1) The Errors of the Da Vinci Code
2) Why the Ten Commandments
3) We're All Qualified to Serve
4) The Influence of the Bible
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Pastor Tom Emery
Questions From the Book:
Was Jesus Married? Answer
Lost Books of the Bible Answer
The people of Berea searched the Scriptures day by day to check up on Paul and Silas’ statements to see if they were really so. As a result, many of them believed… Acts 17:10-12
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WHY
THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS
1. The
point of the First Commandment (Deut.
5:6-10) is to teach your kids that there is one true God, and only the one
true God, is to be worshipped as God.
2.
The Second Commandment (Deut.
5:11) serves to encourage parents to teach children that it is wrong to use
empty speech in connection with God. Our
kids should learn that every form of light, careless, dishonest, contemptuous,
hypocritical, or blasphemous speech about Him is wrong.
3.
The Third Commandment (Deut.
5:12-14) declares that we are not to go about out lives in an unending mad
rush while ignoring God. Our kids
ought to learn that time is be set apart just for the remembrance of God.
Other things are important, but God is more important than everything
else.
4.
The point of the Fourth Commandment (Deut.
5:16) is that kids must learn that God has given parents authority over
them. To dishonor parental
authority dishonors God.
5.
In the Fifth Commandment (Deut.
5:17) kids will learn the proper respect for life.
Murder is wrong. No one may
deliberately take innocent human life.
6.
The Sixth Commandment (Deut.
5:18) forbids any married person from having sexual relations with anyone
but his or her spouse. Parents are
to teach their children that the integrity of the family must be protected.
7.
In the Seventh Commandment (Deut.
5:19), respect for personal property is declared to be important. Parents
should teach their kids that stealing property from another is wrong.
8.
The Eighth Commandment (Deut.
5:20) is often misunderstood. The
Commandment
9.
The Ninth Commandment (Deut.
5:21a) takes the Sixth Commandment to a higher standard.
Both are about the respect people owe their neighbors to maintain the
integrity of family. The Ninth
Commandment is more about attitude and desires than actions.
It serves to encourage parents to instruct their children that keeping
our hands off our neighbor's spouse is so important that we shouldn't even wish
to put our hands on them.
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WE’RE ALL QUALIFIED TO SERVE
Greetings, this is Pastor Tom Emery with a thought for reflection that We’re All Qualified To Serve. The church is not to be made up of the super spiritual saints, but of the common person, those who seek God will for His or Her lives.
Let’s first go to prayer. Father, help us to live our faith out and not to be pigeonholed in Sunday pews and in isolation from others with our faith. Help us to use our faith and our gifts to build Your kingdom. We pray this in the Name of Jesus Christ.
When we read the Book of Acts, we read about names of individuals in the church such as Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Paul, and Barnabus. They have become our historical heroes in the faith. In Sunday schools, we have our children color pictures depicting their stories. When we read their stories, without consciously trying to do it, we place them in the category of the extraordinary, and unusual as we speak of their era as the apostolic times.
I remember an event before I was a Christian, about my age of 10, my 16 year old sister had a flat tire. We were helpless. Along the State Route, an older man stopped with his wife, and he offered to fix our flat tire. He then brought us over to his wife to introduce her. Next, he offered to pray for us. I remember his ongoing love and concern. He refused money when we offered to pay him, but he said to thank Jesus. I guess I never got his name, but I do think of Jesus being associated with his kindness.
The disciples of Jesus were not extraordinary saints. In the Biblical accounts, their actions confounded everything known about them. At best, they were described as ignorant and unlearned men. This was a band of tax collectors, fishermen, and general social outcasts. Their spiritual pedigree was far from being impressive. Yet, God chose these men and others like them to begin his revolutionary proclamation of the love, faith and hope in the gospels.
It is useful in the Book of Acts to do a word study on the appearance of the translated word, all. Acts tells us that all three thousand were baptized after Peter’s introductory message. Acts tells us that all the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had. It tells us that all the believers were of one heart and one mind, and felt that what they owned was not their own. This was a spiritual movement of the all, not the elite or the specially trained few.
