Does Diversity in the Church Even Matter? by J.D. Greear

Over the next four days, I’ll be posting excerpts from a book I have coming out next year—called Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches that Send. This section deals with the increasingly relevant topic of racial and cultural diversity. What the world desires, the gospel alone can accomplish.

 “If I could do it over again, I would pursue a racially diverse church even if it meant Willow Creek became only half the size it is today.” I heard Bill Hybels make that statement at a breakfast I shared with him back in 2006. And it’s quite a statement considering that Hybels has been a pioneer of the modern megachurch movement, practically inventing the “seeker service.” Hybels built Willow Creek, a congregation that has exceeded 25,000 weekend attenders, on the “homogeneity principle,” the idea that you can reach more people if you package your “product” for a particular slice of society—in his case, professional, middle- to upper-class white people in the suburbs of Chicago.

Knowing his heart for evangelism, I pressed him: “So you would be willing to reach fewer people just so your church could be culturally diverse? Greater diversity outweighs total number of conversions?”

Without skipping a beat, Hybels replied, “That’s a false dichotomy, because the corporate witness of racially diverse churches in America would be more powerful, and would likely result in greater total number of conversions, than a numbers surge in any one congregation.”

In this chapter I want to press home Hybels’ point by arguing that the diversity of the church, reflecting the multi-ethnic nature of the body of Christ, is a powerful witness in today’s world, one specifically timely and prophetic for our generation. Our world knows multi-cultural diversity is beautiful, but try as they may, seem unable to achieve it. We have a chance to show that the gospel can accomplish what the world yearns for but cannot attain. And, in line with the dominant theme of this book, I want to show you that the real potential for a multi-ethnic movement lies in the planting of new churches, not simply the renovation of old ones—though both are important. Along the way I will share with you some things we have learned as we, a largely white church, have pursued multi-cultural diversification—insights that I hope both excite you about the possibilities as well as temper your expectations.

Why Even Try?

The first thing anyone who has tried to live multi-culturally will tell you is that it is difficult. Like a lot of things, it starts off rosy and novel with a lot of “Hey, aren’t we neat?” and “Isn’t that special?” kinds of pleasantries. But that sentimentality quickly wears off and people go back to wanting others to conform to them and looking suspiciously at those who don’t look like, talk like, or interpret life like they do.

So why even try? Is multi-culturalism just another fad we pursue for a few years and then abandon?

Not at all. The author of multi-culturalism is God.

From Genesis 12 onward, we see a subplot at work in the story of our redemption.  God is bringing back and bringing together the divergent ethnicities and cultures that sin has separated. The salvation that God promised to Abraham is not just an individual reconciliation with God (though that is primary); it is also an inter-communal, inter-cultural, and inter-racial reconciliation with one another.

On the day of Pentecost, the birth of the church, the author gives us a deliberate picture of unity among ethnic diversity. The Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, begin to preach the gospel in the languages of people from all around the world—languages they didn’t speak and likely had never heard. The significance of what happened cannot be overstated: the very first time the Holy Spirit preaches the gospel, he does so in multiple languages simultaneously.

This wasn’t a cool stunt or a one-time fluke, either.  It flows right out of the vision of the church Jesus painted for his disciples, a vision reclaimed out of the ashes of God’s purposes for the people of Israel. Jesus viewed God’s “house” as a place of worship for people from every nation: “My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:18). To the Apostle John, Jesus revealed that his kingdom consisted of believers from “every tribe and language and people and nation,” united, in all their multi-cultural glory, in worship around his throne (Revelation 5:9; 21:26).

The church between Pentecost and Revelation is to be a “sign” of this coming kingdom, an “already/not yet” picture of what is coming. Paul tells us that the unity in the church between people of diverse cultures and ethnic groups signifies to the world the multi-faceted wisdom of God (Ephesians 3:10–11).

Think about that statement! According to Paul, the wisdom of God is most clearly demonstrated not in eloquent, anointed preaching or exuberant, intense worship—but through racial and ethnic unity in the church.

In Acts 13:1–2, Luke takes special care to point out that the early church was an illustration of this unity. He lists out not only the names of the church leaders in Antioch, but gives their divergent nationalities. Paul and Barnabas were Jews, of course, though neither of them were born in Israel. Manaen was from Herod’s household, indicating a privileged Jewish upbringing. Simeon had the nickname “Niger” (which literally meant “black”), because he was from the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. Lucius was from Cyrene, modern-day Libya. In other words, of the five leaders mentioned, one is from the Middle East, one from Asia, one from the Mediterranean, and two are from Africa.

So why does Luke take the time to tell us the backgrounds and races of these church leaders? The information is seemingly trivial—it is never again referred to. In fact, we don’t hear anything about most of these leaders ever again. The only reason I can come up with is that Luke included the details to show us that the leadership in Antioch was multi-cultural. And is it a coincidence, then, that it is in Antioch that the followers of Jesus are first called “Christians”? In other words, when the world looked at the multi-cultural unity of the church, they called them by the name of “Christ,” because no other factor explained their unity.

When you bring up the topic of racial diversity in most churches, many people silently think to themselves, “Well, I’m not a racist. I don’t think other races are inferior. So, I’m good on this one!” But the point of God bringing us together in gospel unity is not simply to stop looking down on other races. God wants his church to reflect his love, a love that embraces people who are not like us. He wants the very makeup of his church to preach the gospel: that despite our racial variants we are united under one ancestor, Adam; one problem, sin; and one hope, salvation in Christ. He wants us to demonstrate to the world that this unity in Christ is weightier than anything that divides us. So when the Holy Spirit attacked Peter’s racism, he didn’t just command him to quit looking down on other races. He commanded Peter to embrace Cornelius, to go in and eat with him, and to worship with him.

So, if your metric for success here is just, “avoid being a racist,” you have yet to go where the gospel compels us. God’s not after racial neutrality; he wants a multi-cultural display.

Only 5.5% of American churches today qualify as “multi-cultural,” which sociologists generally define as no one race making up more than 80% of the congregation.[1] Full disclosure: at The Summit Church, we’re not quite there yet, but by God’s grace we’re getting close.

Multi-cultural diversity is in the DNA of the gospel, and a Spirit-filled church will supernaturally drift toward this diversification. We see this reflected in the history of Christian missions: Christianity is the most diverse, culturally versatile faith on the planet. Every other major religion has at least 80% of its followers grouped on a single continent. But Christianity has roughly 20% of its followers in Africa, 20% throughout Asia, 20% in Europe, 20% in North America, 20% in South America. Christianity, statistically speaking, has no dominant culture.

In this chapter I want to offer a number of suggestions, from a church “in progress,” about pursuing multi-cultural unity in the church.

[1] Curtiss Paul DeYoung, et al., United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 2.

The Saint Must Walk Alone

Over the years AW Tozer has spoken to my heart. He just seems to understand the deep frustrations of my inner being and has the knack of feeding my soul in just the right way. His words are not always easy to swallow, but they always nourish me.

Recently I read a chapter, “The Saint Must Walk Alone.” You can read it here, but I wanted to share the final paragraph.

“The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful ‘adjustment’ to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints.”

(Posted by John Thweatt)

The real meaning of "Joy to the World" - by Al Mohler

As Christmas Eve arrives we are reminded of the historic Christian prayer prayed by so many Christians through two millennia of Christian experience and bathed in Christian hope, “Even so Lord, come quickly.” But of course we can only utter that urgent prayer because the Lord did come and that’s why the truth of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ remains the only source for our hope. For this reason alone, Christians looking even at the devastating headlines of our days are not destroyed, we do not surrender to paranoia or to despair because God is on his throne and the Lord is coming. The hope for our salvation is exactly what we celebrate at Christmas when we celebrate the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to be reminded at Christmas of the fact that that celebration of incarnation is inherently eschatological. As Christmas Eve arrives, let’s remember one of those most famous and cherished Christmas hymns, “Joy to the World,” published first in 1719 and written by that great hymn writer, Isaac Watts. But even as it is so often sung at Christmas time and even as millions of Christians sing it as a Christmas carol, declaring the truth that the Lord has come in Bethlehem — that wasn’t what the hymn was about when it was written and that’s not what its words were originally intended to convey. Isaac Watts’ hymn, which begins with those famous words,  “Joy to the world the Lord is come, let Earth receive her King, let every heart prepare him room, let Heaven and nature Sing,” was written about the Lord’s second coming – not about his incarnation, not about his birth in Bethlehem.

