Rolls? wait roles.

I ended last week with 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" and so questions. The first question that i believe is essential to this whole topic of biblical womanhood and feminism goes back to...(gasp) roles. So why are roles so important, what are roles anyways? Is it simply chores that a man and woman can do best like mowing the grass or doing dishes, or does it go a little further? So 1, 2, 3, go

It doesn't take much to realize that God created two genders...male and female, thus two different roles. With the creation of roles God is able to show his image in three ways 1) the beauty and importance of interpersonal relationships 2) equality in both person hood and importance 3) difference in role and authority. This week Ill discuss the first way God is able to show his image with the importance of interpersonal relationships as it relates to roles.

God didn't create us to be alone. As humans we are best when we are around other humans that we can connect with and grow with. There is something special about interpersonal relationships and we see them everywhere... in families, friends, but this relationship is best expressed in marriage. In marriage you have two coming together as one, it is a unity of body, mind, and soul. It is cool to see how God uses marriage in all its beauty and mystery to show unity between a man and a woman. There is another relationship that somewhat mirrors this unity...the Trinity. Father, Son, and Spirit. This "Trinity" was shown to us in Genesis 1:26 when God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Within the trinity there is love, communication, fellowship, a sharing of glory, and mutual giving of honor. These things, hopefully, also show up in marriage.

Now i have a good group of Godly women friends that i am so extremely thankful for. I can relate to these women, express myself in a way that they understand (which basically means i can ramble and think out loud and they know that im not looking for an answer or trying to make a point), they are tender, and can relate to hardships that i go through. I love my girl friends, but i didn't leave my parents to form a new family with them, nor can i be united body soul and mind to them...but i can to my sweet husband. With Jonathan there is this unique relationship where he is my protector and i am his helper, he has the ultimate decision making power, but he wants to know my thoughts and wisdom. We each bring something different to the table that wouldn't be much fun at all if it was two me's or two Jonathan's. With the creation of male and female, you get these two completely different puzzle pieces that fit together beautifully and work best together, just like the trinity.

To sum up roles are important because they show us that we need each other and are interdependent on each other (its best seen in marriage), just like the Father, Son, and Spirit need each other and are interdependent on each other.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a long topic, but its a good one.
Grace and peace.
sarah b.

Ministry Spot Light

Over the weekend my wife sarah and I got to go to a “Weekend to Remember” conference put on by Family Life(www.familylife.com). Conference was great and very encouraging but it was a very different experience. I have lived in Little Rock Arkansas my whole life and for a good portion of my friends have been children of Family Life Missionaries. Because I've always been around the ministry it has been very easy to over look what God is doing.
At the conference couples of all ages and backgrounds, christians and non christians, all for the sake of strengthening, preparing, or even saving their marriages. Seeing how these couples all had a weekend to simply focus on each other while being saturated by the gospel was a very encouraging thing for me to see since I've known people who run these conferences for years. We happened to know the guy who was the coordinator for the conference, so we heard many great stories from past weekends and how God uses these weekends to save marriages and bring people to Himself. I hope that you don't do what I tend to do and let the work of local missionaries go without being notice, and especially prayed for. Check out your local ministries that you might typically forget to join me in praying for them today.

JB

A Psalm of Praise and Thanksgiving

I give you thanks, O LORD with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing your praise;
I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.


On the day I called, you answered me;
my strength of soul you increased.


All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O LORD,
for they have heard the words of your mouth,
and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD,
for great is the glory of the LORD.


For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly,
but the haughty he knows from afar.


Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
and your right hand delivers me.


The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
-Psalm 138

The Purpose and Centrality of the Local Church Part 6

This is the final part of a series on the centrality of the local church in God's redemptive purposes in the world. It has not been attempt to bring us back to a Rome-like view of the church or salvation but, rather, an attempt to do away with our Western individualism and help you to get a vision of and passion for the local assembly that God has given you. I hope it has been helpful.

The centrality of the church can be seen in that the responsibility for missions is given to the church.

This point is very relevant for me because I have seen first-hand both the lack of passion for missions in the local church and the lack of passion for the church in missions organizations. That is all besides the fact that most churches misapply their mission, turning church services into productions that are meant to draw in lost people with everything but the biblical gospel.

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20

This is the probably the main text that comes to most Christian minds when thinking about missions. Often called "the great commission" this text makes it clear that the gospel was meant to be effectively preached in all nations.

There is, however, much debate over what Jesus intended to be the eternal result of his words. Was this only a commission for the original disciples to fulfill? Does this obligate every person to serve a term of some length as a missionary?

Without going into a long exegetical study of the passage I will tell you my own conclusions. Just by knowing the rest of the New Testament we can know that this commission is meant to drive Christians during the entire church-age; that is, until Jesus comes back. The grammar of the commission tells us that the emphasis is not on "go" but on "make disciples." Therefore, every Christian is called to be a part of the fulfillment of this commission, but not every Christian is called to go on a "missions term." However, this commission clearly has global aspirations. Therefore, global missions is necessary to obey Jesus' commission.

So what we should really be asking is how Jesus intended this commission to be fulfilled and how the early church obeyed him. So let's see what we can learn from the book of Acts about these two things.

1. How did Jesus intend for this to be done?

In Acts 1 Jesus tells the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them and then gives a statement similar to the great commission cited above (Acts 1:8). He wasn't urgent for the disciples to start on a missionary journey as soon as he ascended. Instead, it seems that Jesus wanted the church to officially be started. He wanted things to go in their proper order and the Holy Spirit to empower their evangelism, which would happen in an incredible way in Acts 2.

