Does Matthew 18:20 apply only to "our assemblies"?

Does Matthew 18:20" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 18:20 apply only to "our assemblies"?

That is looking at the truth backwards. In this passage, the Lord informs us that a church (v 17) is His dwelling place (v 20). As such, He gives it authority to administer His wishes (v 18). So it is the Lord Who determines which group is His dwelling place. This truth doesn’t belong to "us." It is God’s universal truth. Some may "claim" the verse, but that doesn’t make them an assembly.

We learn from this passage some of the privileges and responsibilities of an assembly. Wherever God has worked and planted assemblies, they do not become "part of us." They are the Lord’s, purchased with "the blood of His Own." Wherever He has gathered believers to His name, they are His dwelling place and act with His authority. We do not have a monopoly on this truth, but it should be clear that any groups to which this applies will be building according to the same pattern we are seeking to follow.

David Oliver
Other pages in this section

About this site

Why does God allow us to experience trials and suffering?

Why does God allow his children to suffer trials?

The question of personal suffering is relevant to all of us. Either we are experiencing pain right now, have just emerged from a trial or we are about to enter one. Suffering is universal. Our reactions to suffering, however, are varied. The first question that usually occurs to a victim of pain is “What is God doing to me?”

The following answer to this question assumes that you are believer in Christ – that you are already saved – and that God has sent you a personal problem. Another relevant question you may have is “Why does God allow pain and suffering to exist?

Job, the patient sufferer, tells us a few insights to answer the question of trials in the life of a believer.

Job 23:10" TARGET="_blank">Job 23:10 “He knows the way that I take, and when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold”

Each of the words of this verse gives us insight into how God uses trials to work in our lives:

1. God knows

“He knows” – with those two words Job answers the unexplainable. Without knowing the why or the where to source of his trials, Job knew that God was in control of the world and therefore in control of life’s trials.

He knows you and the circumstances of your trial. He sees your checkbook. He hears how your children talk to your. He knows how your husband drinks. He knows how your heart aches. He knows your confusion. He sees you when you lie awake at night. He sees all of the parts of your trial. You may feel abandoned and forgotten, but God knows what is happening. He is aware. He knows. Can you be comforted in your trial by simply knowing that God is not ignorant of your plight?

Job was content to wait for God to show him the outcome at some future point in time. But for the meantime, he was satisfied to say “God knows”

2. He knows my way

God can see where I am going even if I can’t. There is a destination to the way that I take. I don’t know where this trial will end, but God does. Can you take strength from the fact that when he is done, you will be better off spiritually than you were before.?

Job 23:14" TARGET="_blank">Job 23:14 For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind.

3. When

There is usually a time limit to the duration of the trial. It won’t last forever. God’s work in you may take some time, but there will be and end. He will put you on your knees. He will make you feel the weakness and frailty of your humanity. Changing a person’s outlook through trials is a slow process. So you ask, when will the trial end? Answer: When He has tried me.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peacable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 12:11

4. He has tried me

Why does God have to try me? Can’t he just leave me alone? I haven’t sinned, so why is he trying me?

Notice that Job uses the word “tried” instead of “punished”. If you are trying to find a connection between your actions and your suffering, perhaps you are simply being tried. Trials are different than consequences.

The following verse tells us of suffering because of a cause:

“But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 1 Peter 4" TARGET="_blank">1 Peter 4

If you are in jail for your crimes, or divorced because of your drug addition, your suffering cannot be called a trial. The people you hurt as a result of your actions are suffering trials. But what you are suffering is called a consequence. It is a result directly related to your bad decisions. It is a consequence. The solution for this kind of suffering is for you is to repent of your sin, ask forgiveness to those you have harmed, make restitution and pursue a different path.

If however, you are suffering a trial, like Job, you are probably on your face before God searching in vain for why this has happened.

Job’s cry – “I have done nothing wrong, but yet God is bringing me suffering. He is TRYING me.”

Job 23:7" TARGET="_blank">Job 23:7 There an upright man could argue with him, and I would be acquitted forever by my judge.

To try something is to test it. Trying a bridge by putting weight on it is not to cause it to collapse, but to prove that the bridge is capable of holding what the engineer intended.

Instead of asking yourself “why caused God to do this to me?” you should ask “what is God trying to show through me?”

God is the teacher and you are the student. This test is not so much about God finding out how much you can bear. He already knows you better than you know yourself. The test is about you finding out about you. When he is done, you will know more about the endurance of your faith, your weak points and what you can do for God in the future.

