If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development. ~Aristotle~

My long time friend and fellow historian Dan Dillon has requested some assistance in keeping fresh content on his blog. I have some ideas about various issues that God's people are facing, but I am going to refrain from sharing those at this time.

However, since I do not want to leave Dan without content I will fall back on my favorite past time, which is the history of the body of Christ in the 20th century.

Back in the early 1990's I felt a burden to begin preserving our history as a body. Since that time, one hobby that I have thoroughly enjoyed is collecting old photographs. I am working on a book about William Sowders in which many of these pictures will be available to all. Who was he, where did he come from and what shaped his early life?

Well, in the mean time while I am composing this book, I will try to get on here at least twice a month to share a little bit of my findings. Anyone that has done any amount of research on a subject like history will recognize that it is VERY subjective. Sometimes I am unable to recall what I wore to church and ate for dinner on Sunday. Yet I am regularly asking people to recall dates and circumstances surrounding events that happened 50,60 and 70 years ago. There is plenty of room for error and perspective. We should all keep this in mind anytime we are reading one persons reflections. So please know that my names, dates, places and events are subject to be modified at anytime if I have more accurate and specific information become available. So some of the dates are an extrapolation based on other confirmed facts. I have spent a huge amount of time to validate and cross reference the material I have chosen to use. I hope it blesses you as much as it has me doing the research. I should have one bio ready by Sunday November 22^nd.

God bless,

Paul Farmer

Update

I'm going to be taking a brief hiatus, but I'm not sure exactly how long it will last. I just need some time to research some more complex topics so that I don't gloss over them.

What I am trying to do in the mean time is set up some guest content, but that has been slow going. I'm hoping to get some of that soon though, so you might see some stuff pop up soon.

Oh, and BTW, I changed my format one more time because I really liked this one, and it seemed to be more flexible than what I had before.

When I Lift My Hands

One of the time-honored traditions that we have is raising our hands when we worship. I've often heard that when we raise our hands, it is symbolic of surrender, but in this post I want to open your eyes to another reason we might raise our hands.

For any of you who are parents, it may be that you will understand this better than those who do not have children. Imagine your little one, when they were just learning to walk and were still a little wobbly or even just a bit before that. When they would see you walking by, they would reach up for you to pick them up. There's a lesson in this for us if we'll dig a little deeper. Bro. Atwell used to say that if you were always digging, you'd never know where you might find a nugget.

When we raise our hands, we are doing much the same thing as these children. Our raised hands convey our need for our Heavenly Father. When we raise our hands, we are saying "take me" to God.

Most children don't want people they don't know to pick them up, so there's a matter of familiarity too. When we raise our hands, we do so because we trust God. We recognize our own weakness, but we raise our hands confident in the trust that He won't exploit that weakness nor hold it against us.

It's out of love for the parent that a child wants to be held and comforted. Our love for God is also expressed in our raising of hands.

When Jesus said "for such is the kingdom of God" in reference to children, I wonder if maybe there aren't more lessons we can learn from them (Luke 18:16). In the very next verse Jesus says we need to receive the kingdom of God as a little child (Luke 18:17). It certainly couldn't hurt for us to pick up some childlike qualities.

One of my favorite songs is "I Can't Even Walk Without You Holding My Hand" and it expresses one of the things I feel when I raise my hands. I'll never be ready to walk on my own, but I have a promise, and that is I will never walk alone.

So when I raise my hands, I'm not only praising the Lord. I'm also expressing how much I need Him, how much I love Him, how much I trust Him, and I do so knowing without a shadow of doubt that He will meet me, and take me into His comforting arms because He loves me. I am His child.

The Sheep and the Goats

I don't mean to get into a deep theological discussion of sheep and goats. The scripture makes pretty clear the differences in temperaments between the two animals. So this post will be brief.

The first point I want to make is that sheep and goats are similar animals. They both eat similar food in similar amounts. They both require similar shelter and climate. They were both acceptable offerings in the Old Testament (Lev 22:19). Some sheep look just like goats and some goats are a source of wool just like sheep. In many countries where mutton is more common than beef, both sheep and goats are considered mutton, and their meat is used interchangeably. Both animals are raised for both their meat and their milk. Functionally there is a large overlap in these animals; the differences between these animals are just not as monumental as we who were not raised around these animals would expect.

When Jesus spoke of separating the sheep from the goats, His listeners understood that this was not a drastic thing (Matt 25:32-33). A similar comparison was made by Jesus when he spoke of letting tares grow with the wheat (Matt 13:29-30). When we are talking about people, it's not always obvious who is a sheep and is a goat, and it isn't a good idea to try to clear all the goats out of the flock, at least if you listen to what Jesus said about the tares and the wheat. It's the similarity between the animals that sometimes allows goats to flourish among sheep.

There are precisely two types of people who inhabit this planet: children of God and potential children of God. You might say, "I know someone who would never be a Christian" but if you really truly believe they have absolutely no chance, you deny the awesome power of Christ. The marvelous thing about goats, at least metaphorically, is that they can become sheep. "You never know" could not be truer.

