Friday, 15 October 2021

YOUR FAMILY IS BIGGER THAN YOU THINK

¶ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:14-19

My Grandmother, Ruby McCormack, harvesting on their
family farm in the Wimmera, Victoria, in the 1920s.
My Great Grandmother was one of eleven children. My mother was one of six children. After the financial devastation of the Great Depression, my Grandparents, my mother and my aunts and uncles moved from the Wimmera to Bunyip, a small town in Gippsland Victoria, where my Grandparents started over – again, farming sheep, dairy cows, and crops. In the early 1900s in rural Australia it made sense to have a big family because farming was so labour intensive and every farmer depended upon their children to help out on the farm. Today, families of six or more children is far less common. In fact, some couples are now getting married with the intention of having just one child, and even some are telling me that they do not intend to have any children. I wonder what this apparent trend might do to our culture? I wonder whether some of the problems that beset young men who struggle to interact in a wholesome way with young ladies might be due to their lack of growing up with a sister or sisters? While sociologists who study the effect of family compositions on societies examine some of these dynamics and how they maybe contributing to the “me generation”, I think there is also something deeply spiritual and theological to consider as well.

¶ Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,
older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.
First Timothy 5:1-2

 


A THEOLOGY OF FAMILY

Whenever we follow the words ‘a theology of ’ with another word, such as ‘family’, it means that we are considering what God and His Word state, or teach us, about a particular topic. When we consider our text (Eph. 3:14-19), we might wonder what the reference to God’s family “in heaven” might mean. Eminent New Testament scholar, F.F. Bruce, in his 1983 commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, notes that in Jewish Rabbinical thought, God has a heavenly (“above”) family, and an earthly (“below”). God’s heavenly family is comprised of the following magnificent creatures:

We generally lump all of the heavenly creatures that God created under the heading of angels. But the word angel simply refers to one of the tasks carried out particularly by one category of these heavenly creatures. Here is a brief list of five categories of heavenly creatures whom God created with a word who then constituted His heavenly family. and to whom we generally indiscriminately lump them all together by referring to them all as angels —

1. THE CHERUBIM – We have good reason for believing that quite probably, the first creatures that God created were cherubim. The Scriptures consistently refer to there being four of these magnificent creatures.

And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance:
they had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings.
Ezekiel 1:5-6

Cherubim are always depicted as guarding the presence of God (Isa. 37:16). When the Redeemer, who would later become known as Jesus, created them, these proto-creatures would bear faces that would one day be revealed to the world in the face of Christ. These four cherubim had four faces. Each had the face of a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Thus, whenever Christ saw these cherubim, which would have been continually, He was was reminded (if it’s possible for God to be reminded of anything) that He would one day become a human being who would die to redeem all mankind. This work of redemption would be described by each of the four Gospels where the Gospel of Matthew would emphasise Christ as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the King; and the Gospel of Mark would emphasise Christ as the worker, the ox; and the Gospel of Luke would emphasise Christ as the man of compassion, the human; and the Gospel of John would emphasise Christ as the eternal God made flesh, the eagle.

As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.
Ezekiel 1:10

We are introduced to the cherubim in the opening chapters of Genesis after God had banished our original parents from Eden and sent the cherubim to guard the east gate (Gen. 3:24). They are described most frequently in the Book of Ezekiel. They are present in the closing book of the Bible as “four living creatures” after the Lamb of God is presented as Christus Victor.

And before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
¶ And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures,
full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion,
the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man,
and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures,
each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within,
and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
Revelation 4:6-8

2. THE SERAPHIM – We have good reason for believing that God created the cherubim, He then created these other tremendous powerful creatures referred to as seraphim. These two creatures must be unimaginably large. While the four cherubim are around the throne of God, the seraphim are described as being behind and over the throne of God who lead all of heaven in worship of the Most High. When the majestic seraphim speak, the whole place shakes – 

Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings:
with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of His glory!”
¶ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called,
and the house was filled with smoke.
Isaiah 6:2-4

3. THE RULING “ARCH” ANGELS – After the Seraphim were created, there is good reason for thinking that God created seven extremely powerful ruling or “arch” angels. The Bible names two of them (Michael – Jude 9, and Gabriel – Daniel 9:21Luke 1:19) but ancient Jewish tradition refers by name to five others including: Raphael, Uriel, Saraqael, Raguel, and Remiel  (1Enoch 20).

