Judges Series - Week 2 - “Ideal Judge”

We all have ideals right? Those things that we say are the perfect representation of something. Ideal House, with the wrap around porch, white picket fence two dogs, tow kids and a new car in the drive. But we usually say it like, what’s your favorite, or what’s your type. And ideals tell us a lot about a person. We’ll ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up? They’re answer tells us their ideals at the moment; “Astronaut…cowboy… dolphin,” could be their responses. As we grow up our ideals tend to change, because our focus changes. A teen getting ready to drive, starts to think more about cars. So we ask, what’s your favorite car; “1969 Mustang…2012 Dodge Charger…something I can afford.” And then there’s the big one, what’s your ideal partner? Blonde…brunette…fun…active…quiet…good cook. Mine is, athletic build, short hair, height just slightly shorter than me.

Our ideals say a lot about who we are as people and what we consider important. A guy working a coal mine where he’s literally dying from the labor, probably isn’t his ideal job, but you know what is? His wife staying home with the kids, to give them a better life, so they don’t have to. A single mom who works two jobs and never stops, but she shows her ideals every night because she reads a bedtime story to her kids. 

Ideals are important, because they drive what we do in our lives, and by them, people can get insight into who we are. And it’s this idea of ideals that bring us back into our summer series where we’re going to pick it up in the book of Judges chapter 3, starting in verse 7. And as we open up to Judges 3:7, lets look back at our first week in this book. 

Last week we went through the unique opening to the book of Judges. We saw how the generation of Joshua began to falter in their taking of the land of Canaan, because they wouldn’t drive out the people and instead put the Canaanites into force servitude. This would end up leading to future generations taking on the gods of the Canaanites, turning their backs on Yahweh, the God of Israel. 

This was breaking the covenant that the generation under Joshua made with God. And because Israel broke that covenant, God allowed them to be conquered by the very people they had not driven out. Yet, when the people called out to God, God turned back to them and saved them, by sending people known as judges to lead the Israelites out of their subjugation. This becomes the cycle of sin, judgement, repentance, salvation, and eventual back to the sin that plagues Israel throughout the time of the judges. 

But through it all, the theme of the book is seen, which shows us the greater theme of the Scriptures. Though humanity, even God’s chosen covenant people, turn their back on God, God will not turn his back on humanity. God is Savior, and to those who turn back to him, he will save. 

This cycle of sin, judgment, repentance and salvation brings us to the first of the Judges, Othniel (a-th-niel) in the book of Judges 3:7, let’s read together. 

“7 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth. 8 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia. And the people of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years. 9 But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. 10 The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim. 11 So the land had rest forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died.”

As we look at the judges, we’re going to see the book in seven sections. This first section is simply about Othniel. And he’s one of a few judges that is connected back to the time of Joshua. In chapter 1, we even have the writer of judges mention that Othniel is the one that capture Debir and in doing so was wed to Caleb’s daughter. 

So already in the book Judges he has done mighty works without being called by God to protect Israel. But the passage here gives us some more insight in how, through the writer of Judges, God views Othniel’s time as judge. From verse 7 to verse 11 there’s this structure that is composed in Hebrew which points towards the cycle of sin, judgment, repentance, salvation and how God is satisfied with Othniel. So let’s break it down. 

We  start with verse 7 where we find the problem. This is Israel turning it’s back on God and worshiping the deities of the Canaanites, the Baals and the Asheroth.

Next it’s the consequence of the problem: God’s anger is kindled and he sells, meaning he takes his hand of protection away and allows the Mesopotamian king to conquer the people. 

What follows next is the result, the Israelites now serve this king for eight years. What the Israelites did to the Canaanite people God is allowing to happen to them. Why? Because sin is a shackle; it shackles ourselves, and other people. With God there is freedom, apart from God there is only imprisonment. This imprisonment is a prophetic consequences that was mentioned back in Deuteronomy 28:25, “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.”

So now that the Israelites are imprisoned for their sin and have experienced the prophetic consequence for breaking their covenant with God. But Israel would learn the lesson that the Psalmist would later proclaim, “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. 6  The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me (Psalm 116:5-6).” So in verse 9 we get the turn of the people back to God, and God’s raising up of Othniel. 

