Volume 3: Issue 5 | September 2020
Third Commandment Exposition:
Take the Name of the Lord Your God
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain."
-- Exodus 20:7
What does the third commandment forbid? If you were driving and decided to listen to the news and heard about murder and stealing, you can craft an accurate picture in your mind. We know exactly what murderers and thieves are guilty of. But imagine you hear “Local Abington man takes the Lord’s name in vain. More details to come.” What does that mean? What exactly would that man be guilty of? This is an important question, because attached to the third commandment is a promise, a scary one, “the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” In other words, the third commandment is something that can escape the courts and laws of our society, but God takes notice. When his name is used in vain, he promises judgment!
How should we start? Well, before you can use someone’s name in a negative way you need access to that name. A relationship must be established. This is why Moses is sent to the enslaved Israelites with a name. In Exodus 3, Moses says, Okay, God, when I go to the people and tell them I’ve been sent by the God of their fathers, they are gonna ask me, ‘what’s his name?’ And God doesn’t just reveal his name simply for purposes of identification, but with his name comes his work in the world that he made. God says to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM!” Well, who are you? I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am the God who has observed the wrongs done to you in Egypt and the God who will bring you out of the land of affliction and into the land of promise. Now that’s in Exodus 3, but in Exodus 20, after the ten plagues, after Pharaoh has been crushed, and the Israelites are standing at Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments start with a reminder of exactly who fulfilled his promise. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” The whole reason there is a third commandment is because God is willing to give his name to the oppressed people of Israel. This is the name the Israelites have a special relationship with, special access to, the name of God that means salvation and freedom for the Israelites. This is the name they are not to take in vain!
But, that in vain part gives us a reminder of the proper way to read the Ten Commandments. We forget that while the commandments are forbidding things, they are also encouraging certain things. The Lord goes to a great deal of trouble to reveal his name to his people. He doesn’t say, “Never take my name!” He says, “Don’t take it in vain.” God has given Israel access to his name and he wants us to use it. So I am going to talk about the privilege of using God’s name in prayer.
I remember being young and accidentally dialing 9-1-1. The house phone number of my best friend at the time was 910-2911, but I started with 911 and that’s the “I need help number.” It doesn’t matter what numbers follow that. So the police officer arrived and was very understanding, and he talked with me about how important it is that 9-1-1 be used responsibly, it is a privilege to even have access to assistance, protection, & rescue so easily. I remember hearing a story about a woman who called 9-1-1, while her assailant was present, and she pretended to be placing a pizza order until the operator understood exactly what she was getting at. In light of that serious and important use of 9-1-1, how crazy is it that on another line you have some 10-year-old kid misdialing a buddy? Still, the cops showed up to my house.
Having access to something does not mean you will appreciate it properly or understand its weight. The officer never said to me, “Listen kid, don’t ever call 9-1-1 again,” even though I had called it in vain! The Lord wants his people to use His name. He is the “Lord your God,” he cares and is invested in your life. This leads to some self-examination. “Do I make use of this name at all?” Christian, you have access to God; you can call on him. You SHOULD call on him. Does this show up in your life? When you are clearly in need of wisdom, do you rely on your great planning and organizational skills alone? Or do you call on the name of the Lord for his blessing upon your planning and organizational skills? Say you are in some great difficulty -- will you only call on the name of the Lord when your plans or efforts have fallen short? This week, be sure you call upon God’s name and make use of what he has revealed about himself. When you pray for your loved ones, when you desire to grow in holiness and cast aside empty sinful ways, when you are in need…call on the name of the Lord who has saved you and made himself your God.
-- Hunter Jackson
Preacher! The Children are Listening…
1. How can we make people believe in Jesus? We can’t just give them a Bible. (Levi, age 6)
True. Giving people a Bible is not enough by itself to cause someone to believe in Jesus, but it’s a good place to begin. The Bible is God’s word, and God tells us it is living and powerful (Heb 4:12). It’s how we learn about who God is, why the world is broken, our situation as sinners, and how we can be made right with God through Jesus Christ his Son. But you are right - we can’t force people to believe what God’s word says. Only God, working in their hearts by his Holy Spirit as they read his word can make them believe (Phil 2:13, Eph 2:8-9, 1 John 4:19).
In addition to giving people a Bible, God tells us other things we can do to help people believe in Jesus. We can pray for them, show them Jesus’ love by the way we behave, invite them to spend time or share a meal with us, help them with their needs, and talk with them and answer their questions (1 Tim 2:1, Heb 12:14, 1 Peter 3:15, Matt 5:44, Isaiah 58:7).
2. Why did Adam and Eve want to be like God? (Eleanor, age 4)
When God made Adam and Eve he placed them in the Garden in Eden to live and work, and he gave them one restriction: “You are not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:16-17). Soon, the cunning Serpent came to Adam and Eve in the Garden and what did he tell them? “The real reason God doesn’t want you to eat of that tree is that if you do, it will make you like him, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:4). The Serpent sneakily encouraged them to think, “Maybe God is being mean. He’s keeping something good from us!” Adam and Eve wanted God’s wisdom for themselves, so they believed the Serpent’s lie. They thought, “We’ll be happier if we can decide for ourselves how to behave instead of having always to do what God says” (Gen 3:6). But they were wrong. Instead of becoming better off when they ate the fruit, their disobedience broke their friendship with God. They became enemies with God and he sent them out of the Garden in Eden forever into a life of hard work, suffering, and eventually death (Gen 3:22-24).