Watts led in the development of hymns in the English tradition, drawing many of his hymn texts directly from the Psalms. “Joy to the World” is based upon Psalm 98, which declares creation’s joy when the Lord comes to rule and to judge. When we sing “Joy to the World the Lord is Come,” it applies when we talk about Bethlehem and when we rejoice in the gift of the infant Christ. But the song also reminds us that Christmas isn’t over; the promises of Christmas are not yet fulfilled.

Think about verse three of that hymn, “Joy to the World,” in which we read,

“No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.”

The reversal of the curse is promised in the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of his atoning work. Implicit in this third verse is the promise of the new creation. We live in light of that promise, even as we look back to Bethlehem as we celebrate Christmas.

The final verse of the hymn as it is sung now resounds with eschatological hope: “He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove, the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love, and wonders of His love, and wonders, wonders, of His love.”

Those words resound with final, ultimate, eschatological victory. The babe born in Bethlehem is the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. He is also the king who will rule on David’s throne, the heavenly victor who defeats sin and death, and the one who will rule the nations with truth and grace. That is what we pray to see and that is what we rightly sing at Christmas.

The promise was seen announced by angels to shepherds near Bethlehem, but the realization of that promise in fulness is what we pray for when we pray, “even so Lord, come quickly.”

This essay is based on devotional thoughts shares at the conclusion of the December 19, 2014 edition of The Briefing. http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/12/19/the-briefing-12-19-14/

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com.Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

"Jesus, What a Wonderful Name!!" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

True Woman '14: Nancy Leigh DeMoss—Jesus, What a Wonderful Name!

Nancy Leigh DeMoss gave this Scripture recitation about the life of Jesus at the True Woman 2014 National Women's Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 9, 2014.  "Jesus, What a Wonderful Name!"

God in a Manger by John MacArthur

Many people gladly celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas, only to ignore, shun, and reject Him the rest of the year. They don’t mind celebrating the birth of a baby, but they don’t want to hear about the Lord of lords. They sing of His nativity but brazenly reject His authority. They adore Him as an infant but will not pay homage to Him as the God-man. They can tolerate the trappings of Christmas—a manger, shepherds, wise men, and Joseph and Mary—but they cannot bear the advent of God in human flesh. Consequently the world ignores the core of all Christmas truth. And instead of honoring Jesus at Christmas, they are actually mocking Him.

The enemy must love the world’s Christmas celebration. He must revel in the blatant sin and blasphemy and rejection of Christ—all by people who suppose they are celebrating His birth! He must glory in the way people inoculate themselves against the truth of Christ by commemorating His birth with lip service while ignoring the point of it all—that Jesus is almighty God.

The Incarnation

Christmas is not about the Savior’s infancy; it is about His deity. The humble birth of Jesus Christ was never intended to be a façade to conceal the reality that God was being born into the world. But the modern world’s version of Christmas does just that. And consequently for the greater part of humanity, Christmas has no legitimate meaning at all.

I don’t suppose anyone can ever fathom what it means for God to be born in a manger. How does one explain the Almighty stooping to become a tiny infant? It was, of course, the greatest condescension the world has ever known or will ever know. Our minds cannot begin to understand what was involved in God’s becoming a man. We will never comprehend why He who was infinitely rich would become poor, assume a human nature, and enter into a world He knew would reject Him and kill Him.

Nor can anyone explain how God could become a baby. Yet He did. Without forsaking His divine nature or diminishing His deity in any sense, He was born into our world as a tiny infant.

People often ask me if I think Jesus cried, or if He needed the normal care and feeding one would give any other baby. Of course He did. He was fully human, with all the needs and emotions that are common to every human.

Yet He was also fully God—all wise and all powerful. How can both things be true? I don’t know. But the Bible clearly teaches that it is so. In some sense, Jesus voluntarily suspended the full application of His divine attributes. He didn’t give up being God but He willingly gave up the independent use of the privileges and powers that were His as God (Philippians 2:5-8). He chose to subjugate His will to His Father’s will (John 5:30; 6:38). Through all that He remained fully God.

Humanity and Deity

For nearly two thousand years, debate has been raging about who Jesus really is. Cults and skeptics offer various explanations. They say He is one of many gods, a created being, a high angel, a good teacher, a prophet, and so on. The common thread of all such theories is that they make Jesus less than God.

But let the Bible speak for itself. John’s gospel begins with a clear statement that Jesus is God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:1-3). Who is “the Word” spoken of in these verses? Verse 14 removes any doubt: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The biblical evidence is overwhelming that this child in the manger was the incarnation of God. For one thing, He was omniscient. John 2:24-25 says that, “Jesus, on His part . . . knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man.” Nathanael was shocked to discover that Jesus knew all about him before they ever met. It was enough to persuade him that Jesus was the Messiah (John 1:48-50). John 4 describes Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He knew everything about her (John 4:17-19, 29).

He also did the works of God, saying, “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves” (John 14:11). Jesus’ works are convincing proof that He is God. He began His miraculous ministry with a simple act—He created wine at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). Only God can create. Moreover, He healed people who were hopelessly ill. He gave a blind man eyes. He opened ears that had never heard. He restored withered limbs. He created enough fish and bread to feed thousands. He raised the dead simply by command.

While the glory of the Lord was shrouded by His human form, His power was on display throughout His ministry, bearing abundant witness to His deity. And yet, the world still works hard to deny Christ’s true nature. They’d prefer to keep the baby confined to the manger for all time. But as we’ll see next time, Jesus’ true nature cannot be ignored, suppressed, or concealed.

(Adapted from The Miracle of Christmas.) 

Mary's Magnificat by John MacArthur

Imagine how Mary must have felt when she was told by an angel that she would be the parent of the long-awaited Messiah—that she’d be responsible for raising and nurturing her Savior. How do you think you’d respond?

You’d no doubt find the responsibility overwhelming and intimidating. You might be instantly overcome with worry. You might even attempt to respectfully decline the position altogether.

That’s why Mary’s response to the angel’s prophecy in Luke 1:28-35 is so remarkable. She was just a young woman—a girl, really—but she reacted with the grace, wisdom, and spiritual maturity of a seasoned saint.

Meeting with Elizabeth

Mary, filled with joy and bubbling over with praise, hurried to the hill country to visit her relative, Elizabeth. There’s no suggestion that Mary was fleeing the shame of her pregnancy. It seems she simply wanted a kindred spirit to share her heart with. The angel had explicitly informed Mary about Elizabeth’s pregnancy. So it was natural for her to seek out a close relative who was both a strong believer and also expecting her first son by a miraculous birth, announced by an angel (Luke 1:13–17). While Elizabeth was much older—maybe even in her eighties, and had always been unable to conceive—and Mary was at the beginning of life, both had been supernaturally blessed by God to conceive. It was a perfect situation for the two women to spend time rejoicing together in the Lord’s goodness to both of them.

Elizabeth’s immediate response to the sound of Mary’s voice gave Mary independent confirmation of all that the angel had told her. Scripture says,

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:41–45)

Elizabeth’s message was prophetic, of course, and Mary instantly understood that. Mary had learned from an angel about Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Nothing indicates that Mary had sent word of her own circumstances ahead to Elizabeth. Indeed, Mary’s sudden arrival had all the hallmarks of a surprise to her relative. Elizabeth’s knowledge of Mary’s pregnancy therefore seems to have come to her by revelation—in the prophecy she uttered when the Holy Spirit suddenly filled her.

