Q. Living Together And Marriage?

Question: I Am A Christian, And I Am Living With A Woman Who Also Professes To Know Jesus As Her Savior. Is This Wrong? Do I Need To Have A Wedding To Be Married Since We Are Already One Flesh? If We Do Marry, What Restrictions / Prerequisites Might I Expect From A Christian Pastor?

Answer

First of all, let us be clear that sex outside of marriage is sin:

Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”– but the immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:18-20, NET).

Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children 2 and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But among you there must not be either sexual immorality, impurity of any kind, or greed, as these are not fitting for the saints (Ephesians 5:1-3).

Marriage must be honored among all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers (Hebrews 13:4; see also 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8).

Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul (1 Peter 2:11).

Living together will almost certainly lead to sexual sin, or will at least give the appearance of sexual sin. I would say this to those who would say that they wish to “live together” but remain sexually pure. I’ve not seen that happen yet. But even if this were the case, there would be the appearance of immorality (1 Thessalonians 5:22, KJV).

Now, a further question: “If this couple has already had a sexual relationship, then would they be “one flesh” in God’s eyes, and if so why is there a need for a marriage ceremony?” What difference does “a piece of paper” make, or a wedding ceremony?

Just because a couple has become “one flesh” by having sexual relations, does this constitute a marriage? The short answer is “No.”

The expression, “one flesh,” first occurs in Genesis 2:14. So let’s ponder this text for a moment. It seems to me that one could be reading this passage like this: “Adam and Eve were naked, and were not ashamed, and so they had sex, and this constituted marriage – no ceremony here, just a sexual union.”

But that is not really what the text says. We should read this text more carefully, an in the light of subsequent references to the same event, and the same text:

21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:21-25, NAU).

4 He answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH ‘? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).

31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH (Ephesians 5:31).

Note what Jesus said about this union: First of all, God made Adam and Eve for each other. Then He added, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). My point is that there is a sequence of events described in this first “one flesh” event in Genesis chapter 2, and later in the New Testament. A number of things preceded becoming one flesh. Both Jesus (Matthew 19) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) spell this out. First God joins the two together (Genesis 2:22; Matthew 19:6), then there is the matter of the leaving of father and mother (this, in my opinion, requires some formal, public process). The two are joined together (cleave) to become husband and wife. And then (last of all) they become one flesh. The matter of becoming “one flesh” is the conclusion of the marriage process, not the beginning of it, nor is it the sum of what marriage is. But apart from this concluding sexual union, a marriage may not be officially recognized as legitimate.

One might mistakenly equate becoming “one flesh” with “marriage. It is true that when a couple marries, they (subsequently) become one flesh through a sexual union. But it is not accurate to say that every sexual ( “one flesh”) union constitutes a marriage. Think of those illicit unions with prostitutes which Paul condemns (1 Corinthians 6:15-16). Or think of the implications for a young person in this sexually permissive culture who has experienced a great number of sexual liaisons. These can’t all be marriages. Thus, becoming one flesh by virtue of having sex is not synonymous with marriage.

Beyond this, I believe that marriage is a public event, it is an event where a couple makes vows (Malachi 2:14) for all to hear (and to hold them to). The weddings Jesus speaks about, such as in Matthew 25, are clearly a public event, not a private one. So, too, the marriage supper of Revelation 19:9. It is not just a cultural concession in the Bible. It is a public testimony of leaving and cleaving. It is not unlike baptism, which publicly proclaims a break with the world, and a joining with Christ. Can you imagine someone privately baptizing themself?

One final point. I’m not sure about the wisdom of having a protracted “waiting” time in cases where a couple has been living together. Paul writes that it is “better to marry than to burn” (1 Corinthians 7:9). I think a protracted time of separation is impractical, and it puts the couple in a position where they are more likely to fail. (Consider Paul’s warnings to married couples, who wait too long to have sex – 1 Corinthians 7:5). I do believe that in the period between “engagement” and marriage the couple should remain (visibly and truly) separate, both in terms of their living arrangements and in terms of sexual relations.

Bob Deffinbaugh

Privacy, Security and Terms of Use Policy

BIBLE.ORG "PRIVACY,SECURITY AND TERMS OF USE POLICY"

Bible.org is committed to respecting and protecting your personal privacy when you use our web sites and protecting your security when you buy items from our store. We make it a priority to maintain industry standard safeguards to protect information you provide to us. We want you to feel safe in your online experience while visiting our sites and we provide this statement which applies to Bible.org’s mobile and Discipleship applications, services and websites worldwide (collectively known as “services”).

Personal Information Definition

This policy applies to personally identifiable information (“personal information”), which is information that we directly associate with a specific person or entity (for example, name; email addresses; wireless device location). Personal information does not include “anonymous” or "aggregate" information – neither of which are associated with a specific person or entity.

Bible.org collects personal information when you register for a Bible.org service or otherwise voluntarily provide such information. We may combine personal information collected from you with information from other Bible.org services or third parties to provide a better user experience, including customizing content for you.
Bible.org uses cookies and other technologies to enhance your online experience and to learn about how you use Bible.org services in order to improve the quality of our services.
Location-Based Services: For mobile apps our systems capture details about the type and location of the wireless device you use, unless you have the GPS locations services turned off. Our application detects your device's approximate location. We use this information for the sole purpose of providing information related to the applications services. We do not share this information with anyone. You do, however, have the choice to share this information with Facebook or Twitter. You alone have control on how you share your location.
Bible.org’s servers (like Google and other web providers) automatically record information when you visit our website or use some of our products, including the URL, IP address, browser type and language, and the date and time of your request.

Uses

We may use personal information to provide the services you’ve requested, including services that display customized content and advertising, verify your identity, make internal decisions about current and future services and protect our rights and property. We may contact you by e-mail, about your services and periodically send you our newsletter.
To the primary account holder. We cannot be held responsible for information provided through our app if you share your logon information with others who use your mobile device
We do not sell, lease, or rent your personal information. We will only release information that is appropriate to comply with law, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our network and services or to protect the rights or safety of our users . We may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of Bible.org.
When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information, we require that they comply with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

Access and Your Choices

We offer you choices when we ask for personal information, whenever reasonably possible.
For some users living in regions without religious freedoms, you may need to provide fictional personal information or you may decline to provide personal information to us and/or refuse cookies in your browser, which may cause some of our features or services to not function properly. However, for some of our services we do need an active email to keep the large amount of spammers and registration robots under control.
Access to Your Information: You may access and modify your information by logging on to your account on bible.org or or one of our Discipleship apps or through our Mobile App.(your account is synchronized across services/devices) You can edit your data or you can email us and we will make good faith efforts to resolve requests to correct inaccurate information except where the request is unreasonable, requires disproportionate technical effort or expense, jeopardizes the privacy of others, or would be impractical.

Protecting Your Own Personal Information

You play an important role in ensuring the privacy of personal information, including protecting against unauthorized access to your device. Many mobile devices store information both in the phone and on the SIM card. Therefore, before discarding, trading in, or giving away your device, be sure you remove and retain your SIM card and follow the manufacturer's instructions for deleting personal information or other data on the device. (This can be found in your owner's manual or on the manufacturer’s Web site.) If you provide a third-party access to your device, you should understand that personal information will remain on the device and may be accessible, deleted, altered, or transferred to another device or our network servers by the person using the device, and that we will treat that user as you for purposes of this policy.
We encourage you to use strong passwords (i.e.caps, numbers and special characters at least 8 characers long) to prevent unauthorized access to your device, your online account, and your voicemail. We recommend that you use unique, non-obvious passwords, that you periodically change your passwords, and that you not share your passwords with others.

Security for financial transactions

Bible.org web site store: Protecting your privacy is extremely important to us, therefore your online credit card transactions and your donations to the ministry will be processed by a secured 3^rd party. Our Website's e-commerce system processes everything about your order except your sensitive credit card information. This step in the order process is performed by a trusted 3^rd party company who uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. SSL encryption is an advanced technology recognized as the online industry security standard. This technology is used by all major e-commerce organizations including banks and credit card companies. We have set it up this way so that your credit card information is not maintained by bible.org’s website and therefore can never be stolen from a bible.org’s website.
Mobile Applications: Bible.org mobile apps are normally acquired through the service providers stores eg apple (ITunes/app store) ;android app store. When you purchase through these channels, Bible.org has no access to your financial information.

Message Boards/Walls
Please remember that information posted to message boards, user groups, discipleship groups, social networks walls, forums, chat rooms, or the like on the bible.org family of websites and mobile apps becomes public information. Bible.org is not responsible for any unacceptable language or topics discussed, but we have put in place guidelines and moderators who take great effort to ensure that these areas are monitored and that the appropriate Christian behavior is observed. note: forum PM's and posting on discipleship/mobile apps are not private as they can be monitored for quality of service and abuse detection.

Other Privacy Information

We do not solicit children to purchase or use our products. If, however, parents want to authorize their child to use our products by providing them access, You must comply with COPPA and provide us with a signed permission stating such authoriziation. You can fax that to our fax number located on our contact us page. Personal information associated with your childs use will be treated as your information in accordance with this policy. Our Web sites are not designed to attract children under the age of 13 and we do not intentionally or knowingly collect personal information on our sites from anyone under the age of 13 without authorization by the parent. We encourage parents to be involved in the online activities (including wireless Internet browsing) of their children to ensure that no information is collected from a child without verfiable parental consent.

Customer Service Monitoring
We may monitor and record phone calls, e-mails, or other communications between you and our Customer Service/moderator representatives or other employees for training and quality assurance purposes and to review specific transaction requests.

Changing Your Information and Mailing Preferences
Your information is used to send items you ordered to you. Occasionally we will also send you information we believe will be of interest and useful to you including ministry updates and offers to support the ministry. You will always be able to remove yourself quickly and easily should you prefer to no longer receive these updates. If you would like to change our information about you or your mailing preferences (physical or email), simply log in and change your contact information. If you are having trouble contact us at the below address.