Unless God changes our hearts, we naturally have the same desire as Adam and Eve. We want to be God in our own lives, deciding for ourselves what is good or not good, instead of letting God decide that for us and then obeying him (Rom 3:10-12). The serpent Satan, who lied to Adam and Eve, is himself the first example. He lost his place in heaven as an important angel when he decided it wasn’t good enough to work for the God who made him. He wanted to be the ruler himself (Isaiah 14:12-15). Desire to rule our own lives and jealousy of God’s dominion over us will never make us become like him. Instead, it will always separate us from him.
Did you know that there is a right way to become like God – a way that is obedient and glorifying to him? God tells us in his word that he is the source of knowledge and wisdom. By filling our minds with his word, knowing him more and more, and obeying what he says to do, we will gain his Godly wisdom and understanding (Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 3:5-6). In this way he makes us new again in his image, which means he makes us like himself (Ephesians 4:22-24, Romans 8:29). God wants us to become like him, but not in order to take his place (which we can never do even if we foolishly think so), but so that we can be at peace with him and we can be like our father (Rom 8:14-17).
3. Who is born of Jesus? (Zada, age 7)
No one was born of Jesus in the usual way that children are born to fathers since during his time on earth Jesus never married and he had no biological children to call him father. However, the Bible tells us that everyone who wishes to be saved must be born again into God’s family (John 3:3-5, 1 John 4:7). When we repent of our sins and call on Jesus to save us, God adopts us as his sons and daughters (Eph 1:5, 1 John 3:1). Then Jesus, who is the Son of God, becomes our elder brother (Heb 2:11). What an amazing thing to be part of Jesus’s family!
4. What is mercy? “… mercy shall follow me,” Psalm 23:6 (Nathaniel, age 2.5)
Mercy is when you don’t punish someone who did something unkind or wrong to you even though that person deserves it. Mercy means saying to the person who did something wrong to you, “I will let it go and not give you the consequence you deserve.” When we show mercy, we behave like God, who showed us the most important mercy of all. Instead of punishing us for our sins the way we deserve, he decided instead to make it possible for us to become his children (Ephesians 2:4-8). To make this possible, he sent his Son, Jesus, to take the punishment for our sins. Anyone who understands that he or she is a sinner and asks Jesus to be his savior receives God’s mercy instead of God’s punishment (John 3:16, 1 John 1:9).
Has a young person recently ask you a theological question - perhaps in response to a Scripture reading, lesson, or to something the preacher said during church? Send these questions to Susan Edgar (susanledgar@gmail.com) for inclusion in a future issue.
-- Susan Edgar
Stories of Evangeline
by Rev. Remo I. Robb
Reprint from the Covenanter Witness, January 21, 1948, p. 48
In the autumn of 1939, while I was ministering to a neighboring congregation, a young seminary student, Mr. Hugh Wright [Renwick Wright as Robb later corrects himself] from Ireland, preached for my people at First Beaver Falls. After the Sabbath was over we talked about things he would like to see. Since Beaver Falls is the home of Geneva, the only Covenanter college in the world, he felt he would like to see it, but he said, “I must also see Miss Evangeline Metheny. She was in my father’s home in Ireland and we enjoyed her visit very much. It simply would not do for me to come to the city where she is living and not call on her.”
We arranged to go early to College Hill, visit Miss Metheny for a while, and then proceed to the college in time to attend chapel services. How poorly we planned! Through the frosty crispness of the morning we drove to the old Metheny homestead, a big rambling house, sometimes nicknamed “Castle Metheny,” on a bluff above the Enamel Works, and were shown upstairs to where Miss Metheny was living in a large airy room.
“Ah, come in, come in,” she greeted us, and as we stepped inside, she continued, “You had better keep your overcoats on, for I do not have much heat in here.” We noticed that the only heat was from a single gas plate in the middle of the floor.
“I simply cannot stand these stuffy American houses. They are so hot. I can hardly breathe. My idea is that if you have warm clothes you should wear them.” So wearing our overcoats we sat down. Talk continued about the folks in Ireland, the missionaries who she had left in far off Syria, but soon the subject shifted to the Syrians themselves. How she loved them! The struggling masses in the cities, the villagers, the mountain folk, they were all her people. And out of a heart overflowing with love and pity she talked of their burdens, their oppressions, their trials, and their victories through Christ.
Suddenly, “I must say, I’m a bit chilly. Do you mind if I go to bed?” And knowing full well that we could not say to her, “Nay,” she immediately threw back the covers on her cot, lay down, and drew them over her. “Now,” she said, “I can talk in comfort.”
Being in the right mood for story telling she then told tales that thrilled us to the depths of our hearts. Hours later, we noticed that the college chapel services were most certainly over, and that unless we hurried home we would miss our lunch. Reluctantly we left Miss Metheny in the big room of “Castle Metheny,” but the incidents related that morning will be, at least for me, a life-long enriching part of my missionary knowledge.
Traveling among the congregations of the church I have been asked repeatedly to “talk to the Juniors,” and I have been glad to tell them these stories from Miss Metheny. I told one or two to the Juniors at Grinnell, and I have learned that older people like them as well. In the hope that a much wider group will enjoy them, and with the prayer that our “little Covenanters” will be challenged by the experiences of a truly great Covenanter missionary, I am going to write out some of the incidents we heard that morning. I am sorry that I cannot put down the earnest personality of Miss Metheny, but that, I guess, was our blessing from hearing the tales first-hand. Neither am I able to make quotations exact, nor am I sure that all the little details are correctly stated, but I shall try with God’s help to leave you with the impressions we received that morning.
Stories of Evangeline: How Miss Metheny Found Some Sons
by Rev. Remo I. Robb
Reprint from the Covenanter Witness, March 3, 1948, pp. 143-44
“One year in Alexandretta, Syria, it was laid on my heart that I should do something for the prisoners.”
That’s the way the story starts.
