25May2011

What hath chivalry to do with submission?

Written By robfaircloth

The fraternity to which I belonged in college spoke much about chivalry, about being ‘Southern gentlemen.’

But the ‘chivalry’ that held sway among those brothers amounted to little more than holding your date’s purse while she barfed into the potted plants after a night of loud music and cheap beer.

This thin, anemic and spiritually vacuous notion of chivalry also sometimes substitutes for the biblical concepts of mutual submission and treating wives as weaker (more fragile) vessels (Ephesians 5:21, 1 Peter 3:7). Especially in the church in the South, chivalry frequently appears as simply opening or holding open the door for women and carrying the casserole dishes into the fellowship hall for them.

But surely there is more to it.

Jesus did not honor Martha by telling Mary to help her, as she requested (Luke 10:38-42), nor by jumping up to the dishes himself. Jesus did not honor the Samaritan woman at the well by drawing water for her and carrying her full jar home (John 4 — he said, in fact, ‘give me a drink’). In other words, Jesus did not go around telling the women he dealt with to ‘sit down, don’t exert yourself,’ yet we would be quite wrong to conclude that he did not honor them. He did, after all, draw female followers, speak to female social outcasts, include women in his “d-groups”, and, at his death, charge others with the care of his mother.

Submission does not mean catering to a wife’s every demand, and considering women fragile does not mean deeming them helpless. Thin, shallow, frat-boy chivalry does not know what to do with Proverbs 31 women.

Men are chivalrous in the biblical sense when they work at honest labor to provide for their families. Men are chivalrous when they encourage and display modesty in behavior and moderation in consumption (it is NOT chivalrous for husband to expect wife to work outside the home so that he can buy a new bass boat, or even so that the fam can live in a few more square feet). Men are chivalrous when they lead the family in household devotions and arrange opportunities for biblical service. Men are chivalrous when they participate in the discipline of children, their religious instruction and their overall development.

Why, then, do we persist with the token gestures of honor and respect to women? Perhaps ‘chivalry’ as commonly practiced has more to do with public appearance than with private reality. There is nothing wrong with men opening doors and carrying things. But if those things are a substitute for biblical honor and mutual submission, guard the potted plants.

[In keeping with notions of chivalry, Mrs. Faircloth approved this post.]

24May2011

Ways to Quench the Spirit

Written By robfaircloth

As followers of Christ, we are not supposed to impede the operation of the Holy Spirit who is in us. In fact, there is a sense in which we could not impede him, even if we tried. As Jesus told Nicodemus, the wind moves where it wishes, and the Spirit goes where he likes and does what he wants, especially regarding the regeneration of men.

But in another sense, things that we do and things that we think do affect the operation of the Spirit within us. We are told not to grieve him (Ephesians 4:30), not to quench him (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and to be filled with him (Ephesians 5:18). When we consider how to accomplish these things, we find that they are neither as simple as turning the tap to fill a cup with water, nor as complex as abiding by a sophisticated set of rituals.

From the passages in which these instructions are found, here are things that can stifle the Spirit and rob us of the grace and power he provides for our journey:

— speaking falsehood. This isn’t merely the avoidance of lies, or remaining silent, but speaking the truth to one another.

— being sinfully angry.

— stealing. And not merely the avoidance of theft, but engaging in honest labor so that we can share with those in need.

— speaking crassly. Unedifying speech: vulgar talk, dirty jokes, things that demean the worth of man, who is made in God’s image.

— not putting away bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice.

— not being kind and forgiving.

— not respecting spiritual leaders.

— not being at peace.

— not admonishing the idle, or encouraging the fainthearted, or helping the weak.

— seeking our own revenge.

— not rejoicing and giving thanks in all things.

— being unwise and wasting time.

— being foolish and ignoring the will of God.

It is curious that in these three passages Paul lists everyday, mundane, pedestrian behaviors to either do or not do. But in the middle of each he inserts the seemingly incongruous admonitions, ‘do not grieve the Holy Spirit,’ ‘do not quench the Holy Spirit,’ ‘be filled with the Holy Spirit.’

The reality of it is that for followers of Christ there is no mundane, pedestrian behavior or thought. There is no realm of our being that is not continually subject to becoming the territory of the occupying Spirit or falling into the hands of our enemy, the devil. Much more than being a set of rules to obey, Paul’s list of behaviors and attitudes relate directly to the level of control that the Spirit has over us.