5. I shall come forth as gold

Job knew that he was being tested by God. Job received an “A” on his faith test. Job learned at least three imporant concepts on his test.

1. One thing he learned by trial is that God is good even if we experience things we think are bad.

“Naked I came into the world, and naked I will leave. God gave and God took away, blessed be the name of the Lord”

“Shall we not receive both good and evil from the Lord?”

Early on the story of Job, his wife came to a very different conclusion about these questions.

“Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

She wanted to curse God. Anger, hate and resentment were spilling out of her mouth. She wanted it to end. Die. Get it over with now. She wanted to throw away all spiritual integrity. What is the point of faithfulness if this is what God does? She failed the test.

It’s the last thing we hear her say. She disappears from the story. Perhaps like some today, she left her husband for a variety of reasons: a bankruptcy, an illness, the loss of a child. In Job’s case, the scene closes with Job sitting in ashes, covered in sores and worst of all, alone. She walked out.

Trials show how much control we give to the Holy Spirit. Perhaps Mrs. Job wasn’t even a believer. Maybe her church taught her that being a believer would make her wealthy. Perhaps she believed that God’s will for her was her happiness. Believers shouldn’t get sick. When “claiming” God’s promises for her failed.

In Christ’s parable of the good seed and the four soils, one of the false believers pictured there was the shallow ground. The seed sown on the shallow ground sprouted. It looked like it would take hold. There was an initial interest, but it turned out to be false. When persecutions arise, the plants wither and die. No life and hence, no fruit.

However, Job shows the gold inside. He passed the test. He was real.

2. A second lesson Job learned from his test is that we can’t see the future. We must wait to see God’s hand even if there is complete darkness.

Job 23:17" TARGET="_blank">Job 23:17 yet I am not silenced because of the darkness, nor because thick darkness covers my face.

“I shall come forth” means that God is in control. There is and end not only in regards to time but also in purpose. God is working on us.

God showed the gold in Job. In fact, Job’s life reflects God better after being refined. The gold in his life was bright in chapter 1. He is a man of integrity. He prays daily for his children. He has respect from his peers for his sterling character. He honors God with his sacrifice. In the end, he shows the same consistency, but with more wisdom and even greater blessing.

God didn’t promise Job any recompense for his suffering during the trial. But the physical situation of Job was even better after the trial. We may not come out of a trial as a rich man, but the lessons we learn from hard experiences are invaluable. Although we wouldn’t want to repeat the trial, we wouldn’t want to have missed the experience.

3. A third lesson Job learned is that God always has something to teach us no matter what our spiritual state is.

Job learned more about God in the trial than he knew before. Job was a great man of God before the trial. Even God says “there is no one like my servant Job.” In the closing chapters of the book, however, we see Job learning that he is “vile”. Why? Was God wrong in His assessment of Job? No. In comparison with all other men on the planet, Job was the highest example of godliness. But in comparison with the holiness of God in heaven, Job saw his true nature – sinful. When he learns more about God and His holiness, Job comes out of the story looking better than ever.

Conclusion

Keep in mind the words from Job’s brilliant statement about trials:

“He knows the way that I take, and when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold”

Shad Sluiter

Other pages in this section

About this site

Could you explain "captivity to the law of sin," Romans 7:23?

Could you explain "captivity to the law of sin," Romans 7:23" TARGET="_blank">Romans 7:23?

Four laws are in the passage.

   1. "The law of God" is spiritual, holy, just, good (verses 12,14), While the law cannot justify (3:20), in chapter 7 Paul demonstrates that the law cannot sanctify.
   2. "The law of my mind" (verse 23) consents that the law of God is good (verses 16, 18).
   3. "The law of sin" is a principle which opposes the expression of God's law in the life (verses 17-20), even though the inward man delights in it (verse 22), and the mind of the individual willingly desires to comply with it. Frustration and failure confront him at every turn. Thus hedged in, he finds himself taken "into captivity" as a prisoner of war by this sin principle in his members. The problem lies within self: "but I am carnal, sold under sin" (verse 14). Carnal self cannot be controlled by even a spiritual law. Deliverance is found alone through the resources of the risen, glorified Jesus Christ our Lord (verse 25).
   4. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (8:2).

W. Skates

Other pages in this section

About this site

Should a Christian voluntarily vote?

Should a Christian voluntarily vote?

This has probably never been more relevant than now. Evangelical leaders are insisting that Christians vote. They purport to teach this from the Bible. This is different from assembly teaching in the past, so respect and wisdom ask, "What has changed?"

