After you read this book you will realize that even though you think you have read the gospels, you have never really read them at all.

 As one can easily see from even a quick reading, the Old Testament appears in one way or the other on practically every page of the New Testament.  Hays shows us not only those obvious citations but also allusions and something he calls "echoes," things that can only be seen by a reader well-versed in the Old Testament.  Just think of passages like these:

For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me, John5:46.

And he said unto them, These are my words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures, Luke24: 44,45.

And those two are only a tiny piece of the wealth the author presents.  Already in my own studies I had come across Isaiah's vineyard parable (Isaiah 5) and its relationship to Jesus' own vineyard parable (Mark 12), but that is still nothing more than a thin veneer compared to the depths this author plumbs.

 Hays patiently takes us through each gospel, not only showing the use of the Old Testament in each, but also analyzing the methods that each writer employs and why he does so.  It will become painfully obvious that anyone who insists on using only a fourfold gospel approach to the life of Christ misses far more than half of what each writer was trying to show us because he is too focused on chronology and details to see the more complex allusions and echoes—that one will be stuck with clear citations only.  It also thoroughly scolds anyone who insists on ignoring the Old Testament as "no longer relevant."

 My readers, who I know are above average intelligence, must still realize that this is a scholarly treatise.  Occasionally, Hays writes in Greek, but probably 95% of the time he translates it somewhere else in the paragraph.  It would do you well to keep a dictionary handy, not because you aren't smart but because theology and exegesis are not your bailiwick.  I learned several new words after looking them up, not once but several times.  You can too.  Do not be discouraged by the page count either.  My copy contained about 150 pages of notes and indices in the back.

 Did I agree with everything in the book?  No, I did not, but would it impress you to know that premillenialists don't like the way he presents Christ's kingdom as existing now?  Funny what you can teach yourself out of with an intense study.

 Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels is published by Baylor University Press.

Dene Ward

My little boys used to bring me bouquets all the time.  Sometimes it was Queen Anne’s lace.  Sometimes it was a bright blue spiderwort.  Sometimes it was a rain lily or a stem of pink clover.  Sometimes it was just a dandelion bloom.  All of these are wildflowers, what any suburban lawn grower would call “weeds.”  Yet I put them all in vases of various sizes because they were all precious to me.  My little fellows had no idea the difference between domesticated flowers and wildflowers.  All they knew was “flowers,” and out here in the country we are surrounded by them.

 But even they would never have gathered a bunch of them, ripped off the blooms and handed me a fistful of stems.  The problem with religion today, including some of my own brothers and sisters, is they value the stems and not the flowers. 

 A few months ago someone told me how listening to a certain teacher had made his day so much better.  I anxiously awaited the lesson he had heard, but he never once said a word about the content.  All I heard was the teacher’s name, at least three times, and how that person had made his day better.  What he had done was throw away the flower and put the empty stem in a vase of water to admire.

 I understand having favorite speakers and teachers.  Nothing makes me happier than to hear someone compliment my husband and my sons.  But none of them teach for the glory.  They teach to help people. If all people remember is their names, then they haven’t been much help, have they? 

 If I can’t tell you what a person taught me, did I learn anything, or was I just entertained for a few brief moments?  One of my favorite teachers isn’t much of an entertainer, but I always go away with a new way of looking at things, even things I have been looking at for decades now.  He makes me think, and he makes me see the possibilities.  He makes me want to go look at it again myself, and I often do.  He makes me examine my life in ways I never have and want to change for the better.  Can your favorite speaker do those things, or does he just make you laugh and feel good?

 There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to someone for help with your Bible study.  God did ordain the role of teachers in spiritual things (Eph 4:11).  He meant for us to have brothers and sisters we could go to with questions and problems.  Paul told Timothy to pass on what he knew to “faithful men.”  He told the older to train the younger.  But God also holds us individually accountable for what we do with what we hear. “Work out your own salvation,” Paul told the Philippians, well after Jesus had already said, “If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch.”  It is up to each of us to be careful to whom we listen and to examine what they say against the Word (Acts 17:11).

 A good teacher doesn’t care if he receives praise or not—that is not his purpose.  All he does is hold up the Word of God and present it to you.  “What is the straw to the wheat?” God asks in Jer 23:28.  That word “straw” has several meanings according to Strong’s, and one of them is the wheat stalk, or stem.  Which is more important, God is saying, the stem or the wheat it holds up?

