Posted: 7/09/04

San Antonio missions minister, pastor
from College Station named CBF-Texas officers

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–A San Antonio missions minister and a College Station pastor assumed the elected leadership of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-Texas during the group's annual meeting, held in conjunction with the national CBF general assembly in Birmingham.

Debbie Ferrier, minister of missions at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, became moderator of the Texas group after serving a year as moderator-elect.

Rodney McGlothlin, pastor of First Baptist Church in College Station, was chosen moderator-elect and will succeed Ferrier in 2005.

CBF-Texas also nominated three members to the national CBF Coordinating Council.

Sandi Elizondo, a staff member at Baptist University of the Americas and a member of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio; Bill Shiell, pastor of Southland Baptist Church in San Angelo; and Glen Schmucker, pastor of Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas, later were confirmed by participants in the larger meeting.

In addition, CBF-Texas elected 12 members of the state Coordinating Council.

They are Chris Breedlove, Dellview Baptist Church, San Antonio; Ron Edwards, Minnehulla Baptist Church, Goliad; Antonio Estrada, South Main Baptist Church, Houston; Isaac Flores, Primera Iglesia Bautista, San Antonio; James Hanes, First Baptist Church, Arlington; Cindy Johnson, Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth; and Scott Jones, Royal Lane Baptist Church, Dallas.

Also, Charles McLaughlin, Western Hills Baptist Church, Fort Worth; Karen Murphy, First Baptist Church, Harlingen; Kyle Reese, First Baptist Church, San Angelo; Brad Russell, The Springs Baptist Church, San Antonio; and Cynthia Wise, Second Baptist Church, Lubbock.

Posted: 7/09/04

Volunteers from churches in Springtown, Keller and DeLeon join members of First Baptist Church in Comanche in painting and renovating homes for unchurched, low-income residents in their communities. It's part of Community Rehab, a ministry launched by the Comanche church.

Community rehab volunteers seek to
show 'what the church ought to be'

By Janelle Bagci

Staff Writer

COMANCHE–Five years ago, members of First Baptist Church in Comanche launched a community project repairing homes in their town. This year, the project spread to surrounding counties, and the volunteers–mostly teenagers–reconstructed 17 homes.

First Baptist Church founded Community Rehab as an inexpensive alternative to World Changers, a North American Mission Board-sponsored program.

“The youth at First Baptist Church in Comanche spent a long time raising the money to go to World Changers, and we had a hard time seeing where it all went,” said James Stone, youth minister at First Baptist. “We decided we could do something similar right here in Comanche.”

The vision of Community Rehab is to give “tangible evidence to what the church ought to be–serving and making people better. That's what the gospel's all about,” said J.C. Baker, pastor of First Baptist Church in Weinert, who served as Community Rehab pastor during the building project.

The Comanche church put an ad in the local newspaper, asking people who need repairs on their homes to apply. Applicants had to be low-income and not affiliated with a church, because the ministry's goal is to reach unchurched people.

Community Rehab raised funds through local donations of materials and money. The project collected more than $30,000 from the city, businesses and individuals. A specialty grant from the federal government allowed a partnership with the project to reconstruct five houses. Even churches without the people to participate were able to donate funds to the cause.

More than 200 workers restored and rebuilt the 17 homes this year in DeLeon, Gustine and Comanche counties. Tasks ranged from roofing and painting to building new porches and tearing down chimneys. Participants worked five days for five hours a day.

By the end of the week, the volunteers had completed two houses more than expected.

“It meets the needs of our kids almost better than youth camp,” said Bob Whitney of First Baptist in Comanche, one of the originators of the project. It promotes team building, evangelism and service in one week, he said.

In addition to repairing homes, workers prayerwalk during their spare time and gather children for daily Bible lessons.

“We wanted to work on some houses, and maybe we'd have a presence in the neighborhood. It's gone way beyond that to Bible study and evangelism; it's getting deep,” Whitney said.

Volunteers held a worship service every night. About half of the homeowners attended the services, and several made commitments to Christ.

The project has grown each year, and churches participate from Keller, Springtown, DeLeon and Comanche.

“It's become a ripple effect,” Stone said.

