1 Thessalonians 5:23

One of the verses Dr. Zodhiates hammered into Erik Christensen and me was this verse. Paul says, "And may the God of peace Himself set you apart completely, and your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." This verse had to do with how the Greek's viewed the entire individual and how it was divided up. In oriental philosophy there was the outer man and inner man. In Greek thought the individual was made up of three components, the spirit, soul and body. In this post I will deal with the spirit and what the Bible and the Greeks believed. The Greeks had a temple at Delphi devoted to the god Apollo. The high priestess was a young girl who would seek Apollo's answers to the questions pilgrims would bring to her. At the base of the statue of Apollo in the temple was a crack in the earth on which the temple was built. In this fissure ether was emitted. This gas would intoxicate the high priestess and she would give answers that had to be interpreted by one of the priests. The Greeks believed there had to be a device within man by which the gods could communicate to men. They called this pneuma, or spirit. Pneuma literally means breathe or gas. This ability to communicate with the Divine, Jews adopted and translated into their own culture. In Genesis 2:7 the Hebrew text says that man was made into a living being, the Septuagint, uses psuche which means soul. We know from John 4:24 that God is Spirit and that what He breathed into Adam was life and part of that life was spirit. So what is the function of pneuma? Ephesians 2:1 tells us, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins". After the fall the spirit was rendered inactive. So what was the spirit like before the fall? In Genesis 3:8 it says that Adam and Eve had the ability to hear God walking through the garden. Genesis 2:15-17 tells us that God communicated openly and audibly with Adam and Eve. He also had interaction with them as they were in their physical form. So the spirit could communicate with with God but how did it interact with the other parts of the individual? Ephesians tells us that the spirit was inactive. Jude 10 calls the individuals invading the church as natural or that which is related to the body. Luke 12:19-21, 1 Peter 2:11 and Matthew 11:29 are some of the verses that show once the spirit was inactive something happened to the body and soul. They began to fight for control of an aspect of the soul, the will. So the spirit before the fall was the chief authority of the individual because the connection between the individual spirit and God was never severed. But when Adam and Eve ate the piece of fruit they broke the connection and immediately saw their nakedness and that God would be coming to be with them. The soul and body took over because their spirits had been rendered inactive. Without a central authority chaos takes over. Information then becomes the crucial point of contention. God communicates to us giving us spiritual food by which to base our decisions to act upon. If our information is solely based on what we can see in the physical world or imagine, or what we feel at the moment or what needs our body projects we act on what is the strongest persuasive information given to our will. So when our spirits are rendered active by the Spirit of God through Christ then a central authority is installed again. But the battle for control over the will still exists with a fourth player, the spirit involved. One of the reasons why our hearts are not the focal point of ingested scripture is because the heart is the seat of emotion not of reason or intellect. We can agree with God's communication to us and feel a connection toward Him but it is the actions of the spirit strongly overriding the natural mind, heart and body to control the will that is the seat of acceptance. It is not a matter of going from our heads to our heart but rather does our spirit trust the information God has given to us to persuade our will to act accordingly. We'll look at the mind and heart later but it is important to understand that the spirit has to be convinced first of what God is communicating through His Spirit to us. Without faith it is impossible to please God and it is illogical to have a clean clear communication with Him as well. Sometimes, depending on our faith, we hear half of what God is saying to us because we stop trusting somewhere in the conversation. When that happens we are vulnerable to our natural mind, heart and body. Many Christians confuse their clear communication from God with their fleshly faculties. You see believers tolerating others who are involved in sin because they only heard unconditionally love one another but didn't finish the communication in that if we catch a brother in sin we have an obligation in that love to restore them. If we keep a clear line open consistently, we consistently hear from God the whole message. This is the reason for growth and progress, because faith is a journey and not an automatic thing for us. Using the spirit within us as often as we are challenged to by scripture we learn to trust God and the more we trust the clearer the connection becomes and the more powerful we are to affect our wills.