Contact Us
Please direct all questions, concerns or comments regarding this privacy policy to bible.org via email or write us at our offices. You can find our contact information here. Our services may provide links to external Websites maintained by individuals or organizations external to bible.org. Once you access information that links you to another Website, you are subject to the privacy policy of the Website containing the information you have linked to.

Changes to this Statement
Bible.org reserves the right to make changes to this privacy statement at any time and requests that you review this statement periodically for updates.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Bible.org has made great effort to offer trustworthy Bible study resources for research, teaching, training and personal maturity. We offer one of the largest collections of Christian resources on the web, for free as a component of our ministry. To get the most out of your visit and your relationship with us please read the additional information below. To find out more about our organization, please visit About Us. Thanks again for visiting bible.org and using our services.

Copyright
Bible.org's mission is to make trustworthy resources available for use in teaching and training others as long as it is offered for free. Please review the complete Copyright and Trademark policy for bible.org and the NET Bible.

Posting and Submission Policy

When materials you submit are accepted to be posted on the bible.org website(s) including forum posts, articles, books, illustrations, audio and video resources, you are agreeing that these will remain available to bible.org and will be available for posting on the bible.org website(s), at our discretion, forever.
All remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, comments, or other information that you send and submit to bible.org through our sites (other than information we promise to protect under our Privacy Policy or a seperatly signed non-disclosure agreement NDA), and that we accept for posting, becomes and remains our property, even if this agreement is later terminated. That means that we don't have to treat any such accepted submissions as confidential. You can't sue us for using ideas you submit. If we use them, or anything like them, we don't have to pay you or anyone else for them. We can use them for any purpose we deem appropriate to our bible.org mission, without compensating you or anyone else for them.

This means that you (and not bible.org) have full responsibility for the message, including its legality, reliability, appropriateness, originality, and copyright.

Limitation of Liability

Bible.org and its mobile applications/websites are made widely available in the hope that they will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the website or mobile app is with you. Should the mobile application, website or resources provided by bible.org (including but not limited to software and electronic downloads) prove defective; you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. If you purchase the product that you deem defective, we will refund your purchase price. In no event, unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, will bible.org be liable to you for damages, including any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use any resources provided by bible.org or its websites (including but not limited to loss of data or data being rendered inaccurate or losses sustained by you or a third party), even if such holder or other party has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Since there is no warranty we may provide a support number or a forum that will be monitored for users to assist other users.

And Also...
The above hopefully makes the lawyers happy, now lets discuss our relationship from a Christian point of view. You can expect us to operate at the highest level of integrity and as one would expect a servant of Christ to act. If you have a problem, please let us know and we will attempt to the best of our ability to address it.

Acceptance of This Policy

Use of the bible.org website(s) and/or the mobile apps will constitute the user’s acceptance of this privacy policy. If you have any questions about these policies, please feel free to contact us.

God Bless you and please enjoy.

updated da 7/27/12 ,5/19/15,1/7/16

Formatting Guidelines for Articles Submitted to Bible.org

Related Media

If you are interested in submitting materials to our website, below are some instructions. To make the conversion to HTML as smooth as possible, it would help if you would follow these guidelines:

Please download the file above. It will include 02joel.doc, 03amos.doc, FormattingGuidlines.doc, and Normal.dot. (Instructions for installing the Normal.dot file are at the bottom of this article.)
Read the guidelines below and follow the instructions, especially under the First Things First heading. Try to follow our paragraph styles as you write your materials, or convert your current materials to our scheme of paragraph styles.
This means that you assign Heading 1 or Heading 2 or Body Text or Quote paragraph styles like we do in the sample 02joel.doc or 03amos.coc.
Email us the article for submission and we will insert it into our submission procedure. We'll handle converting it to HTML. Please remember that we receive hundreds of requests per year and cannot include all of them on our site.
If you have questions, email us.

Introduction

We have a fairly efficient method of converting documents to the web or ePub so that they have a consistent look. We do this by making sure that our source documents are all formatted with a standard set of paragraph styles. That way, we can open up a document in our conversion program and just click a button and it does most of the work for us. It would be very helpful if you could submit documents that follow our styles. But if you don’t use our style names, if you have your own styles and follow the guidelines below, we can always run a search and replace on your styles and convert them to our names and then run them through the conversion process.

File Naming convention

There are a couple reasons to break a book or series into multiple docs. The main one is if you want your footnote numbers to start over with each chapter or section. When multiple documents that make up a series are submitted, it is important that they are sorted in the directory correctly. The easiest way to handle this is to put numbers at the beginning of the file name. For example, theological journals are typically printed two or four times a year. And they typically have a volume and number system of numbering. Plus there are several articles in each volume/issue. So, we might name the files jets01a01.doc, jets01a02.doc, etc. Or if you had a series of articles on John, you could name them 01a02.doc, etc. Or if you had a series of articles on John, you could name them john01.doc, 01a02.doc, etc. Or if you had a series of articles on John, you could name them john01.doc, john02.doc, 01a02.doc, etc. Or if you had a series of articles on John, you could name them john01.doc, john02.doc, john03.doc, etc. If you have more than 9 documents, be sure to put a “0” (zero) in front of the 1. That way if a book has 11 or 12 articles, they will be sorted correctly.

Formatting Documents

Things You Should Never Do

I hate to start with the negatives, but my hope is that after reading the list, you will say to yourself, “I do that. Why shouldn’t I.” And you will want to read more to find out why.

· Never hit the Tab key. Tabs don’t convert to the web. So, don’t put them before the first line of a paragraph, after numbers, to make columns, etc. (I’ve often threatened to glue an upside down tack on some people’s tab keys to help them remember)

· Never just click the list bullet or list number buttons on the tool bar.

· Never click that center button or right align button on the tool bar.

· Never manually change a paragraph to look different, except for use of bold and italics.

· Never use columns.

· Never use the Insert Symbol dialog box to insert characters. Always use the Alt + whatever character sequence.

Now, let’s see why…

Do Use Paragraph Styles

There are several reasons for using paragraph styles:

Provide Consistent Appearance

If you don’t use paragraph styles, you will have to remember that you were using 14 point, bold, Palatino for all your second level headings. You will have to manually change every quote to a certain font size, paragraph margin, leading paragraph space, etc. Chances are good that you will forget to change some of them, or change them to something different. If you use paragraph styles to format a document, then everything in the document will have a consistent appearance.

Global modification of a document

If you compose a whole document, and then at a later date, decide you want to change the look of your quotes, headings, bullet lists, or whatever, using paragraph styles will enable you to modify the whole document by just changing the characteristics of one or two styles.

A little known feature of Word is that if you define all your paragraph styles to be based on a style other than Normal, you can actually change the “base” style and all the others will change too. For example, if I define Body Block to be Times, 12 point and base all my other styles (bullet lists, quotes, etc.) on Body block, and then later change Body Block to 10 point or Arial, every style based on Body Block in my document will change to 10 point or Arial.

Enables other advanced features of Word

Outlining/Table of Contents

Any document that has “Heading 1,” “Heading 2,” etc. assigned, can easily have a table of contents generated with the correct page numbers. And it would be easily updated if we changed the file from 8 ½ by 11 inches to 6 by 9 inches.

Exporting to PowerPoint

If you compose a document and then later decide to create a PowerPoint presentation from the contents of your Word document, PowerPoint has the ability to import the outline from a Word Document. It will do your work for you.

Facilitates the Conversion Process

If you need to convert a Word document to another format such as HTML, XML, etc., then a document formatted with paragraph styles will be easy to convert because all conversion programs look for paragraph styles in the conversion process. If you don’t use styles, the conversion programs will convert your documents, but what you get will be almost impossible to clean up.

Applying Paragraph Styles

Understand that Microsoft Word automatically assigns the Normal paragraph style to everything. However, you should never use the Normal style. Apply styles to everything. But, don’t apply styles by how they look. Apply them according to their function. I like to divide styles into three types: structure, function and appearance.

Structure Styles

Word has certain styles that it naturally understands as structural styles. These are your Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc. styles.

Structure refers to the logical flow of a document. You present your main point, followed by sub points and perhaps even sub sub points. If you are writing a proposal, a sermon, a term paper, etc. it must have decent structure. It helps with creating a neat, consistent appearance, generating tables of contents, outlining, reader understanding, and conversion to other electronic forms.

Never assign a Heading X because you like the way it looks. Assign these paragraph styles according to the level the sentence has in the outline. And NEVER assign a Heading style to a whole paragraph. Keep your headings short!

Bad Structure

Hopefully, you would never submit a paper to anyone with the following outline:
(Notice how we skipped from H1 to H3 and H2 to H5.)

I. Main Point (H1)

1. Sub Sub Point (H3)

2. Sub Sub Point (H3)

3. Sub Sub Point (H3)

A. Sub Point (H2)

1. Sub Sub Point (H3)

2. Sub Sub Point (H3)

B. Sub Point (H2)

(1). Sub Sub Sub Sub Sub point (H5)

II. Main Point

Good Structure

This is the proper way:

I. Main Point

A. Sub Point

1. Sub Sub Point

2. Sub Sub Point

a. Sub Sub Sub Point

b. Sub Sub Sub Point

(1) Sub Sub Sub Sub Point

(2) Sub Sub Sub Sub Point

B. Sub Point

II. Main Point

Notice that we never skip a level. If you were to skip a level, it’s more difficult to convert the document to some formats because they are picky about things like that. That may not be a concern to most, but even if all you wanted to do was to automatically generate a table of contents for the document, it would look bad.

Function Styles

All the other styles should be applied according to their function in the document. Styles like Author, Bibliography, Caption, Editor, List Bullet, List Number, Quote, Scripture, Title, etc. are assigned to paragraphs to identify their function in the document. It should be obvious where to assign those.

A Note about List Number Style – Don’t use this unless your numbered list is all together and it’s important that you have a hanging indent appearance. List numbers with intervening paragraphs that are not “list number” cause problems. As much as possible, just use Body Text and manually insert your number.

