In a solo episode this week, Chris discusses three mini topics covering sexual immorality, fighting on social media, and humility in serving Christ, which all point to a single issue – we should always seek to live our lives in a way that honors and glorifies Christ.
Month: July 2023
This week, Chris and Rich have a little fun discussing the topic of “high strangeness,” a popular term for stories of mysterious animals, UFOs, ghosts, and more. While demonstrating how much that is reported is the product of misidentification, hoax, or natural causes, and some things defy explanation, they encourage Christians to not take their eyes off of Scripture when confronted with these matters.
Show Links:
Crossway – Why We Should Not Fear Satan and Demons
An audio reading of this article can be found at the bottom of the page.
In his epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul writes, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1-3). Paul calls upon the church to exercise humility, gentleness, patience, love, and unity with their brethren. These traits are unique as they require the Christian to live, not for him or herself, but for Christ alone. What does this look like when practiced in the Christian walk? In the following verses, Paul describes just that for us.
A Commitment to the Word
Paul’s call for the unity of the faith and the practice of the Christian walk is to be grounded in the knowledge of the faith, which is found in the Scriptures. In the very next set of verses, he gives the Ephesian church a very specific doctrinal statement, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (v. 4-6). Furthermore, he describes the offices and gifts Christ has given to certain members of the church (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers) to equip the body of Christ through the preaching of the Word.
The Christian must be a student of the Word. How can we rightly practice that to which we are called if we do not know what it is we are commanded to do? Paul makes it clear in this passage that the unity of the faith is found in the commandments of Scripture. So important is it for the church to grow in the knowledge of God and His teachings that Christ specifically calls and equips men in the body to ensure His bride is rightly taught. It is through the Word that we are to avoid being, “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (v. 14).
The Christian is called to humble himself and submit fully to the Word of God. While we are new creatures indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we are still limited in our understanding and prone to sin according to the desires of our flesh. It is through the ministry of the Word that we learn to crucify that flesh and live in a manner consistent with the character and nature of God. As we study the Word and commit ourselves to pray for wisdom and understanding, the Holy Spirit illuminates our understanding and grows our desire to obey the commands of our Lord and Savior. But, apart from prayerful study of the Word, our default state is to follow the dictates of our flesh. Our spirit shrivels under malnourishment and we sear our hearts and minds against the guiding of the Holy Spirit.
A Christian who seeks to be Christ-centered must first be centered on God and His Word. Our pride calls us to magnify ourselves and our own understanding. But, as we feast upon the Word, we exalt Christ and His Word above ourselves. Rather than being dependent upon our flawed and sinful “wisdom,” we turn to the Scriptures as our means of growing in knowledge and true wisdom. We defer to God’s Word for all of our faith and practice, making much of Him and trusting not in our own understanding.
Renouncing Sin
Paul writes to the Ephesians that they “must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds” (v. 17). The Christian who would renounce self-centered living and seek to live in humility, gentleness, and patience must repent of the life they once lived in the flesh. Where Scripture informs us how we must live, think, and act, we are now called to put these things into practice. However, one cannot simultaneously continue living like the world and expect to walk in righteousness.
Paul, therefore, calls on the Christian to turn from living in the same manner as the unregenerate world does. He explains that the mind of the world, apart from Christ, is darkened in its thinking. Along with darkened thinking are hard hearts bent on fulfilling every sensual desire of the flesh. All Christians had such an unregenerate heart. We chased every temptation that promised to soothe our desires and bring us a moment’s happiness, no matter how fleeting. We demanded that the world not only provide us with the means to satisfy every greedy, lusting sensation but it would also applaud and celebrate those desires as being virtuous.
