Adult Sunday School: Household Worship

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church iconSilicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Lesson: Household Worship Date: Dec. 15, 2024 Teacher: Pastor Conley Owens

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So first of all, we're going to do a brief series in Sunday school about family worship, which
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I'm going to call household worship, since it really is about more than just families, more than just blood relatives.
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Yeah, we'll go through what family worship should look like, how frequent it should be, and give some examples of it.
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I did teach on this about, I think, a year and a half ago, but if I remember correctly, not all the videos got recorded, and people were asking for more information on this recently, so it seemed like a good time to go through this again.
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All right, so what is household worship? Household worship is just where all the members of a household get together to read, pray, and sing, those elements of worship that are appropriate to do together.
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There are other elements of worship that would not be appropriate. Can anyone name one? Yeah, communion, the
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Lord's Supper, right? That would not be appropriate, because you're not together as a church body, and so that it would be communicating the wrong thing to practice communion in your family.
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Some people do do that. I was talking to someone recently who was saying while he was on vacation, and he wasn't with his church, he decided to just have communion with his wife, but if it's supposed to be a statement about who the members of the body are, then it is something that should be done with the members of the body, and not on your own, separately from the body.
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The one bread that we break does not represent the unity of the body of Christ, yes. Well, if you meet in a small building versus a large building, doesn't matter, right?
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If you meet in a home versus something else. So this is household, not house worship, right?
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Like your household are the members of your home. This isn't really about the building that you're in, and that's what most house churches are.
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It's about the building. Now, I know there are some house churches where it is just the, like it is just the family, and they have no intention of bringing other people in, or, right, and so that's a different situation.
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There you are kind of excluding other, or you're separating yourself from others, right?
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Sectarian, in that way. Okay, so that's what household worship is.
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There are a couple of documents that our church has on its books that are worth reading from here.
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First is the Church Covenant. One of the points in the Church Covenant is that we will cultivate private and family worship at home, striving to attain unto the scriptural example for ourselves and our families, bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition of the
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Lord, training them for the service of Christ. Okay, so this isn't our
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Church Covenant. It's something that we have agreed to, and it's something that we have a mutual obligation to one another to maintain.
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You know, this is not just, okay, these are the, you know, these are the things you have to do to be a member, although that's part of it, that these are, you know, the
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Church Covenant does have a list of expectations for members. You should also consider that when people get together and decide to do something together, we don't have constant visibility into each other's lives, and so some hard tasks that we go about doing on our own, we're trusting and encouraged by the fact that others are also doing those same tasks, and when that's not the case, you know, that's very discouraging, right?
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Like, if you agree with a friend that, hey, we're both overweight, we're gonna go on a diet together, we're gonna do,
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I don't know, keto or whatever the hot diet is these days, right? Or we're just gonna be straight carnivore, we're gonna eat nothing but steak, right?
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And so you're doing that, you're losing weight, right? Friend's losing some weight, but maybe not enough, or maybe not as much as you were expecting, and you ask him about it, and he says, oh, you find out through security camera footage or something like that, right, that he's sneaking cake at night, right, when you're not looking.
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Now, this has, on one hand, this has no effect on your own health and the fact that you've been losing weight, but part of the encouragement and accountability from agreeing together that this is something you are going to do together, you know, you all were gonna lose weight together, and then finding out that this is not what's happening, it can be very discouraging.
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I've known, I know of one situation where several people agreed to fast together beginning at a certain hour, and someone decided they were gonna start two hours later than everyone else, right, and this is something that's like, well, you realize, like, two hours out of 24 is actually kind of significant, it's not like it's nothing, you know, it's not like a few seconds difference or something like that.
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It probably makes some difference between having a meal versus not having a meal, even. So this is something where we have a mutual obligation to one another, you should not just think of it as an obligation to God regarding the health of yourself or the health of your family, you should think about it as the health of your church as well and the obligation that you share, not just to him, but in a shared obligation to one another, even though it is something that just happens in your family, right.