 I knew a man once who nearly tore a church up because he insisted on “his turn” to teach when not only was he a lousy teacher, he didn’t even know the Word of God accurately enough to teach it.  Clearly, it was all about the glory of teaching to him, and clearly he needed the admonition in Rom 12:3:  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

 I know the temptation.  So did Paul.  I refrain from [boasting], so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited, 2 Cor 12:6,7.  It shouldn’t matter to me what people say about my speaking or writing.  What should matter is how many I reach, how many are helped and encouraged and how many souls are saved.  And that is what should matter to those who listen and read too. 

 And do you know why this is so important?  If you value the who above the what, then someday, sooner or later, you will be deceived into believing a lie.  Even good teachers make mistakes, and you might be deceived by an honest error too.  That is why James tells us in 3:1 that teachers will receive the “greater condemnation.”  Teaching is a responsibility, and anyone who craves the glory is manifestly unable to handle that burden.

 Most of the preachers and teachers I know will tell you the same things I am now.  If you want to make me happy, then use what I give you, remember it and grow.  Share it with others who might need it.  Even if you forget where you got it, just pass the good news along.  That is what really matters.  Give them a bouquet of flowers, not a handful of stems.

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself, Gal 6:3.

Dene Ward

We live on wooded property—spreading live oaks, pencil straight slash pines, red and silver maples, fast-growing sycamores, sweet gums with their spiky balls, wild cherry and water oaks, both of which will split and fall at the least breeze.  When I walk Chloe around the perimeter I dodge fallen limbs, both deadfall and green, every ten feet or so.  Sometimes I find larger limbs that have fallen overnight, and once one fell right in my path just seconds after I had passed. 

 Often in the night, especially a windy one in the spring or fall as fronts pass through, I hear limbs hit the roof.  They are surprisingly loud and I awake expecting to find something large and heavy only to waste Keith’s time as he climbs the ladder to discover a two foot long twig no bigger around than his thumb.  It certainly sounded bigger than that!

 A few months ago, after a particularly windy winter storm, Chloe and I came upon a fallen pine limb, three feet long maybe and about two inches in diameter.  This one, though, was not lying on the ground.  The wind had cast this one with enough force that it had stuck straight into the ground through the sod.  I pulled it out and a full six inches of it was below the surface.  Imagine if that one had come hurtling through the sky at me as I walked by.

 Words are a bit like fallen limbs.  You never know who they will hit and how.  We are often just as careless as the wind in hurtling them about.  We may think the only one who hears is the one we are addressing.  We may think that everyone knows us and understands how it is meant.  We may think that what was said was perfectly innocent and completely impossible to mistake for something bad.  We may be very wrong.

 Yes, people need to listen with as much charity as we need to speak.  The Bible, particularly the wisdom literature, is full of cautions not only about how we speak but how we listen.  Even Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear.”  Hearing involves maybe as much responsibility as speaking. Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others, Eccl 7:21,22.

 But just maybe we could stand to be a bit more careful in our speaking.  Words can hurt, and unlike physical wounds, may never heal.  What sounds like a twig to us may sound like a massive branch falling on the roof to the hearer.  And a multitude of the same kinds of words has an effect that is hard to erase.  What kinds of words do I use the most?  Praise or criticism?  Thanksgiving or complaining?  Encouragement or rebuke?  Tough love is necessary and is necessarily painful, but do I ever practice any other kind?  Are all my words, or even just the majority, “tough?”  And am I proud of having that sort of reputation?  Do people cringe when they see me coming?

 Those things I can control, but what about the things I say that are not meant to harm, but still manage to do so?  What about things I toss off without thought, directed at no one in particular, but that, like a fallen limb, accidentally come close to someone else’s heart?  Yes, for those who are mature, we can go back to the responsibility laid on hearers in that Ecclesiastes passage and in Jesus’ and the apostles’ words about being quick to judge, but what about the perfectly innocent babes?  What about young impressionable Christians? 

 If I shoot a gun into the air, the bullet will land somewhere, and my having shot it will make me accountable to the law of the land.  Will God’s law hold us any less accountable for the spiritually injured? 

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned, Matt 12:36,37.

Dene Ward

 “So the shepherds of Christ’s flock have a double duty: to feed the sheep (by teaching the truth) and to protect them from wolves (by warning of error). As Paul put it to Titus, elders must hold firm the sure word according to apostolic teaching, so that they would be able both ‘to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it’ (Titus 1.9, RSV). This emphasis is unpopular today. We are frequently told always to be positive in our teaching, and never negative. But those who say this have either not read the New Testament or, having read it, they disagree with it. For the Lord Jesus and his apostles refuted error themselves and urged us to do the same. One wonders if it is the neglect of this obligation which is a major cause of today’s theological confusion. If, when false teaching arises, Christian leaders sit idly by and do nothing, or turn tail and flee, they will earn the terrible epithet ‘hirelings’ who care nothing for Christ’s flock (John 10.12ff). Then too it will be said of believers, as it was of Israel, that ‘they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and … they became food for all the wild animals’ (Ezek 34.5).” (John R.W. Stott, The Message of Acts, 328–329, emphasis added, footnoted scripture citations converted to inline parentheticals)

Sweetest note in seraph song,

Sweetest name on mortal tongue.

