The Belgic Confession was written in 1561 by Guido de Brès, a preacher of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, in the midst of persecution. The goal of the confession was to demonstrate to King Philip II how the Reformed were not rebels who needed to be crushed, but people who professed true Christian doctrine according to the Scriptures. It was adopted as one of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed Church at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619.

Article 5: The Authority of Scripture

We receive all these books
and these only
as holy and canonical,
for the regulating, founding, and establishing
of our faith.

And we believe
without a doubt
all things contained in them —
not so much because the church
receives and approves them as such
but above all because the Holy Spirit
testifies in our hearts
that they are from God,
and also because they
prove themselves
to be from God.

For even the blind themselves are able to see
that the things predicted in them
do happen.

What does it mean to receive the Bible as authoritative?

Christians are people of the book. We believe not only that God has appeared and acted in history, but that God has chosen to reveal himself through words, particularly through the inspired word of God, the Bible. Christians throughout the world and throughout the ages have confessed that the Holy Scriptures are not just inspiring, but inspired by God, that they are not just filled with wisdom, but are the revelation of Wisdom itself, that they not only speak about God, but are the very words of God.

It is an astounding claim — the God who created all things has humbled himself to speak in words we can understand. God has chosen to reveal himself to humans and has worked by the Holy Spirit to preserve these words so that we would know him and what he has done.

The Belgic Confession does not flesh out a formal doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. It does not tell us the details of how this inspiration took place — verbal plenary, dictation, dynamic, illumination — because the Belgic Confession is less concerned with how it was inspired1 than with the fact that it is inspired and comes from God.

At the time of the Reformation, the debate around the authority of Scripture was not about its inspired nature, but about the process of canonization. Canonization is the process where the books are received as authoritative for “the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith.” Both Roman Catholics and Protestants believed the books were authoritative, but the Roman Catholics argued that the church was, in some sense, prior to the Scriptures. It was the church that declared that these books were canonical and, therefore, the church’s interpretation of them was authoritative alongside the authority of Scripture.

The Protestants objected that the process of canonization — determining the books of the Bible — was a process of recognition. The church always stands under the authority of the Word, never over nor alongside the Word. Thus, when the church declared that these books were canonical, it was recognizing what was already true — they were the very words of God. This is why the Belgic Confession clearly states that we believe the Scriptures “not so much because the church receives and approves them as such but above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from God.” It is not the church’s testimony that determines whether something is Holy Scripture, but the Holy Spirit’s. We believe the Scriptures because God proves them, not because the church approves them.

At the time of the Reformation, it was not contested whether Scipture had authority, but whether it was the final authority in all matters of faith and doctrine. The Roman Catholic church wanted Scripture and Tradition as authorities that one could appeal to for doctrine and practice, while the Protestants saw the tradition of the church as being under the authority of the Scriptures, not alongside it.2 Scripture alone was the final authority.

The Belgic Confession stands with the broader Protestant tradition in claiming that Scripture alone is the final authority for the church, but what exactly does that mean? To return to our original question, What does it mean to receive the Bible as authoritative?

It means at least two things:

First, Holy Scripture is the foundation of our faith. “We receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical, for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith.” If the Christian life is like a house, the Scriptures are the foundation. What we believe, how we pray, and how we live in this world should be built on the foundation of God’s Word. As Paul says, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (Eph. 2:19-20 NIV). For Protestants, this means that our doctrine must be founded on God’s Word.

This is one of the primary reasons for the rejection of purgatory as a teaching in most Protestant churches, since it is based either on non-canonical books or on church tradition.3 It is also why certain Roman Catholic doctrines around Mary are rejected, since they are rooted in tradition rather than Scripture.4

Any doctrine or belief that is not based upon the word of God is like a house built on sand: the house will not stand firm, but collapse.

Second, receiving Scripture as authoritative means it is the standard for our faith and practice. Scripture is authoritative “for the regulating, founding, and establishing
of our faith.” We judge the faithfulness of our believe and our behavior by whether it is aligned with the teaching of Scripture.

If I someone speaks ill of me, I might initially feel hurt and angry. I may want to nurse that hurt and anger or even strike back at them for how they have wounded me. Yet, Scripture says, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:31-32). Receiving the Scriptures as authoritative means that I judge my behavior by whether it conforms to what God says through his Word. If I choose wrath over tenderheartedness, Scripture rebukes me and I need to stop, let go of my anger, seek God’s mercy, and walk in the way of Jesus (which is what Scripture teaches). This is treating the Bible as authoritative.

If I believe that Jesus is not God, but was a created being — the highest of all creation, but still creation — then I need to test my beliefs against Scripture. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Scripture corrects my belief and to receive it as authoritative is to conform my belief to what it says.

If I think that Jesus was not truly human, but only appeared to be human, I need to test it against Scripture. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Scripture corrects my understanding and I treat as authoritative when I correct my beliefs by its teaching.

What does this mean practically?

For many people, the authority of Scripture is wielded like a weapon at opponents who clearly “do not take the Bible seriously.” While it is true that the Bible as authoritative should enable us to test true and false teaching, we misuse this doctrine if we only turn it toward others and their beliefs and practices. We should — first and foremost — be testing our own lives and convictions against Scripture. When I see that the way I am living, loving, or believing is not fitting of what Scripture says, what do I do? This is where the authority of Scripture becomes practical. If I am confident that I have understood the Bible correctly and yet I am going in a different direction, do I seek to change or do I keep going with I am already doing?

Again, our instinct might be to think of instances where we believe others are not being corrected by Scripture, are not “taking the Bible seriously,” or are not walking according to God’s will, but we should heed the teaching of Jesus:

Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye (Mt. 7:3-5)

May our understanding of the authority of Scripture lead us deeper into walking in the way of Jesus.

The Belgic Confession was written in 1561 by Guido de Brès, a preacher of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, in the midst of persecution. The goal of the confession was to demonstrate to King Philip II how the Reformed were not rebels who needed to be crushed, but people who professed true Christian doctrine according to the Scriptures. It was adopted as one of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed Church at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619.

Article 4: The Canonical Books

We include in the Holy Scripture the two volumes
of the Old and New Testaments.
They are canonical books
with which there can be no quarrel at all.

In the church of God, the list is as follows:
In the Old Testament,
the five books of Moses — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy;
the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth;
the two books of Samuel, and two of Kings;
the two books of Chronicles, called Paralipomenon;
the first book of Ezra; Nehemiah, Esther, Job;
the Psalms of David;
the three books of Solomon — Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song;
the four major prophets — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel;
and then the other twelve minor prophets — Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
In the New Testament,
the four gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John;
the Acts of the Apostles;
the fourteen letters of Paul —
to the Romans;
the two letters to the Corinthians;
to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians;
the two letters to the Thessalonians;
the two letters to Timothy;
to Titus, Philemon, and to the Hebrews;
the seven letters of the other apostles —
one of James; two of Peter; three of John; one of Jude;
and the Revelation of the apostle John.

One of the particular difficulties of writing about Article 4 of the Belgic Confession is that it was not meant to be read in isolation. The whole of the Belgic Confession is a confession of faith, but Articles 3-7 all deal specifically with the doctrine of Scripture. Of those five articles, the three in the center (Articles 4-6) speak of Scripture’s authority and which books are contained in the Bible.

To the best of my ability, I will hold off on a larger discussion of the authority of Scripture or of the apocryphal books, since those are the topics of the next two articles, but it will be impossible to talk about this list of canonical books without touching on them.

Though the Belgic Confession is a series of articles of faith, it also follows a natural progression. It begins with God and who God is (Article 1). How can we know this God? Article 2 gives two distinct ways — the book of nature and the book of Scripture. Article 3 speaks of the inspiration and purpose of this written word of God. Thus, Article 4 becomes a natural next step — which books make up this written word of God? The Belgic Confession lists sixty-six books as indisputably the Word of God — book about “which there can be no quarrel at all.”

The books of the New Testament were agreed upon early on within the life of the church. Athanasius’ 39th Festal Letter (in 367AD) already listed the same twenty-seven books of the New Testament that the Belgic Confession will list almost 1200 years later. In Athanasius’ letter, he is not stating something new either, but what was already commonly accepted. From fairly early in the history of the church, these books were accepted as being the very Word of God.

“Accepted” is an important word in that last sentence. One of the big points of controversy and disagreement at the time of the Reformation between Protestants and Roman Catholics was over the authority of the church. Both sides accepted that Scripture was the authoritative word of God, but the Roman Catholics understood the church’s role in the determining the canon to elevate the church’s role and authority relative to the word of God. Protestants, by contrast, saw the church as sitting under Scripture, never over Scripture, and understood the process of canonization as a recognition of authority, not a giving of authority. This is the focus of Article 5 of the Belgic Confession, but it is enough for now to understand that the Belgic Confession holds that these books are the very words of God because of God’s work and authority, not because of the church. The church’s canonizing of the books was acknowledging the authority they had because they already were God’s word.

I have been using the word “canon” and “canonizing” because the Belgic Confession uses that term, but it is worth taking a moment to define it. In Greek, a canon (κανών) was a rod or measuring stick used by architects to determine whether a line was straight. The stick was known to be straight and the line of the building was judged by whether it matched with the canon. Thus, “canon” is a standard against which something is judged to be true or right. In the context of Scripture, the canon refers to the set of books that are authoritative and are the standard or norm by which life and doctrine is determined. The “canonical books” are those books determined officially to the word of God. “Canonization” is the process by which that was discerned or determined.

Though the New Testament was settled fairly early, there were some debates around the Old Testament. The Protestants only included those books whose originals were in Hebrew (and a tiny bit in Aramaic) and not Greek. The Roman Catholics agreed with the same thirty-nine books listed here, but included several other books that did not exist in Hebrew, but only in Greek. Article 6 will address the place of those so-called “apocryphal” books, but the debate was not whether those books were good or beneficial, but whether they were canonical. Were they the very words of God and therefore had the authority to determine the doctrine and practice of the church? The Protestants, including the Belgic Confession, said, “No.”

Why does this matter?

Holy Scripture was written “for us and our salvation” (Article 3) and is the means by which “God makes himself known to us more clearly” (Article 2). God speaks through his word and in order to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, we need to know where we can hear his voice. If we are going to know this God, believe God’s promises, have faith in what God has done in Jesus Christ, and live a life worthy of the calling we have received (Eph. 4:1), then we need to know where we can go to know God and his will. Knowing which books are trustworthy, true, and authoritative — canonical — is vital for growing in faith, hope, and love in the Lord.

A Few Specific Notes

Old and New Testaments - The Belgic Confession stands with the church throughout the ages in claiming that both Testaments are the authoritative word of God. The same God who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, who called Abraham, and who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush is the same God who came as the man Jesus Christ. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one God in three persons and is the God revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

Authorship - The Belgic Confession assumes traditional authorship for various books of the Bible that are questioned by modern scholarship — Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch, Solomonic authorship for all of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, and Pauline authorship for Hebrews. I don’t really want to get into these complicated questions of authorship, but simply want to say that — as I read it — it is the canonical status of the books that is confessional, not who were the human authors. As long as your confession of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture is not undermined by questions of human authorship, I don’t think it is a confessional matter whether you believe Paul wrote Hebrews or not.1

Where is Lamentations? It is included under the works of Jeremiah, even though it is a separate book. Most contemporary editions of the Belgic Confession include this explanation in a footnote.

Paralipomenon? This was the name for the book of Chronicles in the Greek Translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint (LXX).

the first book of Ezra? Remember that there was some disagreement over which books were in the Old Testament? This was for the sake of clarity, because there were several later books attributed to Ezra that Protestants do not consider canonical.

The Belgic Confession was written in 1561 by Guido de Brès, a preacher of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, in the midst of persecution. The goal of the confession was to demonstrate to King Philip II how the Reformed were not rebels who needed to be crushed, but people who professed true Christian doctrine according to the Scriptures. It was adopted as one of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed Church at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619.

Article 3: The Written Word of God

We confess that this Word of God
was not sent nor delivered “by human will,”
but that “men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke of God,” as Peter says.

Afterward our God —
with special care
for us and our salvation —
commanded his servants, the prophets and apostles
to commit his revealed Word to writing.
God, with his own finger,
wrote the two tables of the law.

Therefore we call such writings
holy and divine Scriptures.

Whose Word Are We Reading?

When we open the Bible and read it, whose words are we reading?

The fundamental claim of the third article of the Belgic Confession is that when we read Holy Scriptures, we are reading the very words of God.

Throughout the history of the church, Christians have been aware that the words of the Bible came to us through the mouths of people like Paul, Peter, and Moses. Christians have been aware that these words were written in different contexts, in different time periods, in different genres, and for different ends. It is not a new discovery of the modern age that the Bible was written by human hands.

However, the Christian claim has been that God was at work in this writing. Prior to writing, the Spirit moved and inspired those who wrote. The Holy Spirit was at work in the writing so that when they wrote, the words were taken up into the divine economy and God speaks through them. The Holy Spirit was also at work in preserving these words down through the ages. Even now, when we read the words of Scripture, we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd calling his sheep.

The Belgic Confession does not give a full account of the mechanics of Scripture’s inspiration. It seems to indicate that there may have been different forms to the inspiration for different portions of Scripture. God himself wrote in the tablets of stone, but he commanded his prophets and apostles to commit his revealed Word to writing. Yet, the result is the same. These are the very words of God.

Though the Belgic Confession does not deny that human authors put the words on the page, it wants to affirm the core doctrinal truth that these words are not mere human words, or that the authors of the books of the Bible are not the sole authors of Scripture. Rather, “this Word of God was not sent nor delivered “by human will,” but that “men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke of God.”” God is the author of Scripture, even as he used the hands and mouths of the apostles and prophets.

Those who seek to interpret the Scriptures well often try and discern what was originally intended by the author. This is a way of trying to set aside our contemporary prejudices and hear the text afresh as it would have been heard by those who first encountered it. This is often called “authorial intent” — we want to know the intent of the original author.

However, reading the Bible as a Christian, as the Word of God, is not simply to be concerned with the original intention of Paul or Luke, but of God who is the fundamental author of Scripture. This is why Christians can see promise and fulfillment across Scripture and see meaning that Moses would have have been able to see, but was already there because of God’s work filling the Word full with meaning. Christians can see the Old Testament as pointing to Christ, not because Zechariah or Malachi knew, but because “With all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:8b-10).

When Jesus encounters the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they knew the Scriptures, but they could not see what was there. Yet, Jesus opened their eyes and set their hearts burning within them by showing them how all of it spoke of him. We don’t have to confess that Joshua or Ezra knew all of what they were speaking about, but that God, who inspired them in the writing, certainly did.

The next several articles of the Belgic Confession will speak of the content of Scripture (which books), the authority of Scripture, and the sufficiency of Scripture. Yet, the Belgic Confession begins its doctrine of Scripture by confessing whose word we encounter in the words of the Bible.

Listen closely and listen well, for these are the very words of God.

What is the Bible for?

Purpose determines use. We use a wrench to turn bolts, not to hammer nails, because we know its purpose — to tighten or loosen a bolt. When someone hands me some chocolate and tells me that it is for my children, I now know what to do with the chocolate. I don’t eat it myself, even if that seems like fun. I relate to it based upon the purpose for which it was given. In a similar way, knowing why Scripture was given will shape how we read it, how we relate to it, and what we do with it.

What is the Bible for? According to the Belgic Confession, the Scriptures were given “with special care for us and our salvation.” Scripture was given ‘for us.’ By ‘us,’ we mean the church. Scripture was given to build up the church and to glorify God. When John Calvin argued for the Bible to be translated into the language of the common people, he used the image of the church as the school of Christ.1 The Bible should be in the hands of the people, in a language they can understand, so that we would grow in our ability to encourage and correct one another in the faith and thus grow as a church. The natural home of the Bible is the church. God’s Word is also an apologetic and evangelistic word, but its primary place is in the life of the church.

Scripture was also given “for our salvation.” John 20:31 says “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Scripture was given both to be received by faith in Christ and for faith in Christ. This includes knowledge of God and communion with God. It involves repentance, faith, and trust in Jesus Christ. There is much to be learned through the Bible, but its primary purpose is that we might cling to Christ in faith. This purpose defines what we expect to find in the Bible.

The Belgic Confession was written in 1561 by Guido de Brès, a preacher of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, in the midst of persecution. The goal of the confession was to demonstrate to King Philip II how the Reformed were not rebels who needed to be crushed, but people who professed true Christian doctrine according to the Scriptures. It was adopted as one of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed Church at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619.

Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God

We know God by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book
in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:
God’s eternal power and divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict humans
and to leave them without excuse.

Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly
by his holy and divine Word,
as much as we need in this life,
for God’s glory
and for our salvation.