Two suggestions may help us regain our perspective. First, the history of democracy in North America has roots in Christian principles, thus the designation, "Christian countries." A "mixed multitude" formed without a clear gospel has produced a constituency that makes the political world appear friendly to God. Pluralism and humanism, however, now threaten this "Christian government." Evangelicals see a "good world" becoming corrupted. More biblically, the world is removing its mask. Christian principles had weight in the past because of the gospel’s spiritual impact on society, not because the world had changed. Being "the salt of the earth" does not require Christian involvement in the world. The Christian preserves the culture by the truth he represents and presents. The world needs the gospel that grants life, rather than laws that guide living.

Second, evangelicalism’s present emphasis on political involvement appears to result from a shift of understanding and emphasis regarding future events. A growing part of evangelicalism no longer understands that the Lord’s coming precedes the tribulation and the millennium. This places a greater emphasis on improving the present world. It also blurs the distinction between God’s dealings in the past with an earthly people Israel and in the present with a heavenly people. The citation of Old Testament passages to support political involvement witnesses to this. Even evangelicals who believe in a pre-tribulation Rapture have been unduly influenced by those with wrong views of future events. Added to this is the danger that prosperity has historically made Christians more at home in this world. Rather than looking for the imminent coming of Christ, we become increasingly involved in the world.

The past teaching that Christians should not voluntarily vote is based on sound biblical principles. Christians are separate from a world system which is opposed to God and is not redeemable apart from the coming of Christ. Christians are not directed to improve the world, but to proclaim the gospel that condemns it and offers salvation from it.

D. Oliver
Other pages in this section

About this site

Is a head covering and woman

Is a head covering and woman’s silence appropriate for every gathering in the assembly’s building?

While many aspects of the assembly’s testimony centers in its place of meeting, the building is not a church nor is it sacred. The building doesn’t sanctify the gatherings in it. If the believers use the building to met when they plan conference meals or discuss building plans or mail tracts, this is not an assembly meeting. On occasion, such gatherings may take place after an assembly meeting. If the ladies choose to retain their head coverings, that doesn’t make it an assembly meeting. In fact, being without a head covering in that circumstance is as appropriate as it is when a sister is walking down the street.

Biblical injunctions requiring a sister’s silence do not apply to such gatherings, because the Christians have not "come together in assembly" (1 Corinthians 11:18," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:18, JND). In such a case, a woman’s wearing a head covering is optional and is in no way at variance with her entering into the discussions.

D. Oliver
Other pages in this section

About this site

Should a young person seek the counsel of parents and elders about dating?

Should a young person seek the counsel of parents and elders about dating?

In cultures where elders or parents do not arrange a couple’s marriage this is important. The influence of a society that discounts the permanence of marriage will test the strength of a Christian marriage. Finding the right partner is a crucial choice and must be made carefully, yet marriage is a life-long commitment of two who generally have no experience in making such a momentous choice.

How wonderful that Christians have a wise heavenly Father to guide them by means of prayer and His Word! It is never too early in Christian life for a believer to submissively ask the Lord if and whom he should marry (1Pe 5:7)." TARGET="_blank">1Pe 5:7). In addition, wise Solomon tells us twice that "In the multitude of counselors there is safety" (Pro 11:14; 24:6)." TARGET="_blank">Pro 11:14; 24:6). Parents and elders ought to be people a young person respects for their wisdom and experience. Friends who are both spiritual and objective are also good candidates for inclusion in the "multitude of counselors." The brother and the sister in Christ who begin to keep company are each responsible before the Lord to determine His will for them in this matter (Rom 14:12)." TARGET="_blank">Rom 14:12). They cannot make their choice merely on either the advice of respected counselors or the conviction of their "dating partner" that their relationship is the Lord’s will. The input of others, however, should be weighed carefully, prayerfully, and as objectively as possible. The choice to date is not an irreversible choice, but believers should not make that choice lightly. To be kind and fair to each other, they should choose to spend time together only if each one would consider the other to be a reasonable candidate for marriage. The insights of trusted counselors can be helpful in assessing the prospective partner’s spirituality, personality, capabilities, habits, reliability, family background, and overall compatibility.

Years before dating is an issue, parents and elders can cultivate a relationship with these believers that will foster trust and enable effective and helpful communication in this important area. Before their children are thinking about dating, parents can promote family discussions that will help their children recognize important features they should weigh when thinking of a relationship with prospective marriage partners.

D. Oliver

Other pages in this section

About this site

If a sister meets with the elders, should her head be covered?

If a sister meets with the elders, should her head be covered?

