Defend Against Islam, Or Win Muslims To Christ?

I was just asked this question at Byron Harvey's No Kool-Aid Zone. I think it's a false dilemma. I think we should do both -- politically and militarily defend against Islam, and win Muslims to Christ. Islam creates racist, fascist, unjust slave-states, top-heavy with dictatorial sultans, grinding women down into the ground. Everywhere Islam has marched, mass bloodshed follows. Islam is as bad a social and political ideology as Nazism. So the question "Should we prioritize defending our culture against Islam, or win Muslims to Christ?", is like asking, "Nazis -- should we win them to Christ, or conquer them in WWII?" Why do we have to choose between those two options? We don't.

Church and state have differing responsibilities in God's plan. It's primarily the government's responsibility to defend our culture, it's the Christian Church's responsibility to do the former. In this case, the spheres (domains) of responsibility don't overlap. In any event, we are in grave danger right now due to the bungling, thuggish socialists Americans elected.

Do we think it's easy to overcome sin?

When someone laments how difficult it is to overcome a besetting sin in their lives, we should not condemn them for evading their moral responsibilities. Such a judgment is rash. Yes, some people make excuses. But other people are just discouraged, they already are trying hard, and we don't have the right to assume that they're unbelieving or lazy. When we do the latter, all we really display is how wrong-headed our beliefs about Christian growth can make us. Repeated stumbling doesn't mean that the person isn't diligently using the means of grace supplied him or her by God.

This is the problem with the "deeper life" teachings on sanctification. "Deeper life" comes in variety flavors -- Wesleyan, Keswick, Dallas Seminary-style -- but all forms teach that sin is easy to overcome, if you follow the formula. If you repent of sin, unconditionally surrender, and trust in Christ for "victory", then voila, you will be free from besetting temptation. You can sit up on the battlements of Victory In Jesus and smile down on all your foes.

Except the Bible doesn't teach this! The verses that deeper-life preachers cite that supposedly prove "deeper life" are twisted to fit into perfectionism framework. For example, 1 Corinthians 10:13 doesn't teach a crisis pattern for victory over temptation. It commands us not to give in to idolatry (10:14) and the sins that accompany idolatry (10:6-9). God will provide a way out of testing. Our trials are not unknown to mankind, and God promises a way out, so that we can endure them. But the passage promises a way of escape, not an instantaneous surge of inward power that makes you more spiritually mature than you really are. Godly living isn't a matter of getting "in the zone."

Dispensational perfectionists take a different approach. They say you can completely turn off the so-called sin nature by the flip of a spiritual switch. All you need to do is repent, re-consecrate, and claim your position in Christ. Throw your stick into the revival campfire, and you've switched on your "new nature", which has been idling there in your soul, waiting to be used. This was Walvoord's view.

Except that the Bible doesn't teach this, either. We don't have a new nature or an old nature. There's just you. You receive a new heart as a result of regeneration, and that's you. And there's only one you, not two yous. Our beliefs are still in great need of renewal (Romans 12:2), and our physical body is cursed and fallen. But we only have one nature -- a regenerated heart, which is our self. Sin is not a "nature." Each of us only have one nature, a human nature, pre- and post-conversion. Pre-conversion we have a spiritually dead human nature. Post-conversion we have a spiritually living human nature. But in both states, living or dead, only one nature.

So Christians who sincerely lament over powerful sins in their lives are not making excuses. The stain of sin is deeply worked down into the fabric of our thinking and our bodies. As far as this goes, John Wesley was right: the antidote to temptation is love. We sin because we don't love the way we should. If we could love perfectly, then constant victory over temptation would be possible. Or, to put it another way, we only overcome sin through strength of character. Galatians 5 calls this the fruit of the Spirit. This is what's wrong with all forms of perfectionism doctrine. It teaches that sin is overcome by "power", not by character.

But no one can achieve strength of character in an instant of time, through a post-conversion name-it-and-claim-it decision.

Dad's Advice For The Soon-To-Be College Student

Get out of bed. Get to work. Proverbs 6:6-11

Be ready for tomorrow before tomorrow comes. Proverbs 10:5

Bosses hate lazy, incompetent employees. Proverbs 10:26.

The way you live your life makes a difference to others. Proverbs 11:10-11

A pretty girl with bad judgment is a waste of good looks. Proverbs 11:22

Be unselfish, and generosity will come back to you. Proverbs 11:24-25.