There was in Alexandretta, where Miss Metheny lived and worked, a large government prison. French army officers were in charge of it. It had some high buildings around a large courtyard. Up on the second floor were little balconies off the windows, where the guards stood from time to time. Out in the courtyard the prisoners milled around, going to and fro,
idling the time away, day in and day out. They were rough men from the mountains and villages of the country, but they were to be pitied because for the most part they never had a chance to know anything better than the rough heathen life which had led them into crime.
So one day Miss Metheny took a bag, like a briefcase, and put into it simple Bible tracts and Bible stories, and set out for the prison. She did not know what sort of men she would get to see, nor whether she would even get to see them. But she felt sure that the Lord was guiding her into this work, and the first step seemed to be to ask the prison “commandant” about it. We would have called him the “warden,” but the French called him “commandant.”
She reached the prison and was shown into the commandant’s office. He was an officer of the French army. In French she spoke to him,
“Sir, I have to come ask if I may go and speak to the prisoners.”
“What? You mean that you, a woman, want to go out and talk to those men? What for?”
“Well, they are men with souls, just like I have, and I want to tell them something that will help them to be better.”
“Ha, lady, they don’t want to be better, not those fellows.”
“How do you know? Has anybody ever asked them? Has anybody ever tried to help them be better?”
“Nobody can make those fellows better. They’re just born that way, they live that way, and die that way. You’d better just go back to your schools. It’s too late to do anything with this crowd.”
“It is not too late, so long as they can hear,” Miss Metheny pled, “They may have been born in wickedness, and lived in it, but they do not need to die in it. Let me go and talk to them just once.”
“Lady, do you know what kind of men you are asking to see? Murderers, robbers, pirates! They’ve broken every commandment of God and man and a lot that no man ever thought of. If you stepped out there into that yard, they’d mob you in the first five minutes. I can’t let you go out there.”
“But I don’t need to go out there to see them, do I?”
“How else could you talk to them?”
“Why, I could go up to the balconies where the guards stand.”
“And where would the guard go while you are talking?”
“It would only be for a few minutes, sir, and I’m sure nothing would go wrong in the little while I would be out there.”
“I’m sorry, lady, but I couldn’t allow that. I appreciate your kind thoughts for these tough fellows, but there isn’t any way I could let you see them.”
The commandant did not know that he was dealing with a person to whom the salvation of the souls of men meant more than any rules of military power. He was not quite prepared for her next approach.
“Sir,” said Miss Metheny, “you are an officer in the French army, is it not?”
“That is right.”
“You give orders to the men under you?”
“Yes, and I expect them to be obeyed, too.”
“And you have officers over you who command you?”
“Most certainly.”
“And you have to obey their orders.”
“Absolutely.”
“A good soldier always obeys the orders of his superior officers, doesn’t he?”
“Always.”
With that Miss Metheny straightened to attention, and said, “Sir, I too am a soldier. My commanding officer, the Lord Jesus Christ, said to me, ‘Go and speak to the prisoners in Alexandretta!’ Now, sir, would you have me disobey the orders of my Superior?”
The officer rose from his desk, and said, “No, lady, I would not want you to disobey the orders of your Superior. I yield to you. You may go upstairs and speak to the men for five minutes.”
“Guard, guard!” he called, and when the young soldier appeared, he commanded, “Take this lady up to the balcony, and see that no harm comes to her.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” said Miss Metheny, and happily went toward the balcony. She knew that she must not let the prisoners get loud and rowdyish, nor in any way take over the situation, not for one moment. She must always be in complete control. Not only that day when she first appeared, but all future of her work with them demanded that she be
complete master through all her five minutes. As she approached the balcony she could look out through the window and see the men roving around in the yard below. Some were in little groups, some walked alone, some lay on the ground in the shade, and a few dared lie in the sun. They did indeed look rough and tough. How should she begin to talk to them?
The guard opened the doors, and she stepped out onto the balcony, saying in Arabic “Ya ’bnaiyi” – Hello, Sons.
With one turn, the men in the yard looked up to where the guard had been standing, and seeing a woman there, and hearing her salutation, shouted back, “Ya immi” – Hello Mother.
She did not hesitate, but asked right away, “How many of you can read?” A few raised their hands and shouted that they could.
“All right,” she said, “Here are some little papers for you to read to each other.” And so saying she dipped into her bag and brought out the tracts, gospel portions, and other material, and tossed it into the air so that it went fluttering to the ground. As the men all went dashing after it, she continued, “You men who can’t read, pick up these and take what
you get to those who can read. Get your friends around you and have these things read to your groups. You will find them interesting and helpful.”
How they picked up that material! To most of them it was the first reading matter they ever had had. Few indeed could read it, but they would keep their tracts and portions safely until they could have them read aloud.
“How would you like to hear a story, Sons?”
“Yes, yes, ya immit” – our Mother.
So she told them a Bible story as only Miss Metheny could tell one, and then noting that her time was running short, she asked, “Would you like me to come again?”
“Yes! Sure! Come tomorrow!”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, but I’ll come again. Let’s see, this is Tuesday. Suppose I come on Friday. How’ll that do?”
“Fine! Fine! Come Friday.”
“That’ll be it then. Now read those papers to each other, and I’ll have more the next time. Goodbye, Sons.”
“Goodbye, Mother.”
After she had gone home that day, she thought to herself, “Why was I so long thinking about those poor boys? Here I have been for years and only now did I think of those who are sick and in prison and nobody goes to them?” She really looked forward to her next visit and prepared well for it with another good Bible story, some more tracts and portions.
Friday came and she found herself before the windows opening out on the balcony. She began to open them, and before she could step out she heard the welcome call coming up from the yard below,
“Ya immi!” – hello, Mother!