Mary’s Psalm of Praise

Mary replied with prophetic words of her own. Her saying is known as the Magnificat (Latin for the first word of Mary’s outpouring of praise). It is really a hymn about the incarnation. Without question, it is a song of unspeakable joy and the most magnificent psalm of worship in the New Testament. It is the equal of any Old Testament psalm, and it bears a strong resemblance to Hannah’s famous hymn of praise for the birth of Samuel. It is filled with messianic hope, scriptural language, and references to the Abrahamic covenant:

My soul exalts the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave;
For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed.
For the Mighty One has done great things for me;
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him.
He has done mighty deeds with His arm;
He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones,
And has exalted those who were humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
And sent away the rich empty-handed.
He has given help to Israel His servant,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and his descendants forever. (Luke 1:46-55)

It is clear that Mary’s young heart and mind were already thoroughly saturated with the Word of God. She included not only echoes of two of Hannah’s prayers (1 Samuel 1:11; 2:1–10), but also several other allusions to the law, the psalms, and the prophets.

Those who channel their religious energies into the veneration of Mary would do well to learn from the example of Mary herself. God is the only One she magnified. Notice how she praised the glory and majesty of God while repeatedly acknowledging her own lowliness. She took no credit for anything good in herself. But she praised the Lord for His attributes, naming some of the chief ones specifically, including His power, His mercy, and His holiness. She freely confessed God as the one who had done great things for her, and not vice versa. The song is all about God’s greatness, His glory, the strength of His arm, and His faithfulness across the generations.

Mary’s worship was clearly from the heart. She was plainly consumed by the wonder of His grace to her. She seemed amazed that an absolutely holy God would do such great things for one as undeserving as she. This was not the prayer of one who claimed to be conceived immaculately, without the corruption of original sin. It was, on the contrary, the glad rejoicing of one who knew God intimately as her Savior. She could celebrate the fact that God’s mercy is on those who fear Him, because she herself feared God and had received His mercy. And she knew firsthand how God exalts the lowly and fills the hungry with good things, because she herself was a humble sinner who had hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and was filled.

It was customary in Jewish prayers to recite God’s past faithfulness to His people (Exodus 15; Judges 5; Psalm 68; 78; 105; 114; 135; 136; 145; and Habakkuk 3). Mary followed that convention here in abbreviated fashion. She recalled how God had helped Israel, in fulfillment of all His promises. Now her own child would be the living fulfillment of God’s saving promise. No wonder Mary’s heart overflowed with such praise.

Mary’s Legacy

Mary herself never claimed or pretended to be anything more than a humble handmaiden of the Lord. She was extraordinary because God used her in an extraordinary way. She clearly thought of herself as perfectly ordinary. She is portrayed in Scripture only as an instrument whom God used in the fulfillment of His plan. She herself never made any pretense of being an administrator of the divine agenda, and she never gave anyone any encouragement to regard her as a mediatrix in the dispensing of divine grace. The lowly perspective reflected in Mary’s Magnificat is the same simple spirit of humility that colored all her life and character.

It is truly regrettable that religious superstition has in effect turned Mary into an idol. She is certainly a worthy woman to emulate, but Mary herself would undoubtedly be appalled to think anyone would pray to her, venerate images of her, or burn candles in homage to her. Her life and her testimony point us consistently to her Son. He was the object of her worship. He was the one she recognized as Lord. He was the one she trusted for everything. Mary’s own example, seen in the pure light of Scripture, teaches us to do the same.

(Adapted from Twelve Extraordinary Women.)

Five Points for Parents Who Want to Pass On the Faith by Kevin DeYoung

How is religion passed down across generations? That’s the theme of the new book Families and Faith by Vern L. Bengtson (with Norella M. Putney and Susan Harris). As an exercise in statistical and sociological research, there is nothing particularly biblical or spiritual about the book (though, interestingly, the author describes how at the end of the project he started going to church again and now is an active part of a local congregation). And yet, this doesn’t mean there is nothing to learn from books like this.

In the concluding chapter Bengtson suggests five things families should know, do, or remember if they want to pass on their faith to the next generation (195-98).

1. “Parents have more religious influence than they think.” One of the main themes in the book is that parental influence with respect to religion is not actually waning, despite the alarmist cries from watchdogs and worry-worts. The single most important factor in the spiritual and religious lives of adolescents continues to be their parents.

2. “Fervent faith cannot compensate for a distant dad.” It’s important for children to see religious role modeling in their parents. But personal piety is no substitute for the quality of the parent-child relationship. Parents who are warm and loving are more likely to pass on the faith than those that are distant and authoritarian. This is especially true when it comes to fathers. A relationally and spiritually distant dad is very difficult to overcome, despite the religious zeal of the mother.

3. “Allowing children religious choice can encourage religious continuity.” On the one hand, Bengtson argues that tight-knit religious communities with clear doctrinal and ethical boundary markers are more likely to pass on the faith from one generation to the next. On the other hand, families must allow for some flexibility. Children must not be afraid to explore the whats and whys of their parent’s faith, even if that exploration feels uncomfortable to mom and dad for a time.

4. “Don’t forget the grandparents.” This was the most eye opening theme in the book. In white middle class America, when we talk about the family we mean the nuclear family of mom and dad and their kids. Bengtson’s research shows the important role grandparents play in either subverting the faith of the parents or reinforcing it in their grandchildren. It makes sense: if our children are around grandparents (not to mention aunts and uncles and cousins) who all believe, faith will feel much more of a natural given.

5. “Don’t give up on Prodigals, because many do return.” In Bengtson’s sample, the prodigals who came home were the ones who knew they had parents waiting for them, ready to accept them if and when they returned to their roots. Don’t give up parents. Keep praying and keep on loving.

Overall, Bengtson argues that families are doing pretty well in passing along their faith to the next generation. Intact families do better than families with divorce, and religious homogenous parents are more successful than parents in interfaith marriages. Warm, affectionate parents–the kind kids admire and look up t0–do better than cold, distant parents. And these parents do better with the support of grandparents. But even when these ideals are missing, family mechanisms can compensate: “families are wonderfully resilient” (198).

The even better news is that our God is wonderfully gracious, faithful, and able to do more than we ask or imagine.

Mary: An Angelic Announcement by John MacArthur

When we first meet Mary in Luke’s gospel, it is on the occasion when an archangel appeared to her suddenly and without fanfare to disclose to her God’s wonderful plan. Scripture says, simply, “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke 1:26–27).

The Young Nazarene Woman

Mary is the equivalent of the Hebrew “Miriam.” The name may be derived from the Hebrew word for “bitter.” Mary’s young life may well have been filled with bitter hardships. Her hometown was a forlorn community in a poor district of Galilee. Nazareth, you may recall, famously bore the brunt of at least one future disciple’s disdain. When Philip told Nathanael that he had found the Messiah and the Anointed One was a Galilean from Nazareth, Nathanael sneered, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Mary had lived there all her life, in a community where, frankly, good things probably were pretty scarce.

Other details about Mary’s background can be gleaned here and there in Scripture. She had a sister, according to John 19:25. There’s not enough data in the text to identify accurately who the sister was, but Mary’s sister was herself obviously a close enough disciple of Jesus to be present with the other faithful women at the crucifixion. Mary was also a close relative of Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1:36). The nature of that relationship isn’t specifically described. They might have been cousins, or Elizabeth might have been Mary’s aunt. Luke’s account describes Elizabeth as already “in her old age.” Mary, on the other hand, seems to have been quite young.

In fact, at the time of the Annunciation, Mary was probably still a teenager. It was customary for girls in that culture to be betrothed while they were still as young as thirteen years of age. Marriages were ordinarily arranged by the bridegroom or his parents through the girl’s father. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, about whom we know next to nothing—except that he was a carpenter (Mark 6:3) and a righteous man (Matthew 1:19).