Marry an excellent girl, and she will make you a king. Proverbs 12:4.

Don't fritter away precious time by entertaining yourself. Proverbs 12:11

Your daily response to God's Word will decide your daily experience. Proverbs 13:13

Don't be proud; a lot of people know a lot more than you do. Proverbs 13:18

Don't talk about doing. Do. Proverbs 14:23.

You can conquer any obstacle, through God-given wisdom. Proverbs 21:22.

Don't invent excuses in order to avoid hard work. Proverbs 22:13.

Don't panic and cry out that you don't know what to do. That's never a reason for not doing something. Someone knows. Go find them. Proverbs 15:22.

Don't drink. Proverbs 23:29-35.

The Orderly Christian Family - Ephesians 5:22-6:4

Life requires order. A body in disorder tears itself apart and dies. A kingdom divided against itself will fall. The reason so many American families are collapsing is because they have rejected God's order for the family. There is a God-given order for the family, and Paul presents it here.

Paul introduces the subject by calling on us to submit to each other. "Submitting to each other" -- this doesn't mean that everyone submits to everyone. The Greek word is hupotasso. Hupo means "under", and tasso means "to order or direct." So hupotasso means to put one's self under the direction of another. Imagine if everyone obeyed everyone. There would be chaos. The right way to view verse 21 is to see it as a link to the next section. Verse 21 introduces the topic (submission), then clarifies who should submit to whom.

Order comes from respect. The husband is to be the head of the home. In the Christian home, the husband represents the leadership of Jesus Christ over His church. But this is a controversial idea. Liberal Southern Baptists ridiculed the conservative Baptists for calling on Christian wives to submit to their husbands. I can suggest at least four reasons why many women revolt against this idea.

1. Many Christian women have been taught false ideas about submission. Sometimes those false ideas come from feminist sources, in order to turn Christian women away from the Bible. Some of those false ideas have come from conservative groups, who discredit the principles of leadership and followership by mingling in harsh notions about what it means. For example...

Submission doesn't mean diminishing yourself. This is what feminism says, that it demeans your womanhood. But Jesus Christ is eternally equal to God the Father in His deity, and yet at the same time He was under the Heavenly Father's authority. That's why Jesus said, "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, submitted to the authority of another, and He did not diminish Himself.

Submission is never unconditional. Submission to earthly authorities is never unconditional. We're supposed to submit to the government (Romans 13:1), but the early Christians refused to hail Caesar as Lord God Almighty. The apostles tried to respect the Sanhedrin, but they still wouldn't stop preaching the Gospel.

Submission doesn't mean putting up with violations of the marriage covenant, such as porneia. Along that line, it doesn't mean turning a blind eye to crime, or accepting physical abuse.

The Bible also doesn't teach universal submission to all men. Paul says the woman should submit to her own husband. The Bible never says that all men are in authority over all women, or that a woman can never have any authority over any man anywhere.

2. Some husbands are untrustworthy. Maybe a woman's father was untrustworthy, and so she's grown up with a mistrust of men. Maybe her husband has a history of poor judgment. Mistrust is sometimes deserved. But Satan wants to build up this spark of mistrust into a raging fire. This is where a Christian woman's prayer life becomes crucial. James says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let her ask of God, who gives to all women liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to her." James 1:5. Even while respecting her husband's stumbling attempts at decision-making, a woman can ask God daily to come to her aid.

3. They are filled with pride. There are women who tear down their husbands, because they must be in charge. They don't want their husband to ever learn to be a good decision-maker, because that would mean a loss of power for them. This is because women are equal to men -- equally prideful. Pride is the heartbeat of sin. In pride the sinful woman wants to dominate the man, just like the sinful man wants to dominate the woman. This is why Paul mentions "the fear of God." A God-fearing person is someone who has given up control of the throne of their life to the Lord.

Order comes from love. We husbands are commanded to love our wives.

Notice that love is a commandment, not a feeling. Some men say to a counselor, "But I just don't love her anymore." The Christian answer is, "Then quit sinning, and love her" God doesn't love us because He's swooning with emotion. God chooses to love us. Love is a choice, motivated by faith in Christ.

This passage shows us that leadership doesn't mean privilege. It means responsibility. There are men, little tiny men, who read about male authority and strut around like peacocks, boasting of their authority over their woman. This shows how thick-headed they are. Sacrificial death is the standard God hoists onto the husband's back, at the moment he said, "I do." Jesus Christ is the Christian husband's standard. Christ put the good of the Church ahead of Himself. God expects the same of us men. We are to be wives' bridge to God. The husband who does this successfully is also blessing himself. After all, God is love. If you promote your wife's close walk with God, your home will be the envy of others. Your children will bless your memory.

