THY WILL BE DONE

I advocate the principle of keeping things in context; our lives, our words, what we speak to, and what we listen to.  I also believe we need to quote and interpret the Bible in context.  The world and the people in the world have suffered greatly from the misuse of some using certain scriptures to prove behavior and attitudes that are truly ungodly and unchristian. 

The Bible was given to us as a source of reference for knowing and loving God.  I believe it is God inspired and full of Truth.  It serves the purpose of teaching, reproving, correcting, and training people in righteous living.  It should not serve the purpose of being a weapon of aggression and violence. 

The Bible is the history of God and His relationship with mankind.  It records what has happened from the beginning of time and what will happen in the end of time.  Because events recorded in the Bible happened, it doesn’t mean those things were meant to happen or were in God’s plan.  It records what God desires.  It records the consequences that occurred when people did not listen to what God said and disobeyed Him.  It records what happens when God’s people forsake Him, the fountain of living waters, and hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

It began in the garden when the first man and woman listened to the lie of the enemy of God and continues on into today, because we are still listening to the lies of the enemy of God.  Throughout the whole Bible the context is clear; this is what happened, this is what will happen; the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.  To understand the Bible in context we must keep the beginning words and the final words in tact.  Then we can live our lives in context.  Then we can see the points where things got off track.  Then we can also see how God works throughout time to bring them back on track and be assured that in the end His Way, the best way, will endure forever in eternity.

I found one of these points where things may have gotten off track.  While reading Acts 6 I am told that some problems arose among the early Christians as they were finding their way in the new faith they had found; organizational problems that needed attention; a complaint that widows were being neglected.  The twelve commissioned by Jesus to go and teach what he had taught them responded.  “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.  Pick out seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.  But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Now that sounds like a god plan, of man, and it has continued down through the centuries; a division of priests and laypeople.  But was this God’s plan?

Did they even stop and ask God what to do about this?  I don’t think so.

To me, this response seems contrary to the teachings of Jesus; the teachings they were commissioned to be living and teaching; especially the final teaching he gave them, recorded in John 13: 1-17.  On the night Jesus was betrayed he gathered these same men and gave them a final lesson in how they were to lead.  “He arose from supper, laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and washed the disciple’s feet…If I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

The disciples were human.  When they became Apostles they were human.  All along the way during their association with Jesus they were always arguing about who was more important, who would sit at the right and left of Jesus, who would have power and authority.  Yes, they were transformed; yes they were filled with the Spirit; but in the end they were still human, with human personality, and human traits.

What I like about this story is what happens next.  Throughout the Bible you read very few sermons and preaching from the twelve. What you do read is a powerful sermon by Steven, one that is a catalyst for change in Paul’s life.  You read the preaching of the word by Phillip in two experiences, in Samaria, and to the Ethiopian Eunuch.  Stephen and Phillip were chosen to serve tables so the Apostles could devote themselves to the ministry of the word.  Turns out that God has Steven and Phillip out there preaching the word of God and those are what are recorded in the Bible.  God is funny that way.  His ways are mysterious and in the end His ways will be done.