But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
Jude 9

My Uncle Angus with my mum ca. 1940
4. THE WATCHERS – We can deduce from scripture and Jewish tradition that God then created about two hundred (one traditional refers to two hundred thousand of them) Watchers who appear to have been created by God in preparation for the task of assisting the yet-to-be-made humans who would live on the yet-to-be-formed earth. These Watchers were given the ability to move between the dimensions of heaven and earth and report back to God. We might speculate that they also appear to have been created with the power to shape-shift which apparently enabled them to take on a functional human form. While each of these heavenly creatures constituted God’s heavenly family, it appears that the Watchers were specifically designated as the sons of God (Gen. 6:2Deut. 32:8) of whom left the boundaries of God’s purpose and became both corrupted and corruptors of mankind. These corrupted Watchers appear to be in view in Genesis 6:2 having sexual liaisons with women and siring the nephilim (the giants). It is probable that Lucifer was one of these Watchers who left his station after God’s final creation – the woman. The prophet Daniel distinguishes the corrupted watchers from the holy watchers in Daniel 4:13.

¶ “I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said thus: ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches…The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.’
Daniel 4:13-1417

5. THE HOST OF ANGELS – Then, it appears that God, with just a word, created billions upon billions of ‘ordinary’ angels, especially when we reflect on Christ’s statement in Matthew 18:10 where He intimates that rather than each person having just one guardian angel, each person may in fact have more than one guardian angels. (Considering earth’s current population is around seven billion, this might mean that there are at least fourteen billion ordinary angels.) I do however feel rather improper to call these phenomenally powerful creatures ordinary. The Biblical data is that they can interact with our material world including the removal of a several tonne stone (Matt. 27:60Mark 16:4) which had been used to seal the entrance to Christ’s borrowed tomb (Matt. 28:2) and the opening of locked prison doors.

¶ 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!”
Revelation 5:11-12

 

THE VASTNESS OF GOD’S HEAVENLY FAMILY TELLS US A LOT ABOUT GOD’S FATHER-HEART


All of these magnificent heavenly creatures constituted God’s heavenly family. God the Father had individually named each one (Isa. 40:26)! Therefore, God’s heavenly family consisted of billions of billions of myriads of creatures whom God knew and loved. But still God wanted create an even larger family! To do so, He created man and woman (Gen. 1:26-31). His mandate to the man and woman was to enlarge God’s earthly family by – be fruitful and multiply! To state the obvious, God loves family!!! To state the not-so-obvious: Satan hates family! The Bible tells the story of how God wanted to have an earthly family of children who would love and willingly obey Him. The hope was that Israel could be that model family. But they betrayed God. And every time it appeared that Satan had ruined God’s plan to have a heavenly and earthly family of sons and daughter who would love and honour Him, God redeemed the situation. When the chosen people, Israel, turned their back on God, God announced that He would send His only Son to be the redeemer of a new family, the church.

Jesus told a moving story of the Father’s heart in the story of the prodigal’s son (Luke 15:11-32). The prodigious father in Christ’s story is like our Heavenly Father. Even though his younger son has left home and brought shame to their family name, the father longs for his son to return to him. It powerfully describes God the Father and His heart for His children. God loves His children. God knows each of us by name.

We get a glimpse of what Father God’s ultimate family is going to look like in Revelation 7:9 where it describes all of the redeemed joining with all of the Father’s heavenly family. God clearly loves and wants a big family.