Today, there is no end to the temptations by which the sinful heart can be fed. Not only does our decadent culture seek to provide all of how we may sin, it now seeks to legitimize those sins at every level. Be it covetousness (new gadgets, cars, and more are produced with startling speed), money (a regular topic of not just Wall Street but Washington DC as well), sexual sin (entire activist lobbies exist to justify ever-growing lewd and lascivious lifestyles) or drunkenness (every day, another state or municipality legalizes yet another means of achieving this altered state), the world is exploding with new ways to celebrate sin. Christians today, just as in the time of the Ephesian church, must see these sins for what they are, rebelliousness against our sovereign Lord.
While the world seeks to justify and celebrate the god of self by indulging in every sin imaginable, the Christian is called to renounce the ways of the world. We are to put off the old self, filthy and bedraggled with the stain of sin, and to put on Christ. Rather than look at the world as the model of how we are to live, we look to Christ. We lift Him up in awe and wonder, enthralled with the One who purchased us by His blood. We pursue Him and seek to be conformed to His image. And we are called to encourage one another to walk in righteousness, to repent of our sins, and to forgive one another as Christ forgave us. In doing so, we humble ourselves and point the world to Christ as the one in whom we find true joy and peace.
Relationships Within the Body
Finally, in Chapters 5 and 6, Paul gives several commands to his readers about how they should treat one another within certain relationships. Wives are called to submit to their husbands while husbands are to love their wives sacrificially. Children are called to be obedient to their parents while the fathers are commanded not to provoke their children to anger and to discipline them rightly. Slaves are taught to be obedient to their masters and the masters are called to treat their slaves respectfully and not to threaten them. And in every single one of these relationships, the Christian is commanded to do all of this as unto the Lord.
It is the natural inclination of the human heart to serve self first. For example, when we consider the curse of the Fall back in Genesis, we understand that men and women will not default to love and submission within the marriage relationship. Eve was told that her desire would be for her husband (not a desire which leads to submission but a desire for headship in the home). And Adam would lead over her but in his fallen state, it would not be a leadership grounded in loving sacrifice. Rather, man would either rule tyrannically or apathetically fail to lead at all.
In both scenarios, the unregenerate heart seeks to gratify itself in this most intimate of relationships. It does not seek what is best for the other without first seeking what it will gain for itself. While mankind does have certain communicable attributes from God, such as loving others, those attributes are stained and corrupted by our sinful hearts. Therefore, we can never truly handle our relationships in selfless ways because we will always first seek to gratify our lusts, greed, and covetous desires. What sin destroys, however, Christ redeems through His shed blood.
The Christian made new by the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit has a new heart with new desires. And, as we grow in our understanding of God’s Word, as we turn from sin and seek to grow in obedience to Christ, we then apply these truths in our relationships with one another. Therefore, as noted above, how we treat one another in these relationships is a direct extension of our humbling ourselves before Christ and submitting to His will for our lives. Our relationship with Christ is the very lynchpin of how we will live with others in our Christian walk. If we do not first exalt Christ above all, if we do not seek to serve Him over ourselves and our desires, we cannot live out relationships where we are wholly other-centered.
Therefore, it is imperative, as Paul outlines in these chapters, that the Christian seeks to be humbled, to be instructed, to be conformed, to die to self, and to love Christ above all else. It is only through the humiliation of ourselves and the exaltation of Christ that we become a people who are gentle, patient, and loving. It is there that we find unity with our brethren as we all bow before the throne of God and seek to walk in righteousness as He commanded us. The true church of Christ is a church that seeks to lift up Christ for all the world to see as we, ourselves, fade into the shadows. The church is not about making much of ourselves that we might find happiness in being accepted and celebrated as we are. Rather, the church is about being humbled and exalting the Savior as the One to whom all the world must come in repentance and faith.
This week we look back at Chris and Rich’s discussion on primary and secondary issues of Scripture. Does a doctrine being designated “secondary” mean it is irrelevant or should not be debated?
Show Links:
G3 Article – The Doctrine of Sympathy
STTK – On Rick Warren, Women Pastors, and “Secondary Issues.”
Blue Letter Bible – The Writings of Paul
Christianity.Com – Paul’s Letters
Ligonier – What is Sound Doctrine?
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