Order comes from good parenting. Children are commanded to obey their parents; and we are told not to make it harder than it needs to be.

The home is not a democracy. The home should be Christ-centered and parent-run. Too many families around us are child-run. Either the children are running it, or the parents are acting like children. The parents are supposed to be in charge, but Christ is supposed to be in charge of the parents.

Moses promised blessings and a long life to the child who respects and obeys her parents. This is an Old Testament promise that carries on into the New. But this also implies God that promises troubles and a short life to the child who rebels against her parents. Children, God regards your treatment of your parents as if it was being directed toward Him.

But we parents can make it easier for the child to obey, or we can make it harder. Some parents, including Christian parents, can be so foolish in our behavior that we provoke their children to wrath. Here are some ways to avoid exasperating our children:

1. We need integrity in our parenting. It is essential that we not be hypocrites. Hypocrisy enrages children, and teaches them to look at us with disgust. "Do as I say, not as I do" is always wrong. God's rules of right behavior apply to all of us. For example, if we want our children to treat us right, and talk about us right, then we must treat our own parents right, and talk about them right. Integrity also means firmness and consistency in discipline. The failure to discipline means that you hate your child. Liberal educators might say that a child will find their own way, but the Bible says no. A child left to raise himself will come to ruin. The home needs integrity, the same way the fence around a school playground needs integrity.

2. We must be merciful. Perfectionism is like a withering blight. It is a horrible thing to grow up in an atmosphere of constant complaint and perfectionistic criticism. It causes the child to either explode in rebellion, or cave in with depression. Who do we think we are, to be hyper-critical? We who have sinned against God, and sinned against others, so often, and flagrantly, and yet God has shown us great mercy. Who are we not to extend that same mercy to our children? I have found that perfectionists usually don't believe the Bible's teachings about the flawed nature of man. You can't believe the Scripture's teachings about original sin, and expect perfection out of people at the same time.

Does the New Testament Forbid Women Teaching the Bible To Men?

The two primary passages that limit the teaching ministries of women are 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14.

1 Timothy 2 forbids women from teaching men, or overseeing men. The over-all context of 1st Timothy pertains to life and ministry in the local church, since it's a "pastoral" epistle. When you put those two activities together, they add up to the role of an elder. Notice how teaching and leading are connected. Both are authoritative activities. Elders/overseers teach God's word, and they lead the church (Paul talks about this later in 1 Timothy 5, where he talks about honoring elders who rule well, especially those who work hard at teaching and preaching).

There were two reasons given why women could not teach or oversee men in the context of the Church: the order of creation, and the order of the fall. Both of these reasons are settled historical events, unchanging, and so they were not based on local culture or local circumstances. Paul also says that this was the rule for all the churches of God, so the limitation wasn't a limited response to a local problem. It wasn't that the Ephesian Christian women were uniquely obnoxious.

1 Timothy 3 goes on to make it clear that elders are men. The word episkopoi is in the masculine gender, and they're required to be a certain kind of husband and father. So women are forbidden from being elders/overseers. If you cross-reference to Paul's farewell to the Ephesians (in Acts 22, I think), you can see that "elder", "overseer", and "pastor" are synonyms. Paul called the Ephesian elders together, and told them to shepherd the flock of God, over whom the Holy Spirit had made them overseers. This is one way we know that women are not to be pastors, or called "pastor."

1 Corinthians 14 says, in the second half of the chapter, that the women were forbidden to speak, but were to remain silent, as the Law (Old Testament) says. Context is key here. Because the entire chapter is about rules for speaking tongues or speaking in prophecy, it makes sense to say that Paul is limiting speaking in tongues and prophesying. Not every kind of speaking.

And since the chapter is about conduct in the church when it gathers for worship, I conclude that women's public use of these gifts were being limited for the church gathered -- not other situations (like Phillip's four prophetess daughters, who must have exercised their gifts in other settings, or with other women). And because Paul bases this rule in the Law (= Old Testament; probably the general principle of the headship of men based in Adam, from Genesis), and makes it clear later on that every Christian church followed this rule, feminists are incorrect when they claim that Paul was just correcting a local, circumstantial problem.

