Tag Archives: Jesus

April 26, 2024 · 6:20 am

The “Billy Graham Rule” revised

A while back, I wrote a blog to correct the misinterpretation of 1 Thessalonians 5:22. You can find it here. I am certainly aware that in terms of the age of internet news, Mike Pence and the Billy Graham rule are the equivalent of 200 years ago, but I can’t seem to let bad theology go, especially when it harms the sheep.

I also know that most readers skim, so please – before you skim, read this paragraph: I have nothing against Mike Pence and his apparent love for his wife and his desire to protect himself as a famous politician with a great deal of power. It seems like a wise thing to do, given his position in our country. So PLEASE don’t think that this post is about that. Also, I don’t know anything about Billy Graham or his rule, having never read his biography. How Billy Graham does things rarely enters my mind.

What this post is about is the bad theology that has surfaced in the aftermath of the discussion. I find it concerning and harmful.

The whole discussion seems to center around whether or not a pastor should be alone with a woman who is a member of his congregation. Apparently, the only danger is if the woman is attractive, because that seems to be the word attached to “young woman” every time she is spoken of.

I am not at all against acting in wisdom, walking circumspectly and being above reproach.

That being said, there are others who practice the so-called “Billy Graham Rule” but for reasons I reject completely. Here are some of those reasons.

First: “All it takes is one accusation to ruin a ministry.” This might be true, but are not our calling and reputation in the hands of God? It seems to me that our calling is to be faithful stewards and submit ourselves to the sovereign hand of God, doing what we are commanded to do and leaving the rest in His hands. We are simply farmhands in God’s field, workers in God’s vineyard. It isn’t our ministry to begin with.

I also can’t think of one example where someone’s ministry was ruined by one false accusation. Every one of the “destroyed ministries” that I can think of were destroyed because of accusations that were backed up with stacks of evidence, multiple witnesses, over many, many years. When it comes to famous celebrity pastors, one accusation is almost never believed. It usually takes mountains and evidence and years and years of time. Even then, the celebrity pastor generally just goes away for a few months and then starts again. So it is a false objection to begin with.

But suppose it is true, and a reputation is destroyed because a pastor met alone with a woman who was a sinner. Isn’t that exactly what Jesus did?

Jesus “made himself of no reputation” when he saved us from our sins. The Bible tells us that this way of thinking is to be also in us (Phil. 2:5-12). Meditate on these verses for a while. Jesus, in order to save us from our sins, allowed himself to be viewed and treated as a sinner. He despised the shame of the cross, so great was his love for us. He came down from the glory of heaven and sunk right into our filth and mire and corruption in order to save our stinking rotten corpses. He healed our sicknesses and did it on the Sabbath day, knowing that it would “ruin his reputation”. In fact, this is specifically why they hated him.

I honestly cannot fathom why a Christian would not help one in need for fear that someone might ruin the reputation of his ministry. If this is your thinking, then the ministry that you have is truly yours, for it bears no resemblance to the ministry of Christ. Would it not be more pleasing to God to bear joyfully the reproach of Christ while helping those who need you?

This is the point of the account of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite were on their way to Jerusalem when they saw the broken and bloodied man. They had no idea if he were dead or not. If they helped, and he turned out to be dead, they would have been defiled for touching a dead body. If they were defiled, they would have been unable to fulfill their ministry in Jerusalem. So they protected their ministry, and “passed by on the other side.” Their ministry was more important to them than the life of a man.

The Good Samaritan was already ceremonially defiled, being a Samaritan, so he had nothing to lose.

And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” We are  to consider ourselves already defiled, so that we might love others as Christ loved the church. Take up your cross with him; despise the shame. Make yourself of no reputation. “Let this mind be in you, that was also in Christ Jesus.”

Perhaps it is time that we start thinking about love, rather than reputation.

Second: “You need to be aware of the temptations of the flesh and put no confidence in it. You never know what will happen if you allow yourself to get too close.”

Really? Think about this one for a while. This one is so common it’s frightening. It’s almost as if fornication is like the flu, and you accidently catch it if you happen to be close to a woman. “Here I was, minding my own business, when all of the sudden! BLAM! I caught adultery. I couldn’t help it. Her knees were exposed.”

Sorry, guys. This one is on you. Pastors who commit adultery commit adultery because they want to. They take one step after another because they want to.

They start by complaining about how their wives never understood them. Because they want to.

They let a church member linger in their thoughts, and dance through their fantasies. Because they want to.

They hold hands a little too long, hug just a little extra, and let their imaginations flit. Because they want to.

Then it progresses to trying to find time alone – and here they use the excuse of pastoral counseling. “I’m just ministering to her.”

