restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Honoring Our Wives

 David Alan Black 

There is in the Body of Christ today a growing awareness of the headship role a man is to take in his home as both husband and father. This renewed focus on male headship is in itself entirely right and proper. For decades now Christian men have all too willingly given up their God-mandated responsibility to give spiritual direction and protection to the home and have in many instances gladly abdicated their role to others, including their wives and church leaders. The current emphasis on male headship is long overdue, for it seems to me that the Bible is clear that husbands and fathers are ultimately responsible for the spiritual well-being of their families. One healthy effect of this movement has been to create in Christian husbands a new willingness to go beyond superficial forms of leadership (e.g., dropping the children off at church) and become personally and vitally interested in leading their families in Christian nurture.

As with most movements, however, there is a debit side. Emphasis on roles and responsibilities has blinded some men to the relational side of marriage. This imbalance has sometimes led to an extremely authoritative form of headship, in some cases issuing in mental and even physical abuse. Something is terribly wrong when a wife is made to feel like a neglected, inferior creation.

Nowhere is this truth more clearly seen than in Peter’s first letter, in which he addresses husbands as follows (1 Pet. 3:7): “Likewise, husbands are to dwell with [their wives] in an understanding manner, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, being heirs together of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” What Peter’s readers desperately needed to realize, and what some husbands today may need to relearn, is that the husband who fails to honor and respect his wife is no husband at all. The best corrective to a domineering headship style will be a view of marriage that sets activities and role performances in a framework that showcases them as deeds of genuine love rather than activities devoid of any relational aspects. This truth, I believe, is a necessary corrective not only to those husbands who are preoccupied with headship to the exclusion of other aspects of marriage but also to those who measure their success in life by the number of activities in which they engage instead of by the test of healthy relationships. A vast difference exists between a headship that demands respect and proper submission and one that merits it by honoring the weaker vessel in the relationship.

I maintain that no doctrine of headship in marriage is fully Christian until it includes an acknowledgement of the need of a wife to feel known, understood, loved, honored, and respected by her husband. It is worth pausing for a moment to note the glorious paradox this truth entails, namely that the husband to whom the wife is obligated to show respect and honor (vv. 1-6) is himself under divine obligation to show her respect and honor (v. 7). We return, then, to Peter’s fundamental vision of marriage as essentially a partnership between a Christian husband and a Christian wife as joint heirs of the grace of life.

Husband, it would be your wisdom, I think, quietly and prayerfully to meditate on this verse of Scripture until its message sinks deeply into your soul. The health and happiness of your marriage may well depend on it. Honoring our wives means that we will never belittle them. We will never demean them. We will never joke about them. We will treat them like fine china at all times. We will gladly listen to what they have to say. We will realize that our wives are “weaker” than us not in any moral or emotional or intellectual sense. They are simply physically weaker (and hence more vulnerable). We will remember that marriage is reciprocal. Both parties have obligations, and both have privileges. The Roman writer Cato once said: “If you were to catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her without a care and no fear of a trial; but, if she were to catch you, she would not venture to touch you with her finger, and, indeed, she has no right.” In a Christian marriage, both parties have the same standards.

The church father Chrysostom, who lived some 1,600 years ago, gave us some sensible advice about husbanding. Since it is so little known, I quote it at length:  

A husband must never exercise his authority by insulting and abusing his wife. Whenever you give your wife advice, always begin by telling her how much you love her. Nothing will persuade her so well to admit the wisdom of your words as her assurance that you are speaking to her with sincere affection. Show her that you value her company, and prefer being at home to being out. Esteem her in the presence of your friends and children. Praise and show admiration for her good acts. And if she ever does anything foolish, advise her patiently. Finally, never call her by her name alone, but with terms of endearment, honor, and love. If you honor her, she won’t need honor from others; she won’t desire praise from others if she enjoys the praise that comes from you. Prefer her before all others, both for her beauty and her discernment, and praise her.

Will you say “Amen” to that? Only so will reading this essay be worth your while, and only so will your heart be in a state of readiness to obey Peter’s words.

I conclude with a brief definition of “honor”:

To regard or treat with honor, esteem, or respect; to revere; to treat with deference and submission; to dignify; to raise to distinction or notice; to bestow honor upon; to elevate in rank or station; to ennoble; to exalt; to glorify; hence, to do something to honor; to treat in a complimentary manner or with civility.

Ask yourself, “How well am I living up to this ideal?” Better still, why not take a moment and ask your wife for her evaluation?

May 23, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Homosexuality: The Constitution Party Has It Right

 David Alan Black

God’s Word is clear about homosexuality. It is included in Leviticus among a list of offenses that cause God to “vomit out [a land’s] inhabitants.” The New Testament speaks of homosexuality as a sign that God has given a society up to its own “base passions.” In Romans Paul describes how “women burned with passion for women, men with men, doing things that were unseemly.” America has gone just that far.

In my essay Bush Betrays the Pro-Family Agenda Again, But Does Anyone Care? I noted that the president’s decisions on family issues seem to be motivated more by political expediency than by principle. That’s why he can voice his opposition to gay marriage in one breath and in the next appoint sodomites to high office in government and support so-called “safe-sex” programs.

By default if not by intent, Bush has lent the support of his presidency to the false idea that there is nothing right or wrong and that to teach any substantive ethical precept or idea is to “indoctrinate” people. Nowhere is this schizophrenic double standard of trying to impose absolutely the idea that there are no absolutes seen more clearly than in the attack on the traditional family structure. More and more conservatives are recognizing this, but they are not dispensing with the myth of Republican conservatism. For some reason, admission of the failure of the prevailing Republican Platform is an impossibility. Deceit, duplicity, double standards—what could be a more accurate description of a party that calls good evil and evil good?

What we need is a president who consistently upholds biblical morality. At the same time we need a president who is committed to keeping the government’s nose in its own business. Thankfully, this presidential election we can uphold both Christian morality and constitutional principles. One candidate, and one candidate only, opposes same-sex marriage yet does so without compromising the tenets of the U.S. Constitution. Writes Chuck Baldwin:

Therefore, if people desire a presidential candidate who truly understands the sanctity of marriage and the limitation of government to meddle with it, there is only one choice: Constitution Party Presidential Candidate, Michael Peroutka. He is the only candidate for president who truly opposes same-sex unions and who also opposes government’s usurpation of God’s authority over marriage.

The platform of the Constitution Party places the locus of authority within the family, where it belongs. Listen to what it says:

The law of our Creator defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The marriage covenant is the foundation of the family. We affirm, therefore, that no government may authorize or define marriage or family relations contrary to what God has instituted. Parents have the fundamental right and responsibility to nurture, educate, and discipline their children. Assumption of any of these responsibilities by any governmental agency usurps the role of the parents.

Presidential hopeful Michael Peroutka adds: “Godly marriage does not need the approval of any civil government. Let me here declare that I oppose homosexual marriage and civil unions, even as I oppose the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies which President Bush and the Democrats in Congress have supported to promote ‘safe sodomy’ and underwrite the infrastructure of the homosexual movement.”

This position, unpopular though it is among conservatives, is the only one that is consistent both with biblical morality and with constitutional principles of government. That is why Michael Peroutka and the Constitution Party are in the 2004 presidential race.

My friend, have you been holding back from a risky, costly, unpopular course to which you know in your heart God has called you? Hold back no longer. Why dither when it comes to cheerful self-abandonment to the truth? The same One who made the worlds, and rules them, and ordains all that takes place, from Pharaoh to Nebuchadnezzar—this same God is faithful to you, and adequate for you.

We need never worry about the adequacy of God to provide for all the needs of those who launch out wholeheartedly onto the deep sea of unconventional living in obedience to the call of Christ.

March 26, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon, will be released this year.

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Homeland Insecurity

Pieter Friedrich

The new head of the Department of Homeland Security definitely sounds like an interesting fellow. As a toddler, Bernard Kerik was abandoned by his single-parent mother. He was a high-school drop-out (who has “since earned a GED and a mail-order bachelor’s degree from Empire State College”), a military policeman, a security expert for the Saudi royal family, an undercover cop in narcotics, NYC corrections commissioner, and “special policy adviser to the Iraqi interim government.” I’d love to chat with him over coffee. I’ll bet he has some really fascinating stories.

So what are his qualifications to serve as secretary of Homeland Security? What are his policies? Will he walk in the totalitarian footsteps of his predecessor, Ridge? Will God work a miracle and give us a Homeland Security secretary who respects the Constitution?

I doubt that last one. According to the Washington Post, Kerik’s record “combating terrorism and working on the national stage is…spotty.”

When Kerik was “appointed by President Bush to train a new Iraqi police force…[he] came under criticism for inadequate screening of recruits as U.S. authorities rushed to deploy the force. It has been plagued by desertions and by allegations that insurgents have infiltrated the ranks.” He’s also been accused of “failures of leadership during the terrorist attacks” by John Lehman, a former Navy Secretary and Republican member of the Sept. 11th commission. Lehman said that Kerik’s “command and control” of his department was “not worthy of the boy scouts.”

Corruption and rumors of corruption have plagued Kerik’s career. While serving as NYC corrections commissioner, “Kerik several times promoted Anthony Serra, finally to bureau chief. But this summer — well after Kerik left the department — the Bronx district attorney filed a 146-count indictment against Serra, charging that he had over several years used corrections officers to work on his home and in Republican Party campaigns.” However, “there was no indication that Kerik knew of the alleged crimes.”

Again, “as corrections commissioner, Kerik also ran the New York City Correction Foundation… The foundation was supposed to fund programs that strengthen the department. But it had few fiscal controls, and Kerik appointed a deputy commissioner who later pleaded guilty to defrauding it of $142,000. The former aide is serving a federal prison term.”

While one might argue that none of the above is worrisome because Kerik wasn’t directly responsible for anything illegal, such an argument would unfortunately not apply with the following: “The city’s Conflicts of Interest Board fined him $2,500 for sending two police officers to Ohio to help research his best-selling 2001 memoir, ‘The Lost Son.’ And when his publisher and friend Judith Regan reported her cell phone stolen after a visit to a Fox Television studio, detectives showed up at the homes of Fox employees who had been on the set at the time.”

Kerik’s hero is presumably the man who he reportedly keeps a portrait of in his office, Lt. Col. Oliver North (that is, a corrupt participant in the Iran-Contra Affair and defender of the abusive Abu Ghraib guards). As a display of Kerik’s character, consider that he fathered a child out of wedlock while serving in Korea, and that NYC City Council Member Bill Perkins says his “most consistent trait is blind loyalty to his boss.”

But Kerik was appointed by Bush, so he must be a good guy, and any mention of his faults can only be a front for a “journalistic jihad against the administration.” Probably the only thing that will give Republicans pause about Kerik is that both of New York’s Democratic senators, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, vouch for him.

December 4, 2004

Pieter Friedrich lives in a small town in the California Sierra Foothills. He is an amateur political analyst, a writer, a classical liberal, a juris naturalist, a paleo-conservative, a strict constitutionalist, and, foremost, a Christian. He may be reached for comment here.

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Home Grown Pastors

 David Alan Black

It’s a wonderful thing to put down roots. We love where we live in Southside Virginia and already feel part of the community. One of the things I marvel at, however, is the constant turnover of pastors in our area. Typically a pastor will remain in a church for only a handful of years before moving on. Very few put down any roots in the community.

Contrast this with the New Testament pattern. In the early church we find local men leading local churches. They came from within the local church and were committed to that church. (Of course, by “church” I am not referring to a building but to a group of like-minded believers.) Thus the link between the church and the ministry was maintained. However, in our modern system, where the “ministry” is considered a profession, men seek for themselves, or are sent by authority, to occupy this or that post without any regard to the link which is thus broken.

The tragic result is that pastors often look upon churches simply as places that offer them opportunities to exercise their ministry gifts or else as steps up the ladder of employment. Seminarians often have to leave their local churches for seminary training and then rarely return to their own congregations for ministry. As Erik Svensen writes:

The purpose for calling attention to all of these passages is to show the apostolic pattern of training elders.  Far from insisting that a prospective elder uproot and move his family to a new location to receive this training from the apostles, the reverse is true–the apostles went to the prospective elder.  This pattern is by no means confined to the book of Acts but is also found in the pastoral epistles.  Paul left both Timothy (in Ephesus, 1 Ti 1:3) and Titus (in Crete, Tit 1:5) for the purpose of setting the churches in order.  A major part of this responsibility entailed the selection and training of elders (1 Ti 3:1-7; Tit 1:5).  Again we find that this training takes place within the church and by church leaders.

When pastors are “parachuted” into the community there is little accountability. They know that, should they fail or get tired or bored, they can always move on to another location. In the city, where the population moves from place to place with ease, this evil is not so apparent. But in the country, where generation after generation has lived in one locale, the link between the church and its ministers is of great importance. The “importation” of a minister who does not know the people to whom he is ministering is a serious problem indeed.

In his article entitled “Leadership in the Church,” Paul Winslow has noted:

In the letters to Titus and Timothy we are given the qualifications for elders, that is, the means by which they can be recognized. If you look closely, you will see that potential elders have already been at work in the body with their gifts of teaching and hospitality, etc., so that the body is already responding to them. It is on that basis that they are identified as elders. I would say further that the Holy Spirit has a direct action involved in identifying elders. In Acts 20:28, where the Apostle Paul is talking to the elders of Ephesus, he says to them that “…the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” So the Holy Spirit is involved in identifying these men we call elders. They are qualified, as I have said, on the basis of spiritual gifts which the Holy Spirit has placed within their lives. Through faith they have begun to respond and act on the gifts they have; they have begun to serve others. It is only on that basis that they can be so identified as elders, not because they belong to some particular ethnic group, or they happen to be the local banker or whatever.

Let us remember that in the first century of the church’s existence the spontaneous growth of the church depended not only upon the freedom of its members to preach freely, but also upon the freedom with which churches could provide for any new groups of converts by giving them an organization like their own. Any new congregation chose its own members to assume pastoral roles, men who probably were already employed and thus providing for themselves and in a position to go on doing so. The church may or may not have paid a personal salary, since the practice was made a charge against the Montanists. At some point, however, the congregation may have offered these men some gifts in money to compensate for any loss of time through their pastoral efforts. Either way, whether they were paid or not, these men considered themselves a part of the community in which they lived and labored.

The upshot? A professional class of “ministers” does not easily encourage the spontaneous zeal of men who are not members of their profession. When we consider the organizational patterns of the New Testament, we see that the professionalizing of the ministry is not only unbiblical but positively evil. The New Testament church was a family in which all members were mutually responsible for the well-being of the whole. Together believers learned to grow in grace under the guidance of their most experienced and respected elders, men who had deep roots in the community and were therefore far less likely to uproot and leave once things turned sour.

Today the apostolic conception of elders as pastors of a flock, every member of which they knew by name, has been lost. It is difficult to believe that our current practices are either healthy or wise. We must, then, set ourselves to prepare local men to assume those positions which are now occupied by “professionals,” and we must encourage believers to look forward to the day when each local church will be directed by its own elders and deacons.

(For more on New Testament patterns of church life, please see our web page, Unleashing the Church.)

July 23, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book is Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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His Love, My Joy

Becky Lynn Black  

“This event was written on God’s Day Planner long ago. He didn’t suddenly wake up and say to Himself ‘Oh, No!  Becky’s stomach has ruptured!  I better do something!’  No, Dr.—, the God I serve has arranged every day of my life, so we don’t need to worry about it.”

This conversation took place 2 days after major, emergency surgery at UNC Women’s Hospital.

I had woken up at 5 a.m. sharp on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, with the most excruciating pain imaginable in the left upper quadrant of my abdomen. Immediately I knew that something in my abdomen had ruptured. My mind went over the side effects of the medical treatment I was taking. Until that moment, the lists of potential side effects somehow hadn’t registered as being for me. They were side effects for other people, but certainly not for me.

I was alone on the farm. Dave and Nigusse were at the seminary for their classes. After crying out to the Lord to help me, the “nurse” in me kicked in. My first concern was whether or not I was going to go into shock, which meant losing consciousness, which meant calling 911 immediately. So I did some “shock tests,” and found that I was functioning fine. So I suspected that my spleen and vasculature were probably OK. Of course, the shock could come later (it might be a slow leak), but for now I was safe to plan my course of action.

I walked to the Library Room/Den. I couldn’t stand up straight….another sign of acute abdomen.  The pain was horrendous. The next big issue was whether to drive myself to the emergency room, or to call 911. Living in the country, we are served by a volunteer EMS service. I knew there was a chance that they wouldn’t understand my non-country accent; I knew they would have to be woken up from their beds, and they would need time to dress and get their lipstick on correctly. Our home is a ways off the road, so there was always the possibility that they wouldn’t be able to find my house.

On the other hand, I knew that if I drove myself, perhaps I would pass out, and involuntarily hurt someone else on the road. So for a full 5 minutes I prayed to the Lord to show me which way to get to the Emergency Room.

At last I had peace about driving myself to the ED.  I struggled into my bathrobe and slippers, and drove carefully, being mindful of having enough response time to pull over if I began to lose consciousness. In 20 minutes I was walking into the ED, thankful that no ambulances were parked at their door. “I have an acute abdomen,” I announced to the bewildered receptionist.

Little did I know what God had written on His Day Planner for me for that October 24.  By the end of the day, I had been transferred to UNC Women’s Hospital in Chapel Hill, NC, and was heading into emergency surgery to find what has ruptured.  The surgery lasted many hours.  The primary surgical team could not find the leak. A second surgical team was brought in. They finally found a small, 1-mm perforation in my stomach. I have never had an ulcer, nor do I have an ulcer now; this tear was 100- due to the chemo and the steroids necessitated by the chemo.  The next day, I had a full-blown fungal infection in my blood, caused by the perforation.

Throughout the next 2 weeks in the hospital, even though suffering physically, I felt like I was sitting on the sidelines watching the Lord work. He was so very real and present to me! Every person who entered my room was a God-appointment. The Spirit was so thick in that room!  What a joy it was for me to witness Him at work in my room….to nurses, aides, visitors, housekeepers, doctors, residents. It was awesome!

The Truth of the Sovereignty of God…that He rules and overrules and ordains the happenings at every level of the universe …filled my heart with such peace. From the beginning I knew that this was a life-or-death situation. The doctors spared no punches. We all knew that I very well could be ending up in heaven by the end of the day.

Yet I had no fear, no concern, no anxiety. My only regret was all that I had intended to do for the Kingdom (like write more articles), that I hadn’t done.

After 2 weeks I was sent home, with a hospital bed, physical therapy, IV medicines, home health nurse, etc.  And suddenly things changed.  It was as if God turned the faucet, and shut off all Kingdom work.  Then the discouragement overwhelmed me.

Here I was struggling to recover. It was my battle. No one could fight this fight for me. I had to pull myself out of bed, despite the pain. I had to do all the doings that needed to be done to get well. I still had peace of His sovereignty, but my joy was gone.

For about 2 weeks I battled an existence without joy. To live without joy is MUCH worse than to live with pain.

Then the Lord put me in the hospital again…this time with a blood clot. It was a piece of cake compared to what I had just been through. But as I lay in that bed, He showed me something.  “Becky, you have done well to rest in my sovereignty. Your reward has been a supernatural peace. But you have forgotten that I exercise my sovereignty according to my love.  That is why you have not had my supernatural joy.”

It was one of those Ah-ha moments. Of course! How could I have forgotten?  God is love. Love permeates every aspect of His Person….His thinking, His justice, His operations, His sovereign will. He is not like the fake gods of mankind or the political rulers of the nations, which exercise their supposed sovereign power according to their moods or selfish agendas.

No, my God not only has a Day Planner where He has written all that will come into my life, day by day…..but He has written everything with LOVE!

It is this truth…..Loving Sovereignty…that brought the joy back to my heart.

There are many verses about this supernatural joy in the Scriptures. Look at Philippians 4:4, 1 Thessalonians 5:16 and 18, and Ephesians 5:20. My husband, the Greek scholar, tells me that these verses say “all the time,” “in every situation,” and “for every circumstance.” That’s pretty comprehensive!

How can we possibly rejoice all the time, in every situation, and for every circumstance? Only when we go back to that little prepositional phrase “in the Lord.”  Paul wrote “Rejoice in the Lord.”  That means: rejoice because of the character of the Lord; rejoice because of who He is.

And I have learned a wonderful truth about His character: His sovereignty is exercised by His love. And it is because of that truth that my life can be filled with joy, at all times, in every situation, and in every circumstance.

So now, when I awake in the morning, I ask my Father, “What have You written in Your Love for me today?  Help me to accept what You have planned and, by my will, build upon it for Your Glory.”

December 5, 2012

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Hidden in Christ

 David Alan Black 

“In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).

In three weeks I shall have the privilege of delivering the commencement address at the Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. If there is one truth I wish to impress upon these young graduates it is this: Do you want to possess divine wisdom and knowledge? Then look to Jesus, for they are to be found only in Him.

When dangerous errors threaten to confuse and disrupt; when false teachers dressed up in ministers’ garbs cast their enticing nets; when we seek the solutions to the many problems of life – where are the answers to be found? They are, says Paul, “hidden,” kept, guarded, preserved, in Christ.

I recall a visit a few years ago to the British Museum in London. There the book lover, the collector of ancient manuscripts, will find treasures beyond description. It seems as though all the literary wealth of the world is to be found in that one building. But the riches of wisdom and knowledge are not to be found there – or in any earthly building. They are not to be found on the vast information highway we call the Internet. They are not available to us by reading the books or commentaries of a Bible teacher. They are hid in Christ, and they are ours, Christian friend, to appropriate and hold.

One of the most difficult tasks is to wean Christians off of the milk of this-or-that preacher, or this-or-that author. Scarcely do we realize the wealth of knowledge that is ours and by which, through God’s Word, we can know the truth, the answer to every problem. What does it matter what men say and teach? God has spoken (Heb. 1:1-4). Nor need we depend on our own understanding, for He has given us His Spirit so that we have no need that any man should teach us (1 John 2:27). He alone is our Guide into all truth.

When my wife and I arrived at the Bibelschule Bergstrasse as short-term missionaries to Germany in the summer of 1978, I was immediately struck by one sight. Written over the entrance to this great institution of Christian higher education were these words, etched in large German words: “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” I could hardly imagine a more fitting motto.

Would that all of us – and how the author needs to take heed himself – lay hold of that which God has revealed to us in Christ!

May 15, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

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The Hermeneutics of Evangelical Tolerationism

 David Alan Black

One of the more ironic features of this election year is the suggestion that a vote for Michael Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party would be a wasted vote. The thought is that only by allowing the Republicans to retain control of the White House can we avoid falling into the sewer of big government and imperialism. A vote for Bush/Cheney will constitute the best route back to responsible, “conservative” government. It will be interesting to see whether this strategy works.

Even more ironic is the way pastors are feeling the heat from the IRS for speaking out on the “issues” in such a politically-charged climate. By their silence, conservative Republicans, including many professors on Christian college and seminary campuses, are embracing the very government policies that lead to slavery. This inhibiting virus of political tolerationism has infected our conservative evangelical churches to the point that few, if any, of our religious leaders dare take a stand against the policies of the current administration. Many people are only now becoming aware of the strong socialist presence within the American Congress and within American Christendom as a whole. Varieties of tolerationism have become deeply entrenched on several major evangelical college campuses and in numerous conservative denominations. This pro-Big Brother bias is also evident in any local church you might happen to attend on a given Sunday morning. This includes evangelical churches known for their theological conservatism.

This is not the place to discuss all of the ramifications of this kind of group think. My book Why I Stopped Listening to Rush attempts to document how tolerationism maintains power through creating incentives for the suspension of critical thinking among the masses, beginning with the intellectuals. No longer is there any objective truth, and even if there were, we could never discover it. Each person can discover only his or her own “truth” (the quotation marks are necessary to show that we are not referring to objective truth). It is impossible to know what the Constitution really means, we are told, let alone what Madison, Jefferson, or Jesus for that matter really meant. The pop Christian culture – from the largest pulpits in the land to our so-called Christian bookstores – has been invaded by an army of dishonest hermeneuticians who are intent are telling us that it matters not whether abortion is murder, or whether Christians and Muslims pray to the same God. There is no longer any objective reality be which we can adjudicate truth and falsehood.

Erasmus, the famous Dutch humanist, once asked, “If Aristotle, who was a pagan and a philosopher too, painted such a picture among men who were not holy and learned in the Scriptures, how much more is it fit for one who moves in the place of Christ to fulfill the task?” It is impossible to disagree with Erasmus’s pessimistic assessment of what has happened among purveyors of evangelical theology. Perhaps the time has come for the formation of a kind of evangelical council for political accountability that would function in political matters much as the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability functions in respect to fund-raising practices among Christian organizations. I have pointed out numerous times that the intellectual dishonesty that would permit a Christian to support a Republican pro-abortion candidate (such as Schwarzenegger or Specter) is the cause of the very social ills we are trying to redress.

How much longer will the conservative majority continue to hail the state as the Messiah, the fulfillment of its hopes, the perfecter of its faith? The efforts of the Gnostics in the second century to accommodate Christianity to the culture of their day is no different than an American pastor telling his flock to support their “conservative” president because he prays or reads his Bible. For all too many Christians in the United States, George W. Bush has become the great crusader whose policies matter not as long as he pays lip-service to the Bible and the church. All conflict between Christ and culture has evaporated; cultural tolerationism has become the new orthodoxy.

As my wife and I prepare to leave for Ethiopia we are often reminded of the famous statement that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. One cannot doubt that the Ethiopian church is much stronger today for having suffered under Marxist rule. But that statement is, at best, a half truth. The seed may have been healthy, but the crop may become so infested with insects and disease that the plant grows up incurably fetid and therefore worthless. If in the ancient world men were impressed by the courage of Christians who refused to yield to populous custom, men today seem less attracted to the message of radical monotheism, which confesses Christ alone as the Messiah of culture.

All of this will not become moot after November 2, 2004. The fact that professing Christians have found kinship between Christ and the prophet of Mohamed may be indicative that the church in America has reached a cul-de-sac from which it can never extricate itself. It becomes more or less clear that it is not possible honestly to confess that Jesus is the Christ unless one can confess much more than this. This “more” will occur only when we as Christians renew our links to the past and address candidly the theological illiteracy of our churches – and our leaders. If we cannot recover an understanding of the essential role that truth plays in the Christian faith, no honorable purpose will be served by allowing the name “Christian” to remain attached to our churches and ecclesiastical associations.

September 20, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book is Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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The Heart of a Secretariat

 David Alan Black 

His name was Secretariat. He was an incredible horse. He prevailed in many races, including the coveted Triple Crown. He won the1973 Belmont Stakes by an unprecedented 31 lengths, setting an unbeatable record in the process (see photo).

I own and ride a Thoroughbred (a former race horse), and I can attest that Thoroughbreds slow down after running a quarter-mile. Secretariat actually ran faster with each succeeding fraction after the first quarter-mile.

Trainers were bewildered. How could a horse run so fast? The answer came only after the death of Secretariat. When he was autopsied, Secretariat’s heart was found to be larger than the average horse’s. Not just slightly larger, but massively larger. The average Thoroughbred’s heart weighs 8.5 pounds. Secretariat’s weighed 22.

In 1999, Secretariat was honored as the 35th greatest athlete of the Twentieth Century by ESPN’s SportsCentury, a program profiling the top athletes of the last century. Secretariat was the only animal to make the list. What made him so special? His heart.

I know a person with a big heart. A gigantic heart. The heart of a Secretariat. So deep is her love for people – the unlovely included – that she puts me to shame, and has done so for over 28 years. One cannot come away from an encounter with her without having learned a great truth about the Lord Jesus: He has a huge heart.

Here is just a sampling of her rich and thoughtful prose from an email she sent yesterday to our friends in Ethiopia:

I just want to share with you a bit of what our great God is doing here. As you are aware, we are trying to get a dear 14-year-old blind boy from Gondar to Addis for corneal transplant surgery. My husband has told a bit about Azanou on his website (daveblackonline.com). Another website picked up the story, and before we know it, there is a fund-raising, letter-writing, big prayer campaign going on for Azanou.

I want to invite you to visit this web site: buriedtreasurebooks.com/weblog/

People are already beginning to send us money to help with Azanou’s expenses, and they are making him a part of their family prayer times. Parents are teaching their children about Ethiopia. Churches are gathering to pray for Azanou and Ethiopia. It is SO EXCITING!  

As we’ve been working, through our Lord’s grace, to get everything in order for this transplant, we’ve seen Ethiopians step up to help us, some of whom we’ve never met. But God has put it in their hearts to help us. And now we are seeing American Christians from across our country also step up to help us. Only our Saviour can do something like this!

We are only at the very beginning of this adventure. And yet our God has done such great and wonderful things! To Him alone goes the praise! What stories will we have to tell when this is adventure is done. Please pray especially for Azanou’s salvation!

For His Kingdom, by His grace,

Mrs. BeckyLynn Black

Perhaps of greatest price among the precious things this letter reveals is the author’s personal and intense love for the Lord Jesus. It is His love that prompts her to reach out to others wherever she goes. God’s love oils the wheels of her activities, gives spontaneity to her duties, and makes her servitude to Christ one of blessed emancipation.

How big is your heart? How big is mine? How often do we find ourselves – our vessels – so full of the living water of Christ’s presence that we freely dispense it to others?

O Lord Jesus, so fill me with the knowledge of Thee that my small heart becomes Thy big heart, so that when my life’s history is written, whoever reads it will not think of me as a self-made man, but as the handiwork of God, in whom His grace and love are magnified.

February 19, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

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Harry Sturz: New Testament Textual Critic

 David Alan Black  

Most people know that my views about New Testament textual criticism have been greatly influenced by my former colleague in the Greek Department at Biola University, Prof. Harry Sturz. Sturz’s dissertation (Th.D. Grace Theological Seminary) was published asThe Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism.

It is masterful work. It was written by a scholar for scholars. And it’s a reminder of just how unpredictable scholarship can be at times. Just when the coaches thought they had their players set up for an off-tackle thrust, someone seizes the ball and carries it on a wide sweep around end. This is precisely what happened when Harry Sturz published his book.

In textual criticism, one enters a discipline that is as much art as it is science, so that what is all too clear to one scholar may be opaque to another. My friend Dan Wallace — who, incidentally, also took Harry Sturz’s textual criticism class at Biola — has explained how heleft the Sturzian fold and returned to the camp of the Critical Text — much to the joy, I surmise, of the coaching staff.

I have never changed my mind.

Harry Sturz had no personal axe to grind. He neither hoped for nor expected any professional advantages from his work on the Byzantine text. He had been a student of E. C. Colwell when the latter was still teaching at Claremont Graduate School in Southern California. Like Colwell, Sturz always presented his views in a scholarly yet humble way. His work was not a revelation from Mount Sinai but the considered judgment of an intelligent, hardworking scholar.

Much to his credit, Sturz had the temerity to challenge the status quo and to take up the cudgels of the primary data in search of the truth. His views were (and still are) diametrically opposed to the conception behind the Byzantine Priority view and the Critical Text view alike. With the grim determination of a spawning salmon, he swam up the stream of scholarship. His total sincerity shows through every page of his work. His reputation at Biola was such as to compel respect and attention by all. His conclusion — that the Byzantine text is not edited or secondary in the Westcott-Hort sense — gushed forth from the fountains of his conviction.

I consider The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism to be extremely fair with the evidence, and whenever I teach textual criticism I always require it to be read alongside other standard works in the field. Sturz’s perspective is, I believe, absolutely essential to a correct estimation of the problem. This is all the more important in our day, which is characterized by a burgeoning ambivalence toward all things text-critical. It is the duty of every student of the New Testament to dig up the skeleton of truth, even if only a dozen people in the world care about it.

Harry Sturz was a gentleman to his fingertips. He would never have thought of imposing his ideas upon his students, who held him in awe. He was a beaver for work despite his age. Unlike so many scholars of his day (and ours), he refused to resort to the ark of group-think, scampering up its gang plank whenever his views were challenged.