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Next thing is from our confession, God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth as in private families, daily, and in secret, each one by himself.
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So this is something that is serious enough that the authors of the confession thought to put it in.
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Now, what we're addressing today is whether or not this is truly biblical, as you can see, there are proof texts for this item in the church covenant, there are proof texts for this item in the confession.
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So the author of the church covenant thought it was biblical, the author of the confession, the authors of the confession believed it was biblical.
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Many people who hear about family worship see it as something that is additional, that goes beyond scripture, right, it's sort of like the
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Pharisees washing their hands, right? Okay, yeah, it might be good to wash your hands before you eat, especially if you might have touched something unclean, and that way you make sure you're not eating something unclean.
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Maybe that's a good measure for some people, but you can't require that of others, because then you would be going beyond scripture and adding pharisaical guards to what is actually commanded, what is actually commanded being something you know, much more general about spiritually caring for your household.
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So that's the agenda for today, to what degree can we make a case for household worship, for family worship being something that truly is biblical and not a pharisaical additional guard to, yeah, in addition to scripture?
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All right, please ask questions at any time, because I think if we just go straight through all the material, we might end up being a bit early, so please do ask questions.
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All right, I've broken down some proof texts here. Maybe this is not necessarily the best breakdown in terms of categories, some of these kind of just fit in their own category, but these first two verses are fairly interesting.
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When Jesus taught us how to pray, and you should think about prayer as being really one of the more core aspects of worship, okay?
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Prayer is an element of natural worship. What I mean by that is that all the other elements of worship are things
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God has to tell us to do, right? If God didn't say that we should do communion or whatever, the
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Lord's Supper, there's no way that we'd be authorized to do that in a worshipful way. Same thing with baptism, same thing with preaching, same thing with singing.
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You know, if he did not command these things, we would not be authorized to do them in some kind of worshipful way, offering that as worship to him.
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But now prayer, prayer needs no such command. If God is, if God is almighty, if he's a provider of all things, then it is only natural that the creature should call out to him for their needs.
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So prayer, unlike every other element of worship, is, or at least that I'm aware of, prayer is the only one that is a natural element of worship.
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It is one that we are inherently called to do apart from special revelation, apart from special command.
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Okay, so prayer has a particular place. When the Bible talks about prayer, a lot of times it is as a synecdoche for worship altogether.
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Synecdoche being when you talk about one thing to refer to the whole, okay?
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So like when I say, well, did you hear the, did you hear that the White House, you know, has this
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I, X, or Y, or Z, right? Like what I'm talking about is America, right, when I say the White House.
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Or, yeah, they're just similar things to that, right? Yeah, or someone might refer to, someone might say, you know,
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Silicon Valley is starting to produce more social media, et cetera. Right, they're not really talking about Silicon Valley, they're talking about the whole tech industry, right?
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So the same thing, it's synecdoche. A lot of times prayer in scripture is used as a synecdoche for worship, so keep that in mind.
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When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, they asked him, how should we pray? He tells them, and he speaks in first -person plural.
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That's interesting, right? He's teaching them how to pray together, okay?
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He's not teaching them how to pray independently by themselves. Give me this day my daily bread, right?
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Give us this day our daily bread. The Lord's Prayer is a prayer that is supposed to be prayed with other people, is one that is supposed to be prayed together.
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Now when is it supposed to be prayed? The answer's right there in Matthew 6, 11.
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Daily, it's supposed to be prayed daily. We're not gathering as a church daily, right? So who are those people that you are praying first -person plural with daily?
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The answer is your family. It is your family that you're doing this with. The Lord's Prayer is a prayer that is supposed to be prayed in families.
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Now I'm not saying that if you don't read Matthew 6 every day that that's a problem.
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I'm saying that when Jesus is describing prayer, what he's describing is something that really can only fully happen if it's happening in families, because it's something that happens daily, and it's something that's first -person plural, okay?