What is going on?

The first article of the Belgic Confession speaks of who God is, while this second article addresses how we come to know God. This is a natural progression because the purpose of confession is faith in this God. As the Heidelberg Catechism notes, true faith is both “a sure knowledge” and “a wholehearted trust” (Q21). When theologians speak of knowing God, it is a relational knowledge. It is not merely knowing a set of facts. It is not knowing something, but someone. It is not simply knowing about God, but knowing God. This is the kind of knowledge which should draw us into fellowship, where we know the true God for who he is, and trust in him.

The difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone can be seen in the two ways Article 2 speaks about how we come to know God. There are two ways to know God and the Belgic uses the image of two books: the book of nature and the book of Scripture. We can know God from contemplating his works in creation and from contemplating the pages of Scripture. These two books are similar in that through them we know God truly. However, these two ways are not the same.

In the book of nature, we look upon the world and see God’s handiwork. We “ponder the invisible things of God.” We see God’s power through the beauty and majesty of what he has made. This echoes what we hear in Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (Ps. 19:1-4)

This revelation of God through creation serves two purposes. The first we have already mentioned — it should lead us to ponder the invisible things of God. The second is that it leaves us without excuse before the judgment seat of God. The Belgic Confession cites Romans 1:20 in support of both points: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” God has revealed himself through creation. We have enough knowledge of God through creation that we should know that he exists, that he is creator, and that he should be honored and worshiped. However, in our sinful nature, we do not acknowledge God. Instead, we reject him and turn away from him. Yet, the book of nature means that we cannot claim to be ignorant of God. The force of Paul’s argument is that we cannot stand before the judgment seat of God on the last day and say, “I had no idea there was a God and that I should worship him.” While for those who know God, the book of nature serves to amplify the glory and power of God before our eyes, for those who do not know God, it serves to convict and condemn.

It is commonly objected that many people look out at creation and do not believe there is a Creator and that the created world does not lead them to ponder God at all. The standard response (in line with the Belgic Confession and Romans 1) is that the problem is not with the revelation of God through nature, but with our spiritual blindness. Paul addresses this very reality in Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” In short, we look out at creation and know that there is a God, but we “suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18), even though God has made himself plain to us (Rom. 1:19). God’s revelation is clear, but we refuse to see it.

Yet creation is not the only way God makes himself known. In addition to the book of nature, God has provided the book of Scripture in order to reveal himself “more clearly.” God’s Word does not tell us everything. We don’t have comprehensive knowledge of God where he is a subject that we can master. However, we do have true knowledge of God and “as much as we need in this life.” We are given true knowledge and enough knowledge for our salvation. As John 20:30-31 says, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” One of the primary purposes of the book of Scripture — and what sets it apart from the book of nature — is that we would come to saving knowledge of God in Christ. Though the book of nature is enough to leave us without excuse at the judgment, only the book of Scripture reveals God’s way of salvation through Christ.

Belgic Confession Article 2 also says that the book of Scripture reveals God more clearly to us “for God’s glory.” I take this in two ways. First, since it reveals Christ crucified and risen from the dead, which the Gospel of John even calls Jesus’ glorification (John 17:1), the Scriptures proclaim more fully the glory of God in salvation. Second, in contemplating the Scriptures, we are lead to glorify God. Scripture teaches us why and how to glorify God in both worship and in our life before God. Thus, Scripture is given for God’s glory because it both proclaims his glorious works in salvation and leads Christians to glorify God.

Both the book of nature and the book of Scripture are gifts from God. Both are a result of God condescending to us so that we can come to know him. However, the Belgic Confession highlights that the book of nature is insufficient for salvation.1 We need the book of Scripture, because only Scriptures reveals Christ — his person and work.

Why does this matter?

I started these comments by speaking of the relational nature of knowledge of God. I want to return there. The Belgic will spend the next few articles on the doctrine of Scripture, which I will comment on in upcoming posts. However, we benefit from remembering that the purpose of such theological confession is to know and trust in God. It is not the compilation of facts. It is union with Christ by the Spirit.

In Matthew 13:54-58, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth. He preaches in the synagogue and the people are astounded. They respond with a series of questions that show they think they know all sorts of things about Jesus: “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?” They think that they know Jesus because they know some things about Jesus.2 Yet, throughout the encounter, they never name Jesus. They say, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power?” and “Where then did this man get all this?” They claim to know him but they will not name him.

We cannot claim to know Jesus if we will not name him. The fruit of theological confession should be calling upon the name of Jesus. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:11-13).

The Belgic Confession was written in 1561 by Guido de Brès, a preacher of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, in the midst of persecution. The goal of the confession was to demonstrate to King Philip II how the Reformed were not rebels who needed to be crushed, but people who professed true Christian doctrine according to the Scriptures. It was adopted as one of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed Church at the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619.

Article 1: The Only God

We all believe in our hearts

and confess with our mouths

that there is a single

and simple

spiritual being,

whom we call God —

eternal,

incomprehensible,

invisible,

unchangeable,

infinite,

almighty;

completely wise,

just,

and good,

and the overflowing source of all good.

What is going on?

The Belgic Confession begins with a confession about God. This is no accident. There is much to say in the Christian faith. There are many areas of doctrine to discuss (the Belgic Confession has 37 articles of faith!), but we must begin in the right place, with God.

The Christian faith is not, first and foremost, what we believe about Creation, what we believe about Sin, or what we believe about election, justification, or sanctification — as important as all those are — it is first, foremost, and always about God.

So the Belgic Confession begins where any good confession must begin: with God.

In calling us to confess belief in God, the Belgic Confession also names who this God is. The language the church has used for these descriptive words concerning God are that these are the attributes of God.

A few things about the attributes of God before we look at those listed in Article 1:

1. God doesn’t have attributes in the same way that other things do. I have brown hair and blue eyes, but those attributes are important to me but are not part of my essence. They are what are known as accidental attributes, because they are true of me, but not essential to me being me. However, God’s attributes are what are known as essential attributes, because they are the essence of God himself. We cannot separate God’s attributes from who God is.

2. Since God is simple (see Article 1 above), that means that God does not have any parts. Thus, the attributes of God are not different parts of God and therefore cannot ever be in conflict with one another (despite how some theologians will frame it). Thus, all God’s attributes are not only identical with God’s essence, but are identical with each other. The distinction between the different attributes are not in God, but in our finite reasoning.

3. Since nothing exists before God, the attributes of God do not exist as a prior set of qualifications that God must meet in order to be God, but they are identical with who God is. For example, there was not a prior concept of holy that God needed to fulfill in order to be considered God. Instead, God is holy and thus we know what holy is. The attributes don’t serve as a generic job description of God, but as a faithful way of speaking about who God is as he has revealed himself.

4. Even though these are finite words from finite beings seeking to speak of the infinite God, the attributes are truly spoken of God. They are spoken of on the basis of divine revelation.1

Where does that leave us? God is who God is. We don’t get to pick and choose which attributes we like and which we don’t like, or pit one attribute against another, because God is his attributes. This is who God is. We also don’t get to define deity and judge God on whether he measures up to our definition. The attributes are a response to how God has revealed himself to us.

Let’s look at the attributes named in Belgic Confession, Article 1:2

single: There is one and only one God. “Hear O Israel, The Lord is our God, the LORD alone” (Dt. 6:4). “I am the first and the last, apart from me there is no God” (Is. 44:6). “We know that ‘an idol is nothing at all in the world’ and ‘there is no God but one’” (1 Cor. 8:4). This is a rejection of all idols and all other claims from any other beings to be “god.” The only God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the triune God of grace.

simple: God is not made up of multiple parts (complex), but is one (simple). This is connected with how we speak God not being the sum of his attributes, but that God simply is his attributes.

spiritual: God is not a material, corporeal being.

eternal: God has no beginning or end. Literally, God is outside of time. “From everlasting to everlasting, you are God” (Ps. 90:2). This is about more than duration. When we are promised eternal life through salvation in Christ, we are promised life that will not end. It has no end point in the future. However, our life does have a beginning in the past. However, God is outside of time, prior to time, not bound by time in the way that all finite creatures are.

incomprehensible: The english word is not doing this attribute any favors. In contemporary English, when something is “incomprehensible” it is largely equivalent to saying it is “unknowable.” A concept is incomprehensible if I cannot understand it. However, in the language of classical theology, something being “comprehensible” is about the kind of knowledge where you master a particular subject. Its root word has the image of embracing something and wrapping your arms completely around it. The closest equivalent would be to have “comprehensive knowledge” of something. So when the Belgic Confession says that God is “incomprehensible” it is not saying that God is unknowable or confusing (see Articles 2-7), but that our mind can never completely wrap itself around God. We cannot master God or have comprehensive knowledge of him. We cannot know God as God knows himself. We can have true knowledge of God, because God accommodates himself to our weakness in revelation. Incomprehensibility calls for us to humble ourselves before God who is beyond our complete comprehension.

invisible: not able to be seen by the sense. “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18).

unchangeable: God does not change, because he does not need to change. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17 NASB). This is connected with God’s perfection. You and I change all the time. We were created to change. Sometimes we change for the better. Sometimes we change for the worse. However, God is perfect in every way. If God were to change, it could not be for the better, since he is already perfect. If God were to change, it would only be a diminishment of who he is. Thus, God does not change because he has nowhere he needs to improve or grow.

infinite: God is not limited like finite creatures. This is true of time (eternal) or space (immensity or omnipresence). Everything God has made is finite and has limits, but God himself is not limited by time and space.

almighty: God is all-powerful. He can do everything that he wills to do. There are many things that we want to do, but simply cannot do. There is a gap between our will and our power to accomplish our will. There is no gap in God. What he wills, he does. “God is able to do this because he is almighty God and desires to do this because he is a faithful Father” (Heidelberg Catecehism, Q&A 26).

completely wise: This is more than just being all-knowing, though God certainly knows all things. It is the knowledge of what is good and true and the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood and to act accordingly. In this, God is perfectly wise. His knowledge of all things is not just a bare knowledge of possibilities and realities, but of what is good and right and his purpose and God’s complete wisdom is seen in how he leads and governs the world according to his purpose.

completely just: Our justice is always imperfect and incomplete. At times, we cannot accurately see the truth and are mistaken in our judgments. At other times, our justice is mixed with malice and we tend to unjust wrath or our justice is undermined by weakness and timidity. God’s justice is perfect — he judges correctly and his judgments are always fitting. “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He” (Dt. 32:4). “Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments” (Ps. 119:137).

completely good: Rather that judge God by our definition of good, God is the definition. God is the highest good. This claim — that God is the greatest good — has been the driving force of Christian contemplation for generations. “My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Ps. 27:8). There is nothing higher than the Lord and there is no greater joy than to fix our eyes on him.

the overflowing source of all good: God is good, but God chooses not to keep that good for himself, but to pour out his good gifts upon creation. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17 NASB). “I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” (Ps. 16:2). “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy” (Ps. 123:2).

Why does this matter?

Why begin a confession of the Christian faith with the attributes of God?

Do we truly know someone if we don’t know who they are or anything about them? Though the attributes might read like “here are some facts about God,” they are part of the personal knowledge of God. This is the God we know, this is the God who created us, sustains, and has come to us in Jesus Christ. Far from being dry definitions, the attributes of God should stir our hearts to joyful contemplation of God. While our spiritual ancestors certainly wanted to speak accurately of God (so as to honor him and not dishonor him), the attributes were also a way of fixing our eyes on the Lord who comes to us in justice and mercy, in law and gospel, in grace and truth.

We might also think of the importance of Belgic Confession, Article 1 by considering its opposite. If someone claimed to confess faith in the one true God, but did not believe God was the source of all good, but that we needed to look for good in other things or lesser things (or, Lord forbid, something they believed was higher), are they really confessing the same god as orthodox Christianity? What if someone denied that God was eternal or almighty, would they really be confessing the same god?

The Belgic Confession begins with God — this God — the one true God and lays out who this God is so that we can rightly fix our eyes and our faith on him.

Crossing 1: Moses

If you are like most people, the first story that comes to you mind is the crossing of the Red Sea. In Exodus 14, Israel has left Egypt after the Lord broke the strength of Pharaoh with the Ten Plagues. However, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened one last time and he gathers his army, including six hundred picked chariots and races after the Israelites (Ex. 14:7). The Egyptian army catches up to the Israelites while they are camped by the sea. The Israelites panic, thinking they are going to die. They blame Moses and claim it would have been better to die in Egypt than be slaughtered in the wilderness.

“But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still” (Ex. 14:13-14).

The Lord tells Moses to stretch out his staff and part the waters. The Red Sea divides, the waters forming a wall on their left and on their right, and the people of God pass through the sea on dry ground. When Pharaoh’s army pursues the Israelites into the sea, the Lord tells Moses to stretch out his hand again and the waters returned and covered over the Egyptian army, destroying them completely. In response, Moses and the Israelites sang to the Lord and the Miriam and the women danced and sang with their tambourines (Ex. 15).

In crossing the Red Sea, Israel moved from the land of Egypt — a land of death and bondage — into the wilderness — where they were free and near to the Lord. Yes, the wilderness was a place where Israel grumbled and complained, but it was also the place where they experienced intimacy with God. Jeremiah will describe it this way:

The word of the Lord came to me: “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:

“This is what the Lord says:

“‘I remember the devotion of your youth,

How as a bride you loved me

And followed me through the wilderness,

Through a land not sown.

Israel was holy to the Lord,

The first fruits of his harvest;

All who devoured her were held guilty,

And disaster overtook them,’”

Declares the Lord. (Jer. 2:1-3).

God remembers Israel’s time in the wilderness like a honeymoon, where they loved God and followed him through the wilderness. So, in crossing the Red Sea, Israel moves from Egypt, where they were enslaved, to the wilderness, where they walked with God. The crossing on dry ground was an act of deliverance and a moment of transition for the people of God.

Crossing 2: Joshua

After forty years in the wilderness, the people of God face another transition and another body of water. In Joshua 3, the people are called to enter the land of promise. If the time in the wilderness was like a honeymoon, then entering the promised land was like the bride and groom entering into their new home. However, at the boundary of the land lies the Jordan river.

Like with the Red Sea, God will work so that the people cross on dry ground. Joshua says, “the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. So now silent twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap” (Josh. 3:12-13). The Jordan changed in size depending on the time of year, overflowing its banks during the time of harvest (Josh. 3:15). While the Jordan flowed with power, the priest’s feet touched just the edge of the water and the entire river stopped flowing and the water stood still (3:15-16). The people crossed on dry ground.

After they crossed, the Lord told them to take twelve stones, one for each tribe, and place them in the river as a reminder of what God had done that day. The priests remained standing in the river, carrying the ark of the covenant, until all Israel had passed by and the twelve stones had been laid. After the people crossed, the priests finally crossed. As soon as the soles of their feet touched the dry ground, the water began to flow again.

Though a different body of water, the crossing of the Jordan and the crossing of the Red Sea are clearly similar events. They demonstrate God’s power and his will to redeem his people. They are moments of transition for the people of God, where they cross over from one reality to another, one place to another — not just physically, but spiritually.

Crossing 3: Elijah & Elisha

Yet, there is another water crossing, which recalls both these previous events. In 2 Kings 2, the Lord is about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind. We already looked at the different places that Elijah and Elisha went back in chapter 3, but we should also notice that both Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan on dry ground. First, when Elijah is leading, they reach the edge of the Jordan. “Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground” (2:8). Like Moses raising his staff, Elijah takes the visible marker of the authority he has been given by God (his mantle) and parts the water. Like the Red Sea, it parts to the one side and to the other. After the two cross, Elijah asks what one thing Elisha wants him to do for him. “Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”” (2:9). After Elijah is taken up into heaven, Elisha picks up his master’s mantle — both literally and spiritually.

He picked the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, “Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” When he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.” (2:13-14).

Both Elijah and Elisha cross over on dry ground. As we noted before, there is an element of the reconquest of the land taking place in this event, so the crossing of the Jordan — as the beginning moment of Israel entering and taking possession of the land — is clearly important. However, it is also a moment of transition from the ministry of Elijah to the ministry of Elisha. The younger prophet must carry on the ministry of his master. There is a continuity of their ministry shown by the taking up of the mantle and God showing that he is Elisha as he was with Elijah.

Presence & Promise

Though different bodies of water, the crossings of the Red Sea and the Jordan share themes of deliverance and transition. This imagery of water crossing is picked up in Isaiah 43, where the Lord says, “But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Is. 43:1-3a). Passing through the waters might at first seem like a place of terror, but it is, in fact, a place of God’s presence. Instead of a place of death and destruction for those who belong to God, it is a place of deliverance.