The same Othniel who is Caleb’s son-in-law; the same Othniel who conquered the inhabitants of Debir. This Othniel was raised up by God and God places his Spirit upon him. And when we read, “the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel…” It’s easy to say well the deliverer is Othniel, but in the Hebrew it’s a bit more ambiguous. The “who saved them” connects both the work of God and the work of Othniel. So who saved the Israelites, God or Othniel? The answer is, Yes! The text is trying to tell us that it’s through Othniel’s obedience, God saved his people. 

So God raises up Othniel. Othniel then does what the Spirit of God directs, and overcomes the king. Salvation has come, God has saved his people just as he said he would. 

Covenant relationship has been restored and the people find rest for forty years. 

Through the obedience and merging of God’s saving work with the work he does through Othniel, Othniel is therefore seen as a paragon, the ideal, of what a godly judge should be. He becomes the standard for the rest of the judges. 

So the Holy Spirit directs the writer of Judges to put the ideal judge at the front, which means when we get to our final judge we see the worse of the judges. To which the two stories have different lengths. Othniel’s story is short because the righteous don’t need a lot of explanation. They did what was right, because of their obedience. Whereas the wicked need more explanation to help us understand what went wrong. 

Everything from here on out, shows us the descent from the ideal Othniel who obeys, to extremely flawed Samson.

But as I studied Othniel, a song kept playing in my head, where the chorus goes, “You’re the best! Around! Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down! You’re the Best! Around! Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down.” That songs from the classic 80’s sports movie, The Karate Kid. Then, to show you how my brain works it created an image of Othniel and the Karate Kid, and this is that image: 

Getting back on track, for the rest of the book it is God’s judge Othniel and his obedience that all other judges are gauged by. From Ehud to Samson, Othniel is what a judge of Israel should be. He is called by God, faithfully responds, and carries out the task at hand. 

It’s a standard that is quickly broken as we move into other sections of the book. But from Othniel we are to carry this one thing away: When God calls, what he wants from us is our obedience. He wants us to be a part of his redemptive work. It’s why God called Moses from the wilderness to Egypt. It’s why he brought up Joshua to lead Israel to the promise land. It’s why he sent the prophets to call Israel back to covenant relationship. It’s why Jesus commissioned his followers to take the Gospel to all nations. 

God has redemptive plans for humanity and wants to use wiling and obedient people to carry out those plans. Paul would later quote from the fifty-second chapter of the prophet Isaiah (52:7) of those who would carry the Gospel message, “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news (Romans 10:15b)!’”

Why are they beautiful feet, because those feet are moved by an obedient desire to follow the call of a holy loving God. Othniel had beautiful feet because he was obedient to his God.

God has called us to obedience too. In the Gospel of John chapter 14 verse 15, Jesus says of his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Obedience does not save anyone, but it shows that we are saved because it shows that we love our God for the work he has done for us. 

So my challenge for you this week, is to first read through Judges 3:7-11 again. Then, make brief biography of Othniel from what we know of him in this passage and in chapter 1. And then after that, seek God that you would be an obedient child of his, willing to do whatever he asks of you. 

Let us be a people who shows our love for God, by the obedient lives we live, that we might follow faithful men like Othniel. Amen.

Judges Series - Week 1 - “The Ever Forgiving God”

  What do you think is one of the hardest lessons to learn in your adolescent years, that you learn pretty quickly as a parent? I think that it’s love doesn’t negate all consequences. As a child I know that when I got in trouble there were times when I would try to appeal to the love of my parents to stop there being consequences for my actions.

My children do it to me. They don’t necessarily come right out and say, “if you love me you wouldn’t do this,” though that has happened, but there is a sense of, “I thought you loved me, why are you spanking me? Why do you take away my toys, why do I have to sit in time out?” Being on the parent’s side, it can be hard to discipline a child because we do love them. There hasn’t been a day when I had to discipline my children where I woke up and said, “you know what I’d like to do today? Have my children fight each other, not clean their rooms, talk back to me, and then I get to dull out some discipline.” Nope, there’s never been that day. In fact, a few years ago my kids asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told them, “one day without any fighting.” But they had already gotten me something else, so I didn’t get that present.

The reality is, just because a parent disciplines their children, doesn’t necessarily stop that parent from loving them.

And it’s this idea that love can be coupled with discipline that brings us into our summer series where we will be looking at the book Judges. Now before we jump into the book proper I want us to understand the goals of our summer series’. Throughout the year different sermon series have different goals. Some are to help us with apologetics and defending our faith. Other series are focused on personal growth and the holy lives that God has called us to. 

