The Scope of Wrong Doctrine

Posted on November 18, 2019 by russellmckinney

“Right Doctrine for Right Living” series: (post #4)

How wide is the scope of wrong doctrine? Phrasing the question another way, just how prevalent is wrong doctrine? The answer is that scripture indicates that wrong doctrine is everywhere. The Bible doesn’t only offer numerous passages that speak of the importance of right doctrine, it also provides a multitude of passages that warn about all the wrong doctrines that are out there. Here’s a list of seven of those passages (all using the N.K.J.V.):

  1. In Matthew 7:17, Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”
  2. In Matthew 15:9, Jesus says of the scribes and Pharisees, “And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
  3. In Matthew 24:11, Jesus says, “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
  4. In 1 Timothy 4:1, Paul says, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons…”
  5. In 2 Timothy 4:3-4, Paul says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
  6. In 2 Peter 2:1, Peter says, “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.”
  7. In 1 John 4:1, John says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

As we can see from these passages, the danger presented by wrong doctrine is real, constant, and very much present in our world. False teachers who promote wrong doctrine dot the map. Some lurk in the shadows, but others are on the internet, television, or the radio. Some are blatantly offensive, but others are smooth, slick, and sweet. Some preach in blue jeans, but others wear expensive suits, robes, or even dresses. Some are backward, but others are refined and polished. Some preach in heavily guarded compounds, but others fill denominational pulpits. Some are extreme right, but others are extreme left. Still, the end result of these false teachers is always the same: wrong doctrine.

By the way, did you notice in my list of passages that two distinct categories of false doctrine are named? One category is mentioned in 1 Timothy 4:1, that verse that serves as #4 on my list. In that verse, Paul warns that in latter times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to what he calls “doctrines of demons.” These are doctrines that come from the minds of demons (fallen angels). A parallel passage concerning the preaching of the “doctrines of demons” is 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, where Paul says:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. (N.K.J.V.)

Be sure to catch what Paul throws there. He says quite plainly that Satan has human ministers who masquerade as apostles of Christ in order to work deceit. These men and women present themselves as ministers of righteousness but they are in reality ministers of unrighteousness. Obviously, many of the doctrines these false ministers of “light” promote can be classified under the heading the “doctrines of demons.”

As for the second category of wrong doctrine the Bible names, Jesus mentions it in Matthew 15:9, passage #2 on my list. In that verse, He references a prophecy from Isaiah 29:13 to say of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees:

And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (N.K.J.V.)

It is noteworthy that Jesus didn’t even bring Satan and his demons into the mess of this category of doctrine. Instead, He called these wrong doctrines “the commandments of men.” The false commandments He had in mind were all those the Jewish religious leaders had added to God’s Old Testament law as supposed ways of interpreting and applying that law. The fact is, though, that men (and women) today are still cooking up new “commandments of men” and passing them off as right doctrine. 

Actually, there is undoubtedly a lot of overlap between the doctrines of demons and the commandments of men. I say that because anyone who devises wrong doctrine is certainly not being led by God to do so. To the contrary, that person is being led by Satan. And anyone who is led by Satan is easy pickings to be used by Satan’s demons as a vessel to devise and teach wrong doctrine.       

At any rate, whichever category any version of wrong doctrine fits, the point is that such doctrines are pervasive in our world. This has been the case since virtually the dawn of the church age, and the status quo will continue as long as demons still roam the earth and people still create their own ideas about God and religion. Surely even now we are living in the time of which Paul warned Timothy, that time when people will not endure sound doctrine but will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Obviously, in a world like that it’s hard to keep yourself from falling under the sway of wrong doctrine. There is, however, something you can do to help yourself in that regard. I’ll identify that something in my next post, and so until then I’ll ask you to please stay tuned….

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The Significance of Right Doctrine

Posted on November 15, 2019 by russellmckinney

“Right Doctrine for Right Living” series (post #3)

The Christian realm today is dominated by an attitude known as ecumenicalism. Since I realize that’s a big, scary word, let me define it for you. Ecumenicalism is the attitude that says that professing Christians should lay aside all their doctrinal differences and work together for the greater good. It focuses upon love rather than doctrine, fellowship rather than separation, and unity rather than division.

The typical area-wide crusade is a classic example of ecumenicalism. Such a crusade might bring together professing Christians who are: Methodists, Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics, Independent Baptists, Lutherans,  Charismatics, Episcopalians, and non-denominationals. The idea is, “Let’s get all of the area’s professing Christians together and focus upon our commonalities instead of our differences.”

Now, let me say that I don’t have a theological ax to grind against anybody. I’m for love. I’m for unity. I’m for Christian fellowship. But I also understand that we can’t just treat right doctrine as an insignificant, meaningless, disposable thing. As one preacher has said, “People will forgive even poor theology (wrong doctrine) as long as they get out of church before noon.” Sadly, he seems to be right.

To showcase the high significance that God Himself places upon right doctrine, let’s see what His written word says. Here are ten selected passages (all from the N.K.J.V.) from a sizable list of them:

  1. In John 7:16-17, Jesus says, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.” Here we see that Jesus taught that knowing right doctrine and doing God’s will are inextricably linked. Basically, you’ll have a hard time doing God’s will if your doctrine is wrong.
  2. Acts 2:42 says the early Christians “…continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine…” Notice that those Christians didn’t continue in just any doctrine. It had to be the doctrine preached by Christ’s apostles.
  3. In Ephesians 4:14, Paul encourages Christians to stop being children (spiritual babes) who are “…tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine…” That means that Christians should anchor themselves to right doctrine so that they will not be blown about by the winds of wrong doctrine.
  4. In 1 Timothy 1:3, Paul urges Timothy to remain in Ephesus and make sure that others “…teach no other doctrine…” It’s noteworthy that Paul didn’t stop at telling Timothy to teach right doctrine himself. Even more than doing that, he took the subject even further by telling him to make sure that others didn’t teach wrong doctrine.
  5. In 1 Timothy 4:13, Paul says to Timothy, “Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” Telling Timothy to give attention to reading, exhortation, and doctrine is not the same thing as telling him to give attention to unity, love, and ecumenicalism.
  6. In 1 Timothy 4:16, Paul says to Timothy, “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.” The doctrine that Paul has in mind is obviously the apostles’ doctrine, right doctrine.
  7. In Titus 1:9, Paul talks to Titus about the importance of an elder (pastor), “…holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.” Notice that if a pastor wants to preach a message that either exhorts, convicts, or both, he should do it by making it a message built around sound doctrine.
  8. In Titus 2:1, Paul tells Titus to, “…speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine.” You see, that’s different than telling Titus to speak the things that will unite all the people and not offend any of them.
  9. Hebrews 13:9 says that Christians should not be “…carried about with various and strange doctrines…” Even in the days of the early church, there were a multitude of wrong doctrines to tempt Christians to unanchor themselves from right doctrine and be blown away from God’s truth.
  10. In Jude verse 3, Jude says that his purpose in writing his short letter (epistle) is to exhort his readers to, “…earnestly contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” It is important to note that we are to contend for the faith. And what is the faith? It is that body of doctrinal teaching that was delivered to the church once and for all.

