liberty by which Christ" had made her "free," and she was not about to be "entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal 5:1).
Immediately pipes up another irrate voice, not that of Paul, but of the Judaizing legalist element in the Corinthian church, whose voice Paul quotes back to them from their letter of questions to him: "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church." (1 Cor 14:34-35, NKJV).
Yes, indeed, so many do translate these words as if they were Paul's. But how could they be, when only a few pages back in his letter he speaks of men and women prophesying together as if it were a common, natural occurrence (1 Cor 11:4-5). Only a Bible scholar who forgot, or failed to connect with, or just plain didn't understand what Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians could think this is Paul's own language. Paul knew the law of Moses extremely well, probably word for word by heart, and if he said that phrase, "as the law also says," it was a bold-faced lie, because it's nowhere in the law. Something almost identical is in the Jewish Talmud, which the Judaizers did consider authoritative, but if Paul really did appeal to the authority of the Talmud to keep women from prophesying in church, it would mean that he was acting as schizophrenic as he accused Peter of acting in Antioch (Gal 2:11-14), and even more guilty than Peter of double-mindedness and vacillation, since the doctrinal issues concerning the law are so clearly and laboriously laid down by Him in his Galatian epistle.
No, no! Far from fostering women's silence, he was answering this phrase (vs.34-35) of the Jewish legalists! How does Paul address these quoted words of the Judaizers? In the King James Version, he's translated to say, "What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?" Paul confronted at Corinth this legalistic silencing of women with apostolic authority: "Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored. Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues." (1 Cor 14:36-39, NIV).
And no case can be made that in this one special place Paul stopped using "brothers" to mean both male and female believers, so that in the context of this church discussion he meant only the males, for it would leave out the other half of the brothers who are called "sisters" when they are in a group by themselves. Paul couldn't do this, especially when, before God, he knew that "sister" brothers were by Jesus redeemed from "under law, " that they "might receive the full rights of sons" (Gal 4:5, NIV), the same as "brother" brothers were.
For the first time, in my dream, I heard this phrase, and what it really sounded like, in the mouth, not of Paul, but of a disgruntled male legalist who felt his heritage being threatened. It was as clear as crystal that this was not Paul's terminology, but rather the target he was trying to terminate. And I began to wonder if one deceased commentator after another, on their enlightenment in Heaven, didn't say, "It was so obvious, I could kick myself! Why in the world didn't I see it?" And how hypocritically ironic it has been that Plymouth Brethren scholars, who argued emphatically against any validity at all for Jewish law-keeping to retain ground in the Gospel dispensation, have been the loudest landscapers of the largest garden to nurture the enforcement of this Jewish legalist quotation!
When I meditated on this in that assembly in my dreamy recollection, and was there again being looked to as an elder to make some statement to this woman, I remembered my longing for my fiancée, my wife Rosemary, and how incomplete I felt without her. And then I felt the sterility of the environment of that assembly, how no one from the crowd of needy were there, because the feminine servanthood that flavored the previous church I had visited was so silenced and still that it was essentially absent. The church where the Spirit could speak only through a male mind-set and never through a feminine thought-pattern, was only half a Bride, not a very feminine half at all, and because half, not really whole, not healthy, and not her true self before her Husband. Yet here before me was a woman, standing as a tall as Deborah, standing like a priest of the royal priesthood of believers, an ambassador of Christ, standing in His stead, our Husband's stead, about to bear on her lips His message by His Spirit. She would be representing the King, our Husband, if allowed to speak. She would be addressing us in His place. And if we allowed her to speak, to prophesy, to preach to the assembly, then we as a corporate group, men and women, elders and deacons, would have to sit back and be the feminine Bride of Christ before a priest of Christ speaking from her office as priest in His stead.
"Shall a woman be allowed to preach?" said the young, irate male legalist.This was not the real question. The real question was, "Will we continue to limp along in our mission with half a brain and half a heart and half an ear and half a tongue, and be a half-grown, half-developed Bride for our wedding day?"
"Do you really have a message for us from the Holy Spirit?"
She nodded.
"What's the message?" I asked.
She smiled, "There is only one way for you to find out."
And when I got to this part again, that is where I got up and out of bed to write this.
It's a Short Trip...
by David L. Hatton
Thirty-five years ago or so, my father told me, "The older you get the faster the years go by." I now tell my own children the same thing, because each and every year my own experience continues to substantiate this common human observation. Of course, we all know that the rate of time passing is constant. It's our perspective that changes. This is an important point, because in the perspective of eternity, all the time we have spent down here will have been just a short trip.
The brevity of our earthly pilgrimage offers important implications: as we conform our perspective to that of eternity, we see the extreme limitedness of where we can go, what we can do, and who we can be. Even if we have an unlimited number of free travel tickets to anywhere we want to go, we can only visit a limited number of places, because we only have so much time. We might imagine, and we do imagine, all sorts of projects and activities and tasks that we'd like to participate in or accomplish during our life span, but only a certain number of accomplishments are possible, because our time is limited. We can and do wear many hats, even in the length of a single day, but we cannot be everything to everyone all the time, because, in fact, we do not have all the time in the world--we have only a certain number of days in this world. And we do not know how long our short trip will last.
Thirty-five years ago or so, my mother told me, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last." For quite a while now, I've been telling my own children the same thing. If we let the limitedness of our time on earth sink in, and if, again, we try to conform our perspective to that of eternity, the eternal value of how we utilize our allotment of earthly time must be always set in the context of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He purchased us from a wasted life in bondage to sin for a useful life in the freedom of holy living. When we have only so much time, we should desire that all of our earthly time count for eternity, which means counting for the glory of our Savior.
