Like most brethren, I’ve been transfixed by the tragic events this past Sunday at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, TX.  I mourn the deaths of both the guilty and the innocent, but I salute the courage of the members of the security team who put their own lives at risk to ensure that no more innocents would die.

I suspect that most Christians feel as I do.  Intuitively, we sense that a man who kills in order to protect others from a criminal has done no wrong.  Like a shepherd, he is defending the flock from wolves. 

Nonetheless, our feelings aren’t enough to decide the matter.  We also must reckon with the Scriptural witness on the subject.  Previously, I’ve both written and preached that Jesus’ famous commandment to “turn the other cheek” should be read narrowly, with reference to persecution by the Roman government.  It does not address defending ourselves from criminals.  In fact, at several points, other Biblical arguments assume that people will practice self-defense.

However, that leaves another question.  What about the many times in the book of Acts when Paul and others are attacked by angry anti-Christian mobs that aren’t part of the government?  We don’t see Christians fighting back against the mobs either.  Doesn’t that imply that Paul and the others were pacifists?

The behavior of Paul in Acts 16 and elsewhere is consistent with pacifism, but that’s not the only reasonable explanation.  Throughout the New Testament, in numerous passages, Christians are told to live in a peaceable, quiet way that will bring respect from outsiders.  This makes the gospel more attractive (the kind of people who will submit their lives to Christ generally don’t appreciate disturbance of the peace), but it also protected early Christianity from being crushed by the government. 

The early church had its troubles with both Jewish and Roman officials, but those troubles would have been much worse if the first-century church had developed a reputation for provoking and participating in public disorder.  Gamaliel would not have spoken up to save the apostles in Acts 5 if there had been blood in the streets.  Paul would not have been able to defend himself before Felix in Acts 24 if he had been stirring up more trouble by fighting back.  His defense in 24:12 is based on the fact that he didn’t.

The logic of 1 Timothy 6:1 applies here too.  Disobedient Christian servants and unruly Christian brawlers both lead to the doctrine of Christ being spoken against.  The reputation of the church is more important even than our own lives, and we should act accordingly.

By contrast, Christians protecting their own from murderers does not bring the doctrine of Christ into disrepute.  The opposite is true.  I’ve seen nothing but praise for the West Freeway members who stopped the shooter in six seconds flat. 

Indeed, if all such incidents were resolved so quickly, I suspect there would be many fewer shooters.  Killing sheep appeals to cowards, and shooters are cowards.  Fighting guard dogs doesn’t.

We are responsible for submitting to the government that God has put in place, and we cannot participate in public disorder.  However, the Bible also calls us to be wise in an evil age.  The death toll at West Freeway is heartbreaking, but it could have been much worse.  I am thankful for those whose foresight ensured that it would not be, and I think that all churches will do well to imitate their example.

Several weeks ago, I stumbled across one of those online debates on modesty that have become drearily familiar since the advent of social media.  On the one hand, you have the don’t-dress-like-a-hussy folks who claim that women who dress in revealing clothing make men lust after them.  On the other hand, you have the I-can-dress-however-I-want people who retort that those nasty men need to keep their eyes and their thoughts to themselves.  On and on it goes, with both sides talking at rather than talking to each other.

The problem is that the whole conversation reflects an ethical blind spot.  For some reason, we want to pin the blame on either the scantily-clad woman or the lustful man without acknowledging that in that scenario, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

First of all, it’s undeniably true that women (and men, though all the New-Testament modesty passages are addressed specifically to women) need to dress modestly, in a way that draws attention to their virtues rather than their assets.  This is true whether those assets are wealth (as is the case in 1 Timothy 2) or a healthy young body.  Any woman of God who dresses (whether intentionally or unintentionally) in a way that attracts notice to her outside rather than her inside is doing wrong.

The same is true of the man who looks with lust on a woman (or anybody who looks with lust on anybody else).  As per Matthew 5:28, that’s committing adultery in your heart.  It’s black-letter sin.

Both of these things are true regardless of what anybody else does.  A woman who dresses inappropriately has still done wrong even if all the men in her vicinity are godly and take up an examination of the ceiling tiles rather than her costume.  On the other side of the coin, a man who chooses to lust after women who are modestly attired still has done wrong too.