But the summer series is an opportunity for us to dive into one particular book, and to see how the author, and the Holy Spirit behind the author, has purpose in this writing within the Scriptures. The goal is not to extract every little detail of the book, but to see the overarching ideas that span chapters of information. We try to follow thoughts, not verses, so that we can see how the Holy Spirit moved the author to write in a collective way. No piece of Scripture is written as an island unto itself. No verse is meant to stand alone, but rather it’s a collection that points to a greater story, the greatest being the redemption that comes through Jesus. But within that greater narrative, there are the building blocks of his story nestled in the work God did through specific people at specific times. 

In addition, by going through whole books of the Bible, it allows us to cover topics that we might tend to shy away from. Topical preaching has its place, but we can easily get stuck only covering a few topics and staying away from others, even if it’s not intentional. I’ve actually been told by people that they don’t come in the summer because they want to hear about the topics of today, and not a Bible Study. But if God put it down, we need to read through it because what God did back then, he still does today, it just might look a bit different. 

Now, we won’t necessarily read every word, because sometimes thoughts are so big, it would take us longer just to read than to get the highlights. So that means, as we go through these books, you should be reading what we cover on your own time to see how everything works together. 

That being said, let’s jump into the book of Judges chapter 1 where we’re going to read verse 1 and then jump over to chapter 2 verse 6. First let’s read Judges 1:1, “After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, ‘Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?’”

Now let’s read Judges 2:6-9, “6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. 9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.”

The opening of Judges is strange and unique from other writings of the Old Testament. The opening is both a continuation, and a highlight reel of the end of the book Joshua. Judges begins with some information about what happens after Joshua dies, but then later it gives us some information about what happened before Joshua died. Most of what we know from before Joshua dies, are reiterations of stories that were written back in Joshua’s book. 

In the first chapter, we’re told of great battles that would be won, by Judah and the house of Joshua, which are the two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. Then We’re told in verses 11-15, about Caleb and a situation concerning his nephew; a story that was also told in the book of Joshua. We’re also told, starting in verse 27, that the tribes of Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali and Dan didn’t drive out their neighbors, but instead put them into forced labor. These stories are retellings of events that happened toward the end of Joshua, but are also seen in the light of Joshua’s death. 

The point is that the tribes during and after Joshua did not continue to make headway against their Canaanite enemies, but instead tired to enter their God-given lands by subjugating the people instead of driving them out. 

It’s within this context of, Israel not doing as the Lord commanded them under Moses and under Joshua to drive out the people from the land, that we are given a moment at the beginning of chapter 2, starting in verse 1. There we read this, “1 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim (balk-em). And he said, ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, “I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.” But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’ 4 As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 And they called the name of that place Bochim (balk-em). And they sacrificed there to the Lord.”

This encounter with the angle of the Lord is reminiscent of Moses encounter with the angel of the Lord in Exodus 3 (v.2) and Joshua’s encounter with the commander of the Lord’s armies in Joshua 5 (v.14). There’s a few things to notice here: First, we must understand that the word for angel is messenger. Just because something is called an angel doesn’t necessarily mean angelic being. Second, the way the angel speaks is in the first person, and not on behalf of God. The angel says “I brought you…I swore to give…I will never break…I will not drive them out.” Usually what we see of angelic beings and prophets in the Old Testament is the language of “Thus says the Lord.” The reason we normally see angelic beings and prophets say “Thus says” is because they are speaking the words that God has given them, but in the case of this angel, this messenger, he is speaking as if he were God. This has led a lot of theologians, including myself, to concluded that the angel of the Lord is actually the Word of God, who is the preincarnate Jesus. This is why the messenger of God can use first person “I” language without caveating it as “Thus says the Lord,” because it is in fact the Lord who is speaking.

This actually answers the question that some people bring up, “where is Jesus in the Old Testament, when in the New Testament he claims to have always been around as God.” The answer is, everywhere. If the angel of the Lord is Jesus before coming to earth as fully-God fully-man, then he is all over the Old Testament. He talked with Abraham, wrestled with Jacob, spoke to Moses, directed Joshua, and within the book of Judges he makes several appearances. 

And so, what we see in this angel of the Lord is the second person of the Trinity speaking to Israel letting them know that as far as God is concerned, God will not break his covenant with the people, even though they themselves have already done so by not driving out the people in Joshua’s day. And as a result of Israel not driving out the people, those Canaanite groups will become a sore spot in the future. 