These would be her sons, indeed, and so she called back as she stepped into full view, “Ya ‘bnaiyi” – hello, Sons!
For many months Miss Metheny went twice a week to see the prisoners. Men left and went back to their homes up in the mountains. Other new ones guilty of some crime came and joined the group, but to her they were all her sons, and to them she was a great and good mother.
How long it might have continued, who can tell? But in time the “commandant” was changed. Even as in Bible times “there arose a new king, who knew not Joseph,” so the new commandant knew not Miss Metheny. With more attention to having his own military orders obeyed than on obedience to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ, he would not
allow her to continue her ministry.
But though the prison authorities forgot her, the men to whom she had spoken never forgot the woman on the balcony who called them her “sons,” and they always thought of her as their “mother.”
The Wise Young Couple Has Children During a Pandemic
In pre-marriage counseling sessions, I sometimes ask, “So... why do you want to get married?” Man and woman glance at each other, and one answers shyly, “Because we’re in love.” “Not good enough,” I say. “Go study what the Bible says God’s purposes for marriage are, and we’ll talk about them next week.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches, “Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife; for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.” (24.2, Genesis 2:18, Malachi 2:15, I Corinthians 7:2, 9) The Confession could have added that God intends marriages to be living icons of the relationship between Christ and his Church (Ephesians 5:22-33).
Something odd has crept into Christian thinking in the last sixty years concerning God’s four purposes for marriage. Strangely, children have become optional. Listen to the questions people ask newlyweds. “Are you planning to have children?” “Do you want children?” Hear their answers: “We plan to finish school, get established, and then have children.” “We need time to get to know each other, and then we’ll have children.”
No one asks, “When do you think you’ll be ready to start being faithful to one another?”
No one says, “When we are ready, we will begin to support one another.”
But when it comes to children, Christian couples, along with their friends and relatives, oddly assume that children are an option, a sort of consumer good to be acquired when the time seems right. Where did that idea come from? Not from faith.
The just live by faith. Faith means taking God at his word in everything, not just in the matter of salvation. God says emphatically that children are a blessing, not a career distraction, not a curse, a blessing! When Boaz and Ruth married, all Bethlehem blessed them, saying, “May the LORD make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel
and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel (Ruth 4:11).” “Children are a heritage from the LORD… Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them (Psalm 127:3-5).” Those who live by faith know that children are a blessing greater than wealth, lands, career, fame, ease,
entertainment, or a house.
In the worst situations imaginable, believers married and had children. Ejected from Paradise, unable to go back, childbirth made painful, the ground cursed so that getting food was hard, Adam and Eve in faith had sons and daughters. Only by them having children would the serpent ever be crushed. No babies, no future, no victory. In Egypt, with the sentence of death resting on all Hebrew male babies, Israelite families continued to have
children. A faithful couple had a son, named “Moses” by Pharaoh’s daughter, who led Israel out of Egypt. In Babylon, God told the Jewish exiles there, “Put down roots. Build houses. Marry. Have children (Jeremiah 29).” Because they obeyed and had children and grandchildren, there was a remnant ready to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple
where Jesus would one day teach.
Believers who live by faith bear children in the face of adversity – when kicked out of Paradise, enslaved in Egypt, and exiled in Babylon. When a couple decide that children are a bad idea because they have other plans, or because the times are bad (when are they not?), they claim to know a future which nullifies God’s statement of fact: children are a blessing,
indeed his blessing.
Are there too many people in the world? That is so yesterday’s question. The problem today is too many people not marrying and those who do having few children. Do you want children? That is a bad question: God says that children are a part of marriage. When you muse “We’ll get ‘established’ first – career, finances, house, etc.”, remember that God made us so that the time for having children soon passes. Fertility wanes quickly after age thirty. Children, in fact, often force new couples to reconsider their priorities and work to establish their finances.
Do you need time to get to know one another after marrying? In the ordinary course of affairs, God gives you time enough, nine months minimum. Are you “ready” to start a family? Of course not! No one “gets it” that being a father or mother is the only truly 24/7 job in the world, with aggravations and worries and exhaustions of all sorts. But God says
that if you are married then you are ready, and he will provide the strength you need. You will discover that children are excellent teachers to help you grow to maturity.
If you are married, when should you “start a family?” Now! “In the middle of a pandemic,” you ask? Yes! Just as much as being faithful to your mate, and being supportive, and being an example of Christ and his Church, having children fulfills God’s purpose for marriage. The readiness to bear children is what makes a married couple different than two friends living together in mutual support. It is part of living by faith. In the middle of a pandemic is God’s time to bear children.
-- Bill Edgar
How I Learned Hospitality
by Gretchen Edgar
Reprint from Midwest Presbyterial, April, 2004
First, you start with two shy, socially tentative people – that’s a euphemism, we were awkward – two shy people who are convinced that hospitality is a basic principle in Scripture, a nuts and bolts application of the Lord’s command to love our neighbor. So we committed ourselves to be hospitable.
These two shy people were also perfectionists, and not always in the same or overlapping areas. Neither of us knew how to cook when we got married. Bill still does not know how to cook, except for chocolate chip cookies. But we agreed on principle and on working at accomplishment. So, as newlyweds at the Seminary in Pittsburgh, we invited the Cyprus Committee of the Foreign Mission Board, several seminary professors and Miss Ruth Reade over for spaghetti. I was SO nervous. I can’t remember anything else about the evening. But I did not die.
Don and Boni Piper were good examples: have people over for fun. Cook neat food if you can – we couldn’t – do simple food otherwise. I understood I always wanted to be able to have people sleep over if they needed a place. So I had in the back of my mind a plan, ready for making up a bed, grabbing towels, so it wouldn’t look like an unwelcome chore.