Neither party becomes less culpable simply because someone else also is behaving badly.  Yes, O immodestly dressed woman, that icky gross man needs to quit fantasizing about you, but you need to start taking your fashion cues from the Lord, not the world.  Yes, O lustful man (or indignant female relative of lustful man), she shouldn’t be dressing like that, but even if every woman on the planet starts parading around stark naked, their choices do not justify your lust!

In short, when it comes to modesty and lust, all of us need to stop worrying so much about what others are doing and start worrying about what we ourselves are doing.  The decisions of others may make it harder for us to be righteous, but they cannot make it less imperative.  We need to make sure that our clothing reveals Christ instead of ourselves, and we also must make sure that He reigns in our hearts instead of sin.  Looking to excuse our sin because of the sin of others will get us nowhere.

Recently, one of the brethren at Jackson Heights preached a sermon on David and Goliath.  Though this is a familiar topic, he began it in an unusual way.  He prefaced his discussion of the events of 1 Samuel 17 by reading 1 Samuel 16:13.  He noted that from the time of his anointing, David was a spiritually gifted young man.

I think it’s likely that David’s giftedness had a far greater impact on his encounter with Goliath than we normally credit.  Perhaps the problem is that we limit our awareness of spiritual gifts to the named gifts of the New Testament:  tongues, prophecy, and so forth.  David certainly was a prophet, but that didn’t help him a whole lot with his giant problem!

However, the Old Testament reveals that spiritual gifts could have physical dimensions.  Most notably, Samson was a man who was able to do great feats of strength through the Spirit of the Lord.  Similarly, in 1 Kings 18, Elijah is able to outrun Ahab in his chariot because “the hand of the Lord” was upon him.

David makes similarly impressive claims about his own divinely bestowed abilities in the Psalms.  In Psalm 18:29, he claims the ability to charge and defeat large groups of enemies and to leap over walls.  Vs. 33-34 claim that he has received the gifts of surefootedness, battle training, and superhuman strength from God.  Claims like these appear in other Davidic psalms.

Traditionally, I’ve read these things as poetic license, hyperbole.  Perhaps not.  In fact, in light of David’s resume claims in 1 Samuel 17:34-37, probably not.  There, David discusses his ability to fight and kill multiple lions and bears in defense of his father’s flock. 

On our recent family vacation out West, I saw two bears.  I saw them from a great distance, and I was quite happy about that.  Bears are big, fast, tough, and designed by God to kill animals about the size of a human being.  I have no interest in fighting a bear with anything less than a large-caliber firearm.  Ditto for lions.

David, on the other hand, as a kid, is challenging, fighting, and killing lions and bears up-close and personal.  He is grabbing the lion and the bear under the chin with one hand and hitting it over the head until it dies with the other.  He’s not doing this with a sword or an axe.  He’s doing it with a stick.

That ain’t natural, folks. 

In short, it seems likely that David was already a supernaturally enhanced warrior by the time of his trip to the valley of Elah, and he knew it.  What’s more, all the Israelites who heard his story and believed him knew it too.  They were a lot savvier about what was and was not possible in hand-to-hand combat than we are. 

For that matter, despite the fame of David’s use of the sling, I doubt things would have gone a whole lot differently if David had closed with Goliath instead.  A bear can probably take as much punishment as an economy-sized armored human, and both the lion and the bear are faster.  Goliath taunted David for treating him like a dog, but David likely would have beaten him like a dog.

All of this puts a different spin on the narrative of David’s faith in this story.  Certainly David spoke and acted as a young man of faith.  However, his faith was neither foolish nor unfounded.  He knew that God could help him to do things no other man could do, he had experienced God’s help, and he was confident that God would help him again. 

Today, God calls us to a faith that is similarly well reasoned.  If we rush blindly into X, confident that God will help us to do X even though He has given no indication of it, we probably will get what we deserve.  However, if we study His work and His promises and act accordingly, like David, we will find that He will not fall short of what He has promised.

When a Scriptural subject is as hotly debated as the necessity of baptism for salvation is, we might assume that the Scriptural witness is somehow unclear.  With baptism, though, this is hardly the case.  From beginning to end of the New Testament, many texts inform us that baptism leads to forgiveness of sins, washes away sins, gives new life, clothes with Christ, and saves.  Without the “help” of false teachers, any reasonable person would read those passages and properly understand the importance of baptism.