The common thread in each of these passages, and several others we could cite, is the importance of not only clinging to right doctrine but also defending it against those who teach wrong doctrine. Yes, right doctrine really is a big deal with God, and anytime we minimize or downplay its significance we venture out onto potentially dangerous ice. If the likes of Paul, Jude, and even Jesus Himself made a point of singing the praises of right doctrine, it’s not our job to come along in this modern era and change the tune to say, “Surely now we’ve reached a place where we’ve gotten past all those divisive issues.” All I can say to such an opinion is that if we have reached such a place, we’ve no doubt gone too far in the wrong direction. Right doctrine has always mattered to God and continues to matter to Him, and so how can our lives be pleasing to Him if it doesn’t matter to us?

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The Source of Right Doctrine

Posted on November 13, 2019 by russellmckinney

“Right Doctrine for Right Living” series: (post #2)

When you are looking for a church, what should be at the top of your list of criteria? The size of the church? Nope. The location of the church? Nope. The church’s decor? Nope. A pastor who preaches the way you like? Nope. Your type of singing? Nope. A vibrant youth ministry? Nope. The first question to ask is always, “Does this church teach right doctrine?”

Admittedly, the answer to this question can get confusing because all churches claim to teach right doctrine. Think about it, have you ever heard a church advertise itself by saying, “Hey, if you’re looking for seriously messed-up doctrine, we’re the place for you”? No, you haven’t. Even cults purport to teach the truth.

So, if you can’t trust what any church says about the correctness of its doctrine, where can you go to find right doctrine? Oh, the answer to that question is easy. If you are looking for right doctrine, the river’s head source of it is the Bible.

Someone might ask, “But what about a church’s or a denomination’s statement of beliefs? What about Christian colleges and seminaries? What about commentaries and study Bibles? What about Christian websites and publications? What about big-time preachers on t.v.?” Well, it’s certainly possible that all of these avenues might present doctrinal truth, but it’s equally as possible (and seemingly increasingly more so) that they might not. A correct understanding of the Bible, on the other hand, will never lead you astray.

In 2 Timothy 3:16, the Bible says:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (N.K.J.V.)

You might want to take a moment and reread that verse, this time making sure to notice the first item on the list for which God-inspired scripture is good. That would be doctrine. Surely that is God’s way of telling us, “Of all the Bible’s uses, the gleaning of right doctrine is its most important.”

Of course, the problem that we have is that even those who teach wrong doctrine usually supposedly back up their false teachings by using Bible passages. What allows them to do this is the fact that the Bible is so incredibly diverse and rich that you can use it to “prove” just about anything. For example, did you know that the early Christians owned a Honda automobile? Sure they did. Acts 2:1 plainly says: “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”

Okay, okay, maybe that wasn’t a serious example. So now let me offer a legitimate one. Let’s say that I want to take the Bible and “prove” that bigamy/polygamy is doctrinally sound? Is there a way for me to do that? You bet. All I have to do is use two passages. Watch this:

And God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand of the seashore. Thus Solomon’s wisdom exceeded the wisdom of all the men of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. (1 Kings 4:30-31, N.K.J.V.)

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. (1 Kings 11:3, N.K.J.V.)

You see, all I have to do is go to the pulpit, read those two passages, and say, “Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, and he understood the wisdom in having hundreds of wives. His only mistake was in that he married the wrong women, women who turned his heart away from God.” For that matter, I could even add in that other great men of God such as Jacob and David also had multiple wives.

But now let’s say that I want to go to the other extreme and preach that it is never God’s will for anyone to marry. Can I find any Bible passages to support this doctrine? Yes, I can. My “proof” text can be the words of Paul, who was unmarried, as found in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8:

For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: Is is good for them if they remain even as I am. (N.K.J.V.)

For good measure, I might also throw in Proverbs 21:9:

Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, Than in a house shared with a contentious woman. (N.K.J.V.)

If I really want to drive home this point, I can also add in that the words of Proverbs 21:9 are actually repeated in Proverbs 25:24 for double emphasis. Oh, and I might mention too that since the book of Proverbs is primarily attributed to Solomon, and since he had the experience of living with all those hundreds of wives, he was the perfect candidate to write Proverbs 21:9 and 25:24! Do you see how it all fits together?

So, I guess I need to start preaching that it is never God’s will for anyone to marry, right? Wait a minute, if I do that then I’ll have to start cherry-picking some passages for a follow-up sermon that “proves” that sex outside the bounds of marriage isn’t a sin after all. After all, if I don’t preach that follow-up sermon, it will be impossible for the human race to propagate without sinning.

Can you see how easy it is for wrong doctrine to get started? This is why we must study the Bible as a whole, in its totality, to really get at what it teaches. In 2 Timothy 2:15, Paul calls this “rightly dividing the word of truth.” Obviously, if there is a way to rightly divide the word of truth, there must a way (actually many of them) to wrongly divide it. Such faulty dividing is all that is required for wrong doctrine.

As evidence that merely reading the Bible and even knowing it isn’t enough, allow me to present Exhibit A: the Sadducees. In Jesus’ day, this wealthy, educated, highly influential religious group of Jewish rabbis controlled the priesthood at the Jewish temple. Because they believed that only the first five books of the Old Testament were fully authoritative, they knew those books forward and backward. And yet when these men asked Jesus a question about marriage in the afterlife, He rebuked them by saying, “You are mistaken, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29, N.K.J.V.). This shows that it is possible to read the scriptures without being able to rightly divide them.

The group we need to be like were the Bereans. When Paul and Silas came to their city preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, not only did the Bereans give them a fair hearing, they devoted the next several days to searching the Scriptures in an effort to discern whether or not Paul and Silas had preached right doctrine. As Acts 17:11 says of those Bereans:

These were more fair-minded than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. (N.K.J.V.)

Ah, there’s what each of us needs: an open mind that is kept in check by an open Bible. Unfortunately, if we just have the open mind we’ll fall victim to wrong doctrine for sure. Therefore, I encourage you to multiply whatever amount of Bible study you are currently doing. False teaching definitely abounds, and it takes a ton of Bible study to gain the discernment that is needed to identify it. The good news, though, is that once you’ve put in that study and gained that discernment, not only will you keep yourself doctrinally straight, God will be able to use you to help others get there.