“Our gifts have put us in touch with people so that when people see us, they'll give us time to tell them about Jesus,” said Charles Carroll of First Baptist in Comanche, Community Rehab construction coordinator/ supervisor.

The high school custodian's house was one of the 17 homes Community Rehab rebuilt. She has a huge impact on a lot of people because the community knows her, Stone said.

Community Rehab “is as much for us as it is for them; it got us out of our comfort zone,” Whitney said.

The homeowners especially were excited about their new homes.

“I love it. I'm so proud of it; it's beautiful,” Dixie Markham said of her new front door and window. “I feel so privileged; they worked so hard.”

Prior to Community Rehab's work, Markham's front door would not close or lock. She was forced to wire it shut.

“Now I've got a new door with a lock,” she said. “This is the first time I've ever had anything given to me. I've always had to work for everything. I just feel so privileged.”

For more information about Community Rehab, contact James Stone at (325) 356-2051.

Posted: 7/09/04

Compensation survey shows BGCT
churches rank #2 in pay for pastors

By Trennis Henderson

Kentucky Western Recorder

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP)–The average salary and housing for full-time Baptist pastors is $46,505, according to a national compensation study. That is a jump of 6.7 percent from a similar study conducted two years ago.

The average total pay package, including insurance and annuity benefits, is $56,236 nationally–an increase of 7.6 percent over the previous study. The study includes more than 20,000 parti-cipants from 8,600 Southern Baptist churches in all 50 states.

The average salary-and-housing packages for full-time pastors range from $34,397 in Montana to $63,818 in the District of Columbia. Full-time pastors in the Baptist General Convention of Texas rank second at $56,581.

“The joint study provides a much larger database so churches can compare compensation to churches more like their own,” said Don Spencer, director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention's annuity department, who has been compiling a biennial compensation study for Kentucky Baptist churches since 1986. The Southern Baptist Annuity Board–recently renamed GuideStone Financial Resources–also helped facilitate the study.

“Our hope is that churches will use this information to evaluate their compensation arrangements for current and future staff,” explained Bob Henry, head of GuideStone's church retirement marketing department.

In addition to compensation for full-time pastors, the study provides compensation information about bivocational pastors and full-time and bivocational church staff ministers as well as office personnel and custodians.

“One of the values of this is it allows a church to not make compensation decisions in a vacuum,” Henry said.

“It helps churches get a more global view of what is happening in the area of compensation for pastors and church staff members.”

Bivocational pastors' salary and housing average $14,788 nationally, an increase of 6.5 percent since 2002. Their average total pay package is $16,340, a gain of 8.4 percent in the past two years.

Among full-time church staff ministers, the average salary and housing is $44,730 nationally, and the total pay package averages $54,184. Among bivocational church staff ministers, average salary and housing is $10,725, and the total pay package averages $11,576.

Citing other findings in the study, Spencer said he is pleased that ministers' compensation has outpaced inflation in recent years. The 6.7 percent increase in full-time pastors' average compensation since 2002 compares to a 4.3 percent inflation rate. Since 1996, full-time pastors' average compensation has jumped 40.4 percent, doubling the inflation rate of 20.2 percent.

“The level of increased compensation is significant since ministers traditionally have been underpaid when compared to secular positions requiring similar background and responsibilities,” he said. “Little by little, compensation for church staff is improving.”

Churches and individuals can access the full study and compile customized compensation reports online through the "2004 Compensation Study" link at www.absbc.org.

Posted: 7/09/04

Court rules Child Online
Protection Act appears unconstitutional

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–A federal law attempting to make it harder for children and teenagers to access Internet pornography cannot be enforced because it likely violates the First Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

The justices decided a lower court's order barring enforcement of the law could stand and the law probably wouldn't survive a challenge on free-speech grounds.

In Ashcroft vs. American Civil Liberties Union, a sharply divided court ruled that the Child Online Protection Act should not be enforced pending a trial on its constitutionality.

COPA–passed in 1998 and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton–was Congress' second attempt to block children's access to pornography and other harmful materials on the Internet.

“Content-based prohibitions, enforced by severe criminal penalties, have the constant potential to be a repressive force in the lives and thoughts of a free people,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, in the opinion for the 5-4 majority.

COPA imposes fines of $50,000 and six months' imprisonment on owners of commercial Internet sites who knowingly post materials “harmful to minors.”

