Recommended commentary on Revelation

Some time ago, I wrote a small commentary on the book of Revelation — but that is not the one I want to commend here.

Recently, however, I’ve been teaching Revelation as part of our Diocesan Lent courses, and I decided to go over and revise my old notes. In the process, I came across the commentary by Stephen Smalley, published by SPCK, 2005.

It is certainly in the category of ‘big and fat’, and this reflects in the price (up to £40). Nevertheless, I would thoroughly recommend it for the interested student or preacher who wants to go deeper than the excellent, but less technical, commentary by Michael Wilcock.

Still, do feel free to buy mine (currently £3.00 from The Good Book Company), just to complete the set.

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Review: The Archer and the Arrow

Many years ago, I remember attending a service at All Soul’s, Langham Place, where the preacher was Richard Bewes. I had been ordained about six years at the time, had heard many sermons and had preached even more. But I was aware that evening of being on the receiving end of something special.

“I don’t how he is achieving what he is doing,” I thought to myself, “but that’s how I want to do it.”

Those who have heard the preaching of Phillip Jensen may have felt the same, and will therefore be instinctively interested in this attempt by another preacher, Paul Grimmond, to explain how Phillip does what he does so well, namely the exposition of Scripture.

As soon as you put it like that, however, you can appreciate the difficulty of the task. I would find it hard enough to explain to others how I do something. How much more challenging for someone else to explain it!

Those who have heard Phillip preach and teach, moreover, will appreciate that this is not just a matter of picking up a few hints and tips about techniques of presentation and preparation. Indeed, Grimmond’s own introduction cautions against the idea that the book might contain “five simple steps to preaching like Phillip.”

It is best, therefore, to approach this book simply as a ‘primer on preaching’ — which happens to have Phillip Jensen’s name on the cover and some of his input in the contents. If you are new to preaching, however, or even if you have been preaching for some time, you will undoubtedly come away the better for having read it. Its focus is on the basics, but those basics are also the fundamentals, and like piano scales or times-tables, they are things we need to get right if we are to move on constructively, and they are things we may need to revisit if we have become rusty or lazy.

The book takes its title, and its structure, from an analogy: comparing the sermon to an arrow. The word of the gospel is the arrowhead, the exegesis of Scripture forms the shaft, which carries the head to the target, and the feathers represent the whole of our theology which guides our preaching and its application.

The analogy is helpful, but it is important also to understand what the authors mean by these ‘parts’ and how they see them contributing to the overall task of preaching.

The ‘gospel’ arrowhead, for example, is not simply the repetition of the point that Christ died on the cross for our sins and we need to repent and get right with God. Indeed, one of the most helpful parts of the book, in my view, was the explanation that the gospel is every aspect of revelation when it is understood and presented in relation to Jesus. Every sermon, therefore, ought to be a ‘gospel’ sermon, from whatever part of the Bible the preacher’s material is drawn.

It is encouraging, also, to see so much emphasis on theology — something which English evangelicals have for a long time treated as if it were almost a dirty word. (The same might be said, incidentally, of ‘good works’!)

Many of those who so admired Phillip on his first visits to these shores overlooked the fact that Sydney clergy were required to spend not just three but four years in full-time theological education before being ordained, and that these years were spent in the library and the study, not in ‘student ministry’ on the nearby university campus. One reason for the paucity of English evangelical preaching in the second half of the twentieth century is undoubtedly that so few preachers had an undergirding theology, or even much grasp of the biblical languages.

But the book is equally emphatic that preaching is no mere academic exercise. Rather, it is part of our spiritual struggle, and the primary quality it calls for from the preacher is not a love of study or exposition, but the love of God and of those whom God has called the preacher to serve through his preaching.

The Archer and the Arrow is not the last word on preaching. But it will benefit anyone who is just embarking on a preaching ministry and many who have been preaching for years. If this is you, then buy it or borrow it, and make sure that you apply it.

John Richardson
9 January 2011

The Archer and the Arrow: Preaching the Very Words of God, by Phillip D Jensen and Paul Grimmond (Kingsford: St Matthias Media, 2010), pb, 148 pp, no index

Purchase here.