This statement by the preincarnate Jesus, sets up the whole book of Judges. Judges  then is the story of how not following God’s instructions fully, leaves us with future pains that can last generations to come, yet God will always fulfill his promise.

So as we move our way through Judges, we need to understand some of the surrounding historical setting that is going on.

We get some of this starting in chapter 2 verse 10, where we begin to read, “10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

“11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. 14 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15 Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

“16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. 18 Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. 19 But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.”

These verses represent a proper introduction to the book of Judges that sits better with our modern understanding of an introduction. It brings up several key details that we need to explore before we can move further into the book.

First the time period. It’s a generation after the children of Joshua’s generation. If you were here when we went through the book of Joshua we talked about how the Israelites, whom Joshua led into the promise land of Canaan, were the kids of Joshua’s generation. Joshua’s generation was the generation who saw the miracles of Egypt, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the work on Mt. Sinai and yet did not follow God’s instruction to take the land. Because of their disobedience they wandered the desert for forty years. 

When that generation died off, all except for Joshua and Caleb, their children were the ones that were called by God to enter into his covenant. This is the book of Deuteronomy which is basically the Books of Exodus and Leviticus summarized. That generation entered into covenant relationship with God and, under Joshua, moved into the land of Canaan. 

Now they weren’t perfect and we already saw how they didn’t do everything that God wanted, which was to drive out the people of that land, but when we come to the book of Judges, were not following that generation, but their children and grandchildren. The time period that we’re looking at is about between the mid 1300s BC and mid 1000s BC. 

Some other things happening during this time period is that Pharaoh Tutankamun comes to power. The Chinese begin using their written language. Seafarers discover the Fiji islands, and the abacus is invented. This time period moves us from the late Bronze Age into the Iron Age. A lot of advancement and global migration in human history happens during this time.

One of the most interesting things to have occurred in the Canaan area is the fact that they are in limbo at the moment. Egypt’s power, who once ruled the area, has been greatly diminished and their control over the region had all but collapsed. Assyria and Babylon are not yet superpowers and so city kingdoms and ethnic groups rule the area. This is the state of affairs that Israel came into Canaan, yet instead of driving out the people, they began to subjugate the groups. But in doing so, they begin a cycle of conquerer and conquered.

This brings us to our second detail, the structure of the book. There’s two approaches that can be taken when reading Judges. First we can read it as a continuous narrative, one judge follows the next. But this actually doesn’t fit the text nor the time period. Instead, what Judges seems to be showing us isn’t an office of judge to be fulfilled by one person at a time, as a king would, but rather more like a position of a regional governor. Where multiple governors would be active at the same time. This could be the case, as one timeline puts it, Deborah, Shamgar, and Gideon are all active around the same time. 

Instead of thinking of the judges as rulers over all of Israel as a unified nation, we need to think of the judges as regional governors who could be active as other governors are. In fact the word judge in the Near East is linked closer to the idea of a regional governor than it is to a dynastic king. Which we’ll see later when Gideon is asked to become a king, showing that as a judge he wasn’t over all the nation of Israel, but rather over a region.

Also, as we make our way through the book of Judges, to help us know where we are, I’ll show us a map and highlight the areas we’re talking about. This will help a little to shows us that these judges weren’t over all of Israel but more regional in their scope.

The final detail we need to address is the deities that will be mentioned. The two that will be focal points in Judges and throughout the rest of the Old Testament are Baal and Asheroth. First, Baal, is a deity of rain and dew, a fertility god. His name means owner and his title was “Prince, Lord of the Earth.” He was known as a storm god, “He Who Rides on the Clouds.” In Israelite worship, the true rider of the clouds is not Baal, but Yahweh; this idea is alluded to through the Psalms and in places like Daniel 7.

There was also a common fertility belief that Baal was in conflict with another deity Mot, the god of death and sterility. This conflict was in seven year cycles. If Baal won, the land would experience prosperity; if he lost the land would experience drought.

Baal was also believed to have produced an offspring of a divine bull. Which could be an one explanation as to why we see a bull worshiped in the book of Exodus.

In addition to his fertility role, he was also believed to be the king of the gods; a position he took from the sea god Yamm. Though he might have been the king, there was still a greater god known as El. El being a general term for gods in the Near East, and is similar to how god in English is a universal term for any god.

