Tuesday, August 6, 2019

PT-4 "The Necessary Foundation" (Eph. 5:21)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/6/2019 11:54 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-4 “The Necessary Foundation”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 5:21

 

            Message of the verses:  21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

            In our last SD we have been talking about the raising of children, and gave a couple of quotes from MacArthur’s commentary which has some very good resources for those who are raising children and are also grand-children.  This works because it is the way that God designed it to word, and God also has a plan on how the church should word, how believers are subject to their Spiritual leaders like their Pastors and even deacons.  Does this mean that they are better because they have a higher ranking?  Now it means that this is the way that God designed it to work.

 

            MacArthur writes the following about the role of the woman and in his next chapter he devotes the entire chapter to this subject.  “The submissive role of the woman was designed by God in creation and affirmed by His judicial act in response to the Fall.  Yet the balance of responsibility and blessing is found in woman’s bearing of children.  She is saved from seeking the role of a man and from identification as a second-class person by giving birth to children and being occupied with them, as well as by having the major influence on their early training and development.  Women who have children and pursue a life of faith, love, holiness, and self-control give their best to their family, and thus to society.  God has designed and called women to give birth to children, to nurse, caress, teach, comfort, and encourage them in their most formative years—in a way that father can never do.  That should occupy their time and energy and preclude their seeking a place of leadership in the church.”

 

            When churches, families and governments go away from the design that God has given them to operate on then their naturally will be troubles.  It all begins in the home and if the home is following the ways of the Lord, then the churches will be doing the same thing, and thus governments will also be doing the same things too because of the people who come out of the homes and churches are all following God’s design.  There is another aspect of this and that has to do with workers and those who they are working for.  Even back in the early NT times when there were many, many slaves this meant that the slaves who were believers along with the owners of the slaves who were believers were to follow God’s design for how to treat those who work and those who they are working for, and in some cases when slave owners who had slaves who were believers that those slaves could actually have a higher calling in the church, perhaps to be a Pastor or another form of leadership, and in that case the slave will actually have authority over the slave owners in the role of the church.

 

            John MacArthur concludes this chapter by writing “All believers are spiritual equals in every sense.  ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28).  We submit to one another as the Holy Spirit influences us to do so.”

 

            So in the end it all has to do with being filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

The verse that goes along with the quotation from Phillips Brooks is from Job 22:27-28 “You will pray to Him, and He will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows.  What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways.”

 

8/6/2019 12:15 PM

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