With these water crossing themes appearing throughout the Old Testament, it should be no surprise that water crossing came to be connected with baptism. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sister, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:1-2). The crossing of the Red Sea was akin to a baptism. Israel passed from the land of death and oppression to freedom and life with God. In baptism, we are buried in the waters and yet rise to new life. We move from a life marked by sin and death to a life marked by the promise and deliverance of God. As Israel moved from old life to new life, so too does our identity change upon being marked with the waters of baptism. Like how Elisha was called to take up a calling, take up a mantle after passing through the waters and receiving the Spirit, so too those who are baptized are called to live a new and holy life, one of freedom and obedience to God. Baptism includes a calling, because it is the movement from slavery to freedom, from one life to another. It is a water crossing, just the Red Sea and the Jordan.

Jonah in the Storm

The first story many think about is the story of Jonah. In Jonah 1, God calls Jonah to get up and go to Nineveh, because God has noticed their wickedness. However, instead of obeying God, Jonah gets up and goes in the opposite direction. He heads down to the city of Joppa and gets on a ship to Tarshish. He flees from God’s call and goes “away from the presence of the LORD” (Jonah 1:3).

Though Jonah fled, God was not done with Jonah yet. “Such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up” (v.4). The sailors panic and begin calling on their gods. Jonah lays fast asleep in the hold of the ship. After tossing cargo overboard, they wake up Jonah. They cast lots and discern that Jonah is the reason for the storm. After a discussion with the prophet, Jonah tells them to pick him up and throw him into the sea. The sailors initially try to keep rowing out of the storm, but eventually plea for mercy as they throw Jonah overboard. “So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging” (1:15). God sends a large fish to swallow up Jonah and after three days and nights in the belly of the fish, Jonah is vomited out and heads toward Nineveh.

Jesus in the Storm

However, this is not the only story of a boat caught in a storm. After Jesus spent some time teaching beside the Sea of Galilee, he told his disciples to get into a boat and cross over to the other side. They left the crowds behind and headed across the water. Then something happens that is strikingly similar to the story of Jonah: “A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, sot hat the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing”” (Mk. 4:37-38; cf. Mt. 8:23-27; Lk. 8:22-25). Jesus, like Jonah, is asleep in the boat while the storm rages. When Jesus awakes, he rebukes the storm and it immediately ceases.

There is another similar story of the disciples in a storm in Mark 6:47-52 and John 6:16-21. In this story, the disciples have been sent ahead in the boat and spend the night rowing against the storm. Then they see Jesus walking on the water. They are terrified and Jesus calms the storm and joins them in the boat (Mk. 6:51). While Jonah was thrown into the storm and swallowed by the sea (and the large fish), Jesus has authority over the wind and waves and even walks upon the water.

Paul in the Storm

Yet, there is one more story of a boat in a storm. Paul has been arrested and is being sent to Rome. He is under the authority of a centurion named Julius, who transports him on a ship. The first stages of the journey meet with poor weather and difficult sailing. Paul advises Julius not to proceed with the journey, saying, “Sirs, I can see that the voyage will be with danger and much heavy loss, not only of the large and the ship, but also of our lives” (Acts 27:10). Yet, Julius does not listen to Paul and the ship heads out again into the sea. A violent wind rushes around the ship and they are barely able to keep it under control. The sailors begin throwing cargo overboard and they lose all hope of being saved. The men are hungry, but Paul continues to give them encouragement.

“Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and thereby avoided this damage and loss. I urge you now to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For last night there stood by me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you.’ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we will have to run aground on some island” (Acts 27:21-26).

On the fourteenth night of the storm, Paul finally urges the crew to eat some food, restating God’s promise that “none of you will lose a hair from your heads” (27:34). The next morning they run aground, the ship breaks into pieces, yet all two hundred seventy-six people on the ship are brought safely to land.

These stories share a lot of similarities. There is a storm that threatens to break the boat into pieces. The majority of the people in the boat are panicking, but the man of God is not afraid. In the end, the storm is calmed and the people are amazed at the power and working of God. Yet, each event is also distinct and there are different details.

What do we learn?

What do we see when we set these stories side-by-side? First, we see that there are different reasons people find themselves in the midst of storms. Jonah is in the storm because of his disobedience. He was called by God to go to Nineveh and he got up and went away from the presence of the Lord. The storm was there to bring him back to the calling God had placed on his life. As the lots determine, Jonah’s disobedience is the reason for the storm.

Paul is placed in the storm because Julius the Centurion does not listen to his wise advice. It is not disobedience as much as foolishness that places that ship in the middle of a violent storm. If he had considered the weather conditions and the wisest course of action based on the location and time of year, he might have avoided being out in the storm.

Both Jonah and Paul are in the storm because someone made a mistake — either disobedience or foolishness. However, this is not the case with the disciples. They are out on the water because Jesus told them to head across the sea. They find themselves in the storm because they are obedient. They are right where God has called them to be.

When We Are In The Storm

Setting these stories alongside one another is important because we face storms in our lives for various reasons. Sometimes it feels like a violent wind comes upon our lives and we are struggling against the waves because we are not doing God’s will. God has made it clear what we should be doing and we are running away. Yet, every time there is a storm we should not immediate go hunting in our hearts for where we have been disobedient, as if this is automatically the cause of the chaos. Sometimes we simply made a poor decision. It wasn’t direct disobedience, but a foolish choice that came with consequences and we find ourselves in the storm. Perhaps most significantly, sometimes we are in the storm because we are right where God wants us to be. Like the disciples, we may find ourselves rowing against the wind, but it does not mean we are not right where we are supposed to be. It takes discernment to know why we are in any particular storm.

There are also different ways out of different storms. Though all the storms ceased, when Jonah faced the turmoil because of his disobedience, it was he who needed to change. He was cast into the sea and the belly of the fish — figuratively dying and rising again. He came out of the fish willing to go where God called. Paul and Julius had to lose the ship. There was loss in the storm, but what mattered most — their lives — was preserved. For the disciples, Jesus intervened and they were called simply to have faith in the middle of the storm. The pathway out of our storms may involve change — a dying and rising — it may involve loss and preservation, and it will certainly involve faith.

Setting these stories side-by-side also reminds us that, in all the storms, God was in control. The people enduring the storms were often panicked and afraid, but the storm was not outside of God’s control. The obedient and the disobedient, the faithful and the foolish, all endured storms. Yet, in each of their storms, they were not abandoned by God. God was near and at work. He has authority over the storm and it will not last forever. In each case, the storm eventually ends at God’s proper time. This can also be a source of comfort for us in the storms of our life.

“Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had hard labor. When she was in her hard labor, the midwife said to her, “Do not be afraid; for now you will have another son.” As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Ben-jamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar at her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day. Israel journeyed on, and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder” (35:16-21 NRSV)

Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, dies in childbirth and is buried in Bethlehem. When Jacob later recounts the story to Joseph in Egypt, he remembers that Rachel is buried in Bethlehem (Gen. 48:7). While it was a place of birth — Benjamin is born — it is primarily remembered as where Rachel died, where Jacob experienced the pain of loss.

Bethlehem becomes important again during the time of the judges. One of the judges, Ibzan, was from Bethlehem and judged Israel for seven years (Jdg. 12:8-10). However, three other stories in the period of judges illustrate both the pattern of tragedy associated with Bethlehem and the beginnings of redemption. In Judges 17, a man named Micah stole eleven hundred pieces of silver from his mother. When he returned them, his mother consecrated the silver to the LORD so that the silver would be turned into an idol of cast metal (17:1-4). Micah made the idol and set up one of his own sons as his priest (17:5-6). Meanwhile, a Levite from Bethlehem left the city to find a place to live. He is hired by Micah and moves into his house, being treated like one of his own sons. The presence of this Levite of Bethlehem adds legitimacy to Micah’s idols and false priesthood (17:13). The men of the tribe of Dan eventually take Micah’s idol and set it up as their own (Jdg. 18).

In Judges 19, another Levite took a concubine from Bethlehem. She became angry with him and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem. The Levite went to Bethlehem and, over several days of eating and drinking, eventually left with his concubine to head back toward Ephraim. On the way, the party is taken in by an old man so they can spend the night. While in the house of the old man, the men of Gibeah (from the tribe of Benjamin) surround the house and demand that the old man deliver the Levite to them so that they can have sex with him. The old man refuses, but instead offers his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine to the men. The men rape and abuse the concubine all through the night to the morning. The next morning, the concubine is found at the threshold of the house. The Levite places her on his donkey, takes her to his home, then cuts her body into twelve pieces and sends them throughout the land of Israel. “Then he commanded the men whom he sent, saying, “Thus shall you say to all the Israelites, ‘Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out.’” (Jdg. 19:30). Incensed, Israel musters for war and the other tribes battle against Benjamin for what was done by the men of Gibeah. After several days and significant losses, the Benjaminites were crushed.

It is a horrific story and, by far, the darkest moment in the period of the judges, a time when “all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Jdg. 17:6). While the abused takes place at Gibeah and the concubine is dismembered in Ephraim, she comes from Bethlehem. We see here that Bethlehem is a dangerous place to be a woman. Rachel dies, the concubine from Bethlehem is abused and chopped into pieces.

Ruth: Beginnings of Reversal

Yet, there is another story in Bethlehem during the period of the judges that shows the beginnings of redemption. There was a man named Elimelech who was married to Naomi. They had two sons, Mahlon and Kilion. When a famine hit Bethlehem, they leave the land and go to Moab. While staying there, the two sons marry Moabite women — Ruth and Orpah. But then Elimelech dies, as well as Mahlon and Kilion. Left with nothing and no one to care or provide for her, Naomi turns to head back to Bethlehem. She tells her daughters-in-law to return to their families, but they want to go with her. Eventually, Orpah turns back, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi. “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” (Ruth 1:16-17).

This is a powerful testimony from Ruth, but notice how often she is talking about death and burial. These women are heading back to Bethlehem, not because it is a paradise for women, but because they are desperate and have nowhere else to go. And even as they go to the place where Rachel was buried, Ruth is talking about death and burial.

When they come to Bethlehem, Ruth works to provide for the two of them in the only honorable way available — she gleans. God’s law said that, when harvesting, the corners of the field should be left uncut so that the poor can collect grain (Lev. 23:22). In a time where everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes, there was at least one farmer who was doing what God commanded. Boaz, the owner of the field, noticed Ruth and her hard work and had heard stories of her. He is kind to her and ensures she is protected from whoever might harass her (a sharp contrast to the Levite’s treatment of the woman from Bethlehem!). Boaz provides refuge for this vulnerable woman and, through his righteous actions, provides plenty for both Ruth and Naomi. Boaz happens to be a relative of Elimelech and Naomi has Ruth go to Boaz and remind him of his duty as kinsman-redeemer. (It was the biblical responsibility of the nearest kinsman to marry his relative’s widow so that the children from that marriage would continue the family name of the dead relative (Dt. 25:5-6)). Boaz agrees and, once the one nearer relative refuses to do his duty, Boaz marries Ruth. The story of Ruth ends with the birth of Obed (Ruth 4:17-21). A story that began in emptiness and death ends in fullness and life.

We already see the beginnings of redemption in the contrast between Rachel and the concubine, and Ruth and Boaz. Rachel dies in Bethlehem, giving birth to Benjamin. Ruth finds new hope and life as she gives birth to Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David. The concubine of Bethlehem is left vulnerable and exposed to violence and shame from wicked men. The Levite lets her be taken and abused in order to protect himself. He seeks justice in the aftermath, but refuses to protect her in the moment. She is, in some ways, expendable to him. Boaz, however, protects Ruth before he knows anything of his duty toward her. He makes sure she is not harassed. He makes sure she is taken care of and provided for. Boaz protects and provides for the weak and the vulnerable because he follows the law of God. Boaz’s righteous actions, his obedience to the law of God, leads to life and safety for Ruth and Naomi. His ordinary faithfulness begins to set Bethlehem on a different path.

Filling What Was Empty

Bethlehem becomes important as a birthplace in the rest of Scripture. Obed’s son is Jesse, and Samuel is sent to Jesse the Bethlehemite to find the one God has chosen to be anointed as king — David (1 Sam 16). As the birthplace of David, the king whose line God promised would reign forever, Bethlehem is later promised as the birthplace of the true Son of David, the Messiah, Jesus. In Micah 5:2, God promises that the ruler shall come out of Bethlehem and this passage is quoted to the Magi as proof that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Mt. 2:1-16; cf. Lk 2:4-15).

When we think of Bethlehem, we almost always think of it as a place of birth and joy. It was where Jesus was born! But that takes place only after a long history of redemption, where Bethlehem went from a place of death and sorrow to a place of life and hope and wholeness.

It was the first day of summer break and the question came from the back seat as we drove the familiar hour and a half drive from our house up to my in-laws. Two of the three kids had brought books and we had decided to pause listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in order to give them time to read.

The third book-less child was getting restless as we drove.

“Every time we say that we are bored, you tell us that it is good for us. But I don’t understand.”

It was a fair question.

The pace of contemporary life is relentless. Boredom is often seen as an enemy to be conquered. Every square inch of life must be filled with either productivity or entertainment. We are rarely left with time to sit with our own souls. We seldom let our minds wander.

Yet, in filling life so full, we also empty it of something important.

We lose wonder. We lose depth. We lose conviction. We lose courage. Ultimately, we lose growth in Christ when life is crammed with ceaseless activity like we are packing a suitcase for a road trip. We hope we can sit on top of it, squishing it down enough that we can zip it closed, but there is no spare room.

We grow stronger during periods of rest, not during the strain. We grow in the spaces, not in frenetic activity.

When training athletes, it is important to have both activity and rest. The practice, the game, the effort that pushes your body tells your muscles that they need to grow. However, the muscles strengthen during the time of repair while we rest. Constant practice or activity is a recipe for injury.

We need the activity to tell us we need to grow, but we grow during the periods of rest.

So many in the western world live with physical, emotional, and moral injuries because we refuse to rest. We refuse to give ourselves moments of space between where we can recover.

Because it is in the boredom, in the daydream, in the wandering of our minds that we often become open to growth and development. We can drown out the voice of the Lord by the unceasing activity of our lives.

The first day of summer break happened to coincide with the midpoint of my sabbatical. My daughter’s question arrived during a season where I have spent my time in rest and recovery. And I hope, by God’s grace, in a season of growth.

It is not just our bodies that grow in the spaces, but our souls. The frenetic pace of pastoral ministry has indicated the need for growth, but that growth happens during times of rest. Tish Harrison Warren received a word of advice early in her ministry that rings true for so many of us pastors, “You don’t have the life of prayer and silence necessary to sustain the work you are doing.” (Her new book, What Grows in Weary Lands, was like water on dry ground in my sabbatical).

In pastoral ministry we can fall into the same patterns as the rest of the world. We can try to cram “important ministry” into every moment of every day with no room to breathe. We can blame others for this. We can grow irritable with all the demands of the congregation, but we also bear some responsibility.

For the most part, we set our own schedules. There are interruptions. There are crises. There are regular rhythms of responsibilities (Sunday is always coming), but if we have no margin in our life, no space for boredom and wonder and sitting quietly with the Holy Spirit and our own soul, then we must recognize that we have no small part in structuring our lives this way. Eugene Peterson wisely reminds pastors that we become busy because we are either vain or lazy. We either delight in the feeling of importance that our busy life gives (vanity), or we refuse to do the hard work of discerning between all the good things we could be doing and the one thing God is calling us to do (lazy).

So a sabbatical should not just be a period of rest so that you can come back and do things the same way you used to do them. It should not be a refueling of the emotional and spiritual tank so that we can drive as fast and hard as possible. Sabbath and sabbatical is not a productivity hack.

Sabbatical as a season of recovery and growth should be about recovering a life of prayer and silence that will sustain you for the important work of ministry, but also growth in patience, humility, courage, and passion, as well as the conviction the ministry is Christ’s, not ours. By the Spirit, we participate in Christ, but the ministry of the church, the health of the church, the survival of the church is not our responsibility, but his.

Sabbatical is about developing a life of prayer and silence necessary to sustain me in the ministry Christ has called me to.

That requires space, it requires silence, it requires — to use my daughter’s words — boredom.

We have entered summer break at the Shaffer house. There are trips planned, activities scheduled, and memories to be made. I spend the mornings reading, praying, and writing. The afternoons are for family play. However, we also want periods of boredom. We want space where life and growth happens as a family.

The summer break is the quiet place of boredom where growth actually happens. Just as athletes (and pastors) grow in the times of rest and recovery, so too our children. So too each of us as a child of God.

I wanted to give you a window into the purpose of a pastoral sabbatical, but also an invitation for your own life. Welcome the boredom. Pay attention to the spaces God has given you in your life and in your day. Listen to what he might be saying to you in them. Pray that these spaces might be where God chooses to do his work of growing you more like Christ.