¶ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Revelation 7:9-10



GOD LOVES FAMILY

It’s difficult to imagine how happy, joyous, and full heaven is — and will further be. The suggestion that God created humankind because He was in some way ‘lonely’ becomes apparently and obviously fatuous after considering what we now surmise about those He created to populate the heavenly realm and experience God’s unfathomable and limitless love and goodness. It’s important for Christians in Australia and New Zealand (because we often have the gospel presented to us in a rather individualistic terms) to understand that the gospel is not merely about having a vertical relationship with God — it’s also about a horizontal relationship with other wretches who have also been saved by the grace of the Lamb of God who will ultimately entrust the redeemed with positions of unmerited and unbelievable privilege in the age to come-

They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them,
for He is Lord of lords and King of kings,
and those with Him are called and chosen and faithful.”
Revelation 17:14

Do you not know that we are to judge angels?
How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
First Corinthians 6:3

If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
if we deny Him, He also will deny us;
Second Timothy 2:12

And you have made them [the redeemed] a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:10

Thus, when we come closer to Christ in unreserved surrender through prayer and the heeding of His written Word, our hearts are transformed from seeing “our family” as just those connected to us by blood, to seeing our family as our Heavenly Father sees it—that is, when we are redeemed by Christ we are adopted into a new and much larger family – God’s family. There is so much joy in heaven when just one formerly lost person turns to the Saviour and repents –  because God’s heavenly family shares in the Father’s joy every time this happens –

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
Luke 15:7

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10

Every believer belongs to the family of God. That makes us brothers and sisters. And because we understand that our Heavenly Father’s love for each of us is infinite (Eph. 3:17-19) we cannot possibly be less loved if more people are added to God’s family. Therefore, unlike the Cadbury Chocolate kid sulking upstairs after is new baby sister arrives home from the hospital, is not how the son or daughter of God reacts when a new believer is added to the Church – the family of God. This means that every local church should reflect God’s heart for God’s family. Let us pray for, and seek to reflect, God’s heart for the lost. Let us pray for and take active measures to welcome people seeking to be reconciled to God. And in the process of seeing people find peace with God through Christ, we rejoice that our spiritual (fictive) family has just become bigger, because we share in our Heavenly Father’s joy every time this happens as well.


Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

Friday, 8 October 2021

WHY WOMEN REALLY, REALLY, MATTER! AND SATAN REALLY, REALLY, HATES THEM!

WHY WOMEN REALLY, REALLY, MATTER! AND SATAN REALLY, REALLY, HATES THEM!

One of the perennial questions asked by theologians is when did Lucifer rebel? Some scholars have suggested that Isaiah described Lucifer’s moment of rebellion in Isaiah 14 when it sounds like he thought he could take over heaven-

¶ “How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,‘
I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
Isaiah 14:12-14

But upon a closer examination of the text, it becomes apparent that Isaiah is speaking of the arrogance of the king of Babylon, not Satan. The prophesied rise of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is described in language that depicts his arrogance as breath-taking. It may be that the condition of Lucifer’s heart at the time of his fall was similarly arrogant to that of Nebuchadnezzar (who Yahweh had greatly humble, as described in Daniel 2), but we cannot force the text of Isaiah 14 to mean something that it was not intended to mean. If Isaiah 14 does not describe the cause and timing of Lucifer’s, then perhaps Ezekiel 28 does? After all, it describes what we might reasonably consider to be the cause of Lucifer’s rebellion –

“Because your heart is proud,
and you have said, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,’
yet you are but a man, and no god,
though you make your heart like the heart of a god—
Ezekiel 28:2b

But again, a closer examination of the text reveals that Isaiah was dealing with the king of Tyre, not Lucifer.

¶ The word of the LORD came to me:
“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre,
Thus says the Lord GOD:“Because your heart is proud,
and you have said, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,’yet you are but a man, and no god,
though you make your heart like the heart of a god—
Ezekiel 28:1-2

You may have heard teaching based on these two ‘classic’ passages supposedly about the origins of Lucifer’s transition to Satan (“the Adversary”) boldly asserted and then linked with the idea that he was an archangel who rebelled and took a third of heaven’s angels with him. These ordinary angels who sided with Satan then became demons. Revelation 12 is generally cited to make this case. But there is yet another problem that we encounter in trying to make this narrative fit. Notice the chronological sequence stated in Revelation 12 – particularly addressing the perennial theological problem we are trying to solve:

¶ And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
¶ Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 12:1-9

Here is the sequence of this passage:

