Oct 4 2023

Love God Much?


On a day when the most religious of the Jews were asking Jesus questions and trying to trick him into saying something they could refute, and after stumping the Sadducees concerning the resurrection of the body another group, the Pharisees, challenged him. A lawyer asked a question, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment”. (Matt 22:36-38) How am I to love God? With all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind! (I must pause here to praise God for his lavish grace and mercy that I so desperately need. I fall way short in the loving God department! I’m thankful that Jesus loved Him perfectly for me. This is one of many sins Jesus atoned for by dying for me.) The ultra religious Jews listening to Jesus were surely just as aware of their personal short comings as I am. But Jesus raised the bar even higher. He said,  “39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:39,40) This isn’t a suggestion, it is a “You shall!” Jesus set the bar out of reach for every hearer and everyone who reads His words thousands of years after He said them.

In 1 John 4 about half the chapter is about God’s love for us, and how we are expected to love. The chapter ends this way, “20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:20,21) Bluegrass artist Rhonda Vincent had a hit song based on these verses, “If you don’t love your brother you don’t love God”.

How is your love life? Not with a girl friend or boy friend or spouse, but with God? How about the people at work, your neighbors, your in laws? According to this teaching you and I can measure our love for God by how well we love others.

What is love anyway?

Love isn’t only an emotion, it is much more. In fact the kind of Love the prior verses discuss is not possible unless a person is born from above. The sort of love Jesus taught about is a gift from His own heart. We love him because He first loved us. We didn’t love Him first. No, it is far more than an emotion. You can sit in your favorite chair and have nice warm, fuzzy feelings about someone, but that isn’t love. I suggest that love is very much like faith.

Both love and faith are grace gifts from God to undeserving sinners, you and me. So here is the way I see it.

  1. Faith and Love are intellectual. A person must know some facts to have either. The gospel is communicated with words, it is when we hear the good news that “faith comes” (Romans 10:17). You and I were not born with faith it is given. Love is ‘a’ fruit of the Spirit of God, given to those who have been made God’s children through the person and work of Jesus.
  2. Faith and love are emotional. Both are supernaturally implanted in us so that we experience joy, sometimes expressed with tears, or some other emotional response. Facts imprinted in our brains touch our emotions. We are emotional creatures. We hear the good news, the facts of the gospel, and our hearts are warmed. It makes us experience joy. But both are more.
  3. Faith and love are volitional. To experience faith or love in action we must make a choice to act upon what we know and what we think if possible. At some point I must consciously act. I have decided for Jesus and I say it with my lips, I confess Jesus as my Lord, I not only say it but I show it. In water baptism we retell the gospel and identify with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And, my language, my morals, the sort of people I associate with and want to be with changes. And, my love for other believers, Jesus, and yes, even those I don’t like very much grows and deepens.

Loving God is trying the best you possibly can to do what He says. Loving your neighbor is looking out for his best interests, helping when you can, encouraging when you are able, treating that person as you want others to treat you. I think the way I love those about me is me loving God. I don’t see how loving people and loving God can be separated.

Some of the good gifts God gives to his own are listed in Galatians 5:22 and first on this list is “Love”. 1 Corinthians 13 the love we are given is clearly defined.

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

In Christ,

Royce Ogle

May 19 2023

Baptism – Who, What, and When


I am eons short of being a theologian. I am not a professional anything. I teach a class sometimes, I’ve preached here and there, but never as a regular paid preacher, so I have a right to speak as a non-professional, a layman if you will.

I am very familiar with the several nuances about water baptism discussed ad nauseam by “sound” brothers in sermons, lectureships, journals, books, and blogs. I could recite most of the verbiage with the best of them if I so desired. In this article I’m not going there, I believe previous articles have stated the church of Christ’s traditional views and values well. What I propose is that we take a step back and see if we can learn from our mistakes.