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On the strategic possibilities of pulpit exchanges

What are conservative Evangelicals to do about the new shape of the Church of England which is likely to emerge from the current debate on women bishops? That, it seems to me, is an increasingly urgent question, and yet it is one to which very few practical answers have been offered.

We could battle on through the Synodical process, but the problem with this tactic is that it relies too much on other people doing what we want. We could leave (or threaten to), but the problem there is that we would be doing exactly what other people want from us. Yet we cannot afford simply to carry on as we are.

I want to suggest that an important course of action presents itself when we consider the nature of episcopal ministry itself. What bishops can do, amongst other things, is give local congregations a sense of belonging to a larger and coordinated whole — a network of congregations which care about one another and which are mutually supportive.

Unfortunately, such networks are entirely lacking amongst conservative Evangelicals, with the result that our people are often unaware of the wider issues in the Church, whilst the clergy are battling on isolated and unaided.

Yet if we had the kind of bishops we would prefer, this is surely one of the impacts we would want them to have — strengthening the bonds of fellowship between congregations and encouraging ministers in their local work.

This is not, of course, how our existing bishops currently operate, but it is, I would suggest, part of the nature of ‘episcopal’ ministry. And although there is increasingly little chance of conservative Evangelicals being appointed to the bench of bishops, there is no reason at all why they should not develop networks of mutual support which supply what is lacking in the current situation.

One of our problems, for example, is that we do not have networks of congregations. Ministers get together. They join various organizations and see one another at conferences and so on, but our people have almost no awareness of this. For them, the parish boundary, or the local congregational membership, is the limit of their entire world.

Why not, therefore, invite those we know from our clergy networks to preach in our own pulpits? That way, our people would become aware of these other clergy and their congregations. They might hear some of the news from these far-off places and they might, incidentally, begin to appreciate that the doctrines preached by their own ministers are not just personal eccentricities.

This might be particularly important with respect to the larger churches. I have heard it suggested that ‘when the time comes’, conservative Evangelicals ought to create new episcopal structures centred around the senior ministers who staff these ‘flagship’ congregations.

That may or may not be the best approach, but it is worth reminding ourselves that episcopal ministry ought, first and foremost, to be a teaching ministry. Therefore, if these senior ministers are to exercise an ‘episcopal’ role, they ought to be released from their local pulpit to go and preach in other congregations in order to create and sustain the necessary networks.

At the same time, it would be very good if some of the ministers in the smaller congregations were invited to speak from the ‘flagship’ pulpits. It would be a great encouragement to them, and it would also be a great opportunity for those larger churches to be less insular and inward-looking than they often currently are.

It has been observed more than once that trying to organize conservative Evangelicals is like trying to herd cats. The ethos amongst the clergy is summed up in the words of the old song: “You in your small corner, and I in mine.” And that is how we often prefer things, not least because we are protective and defensive. (It reminds me of the person who jokingly said, “There’s only me and Dick Lucas left, and I’m worried about Dick.”)

The pulpit exchange could be a very powerful force for the good of our constituency, if only we will make the effort to start organizing along these lines. In particular, it has the advantage of being based in what we claim to value most, namely the ministry of the word. It would not ‘solve’ all our problems — nothing ever will. But it would certainly address our isolationism and, not least, our sheer unfamiliarity with the idea that there is a wider church out there.

So who is up for it?

John Richardson
11 July 2010

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Hebrews: sliced and diced for preaching

One of life’s regular ‘chores’ is coming up with sermon series, sometimes for a long while ahead and covering quite long periods. We are already looking at the run-up to Christmas, and I therefore had to come up with no less than twenty-two slots!

Allowing for a couple of ‘specials’, this reduced to twenty — but still a lot. It occurred to me, however, that it has been a long time since we looked at Hebrews. The question then was how to ‘slice and dice’ the letter into a coherent and sufficient number of sections — not too long and not too short — for preaching on Sunday evenings.

Meanwhile, I’ve begun reading G K Beale’s The Temple and the Church’s Mission. This got me thinking about one way to divide up Hebrews, which resulted in the divisions and topics below.

The approach I’ve taken is to look at the letter as an exhortation to the people of the New Covenant to persevere in faith until we come to the true sanctuary of God and enter into our ‘heavenly’ rest by means of the effective sacrifice and priesthood of Jesus, the Son of God and Heir of Creation.