Appearance Styles

As much as we’d like, we can’t get by with just structural and functional styles. Some stuff still needs to be assigned a style so that it looks a certain way. Below is a list of what we use and explanations of why.

Body Block – paragraphs that are not indented

Body Text – normal first line indented paragraphs – this will be used on the majority of paragraphs. Yes this is really a function style, but it needed explanation.

Center – apply this to text you want centered. And apply it to graphics inserted into the document. Don’t apply this to a heading! Change the formatting of the Heading style so that all the Heading 1’s or whatever are centered if you want them centered.

Poetry – assign to poetry. If you are trying to stagger your text, assign Poetry1 and Poetry2 or something like that.

Quote – should be obvious

Right Align – for some short phrase or name that you want on the right side of the doc. Like the book reviewer’s name at the end of a book review.

Scripture – if there is a long block quote that is a passage from the Bible, then assign the Scripture style. This will look like a Quote, but it saves us time later when we tag the sgml as numbers in this style are ignored in verse tagging. You might also want all your scripture quotations in italics, so while the indention would be the same as a quote, the font for all scripture quotations could be global changed if you used a different style name.

Subtitle – use for centered bold stuff that is not part of the structure of the document. Since it is not part of the “outline”, you wouldn’t assign a heading.

TabA, TabB, etc. – REMEMBER: WE NEVER USE TABS! However, sometimes we need to emulate the appearance of tabs in the text with staggering indents. For example – you might have a literary device called a chiasm that looks like this:

Prodigal Son has a wild party

Prodigal Son is in need

Prodigal Son Repents

Prodigal Son Returns

Prodigal Son receives provisions from father

Prodigal Son attends father’s party

Or you might have an outline at the beginning of section to give an overview of where the reader is going, but it is not part of the main structure of the document. So, you could use the TabA, TabB, etc. styles to preserve the indentations.

Table, TableC, TableR – First of all – we cannot use columns in a document. We must put parallel text in tables. Assign these styles to the text inside tables. Table is left aligned. TableC is for centered text, TableR is for right aligned text.

Other Formatting details

Elipsis – convert . . . to elipsis. A macro is provided.

Fancy quotes – use fancy quotes – a macro is provided.

Small caps and All Caps need to have character styles applied – don’t use the format font menus. Small caps works fine in HTML, but ePub’s do not support this at the present time.

Tabs – I repeat – don’t use tabs anywhere – they don’t translate to html. Use paragraph styles and tables.

Footnotes

Make sure the first paragraph in a footnote is assigned the Footnote Text paragraph style. If you have multiple paragraph footnotes, you can make the successive paragraphs Quote, Center, etc.

Tables

You cannot make fancy tables with columns that span rows. Keep them simple.

Graphics

Never use the Word drawing program. Use some external program and save the graphic as a jpg and insert the file into word.

DON’T use floating pictures, make them in line. If you put the document in Normal View or Draft View, and the pictures disappear, you’ll know you did them wrong.

Assign the “Center” style to pictures.

Installation Instructions

Install the normal.dot file. You can rename it to something else if you’d like.

in windows xp put the file in:

C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

in windows 7 put the file in:

C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

Using Our Template

Go to file, new and chose the template (if you renamed it to something other than Normal.dot).

Then with an empty doc, do File, Insert and insert your file. Then you will have our styles available to you for reformatting.

Conclusion

Those are the basics of formatting. Take a look at the 02joel.doc and 03amos.doc to see how we used styles on those documents. (Note: the Scripture references in red were added so that the automatic Scripture tagger that we use will recognize the reference and enable the convenient Scripture tagging. Do not use just the numbers...use a standard reference.)

And feel free to email us if you have questions. Email us

Poetic Examples Of Safety In The Scriptures

Related Media

Psalm 16 is instructive in that it opens with a plea for safety:

Keep me safe, O God,
for in you I take refuge. (v.1)¹

This is a general plea for regular safekeeping in the hands of the Lord. As Alexander adds: “The Psalmist calls upon himself to remember his own solemn acknowledgement of Jehovah as the Lord or Supreme God.”² As such, he is the supreme source of goodness and happiness. Although encased in a Davidic psalm, the psalmist’s plea for God’s safe keeping is a general one. It stands as a remembrance that, in the ultimate sense, only the Lord is the sure and confident hope for safety in all phases of the believer’s life. Thus, in another psalm, David records God’s own words that He is available for the believer’s protection

Because of the oppression of the weak
and the groaning of the needy,
“I will now arise,” says the LORD,
“I will protect them from those who malign them.” (Ps. 12:5)

Therefore, the psalmist’s can confidently proclaim:

O LORD, you will keep us safe
and protect us … forever. (v. 7)

Such can be seen in Asaph’s psalm:

O my people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth (Ps. 78:1)

So it was that David could say:

In the day of trouble
He will keep me safe in his dwelling. (Ps. 27:5)

He would later declare:

How great is your goodness
which you have stored up for those who fear you,
which you bestow in the sight of men,
on those who take refuge in you. (Ps. 31:19-21)

Earlier, though he was in the midst of a time of trouble, David could confidently testify:

Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.
You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when the grain and new wine abound
I will lie down and sleep in peace
for you alone, O LORD,
make we dwell in safety. (Ps. 4:6-8)

David’s closing remark here can be realized in many of a believer’s experiences, for God is ever with him.³

The figures of safe and safety occur many times in the biblical book of Proverbs. There we even read of such matters as: “Whoever refuses to strike hands in pledge is safe.” (Pr. 11:15) The term “safety” occurs often; for example, that love and faithfulness lead to safety (Pr. 20:28). In Proverbs 28:18, 26 we are reminded that a person’s “walk” (or conduct in life) can give a display of his wisdom or lack thereof:

He whose walk is blameless is kept safe,
but he whose ways are perverse will certainly fall.

…….

He who trusts in himself is a fool,
but who walks in wisdom is kept safe.

In another Proverb readers are reminded of the value of representing the Lord properly, which every believer needs to do:

The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
the righteous run to it and are safe. (Pr. 18:10)

Indeed, basic to the obtaining of true safety is the need to trust solely in the Lord: “Whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe” (Pr. 29:25), and be saturated in the sound teaching of the Scriptures (cc. Pr. 1:33; 3:23).

What does all of this strive to impress on our mind and manner of life? Simply put, by learning God’s teaching in the Scriptures, “the man whose confidence is Yahweh is guaranteed a sure footing .”⁴ As the hymn writer declares:

May the mind of Christ, My Savior, Live in me from day to day,
By His love and pow’r controlling, All I do and say.
May the Word of God dwell richly in my heart from hour to hour,
So that all may see I triumph, Only thru’ His pow’r.⁵

¹ All Scripture references are from the NIV.

² Joseph A. Alexander, Commentary on Psalms, (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1991), 73.

³ See further, Franz Delitzsch’s Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), I:118..

⁴ William McKane, Proverbs, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970), 298,

⁵ K.H. Wilkinson, May the Mind of Christ, My Savior, vv. 1-2̣

Submissions Agreement

Related Media

Please submit the following information:

Name:

Address:

Phone Numbers:

E-Mail Address:

Formal Education:

Church Affiliation:

Occupation or Profession:

Employer:

Teaching Experience:

Pastor’s Name and Contact Information:

References:

Please furnish names and contact information of two people who know you well and are familiar with your ministry and/or service within your church. If your pastor fits these criteria, that may serve as one of these two references.

You may attach a resume if you wish.

Article Info:

Please select a Topic (or Topics): Go here for a list of topic categories. Identify the topic or topics from the list that apply to your submitted material.

Identify your “Target Audience” (or Audiences) on a scale from 1 to 5. This will be used in the futureon knowing how to rate or position your submitted material for a proper level of user understanding and comprehension:

¨ #1 - Non-believer

¨ #2 - New Christian (milk)

¨ #3 - Mainstream growing Christian (meat)

¨ #4 - Mature believer (challenging the thought leaders)

¨ #5 - Scholar

Please indicate your completion of the following tasks:

I have carefully read and agree with the bible.org Doctrinal Statement found here. _____ (Initial) If you cannot initial that you agree with the Doctrinal Statement, please list exceptions to the statement.

I have carefully read the bible.org Privacy Policy and Terms statement found here. _____ (Initial)

I have carefully read the Formatting Guidelines for Articles Submitted to Bible.org instructions found here. _____ (Initial)

I have carefully read the bible.org’s Submission Guidelines document found here. _____ (Initial)

__________________________________________ _________________________________

This Agreement may be executed by facsimile signatures and/or scanned image which will be effective as original signatures.

Signature & Date

1. Character

Related Media

**The audio for this article is in two parts, click here for part 1 and here for part 2.**

People generally don’t like being called “Dummies.” And yet how can we explain the overwhelming success of a series of books aimed at dummies? Beginning with the November 1991 publication of DOS for Dummies, the series now has more than 100 million books in print, dealing with everything from exercise and nutrition to managing finances to planning a European vacation.

From the very beginning, the concept was simple but powerful: Relate to the anxiety and frustration that people feel about technology by making fun of it through books that are educational and humorous – books that make difficult material interesting and easy. Throw in a dash of personality and some entertaining cartoons and – presto – you have a …For Dummies book!

The Old Testament book of Proverbs does much the same thing (minus the cartoons). It takes the timeless wisdom of God and makes it easy to understand for regular people with no theological training. You could call the book of Proverbs Wisdom for Dummies.

The Old Testament proverbs were collected and written down to help us make one of the most vital and basic choices in life – the choice between wisdom and folly, walking with God or walking on our own. In the book of Proverbs both wisdom and folly are described as people who walk through the streets of the city and call out to us, hawking their wares and beckoning us to taste a sample (Proverbs 1).

Solomon, who is credited with authoring the book of Proverbs, provides us with an excellent jumping off point for developing the character qualities essential to good leadership:

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.

Then you will understand what is right and just and fair – every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.