Lets look at Acts 6:1 for a specific incident that gives us a window into their world:
6 But with the believers multiplying rapidly, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke only Greek complained that their widows were being discriminated against, that they were not being given as much food in the daily distribution as the widows who spoke Hebrew. 2So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers.
“We should spend our time preaching, not administering a feeding program,” they said. 3“Now look around among yourselves, dear brothers, and select seven men, wise and full of the Holy Spirit, who are well thought of by everyone; and we will put them in charge of this business. 4Then we can spend our time in prayer, preaching, and teaching.”
5This sounded reasonable to the whole assembly, and they elected the following: Stephen (a man unusually full of faith and the Holy Spirit), Philip, Pro/chorus, Ni/canor, Ti/mon, Par/menas, Ni/co/laus of Antioch (a Gentile convert to the Jewish faith, who had become a Christian).
6These seven were presented to the apostles, who prayed for them and laid their hands on them in blessing.
7God’s message was preached in ever-widening circles, and the number of disciples increased vastly in Jerusalem; and many of the Jewish priests were converted too.
Some denominations base their theology concerning deacons around this experience in the Book of Acts. They look at these criteria for defining spiritual leadership. On the other hand, the story has been essentially reconstructed to fit into our perception and paradigm how Christianity functions. This is not a picture of pastoral leadership, but what we’ve come to know as lay leadership. These were common people.
The apostles were searching for seven men with hearts to serve who could be trusted to be honest and fair. Of the seven, Stephen is depicted next in Acts as preaching a sermon so powerful that he became the first martyr. Philip got so involved in evangelism that he brought the first Ethiopian to Christ, who later established the longest running Christian nation in the world. The fact is that Philip was never commissioned to any vocational ministry. Thus, we don’t have to be leadership to do ministry.
As described in Acts 8, the believers went everywhere preaching the good news about Jesus.
It was through the persecution and dispersion of ordinary believers that these people whom we consider ordinary Christians had extraordinary experiences with God.
Could it be that the minimum standard of faithful fellowship with Jesus can be described as full of the Spirit and wisdom? Are we actually reading here about mere glimpses of what normal Christian life was like depicted in the Book of Acts? Why would Jesus commission a handful of ordinary people as the first disciples to transform the world?
The last point that I’d like to make is that statistics say that approximately 1 percent of all Christians have ever led someone to faith in Jesus Christ. What would have happened if our reality of the American church were the reality for the first century church? The first century church would not have grown.
Let’s look at the church today. We have been telling people that Jesus died to save us from the punishment of hell. We also tell them that there is a promise of grace as an assurance of our salvation. But we neglect to tell them that every follower of Christ can joyfully share the Gospel through the natural out flowing of relationships among us. The freedom of total commitment to Christ, is yet to be experienced in the hearts of most who confess Him as Lord. We are all qualified to serve!
Let’s go to prayer!
Lord, we want to know You deeper. We want to tell others about You and the salvation that you offer us dying for our sins. Help us to break out of our routines and serve the world to bring glory to you. Help our churches become the places where every believer can pray in such as way that history changes, and where every believer can die to self and become a source of unbelievable sacrifice and generosity. Help us make relationships the core of ours lives, helping the lonely find acceptance and those without Christ find unconditional love. Help us to realize that we are all qualified to serve. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.============
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The Bible is the best selling book in human history. Its moral, spiritual and even political impact has been profound and unmistakable. How did that come to be? |
There is no question that the Bible has been the most influential book in human history as well as the best and biggest seller. While we may appreciate the profound impact the Bible has had on the moral, spiritual and even political development of the West, few of us appreciate the process whereby this came to be so.
In this first of series of articles on the impact of the Bible on civilization I would like to talk about the historical process which led to the mass spread of the Bible.
Today virtually every household in the West has at least one, if not more, copies of the Bible. It has been translated into over 1,000 languages, and in only 150 years (from 1800 to 1950) more than 1.5 billion copies were sold. (1)
Although the Bible is a ubiquitous product in virtually every Western home today this was no means the case 500 years ago. The story of the spread of the Bible is one of the lesser-known, but fascinating aspects of the Jewish impact on civilization.