The act defines such material as any that “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find “designed to appeal to … the prurient interest.”

However, COPA exempted website administrators from the penalties if their sites used age-verification software, required credit-card numbers or employed similar tactics to ensure that minors could not gain access to the restricted material.

In 1996, Congress passed a similar but broader law, the Communications Decency Act. The high court struck it down in 1997, saying its provisions went too far in restricting free speech.

Congress passed COPA in response, and a coalition of Internet content providers and free-speech groups filed suit against it. A federal district court barred its enforcement, saying the law would likely prove to be a violation of the First Amendment. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision, saying the law's “community standards” language made it too sweeping an imposition on free-speech rights.

In 2002, the Supreme Court reversed the 3rd Circuit's decision to uphold the injunction on those grounds and sent the case back to that court. The 3rd Circuit responded by upholding the injunction again but on different legal grounds–that COPA was not written narrowly enough and that there were less restrictive ways to satisfy the government's purposes.

President Bush's Justice Department appealed that ruling, which landed the case at the Supreme Court again.

But their opponents–including the ACLU–said that while the government's purpose in COPA may be noble, its effects would unconstitutionally restrict the freedom of speech. They also argued the law would be ineffective, since many Internet content providers are based overseas and thus could not be successfully prosecuted.

The court's majority said encouraging owners of computers used by minors to get Internet-filtering software was a better solution. Such software “is an alternative that is less restrictive than COPA and, in addition, likely more effective as a means of restricting children's access to materials harmful to them,” Kennedy wrote.

He added: “Under a filtering regime, adults without children may gain access to speech they have a right to see without having to identify themselves or provide their credit-card information.”

In a separate concurring opinion, Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she understood the government's reasons for the law.

“As a parent, grandparent and great-grandparent, I endorse that goal without reservation,” she wrote.

“As a judge, however, I must confess to a growing sense of unease when the interest in protecting children from prurient materials is invoked as a justification for using criminal regulation of speech as a substitute for, or a simple backup to, adult oversight of children's viewing habits.”

Posted: 7/09/04

Colorado Supreme Court strikes down
state's school-voucher pilot program

DENVER (ABP)–Colorado's highest court has ruled unconstitutional a state law that would have set up a school-voucher program, including religious and other private schools.

On a 4-3 vote, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled the state's Colorado Opportunity Contract Pilot Program violated a state constitutional provision regarding local school boards' control over educational instruction in their districts.

The program was passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Bill Owens (R) last year.

It is the only statewide voucher bill to become law since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that an Ohio voucher program that included religious schools didn't violate the First Amendment's ban on government support for religion.

Shortly after the Colorado plan was signed into law, a coalition of parents, public-education advocates and civil-liberties groups sued the state.

They claimed the program violated a section of the Colorado Constitution that says local school boards “shall have control of instruction in the public schools of their respective districts.”

The state's courts have interpreted that provision in the past to mean that locally raised school-tax revenues should be spent only on instruction controlled by local school boards. The new voucher program would direct both state and local funds for scholarships that would be given to low-income students in public school districts. Those students could then spend the scholarship funds at private schools, including religious academies.

The ruling leaves legislators the option of crafting a new voucher program that satisfies the constitutional requirements by using only state or federal funds.

That may be unlikely anytime soon, since the previous bill passed with a narrow majority and many state legislators are up for re-election in November.

However, if a similar bill passes again, then an attorney for one of the groups that sued Colorado said the coalition would likely file suit on religious-liberty grounds.

“If–and it's a big if–the Colorado legislature tries to repass the law looking like the current law … then I feel very strongly that we and others are very likely to file a suit based on the Colorado religion clauses,” said Elliot Mincberg of People for the American Way Foundation.

The state's constitution has a clause that is more explicit than the U.S. Constitution's religion clauses in banning direct or indirect government funding of religion.

“I don't think we'll know until after November,” Mincberg continued. “We're very hopeful that there won't need to be a second lawsuit.”

Posted: 7/09/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
Skating the issue

By Berry D. Simpson

The vote was 14 in favor of installing signs around the church property that said, “No Skateboarding,” and 17 against. I was one of the 17 who voted against the recommendation, and I have been wondering since if I did the right thing.