The Tongue

One of the things I would like to do with this blog is not just talk about what is going on in my life but to make people think instead. Being a woman, one of the things I have had to endure in church and in the secular world is how other women use their tongues. We as believers have come to accept the gossip and tongue lashing that we overhear or are told directly without admonishing the individual doing the gossiping or tongue lashing. Gossip wrapped in prayer requests or fained concern cannot hide from God the true intent, to pass on information because we believe others should know what we know. James 3:1-12 goes into great detail about the tongue and more importantly how teachers and the mature behave with their tongues. In verse 3 James says, "Behold we put bits in the mouths of horses for them to obey us; and we turn about their whole body." James tells us that a teacher has to have this ability so that they control what they say and when they say things to others. A mature believer thinks before he or she speaks and never chases rabbits so that they can be carried off unknowingly in dangerous heretical territory. A teacher also must understand the importance and preciousness of trust. If a believer tells a friend's or even an acquaintance's business to someone else they show by their action that trust is cheap to them and of no value. Having lost that trust, close relationships break down. Over the years I have been told secrets and have been entrusted with them to keep and nurture a bond that a gossip cannot enjoy. I have however been told information about others and passed it on myself only to regret it as soon as I allowed that information to pass my lips. As I grew up I learned to be bold enough to stop the individual, ignore them or change the subject. Second hand information is often wrong or misleading and can create horrible stories that are not true. Another lesson about gossip is how people manipulate others to get information out of them. They tell what they know in hopes that the other person will "fill in the blanks". This kind of self importance and selfishness leads to the destruction of reputations, bad feelings between friends and rifts in the body. Men are not innocent of these charges either but are not as interested as women. If women don't teach that it's wrong it will be passed on to future generations with terrible consequences.

Where's the Beef?

Talking to my Greek students tonight about Hebrews 5:11-14. The author of Hebrews explains that the immature need milk but the mature need meat. So what is meat really? It has like spiritual maturity, become subjective instead of objective. The author of Hebrews was trying to give an in depth exegesis about Melchizedek being a type of Christ but he had to stop due to the immaturity of his audience. He then tells us in chapter six what isn't meat, repentance from dead works faith toward God, instruction about washings and laying on of hands, resurrection from the dead and eternal judgement. So if these topics are not meat what is? The author of Hebrews gives us principles that can help us to identify meat. First do they provide God's logic concerning justice? The immature is unaccustomed to this. So what is God's logic concerning justice? Jesus tells us in John 13 and 15 that we are to unconditionally love one another. Jesus also tells us if struck to turn the other cheek, if someone asks to borrow something give it to them and not ask for it back, and unconditionally love your enemies. These principles when taught from scripture are not milk and require someone who has experience with spiritual things to understand them. The author of Hebrews also said the mature put God's logic of justice into daily practice. Paul said in Romans 6 we are to constantly present ourselves as weapons of righteousness which requires practice. He says in 1 Corinthians 9:27 that he disciplines his body to make it his slave so he wouldn't be disqualified when he preached. The author of Hebrews says that in this practice the senses are being trained to know the difference between good and evil. Here in the Greek it is kalos, God's characteristic best and kakos, corrupted or subtle evil. In other words the mature who feeds on meat needs what is going to heighten his senses to detect the distinction between the best God has for us and the good man settles for. The good as Voltaire once said is the enemy of the best. The mature understand that obvious sin is what the immature should recognize. However, meat the mature feed on goes much deeper to equip them to recognize the good which is the poor imitation of God's best. Recognizing the corrupt they can pursue God's best and put it into practice. So meat must equip, it must be deeper in content, and it must connect more intimately with Christ. Once a mature believer consumes steak they know the difference between steak and meatloaf. This ability gives the mature even more refined skills and produces the characteristics of Christ in that believer. So the question becomes is the modern church providing meat or is it passing tofu off as meat?