Scripture is very clear in teaching that Mary was still a virgin when Jesus was miraculously conceived in her womb. Luke 1:27 twice calls her a virgin, using a Greek term that allows for no subtle nuance of meaning. The clear claim of Scripture, and Mary’s own testimony, is that she had never been physically intimate with any man. Her betrothal to Joseph was a legal engagement known as kiddushin, which in that culture typically lasted a full year. Kiddushin was legally as binding as marriage itself. The couple were deemed husband and wife, and only a legal divorce could dissolve the marriage contract (Matthew 1:19). But during this time, the couple lived separately from one another and had no physical relations whatsoever. One of the main points ofkiddushin was to demonstrate the fidelity of both partners.

An Angelic Announcement

When the angel appeared to Mary, she was already formally bound to Joseph by kiddushin. Luke 1:28–35 describes Mary’s encounter with the angel:

And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.”

Pregnancy and Perception

Numerous godly women in Mary’s ancestry, going all the way back to Eve, had fostered the hope of being the one through whom the Redeemer would come. But the privilege came at a high cost to Mary personally because it carried the stigma of an unwed pregnancy. Although she had remained totally and completely chaste, the world was bound to think otherwise.

Even Joseph assumed the worst. We can only imagine how his heart sank when he learned that Mary was pregnant, and he knew he was not the father. His inclination was to divorce her quietly. He was a righteous man and loved her, so Scripture says he was not willing to make a public example of her, but he was so shaken by the news of her pregnancy that at first he saw no option but divorce. Then an angel appeared to him in a dream and reassured him:

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. (Matthew 1:20-21)

Common sense suggests that Mary must have anticipated all these difficulties the moment the angel told her she would conceive a child. Her joy and amazement at learning that she would be the mother of the Redeemer might therefore have been tempered significantly at the horror of the scandal that awaited her. Still, knowing the cost and weighing it against the immense privilege of becoming the mother of the Christ, Mary surrendered herself unconditionally, saying simply, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38).

There’s no evidence that Mary ever brooded over the effects her pregnancy would have on her reputation. She instantly, humbly, and joyfully submitted to God’s will without further doubt or question. She could hardly have had a more godly response to the announcement of Jesus’ birth. It demonstrated that she was a young woman of mature faith and one who was a worshiper of the true God. Her great joy over the Lord’s plan for her would soon be very evident.

(Adapted from Twelve Extraordinary Women.)

Mary: Who She Was (and Wasn't) by John MacArthur

Of all the extraordinary women in Scripture, one stands out above all others as the most blessed, most highly favored by God, and most universally admired. Indeed, no woman is more truly remarkable than Mary. She was sovereignly chosen by God—from among all the women ever born—to be the singular instrument through which He would at last bring the Messiah into the world.

Mary herself testified that all generations would regard her as profoundly blessed by God (Luke 1:48). This was not because she believed herself to be any kind of saintly superhuman, but because she was given such remarkable grace and privilege.

Myths About Mary

While acknowledging that Mary was the most extraordinary of women, it is appropriate to inject a word of caution against the common tendency to elevate her too much. She was, after all, a woman—not a demigoddess or a quasi-deiform creature who somehow transcended the rest of her race. The point of her “blessedness” is certainly not that we should think of her as someone to whom we can appeal for blessing; but rather that she herself was supremely blessed by God. She is never portrayed in Scripture as a source or dispenser of grace, but is herself the recipient of God’s blessing. Her Son, not Mary herself, is the fountain of grace (Psalm 72:17). He is the long-awaited Seed of Abraham of whom the covenant promise spoke: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 22:18).

Various extrabiblical, religious traditions and many superstitious minds have beatified Mary beyond what is reasonable, making her an object of religious veneration, imputing to her various titles and attributes that belong to God alone. A long tradition of overzealous souls throughout history have wrongly exalted her to godlike status. Unfortunately, even in our era, Mary, not Christ, is the central focus of worship and religious affection for millions. They think of her as more approachable and more sympathetic than Christ. They revere her as the perfect Madonna, supposedly untouched by original sin, a perpetual virgin, and even co-redemptrix with Christ Himself.

Catholic dogma teaches that she was taken bodily to heaven, where she was crowned “Queen of Heaven.” Her role today, according to Catholic legend, is mediatory and intercessory. Therefore, multitudes direct their prayers to her instead of to God alone—as if Mary were omnipresent and omniscient.

As a matter of fact, many people superstitiously imagine that Mary regularly appears in various apparitions here and there, and some even claim that she delivers prophecies to the world through such means. This extreme gullibility about apparitions of Mary sometimes rises to almost comical proportions. In November 2004, a stale grilled-cheese sandwich sold for $28,000 in an eBay auction because the sandwich purportedly had an image of Mary supernaturally etched in the burn marks of the toast. A few months later, thousands of worshipers in Chicago built a makeshift shrine to Mary in the walkway of a freeway underpass because someone claimed to see an image of her in salt stains on the concrete wall of the abutment.

No less than Pope John Paul II declared his total devotion to Mary. He dedicated his whole pontificate to her and had an M for Mary embroidered in all his papal garments. He prayed to her, credited her with saving his life, and even left the care of the Roman Catholic Church to her in his will. Rome has long fostered the cult of Marian devotion, and superstition about Mary is more popular today than it has ever been. So much homage is paid to Mary in Catholic churches around the world that the centrality and supremacy of Christ is often utterly obscured by the adoration of His mother.

Who She Was

All such veneration of Mary is entirely without biblical warrant. In fact, it is completely contrary to what Scripture expressly teaches (Revelation 19:10). But the tendency to make Mary an object of worship is nothing new. Even during Jesus’ earthly ministry, for example, there were those who showed undue reverence to Mary because of her role as His mother. On one occasion, Scripture says, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” His reply was a rebuke: “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11:27–28).

Mary herself was a humble soul who maintained a consistently low profile in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. Scripture expressly debunks some of the main legends about her.

The idea that she remained a perpetual virgin, for example, is impossible to reconcile with the fact that Jesus had half-brothers who are named in Scripture alongside both Joseph and Mary as their parents: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” (Matthew 13:55). Matthew 1:25 furthermore says that Joseph abstained from sexual relations with Mary only “until she gave birth to a Son.” On any natural reading of the plain sense of Scripture, it is impossible to support the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity.

Mary’s immaculate conception and her supposed sinlessness are likewise without any scriptural foundation whatsoever. The opening stanza of Mary’s Magnificat speaks of God as her “Savior,” thus giving implicit testimony from Mary’s own lips that she needed redemption. In such a biblical context, that could refer only to salvation from sin. Mary was in effect confessing her own sinfulness.

In fact, far from portraying Mary with a halo and a seraphic stare on her face, Scripture reveals her as an average young girl of common means from a peasants’ town in a poor region of Israel, betrothed to a working-class fiancé who earned his living as a carpenter. If you had met Mary before her firstborn Son was miraculously conceived, you might not have noticed her at all. She could hardly have been more plain and unassuming.

And yet she found herself unexpectedly thrust into a critical role in God’s redemptive plan. 

(Adapted from Twelve Extraordinary Women.)

Church: Family or Store? by James Emery White

Vol. 10, No. 93

On Halloween, a member of our church’s staff came to our door to trick-or-treat with her three kids.

It was their 17th straight year.

Her oldest son is taller than me and stopped dressing up long ago. In fact, he drove the family to our house.

The daughter is probably on her last year (she dressed as Katniss Everdeen – that should be a hint).

The youngest may have a couple more years in him. Tops.

Their mother has been a part of the church for even longer – twenty-two years, to be exact. She was actually at Meck’s very first service on October 4, 1992, and was the very first person to become a Christian through our services.

For whatever reason, it made me think of two different ways of viewing a church: a family or a store.

If church is a family, then you relate to it as a son or daughter, mother or father, brother or sister. Deeply biblical ideas, I might add. When the Bible talks about Christian community, these are the metaphors it falls back on.

If a church is a store, then you are nothing more than a consumer. There is a retail outlet and a customer, a provider and a receiver.