Posted in Bible Study, Discernment, God's Word, Scripture, Series: "Right Doctrine For Right Living", The Bible, Truth | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Singularity of Right Doctrine

Posted on November 11, 2019 by russellmckinney

“Right Doctrine for Right Living” series (post #1)

Denominational differences have long been the norm in the ranks of Christianity. Even among sincere Christians the same passage of scripture can produce starkly different interpretations and applications. Typically, we file such disputes under the “let’s just agree to disagree” category and don’t bring them up in polite conversation.

It should be understood, however, that truth isn’t relative. It is, to the contrary, downright narrow. 1 plus 1 always equals 2, not 3 or 4 depending upon the situation. Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, not 35 degrees if the conditions are right. George Washington died on December 14, 1799, not any other date.

Biblical truth is narrow as well. The Bible either teaches that Christians are eternally secure or that salvation can potentially be lost, but it doesn’t teach both. It either teaches that the Rapture and Christ’s millennial reign upon the earth are literal events or it teaches that they are symbolic, but it doesn’t teach both. It either teaches that Jesus died for the sins of the entire human race or it teaches that He only died for the sins of the “elect,” but it doesn’t teach both. In other words, there is a singularity to right doctrine.

Far too many Christians exhibit a blase attitude toward doctrinal disputes. Basically, we have replaced the pursuit of correct doctrine with the pursuit of superficial unity. But a fair question to ask is, what good does it do to be unified around wrong doctrine? Furthermore, how can we possibly make any headway in the cultural wars that swirl around hot-button topics such as abortion, homosexuality, capital punishment, and the role of women when we ourselves can’t even reach a consensus agreement on what the Bible teaches regarding those topics?

It is with all this in mind that I offer this post as the first in a new series I’m calling “Right Doctrine for Right Living.” My purpose with this series is not to attempt to name each form of wrong doctrine that is pervasive these days and offer my opinion about it. Instead, I just want to use this series to point out some important things the Bible has to say about doctrine. Truthfully (no pun intended), I think you’ll be surprised at not only how much the Bible says about doctrine but also what it says. That’s why I hope you’ll get on board with this series as the train is pulling out of station, and I trust that God will use the series to remind us all that He really does place a great importance on right doctrine and that there really is a singularity to such doctrine.

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Eulogy for my Dad

Posted on November 8, 2019 by russellmckinney

(After years of declining health, most acutely during the past couple of months, my dad died Monday morning. That explains why I haven’t written any blog posts this week. The only thing I wrote this week was his eulogy, and as one final way of honoring him, I’d like to share that eulogy here as a post. I preached this virtually word for word the way I wrote it.)   

What I’m doing tonight is a one-off. I got one father in my life, and this is the one time I’ll preach his funeral. So, I’ve had a lot of different things on my mind and my heart, and if you’ll permit me I’m just going to run with this and see how it goes.

Some of you know who Miranda Lambert is. For those of you who don’t, she’s a country music star. A few years back, in 2007, she had a hit song called “Famous in a Small Town.” The gist of that song was that everybody who spends their life in a small town becomes so well known in that town that they are famous (at least for that town) when they die. Well, Bakersville is a small town, Spruce Pine is a small town, Mitchell county is a small county. And daddy was famous. People either grew up with him, were kin to him, went to school with him, played ball with him, ran around with him, drag-raced him in his legendary ’62 Ford with the 406 engine, played youth-league football for him, or worked with him during one of the 283 jobs he held in his lifetime.

I’ll give you a few examples of what I’m talking about. Randall Mckinney is suffering from the effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, so much so that he can no longer speak. When he heard that daddy had died, he wrote on a piece of paper the word “undefeated.” Then he started writing out the names of his teammates that had played on one of daddy’s youth-league football teams, a team that had gone undefeated.

Tonya and I were in Ingles Monday night buying a few groceries, and Tony Hoilman (one of the managers there) came over and started talking. He said, “I was sorry to hear about your dad.” Then he told me that daddy was the only coach he ever had who had let him try out for quarterback. He said daddy let him play quarterback for a week. Just the fact that daddy gave him a shot at the job meant enough to him to talk about it years later.

Here’s another example. My first day of Driver’s Ed. class at Mitchell High School (I guess it was 1982), Leroy Ledford, the Drivers Ed. teacher, called roll. He came to my name and said, “Russell Mckinney.” I said, “Here.” Then he stopped right there in the middle of class, looked at me, and said, “Your daddy was in the first drag race I ever attended.” Then he went on to tell me how the law had showed up and how he had had to jump over a fence and hide in a ditch. I thought to myself, “Well, it’s important that a Driver’s Ed. teacher knows how to handle himself at a drag race.”

But that’s been my life. Over the years, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many conversations I’ve had that started with the question, “How’s you daddy?” Daddy just had that way about him. He had a natural charisma and likability. In some weird way, even if he did you a wrong turn, you still liked him.

And he was so talented in so many areas. He was well known for being (in his prime) the best mechanic in Mitchell county. For years, I thought it was only the people of Bakersville who knew him that way. But when I went into the ministry, one of the elderly preachers who took a liking to me was Preacher Cassity from Spruce Pine. And once he figured out who I was, he said, “Oh, I know Lloyd. He used to work on my car when he worked at the Ford place.” Then he told me how good a mechanic daddy was.

And daddy wasn’t just a great mechanic with cars; he was a first-rate diesel mechanic, too. That was how he earned his living during his later years. 

He was a good athlete. He was the co-captain of his Bowman High School football team along with his buddy Emmitt Burleson. He played baseball, too. He played 3rd base and was a power hitter who hit in the middle of the order.

He knew how to put out a garden. He knew about guns. He used to ride around Mckinney Cove with a rifle hanging on a gun rack in the back window of his truck and look for groundhogs way off in the fields. When he would see one, he would pull over, sight in that rifle, and shoot at that groundhog just for the marksmanship challenge of it.

He could fish. He and a bunch of his friends went to the beach one time to deep-sea fish, and daddy caught the biggest fish of the trip.

He could drive a tractor-trailer. He made his living doing that for years. He drove the west-coast and just about everywhere else. His brother Buddy was talking the other night about how it seemed like daddy had a photographic memory for interstates, roads, and highways. Long before g.p.s., you could plop him down anywhere in the United States and he wouldn’t be lost. He’d know exactly where he was and how to get to where he needed to go. If you ever went on a long trip yourself, he could tell you interstates, road numbers, exit numbers, and how many red lights were in a town. He really was unbelievable that way.

