____________________________________________________ THE GOSPEL OBSERVER ____________________________________________________ "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19,20). ____________________________________________________ March 14, 2004 ____________________________________________________ Contents: 1) Honest Study (Doy Moyer) 2) Some Brethren Think Samuel Swallowed a Camel (Leslie Diestelkamp) 3) What Does the Passion of Christ Mean? (Steven J. Wallace) ____________________________________________________ -1- Honest Study by Doy Moyer Most people are familiar with the parable generally referred to as the "good Samaritan" (Luke 10:30-36). We usually refer to it to show what true compassion is, and how we should be willing to respond to the needs of others. The parable certainly does show this. However, the parable, together with its context, teaches more than just how to be compassionate. It teaches us how to be honest in our Bible study. A lawyer tested Jesus, asking, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25). A lawyer, in the Scriptures, was one who was skilled in, and taught, the law of Moses. The man knew the answer to the question. Jesus responded with a question: "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?" (vs. 26). Whenever we are searching for the truth, the only way to find it is by reading the Scriptures! Today, we might ask, "What does the Bible say?" What better question can be asked when one is searching for truth? Just open the Bible and see what it says. The lawyer answered correctly by stating the foundation of God's will: Love God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself (vs. 27). Jesus responded, "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live" (vs. 28). Again, the man knew the answer. He quoted what the law said. And Jesus told him, "That's right. Now go and do it." This is the essence of doing God's will. Find out what God says in His word and do it. It's just that simple! There is no complicated process involved. You don't need any specialized clergy to tell you what God says. Just read the Bible and do what He says to do. But here is where the lawyer began to have problems. He knew what God said, but if he did not know how to apply what was said, then he didn't need to do it. "But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, `And who is my neighbor?'" (vs. 29). This is too much of a problem today. Instead of taking what God says and doing it, we want to find ways to justify not doing what He says. The trouble, in these cases, is not that we cannot understand the will of God. The trouble is that we do not want to bring our own will into submission to God's will. So we find a convenient way to justify our inaction. It is in response to the lawyer's effort to justify himself that Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan. Jesus' intention was not so much to issue a statement on compassion as it was to illustrate the lawyer's need to be honest with himself and simply do what God says. The parable illustrated the need for honesty when looking into the will of God. After telling the parable, Jesus asked who the neighbor was. The man said, "He who showed mercy on him." To this Jesus responded, "Go and do likewise" (vs. 37). Again, Jesus was basically saying, "That's right. Now go and do it." He was showing that it is not all that difficult to apply God's will to our lives. We can understand it, and we can do it. It just takes diligence and honesty. If we are not honest when we study the Bible, then we will not be able to properly do God's will. There have been studies where people refused to open the Bible to a particular verse (such as Acts 2:38). They knew what it said, but they simply did not want to face what it said. In order to justify not being baptized, many will come up with a hypothetical situation to justify their own disobedience. "What about the man who is on his way to be baptized and a rock falls on him and kills him?" This is supposed to negate the fact that they must be baptized. All such efforts are only efforts at self-justification. Wouldn't it be much easier to find out what the Bible teaches and just do it? Simplified, Luke 10:25-37 teaches us that we need to look into the will of God, find out exactly what is said, and do just that. It takes honest Bible study, as well as honest self-examination (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5). When we know what the Bible says, we need to abandon any efforts at self-justification and submit ourselves completely to the will of God. As we study the Scriptures, we need to hear these words of Jesus: "do this and you will live." -- Via The Bulletin of the Church of Christ at New Georgia, January 18, 2004 ____________________________________________________ -2- Some Brethren Think Samuel Swallowed a Camel by Leslie Diestelkamp King Saul was like a lot of my brethren today. He was very anxious to get the job done! Saul just had to make a burnt offering, even if he had to do it unlawfully. After all, wasn't a burnt offering good? Yes, indeed! Then why be so concerned about incidentals? Why wait for Samuel to come and make the offering? Some of my brethren are unduly anxious to get the job done. They are so anxious that they think "ways and means" are unimportant. After all, shouldn't we do good? Then why be so concerned with incidentals? Samuel said to Saul, "What hast thou done?" Saul answered that the enemy was upon him and he knew an offering must be made, so "I forced myself, therefore, and offered a burnt offering" (1 Sam. 13:11-12). Like some of my brethren he could have argued, "Surely, Samuel, you won't strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Can't you see that the important thing was to get the offering made? What difference who made it, or how? And anyway, Samuel, you shouldn't criticize me when you should have been here to make the offering yourself!" Samuel said, "Thou hast done foolishly. Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord..." No one can question Saul's motive. His purpose was good, but in his anxiety to do right, he failed to keep God's law. Some of my brethren today boast of being "progressive-minded"-brethren who believe that too much thought on details and methods of doing work results in little work being accomplished. These brethren are much concerned with caring for the needy, but they care little for how God wants them cared for. They are greatly concerned with preaching, but it is not important to some of them as to how it is done. They see a great need for much money with which to do good (preach, help the needy, build church buildings, etc.), but it matters little how we get it. They are alarmed about the young people, so it matters little what is done, just as long as we keep them interested. Those of us who insist on a scriptural way of doing things are accused of being willing to do nothing. This, of course, implies that if we don't do what they want, the way they want it, we don't believe in doing anything. Because we don't do what they want done, it is assumed that we do nothing! Just as He did in the days of Saul and Samuel, God has directed us, today, how to do what He wants the church to do. We can be just as wrong in doing a right thing the wrong way, as in doing nothing. We should be careful to be "doers of the word, and not hearers only" (Jas. 1:22). That includes doing things, and it also includes doing them the right way. If some brethren had been there when Samuel said, "Thou hast done foolishly," they would have patted him on the back to get him to belch up the camel they thought he swallowed! -- Via Think on These Things, July-August-September, 2002 (This article first appeared in the Northern Watchman February 17, 1952) ____________________________________________________ -3- What Does the Passion of Christ Mean? by Steven J. Wallace "To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs..." (Acts 1:3, KJV). It is undeniable that people from all ages since the cross have been attracted to Christ's suffering, thus fulfilling the prophetic effect: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (Jn. 12:32). "Why did he suffer, and what does it mean for us?" we ask. We shall answer this question briefly in four direct scriptural implications. First, the passion of Christ means God loves us. Consider Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Other passages teach this fundamental fact, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13; cf. John 3:16). Likewise, Paul wrote the church, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." Clearly the cross demonstrates divine love to man. Second, the passion of Christ means that God passionately hates sin. Sin is so horrific that it not only brought the wrath of God through a death sentence upon all men since Adam's day, but it also drove the nails into God's only Son (Rom. 5:12; Isa. 53:4, 5)! The fact that a future and second death exists in a lake of fire for the ungodly is testimony that God hates sin (Rev. 19:20; 20:14-15; 21:8). Again in Romans 5, Paul wrote: "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:9). That the wrath of God is real is indisputable. That we desperately need to apply the blood of Christ to escape God's wrath is equally unquestionable. That preachers neglect to speak on this aspect of God today is dangerously absurd! Men like to "tolerate" sin and "sweep it under the rug," but God sees it and "hates" it. Our culture arrogantly dresses sin up with respectable attire, saying "homosexuality" is "alternative," "abortion" is "choice," and "foul speech" is "freedom." Isaiah warned against men calling evil good and good evil (Isa. 5:20). Third, the passion of Christ means that God has provided a place for reconciliation to God: "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. . ." (Rom. 5:10). If Christ had not suffered, there would be no ground today for reconciliation. Paul was careful to identify that this place of reconciliation is found in His death and that baptism places us there: "Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?" (Rom. 6:30). Does your preacher tell you to get baptized? If so, does he give the same reason that Paul gave for it? Finally, the passion of Christ means that we are no longer under the Old Testament law. Romans 7:4, 6, 7, ".....you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead... But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by... Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, `You shall not covet'...." Paul quotes the tenth commandment and says that we are dead to that "law." What law? The Ten Commandment Law, of course. This law was "taken away" by the Christ in His passion (Col. 2:14). Romans 7 implicates that binding the Old Covenant upon men today is seeking to make people commit spiritual adultery with Christ--one cannot be married to Christ and the Ten Commandment Law. This does not mean that we are without law today or that covetousness is commended. The New Covenant condemns such (1 Cor. 6:10). Simply put, one cannot bind Old Testament Law and practices upon New Testament Christians because it has no jurisdiction over us anymore than Australian Law has jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. Does your preacher teach Christians are "dead" and "delivered" from the Old Testament Law or "bound" to it? The passion of Christ teaches many things. We could add that it also shows the necessity of the church since Jesus purchased the church with His own blood (Acts 20:28). Would you buy something with your blood that is unimportant? Why not investigate the church of Christ, the church Christ died for (Rom. 16:16; Eph. 5:23)? -- Via Susquehanna Sentinel, 3/14/04 ____________________________________________________ MYRTLE STREET CHURCH OF CHRIST 1022 Myrtle Street Denham Springs, LA 70726 (225) 664-8208 Sunday: 9:15 AM, 10:00 AM, 4:00 PM Wednesday: 7:00 PM evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (225) 667-4520 e-mail: tedwards@onemain.com web site: http://home.onemain.com/~tedwards/go ____________________________________________________