It strikes me that these are the two ways that people can view a church.

Family...or store.

If it’s a family, they stick with it. Work through it. Stay in it. There are deep blood ties. It’s not about what you get, but what you give.

If it’s a store, then it’s a consumer decision. Who has the best prices? Most convenience? Quickest access?

The great danger, of course, is when churches intentionally posture themselves as “stores” in competition with other “stores”. This is not only biblically misguided, it is theologically heretical.

And will not serve in the long run.

Open the front door wide, to be sure, but never fail to remember that who you are at your most foundational level is “family.”

And make sure you help people become that family.

James Emery White

    

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president.  His latest book, The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated, is now available on Amazon.  To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, visit www.churchandculture.org, where you can view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world.  Follow Dr. White on twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

When We Pray, God Goes to Work by J.D. Greear

Sadly, we American Christians aren’t known for our prayer. So when we come across Jesus’ teaching on prayer, we’re left either confused or frustrated. “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed,” Jesus told us,“you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt 17:20). That’s an astounding promise—so astounding, in fact, that I think most of us just don’t believe it.

Our unbelief is, in one sense, understandable. After all, many of us know what it’s like to ask God to move a mountain, only to have it stubbornly sit there, immobile. If we’re honest, few of us even look for God to move mountains; we’d be satisfied with our prayers leading God to move an anthill. But even that seems foreign to our experience.

When our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears, our natural response is to assume something is wrong with us.Maybe we don’t have enough belief. Maybe we need to work up a little bit more feeling to qualify as “mustard seed” faith. But faith isn’t simply a positive emotion toward God. It’s not some presumptuous optimism that God will give us what we want if we just believe hard enough. No, in Scripture, faith is a response to what God has revealed. So if you want to pray in faith, discern what God has revealed, and then ask him for it.

God reveals himself through his Word. So if we want him to move mountains, we need to first look to the Word to find out which mountains he wants us to move. The more we ground ourselves in his revealed promises, the more we can pray with boldness. The prayers that are heard by heaven are the ones that start in heaven.

The church in the U.S. desperately needs to awaken to the spectacular truth that when we pray, God goes to work. Too many of us hide behind God’s sovereignty: “Well, it’s all in God’s hands, so I’m sure he’ll work everything out.” But for the great men and women of faith in Scripture, God’s sovereignty didn’t prevent them from praying; it moved them to pray. Why? Because prayer is the sovereignly appointed way that God does his work.

Is there a mountain in your life, something so imposing that only God can resolve it? It may be a broken relationship, an increasing pile of unpaid bills, an unfulfilled ambition. It may be your peers at school, mocking you for maintaining your purity. It may be your family, scoffing at your newfound interest in Christ.
Our society increasingly tells us that our faith is on the brink of destruction. “You can’t possibly maintain a Christian confession these days. The church is on the decline in the West. The Bible’s teaching is backwards and repressive. You’re on the wrong side of history.” It often feels overwhelming, a mountain too tall for us to move.

When you feel like giving in to those voices, think of how God has blasted mountains in the past. We serve a God so powerful that oceans split in two at his word and entire armies fall dead with one swing of his arm. Our God can do more while we sleep than any of us could do in 10,000 lifetimes.

And remember: the mountains are nothing new. Our society today tells us that Christianity is dying, but they aren’t the first. In 303 AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian went on a rampage in an attempt to stamp out the church. He ordered that every Bible be burned. He fed entire families to the lions. Yet within a century, Constantine became a Christian and established Christianity as the religion of the empire.

In the 16^th century, a group of people known as the Huguenots were fiercely persecuted in France. The government tried to kill them, thinking at one point that they had completely eradicated them. But the Huguenots survived, and they grew. Today a monument stands in their honor, saying, “Hammer away, you hostile hands; your hammers break, God’s anvil stands.”

In the 18^th century, the French atheist Voltaire famously said that within 100 years of his death, no one would even remember the Bible. Yet as he died, he cried out, “I am abandoned by God and man…I would give half my fortune for just six months more!” And today, in one of Voltaire’s homes, sits a Bible-printing press.
In the mid-20^th century, the Chinese Communist revolution tried to stamp out Christianity. But today Mao Zedong is dead, the Communist movement is fading, and the church is growing faster in China than it ever has at any time in history.

Hammer away, you hostile hands. The hammers break, God’s anvil stands.

God will build his church, and the gates of hell will not be able to stop it. Persecution can’t stop it. Atheist philosophy can’t stop it. Communism can’t stop it. Islamic terrorists can’t stop it. Secularism can’t stop it. Cynical professors at your college campus can’t stop it. God’s glory will cover the earth, and he will redeem people from every tribe and tongue on this planet.

As Martin Luther famously wrote:

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.Our helper he amidst the flood, of mortal ills prevailing.And still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe!The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still.His kingdom never faileth!

That was true then; it’s true today; it will be true tomorrow.

Do you have something in your life you believe God wants to do? Is there a mountain between where you are and what God has revealed in his Word? Do you feel the hammer of the world beating down on you? All is not lost: get on your face and confess your belief in the God whose kingdom never fails.

What's In Your Hand? by Chris Tiegreen

What’s in Your Hand?


Human beings have a tendency to focus a lot of energy on lack. Whatever we’re missing, whatever we need, whatever isn’t measuring up—that’s what we pay attention to, perhaps even obsess over. The glass may be half full—or even 90 percent full—but we really aren’t very happy with any degree of emptiness that’s there.

God teaches us another way. He called Moses to an intimidating task and asked, “What’s in your hand?” The disciples could only scrounge up a few fish and loaves, and Jesus fed crowds with them. God never asks how much faith you lack but looks instead at the mustard seed you have. He starts with whatever is there.

It’s a profound lesson, and life changes when we learn it. There’s no miracle in whatever explainable work you do out of your abundance. Miracles come in whatever God does through the offerings you give him, however insufficient they are. All that’s required for his power to work in your weakness is for you to have weakness. That’s a piece of cake. We all automatically qualify.

Faithfulness in small things—in bringing God whatever you have with the expectation he’ll do something with it—leads to greater things. Never lament what you’re lacking. Offer what you have. Then watch what God does.

Worship Is an Act of Reversal by Joseph Tenney

The gathering together of the church for worship is an act of reversal; it is an act of reversing our loves.
Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “We don’t go to church to worship, we come to church already worshiping.” Our days are not marked with worshipless moments. We are always giving our hearts in worship towards some end — like running water that must move and wind around and fill up, worship is ever flowing out of us. When sin entered the garden, Adam’s and Eve’s worship wasn’t diminished, it was simply redirected.

Augustine defined sin as disordered love. Sin has everything to do with love. God created us to worship him as an end in himself, and he designed us to love people and this planet in a way that would magnify his goodness and greatness. Such a disposition would create the deepest happiness in our souls. But sin entered our hearts, and those loves became reversed. We now love the world and ourselves as an end, and we view God as a means to that end.

Augustine knew the depth of this disorder, and the havoc it was wreaking in his own life:

Let these transient things be the ground on which my soul praises you (Psalm 145:2), God creator of all. But let it not become stuck in them and glued to them with love. . . . For these things . . . rend the soul with pestilential desires; for the soul earnestly desires to be one with them, and take its repose among the object of its love. But in these things there is no point of rest because they lack permanence. (Confessions IV. x. 15)

The Fight for Order

Our hearts have a God-designed relentless propensity to cleave and unite to God himself. But because of sin and its distortion of our loves, we glue these transient things to ourselves and perpetually tear our souls apart. However, when the Spirit of God awakens us to see our Father’s faithful love in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he enables us to see Jesus as our glorious Savior. This divine gift of grace begins the reversal process in our souls, and everything we do from that point on is a progression of love and enjoyment and delight in God as the end for which we were created.