Earlier that same night, we voted unanimously to create a new worship service on Sunday evenings, a seeker service aimed at people unlikely to join one of our regular worship services. I couldn’t square a vote in favor of reaching unchurched people with a vote to tell young skateboarders, “Go away.” Not in the same night. Maybe I’ll change my vote next time it comes up, but I don’t know.

This skateboarding issue is a hard decision. Is it about accepting people who are not like us and who don’t seem to know how to behave properly around others, or is it about being good stewards and protecting church property and church members from damage and injury?

It’s a hard decision, because I don’t feel comfortable saying, “People who need Jesus, go away.” Yet if those same people were spraying graffiti on the building or playing strip poker in the parking lot, I wouldn’t hesitate to send them away.

It’s a hard decision, because it strikes at the heart of the role of the church.

Jesus lived his life in such a way that sinners ran toward him. yet we spend much of our time finding ways to protect ourselves from sinners. We complain that public schools have turned away from God, yet we add to the problem by removing our own kids and the Holy Spirit that lives within them. We complain that the skaters who hurl curse words at the men assigned to police the parking lot don’t know how to behave and don’t show respect, yet we want them to learn behavior and respect somewhere else.

It’s a hard decision, because most of the skateboarders have no intention of following any rules or guidelines we may lay down.

One of our parking lot monitors said, “Even quiet obedient kids change personalities with a skateboard under their feet.” Who am I to say we should tolerate them when I’m not one of the men who’ve stood out in the heat and cold for the past two years trying to protect skaters and church members and minister to these kids?

It’s a hard decision, because these skateboarders often ride directly in front of moving cars, cut in front of SUVs full of young families, and are often verbally abusive to church members who dare to walk in their skating path.

It can be very frustrating, and I’ll admit I might not hesitate to drive my Jeep over the top of a stray skateboard that happened to role in my path, taking at least one board out of action. Yet I wonder, are we so determined to park in our favorite places week after week, use our favorite entrances year after year, that we can’t move around to the other side of the building and avoid the confrontations?

It’s a hard decision, because if we allow them to skate, we could be legally liable should a skater get injured.

What if their parents, who probably don’t care where the kids are or what they are doing, decide to take advantage of our benevolence and sue us? Are we willing to risk our substantial missions budget to pay off a frivolous law suit? Yet surely our church has a higher calling than mere risk containment. Surely we live in a bigger story than that. Surely we aren’t like Jonah, who was afraid to minister to scary people not like him, afraid he would get hurt.

It’s a hard decision, because while I may argue we should let them skate and treat this like a serious ministry, I won’t be out on the parking lot watching after them.

I will be teaching classes, actually two classes, and going to rehearsal. It’s easy for me to tell someone else to minister to those pesky kids. Easy to be generous with someone else’s time.

I’m sure we are not finished with this issue, and I don’t know how I’ll vote next time. I don’t know the right answer. I’m a pilgrim in search of answers, not a prophet with a message to proclaim. I want to learn. Living this Christian life is more messy and unpredictable than we usually make it out to be. It’s full of hard decisions.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland.

Posted: 7/09/04

Posted: 7/09/04

DOWN HOME:
Maybe purgatory is infinite spam

Whoever said, “No good deed goes unpunished” must have known the person who discovered the Law of Unintended Consequences. And they both must've been thinking about my e-mail.

Last year, my friend Mark and I decided to rid ourselves of all unwanted e-mail, known the world over as spam.

We already had anti-virus and spam-protection programs on our computers, but we still were getting spammed. All day, every day.

So, we decided to click on the “unsubscribe” links that appeared on virtually all spam. I might as well have sent them all an e-mail that said, “Make sure everyone who runs a bogus business on the Internet gets my address.”

Because that's what happened.

Maybe all those spammers did take my computer off their lists. But they apparently sold my address to even more spammers, who sold it to other spammers. These things multiply faster than rabbits in spring.

The other day on the way to work, I heard a guy on the radio say spamming has become a big problem. He guessed 85 percent of e-mail is unwanted. I'd guess he guessed low.

Based on my non-scientific survey, spam covers six basic topics:

Medicine. You don't have to drive to Canada or Mexico to acquire cheap drugs. You can buy pills to make you happy or happier still. And you can buy pills that will make parts of you smaller and other parts larger. Just click (and send your credit card number).

