Survey Studies in Reformed Theology

Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies
Bob Burridge ©2011

Ecclesiology: Lesson Lesson 3 – The Sacraments
by Pastor Bob Burridge ©2003, 2011

Lesson Index
Definition of the Sacraments
The Sacraments are a Means of Grace
There are two Sacraments

Definition of the Sacraments

Westminster Confession of Faith 27

I. Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ, and his benefits; and to confirm our interest in him:as also, to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church, and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to his Word.

The term “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. In its classical uses it represents something set apart from other things, something dedicated for a particular and special purpose. It was used for the oath a soldier took as he dedicated himself to the defense of king and country, and for money set aside to bind an agreement. The church came to use the term “sacred” for those things set apart specially for God’s honor. But its original uses are vague, broad ranging and offer little help in understanding what the Reformed churches mean when they declare that God has instituted two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The word sacrament is not directly used in Scripture, so like the words theology, Trinity, and others, it is designed to represent a particular biblical teaching. Some who use this word may have a very different meaning than others who use it. The test of correctness depends upon which definition is derived from the teachings God has revealed in his word, not upon the historic or presumed meanings attached to it by men or churches.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines a sacrament in its answer to question 92: “A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.”

In this 27th chapter of the Westminster Confession the term sacrament represents something with five distinctive freatures:

1. A sacrament is a holy sign and seal of the covenant of grace.
As a sign, a sacrament represents something other than itself. It teaches about some truth symbolically. There is something in the sign which corresponds with the object it signifies making the truth about its object obvious to those who see the sign. Not everything about the sign corresponds with the object or there would be no difference between the two. The one instituting the sign must tell or explain what particular features are being illustrated. In the sacraments, God who institutes the sign, reveals by his word what is being signified.

As a seal, a sacrament certifies by the authority of God that the person receiving it has the quality signified. This does not mean that an unauthorized use of the sacrament imposes the quality upon its object. Only when rightly administered by the conditions demanded in God’s word does the sacrament truly certify and authenticate the promise or quality signified.

When someone receives a diploma upon graduation, the diploma certifies that he has completed the course of instruction as recognized by the faculty and board of the institution granting the degree. If a person forges a diploma or has misrepresented himself to the institution, the certificate does not make him qualified in the field it represents. It would be a serious crime and offense to the institution to make such a false claim. Similarly, someone who wrongly receives a sacrament offends God and does not bring the blessings promised upon himself. Instead he calls down the wrath of God upon himself for his false claim. When a child of God receives the sacrament rightly administered by God’s prescription he receives that blessing which is represented by the sign upon the authority of God who instituted it.

In this sense we say that a sacrament is a means of grace. It does not convey the grace by its outward application. God uses the sacrament, when rightly applied and received, as a means by which he dispenses his grace to the recipient.

2. A sacrament is immediately instituted by God.
The term sacrament is reserved for those signs and seals of the covenant of grace which God has instituted himself. By “immediate” the confession means without the mediation of a human prophet or instrument. Jesus Christ himself directly instituted the sacraments of the New Testament church. No council of human ministers or prophets have this authority. Jesus himself instituted both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as continuing signs and seals of his covenant with the church. No other sacraments were instituted by him. This definition eliminates the claims of some groups that there are more than two sacraments for the church in this era.

3. A sacrament represents Christ and his benefits.
The two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, represent and seal to true believers the cleansing work of Christ’s atonement and the conveyance of his continual removal of the guilt of sin. The work of our Savior on the cross is depicted and sealed in both but in different senses. Baptism is the initiatory rite marking a person out as a member of the covenant community, and the Lord’s Supper is the covenantal meal for those marked out. By this meal they regularly show their partaking of his promises and benefits. The significance of each is covered more thoroughly in the next two chapters of the confession. Only such signs immediately instituted for the church which represent the person and work of Christ can be called sacraments according to the definition derived from Scripture and adopted by the Reformed churches.

4. A sacrament confirms our interest in Christ.
Those who partake of the sacraments must meet the qualifications set forth in God’s word. When we receive the signs they must represent not only the work of Christ in a general sense, but also its application to the individual who receives the outward sign. Those who receive it and who are not redeemed by our Lord as individuals appropriate God’s wrath rather than his blessing upon themselves.

This is why the sacraments are to be carefully guarded in their administration by rightly examined and ordained Elders who have a sound understanding of the qualifications God gives us in Scripture. Solemn warnings ought to be issued before the reception of the sacraments to advise against receiving them casually, or by partaking without showing a true interest in the person and work of Jesus Christ who is being represented.

When rightly administered and received the sacraments are a benefit to believers in several ways. They are a witness to the person’s trust in Jesus Christ, and in the promises of God attached to the sacraments. By receiving the sacraments a person declares to God and to the church that he is a partaker of the covenant of God’s grace, and loves the Lord who extends his blessings to his children. God honors this sincere confession, and promises to bless those who obey him by submitting rightly to the sacraments he has instituted.

5. A sacrament puts a visible distinction upon members of Christ’s church.
Those who are baptized into the church and who partake of the Lord’s Supper are clearly distinguished from those who have not submitted to these signs and seals of God’s covenant. They visibly mark out those who are a part of the covenant community from those who are not. But the testimony is primarily to the church, and demonstrates to God our submission to him. The world may be aware of who is baptized and of who receives the covenant meal of the Lord’s Supper. Some may even have an academic knowledge of what they signify and seal. But our testimony to them is to be in the word of the gospel, not in the sacraments. We do not administer or receive the sacraments as a means of evangelism. They serve as a solemn act affirming our membership to the actual parties of the covenant.

Jesus leaves us with a challenging duty. The mark of the true believer to the eyes of the world is not to be found in the sacraments of the church, but in our love for one another which demonstrates a soul renewed by the power of God’s grace. In John 13:35, Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and our obedience to the principles our Lord has taught us that demonstrate the promise and power of the gospel to those who are yet outside of the covenant community. Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me you will keep my commandments”

The Sacraments are a Means of Grace

Westminster Confession of Faith 27

II. There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.
III. The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them; neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it: but upon the work of the Spirit, and the word of institution, which contains, together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers.

Among the major issues dividing the denominations that call themselves Christian, is the debate over what the sacraments accomplish when they are administered. The differences have to do with how we understand the sacraments as a sign and seal.

The view the Reformers primarily confronted is Sacerdotalism. This is the view of the Roman Catholic church and some others. They extend the power of the sacraments to include the actual and independent conveying of the blessing signified. The seal becomes not only a certification of God’s promise and work, but an actual imparting of the things being sealed by the power of the sacraments themselves. Dr. Charles Hodge explains, “According to the Romanists, therefore, a sacrament is a divine ordinance which has the inherent or intrinsic power of conferring the grace which it signifies.” (Systematic Theology part III, ch. 20). For a more complete discussion of the error of sacerdotalism see B. B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation (chapter 3).

Another view of the sacraments is Memorialism. Those who hold to this view deny any sealing power of the sacraments. They see the sacraments as mere object lessons instituted by God, but nothing more. Primarily this position arose as a reaction against the Sacerdotal view of the Roman Catholic church. It was held by the Zwinglians and the followers of Arminius. It continues today in many Evangelical churches which often incorrectly see it as the only alternative to sacerdotalism.

The position of the Reformed churches:
The confusion is cleared up in the statement of the confession that there is a sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified. It is a spiritual relationship. The words describing the thing signified may be applied to the sign, and that which the words represent is certified by the seal. This means there is real promise attached to the right administration and reception of the sacraments, but the effect is from God. It is not inherent in the actions or elements of the sacraments. We will see more about this as we take up our study of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the next chapters.

For now we will simply state that Baptism as an act does not remove sin or convey salvation, nor does the Lord’s Supper convey sanctification in itself or by some power inherent in it. Both are spiritually advantageous when properly practiced, but not in isolation from the sovereign operation of the Holy Spirit according to God’s prescription for each which works when, where, and how he wills.

There are two Sacraments

Westminster Confession of Faith 27

IV. There be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, baptism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained.
V. The sacraments of the old testament, in regard of the spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited, were, for substance, the same with those of the new.

There are only two sacraments directly instituted by Jesus Christ for his church in the New Testament era. Both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper include visible signs which represent and seal to the believer the benefits of the work of Christ in the covenant of grace. The Roman Catholic church adds five more. They include Confirmation, Penance, Orders (ordination), Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. But these are missing one or more of the necessary qualities included in our definition of a sacrament. They either do not include outward signs representing the benefits of Christ in the covenant of grace, or were not instituted by our Lord immediately.

The sacraments may only be dispensed by a minister of the word rightly ordained. This principle is not based upon any superstitious view of the ministry or upon any presumed power of those ordained being necessary for the sacraments to be effective. It is based upon the nature of the office of the Elder as described in Scripture. Only ministers of the word are ever seen administering the sacraments in the New Testament. This gives us a clear example which is to be continued in the churches. To them our Lord entrusted the guarding of the purity of the church as we will study in the administration of church discipline in chapter 30 of the Confession. Only those who have given evidence of a sound knowledge of the teachings of Scripture should oversee the administration of these solemn practices entrusted to the church by our Lord.

The sacerdotalists tend to extend priestly powers to the ministers even to the extent of asserting that their intentions in administering the sacraments are vital to the conveying of God’s blessings in them. But the Scriptures assert that it is the sovereign operation of God that makes them effective, not the heart of the one administering them. There is no fear that a Baptism or Lord’s Supper given by an insincere pastor was invalid simply because the minister’s heart was not right with the Lord at the time.

The memorialists tend to allow anyone to administer Baptisms or the Lord’s Supper. This has led to many blasphemous abuses of the sacraments. Only those who have been ordained after examination showing them to be well studied in the Scriptures and who are proven to be genuinely called of God should take up this awesome duty representing the person and promises of our Lord.

The sacraments of the New Testament correspond with and continue the Old Testament institutions of Circumcision and the Passover. Circumcision, like Baptism, was to be administered only once and marked the recipient as a member of the covenant community. The Passover was administered repeatedly within the covenant community as a continuing sign and seal of God’s covenant of grace. As we study each of the sacraments in the next chapters of the confession this isomorphism between the practices of the Old and New Testaments will become more clearly defined.

Note: The Bible quotations in this syllabus are from the New American Standard Bible (1988 edition) unless otherwise noted.

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The Biblical Role of Husbands

Study #23 Colossians 3:19
by Bob Burridge ©2023

When morally immature people are in leadership roles, they often tend to become tyrants. They think that being in charge means having the power to do whatever they want, and to get their own way. Since this neglects the real purpose of leadership, things eventually fall apart and chaos emerges instead of order.

It’s the natural way of a fallen heart to become a self-centered tyrant. But God calls leaders to responsible leadership.

Being in charge isn’t all it’s imagined to be. It’s very hard to be a good leader. The most basic place where responsible leadership is needed is in the home. It’s important to pray for our government leaders, managers where we work, and church leaders, but we also need to pray for the leaders of families.

This was part of the confusion that had come to the city of Colossae. Some taught that women existed only to have babies and to serve men. Females were degraded and treated as mere servants or sex objects. Men were tyrants in their homes who kept wives from realizing their potential as God had gifted them. This is a horrible distortion of the order God set up for the home.

In his letter to the Colossians Paul explained the leadership principles God gives us in his word. In the previous study, we looked at the duty of the wives in Colossians 3:18, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” In Ephesians 5:22-24 Paul explained in more detail. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” God assigned men the role of headship in the home to model the headship of Christ over his church.

Biblical subjection means honoring and supporting the duty God gives to the one responsible for being in charge. It doesn’t mean that those in subjection are slaves or inferiors. Man was incomplete by himself, so woman was made to be her husband’s helper. But being a helper doesn’t make a person less important. God is often called our helper in times of need (for example in Psalm 121:2).