Hopefully, when we look back at our lives, we can see the ways that God has moved us, changed us, and shaped us. In some seasons, it is a gentle refining. We have some branched pruned off or some rough edges smoothed. In other seasons, the change is radical. We move from dead in sins to alive in Christ, we move from bondage to freedom. In all these ways and all these seasons, God is working out redemption in us, often in spite of all the ways that we stumble and fall.

The story of Scripture is ultimately one of redemption. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve turn away from God, eat the forbidden fruit, and send themselves and all the world into sin. Yet, God does not leave them there. God does not abandon his people, but redeems them. The great gospel story is God coming to redeem, to heal, to forgive, and to set all things right and make all things new.

Just as sin takes place in particular locations, so too does redemption. Sin entered the world in garden, but in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays as the moment of redemption draws near. While Adam and Eve fell under temptation and turned from God’s will in the first garden, Jesus says, “not my will, but yours be done” (Lk 22:42) in the second garden. Just as God enters into the depths of sin and misery in Jesus Christ to redeem the depths of humanity — body and soul — God also redeems places. Where once a city or mountain or valley was one of death and destruction, God does something new that changes the associations and memories of that place.

When we ask, “What else has happened in this place?” we should not only expect to see the same things happening over and over again, but we should also expect redemption. We should expect to see God redeeming places, because God is the Redeemer and his redemption is not just of the human person, but all of creation. Training our biblical memory involves learning to expect certain kinds of things in specific places, but also to expect redemption. For the remainder of this essay, let’s look together at the redemption God brings to the place of Jericho.

Spies & Violence

We first hear of Jericho as being across the Jordan river from where Israel camped in the wilderness (Nu.22:1, 26:3, 26:63, 31:12, 33:48, 33:50, 35:1, 36:13; Dt. 32:49, 34:1). When the land inheritances of the various tribes are determined, two and a half tribes are given land east of the Jordan, east of Jericho (Nu. 34:15, Josh 13:32, 16, 18). Jericho was the first city Israel encountered upon entering the promised land and played a prominent role in the conquest of the land.

Before crossing the Jordan River and entering the land, Joshua sent two men to spy out the land, “especially Jericho” (Josh. 2:1). The men enter the house of Rahab, the prostitute, where they are hidden from the king of Jericho. Before Rahab lowers the men out of the city by a rope, she secures a promise from them that when they take the city she and her household will be spared (Josh. 2:12-14). So one event at Jericho that will come up again is the presence of spies.

After Israel crosses the Jordan, they come to the walls of Jericho. Instead of initiating a battle, the people are instructed to march around the city for six days with seven priests bearing trumpets before the ark of the Lord (6:3-4). On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times, blowing the trumpets. Then the people were to make a loud shout and the walls would fall down. The people obey the commands of God and everything happens just as the Lord says. This formidable city falls before the might of God, not the might of the Israelite army. The people of God begin to take possession of the land, not because of their strength, but the work of God.

After the walls come down, Rahab is spared, but the entire rest of the city was to be wholly destroyed and dedicated to the Lord (6:24). Like a whole burnt offering in the sacrificial system, there was no part of the city that was to be shared by the people, but all of it was the Lord’s. There were no prisoners. Everyone in the city was destroyed — “both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys” (6:21). There was no looting. Everything in the city was the LORD’s — “They burned down the city, and everything in it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD” (6:24). Significantly, the city was never to be rebuilt, but to serve forever as a reminder of what the LORD had done:

“Joshua then pronounced this oath, saying,

“Cursed before the LORD be anyone who tries to build this city — this Jericho!

At the cost of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation,

And at the cost of his youngest he shall set up its gates!” (6:26).

The result of the destruction of Jericho is that the inhabitants of the land fear the Israelites. Throughout the rest of the book of Joshua, when the Israelites approach a city or town, the memory of Jericho strikes fear in their hearts. Jericho becomes the first fruits of the conquest of the land, the beginning of the people claiming the inheritance God had promised them. However, it was a conquest that involved violence and destruction as the people of the land are driven out and/or destroyed. So far, we have Jericho associated with spies as well as the conquest of the land.

These themes continue in the next appearance of Jericho. In 2 Samuel 10, David sends servants into the land of the Ammonites to deal with Hanun son of Nahash, to console him at his father’s death. However, the princes of the Ammonites accuse David of sending spies in order to overthrow the city (10:3). Hanun then seizes David’s envoys, shaves off their beards, cuts their garments, and sends them away. When David hears, he sends for the men, who were ashamed, and tells them to stay in Jericho until their beards grew (10:5). After offending David, the Ammonites prepare for war, hiring Syrians and men of Tob to fight for them. Several battles ensue with David’s army ultimately coming out victorious and the Syrians and Ammonites made peace with David, became subject to him and were afraid (10:19). The men, accused of being spies, are told to rest in Jericho, while David goes to war and conquers the Syrians and Ammonites. Again, we have spies and conquest connected with the city of Jericho.

In 1 Kings 16, during the reign of Ahab, there is a long list of this king’s wicked deeds. Included in the list is that Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. In accordance with what was promised in Joshua 6:26, Hiel’s firstborn dies upon the rebuilding of Jericho and his youngest son dies when the gates are rebuilt (16:34). This is a low point for Israel, where the king has taken what belonged to God — Jericho — and allowed it to be rebuilt, and, in some sense, participates in the unconquering or de-conquest of the land. The land that God had promised to his people, to be the place where they worshipped him and lived for him for the whole world to see was being re-Canaanized, symbolized through the rebuilding of Jericho. It is no accident that the prophet Elijah appears in the very next verse (17:1).

Before we look at the redemption of Jericho, there is one other episode we need to explore. At the end of 2 Kings, King Zedekiah flees to Jericho after Nebuchadnezzar breaks the city of Jerusalem after a long siege (2 Kings 25:1-4). Zedekiah is overtaken in Jericho and his army is scattered (25:5). He is captured, his sons are slaughtered and he is blinded — his eyes put out — at Riblah (25:6-7; cf. Jer. 39:5; 52:8).

Renewal & Reconquest

Right after Hiel rebuilds Jericho during the reign of Ahab, the prophet Elijah appears in next verse. Jericho is a place associated with blindness, spies, and the conquest of the land. If the rebuilding of Jericho is the de-conquest of the land, Elijah is God’s chosen messenger to reclaim the land of Israel for the Lord. Throughout his ministry, Elijah confronts Ahab and Jezebel and proclaims that the LORD is God, not Baal. He calls the people back to faithfulness to the Lord. He calls them, like Joshua did earlier, to “choose this day whom they will serve” (Josh. 24:15).

Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing. (1 Kings 18:21)

Elijah is reclaiming the land for God, not through force, but through prophetic power. It is by the word of God and works of power that Elijah sets to reclaim the land for the Lord. This culminates in the final episode of Elijah’s life. We are told in 2 Kings 2:1 that “the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven” and that Elijah and his apprentice, Elisha, were on their way from Gilgal. Multiple times Elijah instructs Elisha to stay while he goes ahead. Yet, each time Elisha refuses to leave him. This is a powerful statement about Elisha’s devotion to Elijah and what he has learned from him about being a prophet. However, the places Elijah visits along the way also communicate something important. First, they go from Gilgal to Bethel (2 Kings 2:1-3). Then they head from Bethel to Jericho (2:4). Afterward, they head to the Jordan river and cross it — Elijah striking the water with his mantle and they crossed on dry ground (2:6-8). At each stop, members of the company of prophets appear from the community. Once they have crossed the Jordan, Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind of fire and Elisha is given a double-portion of Elijah’s spirit (2:9-12).

If we pay attention to the places Elijah and Elisha visit on this journey, we notice a connection with the conquest of the land. Gilgal was the location of Israel’s first camp after crossing the Jordan (Josh. 4). Bethel was one of the cities conquered by Joshua during the conquest of the land (Josh. 12:16). Jericho was the first city taken after crossing the Jordan. Significantly, Elijah and Elisha re-cross the Jordan on dry ground, leaving the land. They take the reverse pathway of the conquest as Elijah is about to be taken into heaven. Yet, what they leave behind is not death and destruction, but renewal and revival. Everywhere they go, there is a group of people known as the company of prophets — even at Jericho. Elijah has reclaimed the land for the Lord, not through force, but through prophetic power. The way the land becomes what it was intended to be is through the people renewing their commitment and learning to walk in the ways of the Lord. The company of prophets is an instrument of renewal and — in some ways — conquest of the land.

We see already some seeds of change in the associations with Jericho. It is still the place where God makes his claim upon the land, but it is now through prophetic renewal, rather than physical conquest.

There is one last Old Testament story we should pay attention to before turning to how Jesus interacts with Jericho. In 2 Chronicles 28, Ahaz and Judah are defeated by the army of Israel, leaving 120,000 dead and 20,000 captured. The prophet Oded comes to the army of Israel and proclaims that the Lord gave Judah into their hands because he was angry with Judah. He calls upon the army to send the captives back (28:9-11). The chiefs of the Ephraimites then stood up and refused to accept the captives, but sent them back, clothed them, fed them, and brought them to Jericho, the city of Palm Trees (28:12-15). There was a great victory, but rather than Jericho being a place of destruction, it was a place of refuge for the captives.

Jesus at Jericho

Twice, we have a record of Jesus being at Jericho. In Matthew 20, Jesus predicts his death on the way of Jerusalem (20:17-19). Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee comes to Jesus and asks if her two sons will sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in glory (20:20-23). This leads to jealousy from the other disciples, prompting Jesus to teaching them about the nature of power in the kingdom of God: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (20:25-28). According to verse 29, they then leave Jericho, which means this conversation likely took place within Jericho itself. It is not accident that Jesus teaches his disciples about the nature of power within Jericho. When they ask about the kingdom of God coming in glory and power, they are standing within a city that God struck down to rubble and was the first city conquered in the Promised Land. However, Jesus says that his glory will look like a cross and that true power looks like service and humility.

When they leave Jericho, there are two blind men sitting on the side of the road (Mt. 20:29; Lk. 18:35; Mark 10:46 says one of them was named Bartimaeus). They call for Jesus, despite the admonishment of the crowd. Jesus turns and heals them. At Jericho, Jesus brings life and healing, not blindness and death.

The second time Jesus enters Jericho, he also brings life and salvation, rather than judgment and death. In Luke 19, the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus, wants to see Jesus and climbs a sycamore tree in order to get a glimpse of him. Jesus looks up at Zaccheaus and calls him down. The crowds grumble that Jesus wants to be the guest in the house of a sinner, but Zacchaeus finds his heart transformed. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much” (19:8). Jesus declares that “Today salvation has come to this house” (19:9). Jesus’ time in Jericho brings salvation to Zaccheaus.

What do we learn from our exploration of Jericho? Jericho is deeply connected to the conquest of the land and the land of Israel being claimed for the Lord. In the initial conquest, it was destroyed and told never to be rebuilt. The Israelites spied out the city before its destruction and that suspicion of Israelite spies lingered. It was also a place where kings were blinded and the people defeated. It was a place of suspicion, violence, and blindness, as well as serving as a focal point for the land belonging to the Lord.

However, the subsequent stories in Jericho force us to ask, “What does the conquest of the land look like?” By the time of Elijah, claiming the land for the Lord no longer looks like violence, but like prophetic renewal. In the time of Jesus, it means serving, rather than ruling, like a cross rather than a throne, like opening the eyes of the blind and bringing salvation to sinners. There has been a transformation of Jericho’s place in the salvation story.

Throughout Christian history, there have been movements and individuals who have felt drawn to the idea of reclaiming their land, their city, their nation for the Lord. However, the transformation of Jericho should force us to consider just how God would want us to do such a task. Not violence, not force, not might, but by the Spirit of God, by the power of the prophetic word, through healing and salvation coming to the inhabitants of that land. This is how such a people become the Lord’s.

The man from nowhere

Elijah’s introduction is sparse. When he appears on the scene in the midst of the reign of Ahab, we are given almost no details of his life. Like Melchizedek long before him (Gen. 14:18-20), Elijah appears seemingly out of nowhere. Fully formed and ready for ministry. We don’t know what preparation he was given for this calling. Unlike others in the Bible, we don’t know when, where, and how God called him to this ministry.

We know where Moses was born and how he was raised (Ex. 2:1-10). We know how he fled from Egypt to avoid being executed by Pharaoh and the time we spend in Midian tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro (Ex. 2:11-23). We even know how Moses turned aside to see a bush that was burning, but not consumed. God called to Moses out of the bush and, despite his protests, Moses returned to Egypt to go to Pharaoh and lead the people out of Egypt (Ex. 3-4). We know all of this about Moses, but almost nothing about Elijah.

Isaiah has the vision of the Lord sitting on the throne, proclaims himself unworthy to see God, and has his mouth cleansed by the coal from the altar (Is. 6:1-7). Then Isaiah has a clear call from God. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here I am; send me!””(Is. 6:8). Jeremiah the priest is told God knew him before he was formed in the womb and that Jeremiah was consecrated to God’s service before his birth. God touches Jeremiah’s mouth and puts his words in them (Jer. 1:1-10). Peter was fishing with his brother, Andrew, when Jesus called him, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” (Mt. 4:19). Paul was travelling the road to Damascus, eager to persecute the church, when a light from heaven blinded him and he fell to the ground. Paul heard the voice of Jesus, got up, and was led by the hand to Damascus, where Ananias lays hands on him and Paul receives his sight (Acts 9:1-19). In each instance, we have a clear, defined story of call. We know details about where they are from and the specific calling the Lord laid upon their life. Not so with Elijah.

Even Jesus has a story of call. We know the proclamation of the angels before his birth (Lk. 1:26-38) and the choir of angels that accompanied it (Lk. 2:1-20). We have a story of Jesus growing up and visiting the temple. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour” (Lk. 2:52). At his baptism in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus and a voice comes from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3:22).

We know so much about so many who are called by God to ministry, but so little about Elijah.

A Marginal Prophet

What we do know suggests Elijah was a man on the margins. “Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead” (1 Kings 17:1, NASB). Most scholars believe that “Tishbite” refers to someone from a place called “Tishbe” in the region of Gilead. However, where is Tishbe? No one knows for sure. The only time it is mentioned in the Bible is in connection with Elijah (1 Kgs. 17:1; 21:17; 21:28; 2 Kgs 1:3; 1:8; 9:36). He comes from an unknown place without a backstory.

But what if more is going on with the designation of Elijah as a “Tishbite”? There is a play on words in the original Hebrew that highlights Elijah as a man on the margins. There are two possible roots of the “Tishbite” (תִּשְׁבִּי). The first possible root is Shabah (שָׁבָה), which means “to take captive” or “to carry away.” If this is the origin of Tishbite, then Tishbe could have been a place where captives were relocated or resettled. The town’s name would mean “captivity.” The second possible root is Toshav (תּוֹשָׁב), which is one of the words for a sojourner, stranger, or foreigner. It refers to someone who is a resident alien, who lives in a place, but does not have the rights of a citizen. In this rendering, the town of Tishbe would mean “stranger.” Both possible meanings highlight how marginalized the place would have been.

I find the second root (toshav) to be more likely because it is the very next word in the passage. “Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers (מִתֹּשָׁבֵי) of Gilead” (1 Kings 17:1, NASB). Since the word is so similar to “Tishbite” many English translations ignore it altogether, treating it like a reference to the city of “Tishbe” (example: “Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead” NRSV). Yet, this means we miss something important. Elijah is a sojourner or stranger, just like Israel herself, just like her best leaders have always been. Abraham spoke of himself as a stranger when he went to buy the cave at Machpelah for Sarah’s burial. “I am a stranger and an alien (וְתוֹשָׁב) residing among you” (Gen. 23:4). David refers to himself and his ancestors as strangers.

“Hear my prayer, Lord,

listen to my cry for help;

do not be deaf to my weeping.

I dwell with you as a foreigner,

a stranger (תּוֹשָׁב), as all my ancestors were” (Ps. 39:12, cf. 1 Chr. 29:15).

While David is likely thinking of his great-grandmother, Ruth, and his ancestor Rahab, this language of being a foreigner is also how Israel was to see itself in the land of promise. It was God’s land. While each family was given land as an inheritance, it ultimately belonged to the Lord. “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers (וְתוֹשָׁבִים)” (Lev. 25:23). In each of these passages, the word toshav (תּוֹשָׁב) appears, just as it does to describe Elijah. Elijah, Abraham, David, and Israel all lived as strangers. All were far from the center of power and prestige. All were called to live a different way than the way of the world.

When Elijah steps up to Ahab, to speak God’s Word to the leader of God’s people, he comes as a man from the margins. He didn’t need power or prestige to be able to speak to Ahab. He didn’t need to come from the right family with the right background in order to be called by God. He didn’t need any sort of advantages as we would think of them.