The other god that will be mentioned is Asheroth. She is a consort, or a wife, of El the supreme god of Near Eastern belief. Her epithet was possibly, “She Who Walks on the Sea.” Her story is that she sired 70 other gods. She was also sometimes the consort of Baal who’s father was not El. Later on she was also paired with Yahweh as his consort. This type of paring the Hebrew God with other deities is one of the things that the prophets railed against and is one reason in Isaiah 43:10, God states, “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.” But at the time of Judges, there was a belief, even among the Israelites that Yahweh was just one of the many deities of the world. Deities served as tribal entities, as if playing a game of chess with humans against each other. This is why in places like Psalm 47 we’re told, “2 For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. 3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. 4 He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves (v. 2-4).” This Psalm speaks to this idea that God is supreme over all nations and thereby over all deities. 

The final thing we need to know about Asheroth is that her name was used by the Hebrews to talk about her and the wooden object that she was associated with in her worship. So when the Scriptures mention Asheroth it might be talking about the deity or the wooden object. These wooden objects could be an actual tree, or just a wooden post.

Now this might be a lot of information, but the key to understanding the book of Judges is this: when we follow the complete instructions of God, the blessings of God surround us and his plans are fulfilled. When we don’t follow God’s instructions, thinking that are ways are better, we open ourselves up to evil things. In the book of Judges, the Israelites kept opening themselves up to evil things, such as subjecting the people and worshiping their gods. By not following the instructions of God to their fullest, it not only led to a cycle of war and death, but got progressively worse as time went on.

The great thing about this though, is that even when Israel broke their covenant time and time again, God still kept up his side of the bargain. What we’ll see is that Israel would turn their back on God, but God never turned his back on them. Sure he let them experience the consequences of their actions, but he was always there to save them when they turned back.

This is the great overarching story of Judges, a story that God continues to do today. No matter how far we are from God, if we turn to him, he will save us. Whether we’re putting our trust into Jesus as our Savior for the first time, or we’ve been following him for years and are stuck in a cycle of sin. God is always right there waiting for us to turn back to him, sweeping us in his arms and calling us his people. 

This is why Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son, where he says of the Father who represents God, who sees his son, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him…‘my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate (Luke 15:19b & 24).”

My challenge for you this week is to go back to Judges chapters 1 and 2, read them and if you’re feeling brave, find these references in the book of Joshua. And as we move forward in the book of Judges let us praise God that he is a God who, as the Psalmist states, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you (Psalm 86:5).” 

Let us be a people, who unlike the generation of the Judges, not just say we follow God, but who actually do what our God calls us to. Amen.  

“Rightly Handled”

 Text: 2 Timothy 3:10-4:8 

FCF: We can tend to down play the importance of being true to God’s word.

SI: God wants us to seek to understand his word as best we can.

RF:

Application:

Manuscript - “Rightly Handled”

Two weeks ago Marika and I attended the Alliance’s General Council of Churches. In the Alliance, every nation that has an established national church also has it’s own doctrinal statement, and church practice, which is called polity. Our U.S. Alliance meets every two years to discuss the business of the denomination in the U.S. 

Four years ago the Alliance Board brought suggestions to change some of the language of our Statement of Faith. The purpose was to be use more biblical language and update some areas for modern vernacular. Overall the changes were mostly appropriate. And so at this past council, those changes were voted on and approved. 

Another issue that was brought up by the board was that of women in ministry and the title Pastor. In the Alliance the issue of women receiving the title Pastor is a mirky one. On one hand, officially there hasn’t been a rule as to whether the title Pastor could be used by a woman or not, because women are allowed to serve on local church’s pastoral staff. Yet, the use of the Pastor title and Elder has been usually linked together and since the Alliance has always held to male eldership, women haven’t really used the title of Pastor. 

A two year conversation was called for at the previous General Council to discuss this issue and it was at this recent council that the issue was brought to a vote. The three main recommendations where as follows:

First, “It is recommended that the eldership in Alliance churches be the lead pastor, elected lay elders, and, as deemed appropriate by the local church, other male members of the licensed ministry staff.”

Secondly, “It is recommended that the designation ‘Consecrated and Ordained’ be used to indicate the denomination’s endorsement on all official workers, both male and female, who meet the stated qualifications for Alliance ministry and have successfully completed the consecration and ordination process outlined in the Manual of The Christian and Missionary Alliance.”