(i) “The woman” (which is Mary representing Israel who is depicted with the metaphorical “sun, moon, and stars” first established from Joseph’s dream in Genesis 37 as being Israel. Whenever Israel turned its back on God the prophets declared that the sun no longer gives forth its light, the moon has been darkened, and the stars have fallen from the sky [Isa. 13:10Ezek. 32:7]);

(ii) She is about to give birth (to the Messiah, Jesus);

(iii) The Dragon (Satan) musters the geo-political forces at the time — Israel (Herod) and Rome (Augustus);

(iv) The Dragon then sweeps down “a third of the stars of heaven” to the earth (presumed to be the involuntary subjection of a third of heavens angels who are then coerced to follow Satan). But this interpretation of this phrase creates two great problems: it suggests that Satan’s agenda did not commence until after the Christ was born, and secondly, it suggests that there were no demons until after Christ had been born. Both suggestions cannot be substantiated from Scripture;

(v) The Dragon then looms before the woman to devour her child when He is born. Indeed, Satan used King Herod in an attempt to kill the baby Messiah around the time of His birth, but failed;

(vi) The woman’s child grows to be the man who would accomplish redemption and the atonement of humankind’s sin and demonstrate that He is the true King of kings who will rule the nations ‘with a rod of iron’. After this phase of His redemptive plan is accomplished He ascends back to heaven;

(vii) Despite the Dragon’s 1,260 day program to wipe out the bearers of the news of the Saviour’s offer of redemption, the woman (the true Israel) is protected by God from being destroyed. [In AD64 Caesar Nero commenced a killing rampage against Christians but was unable to destroy Christianity. This rampage of martyrdom against the Church ended with Nero’s suicide in AD68, 1260 or so days later.]

(viii) War broke out in heaven with the archangel Michael fighting the Dragon. In AD70 the last vestiges of the Old Covenant were done away with, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Hebrews 8:13, and with the doing away with the Old Covenant (Temple, Priesthood, sacrifices) Satan’s role as the Accuser of believers was extinguished and his doom made certain (the expression “thrown down” is metaphorical language of this, and Revelation further describes his doom as being “thrown into a bottomless pit” in Rev. 20).

Do you see how this sequence does not fit the suggested narrative of the origins of Satan since we know he was already the Evil One in the Garden of Eden described in Genesis 3?

 

WHAT THE BIBLICAL DATA ACTUALLY REVEALS ABOUT THE TIMING OF THE FALL OF LUCIFER

It might be that the story of Job is the most ancient story in the Bible. That is, the oral tradition of this account was being told well before Moses and his editor/s penned the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy). But the Book of Job, which describes a character referred to as the Satan in its opening two chapters was probably not formally written down in its present form until the time of the Exile in the fifth and the fourth centuries BC – whereas we know that the Genesis account was a part of the Book of the Law written and handed down from around 1400 BC. Therefore, the account of the Devil in Genesis 3 has ancient origins. If this text was all the data we had to determine when Lucifer rebelled against Yahweh, then we might be more inclined to accept an ancient tradition that says that it was the creation of the woman that triggered Lucifer to defy God. We certainly could not argue with the data as it is presented in the opening three chapters of Genesis since it is immediately after the woman (Heb. “Ishah”) is created that the devilish serpent appears. An ancient tradition states that it was this which triggered Lucifer, one of the Watchers originally assigned to earth to assist mankind, to be incensed with what Yahweh had done when he created a special being capable of doing what no no heavenly creature could do. While the man (Heb. “Adam”) had been created in the image of God, it was only after God divested Adam of those divine traits and embodied them in the Ishah with an ability that no other creature in the universe possessed: the ability to create ‘spirit’ (when a woman conceives her offspring he or she becomes an entirely new person in her womb with a spirit or soul comprised of a substance not previously in existence, unlike each of our physical bodies which are comprised of pre-existing material) — that Lucifer’s great pride became offended with envy and he was filled with rage against the woman (Ishah).