Mortgages. At the risk of sounding un-American, I'd settle for higher interest rates if they'd drive mortgage spammers off the Internet and out of my e-mailbox.

Pornography. One of the strangest events of my childhood happened when I took a shortcut down an alley and discovered my first “girlie” magazine. Well, I never. Now, creeps send much worse through cyberspace. No alley required.

College degrees. So, why did I spend four years at a university and three more at a seminary? According to at least a dozen spammers a day, I can buy those degrees for a few bucks.

Software. You can buy name-brand computer software over the Internet at “low, low prices!” The software I'd like to buy would shut down the computer of every spammer who messes with my e-mail.

Random stuff. I keep getting an e-mail written in an alphabet I can't read. But from the picture, they're trying to sell me either a stun gun or a Russian garage-door opener.

See what I mean about unintended consequences? Life is like that: We do something, not thinking about end results, and unintended consequences clog up our lives like e-mail spam on Monday morning. Fortunately, God's grace covers a multitude of unintended consequences and poor choices.

Now, if God would just smite spammers.

Posted: 7/09/04

EDITORIAL:
Paradox strengthens evangelism

Do you ever watch siblings and wonder, “How in the world did those people grow up in the same home, much less fall out of the same family tree?”

That's how I feel about Baptists. Much of the time, we're like mismatched sisters and brothers. We're born of the same stock, but we bear polar-opposite personalities. We carry the same name, but we sometimes sound like strangers.

We've been this way almost from the beginning–nearly four centuries, church historian Bill Leonard says. (See page 10.) More than any other faith group, Baptists have embraced paradoxical tendencies. We include in our ranks contradictory positions and perspectives on just about every item in the spiritual catalog except the notions that we're congregationalists and the church should be made up of Christian believers.

Baptists' predisposition toward paradox came to mind the other day, as I read an opinion piece by one of the finest, brightest young reporters for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's public relations arm. Describing his experience at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's annual meeting, he wrote: “I have yet to hear a CBF speaker passionately call upon Fellowship Baptists to proclaim the gospel to the world. I have heard many calls for feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless and demonstrating a Christlike attitude. But … the CBF displays seemingly minor concern for sharing the gospel with lost men and women.”

I daresay the vast majority of Fellowship Baptists would be shocked to learn that someone who spent three days with them would believe they express only “minor concern for sharing the gospel with lost men and women.” To their way of thinking, gospel-sharing is what they're all about. Over and over, they talked and preached and prayed and sang about the theme of their annual gathering, “Being the Presence of Christ.” (In fact, they spoke the phrase so often, the BP reporter good-naturedly referred to it as their “mantra.”)

This points us toward another Baptist paradox. How do we share the gospel? Which is most effective–proclamation or incarnation? Does someone who preaches the need for repentance reflect the gospel more accurately than someone who feeds the hungry and houses the homeless?

Advocates of both methods have Baptist history on their side. For more than 250 years, revivalism and evangelistic preaching have been Baptist hallmarks. Baptists' revivalist tradition exalts direct, confrontational evangelism that calls people to repent of their sins and get right with God. But for well more than a century, Baptists also have been leaders in bringing people to faith in Christ by meeting their needs in Jesus' name. For much of the past century, Baptist home and foreign missionaries who were most successful in evangelism were people whose day-to-day ministry served the physical needs of the poor and disenfranchised.

This paradox reflects Baptists' political divide. While contrary examples abound, for the most part, the group that now controls the SBC advocates aggressive evangelism via proclamation, while the Baptists who have lost the SBC tend to engage in incarnational evangelism. Both groups can be pretty smug about themselves.

The proclaimers live in a world where words are the most tangible assets. If you haven't told a sinner he needs to repent and seek forgiveness of his sins, then no verbal transaction took place and you haven't evangelized. The incarnators live in a world where physical actions take precedence. If you tell someone, “God loves you,” but you don't demonstrate that love by making sure that person has enough to eat, God's love seems shallow and you haven't evangelized.