Do not get drunk with wine — slurring our speech, stumbling over our feet, muddling our thinking — but be filled with the Spirit.

21May2011

Should I be relieved or disappointed?

Written By robfaircloth

Harold Camping’s prediction that the world would end today, May 21, 2011 at 6 p.m. has come and gone. Allowing for minor calculation errors and the difference in time zones, I suppose there is still reason to hold off on any major plans for a few more hours.

But, assuming that he was wrong, and that the world really ends another time — for instance, December 21, 2012, when the solar system aligns, magnetic poles shift, black holes multiply — what should be our attitude?

We should, of course, as believers eagerly await the return of our Lord, which could be at any time. But our inclination to fix dates and behave accordingly is one reason the Scriptures warn us to continue with our earthly responsibilites until He does. What better way to welcome Christ than to look up from proclaiming the gospel to an unbeliever? I can’t suppose that He would be pleased that I quit my duties to sell all my possessions, neglect my family, strip naked and wait on a mountaintop.

To paraphrase Martin Luther, our responsibility in light of the return of Christ is to weed the garden.

So, rather than be continually disappointed that another expected parousia has come and gone without incident, we should eagerly await his coming by worshiping Him faithfully and seeking to persuade as many as we can — through the proclamation of the gospel — to worship Him, too.

20May2011

Week 20 Review

Written By robfaircloth

THE WORLD ENDS MAY 21 according to Harold Camping. For the astute reader, that’s tomorrow. If you’ve yet to pay some bills for this month, why bother? Don’t fill up the tank today, either: surely gas will be much cheaper in the consummated kingdom. Then again, if you’re hedging…

STEPHEN HAWKING SAYS that heaven is a ‘fairy tale’ for people who are ‘afraid of the dark.’

HEALTH CARE WAIVERS granted by the Obama Administration are being passed out like candy at a parade. But apparently the floats only pass by the congressional districts of loyal Democrats and party hacks, since we learn how many businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s district got waivers. In a measure touted as necessary to ensure that everyone receives health care, isn’t the granting of waivers itself a tacit admission that it isn’t truly as crucial as supposed?

MONTY PYTHON may not be your usual cup of tea, but you have to give props to their skit, “Ministry of Silly Walks.” But be forewarned: this is slapstick, and dated British slapstick, at that. Sensible wives tend not to appreciate physical comedy, but rest assured that 12 year old boys (and their fathers) find it irresistible. Be sure to watch it before the end of the world tomorrow.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S CALL for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, effectively giving back land secured in the Six Day War, might start a new trend in international diplomacy. France might call on the U.S. to give the original thirteen colonies back to England, for example. Canada might call on England and Australia to vacate territory to the Aborigines. Russia could ask Mexico to give its property back to the Aztecs…well, no one said this game of international musical chairs was going to be easy.

19May2011

Is the Christian back-story too silly for moderns?

Written By robfaircloth

Some ostensible Christians — theoretically trying to ‘help’ believers get along in a world filled with materialists, secularists, and others who worship at an altar of scientism — have noted the phenomena of Christian youth growing up in the church but leaving for more intellectually fulfilling (some say honest) thinking as soon as they reach the state university and encounter more enlightened ideas.

Such ‘supporters’ contend that those stories of Adam & Eve, Noah and the ark, a catastrophic flood and the like are good for kids and were good for everyone when, well, people were a lot more ignorant. Now that we are all more learned in the ways of Carbon 14 dating and proving evolution by testing its validity in the laboratory (oops), those stories serve no more purpose. Forcing our Christian young people to defend such silliness is what turns them away from the faith.

The solution, then, is to retain the kernel of the gospel and yield the ground of fanciful stories of God’s creation of the cosmos in six days to the obviously superior creation myths propagated by the likes of Stephen Hawking and the Big Bang Theory.

This all sounds fairly reasonable, I suppose, to those who want to retain some measure of respectability in the world.

But this thinking ignores a very fundamental issue: how is the story of God becoming flesh, living relatively incognito among men, letting himself be killed for the sins of those he created, and rising from the dead, any LESS fanciful than that of a worldwide flood?

To yield ground to the materialistic in the areas of earth-age, life-origins and long-earth geological formations, but to attempt to hold the center of the death, burial and resurrection of the God-man is not just a little bit addled. And don’t think for a moment that the materialist does not recognize this.

What giving up the supernatural — whether creation or the substitutionary atonement — does is evacuate the gospel of its power. Rather than gain respectability in academia, such a move loses more.