It is clear that water baptism is in the Bible and that everyone who would follow Jesus should be baptized. It is also clear that baptism if for new believers. I have always loved the story of Philip and his encounter with an official from Ethiopia. Philip was a Jesus preacher. (Acts 8:5) He went to the city of Samara and preached Christ to them and he baptized those who believed. (Acts 8:12) So Philip had a track record of preaching Christ and baptizing those who believed the message.

A heavenly messenger instructed Philip to go in a certain direction and when he did he came upon the Secretary of the Treasury for Queen Candice, of Ethiopia. This distinguished gentleman was riding along in his chariot reading from Isaiah 53:7,8. Philip hopped on the chariot and beginning with that passage he “he told him the good news about Jesus.” (Acts 8:35) About the time Philip finished his gospel lesson they came to some water and the Ethiopian wanted to know if there was any reason why he couldn’t be baptized. They stopped, Philip baptized him, and Philip went on to his next preaching assignment. (Acts 8:38-40) What a grand story!

I’m pretty sure Philip was not a member of the church of Christ. Had he been, after the man asked about baptism he would have tried to “set up a study” at a later time. “Maybe when you are up this way again we can study baptism together, I don’t want you to make a mistake.” No, Philip just baptized him. That was exactly what Jesus had instructed disciples to do, make disciples and baptize them. Why isn’t the way Philip did it sufficient?

To this non-professional, it makes no sense to delve into a theological/doctrinal study with someone who is a brand new believer (or according to the traditional view, a lost person). In my view those studies are not for non Christians or new believers. It’s fine for brothers and sisters to discuss the many views about the efficacy of baptism, is it an ordinance or a sacrament? But for someone who just heard the good news about Jesus and has said he believes it’s time to baptize him, it is not a fitting time for a detailed Bible study. Anyone can say in two or three sentences what needs to be said, even assuming the candidate knows absolutely nothing about Christian baptism.

Jesus said as we disciples make disciples, we should baptize them. The Bible never says what words are to be spoken at the time of the actual baptism. To baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not mean even those words need to be said. Those words mean that we are to baptize in the authority of those names. In the same way to pray “in Jesus’ name” does not mean to say those  three words at the end of every prayer. And the Bible never says what a person is to know about baptism before he is baptized.

What the person about to be immersed believes about Jesus and his work for sinners is of utmost importance. He does not need to know everything the Bible says about water baptism before he is baptized. I told my small grandsons they should wash their hands before they eat, every time! I did not try to give them a course in biology, I just insisted that they wash their hands. If they did what I asked they had clean hands when they touched their food. A person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and is baptized will have a clean heart, without a course in Restoration theology.

Perhaps we should take a fresh look at the gospel. It is not a stated theory. It makes no command. It asks no questions. The good news about Jesus is an announcement! It is very, very GOOD NEWS! Our task is to announce the good news and leave the results to God. It is what Jesus has already accomplished for sinners that reconciles men to God. Jesus offered his faithful life of obedience, his body of flesh to be crucified for us, ungodly everyone, and he was raised out of death to immortality so that his life can be our life and our future can be eternally with him. Tell it here, tell it there, tell it everywhere and baptize those who believe.

For Jesus,

Royce

May 8 2023

The Complicated Gospel


Could it be that well meaning people, like theologians, pastors, elders, preachers and teachers and others, have unintentionally made becoming a Christian much more difficult than it is? I think so.

The gospel of John says that Jesus’ own people rejected him, but some people received him. And it’s pretty simple.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

Read the passage above carefully and see what it says. You will see that the “who” did receive Him are the same “who” that believed in His name and they are the same ones He gave the right to become children of God. And it is that same group of “who’s” who were born again, not by human will, not by man’s ingenuity, but of God. They simply received him by faith which in another way of saying by believing.

In John chapter 11 is the story of the death of Jesus’ friend Lazaras and Jesus talking to Lazaras’ sister in her time of frustration and grief. Jesus made a radical statement.

“Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:25-26) Well, do you believe this?

The thief on the cross, the woman at the well, the woman taken in adultery, Zacchaeus, the tax collector who begged God for mercy, and on and on, Jesus gives grace and mercy to those who, the best they know how, trust him to be their Lord.

To millions of rank sinners God has granted forgiveness of their sins and made them his own people. Millions who have never seen a gospel tract, seen a verse of the Bible, never been to Bible school, never heard a gospel sermon, never been baptized, never been confirmed, never joined a church, never had any rites or rituals, but in God’s mercy they learned enough about Jesus the Son of God that the best they knew who they trusted Him, they believed upon Him.

In the gospel that bears his name, John, the elder statesman said this in the 20th chapter.

Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that were not recorded in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in His name. (John 20:30-31)

It’s pretty simple. Believe and live or refuse to believe and perish.

This was the message Jesus gave to the most religious man in the town. Believe and live forever or go on in your unbelief and perish.

Sinners all, religious and not religious, moral, amoral or immoral, everyone needs Jesus.

Maybe we should talk more about him and less about everything else.

In Christ,

Royce

Dec 29 2020

Female elders in Churches of Christ?


Female Elders in a Church of Christ: Interviews, One Year Later

Click the link above and read the article….

In my view this church’s leaders have gone too far. I consider myself to be “progressive” (whatever that means) when it comes to how and why things are done in local congregations of Christians on Sunday mornings. While this is true, I am convinced of the biblical model of male headship, in the home and in the assembly with the brothers and sisters.

I’ll say it clearly, these brothers and sisters are wrong, they have gone too far in my view. However, most of the churches of Christ of Christ don’t go far enough when it comes to Christian women and their ministry to the body of believers. In the vast majority of coc congregations women may only teach a ladies class, can’t speak in the main assembly, are frowned upon when verbal in a mixed sex class, and are treated as second class citizens in many ways.

coc elders justify these narrow views and practices saying broadly that women cannot have authority over men. And, I agree with that statement and idea. It is almost comical if not so sad that “authority” is so misunderstood and misapplied.

How are these things related in any way to “authority”?

  1. Serving communion? How can “authority” be related to handing a person a tray with bread on it? It can’t be, plain and simple. And what if a sister read a passage of the Word of God? Is she trampling on male leadership? Hardly so.
  2. Praying? How does a female praying threaten the “authority” of the males in attendance, or the male leadership of the congregation? It doesn’t, period. Forbidding the prayer of any believer is not only unwise it is sinful in my view.
  3. Teaching a Bible lesson to a mixed sex audience? This is one of the biggies, but I don’t think a woman is trying to “rule over” or “usurp authority” from males, or male leadership. In most churches, the preacher is not an elder. (in my view most should be..). When the preacher delivers his Sunday morning lesson to the congregation is he exercising “authority” over the elders? Of course he isn’t! If he was his term as preaching minister would be a short term. There are many wonderfully gifted, spirit filled women, who could make wonderful contributions to the body if allowed. I am reminded of Peter’s words to the listening crowd in Acts 2:17,18 when he referenced the prophet Joel saying:

“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.“

So I ask my friends in our coc churches simply, “Where are our daughters, where are our women”?

When women labored in the gospel with Paul was that only making snacks for the journey?

4. Singing a solo? I will not even dignify this absurdity with a comment.

5. Baptizing a believer? What sort of warped thinking concludes that only men, and in some churches, only select men can baptize someone in water? Again, this has absolutely no connection to “authority” over men.

In conclusion. It’s high time that we relegate rigid traditionalism to the junk heap of long ago and live up to our only spoken creeds. “No book but the Bible, No creed but Christ, and Christians only”. I believe that some of our traditionalism is what really has “authority” in many congregations, rather than the words of Holy Scripture.

Many of us are off the rail, imposing on others unscriptural rules about things we do on Sunday. I suppose that is for another time.

Royce
Dec 29,2020