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Yes, say it louder.
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Someone who's alone. So you're like a single, even? So not just an elderly person. Yeah, well, that's still a single household.
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They should still be worshiping God. At that point, their secret worship and household worship are one and the same.
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Yes, I would say that that is good evidence that these are not healthy situations or ideal situations.
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What the Bible envisions is people living together, right? And so someone who is living by them.
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If large demographics in society are just living by themselves, that's a sign that something in society has broken down quite a bit, right?
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The one who gets married is supposed to do what? Leave his father and mother. Most of the people who are getting married already left their father and mother a while ago, right?
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So that's something that demonstrates a bit of a breakdown in society. Yes, yes, prayer is always a form of worship.
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Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.
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You could do other semi -reverent things. Like if I were to,
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I know that those people who don't think that you're supposed to, like the
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Covenanters, right? The Presbyterian Covenanters who don't think that you're supposed to use music in worship will still play music like musical hymns outside of a worship service, right?
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Because they're not worshiping at that point or whatever. But no, yeah, prayer is always worship, right?
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If you pray to angels, that's worshiping angels. Doesn't matter when you're doing it, right?
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Same thing's true when you pray to God. It's worshipful to God. And the implication there was that you're not supposed to be praying to angels at any time.
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That was the point there. All right. I will say beyond that because it's something
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I've been thinking about recently. Speaking to anyone with some kind of mystical way of communication beyond just through voice, through a medium, a physical medium, or the internet, or whatever, is prayer, right?
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Like the, so this does not just include, you know, like reverently petitioning angels or reverently petitioning saints.
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Those people who, and I've, yeah, I've seen someone do this recently, you know.
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I saw a pastor doing this. You know, he's been grief posting for a year about his daughter who died.
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And he addresses her frequently, right? And it's like, I miss you so much, et cetera. I consider this public necromancy.
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You know, speaking to the dead in a, even if it's not in a reverent way.
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This is something that God has forbidden. God has forbidden speaking to the dead. I get that when people do that, if you were to ask them, they don't, they wouldn't necessarily say that, you know, this person can hear me, but it feels very natural to them to speak that way.
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I don't believe we should go about even those motions, even if you know that they can't hear you,
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I don't believe we should go about the motions as though they can. This is, yeah, public necromancy is public prayer.
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It ought not to happen, yes. Not addressed to them, yeah.
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I mean, you could address it to others, like, I regret not having had the opportunity to say to this person these things, right, yeah.
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Like, they're people we're authorized to communicate to, right, through physical mediums where we can communicate with one another, through prayer, you know, just trusting that it's being heard, we can communicate with God.
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But that's it. No, I mean, that's still a second person, that is still speaking to the person.
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Yeah, you should just talk to somebody else about it if you need to. Yeah, you should not.
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Like, what are you trying to do at that point? Like, you're trying to satisfy your soul, give yourself peace.
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Like, these are things that prayer is designed to accomplish. You know, you speak to God, and you confess things to God, right, but if you, or you confess things to each other, but if you're doing that to the dead, that is, yeah, that's prayer.
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Saying I wish so -and -so was still alive would not be, that wouldn't be talking to them. But if you were to, if you were to then say all the phrases that you want to say to them, that's not, yeah, that's,
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I believe that's, that's forbidden in Scripture, in Deuteronomy 18. God calls it an abomination.
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You know, it is a serious thing. Okay, all right.
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So yeah, no grief posting on social media, yes. Give us this day our daily bread.
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We're talking about prayer. Yeah, that's okay, yeah.
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Right, but yeah, you shouldn't be addressing the dead. It's interesting how natural that feels to people just to address the dead.
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You know, you look at, you look at Scripture, and even the ceremonial laws, right, and the ceremonial laws, you're not even allowed to walk over the grave or else you're unclean, right?