Gathering together as the church is one way we fight for ordered love in our hearts. When we come together, we prompt each other, “Look up! Behold our God!” The writer of Hebrews reminds us of this in Hebrews 12:18–21. The people of Israel had their eyes fixed on a minuscule, insignificant, man-made golden calf when only a foot to the side was smoldering, burning, trembling Mount Sinai.

Now, before we look on them with judgment, asking, “Where was your faith, Israel?” we should be mindful of how easy we too drift into impatience with God — which inevitably results in us carving up our own plans and our own idols that gratify and please us in some fleeting insignificant way because they lack permanence.

Singing Is a Remarkable Means

Coming together to sing and pray and read and commune is a means of redirecting our hearts to God’s glory, cultivating the necessary patience to wait on God. It informs our lives to appropriately respond to God’s work, and it disciplines us to participate in the life he is calling us to lead.

The gathering reminds us that we are to sing the way Paul desires us to sing in Colossians 3:16–17 and Ephesians 5:18–21 — overflowing with love for Jesus. In fact, we learn that much of what it means to be filled with the Spirit is related to our singing. When the church sings, she makes melody with the heart. This is why Bonhoeffer called all singing in the church a “spiritual performance.”

Underwhelmed hearts produce third-rate melodies. We cannot truly sing a song from the heart unless Christ has overwhelmed it. There is only melody where there is love for God — however varying the love for him might be. When we lift our voices together in song, we proclaim that the object of our love is the one who has made all things, the one who never passes away. We take our affections off of these transient things and put them on our God. Singing is an outward practice of the church that points to the inner reversal of our loves.

We not only corporately proclaim this reversal of loves to encourage one another, but the very act of singing itself fortifies and deepens our own personal inner reversal. Singing is a wonderfully remarkable means toward unity and personal deepening.

Beautiful and Luminous Beyond All Things

If we move beyond the singular act of singing to living worshipful lives, how can we know if our song is authentic — that our worship is faithful? One answer we see in Scripture is that a heart that overflows with love for Christ worships God in thankfulness and gladness (Psalm 100:2; Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).

Charles Spurgeon called gladness the litmus test of authentic worship. There’s an old legend that the Queen of Sheba went to visit Solomon to bring before him various complexities. She brought him two bouquets of flowers — one artificial and one real. The artificial arrangement looked convincing, and she challenged him to discern which was real. Solomon couldn’t do it. He then had an idea. He ordered that the windows be opened so the bees could come in. Every bee flew to the genuine bloom for the honey, the sweetness of honey. Gladness is the honey to our worship. True believers worship God because they love worshiping him. They don’t love being in love with him, they love him. They’re happy to do it. There’s a spirit of thankfulness and gladness about them.

“So,” says Spurgeon, “does that which you profess to posses ever cause you delight?” Is the weekend gathering marked by thankfulness? The church is no place for gloomy, pouty Christians. We come in and meet one another, and sing our songs, and hear the truth of God proclaimed, to look at what Christ has done for us. Look at what he’s saved us from for an eternity! Look where he could’ve left us and didn’t! Be glad! There are few things more evangelistic than a community of God faithfully, gratefully, happily worshiping the triune God.

We gather to pray and commune and proclaim and teach and sing to stir our hearts to stop hoping and clinging to what’s transient, and to deepen our love for him and strengthen our bond as brothers and sisters. We gather to fight for ordered love to resound in our hearts. We gather gratefully to point one another to our supreme Joy. Let us pray that we would say with Augustine, “no object of love is more healthy than your truth, beautiful and luminous beyond all things.”

5 Reasons Christians Must Pray Together by John Franklin

• THE PRIORITY OF PRAYING TOGETHER

In June of 1990, I found myself unexpectedly in awe.  I had joined a team of about 250 people to participate in a two week evangelistic crusade in Mombasa, Kenya, a seaside city of roughly a million people.  Wherever we walked, the presence of the Lord tangibly permeated the land, so much so that often people were being saved by the dozens.   

But the revival in Mombasa had actually begun months earlier through prayer meetings, and prayer meetings had continued steadily until our arrival.  In fact, during our two week stay there was never a time that some church failed to pray all night.  The whole revival had come through prayer meetings, and the greatest day I experienced followed an all night prayer meeting.

Personal prayer lives alone will not result in the working of God to the degree needed to spiritually transform our lives, our churches, our cities or our nation.  God in His sovereignty has determined that something happens when we pray together that transcends us praying separately.  His working increases exponentially, not additionally.  

When we pray individually, one plus one equals two; but when we pray together, one plus one equals three.  Since these statements are somewhat radical, I would like to submit five reasons to justify this premise.  I say this, not to minimize the importance of a  commitment to personal, private prayer.  In fact, I believe that they are like two wings of an airplane.  Which one would you rather do without?  The absence of either would be fatal.  But that’s just the point, if we don’t pray together we will go down a spiritually slippery slope.  If we do pray together God’s way, we can expect a revolution of our society.

FIVE PROOFS OF WHY THIS IS TRUE

So why such bold assertions?  What’s the hard core evidence to support these statements?  Many exist, but for space sake, we’ll limit it to five proofs.  I’m listing them according to the process and in order that I learned them.

Proof One: What The Apostles Believed And Practiced

Have you ever been reading the Bible when it “happened” to you?  You’re reading along minding your own business, when all of a sudden you realize a passage does not mean what you always thought it meant.  Let me tell you how it happened to me early one morning several years ago.  I opened my Bible to Acts 6, my quiet time passage for the day.  To be candid I approached it lazily and disinterestedly.   I knew that chapter recorded what many call the choosing of the first deacons.  So, to give it a little spice, I flipped up the Greek on my Bible software. I began reading nonchalantly in verse 1: 

Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.  

The word distribution was actually diakonia in Greek.  It’s from the same basic root family as the word deacon and ministry.  It wasn’t just a functional duty, but you could see the ministry aspect of serving people.  “How interesting,” I thought, “but no big deal.”  I continued reading verse 2:

Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.  

The word serve was diakonein in Greek – again, the same root family – again interesting, but no big deal.  I read verse 3 without incident:

Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;

Then I came to verse 4, when all of the sudden it happened to me.  In English it reads: 

but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.   

That’s not what it says in Greek.  It literally reads but we to THE prayer and the DIAKONIA of the word will steadfastly continue.  When I read that I had to push away from the computer screen in disbelief.  

You see all my life I had interpreted that passage to mean the Apostles recognized the need to delegate ministries responsibilities to others so that they would be freed up to spend time in prayer and receive a fresh word from the Lord to preach to the people.  They realized they couldn’t become so enmeshed in the work of the Lord that their personal relationship with Him suffered and therefore become ineffectual from the pulpit (or wherever it was they preached/taught in the 1^st century).  I always assumed they were referring to their personal prayer life.

Perhaps I concluded that from experience.  Right out of seminary I was privileged to pastor a megachurch – of three people.  Only one faithful family remained, and as a young 25 year old I went there to rebuild the broken foundations with them.  Early on I discovered an interesting dynamic.  I quickly realized I not only had the honor of preaching the sermon on Sunday; but also of scrubbing the toilet on Monday.  Any work to be done fell to one of us four.   Soon in the bustle of activity my own personal prayer time suffered and I found a negative effect on my preaching.  Not having as much time in prayer hurt my sensitivity to God’s voice, so I struggled more in sermons.  This experience colored my belief that the Apostles modeled the necessity of delegating responsibilities in order to guard time for prayer so as to preach powerfully.  That morning I realized that was not the point of this passage.  Mouth agape, it dawned on me they were not referring to their personal prayer life, but to the ministry of mobilizing the people of God to pray together.  They were declaring that the two ministries they especially must do as church leaders were mobilizing the church to pray and to preach/teach the word of God.  Do you see why I was so shocked?  What tremendous implications!  