This teaching appears not only in passages that explicitly mention baptism, but also in some that do not.  Many Christians cite John 3:5 and its context as an example of this, but few pay similar attention to Hebrews 10:19-22.  Here, the writer says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

In this Scripture, the writer urges us to confidently draw near to God.  All told, he enumerates five things that ought to give us the assurance to do so:  three heavenly things that are present, and two earthly things that must be present.  The three heavenly things are the blood of Jesus, the way that He opened through the veil into God’s presence, and His priesthood over the house of God. 

As necessary as these things are, they are not sufficient.  Otherwise, even the idolater and the atheist would be able to come into God’s presence without changing anything about themselves.  Certainly, the unbelieving Jews of the Hebrews writer’s day would have been able to, which would have nullified the whole point of the book! 

Instead, only a limited class is able to take advantage of the way that has been opened.  If we want to draw near, our hearts must have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies must have been washed with pure water.  Note that the conjunction here is “and”, not “or”.  Just as the work of Jesus is not enough by itself, so only one of these things is not enough by itself either.  We can’t just think that we have been saved to form a relationship with God.  We must have been baptized too.

Indeed, this text even indicates what mode of baptism is appropriate.  Sprinkling as it is practiced today is nothing like a washing of the body, nor is pouring (typically, the baptizer only pours water on the head of the baptizee).  Only immersion resembles a bodily washing. 

The point for us is plain.  Either we are in God’s presence, both now and eternally, or we will be outside God’s presence, both now and eternally.  If the former is what we want, we have to submit to God’s will to get there, a will that ordains both faith and baptism.

During my sermon last week on women exercising authority in the church, I noted in passing that some brethren try to argue for the existence of female apostles from Romans 16:7, but that I did not find the argument convincing.  I had assumed that most were familiar with the argument, but after services, my wife told me that my offhand comment generated a flurry of page-flipping in some quarters.  I guess I’d better explain!

The textual question in 16:7 is not obvious in most translations.  The ESV says, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.  They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.”  Standard Pauline greeting, right?  What’s the big deal?

The argument that this is a text about a female apostle is twofold.  First, it identifies the person the ESV calls “Junia” as female.  Second, it asserts that the ESV rendering “well known to the apostles” should instead be translated as, “prominent in the apostles.”  Thus, Junia would be a prominent female apostle, which would have all kinds of implications for our understanding of the role of women in the church.

The problem is that this conclusion rests on shaky foundations.  First, it is by no means certain that “Junia” is female.  The ESV thinks so, but the NASB thinks “Junias” is a better translation.  “Junias” would be a contraction of “Junianus”, and thus male.  Most translations opt for “Junia” here, but reasonable doubt on the issue exists.

Second, it is unclear what relationship Junia/Junias has to the apostles.  Are they merely well known to the apostles, or are they a prominent member of the class of the apostles?  The Greek here is ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, which is literally translated as “of note in/among the apostles”. 

The text does not straightforwardly say that Junia/Junias was a remarkable apostle, as Barabbas is described as “a notorious prisoner”  in Matthew 27:16 (“notorious” being the only other use of this word in the NT).  Instead, it allows for either interpretation.  Additionally, if Junia/Junias is a prominent, famous apostle, how come Romans 16:7 is the only place where they appear? 

On balance, I think that “Junia” is probably correct, but I also think that she is well-known to the apostles rather than being a well-known apostle.  However, that conclusion is not necessary to settle the issue.  It’s enough to observe that the gender and position of Junia are uncertain. 

In such cases, the principles of Scriptural interpretation call us to a) prefer harmonious to contradictory readings of the Bible and b) read unclear passages in the light of clear passages.  1 Timothy 2:12 is clear (except to those who are engaged in eisgesis rather than exegesis), and it forecloses the possibility of women taking on authoritative roles (like the role of an apostle) in the church. 

Thus, we are compelled to adopt a harmonious rather than contradictory reading of Romans 16:7.  Sorry, Junia!  You’re not an apostle, because if you were, you’d be violating 1 Timothy 2:12.

All of this probably strikes many brethren as a finicky, fussy sort of argument, which is why I did not spend much time exploring it during the sermon.  There’s a reason, though, why the subject of women in authority generates these kinds of arguments.  If you stick to the obvious stuff in Scripture, you’ll never find reason to believe that women should lead in the church. 

However, if you believe that women ought to be leaders, and you’re searching for Scriptural justification for your beliefs, that will drive you into the weeds.  Here, as elsewhere, we must be suspicious of subtle arguments that contradict the plain meaning of the text.  Their presence is usually a sign that somebody is trying to serve not God, but themselves.