We noticed in the congregation of North Hills certain personalities, a certain person would make a point of greeting new people after church or before if possible. Another person didn’t do that, but was good at making friends as people showed up a second or third time. This double-teaming made people feel especially welcome.
Some people will criticize an untidy house and praise a neat house, but most of all they want to go to the friendly, open, welcoming house. We saw this reality in Cyprus. The students would rate the young missionaries’ housekeeping, but then they’d go to the more casual house and less often to the more spotless house. This choice taught me balance, perspective. What is more important? A meal doesn’t have to be a feast. It can be grilled cheese sandwiches or soup. When we invite families over on Sabbath evening, we do waffles because most kids like them; that saves parents coaxing their kids to eat. We try also to have a fruit salad; most kids will eat that. Actually, that menu is a rest for Mom. Our son Alex has been doing the meal for years now. When he moved out for good, I had to relearn cooking waffles.
Floy Smith taught me a useful principle. Have your home be a place where anyone of any social class could be at ease. In Christ we can talk to anyone. He’s our King, we are his princes and princesses, no matter how humbly we live. He gives us class. Bill thought for some time that I thought he wasn’t worthy to eat off my mother’s English fine bone china. That’s why it sat on a shelf unused. I told him when we finally talked about it that I wasn’t good enough to eat off it. When I was a child, it had been only for grown-up parties, for entertaining university colleagues. From that day, we have
used these dishes for family birthday dinners, and we washed them in the dishwasher. I realized I wasn’t taking them to heaven and none of my kids really want such delicate things. But they are beautiful settings for Thanksgiving Dinner.
When we moved into our first house in 1980, a Philadelphia area twin, we had no money to fix it up. We were blessed to get into a house at all since mortgage rates were then above 13 per cent. Bill was earning a starting teacher’s salary, teaching a class at Penn, and preaching for Broomall much of the time. I looked at the living room wallpaper, peeled in places. “We can’t invite people to such a place,” I said to Bill. “Oh yes we can,” he said. I wasn’t to be ashamed of where I lived or it meant that I was ashamed of him for making so little money that we couldn’t do new wallpaper yet. And I
was never to think like that again. So I haven’t.
When Bill was called to Broomall, the church where he grew up, he considered the strengths and weaknesses of the church to see how he should proceed as its pastor. He knew that in many cases, he had never been even once in the homes of other members. There weren’t as many connections across the church as there should have been. We shouldn’t just relate individually to the pastor, but like a spider’s web touch many others also in the church. So he set out to encourage the church to be hospitable. It was a theme that showed up in sermon after sermon, surprising as it sneaked into passages where it didn’t seem to be present. We began mailing bulletins to absentees. First, Bill’s Aunt Libbie did that, then Mrs. Ada Jackson, then Bill’s mother, and now I do it. Someone, often a child, greets arrivals each week and hands them a bulletin. We had members over to dinner and urged them to host each other in their homes. When a baby is born, we call the news immediately and people bring food to help the new mother. If someone misses church, one of the elders phones him that week. We aim at one church social a month. We fall short. Our most recent social was “the
kids cook dinner.” They chose the menu and planned the activities. It is training in being sociable. We drive the elderly and injured to hospitals. We babysit. We help each other move: empty the house, load the van, drive to the new house, empty the van, eat pizza, and talk the next day about how sore we are. When one of our members, a man in the army with nine kids, was posted to Germany for nine months, we arranged for his wife to visit him for a week. Raising the money was the easy part; farming the kids out to different families in the church – now that’s hospitality! – was harder. The parents enjoyed the visit so much, they now have a tenth child.
I will end with a story Ed Robson told about the Syracuse RPC, from early in his pastorate. He had been trying to encourage friendliness to newcomers. One older woman of good humor marveled one Lord’s Day at “all the strangers.” “Betty,” said Ed, “those aren’t strangers, they’re visitors.” A few weeks later, she remarked again to him about the “strrr- visitors.” He was pleased at her progress.
In hospitality there are the private, personal acts from you and your family. There are also some that require group effort and organization, like moving someone, or babysitting nine kids for a week. Aim at both.
What have you discovered about hospitality that would help us? What does your church do? Here are some questions for discussion that might help us get started:
1) Who is more responsible for hospitality, husband or wife?
2) How can you involve your children in the family’s hospitality?
3) Is inviting friends over for fun real hospitality? Is it getting you ready for the harder kinds of hospitality, of strangers or even enemies?
4) How can you help your church to be more hospitable...
a) on the Lord’s Day at church?
b) throughout the week with one another?
c) to strangers?
5) Why are you sometimes reluctant to be hospitable? How good are those reasons?
6) What would you advise someone who wanted to begin being hospitable to do?
7) What blessings have you experienced in being hospitable?
8) What should your preacher tell you about hospitality so that you’ll want to do it?
9) What are the dangers in being hospitable?
Who'd Like to be a Horton?
“Better is the poor who walks in his integrity
than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.”
-- Proverbs 19:1
Wise people know the relative value of things. The Pharisees failed here. When Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath, they ignored the astonishing healing to complain about Jesus’ working. Not knowing the heart of God, they evaluated relative worth wrongly. “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (Luke 11:42).”
Wealth is God’s blessing and is easier than poverty, but it is less important in a family than peace (17:1). Therefore, people err when they think wealth is the measure of a man. The question, “How much is he worth (meaning money)?” is way off the mark. A far better measure of a man is integrity: “better is the poor who walks in his integrity.” A poor man who lives honestly, keeps his word, and stands for what is right regardless of the cost, is better than – what? We expect “better than a rich man who…” but Solomon draws a surprising contrast: better “than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.”
