That's my boy!
The life of God which in the incarnation entered human nature is the root in which we are to stand and grow; it is the same almighty power that worked there, and thence onward to the resurrection, which works daily in us. Our one need is to study and know and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ as the lift that now is ours, and waits for our consent to gain possession and mastery of our whole being.
In this view it is of inconceivable importance that we should have right thoughts of what Christ is--of what really constitutes Him the Christ--and specifically of what may be counted His chief characteristic, the root and essence of all His character as our Redeemer. There can be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the incarnation but His heavenly humility, His emptying Himself and becoming man? What is His life on earth but humility, His taking the form of a servant? And what is His atonement but humility? "He humbled himself and became obedient unto death." And what is His ascension and His glory but humility exalted to the throne and crown with glory? "He humbled Himself, therefore God highly exalted Him." In heaven where He was with the Father, in His birth, in His life, in His death, in His sitting on the throne, it is all--it is nothing but humility. Christ is the humility of God embodied in human nature: the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and serve and save us. As the love and condescension of God makes Him the benefactor and helper and servant of all, so Jesus of necessity was the Incarnate Humility. And so He is still in the midst of the throne, the meek and lowly Lamb of God.
If this be the root of the tree, its nature must be seen in every branch and leaf and fruit. If humility be the first, the all-including grace of the life of Jesus--if humility be the secret of His atonement--then the health and strength of our spiritual life will entirely depend upon our putting this grace first also, and making humility the chief thing we admire in Him, the chief thing we ask of Him, the on thing for which we sacrifice all else.
It's an ol' school O'Jays kinda morning in the Cayman Islands. Well, maybe not in the Cayman Islands, but in my office in the Cayman Islands.
Against all of this, the Apostle Paul instructs Timothy to find men who are "not a lover of money." The KJV does its usually poetic and lively job with language here. The man is "not greedy of filthy lucre." And this rendering gets closer to the compound word used here. Paul has in view an indecent, dishonorable gain, a person who is eager to gain even at the expense of moral character. Interestingly, the term is only used in 1 Tim. 3, 8 and Titus 1:7, where Paul describes qualifications for elders and deacons. It would seem that the Lord has a unique concern for an elders' attitude toward money, that he not be the kind of man that would sell his soul for a buck.
This week, in three different circumstances, I received three different books by Andrew Murray. I'm thinking I should read Murray, having never done so before. Today I wanted to share a small bit from the opening chapter of his little meditation on humility.And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil! It was when the now-fallen angels began to look upon themselves with self-complacency that they were led to disobedience, and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness. Even so it was, when the Serpent breathed the poison of his pride--the desire to be as God--into the hearts of our first parents, they too fell from their high estate into all the wretchedness into which man is sunk. In heaven and earth, pride--self-exaltation--is the gate and the birth, and the curse, of hell.
Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption but the restoration of the lost humility, the original and only true relation of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him, He brought it, from there. Here on earth "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death"; His humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit--His own humility--as the ground and root of His relation to God and His redeeming work. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life of perfect humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.
And so the life of the saved ones, of the saints, must needs bear this stamp of deliverance from sin and full restoration to their original state--their whole relation to God and man marked by an all-pervading humility. Without this there can be no true abiding in God's presence, or experience of His favor and the power of His Spirit; without this, no abiding faith, or love or joy or strength. Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others as it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him as God to do all.
for church leadership "able to teach." As many have noted, of all the qualifications listed 1 Timothy 3 this ability to teach is the only qualification we would not necessarily expect of every Christian. All the others should be true of every growing and maturing Christian. Able to teach is the gift or characteristic in the list peculiarly required of those Christian men who would hold the office of elder or pastor. A man should not hold the office if he can not teach. And the reason is simple: the primary task of the elder is to teach. Other things are necessary in a church (administration, mutual care, etc). But one thing is necessarily done by the elders: teaching.
My questioner asked me that question nearly three years ago now. I still ponder it from time to time. Whether it's from my proud, competitive, sinful heart... or some genuine conviction, I want to do better. I want to be more hospitable.
My wife sent me this link to a recent Salon article. In the article, an atheist father is troubled about how to convince his young evangelical daughter that he's not going to hell because he's not a Christian. The columnist, Gary Tennis, does a pretty interesting job using a football analogy to upend the atheist father's pride.
I don't much like walking through malls. I guess I'm the stereotypical male. I storm through to the one (at the most three) stores that potentially have what I'm searching for, select the item, and then escape the whole harrowing experience through the closest exit.
The first item the Apostle then lists, perhaps explicating "above reproach," is "the husband of but one wife." The phrase rendered more literally is "one woman man." And, here, there are some differences of opinion as to precisely what is meant.To be above reproach, an elder must be 'the husband of one wife.' This does not prohibit bachelors from serving as elders. Commonly, elders will be married, and God will use the demands of their callings as husbands and fathers to do much of the sanctifyinig work that needs to be done in their lives before they are ready to serve as officers in the church. But remember that Paul himself was single and commended singleness to others as an opportunity for greater service in the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 7:17; 9:5). Some suggest that the phrase means 'married only once.' This would disqualify widowers who remarry, as well as men who have been through a divorce. If this is what Paul meant, however, one might expect him to be more explicit.
The point of the phrase is probably more general: elders must be morally accountable for their sexuality. The Greeks and the Romans of the day generally tolerated gross sexual sin. Polygamy was practiced by both Greeks and Jews. Marriage was undermined by frequent divorce, widespread adultery, and rampant homosexuality. The words of Demosthenes show the scope of the problem: 'Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children'.
The nobility of the pastoral office requires a certain character. The reliable men churches are to seek for the office must be men whose inner and outer lives are sewn together with integrity and Christ-like character.
In this series of posts, I want to invite the pastors/elders out there to a conversation about finding and training faithful men for the task of leadership in the church. I'm no expert. I haven't been at this very long at all and I'm certain there are tons of men out there who have and are doing it well. So, as we work through the list of qualities the Apostle Paul lays out in 1 Timothy 3, I hope folks--as Paul does here with Timothy--will contribute with their experiences and learning.
Here are the sessions and speakers:
The sisters at Capitol Hill Baptist Church are hosting a women's conference that promises to be edifying and challenging. The conference will be held, D.V., October 12-13 at CHBC. Noel Piper is scheduled to be the keynote speaker. And the theme is a "Psalm 91 Woman."
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