I’m telling you, when it comes to natural talents and abilities, I’m not half the man daddy was (and I’ve known few people that were). I would describe it this way: He had a gear in him that was uncommon. And if you ever saw him operating in that gear, you were impressed. But here’s the part that was so frustrating, so maddening, so illogical about him: He simply could not or would not always operate in that gear. He would show it to you (let you see a flash of it), and then he would do something completely contradictory to it.

For example, yes, he was a great mechanic. But when he went into business for himself running the Texaco station in Bakersville (Mckiney Texaco), it wasn’t too long before he went belly up. Why? It was because he had no interest in the responsibility of laying in there day after day, working on cars, and running a business. All the skills were there, but he just wouldn’t let that side of him become successful owning and operating that business.

That was daddy. He was a walking contradiction. If you were around him consistently, he could show you the best times of your life, but the same man could also show you the worst times of your life. I mean, he was never just anything or always anything (either for the good or the bad). Whatever you saw in him, either something good or something bad, all you had to do was hang around him a little longer and you’d see something completely opposite.

It was like his personality had ten different sides to it. Two of them would make you want to be his friend. Two of them could be successful at just about anything. Two of them would want to ride the roads, have a big time, and blow money. Two of them would want to go to church every time the doors were open. And two of them would make you want to swing at him or kill him. How do you preach the funeral of a man like that?

I do want to say one thing about him. And to get me into it, I’ll use a verse of scripture: Ecclesiastes 12:1. That verse begins by saying: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth…” Then the verse goes on to describe the days of youth in the following way: “…while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.”

You see, that verse teaches that when you become an adult, your days become “evil.” That’s the word the King James translation uses. Other translations translate the original Hebrew as “days of trouble” or “days of adversity.” The point is that when you are young, you don’t have to worry about being to work on time, paying the bills, which insurance plan you need to enroll in, how you are going to pay for the new roof your house needs, etc., etc. All you have to do is enjoy being a kid. 

And daddy (with momma’s help) gave me the opportunity to have a wonderful childhood. The first house I remember us living in was the one they rented in Bakersville, the little stucco house on the hill across from Charles Blevins’ house. Then we moved from there up to White Oak, where they rented the farm house that was part of Ed Wilson’s dairy farm. Then they built the house over in Mckinney Cove. That was the house I grew up in.

We had the best Christmases there. Daddy loved Christmas. I think it was his favorite time of the year. I’ve thought for years that he loved it so much because, in a lot of ways, he never really grew up himself. A big part of him was always that little boy growing up in Green Cove, the youngest of 7 kids, the one who was petted rotten.

We opened our presents on Christmas Eve and then Santa Claus came later that night while we were asleep. One year, after I was older and had figured out the Santa Claus deal, I asked for a little pinball machine as a gift. That Christmas Eve, way past midnight, I woke up to the sound of Santa Claus playing that pinball machine in the living room. I told momma the next morning, “I heard Santa Claus playing my pinball machine last night.” She replied, “The whole neighborhood heard Santa Claus playing your pinball machine last night.” But that was daddy, and I will always, always be indebted to him for all that.

Let me give you an illustration that he would appreciate. He loved old westerns. They were his favorite thing to watch. Gunsmoke was his favorite show of all time, but this illustration comes from an old Western called “The Rifleman.” Some of you remember that show. It’s the one that starred Chuck Conners as Lucas McCain. In one episode, the townspeople leave Lucas alone to face four outlaws, and when Lucas tells his young son Mark to go home, Mark objects by saying, “Pa, ain’t I old enough now that I can stand together with you and help you fight?” Lucas’ answer to that is, “No, son. You’ve got the rest of your life to do man things. Right now you still need to be doing boy things.” Well, whatever else Lloyd Mckinney did or didn’t do in his life, he worked and did his part to ensure that my brother Richie and I had good days growing up as boys. We got to do a whole lot of boy things, and they are good memories.

Was he perfect? If you knew him, you know the answer to that question. And I can tell you that he had a lot of regrets. One night a few weeks ago, when he had been in Spruce Pine Hospital a couple of days, he was totally clear minded. It was about 10:00 at night, and he and I were in his room all alone. And we talked about things that he (under normal circumstances) would never have talked about.

It started with him, more or less, wanting to know what I thought was going to happen to him. Did I think he was going to die? Did I think he was going to end up in the Brian Center? I told him that I didn’t know but that he was in bad shape and that something was going to have give some way or another. To that, he said, “Well, I believe you reap what you sow, and I guess I’m reaping what I’ve sown.” Again, under normal circumstances he would never have admitted that or acknowledged it. But he did that night.

I said, “Well, yeah, I guess you are.” He continued, “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life.” I said, “Well, we all have. I know that I’ve done things that I regret.” That’s when he looked at me, gave me one of his looks, and said, “You think you have.” That was the closest I ever got in 53 years to hearing him be down-to-the-bone honest about his life. Normally, if you asked him about any of that kind of stuff he’d say, “What’s it to you?” or “Who wants to know?” But that night he was real.

Was he saved? Was he a Christian? I asked him that question one night not too long after that when he was in the Brian Center. He was telling me all about how he wanted his funeral to be and where he wanted to be buried, and I said, “Now wait a minute. Before you leave us let’s just make sure that you’re ready to go. Are you ready to meet the Lord? Have you got that covered?” He took great offense to that question, and blew my hair back with the answer, “Yes, I’m ready to meet the Lord. I settled that back in 19…..” I said, “Alright, I believe you. I was just making sure.”

I do believe he was saved, and I believed that even before he told me that. He grew up in this church (Roan Mountain Baptist). He made of profession of faith in Jesus, got baptized, and became a member of this church. During the years that daddy and momma were married, he was a member of Mckinney Cove Baptist. At one point later, when he was dating Rita, he was a member of Cane Creek Freewill Baptist.

He sent money to the Billy Graham organization. When we cleaned out his apartment Tuesday, we found all kinds of Billy Graham “Decision” magazines that he had kept. We also found a Charles Stanley daily devotional book and that classic daily devotional “Streams in the Desert.” He had three or four Bibles, one of them falling apart from use. He had a whole bunch of southern gospel albums, cassettes, and c.d.s., too. 

He loved southern gospel. When I was growing up, on Sunday mornings at our house when he was in from trucking, he would play the Inspirations, the Primitive Quartet, the Hardin Brothers, etc. That was his worship music.

There was a time in my life when I started a church (Disciples Road Church), which I pastored for eight-and-a-half years. And in our final years there with that church, daddy attended faithfully.

Somebody might say, “Well, I hear what you are saying, Russell, but I know for a fact that Lloyd did this, that, or the other thing.” Well, I believe you. You could tell me anything about him, either for the good or the bad, and I would believe you. Really, the great tragedy of his life was what he could have been if he had ever come fully and totally under the lordship of Jesus — not just get saved — and let Jesus mold him and shape him and guide him. But that didn’t happen.