The English “fool” translates four Hebrew words with meanings of empty head, evil, slow- witted, and self-confident. The word in 19:1 means the self-confident fool, in this case the slick talker who can trick people with his words, make anyone like him in two minutes, sell anything to anyone: in short, with his smooth words he get what he wants. Such a fool is not deceived about the power of his words. He has a rich gift, but the gift by itself does not make him worthy of anything. Absalom had the gift, and with it he stole the hearts of Israel from their God-anointed king. The woman on the prowl with flattering words in Proverbs 2:16-19 is such a person.
The glib talker thinks himself superior to the plodding poor man who lives with integrity, but who can’t bend people to his will with words, and never seems to get ahead. The children’s author Dr. Seuss depicts the opposite of the glib fool with the elephant Horton in Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton Hears a Who. He is a big-hearted plodder who sticks
unflaggingly to his word no matter what. In the end his integrity vindicates him: he saves the town of Whoville (“A person’s a person no matter how small”), and he hatches the egg (“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant”). In God’s eyes, the glib talker is inferior to the Hortons of this world. The smooth talker in the end is merely an arrogant windbag, a fool.
-- Bill Edgar
Thoughtful Questions I’ve Been Asked During the Last Month:
On Divorce and On Propaganda
1. What are allowable grounds for divorce in the Bible?
The Bible portrays more unhappy marriages than happy ones. Rebekah schemed with her son Jacob against her husband Isaac (Genesis 27:5-13). Wise Abigail had Nabal the fool for a husband (I Samuel 25). David’s wife Michal first saved his life and then mocked his dance before the ark of the LORD as it entered Jerusalem (I Samuel 19, II Samuel 6). The Book of Proverbs, written by father to son, warns him repeatedly that marriages can be unhappy (Proverbs 12:4, 14:1, 21:19, 25:24, 27:15-16).
Some Pharisees once tried to trap Jesus with a question about divorce. Some at the time taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason that seemed good to him, while others said that it could only be for adultery (Matthew 19:3-12, Mark 10:2-12). Jesus answered them using Genesis 1-2. In marriage God makes two become “one flesh.” Men therefore may not separate what God has joined together (Matthew 19:4-6). He waved aside the Deuteronomy 24:1-4 passage that regulated divorce, teaching that Moses gave it only because of their “hardness of heart” (Matthew 19:7-8). Jesus put women on an equal basis with men: neither party has God’s permission to break apart what God had joined, except
for the reason of sexual unfaithfulness (Matthew 19:9).
In a letter to the Church in Corinth, Paul addressed a situation that did not arise in Jewish Palestine. What if only one partner believes? Paul answers that the believing partner should not leave the unbeliever because he or she sanctifies the marriage, including the children, and maybe the unbeliever will believe. However, if the unbelieving partner refuses to live with the new believer, let him or her go since God has called us to peace (I Corinthians 7:12-16). Combining Matthew 19:9 and I Corinthians 7:15, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches, “Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage: yet, nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage...” (WCF, 24.6) The Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church adds, “Desertion can be a ground of divorce only when the departing person is an unbeliever.” (24.26)
The Confession notes that the corruption of man is such that people “study arguments unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage.” Why? The reason is simple. An unhappy marriage can be really, really unhappy, sometimes for one and sometimes for both parties, sometimes for a time, and sometimes for as long as they both live. Traditional English marriage vows thus wisely include unhappy outcomes as well as happy ones: "I, [Name] take you, [Name] to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish; till death us do part, according to God's holy law. In the
presence of God I make this vow."
Why should a couple stay together when one party gets sick, sometimes permanently? Why stay together when a husband cannot earn enough money to support his family? Why stay together when the marriage is “for worse?” Because the promise “to have and to hold…till death us do part” is a vow made in God’s presence! He is witness to every Christian marriage. He holds guilty everyone who breaks a vow made in his name. He commands, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” God, not man, makes one out of the two, so man should not cut apart the unity that God has made (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:6).
Nevertheless, people will “study arguments” to justify divorce – or they will find workarounds, such as the annulments that the Roman Catholic Church is famous for. Unhappy couples, and those whose livelihood it is to counsel them, are strongly tempted to conclude that a quarrelsome couple would be better off divorced than married.
A recent new argument based on Old Testament law seeks to expand the cases where divorce is allowed beyond the Westminster Standards’ summary of the Bible. It goes like this. In Exodus 21:7-11, the Law provides that if a man married a slave and then took a second wife, he had to continue giving his slave wife food, clothes, and marital rights. If he does not give her these three things, then she shall go free. Arguing from the lesser to the greater, if a mistreated slave wife should go free, how much more should a free wife be able to leave her husband if he does not provide for her?
How can this argument from Exodus 21 be made to fit with the Westminster Confession of Faith? Just add adjectives to “desertion,” to get emotional desertion, economic desertion, and abuse desertion. However, “desertion” in the Westminster standards, our Testimony, and in I Corinthians 7, means that one party to a marriage has left the home, is physically absent, and can’t be made to return. That is all that it means.
The Ohio Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church recently adopted a long and thorough study opposing the new argument from Exodus 21 justifying divorce on wider grounds than the Westminster Standards do (http://pohopc.org/reports/). Dr. George Scipione, the former Professor of Biblical Counseling at RPTS, wrote a Minority Report of one. In line with what he taught, he upholds the Exodus 21 justification for divorce after the elders of a church conclude that the abusive behavior of one party – usually the husband – amounts to “desertion.” Because Exodus 21 is not typological of Christ, its “general equity” applies today (see WCF 19.4). Scipione writes, “This then could possibly function as a concrete definition of desertion which then is defined covenantally/contractually and not
merely spatially” (unnumbered page dealing with Exodus 21). What is “covenantal” desertion? Presumably, it is when one party breaks his marriage covenant vows to provide financial support and emotional intimacy, sins that amount to “desertion,” he argues.