I think that the true difference between sheep and goats can be delved by looking at Phil 2:10-11. Perhaps the only real difference between sheep and goats is that when every tongue confesses Jesus, it won't be the first time for the sheep.

The Four-Fold Ministry, Sorta

I had a much different thought in my head as to what I was going to write today, but I really feel led to put that off and instead switch gears.

I've heard how we teach the five-fold ministry as long as I can remember. The teaching originates from Ephesians 4:11, which lists out 5 separate ministerial roles: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. A few translations translate pastors as shepherds which is supported by other uses of the word shepherd in the New Testament. Some translations combine pastors and teachers into one combined roll by hyphenating the role, pastor-teachers. Regardless of how these are translated, I want to look into how these gifts are manifested in our group today with particular emphasis on shepherds and teachers?

I want to start with apostles. I'd like to start by comparing an apostle with a missionary, though I know that this is not a one-to-one comparison. Still, there is something of a missionary in an apostle, and the modern missionary is somewhat of a gestalt between an apostle and an evangelist. I believe that it is a good thought process to consider modern missionaries when we are trying to get an understanding of apostles

A missionary does not necessarily need to go far off into a foreign field in order to be a missionary, nor does an apostle have to travel far off in order to start a church. We think of missionaries as those who travel to a far country, spend time learning the language and preach the Gospel to people who have never heard it before. This is a wonderful ministry, and yet there is something to be said of the local missionary as well, who goes and takes what he has and preaches to the lost not far from where he lives and establishes a mission, bringing people what they need. There is some of the gift of an apostle in this too, and a person who establishes a mission to the lost, no matter where they may be, is a missionary.

An apostle is simply put, one who has the burden to go out and start churches. The Apostle Paul traveled around Turkey and Greece establishing churches and paid visits to those churches that he could later. In fact, Paul's journeys are called missionary journeys, so you can see how the term missionary could also apply to Paul.

The role of an apostle in a well defined and established church however is not as large as it is in a newly developing church. When a church becomes established, the apostle might change rolls and becomes that church's pastor, or alternatively he might move on to start another church. An apostle doesn't settle down in a church in the role of a pastor though without a commensurate change in his ministry. Some men have been called to be an apostle and later in their ministry they become the pastor of a church they started, and recognizing that is fine, but at some time that man's ministry changed from a building role to a shepherding role.

This is as good a place as any to point out that a man who "inherits" a church does not need to have been an apostle to do so, and he is not diminished in the least if he was never called to be an apostle as long as he was called to be a pastor. I don't really like the concept of inheriting a church anyway, but it's a phrase we use, so I use it here.

In our group, operating apostles are few and far between. If this were not so, our group would be growing much more than it is. Other than in foreign lands, churches are just not being newly established in our group all the time, and we must judge a tree by what fruit it does or does not bear (Matt 7:17). Our group is growing more from the inclusion of already established churches who've interacted with another of our churches and want to be a part of what we represent.

Some seem to think that overseer is also a good word to describe apostles and there is a measure of truth to this, but when we use that word, we sometimes invent a hierarchy in the ministry that isn't Biblical. To think that an apostle is a shepherd to shepherds is somewhat strange. While an apostle can see a problem in a church and move to help address it, a shepherdherd or uber-pastor is not the same thing as an apostle. There's not a ranking system inherent in the gifts of the ministry.

Prophets in my opinion are few and far between today just as they have always been. They have to have a message to give, and in the absence of a message, prophets don't come around all that often. A prophet is someone used by God to deliver a message to a group, either locally or more wide spread, and you just don't need a profusion of these men to handle this task. If you know someone who is a prophet, and yet they haven't been used in a very long time by the Lord in that fashion, it might be more accurate to say that God used them as a prophet at one time. A gift of the ministry does not necessarily infer a lifelong calling or access to that gift. It's also good to keep in mind that one of the hallmarks of a prophet is often that people to whom the message is addressed won't listen to him (Luke 4:24).

Evangelists are a unique ministry. Their ministry isn't to the saved, it's to the lost. You might think that this is true of all of the gifts, but that is not necessarily so. A pastor isn't much without a church to pastor, I've seen that. An evangelist's role is complementary to an apostle and there is something of the missionary in this gift as well, however instead of establishing churches, he establishes people in churches. When evangelists and apostles are working within their ministries, they produce the building blocks for a growing church. However, I see more to an evangelist than just a missionary, and another word that I use that is good to describe an evangelist is a witness. A witness can operate equally as well in an established church as they can a newly developing church.

I've seen the operation of a witness and what kind of an effect that they can have on the lives of people, and yet we as a group seem confused and don't necessarily understand what it is that an active evangelist actually does. This ministry is an area that we are sorely lacking in, and in which we have some wrong ideas. We are all called to profess our faith to the very ends of the Earth (Acts 13:47), and we have been remiss in doing exactly this (Mark 4:21). Still, there are some people who have a greater calling as a witness and a greater access to this gift. We desperately need more of this ministry active in our churches and this gift is the gift that I fear we is the least operating of the five.