Still, though, the Bible teaches that we are not saved by our works. Ephesians 2:8 says: “For by grace (grace is God’s undeserved, unearned favor) are ye saved through faith (that’s faith in Jesus Christ), and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Friend, you can’t do one thing to earn or deserve a gift. The moment you earn it or deserve it it’s no longer a gift; it’s pay. The only thing you can do with a gift is accept it or reject it. And the gift of salvation is all wrapped up in Jesus Christ. So, you either accept it by placing your belief in Jesus as Savior or you reject it by rejecting Him as Savior. There is no third option.

I’m not going to fight about this or get into a theological debate about it, but I do believe the Bible teaches eternal security (once saved, always saved). In John 10:29, Jesus says that no one is able to pluck His sheep out of God the Father’s hand. 

2nd Corinthians 1:21-22 says that God has given the Christian the indwelling Holy Spirit as the earnest. That’s an old English reference to “earnest money.” Nowadays we call it “downpayment money.” So, God has given the Christian the indwelling Holy Spirit as a downpayment on salvation, and God always pays His bills in full.

Romans 4:8 teaches that God will never again impute sin to the believer, and that word “impute” means “to charge to an account.” The teaching is that God will never again charge any sin to the Christian’s heavenly account.

John 1:12 teaches that the person who receives Jesus as Savior becomes the child of God. Once that heavenly Father-child relationship is established, it cannot be broken. I am a father to Ryan and Royce, and they will always be my children, regardless of their moment-by-moment, day-to-day behavior.

And then here’s one more that I really like. In Romans 8:38-39, Paul talks about the love of God. It is, however, a very specific type of the love of God. Paul calls it “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Those words “Christ Jesus our Lord” show that he is speaking to Christians. Then, Paul says about that love of God: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels (that’s a reference to good angels/unfallen angels), nor principalities (that’s a reference to bad angels/fallen angels/Satan and his demons), nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature (and that includes even us ourselves), shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And so, ladies and gentlemen, based upon that passage, these others I’ve mentioned, and several others that I didn’t take the time to mention, I believe in the eternal security of the Christian. That means that if Lloyd Mckinney, at any point in his life, placed his belief in Jesus as his personal Savior, that was enough to ensure that at the moment of his death his soul departed and went to heaven.

That’s why I really can’t grieve all that much tonight. I can’t grieve because I know what his quality of life has been for these past few years (in particular these past couple of months), and I know what his quality of life became became this past Monday morning just before 6:30 a.m.

So, in closing, the family and I thank you so much for all that you’ve done these past couple of days. Thank you for the prayers, the phone calls, the texts, the comments on Facebook, the offers to do something to help, and the attendance tonight. Also, I personally thank you for your indulgence as I have preached what has been the longest eulogy I’ve ever delivered. Normally in doing these things I keep things kind of short out of consideration for the family, but for this one the family is me. But right now our church choir is going to do a song, and then I’ll come back and close the service with a prayer.

Posted in Death, Eternal Security, Fatherhood, Personal | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

“Christian Verses” Podcast: Psalm 1:1

Posted on November 3, 2019 by russellmckinney

Anytime we leave God out of our lives we get into trouble. Oftentimes this leaving out involves the progression that is described in Psalm 1:1. First, we walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Second, this walking eventually leads us to stand in the way of sinners. And then, third, in the end, we sit in the seat of the scornful. In the new podcast, Malcolm and I discuss this progression of sin and how we can avoid falling into it. Here’s the link:

https://soundcloud.com/user-185243867/leaving-god-outcv2019012

Posted in "Christian Verses" podcast, Personal Holiness, Sin | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Strengthen the Things Which Remain

Posted on November 2, 2019 by russellmckinney

“Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die…” (Revelation 3:2, N.K.J.V.)

According to Ecclesiastes 3:1, everything has its season and every purpose its time under heaven. Certainly that includes a time to leave and a time to stay. After all, the Bible provides us with numerous examples of both.

God wanted Abraham to leave his hometown (Genesis 12:1), but He wanted the healed Gadarene demoniac to stay in his hometown (Mark 5:19). He wanted Jacob to leave Padan Aram (Genesis 31:3), but He wanted Titus to stay in Crete (Titus 1:5). He wanted Moses to leave Midian (Exodus 3:10), but He wanted Isaac to stay in Canaan (Genesis 26:2). You get the idea.

Is it always God’s will to leave? Nope. Is it always His will to stay? Nope. Each situation is unique and requires its own set of flight instructions. That’s why it takes a lot of spiritual discernment, prayer, submission to God, and obedience to His will if you want to always be where He wants you to be.

Under the category of a time to stay, we find our text passage. The Christians of the church in Sardis were members of a dead church. You know your church is dead when no less an authority than Jesus Himself says to the church, “You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead” (Revelation 3:1). And yet, in the very next sentence, Jesus commands those church members to, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die…”

Isn’t that strange? For starters, the church was already at such a low ebb that Jesus formally pronounces it “dead.” Then, to make matters worse, He points out that the church has some things about it that are “ready to die.” But still He tells those church members to remain with the church and strengthen what they can.

The map of America is dotted with thousands of churches that Jesus could classify as “dead.” They can be found in small towns and in big cities. Some are parts of denominations, but others are independent or non-denominational. Some are small, but others are large. By the way, attendance, programs, money, and reputation have nothing to do with being dead or alive. (Even the church of Sardis had a name that it was alive.) And what do many Christians do the moment they decide the spiritual buzzards are circling over their church? They hit the road and head out to the big church, the one that everybody is talking about, the one that everybody is joining. That’s the American way. That’s what consumerism has taught us. But are all these departures done in God’s will? If Christ’s words from Revelation 3:2 offer us any spiritual principle whatsoever, the answer has to be no.

Look, I’m not telling you that you have to stay in your dwindling, dying church. I covered that in the first paragraph. What I’m telling you is that leaving a place, any place, isn’t as simple a decision as many people assume it to be. God certainly considers such a decision to be a major spiritual event that mustn’t be taken lightly.

You say, “But it’s perfectly logical for me to leave.” Sorry, God can be the most illogical someone you’ve ever met. Ask Noah. Ask Hosea. Ask Peter. You say, “But I want my children and grandchildren to attend a church that has a thriving youth program.” Sorry, in God’s mind it might be better for them to learn perseverance and loyalty rather than the latest contemporary Christian song. You say, “But I’m just tired of the fighting.” Sorry, maybe God is keeping you there to play the role of peacemaker (Matthew 5:9). You say, “But I’m just not being fed.” Sorry, maybe God wants you to do some feeding rather than some grazing.