Unfortunately for Scipione’s proposal, the Deuteronomy 24:1-4 passage Jesus dismisses is also not typological any more than Exodus 21 is. Both passages dealt with issues raised by sin and “hardness of heart.” Exodus 21 regulated a world where slavery and polygamy were common, but neither slavery nor polygamy were part of God’s plan in the beginning. Nor are they part of the Christian Church today. Therefore, the rules in Exodus 21 merit the same dismissal as Jesus gave to the rules in Deuteronomy 24: “…from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8). Only if one dismisses Jesus’ way of handling Moses’ law in Deuteronomy can “desertion” be expanded via Exodus 21 to include things Paul never mentioned in I Corinthians 7. Think how many unbelieving husbands or wives of new Christians might withdraw emotional or financial support in order to get the new believer to return to idols. But Paul writes to the new believer, “Stick with it,” unless the unbeliever wants to leave.
The majority OPC paper – the minority paper had only one signature on it – researching legitimate grounds for divorce is a thorough exploration of the issue from the writings of the time, the meaning of the word “desertion” at the time the Westminster Standards were written, and has an exhaustive exegesis of I Corinthians 7 and Matthew 19. Their conclusion: “desertion” means physical removal and only physical removal. The man or the woman has left home and neither state nor church can compel a return.
Yes, but what if physical harm or death threatens? Then the Sixth Commandment permits – indeed requires – resistance and/or calling for help and/or flight. As the Westminster Larger Catechism teaches in Q. 135, “The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all…lawful endeavours, to preserve the life of ourselves and others…by just defense thereof against violence….”
Christians have always found Jesus’ and Paul’s limited grounds for divorce hard to swallow. Jesus’ disciples asked, “Really? Then it would be better not to get married!” (Matthew 19:10). Marriage is a good thing, and a good wife is from the Lord (Proverbs 19:14). Men need women and women need men – in marriage – in order best to fulfill God’s command to have many children (I Corinthians 11:11, Genesis 1:28). But marriage is an adventure. How it will go cannot be guaranteed, so it is “for better, for worse; in sickness and in health.” What husband, what wife does not sometimes fail to fulfill the marriage covenant? A definition of “desertion” that is “covenantal” sounds pious and perhaps even compassionate, but it opens the barn door to accepting more and more divorces within the church. To ease the way to divorce by redefining “adultery” or “desertion” beyond the obvious meaning of each word is to do what the Westminster Confession knows will happen: people “will study” to find wider grounds for divorce than the Bible allows. But such “study” gives way to the prevailing unfaithfulness of our times – in the name of compassion, of course.
And what of the children? In most discussions about divorce, they get ignored. My wife’s parents fought often and loudly; very upsetting to her. But their divorce was far worse, robbing her of family and home. One day after class I asked a girl who always did her homework why it was not done that day. “I tried,” she said as her eyes filled with tears, “but
I couldn’t concentrate. My parents told me at supper last night they are getting a divorce.” The website “Them Before Us” (https://thembeforeus.com/whats-so-bad-about-divorce/) gives the children’s point of view about divorce that American society, and too often the Church, ignores. As a child, now grown to adulthood, writes, “Divorce was a one time event for my Dad. But it was the beginning of countless losses for me (https://thembeforeus.com/maria/).”
The Bible’s teaching on marriage and divorce is both clear and demanding. What God has joined together, man should not put apart, except for the cause of sexual unfaithfulness and the desertion of an unbelieving spouse. Anything more is not the Word of God.
2. How is what the Church teaches different than propaganda?
Pope Gregory XV in 1622 established the “Congregation of the Propaganda,” a committee of cardinals charged with Catholic foreign missions. The word “propaganda” came from the Latin verb “propagare,” meaning to “propagate” or “reproduce.” The verb still refers mainly to the reproduction of plants and animals, but the noun “propaganda” refers to spreading beliefs and ideas. In the 19th Century, Communists, anarchists, and nationalists called their organized, and often deceptive efforts, to spread their ideas “propaganda.” The result is that today “propaganda” has an almost entirely negative meaning. To accuse someone of spreading “propaganda” means to accuse them of spreading lies.
Christians also spread their teachings. They do it openly and truthfully according to Jesus’ command. He told his followers to teach all nations about him and what he taught (Matthew 28:18-20). Peter wrote that he preached the truth. “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty (II Peter 1:16).” Luke wrote an orderly account of what he had learned from those who from the beginning were “eyewitnesses” of the things that were done among them (Luke 1:1-4). John wrote “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you (I John 1:3).” Paul said his teaching was not in “enticing words,” but with the demonstration of God’s Spirit and power (I Corinthians 2:4, KJV).
“Propaganda” in today’s usage means to spread lies by deceptive means. Christians preach the truth openly and without deception.
-- Bill Edgar
Songs of Ascents In Time of Quarantine:
Salvation -- Past, Present, and Future
“When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion,
we were like those who dream.”
-- Psalm 126:1, NKJV
There’s a story, told as a true story, about a nineteenth century Anglican bishop that goes like this:
The bishop is sitting on the train, kitted out in full bishop’s regalia. Along comes a young Salvation Army girl, zealous to evangelize the lost (and the “religious” who may not yet have truly trusted Jesus!).
She approaches the bishop and asks him, “Bishop, are you saved?”
Gently and patiently, the bishop responds, “My dear girl, do you mean, have I been saved, am I being saved, or will I be saved?”
Did I mention that this particular bishop was an accomplished scholar of New Testament Greek? It is from the New Testament that the peculiar form of his answer was derived. Have I been saved? Am I being saved? Will I be saved? To speak this way is to be closely attuned to the New Testament’s way of speaking about salvation. We normally think about salvation as something past. Hence the zealous young girl’s question, “Are you saved?” In other words, have you experienced, in the past, that conversion event that puts a person into the state of salvation?