Now, at this point please use discernment and follow me. Elders and wives, if the pastor is insisting on counseling a particular women alone in a closed study, there’s a reason for it and it usually isn’t a good one. It is perhaps wise at this point to ask some questions. BUT the problem is the HEART, NOT because he was left alone with a woman. We have to get that straight.

The reason that we have to get it straight is because the Bible insists on it. Sanctification does not come because we have hedged ourselves about with extra rules. Sanctification is the work of the Spirit in the heart which comes through the gospel, not the law. You can make a rule about pastors counseling alone in their studies after hours, and maybe you should to protect your sheep, but the rule will never change the man’s heart!

39 “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; (John 5:39 NAS)

The Pharisees searched the scriptures looking for rules that would fix whatever problem they were having, and they missed Christ. When we search for rules to protect us from catching adultery, we also miss Christ.

Adultery begins in the heart: in the will, and the reasoning, and the emotions and the desires. It starts with the idolatry that we were born with and progresses from there. We say in our hearts, “I will be as God and everyone will serve me.” This is what must be put to death. And the only way to deal with it is on your knees in confession, putting to death the old man with the lusts thereof and making alive the new man. And this can only come through the gospel. It only comes through Christ. You must be born again by the Spirit of God.

Finally, and this to me is the biggest problem. If you make the rule about never being alone with a woman because you are afraid of “catching adultery”, then your view of women is devilish and wicked, and you must repent of it. It is the same reason that non-Christian religions try to avoid fornication by covering up a woman from head to toe. It’s wicked, oppressive and wrong.

Let me explain. According to Scripture, a woman is a child of God, a firstborn son (Gal. 3:28-4:7), the image of God (Gen. 1:27), fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), with gifts and abilities and personhood, filled with the Spirit, and thus the Temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

The devil hates that and seeks to destroy it. One very effective weapon is through sexual assault, domestic abuse, rape and sexual harassment. The effects of sexual assault are that a woman is “reduced” in her mind and in the mind of the assailant, to a body to be despised and used and discarded.

And now she comes to the pastor for help and she is told that she can’t meet alone because the pastor might “catch adultery” from her.

To say that you won’t meet with her because you need to guard the heart is to confirm her worst fears: There is something wrong with her. She’s just a body to be gawked at and used. She has no worth other than sexually. She has to cover herself up and take responsibility for the pastor’s corruption. And this is the message that she is receiving from her pastor. It breaks my heart.

We should be restoring her to the image of God in Christ, giving her back her voice, her dignity, her worth. We should be talking to her as a whole person, in whom dwells the Holy Spirit of God. But instead, we are worrying about “catching adultery.”

25 percent of your congregation has been sexually assaulted. And this is how we respond. We may have a problem in our churches.

Perhaps I overreact. But I don’t know what else to think when I read comments that say, “So you would meet alone with an attractive woman in your study? Isn’t this an appearance of evil?”

I don’t know how else to take it. Let’s break it down. “Attractiveness” is apparently determined by the pastor. The fear is apparently that this woman would arouse so much lust in the pastor against his will that he will be unable to control himself. So really, it would be her fault – and his, by implication, for not hedging himself about with anti-adultery rules. If they get too close for too long, BAM – he catches adultery.

This rule also applies if she is in the car with him, walking down the sidewalk, or wearing a skirt a little too short. The solution, then, is burkas and isolation…wait a minute…

Do you see where this leads?

I believe that the Bible teaches another way. When we cast off the old man and put on the new, we start to learn to love our neighbor – men and women alike. This means that we MUST repent and flee from our fleshly tendency to view others as objects designed to give us what we want. Through the gospel, we are to reach out to humans AS HUMANS, made in God’s image. We must learn to see our sisters in Christ as sisters (1 Tim. 5:2), with thoughts, longings, dreams, hopes, fears. They also long for the marriage supper of the lamb. They also long to be closer to God. They long to be healed, just as we all do.

They long for a name, for significance and worth, for dignity – because they are in God’s image. We as Christians should begin to see one another as fellow-pilgrims, not as objects to be used and discarded. Cross the road and help the one in the ditch. Bear the reproach of Christ with joy.

Adultery starts when we reduce women to objects of possession, a collection of body parts, rather than sisters in Christ. This is where repentance must take place.

Please don’t use Joseph and Potiphar’s wife as an example. Joseph fled from her, not because he was afraid of “catching adultery”, but because he was a slave with no rights and was being sexually assaulted by someone in power.