Remember, the church in Sardis was dead. It was alive in name only. Not only was it dead, it was getting even more dead! But Jesus commanded those church members to lay in there and strengthen those parts that were about to die. Perhaps this is what He wants you to do regarding your church. If it is, please understand that His command to stay isn’t a command to sit still and watch the status quo get worse. Instead, it’s a command to get to work strengthening the church to make it better. You see, God might very well be keeping you there so that you can be the answer to your own prayer request, “Lord, please help my church.” The question is, if that is what He’s up to, will you be obedient enough to do whatever He tells you to do?

Posted in Choices, Church, Church Attendance, Decisions, God's Will, God's Work, Parenting, Prayer Requests, Problems, Service, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spam and I Don’t Always Agree

Posted on October 31, 2019 by russellmckinney

Folks, I’d just like to use this time to offer my sincere apologies to all of you who have left comments under various posts in the past few months. I’ve been operating under the assumption that people read this blog but don’t feel led to respond by way of commenting (which is perfectly okay, by the way), but today I checked my “spam” and, low and behold, found a whole list of comments just sitting there waiting to be approved. Stupid computer!

Actually, I have one of my church members, Pat Cranford, to thank for alerting me to the problem. Mike Silver (our church’s chairman of the deacons) and I visited Pat and her husband Ken yesterday, and during the visit Pat mentioned that she had left a comment on the blog site. As soon as she said that, I knew that I hadn’t read any comment from her. So that got me to wondering if her comment might have automatically gotten dumped into “spam” without me ever seeing it. As it turns out, that is exactly what had happened not only with her comment but with several others. Imagine my surprise, not to mention my embarrassment.

What all this proves is that I am in no way, shape, or form a professional blogger. I’m just a busy husband, father, son, brother, and pastor who is doing the best he can to keep all the balls in the air. Malcolm Woody has even got me doing a podcast about once a week, and if you think I don’t know much about blogging, you should see me trying to do a podcast. One prayer comes to mind every time we attempt one of those podcasts: “Lord, help us!”

As long as I’m talking about all this, let me also say a big THANK YOU to all of you out there who check in with this blog site regularly and read my posts. Because of you this month of October has been the best month in terms of number of views in the history of the blog. Depending upon the final count of the views today, the total number of views for the month will be just a tad over or just a tad under 5,000 views. Additionally, with two full months left in this year, the blog’s number of views for the year is already virtually dead even with the number of views from last year, which was a record year. Wow.

All I can say is that all the credit goes to God. As some of you long-term readers might recall, the only reason I started blogging in the first place was to promote a book that I had written, a book that has long since been forgotten to history. At one point a few years ago, I even stopped writing any new posts because I thought the Lord was finished with my season of blogging. But now here we are late into 2019 and the blog is thriving and growing. I assure you that no one is more surprised about that than me. So, again, THANK YOU for doing me the honor of reading anything I’ve written, and if you ever want to leave a comment under a post, I promise that I’ll do a better job from here on out of finding the comments, reading them, and responding to them.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Why Can’t a Woman be a Pastor or a Deacon?

Posted on October 29, 2019 by russellmckinney

I realize that I’m not going to win any popularity contests with this one, but I feel led of the Lord to weigh in on the topics of women preachers and women deacons. In these days of social media, it seems that everybody else is typing out his or her opinion on these topics. So, I might as well join the fray. As always, I’ll back up whatever opinion I have with scripture. I guess God is having me write this because, quite frankly, there are some downright asinine interpretations of scripture floating around out there.

In regards to preaching, our English translations of the New Testament use the words “elder,” “bishop” (some translations use “overseer” instead of “bishop”), “pastor,” and “shepherd” interchangeably to describe the office we typically call “pastor” in our society. With this in mind, the classic passages on the qualifications for a pastor are 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. You can read those passages frontward, backward, and sideways in any credible translation you can find and you’ll see that the gender language they use is exclusively male.

To make that gender specificity even more extreme, 1 Timothy 3:4 mentions the mandate for a potential pastor to rule his own house well. Since the Bible plainly teaches in multiple passages (Genesis 3:16; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-23; Colossians 3:18) that the husband is the God-appointed head of the home, that one qualification right there proves that God doesn’t make allowance for women in His listing of the qualifications for a pastor. Furthermore, Titus 1:6 mentions that the man must be the husband of one wife. That’s a far cry from saying the pastor must be the wife of one husband or even the spouse of one spouse.

Coming at the question another way, 1 Timothy 3:2 says the potential pastor must be “able to teach” (N.K.J.V.) and passages such as Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 3:1-5; Hebrews 13:7,17,24; and 1 Peter 5:1-4 leave no doubt that a pastor has the God-sanctioned authority over the congregation. Okay, so now let’s place the words of 1 Timothy 2:12 alongside these ideas of a pastor teaching and having authority. There, the apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of God, says:

Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. (N.K.J.V.)

None of this is hard to understand. It’s not like God is being vague or inconsistent. You tell me how any woman can legitimately do any type of preaching if that preaching involves use of the Bible. If she’s preaching from the Bible, that equates to teaching the Bible, and that cuts straight across Paul’s words, “And I do not permit a woman to teach…” (to say nothing of his words, “…but to be in silence”). Along the same lines, if she is serving as a pastor in a church, that equates to having pastoral authority over men, and that cuts straight across Paul’s words, “…or to have authority over a man.” I’m sorry to be so blunt, but sometimes a little straight talk is needed.

Now let’s move on to the question of women deacons. The fact is that the New Testament’s qualifications for the office of deacon follow this same pattern of gender specificity. The passage here is 1 Timothy 3:8-13. There, in verse 12, we read that a potential deacon must be the husband of one wife and that he must rule his own house well. I really don’t know how much clearer God has to make it. Again, if the Bible teaches nothing else, it teaches that the husband is the God-appointed head of the home. Additionally, if Acts 6:1-7 describes the church’s first deacon election — and many excellent preachers and commentators do favor that interpretation — it’s worth noting that the apostles specifically say:

“Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men (emphasis mine) of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.” (Acts 6:3, N.K.J.V. )

“But what about Phoebe?” is the counter argument heard from those who believe that she was a female deacon (a deaconness). Well, admittedly, in Romans 16:1 Paul does refer to Phoebe as a “servant” (N.K.J.V.) of the church in Cenchrea, and what makes that description so significant in the eyes of many is the fact that “servant” translates the Greek word diakonos. That’s the same word used in 1 Timothy 3:8 in reference to the office of deacon. Even more than that, it’s literally the Greek word from which we get the English word “deacon.” So, doesn’t all this prove that Phoebe was a woman deacon?