When elders meet to receive help from the Word of God regarding their responsibilities (Acts 20:17-35)" TARGET="_blank">Acts 20:17-35) or to make decisions regarding the care and direction of the flock, a sister should not be present. It is a meeting of elders. When the elders meet with a person to shepherd him (in this case, her), to hear how the individual was saved, or to discuss that individual’s coming into the fellowship, a sister who is present is expected to talk with them. If she is not expected to be silent, she should not be expected to wear a covering. These two truths are united in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and 14:34, 35, both being in the section of 1 Corinthians that deals with assembly gatherings.

D. Oliver
Other pages in this section

About this site

What is the meaning of BC and AD?

What is the meaning of BC and AD?

The terms B.C. and A.D. are the abbreviations for the years before the birth of Christ and the years since. It is erroneously thought that “A.D.” means “After Death”.

B.C. stands for “Before Christ” which is commonly known.

A.D. stands for “anno domini” or “The year of our Lord” in English. “After Death” would make no sense since Christ died at the age of 33. He therefore died in the year 33 A.D.

Although your study Bible might contain footnotes and references to specific years, the BC / AD system was not implemented until centuries after the birth of Christ. Most of the dates in the Bible are references to the number of years that a king reigned or when he died.

The year 0 B.C. is not believed to be accurate. There were errors made in calculating the dates on our Gregorian calendar that we use today. Most experts believe that Christ was born sometime between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C.

The Bible does not stress the importance of the year, nor the date on the calendar of the birth of Christ. What does divide history and indeed the whole human race is the work that Christ accomplished on the cross.

Hebrews 10:12" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 10:12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

In more recent times, the scientific community has tried to do away with naming the years after Christ. The newer secular abbreviations for dividing history have been renamed to CE and BCE. Although the new terminology does not change any numbers of the years, it changes the names of the time periods before and after Christ.

CE stands for "Common Era” “Common” means that convention states we use the Christian dates to measure years.
BCE stands for "Before the common era."

Other pages in this section

About this site

Why is the 70th week of Daniel still future?

What scriptural reason is there for stating as a fact that the seventieth week was cut off from the rest and is yet to be fulfilled?

The scriptural reason is understood by reading the passage (Daniel 9:24-27)." TARGET="_blank">Daniel 9:24-27). The seventy “hebdomads,” or periods of seven years are said by Gabriel to be “determined upon Daniel’s people (the Jews) and the holy city, to punish the transgressors. . . and to anoint the Most Holy.” Then, in verse 25, this whole period of 490 years is resolved into its constituents of 49 years (during which building operations were completed), then a further 434 years to the cutting off of the Messiah, that is 483" TARGET="_blank">is 483 years in all, or 7 years short of the total 490. Why is this? Because as Zechariah 11:10" TARGET="_blank">Zechariah 11:10 tells us, when “the staff, even Beauty,” is cut off (a description of the same event as the cutting off of Messiah), Jehovah’s covenant, which he had made with all the people, is broken, so that one period of seven years, or one “hebdomad,” still remains to be fulfilled. This will have its place when the prince of the people who destroyed the city (the Romans in 70 A.D.) will confirm a covenant with many for one week or period of seven years. The fact that He will break His covenant in the middle of the period, i.e., after 3 1/2 years, will not override the fact that this “hebdomad” will complete the 490 years determined on the Jews, to end with “anointing the Most Holy,” which will take place when Christ returns in glory to reign.

W.H.

Other pages in this section

About this site

Who recognizes overseers in a new assembly?

Who recognizes overseers in a new assembly?

Titus identified (Titus 1:5," TARGET="_blank">Titus 1:5, "ordain," appoint, designate) elders in assemblies where no oversight existed. The authority for this came from the Word of God, not apostolic authority. He was dependent on God for the wisdom required. To preserve each assembly, Titus used the inspired guidelines from Paul to point out overseers the Spirit produced. Each assembly recognized these men as elders.

God used experienced hands to plant the assemblies whose history appears in the New Testament, so the pattern seems clear. Where God uses men in making disciples (Matthew 28:19)," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 28:19), those men also teach assembly truth. They discern when God has formed an assembly with these believers. Later, as with Titus, they identify those who exhibit maturing characteristics of a shepherd. Heeding Proverbs 15:22," TARGET="_blank">Proverbs 15:22, they receive counsel from spiritually mature men. In light of 1 Timothy 3:6," TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 3:6, they wait for appropriate evidences of spiritual maturity in potential elders.

D. Oliver
Other pages in this section

About this site

Main Menu