By the way, an evangelist bears witness to the greatness of God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Speaking to Christians of the greatness of the Body and trying to bring them into our fold is not evangelism, it is something else entirely, proselytizing. An evangelist is not called to bring people out of Babylon into a correct teaching of doctrine, they are called to bring people out of the world into a saving grace. It's good to note that proselytizers were not mentioned in Eph 4:11 and proselytizing is not a gift of the ministry.

At last I've made it to pastors, but I'm going to handle this differently than the other three gifts I've already addressed. We as a group know what the role of a pastor is supposed to be, but in some cases the operation of the gifts of a pastor and a teacher have been merged or at least confused. We have used a simple term, preacher, as a replacement word for pastor, and use it to mean a pastor who relies on teaching. I'm not condemning the act of preaching, or ignoring the necessity of pastors to teach, however there is a portion of the ministry of a pastor that is missing in some of our churches. The role of a pastor is so misunderstood in some of our assemblies that some people are hesitant to even refer to their pastor as such, as if doing so were some sin dealing with a matter of pride instead of simply recognizing the pastor of a church as what they are. Other churches jump to the other extreme, nearly beatifying their pastors. Both of these extremes are wrong and frankly something that I just do not understand.

I prefer the term shepherd because it paints a different picture than the word pastor does. We tend to think of a pastor as someone up at the pulpit preaching, hence the term preacher, however we see a shepherd as a person who takes care of sheep. This care-taking is sometimes underemphasized in the role of a pastor and in some churches it has resulted in the people being neglected. Jesus told Peter to "feed my sheep" so He recognized the need for tending that people have(John 21:16-17). Yet instead of caring for the flock, a greater emphasis is put on teaching and a pastor will often see instruction as their greatest calling. They will be tempted to use instruction as a sort of fix-all for any problem they are presented with. They treat their flock with callous disregard and are not even aware that they are doing it. I don't deny that sometimes a pastor needs to teach, but the truth is that sometimes a pastor needs to not teach as well. Constant instruction is not the same as being fed or well tended.

There is a separate gift of teaching and although there is some overlap between the responsibilities and calling of different ministers, I still see that there is value in separating the roles of pastors and teachers. The role of a teacher is to insure that their student understands the material that they are teaching and can grow as a result of the teaching.

A teacher will spend considerable time studying and preparing his material for dissemination. They are responsible to presenting it information to people in a way that they can understand. If a teacher knows his topic but cannot help someone else understand, then that person is a scholar and not a teacher, and not every scholar has the makings of a good teacher.

The five-fold ministry is often symbolized by a hand with each finger representing one gift of the ministry. It's easy to see how a hand with missing or mangled fingers wouldn't be able to operate as well as a complete hand. We don't have a complete fullness of these five gifts working among us yet; if we did we'd be on our way to having a restored church. Right now I make out between two and four gifts functioning as they are meant to in our group right now. Apostles were more prevalent at the beginning of our movement though these men are still around. Prophets and evangelists are a rare sight indeed, at least on a larger scale than just the local church. Pastors and teachers we have, though in some cases these overlap.

We have assembled a ministry composed primarily of pastors or at least where pastors hold sway over the other gifts. To not be the pastor of one of our churches relegates a minister to a lesser role in the overall ministry of our group, even though the scripture does not say this is how this should be. Additionally, many of the pastors that we recognize are actually teachers who have taken a pastoral role, and may be having a detrimental effect on their assemblies. This should not be so in our group, and if we are ever to find a better order than what we have, we need to recognize and promote these other gifts. I long to see a greater working in our group of the different gifts of the ministry instead of what we have today. Better is available regarding the working of the ministry in our group, I hope we strive for it.

Blessings in Disguise

I'm going to handle this post a little differently than most. I'm going to start the post, but I'd really like the people who read this blog to help me finish it. I will point out three things that we normally complain about and show how they are really blessings in disguise, hence the title. I'd really like to get to 12 different things that on the surface may look like annoyances, but aren't as bad as they seem. So if you know of one or two, please add them in the comments of this post.

Children crying in church:
I know that a child crying or acting out during a church service can be an enormous distraction, and that child's parent will either try to ignore it, deal with it or take them out of the service, and it's not until they are dealt with that they cease to be a distraction. These distractions can cause turned heads and in some cases even sour spirits, however there's more here than just annoyance.

Our children, even when they are not behaving, represent a future for the church. They are our legacy, and a reminder of the good things that God has done for us. They represent a special type of growth in the church and it is a blessing for them to be born in the church. Our children are gifts and when they act out, even when we are talking about other people's children, it's good to remember the joy and happiness a child can bring.