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You walk over a grave. That's why Jesus calls them unmarked graves, right? It's because someone accidentally becomes unclean by interacting with the
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Pharisees. Walk over the grave, you become unclean. You talk to the dead, you become unclean, et cetera, et cetera.
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But yeah, for some reason, we find it very natural just to start speaking to the dead when we're next to a gravestone. It should be something that we consider abhorrent.
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Yes? I'm not suggesting that that's a,
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I'm not suggesting that that's a ceremonial law that applies to today. I'm just saying that the, well, the application is just that we should have a disposition towards death that is, that isn't so casual about it, yeah.
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Yeah, death is, death should be sobering. I mean, there are good things and there are bad things.
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I think some of the difficulty in Christian life over happiness and grief and thinking about love and hate is like seeing these things as, is blending them all, you know?
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The answer is there are some things to be happy about, there are some things to be sad about, and you put it all in the mix and you respond appropriately, but you don't have to blend those things as though there's only sad, right?
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Okay, 1 Timothy 2 .8. I desired then that in every place men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or quarreling.
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So, in 1 Timothy 2, when this is being said, consider the context here.
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First of all, every place, they should be in every place lifting up holy hands without anger or quarreling. Why without anger or quarreling, right?
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Once again, is this talking about, is this talking about just public together as a congregation worship?
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Would that be the reason for addressing anger or quarreling? Likewise, also that women should adorn themselves in respectful apparel with modesty and self -control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works.
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Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
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Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was born first in Eve and Adam was not deceived, but woman was deceived and became a transgressor, yet she will be saved through trial -bearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self -control.
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Okay, so I read the whole thing there because I think there's a number of things that point us to a broader context than just public worship.
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While public worship is certainly in mind, it does say every place. It does describe home activities, the woman and childbearing, et cetera.
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These are not, yeah, this is not merely talking about public prayer.
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And consider, who is it that prays in public worship anyway? It's not every single person, right?
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First Corinthians 14 says two or three at most are supposed to come up and stand and prophesy or teach or whatever, right?
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And so if this is a command for all men followed by a command for all women, what is this talking about, lifting up holy hands and praying?
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And if there is a contrast, right, it's not talking about that they're supposed to pray along, otherwise that would apply just as much to women, right?
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What this is talking about is leading in prayer, and if this is something for all men to be doing, where are they supposed to be doing this?
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Not all men can lead in the public assembly. Like I said, there's a limit on that in First Corinthians 14.
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So where are they leading in prayer? It's in the home, it's in the home. Okay, all right, yes.
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That's a, so that is a good question. Whenever the Bible, it's interesting because the debate today usually happens around singing, and you never see, not to my knowledge do you ever see it talk about lifting hands while singing, but it does talk frequently about lifting hands during prayer as a gesture of petitioning
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God, you know. No, I don't, but maybe we should.
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I'm open to that. Yes, yeah.
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Yeah, let me see if I can just search real quick here. There are lifting hands in blessings, which is something, of course, we do during the service.
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Let's see. Yeah, hear the voice of my pleas for mercy when
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I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands towards your most holy sanctuary. That's Psalm 28 too.
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A lot of these are about blessing the Lord, which is prayer. Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands is the evening sacrifice.
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Yes, there's a number of others, but yes. I don't know, that's a good question.
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That's a good question. Maybe there's, maybe there's room for reformation here. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, it's something
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I'm gonna be thinking about now. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna, right now, I'm gonna add this to Tim's list of,
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I have a list of questions I give him for his podcast. I'm gonna,
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I'm gonna add this. Should people, should people lift their hands when they pray?
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Okay, all right, let's keep going. Okay, home building is wrought by religious devotion.
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Okay, this is, I think this is a really important point that is not thought about too much.
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Psalm 127. You should turn to these passages as we go to them, because I am generally going to be reading more context than just the passage, just what is written down here.
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The sheet is so you can take home and have these on hand if you want them, but really more of the context is needed to make some of these arguments.