It might if the word diakonos wasn’t used numerous times in the New Testament simply to refer to “servant” in a general way. For example, in Matthew 23:11, Jesus says, “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant (diakonos).” Likewise, in John 12:26, He says, “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me, and where I am, there My servant (diakonos) will be also…” Additionally, the plural of diakonos is used in John 2:1-12 to describe the servants that filled the waterpots, and the verb form of the word gets translated as “serve,” “serves,” “served,” or “serving” in: Luke 10:40; 12:37; 17:8; 22:26; and John 12:2,26.

In light of all these generic usages of the word, it’s just not a sound interpretation of scripture to say that Paul describing Phoebe as a diakonos must mean that she was a female deacon. Remember, the same Paul who used that word in reference to Phoebe also wrote the 1 Timothy 3:8-13 passage where he uses gender language that is exclusively male in its orientation. Obviously, the difference between the two passages is that in the 1 Timothy passage he moves from using diakonos in a generalized way to using it in reference to the specific office of church deacon.

Now let me work in yet another thought about that passage. In translations such as the K.J.V. and the N.K.J.V., 1 Timothy 3:11 provides the qualifications for the “wives” of deacons. However, the word that gets translated as “wives” in the original Greek is gune, and that’s a word that can refer to either a married or an unmarried woman. Actually, gune is nothing more than the New Testament’s basic word for any kind of woman and is used as such dozens of times. The point is that the question of whether gune should be translated as “woman” or “wife” in a text depends upon the context. For example, the Samaritan woman (gune) at the well clearly wasn’t married (John 4:7), but Herodias, the wife (gune) of Philip, clearly was.

For this reason, those who believe that women can serve as deacons contend that “wives” in 1 Timothy 3:11 is nothing more than a male chauvinist’s interpretation of gune and that the verse’s use of that particular word allows for women deacons. To bolster this argument, it can also be questioned that since Paul didn’t give any qualifications for the wives of pastors (bishops/overseers) in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, why would he give them for the wives of deacons? Also, the verse’s use of the word “likewise” might be taken to indicate that Paul had in mind a third group (women deacons/deaconesses) in addition to pastors (bishops/overseers) and male deacons. Finally, it should also be mentioned that the word “their” in the phrase “their wives” isn’t even in the original Greek of the text. That’s why the K.J.V. and N.K.J.V. italicize the word. This is an important distinction because if we eliminate “their” we have no reason to connect verse 11 with deacons’ wives.

You say, “Russell, it sounds to me like you are defeating your own interpretation.” No, I’m just giving the other side a fair hearing. In my defense, here’s another question: “If Paul really is talking about women deacons in 1 Timothy 3:11, why does he immediately follow that verse by saying in verse 12, “Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well” (N.K.J.V.)? You see, if Paul thought it was alright for a woman to serve as a deacon, why didn’t he mention something about her being the wife of one husband? For that matter, in light of his prohibition about women ruling their own houses (see again 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-23; and Colossians 3:18), how could a woman deacon possibly meet the qualification of ruling her own house well? She couldn’t.

Here’s another question: “If Paul is talking about male deacons in verses 8, 9, 10, and 12, why would he cram in a word about female deacons in verse 11?” Common sense dictates that if he wanted to start talking about a different class of deacon, women deacons, he would have done it either after verse 12 or after verse 13, not in a blatant interruption of the natural flow of the passage. Remember now that “wives” is a perfectly acceptable translation of gune. It’s the context that decides which way the translation of gune should fall, and 1 Timothy 3:11 is found within the context of a whole bunch of language that is heavily slanted toward male deacons. And as for the use of that word “likewise,” I would point out that the same word is used in verse 8 to begin the deacon qualifications list, and the natural kickback for that “likewise” is verse 1, which says: “…If a man (emphasis mine) desires the position…”

Of course, I realize that there are many who will disagree with me on these matters, and I also realize that these folks know how to use scripture as well. So, let me finish up this post by briefly tackling some of the other so-called “proof texts” that supposedly make allowances for women pastors (preachers) and women deacons. Here goes:

  • “We shouldn’t place restrictions upon what women can do because Galatians 3:28 says there is neither male nor female in Jesus Christ but that we are, instead, all one. Also, Romans 2:11 says that God doesn’t show partiality.” Please, give me a break here. Do Galatians 3:28 and Romans 2:11 mean that Christian men can get pregnant and give birth? Of course not. Therefore, I assure you that those two verses don’t cancel out God’s unique roles for the sexes.
  • “Women should be allowed to preach because the first people to preach the gospel were those women who rushed back from Christ’s empty tomb to tell the apostles what had happened.” Again, please, give me a break. How in the world does what those women did equate to preaching? All they did was report that the tomb was empty.
  • “In Philippians 4:3, Paul talks about “these women who labored with me in the gospel” (N.K.J.V.). No one denies that women helped Paul in his ministry. Perhaps some of those women were even effective soul-winners themselves. But that’s not nearly the same as preaching (teaching) the Bible in the authority of God.
  • “Women should be allowed to preach because the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42) proved that she was one of the greatest evangelists in the New Testament by leading the men of her city, Sychar, to Jesus.” Not to minimize that woman’s efforts, but all she really did was go to those men and say, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ (Messiah)?” The fact that she tacked on that question doesn’t exactly qualify her to be called a preacher.
  • “Women should be allowed to preach because God used Priscilla to teach the preacher Apollos, and her and her husband Aquilla were the co-pastors of a church in Ephesus.” While it’s certainly true that a church met in Aquilla and Priscilla’s house (1 Corinthians 16:19), the Bible doesn’t say who served as that church’s pastor. The best interpretation is that the couple merely hosted the church without shepherding it. As for Priscilla (alongside her husband Aquilla) correcting the errors in the preaching of Apollos (Acts 18:24-26), the correcting was done outside the church with her as a part of a husband-wife team. It’s not like Apollos attended her church and she corrected him by preaching right doctrine to him.

In closing, I’d like to offer yet another passage from Paul. In 2 Timothy 4:3-4, he writes:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. (N.K.J.V.)

I suppose the time of which Paul wrote arrived a long time ago, perhaps centuries ago, but it’s hard to deny that we are definitely living in them now. There was a time when we interpreted culture through the lens of scripture, but now we interpret scripture through the lens of culture. We used to ask, “What does God say?” Now we ask, “What does the mainstream say?” We do this, of course, to our own detriment as God sits up and heaven and lets us sow the seeds of our demise as a culture.

Unfortunately, this seed-sowing has filtered down into our churches, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that it will stopping anytime soon. So, what can you and I do about it? The best each of us can do is take a stand with a true interpretation of scripture and remain steadfast amidst all the bluster that comes with wrong interpretations and wrong applications. This won’t always be easy to do, but it will always be worth doing because, after all, if those of us who know and practice the truth fold our tents, God’s voice in the world will only grow that much more silent.