Our story begins with the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. In the 4th century, especially during the reign of the Emperor Constantine (306-337 CE), Christianity made the dramatic switch from persecuted splinter sect of Judaism to major world religion. During the following centuries the Christian faith spread throughout Europe and the Middle East gathering millions of new adherents who were formally pagans.
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As the church spread, it grew into a tremendous political and physical power. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, the church took over the reigns of authority within former empire boundaries.(2)
At the same time, the collapse of Rome led to a precipitous decline in culture, literacy and general quality of life in the region. Out of this relative chaos emerged the feudal system which would serve as the main political and economic structure of Medieval Europe.Within this feudal system, the church, with its vast network of dioceses, huge land-holdings and relatively literate clergy, emerged as the most powerful institution. The church's power grew to such an extent that by the 11th century Pope Innocent III was more powerful than any monarch in Europe and church revenues from feudal taxation far exceeded the revenues collected by local nobility and even kings.(3)
Besides physically controlling much of Europe the church also controlled the spiritual destiny of the Western Christian world, and the soul of every Christian -- it could grant pardons and offer salvation or punish with excommunication or eternal damnation.
The church also had an almost complete monopoly on both literacy and books in Medieval Europe, as the only people who were educated to read were clergy, with very few exceptions. (One such exception were the Jews, who had a near 100 percent literacy among them.) The reason for this was partly economic -- before the development of the printing press in the 15th century, all books had to be copied by hand, a very time consuming and expensive process. The few libraries that existed were virtually all in the hands of the church and the vast majority of people could neither afford a book nor read one.
The feudal system was a primitive and harsh system. The vast majority of people were peasant farmers who led a subsistence level existence, slaving away on farms and paying most of their meager harvest in taxes to the nobility or the church. The church reaped huge economic benefit from this feudal system yet as it grew in wealth and power it found itself in an uncomfortable moral position.
In theory, Christianity was based on both the teachings of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Gospels and Writings. The Hebrew Bible constantly speaks about the notions of equality, charity, social responsibility and spirituality. The Christian Gospels and Writings echo many of the same sentiments and also stress the idea of the meek inheriting the earth. These ethical ideals were in sharp contrast to realities of the very materialistic and powerful medieval church. This hypocrisy did not escape the church's awareness and thus we have one of the great ironies of history -- the Roman Catholic Church which drew its legitimacy directly from the Bible was more afraid of the Bible than any other book in its library!
The church embarked on a deliberate policy to deny the common people access to the Bible. (4) This policy forbid a member of the clergy from owning or publicly reading from the Bible without special permission from higher church officials. Even if a local parish priest was given permission to read the Bible to his flock, every copy was written in Latin, so virtually no peasants would understand what he or she was hearing.
So threatened was the church by the Bible that in 1408 Bishop Arundel of England decreed that anyone making or using an unlicensed translation of the Bible was liable to be put to death. (5)
Persecution of the Bible carried on for centuries but the "Book of Books," could not be suppressed forever. Disgust with the decadence of the church combined with humanity's desire to hear the word of God would lead to dramatic political and religious changes in Europe and the mass translation and dissemination of the Bible.
How that happened will be covered in the next installment in this series.
SOURCES:
1.Goldberg, M. Hirsh, "Jewish Connection," Maryland: Scarborough House, 1993, pp. 6-130.
2.Johnson, Paul, "A History of Christianity," New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976, p. 104.
3.Dillenberger, John and Welch, Claude, "Protestant Christianity: Interpreted Through Its Development," New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1954, p. 11.
4.Phelps-Brown, Henry, "Egalitarianism and the Generation of Inequality," Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 68.
5.Tuchman, Barbara, "The Bible and the Sword," New York: New York University Press, 1956, p.85.
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The printing press spreads the word. The Reformation seizes the Church and spreads to Western governments. |
Most of us know about the Protestant Reformation in early 16th century, but efforts to spread "the Word" actually began many centuries earlier.