Proverbs 2:1-11

Leaders cultivate character by acquiring wisdom and understanding. Of course, those possessions don’t come without a price. They require the kind of dedicated and patient labor exercised in mining for gold and silver. Leaders must diligently “search” for the wisdom that is buried within God’s Word like treasure covered by layers of earth and rock. That means using the right tools and exercising patience and diligence as we spend time immersed within this life-changing book. As Marjorie Thompson writes, “It would be nice if we could simply ‘practice the presence of God’ in all of life, without expending energy on particular exercises. But the capacity to remember and abide in God’s presence comes only through steady training.”¹ You cannot pay someone else to develop your character strength any more than you can pay them to develop muscles for you. If you want to grow stronger, you will have to push the weight yourself.

Neither can you expect to have a muscular character overnight. It requires effort and time. Douglas J. Rumford says, “Character is like physical exercise or any form of learning; you cannot ‘cram,’ hoping to do in a day or week what can only be accomplished by months and years of consistent practice.”² This is why the writer of Proverbs uses words that call his readers to energetic and passionate action.

As we dig, we must ask God to provide us with insight and understanding. Ultimately, only God can open our eyes to see spiritual truth and then enable us to apply that truth to our lives (Ephesians 1:18). As God fills our minds with wisdom, our character will develop so that we’ll possess the ability to consistently make right choices – choices that are just, fair and moral. As Henry Blackaby and Claude King note in their book Experiencing God:

Once you come to believe God, you demonstrate your faith by what you do. Some action is required…. You cannot continue life as usual or stay where you are, and go with God at the same time…. To go from your ways, thoughts, and purposes to God’s will always requires a major adjustment. God may require adjustments in your circumstances, relationships, thinking, commitments, actions, and beliefs. Once you have made the necessary adjustments you can follow God in obedience. Keep in mind – the God who calls you is also the One who will enable you to do His will.³

As we seek to possess God’s wisdom, we’ll be able to move beyond simply expressing the vision and values of a leader. We’ll possess the kind of character from which lofty visions and values flow, the kind of character that isn’t swayed by public opinion or fear but pursues true greatness and knows Who the real audience is. Our character will be truly godly, so that others will delight in following us.

God: He’s Quite a Character!

Think about the people you know and admire. Do you know any wise parents, mothers and fathers who demonstrate sound judgment in how they conduct their lives and raise their children? Do you know any grandparents who know when to cheer and when to rebuke, when to be tender and when to use force? Have you ever had a teacher who knew when to give advice and when to just listen, when to instruct and when to let life’s consequences be the teacher? Now try to put a value on those wise insights. How much are they worth?

We all esteem people who possess wisdom in their inward character. If we admire these quality people, how much more should we value the perfection of the living God from whom all wisdom, patience and discernment is derived?

When Moses asked God to reveal his glory to him, the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence” (Exodus 33:18-19). God had to shield Moses from the fullness of his glory by covering him in the cleft of a rock, and as he passed in front of Moses, God accompanied this awesome display by proclaiming the perfection of his own character:

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

Exodus 34:6-7

When God revealed himself as the compassionate and gracious God who is slow to anger, who abounds in love and faithfulness, who maintains love to thousands and who forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin, he made it clear this his personal character is the absolute standard by which all of these qualities are defined. God is accountable to no one, and there is no higher standard to which he must conform. As the great thinker Anselm said in the 11^th century: “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”

Anselm originally made this statement in an attempt to prove God’s existence. But as Michael Witmer points out,

The real legacy of Anselm’s argument is not its attempt to prove God’s existence but rather how it teaches us to speak about God. If God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” then we know there are certain things we must say about him. For starters, we must use only our best words to describe him. God must be righteous, powerful, loving, and kind – all the things that it is better to be than not to be. We may disagree about what items should go in the list…but we all agree that the list must include all the great-making properties we can imagine….

God is qualitatively superior to anything in his creation. There is nothing that compares with the greatest possible being. He is in a class by himself – literally.⁴

God’s own eternal and uncompromising character is the unchanging standard that gives ultimate meaning to love, graciousness, faithfulness and forbearance. And yet the incredible call of the gospel is that fallen creatures such as we are can now begin to reflect our Father’s character in our own lives. The One who is goodness in his essence, the One who defines virtue by his very being, promises to empower those who will trust him enough to live according to his will.

Character from the Inside Out

People are not impressed by façades or manipulation, but by authenticity and by those who are genuinely other-centered. Character is not a matter of outward technique but of inner reality. God is concerned with what you are really like when no one else is looking. Douglas Rumford, in discussing the sad situation of a Christian leader who lost his ministry due to sexual misconduct, explains that this kind of thing is bound to happen when we allow a “character gap” to develop in our lives. He writes,

The character gap is a weakness that will one day become apparent, when the circumstances or stresses of life converge and reach a breaking point. We may be able to coast for a while, and we may feel quite secure. But raw talent, personality, and fortunate circumstances cannot substitute for the forging of inner holiness, resilience, and the convictions that comprise integrity of character.⁵

Second Peter 1:5-8 lists the qualities of life and godliness that God wants for each of his children:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The character qualities listed in these verses are admirable, but they are also overwhelming. We may aspire to these characteristics, but is it really possible for us to attain them? The answer, both from Scripture and from sheer human experience, is a resounding, “No!” In our own strength, this kind of character is not merely difficult to attain; it is impossible to attain.

If it were simply a matter of fitful human effort, the attempt would be futile. So what are we to do? Shall we simply throw up our hands and walk away from the text, claiming that it makes impossible requests? That would be foolish. What we should do is pay attention to the context into which Peter wrote those words.

The sentences just prior (2 Peter 1:3-4) provide the necessary key: In Christ we have been permitted to access God’s divine power and have been granted the incomprehensible privilege of participating “in the divine nature.” There is only one person who is able to live the Christlike life: Jesus Christ himself. You cannot live the life he calls you to without him (John 15:5). Only as you maintain your connection to him can he live this life through you. As Martin Luther said, “It is not imitation which brings about our sonship of God, but our sonship which makes possible imitation.”⁶ We have not only received a new nature in Christ (Romans 6:6-13), but we are also indwelled by the Holy Spirit, whose power within us makes it possible for us to manifest these qualities of Christlike character.

True spiritual and character transformation takes place from the inside out, not from the outside in. The attributes of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love flow from the life of Christ that has been implanted within us.

Peter: A Case Study in Character

It’s easy to read Peter’s inspirational words and wonder, “Who writes this stuff? Where do people with such ideals and insights come from?” Well, the man who wrote those inspiring words, the man who exhorted us on to such strength of character, didn’t always live up to those same ideals.

The man who called himself “a witness of Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 5:1) was not there when Jesus was hanging on the cross; he was hiding in fear. The man who calls us to be “eager to serve” (1 Peter 5:2) remained seated while Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. The man who tells us that we should “be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray” (1 Peter 4:7) fell asleep while Jesus was sweating blood. The man who so boldly tells us to “submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men” (1 Peter 2:13) lopped Malchus’ ear off in the Garden (John 18:10-11).

None of this is meant to demean Peter. The point here is to give us hope. This man Peter, who was so impulsive and immature, grew into a great leader of the church. The Peter we read about in the four Gospels became the Peter we read about in the book of Acts and the Peter who wrote two epistles. It took time and effort, but God transformed him. And the same Holy Spirit who worked this transformation in Peter’s life is actively at work transforming those of us who have placed our faith in Christ.

The Gospels leave the reader with two impressions of Peter. The first is that he was at times a comically impulsive character. Twice he jumped out of perfectly seaworthy boats, fully clothed. He challenged Jesus; he spoke out of turn; at times, he seemed to demonstrate more energy and creativity than was appropriate for the moment. But it is that very energy and creativity that underlie the second impression of Peter.

Peter was the disciples’ unofficial leader. He often served as their spokesperson. He was one of the three disciples in Jesus’ “inner circle.” Certainly after Jesus’ departure, the disciples looked to Peter to give them direction. Luke’s record of the church’s early years (the book of Acts) leaves no doubt about Peter’s leadership.

This seemingly conflicting combination of qualities exists in many young leaders and may be identified by a term such as “high mental energy.” Peter was always thinking, and he always thought with a view toward action. When he heard “question,” he immediately thought “answer.” When he observed “problem,” he thought “solution.” When he encountered “options,” he thought “decision.” But he also demonstrated the unfortunate side of that same characteristic. When he heard “silence,” he thought “talk.” When he encountered “disagreement,” he thought “challenge.” “Error” (or at least Peter’s perception of error) sparked “correction.” But whatever the situation, at the very least he did think, and his thinking inevitably led to action.

In his younger years Peter exercised little constraint, and his answers, solutions, decisions and speech sometimes seemed buffoonish. At times his behavior was perceived as insensitive, unconsidered and immature. But like many great leaders, Peter survived himself. With Jesus’ guidance, Peter’s fertile and active mind matured. Through all of his experiences he developed a more-godly, Christlike character. This maturity led his thinking process into more productive channels. He collected, sorted and connected information. He honed his reasoning skills. Peter became a leader because he was not afraid to make a decision. And his godly character informed the decisions he made.

Anyone serving under a leader who suffers “paralysis by analysis” will appreciate Peter’s quick response time. Anyone working in an organization in which “decision by indecision” is the rule understands why people were drawn to Peter. As we follow Peter’s life through the Gospels and then hear his mature voice resonate throughout his two epistles, we appreciate this optimistic, energetic, highly intelligent man of action and deep character. In fact, the Gospel of Mark, which many believe Peter dictated to Mark, is the Gospel that portrays Jesus as a man of action and urgency. The Greek word translated “immediately” is used 42 times in Mark’s 16 chapters.

When the church was on the move, when both the Roman and Jewish leaders were opposing it, when Christians were being martyred for their faith, someone needed to make quick, Spirit-led decisions. And we can only imagine the kinds of issues that could have splintered this frail organization when the church leaped over its cultural boundaries to include Greek-speaking Jews, then Samaritans, then local Gentiles, then Asians and Greeks and Romans. Because Peter was a leader whose ego could endure the threat of disagreement, challenge or even a bad decision, he was not afraid to act. He was not careless, nor did he deal frivolously with critical matters. His godly character wouldn’t allow that. But he was not afraid to move, and under his leadership the church got things done. Peter was a leader who made decisions that mattered.