The center of Elijah’s ministry was not Elijah.

Elijah did not live at the center and his calling would not put him there. While Elijah will be called to speak to the powerful, he will spend most of his ministry with widows and orphans, hiding in dry riverbeds and lying exhausted under a tree. He will never taste “success” in the way that the world would measure it. Elijah doesn’t build a ministry empire, but spends his life as a stranger, with the outcasts of Israel.

The Tishbite Pastor

Pastors are called to be Tishbites. We are not called to life at the center, but life at the margins. We are called to be strangers and sojourners, captive to the call of God and servants of the Lord.

We endure much suffering as pastors when we expect this calling to place us at the center. At one point in history, the “best” and “most successful” pastors were those who could gather the largest crowds. Then, it became those who made it onto the radio. Then, it was those who appeared on television. Now, it is hard not to consider ministerial success on the basis of social media following and subscriber counts. Yet brilliantly white teeth and expert lighting are, by no biblical measurement, the qualifications for success.

There has always been a temptation to celebrity within the pastoral vocation. Sadly, there are ladder-climbers in every vocation. Standing up in front of a group of people and saying, “Thus says the Lord,” begins for many pastors with a posture of fear and trembling. Yet, as we grow in skill and adjust to the anxiety of public speaking, this humble posture can transform into something else. We can begin to like being in front of people. We can begin to think that because people look at us while we speak that we are extraordinary. When people come away impressed with the sermon, our words make still give God credit, but we are secretly pleased with ourselves. Eugene Peterson names this temptation accurately, ““If we speak the word of God long enough and often enough it doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to take up the pose of the God who is speaking the word.”

For a long time, no one else might notice. On the surface, the sermons are still being written, the pastoral counsel is still being given, the board meetings are still being led. Yet, we have begun to place ourselves at the center of our ministry. Ministry has become about our skills, our talent, our ability. We have learned to play the game and play it well. We have learned to explain the text, to craft winsome illustrations, but the Subject of the text — the one this entire ministry is about, whose action in history is the entire point of gathering on a Sunday morning when there are likely more entertaining soccer and golf matches to watch — the Triune God of grace, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, fades into the background in favor of our ministry at our church. As Eugene Peterson says, ““No amount of technical exegetical skill compensates for a failure to attend to the “patient” — Scripture as the living word of God…the remedy for our exegetical embarrassment is not innovation but recovery.” This is the long, slow death of pastoral ministry. Placing ourselves at the center of ministry is the abdication of our prophetic-pastoral calling. The pastor exists to point others to the center, not to be the center.

This is not only the slow death of our calling, but the slow death of our own souls.

Decentered Ministry

In a church awash with celebrity pastors, where subscriber counts are considered markers of spiritual authority and wisdom, we need to return to being Tishbite pastors. Elijah came from the margins and lived most of his time in ministry on the margins. He occasionally spoke to those in power in the church, but he was called to a holy, ordinary obscurity. Michael Horton, seeing the rise of celebrity pastors and the burdens placed on ordinary Christian to live a “radical” faith, calls for the return to the ordinary ways that God makes and grows disciples — Word and Sacrament. Drawing from Paul’s criticism of the so-called “super apostles,” Horton champions what we might call a “Tishbite ministry” — ordinary, marginal, pointing others to the center, which is Christ. This ordinary, decentered ministry in seen in Timothy in the New Testament. “It’s not his [Timothy’s] amazing charisma, leadership skills, or even out-of-the-park teaching ability that matters. In fact, the more he tries to distinguish himself, the more division he will bring to the church. Rather, without ever crossing his fingers behind his back, he is called simply to remain faithful to his ordination vows: “the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Tim 6:12).” Faithful, ordinary, obscure, Tishbite ministry is enough. “The burden of extraordinary impact weighs heavily, first, on the shoulders of pastors. But here is the good news: it is not your ministry, church, or people. You do not have to create and protect a personal legacy, but simply to distribute and guard Christ’s legacy entrusted to his apostles.”

We endure much suffering when we think we have to be at the center. We were not made to be at the center. Christ is Lord. It is his church, not yours. He died for her. You don’t have to. This decentering of ministry is often experienced as both a loss and as immense freedom. Our ministerial ego must die if we are to be Tishbite pastors. However, there is unspeakable freedom in ministering out of a settled faith that Christ is Lord of the church.

We cause much suffering when we insist that, because of our calling, we must be at the center. At a conference, I once sat with a group for lunch with Sam Wells. I asked him — as an author of over forty books and someone respected and called to speak at conferences — how he had avoided the self-centredness and scandal that seemed to plague every pastor who achieved a certain amount of “success.” He spoke of having people in your life who don’t believe your hype, who can keep you humble. We have all seen the consequences for the flock of Christ when the shepherds place themselves at the center. The series of high profile abuse scandals (and the likely many smaller ones as well) speak to the sinister seduction of self-centred power.

Elijah build no ministerial empire and neither should we. He came from obscurity, lived as a stranger, and largely ministered on the margins of society and the church. This should be enough for us. God still calls Tishbite pastors. Paul also knew that decentered ministry — ministry centered on Christ — was the only true joy of our souls:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:4b-11)

There are no easy times to be a pastor. There are no glorious times where there was no controversy, no particular challenge to living the faith, preaching the word, and shepherding the flock. As this elder rightly pointed out, there are simply no easy times for the Christian faith at all, let alone for the calling of pastor.

All this is true and good reminder for those of us tempted by nostalgia. However, we do need to think clearly about just what kind of time we live in so that we can gain wisdom for how to live and pastor faithfully here and now. Finding our place is not about updating the pastoral calling to be relevant to modern or postmodern sensibilities. Finding our place and knowing where we live is not saying that the core of pastoral ministry changes from age to age or with the varying winds of culture. Instead, finding our place is about renewing our biblical vision for this beautiful, but cruciform calling of pastor. Finding our place and naming rightly our current moment is not about finding where this moment fits into the history of Western civilization, but about where it fits within the larger story of God’s people. We find our place as pastors when we know how our moment resonates with other moments within the history of God’s people. Finding our place in The Story gives us guides for imagining our work and what it looks like to attend to God in this place, at this time, in this moment.

In this moment of history, we sense that something has changed for the church in the West. The church’s place toward the center of power and culture that lasted for centuries is fading fast (though the picture is far more complicated than we usually think). The era of Christendom has ended and the church must find her place within a post-Christian West. Some greet this shift with grief, others with relief. Some resist this change, hoping that renewal or revival of some sort will return us to a world we feel we have lost. Some embrace this change, longing to move beyond the power and politics to simply following the way of Jesus. Some feel loss and disorientation with the pace of change and the dwindling of many North American churches. Where do we find guides to navigate this new landscape? How do we know how to walk faithfully here and now?

Two periods of Christian history are often presented as candidates for finding our place within the story of God’s people. Both have significant strengths, but — I will argue — ultimately fall short of fully capturing where the church finds herself today. I want to look briefly at these two options before presenting what I believe is a more faithful alternative.

1. The Church is in Exile

For generations, the LORD had called the people of God to repent and return to him. They had walked away from his ways and were largely deaf to his calls. God had promised that if they did not turn back to him, they would be cast out of the land of Israel into exile. God kept his word. Jerusalem fell, the king of Judah was carried off in chains and his eyes gouged out after watching his sons killed in front of him (2 Kings 25:7), and the best and brightest of Judah were carted off into exile. It felt like death for the people of God. It was a time of disorientation and extreme loss. They wondered if God had finally forsaken them. Yet, they found that the prophets proclaimed the LORD had not abandoned his people. He was still their God and would resurrect them and return them to the land. In the period of exile, the people of God learned again to be a people centered in word and community, living as the distinct people of God amidst the powers and empires of the day.

There are clear reasons that people see the current state of the church as reminiscent of exile. I remember teaching through my book Rooted with a group ranging from seventeen years old to over seventy. We were discussing the difference between living — spiritually — in Jerusalem and living in Babylon. The oldest members of the group talked of feeling like they grew up in Jerusalem. They grew up in a world where people knew the Bible, cared about going to church, professed largely Christian morals, and the church was respected. This older reader confessed to how confusing and discouraging it was to feel like they no longer lived in the kind of world they had grown up in. They felt like they had been displaced. After this important (and honest) moment, the youngest of the group was willing to admit, “I have never seen Jerusalem. I have only known what it is like to live in Babylon. This is the world I was born into.”

Exile is a compelling theme for thinking of the church in this current moment because many of us understand the feeling of being displaced, of feeling like we no longer live where we used to live. Exile names the loss and disorientation many feel at the decline and fall of the church’s place in society and people’s lives. Exile also provides a vision of hope, because God does not abandon his people in exile and we can hold fast to the promise that God will not abandon his people in this period that may feel like dying. Exile also provides a call to learn to live out our faith while we are not in the center of power. Much of what the people learned in exile are things the church should learn in this time and place as well.

However, there are limitations to the language of exile. The exile was the judgment of God upon the people. God uprooted them from the land and allowed them to be carted off to Babylon. Their wickedness and faithlessness polluted the land to the point where it vomited them out. Does this track with how we see what has taken place in the church? When we hear others speaking of the church being in exile, are we saying that the church losing influence and pride of place within the broader culture is equivalent to being violently ripped out of their homes and force-marched to another nation? Are we saying that the pressures that Christians face to go along with the culture of today are equivalent to the attempts at cultural erasure (and, at times, literal genocide) that were attempted by some of those who ruled over the Diaspora people?

The exile also had an end date. God promised that the people would remain in exile for seventy years and then would be allowed to return. While not all chose to go back, this promise was kept and they returned to the land, rebuilt the temple, and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem (see Ezra and Nehemiah). However, do we have such a promise from God? Is there a promise that the church will be able to return to the promised land of cultural influence and power? Is there a promise that the church will be restored to what it was, to the place it used to occupy? What would it look like to return, even if that was to take place?

Yet, perhaps the most severe limitation of the language of exile is that it often denies our agency in creating the world we now live in and our agency in the midst of this current moment. When the people of God were in exile, they were powerless before the mighty empires of the day. They had no power to change the world or truly improve their conditions. Esther was shrewd and risked her life for her people precisely because she was in such a vulnerable position. Daniel could give wise advice for years and still be thrown into a lion’s den. The people of God were occasionally adjacent to power, but they themselves were vulnerable and the vast majority lived with no ability to change the conditions around them. They lived in the world and worked for the good of the city, but the posture of exile was one of survival, of protecting their identity as God’s people.

When contemporary Western Christianity use exile as our primary lens for seeing this cultural moment, it forgets that the Western church was part of shaping this civilization. While many may feel shocked and disoriented by the cultural shifts, they did not happen to us as passive observers. Our actions, in part, contributed to where we find ourselves and the church must reckon with those decisions and their consequences. Exile language can remove our complicity in shaping the West to be what it has become. The narrative of exile is one of loss and being overwhelmed, not of responsibility and self-reflection on why we have gotten where we are and our role in it. Additionally, when exile is the only lens through which we view the present, it can lead to a form of quietism. The kingdoms of this world will do what they do, but the church just needs to keep being the church. This can sanctify an abdication of responsibility for contributing to the shape of the world around us.

I have used exile language myself to think about the present life of the church (see Rooted). There is much to be gained from seeing the church as being in a form of exile. However, there are limitations that lead me to wonder if there might not be a more fitting image for the church today.

2. We have returned to the time of the early Church

The other period of Christian history often appealed to as analogous to our current moment is the early church. Before the conversion of Emperor Constantine, the church was not in the center of power. They were on the margins — at times persecuted, at times ignored. Their distinctive community, focused on the way of Jesus and empowered by the Spirit, led to many coming to Christ and the eventual transformation of the Roman Empire. For some, the twilight of Christendom is seen as a gift, because it enables the church to take off the robes of power, get down on their knees, and begin washing one another’s feet again. It is seen as an opportunity for the church to return to its original calling and the life and message of Jesus that was so compelling that people would be willing to die for it.

The image of the early church shares many elements with exile, because both are addressing the same reality in the present. Like exile, it frames the present not simply as loss, but as opportunity. It reminds the church that the small, the marginal, the de-centered church is a place where God is powerfully at work. It calls for the church to reclaim not just the truth of Jesus, but the way and life of Jesus as well. It calls for the church to navigate the powers of empire with a combination of wisdom and boldness, all while embodying the teachings of Jesus.

I love this picture of the early church. I honestly believe that there is much to be gained by learning from the early church mothers and fathers as guides for faithful Christianity in the present. However, the more time I have spent trying to wrestle with pastoral ministry in the present, the more I have come to feel that the early church as the model for contemporary ministry is missing something.

The early church was a pre-christian world, a world that had not yet been shaped by the Gospel. However, the post-Christian West is not quite the same. It is a world that has forgotten or abandoned its heritage. We need to find ourselves in The Story in a place where people knew the Lord, but had forgotten, not simply as those on the frontiers of faith in the midst of a pagan culture.

Also, like the exile, early church language can feed into the church’s sense of persecution and deny responsibility for the current state of the church. We can come to believe that we are the pure early church in the midst of a wicked, pagan world without recognizing the mess within the church. When we are the rag-tag bunch of underground believers facing persecution for our faith, we don’t have to take responsibility for how we used or misused our power or influence when we had it. The same quietism that can come from exile language can also be found when we see ourselves in the early church. There are good works to be done — locally, for our neighbor — but we see ourselves as ultimately powerless in the face of Rome. We can compromise or we can suffer persecution, but we do not think we can actually change anything.

Both exile and the early church help us name the disorientation and displacement experienced by many churches in the West. There is something right about these images (and I have used them myself in my own writing). However, both fall short of naming what it looks like to pastor in the midst of a post-Christian culture — a culture shaped by the Christian faith, but that has both retained some of the practices and values of the faith while departing from it in other ways. Forgetfulness and compromise colour our current culture, even in the church. The pressure to do so does not simply come from the outside, from the world and its values and powers and convictions.

We need a theological vision for ministry that accurately recognizes the weakness, failure, and complicity of the church while also presenting unshakable hope in God’s commitment to the church, to redeem and resurrect his people. We need a theological vision that does give us permission to point fingers at the culture around us without first taking stock of how we have lived as the people of God. We need a theological vision for pastoral ministry that gives us courage and wisdom to live the way, truth, and life of Jesus at this time and in this moment.

So I want to propose another place to look for guides for pastoring in our current moment: The Omride Dynasty.

3. In the Days of Ahab

Before I narrate the time of the Omrides (focusing particularly on Ahab), I want to make clear an important theological conviction that guides my understanding of how to see the contemporary church in the story of Scripture. Alongside the great tradition of Christian interpretation, I see Israel as a type of the church. When we see Israel faithful or unfaithful, walking in God’s ways or forgetting God altogether, this should not map onto any contemporary nation-state, but onto the church. We should not look at Israel under any king — whether David or Ahab — and compare it to 21^st century Canada or the United States. Such a connection is theologically irresponsible. Instead, we should see it as speaking to the church.

By the time Omri became king of Israel, the people of God had been through a lot. The church — Israel — knew God. They knew God’s ways and words. They had been through the exodus, through the wilderness, through the conquest of the land and the time of the judges, but now, in the period of the kings, they had forgotten. They had chosen to become like the other nations, they had become divided, and they began to forget their God in favour of the trappings of power, of success, and of the ways and means that the rest of the world prized so much. In the days of Omri, Ahab, and Ahaziah, it was not faithful Israel versus an unfaithful world, but an Israel that had forgotten what it meant to be God’s people, to be shaped by his Word and his way.

Israel had become a remixed nation. 1 Kings 16:25 says, “Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; he did more evil than all who were before him.” He was the worst king Israel had ever seen. We are picking up in the middle of the story, so you might not realize it, but that is quite a statement. The northern kingdom had not had a single king that walked in God’s ways. But then, Omri’s son, Ahab, takes the throne. Verse 30 of chapter 16: “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him.” Ahab’s dad was the worst king Israel had ever seen and the Bible tells us that Ahab was worse.

What did Ahab do? There is a lot, but initially two things. Ahab married Jezebel and Ahab worshipped Baal. These things are connected. Ahab married a princess from another country - Sidon - who was a worshipper of a so-called god Baal. She was a promoter of this religion. We could say she evangelized for Baal worship. Ahab began to worship Baal alongside the LORD. There was a temple in Jerusalem to the LORD and there were places of worship to the one true God in the Northern Kingdom, but now Ahab built a temple and an altar to Baal in Israel. He built up Baal worship in his kingdom and even set up a sacred pole for Asherah, the god Baal’s consort.

But it is interesting that Ahab never stops believing in the LORD. He just also starts believing in Baal and worshipping him. Throughout the story of Ahab, when Elijah confronts the king, Ahab never denies that God exists or claims to no longer worship him. Instead, he wants the LORD, but also Baal.