Finally, “It is recommended that the title pastor, except lead pastor, may be used by a local church to refer to its male and female official workers if its biblical understanding allows.”

The first recommendation affirms the Alliance’s stance on male eldership at the local church level. 

The other two recommendations, deal with women having access to the title pastor, but not the title Lead Pastor, because a Lead Pastor is an Elder in the Alliance and hence a male. 

This is where the majority of the debate lay, should a woman have access to the title Pastor or not. And I have my own arguments to make, but that’s not what we are going to focus on today, though we can next week if enough of a response for it comes up. 

No, what we’re focusing on is what happened during the debate. In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he writes these words in the fifteenth verse of the second chapter, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).”

Paul is writing to Timothy as a mentor to their mentee. Timothy is the Lead Pastor, if you would, of the Ephesus Church. He’s pretty new to the position and so Paul sends him two letters with advice in several areas of both doctrine and polity (church practice). But in this verse Paul urges Timothy to, “rightly handling the word of truth,” and by doing so it will make him unashamed. 

After some of the arguments that were presented at the General Council, I was ashamed for the delegates that brought them. Not because I agreed or disagreed with their position, but because they did not rightly handle the word of truth.

Here’s one example from the pro-side: Galatians 3:28 reads, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” So because we are all one in Christ Jesus, and there is no male and female, woman can hold the title Pastor. 

This was the whole argument. Do you see the problem with this argument? First, on it’s own this can lead to a lot of problems. It can lead to the interpretation that there are no distinctions between male and female. This is actually the issue with the modern feminist and transgender movements, where the distinction between male and female has become completely blurred. So the next question is, do we see this in Scripture? Do we see that there are no differences between male and female outside of the curse? And the answer is yes, just in the creation account where the two sexes are made distinct when we read in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” By distinguishing humanity into two groups, male and female, God not only helps us understand that both sexes are made in the image of God, but also that they are distinct from each other. The creation account goes on to somewhat explore that distinction in the creation of Adam after Eve. So we know there’s at least some created distinction. 

Then we can ask, since Galatians was written by Paul, does he make distinctions based on the creation account between male and female or does he do away with them? And the answer is again yes. In 1 Corinthians 11:3 Paul writes, “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.” So Paul writes of distinctions between males and females, even if the furthest you want to go with that is in the marriage relationship. But there are distinctions between the two sexes at some level. So what non-distinction is Paul talking about in Galatians 3:28?

The easiest way to clear this up is to read the verse in it’s context. I don’t know if you’ve heard me say this, you should because I say it often, “Context is King.” Meaning, there is hierarchy of context we need to read to understand what we read.

First, we have to read every verse in the context of it’s surrounding verses; usually I tell people you need to read the ten verses around the verse you’re reading, and the ten verses before those ten and the ten verses after those original ten. In other words, we need to read thirty verses at the bare minimum to understand one verse. But it doesn’t end there.

After reading the surrounding verses, we need to read the chapter that verse is in and the chapters before and after it. This helps us see the verse in it’s context of where it falls in the thought process of the writer. Why did God put that particular verse in that particular chapter. And I know, chapters and verses were not added until later to help us find things more easily; which means it’s more important to read the surrounding verses in the bigger context of the chapters, because chapter markers sometimes cut in on the thought of the writer. That’s why in our summer studies we follow thoughts, and not chapters.

But there’s more. Once we read the verse and the surrounding verses and the surrounded chapters, we need to read the book that the verse is in, because the verse is a part of the overall thought. But not just the thought of the one writer, it’s the thought of the Holy Spirit who is inspired those thoughts, so we need to understand that verse in the greater context of where it’s found in the whole of Scripture. 

And if we just did the first step in this process, we would already know in what way is Paul talking about the non-distinction between males and females. So let’s read the verses before and after.

Galatians 3, starting just two verse before in verse 26 and going one verse after to 29, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”

So what are males and females non-distinct in, in Galatians 3:28? Salvation. No matter if you’re a Jew or a Greek, you have non-distinct access to salvation in Jesus.  No matter if you’re slave or free, you have non-distinct access to salvation in Jesus. And no matter if you are male or female, you have non-distinct access to salvation in Jesus.

So the argument that women can have the title Pastor based, as this delegate argued, on Galatians 3:28 alone, is wrong. It is wrong because this verse speaks to salvation, not church practice. This delegate did not divide the word of truth rightly. Now, I understand this could be used as a jumping off point to a bigger argument, but that’s not what the delegate did. He simply used one verse to make his point and in doing so, misused the Scriptures.