Talking in church:
Again I'm bringing up a distraction in church, but when I see some people whispering it reminds me of the bonds that we have. Our churches aren't made up of people who only see each other once a week and never have anything else to do with each other ever. Our churches are closely knitted families, and a little whispering, when it's not excessive or distracting, can even be healthy. It reminds me that we are truly brothers and sisters.

Stormy seas:
If we never had rough times, how would we know we needed God? If we never had a problem, how would we learn to rely on Him? No one likes these times in our lives, but if you're going through a stormy sea and you don't know what to do then you need that stormy sea to remind you that God is in control. If we never felt we needed to lean on Jesus, it's likely we never would. Sometimes rough times are there so that we learn to trust in God more, and the more we trust God, the better we are equipped to handle rough times.

Well, that's three blessings in disguise. I'd really like some of your thoughts on this, so please add some comments to this post and help me today, and I promise tomorrow I'll be back to writing another post like normal.

Overspoken, Underinformed

It is a common trait of humanity that the older we get, the more we fear change. Bureaucracy finds it's roots in this fear. This is a completely natural part of being human, but we live in a world of constant change where every day brings us new opportunities to become obsolete.

Young people seem to thrive on change, keeping up with the newest technologies and ways of thinking. When they get older, they become more entrenched in a way of thinking or doing things. Every one of us will reach a point at which we are most comfortable with how things are, and we will tend to stick with that while the rest of the world passes us by. Some people are still living in the 50's or 60's instead of today, or even farther back. Living in the past this way jades people's thinking about what is happening in the world today creating a filter between them and the world.

What is true for people is true for groups made up of people. However, in a group there is a more powerful tendency for intransigence. One person dealing with change has only to deal with their own personal bias and preconceptions, but a person who is initiating or stimulating change in a larger group has to deal with the corporate biases of the entire group which can be a much more daunting challenge. Because of their very nature, groups have a predisposition to resisting change, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on the change.

Good change is good and bad change is bad. You don't want to change the way things are just for the sake of change, but at the same time, the flip side of that coin is that you shouldn't resist change just because it is change. We need to evaluate each change we consider on the basis of whether it will bring us closer to Christ or will take us farther away from Him.

One argument I've heard made about change hinges around the scripture Heb 13:8. That is a great scripture, one that is a foundational bedrock behind our confidence in Christ, but it doesn't apply to us not changing. Guess, what, I'm not Christ. I do change and I'm not always the same between yesterday and today. I've heard this scripture used in a way to support being resistant to any change that comes along. Taken in context with the next scripture, I see this as more of a statement to avoid strange teachings rather than a directive that we should never change anything (Heb 13:9). Furthermore, in light of what John wrote to the church in Ehpesus, the proper method of dealing with something new is to consider it and see whether or not it lines up with Biblical principle (Rev 2:2). If it is good and true, we should make the change, and if not, we discard it (Phil 4:8). There is a saying that is not scripture, but it is a handy little bit of wisdom to consider when dealing with change: Methods many, principles few, methods always change, principles never do.

Like I wrote earlier, we live in a world of almost constant change and to hide from it and pretend it doesn't exist is at best naive, yet to me this seems to be a common point of retreat whenever we receive any criticism at all because of a change we have made or are even considering. In the meeting in Des Moines this year a prominent minister in our group stood up and said that he was afraid of making changes too quickly. I appreciate his honesty, but I ask myself why we approach change with fear.

Technology, particularly new technology is often feared and reviled by our group. This year alone Facebook, blogging and live streaming have all been either preached against or at least discouraged by ministers in our group. The irony that when Facebook was taught against someone in the congregation updated his Facebook page with it, that I watched the brother talk about live streaming on a streaming video and that I am now blogging about this isn't lost on me. But at least in the case of Facebook, the impression I got when I heard what was being said was that Facebook was wrong.

In each case I am convinced that the person speaking out against each technology was frightfully out of their element. The statements that were made reflect a poor understanding of the technologies that these people were none the less rendering judgment on. Case in point, when blogging was discussed, one of the points against blogging was that it was one way communication. Preaching is also one way communication, so is preaching bad because it is one way? Of course not, but the fact remains that we associate sin with so many things, and the truth is not everything we associate with sin is sinful. Just because we do not completely understand something or that it is isn't in our ken doesn't make it wrong.

Taking this further, preaching that something you don't understand or is out of your realm of experience is sinful is the height of reckless arrogance. If someone preached against the use of a microwave oven because they were miserably misinformed about it's operation, how much credence would we give to him? The answer to that is just about the same credence that users of Facebook will give to those that speak out against it when they obviously don't know what they are talking about. If fear of change is the sole reason that causes people to speak out about the things they do not understand, that is wrong.

Now, I will state that each of these examples that I am using have the potential for misuse. Sure Facebook can be used for less than righteous activities; the same goes for blogging and streaming video. I wonder if the potential for misuse of these tools is what is driving these men to take a stance against them. If so, I at least understand why they would speak out against these things, but that doesn't mean they are right.