Ahab is promoting a mixed religion. He pulls from multiple religions to form something that fits with his sensibilities, keeps his wife happy, and looks like it will be good for his life and his country.

Does any of this sound or feel familiar? Israel, in Elijah’s day, was a remixed nation. I use the term ‘remixed,’ which comes from Tara Isabella Burton’s book Strange Rites. In it, she describes how almost everyone makes their own religion today. She calls the phenomenon ‘remixing.’ It’s like music. It used to be that you needed to buy a whole album if you wanted to listen to something, but now everyone just makes their own personalized playlist - a little jazz here, a little country there, some hip hop, some classic rock, some emo. Whatever you want and what works for you, that is the playlist you make. The thing is, people are not just doing this with their spotify playlist. It is how the majority of people in North America view religion.

The largest growing religion in North America are those who check ‘none’ on surveys when asked for a religious affiliation. Another growing group are those who claim to be ‘spiritual but not religious.’ But it is not just about ‘people out there.’ If you consider what might be categorized as ‘new age beliefs’ - astrology, reincarnation, psychics, objects having ‘spiritual energy’ - it might not be surprising to you that 60% of the people in unaffiliated groups believe in one or more of these things. So it might not surprise you that the majority of people who say there are spiritual but not religious believe in things like astrology and psychics. What might shock you is that the percentage does not drop significantly when people identify as Christian.

Remixed. Instead of having exclusive loyalty to any one religion or one god, an increasing amount of people in contemporary Canada and the States are mixing and matching beliefs and practices from various religions in order to create something they believe works for them. It’s their own personal religious playlist.

This is not so different from the days of Ahab. The people, under the leadership of their king, had abandoned exclusively loyalty to the LORD and begun to dabble and remix by bringing in the beliefs and practices of their pagan neighbors, particularly the religion of Baal Worship. All this without, in many of their minds, abandoning belief in the LORD at all.

Into this remixed context, the LORD sent the prophet Elijah.

My contention is that we, as a church, are living through a period like the Omride Dynasty. The reigns of Omri, Ahab, and Ahaziah are periods of both the marginalization of the church, but also the corruption of the church. It is a time where the prophets and the faithful are pushed to the edges, but also where the church weds itself to the kind of power that all the other nations promised. It is a confusing, mixed-up time where there are people claiming the name of God (and Baal) and performing all sorts of wickedness, crushing widows, murdering neighbours. It is also a time where the weak and desperate in the church — and in Israel — are crying out to the LORD and in need to relief.

The Omride Dynasty is not an easy time to be a pastor, nor to be a Christian, for that matter. Yet, into the midst of this confusing time, with its temptations to power, violence, force, despair, and loneliness, God’s response is to send Elijah — a prophet-pastor.

I find God’s response both wonderful and terrifying. God’s response to the chaos of the Omride period is to send a pastor-prophet. Elijah’s tools will be Word and sacrament and Spirit, all in the face of Ahab and Jezebel. Elijah’s path as prophet-pastor will be one of suffering and isolation, but also community and hope in God. It will be a path that includes despair, but also profound comfort. Elijah will confront the church and care for the weak. He will work by God’s power to heal the broken, but also flee for his life. Elijah’s part will one day end and he will hand off the ministry to another, to Elisha — a truth for every pastor under the sun. The path of Elijah and Elisha is not easy — for there is no easy time to be a pastor, nor to be a Christian, for that matter.

However, I find in Elijah and Elisha a set of companions and guides for what it looks like to pastor a congregation in this time and this place.

Over the May long weekend, I spent time in Algonquin Provincial Park with my family. I always vacation with books, so I made sure to bring a collection of both fiction and non-fiction. After rereading The Weary Leader’s Guide to Burnout by Sean Nemecek, I decided to switch to fiction for the rest of the week.

I opened up Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.

The book fascinated me with its contrasts. Prince Myshkin loves Nastasya Filippovna out of pity, not passion, whereas Rogozhin loves her with passion and no pity. The earnestness, humility, and honesty of Myshkin in contrast to the unseriousness of everyone around him (even when they proclaim they are perfectly serious). I was even fascinated by the differences between the abused Nastasya and the sheltered Aglaia.

Overall, it was deep, haunting, and introspective. The ending was disturbing and troubling. Just what I had expected to find in a Russian novel.

However — if I am completely honest — The Idiot was also exhausting, confusing, and sometimes difficult to read.

The challenges of reading The Idiot reveal the various gaps between myself and the time and location of Dostoevsky. To pick up The Idiot as a twenty-first century person living in Canada is a cross-cultural experience. Let me name just three ways that I noticed this:

1. Language — I cannot read Russian. I read Constance Garnett’s English translation of The Idiot from 1913. Garnett’s translation is very readable, but idioms are difficult to translate. There are times where a character’s reaction to a greeting indicates that there are shades of meaning in Russian that do not come across in English. Dostoevsky has characters occasionally use a French or German phrase, which seems netural to me, but might have connotations within the Russian context that I missed. Without translation, I would have no access to this novel, but my lack of knowledge of Russian means there are things I miss that a native speaker reading in Russian would pick up.

2. Culture — I am not Russian, nor have I ever been to Russia. I grew up in the US and now live in Canada. I, thus, live at a cultural distance from the setting in Russia. It is difficult to know what was expected and normal within the culture and what was not. Throughout the novel, Myshkin’s companions often seem absurd, foolish, and shallow to me, while the Prince is the only honest and forthright person. As a Westerner, I could read this in a couple of different ways. I could be that Dostoevsky is exaggerating certain features of his culture to satirize them (Who is truly the “idiot” in this novel? Prince Myshkin or everyone else?). Yet, it could also be that he is presenting interactions that are common and typical of his day, but they seem odd and absurd to me because they are foreign and I do not truly understand them. Is he poking fun or is he playing it straight-faced when he has Lebedev or Ippolit speak or when he describes the Epanchin family? My distance from the culture of Russian and my lack of understand make me prone to misreading some of these interactions.

3. Time — I am separated from the setting of the novel by almost 150 years. Technology is different than in 1869. Much has happened in Russian history (as well as world history) that inevitably color my reading of some of the arguments made in the novel. Our understanding of psychology, mental illness, and trauma are all more developed than at that time. Even the title, The Idiot, comes from a different era with different convictions and sensibilities. Most strikingly for me, the genre of the novel has changed from 1869 to now. Almost the entire novel takes place in dialogue, with very little description or action. People sit around drinking and telling stories. Instead of experiencing events, we often have people retelling them later in a group setting. Such a format is jarring for someone more comfortable and familiar with contemporary novels. Similarly to the distance of culture, the distance of time makes me wonder whether Dostoevsky is following conventions, defying conventions, or satirizing them in how he structures his novel.

Many of my questions could be answered by reading any of a number of books and articles intended to help me understand the world of Dostoevsky and the world of the novel. I am also confident that if I picked up another Russian novel of that period (or read this one again), I would find it a bit easier for having already spent some time in The Idiot. Both familiarity and scholarship can help me read well in this cross-cultural encounter.

I say all of this because reading as a cultural encounter is not just about reading Dostoevsky. Something similar is true when we read the Bible. Reading Scripture is a cross-cultural experience.

1. Language — The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Even the best English translations (and there are many) are translations, which means some of the phrasing and idioms are difficult to translate. Sometimes a word in one language contains depths and connotations that do not exist in the other. Some words seem to contain almost an entire worldview and are difficult to translate. There is a distance of language between the original text of the Bible and the contemporary reader.

2. Culture — There is also a cultural distance. Western, post-Enlightenment ways of thinking and viewing the world are drastically different than the values and assumptions of the people of the Bible. Without knowing something of this culture, we easily read the assumptions of our own culture into the Bible or fail to recognize when Scripture is conforming to culture patterns or challenging them.

3. Time — Almost two thousand years separates us from when the last books of the New Testament were written and many centuries more separate us from when the first Old Testament books were written.

Both familiarity and scholarship are helpful in aiding us to read Scripture well. I firmly believe in the clarity or perspecuity of Scripture. I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks through the Word of God and I have written several books where I set aside some of the technical expertise of scholarship in order to allow Scripture to speak in ways that the everyday Christian can hear. Much of my recent work has encouraged familiarity with the text (memorization, repeated reading) as a means of growing in the ability to read Scripture well.

While there is a time and place to simply let the Scriptures speak clearly for themselves, there is also a value in receiving the significant study of experts. At its best, scholarship can help us see our own blindspots and open our ears to hear more clearly what God is saying in Scripture. At its best — even when it complicates things — scholarship enables us to recognize that reading the Bible is a cross-cultural experience. It can help us to see where our assumptions and convictions are challenged by the Word of God and where the Word challenged the convictions of its first hearers as well.

Yet, we must remember that the goal is to read the book. If I read all the secondary literature on Dostoevsky and poured through history books to understand Russian history, but never actually picked up The Idiot and read it, then I have missed the point.

Even more so, we can benefit from the secondary literature on the Bible (I write some of it myself!) and we can benefit from making sure that we understand the history and cultural context of the Bible, but — ultimately — we need to pick up the book and read it.

I finally read my first Russian novel. It was a beautiful, challenging, and fascinating experience. The Idiot will likely sit percolating in the back of my mind for a long time. Yet as I finished the novel, I was most profoundly struck by the desire to go back to the Scriptures, to be far more attentive to the peculiarities, power, and difficulties of that text than I ever was to Dostoevsky.

Shechem is a place of covenant and consecration as well as violence and betrayal. These two realities often exist side-by-side. It is a place where God gives his promise, but the people break their promises.

Shechem first appears in the Bible in the same story of God calling Abram to leave Haran and head toward Canaan. When Abram arrives in the land, the first place he goes is Shechem. “Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land” (Gen. 12:6). At Shechem, God appears to Abram and promises him land and offspring. In response, Abram builds an altar there to the Lord. There is covenant (God’s promise) and consecration (Abram’s altar).

After Jacob wrestles with the angel at Peniel and comes away limping, but blessed, he finally meets with Esau and the two embrace. A reunion that Jacob feared would lead to violence lead to reconciliation between the brothers. After initially spending time in Succoth, Jacob comes to the city of Shechem and camps there (Gen. 33:18). Jacob buys the plot of land where he had pitched his tent for one hundred pieces of money and builds an altar there, calling it El-Elohe-Israel (“God, the God of Israel,” Gen. 33:19-20). Though we do not have covenant, we again have a moment of consecration — Jacob builds an altar.

At the end of the book of Joshua, the people gather at Shechem and renew their covenant with the Lord. Joshua rehearses the history of God’s faithfulness to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his bringing of the people out of Egypt and giving them victory over their enemies. Joshua tells of how God drove the people out of the land before them. Then, he called the people to make their promises to God, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). Joshua called upon them to live faithfully before God and the consequences of forsaking the Lord. Yet, the people swear to serve God, “And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”” (Josh. 24:24). Joshua renewed the covenant, wrote God’s words in the book of the law, and set up a stone as a reminder and as a witness to the covenant. Then, the buried the bones of Joseph in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased at Shechem. Again, there is both covenant and consecration taking place at Shechem.

While at Shechem, Joshua had warned the people of the dangers of breaking their word, breaking their promise to walk faithfully with the Lord. It is fitting that such a conversation takes place at Shechem, because Shechem is also a place where people consistently break their word.

In Genesis 33:18, Jacob and his family camp near the city of Shechem. Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, went out with the women of that region, where she was seized and raped by a man named Shechem, son of Hamor, the prince of that region (Gen. 34:1-2). Afterward, Shechem requests his father get Dinah to be his wife. When Jacob learns of this, he keeps silent. Hamor approaches Jacob just as Jacob’s sons return from the fields. Dinah’s brothers were furious. Hamor suggests not just a marriage between Shechem and Dinah, but a full intermingling between the Israelites and the Shechemites. “Make marriages with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall live with us; and the land shall be open to you; live and trade in it, and get property in it” (34:9-10 NRSV). Not only would Dinah and Shechem become one, but so would the Israelites and the Shechemites.

Jacob’s sons say that they cannot intermarry with the Shechemites if the men are not all circumcised (34:13-17). The Shechemites agree and the men undergo circumcision without delay. However, this was not a genuine request, but a plot to destroy the Shechemites for what was done to Dinah. “On the third day, when they were still in pain, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city unawares, and killed all the males” (34:25 NRSV). Shechem and Hamor were killed and the other brothers arrived to plundered the city, taking their flocks and herds, women and children. Jacob’s response is not delight, but that they have brought disaster. “You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land…I shall be destroyed, both I and my household” (34:30 NRSV). The sons of Jacob break their word in order to bring destruction on those who have wronged their family. They use the sign of membership in the covenant — circumcision — as a tool to enable them to slaughter and plunder the city of Shechem. Shechem wrongfully took and abused Dinah, but the sons of Jacob respond by slaughtering and then taking the women and children of the Shechemites. Shechem becomes a place of broken words, of broken oaths.

Later, Joseph — on Jacob’s orders — goes looking for his brothers at Shechem, while they are tending their flocks. Though the brothers end up being at Dothan (see chapter 3), the story that begins at Shechem continues with the brothers plotting murder, taking Joseph by force, stripping him, then selling him into slavery. After the Exodus, during the period of the judges, the people have returned and taken possession of the promised land, including the city of Shechem. 1 Chronicles 6:67 says that the city was designated as a city of refuge — a place where if you killed someone accidentally, you could flee until you received a proper trial. Shechem was one of the cities where you should have been able to run to in order to escape bloodshed and retribution. However, during the time of the judges, it again was a place of murder and betrayal, of broken words and broken oaths.

Abimelech, son of the judge Gideon by a concubine, lived in Shechem (Jdgs. 8:31). Abimelech goes to the men of Shechem and convinces them to make him king and rule over them. The Shechemites give him seventy pieces of silver and Abimelech goes to his father’s house and kills the seventy sons of Gideon (also known as Jerubbaal) — his brothers! — on one stone (Jdgs. 9:4-5). Only the youngest, Jotham, escaped. The leaders of Shechem then make Abimelech their king.

Jotham heads to the top of Mount Gerazim, where he tells the leaders of Shechem a parable about leadership. In it, Jotham criticizes the leaders of Shechem for killing Gideon’s sons, when Gideon had fought for them, risked his life for them, and rescued them. They have acted in bad faith by killing Gideon’s sons and making Abimelech king, and Jotham calls Abimelech and Shechem to devour one another (9:7-20).

Three years later, Jotham’s words proved true.

Gaal, son of Ebed, moved to Shechem and the Shechemites begin to put their trust in him and decide they no longer what to serve Abimelech, but plan to use Gaal to overthrow him (9:26-29). Abimelech is told of this plan and sets an ambush for Gaal, but Gaal causes Abimelech to flee, but the ruler of Shechem (Zebul) drives out Gaal as well. The next day, Abimelech seizes Shechem and kills all the people in it, razes it to the ground, and sowed the land with salt (9:45). The lords of the city escape into the Tower of Shechem, but Abimelech burned it with a thousand people still inside, killing them all.

When Abimelech heads to the next town, Thebez, the people of that city also flee into a tower for safety. Yet, as Abimelech approaches the tower to burn it down, a woman in the tower throws down an upper millstone which strikes Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull (9:53). Abimelech does not want to be remembered as being killed by a woman, so he asks his young armor-bearer to kill him. As Jotham predicted, the fires set loose by the Shechemites in Abimelech would devour both Shechem and Abimelech. Shechem was, once again, a place of broken words, broken oaths, betrayal, and violence.

Years later, Israel is placed at another crossroads at Shechem. Like in the times of Joshua, there was the opportunity for covenant and consecration, but also for division and destruction. In 1 Kings 12, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, heads to Shechem to be crowned king. The people ask for him to relieve the burdens of hard service that Solomon had placed on them. However, Rehoboam receives bad council and only increases their burdens. “Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (1 Kgs 12:11 NRSV). The king continued to rebuke the people’s pleas and eventually the kingdom of Israel was divided. Judah and Benjamin followed Rehoboam, but the other tribes rebelled and followed Jeroboam. At that point, Jeroboam builds up Shechem and lives there. While Shechem could have been a place of covenant and consecration as the people and king renewed their vows to follow the Lord, it became a place of division and violence as the people of God were torn apart into two kingdoms.

Some of the last references to Shechem in the Bible continue these similar themes. Shechem is a place of consecration and covenant, but often a place of broken words, broken oaths, and violence. In the time of prophet Jeremiah, eighty men arrive from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria with their beards cut, their clothes torn, and their bodies gashed (Jer. 41:5). A man named Ishmael deceives them, invites them into the city, where he slaughter them all and throws them into a cistern (41:7). In the days of Hosea, the prophet describes how the priests are committing murder on the road to Shechem:

“As robbers lie in wait for someone,

So the priests are banded together;

They murder on the road to Shechem,

They commit a monstrous crime” (Hos. 6:9).