Already by the 14th century disgust with the decadence and corruption of the Church began to create a grass-roots movement of rebellion. One of the earliest acts of defiance was an attempt on the part of several individuals to return the Christian world to its pure roots by re-introducing the Bible to the common man.
In both northern Europe and England illegal copies of the Bible were printed and distributed in the local vernacular. One such version, produced in England in the late 14th century by Oxford theologian, John Wycliffe, had this in its preface:
The Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people. (1)
The people responsible for these "illegal" translations were persecuted and a few of them, such as Jan Hus of Bohemia, were put to death for heresy.
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New technology was also to play a major role in the in the spread of the Bible. In 1453, in Guttenberg, Germany, the printing press was invented. Before the advent of this invention every book was hand copied, often by monks. This made books both rare and expensive. The printing press could not only produce books at a much faster rate, but it also dramatically lowered the cost of each book. It's no accident that the first book printed in Guttenberg was the Bible. The translation of the Bible into local languages and its mass-production via the printing press led to an explosion in both its popularity and impact.
The 16th century saw tremendous religious changes in Europe: Martin Luther founded a new Christian denomination called Protestantism. The focus of this new movement was primarily to protest against the material excesses of the Catholic Church and re-infuse Christianity with its Biblical spirit.
In 1538 Henry VIII also broke away from Catholicism and founded The Church of England. He issued a proclamation that a copy of the Bible be placed in every Church in England and public reading of the Bible became a regular feature of church worship.
Many other countries followed suit, abandoned the Catholic Church, and became Protestant.
Protestant theologians, realizing that the true religious and ethical spirit of Christianity came from within the Bible (both the Old and New Testaments) put strong emphasis on the individual's right and responsibility to go directly to the Bible and use it as the moral guidebook.
As Martin Luther wrote in a letter to Pope Leo: "... I cannot allow myself to be bound by fixed rules for the interpretation of the Word of God, for the Word, which is the source of all freedom, must itself be free." (2)
In countries allied with Protestantism, translation and mass distribution of the Bible became a regular feature. The decline in the power of the Church, the growth of Protestantism with its strong emphasis on the Bible and the development of the printing press all combined together to blast the Bible into a position of unprecedented religious and political influence in Europe.
One of the best examples of the power of the Bible in modern political development is the 17th century English Civil War known as the Puritan Revolution. The Puritans, who were Protestant fundamentalists, were also devout believers in the Bible. They felt that the Church of England was not in keeping with the true religious spirit which they believed included the right of everyone to interpret God's law. They also rejected the absolutism of the king, then Charles I. The Puritans felt that Parliament, and not the King, should have the final say and that the moral guidance for all legal decision should come from the Bible which they considered to be the highest authority in all matters.
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The climax of the revolution was the execution of Charles I -- a watershed in European history that shook the foundations of European nobility. For the first time in the history of Europe, a monarch was not only dethroned by the masses, but also executed. By the end of the Revolution, Parliament ruled supreme under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.
Throughout all these events the Bible played an absolutely central role. The Puritans were obsessed with the book. They came to identify their political struggle against Charles with that of the ancient Hebrews against Pharaoh or the King of Babylon. Because they identified so strongly with ancient Israel, they chose overwhelmingly to identify with the Old Testament, which of course is the Hebrew Bible. They read it everywhere, studied Hebrew and even gave their children Hebrew names. Cromwell's "New Model Army" marched into battle singing Psalms and carrying banners embroidered with the Lion of Judea; their battle cry was "The Lord God of Hosts."
One has merely to read the writings of the great Puritan poet, John Milton (1608-1674) to appreciate the all-pervasive influence of the Hebrew Bible on the Puritan world view:
There is no song comparable to the song of Zion; no oration equal to those of the prophets; and no politics like those which scripture teach. (3)
An interesting side benefit of the Puritan obsession with the Bible was the rapid rise in the rate of literacy. Throughout human history literacy was a luxury out of most peoples reach and often deliberately withheld by the ruling class. But since the Puritans believed that people should use the Bible to connect directly to God, then that meant that those people had to be literate. So the need to have direct access to the Bible led to a significant rise in the literacy rates in England and other Protestant states.