The proposed divisions and titles are as below. Hopefully they make clear the flow of the letter in this regard, and although some of the section divisions may seem unusual they seem to work quite well.

1-2:4               The Son of God and Heir of Creation

2:5-18             The Son and his brethren

3:1-19             The master of the house of rest

4:1-13             The goal of rest

4:14-5:14        A sympathetic priest

6:1-18             A promise to seize

6:19-7:28        A greater priesthood

8:1-13             The need for the new

9:1-14             The Old Covenant temple

9:15-23           The New Covenant blood

9:24-10:12      The New Covenant temple

10:13-25         The New Covenant life

10:26-39         Persevering in faith

11:1-16           Faith looking for fulfilment — from creation to Abraham

11:17-40         Faith waiting for us — from Abraham to the Exile

12:1-17           True sons and true heirs

12:18-29         Arriving at the true mountain

13:1-7             The true worship of God

13:8-16           The true priesthood of God

13:17-25         Summary — following your leaders

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Expository Notes on the Song of Songs

Something else I've been working on, which I thought I would post. As the text indicates, it is one in a series, in fact the last of three.

Introduction

As we look at the Song of Songs, the outstanding challenge is to find the Song’s theological centre — what has the Song got to do with God and with the great theological themes of the Bible?

To answer this, I want to take our minds back to thinking about the Song’s genre — what kind of book is it?

I said in my first talk that it belongs in the genre of Wisdom literature — works in the Bible that basically look at the meaning of life, what life is all about and what the godly life consists of.

And here, the Song’s mention of Solomon performs a very important function, for — whether or not Solomon had anything to do with the authorship, and whether or not he is the key character — it draws the thoughts of the reader not just to a person but to an era.

In 1 Kings 4:20-22 Solomon’s reign is identified as the ‘golden age’ of Israel:

Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

1 Kings 10:21-22 emphasises the practical results:

All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver, it was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon. For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

And thus 1 Kings 4:25 presents a picture of contentment:

And Judah and Israel dwelt in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon.

A ‘rose-tinted’ view

This picture in this part of King’s is deliberately presented through ‘rose-tinted’ spectacles. We also read in 1 Ki 5:13 that,

King Solomon conscripted labourers from all Israel —thirty thousand men.

Later this formed the basis of the complaint brough to Solomon’s son and heir, Rehoboam, by Jeroboam on behalf of the people in 1 Kings 12:4:

Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.

But we are encouraged to think of Solomon’s reign as a ‘golden age’, even though, realistically it was not entirely golden. And this has important implications for the Wisdom literature.

The ‘end’ of the Exodus

In terms of biblical theology, the reign of Solomon, and specifically the bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple, marks the end of the Exodus.

This is the point at which the wanderings of the Ark come to an end — it finds its permanent home in the place God promised would be built for his name to dwell. At the same time, this is why God brought the people out of Egypt — so that they would come into their own land, where they could serve him “without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all [their] days” (cf Lk 1:74-75).

And yet, as the ‘wisdom’ books survey the situation in which Israel finds itself, it turns out that the ‘golden age’ is, as they say, ‘not all that’. At one level, there is satisfaction, as the passages from 1 Kings suggest. At another level, however, many of life’s great questions are as imponderable as ever.

Thus, for example, as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes looks out from his palace at what life is like in Jerusalem under his rule, you can almost hear him ask, like Bob Geldof after the first Live Aid concert was over, “Is that it?”

Is this all we’ve been aiming for, all these years? Because if it is, then it does seem a bit of a let-down.

The Fruits of Salvation and the Hierarchy of Needs

And by its dedication to Solomon, the Song of Songs places itself in the same context and therefore can be claimed to address the same question: Is that it? Is this what we were aiming for?

The psychologist Abraham Maslow was famous for identifying a so-called ‘hierarchy of needs’. Our essential needs are air, water, food, shelter, sleep and so on. When these needs are met, however, we turn our attention to other needs — security, friendship, social belonging, status, entertainment, etc.

According to Maslow, we cannot attend to the ‘higher’ needs until the basic needs are met. But once those basic needs are met, we do indeed move on to the quest for othe things.