Loving Your Way to Good Character

It’s amazing what God can do with a person who wants to grow personally and develop character. The great news is that God wants you to grow as much as you can. He redeemed you for that purpose. To discover the lengths to which God will go to forge steel into our character, let’s walk through the smelting furnace along with Peter.

This man had denied Jesus at a critical time; yet later in his life he suffered beatings, imprisonment and eventually death rather than to deny him again. We all know that such character is not developed in a single event. We know that Jesus’ resurrection had a profound influence on Peter’s character transformation. But the manner in which Jesus helped Peter to recover from the worst failure of his life should afford us great encouragement about asking the same Lord Jesus to help us to develop strength of character as well.

Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.

But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”

After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.”

Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”

Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Matthew 26:69-75

To discover just what this event represented to Peter, perhaps we should go back and read a passage from earlier in the same chapter:

Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me….

Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”

But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same.

Matthew 26:31a, 33-35

At this earlier point, Peter’s strength of character could hardly be questioned. He said he was willing to die with Jesus if he had to. But the Son of God was right. That same night, Peter denied even knowing Jesus.

Following all of these events, Jesus was crucified and buried. Three days later he was raised from the dead and was seen briefly by Peter and the other disciples (John 20). But the first conversation between Jesus and Peter, recorded in John 21, shows how Jesus dealt with Peter’s failure:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

Again Jesus said, “Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

John 21:14-17

Notice Peter’s sound theological affirmation in verse 17: “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Peter was correct. Jesus wasn’t asking Peter the question because he needed to know that answer but because Peter needed to know that answer. Why was it so important for Peter to come to grips with his own answer to that question? It is important for you as well to determine whether your love for Jesus Christ is strong enough to enable you to develop the character qualities his Word encourages and demands. These are the qualities Peter lists in 2 Peter 1:5-8.

In the first 12 chapters of the book of Acts we see Peter as the prominent leader in the fledgling church. His strength of character and conviction are a source of inspiration, challenge and encouragement to many. Our Lord is still seeking men and women who will answer, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you,” and who will then develop the character qualities needed to be a godly leader.

Such character is forged in the small things of life. The big events of life can be viewed as final examinations which reveal the true nature of our inward selves. It is in the seemingly unimportant decisions that our character is strengthened bit by bit. C. S. Lewis used the image of the “central core” within each of us that is formed and molded by our choices:

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, “If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.” I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.⁷

The choices we make today determine our character. And we’ll take our character with us into eternity. Choose wisely!

¹Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995), p. 11.

²Douglas J. Rumford, SoulShaping: Taking Care of Your Spiritual Life (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1996), p. 354.

³Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King, Experiencing God (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), pp. 147, 151, 153.

⁴Michael E. Witmer, Heaven Is a Place on Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), p. 40.

⁵Rumford, Soul Shaping, p. 354.

⁶Quoted in Gordon S. Wakefield, The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 209.

⁷C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943), pp. 86-87.

Keeping From Slipping

Related Media

After opening his psalm with testimony as to God’s goodness (Ps. 73:1), Asaph tells of his personal problems:

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped,
I had nearly lost my foothold.
For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked (Ps. 73:2,3)¹

As Perowne observes, “The Psalmist tells the story of the doubts which had assailed him, the temptation to which he had nearly succumbed.”² Then after speaking of his personal struggles, he expressed his past lament concerning the lives of the wicked (vv. 4-12) and his own overcoming of his misgivings (vv. 13-22), he expresses his realization of his own misunderstandings of life’s realities (vv. 23-26) and concludes his psalm by testifying as to the key to a better life:

Those who are far from you will perish,
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge:
I will tell of all your deeds. (vv. 27-28)

Thus, rather than slipping away from the good life, he came to realize the key to a better life (cf. vv. 2, 28).

So, it is as we also struggle with thoughts of the seeming successes of the wicked, may we follow the psalmist’s conclusion and keep ourselves near to and submissive to the Lord, his standards, and his will.

There is a place of comfort sweet, Near to the heart of God,
A place where we our Savior meet, Near to the heart of God.
O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God,
Hold us, who wait before Thee, Near to the heart of God.³

Elsewhere the psalmist testifies as to the need for believers to praise the Lord, for even in the midst of struggles, “He has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping” (Ps. 66:9; cf. Ps. 94:16-19).

In Psalm 38 David tells of his personal problems, both in body and mind, as well his spiritual difficulties and problems with his adversaries (vv. 1-14, 18-20). He says,

I wait for you, O LORD;
You will answer, O LORD my God.
For I said, “Do not let them gloat
Or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips. (Ps. 38:15-16).

Slipping here has a seemingly double force, both as a source of difficulty and yet of the psalmist’s confidence in God’s support. So it is that he closes his psalm by pleading with the Lord:

O LORD, do not forsake me;
Be not far from me, O my God.
Come quickly to help me,
O LORD my Savior. (vv. 21-22)

In an earlier psalm David assures the Lord that,

My steps have held to your paths;
my feet have not slipped. (Ps. 17:5)

Therefore, he can ask the Lord to demonstrate his concern for him and his support in the midst of his difficulties (vv. 6-8). He closes his psalm by assuring the Lord,

And I – in righteousness I will see your face;
When I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. (v. 15)

One can appreciate David’s point of view by comparing his earlier note of confidence in prayer for the Lord’s support in times of danger (Ps. 35:1-9):

My whole being will exclaim,
Who is like you, O Lord?
You rescue the poor from those too strong for them,
the poor and needy from those who rob them. (v. 10)

Surely the believer should remember that with God’s supervision, they will not be forsaken, “they will be protected forever … they will inherit the land and dwell in it forever” (Ps. 37:28-29). Thus, Perowne can say “The Creator of the Universe, the Keeper of the nation, is also the Keeper of the individual.”⁴

From a consideration of the above Psalms, believers may be assured that by remaining faithful to the Lord and trusting fully in Him they will have a successful and satisfying life, whatever the circumstances. May we all learn from David’s experiences the high value of trusting the Lord in all of our experiences! As the hymn writer declares:

Trusting as the moments fly, Trusting as the days go by;
Trusting Him whate’er be fall, Trusting Jesus, that is all.⁵

¹ All scripture references are from the NIV

² J. J. Stewart Perowne, The Book of Psalms, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), III:7. Cf. Joseph A. Alexander, Commentary on Psalms, (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1991), 315.

³ Cleland B. McAfee, Near to the Heart of God.

⁴ Perowne, op. cit., p.373.

⁵ E. Page, Trusting Jesus.

Q. Is “Volunteers” A Good Term For Non-Paid Workers?

I’m uncomfortable with this word because it is not used in the Bible in relation to ministry. What are your thoughts on this?

Answer

Dear *****,

I’m not sure how we would describe the ministry of Paul, based on texts like Acts 18:1-5; 20:33-35; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; and 2 Thessalonians 3:7-10. The fact was that Paul often (perhaps most often) supported himself and others in the church, at some points in time, but then at other times devoted himself fully to ministry when gifts came in which allowed him to do so (Acts 18:5; Philippians 4:14-16).

When we find Paul speaking of the “work of ministry” in Ephesians 4:12 (and other related texts, such as those dealing with church life and spiritual gifts) you don’t see any such distinction made.

I guess I would have to take note of 1 Timothy 5:17-18, where there seems to be a distinction made between those who labor in ministry (part-time?) and those who “work hard” at it.

I would agree with you that any term which is used in a way that appears to regard “volunteers” as second-class workers would be wrong.

Having said this, there does need to be some way of legally distinguishing non-paid workers (volunteers) from salaried workers (staff). My view, based on Ephesians 4, is that “staff” should not be paid to do “the work of ministry” for the church, but rather they are to encourage and support those in the church body to do this ministry.

Blessings,

Bob Deffinbaugh

Related Topics: Issues in Church Leadership/Ministry

4. Dependence on God

Related Media

**The audio for this article is in two parts. Part 1 can be listened to above, and Part 2 can be listened to here at this link.

In C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian, a child named Lucy encounters Aslan, the Christ-figure of the Narnia stories, after not seeing him for a long while. “Aslan, you’re bigger,” she says.

“That is because you’re older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”¹

The more mature in the faith we are, the bigger God will be for us. As our vision of God becomes clearer and we understand his enormity, we learn to rest in him. We grow in our ability to depend completely on him and know that with a God as competent as the God we find in the pages of Scripture, the universe in which we find ourselves is truly a safe place for us.

At least, this is as it ought to be. Reality, for far too many of us, is quite the opposite. In spite of this large and competent God who cares for us and promises to never abandon us, we often find ourselves beset by worry, anxiety and fear. It is only the most mature leader who understands that as we come to rely on God, we find rest in this world.

Worry-free Living

All people who lead others or carry organizational responsibility find more than enough reasons to worry – deadlines, financial pressures, market instability and other pressures (you fill in your own blanks here) make stomachs churn and account for many a sleepless night. But Jesus cautions us against worrying about anything – even the food we eat or the clothes we wear:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

In this passage, Jesus gives his disciples (and us) six reasons for trusting in God rather than worrying.

First, the same God who gives us the greater gift of life will certainly supply the lesser gifts of food and clothing. In typical Jewish fashion, Jesus reasons from the greater to the lesser: If God has given us life, won’t he be faithful to give us the things that will sustain that life and make it rich and rewarding? If God can be trusted to take care of big things, can we also trust him with the small details? The answer is: of course. God never begins something he does not plan to see through to completion.

Second, the God who cares for birds will care for his people. After all, humans are of much greater value than any bird. “Look at the birds” implies “Look and Learn.” We can learn much from these flighty little fellows. They are industrious yet carefree. Without the benefit of barns they manage to find food each day. That is God’s provision for them. For us, God’s provision is greater. We have been given the ability to manipulate our environment. To grow crops, raise animals and preserve food. Not only are we more capable than the birds to provide food for ourselves, but we are also more valuable in God’s eyes (Matt. 10:29-31). How much less, then, we should worry.

