Christian Living

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

The previous installment discussed three questions and their answers in Proverbs 22:15. (1) What is a rod (shebet)? (2) What is the purpose for using the rod? (3) Does this verse indicate when one should stop using the rod?

Proverbs 29:15 provides important additional information regarding the use of the rod: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother”(NASB).

The purpose of discipline is to give wisdom (yiten chakmah). Importantly, Solomon defines wisdom in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10 as the fear of the Lord. Biblical parental discipline is designed to instill the fear of the Lord in our children. To some readers, that might sound awful (putting the fear of God in our kids is so 20th century, right?), but either we are operating from a biblical platform or we aren’t. The fear of the Lord is a centerpiece of what God demands of His children (1 Pet. 2:17), and without it we can’t begin to think or act properly.

It is not enough to understand fear as simply respect. The word is much stronger than that—the Hebrew is yirah, and is often invoked when people fear for the lives (e.g., 2 Kings 10:4). The Greek is phobos, and is used in the same way (e.g., Matt. 28:4). I would suggest the idea is that we should have the proper, lofty, perspective of God—understanding who He really is (in all His greatness, His ability to execute judgment, His sovereign rights over His creation, His holiness, etc.)—who He reveals Himself to be. This is the goal of biblical parenting.

Proverbs 29:15 describes two tools that work together—interdependently, it seems—to help achieve that end: the rod and reproof. The rod without reproof seems cruel (could that be what Paul was warning against in Ephesians 6:4? Notice his inclusion of the two terms discipline [paideia] and instruction [nouthesia]). Reproof (Heb., tokahat) correction without the rod may be totally ineffectual. Ever watch a parent try to reason with an angry, willful, impertinent child? It is a sight to behold—and a mournful one at that.

Among the recent criticisms of Bob Jones University, one of the strangest is that the university’s teachers are poorly paid. One critic even prepared a chart showing faculty salaries from independent four-year colleges and universities throughout South Carolina, locating Bob Jones University at the bottom of the salary scale. The (anonymous) critic took this lack of munificence as such an obvious scandal as not even to require comment.

Plenty could be said about the survey itself. Comparisons of this sort are rarely as helpful (or, in this case, as damaging) as they are meant to be. The variables are simply too significant for direct evaluations to be made.

A larger issue is at stake, however. The fact is that the published salaries at Bob Jones University are not greatly out of line with faculty salaries at most Fundamentalist institutions of higher learning (especially if regional cost of living is taken into account). Professors in Fundamentalist institutions are paid far less than their peers in comparable secular colleges and universities.

This situation extends further than just Fundamentalism. Many broadly evangelical schools do not pay their professors much more. I have degrees from two large, evangelical seminaries. In one of those institutions, a tenured professor told one of my classes that, in order to support his family, he had to make $10,000 to $15,000 of outside income every year. A recent reporting instrument shows that institution paying an average salary of only $25,000 per year, less than the reported average for the Bob Jones faculty.

While average salaries are low for Christian professors, they can be even lower for pastors. Many pastors receive no more compensation than professors at Bob Jones. In fact, many receive substantially less. Smaller churches frequently offer salary packages that virtually require pastors (or their spouses) to work outside jobs.

The people who take these positions—these professorships and pastorates—are obviously not taking them for the money. Some other concern is in play. That concern can be expressed in various ways: ministry, serving the Lord, the care of souls. Jesus called it “laying up treasures in heaven.”

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With the renewed interest today in the Reformation, its history and theology, it is not surprising to find more and more books written for children that highlight some of the heroes and heroines of that era. What follows are two brief reviews of recent books devoted to lesser-known Reformation-era figures.

Republished with permission from Baptist Bulletin Jan/Feb 2012. All rights reserved.

Joy Brace earned her name early in life, having inherited her mother’s sparkling eyes and easy laugh, and having somehow channeled a good deal of her father’s personality, especially his serenity during the difficult times of life. Her birth certificate reads, “Florilla Joyce Crawford,” but she was Joy from the beginning.

Joy was diagnosed with a brain tumor in August, allowing her four months with her family and friends before her death on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. More than a thousand people attended her funeral service, held at Faith Baptist Bible College, Ankeny, Iowa. Many testified how she spent the last months of her life spreading joy.