Realizing that "this is only a short trip" and that Jesus is the Lord of our short trip helps us to do two things properly. This knowledge helps us first to narrow our focus, that is, choosing deliberately to go in a planned direction, work toward specific goals, and be who we are truly meant to be. This narrowing of focus doesn't mean that we should be narrow-minded. Actually, the opposite will be true if we learn to appreciate in others the directions, goals and personal expressions that are different from our own. As finite creatures, we all are limited and must focus our time and energies to please the Lord whose precious blood purchased us and whose divine will makes our paths and tasks and roles diverse from one another.
Secondly, this narrowing of focus will mean that we concentrate our efforts and consecrate our time to "follow Jesus" well in where we go, what we do, and who we are. As I mature in years and grow in knowledge, I find that my interests continue to expand, but in dealing realistically with the natural limitation of my short trip under Christ's leadership, I must humbly recognize that I will only carry out my Lord's assignment well if I discipline myself, narrowing my focus. Again, I will not narrow my awareness and appreciation of other areas of interest, of need, of usefulness. No, but I will acknowledge my dependence on others in the Body of Christ to go where I cannot go, do what I cannot do, and be who I cannot be. The beauty in the unity of the Church is that I get to participate in all that Christ is doing through His people by the practical sharing inherent in what the Apostle's Creed calls, "the communion of saints."
Thirty-five years ago, or thirty-five minutes ago: both are about the same length of time in comparison to eternity. That is why we need to focus moment-by-moment upon the guidance of our Lord Jesus given through the Holy Spirit. When all is said and done, all the words we spoke while on our short trip here might in eternity sound like one succinct statement, or like one phrase in a long poem set among other rhyming lines from the lives of our fellow believers. All the "good works" we did on our short trip here might in eternity appear to be one single lovely garment of righteousness that we wear to the big praise concert! Together, we are destined to be the voices in a gigantic and beautifully dressed chorus singing the glories of our King, the Lord Jesus Christ. But how we sing there someday or how we dress up for the praise party of the King will depend on how well we recognize here and now that Jesus is the Lord of our earthly pilgrimage, and that, after all, it's just a short trip.
STRUCTURE IN ESSAY WRITINGby David L. Hatton The following outline and example demonstrate how to have balanced structure in your essay. The number of points may change, but the idea of introduction, balanced points, and conclusion, should be in all the essays and research papers that you write. A THREE-POINT ESSAY I. Introduction A. Opening sentence (an interest catcher) B. Body of paragraph (introduces why the essay is important or what the main points will be) C. Transitional sentence (helps lead into the body of the essay as a whole, or at least the first point. II. Body of the Essay A. 1st Point (of equal importance or "weight" as 2nd or 3rd) 1. your first issue, fact or argument under 1st point 2. another " " " " " " 3. etc., etc. 4. transitional sentence, either as last sentence of the 1st point or beginning sentence of 2nd point. B. 2nd Point (as above, etc.) C. 3rd Point (as above, etc.) III. Conclusion A. Transitional sentence (leading into concluding remarks or restating briefly the main theme of your essay) B. Body of the paragraph (closing comments on each of the main points or brief, creative restatements of those points) C. Final sentence (a trailing sentence talking about a need for further study, how things might change, how others might study the same thing a bit differently, etc. SIMPLE EXAMPLE: Writing an essay is not a boring chore. When you realize that you are actually constructing a building with words, it can be fun. A good building needs a strong foundation, which is your introduction. The main points, or body, of the essay are like the rooms of the building, and house the whole purpose for writing it. Finally, a building needs a roof to cover it, which is your conclusion. Hopefully you are building according to a blueprint, the outline you make up before breaking ground. The first part of your outline is the introduction. What are you going to write about? How are you going to introduce your subject in an interesting way to capture the reader's attention? You must say something about the essay as a whole, perhaps telling what the main points will be, as I have done in the preceding paragraph. Or you might try telling why the central subject of the essay is important or who needs to know about it. Be creative in how you present what you are about to write for your reader. But in the last sentence, try leading in to the first point. This brings a smooth transition of thought instead of a jagged jumping around. So now you enter the main body of what you want to talk about. The key here is balance. Whether you have two, three, four or more points, they must each carry equal weight as far as importance. They also should show some relationship with each other under the central theme of the essay. Length of space given to each point is also important. You will not want one point to have six paragraphs of coverage and another only one paragraph. This is where you show your stuff as a writer. How well can you plan out your structure to make an orderly, well-balanced essay that flows smoothly without choppy thinking? This is why it is also helpful to have a transitional sentence between main points to help the reader's thinking flow from one point to another, right up to the conclusion. How you conclude is vital, because it helps form in your reader's mind a final opinion of your work. Concluding remarks are the finale, almost like that of a symphony. In a symphonic finale the composer repeats short strains of the various main themes to remind the listener of what was played before. But you do not want to bore your reader with mere restatements of your main points or a synopsis of the essay. Leave the reader with a question or challenge to think further or to apply what you have shared. The best conclusion is one that lets readers know that they are at the end of your essay but at the beginning of something your essay shared with them to think about or do. In conclusion then, what are you going to do about your essay writing? Are you going to throw things together on paper? Or will you draw up a blueprint, lay a firm foundation, build a magnificent superstructure and finish with a strong roof with no leaks? Get into good habits of planning for balance and for smoothness in the flow of ideas, and essay writing will not only be more fun, but you will feel the pride of creating a work of art in your own words. The End (or, the Beginning . . .)