Third, worry expends energy pointlessly – it doesn’t change the reality of the situation a single bit. Worry is kind of like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but doesn’t get you anywhere.

Fourth, worry ignores God’s demonstrated faithfulness in our lives. The same God who so wonderfully clothes the flowers of the field is responsible to care for them. Every blossoming flower is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us. A field of wild flowers sprinkled across a bed of fresh spring grass is a remarkable sight indeed. These little beauties do not labor or spin (probably a reference to both men’s and women’s work respectively). But even Solomon’s wardrobe paled in comparison. If God is so generous with something as transitory as kindling for the fire, what do you suppose he will do for us? No wonder Jesus rebukes us, “O, you of little faith,” when a mere glance out our bedroom window should teach us the futility of worry. As R.H. Mounce has said, “Worry is practical atheism and an affront to God.”²

Fifth, we are God’s children. God will never treat us as orphans who need to fend for themselves. Failure to grasp this will lead inevitably to worry and failure in our moral lives. In fact, it is not an overstatement to say that the most important thing about us is what comes to mind when we think of God, as A.W. Tozer clarifies:

That our idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our [doctrinal] statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God. A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.³

If we view God as a cosmic killjoy, we will likely be plagued with guilt and shame over every sinful thought or angry moment. If God is seen as some kind of doting grandfather who turns a blind eye at our shortcomings, we will be likely to excuse our wrong actions. If we think God is looking for a good bargain, we will expect him to come through for us when we have done something good for him. Our quality of life will always rise and fall on our view of God and our expectations of him. Once we come to know God as the faithful Father he is, worry simply does not make sense.

Sixth, when we worry about tomorrow we miss out on today. Jesus recognizes that our days will be filled with trouble. We simply cannot afford the luxury of worrying, casting our eyes on future affliction. Each day will demand our best attention. Any problem we face can be handled, with God’s help, one day at a time.

As leaders who want to reach our generation for Christ, we need to lead in a way that allows others to see our faith in God. One way we can do that is by depending on God in the face of our daily pressures. The next time you’re under pressure, pray for the grace you need to depend on God, who is perfectly and eternally worthy of your trust. Remember that those you lead will see how you respond to such pressures and will follow your actions.

Those who have not placed their faith in God often live only for the moment. Their peace of mind or anxiety is tied to their circumstances. But those whose faith is secure in the One who is secure are able to live above the worries of this world. As Dallas Willard points out:

People who are ignorant of God…live to eat and drink and dress. “For such things the ‘gentiles’ seek” – and their lives are filled with corresponding anxiety and anger and depression about how they will look and how they will fare.

By contrast, those who understand Jesus and his Father know that provision has been made for them. Their confidence has been confirmed by their experience. Though they work, they do not worry about things “on earth.” Instead, they are always “seeking first the kingdom.” That is, they “place top priority on identifying and involving themselves in what God is doing and in the kind of rightness…he has. All else needed is provided” (6:33). They soon enough have a track record to prove it.⁴

This is not to say that believers in Christ will be exempt from the usual troubles of this world. Worry-free does not mean trouble-free. Sometimes it may be our faith which actually brings on troubles as we navigate our way through a world that insists on flying upside-down. Still, in spite of our circumstances, those who depend on God will find out for themselves the truth the psalmist discovered long ago: “A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all” (Psalm 34:19).

Seeing Old Faithful

We live in a time when all forms of external authority are being challenged in favor of subjective, inner authority. The quest for autonomy rather than accountability has become rampant. Yet the Scriptures tell us that an autonomous mindset is a mark of foolishness, since it ignores our fundamental need for dependence on God.

Jeremiah struggled with occupational hazards faced by many effective leaders. Because he knew that Israel’s behavior was destructive, he needed to function as a constant agent for change. He preached and counseled and urged his followers to turn from sin and to practice righteousness.

As he prodded, Jeremiah lived with opposition and persecution, and one wonders whether Jeremiah ever asked himself the question that confronts many leaders today: “Since change arouses opposition, why not back off and let things remain as they are?” That wouldn’t have been a good option for Jeremiah. It rarely is for a leader, because change is intrinsic to the nature of leadership. And that led to the second hazard: Since the changes were essential to Israel’s survival, he was compelled to live with the hard knocks he was taking as the agent for change.

No one has ever found a way to improve anything without changing it in some way. Our second dilemma could be phrased: “Since change arouses personal opposition, I have to steel myself against the way people feel about me. But I can’t stop caring about what they think or feel. If I do, some of those I am supposed to lead might become my ‘enemies.’” The second leadership hazard, then, is that the leader may become so hardened to opposition that he or she no longer hears or cares about the personal concerns behind it. The resentment of opposition can turn followers into opponents.

Jeremiah knew that what he was doing was right and necessary, and he continued pushing for change even though he took a beating for it. He was attacked by kings, priests, false prophets and, most painfully, his friends (Jeremiah 20:10) and family (12:6). How does a leader survive such hardships and still maintain his integrity? That leader must come to depend on God above anything else. That leader must, like Jeremiah, remember:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations 3:22-26

The horror of the complete destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians was still vivid in Jeremiah’s mind when he wrote a series of five lamentations. Nevertheless, these verses, placed as they are in the middle of this short book, are words of hope and not of despair. They remind us that our only real hope is in the character and promises of God.

The Lord’s lovingkindness, great compassion and complete faithfulness make him the supremely worthy object of personal reliance. He is always good to those who seek him and who put their hope in him. Everything God asks us to do is for our ultimate good, and everything he tells us to avoid is harmful to us, even when we may think otherwise.

The problem may be that God’s faithfulness is too faithful. Philip Yancey writes:

I remember my first visit to Old Faithful in Yellowstone National park. Rings of Japanese and German tourists surrounded the geyser, their video cameras trained like weapons on the famous hole in the ground. A large digital clock stood beside the spot, predicting twenty-four minutes before the eruption.

My wife and I passed the countdown in the dining room of Old Faithful Inn overlooking the geyser. When the digital clock reached one minute, we, along with every other diner, left our seats and rushed to the windows to see the big, wet event.

I noticed immediately, as if on signal, a crew of busboys and waiters descended on the tables to refill water glasses and clear away dirty dishes. When the geyser went off, we tourists oohed and aahed and clicked our cameras; a few spontaneously applauded. But, glancing back over my shoulder, I saw that not a single waiter or busboy – not even those who had finished their chores – looked out the huge windows. Old Faithful, grown entirely too familiar, had lost its power to impress them.⁵

It seems faithfulness often goes unappreciated – especially the faithfulness of God. His presence is so regular, so commonplace, that we tend to overlook the very quality that separates him from all other gods. In fact, one of the few things God cannot do is be unfaithful (he also cannot remember our sins once they’ve been cleansed!).

Still, we are often tempted to complain that “my way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God” (Isaiah 40:27); but doing so means judging according to appearances and not according to reality. There are only two possible perceptions of God’s character and our circumstances; each of us will choose one when we encounter trouble. We will either view God’s character in light of our circumstances, or our circumstances in light of God’s character. If we choose the former, we will tend to look away from God and look to ourselves. Instead of leaning on the Rock, we will lean on a broken reed (2 Kings 18:21; Isaiah 36:6).

Everyone Lives by Faith

Faith is a universal experience – everyone, including the atheist, lives by faith. The issue is not whether we will trust in a belief system or trust in people or things, but whether we are placing our trust in that which is reliable or untrustworthy. Faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. The prophet Jeremiah provides us with a look at two conflicting sources of personal dependence:

This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

“But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Jeremiah draws a sharp contrast between those who depend on human strength and those who depend on the living God. He makes it clear that we cannot look to both as our supreme basis of trust; we will either put our hope in the promises and power of people, or we will look beyond human capability to the person and promises of God. When we make people the basis of our confidence we experience rejection and disappointment again and again. But when God becomes the ultimate source of our confidence, we are never let down.

Willy Loman is the central character in Arthur Miller’s brilliant and moving play Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman personifies failure and broken dreams as he spends his life chasing the ever-illusive dream of being an irresistibly successful salesman. He lives in denial, tossed back and forth between the notion that tomorrow will bring great success and the heart-wrenching desperation of feeling utterly worthless. He continually tortures himself with the belief that if he just tries harder, believes in himself more, persists long enough, he will find success. His biggest mistake is the belief that success will fulfill his deepest longings.

If only Willy Loman could have found the courage to face the pain of failure and his emptiness, perhaps he might have realized that he was pursuing the wrong dream. In the end, he commits suicide. His son, Biff, comes to see the truth his dad could not face:

There were a lot of nice days. When he’d come home from a trip; or on Sundays, making the stoop; finishing the cellar; putting on the new porch…. You know something, Charley, there’s more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made…. He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong…. He never knew who he was.⁶

Habakkuk learned that “the righteous will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4), and he was not talking about faith in men. “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe” (Proverbs 29:25). Those who put more confidence in themselves or in other people than in God will find bitterness and disappointment in the end. They may appear to prosper for a season, but the journey will not get them to their desired goals. But those who transfer their trust from themselves or the promises of others to the Lord will discover that their lives are deeply rooted in well-watered soil. The Lord declares that “Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained” (1 Samuel 2:30).

How Things Really Get Done

Zerubbabel must have felt overwhelmed. His task was so huge he needed a prophet of God to give him perspective. The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and its temple 70 years before, and now Zerubbabel was in charge of the group that had come back to rebuild it. When Solomon first built the temple, he had the optimal situation – nearly unlimited resources and a motivated workforce. Zerubbabel now faced strong opposition, a demoralized workforce and limited resources.

God’s word to him in Zechariah 4 is everlastingly and universally true: Work hard and smart. But if God doesn’t look favorably on your work, it will result in nothing significant. The text reads: “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (v. 6).