The "bad things can happen" argument is not valid for determining whether something is right or wrong or if a change we are considering should be made or not. The potential for abuse is everywhere. If you were to use this logic you could say no one should ever have children because parents can be abusive and that people shouldn't get married because spouses can be abusive. There is a proper use of alcohol, but we all know it's abuse is a terrible thing (1 Tim 5:23). Drugs have their proper uses, but are often abused as well. I wouldn't prohibit the use of drugs because of people who abuse them; that is as irresponsible as the abuse itself.

The list of what can be abused is endless, but it is not the actions themselves that is where the sin lies, it is the abuse. So we should be speaking out about abusing Facebook, streaming video and blogging, but we aren't doing this. We seem to be sweeping abuse under the rug and ignoring it and instead focusing on trivialities. Maybe this is because abuse is so prevalent or because it is not always easily identifiable or maybe it is because there isn't a person I know, myself included, who hasn't abused something or someone someway somehow. Maybe our subconscious leads us to avoid dealing with the problem of abuse because we feel guilt over the abuses we ourselves have committed. Maybe it's easier to point the finger at something else and lay the blame on a thing instead of placing it where it rightfully belongs because we would implicate ourselves.

I hope that this is not the case, but I fear that at least in part it is. Either a fear of change or in some cases guilt is causing some people to pass judgment swiftly and without much consideration when they are speaking out against somethings. I would hate to think that some of these men are making the conscious decision to declare something that may or may not be sinful as sinful without taking time to find out if what they are saying is true simply because it is easier than taking the time to find out for sure, or that someone would preach that something is a sin because it's easier to do so than to tackle the more difficult truth of abuse. In either case doing so is an abuse in and of itself. It's an abuse of power and position, and someone who would do this is much more guilty than someone who is using Facebook in the way I see our people use it.

We must embrace what is good and discard what is evil, and we must be sure about it when we do (1 Thess 5:21-22). Ignoring the root problem and instead focusing on the periphery is as unwise as it is wrong. To think that you can address abuse by forbidding activities that have the potential for abuse is irresponsible. There is a deeper truth to be had that we currently possess on this subject, but it will not be easy. Instead it will be difficult as it will require us to own up to our own culpability and deal with the sin that we would rather gloss over. We will have to be open to the leading of the Spirit and it will demand a higher level of accountability for those in a position of responsibility over others. And for our group to possess this deeper truth, we must change.

Order, Organized, Organization

I've heard people in our group say that we don't want to be an organization for as long as I can remember. It is almost a motto or mission statement of our group that we spurn man's organization and instead we submit to God's order. There is nothing wrong with the way that we mean this, but I wonder if just saying a thing that is good is enough. I want to take a closer look at our order and see if we are following God's order or not.

First of all, I'd just like to state that the differences between how we use the words order and organized are not nearly as large as we make them seem. I wonder if for some people the whole difference between order and being organized isn't just the use of an approved word. What is it we are really talking about? Maybe a good place to start is to describe what we aren't talking about.

What we don't want is to become inflexible (Luke 5:37). I'm not sure whether that scripture is often used when speaking about order, but it is certainly applicable. You can't put new wine in old bottles as the bottles will break and be useless, and the wine will be wasted. When a group draws a line in the sand and sets themselves us as an established organization, we call that a denomination. When a group reaches this point, they have become old wine bottles, not fit for use with new wine. I'm not disparaging old wine, as Luke 5:39 says that old wine is better than new wine, but the fact of the matter remains that new wine becomes old wine, and when all that you have is old wine, after you use what you have eventually what you end up with is no wine. When these groups wine has been exhausted, these groups become empty bottles that can't be used again for anything new and they are left with the memory of how things used to be or more often they ignore it and just go on to something else that is just a carnal work. This emptiness, inflexibility and being unfit for use is what we fear.

What is our ideal when it comes to order? I've heard that we need to go back to the New Testament church order. I ask myself, is this really the answer? I want to explore the New Testament church just a bit.

Even the term New Testament Church may be a bit of a misnomer. Many churches existed during the time of the "Early Church". Paul wrote letters to Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Colosse and Thessalonica. John lists the seven churches of Asia in as: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea (Rev 1:11). Acts lists the churches in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), Antioch (Acts 13:1), Syria and Cilicia (Acts 15:41) not to mention all the churches throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria (Acts 9:31).

To insist that these churches functioned as a unified front that should serve as an example for us two thousand years later may be a bit naive. I will admit that some of the people who made up these early churches were directly connected to Jesus as some of them knew Him while He was here and at the very least during the time of the New Testament almost everyone knew someone who did know Jesus. Still, this doesn't elevate that church above the church of today (John 20:29).

There were divisions in the early church just like there are today (1 Cor 1:12). There was sin in the early church (1 Cor 5:1). People in the early church lied (Acts 5:1-10). People abandoned the church for the world (2 Tim 4:10). If you look at the epistles as letters of correction, you can see that just about every one of these churches had problems. So why is it that we look back to these churches as a perfect ideal to live up to?