2. How did the apostles work to fulfill the great commission?

The reason I use the "apostles" rather than "the church" in the title for this point is simply to avoid circular reasoning. The fact is 1st century Christian missions was church-centered to the core. The best example I can give for this is Acts 13-14 where we see how Paul and Barnabas went about their missionary journey.

In Acts 13:1-3 we see Paul (Saul) and Barnabas being set apart as missionaries in the context of the local church at Antioch. The congregation fasted and prayed about it and then layed hands on them and sent them.

The rest of Acts 13 and into 14 describes the missionary journey. To summarize, the fruit of the journey was church plants (Acts 14:21-25). They made many disciples of Christ and encouraged them, appointing elders for the new local churches.

After all this what did they do? Return to Antioch to let their sending church share in the joy of their labors (Acts 14:26-27). They then did something that we don't see much nowadays with missionaries, "And they stayed there a long time with the disciples." (Acts 14:28).

So we see three things: (1) the local church sent the missionaries, (2) the missionaries planted local churches, and (3) the missionaries returned to the local church to report and commit themselves to their own congregation once again.

We could look at a lot more but I think this gets the point across. Love your church, love the gospel, and love the lost enough to preach the gospel to them. I don't think para-church organizations are the God-ordained means for this task, they are only helpful inasmuch as they seek to work alongside God's church. Sending a para-church orginization to fulfill the great commission without the church is like sending the Boy Scouts to war...they may be entheusiastic about it but they lack the power and authority to win.

Grace, Peace, and much love,
Stephen

Judging (Part 1)

I am a very judgmental person. I see things in black and white. My "gray" has been sorted and I know what goes where. As a result, I tend to judge others who either haven't sorted their "grays" out or who disagree with me. Because of this sin, I have started to read "Who Are You to Judge?" by Dave Swavely. I want to share some of his thoughts with you.

1 Corinthians 4:3-7 - But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Dave defines the sin of judging as follows: "negatively evaluating someone's conduct or spiritual state on the basis of non-biblical standards or suspected motives...to 'judge' others is to decide that they are doing wrong because they do something the Bible doesn't talk about or because you think you can guess what is in their heart."

Their are two different applications: 1. Do not judge yourself. This is clear in 1 Corinthians 4 at the end of verse 3; "In fact, I do not even judge myself...It is the Lord who judges me." Why? Because we can't even truly know the depths of our hearts. We can sin and not even know that we have. But God does know we have, so He is the perfect Judge.

2. Do not judge others. Our judgments of others and their judgments of us are very small things as the beginning of verse 3 says. The judgments don't matter because we cannot see the heart of a person. Only God's judgment counts as a perfectly accurate judgment of our actions. Why, if we aren't fit to judge ourselves, would we think we are fit to judge others anyway?

Proverbs 18:2,13,17 speak of the judgmental person who believes that he can know his own heart. I would encourage you to look up these verses to try to see if your life is similar to the man in these verses. Are you a judgmental person? Do you jump to conclusions when you see someone's actions and determine what the motives of their heart are for them? Do you assume that you know the reason for the actions made by others and yourself?

These are questions that I have to ask myself first and foremost. I know I am a judgmental person, and I pray that God would help me fight it. I will write more on what we do now, but the first steps to ridding yourself of a judgmental attitude is to acknowledge that you have one and pray to God that He would, first, forgive you, and, second, show you how to change.

Praise the Lord for His patience and grace! Help us, God, to strive for you!

WOMAN, woman, weeman,w

a few weeks ago i saw the cover of Time magazine..."The State of the American Woman" , i passed it off, but it has come back to me through a brother in law and i think its a good time to talk about womanhood, feminism, and most importantly biblical womanhood. now im no bible scholar or theologian, but i do like (well love) the word of God. im definitely not going to tackle this ginormous topic tonight, but i do hope in the coming weeks to shed some light on this subject.

To start off, the article in Time magazine was specifically about how women are more powerful, yet still unhappy. there was some talk about the feminist movement and how quickly it has progressed.

So what does the bible say about feminism? What is biblical womanhood? Why does it matter? What importance do gender roles have if any at all?

These will be coming up in the following weeks, i am hoping to get some dialogue going, so feel free to comment. In the meantime here is a verse to chew on that will hopefully kick off this topic.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:27

Glory of Christ in Words

Just to settle the thoughts of all of our readers, the fanny pack from last week is not from my personal collection. Personally it might have been a little controversial to put anything up with the of the princesses. I probably should have simply picked 1.
The subject at hand however is words and their global purpose for the believer.

What should our words be focussed at? Christ's glory. Its amazing how what is being felt comes from inside and works its way out. When your happy, your words are more cheery. When your mad, anger tends to flow. When your thankful to God you praise Colossians 3:17, Psalm 63:5.
Obviously there are times you will be upset, there just isn't a case that I know of that should keep a follower of Jesus Christ fighting for the right to use vulgar terms as a freedom. “Lighter” cussing may not be offensive to pop culture anymore or even terms in texting that abbreviate the same four letter words. But to the believer we shouldn't be as anxious to try converting these words to everyday speech. Instead we should weigh the cost and make sure that the positive glorify aspects of speech far out weigh the negatives. We should be way more focused about correcting our hearts than if its ok to cuss or not. Once both sides hearts are right then we won't even have to worry about whats worse, not cursing or not feeding the hungry. Hopefully at that point we will have both down a little better.

Glory of Christ through words is fixing your heart and mind on things above and putting behind the old self. This will work itself into speech Colossians 5

Thoughts or comments?