Although Puritan domination of England did not survive the death of Cromwell in 1658, it did leave a lasting legacy of political reform not only to England, but to the rest of Europe as well. Puritans and other Protestant splinter sects would also play a crucial role in the political and religious formation of America which is the next chapter of our story.
SOURCES:
Sivan, Gabriel, "The Bible and Civilization", Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1973, p. 174.
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The heavily Bible-influenced Puritans bring the Word to the New World. |
Now that we have seen the powerful religious, moral and political influence that the Bible had on Europe, it's time to travel across the Atlantic to America for the fascinating conclusion to our story.
Just as the United States occupies a singular position in history as the only country founded as a democracy, it also has a unique status as the country most-influenced by the Bible in history.
Many of the earliest colonists who settled on the north-east coast of America in early 17th century were Protestant refugees escaping religious persecutions in Europe. The first were the so-called "Pilgrims" -- Protestant-British settlers who founded the colony on Plymouth Rock in New England. They were followed by many thousands who arrived in the New World in subsequent years.
Well into the 18th century, America continued to be not only the land of opportunity for many people seeking a better life, but also the land of religious tolerance.
The majority of the earliest settlers were Puritans from England. Like their cousins back home, these American Puritans strongly identified with both the historical traditions and customs of the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament. They viewed their emigration from England as a virtual re-enactment of the Jewish exodus from Egypt: England was Egypt, the king was Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean their Red Sea, America was the Land of Israel, and the Indians were the ancient Canaanites. They were the new Israelites, entering into a new covenant with God in a new Promised Land. (1)
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These settlers found themselves in a New World which had no existing laws or government. Their first task, therefore, was to create a legal framework for their communities and the first place they looked for guidance was the Hebrew Bible. Thus most of the early legislation of the colonies of New England was determined by Scripture. The most extreme example was the Connecticut Code of 1650 which created a form of fundamentalist government based almost entirely on Mosaic law using numerous citations from the Bible. The same held true for the code of New Haven and many other colonies. (2)
At the first assembly of New Haven in 1639, John Davenport clearly declared the primacy of the Bible as the legal and moral foundation of the colony:
"Scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties which they are to perform to God and men as well as in the government of families and commonwealth as in matters of the church ... the Word of God shall be the only rule to be attended unto in organizing the affairs of government in this plantation." (3)
Puritan obsession with the Bible led them to try and incorporate many aspects of the Jewish commandments into their lifestyle based on their literal interpretation of Hebraic laws (which did not always agree with the Jewish interpretation nor with Jewish practice). One of the most significant was the concept of the Sabbath as a day of rest and meditation. Puritan Sabbath observance began at sundown and no work of any kind, even household chores, was allowed for the next 24-hours. Sabbath observance was strictly monitored by local officials.
Thanksgiving which has evolved into a national day of feasting and celebration was initially conceived by the Pilgrims, in 1621, as day similar to the Jewish Day of Atonement -- Yom Kippur, a day of fasting, introspection and prayer.
This Puritan focus on the Bible and individual responsibility had an even more significant impact on literacy in the American colonies than in England. All towns in New England with a minimum of 50 households were required by law to establish schools and appoint teachers. Universities were established and many printing presses were imported. This subject we shall examine in the next installment.
SOURCES
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Helpful books in order of difficulty beginning with the simplest to understand.
1. Know What You Believe, Paul Little.
2. Know Why You Believe, Paul Little.
3. Basic Christianity, John Stott.
4. Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis.
5. God: Coming Face to Face With His Majesty, John MacArthur
6. A Survey of Bible Doctrine, Charles Ryrie.
7. Concise Theology, James Packer.
8. Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, R. C. Sproul.
9. Knowing God, James I. Packer.
10. The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, Francis Schaeffer.
11. The God Who Is There and He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Francis Schaeffer.
Copyright 2006 Thomas Emery. Reproduction will be granted for Christian evangelism.