Could this possibly have something to do with a belief that life was better in the past? The belief that things were better in the "good old days" is a part of the human experience just like the belief that things will be better in the future. I'm not a sociologist, but I don't need to be to see the correlation that age has with these two beliefs. We start out leaning towards believing that everything will be better in the future and as we age we lean towards believing that everything was better in the past. Saying that things were better in the past or will be better in the future can be a coping mechanism for dealing with a less than stellar present. I wonder if there is a correlation to age among our people and whether they look back or look forward more often.

Seeing that our group both reveres the early church and the restored church that is to come, I ask myself if this isn't at least partially due to this completely natural tendency people have to revere the past and hope for the future. Furthermore, I wonder if we sometimes don't use this as an excuse for not having better order in the present because things will get better in the future, and we don't live in the past anymore.

If you think about this, you've probably heard this being said solely in reference to our group. Most likely you've heard references to how we had better order when Bro. So-and-so was still alive, either in local churches or across the entirety of our group. You've probably heard references to the "New Experience" at the campground in a way that makes you think that this was the high point of our group, even though this happened over sixty years ago and a vast majority of the people who experienced it are no longer with us. We revere our past, and I don't have a problem with this, just as long as we are objective. The same goes for when we look forward to the restored church. To look back fondly or look forward expectantly is well and good, as long as it doesn't take our eyes off of the present. An order that is only good either in the past or in the future is not a proper order for today, and because tomorrow becomes today it's not a proper order at all.

So we need an order for today. I'm not going to go into detail with exactly what I think our order should be today because I would get it wrong. What I will state is that Christ is the head of every man and man is the head of woman (1 Cor 11:3). Seeing that our churches are made up of men and women, it seems only logical to say that Christ must be the head of the church. We need to recognize Christ as our head and not any man. Does God use men? Yes. Does he need any specific man? No. Of course, I am not naive enough to think that Christ doesn't use people in the church, but at the same time I wouldn't want to implicate Christ in some of the things that men have done in the church either. Furthermore, do we need any specific man? No, otherwise no church would ever last beyond the span of that man, and it would have been their church, not Christ's. As a matter of fact, a church that has continuing problems dealing with the loss of a leader probably instilled to much confidence in that leader instead of instilling it in Christ.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the order that any church in our group currently has unless it is abusive, however, our order is far from perfect. We must realize this, and just like any ship on a long journey, when we discover that we are off course we need to make course corrections. We don't have a GPS or a sextant to chart our course, instead we have a book, the Bible. Our course corrections must be mandated from the Bible and not from a man (Prov 16:25). Furthermore, if we don't recognize the need to adapt and change, well then we have circled around to the beginning of this post and we are talking about old wine bottles again.

We need to take the order that we have right now and search out how we can make it better. We need to correct our course while at the same time never taking our sight off of Christ and we must never stop our journey. To remain exactly the same way that we are today is to stagnate and fester. Any organism that does not change is one that is dead. To deviate from a Christ-centered course is just a different manner of accomplishing the same thing. So in the end what we are left with is a simple choice. Progress or die.

About this blog

This post is more just catching up with my readers, so if this is not your thing, please bear with me.

First of all, I thought some of my readers might be interested to know that I installed Google Analytics on this blog. I was interested in seeing just how many people were actually reading this blog, and since I've installed it, I'm averaging around 100 page views a day and all the stats are on the increase as I write this. People in 25 states have read this blog with Tennessee, Florida and Michigan rounding out the top 3 spots. I don't know if anyone else thinks that this is interesting, but I do.

Second, I've invited several guest authors to write on my blog and so far one of them has agreed. I've asked three other people to write as well, and though I haven't got firm commitments yet, there does seem to be interest. I'm hoping to have some content that is not self-generated on this blog soon. So you might notice that there is a contributors section on the blog now, and this is why. So far I've asked people to write on specific subjects that I think they are more qualified to write on than I am or who might have a unique perspective on.

Third, I just wanted to thank all of you who have shown your support to me by your encouraging words or emails. I will endeavor to continue searching out hidden truths.

Next, I wanted to say please feel free to comment on my posts. If you want to say you like what I'm writing or that you think I'm wrong, that's fine. I am always interested in people's opinion and learning from other people. If I am wrong about something, I want to know, but please point out how you think I'm wrong, don't just say, "You're wrong". To those of you who have already commented on some of my posts, thanks. If I don't reply, it's only because I don't think I need to. If you want me to, please point it out and I'd be happy to.

By the way, anyone can use scripture references just like I do in my posts and they will pop up in your response too. Just be sure to use the most common abbreviation of the book that you know, for instance Hbr 12:1 shouldn't pop up, but Heb 12:1 should. If you are in doubt, just write the whole name of the book and you'll be fine. Incidentally, I can't actually check the references in my posts until the post is live on the blog, so I might occasionally edit the references after the fact so that they work correctly. So if you see a scripture reference that isn't working correctly, I'll get to it shortly.