We each have areas where we need to respect others God’s put in charge. Governments are responsible for our peace and safety. Church officers are called to oversee worship and church members. Those under their oversight need to support their leaders as they responsibly do their work.

Wives need to respect and support the great responsibility the Lord has laid upon their husbands. The godly wife uses her wisdom and abilities to do her part in the home, church, and community. She should not usurp the responsibility of leadership God has given to her husband. The only biblical exception to a wife’s submission is when she’s asked to violate God’s higher law. No one may forbid us to do what God commands, or command what God forbids.

How should the husband exercise
headship in the home?

Colossians 3:19 says, :”Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” In Ephesians 5:25-31 Paul expands giving us more detail. It says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ ”

Marriage is not a human institution. God established it for a reason. Marriage should show us Christ’s relationship with His church. In our Savior we have a perfect example for headship in our homes. To know how we should love, we need to learn more about how he loves.

What kind of love is it that
Christ shows for his church?

1. This kind of love is self-sacrificing.
This divinely implanted love puts the well being of the loved one first.

Jesus truly suffered when he came to redeem his people. He left his heavenly glories to take on a finite human body and soul. He went through the pains and indignities of growing up here on Earth; being disliked, persecuted, wrongly accused of crimes, and put to a disgraceful and torturous death. He hung on the cross which his bride deserved, and in her place he died the death she deserved. He did all this for the church, his bride. He did it voluntarily out of love. The words by Samuel J. Stone in “The Church’s One Foundation” describe it so well, “From heav’n he came and sought her to be his holy bride; With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died.”

The Apostle Paul described this love in Philippians 2:7-8. “but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

After the last supper, before his arrest in Gethsemane, Jesus taught his disciples about love. In John 15:13-14 he said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

The godly love of Christ-like headship doesn’t love for self-benefit. Its driving objective is the true well being of the one loved. It’s not like the love we feel in our fallen souls where we emotionally fall into and out of it.

I’ve always appreciated an amazing story about an amazing man. After Christmas in 1876 Philip and his wife were relaxing on a train heading for home in Chicago. They had just completed a visit to his childhood home in Rome, Pennsylvania. As the train rumbled across a bridge in Ohio the train lurched and their seats and the floor fell away from under them. Passengers were tossed around inside as the bridge crumbled into pieces dropping the train and its people into the ravine sixty feet below! When the pieces came to rest at the bottom, fires broke out.

The few surviving passengers scrambled to find a way out of the flaming wreckage. Philip found a broken window nearby and he squeezed himself through. Free of the wreckage he began to search for his wife. Horrified, he realized she was still trapped inside! Without hesitating for his own safety he returned to the wreckage to rescue her. While inside he became trapped by the fire and they both perished. One hundred passengers died that December day. Philip was only 38 years old when he died. But he was a Christian.

His full name was Philip P. Bliss, a well-known hymn writer. Many of his hymns are found in today’s hymnals. When his trunk was pulled from the train wreckage they found in it a yet unpublished song Philip had written. Today we know it by the title, I Will Sing of My Redeemer. It’s a song about the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ for his people: “I will sing of my Redeemer and his wondrous love to me. On the cruel cross he suffered, from the curse to set me free. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer! With his blood he purchased me; On the cross He sealed my pardon, paid the debt and made me free.” The second verse is about his boundless love and mercy

Unlike our Savior who gave himself for us, Philip wasn’t able to save his wife. But his love for her was so deep, he gave his own life trying to help her.

Do we husbands put our wives’ true well being above our own comforts and needs? We may never be asked to risk our lives for our wives, but do we consider her needs and interests above our own when we decide where to go out to eat? how to organize our budget? how we’ll use our time off from work? what movies or TV shows we watch together? Such simple little things can be tests. Is our love self-sacrificing like the love of Jesus?

Godly headship is not to ensure comfort and ease for the husband. Biblical headship is to help the wife achieve all God calls her to be. Loving leadership in the home is self-sacrificing. It meets the needs of the one loved.

2. The godly kind of love provides for those who are loved.
One of a good husband’s great concerns is to make sure the family’s basic needs are met. 1 Timothy 5:8, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

After the fall in Eden, God explained the struggle the wives and husbands will experience. Eve’s struggle would be two-fold: raising children, and her subjection to her husband. Adam’s struggle was in bringing forth their daily provisions from the earth. That’s a duty God has particularly assigned to men from the time of creation. Of course there are exceptions and times when men aren’t able to work. In those situations, godly wives lovingly do all they can to help meet the family’s needs, yet without neglecting their responsibilities God specially gave them. Those are very hard times for any woman. They need our support and encouragement. But the general rule is: Men must make sure their family has its provisions.

It perverts that duty when a husband’s work becomes more important than those he cares for. He must never become so greedy of money, power, and position that he neglects his family’s needs.

The godly husband’s love is concerned for the spiritual health of his wife and family. Jesus’ love moved him to build up his church in her relationship with God. Ephesians 5:26-27 tells us he came, “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

He prayed for his bride and purified her by paying the penalty of sin in her place. He made her able to live God’s way by giving her spiritual life. That should be the godly husband’s concern toward his wife. He should see that she has every opportunity to grow in grace.

Jesus is able to change the heart of his bride. That’s something a husband can’t do! But he may draw down the power of Christ by the means of grace.
1. He prays for his family, and teaches them to pray.
2. He values God’s word so that he and his family know it and live by it.
3. He makes sure that he and his family are regular in worship, and the sacraments. He makes sure his family understands the parts of worship.
4. He values the Christian friends of his family. He teaches them to encourage one another in God-honoring fellowship and mutual care.

3. The godly kind of love is tender and caring.
Ephesians 5:28-29 tells husbands to care for their wives as he would care for himself, as Jesus did for his church. “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,”

We humans instinctively care for our own physical health. When we’re hungry or thirsty we instinctively look for food or drink. When we’re injured we instinctively try to fix it. When we’re cold we instinctively look for a way to get warm. When we’re hot we instinctively look for a cooler place.

Husbands should care for their wives as instinctively and with as much care. In Genesis we are told that when two are married they become one flesh. This real union is reflected in the tenderness a husband shows to his wife.

The words nourishment and cherishment stir up a picture of the gentle care a mother gives to her baby. She loves it so dearly and watches over it, as if it was her greatest treasure.

1 Peter 3:7, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” This verse is often misused to teach that women are by nature weaker than men. First, that’s not what it says. The words mean that she is to be treated as one would treat a valuable but fragile vase. Second, while the average woman may not have the strength in her arms or legs that the average man has, she is far from weak. Her body has a whole cycle of demands to prepare her for bearing children. She endures a heavy demand from her responsibilities in the home. She has strong emotions specially suited to her duties as mother and wife. Her strengths lie in different areas than those of men. God equips us each with what we need to accomplish our calling. But a wife is to be treated tenderly and with the same care one would give to a valuable art-form.

This tender care of Jesus for his church is never overbearing. Our Lord isn’t a slavemaster driving his church oppressively. He blesses her by using her gifts and talents to help accomplish his own work. He knows her weaknesses and need for comfort. His encouragement is always appropriate. This is the model every godly husband must follow as he leads his home.

4. The godly kind of love listens.
1 Peter 3:7 says that as husbands you must “… live with your wives in an understanding way”. Godly love wants to know and understand what the wife needs and wants. It works to listen and appreciate what the wife has to say and advize. Jesus tells us that when we to pray to him at any time he hears us.

Often men and women face different experiences in life and deal with different problems. Setting all our worldly excuses aside, it’s our duty to understand our spouses. That’s a big job! But God commands husbands to understand their wives.

5. The godly kind of love assures.
It makes sure that the loved one feels secure in a sure source of hope. A lot rests on the husband. His responsibility could be frightening. How could he possibly measure up to the high standard of Christ’s love for his church? Wives may be thinking, “If my husband was like that I would find it easier to be in subjection to him.” Probably true, but it’s no excuse from biblical subjection. Their responsibility doesn’t depend on how successful he is in his duties. Husbands may think, “If my wife was more encouraging and submissive I’d find it easier to love her as I should.” Also probably true, but no excuse from loving leadership. The husband’s responsibility doesn’t depend on how successful she is in living up to her part.

Husbands may feel discouraged and ask: “How can I live up to such a high standard? How can I learn to be a loving leader with an imperfect family?” Be encouraged men: There’s a sure source of help. You’re included in the church loved by Christ. You’re also the bride for whom Christ died. He has given himself up for you. You’re one of those he nourishes and cherishes. You are his body. Your source of help is in your Savior, Jesus Christ. No human called to leadership is ever perfect in this life, no parent, no husband, no church officer, no civil leader. So there is no excuse from the standards God sets for you.

As any one in the church, husbands must press on in their calling. As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

The husband must be an example to his wife and children of: humility, repentance, and subjection to Christ. He must demonstrate confidence that his hope rests in Christ, not in his own accomplishments or abilities.

Don’t let your children or wife think you expect perfection in them. But let them know you understand their challenges, that you will still love them when they sin or fail. You need to remember that Christ loves you in the same way.

6. The godly kind of love is unquenchable.
It continues even when the loved one isn’t perfect. It persists.

Jesus persists in his love, even when his people fall short. Romans 5:8, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Colossians 3:19 says, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” The Greek word used here for “being harsh” is “pikraino” (πικραίνω). There was a plant familiar then called Botanae Pikrain Ekhousa meaning a bitter tasting plant. Here it means, husbands, don’t get a bitter taste toward your wife. Don’t be at odds with her. Remember, in Christ you are both one flesh.

The biblical model for the husband
is a humbling thing to study.

We are to love our wives as Christ loves his church. This is a very special kind of love. It’s a self-sacrificing kind of love that puts the wife’s wellbeing above our own. It provides for her every need to the best of our ability in Christ. It’s tender, caring, and listens carefully to understand her. It assures her by directing her to Christ, the only sure source of hope. It’s an unquenchable kind of love.

That humbles us! How far short we are all bound to fall! It sets a high goal. One that always gives us more to strive for. It brings with it a wonderful promise, that God empowers us to move toward that goal! It impresses upon us what a wonderful Savior we have, who loved us that much, to love us as his bride.

Husbands, Jesus is our model! This is what we need to prayerfully strive to become. Our duty, according to God’s word, is to love our wives as Christ loved His church.

Both husbands and wives need to encourage and pray for one another. They must keep this perfect example in mind: remember Christ’s self-less love for his church, and the church’s subjection and respect for Christ.

If our homes were like that, if our churches and communities were made up of homes like that, the lordship of Christ would be seen more broadly today. his kingly glory would disarm all criticism. our children will grow up better prepared to live in imperfect families, go to imperfect schools, hold imperfect jobs, support imperfect churches, and be good citizens in imperfect societies.

The quest for perfection will be satisfied only in heaven. But for now, here in this imperfect world, we should strive to love one another as Jesus loved His church.

Note: Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

The Biblical Role of Wives

Study #22 Colossians 3:18
by Bob Burridge ©2023

In this third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians God explains the role of members of a family.

<18. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

In this study we will start going through this section by looking at the role of women as wives in verse 18. Some today would immediately condemn what the Bible teaches on this subject.

There’s a lot of confusion about the role of women. Feminist leader Sheila Crinen said, “Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking marriage. Freedom for women cannot be without the abolition of marriage.”

Elizabeth Stanton, a theoretician of the women’s rights movement, attacked what she calls the male bias of the Bible. She said, “… organized religion would have to be abolished before true emancipation for women could be achieved.”

Back in November1993 over 2000 women gathered in Minneapolis for the first Re-Imagining Conference. It was promoted by the World Council of Churches, and sponsored by the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodists, the American Baptist Church, the United Church of Christ, and several orders of Roman Catholic nuns.
They charged that Christian doctrine is responsible for the oppression of women, violence in the streets, child abuse, racism, classism, sexism, and pollution. Dolores Williams said, “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff” Virginia Mollenkott said, “I can no longer worship in a theological context that depicts god as an abusive parent and Jesus as the obedient, trusting child … This violent theology encourages the violence of our streets and nation.”