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All right, Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labors in vain. Unless the
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Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you go to rest, you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep.
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All right, I think the natural thing a lot of people think about is, they're thinking about the physical home being, the walls, et cetera, foundations being built.
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That is certainly part of building a home. If you consider the Proverbs, though, where it talks about a foolish woman tearing down her home, it's not talking about her disassembling the building.
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When it says, by wisdom a house is built, it's not primarily talking about the physical structure. And consider even this
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Psalm, it goes on in verse three. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Why isn't this like Psalm 127 .5
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or something? This is the same Psalm, how is it related at all?
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Well, the answer is, having children is a way that the home is built. Okay, this is talking about building a home in a much broader sense than constructing the structure.
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Okay, and so if building a home is pursuing a happy family, building up the wife and children, all these things, how is it to be done?
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Well, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. It is not to be done apart from religious devotion to the
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Lord, it is supposed to be something that is done with the Lord's watch over the city.
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Okay, so religious devotion is needed in order to build up the home.
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Now, this is not like the slam dunk proof text here. Some of these are part of a cumulative case, right, that I'm making, some of these are more direct.
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Okay, 128, the Psalm right after that. Blessed is everyone who fears the
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Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands.
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You shall be blessed and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around the table.
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Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The quintessential act of fearing the
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Lord is worshiping him, and once again, this is talking about how a family is built up, how the wife is built up, how the children are built up.
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Now, you could say, all right, well, I go and I worship the Lord by myself, and then through that, somehow, my wife and children are built up, but what it's describing here is really necessitates them being a part of that fear of the
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Lord for them to be built up. All right, next, family unity is for family religion.
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In Malachi chapter 2, 15,
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Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament, by the way. Malachi 2, 15, did he not make them one with a portion, this is talking about marriage.
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Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union, and what was the one God speaking, or seeking, excuse me, godly offspring?
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So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her says the
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Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the
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Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless. All right, so describing the purpose of marriage with the blessing of the
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Spirit, what is its purpose? Its purpose is to produce godly offspring. I believe it was
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Perkins, William Perkins, the Puritan, who had said that families are the nursery of religion.
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Okay, they are supposed to be where children are exposed to religious devotion to God, to worship.
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Okay, so how is a family going to produce godly offspring? If godliness involves worship, and you know, maybe a lot of what is going on here is, you know,
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I'm assuming a theology of worship, this being the quintessential way that we express fear towards God.
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If people think of it as just something you do here and there as you obey his, you know, as you don't steal, as you don't murder, et cetera, right?
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You just obey the Ten Commandments or something. If that's, I say that as though that's minimal.
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I mean, the reality is if you're following all the Ten Commandments, you will be fearing the Lord through worship given the
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First Commandment, given the Fourth Commandment, et cetera. But yeah, the one who thinks that this just happens by raising generally respectful and obedient children,
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I mean, there's all kinds of people in the world who raise respectful and obedient children.
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To fear the Lord is something much more than that. Godly children are something much more than that. All right, 1
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Peter 3 .7, likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.
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Since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered.
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Now, these use, some of you know that in the King James, I think it's ye, ye is the second person plural, and so if you're reading
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King James, you can tell the difference between second person singular and second person plural, but here it is plural.
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It's talking to multiple people. Now, the question is, is this talking to men as being the plural?
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It says, live with your wives, excuse me, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
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Is it talking to all the men so that the men's prayers may not be hindered? Or is it saying so that husband and wife's prayers together may not be hindered?
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A very common interpretation throughout history has been that this is talking about family prayer that is going on here.
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Calvin says, from hence we may observe that family prayer is a duty incumbent on professors of religion, and great care should be taken that it not be neglected and hindered.
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So, this is, so Calvin is taking it and many others as well have taken this to refer to family worship, not to the husband's prayers on his own, and if you think about it, why wouldn't this much more appropriate be to their prayers together as a family than to his prayers on his own?
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Live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as a weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.