We will never be effective pastors as long as we are afraid of the women in the congregation. When Paul said to have no confidence in the flesh, he meant that adding rules to protect yourself from sin would do absolutely nothing in the war against sin. Hedging the law with stacks of rules is exactly the “flesh” that Paul had no confidence in. Read all of Philippians 3 in the context to see what I mean. Paul was the expert in all the rules. A Pharisee of the Pharisees. THIS was exactly what he learned to have no confidence in. He counted it all dung, that he might know Christ.

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January 19, 2024 · 7:27 am

Jesus came for the desperate

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

This is a familiar verse. But there tends to be some misunderstandings here that I would like to clarify.

Much of the modern teaching goes something like “You must accept Jesus as your savior, but you also must accept him as Lord…”

The idea is that it isn’t enough to “simply believe”, you also have to do what he says and acknowledge him as your Lord.

Although it is certainly true that if we love Jesus we will seek to do those things which please him, and it is certainly true that he, as our creator and redeemer, is our sovereign king and lord, I don’t believe that is what Paul is getting at in this passage.

Here is the whole thing in context:

Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Paul compares the message of righteousness by faith to the righteousness which comes by the law. The law is anything that teaches “If you do these things, you will live.”

The law teaches that if you do good things, you will be blessed. If you do bad things, you will be cursed. The law is woven in our being, created in our psyche, unavoidable.

It also leaves us all under the curse, for who can say that they have done enough to earn the blessing of God?

The fact is that if we are aware of our condition, we know we are in trouble. We know that God is just and that we are sinners. Our consciences plague us on our beds late at night. This is the doing of the law, whichever law you believe will give you life.

If you believe that life comes from doing the right thing, you will never rest, never be at peace, and live in fear – either of the judge coming for you, or fear that the others are going to mess up God’s blessing for your community.

So you either live in terror and despair, or you live judging others and calling down fire and brimstone on the sinners.

Paul is not contrasting the “law” with the “law”. The problem is NOT that the Jewish people of Paul’s day got the law wrong. They didn’t just need to substitute the law of Moses for the law of Jesus. Paul’s point is different.

Let’s look at the word “lord”. In the Hebrew Scriptures, we read that God gave his personal name to his people (Exodus 3). That name is unique to the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It didn’t belong to any other gods, it was the true God’s personal name. It was spelled YHWH. But we forgot how it was pronounced, because centuries before Jesus came into the world, God’s people considered the name too holy to be pronounced.

So whenever they came across that name in their readings, they substituted the Hebrew word “my lord” – adonai. Adonai means my lord, my master, my husband, my sir.

A few centuries before Jesus, scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew bible into Greek. It was called the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). They followed the custom of the Jews, and every time they came across the word “YHWH” they translated it “kyrios”, which is Greek for Lord, mister, sir, owner, or master, just like adonai.

But whenever they came across adonai, they also translated it “Lord”.

When the Bible was translated into English, the translators followed the same pattern, but they used small caps for YHWH and lower case for adonai.

Look, for example, at Psalm 110:

The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

The first word is the personal name of the One True God, creator and redeemer, maker of all things visible and invisible, who redeemed Israel from Egypt.

The second word is a common title for royalty, husbands, owners, slave-masters, bosses.

Remember here that we are speaking only of the OT scriptures. You can easily tell the difference between YHWH and adonai by the way the translators have spelled it.

But when we come to the New Testament, it is a little different. The inspired writers used “kyrios” for both concepts and the only way to tell which was meant was through the context.

In our familiar passage, is Paul’s point that Jesus is our lord and master to be obeyed (as true as that is), or is his point something else?

If he means what is commonly called “lordship salvation”, then one is hard pressed to find a difference between that and the law of “do this and live”.

But look a bit further down, when Paul quotes the Hebrew scriptures. He quotes Isaiah 28 from the Septuagint, about believing in the heart, and then he quotes Joel 2.

“Whoever will call upon the name of YHWH will be saved”. The difference in the Greek text is hard to spot, but if you look up the quote in Joel it is clear. If you call on the name of YHWH you will be saved (Notice the all-caps of LORD). Paul’s point is that confessing with your mouth is the SAME concept as “Calling upon the name of the YHWH.”

The contrast is between those who seek their salvation through “doing” – “do this and live”, and those who understand their desperate need, and call out in the middle of the storm “Save me, Jesus, YHWH God, creator and sustainer of the universe who conquered death and the power of sin.”

Of course, that cry is when we are lucid. In the middle of the locust storm destroying everything (which is the context of Joel), all we can manage is “hosanna” – “Save us, we beg you”.

And now, here is the point of all of this.