Students at Grandview Park Baptist School—where Joy began teaching after her marriage—had organized a fund-raising event on Thanksgiving weekend, “Embrace Joy,” featuring a preseason basketball game against Iowa Christian Academy. Joy continued to work at the school as a substitute teacher until the time of her death. Proceeds from the event were given to the Brace family. Both sides of the family were invited to a thanksgiving dinner at the church. Then at halftime, Joy sat in a chair on the edge of the basketball court, testifying of God’s goodness in her life. That weekend she had already experienced the first of several seizures, but she would not pass up a final opportunity to testify of God’s goodness in her own life.

Casting Crowns popularized a song titled, “In Me.” Some of the lyrics follow:

How refreshing to know You don’t need me.
How amazing to find that You want me.
So I’ll stand on Your truth, and I’ll fight with Your strength
Until You bring the victory, by the power of Christ in me.

I was impressed at the depth of these lyrics. They serve as a jumping board for my topic: He is God and we are not. Hopefully, these thoughts will serve as a tonic to remedy a popular—but weakened—view of God.

Our Need

The first principle suggested by the song is that God does not need us, but we need Him. The Scriptures are clear on this:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (ESV, Acts 17:24-25)

This year my New Year’s Resolution is to celebrate New Year’s at a time more conducive to change and renewal—oh say, spring instead of the dark, dead of winter when I’m just coming off the sugar high of the holidays. Somehow I think we Gregorian calendar devotees have got this one all wrong.

Historically, New Year’s Day hasn’t always fallen on January first because our calendar hasn’t been a consistent entity. Factor in a few mythological gods, Roman emperors, and a pope or two. Add a dash of Protestant Reformation and you’ll find that in the past, the New Year occurred anywhere from January 1 to March 25. (Surprisingly, it wasn’t until 1752 that England and the American colonies began celebrating New Year’s on January 1st.) That’s nothing to say of the multiple cultures that celebrate it in recognition of their own calendars. And if you really want your head to spin, don’t forget all our dear southern hemisphere friends who experience the seasons opposite to us and whose Christmas and New Year’s celebrations include BBQs on the beach.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, in my experience, making resolutions on January 1 is a bad idea.

Because there’s nothing particularly organic about celebrating the New Year this way. For most of us, it’s simply a function of the calendar and happens primarily because we’ve reached the end of the month and need to turn the page (or in my case, glue magnets on the back of my 2012 office-sized calendar from Target and stick it to the side of the refrigerator.) Think about it—there is no seasonal change or religious celebration that would motivate us to make resolutions; it’s simply a cultural obligation. Or, in my experience, the result of the guilt from eating too much, exercising too little and overspending in the last six weeks since Thanksgiving.

With appreciation to A Puritan’s Mind and the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Jonathan Edwards was born in the American Colonies in 1703 and raised in the Puritan and Congregationalist tradition. He entered Yale College just shy of 13 years of age and graduated at the head of his class in 1720. He wrote the resolutions below from 1722 to 1723, at age 19. At the time, he was studying theology at New Haven and serving as pulpit supply at a small Presbyterian church.

Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

2. Resolved, To be continually endeavouring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things.

3. Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it.

5. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

Reprinted with permission from Paraklesis, Summer 2011.

Some years ago, a young wife clinging to her husband hung her head in tears as she shared about her adulterous affair. She had confessed her sin to her husband and to the church some weeks prior. I gently raised her head and shared, “please do not lower your head in shame to anyone in this church—we have all been saved, are being saved, and one day will be saved by the blood of Jesus.” We then began to construct a redemptive solution for this couple.

Scripture portrays a believer’s relationship to sin in a multicolored fashion. We are portrayed as sinners who are completely forgiven and stand completely accepted and loved by God and, at the same time, we are portrayed as saints who continue to struggle with sin. A redemptive paradigm allows this sinning saint identity while avoiding a guilt-driven or grace-distorting double-mindedness.

Past

To engender a redemptive environment, Pastors and counselors should emphasize the threefold sense of salvation: We have been saved (Acts 16:31; 2 Tim. 1:9) from the very penalty, and all penal guilt, of our sin. This past sense or tense of salvation is summed up as justification. Justification entails God pronouncing a judicial verdict and acquittal of all our sins so that each of us stand before Him in Christ’s imputed (not imparted) righteousness and not by our own works (Rom. 3:20-25, Gal. 2:16).