Here’s what clued me in that the passage speaks of the ministry of prayer instead of their personal prayer lives.  First, the context of the passage revolves around ministries.  In verse one there is a problem with a ministry.  In verse two the Apostles discuss what ministry they will and won’t do.  In verse three and four they choose seven to put them in charge of the ministry to widows, while they go to the prayer and the ministry of the word.  You can almost see them drawing this up on the chalkboard like a football coach.   “OK team, the O’s will take the widows; the X’s will take prayer and the Word.  Any questions?  OK, on three.”  Nothing in this passage refers to anything personal, only ministries.  Second, although the word ministry does not specifically occur before the word prayer, the definite article the does.  The verse reads but we to THE prayer and the diakonia of the word will steadfastly continue.  They do not mean prayer in general, but have something specific in mind.  The syntax creates the possibility that prayer and the word are twin ideas.  Later I would read 13 commentaries to double check.  Eleven of them didn’t comment either way, but the two that did confirmed they spoke of corporate prayer.  

My surprise soon turned into a squirming discomfort because of the implications.   I mused, “Are the Apostles actually saying that out of all the ministries they could do, what they cannot let go of is preaching/teaching the word of God and leading the prayer life of the church?  Is this really what the Bible pictures here – that leaders ought to consider guiding the corporate prayer life of the church just as critical a priority as preaching/teaching the Word of God?”  I thought, “I’d better be right on this one.  I’d better not draw such a weighty conclusion from one passage alone.”  Then an idea popped in my mind.  “Well, if this is indeed the case, then it should be reflected in the book of Acts.  They should live their lives that way.”  

So I went and looked up every occurrence of prayer in Acts preceding chapter 6 and discovered prayer mentioned five times – Acts 1:14. 1:24, 2:42, 3:1, 4:23-31.  Amazingly, every single verse pictured the Apostles leading others in prayer, not once is their personal prayer life recorded.  In every instance we see the Apostles involved in leading the people of God to pray together; therefore, these stories confirm that Acts 6:4 speaks of a corporate ministry of prayer. 

This pattern certainly strengthened the case, but I really wanted to be sure.  Then I thought, “If they apostles really believed this way, where would they have gotten that idea?”  Well, Jesus obviously.  So I decided to study Jesus on prayer.

Proof Two: What Jesus Modeled and Taught On Prayer

I searched the words pray, prays, prayed, praying, prayer, prayers, ask, asks, asked, asking, watch, watches, watched, and watching in my concordance.  I used seven criteria for selecting verses (see Appendix A), but basically I was after the core teaching of Jesus on prayer.  I wanted to know what He commanded, or gave as a condition for God to answer favorably.  I searched and identified 37 verses in the gospels that fit these criteria and discovered an amazing reality.  Out of those 37 verses, guess how many times the word you was plural?  Amazingly 33 out of 37 verses are in the corporate.  Unfortunately, you can be either in the singular or plural in English.  Given the individualistic nature of American society, most people tend to read it as singular when in reality the opposite usually holds true.  For example, Matthew 7:7 and Mark 11:25 actually say:

You all ask, and it will be given to you all; you all seek and you all will find; you all knock, and it will be opened to you all. And whenever you all stand praying, if you all have anything against anyone, you all forgive him, that you all’s Father in Heaven may forgive you all of you all’s trespasses.

The fact that Jesus taught in the corporate made a compelling case by itself, but Jesus also framed the condition for answered prayer in such a way that heightened the stipulation of praying together.  He told His disciples in Matthew 18:19, “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.”  He could have said “if anyone asks…”  Instead He deliberately crafted His words in the plural.  Evidently God has designed prayer to especially require we pray together.

Finally most of Jesus’ recorded times of private prayer occur prior to choosing the disciples (Mark 1:37, Luke 3:21, 6:12) whereas after choosing them most of His recorded prayer times involved the disciples (Luke 9:28, 11:1, Mat 26:40).   Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when facing the greatest crisis of His life, the looming shadow of a cross, even then He asked the disciples to watch with Him.  In every way, He modeled and commanded the necessity of praying together.

The case was growing, and I began to understand why, which I’ll mention at the end of this chapter.  However, I wanted to test this truth in other ways.  Knowing that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, I decided to look at the pattern of the Bible as a whole.  Another very surprising dynamic emerged.

Proof Three: The Pattern of Scripture before and after the resurrection

I sought to answer this question, Did the mighty moves of God come primarily through the prayer life of an individual or two, or more believers?  To find the answer, I read Genesis through Esther, then Acts through Revelation.  Both the Old and the New Testament record examples of private and corporate prayer, and God exercised His power through both examples.  However, it quickly became apparent that a defining moment, a spiritual watershed divided the way God worked.   In the Old Testament, God usually chose an individual through which He communicated or exercised His power in response to prayer.  For example, God only spoke with Abraham about the promised son (Gen 15:4).  Moses was by himself on Mount Sinai interceding for the people when God decided that He would forgive them (Ex 32:14).  Joshua by himself apparently cries out for the sun to stand still (Josh 10:12).  No one other than Samson pleaded with God and the temple came tumbling down (Jud 16:28).   Of course, corporate prayer does exist in the Old Testament such as the case of the temple dedication and revivals; but even then it is exercised in a markedly different manner from the New Testament. For example, typically the pattern for the Old is that the people cry out to God, but the answer does not come to anyone but the judge or the prophet (twice the prophetess, perhaps directly to the king on occasion).  Most often kings seem dependent on hearing from the prophet (1 Kings 22:8, 2 Sam 24:7, 1Chr 12:5, 2 Chr 11:2, 12:7, Is 38:2-5, etc).  Likewise, the people of God consulted the man of God (1 Sam 9:9) because they do not hear for themselves.  God usually did not answer them directly, but primarily communicated with them through the prophet, an intermediary.

In the New Testament this radically changes.  In the Book of Acts the 120 are gathered in an upper room praying in one accord when Pentecost comes (Acts 1:13, 2:1).  The group prayed for wisdom in knowing who Judas’ replacement should be (Acts 1:24).  When Peter and John reported the Sanhedrin’s threats, the church cried out to God in one accord for boldness and the place was shaken (Acts 4:24, 31).  They prayed over the seven chosen to serve the widows (Acts 6:6).  Peter and John interceded for those who had not received the Holy Spirit yet and He came (Acts 8:15-17).  Peter was in prison but the church was fervently pleading with God for him (Acts 12:5).  While the prophets and teachers were praying and fasting, the Holy Spirit called Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-2).  Then the church prayed before sending them out (Acts 13:3).  Paul and Barnabas commended the new churches to God by prayer (Acts 14:23).  Paul and his companions were going to prayer when Paul cast the demon out of the slave girl (Acts 16:16).  Paul and Silas were praying when the earthquake happened that resulted in the jailer’s conversion and their release (Acts 16:25).  Paul prayed with all the Ephesians in his farewell address (Acts 20:36).  Finally, they prayed with the disciples from Tyre (Acts 21:5).  

Again the goal is not to deny the role of individual prayer.  Ananias was praying alone when he was told to go to Saul (Acts 9:10).  Peter was on the rooftop by himself when he had his famous vision leading him to Cornelius (Acts 10:9).  However, in Acts and the rest of the New Testament the majority of God’s recorded workings come when His people pray together.  

This transition naturally raised the question, “Why the difference from the Old to the New Testament.”   No verse expressly spells it out, but I believe it’s safe to make logical conclusions based on the covenant change.  Under the Old Covenant the people of God conducted their relationship with Him through the law.  Because the veil was not rent, they did not have access to the Holy Spirit in the same way we do today.  As I mentioned earlier, when God wanted to speak to His people, no one except the prophets or a few leaders could directly interact with God.  This is why God’s response to individual prayer dominates in the Old Testament.  That radically changed under the New Covenant.  Hebrews 8:11 states, "None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.”  Now His Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, sons and daughters (Acts 2:17).  Every child of God has equal access to the throne of God, not just a few select individuals.  