Israel’s history can similarly be thought of in terms of a ‘hierarchy’ of needs. At first, the need was sheer survival — a child for Abraham, then the threat posed by the Egyptians to the survival of the tribe. Later, there was the need of a land, and security from their enemies.

But by the ‘Golden Age’ of Solomon, these needs had clearly been met. The Israelites are “as many as the sand by the sea”. They have security and prosperity. God’s promises have been met, they have what they had hoped for.

In this situation, as Maslow says, our attention can finally turn to the highest of our needs, and so the Wisdom literature of the Bible, asks what life is, finally, all about. What do we need, for example, when we’ve got everything else? To this question, the Song of Songs gives a surprising answer.

The greatest is love

In 8:7 we read this:

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.

According to the Song of Songs, love — specifically, the kind of love that the Song has been describing — is better than all one’s material blessings combined.

Compared with other blessings of life, this is the greatest blessing that one can receive in the providence of God.

The Death of the Beloved and the Death of Love

And yet — in the same breath, the Song of Songs recognizes that even this love cannot satisfy. 8:6 reads:

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame.

Within the present world order, this verse immediately forces us to recognize two potential threats to human love - the death of the beloved and the death of love. Love is strong as death — but death still happens. And jealousy —the the response to love threatened by an outsider —also happens.

And so towards the end of the Song, when we might have hoped for a note of ‘happily ever after’, we have a reminder that the death of the beloved, and even the possibility of the death of love —threatens the lovers.

But the Song has the threat of loss hanging over it generally. 3:1-4 and 5:2-8 particularly express this threat, but it is echoed in 1:7; 2:15; 6:1, 11-12, 13; 8:1-2 and 11.

And then there is the refrain found in 2:7 and repeated in 3:5 and 8:4:

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the hinds of the field, that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please.

This suggests that even love itself may come at the wrong time, in the wrong place or (most frequently) for the wrong person. So whilst the Song on the one hand points to love between a man and a woman as the greatest blessing, it also points to the fragility of love. Love is great, but it is not ‘the answer’ for which the Wisdom literature looks.

The Land as Theological Contact

So what is ‘the answer’. Naturally, it is God, but how does the Song of Songs point us to God, if not via the approach of medieval allegory?

One of the things we may overlook in the Song of Songs is its references geography. Jerusalem is mentioned eight times, Zion once and there are a number of other geographical references:

1:14 En-Gedi; 2:1 Sharon; 3:9 Lebanon; 4:1 Mt Gilead; 4:8 Lebanon, Amana, Senir, Hermon; 4:11, 15 Lebanon; 6:4 Tirzah; 6:5 Gilead; 7:4 Heshbon, Bath Rabbim, Lebanon, Damascus; 7:5 Mt Carmel; 8:11 Baal Hamon.

These references may easily be missed, because we expect to see them, but also (paradoxically) because we are generally unfamiliar with the locations. On the one hand, they give us a vaguely ‘religious’ impression of the environment, as we expect in the Bible, but on the other hand, they stir no particular emotion.

Yet, as I said in the first week, the emotions are exactly what the Song of Songs should stir. And we ought to consider the possibility that there is meant to be an ‘emotionality’ arising precisely out of some of these geographical references.

This is even more so, I would suggest, when we consider some of the geographical references that do catch our eye.

The land as an image of the lovers

Take 4:1 and 4, for example:

Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. [...] Your neck is like the tower of David, built for an arsenal, whereon hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors.

Or 7:4-5,

Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.

Michael Fox comments,

... the metaphors offer little information about how the lovers look, often seeming actually to interfere with the formation of a mental picture of them ... For me it is the imagery itself that makes the sharpest, most enduring impression, and I think that this is the author’s intention.

And I agree with him — we are meant to be thinking not just about the girl, but precisely about the thing to which she is being compared. But why is this, and what is the effect?

Love songs of places

 Let us consider, for a moment, some modern examples of love songs which use a similar device for their effect. What, for example, are these words talking about?

Summer journeys
To Niag’ra
And to other places aggra-
vate all our cares
We’ll save our fares

I’ve a cozy little flat in
What is known as old Manhattan
We’ll settle down
Right here in town.

We’ll have Manhattan
The Bronx and Staten Island, too
It’s lovely going through
The zoo.