Repeated events in a place shape what we expect to happen there. While Shechem began a place where Abram and Jacob built altars to the Lord, it became a place of betrayal and violence. When we encounter a story taking place at Shechem and a covenant is made or someone’s word is broken, we should begin to see connections to all the other stories that took place at Shechem.

At least six times, someone in the Bible leaves the land of promise and heads toward Egypt. In each instance, there is temporary relief from their troubles, but only greater troubles start to follow them. Later, there is deliverance and they often leave Egypt more wealthy than when they arrived, but it is constantly a land where God’s people are vulnerable, under threat, and facing death and destruction.

The first trip down to Egypt happens right after God calls Abram. In Genesis 12, God says to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you” (v.1). Abram leaves Haran and heads toward Canaan. He arrives there, builds several altars, but then a famine strikes. “Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.” (Gen. 12:10). While in Egypt, Abram has temporary relief from the famine. He is fed and, in one sense, his life is secure. However, Abram knows his wife, Sarai, is beautiful and fears that Pharaoh will seize her for himself. So, Abram comes up with the plan to tell everyone Sarai is his sister so that he will not be killed.

Everything happens almost exactly as Abram had predicted. Sarai’s beauty becomes public knowledge and she gains the attention of the Pharaoh. Pharaoh is a man who takes whatever he wants, so he takes Sarai into his palace. Abram is treated well. He gains lots of livestock and servants, so that he ends up leaving Egypt richer than when he arrived. But Sarai has been taken by Pharaoh and, we learn later, Pharaoh intends to take her as his wife. We are not told the specific reason, but Abram does not act. However, God is not idle. “But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai” (12:17). God sends plagues upon Pharaoh and his family in the form of disease. The diseases are so severe that when Pharaoh discovers what is going on, he does everything in his power to get Abram and Sarai to leave the country. “Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had” (12:20). Abram goes down to Egypt and, together with his wife Sarai, is vulnerable and under threat, but God rescues them through a series of plagues and leads them out of Egypt richer than when they arrived.

The second journey to Egypt begins with Abraham’s son, Isaac. There is also a famine in the land (Gen. 26:1), so Isaac leaves Canaan and heads to Gerar. While he is there, the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live” (Gen. 26:2). So Isaac heads toward Egypt, but it told to stop before he gets there. In Gera, Isaac also pretends his wife, Rebekah, is his sister to protect them and eventually gets sent away when the truth is revealed.

The third and fourth journeys to Egypt should be seen together — Jacob and his son, Joseph. Joseph is stripped and beaten by his brothers and sold into slavery and taken to Egypt (Gen. 37:28). He spends years as a slave and a prisoner before being elevated to second-in-command of all Egypt. Joseph, too, was vulnerable and in danger in Egypt. He was falsely accused of sexual assault on his master’s wife and was a slave and prisoner for years. However, Joseph too is exalted, helps Egypt prepare for famine, and ends up greater and more wealthy than when he entered Egypt. When the famine strikes the land of Canaan, Jacob sends his other sons down to Egypt to get food for the family. After several trips back and forth and a series of tests by Joseph to see if the brothers had truly changed, the truth of Joseph’s identity is revealed and the whole family moves down to Egypt, seventy people in all (Gen. 39-50).

For the children of Jacob — the people of Israel — Egypt is a place of temporary peace and respite. Initially, life is good. They are fed and given land. While Joseph is in power and while the subsequent Pharaohs remembered Joseph, the people were treated well. However, when Joseph is forgotten, the people of Israel are seen as a threat and faced oppression. They are made slaves, forced to work under horrific conditions and their infant sons are thrown into the Nile to be killed. Egypt becomes a land of slavery and death. Yet, God is not idle. God delivers his people from Egypt, just like he did with Abraham. God sends ten plagues upon Egypt so that Pharaoh will let them go and the people left richer than when they entered Egypt. “The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.” (Ex. 12:36).

We might already be beginning to see some patterns emerge, but there are two more trips to Egypt. During the time of the prophet Jeremiah, God’s judgment had come upon Judah for generations of unfaithfulness to the Lord and refusing to repent and return to God. As the armies of Babylon closed in, Jeremiah was told to instruct the people of Judah to remain in the land, trusting in God, “Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear. Do not be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I am with you and will save you and deliver you from his hands” (Jer. 42:11). However, they were warned not to disobey God and go down to Egypt: “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die. Indeed, all who are determined to go to Egypt to settle there will die by the sword, famine and plague; not one of them will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them.’ (Jer. 42:15-17). Despite Jeremiah’s warning, many of the people fled to Egypt and took Jeremiah with them (Jer. 43:6). God pronounced judgment on Egypt and its gods, like what was done in the time of the Exodus, but God also pronounced judgment on the people who did not listen to the Lord but ran to Egypt for safety and shelter. Jeremiah likely died in Egypt alongside those in exile there. While Egypt provided temporary relief, it was a place of slavery and death, where the people of God were vulnerable and faced significant threats.

The last journey to Egypt is taken by Jesus himself. After the Magi visit Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in Bethlehem, these men head back to their home land without informing Herod of the exact location of the Messiah. “When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Mt. 2:13-15). In his fury, Herod gave orders for all the baby boys to be killed who were two years old and under. In this way, Herod’s actions echo Pharaoh’s actions much earlier when he ordered the Hebrew boys thrown into the Nile.

We see similar themes throughout the stories related to Egypt. There is often a famine or some other form of deadly threat to God’s people that forces them to go to Egypt. There is temporary relief in Egypt, but it does not last. Eventually, Egypt will work to enslave and abuse the people of God and they will need to be brought out. God will do the work of bringing his people out of Egypt. Though there are other echoes, the central resonance of the stories in Egypt is how God protects and rescues Israel, his bride, his people, where no one else will. God’s plan of salvation moves forward, not always because of his people, but often in spite of their failings. Egypt is a land of slavery and death — where temporary relief often gives way to long-term bondage — but God is the deliverer. As the Lord says at the opening of the Ten Commandments, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

I am Stephen Shaffer, Terri’s son. I am really grateful for each and every one of you who took time this weekend — Mother’s day weekend — to travel and be with us as we remember my mom, lay her to rest, and proclaim the hope of the resurrection to eternal life. Your love in this time of grief means more than I or my family could ever express in words.

I have had probably too much time to think about what I would say today. I have gone back and forth on which stories to tell, which would totally have embarrassed Mom so I shouldn’t say them and which would totally embarrass Mom and I definitely do want to say them. I settled on wanting to make sure you understood three things about her that help give you a glimpse of who she was, and then I want to close with a story.

Mom never did a half-umpf job

First thing, my mom never did a half-umpf job on anything. The “umphf” was important because, as a proper, put together woman, she would never had said ‘half-assed’ (“I can’t believe you said that at my funeral!” I can almost hear her saying), but Mom never did anything halfway. She put her whole self into whatever she did and worked hard to do it right and do it well.

Many of you have experienced that over the years. Mom was an incredible singer, as we have already heard, and she put everything she had into doing that well. She had high standards for those around her, but even higher for herself. She put hours and hours into the board here at Cascade. She would run through not just numbers, but the best way to handle a conflict or situation and call me to walk through the spiritual or leadership implications, thinking, processing, praying, all because she wasn’t going to do a half-umpf job if she was going to do it. She put hours into her Bible study preparation because she felt the privilege of leading and teaching these women and didn’t want to do a half-umpf job of it. I remember how often my phone would ring on a Tuesday morning and it was my mom with her Bible study and they had a question she didn’t know how to answer, so she had her pastor-son on speed dial.

She wasn’t going to do a half-umpf job. But that was with everything, big and small. Sometimes it was wonderful and sometimes it drove us all nuts. When we would go to a cottage in Leelenau for a week during the summer as I was growing up, it was a production to get there — the packing, the lists, the cleaning — I just wanted to sit by the lake and read a few thick fantasy novels, but we had to clean the whole cabin, top to bottom, and mom would bring her own dishes and everything.

Nothing was ever done half-way. My mom used to water ski and enjoyed it. She would get in, life-jacket on, and make sure her hair didn’t get wet or messed up in any way. She would ski until she was done, then let go and sink back into the water. She would spend a whole afternoon on the boat skiing and never get her hair wet. Nothing done half-way.

I feel like it must be a little genetic, because Sherri was researching eulogy formats and running through drafts with us and asking for our input and feedback to make sure she did it well. You did great, Aunt Sherri, not half-umpf at all.

Mom also didn’t want any of us to do a half-umpf job either. Mom often pushed us to grow and be better, didn’t she, Ditty? For Dad, she believed in him and said constantly that he was a good man. She supported him and believed in him as he pursued his degree and master’s degree, sometimes believing in you when you weren’t so sure yourself. Mom pushed me to excel, particularly academically. It was a gift and, at times, exhausting. The amount of times I would get a report card or standardized test and mom wondered why I had an A- and not an A or was only in the 97th percentile for this or that. I was not appreciative of this in high school at all, but I remember mom saying almost every time, “I wouldn’t be saying this (about getting higher grades) if I didn’t believe you could do it.”

See Elijah, Moriah, and Joanna, you don’t know how good you have it. Another thing my mom would say whenever I would remind my mom that she was a bit much sometimes. Mom was convinced she was mild compared to what she grew up with and she was probably right.

She didn’t do anything halfway. I was the only one at home when I went off to Hope College and I was worried that my mom probably needed a new hobby otherwise she might show up all the time and cramp my style. So I got her a cat for mother’s day. I said, “here, you have something to love so you can give me a little space.” She and Dad did not go halfway on loving this cat. It went camping with them. At one point, they were alternating which of them would visit us because one of them had to stay home and take care of this geriatric cat. Not a half-umpf job at all.

But my mom put her whole heart into whatever she did. If it was work, if it was volunteering, if it was singing, if it was loving her family, she didn’t do any of it halfway. She never did a half-umpf job.

Mom did what was right, no matter the cost to her

The second thing you should know about my mom is that she sought to do what was right, no matter what it cost her. My mom was a woman of incredible integrity and strong conviction. She wasn’t always right, and she was sometimes able to admit that, but she always wanted her actions to match up with what she believed to be true. She hated conflict and if she was in a conflict, for whatever reason, it would tear her up for days or weeks. It was incredibly hard emotionally and physically for her to be in conflict, but I saw her do it when she believed it was right. I saw her speak up, when everything in her wanted to stay quiet because she didn’t want the conflict, but she believed that Jesus was telling her that she need to speak. I also remember her staying silent, enduring people saying things about her that were not true, because she believed that, in that situation, this was right and what Jesus wanted her to do.

She sought to follow the way of Jesus, what she saw in her Savior, even when it was immensely hard and cost her. When others wanted to bury painful truths to pretend everything had always been happy and great, she had the courage to begin to tell the stories, even though that cost her. She forgave, when it cost her, because she believed that was what Jesus wanted her to do. She reached out to reconcile with those who hurt her, when she would rather have not, because she believed it was right and what Jesus wanted for her. No matter the cost to herself, she tried with all her heart, to do what she believed was right.

It was a beautiful and courageous thing about my mom. It is something I hopefully carry on from her. But that also meant she sometimes had strong opinions about all sorts of things that wore us out. Mom wanted to do things right, which sometimes meant she rearranged all of our pans and dishes when she came to our house. They were in the wrong spot, according to her. “Mom, it is my house. I know where they go.” “I’m just trying to help.”

There are lots of other things I could tell you about — Mom loved ice cream, she fiercely loved my kids and would repeat everything she heard them say for weeks like it was a catchphrase. She had a good sense of humour — well, she told us once, very seriously, that she did, in fact, laugh, so we should probably believe her.

Mom was the strongest woman I know

But my mom was the strongest woman I know. Back in 1985, three years before I was born, mom was diagnosed with chronic pain. In 1990, she was diagnosed with Sjogrens syndrome, a autoimmune condition. In 2015, she was also diagnosed with Lupus, a second autoimmune disorder. I never knew my mom at full strength. She always lived with pain, discomfort, and exhaustion. And as the years went by, she would have less and less good hours in a day. But I never saw my mom give up. Every morning she got up out of bed and gave everything for Jesus and for the people she loved. Some of you might have known what she went through, but some of you might have known her for years and she never let on, because she just kept going. She’s the strongest woman I know.

Mom endured a complicated and disjointed childhood, divorce, moving a lot, so much of it was hard for her to talk about. Mom endured her own divorce, a life she had hoped for falling to pieces. She endured loss and pain and through all of this she was who she was — in all the beauty and gifts and all the idiosyncrasies and faults — but she got up and kept going, kept loving, kept trying to follow Jesus. The strength that she had, the conviction she lived with, the relentlessness with which she lived life was not for herself. She knew she was high maintenance, even without medical conditions, she knew that she was sometimes like a force of nature, but so often all that passion, conviction, and strength was used for the sake of others.

The Most Important Story in this Book

I want to tell you one more story.

March 2 of this year, I get a call from Dad. “I don’t think Mom is going to make it. Can you come?” We knew she was in the hospital, but reports had been positive just the day before. So I drop everything, head home, Olga and I pack the van, pull the kids out of school and then drive. Four and a half hours and I don’t know whether I will make it in time. I have limited information and I am doing my best to think through what questions to ask, what decisions we will have to make, how to begin to talk to Dad about potential end-of-life decisions. I have been in this situations dozens of times as a pastor, but never as a son.

We arrive at Metro Health Hospital and head up to the fourth floor. We greet Mom and Dad. At that moment, she doesn’t really look like herself and with an oxygen mask strapped to her face, we can barely hear her. I remember Elijah’s courage, because it was really scary and hard to be in the hospital, but he went there and was there with Nana. I remember Riah’s compassion, her tears and her desire for Nana to know our love for her. And I remember Joanna. Joanna pulled up a chair next to my mom’s bed and said, “Nana, can I hold your hand?” Mom reaches out and takes her hand, then Joanna says, “Can I read you the most important story in this book?” She opens her Jesus Storybook Bible to the Easter story — to the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And she just reads it to her.

Can I read you the most important story in this book?

Friends, the most important story I can tell you today is not about my mom. It’s about Jesus. The most important story in her life was not her story, but Jesus’ story. My mom was not perfect, not by any stretch of imagination. She was a sinner, like you and me. But she knew her Savior, Jesus Christ, and that made all the difference in the world — in her life and in the age to come. She could give her all to everything she did because she knew Jesus who had given his all — his life for her and for her salvation. She knew that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life.” She knew that Jesus was born, that he lived, and that he died on the cross — in her place, for her sins — so that she would be forgiven and enter eternal life. It was that faith that enabled her to do what was right when it cost her, because the most important cost that had ever been paid Jesus already paid on the cross. It enabled her to forgive and love because her Savior first forgave and loved her. It enabled her to get up every day with strength despite all the suffering, all the limitations, all that would tell her that she should just give up, because her only comfort, in life and in death, was that she belonged to her faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who fully paid for all her sins with his precious blood and set her free from the tyranny of the devil.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important story in my mom’s life. What she would want us to know about her life this morning is Jesus. The fun stories are good, we need the laughter as we miss her, but the story she would really want told is the story of Jesus, that he died for sinners, that in him is forgiveness and life and hope and peace and joy and it is his life poured out for us and raised from the dead that makes all of this worth it.

“Can I read you the most important story in this book?”

Of all the stories I could tell this morning, the one she would want you to know most is Jesus.

Amazing Love, how can it be, that you my king would die for me?

Amazing Love, I know its true, and its my joy to honor you,

in all I do, I honor you

“Christ testifies that he is not a dry and worn-out cistern, but an inexhaustible fountain, which largely and abundantly supplies all who will come to drink.” - John Calvin

Where do you get that living water?

The Samaritan woman didn’t expect to find Jesus at the well. She didn’t expect to find anyone. In fact, she had hoped to find no one at the well. That is exactly why she went when she did – to avoid the stares, the judgment, the whispers.

Collecting water was a community event for the women of this area. Every day, around dawn, they would walk together to the well to draw water. They would share stories, enjoy life. But not this Samaritan woman.

She went at the 6^th hour – around noon – the hottest part of the day. She could not go with the women at dawn.

We don’t know how long this had been going on. We don’t know how many hot, lonely trips she had taken to avoid the pain, to hide the shame that bubbled up at the surface.

We don’t know all the details of her circumstances – 5 husbands, and another man she’s living with who is not her husband. The likeliest scenarios don’t look good for her character. She knew it. The community knew it. So she walked alone to the well.

Only this day, she is not alone. Jesus sits at the well.