Posted in Church, Deacons, God's Work, Leadership, Ministry, Pastors, Preaching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Jesus’ Childhood (post #3 of 3)

Posted on October 26, 2019 by russellmckinney

When last we left Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus, they were in Egypt. They are there because Joseph, following the visit from the wise men, has been warned in a dream by an angel to leave Bethlehem and take his wife and child into Egypt. The fleeing southward has been necessary to prevent Herod the Great from having the baby Jesus killed. Finally, after an unspecified number of years have passed, an angel again appears to Joseph in a dream and instructs him to arise and take Mary and Jesus back into Israel because Herod is now dead. These events are all recorded in Matthew 2:13-20.

In that day, the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem are part of what is known as the region of Judea. Geography dictates that Judea is the first region of Israel the family reaches after traveling north from Egypt. However, God doesn’t want Joseph to resettle the family anywhere in Judea. Why not? It’s because Judea is now being ruled by Archelaus, one of Herod’s sons. When Joseph hears that Archelaus is ruling in his father’s place, fear strikes him about even taking Mary and Jesus through that region (Matthew 2:22). God obviously agrees with the assessment because He once again sends an angel to speak to Joseph in a dream, instructing him to keep traveling north until he and the family reaches Galilee, Israel’s northern region. Most people have to pray when they need guidance from the Lord, but Joseph just went to sleep!

Joseph ends up settling the family in Nazareth (Matthew 2:23). This is where the gospel of Luke also chimes back into the storyline (Luke 2:39). Nazareth is familiar turf for Joseph and Mary because it is their hometown (Luke 1:26-27; 2:4-5; 2:39), the place they had left to make the trip to Bethlehem that had started all the travels associated with the birth and early years of Jesus.

Luke 2:40 informs us that the next few years of Jesus’ childhood are marked by Him growing strong in spirit, becoming filled with wisdom, and having God’s grace upon Him. The Bible doesn’t provide us with any other specifics from these years, but we do know that Jesus didn’t “show off” any during them. We know this because, years later, the citizens of Nazareth didn’t think that the adult Jesus could possibly be the Messiah because they hadn’t seen anything special in Him during His childhood years (Luke 4:16-30; Matthew 13:53-58). Therefore, it seems clear that Jesus didn’t perform any miracles or give any profound teachings while He was growing up in Nazareth.

Following these silent years in Nazareth, the Bible’s next snapshot from Jesus’ childhood is found in Luke 2:41-50. That story places Him, Joseph, and Mary in Jerusalem, having traveled here from Nazareth to observe the annual Jewish Feast of Passover. Jesus is now twelve years old.

At the end of the feast, Joseph and Mary join their traveling caravan of friends and family for the trip back to Nazareth. But after a day’s journey they realize that Jesus isn’t with the caravan. (Perhaps the men and women traveled in separate parts of the caravan and each parent thought that Jesus was with the other. Or perhaps the young boys traveled together in a certain part and Joseph and Mary assumed that Jesus was with the other boys.) Joseph and Mary then split off from the caravan and return to Jerusalem to find their missing twelve-year-old.

At the end of three days (probably one day’s journey out of Jerusalem, a second day’s journey to get back to Jerusalem, and a day searching in the city), they find Him. He is in the Jewish temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers of the Jewish law, listening to them and asking questions. He’s even providing answers to their questions! The teachers are astounded at His understanding, but Mary is mad at His behavior. She asks Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously?” Jesus, however, doesn’t apologize for His behavior. Instead, He responds with a question to Mary. He asks her, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” This is the Bible’s first evidence of Jesus knowing fully who He was and why He had come to the earth. While Mary spoke of His earthly father Joseph, Jesus spoke of His heavenly Father.

Okay, so it’s at this point that the story of Jesus’ childhood should kick into high gear, right? Now that Jesus has reached an age where He understands not only His divinity but also His need to carry out God the Father’s plan, the Bible will provide us with all kinds of exciting accounts of His teenage years, right? Nope. It’s here that the storyline again fades to black until Jesus is approximately thirty years old and comes to John the Baptist at the Jordan river to be baptized. This baptism is the official beginning of His three-and-a-half-year ministry (Matthew 3:13; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21-23).

The only passage that we get to sum up the years between Jesus at twelve years of age and thirty years of age is Luke 2:51-52. In reference to what happens immediately following Joseph and Mary finding Jesus with those teachers at the temple in Jerusalem, Luke writes:

Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (N.K.J.V.)

Five things are mentioned here about those years of Jesus’ childhood. First, He is subject to His parents. What else would the same God who had commanded, “Honor your father and your mother” be but subject to His parents? Second, He increases in wisdom. The teaching session in the temple with the Jewish teachers had given a glimpse of Jesus’ burgeoning wisdom, but the years that follow see Him become even more wise. Third, He increases in stature. If nothing else, this means that He grows physically in height. Fourth, He grows in favor with God. This means that He lives a life that is pleasing to God the Father. Fifth, He grows in favor with men. This means that His reputation as a fine young man, a worthy addition to the city of Nazareth and the Jewish race, increases among those who know Him.

Of course, the greatest evidence that there is nothing amiss about Jesus during His childhood years is the statement that God the Father utters about Him immediately following Jesus’ baptism. As Jesus is standing there dripping wet from the waters of the Jordan river, He begins to pray, and as He is praying the heavens suddenly open up, the Holy Spirit descends and comes to rest upon Him (this was Jesus’ empowerment to perform miracles), and God the father says from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22). Do you know what you call that? You call it God the Father’s stamp of approval upon the entirety of Jesus’ childhood. It’s the Father’s way of saying, “Everything that has happened until now has been just as I wanted it to be.”

In closing, let me say that Jesus remaining sinless throughout His childhood is a colossally big deal because it, along with the rest of His sinless life (Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5), qualifies Him to serve as the substitionary sacrifice for the sins of the human race (2 Corinthians 5:21). One temper tantrum as a child would have disqualified Him from going to the cross. One act of disobedience to Joseph or Mary would have ruled Him ineligible for the job. One selfish deed done against either His parents or His fellow youths would have ruined His spiritual resume. One look of lust as a teenage boy toward a teenage girl would have messed up God the Father’s entire plan of redemption. So, can you see how much was riding upon Jesus remaining sinless during His childhood years? But thankfully for us He did so. Neither you or I could have done it, but He did, and this is just one more reason why we should all to come to know Him as Savior and serve Him as Lord.

Posted in Christ's Birth, Christ's Death, God's Work, Salvation, Series: "Jesus' Childhood" | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment