As you may recall, the Lord Jesus at the Last Supper gave bread to Judas. The apostle John says that after this identification of him, Satan entered him and he went out into the night.
There is an important sense in which we should fence the Table, and this is what excommunication does. But I am afraid that too many of us want to protect the Table with the officiousness of an Uzzah protecting the ark. However, the ark did not need protecting—Uzzah needed protecting.
Charles Spurgeon was once asked how he would defend the Scriptures. “Defend the Scriptures?” he replied. “I would as soon defend a lion.”
The Table the Lord established at that Last Supper did not need to be protected from the likes of Judas. Judas was the one who needed refuge, and he would not take refuge in the only place where that could be found. Judas died shortly after his treachery settled in upon him, and the Lord’s Supper is still being faithfully honored and observed two millennia later.
For those who come in simple faith, the Table fences us. The Lord is our shield and protector—it is not the other way around. And when we approach the Table in this faith, and declare the Word that accompanies the sacrament with authority, people who do not want the Lord to protect them (on His terms) flee from it.
But we are not in that position. We have come. We want to be fed. We gather to receive the Lord’s kindness to us—and He offers it to you here.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.
The Bible tells people not to partake in an unworthy manner, and people should be conscientious about that. But churches that major on enforcing it are like husbands who major on making sure their wives are submissive. They’re so busy fussing about other people’s responsibilities that they neglect their own. The husband neglects to show his bride the love of Jesus, and the church neglects to show Jesus’ bride the love of Jesus.
” But churches that major on enforcing it are like husbands who major on making sure their wives are submissive. They’re so busy fussing about other people’s responsibilities that they neglect their own.”
I find this kind of hard to picture. To what charge could a man set his wife where submissiveness would not be readily apparent, not requiring follow up effort?
Justin, I think the key here is “major in.” If there’s actually a problem with a wife submitting in a particular area, then that needs to be addressed. But if the dynamic of the relationship is heavily tilted toward “my #1 job is a leader to is to make sure you’re submissive,” there’s something wrong with the overall approach. His #1 job as a leader is to give her leadership worth submitting to. I think that’s what Valerie was going for.
Yep. What Jane said.
I understood that. I’m just trying to actually picture how this functions when it’s taking place. If anything, my fault as a husband is in not taking charge of the family enough, so it’s hard to relate to. Suppose he tells you to clean the garage. Isn’t it very obvious if you’re being submissive or not? What could happen that requires he “major” in it? Is he calling and texting you all day long to see that you’re working on it? I have a hard time picturing the man who worries about that while out and about rather than just… Read more »
Justin, I was a pretty agreeable wife but even I might have balked at “Clean the garage.” (To begin with, our garage was filled with power tools and deadly chemicals I was not encouraged to touch. Can we make it “Clean the guest bathroom”?)
Even then, I would have liked it to be softened a little. “Honey, I know you’ve got a deadline for that article, but I’m worried that if the health department saw the bathroom, they might quarantine the house. Do you think you could get to it in the next few days?”
Fair enough Jill. As I said, any sin I am in on this topic is in not being enough of a leader so I’m trying to imagine the situation where this happens. My first thought thought for an example was “clean the kitchen” but I thought that maybe evoked too strong of imagery in certain potential readers, and I wanted to avoid the “woman’s place is in the kitchen” misunderstanding. So, “pretty please with sugar on top, clean the guest bathroom.” How exactly does one obsess over whether or not your wife is submissive on that. I’m really having a… Read more »
Justin, my computer shut down for updates so I couldn’t reply. I am dear friends with a couple who have been married for 30 years. They don’t believe in submission in marriage, but she is a traditional homemaker and a very supportive wife. He is a dear and wonderful person but he is pretty controlling. Imagine how the following scenario would be even worse if he believed she had a God-given duty to submit to him. (I have invented the scenario to protect the innocent and the guilty, but the spirit of their interactions is entirely accurate.) 8 AM Ring!… Read more »
What about the kind of guy who decides he needs his fingers in every possible household pie, tries to pick his wife’s clothes for her (against her preferences), and then views the major problem of his marriage as the fact that she doesn’t cheerfully accede to his instructions about which brand of butter to buy, how to fold the towels, and whether she should shower in the morning or evening? He’s making her only job submission, rather than actually running the household, and then making his only job to make sure she does it. That would be an example. Perhaps… Read more »
Learn this lesson now. The command to submit is given to the wife. It is not given to the husband to enforce. The command given to the husband to love is given to him, not to his wife so that she may try and make him love her.
Thank you very much for this comment. It’s supremely directly relevant to some people I’m assisting. A husband who had left his wife (geographically, not sexually) had approached me to “Matthew 18” his wife. He wanted to fulfill his obligations and return, but had a large list of extremely specific (and uncharacteristic of the wife) changes he demanded as conditions of his return, and looked to me to mediate the demand that she give in to Biblical submission. He didn’t much care for my view that he can’t make doing his responsibilities conditional. This is a very plainly legalistic way… Read more »
Listen to his plea, not to give him his demands but to understand his frustration. You can be sympathetic to how he feels about his wife’s lack of submission. He needs to understand that there will be components where she does not submit, components where she should not submit, and possibly communication issues that they fail to understand each other. Getting the point I made above is very important. While Eggerichs does not make it directly, his book covers these issues repeatedly until one gets that it is right to act in a godly manner even when others do not… Read more »
Is your friend an “Airplane!” fan? I would gently tell him that any time he starts sounding like Captain Kramer (“I want the kids in bed by nine, the dog fed, the yard watered and the gate locked. And get a note to the milkman: NO MORE CHEESE!”), it’s time to try a more conciliatory approach!
Justin, maybe the workplace is a useful analogy. When a boss thinks he has hired a dependable, diligent worker, he leaves him to it. He assumes that the worker is being faithful, honest, and compliant with the instructions has been given–until such time as contrary evidence emerges, and then he must confront it. But he doesn’t follow the worker around or set tests or assume ill faith.
It’s always going to be on an honor system except, perhaps, in cases of flagrant, open scandal. Even in my church where receiving holy communion in a state of mortal sin is right up there with murder, the sinner bears the responsibility not to approach the altar rail. Perhaps wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned with “First Church of Satan” would result in your being turned away, but I have never seen it happen.
Uh, are we 100% sure Jesus communed Judas? AT least one of the gospels makes it seem as if He did, but I seem to recall reading something from Still Waters Revival Books maybe a couple decades ago that, in harmonizing the NT accounts, made a pretty good case that He didn’t. (Like our current president, SWRB gets some good work done now and then, and some not so good.)
Yeah, I think it was more of the latter for SWRB, which should probably be named Raging Oceans instead.
We just had this passage as yesterday’s gospel reading. It’s really pretty hard to get around John 13:30 unless you want to spiritualize communion in such a way that even Jesus handing it to you after instituting it isn’t “really” communion unless X, Y, and Z invisible things also happen. And I don’t think that’s a sound way of looking at it, at all.
Let’s agree that the Bible is the inspired word of God (and therefore should be paid attention to) and that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let’s agree that the truths just stated mean that God’s attitude toward male / female relationships as revealed in the Garden of Eden is the same attitude that God has today and will have tomorrow. If that is true, then we cannot escape the truth of the following: 1. Nowhere did God state that he made Eve to submit to Adam. Rather, he made Eve to be a proper and fitting help… Read more »
“Does anybody’s word ever trump God’s word? More specifically, does Paul’s word trump God’s word?”
Stop right there. The words of the apostle, preserved for us as Holy Scripture, ARE God’s words. If you don’t believe that, you don’t believe the Bible and it’s useless to talk about “God’s word.”