Zerubbabel had to make tough decisions, wrestle with personnel problems, sit in long meetings, listen to grievances – everything other leaders do. But the prophet Zechariah’s message to him was that the job ultimately depended on God’s Spirit, not on his or anyone else’s might or power. The wonderful truth of this is that all of our activities are now infused with meaning as we work in the power supplied by God’s Spirit. We can now join in the prayer of Blaise Pascal: “Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with your power; and little things as though they were great, since I do them in your name.”⁷

Leaders are responsible to manage their resources well and to lead their people effectively. But prayer to God and dependence on him for the outcome is the wise leader’s constant strategy for success.

An Everlasting Guarantee

Every leader will discover that there are times when it’s hard to trust in God. In an effort to help us do that R.C. Sproul reminds us of the absolute dependence of God as demonstrated in his promise to Abraham:

So the Lord said to [Abram], “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away….

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendents I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates….

Genesis 15:9-11, 17-18

Legal counselors are some of the highest paid executives in business because they protect us from each other. We find it so hard to depend on anyone’s word that we have to close all the loopholes in any transaction. In business, doing so is more than smart – it’s essential.

But Sproul reminds his reader that there is One on whom we can always depend. Commenting on this passage, he wrote:

The meaning of the drama is clear: As God passed between the pieces His message was, “Abraham, if I fail to keep my promise to you, may I be cut asunder just as those animals have been torn apart.” God put His eternal being on the line. It was as if He were saying, “May My immutable deity suffer mutation if I break My promise. May My infinite character become finite, My immortal essence suffer mortality. May the impossible become possible if I lie.”

The author of Hebrews reflected on this event when he wrote, “Since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself” (Hebrews 6:13).

The surety of God’s promise is God Himself. All that He is stands behind His promise. It would not do for God to swear by the temple or by His mother’s grave. He has no mother. The temple is not sacred enough to confirm the oath of God. He must swear by His own integrity, using His divine nature as an everlasting guarantee.⁸

In spite of the great and wonderful promises, in spite of the centuries of proven faithfulness, in spite of mounting evidence, empirical and anecdotal, demonstrating the folly of trusting in ourselves, people still reject the faithfulness of God. Perhaps because of their status, leaders are more acutely prone to lean on their own understanding. But God calls each of us – especially those of us in positions of leadership – to lean on him.

Such trust is difficult. It requires humility. It requires commitment. It will demand a constant vigilance. We will need to regularly review and renew our commitment, but if we train ourselves to trust in the only One who is worthy of our dependence, we may find, as Lucy in Narnia found, that our God is bigger than we ever imagined.

¹C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: Collier/Macmillan, 1985), p. 136.

²R.H. Mounce, Matthew (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), p. 80.

³A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 8

⁴Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), p. 212.

⁵Philip Yancey, “What Surprised Jesus,” Christianity Today, 12 September 1994, p. 88.

⁶Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (New York: Penguin Books, 1949), pp. 110-11.

⁷Quoted in Bill and Kathy Peel, Discover Your Destiny (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1996), p. 215.

⁸R.C. Sproul, One Holy Passion (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), pp. 154-157.

12. Values

Related Media

**The audio for this article is in two parts, click here (or above) for part 1 and here for part 2.**

Values are essential to effective leadership. They are the uncompromisable, undebatable truths that drive and direct behavior. They are motivational, giving us the reason why we do things; and they are restrictive, placing boundaries around behavior. Values are those things that we deem important and that provide direction and guidance in spite of our emotions.

Authors writing on the subject of leadership are paying increased attention to the importance of consistent values to a leader’s effectiveness over the long haul.¹ Businesses, organizations, families and individuals all benefit from knowing and living by their core values. In business, core values are “the organization’s essential and enduring tenets – a small set of general guiding principles; not to be confused with specific cultural or operating practices; not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency.”² Jim Collins observes that all enduring visionary companies have a set of core values that determine the behavior of the group.³

King David demonstrated value-driven behavior in Psalm 15:

Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.

Notice that he said the person who enjoys the presence of God and lives a blameless life is the one who “speaks the truth from his heart” (vv. 1-2). Because this person values truth in his heart, his words express truth. Because he values kindness, he “does his neighbor no wrong” (v. 3). Because he values honesty, he “keeps his oath even when it hurts” (v. 4). Because he values justice, he “does not accept a bribe against the innocent” (v. 5).

Leaders who are driven by values reap a great benefit from the Lord. David said they “will never be shaken.” Regardless of what may happen around them, they can live with full confidence that the right principles have shaped their values and have guided their decisions. That confidence will give them emotional and spiritual stability. It will enable them to be leaders whom God can use for his glory.

Consider what values drove the psalmist’s behavior. As you examine your own life, what values do you see as driving your behavior? Many of us hold certain values, but our actions are not governed by the things we say we hold dear. Perhaps we should start by asking ourselves what values we want to have driving our behavior. Unless we become intentional about this, we will be shaped by the values of others. We cannot have a set of values for the office, another set for the home and a completely different set for church activities. Our goal should be to completely integrate godly values into all spheres of life.

God: The Source of All Values

God is accountable to no one, and there is no higher principle to which he must conform. He himself is the absolute of truth, beauty, goodness, love and justice. His perfect character is the essence of what the Bible calls “righteousness.” In a universe without God, what we call “good” would have no ultimate referent.

Habakkuk was a righteous prophet in the Old Testament. He struggled, as we all do from time to time, with the goodness of God in light of the fact that wicked people often prosper. Unlike many of us, however, Habakkuk was wise enough to know that when you have a question or a problem with God, the best thing to do is to go to God directly. So, he cried out, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” (Habakkuk 1:13).

Habakkuk’s first complaint to God questioned why the Lord was allowing the people of Judah to continue in their wickedness and injustice. When the Lord answered that he was preparing the Babylonians as his weapon of judgment on Judah’s unrighteousness (vv. 5-6), Habakkuk made a more strenuous objection. The Babylonians were even more wicked than the people of Judah; how could God allow such a people to judge his people? God’s response overcame the prophet’s objections, but notice that Habakkuk was confused by an apparent incompatibility between God’s character and God’s actions.

As we look at the progressive revelation of the person of God from Genesis to Revelation, we discover him to be the immutable foundation upon which moral concepts such as goodness, love and justice are based. As did Habakkuk, Abraham struggled briefly with God, saying, “Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). Paul added, “Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: ‘So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge’” (Romans 3:4; compare Psalm 51:4).

Habakkuk learned that God’s plan for the purification of his people went far beyond what he could understand. Although God’s actions seemed unjust and out of line with eternal values, this prophet realized that God’s actions were a small part of his larger, and perfectly sovereign, plan. In the end, Habakkuk says,

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

Essentially, the prophet is saying that even though he doesn’t understand, he trusts that God’s goodness is unchanging. Habakkuk trusts God, even when things don’t seem to make sense. Habakkuk wanted to understand the way things are; he ended up learning about the way God is.

We may never find a satisfactory answer to the problem of evil and suffering in our world. But when we have a fuller revelation of God, those questions seem to fade away. What we see is such a tiny piece of the puzzle. God is the only one who sees the whole picture.

We should be careful not to judge that which we don’t understand. Otherwise we’ll end up like the couple in the story about Rembrandt. It seems there was a special exhibition of the Dutch Master’s paintings, and a couple was speaking very critically of his work. Upon their leaving, a guard nearby whispered, “Here it is not the artist but the viewers who are being judged.” In other words, our failure to grasp God’s plan reveals more about us than it does about God’s plan. It is not the plan that is inferior; it is us.

God’s moral structures and values are built into the created order. The Bible affirms that even those who have not been exposed to God’s law have a conscience – a moral law – within them (Romans 2:14-16). God is not only revealed in nature, but also in the human heart. Our hearts and consciences reveal the fingerprints of a moral God. C.S. Lewis used the idea of an omnipresent, self-evident law as the starting point for his classic, Mere Christianity, what he calls the Law of Nature or the Moral Law. A few years later, in The Abolition of Man, he simply calls it the Tao that is in all cultures and societies. There is a surprisingly uniform moral absolute in most cultures – Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Chinese. None of these, for example, honor treachery or selfishness, cowardice or deceit. These standards are there because God has placed his natural law, his moral law in our hearts. Try as we might, we simply cannot deny it.

Lewis also said, “Unless we allow ultimate reality to be moral, we cannot morally condemn it.”⁴ By that, he means that unless there is some agreed upon standard for the true, the beautiful and the good, there can be no absolute standard by which we can condemn “evil” behavior. In other words, people who use the presence of evil and suffering to denounce God are really appealing to God to condemn God. In fact, when people talk about evil in this world they imply the existence of the God of the Bible, because if there is no God, then the idea of evil is arbitrary. One man’s meat is another man’s poison, so to speak. Even our notions of good and evil come to us because we bear the image of the one who initially determined the categories.

If our world continues to denounce the idea of moral absolutes, it cannot also continue to denounce the misappropriation of power and the misconduct of rich and powerful people. In a world that fails to acknowledge God as the final absolute, self-serving pragmatism will rule. The fact that people are seduced by power and wealth should not be surprising; what should surprise us is that it’s not more widespread than it already is. Christian counselor Larry Hall says:

As long as our morality continues to be based in our humanistic pride, moral consistency will elude us. We will go on being bundles of self-contradiction, wildly judging each other while vehemently demanding that no one judge us. We can forget about arriving at a consensus ethic. There is virtually no consensus in a society as pluralistic as ours. About the most we can hope for is some sense of political correctness, and who in their right mind would hope for that? Even if true consensus were possible, history has proven repeatedly that such a consensus can be very immoral. When ethics are based on self and pride, all objectivity is lost. Things are no longer right or wrong. Instead, they are feasible or impractical, desirable or unappealing, agreeable or nonnegotiable…. Indeed, the very concepts of virtue and vice become meaningless.⁵

Godly Values for Godly People

As human beings, the crown of God’s creation, God has “set eternity in the hearts of [people]” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). As such, godly leaders seek to live by God’s eternal values of truth, beauty, goodness, love and justice, set forth in the biblical record. If we look to the world for our moral values, we will be confused by self-interest, social conditioning and situational ethics. The values of our culture are shallow and subjective, but the moral standards of Scripture reflect God’s absolute and unchanging character. Exodus 20:1-17 shows us the clearest summary of God’s values for his people:

And God spoke all these words:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

God’s moral law for his people is an expression of his own changeless perfection. In the Ten Commandments, God is actually calling his covenant people to be like him. “I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45).