Also, I only edit my posts after they are live for grammar and punctuation, not for content. On the very rare occasion (I've done this once so far) I might add a clarifying statement to a post if I think it is necessary because I didn't explain myself completely clearly. What I won't do though is delete a post or part of a post. I don't feel the need to do this, and I will stand by what I say and take my lumps if I'm wrong.

Hiding your Talents

We've all heard or read the parable recorded in Matt 25:14-30. There's just something that I've been thinking about, and it throws a little light on this parable.

I've wrote this before, but in a mythology class I took in college, the professor made a good point, and it's never left me. In any ancient literature, what isn't documented is information that everyone knew and took for granted. Sometimes this information can be useful when trying to reconcile an understanding of an ancient account without adding modern preconceptions. This story lacks just such information.

When I first heard this story about a man who buried the money that his master entrusted to him, I thought that it was silly. People today just wouldn't take a large sum of money out to the backyard and bury it behind the garage, it's just doesn't make sense in the 21st century. However, in the 1st century, it wasn't so abnormal.

Two thousand years ago, it was extremely common to bury money for safekeeping. If you'd like proof of this, go to eBay and see the coins that people with metal detectors have unearthed and are for sale. There are literally tons of coins that have remained buried for nearly two thousand years that sell every year, some of which are still covered in dirt. I have four that are sitting on my nightstand at home. Of course some of the coins had fallen and were just never picked up, but many more were intentionally buried for safekeeping.

My Nelson's Study Bible says in the commentary for Matt 25:18 that burying money was considered the most secure way of keeping money. The risks were very low that you'd lose that money. In fact, the only risks you took was that someone else knew where you buried your money and would take it, or you'd forget where you buried it. Roman soldiers would often bury their money before going on their campaigns in an effort to keep it safe for when they returned. Many hordes of coins that have been found are suspected to have belonged to these soldiers, many of whom never made it back.

Matt 13:44 tell of a man who discovered a treasure buried in a field, who sold everything that he had in order to buy the field. We can assume that this treasure would have been buried for the same reason that the third servant buried his talent, to keep it safe. Of course these stories are both parables and didn't actually happen, but two separate parables in which we find money being buried seems to indicate that the practice wasn't considered as absurd as it might seem today.

In fact, burying money was the conservative approach for hanging onto money. It is only recently that this became a less acceptable way of saving money. We hear stories of buried treasure that date back only several hundred years and even today you still hear about people who have hidden their money in mattresses, flour canisters, toilet tanks, in walls or even in coffee cans buried out in the back yard. Some of today's most secure modern banks rely on underground vaults, and that is really nothing more than burying valuables with style.

So what we see is that not only was hiding money considered the conservative approach, it was the accepted approach. It is analogous to having a savings account today. So when this servant was entrusted with an amount of money that would have paid the salary of a common laborer for twenty years, it is understandable why the servant would have been afraid to lose it and decided to hide it seeing that that was most reasonable security measure of the day to protect against loss (Matt 25:25). Bring this up to today, and the servant could just as easily have started a new bank account and put the money in there, safe and secure until he needed to return it to his master. In today's modern economy where so many investment specialists are just trying to focus on not losing all their assets, they might well have commended this servant on his conservative approach.

Matt 25:27 brings another aspect of this story to light. The master tells the lazy servant that he should have put his money out to the exchangers so that he could have earned a share of their profits. So what the master is saying is that he should have given his talent to someone like the other two servants, someone who would have made enough profit that would have justified paying interest for the use of that money.

I look at the other two servants as it seems that we overlook them while concentrating on the lazy servant. The fact remains that they each doubled their masters money. They used their money to make more money, that's called investing. Now the economy in ancient Judea isn't like our modern economy, but still some basics about investing remain. They took risks to make their profit, and for the first servant to have taken the annual salary of 100 workers and double that, he may have taken some large risks.

We aren't told what the two servants did to make their profit or how long the master was away, but regardless, we can safely infer that the two servants put themselves out and took more risks than the third servant, and that their risk taking was rewarded. We've all heard this parable explained in a way that teaches us not to be lazy but to be productive, but is it possible too that there is added meaning that we need to learn to not be conservative with the use of God's gifts to us, and instead not only to use the gifts God gives to us, but to use them liberally, and be willing to take risks? What do you think?

Oh, and by the way, I've heard the parable of the talents applied to our natural talents or rather gifts and skills. While it's a good application, it's not perfect because how can you give your talent out to someone else and collect interest on them? What this parable is about is money, not about skills. So what can we learn from a parable that says the kingdom of Heaven is like a master who leaves servants in charge, and that his servants are good stewards who can make money?

I see another application for this parable that deals with our churches. Could this parable be applied to the growth of our churches? Is it possible that we can have an expectation that our churches are supposed to grow and prosper? I'm not speaking strictly financially, but neither am I ruling this out. Also, I'm not laying all responsibility for this growth strictly on the pastor, but I'm not recusing him either, I'm referring to the local church as a whole. Still, I see a parallel between a man who hides money in the ground and a church that has had no growth in several decades.