Actually, true evangelism encompasses both. If Christians serve people in Jesus' name but never get around to telling others about Jesus, they fail to minister to deep spiritual need. But if Christians demand repentance but never demonstrate how Jesus makes a difference in people's lives, they undermine their message and deafen the ears of the very people they seek to save.

The same Jesus who said, “Go … make disciples” said his followers will be judged by how they minister to the “least of these.” Evangelism involves proclamation and incarnation. Baptists need to embrace this paradox.
–Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com

Posted: 7/09/04

EDITORIAL:
Texas earns a big, fat F

The U.S. Census Bureau has released another embarrassing statistic: Texas ranks last in the percentage of adults who have received high school diplomas.

Only 77 percent of Texans age 25 and older have graduated from high school, according to an Associated Press report. That compares to a national average of 85 percent. This is the second year in a row Texas has trailed the rest of the states. A decade ago, Texas ranked 39th, when it also posted a 77 percent graduation rate. On the whole, U.S. graduation rates are improving.

The primary reason for Texas' decline is its failure to help Hispanics progress through the educational system. The Census Bureau report revealed only about half of Texas' 4.3 million Hispanics age 25 and up have earned high school diplomas. Meanwhile, Hispanics are the state's fastest-growing population. So, the overall rate will continue to slide if a greater percentage of Hispanics don't graduate.

State Demographer Steve Murdock predicted the high school graduation rate will have an economic impact on Texas.

“The downside is Texas could be less competitive” in the labor and business markets, Murdock said in a Houston Chronicle story. Texas “could be poorer, because we know educational attainment is the best predictor of income.”

Meanwhile, Texas' educational system is in crisis. The governor and the Legislature are at a stalemate over school finance. They have failed miserably to propose an equitable solution for strengthening the state's most vital resource–the brainpower of the leadership base and workforce of tomorrow.

Some people might say this is not a religious issue and should not be mentioned in a Baptist newspaper. They would be wrong. More than any other topic, Jesus mentioned care for the poor. Public education is a matter of caring for the poor. More importantly, it is a matter of preventing poverty for millions of Texans and improving the lives of all Texans. (And don't think this is just a charity case. If our workforce continues to decline, all Texans will suffer for it.)

If Christians care for the people of Texas, we must get involved. We need to demand that the Legislature pass and the governor sign a school-finance bill that is fair to all Texans, raises the graduation rate and doesn't sleep with the devil by funding education through expansion of gambling.

Our churches also must offer more English-as-a-Second-Language and other classes to enable immigrant Hispanic mothes and fathers to help their children. We know parental involvement is the No. 1 factor in educational success of children.

Christians can, and must, make a difference in Texas education.

Posted: 7/09/04

ETBU enters partnership with Chinese
university, plans 2005 conference

MARSHALL–East Texas Baptist University and Lanzhou University of Technology in Lanzhou, China, created a partnership after a visit by ETBU officials to China.

The partnership will produce an academic conference in Lanzhou next summer involving faculty from ETBU and other Texas universities and Chinese scholars who will present papers in English, said Jerry Summers, history professor at ETBU.

Paul Sorrels, ETBU vice president for academic affairs, signed the agreement, which also allows the exchange of students and faculty between the two universities.

East Texas Baptist University Vice President for Academic Affairs Paul Sorrels and Lanzhou University of Technology Vice President Wang Zhiping, sign an agreement of educational cooperation and scholarly exchange between ETBU and the Chinese university.

Sorrels and Summers met with representatives of Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou to discuss a similar relationship.

The ETBU representatives, who traveled to China with grant support from the Consortium for Global Education, planned the trip to make new contacts with Chinese universities and renew ETBU's relationship with Guangdong Teacher's College of Foreign Languages and Arts.

ETBU leaders also wanted to visit Hong Kong Baptist University, where ETBU students have participated in the international exchange program over the past decade.

“The trip also helped to show new ways for ETBU students and faculty to gain international experience and understanding, in accordance with the university's goal of providing 'a world of opportunity in a community of faith,'” added Summers, who traveled to China twice before and who teaches a course on Chinese history. “As the world's most populated and most quickly developing country, the People's Republic of China presents unlimited opportunities for educational and cultural exchange.”