These rejected the idea that God has revealed himself in the Bible. They say we have just imagined our god, and that we have imagined him badly. They say it’s time to “reimagine a new god and a new road to salvation.” They took the Greek word for wisdom and called their new goddess Sophia. They prayed to her, worshipped her, participated in rituals and sacraments to her. They blessed all their speakers in her name and said that her special interest was in blessing the lesbian women present. Ancient cults of Canaan honored a feminine fertility goddesses, and sacrificed live babies to stone idols.

Many atrocities have been committed claiming to be done in the name of Christ. However they were not done in obedience to Scripture, but in defiance of it. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition were departures from the Bible.

The violent Roman society threw Christians to lions. It sent believers to battle bare-handed against armed gladiators. It was Nero who lit his gardens with the burning bodies of Christians. The rise of violence in recent years marks a decline, not an increase, in the acceptance of biblical values.

History is rewritten, and belief in God is blamed for our own corruption. Christ’s atonement has been so distorted that some say it was divine child abuse. The biblical view of the home has been characterized as a great enemy of women.

Our text for this study is from Colossians 3:18

Colossians 3:18, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

Ephesians 5:22-24 is a good parallel passage to consider. It says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”

We should consider many other verses too. Titus 2:4,5 tells older women to be good examples “and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” 1Timothy 2:11-12, “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” 1 Peter 3:1-2, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”

What is the one idea that is common to every one of these passages? God commands women to be in subjection to their husbands. That’s certainly not a popular idea today. However it’s a clear and often repeated biblical principle when it’s properly understood.

As Paul wrote to the community of Colossae, false teachers had come. They promoted a perverted view of the role of woman. They taught that women were naturally inferior to men. They treated them as property, as mere slaves. Paul’s concern in this letter is that we avoid wrong attitudes like that. He called us to replace them with God’s teachings in his written word.

The idea of submissiveness is a general principle God built into his creation. The word translated as being in subjection is “hupotasso” (υποτασςω). It’s used 41 times in the New Testament. It simply means “submit to”, “obey”, “be in subjection to”.In looking at these verses, it’s clear that the idea of submission is not just for wives.

God made all things the way he did so that they display and declare his own nature. The idea of submission applies in various ways to all humans. In that same passage in Ephesians 5, in verse 21 we are all told to be
“submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”. In 1 Peter 5:5 younger people are told to be subject to their elders. Hebrews 13:17 commands believers to submit to the leaders in their church. In Romans 8:7 We are all told to submit to God’s law. Romans 13:1-5 commands all citizens to be subject to the leaders of the governing authorities. Six times in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul explains that all things will be made subject to Christ. 15:27, “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.”. Even Jesus was in subjection to his earthly parents when he was a child (Luke 2:51). As God the Son, he is subject to the Heavenly Father who sent him (John 5:30). 1 Corinthians 11:3, “the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”

Obviously submissiveness must not mean what many think it does today. Submission does not mean enslavement or inferiority. The word has to do with duties and responsibilities, not with lower importance or personal value.

God created an orderly world to reflect his own orderliness. Someone has to be held responsible for leadership. That’s not as much a privilege as it is an assignment from God. Others are called to the duty of supporting the ones called to lead. It doesn’t make them less important, though they have different duties. Citizens are to benefit from the civil leaders who hold office and make laws they are to obey. Church members are to benefit from the Elders and Deacons God calls to be their leaders. The wives and children are the ones husbands and fathers are called to care for.

Certainly there’s no inferiority among the members of the Trinity. Jesus isn’t inferior to God the Father. In his work of redemption as God the Son, he’s in subjection to his Father’s decrees. It shows a division of responsibility and work in the Trinity.

Order and structure, headship and submission, are a part of God’s creation order.

Similarly, the submissive wife is not inferior to her husband. Women do not have a lower standing than men. She is not her husband’s slave. But she has different duties and responsibilities before God. God has often assigned groups of humans different duties: He only allowed the family of Levi to be tabernacle priests. Only certain families were called to be Kings. Levites weren’t better than Kings, nor Kings than Levites; God simply gave them different duties. In the same way; God calls men and women to different duties in the home.

God didn’t want the home to be in chaos. It’s not the most dominant personality that should run things. God gave the male a big responsibility. The female is to be in subjection to his duty of leadership.

It’s the responsibility of the wife to be submissive to her husband. It’s not the husband’s duty or right to force her to be submissive. Husbands who use force or violence or humiliation to subdue their wives violate clear biblical principles. Submission is the duty of the wife.

God’s design for order in the home involves loving leadership. Though Jesus Christ is the head of his church, he doesn’t demean his Church, he rules to encourage her in love. Our Lord doesn’t make personal slaves of His people. He cares for them and looks after their needs. The godly husband doesn’t demean or make a slave of his wife. He makes responsible decisions for her benefit and happiness. [We will say more about this in our next study about Christian men.]

God commands every wife to be submissive to her husband. It’s not optional. If a wife is to be blessed and fulfilled as a Christian, she must obey this law of God. To refuse to submit to the husband is rebellion against God. Her submission is an act of obedience to Christ. She’s not only to be submissive when her husband is an exemplary leader, but also showing submission when his skills are imperfect. His lack of proficiency doesn’t exempt her from his headship in the home.

The wife’s subjection is limited by only one thing — by God’s higher authority. No one in a leadership role can command us to disobey God. No husband has the authority to command his wife to do what God forbids, nor to make her neglect any duties God commands. Our text in Colossians 3:18 shows that her submission is “as is fitting in the Lord”

The husband abuses his authority when he commands what’s not delegated to him. God’s word is the standard that defines all headship and obedience. Yet, if a wife must disobey her husband in order to obey God’s clear commands she must do it with love, humility, and respect. Her goal is always to let the fruit of the Holy Spirit be seen in her.

No one can be required to disobey God. As Acts 5:29 says, “we must obey God rather than man”. But not with defiance. A wife needs to submit in her attitudes as well as in her actions. A grudging submission will not do. Ephesians 5:33 says, “Let the wife see that she respects her husband” The Amplified Bible puts it this way: “She is to notice, regard, honor, prefer, esteem, praise, and admire her husband exceedingly”.

The wife’s attitude in the home, before her children, her neighbors and friends, should demonstrate respect and godly submission. Before her children, she is their primary example of respecting leadership. Children who have a distorted example of structure in the home will often struggle all their lives with authority.

Her attitude shows she is satisfied with her position as wife. She should not be covetous of the job God gave her husband, not envious of his responsibility of headship, and willing to let him do his job and help him to do it well.

This is one of the duties assigned to women at creation. Adam’s loneliness couldn’t be satisfied by anything else in creation. So God said, “I will make him a helper fit for him.” Genesis 2:18. Helper is not a degrading term. God is often called our helper! Psalm 121:2, “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Woman as helper to her husband is no more a slave to man, than God is to us! Genesis calls her a helper suitable for (corresponding to) him. They need one another. 1 Corinthians 11:11 says, “in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman;”

The wife, though in subjection to a husband, has a great ministry in her home.
The wife does not live just for her husband.
She doesn’t have to sacrifice her intellect or her creativity. She contributes and is creative in the home.

As Paul compares in Ephesians 5, the church is submissive to the headship of Jesus Christ, yet the Lord fully uses her talents and efforts.

Similarly the wife puts her talents, ideas, abilities, and resources under her husband’s management for the good of her family. A godly husband treasures his wife’s insights, ideas, and abilities. God made them to work together and to complete one another. She should lovingly share her ideas and opinions, but not to get her way or belittle her husband. She’s to be a team-player. In the Marriage vows the two become one. They need to strive for one goal. There is great freedom within the boundaries appointed by God.

Proverbs 31:10-31 is a classic passage about the virtuous woman. The wife “seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.” (Proverbs 31:13). In John 4:34 Jesus tells us that his service to the Father was his food. Psalm 40:8 says that the Messiah delights to do the Father’s work.

A wife is certainly not inactive or a domestic slave. She works and invests and is creative, but never to where these things hinder her work as helper. She never neglects to ease her husband’s burdens and put her home’s needs first. She makes the home a safe place; a place of encouragement, comfort, understanding, and refuge. She keeps the home in order and clean so that her family will have a comfortable, healthy place to live and do their work.

This doesn’t mean she makes it an immaculate and uncomfortable showplace. She keeps a balance: The house and its order is for the people, not the people for the house. Dr. Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith said, “People are more important than things”. Never let care for the home, its furnishings or decor, make those who live there feel like slaves to the things. Wives shouldn’t become so obsessed with housework or decorating that the spiritual needs of her home and family are neglected. There are times when getting the dishes or laundry done are not the most important thing. Yet they should not be put off unwisely either. Women in the home need to be examples of balanced living.

Men need to appreciate the difficulty involved in maintaining this balance. In the next section of Colossians Paul gives advice to the husbands. It’s their job to wisely look after and lead their wives in love.

The role of the wife is difficult,
yet it’s vital to the health of a home.

If she rebels against the authority God has set over her, if she shows disrespect and takes charge against her husband’s leadership, if she fails to be an example to her children of respectful submission, there will be chaos! Not only chaos in the home, but in the society made up of such homes. However, if the wife is growing in fulfilling her duties as God has outlined them, her home, husband and children will be growing into Christ-likeness too. Her home will be a place of peace, patience, and mutual respect. It will be a refuge from the world, not a tense, ugly place where the children can’t wait to leave.

The confusion about our duties today sets itself against the Bible’s position: We have a gospel — good news! which is to be presented by word and by our example. We need to expose the distortion of biblical submission and order. The rebellion of lost hearts has created a distorted image. It replaces God’s created order with self-destructive self-serving principles.

The result are obvious all around us. Many homes and marriages are deteriorating, some are already destroyed. Communities hate authority which they see as wicked. Many streets, stores, and schools are unsafe, and families are in tense turmoil.

If our society is to be turned around, if our homes are to be safe again, women, as wives, can make the difference!

The Bible lays great importance on the vital importance of wives: Proverbs 18:22 “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.”

Proverbs 31:10-11, “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.” In verses 28-31 it says, “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.”

Note: Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

Everything You Need

Study #15 Colossians 2:10
by Bob Burridge ©2022

Several years ago I had to fix our old garbage disposal that had frozen up on us. When I started to work on it the casing cracked open from age and the whole thing fell apart. So we bought a new one that said it was the size we needed. The instructions told me that all I needed was a screwdriver. That’s what I like, a self-contained kit.

However that wasn’t the whole truth. Our old model had a different “universal” drain attachment. The pipes linking to the drain weren’t exactly lined up and weren’t the same length as the old ones. But what came in the box wasn’t sufficient in itself. You needed to add things to make it work.

Soon I found myself with different wrenches, channel locks, different screwdrivers, a hacksaw, plumber’s putty, and various lengths of PVC pipe with the necessary connectors and seals. Thankfully I rarely throw things away so I was able to find these things scattered in boxes throughout our garage.

Were used to exaggerated claims to entice people to buy a product. So we tend to assume that there’s more we have to do and supply.

The real biblical way to be made right with God seems too simple to be true to most people. Can it really be that the work of the Messiah has provided everything we need? People assume that their own efforts and decisions will be needed to make it effective. But the biblical message is very clear: Jesus completed all we need. There’s nothing we need to add to that to make ourselves right with God.

That idea goes against the world-view of our fallen hearts. In that lost state we think we have to earn forgiveness by good works, fancy worship rituals, and the help of priests.

God’s word tells us that in our natural condition we’re dead spiritually. There’s nothing we can do that’s pure enough to impress God. There’s nothing lacking in the finished work of our Savior — it’s complete in itself.