So far, you’d hardly recognize it as a love song. But then we come to the chorus:

The great big city’s a wondrous toy
Just made for a girl and boy
We’ll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy.

It is a love song — but is it a song about love, or is it a song about a city? Well, of course, it is both. But the impact of the song depends to some extent on how well you know the reference points. Very few people this side of the Atlantic will know what street might possibly compare with Mott Street in July, for example.

And there is another level on which the song works, for the better you know these locations, the more the song will have other resonances — to other times, to other experiences and to other significances. To take an example, think of the different resonances produced in the older resident of England by these words (even though they have an American author!):

That certain night, the night we met,
there was magic abroad in the air,
There were angels dining at the Ritz
and a nightingale sang in Berkley Square.

Once again, any English speaker can appreciate the sentiment, but for certain people, of a certain generation, this is not just a love-song, it is an anthem!

A love song of a place

Now let us try to put ourselves in the position of an informed reader of the Song of Songs — someone for whom Lebanon, or the slopes of Mt Gilead, or Heshbon or, of course, Jerusalem are not just vague far off places, not even locations on a map, but icons of an era and symbols of an identity.

Michael Fox, mentioned earlier, takes the view that a major aim of the Song is to give a picture of the land as well as the lovers. And here, Harold Fisch argues in Poetry with a Purpose, the Song finds its point of contact with the rest of Scripture:

There is a kind of imaginative overspill, as the rapture of the lovers overflows into the sphere of geography, transforming the whole land into an object of love.

But this is not just any land — it is not Assyria, or Egypt, much less America or England. It is the land of God’s promise — and moreover, the land which God himself loves.

In Isaiah 62:4, speaking of the restoration of Israel, the prophet says:

You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My delight is in her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.

Fisch also observes how in 4:12-15 the Song, as he puts it, “becomes a poem about a garden rather than a girl”:

A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices — a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.

And Ellen Charry, in an article on the Song of Songs, comments, “By use of garden and plant metaphors, the erotic garden of the Song becomes the woman herself”.

Thus, I suggest, the language of the Song of Songs finds its meeting point with the rest of Scripture —and hence with the others themes of Scripture —in its geographical and metaphorical references to the land.

The Song of Songs focuses our thoughts on the land as a metaphor of love, and finds there a contanct point with the theology expressed elsewhere in Scripture of God as the lover of the land in which he has caused Israel to dwell.

Summary

Our own experience of the use of geographical references in love songs shows how they can evoke in us feelings of pride, patriotism, nostalgia and so on. My suggestion is that the theological message of the Song of Songs begins with similar associations that ought to form in our minds (and would form, if we were similarly ‘brought up on’ the geography of this land at its associated history).

As informed ‘singers’ of the Song of Songs, we would sing of love, and be reminded, perhaps of our own loves. But we would be subtly sidetracked into other meditations — on the time when Solomon ruled and the children of Israel were as many as the sand on the seashore, whilst every man dwelt under his vine and fig-tree.

And we would think, maybe, of what happened to the Covenant Promises of God, and whether Israel would rise again. And we would think, ultimately, of God’s proclaimed love for Israel — a love for which, the Song of Songs suggests, the experience of love between a man and a woman is, in some way a signpost and a foretaste.

Conclusion

In fact, if we understand the Song of Songs working at this level, then we find ourselves sharing the same conclusions as the medieval allegorists — that the Song of Songs is indeed about the love of God for his people and the love of Christ for the church.

The difference is that we have reached this point without needing to allegorize. The Song of Songs remains a song about (and for) human lovers. And it extols human love and its accompanying sexual expression as the greatest of divine blessings.

But at the same time, through its theme of loss (rather than through the mechanism of allegory), it pushes us beyond human love to ‘something more’ and, through the language of the land, points us to the Covenant of God and hence to the God of the Covenant.

And, as the rest of Scripture points out, he is our true divine lover preparing us for a marriage with him of which human love and marriage are but a pale reflection.

John Richardson

28 April 2010

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Expository notes on 1 Timothy 2:9-15

We are preaching through 1 Timothy on Sunday mornings, and I’ve been working on these notes for the benefit of our lay preachers. Given the effort involved, I thought I’d post them here.