However, the Bible has three tenses to describe salvation, not just one. Salvation is past, present, and future. Paul especially delights to invoke the temporal dynamism of God’s grace:
Salvation past—“For by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:8).
Salvation present—“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).
Salvation future—“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom 5:9).
We have been saved—we are being saved—and we shall be saved. Salvation is a continuing reality, refusing to be trapped in some past, one-and-done, conversion experience. It certainly involves past conversion, but it also grips us in the present, and is charged with hope for the future.
We begin this meditation on Psalm 126 with the bishop’s answer to the little Salvation Army girl because, extraordinarily, all three tenses of salvation are found in this psalm. The psalmist looks back to praise God for past grace. He prays that God would continue to give present grace. And he renews hope that God will pour out future grace.
Salvation past—“When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion” (Ps. 126:1, NKJV).
Salvation present—“Bring back our captivity, O Lord” (Ps. 126:4, NKJV).
Salvation future—“He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (126:6, NKJV).
Salvation is a past, present, and future reality for God’s people. Over the next few days, we will look at each of these three aspects of Psalm 126, but for now meditate on the dynamic nature of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is firmly rooted in the past, in what God has done in Christ and in us. It is intimately conscious of the present, what God is doing in us while
Christ reigns over all things for the sake of his people. And it is ever-hoping for the future, what God will do when Jesus returns: all evil will be permanently banished, we will be given our resurrected bodies, and we then become like Christ because we will see him as he is (I John 3:2).
-- Alex Tabaka
Book Review:
7 Big Questions Your Life Depends On
by William J. Edgar
Pittsburgh, Crown & Covenant Publications: 2020
In my student days in Aberdeen, Scotland, over 50 years ago, a Christian friend opined that the age of what he called “the 3 page Bible commentary” was about to “dawn” upon us. It was a jocular dystopian anticipation of the decline of future habits of Christian reading, but I confess it made me thereafter rather dismissive of shorter books! Then, in my old age, Bill Edgar’s 54 page book burst upon the scene and, albeit somewhat belatedly, dispelled my student suspicions of little books! This is a real winner that will not only profit individual study and reflection, but could and should be profitably discussed in seven week Bible Studies and Sunday Schools everywhere by folks of all ages, both for Christian growth and evangelistic inquiry!
In the shortest compass, the author asks some Biblical questions we need to answer, because we will find that our lives really do depend upon our acquiring the right answers. Too often, we are preoccupied with questions that do not touch us personally. They may be important in themselves, but they can too easily enable us to be abstract, impersonal and impractical about the very exercise of actually walking with Christ. The experiential nature of love for the Lord, love for the truth and love for the graces of exercised Christian faith so easily can become the cold casualties of a formal “rightness” often on “positions” that may have an undeniable soundness to them, but an impact upon our inner person and our outward behavior which but little, if at all, exhibits the spirit of Jesus when He says: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29)
The seven questions highlighted begin with the very first question asked in the Bible – from the Snake in the Garden of Eden: “Did God really say...?” (Genesis 3:1-7). Further questions include those asked by God of the hiding Adam and his wife: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8-24); Abraham’s son Isaac: “Where is the lamb?” (Genesis 22); Jacob and Joseph: “Am I in the place of God?” (Genesis 30:1-2; 50:15-21); the astrologers, who were looking for Jesus: “Where is the baby born to be King of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1-12); Jesus: “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:2-17); and the angel asking
the women at the empty tomb: “Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive?” (Luke 23:50 - 24:11 and parallel passages). Helpful questions for discussion are found at the end of the book.
The various chapters are written in the author’s characteristically clear and concise style and include solid Bible exegesis and illustrative stories, many of the latter humorous, and some solemnly searching and intensely personal. Chapter 4 contains a masterly account of the story of God’s people from Joseph to Jesus’s birth which very effectively roots the questions and incidents before and after in the unfolding of God’s Covenant and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the last chapter, the author notes how common it is for us to look for answers in the wrong places. He cites one of his
students who erased his correct answers in an exam and copied his neighbor’s wrong ones (p. 47)! That reminded me of a preaching practicum years later in Philadelphia, where the professor noted that the sermon of the day was “remarkable” in that the student had first proclaimed a serious error as truth, later corrected himself and, still later, “corrected” his correction and reaffirmed his original error! Read this book, discuss its content with others – and there will be no danger of either not being clear on the issues or of not looking in the right places for the answers! Actually getting the facts on the above seven big questions will deepen your thinking and profit your soul! Very warmly
recommended indeed!
-- Gordon J. Keddie
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Authors in this issue
Adam and Lisa Edgar are members of Broomall RPC (Philadelphia). Adam is a new deacon there.
Bill Edgar is a retired pastor of Broomall RPC (Philadelphia) and 51 year partner in practicing hospitality with Gretchen.
Gretchen DeLamater Edgar is Bill's wife of 51 years, the mother of his five children, grandmother and babysitter for 15 children, and warm hostess to unnumbered guests.
Susan Edgar is a member of Broomall RPC (Philadelphia).
Hunter Jackson is a student under care of Atlantic Presbytery and is studying at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is currently serving as pastoral intern at Elkins Park RP Church.
Gordon J. Keddie, born in Scotland in 1944, is a retired American RP pastor and the author of numerous biblical commentaries and church history books.
Remo Robb (1899-1957) was born in Canton, China to RP missionaries, became an American RP pastor, and served as Synod's Home Missions Secretary.
Alex Tabaka is the pastor of Broomall RPC (Philadelphia).