Deborah and Huldah don't prove that it's okay for Christian women to teach or preach to men. This is because the New Testament is in authority over the Old Testament. The New Testament limits womens' teaching ministries.

But the fact is that this rule was also true in the Old Covenant. Deborah was a civil magistrate, not a priest. One can say that God did not consider it sinful for a godly women to serve as a civil magistrate in Israel. At least there's no evidence that God disapproved of what she was doing as a civil magistrate.

But she was a prophetess, someone will say. But prophesying didn't make someone a priest, any more than prophesying would make someone a pastor-teacher today. Bible teaching was, and is, an authoritative role. Under the Old Covenant, the teachers authority were the priests, all of whom had to be sons of Aaron. When God's Spirit came upon Deborah and inspired her to speak a prophecy, she didn't become a priest.

Someone similar in the New Testament might be Priscilla. Priscilla, along with her husband Acquila, instructed Apollos more accurately in the Gospel. But helping a Christian man understand the Gospel better, by interacting with him in one's living room, alongside one's husband, didn't make Priscilla a teacher or a pastor. She wasn't exercising an authoritative role, such as I exercise. She was being a good Christian sister.

You will also find that the Christian feminist position on this matter misapplies the verses that talk about gender equality in Christ. You'll hear feminists quoting Galatians, about hwo there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. But the context of that verse is justification by faith.

Summary:

1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 limit the public speaking ministries of women. 1 Timothy 2 in particular forbids women from teaching or leading men. Another way to put this is to say that women are not to "shepherd" men, or be their "overseers", as 1 timothy 3 goes on to discuss.

The fact that there were prophetesses in the past does not prove that women are allowed to teach or lead men, or be pastors/elders. Being a prophet didn't make you a priest (in the Old Covenant setting), and wouldn't make you a pastor-teacher (in the New Testament setting). 1 Corinthians 14 gives several rules on how to manage the gift of prophecy; Christian women not prophesying to the mixed congregation is one of those rules.

SS Outline On Christ's Plan For An Outreach Ministry (from Luke 10)

The principle of initiative.

Christ didn't wait for universal enthusiasm. His disciples were all at varying degrees of faith, commitment, and readiness. If you wait for everyone to be on board, you will never begin. Christ took the initiative, created a plan and moved forward.
He had already worked this plan previously, on a much smaller scale (see Matt. 10).
The plan was never for the target audience to come inward to them, though there's nothing wrong with that, either. Christ was often approached by interested people. But the idea was always for them to initiate outward-moving contact with the target audience; to put themselves into the path of other people.

The principle of conversion through multiple contacts.

The 12 apostles had already gone and done all this (see Matthew 10; it's identical). The 70 themselves were now going to do the same. Then Christ Himself was going to also come later (v. 1). In fact, you could even say that Pentecost was yet another follow-up. So the audiences were going to receive repeated exposures to God's Word. People rarely come to Christ upon their first exposure to God's Word.

The principle of the devoted worker.

Outreach doesn't happen until somebody devotes to it. In this sense, outreach is no different from running a SS or putting on a worship service; in that it takes workers, a plan, prayer, and sweat. There will always be more to do than there are people to do it. But prayer is how you get more workers.

The principle of teamwork.

The normal NT pattern was to work as in teams, not as rugged loners or "celebrity evangelists." Sometimes people worked alone, like Philip in Samaria. But the norm was to work in teams.

The principle of realistic readiness.

They did not expect to be universally popular. They knew there were people out there who would make trouble for them. It was important that they not be as clueless as sheep. In fact, in another place Jesus tells them to be as shrewd as serpents.

The principle of faith for material supply.

Jesus later rescinds the particulars of this order, Luke 22:35-36. But the underlying point remained, that God would supply their needs. Material support would also come from local people, so don't be ashamed to accept it. Also, it's a given among missionaries that you eat what the host puts in front of you.

The principle of prayer ministry to unbelievers.

Answered prayer supports our teaching that the Kingdom of God is real and Jesus is alive. Contrary to what the Vineyard teaches, we're not anointed an apostolic anointing. We're not miraculously authorized to heal people. But we should offer to pray for any need a non-Christian person has, including sickness. God's kingdom shows itself through answered prayer.

The principle of focusing on the receptive.

If someone runs us off because of the Gospel, we "shake the dust off our feet", that is, turn them over to the Lord to deal with. It is not the NT pattern to ram our heads into stone walls, or to break down locked doors.