As before, the key to preaching/interpreting this section of 1 Timothy is to set it in the context as a whole. Overall, this is the command to be given through Timothy in 1:3 that ‘certain men’ (undoubtedly, people in the Ephesian church) should cease teaching false doctrine that, according to 1:7, had something to do with the Old Testament law.

This false doctrine was imperilling the spiritual lives of individuals (1:6;19, cf 6:21). It was leading to ‘speculations’ (1:4 —NIV “controversies”), rather than encouraging faith in the gospel and the love which flows from it, and “meaningless talk” (cf 6:20, “godless chatter”), instead of true teaching and the testimony of the gospel.

The heart of this gospel is given in the ‘trustworthy saying’ of 1:15: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and the fact that one of the sinners saved was Paul, saved when he was persecuting the church, shows that it is all of grace.

Meanwhile, the false teaching was disrupting the church, and an internally disrupted church becomes a socially disruptive church, known for its faults, and disturbing the local community rather than acting as salt and light.

Thus at the beginning of chapter 2, Paul recalls the church to what it should be like: a community of prayer for the salvation of all people, because this is what God wants (2:4). They are saved through the mediatory death of Christ, which is itself the testimony born by Jesus (2:6 —which he upheld publicly before Pontius Pilate, 6:13, cf the kings and those in authority of 2:2). And from this flowed Paul’s (true) commission to preach the gospel of grace to the Gentiles — the gospel which Paul now wants re-emphasised in Ephesus.

The men, specifically and in particular, should be giving the lead here, not quarrelling amongst themselves but praying as Paul has instructed all should pray.

But why has Paul picked on the men? (The word in v 8 is anēr, which can be an adult male or a husband, but only rarely ‘people’, and certainly not here.)

He now goes on to address ‘women’ (NB, not ‘the women’). Clearly, therefore, there is something about the men as men that matters to what he is saying, and equally there is something about women as women.

The genders, however, are not treated by Paul in isolation but in relationship to one another. Almost invariably, where Paul speaks about or to men as men, it is in relation to women as women.

And so here: we must assume Paul speaks as he does to the men and the women because he has something to say about their relationship with one another — as indeed is born out in 2:12. But still, why this concern here?

The answer lies, I suggest, in the subject matter which begins in chapter 3 with the same words as began 1:15, “This is a trustworthy saying ...” It would be very easy to overlook the importance of this, and also its positioning in the flow of the text.

In 1:15 it introduces the central tenet of our faith. In 4:9 it introduces another fundamental statement about our faith (given in 4:10). In 3:1, then, it cannot merely be an aside, or a ‘please note’ comment. Rather, it is central to the points he is making.

He is writing the letter because false teaching is disrupting the church. How is the false teaching to be eliminated and replaced with true teaching which will stabilize the church and restore it to its proper role and function towards the world? 

Overall, what he is writing is about “how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Ti 3:15). Central to this will be the “noble task” of the overseer. This is why he draws attention to this aspiration. But what should the overseer be like? The qualities to which Paul refers in chapter 3 are familial, relational, qualities (beginning with being “the husband of but one wife” — Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, gives examples of polygamous marriages around this time). And this is why Paul has first had to deal with the individual qualities of men and women, addressing their weaknesses and failings.

Significantly, Paul did not go straight from the false teachers of chapter 1 to the ‘noble overseers’ of chapter 3. If he had, then those who thought of themselves as possible candidates to replace the false teachers might not have seen the faults prevalent throughout the whole church and, no doubt, affecting themselves. First, he has to recall the church to its true task of seeking the salvation of all people — this is why Christ died for sinners (1:15), and this is what God wants for everyone (2:4). The aspiring bishop must first know that is purpose behind the task to which he aspires.

The discussion of men and women is introduced first in this context. Before Paul can talk about the households from which the leaders should be drawn, he must talk about the failings of the men and women who individually and collectively comprise those households.

The failings of the men were addressed in 2:8 by the command to them to be leading in prayer, not taking up their time in the business of disputing amongst themselves.

The instructions to the women begin in 2:9 with a call to ‘clothe themselves’ appropriately. The English translations treat this first of all as a literal instruction about dress: “I also want women to dress modestly ...” (NIV). However, the section ends with an instruction which is clearly metaphorical: “... [dress] with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God” (2:10). 2:9, referring to the mode of dress also uses a word which is used at the end of v15 with reference to the manner of life: “propriety”.