 Do you know what a seraph is?  I bet you have heard the word “seraphim” before and know it is a kind of angel.  But even that is not quite right.

 In English we form plurals in several different ways:  “s,” “es”, “ies”, plus those plurals that are Latin derivatives where “is” becomes “es” (analysis/analyses), “um” becomes “a” (memorandum/memoranda), and “us” becomes “i” (cactus/cacti). 

 One way to form a plural in Hebrew is to add “im.”  So there is one seraph and more than one seraphim, one cherub and more than one cherubim.  A “seraph” song is a song a seraph, or several seraphim, might sing.

 We don’t really know a whole lot about angelic beings.  I can tell you one thing, though:  they don’t look like chubby little naked flying babies with wings shooting bows and arrows!

 The only word picture I could find of seraphim is of those around the throne of God in Isaiah’s vision of chapter 6.  They are anything but “cute.”  Those seraphim had six wings.  When they spoke the threshold of the Temple shook and smoke filled the rooms.  Those creatures could hold live coals in their hands.  John said the angels around God’s throne were “mighty,” Rev 5:2.  I do not know if those were seraphim or not, but they stood in the same place as Isaiah’s seraphim. 

 As to angels singing about Jesus, is that scriptural?

 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:13,14.

 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Rev 5:11,12.  Earlier, in verse 9, John calls what they were doing “singing.”

 So from his birth to his ascension and afterward the angels sang about Jesus.  Seraphim, cherubim, archangels, whatever--I doubt any refused, do you?

 But here is the point of the song:  what our Savior did for us is so glorious, so marvelous, so gracious and good that everyone should be singing his praises, whether “seraph” or “mortal.”

 It is sad that our books do not contain the following verse to this song:

 And when to that bright world above

 We rise to be with Jesus,

 We’ll sing around the throne of love,

 His Name—the Name of Jesus.

Isn’t it an appropriate idea that where the seraphim stand guard over the throne of God, singing, we will also stand, singing praise to the Great Physician?

After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of [all] tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands; and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and [about] the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, [be] unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. Rev 7:9-12.

Dene Ward

 On March 1, 1692, ignorance and superstition came to the forefront as the Salem Witch Trials began.  The legal papers make a horrifying read—innocent until proven guilty was not the code back then, but the opposite:  if you came to trial you were assumed guilty.  Evidence from children as young as 9 was accepted.  Given the mass hysteria, it was probably impossible to find a child who was not willing to make accusations just to get the attention.  As far as evidence—when visions that no one else can see are counted as good evidence, there is no end to the mischief that can arise.  Unfortunately, 19 people died because of things like this.  Everyone listened to obviously made up stories with no concrete evidence because it was exciting, and in some cases, making the accusations was all that kept one from being accused herself.  Remember what caused this all—ignorance and hysteria, the exact opposite of clear and logical thinking.

 Don't think this kind of thing hasn't invaded the church today.  I have heard more than one preacher or teacher accused of teaching false doctrine when that was not the case at all.  Someone took something out of context or someone else jumped to an unnecessary conclusion and that was all it took to ruin a reputation.  When we pass these things along we are no less guilty.  The rule should always be, go to the person involved and check it out yourself.  I will always be grateful to a brother who did that for us.  He had heard something completely false 150 miles away from us, a rumor that could have ruined my husband.  As it turns out, someone had said something happened which most certainly did not happen, and then the next person decided to do a little embroidery that made the original accusation even worse.  Not only was it untrue, but we had witnesses.

 Sometimes an outright lie is involved.  When a man is accused of teaching something he flatly denies, has never taught in all his years, and the people who regularly listen to him will vouch for him, that ought to take care of it.  Instead, we hear of elders in one church telling another church they should withdraw from the "false teacher" or he will withdraw from them.  Talk about ignorance.  No elder in one church has any right to tell another church what they should do (1 Pet 5:2), and no one in the New Testament ever withdrew from a church—you simply cannot find it. 