If you, like me, have tried over and over again to live a better life, to love more, to cast off your fears and doubts, to flee the lusts of the flesh, and to do better – you know the agony of the spirit. The person that you long to be and the person that you are seem to be forever separated.

The body of death seems to be winning.

The “lordship salvation” purveyors want you to work harder, feel more guilty, exert more will-power, give more money, get up earlier…

But the Good News is this – Call on the name of Jesus, for he is the creator and sustainer of all, he is the giver of life, eternal and true God, who became flesh and took our grief upon himself, so he knows our pain and struggles. Call upon him. No conditions. Just call.

Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female…just call. And you will be saved, for his name means “YHWH saves.”

(as a side note, this doctrine is continually under attack, for if Jesus is somehow lesser than YHWH, or a different God, then we are back to attempting to earn salvation by submission, which means that we are back in bondage to fear and misery. It is no coincidence that modern patriarchy and their attempt to keep women in bondage is built on “Eternal subordination.” If even the second person of the eternal trinity is subordinate to YHWH, then he is NOT YHWH (their duplicitous protestations notwithstanding), and salvation is again “do this and live”.  Many of my sisters are living this reality every day. ESS is a monstrous evil, and leads only to bondage).

YHWH is not divided. And Jesus is the One True eternal God, who with the Father and the Spirit is to be worshiped. Call upon him, and be delivered. This is the good news. He delights to hear and delights to save, if only we will call.

 

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June 1, 2022 · 4:08 pm

with a heavy heart

My heart is heavy today. I feel so helpless.

Wickedness is everywhere. Those with power use that power to ridicule, abuse and silence the sheep. And they get away with it over and over again.

The most unspeakable atrocities are inflicted on the weak in our very churches by the very people who are supposed to encourage, strengthen and lift up.

And when ones speaks out, they are ridiculed, cut off, outcast.

The wealthy and powerful ministers, leaders, husbands and pastors use that power to feed themselves and trample the sheep. They crush the spirit of their wives and children and believe that they do God service.

And the sheep are forced to silence out of fear. If the powerful wicked inflict such terror when they are at ease and dwelling safely, what will they do when their power is threatened by the truth.

It is terrifying, and my heart is heavy. And it is very, very personal.

And everyone says, “It isn’t that bad. People are basically good.”

No, they aren’t. Their only thoughts are only evil continually, unless the Lord intervene.

“Good people with guns protect the weak.” No, they don’t.

“Strong patriarchs protect wives and daughters.” Please. When did they do that? I must have missed it. Never have they ever, ever. Read your bibles again about the “strong patriarchs.” Which ones protected their wives and daughters again?

“The church needs more manly men” – please. I’ve seen what that kind does. I’ll pass.

The quokka throws its babies at predators in order to protect themselves. The powerful ones do the same thing with their sheep, their wives, their children. Sacrifice the weak. The ministry must be upheld!

My heart is very heavy, as I’ve said.

Some days, the imprecatory Psalms resonate deeply.

This one, in particular, is a great comfort to my soul.

Psalm 12:1–8 (NIV)

      1 Help, LORD, for no one is faithful anymore;
          those who are loyal have vanished from the human race.
       2 Everyone lies to their neighbor;
          they flatter with their lips
          but harbor deception in their hearts.

      3 May the LORD silence all flattering lips
          and every boastful tongue—
       4 those who say,
          “By our tongues we will prevail;
          our own lips will defend us—who is lord over us?”

      5 “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
          I will now arise,” says the LORD.
          “I will protect them from those who malign them.”
       6 And the words of the LORD are flawless,
          like silver purified in a crucible,
          like gold refined seven times.

      7 You, LORD, will keep the needy safe
          and will protect us forever from the wicked,
       8 who freely strut about
          when what is vile is honored by the human race.

Nothing destroys the heart faster than a “man of God” who uses the name of Christ to plunder the poor and delight in their groaning.

Nothing destroys the church faster than wicked tongues that speak blessing on Sunday morning and destroy and curse behind closed doors.

But the Lord sees. He knows. He WILL protect us from the wicked, whoever they are.

Whatever “ministries” they have built. Whatever flatteries they receive. Whatever “successes” they have had. God sees. He judges. He knows the heart.

When a heart is heavy, it can rest here.

Please, dear Lord, spare us from the manly men. Deliver us from the wolves who dress and act like sheep. Deliver us from the wolves who don’t bother with the ovine clothing, but devour anyway without the mask because the world doesn’t care and the shepherds are cowards. Please deliver us from the celebrity evangelists who bite and devour. Deliver us from evil men with evil motives and black hearts.

Give us instead men and women who look and act like Jesus.

Philippians 2:5–11 (NKJV)

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Amen. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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