Moreover, the verb translated “dress” elsewhere means “adorn”, “make oneself beautiful”:

For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. (1 Pe 3:5, NB Peter refers to the godly qualities of the women as the means to this beautifying.)

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. (Re 21:2)

I would suggest, then, that Paul begins his admonition to the women by calling on them to beautify themselves with the qualities of modesty (NIV “decency”) and propriety (not to ‘dress down’ with ‘modest clothing’) and to compliment this with outward “good deeds”. It is these qualities, not expensive clothing and hairstyles, which the women of the church should ‘display’ to the world, because they ought to accompany a profession of godliness (2:10). In other words, Paul does not encourage ‘dowdiness’, but he does encourage personal qualities as the thing which should be most sought after and most noticeable amongst the Christian women.

Secondly, what women are learning about the gospel should also not lead to them being a ‘disruptive’ force. In those times women sometimes did learn ‘esoteric’ subjects, such as religion and philosophy (see Cohick, op cit). As we see later, however (5:13), some were not putting this new learning to good use.

Such instruction and learning, however, generally took place in the home or homes of disciples (see 2 Tim 3:6), and would have been much more personal than the situations we tend to envisage when we think of ‘teaching’. And one thing Paul does not allow is that (at very least in that context) a woman should instruct a man.

Why not? Modesty and propriety might have something to do with it, but so too does the fundamental relationship of men and women. It is possible that Paul means no woman should instruct any man. It seems more likely, however, that he means no wife should instruct her husband (NB the change from plural to singular: “a woman to teach or to have authority over a man”), or perhaps (also?) someone else’s husband.

For Paul, Adam and Eve are the archetypal ‘couple’ (compare 1 Cor 11:3-12; Eph 5:31). In the creation order, Eve was formed as the companion to Adam and (as Eph 5 indicates) their relationship ought to have modelled or imaged that of Christ and the Church, just as every marriage ought to now. The Fall, moreover, entailed some reversal of this ordering. Adam “listened to” (ie obeyed) his wife (Ge 3:17) — and apparently was silent when the encounter with the snake took place (Ge 3:6). There is thus not only an impropriety in a woman exercising authority over a man but a danger in the man being on the receiving end of this.

In the context, we should, I suggest, see this as addressing the issue of what godly families should be like, and indeed Paul ends with a reference to such. The meaning of ‘being saved through childbearing’ is difficult, but most likely it refers to the life of the godly household and partnership. In 5:10, the godly widow is “well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children (teknotropheō, compare 2:15, teknogonia)”.

In short, we have here instructions for the example women should set in the community and the life they should lead in the family.

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Moses: "Lessons from my father-in-law"

Recently I have been on a preachers' conference where we all had to prepare a 'sermonette' on a given Bible passage for a seven-minute presentation and critique. Mine was on Exodus 18, a chapter which looks obvious, but which contains all sorts of other possibilities. On a 'waste not, want not' basis, I thought I might as well put online what I did. And here it is:

The Future People of God

Introduction

"Nothing is impossible to the man who doesn’t do it himself. Any real success in business will be built on the endeavours of others, so surround yourself with good people and give them their head."

So wrote Tony Marchington, Manager of a firm providing IT services to the Pharmaceutical Industry, when advising people on the importance of delegation.

And that might appear to be the message of Exodus 18. Moses, the man of God, is attempting to do everything himself, until Jethro, the priest of Midian and father-in-law to Moses, turns up and shows him a better way to organize his workload.

And that is certainly what happens. But there is more — vastly more — than that to Exodus 18.

Zipporah’s action

Jethro’s visit reconnects Moses with his past — a past which Moses might have been trying to forget — for he comes to Moses bringing back his wife Zipporah whom, v 2 tells us, Moses had ‘sent away’.

Moreover, there is a definite formality to this visit. In v 6 we read Jethro had sent a message to Moses in advance: “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, with your wife and her two sons.”

This is not just a hint to put the kettle on. Jethro is bringing Zipporah back, at a busy time for Moses himself. Notice, this was Jethro’s idea, not Moses’s. And if we think back to the last time we saw Zipporah, we might understand why.