 Often the problem is that one does not interpret a certain scripture exactly as the other, even though he agrees with the fundamental point, and always has.  A good friend and I interpreted a certain passage completely differently from each other, but we both agreed with the point each was making.  We just disagreed about which passages proved it.  So?  I never called him a false teacher and he never called me one.  Someone has forgotten just exactly how important unity among His people is to God and the Lord Jesus, and how angry they must surely be when we misuse Scripture to cause dissension.

 The Salem Witch Hunt was polar opposite of the way God intended for His people to handle questions we might have about teaching in the church.  Those people even used Scripture to accomplish what turned out to be murder (Ex 22:18; Lev 20:27; Deut 18:10,11).  They used God's Holy Word for evil.  Let's make sure we don't do the same.

Give diligence to present yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth. But shun profane babblings: for they will proceed further in ungodliness, and their word will eat as a gangrene: of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus 2Tim2:15-17.

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema.  As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man preaches unto you any gospel other than that which you received, let him be anathema(Gal 1:8-9).

How long since this passage was preached where you are? The word anathema literally means, "accursed" and is often so translated. The problem is not that any particular one of these passages is not preached. The problem that screams "Danger!" is that the N.T. contains so many such warnings and they are seldom cited at all.

Further, note that the problem is not just a small adjustment needed. Another gospel is being preached. This gospel is so opposite Christianity that Paul warns them, "I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel."  They are no longer in the grace of Christ, no longer in God who called them (cf Gal 5:8).

Now, be aware that the apostle nowhere accuses that they denied Christ, that they ceased to observe the Lord's Supper, that they changed any of the things we do in together worship in any manner. Yet, they left the grace of Christ for another gospel. How? They allowed themselves to be coerced into adding a step to the plan of Salvation, circumcision. The false teachers said that to be true Christians they had to be circumcised. Paul said that to accept part of the law for salvation meant they must keep it all and that no one could be saved by law. Well, why make a big deal, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love(Gal 5:6)." That reinforces that current status has nothing to do with salvation and one need not change. The one who requires circumcision is a false teacher with a message other than the gospel.

So, what does that have to do with us today? Looking around society, we find many teachers with popularity teaching a Jesus who is only accepting and loving toward sinners.  One need not read far in the God-inspired gospels to learn they are not teaching the Jesus of the Bible. In many other ways, popular religion changes the Bible picture of God or Jesus into another gospel. Is anyone calling these men out as Paul did those who deceived the Galatians? Are you being taught how to counter these false views when you discuss Jesus with friends?

Even the conservative denominations who mostly present a Bible view of God and Jesus have changed the plan of salvation. No, they did not add something to it, they subtracted everything but faith. I have heard men who ought to know better commend in the Lord's church the leaders of such groups by name.

Once churches of Christ grew by converting people. Now, it seems that many are determined to grow by never offending anyone. In our modern world, tolerance means we must accept people as they are, not challenge them to repent. In the past, people tried to bind "the way we have always done it" as though it were written in the Bible. As our culture creeps into the kingdom, we face a greater problem of the failure to preach boldly and forcefully, and confront both sin and changes to the gospel.

So, can you even see the shore from the distance you have drifted?

Son of man, I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, You shalt surely die; and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand. Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you hast delivered your soul. Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you hast delivered your soul (Ezek 3:17-21).

 Keith Ward

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!  Psalm 95:1,2.

 Psalm 95 is generally thought to have been one sung during the Feast of Tabernacles.  Meribah and Massah are used in its body, a time in the wilderness when God taught His people a hard lesson.  But this psalm starts just as you would expect a festival psalm to.  Come let us sing, let us make a joyful noise. 

 Just as an interesting point, the Hebrew word translated “sing” in this passage is not a musical word.  Ranan means to emit a stridulous sound (not exactly how I would want my singing described) or to shout, and is indeed translated shout, cry out, rejoice, joy, or triumph half the time in the KJV.  And that makes that opening couplet much more parallel to the second one, “make a joyful noise to him.” 

 About that “joyful noise:” that particular Hebrew word means to mar, especially by breaking, to shout, or to split the ears.  In our words we might say, “He burst my eardrums he was so loud.”  Think about standing at a football stadium in the middle of the game, or beneath a jet engine as it revs for take-off.  That’s the noise we are talking about.  In fact, this word is translated “blow an alarm [with a trumpet]” a couple of times.  As the second verse continues, we are to do this in psalms of praise so singing is involved, but the point of these two words is not the melody but the volume, caused by unabashed joy and celebration.

 You find this often in the psalms.  Noise and clamor seemed to be a part of the Jewish worship.  Perhaps the psalmist, and God as his inspiration, had noticed.  Right in the middle of the psalm, he throws what amounts to a cold bucket of water on all the festivities. 