Harry Sturz’s The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism is a magnificent tour de force. In my opinion, it seriously weakens the arguments of both those who elevate the Byzantine text to a position of unquestioned primacy and those who seek to relegate it to the academic rubbish heap. All in all, it pulls the rug from under a great deal of what passes for scholarship today. It is a dangerous book for a young scholar to read, unless one enjoys coolheaded, impersonal logic. It is a coda to an investigative symphony, and for the symphony I am most grateful, even though it remains unfinished.

November 20, 2010

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Harold Hoehner: Co-Yoked with Christ

 David Alan Black  

Jesus told His disciples, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:29-30).

Notice that Jesus offers His disciples an “easy yoke.” His metaphor literally pictures two animals that are working together for a common goal. Jesus is offering His followers nothing less than connectedness – not to an organization or an institution or a methodology or a program, but to Himself. In that relationship they find not only connectedness, however.

Jesus’ yoke metaphor also has a secondary meaning. It implies balance, even equality. We enter into a relational harmony with the Lord Jesus. We work side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder. We are partners together in the work of ministry.

Our problem – let me make it more direct: my problem – lies in the confusion about what it means to “rest” in Jesus. I used to think of it as ceasing from all activity. But the word Jesus uses here (anapausis) never has that meaning in the New Testament. When Greeks wanted to refer to the cessation of activity they used a different though similar word – katapausis. The author of Hebrews uses this latter word to describe the promised “rest” of the people of God when they have ceased from their earthly labors (Heb. 3-4). That rest is not a present reality for those of us who are still living in this world. It is offered only to those who labor diligently in the here and now to enter that rest (Heb. 4:11).

In the meantime, Jesus tells us to “work hard for the night is coming” and to “keep busy until I come.” We come to Jesus, then, not to rest from our work but to rest in it. This is only possible when we yoke ourselves to Him. In a sense, our work is not our own. It is work performed and accomplished together with Christ. Coming to Him does not mean that I rest in the sense of stopping my labors. It means walking next to Him in harmonious balance as together we plow the fields. Jesus “rests” us, not by taking away our heavy burdens, but by allowing us to join our harness to His. Paul puts it this way: “Do not be sluggish in zeal … as you serve the Lord” (Rom 12:11). Being co-yoked to Christ means there is never room for lethargy or sloth. God intends for us neither to burn out nor to rust out.

If there is one thing I remember about Harold Hoehner, it is that he was a man co-yoked with Christ. In his long and illustrious teaching and writing career, he neither burned out nor rusted out. We might say that he lived the “co-yoked” life, the life that makes one’s burdens not only bearable but enjoyable, the life that enables one to keep on serving, ungrudgingly and uncomplainingly. The service Harold rendered was service in the strength that God had supplied. Such an attitude preserved him from both pride and sloth.

In addition to his many duties at Dallas Seminary, Harold taught my father-in-law’s Sunday School class at Grace Bible Church. Whenever Becky and I visited the Big D we would attend Harold’s class and listen to him exegete some passage of Scripture. Here was a man, I thought to myself, who taught not from the canteen of Saturday night but from a reservoir of Bible knowledge.

But Harold was every bit as gracious as he was scholarly. And he was always fun to be around. Since he knew Swiss German, and since I had once lived in Switzerland, we would banter back and forth in that dialect as others looked on in open-mouthed astonishment. I always asked him what his latest writing project was. I ribbed him that it took him so long to finish his magnum opus on Ephesians. But it was all in jest. I knew that Harold would only write about what he himself had lived. James, Jesus’ half-brother, put it this way: “Who among you is a man of wisdom and understanding? Let him show by the loveliness of his behavior that all he does is done with gentleness” (James 3:13). I wonder, was James thinking of Harold when he penned those words?

Although he was only 18 years my senior, Harold taught me many lessons. Perhaps the greatest one is this: Rest is serious business. In our hurry-up generation, where everything has to be done yesterday, Harold showed me how to pace myself and to go no faster (or slower) than the One to whom I am co-yoked is traveling. There is a great truth here that is both relevant and practical. I believe that a new grace and glory would enter the church if all Christians ceased doing things by themselves and did them for and with God.

Harold willingly and eagerly placed all his gifts (and these were considerable) at the service of the church. And the church, in turn, needed every gift that he had. In everything he did he was faithful to his Master whose interests he always served. And it is because Harold trusted the Savior alone for eternal salvation that he is now enjoying an inheritance that is imperishable, undefilable, and that can never fade away.

Harold enjoyed the respect of the entire academic community, and to him the community looked for guidance and inspiration. I have little doubt, however, that he would be content to be remembered, not as a great New Testament scholar, which he was most certainly was, but as a humble servant doing the bidding of his Lord, to whom he had so joyfully and willingly yoked himself.

Rest in peace, my friend.

February 12, 2009

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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