The fact that every Christian can know God experientially creates the possibility of experiencing God together; however, by itself it doesn’t mean anything.   We could all be like millions of radios – all receiving transmissions from a tower, but individual, separate, stand alone units.  But Scripture teaches that the moment God saves us, we are baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body (1 Cor 12:13).  The foundation of our new spiritual life requires interdependence – of course, interdependence does exist in the Old Testament, but not in the same sense.  Never is the analogy of a body used for the people of God until the birth of the church.  The baptism into the Holy Spirit so intricately joined us together that we are no longer independent units fitted together, rather we are most like flesh and sinew.  God so raised the level of connectivity that just as a body part can’t accomplish its function except by depending on other body parts, neither can we do much of spiritual significance except connected and interdependent with one another.  Although our roles and functions vary, God does not allow us to conduct our personal relationship with Him in isolation.  He has ordained that our service in Christ requires teamwork with others.  This does not mean a believer’s personal prayer life is now obsolete or has become of lesser importance, but it does imply that being a body mandates we regularly encounter Him together.  Focusing on the personal prayer life only would be equivalent to trying to play Mozart with one hand.  All ten fingers prove absolutely necessary to create the music.  Likewise, the new covenant with its body-life spills over into every aspect of our relationship with God and others, demanding that we practice both personal and corporate prayer.

The Scriptural evidence proved convincing, but I also decided to test history.  If that’s the way God worked in the Bible, then He also should be consistent through the ages.  I applied the same basic question Since the resurrection, when have the greatest moves of God primarily occurred?

Proof Four: Historically, God’s Greatest Works Have Come When Christians Were Fervent in United Prayer.

A study of church history and asking experts confirmed my expectations.  In fact, I did not discover a single example in which the church transformed the culture when Christians did not spend significant time praying together.   

Here are a few examples.  In 1857 America was in the middle of a strong economy.  As is so often the case in prosperity, morals began slipping and a decreased interest in the things of God prevailed.  Alarmed by the spiritual state of affairs, a Dutch Reformed layman named Jeremiah Lamphier tacked up notices in New York City calling for a weekly prayer meeting on Wednesdays from noon till one.  The first week, only six showed up and none of them before 12:30. The next week, though, the attendance jumped to twenty. Then the numbers nearly doubled again, and on the fifteenth day they began meeting every weekday to pray.  About that time Wall Street crashed.  The ensuing financial panic arrested the country’s attention and turned hearts toward heavenly matters.  So great and so immediate were the changes that in less than six months time more than 10,000 – 50,0000 businessmen were meeting daily in New York to pray during the noon hour.  Inexplicably, that little, inauspicious prayer meeting Lamphier started became the pattern God used.  The movement leapt to every single major city in America by early 1858.  The response of God to His people was that 1,000,000 Americans out of a population of 30,000,000 were converted in less than two years.  At the height of revival, perhaps 50,000 a week were being saved.  These examples indicate that the working of God in history is consistent with the biblical pattern.

Fervent prayer meetings precipitated the Shantung Revival in northern China, 1927-37.  God’s Spirit suddenly descended, and the once anemic church ensconced in a spiritually dead culture began witnessing with dramatic results.  One Chinese pastor commented, “When this revival began, we had about 50 members in our little church.  Now we have at least one Christian in each of the 1,000 homes in this town.”   Another pastor repeated a similar experience.  His little church had only 30 members, but when the revival came he baptized 89 on one occasion, 203 on another occasion and 20-30 every month after that. No one knows with certainty the number of conversions, but given the testimony of Dr. C. L. Culpepper, one may logically deduce that hundreds of thousands were swept into the kingdom, perhaps one million.

The activity of God in answer to corporate prayer may also be seen on smaller scales.  Rees Howells journeyed to South Africa as a missionary.  Six weeks after arriving he joined in a prayer meeting.  Out of that came an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in which they had two revival meetings a day for 15 months, and all day on Friday.  Thousands were converted as a result.  J. O. Fraser, a missionary to the Lisu people in Southwest China, saw tens of thousands of conversions during his ministry.  He encouraged small-group prayer in England for his ministry.  Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, called a prayer meeting to ask for 100 new missionaries.  He then returned to England and spoke to a large group.  One hundred men and women volunteered to return with him and $55,000 in cash was donated, even though he had not asked for a single offering.

History had verified the same pattern.  I then applied this test to God’s current activity today.

Proof Five: The Mighty Moves of God Today Occur Where Believers Practice Corporate Prayer

Let me ask you a question, “How’s Christianity doing on a worldwide scale?  Are we winning or losing?”  If the Lord tarries, future generations will probably look back on ours with envy.  Christianity is dramatically advancing across the world.

The most optimistic scenario I’ve heard came from Avery Willis, Vice-President of the International Mission Board.  He reported in the fall of 1999 that it is possible that 70 percent of all people who have ever been saved have come to Christ in the 20^thcentury; 70 percent of them since 1945; 70 percent of them since 1990.  That means as of the turn of the century, possibly one third of all Christians who have ever lived have been converted since 1990!  In Nepal just 2,000 Christians were known in 1990; but there were 500,000 by the end of the year 2,000.   Cambodia claimed a scarce 600 Christians in 1990, but boasted 60,000 by the 21^st century.  No known Christians occupied Mozambique in 1988, now 300 churches exist in just one area.  Just a few years ago in Asia, there were about 15 million Christians; today there are more than 100 million.  In Korea during the 20^th century the country advanced from being 1-3% Christians to perhaps 40% Christian today.  The African continent has about the same percentages, with East Africa especially ranking as one of the greatest movements of God in history.  I’ve already mentioned my story out of Kenya, but other countries are also experiencing the hand of God as well.  Uganda, for example, once suffered terrible atrocities under the Islamic dictator, Idi Amin, who ravaged the country.  Later the AIDS rate skyrocketed to claim approximately one third of the population.  So devastating was the crisis that the World Health Organization predicted the collapse of the Ugandan economy by the year 2000.  Today revival has come to that country and the AIDS rate is only 5%.  So great is God’s working that one church alone went from 7 to 2,000 in attendance in two weeks; currently they boast 22,000 members, and have planted 150 other churches.  In our hemisphere about 40,000 evangelicals lived in South America, today about 40,000,000.  Central America likewise is experiencing a tremendous movement of God.  In India one denomination tracked about 3,000,000 conversions in eight years.  Even the Muslim world, although not experiencing the same kind of large numbers, has proportionally speaking seen an astronomical increase in converts.  

Christianity is advancing in most quarters except four primary areas.  If you live in North America you know one of them.  The other three are Japan, Australia, and Western Europe.  Guess what one of the common denominators is everywhere Christianity marches forward?  The Christians spend significant time prayingtogether.  In Korea and China many churches meet every morning to pray at least an hour before going to work and then they have all night prayer meetings on Friday.  In India where one denomination tracked 3,000,000 conversions in 8 years, the believers began prayer meetings 1 to 2 times a week for their lost neighbors.  In all the areas where the gospel is gaining ascendancy, Christians spend time praying together.  

In America we still practice the ministry of the Word.  It’s a centerpiece in most Protestant worship services.  Outstanding radio teachers can be heard anywhere in the country.  Books, videos, CD’s, and tapes proliferate like no other time in history.  Many churches have Bible study groups and Sunday Schools.  However, by and large we have abandoned meaningful prayer meetings.  Most that remain are anemic and weak.  That begs the question:  might there be a connection, especially in light of God’s activity worldwide?  Could we be spiritually imploding because we’ve forsaken what the Apostles guarded as one of their top two priorities?

Do you see now why the church must be in prayer?  These modern day examples of God’s working reflect the biblical and historical pattern that we must pray together if we are to see God’s power in sufficient measure.  By and large American Christians have abandoned fervent, united, corporate prayer.  The Apostles, Jesus, the pattern of Scripture, history, and God’s current working today bear witness that until we return to this practice we should only expect to see a worsening declension in societal morals and powerlessness in our churches.  

If you are a leader of the people of God, you must make your ministry of mobilizing the people of to prayer together an equal priority of preaching or teaching the Word of God!

Adapted from And the Place Was Shaken by John Franklin.  Used by permission. ©2005 B&H Publishing Group.