 Their celebration of the feast had made them forget what the wandering was all about—and it wasn’t fun and games.  An entire generation died because of their faithlessness.  Toward the end of verse 7 he interrupts their self-congratulation that God loves them and cares for them with, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof.   

 Yes, God made a covenant that He would be with them and protect them, but only if they performed their half of the contract.  Their ancestors did not.  God goes on to say that He loathed that generation.  That English word, I am told, is far too mild for the Hebrew idea.  It means they disgusted Him, they nauseated Him, as in “I will spew you out of my mouth” nausea.  Because of that, they did not receive the promised rest, a rest like God’s, a Sabbath rest not because you are tired, but because have finished the task (Heb 4:1-11).

 Those people seemed to think, as the prophets testified, that all it took was loud worship to please God.  The tendency is to judge our own worship as lacking because of this, too.  We ask, “Why don’t we ever do that?” as if anything solemn and quiet is not sincere worship and certainly not acceptable to God.  It is easy to think, as they did, that volume is all that matters. 

 “If you hear his voice” the psalmist says and then makes it clear that hearing involves reverence and obedience.  In order to underscore this emphasis, the psalmist does not go back and say, “Okay, get on with the celebration now.  I just wanted to interject a warning.”  No, this is where he ends it.  He wants this to be the last thing on their minds as they finish singing this psalm:  “Therefore I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest.”

 What started out as a jubilant service ends up with the wrath of God.  I am sure their songs were not quite so ecstatic, their noise not quite so loud, for who can be carefree when he contemplates the wrath of the Almighty, the one the psalmist has already reminded us created everything and holds it in His hand? 

Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols. But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream, Amos 5:23,24.

Dene Ward.

 “The God whom Jesus shows on the cross is one who defeats evil by taking it to himself, letting it do its worst to him, and then overcoming it. ... What other faith has at its heart a writhing body, torn flesh, shameful desertion and disgrace, anguished desolation, and darkness that can be felt? But what other faith has a God who so takes evil into himself that the day of the death of all deaths becomes the day death died?” (O. Guinness, "Unspeakable," 147–148) via Nathan Ward.

A few Sundays ago the chill weather made it possible for me to wear my best suit, one a little heavier than anything else I have, one a little more expensive, but a hand-me-down from a friend.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a couple of limited time specials.  That’s one way we stay financially afloat—picking up specials when we are already the thirty miles into town for assembly.

 So we were loading the trunk and as she passed, a stranger said to me, “That’s a lovely suit.  You’ve been to church, haven’t you?  I apologize for being nosy, but would you mind telling me where you attend?”

 Would I mind?!  Of course I spent the next five or ten minutes telling her where I attend, when we meet, who we are, and what we do.  Then I handed her a blog card and pointed out my contact information in case she had more questions.  “Please email me or just call.  I can give you more detailed directions,” I finished with.

 I know a lot of people who no longer “dress up” for church.  They certainly have that right.  But I know a lot of others who go even further—who tell those of us who grew up doing it that we are wrong, that we are trying to be Christians on the outside instead of the inside.  I have yet to figure out why wearing my good suit on Sunday makes me a hypocrite any more than someone who thinks sitting on the pew in jeans on Sunday then dressing up for the boss all week makes him a Christian. 

 In fact, tell me this.  If you were this woman and you were searching, who would you ask on a Sunday around noon at the grocery store—the guy in shorts, tee shirt and flip-flops or the man with a tie on?  The lady with a dress on or the one with cut-offs and an oversized shirt hanging over her waistline?  Maybe there is something to be said after all for making it obvious on a Sunday that you have been to church. 

 But then we have this point—it isn’t what you wear on Sunday that makes the Christian; it’s what you wear every day. 

 Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do you: and above all these things [put on] love, which is the bond of perfectness, Col 3:12-14.

 My neighbors need to see these spiritual clothes every day.  There can be no “dressing down” spiritually after you have “put on Christ” in baptism, Gal 3:27.  The people I work with, the people I go to school with, the people I come into contact with, especially on a regular basis, should know by my speech and my actions that “I went to church on Sunday.”  God won’t accept a “casual Friday” set of spiritual clothes any day of the week.

 I’ve had a great many things make people ask me questions—maybe that’s a good subject for another day, but it all boils down to this—I have to look different.  Whether it’s how I act, how I speak, how I run my family, or any number of ways, it needs to be obvious.  Let’s stop making judgments about one another’s literal clothes, and just go out there and show people who we are with the spiritual wardrobe of a child of God. 

The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof]Romans 13:12-14.

Dene Ward