This is what upsets me. People who use the word of God to say what they want, instead of allowing it say what it does. But I know why people do this; they want their own agenda, they want God to conform to their ideas, instead of having God’s word conform them. What this delegate did, and I have to say, several on his side of the debate did, was use the opposite of context being king, they proof texted. Proof texting is where you make a theology out of one verse, by stringing together several out of context verses.

An example of proof texting is what Muslim Zakir Naik does in John 15:26, where he reads from the King James Version, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”  Naik states that this verse talks about Muhammad the prophet of Islam, but if we took the steps of context that we just talked about, we would quickly read earlier in John 14:15-17, where we find out who the Comforter is, “15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” So the Comforter is not Muhammad but the Holy Spirit, because Jesus says that the Spirit will live forever with the disciples, is already with the disciples at that moment, and will eventually be inside them. Then if we keep reading in Acts 2, that Spirit does indeed indwell God’s people. But Naik uses one verses, a little Greek manipulation, and reads his prophet into the text of Scripture.

One last example is my favorite of all, it’s the paraphrasing of Scripture. Now, I’m not against paraphrasing, but we can’t make our theology based on a paraphrase. The prosperity gospel and word of faith movement paraphrase Romans 4:17. The paraphrase is about the last line, which would be said something like this, “God has given you authority to call those things that weren’t, into existence.”  In that paraphrase, who calls things into existence? It’s us. God gives us the authority, but it’s by our will that they begin to exist. So what’s Romans 4:17 say? It reads, “as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” The verse doesn’t speak of God giving us the authority to call things into existence, rather, it’s God who calls things that were not into existence.

Proof texting and paraphrasing to make theology leads to misunderstanding of the Scriptures, which leads to all sorts of crazy interpretations and in the end, boys and girls, that’s how cults start. 

To rightly handle the word of truth, we need to stay away from making our theology based on verses we take out of context, and look to the whole of Scripture. We need to take seriously Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17-19, “17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

If the Son of God, second person of the Trinity, Lord of Lord and King of Kings, the very Word of God through whom all things were created did not come to abolish the revealed word of God, we need to take seriously making sure we don’t abolish it either by mishandling it.

True there are going to be things we disagree on, but that comes at the end when we’ve exhausted good arguments where both sides work through the Scriptures. God has not revealed everything to us, he leaves some things ambiguous because they are not needed for salvation, and good godly people can disagree on the secondary issues that we wrestle over.

These can be tolerated and even encouraged, but what can’t be tolerated and must be stood against, is the misuse of Scripture to achieve one’s personal view, and I’m saying this even to those who’s conclusions I might agree with. 

So how can we keep ourselves from mishandling the word of truth and thereby becoming ashamed? I want to give you three steps and 

First, being in prayer. God’s word is a communication from him to us. So let’s call on God to speak to us. 

Second, read the Bible. Front to back, Genesis to Revelation. If you’re reading one book, read it and then re-read it. If you have questions, write them down, usually Scripture interprets Scripture, so keep reading.

Third, when you come to something that doesn’t make sense, use your concordance in the back of your Bible, or use an online tool such as biblegateway.com, or biblehub.com to look for other places where the word or idea your struggling with appears in the Scripture. 

Fourth, go back to what you were reading and read again and again.

Finally, talk with other believers about what you're reading. Discuss and be challenged. I believe there has only been one person who had God’s word all figured out, and that’s because he was God incarnate. The rest of us are trusting the work of the Holy Spirit, and we should do so humbly.

My challenge then for you this week it this, pick any verse in the Bible doesn’t matter where you start. Then read it, then read its surrounding 30 verses. Mulled it over in your time of prayer and grow in your right handling of Scripture.

When I left General Council, I left with a full stomach, a lot of laughs, and some thoughts on God to ponder, but I also left with a sickness of how men and women, who have been vetted by the Alliance, misused the Scripture, and I felt ashamed. 

God is calling each of us to take seriously the Word of God. To humbly handle it for the glory of God. 

A chapter after Paul tells Timothy to “rightly handle the word of truth,” he writes to his mentee these words, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:14-17).”

Let us be wise and completely equipped for the good work that Christ Jesus has saved us to. Rightly handling the word of truth for the glory of the Living God. Amen.