Ministry

One of the difficulties in having a chronic illness is being involved in a ministry. My first ministry is to my husband. I've learned how to make sure the outside ministries I am involved in doesn't impact my time with Todd. He appreciates that I consider him and that at this time I'm not gone every night. Having a good relationship with my husband makes it much easier to minister to others. When I finally got to the point I needed to quit work I replaced school and work with study and investing in my relationship with Christ. That investment paid off in a big way. God had created in me a desire to disciple and teach as a full time ministry instead of the music ministry I was in. I knew that a choice would have to be made because the time demands of the music ministry weren't flexible. I made the transition a lot easier than I imagined and have never regretted the decision I made. Friends and people I met over the years became apart of my classes and became discipleship relationships. God gave me a ministry that dealt with growing and equipping individuals who longed for more of Christ. The flexibility of this ministry allows for my health issues when they arise. When I hear healthy women with families complain that they have no time to minister to others I am somewhat unsympathetic. We all make priorities in our lives and if family comes before God and before the unconditional love of others, family becomes the thing we devote our lives to. Often time management with little ones and house duties becomes the issue. Often the husband doesn't see his wife's relationship with Christ as his concern. If he does he may only allow time alone with God when it's convenient to him. The guilt placed upon women is tremendous in the church to focus solely on their families. There is so much imput from outside voices who have different opinions on how much time to devote to family that it can become fleshly instead of Spirit. There needs to be a balance so that God can lead us to minister to those around us. Ministry does not have to be an organized thing. Jesus says in Mark 12:31 to "unconditionally love your neighbor as yourself". Ministry can be anyone who crosses your path. Family can be a ministry but it shouldn't be a woman's only ministry. Pricilla and Aquila were a good example of a married couple who worked as a team to host a church in their house, disciple and evangelize wherever they were. As an individual with a chronic illness, I know the reality of limitations. Being married I understand the demands of family but my weaknesses God can use for His purposes if I seek to be used. This is not meant as a guilt trip, because the Spirit doesn't run off false guilt in us, however Hebrews 10:24 calls us to light a fire under each other to good works.

Greek Word of the Week

Hupotasso-(5293) from hupo, under and tasso, to place in order, together they mean to place under according to the order established. Unfortunately due to cultural and political views the English translation is submission instead of the real definition. Hupotasso was a military term that meant soldiers acted in accordance to the ranking system under which they served. A general made decisions and the colonel followed those decisions but the colonel could make lesser decisions and pass them on to the major and so on and so forth. A soldier respects the rank of higher ranking officers and takes orders trusting the general knows what he is doing. In the same way Paul and others use this word. The centurion in Matthew 8:5 illustrates hupotasso telling Jesus not to come to his house but to just say the word and his servant would be healed. The centurion explained that just as he commanded troops below him in rank so could Jesus. If we understand how God set up the order of authority, we have the choice to place ourselves in that order or be rebellious. If we accept that order we are trusting God, not man for the outcome. In the church God placed elders and apostles over the churches themselves. Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13:1-4 show believers who waited until the leaders of the church sent them out instead of appointing themselves and thumbing their noses at God's order. Diotrephes in 3 John however shows the resistance of hupotasso choosing to reject the apostles and elders in Jerusalem in favor of his own authority. In Ephesians 5:22 and Colossians 3:18 Paul tells wives to be "hupotasso" to their husbands. Here Paul is not saying wives are to be mindless slaves or to obey everything their husbands tell them to. Instead Paul is saying that a wife who recognizes her husband was placed as the head of the family, has the final decision and if she defies his decision because it isn't what she wanted to do she has stepped outside of the order God set up. It is interesting that Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3 that if her husband is disobedient to scripture she is to win him with her respectful behavior. If however he orders her to do something that is contrary to God's standards such as prostitution, abusing children, murder etc. She can respectfully refuse to do so. Esther is a good example of this. She knew she had to defy her husband's degree in order to save her people but she did it in a respectful way. In addition to wives, scripture talks about our behavior to authority within the church and to government. In 1 Peter 2:13 Peter says that we are to be "hupotasso" to every governing body because God said so. God doesn't give us an out if we dislike the governing ruler. As long as they don't require us to do anything against God we are to place ourselves under its authority. The same is true of elders and pastors. 1 Peter 5:1-5 tells us that younger men are to be "hupotasso" to the elders. Unfortunately this has been translated as older men but the context is about elders and elders were supposed to be older men in the faith as well as chronologically. God set them up to lead the church. They were to have a vision for the church and to feed the church, by equipping them for that vision. In many cases sheep stray on various things and a shepherd has to bring them back in. Resisting their authority is resisting their God given responsibility to protect and feed us. Lastly Ephesians 5:23 and 1 Peter 5:5 makes the statement to be "hupotasso" to each other. If we are given an order by God of authority whether it be parents, bosses, teachers, mentors, heads of ministries etc., we are to accept that order instead of complaining and being rebellious. This attitude then allows God to work in us so that we accept His authority most of all. If an individual is rebellious to elders and pastors, to government, parents, husbands and bosses then how will they be willing to accept God's authority? This little word has a big meaning that shows both spiritual maturity and deep faith.