The Bible certainly tells us that doing good and worship are important, but they aren’t things you have to add to Christ’s work to move God to redeem you. There are things we do to show God how much we love him, but these are evidences of his work in our hearts. They aren’t causes of God’s grace.

That’s Paul’s message in this second chapter of Colossians.

Having just explained
the divine nature of Jesus Christ,
Paul shows the promise we have in him:

Colossians 2:10, “and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

The verb translated as “filled” here is translated in different ways. Paul wrote this in the Greek of that time.
The Greek root word used here is “plae-ro-o” (πληροω). It means to be “filled” in the sense of being made “complete”. That’s how some other Bible versions translate it.

The word here is the perfect passive participle form of this word. This means it’s a completeness that’s happened to us already, and its effects continue.

The same Greek word was used about Jesus in the verse right before this one. In verse 9 Paul said that in Jesus, “… the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. In Jesus all the fullness, or completeness, of the godhead dwells bodily. Nothing was lacking of his divine nature when he became man.

Then here in verse 10 Paul says that we are filled, made complete, in Christ. All those redeemed by grace are complete because the fulness of Christ dwells in them.

Notice that this isn’t a command to become complete in him. It’s a statement of fact. “in Christ you have already been filled up, made complete”. It’s something that’s already happened, its effects continue, and it was done to you, not by you.

As a believer you are really complete in Christ. Nothing is lacking in you to qualify for being a true child of God.

So in what way are we made complete? We know we haven’t reached full spiritual maturity so that we never sin and never get discouraged, or that we always perform our duties toward God perfectly. Obviously we still have a lot of incompleteness left in us!

There is however an important promise for us here that we don’t want to miss! To understand it, we need to remember what Paul had been explaining up to this point.

In chapter 1 his main point was that we please God when we learn and do what he tells us. We need to study his word to know what’s good and right in our lives. But we do it thankfully and humbly as those already redeemed by grace, not as those trying to earn redemption.

In 1:28 Paul said that he prayed and worked hard to present every believer complete in Christ. “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” The word “mature” in that verse is “teleion” (τέλειον) which means the end condition, a goal to be reached. [τέλειον ἐν Χριστῷ] Christ-likeness should be the goal of our lives. It shouild be our objective in all we do and think.

In chapter 2 he continued that idea warning that there were false teachers trying to delude them about God’s truth. So Paul warns us not to follow the false traditions of men. Instead we should remain faithful to the traditions God had established for us; that is: the ways and teachings delivered to us by the prophets, Jesus, and the Apostles.

While perfection in Christ is always our goal, one that is always humbling us before God, the completeness we have in our Lord is not our actually achieving that perfect goal in this life. He constantly speaks of our need to keep striving to take on holy ways and thoughts.

So then, if we have so much yet to accomplish in this life what kind of completeness is verse 10 talking about?

As we’ll see in the next section, the full righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to us. There is nothing lacking in our standing before God. He doesn’t focus on our sins. He sees us clothed in the holiness of our Savior. He paid our debt and declared us to be innocent. And we have been given the ability to obey God with a right heart which is intent on giving him glory. The potential for us to grow as Christians toward modeling the character of Christ is in us. In this sense, we are complete in him. We have all we need to be growing in ways that please and honor God.

How is it then that Jesus Christ was able to accomplish all this for us? These two verses, 9 and 10, need to be taken together. Since the fullness of the Godhead was in Jesus while he became a man, he was qualified to be the 2nd Adam. As Adam represented us in Eden when he sinned, Jesus perfectly represented his people on the cross. The infinite God lived among us and died in our place as a true human paying our infinite debt. Now, raised back to his full glory, he works by the Holy Spirit to apply his work to us. When we are regenerated by his grace, our union with this divine Savior makes us partakers of his life.

Our completeness as God’s people is possible because of Jesus’ complete deity clothed in a complete humanity.

The problem the Colossian community was facing had to do with a misuse of God’s law. Some had come to believe that the ceremonial laws would make God bless them. But that wasn’t why those laws were given. That’s not what Moses said. The ceremonial laws of sacrifices and the priesthood accomplished several things. The sacrifices and rituals showed that sin demanded death. They foreshadowed that God will provide a substitute for his people who would die in their place. They were incomplete images depicting the work of the coming Messiah. It was the people’s obedient faith in God’s promise to pay for their sins that was important.

But the legalists had changed the whole meaning of the law. They thought they could be made right with God by keeping the ceremonial law itself.

Moses looked forward to promises that hadn’t been fully revealed at that time. He knew there was more. Jesus explained to the proud legalists in John 5:45-47 that the laws pointed ahead to a coming Messiah. “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

The prophets also pointed not to the law as hope but to the Messiah the law prefigured:
Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
Isaiah 53:4-6, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Hebrews 10:1 tells what the law was, “… the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities …”

John Calvin later explained, “Christ, therefore, now declares, that his doctrine is so far from being at variance with the law, that it agrees perfectly with the law and the prophets, and not only so, but brings the complete fulfillment of them.”

The ancient laws God gave to Israel for worship and life are like a movie trailer before the movie is released. To be rightly understood, they must be practiced with a faith that pointed to the promised Messiah.

The law was part of the mystery of God’s plan of redemption, they had the pieces but didn’t know how they fit together. God had revealed the problem and the promise to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. They knew of our depravity in Adam along with the guilt and moral inability we inherit. They understood the infinite demand of justice, and the the reality of God’s saving grace. Under the shadows of the law God manifest his presence between the cherubim in the temple. But in Christ, the very presence of God himself dwelt among us personally, not just as a manifestation. He took up the depravity and corruption of his people and fulfilled the promise of real redemption. We can only become complete in him.

Nothing more needs to be added by our efforts or attitudes. We don’t need the theories of sociologists, psychologists, or crowd-pleasing preachers. We don’t need to rely on rituals, or angels, or departed saints. The now completed work of our Savior and the continuing enablement of the Holy Spirit is all we need. The Apostle John summarized the simplicity of the gospel in 1 John 5:12, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Jesus Christ is sufficient in himself for all we need. That completeness or fullness in Christ means — nothing more needs to be nor can be added. Philippians 4:19 assures us that “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The last part of 2:10 reminds us
about the sovereignty of Christ.

10b, “… who is the head of all rule and authority.”

Jesus Christ, as our all sufficient Savior, is Sovereign over all powers and experts. There is no priesthood or coven of spiritual superiors we need to look to for our salvation. We are filled with all we need from the one in whom all the fullness of divinity itself abides bodily.

Though we are not yet filled with Christ’s perfection. We are completely supplied by him with all he promises us in his covenant. We are enabled to thankful obedience and hope by being indwelt by him who is prefect.

We have no need of anything to supplement grace as the false teachers of Colossae promoted. False religion not only degrades God’s provision in Christ (as if he didn’t to enough for us), it also shows no gratitude for the most wonderful provision ever made.

Nothing need be, or dare be, added to the finished work of Christ.
However, we have a duty to live confidently in that fact. But these duties are evidences, not causes, of our union in Christ and spiritual restoration. They are ways we show our gratitude and trust in God’s work of saving grace in us. These aren’t means to manipulate God or cause him to be gracious to us. That’s the horrible and subtle distortion of the false forms of religion.

– Some tell us we need to look to the church to get them right with God. They perform religious rituals and pay the church to pray for them. They burn candles, weep over blessed jewelry, or bow before statues of saints.

– Some get their followers to put their assurance in stirred up emotions and ecstatic feelings. They get stirred up in worship by emotional music, and waving hands in the air. They think they hear God speak to them beyond what he says in the Bible. They imagine God moves them to speak new revelations to them in foreign unknown languages.

– Some teach that our good charitable works score points with God. They do things to help the needy, but it’s really to help themselves feel “right with God”.

The results are dangerous. They might feel they can’t do enough to earn God’s promises. They become depressed. They might get puffed up in spiritual pride thinking God must be impressed.

The promise completed for us in our Savior should be our focus. We are “complete in Christ”! He is the Sovereign Lord over all things and has done all that’s needed to make us right with God. By resting in him we are made able to carry out the duties God prescribes for us to perform out of humble faith.
– We are to come to our God in sincere prayer, confident that he hears us and uses our prayers as he cares for his people.
– We come to our Creator in thankful worship which he stirs in us as we behold his revealed glory.
– We study his written word in the Bible which is all the revelation from God that we need.
– We partake of the sacraments as reminders of what he’s done for us as his Covenant People.
– We encourage each other in our Christian lives and allow the true church to discipline us when needed.

We dare not forget that it’s Jesus who enables us to serve thankfully and effectively for his Kingdom. We’re driven to appreciate all the more the awesome work of our Savior as we humbly confess our sin, depravity, and unworthiness. while being thankful for what God by grace moves us to do for his glory.

We have all we need in him who is Sovereign over all. He’s our righteousness making us fully accepted before God forever. He’s our enablement freeing us to be repentantly putting off our sinful ways, and to be putting on godliness. He’s our hope and joy that can’t fail us, and which needs nothing more of us than what he has done. He’s our motive to holy living, not doing good to add to his finished work, but as a thankful response to it.

The words of Charles Hadden Spurgeon are a good summary: [Morning 1/31 on Jeremiah 23:6], “You will not find on this side heaven a holier people than those who receive into their hearts the doctrine of Christ’s righteousness. When the believer says, ‘I live on Christ alone; I rest on Him solely for salvation; and I believe that, however unworthy, I am still saved in Jesus;’ then there rises up as a motive of gratitude this thought — ‘Shall I not live to Christ? Shall I not love Him and serve Him, seeing that I am saved by His merits?’ The love of Christ constraineth us, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him which died for them. If saved by imputed righteousness, we shall greatly value imparted righteousness.”

Note: Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

Study #5 “When Faith is Weak” Hebrews 11:11-12
by Bob Burridge ©2020

There have been some great giants in faith: Abraham, Moses, King David, the Apostle Peter, and many more. No one could argue about their place in the faith hall-of-fame. But they have something else in common, they all had serious lapses of faith!

Do true believers sometimes fail to trust all of God’s promises? Absolutely! There’s no moral perfection this side of glory. The important thing is that we know what to do when our faith fails, and when we find ourselves struggling with God’s promises and principles. In the Bible, God not only tells us what to do, he also gives us examples as models for our lives.

Hebrews 11 lists a husband and wife team among the heroes of faith: Abraham & Sarah. There were times when both Abraham and Sarah faltered in their faith. Their struggle became clear concerning the promised birth of their son Isaac.

11. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
12. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Abraham and Sarah are good examples of how God’s promises and principles deserve our trust, love, and confident obedience, and of how we can overcome our lapses and get right with God.

After he left the comforts and benefits of the city of Ur, and came into the promised land …

Abram became uncertain about
how God would fulfill his word.

God had made great promises to Abram. His descendants would be like the stars in number, and he would become a blessing to all the other nations! But Abram didn’t have any children yet. And he was over 75 years old. His only legal heir was not a son. It was Eliezer of Damascus (Genesis 15:4). This was hardly the kind of great nation of heirs God promised.

After some time passed by, God made it clear that Abram would soon have a son, and he would receive the land of Canaan as an inheritance.

Abram wanted some assurance. In Genesis 15:8 he asked, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

God did something that seems strange to us. He told him to get a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon. Then Abram obediently cut them in half and laid the halves in two rows. As the sun came down God reaffirmed his promises, even predicting the 400 years of slavery in Egypt and the Exodus! Then in the form of a smoking oven flaming like a torch God passed between the animal pieces!

This hardly sounds like a good formula for overcoming doubts. But Abram seemed to not think it strange at all! Now we have learned why.