Rather than encourage our believing youth to jettison those features of the faith the pagan thinking world finds silly — or resignedly permitting them to jettison the faith entirely — the church should instead teach them why they are true, and instruct them on how to defend them. Not only that, we should also prepare every believer to discern and point out the errors in problematic thinking that many in our world are now accepting with a religious fervor akin to that held by flat-earth proponents, some of which were, interestingly, ‘intellectuals.’

18May2011

Women’s hats and over-realized eschatology (1 Cor 11)

Written By robfaircloth

It isn’t altogether clear that Paul was talking about ladies’ hats in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. Whatever the custom of head ware the Corinthians practiced, and the women were abandoning, cannot be directly translated to Western, Americanized church life.

Like other scripture passages that address the role of men and women in church life, this passage has created a plethora of opinion — learned and otherwise — about Paul’s point and how it does related to modern believers.

Perhaps the best approach by commentators is to view the problem Paul addressed in terms of the eschatology of the participants; that is, whether the men and women in Corinth held to an under-realized, already/not yet, or over-realized eschatology.

Essentially, Corinthian society had adopted certain external demarcations to accentuate and confirm the differences between men and women. One of them happened to be, apparently, that women covered their heads (or held up their hair) and men neither covered their head nor let their hair grow long, especially in terms of corporate worship.

The Corinthian women that Paul addressed had begun to abandon some of these distinctions. When the kingdom comes in its fullness, such distinctions will be moot, as when Jesus said that in heaven there is no marriage, and when Paul said elsewhere that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. But for now, such distinctions still matter in church life, and to hold otherwise is to fall prey to over-realized eschatology.

Over-realized eschatology tends to blur valid distinctions for present kingdom life in other ways, as well. Some believe that distinctions between spiritual giftedness are no longer relevant, or that distinctions between shepherds (pastors) and flock (congregation) are no longer relevant, or that — like the Corinthians — the church should hold to complete equality of role, function, and position as between men and women.

These beliefs are illustrated when believers suppose that the opinions of all believers are equally valid, and that all believers are qualified for each role in the church, because each has the Holy Spirit. They are illustrated when believers adopt an extreme priesthood-of-believer approach and resist submission to the teaching of the shepherds. Much of the problem stems from the inclination to apply Western political and social perspectives to the church.

What the church should take from this teaching is that during our time on earth, while the kingdom is not yet fully consummated, there is still a place and function for distinctions between males and females in church life, and that the attempt to do away with them is premature.

17May2011

Applying Psalm 31

Written By robfaircloth

Psalm 31 is perhaps not a messianic psalm in the proper sense: that is, one verse from this Psalm was quoted by Jesus while he was on the cross. “Into your hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:5).

Yet a believer reading this Psalm and considering how the lamentation and imprecation of David might apply to our own struggles and desires comes to verse 5 and can’t help thinking of Christ’s quote of it.

Does there remain, for the Christ-follower, application of David’s attitude given the use of his expression by Christ? Does it demean the redemption-accomplished-payment-satisfied use of this verse by Christ to consider whether we, too, should commit our spirit to God?

Yes and No. Yes, there remains application, and No, it does not demean Christ’s use.

David, as a type of Christ, in this Psalm expresses the sentiment of a man who is God’s annointed but who has not yet been given the throne promised him. Others thwart him, seek his harm, and generally oppress and attempt to destroy him. Christ, as the anti-type of David’s earthly kingship, while on the cross is in similar straits: as God’s Annointed, he currently endures suffering, oppression, and the general abhorence of men who seek him harm while waiting on God to provide him the promised throne and kingdom in its consummation.

David not only commits his spirit to God, he also recognizes that God’s sovereignty over his life does not rely upon David’s granting it. In verses 14 and 15, David says “But I trust in you, O Lord; I say ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hand. …”

My times are in your hand. Or, as the Holman Christian Standard puts it, “The course of my life is in your power.”

David recognizes that the entire outworking of his time on earth — the “course” of his life — is in God’s power. He yields to that truth, and despite enemies all about, finds solace, comfort, assurance and hope that whatever the outcome of this particular episode of his life, the “course” of it is under the control of the Almighty.

For believers called to follow Christ, and to follow him in his suffering, to be crucified with him, to be jeered, persecuted, hated, perhaps even die in proclaiming the gospel, what better sentiment, what better attitude could we have than that we commit our spirits to God, who holds the course of our life in his powerful grip.

Out times are in his hand.