The Bible does not just tell us that this story took place at a well, but that Jesus “came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon” (John 4:5-6). This detail calls to mind other stories that took place around wells.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all known to dig wells. They provided water for their people and their flocks, but were also places of conflict with the local people (Gen. 25).

When Abraham wanted to find a wife for his son, Isaac, he sent his servant back to his homeland (Gen. 24). When the servant reached the Aram-naharaim, he came to a well. He prayed that God show which woman was to be the wife for his master’s son. When he asked for a drink of water, the woman who also offered to water the camels would be the one. Immediately, Rebekah came and did just as the servant had prayed. Rebekah agrees to marry Isaac and travels back with Abraham’s servant. All that because of a meeting at a well.

Later, when Isaac sent his son Jacob back to Rebekah’s homeland to find a way (Jacob was also fleeing for his life from his brother Esau), Jacob comes to a well. Here he meets Rachel and it is Jacob who waters the flock. Jacob is then welcomed into the house of Rachel’s father, Laban, where he works for years and ends up marrying both Rachel and her sister, Leah. All that because of a meeting at a well.

So when the Bible tells us that Jesus meets a woman at a well, it is inviting us into a whole series of associations and expectations. Yet, the conversation goes differently than might be expected. Jesus asks her for a drink.

She initially refuses, citing surprise that a Jew would ask a Samaritan for a drink. She’s right. It is surprising. As the text says, Jews do not associate with Samaritans. They were considered unclean, especially the women. A good Jew would know that. “How can you ask me for a drink?”

Listen to Jesus’ answer: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

As Jesus offers, her question rings out, “Where do you get that living water?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (4:13-14).

The woman had been coming to the well every day, gathering water for herself, likely coming alone. Every day she came back thirsty and was not satisfied. But Jesus promised a well that will never run dry. He promises that if she comes to him, she will never thirst again.

One of my favorite images for being nourished by Christ comes from the pastor and theologian, John Calvin. In his commentary on John 7:37, where Jesus says, “Let anyone who is thirsty, come to me,” Calvin compares Jesus to an inexhaustible fountain.

“Christ testifies that he is not a dry and worn-out cistern, but an inexhaustible fountain, which largely and abundantly supplies all who will come to drink. Hence it follows that, if we ask from him what we want, our desire will not be disappointed” (Commentary on John, 307).

Christ is a fountain that will never run dry. When we come to him, we will never find him empty and unable to fill us. When we come to Christ as he reveals himself in his Word, we will always come up refreshed. Every time we dip our cups into the Word to find Christ, it will never run dry. Our cups will always come back full.

The woman at the well asked, “Where do you get that living water?” It comes from Christ. He is the inexhaustible fountain who supplies all who come to him to drink.

Without the elder, the church might be tossed back and forth by the fads of culture and the prevailing doctrines and preferences of the day. Without the deacon, the church might turn inward and be focused only on keeping the sheep in the sheep pen. Without the deacon, the church might easily become chaplains for the faithful instead of missionaries to the lost. It is the deacon which reaches out to the poor in the community, leading and empowering the church to live lives of compassion for the suffering. While the elders focus on spiritual needs, the deacons are focused on the physical needs of the church and community. They work to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, and shelter the homeless. Together with the whole consistory, they steward the churches funds, not simply to keep the pastor paid and the lights on, but so that the compassion and mercy of Christ would flow out from the church into the world.

At their origins, deacons are tasked with mercy toward the poor. Not only collecting money and furnishing budgets, but specifically care for those on the margins. Perhaps, it is in this task itself that the control of our tongue is needed. We can be easily tempted, particularly those of us who belong to the middle class, who work hard to pay our bills and provide for our families, we can easily to be tempted to serve the poor with our hands, but judge them in our hearts. We can be easily tempted to be two-worded - to have one message with our hands - loving the poor, caring for those on the margins - and another in our hearts - judgment, frustration, accusations.

A deacon is not to be double-tongued, they are to be sincere. Their hearts should beat for the weak just as their hands serve them. Mercy should be a full-body experience - mind, heart, soul, hands. This should be true for all of us who follow Christ. God has shown mercy to us in our poverty, in our need, and we should imitate him by showing mercy to others. This full-bodied mercy should be in all of us, but especially in the deacons. Deacons set the tone for the ministry of mercy for the whole congregation. “Their focus is turned toward service and ministry both to the world and in the church” (BCO 1.I.6.2). If our deacons don’t have hearts for the poor, if our deacons speak graciously to the needy when standing in front of them but harshly when they are not around, how will this affect us as a congregation? If our leaders are double-tongued, that sets an example for all of us.

Deacons, from the very beginning, are to be leaders in mercy. From the outset, they were called to care for the poor and the outcast. And to lead in this kind of work, Scripture says, requires a particular type of character.

Mercy for the poor, for the widow, the orphan, and the alien is a calling for all of us, but the deacons lead the way.

In the early church, the church was marked profoundly by the work of the deacon. As startling as the message of Jesus was to the ancient world, they were equally startled by the way they lived together and care for the weak and poor. The deacons continually made sure the weak were not forgotten and that the church was reaching out to the world.

The deacon was to care for the downtrodden, to take the resources God had provided to care for the widows, the orphans, and the alien. It was the homeless, the weak, the hurting, and the destitute who were under the special care of the deacons. The elders would preach of God’s love and care, and the deacons would show it by making sure there was food on the table and clothes on the backs. God’s provision for the poor through the church was done through the deacons.

As shepherds, elders are called to be mindful and watchful of their own character, behavior, and relationship to Christ. As Paul says in Acts 20:28, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” Because elders are entrusted with watching over the flock, they should take greater care (not less) to watch over their own hearts and lives.

Yet, through the elders, Jesus works to provide care for his sheep. According to the reformer Martin Bucer, there are five main tasks given to elders and ministers in caring for the souls of their congregation, which are beautifully summarized in Ezekiel 34:16, when it says,

I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

1. Search for the lost sheep

Elders should have an evangelistic heart for those who are lost and do not know Jesus. When Jesus told the parable of the wedding banquet, the owner of the house told his servants to bring in the poor, the crippled, and the lame, to “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full” (Lk 14:23). Elders should work tirelessly to urge people to fellowship with Christ. God does not want only the outwardly clean and put together to be invited to his banquet, but he wants the message proclaimed to all. “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mk. 16:15). We do not know whether anyone we might meet has been elected to eternal life. This should lead elders to boldness, not passivity, for even the most hardened sinner, the one who most strongly rejects Christ, could come to faith and repentance by the work of the Holy Spirit.

2. Bring back the stray sheep

Stray sheep are those who have been part of the flock of Christ, but have wandered away. They are those who used to attend, to actively participate in the life of the church, and to profess the faith along with the saints, but have begun to fall away. Elders should be like the man in the parable of the lost sheep:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ (Lk. 15:4-6)

However, this rescue and restoration is often accomplished through kindness and compassion, not severity:

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:24-26)

For this reason, elders are required to ask about those who have not been attending worship and participating in the sacraments at every elder’s meeting. This is not so that they can keep an accurate statistical record and manage the amount paid in assessments to the denomination. Rather, it is the elder’s call to leave behind the ninety-nine and go after the one sheep who has gone astray, praying that God will help them recover this lamb.

3. Bind the injured sheep

When people in the church sin against God and one another, the elders are called to a ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17-21). Connected with church discipline, the work of binding wounded sheep requires wisdom and discernment. Elders must learn to see beneath symptoms to causes and know what medicine to prescribe in a given situation. When someone sins, they will need the medicine of repentance and forgiveness. At times, they will be proud and need to be humbled, like Nathan did with David (2 Sam. 12). At times, they will be weak and on the verge of running away, and will need the strong comfort of God’s steadfast love (Lam. 3:22-23). At times, we will encounter people who have been victims of another’s sin, which requires a treatment of grace, compassion, and justice.

While elders are not invited to root through every person’s life looking for faults, they are also not allowed to leave the injury untreated. We do not want to fall under the judgment proclaimed by Jeremiah, “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” (Jer. 6:14). When someone in the church sins against another, it should be addressed in a way that honors Christ and holds together grace and truth. “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (Mt. 18:15-17). “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:1-2).

Even as the elders seek to treat the wounded sheep within the congregation, they should remind them that God is the one who brings the healing, not the elder. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Ps. 147:3). Christ is the one who heals the wounded sheep, but he often chooses to do so through the faithful work of elders in the church.

4. Strengthen the weak sheep

Some members of the congregation will be weak in various ways. They may have doubts in their faith. They may be confused about some teaching of Scripture. They may regularly fall into temptation. For these, the elder should be patient and encourage the congregant to faith in Christ. They should remind the weak sheep that the Lord is near to them with his help.

“Strengthen the feeble hands,

steady the knees that give way;

say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, do not fear;

your God will come,

he will come with vengeance;

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.” (Isaiah 35:3-4)

The weak sheep should be encouraged to continue to attend church and listen to the Word. Those who struggle and fail should be given the comfort of teaching concerning God’s patience with them and they should be encouraged to have greater patience as they grow in Christ. “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters” (Rom. 14:1). Those who are lax and indifferent may need to be encouraged by teaching concerning the joy of life in Christ and the peace and purpose that is found in walking with him. Where there is confusion about doctrine or the Christian life, the elders should be apt to teach and work alongside the minister to explain gently and clearly what is contained in the Word. “And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone” (1 Thess. 5:14). While encouragement and mutual teaching should be done by all Christians, it is particularly the elders and ministers who have been called to this task.

5. Shepherd the flock with justice

The elders are called both to feed the sheep of Christ with the Word of God (John 21:13-17; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Acts 20:18-21; 1 Thess. 2:5-12) and to guard the flock of Christ from those who would harm it. While no person is without sin or defect, those who live in the fear of the Lord, remain within the church, and show themselves to believe and live according to the teaching of the Word of God are considered healthy and strong sheep. These should must be continually fed and nurtured through the ministry of Word and sacrament in the life of the church. This is done not only in the pulpit, but in the home and through regular care and visitation.

However, it is also the task of the elders to guard the flock from wolves. The Lord is our Shepherd (Ps. 23) and his rod and his staff comfort us. A shepherd uses their staff not only to gently guide the sheep, but to defend them from attack. David boldly proclaimed to Saul that he had fought off lions and bears in defense of his Father’s flock (1 Samuel 17:34-37). The elders in the church of Christ should also be willing to protect the sheep.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Mt. 7:15-20)

While the disciplinary procedures in The Reformed Church in America are primarily used for binding the injured sheep, there are times where they should be used to prevent a wolf from entering the sheep pen and devouring the sheep.

How can we know?

At the time of the Protestant Reformation, this question was hotly debated as Roman Catholics accused Protestants of being a false church and the Protestants made the same accusation back. In the midst of this controversy, three key characteristics or “marks” were identified as differentiating a true church from a false one. The Belgic Confession, Article 29 summarizes them this way:

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church — and no one ought to be separated from it.

We know a church is a true church if it has these three marks:

• The Word of God is preached

• The Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are rightly administered

• It practices church discipline.

Word, Sacrament, Discipline — these define the true church. Just because a church is imperfect in any of these areas does not mean it is a false church or that it does not have members in it who have saving faith. Even John Calvin, who held fast to these three marks of the church and argued strongly that Rome had abandoned them, held that it was dangerous and prideful to claim any church that was not perfectly holy was a false church:

For there have always been those who, imbued with a false conviction of their own perfect sanctity, as if they had already become a sort of airy spirits, spurn association with all men in whom they discern any remnant of human nature…When they do not see a quality of life corresponding to the doctrine of the gospel among those to whom it is announced, they immediately judge that no church exists in that place…Woe to us, then, who act with such dissolute and criminal license that weak consciences are wounded because of us!…For where the Lord requires kindness, they neglect it and give themselves over completely to immoderate severity (Institutes, IV.I.13).

Calvin is saying that we should use the marks of the church to discern between true and false churches, but that our judgments should be tempered with kindness toward those who are weak and stumbling, not prideful judgment.

Within the Reformed Church in America, it is the elders who are charged with ensuring that the church remains a true church of Jesus Christ.

1. The Word of God is Preached

While the ministers are regularly tasked with proclaiming God’s Word, it is the elders who “make certain that what is preached and taught is in accord with the Holy Scripture” (BCO 1.I.1.6). This requires elders to be knowledgeable in God’s Word and the core doctrines of the Christian faith. As a confessional church, the Standards of Unity (The Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, and the Belhar Confession) serve as a summary and explanation of what the Reformed Church in America believes the Bible clearly teaches. Elders should be familiar with these documents and agree with their doctrinal statements. Though the minister may do the preaching, the elders make sure that the first mark is present — The Word of God is preached. (There are instances where an elder may preach, if the board of elders permits it. The most common are if the elder has been trained as a Preaching Elder or as a Commissioned Pastor).

2. The Sacraments Rightly Administered

Elders also have the responsibility of admitting (or refusing to admit) individuals to the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. “They seek to guard the sacraments of the church from being profaned. An elder may administer the sacraments, if authorized by the board of elders” (BCO 1.I.1.6). The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are “visible, holy signs and seals” through which God makes “us understand more clearly the promise of the gospel, and seal that promise” (Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 66). They are gifts from God for the people of God. Baptism is the sacrament of initiation into the Christian church and points to the blood of Christ which washes away our sins (Q&A 69-71). Because baptism marks membership in the covenant people (and receiving of the covenant promises), the Reformed Church rightly baptizes both children of Christian parents and adult converts to Christianity (Q&A 74). The elders have the joy and responsibility to meet with those requesting baptism, either for themselves or on behalf of their children.

The Lord’s Supper is the sacrament through which Christ nourishes us and reminds us of his sacrificial death on the cross. As a feast of remembrance, we remember the Last Supper, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday — what God has done for us and for our salvation in sending his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. As a feast of communion, the Holy Spirit lifts us into the presence of the ascended Christ, where Jesus “nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood” (Q&A 76). As a feast of hope, we get a foretaste in the Lord’s Supper of the great marriage supper of the Lamb when Christ returns in glory. It the joy and responsibility of the elders to oversee the administration of the Supper, so that those who have been baptized, are sorry for their sins, trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, and desire to be strengthened in Christ, are invited and encouraged to come to the Lord’s Supper (Q&A 81). To come to the Lord’s Table is not a sign of virtue, but a recognition that, as Psalm 16:2 says, “You are my Lord, I have no good apart from you” — our only hope, peace, and salvation is found in Jesus Christ and his work of salvation on our behalf. It is the elder’s responsibility, on the basis of Scripture, to both welcome and — potentially — exclude Christians from coming to the Lord’s Table.

The sacraments are God’s gift to the church and central to its life and worship. By overseeing the sacraments, the elders make sure that the second mark is present — the pure administration of the sacraments.

3. Church Discipline is practiced

The elders are also charged with discipline within the local congregation. “They are to study God’s Word, to oversee the household of faith, to encourage spiritual growth, to maintain loving discipline, and to provide for the proclamation of the gospel and the celebration of the sacraments. They have oversight over the conduct of the members of the congregation and seek to bring that conduct into conformity with the Word of God, thereby empowering all members to live out their Christian vocation in the world. Elders exercise an oversight over the conduct of one another, and of the deacons, and of the minister/s” (BCO 1.I.1.6). Elders work to encourage the congregation to walk in the way of Jesus as revealed in Holy Scripture and even do the work of correcting faults when individuals deviate from the path of Christ.

Though exercising discipline can involve “correcting faults,” its main purpose is the making of disciples of Jesus Christ. Jesus instructed his church to make disciples by teaching them to obey everything he commanded (Mt. 28:18-20). Thus, exercising discipline should not only take the form of instructing and saying “No” to patterns of sin that depart from the way of Jesus, but should also take the form of instruction and encouragement and prayer for those weak and stumbling in the faith. Like a doctor must learn to care for and diagnose the physical body, so ministers and elders are to be physicians of the soul, who provide treatment for illness, but also encourage health and exercise in the faith.

Most discipline is pastoral in nature and is done in the normal working of the board of elders. The elders may send one of their number to talk to an individual who has departed from the way of Christ and encourage them to walk more faithfully. They may call two people who are fighting to come before them and work toward reconciliation. The elders often become aware of issues or challenges in the life of members of the congregation and, in their capacity as elders, “seek to bring that conduct into conformity with the Word of God.” The goal is always discipleship to Christ and discipline often takes the form of admonishment or rebuke. With more serious offenses, there are more serious procedures that should be followed, which are outlined in the Book of Church Order.

While the Elders may have other roles, one of their primary responsibilities is to keep the church faithful to Jesus. They work to ensure that the church remains a true church by providing for solid, faithful, biblical preaching and teaching, providing and overseeing the sacraments, and by maintaining discipline within the church.