In those ancient times this was what was done to seal formal treaties. When a nation was considered an enemy to a king, he would come with his powerful army. As enemies of the king the people deserved death, but a wise king would offer them a Covenant. In a ceremony, the king and the conquered people paraded through the severed bodies of animals.
– The people promised to honor the king as faithful subjects.
– The king promised to protect them as his own people.
– The dead animals illustrated the death that would come to either party if the covenant was broken.

But this time only God moved between the severed bodies. God not only promised to be doubting Abram’s Lord and protector, he was also showing that he would take the punishment of Abram and his descendants on himself!

The animal sacrifice ceremony also foreshadowed Christ’s death for all his people. As a fallen sinful race we haven’t honored God as our Creator and King and we deserve death, eternal death.

Way back in Eden God promised Adam that a descendant of his would deal with satan and sin. Jesus came as that promised Messiah to die in place of his people taking the punishment they deserved. What God said and did showed Abram that he had no reason to doubt. Even his rebellion would be taken care of.

As time passed Sarah and Abram became impatient and concerned. Their doubts about God’s promise increased. They were getting older and still had no children. Sarah was past the age when women could get pregnant.

How was God going to bless Abram with a mighty nation of heirs? They came up with a plan to produce a physical heir. Genesis 16 shows that their plan violated the creation principle of marriage and it’s vows. Sarai gave her maid, Hagar, to Abram to bear him a child. When Abram was 86 years old Ishmael was conceived by Hagar. But it was a rebellious human solution. It came from a of lack of trust in God. God’s blessings are never secured by sin.

When Hagar became pregnant, Sarah was filled with jealous anger. Hagar was forced to leave for a time.

When we abandon God’s ways, we pay the price. We show the symptoms of our rebellion by our feelings of jealousy, anger, hatred, pride, depression, fear, and guilt. It’s because something isn’t being handled according to God’s principles. These are often signs that something needs to change, or be repented of before God.

Abram and Sarai struggled with this for 14 years, then the time came for God’s plan to be carried out. Genesis 17 tells us that Abram was now about 99 years old, and Sarah about 90. By then it was even harder to have a child by human standards.

God repeated his promise to multiply Abram’s descendants. God established Circumcision as a sign of his covenant. He told him that his wife was going to have a son, Isaac.

This is when God changed Abram’s name to Abraham. Abram (Avram) meant: Father (אב “av”) who is Elevated (רם “ram”): “High Father”. He would now be called Abraham (Avraham): Father (אב “av”) of Many (רהם “raham”). Up to this time his wife’s name was Sarai. It would now be Sarah (Genesis 17:15). Sarai (שָרַי “sa-rai”) meant “princessly one”. Her new name will be Sarah: (שָרֶה “sa-rah”) “princess”.

Abraham laughed when he heard God’s promise (Genesis 17:17). His laughter may have been a laugh of relief and joy, not of disrespect or unbelief. He fell on his face before the Lord. A common sign of worship. After all this time and with all his foolish scheming, God would simply cause to happen what with men was impossible. Abraham obeyed. He, and the males of his small nation, were marked out by the Sacrament of Circumcision.

Then as God spoke again to Abraham, Sarah listened from inside the tent. She heard the promise that she would have a child! (Genesis 18) She laughed at the thought. But this laugh, was clearly a lack of respect for God’s promise. God reaffirmed his promise, “Is anything to hard for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14) Sarah foolishly denied her laugh and her lapse of trust. But God knows all things. He said, “No, but you DID laugh.” (Genesis 18:15) It’s foolish not to confess (admit) our sins. God knows our hearts. Nothing can be hidden from Him.

So – What should we believers do if we
should suspect we have a faltering faith?

First we need to admit it! Humble confession is the first step toward restoration. On this side of glory we’re not yet perfect. If we simply accept or excuse our sin, we lack the evidence that we’ve been transformed by God’s grace. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess (honestly admit) our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This promise is based on the fact that Jesus Christ died in place of his people. This is what God illustrated to Abraham when he passed through the animal carcasses.

To correct the problem we need to
do what God prescribes
that strengthens us spiritually.

We call these remedies “the Means of Grace“. They are our source of strength. Good Christian counselors include them in their advice about ways for us to deal with our spiritual weaknesses. These are God-given activities by which God’s children grow in Christ.

God gives us these basic remedies for our regular spiritual nourishment: The lives of Abraham and Sarah are a good example for us to learn from.
1. We need to know, love, and obey God’s Word. Abraham and Sarah found their encouragement by being reminded that God had assured them of his blessing. When they struggled with the promises, God repeated them! The power of God’s word when confirmed to us by the Holy Spirit comforts and assures the heart. We need to be reminded regularly of what God has said. And, God can’t lie or fail! His word takes us to the solid rock to stand on: God’s unfailing promises.

2. We need to pray to God. Abraham and Sarah found encouraging fellowship by talking to God. When hope seems lost and the promises seem impossible, we should come humbly to the Lord to talk with him about it in prayer. We open our hearts to him and call on him for strength.

3. We need to make proper use of the Sacraments. Outward rituals don’t save us, or make us holy. But the Sacraments are commanded by God for a purpose. When we take them properly and in faith, they become an exercise to strengthen our trust.

Before the coming of Messiah the sacraments were: sacrifices, circumcision, feasts, fasts, and rituals. When Abraham needed encouragement, he took part in the sacrifices of the covenant ceremony, and he obeyed in circumcision.

After the coming of Messiah there are only two sacraments: Our baptism and partaking of the Lord’s Supper strengthen us. The water, bread, and wine don’t help us magically, but by them we show our trust in God’s attached promises. Those promises are what build us up.

4. We need the encouragement of the family of God, Biblical Mutual and Church Discipline. God made us to need one another. Humans were not created to stand alone. Abraham and Sarah should have been there to help one another. When they faltered in this they failed. Many times God’s people were warned by Prophets, Apostles, Elders, and friends. Today, our family, church, and Christian friends need to be there for us.

These are the healthy things we need to develop as daily habits. When neglected we will lack the peace and comfort attached to them by God’s promise.
– if we skip meals – we get weak
– if we skip exercise – we get flabby
– if we skip study in school – our grades go down
– if we skip the use of the means of grace – we will lack great blessing.

But isn’t this too simplistic? Some scoff and say, “I have a serious problem. How can prayer, reading the Bible, Christian fellowship, and the Sacraments help with my real problems?” Unwilling to deal with their frustrations God’s way, they want something harder, more difficult, more impressive, more scientific.

I call this the Naaman syndrome. Nathan had Leprosy (2 Kings 5). Instead of being willing to dip in the Jordan river as he was told, Naaman expected the prophet Elisha to do something more. He became angry. With the encouragement of his friends, he did the simple thing. God healed him of the disease of leprosy!

Both Abraham and Sarah overcame their lapses by these simple Means of Grace. They were brought back on track by …
1. being reminded of God’s Word in his promises.
2. by talking with with God.
3. by accepting in true faith the Sacraments God ordained. (sacrifices, circumcision)
4. by finally coming together in obedient fellowship, accepting encouragement and correction.

The result was this …

God’s promise was carried out. Genesis 21

Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac [even though Abraham was 100 years old]. Their faith was strengthened. Their doubt was overcome.

When faith is weak, when believers lapse into doubt and sin, they need to turn repentantly to the promises of God, and learn more from God’s word about the everlasting arms that hold them. It’s the bumps on the road that show how valuable the shocks on our vehicle are.

Sarah is commended in Scripture
as an example of faith.

Hebrews 11:11, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.”

By turning to trust God’s promise, she conceived beyond her years. She considered God faithful who gave his promise.

Abraham and Sarah were not perfect believers, they struggled too. Yet they found strength in God’s word, through talking with God, by respecting God’s sacraments, and by helping one another.

This is the advice God gives us. Like Abram, we need to heed the promises of God. Like Naaman, we might want something more impressive. But we need to listen to the encouragement from others that we should obey God’s advice. Like Sarah, we might laugh at how impossible it all sounds. But then have our hearts changed by God’s grace. Like them all – the remedy lies in trusting, loving, and obeying what God has said.

Note: Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

Hebrews 11 index: “Faith and What Flows From It“

Studies in First Corinthians

by Bob Burridge ©2019
Lesson 48: 1 Corinthians 16:1-4

God’s Managers

Management isn’t easy.
As a college student I worked in a commercial laundry where we had huge machines. We cleaned linens, uniforms, and towels for some of the largest hotels and motels in the area. It was hard hot work in a steamy building with dangerously toxic chemicals.

While we burned our hands on the hot washer and dryer doors loading tons of laundry all day, the bosses seemed to have it easy in their air-conditioned office and comfortable chairs. A few times every day they’d walk through the plant with their coffee and clipboards checking up on things before disappearing back into their office to make phone calls. The laborers used to complain that the managers had it easy, while they did all the real work.

However, from the other side of the glass wall that separated the offices from the machines, things weren’t as easy as they seemed. There was a lot of pressure on the managers to keep all the bills paid, to collect what customers owed them, to keep all the jobs filled with trained and faithful workers, to see that government papers were all filed, to keep the machines operating well, to order all the chemicals, keep a fleet of trucks on the road, and to be sure the sales department kept us busy with clients so they could pay all the workers. In the laundry room we went home when our shift ended, and didn’t think about work until the next day. But the managers lived with the pressure of how to keep the company running.

God calls us to manage our important responsibilities. We need to realize how serious they are.
God gives us all a lot to look after as his representatives on earth. We each need to be sure we take care of our bodies with enough rest, good nutrition, regular physical activity, and to make sure we avoid unhealthy habits and foods.

We each have 24 hours every day to manage for God’s honor. We need to budget some of it for providing for our needs, for worship, for sleep, for giving encouragement to our families and friends, and other things.

We have to manage all the belongings we own so they’re used wisely in godly ways. We also have to manage our talents and skills well. What we earn is usually in the form of money, a temporary thing that represents our work. That money can be exchanged for things other people make or do. All of what we have needs to be managed responsibly for God’s glory.

The first century Christians faced a serious problem in Jerusalem.
They were being persecuted by the religious leaders that dominated the city. The Jews who didn’t recognized Jesus as God’s Messiah became cruel. They excommunicated any followers of Jesus. They threw them out of the synagogues, and wouldn’t let them come to worship. The Priests nationally disinherited believers and their entire families. So some rejected their own family members who became Christians. The community even refused to do business with them leaving many Christians without income.

The synagogues were the way the needy were cared for in the community. Part of the tithes and offerings went to supporting the widows and orphans and disabled. Those who became Christians had their loved ones cut off.

When famines came to Jerusalem, the Christians were hit the hardest. There was no community help available to them. It’s hard to imagine being isolated like that in a society that hates you, and that’s run by an elite council with ties to a dictatorial empire like Rome. There were no real freedoms and everything was controlled by corrupt men. Extreme poverty became a way of life for the believers in Jerusalem.

In this time before the resurrection there are material needs that have to be met.
We have to work to get what we need. But that’s not a bad thing. God told Adam that he and the whole race should labor for 6 days every week. That was commanded before there was sin in human hearts.

After the fall in Eden the problem of sin had to be contended with. The fallen human nature tends to be greedy and self-centered. That’s why we have so many distorted ideas about how the world’s economy should work.

When biblical principles of managing things are taken out of the picture things get confused.
To some the answer is Materialism. In materialism people believe that everything they make, grow, or earn is 100% their own. They get to decide what’s right and wrong about how they use their own things. To the materialist, everything is just here for their own personal goals and gratification.

Some try to manage things in a different way. They turn to various forms of Socialism. In that basic system, everything everybody makes, grows should be managed for the community’s good, but somebody has to decide what’s good. In Pure Communism the people collectively decide how to manage what they have and do. That’s Democratic Socialism and it never worked for long anywhere. Sinful hearts can’t agree to remove their greed and selfishness from their choices. In State Socialism a panel of the supposedly wise and benevolent decides about everything for everybody. But of course the powerful get to decide what’s wise, and what they see as benevolent. State Socialism usually ends up being a harsh and oppressive dictatorship.