Posted: 7/09/04

LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for July 18

God requires unqualified obedience and service

2 Kings 13:1-25

By David Morgan

Trinity Baptist Church, Harker Heights

God calls the community of faith to obedience and service. Those who disobey and neglect to serve may forfeit divine blessings. 2 Kings 13 recounts the consequences when two kings of Israel, Jehoahaz and Jehoash, abandoned God. On the other hand, this chapter relates that Elisha served God even as he lay dying.

Spiritual shortcomings

2 Kings resumes its account of Israel's fortunes in chapter 13 after a brief interlude to report on Judah's kings. Jehoahaz succeeded his father Jehu and followed him in the worship of the golden calves. He apparently did not sustain his father's purge of Baalism (2 Kings 10:18-28). While he would lead the nation to regain some of its territory, that gain would prove limited in scope because of his lack of faith and a succession of wicked kings.

The author of 2 Kings used the four-fold pattern of Judges to describe the religious situation at his time: 1) The nation sinned against God; 2) God punished them for their disobedience; 3) Jehoahaz prayed for God to deliver; 4) God gave them a deliverer. Invasion by foreign armies was connected to the nation's sinfulness.

God's anger burned against Israel because of persistent sin. Ancient peoples believed that when nations fought, the one with the most powerful god triumphed. Israel worshipped Yahweh as the one above all others. When Israel's armies were overcome, they needed to explain how an all-powerful God could be defeated. They did so by affirming that God allowed invaders to conquer them because of their sinfulness. Israel thus found itself repeatedly under Syria's (Aram's) domination.

Jehoahaz “sought the Lord's favor” because he understood God needed to fight for Israel. The verb, which means “to be sick,” suggests weakness and dependency. Jehoahaz turned to God because he was powerless to deliver the people.

The Lord “listened” to the king's request; that is, he both heard and answered it. The deliverance came only after Jehoahaz's death.

God promised the nation a “deliverer” (“savior”). Possible identities of this “deliverer” are many. He was probably a military leader able to defeat the Syrians and “give relief” to Israel. The most likely candidates are Jehoahaz's son, Jehoash (2 Kings 13:25), or his grandson, Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25,27). Israel regained nearly all of the land over which Solomon ruled during Jeroboam's reign.

Elisha also has been projected as the deliverer. The main reason is because when Jehoash visited him, he addressed him as “My father! My father! The chariots of Israel and horsemen of Israel.” This suggests the prophet had power to protect the nation.

God fulfilled this promise, and the people lived in peace without fearing their enemies “in their own homes as before.” God had restored some measure of security to them.

Despite God's deliverance, the people persisted in their disobedience. Any repentance was temporary. They continued to reject God and worship pagan deities.

Worship in the Northern Kingdom did not reject Yahweh but mixed this with worshipping pagan deities. The nation would choose which god they worshipped as they felt circumstances warranted. Yahweh seemed to be their God of choice when times were difficult and they could not free themselves from foreign captors.

This may explain why prophets still had some influence in the north, although a tension always existed between God's prophets and the king.

God's punishment continued. Within a short time, the armies were reduced to 50 horsemen, 10 chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers. Estimates for Israel's military strength during Ahab's reign mention 2,000 chariots. Disobedience had critically weakened the nation.

Persistent service

Elisha appeared one final time in the story, as he played a part of God's plan to deliver Israel. Jehoash visited Elisha as the prophet lay dying and wept over his condition. He may genuinely have been grieving over the prophet's impending death, or he may have been concerned with losing the one person through whom God had earlier delivered the nation.

One last mission remained for the prophet. He had Jehoash to take his bow and arrows and prepare to shoot. Elisha then put his hands on the king's hands to signify that God's power would deliver. He shot an arrow to the east, in the general direction of Syria, symbolizing that Israel would defeat the Arameans at Apek. Elisha told the king to pick up his arrows and strike the ground with them.

Limited success

Jehoash hit the ground only three times. The king's lack of enthusiasm angered Elisha. Striking the ground only three times implied a lack of faith and zeal. Elisha declared God had been prepared to give Israel total victory of Syria. Because of the king's unwillingness to beat the ground more than he did, God promised only three victories.

Joash attacked Syria following the death of Hazael and recaptured the cities that had been lost during the reign of his father, Jehoahaz, but the victories were only three and only temporary.

Question for discussion

What competes for your worship?