Back in chapter 4, we read how, having met with God at the burning bush, Moses had made an excuse to Jethro to leave home with his daughter — an excuse which wasn’t quite true (4:18):

Please let me go back to my kindred in Egypt and see whether they are still living.

Notice, not, “I’m off to deliver Israel.” And then — to our complete astonishment — we read in 4:24 how, on the way, “the Lord met him [Moses] and sought to kill him” — the same thing Pharaoh had ‘sought’ to do when he found out Moses had killed an Egyptian.

And Moses’s life is only saved by the intervention of Zipporah. Seizing a flint knife, she cut off her son’s foreskin and touched it to Moses’s feet with the words, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” And Moses was spared.

Explanation

But why this action? Why was it necessary? Why was it effective? And how does it affect chapter 18?

What it tells us (obviously) is that Moses had not circumcised his son. But that tells us a lot about Moses, for Moses had called this son ‘Gershom’, meaning ‘The Alien Place’, because (Moses said at the time), “I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.”

And Moses, the alien, hadn’t bothered to do for his son — his own firstborn, notice — what God’s covenant required, namely to circumcise him. Moses, it seems, had lost heart and faith.

But God, we are told in 2:24, had remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and called Moses and sent him to be the deliverer.

Who, though, was he going to deliver? Moses had fled Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian who was attacking a Hebrew, “one of his own people”, the text says. But Gershom was a half-cast — a painful reminder that Moses lived amongst non-Hebrews.

So what was the point of circumcising him? Zipporah’s act, therefore, is not just bold but brilliant, for she sees how the Lord himself required that Moses must own his alien family: the alien son must be circumcised, the Midianite wife must have her ‘bridegroom of blood’, the blood of the covenant..

Jethro

Yet Moses sent her away — we don’t know when, but perhaps soon after, since she has not been mentioned since then.

Butnow in a second act of boldness and brilliance, Jethro brings her back. And when Moses has finished telling him the details of what God has done, it is Jethro, the priest of Midian, who gives the appropriate theological verdict (18:10):

Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh. ¹¹ Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because he delivered the people from the Egyptians, when they dealt arrogantly with them.

Jethro has had his conversion moment. And we may be sure that Zipporah’s report has had something to do with his understanding.

He knows that the Lord is Lord — greater than all gods. And the evidence of this is v 12: Jethro, the priest of Midian, offers sacrifice to the God of Israel, and then eats a fellowship meal — a covenant meal with Moses, Aaron and the elders of Israel “in the presence of God.”

The next time we see this happening will be up Mount Sinai, by God’s own invitation, in chapter 24.

Delegation

So what about the delegation of work that he urges on Moses? This is also a godly insight from an alien to God’s people.

First, Jethro sees the wrongness of Moses’ approach to being the ‘deliverer’ of God’s people and the spokesman for God. Specifically, he sees it is not good for Moses to be alone — 18:14, 18. Moses, as the new leader of a new people, must learn the lesson Adam learned as the first leader of the human race.

Secondly, he sees how to overcome the problem: to educate the people in God’s ways, vv 19-20:

... teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do.

Thirdly, he sees the need to choose the right helpers in the work, v 21:

You should also look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain

And fourth, he sees the importance of this to God’s purposes, v 23:

If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people will go to their home in peace.

The word translated ‘home’ is literally ‘their place’. But where is this ‘place’ — is it each man’s tent, or is it the place referred to in Ex 23:20 (also Deut 1:31)?

I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

Jethro sees a people worn out by standing around all day, who, if they follow his advice, will complete the Exodus and arrive at their destination in better shape!

And v 24 tells us, “Moses listened to [the voice of] his father-in-law” — a phrase which means he obeyed that word of advice.

Jethro had once given him a home, a job and a wife. That wife had once saved him from God’s own wrath. Now Jethro saves all Israel from an impossible system and encourages God’s word to be passed on to all.

Lesson

What does it teach us? It teaches us what Genesis 12:3 teaches us: that the blessing of Israel is for the whole world. Exodus 18:10 says, literally, that Jethro blessed the Lord, and the Lord had blessed him.

And through the blessing brought to this Gentile by Moses, blessing had returned on Israel.

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