The Bible teaches a very distinct kind of economics. I call it Biblical Covenantalism. It’s the way God made things to work. In the Biblical system, God is King over everything. He made it all, so it’s all his. He also graciously includes us in his plan. By a special covenant we are children of the King. He tells us in his word what should be done with all we make, grow, and earn. It’s up to us individually to be sure it’s used to serve God in the way he made us to live.

Basically: Everything is God’s, and what’s ours is our responsibility to manage in his way for his glory.

The redeemed in Christ know that
part of good management
is to care for the needy.

1 Corinthians 16:1. Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.

There have always been two categories for giving to and through the church.

First is the Tithe.
God is the ultimate provider of everything. He created all things so they’re first of all his. He provides us with health, skills, and opportunities to labor to earn our provisions.

The first 10th of what we earn is for the work of God through his covenant ministries. That’s what the word “tithe” means: “the tenth”. This principle was clear even before there were Jews, before the time of Moses, For example, Abraham brought a tithe of everything to the High Priest Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:2).

The tithe is to provide for the regular organized ministries of God’s Earthly Kingdom. The duties of the organized kingdom aren’t classified as labor in God’s law. The ministries of the Old and New Testament churches are to be supported by the tithes, not by church sales, raffles, or business enterprises.

Jesus didn’t cancel the tithing principle when he corrected the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:23-24. He said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” He said, “These you ought to have done”, but they were neglecting the ministries they should be carrying out.

The churches are to care for the spiritual needs of their members, conduct faithful and sound worship every Sabbath, teach new members, train Christian leaders, and show the people how to live for Christ. The churches have to administer the Sacraments, and the ordinances such as marriage, counsel people when they need advice from God’s word, and they need to influence society toward godliness.

Beyond the tithes there are the offerings.
When special material needs come along, it’s our duty to try to meet them without taking from the tithes. These are the gifts given by individuals after their tithe is fully paid. There’s no set amount. They are free thank-offerings brought to the church.

These offerings aren’t used for the usual operations of the church. They enable the church to reach out to care for special needs. Hearts changed by Christ ought to have real compassion for others, specially for others in the spiritual family, the church of Jesus Christ.

This wasn’t just aimed at the Corinthians.
Paul gave the same advice to Galatian churches. It’s a general principle that should always stir us to joyfully give for things that honor Christ.

This thank-offering shouldn’t come out of the tithe. That’s not yours to give away. The tithe belongs to the Lord, and it’s for the work of the local church alone. To give part of the tithe as if it was your own, or to misrepresent your offerings is to reject God’s principles. That’s a very serious offense. It was that kind of sin that caused God to strike Ananias and Sapphira dead in Acts 5.

The tithe and offerings are both part of the God’s economic system.. Together they make the church able to carry out its mission to believers and to the world. God expects you to tithe from all you earn, and to give more for God’s glory what you’re reasonably able to give.

There was a particular way this collection was to be taken.

1 Corinthians 16:2. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.

Each person was asked to lay aside what he was going to give. Your charitable giving should be what you can afford, depending on how God prospers you. But this giving comes from your own money — what’s left after tithing.

This doesn’t mean you gave away what you need to feed your family or to pay your bills. That would end up making you needy and dependent on others. But don’t be selfish either. It’s morally wrong to extravagantly pamper yourself when some of it could be used to help those truly in need.

You’re free to decide on your own what you can reasonably give. But don’t try to see how little you can get away with giving. Try to figure out how much you’re able to give as part of the family of Christ.

The first day of the week is when this amount should be set aside. That was Sunday on the Roman calendar. It was the day Jesus rose from the dead. The Apostles, under God’s direction, set this as the Christian Sabbath Day. It became their day for weekly worship, and the day for ceasing from their labor.

That wasn’t easy in the culture then. Then, Sunday was like our Monday: the first big day of business for the new week. The Creation Sabbath Law was given even before sin came into the human race. We’re to work 6 days, then cease working on the 7th. There was no calendar then, so the day wasn’t attached to one day as we know it now.

In the time of Moses God gave Israel a special calendar. But there was a double Sabbath each year, so the days of the work week shifted each year. The idea that Jews celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday in the Old Testament is simply wrong. There was no such day then. The Roman Calendar wasn’t invented until after the Old Testament was completed.

Under Rome, the Jews rejected the calendar of Moses. They made the Sabbath to always fall on the week day dedicated to the god Saturn. He was the deity of agriculture and harvest, it was Saturn’s Day — or “Saturday”.

With the resurrection of Jesus and his completed atonement, the already abandoned calendar of Moses didn’t apply anymore. So the Apostles directed the church to honor the Sabbath on Sundays. That’s when they met for worship, and refused to work on Sunday, the first day of the week.

From the beginning of time it was a day to cease working because God ceased from creating. It’s sinful to labor on the Sabbath or to pay others to labor for you or to serve you on that day. It was a perfect day to give your tithe in worship, to set aside money as a thank offering to God, and to build up a fund for God’s needy people who were being persecuted.

Paul wanted them to be busy with this before he arrived in Corinth. When he was there, he would have other things to deal with. He wouldn’t want his time taken up with fund-raising. The giving for the Jerusalem Christians was supposed to be finished by the time he got there.

Then Paul explained how their gifts
would be delivered to the needy.

1 Corinthians 16
3. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.
4. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.

God holds each local church responsible to see that what it gives is used responsibly. Paul told them that they would have a say in who would go along to make sure their gifts got to the needy saints in Jerusalem.

It’s the local Elders and Deacons who oversee the use of the tithes and offerings of the church. They might get help from bookkeepers or others in the church, but they bear the responsibility. Pray for your church officers and support them in any way you can, even volunteering to help out. They have many serious jobs to carry out and they need to take them seriously.

There needs to be some kind of oversight because there is still sin in our lives. The officers of the church report at regular meetings, and act as a check against one another. In this case in Corinth, Paul said he might even go along with them if it was fitting for him to do so. Maybe he meant that it might fit in with how the Lord was sending him to take his word to other places. Or maybe he was just leaving it up to them so they would know he had no personal financial interests. In either case, Paul was letting them know that if it worked out and it was appropriate, he would go along to Jerusalem with them.

Sadly, some take advantage of the charity of others. There are dishonest people trying to get money without working.

I remember when I was a Pastor a man came to the church asking for money. I got in a conversation with him and he bragged about only working 3 days a week. He went from church to church asking for money – that was his “work”. And he told me he got a pretty good income from it. He didn’t get any from me. I prayed with him and told him I had to be careful about how I distributed the Lord’s money. He didn’t have any real need, just a lot of lazy greed.

A while ago a news report showed a woman in a wheelchair with a cardboard sign. She was sitting on a street corner begging for money. At the end of the day she stood up, put the wheelchair in the trunk of her car, and drove home to her apartment.

Some believe that society owes them for some reason. So they expect others to do all the real work instead of them

We shouldn’t let the con artists keep us from helping out where it’s really needed. Paul’s concern here was for those who are truly unable to provide for their own needs. Believers should care about those who are unable to work, struggling single mothers, children without parents, people disabled physically, those being persecuted, and those in communities struggling to overcome massive natural disasters. This is why churches support natural disaster relief. It’s why believers support local pregnancy centers. It enables them to counsel, help, and provide supplies for women with crisis pregnancies. This is why churches maintain a Deacon’s Fund or Benevolence Fund. The Deacons can use these funds to help out when there are real needs.

There are many kinds of stewardship. God’s given each of us a lot of things to manage for him.

We have 24 hours every day to budget for God’s glory. We should use every minute wisely. We ought to see if we can budget some time to help those in need. God’s given each of us special interests and abilities. We need to think about how we can best use what we have, know, and can do. We should think of how we might be able to use what we own to help out.

One thing we can always give to those in need is our love, prayer, encouragement, and friendship. We can help them through their struggles and comfort them. We should ask God to help us wisely manage all we have in ways that honor him.

This personal duty should be done
with the right attitude.

Later Paul wrote back to the Corinthians in his Second Epistle. He reminded them about this need and encouraged them to give. He wanted to be sure they knew how important it is to give with the right attitude. He said in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

When things are understood the right way our values begin to change. When we know that we’re going to spend a whole eternity with God in heaven, and when we remember the awesome work Jesus completed when he paid for our sins, and we understand the undeserved grace that gives us our life and blessings, our belongings take on a different set of values. We remember that they are God’s things. He trusts us with them to manage them for his glory. That’s a high honor and a wonderful privilege!

When we earn something, it makes us immediately glad to have something to use responsibly. We become thankful we can tithe to provide for Christ’s church, and thankful for any extra we can get together to help the church help the needy.

That’s a different attitude than the way the world looks on charitable giving. But it makes all the difference in the world — when God is the center of all our thoughts.

(Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies in 1 Corinthians

The Prophesy of Micah

Study by Bob Burridge ©2019
Study 4: Micah 3:1-12

The Greed Breed

There’s a lot of greed in our world today. People want to have more things even if it means taking advantage of others, neglecting their duties to God, or abandoning the rules of fair business. They want to have things go their way and make them feel good even if it takes lies. Many adjust their behavior to fit what pleases those from whom they need a favor, even if it means ignoring the truth or doing things they shouldn’t.

When Adam who represented us all went against God’s law, the whole human race descending from him dropped into a well of greed from which there is no escape except by the grace of God.

Today we see that self-serving attitude evident in arguments and accusations on TV, radio, social media, and the tabloids. It surrounds us. It threatens to discourage us, or to draw us to join in.

In the courts justice isn’t always blind. She often keeps one eye open peeking at the opinion polls so that she can appeal to what’s popular among the voters and political parties. We’ve seen TV and radio networks make public spectacles out of the judicial process, not for the sake of reporting the news, but to boost their ratings and to be able to charge more for commercial time.

Businesses often care more about financial gain than about the ethical principles God requires of us when we work, pay others for services and products, and invest.

Education is often planned not first by what our children need to know to become wise moral leaders and effective citizens. It doesn’t primarily teach them their duty of responsibly in using the gifts God gives them. Instead, many schools set up their programs and budgets by what will get the most special funding, job security for the teachers and administrators, and will shape the opinions of students to fall in-line with certain political and social opinions.

Even the religious devotions people love to hear and read are more like an anesthetic to keep us from the feelings of guilt. They fail to be a medicine to encourage us and to deliver us from sin by the grace of God through our Savior’s death in our place on the Cross.

Churches develop ministries to deliver what will appeal the most to the public and produce popularity along with the highest budgets and salaries. They often fail to center upon a humble worship of God, and the needs of its people to learn the full content of God’s word including its warnings and promises.

Modern man has become a breed of self-serving egoists. A greed breed. God will not bless this perversion of justice, truth, and mercy. There comes a time when God’s patience comes to it’s end, when judgment must come upon a corrupted society.

Only those will be spared and blessed inwardly who courageously put God first.

Micah delivered God’s indictment against the greedy leaders

Micah 3:1-3, And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?– you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.

The heads of the Jewish nations were corrupt. It was their duty to know justice, but instead they knew greed. They practiced injustice, and obscured what’s good. They exercised their authority for their own advantage. Instead of carefully applying God’s law, they used their own standards. They twisted the law to satisfy their own desires, and to silence anyone who dared oppose them.

They made good to be evil, and evil good. Micah’s contemporary, Isaiah, said, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;” (Isaiah 5:20).

By obscuring God’s definition of good and evil, they denied their sin and the need for true holiness. In doing that, they also denied the need for a Savior. Salvation is only meaningful when there is a sense of danger from which there is a need to be saved.

They abused their calling and made it a way to fleece the flock. In Ezekiel 34 God pronounced judgment on the wicked shepherds. He said to them in verse 3, “You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.” Instead of providing justly, they abused their authority. They took from those they were to take care of.