This would certainly explain the LORD’s denouncement of the serpent and His warning to the Ishah –

¶ The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Genesis 3:14-15

If this ancient tradition is correct about the timing and cause of Satan’s origins, then it explains why his devilish strategies are almost entirely focused on the destruction of women. The evidence for this today is horrifically obvious. Satan hates women. He hates that they can do something literally divine – a woman can create a spiritual being – and he cannot. Therefore, he tricks, manipulates, deceives, and cons people into encouraging women to either abuse this divine power or to destroy its fruit (the conceived child) through abortion — and of course, sex-selective abortion. It is conservatively estimated that due to this devilish strategy there are now “one hundred million missing females” from the world’s current population! One researcher has estimated that in India alone, there have been 70,000,000 baby girls aborted due to the practice of sex-selective abortions. Added to this assault on women is Satan’s despicable scheme to have men commit sexual violence against women including the sin of rape and pornography. All the while, the father of lies manipulates even women to be spoke-persons for the euphemistically labelled “Sex Industry” to betray their own sex by advocating for “the rights of sex workers” when they of all people should be defending the dignity of women against the abuses by men! Yet, somehow, Satan’s devilish deceptions are packaged with a veneer of acceptability that results of pitiful confusion by politicians, the judiciary, the media, and the arts. This confusion reached dizzying heights when Hugh Hefner died and he was bizarrely championed as a liberator of women by complying with Satan’s schemes to have stripped of dignity and treated as objects rather than as people endowed by their Creator to be honoured, cherished, and protected from such scandalous abuses. While the media were lauding Hefner as a liberator of women despite his despicable objectifying of women, they were simultaneously promoting the “Me Too Movement” when hundreds of women began speaking up against their mistreatment by other powerful men!

It is my hope that every Christian man repents of their consumption of pornography and is delivered from the lie that the women portrayed in this devilish attack against women actually enjoy being treated as object rather than as persons! 

 

WHY WOMEN ARE REALLY, REALLY, IMPORTANT

When Satan entered the Garden of Eden, he did not try to directly corrupt the man. He went straight to the one upon whom the entire divine plan for mankind depended – the woman. But God immediately instigated His plan of redemption and put women right in the centre of it! As you read through Scripture you will see this pattern – Satan attacks key women, God redeems these women and uses the attack against them as an opportunity to further His plan of redemption despite Satan’s attack against them! When Satan attacked Eve with his insidious deception, God redeemed this attack by announcing that He would send the Redeemer as “seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15Rom. 16:20). God ordained that a young woman named Tamar would be one of the women through whom the family line of the coming Redeemer would come. When Satan had orchestrated Tamar’s husband, Er, to be sexually deviant so that this would not happen (Gen. 38:7), God orchestrated for His plan of redemption to be furthered through Tamar and her link to the tribe of Judah anyway (Matt. 1:3). When a young chosen girl, Rahab, was chosen by God to be in the family-line of the Messiah-Redeemer, she too was attacked by Satan at a very young age. She was robbed of her of dignity and purity and against all hope doomed to be childless. But God chose to rescue her out of these wicked schemes of Satan and the men Satan had manipulated to abuse her. God orchestrated a dramatic military rescue plan and brought her into the family of God as the wife of a godly Hebrew man, Boaz, and she was able to become the Great-Grandmother of King David and thereby continue the family-line of the coming Redeemer (Matt. 1:5a). Her only child, Boaz, her son, reached his senior years and had not yet married. Satan had made life difficult for Boaz and his countrymen by orchestrating a drought and a famine. Satan’s scheme looked like it would bring God’s plan of redemption to a halt. But God once again used Satan’s attack and sovereignly orchestrated it as a means to redeem both Boaz and a young Moabite girl, Ruth (Matt. 1:5b) through whom He ensured that the family-line of the Redeemer remained unbroken. And when David corrupted the heart of the LORD’s favourite servants with lust for an already married woman, God eventually orchestrated for her who had been the wife of Uriah to be the chosen woman in the line of the coming Redeemer (Matt. 1:7).

Women are really really important to God and our endowed with a divine quality that men do not possess. We have already noted the fifth woman mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus, Mary (when we looked at Revelation 12) and noted how God indeed ensured that this young woman was an important means by which the Redeemer would redeem. Therefore, men, treat all women with respect, tenderness, and honour. And do this by heeding the Apostle Paul’s injunction to men- 

¶ Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.  ¶ Honor widows…
First Timothy 5:1-3




Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.