The Ten Commandments begin with our demonstrated relationship with God and end with our relationships with others. In Scripture, righteousness is always realized within the context of relationships; it consistently relates to loving behavior toward God and others. “Love does no harm to its neighbor” (Romans 13:10). “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:4).

It is one thing to know the right things to do and another to consistently do them. Jesus called us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48), but this is unattainable apart from the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Larry Hall asserts, “Indeed, achieving transcendent virtue while denying transcendence is as absurdly impossible as grabbing my own collar and lifting myself off the ground.”⁶ Only as we live by the Spirit are we empowered to “put skin on” biblical values and make them real in our own lives.

Moving From Theory to Practice

Values are interesting to discuss in the abstract, but sometimes “values” get in the way of valuable decisions. Maintaining one’s values can cost a leader dearly. So how do we decide what matters most when we’re weighing the bottom-line costs against our bottom-line convictions?

The first step in effective leadership is defining core values. Until that is done, the ship the leader is trying to steer has no rudder. Vision, mission, strategy and outcomes are difficult – if not impossible – to define until values are clear. Jesus knew that. Early in the process of developing his team of disciples, he forced them to confront this foundational issue.

Matthew records Jesus’ primer on values in Matthew 6:1-34. Jesus focused his lesson in verses 19-21:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus urged his disciples to focus their values on things that would bear an eternal return. But how, while making a living on earth, while responsibly leading an enterprise on earth, while providing jobs, product, service and profit on earth, do we build treasure in heaven? This passage presents the crux of the value question. Jesus begins this portion of the Sermon on the Mount by saying, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (6:1). That’s the idea: Who do you work for? Whose nod of approval matters most? Who defines what really matters?

Jesus told his disciples that the core value, the driving value, the eternal value is this: “Does what I am doing please God?” Every other value is second to that one. When that value is in place, all other values line up. Matthew 6 is among the most definitive chapters in the Bible for shaping a leader’s philosophy of life and leadership. Spending time meditating on Jesus’ words here will have inestimable value.

Case Study: The Apostle Paul

The temptation often is to rationalize our lives in such a way that no matter what we do, we tell ourselves it’s okay. It’s like the story about the FBI being called into a small town to investigate the work of what appeared to be a sharpshooter. They were amazed to find bull’s-eyes drawn all over town, with bullets that had penetrated the exact center of the targets. When they finally found the man who had been doing the shooting, they asked him how he had been able to shoot with such accuracy. His answer was simple: First he shot the bullet, then he drew the bull’s-eye around where it had hit.⁷ God is not honored by such a haphazard approach to living. He has called us to live our lives with precision and clarity of focus.

The Apostle Paul wrestled with two desires. When he traced these desires back to their core values, he found a resolution:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

Philippians 1:21-24

Interestingly, Paul had a proper philosophy of death, and this gave rise to his proper philosophy of life. He, like Jesus, knew where he was going (cf. John 13:1). Once he knew his ultimate destination, he was free to understand who and what he was living for. Our lives are only valuable in light of eternity. These brief and ephemeral years can be leveraged into eternity. So, Paul, writing from prison, understands that he can’t really lose in this situation. Whether he is executed or acquitted, he wins.

It is with this frame of mind that he writes, “Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me” (Philippians 1:25-26). Once he was able to link his desires with his values, he possessed tremendous resolve.

Most leaders today also face the tension between competing value systems and structures. In the face of difficult daily decisions, sorting out primary from secondary values can be frustrating. Hackman and Johnson, in their book Leadership, give us some further definition that may help in this dilemma.

First they discuss what values are:

Values are at the core of individual, group or organizational identity. Values are relatively enduring conceptions or judgments about what we consider to be important. [Substantial research suggests] that a number of positive effects result from agreement between personal values and the values most prized in the organization at which we work. Agreement between personal and organizational values result in increased personal identification with the organization, higher levels of job satisfaction, greater team effectiveness and lower turnover rates.⁸

Then these two authors go on to identify two types of values: “terminal values” – those that deal with lifelong goals; and “instrumental values” – those that govern behaviors that achieve terminal values. Among their list of 18 terminal values are freedom, self-respect, mature love, family security, true friendship, wisdom, equality and salvation. Some of the 18 instrumental values they outline are being loving, independent, capable, broad-minded, honest, responsible, ambitious, forgiving, self-controlled and courageous.

Paul begins the passage above with a short vision statement: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” We could all do with writing a short vision statement for our own lives. This can be accomplished fairly easily. Simply add your personal values to both of the lists above, then rank-order the values. The authors then suggest that you “carefully examine the list of your top-rated terminal and instrumental values. Look for similarities, patterns, and themes.” Finally, forge a short vision statement from what you find by clarifying your values in this manner.

Paul wrestled with his desires until he clarified what he valued. Hackman and Johnson support Paul’s decision-making process by telling us that people work better with clearly understood values. Leaders who want to be effective will find that clarifying and communicating values is an essential task. Rank-ordering your terminal and instrumental values and forming a short vision statement will help you avoid taking a scattershot approach to living.

Living in the Land of Our Sojourn

We are all mortal. None of us knows how many days we have on this earth. In fact, this is one of the most common themes in Scripture – that of the pilgrim, the stranger, the sojourner. The late singer-songwriter Rich Mullins understood this imagery. His lyrics frequently made mention of a “longing for home” that sometimes caused him to weep. In the song “Land of My Sojourn,” he writes:

Nobody tells you when you get born here

How much you’ll come to love it

And how you’ll never belong here.

So I call you my country,

And I’ll be lonely for my home.

I wish that I could take you there with me.⁹

We do not belong here on earth. This is merely a land to travel through on our way to our final destination. Our citizenship is in heaven. Thus our ultimate aspirations must transcend anything this world can provide. There are pleasant moments, to be sure, but there are also painful moments. We must change our thinking so that we can affirm, with the Apostle Paul, that neither our temporary pleasures nor our present sufferings are “worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). These things are merely preparing us for what is to come.

As we grow and mature in the things of God, we can come to the place where our longing for our true home governs the way we live here in our temporary home. It is possible to endure great hardships and trials when you know that they are only temporary and are leading you to something far greater. Also, it is in this way that we come to see how precious our time here is, and how foolish it is to waste our time here with our noses to the grindstone or endlessly channel-surfing! How terrible to come to the end of life and realize that we were too busy or preoccupied to actually live. While we are here we have opportunities to cultivate relationships and catalogue experiences and share the gospel and serve people in need. Our boredom surely reveals more about us than about the God who places so many wonderful opportunities in our paths.

The central issue of values is summed up in what Jesus called the first and greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). That is the value to value. That is the prism through which all other values must shine, the filter through which all of life’s choices are made and solutions are drawn. Until we love God properly, the rest of what we’ve learned about values will remain an academic exercise.

¹For example, the following books have been released or are scheduled for release in the year 2003: Executive Values: A Christian Approach to Organizational Leadership by Kurt Senske (Augsburg Fortress Publishers); Transformational Leadership: Value Based Management for Indian Organizations by Shivganesh Bhargave (Sage Publications); And Dignity for All: Unlocking Greatness with Values-Based Leadership by James E. Despain, et al. (Financial Times Prentice Hall); Living Headship: Voices, Values and Vision by Helen M. Gunter, et al. (Paul Chapman Publications).

²James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last (New York: Harper Business, 1997), p. 73.

³Ibid., p. 94.

⁴C.S. Lewis, “De Futilitate,” in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), p. 69.

⁵Larry E. Hall, No Longer I (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1998), p. 126.

⁶Hall, No Longer I, p. 127.

⁷Adapted from James Emery White, Rethinking the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 33.

⁸Michael Hackman and Craig Johnson, Leadership: A communication Perspective, Second Edition (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1996), p. 89.

⁹“Land of My Sojourn” by Rich Mullins, Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing, 1993.

You are here

From the series: Question and Answer with Bob Deffinbaugh PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Q. Living Together And Marriage?

Answer

From the series: Question and Answer with Bob Deffinbaugh PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Privacy, Security and Terms of Use Policy

Formatting Guidelines for Articles Submitted to Bible.org

Introduction

File Naming convention

Formatting Documents

Things You Should Never Do

Do Use Paragraph Styles

Provide Consistent Appearance

Global modification of a document

Enables other advanced features of Word

Outlining/Table of Contents

Exporting to PowerPoint

Facilitates the Conversion Process

Applying Paragraph Styles

Structure Styles

Bad Structure

Good Structure

Function Styles

Appearance Styles

Other Formatting details

Footnotes

Tables

Graphics

Installation Instructions

Using Our Template

Conclusion

Poetic Examples Of Safety In The Scriptures

Submissions Agreement

From the series: Leadership Qualities PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

1. Character

God: He’s Quite a Character!

Character from the Inside Out

Peter: A Case Study in Character

Loving Your Way to Good Character

From the series: Leadership Qualities PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Keeping From Slipping

From the series: Question and Answer with Bob Deffinbaugh PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Q. Is “Volunteers” A Good Term For Non-Paid Workers?

Answer

From the series: Question and Answer with Bob Deffinbaugh PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

From the series: Leadership Qualities PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

4. Dependence on God

Worry-free Living

Seeing Old Faithful

Everyone Lives by Faith

How Things Really Get Done

An Everlasting Guarantee

From the series: Leadership Qualities PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

From the series: Leadership Qualities PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

12. Values

God: The Source of All Values

Godly Values for Godly People

Moving From Theory to Practice

Case Study: The Apostle Paul

Living in the Land of Our Sojourn

From the series: Leadership Qualities PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Pages