Micah describes them with some gory descriptions to show the abomination of what they were doing. It’s not speaking of literal cannibalism. But just like the wicked leaders Ezekiel warned, they used the law to take for themselves, instead of serving God and his people. Those called to oversee the sheep of God, were devouring them. The heads of Israel had become a breed of greedy exploiters.

God said he would bless the obedient, but curse the lawbreaker.

God withdraws from those who remain opposed to him

Micah 3:4-5, Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil. Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.

The Lord will not answer their cries. As it says in Proverbs 1:28 “Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me.”

The foolish confidently go after their greedy goals. But there comes a time when God will show that they are not his. When things begin to fall apart for them, when they aren’t getting what they want, he will shut his ears to their cries.

The Lord had a message for those greedy prophets. They talk about peace as long as the people they controlled put food in their mouth. They preached “peace and prosperity”, just what their benefactors wanted to hear. It was just like the false prophets in the days of Micaiah of Imlah. It’s like the false prophets in every period of history. They design their message not by what God tells them to say, but by what the people want to hear.

In the New Testament God warned his church similarly in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

This danger isn’t from the openly heathen, or ungodly rock stars, or pornographers. It came from those who appeared to be the leaders of God’s people. 2 Peter describes the danger to the church from false prophets in this church age in 2 Peter 2:2-3 “And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words…”

Against those who didn’t give them food for their mouths these self-serving deceivers proclaimed war.

Because of their deeds the Lord will withhold his word

Micah 3:6-7, Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.

The Lord will withhold his light of understanding and revelation, and shame them. The setting of the sun into darkness represents God withholding blessings. Jeremiah said of God’s rebellious people, “her sun went down while it was yet day; she has been shamed and disgraced” (Jeremiah 15:9). The prophet Amos warned, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.” (Amos 8:9)

The Lord is faithful to the promises of his covenant

Micah 3:8, But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

These corrupt leaders and teachers knew the words of the law, but ignored the principles behind those words and the conditions God had attached to his covenant with his people. There is also the promise which is made to those who are kept faithful by grace. God doesn’t abandon his true people.

Micah (in distinction from these false prophets) had a hopeful message from God. The faithful should be assured even when judgment falls around them. The God of Grace sends his true word and promise to his faithful people by means of true prophets like Micah and Jeremiah. There are always those who have not bowed their knees to idols.

1. God enables his people with power and by his Spirit.
The gospel has more power than we might expect. Don’t underestimate the power of God’s truth and of the Holy Spirit. The Messiah secured by grace blessings no one deserves. It’s by grace because no one on his own is truly obedient in all things. Christ died to pay for our moral crimes against God. He lives in us to enable us to live for him. Those who are truly his are enabled to improve in overcoming inward greed.

2. God establishes justice.
Justice remains alive and well though the world obscures it. God’s standard never changes. His promise of justice is never laid aside or forgotten, but it may be at times delayed toward some. The day of judgment will come to the ungodly who pervert justice and abuse the authority they have over others. Our job is to submit to the true standard of what is right: God’s word. We are to live by that standard and admit that it exposes all of us as guilty. But we are also assured that those who are oppressed, yet who trust in the promises of God’s gracious care, will find blessing in the Messiah. He endured our just punishment in our place.

3. God grants his people courage to stand up against sinful oppression.
The false prophets ignorantly, pridefully, say they lean on the Lord! They even say, “Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No disaster will come upon us.” (3:11). They didn’t want the truth. They preferred a lie. God’s people should take courage and expose these departures from God’s truth and law. We need to abandon the greed breed. Expose their parentage. The unrepentantly greedy are sons of hell, not sons of heaven.

Because of greed the oppressors will suffer great loss and destruction.

Micah 3:9-12, Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the LORD and say, “Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.” Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

1. The civil leaders acted for their own benefit.
They took from the people and built palaces, lived in luxurious abandon, and made impressive monuments to themselves.

2. The priests and prophets adjusted their message for self benefit.
You would think the clergy, the priests, and prophets would call the nation back to God, and would seek to be its conscience. But no! They were too busy with their own self-interests. Yet they claimed God’s presence and protection!

God’s law was not being applied objectively. It was used to silence their opponents and to further their own agenda. The servants of the Lord were being punished in the land, not the lawbreakers. Meanwhile the false prophets lived in luxury in the corrupted palaces. Corrupt leaders throughout history jailed Micaiah, Jeremiah, John the baptist, the Apostles, the Reformers, and the Puritans. For their greed they will suffer great loss and destruction.

This warning was literally fulfilled at the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Temple in 586 BC. It came again in the violent destruction of the rebuilt temple by Rome in 70 AD.

The leaders of the people disobeyed God’s ways in order to get what they want, but what they will get instead is destruction. The greedy want what they think they deserve. They will ultimately get what they really deserve! They don’t get (for long or with satisfaction) what they are greedy for.

Greed grows well in the fertile soil of fallen hearts.

As descendants of Adam we are a greedy breed of creatures. Micah’s words cross the millennia and come to us here today. What motivates us? What’s behind our every-day plans and decisions? Is it greed? Do we live to get? We are good at seeing greed in others, but do we dare to honestly judge ourselves by the same standard?

– What determines how we budget and spend our time each day? each hour our God gives us?
– What determines our financial budget? Does it begin by giving God his tithe when we gather for worship? Do we consider how all our spending contributes toward God’s glory?
– What drives us as we interact with our families? how we perform our work and chores each day? how we conduct ourselves out in the community and in the marketplace?

Do we see and grieve over our tendency toward greed, or do we cover it over? We shouldn’t be a part of the greed breed. It won’t get us what we might think it will.

The cure is found in the grace of God that sent our Savior to die on a cross to redeem us lost sinners, and to transform us from being self-centered creatures into being God-centered creatures. God gives us some basic tools which he uses in our lives to help us to accomplish this important spiritual growth. We are to study his word preserved for us in the Bible, engage in sincere and regular prayer, gather for worship on Sundays where we partake of the Sacraments Jesus gave us, and we encourage one another in the family of believers to be growing into Christ-likeness.

Our thoughts should be filled with things that are pleasing to God, and we should do our part in spreading the life-changing gospel message to those brought across our path each day. Christ provides well for his people. In him is life abundantly. We need to seek his kingdom and righteousness in all we think and do.

(Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.)
Index to the Studies in Micah

by Bob Burridge ©2018

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God teaches us basic facts about himself, about ourselves, about how things are designed to work in the universe he made, and about his eternal plan. We organize these facts by topics which we call “doctrines“. There’s the Doctrine of Creation, the Doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture, the Doctrine of the Trinity, and so on. The only reliable source of these facts is God’s inspired word preserved for us in the 66 books of the Bible.

We have to humbly keep in mind that there are many things God has not told us. Since his knowledge is infinite, there is a lot more we can’t know than what are able to learn. We are cautioned when we form our “doctrines”. Deuteronomy 29:29 warns us that, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

What we know, and what we admit that we don’t know, lays the foundation for our basic view of the world and of ourselves. The way we respond inwardly to these biblical facts and to the doctrines formed from them constitutes our “attitude” about ourselves, God, and the world we live in. These inward attitudes expose what we actually accept and try to live by as true and morally right.

Simply believing that there is one true God
is not the same as living with confidence in him.

James 2:19 tells us that even condemned evil creatures can acknowledge the fact of God. It says, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!”

This is where our “attitude” comes in. Trusting and resting in God is an attitude that reveals his redeeming work in a person’s heart. It’s a combination of facts and faith.

In Isaiah 1:10-20 it tells us that the Jewish nation brought many sacrifices of rams, fatted cattle, bulls, lambs, and goats. They burned incense in the courts of the Temple, and raised their hands in prayer. They kept the Sabbaths and special days the Lord had commanded.

All that sounds good – but it wasn’t. God said it was an “abomination” to him. He wouldn’t even look upon them, or listen to them. Their hearts were not right, and they were living sinfully. They followed God’s worship laws outwardly, but they also regularly did things contrary to God’s law, and inwardly their attitude was all wrong.

Today, there are those who go to church, pray, know the content of the books of the Bible, and have even memorized some Bible verses. Some might have a good knowledge of the historic doctrines of the Christian Faith, but if they are not actually trusting in God, intending to glorify him, and are in sincerity striving to keep from sin – it’s all an offense and an outward show of hypocrisy.

It’s vital to know and accept the facts God has revealed, but we also need to trust him in all he has made known, in all he’s doing, and in all he brings to pass.

If we see that we have been hypocrites and superficial in our behavior toward God, Isaiah’s words in verses 16-18 call us to repentance and restoration. There the Lord says, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow. ‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.’ ”

We need to admit our own unworthiness and fully depend upon God’s grace extended to us on the basis of the death of our Savior in our place. Forgiveness and reconciliation with God are not earned by things we do or say.

We need to be ready to submit to the truth behind it all, that it’s all for God’s glory, and that he will use even the works of evil and the sad consequences of sin to teach us those needed but hard lessons, and to reveal his power, grace, love, justice, and glory.

The challenging question is this,
“How can we change our inward attitude toward God
and toward all he made and does?”

Throughout Scripture we are called by God to have faith in him, to rest confidently in his power, provisions, and promises. We are told to trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ in order to be restored to fellowship with God. But we are also told in the Bible that we are not naturally able to do those things. In Romans 3 we are taught that the fallen condition we inherit from Adam leaves us unable to do what we need to do. There in verses 10-12 the Apostle Paul quotes from the Old Testament saying, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.’ ” We are not able to have saving faith until God regenerates us by applying the work of Christ. That work of our Redeemer is his gracious provision enabling his children to understand the Gospel message and to respond to it savingly.

Coming to God in true saving faith is therefore a work of God’s grace, not just a decision we make by our own fallen nature. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it very clear, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Any truly good thing we do, or God honoring thought that crosses our minds, are things for which we ought to be humbly thankful.

Doctrine informs us. Grace transforms us.

Though growth in our understanding, faith, obedience, and comfort is God’s work of grace, he provides particular means which he has ordained to use by which we lay hold of his blessings.

– He gives us his written word to teach us what’s right and true. It’s there in the books of the Bible that we learn about the nature, works, and promises of God. We are told that God decreed to restore his people to fellowship with him by the death of the Savior. But God’s word is more than just a source of facts. It’s empowered by God to help his redeemed family grow spiritually, and to enable them to sincerely love and obey their Lord. Psalm 119:11, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”

– God calls us to pray. But our prayers shouldn’t be just repeated words. God has promised to draw us closer to him by the sincere expressions of our hearts as we speak to him humbly trusting in his wisdom and power. James 5:16 reminds us of the assurance we have from God as we pray. It says, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

– God calls us to worship. We come together humbly at times of worship to honor the Triune God for all his glory and wonders. We worship him through all the elements of worship which are defined in Scripture, specially the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It’s not just ceremonial symbolism that honors him. It’s the sincere attitude of our hearts as we come trusting in the promises he attaches to these elements. Psalm 96:9 says, “Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!”

– God also calls us to take part in the family of believers. We don’t become part of a church for just friendships, social activities, and to make business contacts. We are joined together to be brothers and sisters in Christ. Our privilege and duty is to encourage one another, and to help one another along the narrow path that honors our holy Creator, our only Redeemer. The officers of the church are there to shepherd us, teach us, and help us stay faithful. At times the church needs to discipline it’s members to lovingly restore them when they wander off into sin. Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

The evidence of where a person stands before God
is shown in his attitude of heart,
in his obedience and love as instructed by God’s word.

When we rightly use these means of grace it demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is at work in our hearts. When we abuse those means, or fail to use them, we are called to come repentantly through the work of Christ.