A servant who isn't willing to go and use what his master has given him outside of his circle of influence isn't going to see any growth. A church that isn't willing to go and use what God has given them outside of their circle of influence isn't going to see any growth. A servant who is playing it safe, being conservative and just focusing on hanging on to what they have and a church that is just playing it safe, being conservative and just focusing on hanging on to what they have will both have the same result, not much. Maybe I'm way off base here with my interpretation and application here, but if a church wasn't experiencing any growth at all for an extended period of time, I can see how it could be because they as a group weren't using the gifts that God had given the church to grow, and were instead just keeping their gifts hidden, or in other words just holding onto those gifts for themselves. Additionally if a church is experiencing growth, I can see how it could be because the are using the gifts that God gave them to grow. If this is an acceptable application of this parable, it certainly puts a new spin on Matt 25:27.

You might be asking yourself what my point is by now, and it's just this. I can see a clear application in this parable directed to our churches to reach out beyond ourselves using the gifts God has given us to bring more people out of darkness and into the light. We are a light to the world, and to be honest I see this parable more as a statement to not hide our light than to not use our talents. We are children of the King, with a great treasure laid up for us (Matt 6:20-21, Col 3:2). And this is the wonder of the richness of God, it cannot be diminished by sharing what we have with others. Remember that song you learned to sing in Sunday School when you were just a child:

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine, let it shine let it shine, let is shine.

Hide it under a bushel? NO! I'm going to let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? NO! I'm going to let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? NO! I'm going to let it shine, let it shine let it shine, let is shine.

So my message to you my friend is to reach out to someone using the gifts has put into you, they are worth sharing with. Let your light shine. And don't forget, if you don't you aren't hiding money, you are hiding yourself in an attempt to hide what Christ has done for you. What you're trying to hide is Christ.

How God Doles out Grace

There is a wonderful parable in Matt 20:1-16 about the wages a householder paid to his workers. I won't write the entire parable, but instead ask the question, when you consider the housekeeper, was he fair? You might sympathize with the workers who worked all day and got paid the same amount that those who only worked one hour received. You might think that they deserved more than those who started later.

Every one of us was given grace by God according to the generosity of Christ (Ehp 4:7). We also know that we can't earn grace or God's gifts. What we have earned is death, though what we've been given instead is life (Rom 6:23). We've heard that we aren't getting what we deserve so many times that we can forget just what we do deserve. God gives grace to people because they need it, not because they deserve it.

This way of thinking is not something we are taught as children. Play fair is often the mantra of parents with multiple children. When a parent doesn't share with equal measures, they potentially stir up jealousy in one or more of their children. This can lead to favoritism and cause resentment among children. But we are not children, and God does not play favorites.

When we think that we deserve God's grace, we set ourselves against the working of grace in our lives (James 4:6). God doesn't care what we think is fair, instead He supplies all our needs. Have you ever questioned why God blesses someone who isn't living right? Does God seem to bless them more than He blesses you? Is this fair?

Let's consider the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Which brother deserved the favor of his father more? Which brother had the greater need? These questions have obvious answers, but let's take this just a little further and put yourself into the roll of one of the brothers. Do you relate more to the younger son or to the older son? What if you were to put yourself in the place of both brothers displaced by a period of time? Haven't we all had both our prodigal moments as well as times we question why God does the things that He does? Does our perception of the older son being angry with how his father treated the younger son change when we place ourselves in both positions? After years of dedicating your life to God and living a faithful life, do you resent God's mercy on you when you first repented of your sin? Of course not. Why is it then that we resent God's wonderful mercies on anyone?

Anyway, grace is not something we always completely understand. Consider this, if God seems to be blessing someone who has many problems in a great way, and you don't have nearly as many problems as them, isn't having fewer problems also God's grace working just in a different way? The way God works is not always apparent in our lives. The trials that we haven't gone through and the paths that we didn't walk can be just as valid an operation of grace as when He brings us through a trial.

In Luke 7:41-43, Jesus asks the question of what person would appreciate forgiveness more, one who was forgiven a little or one who was forgiven a lot? Jesus said that those who have been forgiven greatly will love the person who forgave them more. Is it possible that these people are more open to the moving of God than those who have been forgiven less? I'm not sure, but I know it doesn't have to be this way. You see God forgives us as individuals, not as corporate entities. We all need complete forgiveness; thankfully God doesn't ration his forgiveness or his grace. He gives us gifts freely and generously.

So maybe, just maybe, could it be that we are the cause of our own consternation? Could it be that maybe we don't accept the gifts of God as freely as they are given. Search your heart and you will know; this is what it means to have a contrite heart. Keep in mind the other half of James 4:6. God gives grace to His humble, contrite, and undeserving children. Don't take this away from yourself.