In John 15:8 Jesus assures us of God’s promised blessings when we sincerely live this way, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” Our transformed lives evidence this work of God’s grace in us. In John 13:35 our Savior said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The right attitude is to avoid questioning why things happen as they do. Instead we should ask what God would have us do in each situation that comes along, and to be sure our attitude is humbly seeking to respond in ways that honor our Creator.

Being honest with ourselves about our limitations and of God’s promises and instructions greatly influences our general attitude in all of life. We should always be aware that all we have and experience is there to remind us of God’s wonder, care, and purposes.

(Bible quotations are from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.)

Studies in First Corinthians

by Bob Burridge ©2018

Lesson #28: 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 (ESV)

Ready For the Lord’s Table

Being unprepared can be frustrating and sometimes embarrassing. When you plan a vacation or business trip a lot of planning and packing has to be done. During the hurricane season we who live in Florida know how important it is to have supplies on hand like bottled water, gas for the car, boxes of batteries, and a good supply of food you don’t have to refrigerate or cook. When you’re a student, you have to be prepared when you show up for school: homework done, assignments read, and clothes that didn’t make you wish you were invisible for the day. At work you have to bring the things you need, be ready for meetings, and meet important deadlines. If you go to a formal dinner it would be disrespectful to show up in a tank top, old shorts, and flip-flops. And it’s a good idea to check in the mirror before you leave for church to be sure you’re not wearing a pair of unmatched socks, or have a big stain on your shirt or dress.

Our days are filled with things to be prepared for. While we try hard to keep from forgetting things like these, some come to the Lord’s Table having given little thought to being prepared for it.

The Lord’s Supper is a Sacrament. It’s not a magical ritual, or just a simple object lesson as some churches teach today. It was instituted by Jesus himself, and God’s promises are attached to it when it’s rightly practiced. Those who come to the Lord’s Table bear a great responsibility. It should be taken seriously.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul warns us
about partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

27. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
28. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

The table of the Lord isn’t for everybody. It’s not just a tradition open to anybody who happens to be there when it’s served. Some would be sinning greatly if they partook of it.

There are three conditions that must be met for those who come to Communion:

1st: It’s a covenant meal designed only for God’s Covenant People.
In the time of Israel before Christ, Passover was the covenant meal God instituted. Circumcision was the outward sign of the Covenant. Only those from families where the male head was circumcised could partake of Passover.

In Exodus 12:47-49 Moses gave warnings against others taking part. “All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

During the Exodus, some strangers had joined with Israel. Some unbelieving Egyptians wanted the benefits of being part of Israel. Back home there was nothing but economic ruin after the 10 great plagues. The Israelites left with the gold, silver, cattle and flocks God made Egypt give them. All who converted to belief in the true God, and who showed they were sincere by their life, could be circumcised if approved by the Elders, and therefore admitted to the Passover.

But those who didn’t submit to the covenant sign and truths weren’t to participate in Passover. It wasn’t just a ritual or holiday celebration. It was a covenant meal. It was a testimony of faith in God’s promises. If unbelievers participated it was worse than hypocrisy — it was a lie before God.

Membership in the New Testament church is marked by baptism. Baptism doesn’t save anyone, and it doesn’t mean that all those baptized are born-again. Like Circumcision, it’s the sign of belonging outwardly to the covenant nation.

Members are those who are part of the covenant community. Adult members must show a credible profession of faith in God’s promises and submit to the principles God has revealed to his church. Infants may be baptized into the church if they are born to believing parents and are being raised in a covenant home that respects God’s principles. No one else should be baptized because they aren’t part of God’s covenant people.

Those not baptized are never to partake of Communion. They were represented in the Old Testament by the uncircumcized strangers in Exodus 12.

2nd: Members may partake of Communion only when admitted to the sacrament by the church. As with ancient Israel, church members don’t decide for themselves who should be admitted. The Elders oversee admission to the church and to its sacraments.

That’s what Jesus meant by the “keys of the Kingdom” in Matthew 16 and 18. There he said to Peter and repeated to the other Apostles what had always been God’s law. What the ordained leaders bind or loose on earth is bound or loosed in heaven.

Lexical studies show that the terms “binding” [“de-o” (δέω)] and “loosing” [“Lu-o” (λύω)] are rabbinic terms.
– “Binding” was used in their writings for “forbidding”, restraining someone (binding him) from some privilege.
– “Loosing” was allowing a person to be permitted to freely enjoy some privilege.

This reverses a common understanding of the order as if it meant binding one to the church or loosing him from it. To bind someone regarding the Kingdom is to keep him restrained from participating as a part of it. To loose someone is to free him to engage in the Kingdom as a member in good standing.

The church leaders didn’t decided who was saved or lost. It meant they determine who is barred or admitted from participating in the covenant community.

Only the Elders of a church, applying God’s word, can after examination admit someone to the Lord’s Table. An adult believer can come to the Elders on his own and ask to be admitted. Baptized children come before the Elders to be examined when their parents believe they’re ready.

In both cases, the Elders examine the person to see if they are ready. They need to determine specific things:

First: that the person has been properly baptized into the true church. Since this is a meal for the covenant family, those receiving it must belong to the family.

Second: The person must be able to examine himself, and judge rightly the body. Those who don’t know the standards of God by which we need to judge ourselves, or who don’t understand the body of Christ represented in the elements and the church as his covenant body assembled for worship, are not ready to come.

Third: The person’s profession of faith should be credible to be admitted to the table. His confession must be based on a sound understanding of God’s truth. This must not be just intellectual, but a true personal conviction. And his confession must be believable, his life shouldn’t openly contradict what he professes.

Those in the church must submit to this responsibility of the Elders. Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

Those who come who are not rightly admitted by those Christ has appointed, show a disregard for the law of Christ and don’t rightly understand the body of Christ. They bring judgments upon themselves and invite the curse of God’s covenant.

3rd: Those admitted should personally examine themselves before they partake. To examine ourselves, we need to know what we’re looking for.

First of all, we should expect that our examination will expose some sin in our lives. No one, after an honest examination, could find himself to be without sin. There are things we do or desire that we shouldn’t. And there are duties toward God and others that could always be done better.

But there is more. If discovering our sins would kept us from the Lord’s Table, no honest person could partake.

So secondly: our examination should also find a true sorrow for our sin. We should admit what’s wrong in our lives and sincerely want to stop doing it.

If there are sins you don’t want to correct, and which you intend to continue committing, then you ought to repent very humbly at that moment. If you refuse to repent and change, then you should not only abstain from Communion, you should do all you can to deal with the problem.

That’s what Pastors and Elders are here for. As Shepherds who deeply love every one of the sheep, they stand ready to help God’s people through times like that, and to get right with God.

If you eat and drink at the Lord’s Table while still intending to sin against God, you offend God and bring his judgment on yourself.

But there is still one more thing:
Your examination should also show a true confidence in the work of Christ. Those who receive and consume the elements “proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” (11:26) This is the main message of the Lord’s Supper. You say you believe that Jesus, as the Lamb of God, died in your place. He is your Savior because his body and blood sealed God’s covenant for you on the cross. As you live here until he comes again, you trust in God’s provision in Christ as your full and only hope.

If someone partakes in unbelief, or with the intention of continuing in unrepentant sin, he “eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (11:29)

Communion is a means of grace. It’s a time to get things right and receive God’s assurance. It only compounds the problem if you abstain from the covenant meal God has given his people.

If a believer properly admitted to the table abstains from partaking of it, he is passing up God’s means given to strengthen him. If he abstains from partaking, he is refusing to put his trust in what the Savior promises in this sacrament.

Unless there is continuing rebellion in your heart, and an unwillingness to repent and change, every believer admitted to the Table by his church should repentantly partake in true faith. When you find sin in your examination don’t just sit there and not partake. Correct the situation before God immediately as you approach the table, then go repair any damage your sins may have caused when you depart.

Some out of sincere concern for coming to the table rightly refer to Matthew 5:23-24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

But this has to do with bringing a gift to the altar. It’s not about coming to Passover, or coming to the Communion table. There will always be things to correct in our lives, even in the days right before any given Sunday. If we had to go correct every offense first, we would never be sincerely ready to partake. Coming to the Lord’s Table is a means of grace which helps enable us to try to repair any damage our sins may have done.

Those who receive the elements improperly face God’s judgment. They are guilty of disgracing not just food and drink, but the body and blood of the Lord. Those who view the sacrament as a banquet, or who drink to excess, or who exclude the poor, fail to understand how the church is a body of Christ, united by covenant through his death.

Failure to judge the body rightly has serious effects.

30. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
31. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
32. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

The message is that the Lord is deeply offended and dishonored when a person comes to the Lord’s Table unprepared, or with contempt for other believers.

In the time of Paul, God was still revealing how Christ had fulfilled the ancient promises. It was an era of special revelation, visions and suspended natural laws to confirm the gospel message. He also brought direct physical judgments to drive home the seriousness of offending God.

For example, in Acts 5 Ananias and Sapphira lied about giving all they had to God. Because of that, they were struck dead on the spot. It doesn’t mean that if a person lies about his tithing or giving God will immediately strike him dead. It was a lesson for the new church about how severely offensive such a thing is to God. Today we read the story about Ananias and Sapphira and learn from it. We don’t expect some people to fall down dead as the collection plate is passed.

In Acts 13:8-11 Elymas wickedly opposed Paul and Barnabus and was stricken immediately with blindness. It was a clear lesson about God’s sovereign power and the seriousness of our offenses against him. Many wickedly oppose the gospel and God’s ministers without loosing their sight. This was a special occasion, not something that occurs regularly.

Similarly in Corinth there were physical consequences for abusing the Lord’s Table. God was bringing disease and death to some in Corinth to teach how serious it is to desecrate the Sacrament. God had specially revealed to Paul that this was the reason some were sick and some died. The word translated here as “died” is a common figurative use of the word meaning “sleep”[“koima-o” (κοιμάω)]. These early lessons to the church are recorded in Scripture for us all to learn from.

After the time of the Apostles, when the Bible was completed, special revelation stopped. Today we can’t know when particular sins cause particular judgments. For the believer, judgments are part of God’s fatherly discipline to teach us to repent and to correct our behavior.

Paul ends this section with specific
instructions for the problem at Corinth.

33. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another–
34. if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home–so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

The Lord’s Supper is part of the public worship of the church of God in Christ. It shouldn’t be a time of feasting, excessive drinking, or exclusive fellowship. If a member wants to have a party or special dinner, that should be done in private homes, not in the worship of the church.

Just as Moses warned Israel about Passover, we give a similar warning when we administer the Lord’s Supper. When we celebrate Communion, we do what is called fencing the table. The Pastor who administers the Lord’s Supper has a duty following the example of Moses. He must explain the wonderful significance of the sacrament, and make it clear that this table is not intended for everyone.

It’s not our table, its the Lord’s. He alone sets the standards for admission to it. All who participate must meet God’s requirements.
1. They must be true believers in the promise of the gospel as God’s word.
2. They must be part of the covenant community having been properly baptized.
3. They must demonstrate to the church Elders that they understand the Sacrament: That includes knowing the promise of God connected with the bread and wine, and that the covenant community, the church, is the body of Christ gathered for worship. Knowing this they should gather with a mutual respect for one another as God’s children.
4. They must have personally examined themselves so that they come prepared. They admit their sins, desire to overcome them, and trust in Jesus as their Living Savior.

The next time you celebrate the Lord’s Supper, don’t come unprepared. During the week before prayerfully examine your life and be open to admit what sins you find. Bring your sins before God in humble repentance and ask him to help you overcome them. Show your sincerity by removing temptations in your life, and by replacing wrong things with good ones. Come to church that Sunday with expectant hope in the promises attached to the elements.

If we come with that kind of trust, we will find great blessing at the Table of the Lord. It will help you grow as a Christian and help the whole church to be stronger and more effective.

(The Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies in 1 Corinthians