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Okay, they are heirs with you so that your prayers may not be hindered, right?
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They are heirs with you. This is talking about her together with him being an heir.
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It follows that it would be his prayers with her as fellow heirs of the grace of life.
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This is not talking about his individual prayers, but his prayers with her, okay? So, 1
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Peter 3 also talking about family religion. All right, Colossians 3, in Colossians 3.
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Now, this is an interesting one because of the context. Interesting in that you need to look at more of the context to see what
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I'm pointing out here. All right,
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Colossians 3, there's a bunch of one another commands before this, okay?
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Do not lie to one another in verse nine, let's see.
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Bear with one another in verse 13. Admonish one another in verse 16, right?
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Several different one another commands. So, he's talking about things that we're supposed to be generally doing to one another, right?
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And then after that, he gives more specific instructions to households. So, this is not totally new chapter disconnected from the previous stuff, right?
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He's saying you are to be doing these things to one another. You need to be teaching one another, admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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He's talking about worship. Like, you all ought to be worshiping together, et cetera. And then he immediately transitions from that into the one another commands applying to the family, okay?
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So, these one another commands, including the command to worship, and then he speaks of how one another commands apply to the family.
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If these one another commands are applying to the family, then that means that all the stuff that became before is also applying in the family.
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They're supposed to be worshiping together, okay?
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Household management is a mark of maturity. This is 1 Timothy 3. This is talking about the requirements of an elder and then the requirements of a deacon.
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He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.
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I'll simply say that part of managing your own household well is providing for your household.
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You know, the one who doesn't provide for his household is worse than an unbeliever. So, part of that provision is not just physical, it's spiritual, right?
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You're supposed to be providing spiritually for your children. How do you do that? By teaching them, by leading them in worship.
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Yeah, what does it look like to manage the household well? We shouldn't be, really we shouldn't be asking the question what is the bare minimum of managing a household.
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We should be asking what does it mean to manage the household well? And this is going to require some kind of leading in worship, right?
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Let's keep going here. Like I said, some of this stuff is just cumulative case arguments. Some of these are more direct.
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Examples of household worshipers in the Old Testament. Now, a common thing you'll hear people say when you use narratives to prove points is they'll say, well, narratives are not prescriptive.
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Meaning that, well, just because you have a story that something happened does not mean that that's a good thing, right?
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Like you can't look at Solomon having 1 ,000 wives and say, therefore, you should have 1 ,000 wives, right?
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Certainly, but if narratives are not prescriptive at all, then 2
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Timothy 3 .16 is lying to us, right? It says, all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for correction, for instruction, for reproof, for training in righteousness.
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All scripture is prescriptive. All scripture has some kind of application, some kind of thing that we must do or believe from it.
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And if you look at a narrative and you say, this is just narrative, this is just raw fact, it doesn't actually have any kind of implications for us in the way we live, you're not reading scripture right, yes.
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So that's not necessarily the implication of what I'm saying. Now, certainly, you see that his foreign wives led to his downfall.
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It doesn't say anything about the number of wives, just the foreign wives. You could see it as,
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I mean, there's a lot of things it speaks to. It speaks to the prosperity of Solomon and therefore of God's kingdom, et cetera.
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So there's a lot of takeaways from that that aren't necessarily the ethics of marriage, but there are takeaways.
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And if the only takeaways you're getting are historical facts, then you're not getting the right, you're not getting enough takeaways.
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Now, of course, polygamy is wrong, but there's other passages that teach that. I'm just saying it's not necessarily the
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Solomon passages. Yeah, they led him, right?
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He was led away to serve other gods. Okay, so given that, consider
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Joshua 24, 15. Joshua 24, verse 14 says, now therefore fear the
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Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Okay, fear the
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Lord. This is something that frequently talks about worshiping him, serving him. I've pointed out a number of times recently,
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I think that the word for serving is the same word that's used for the worshipers of Baal and kings.
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This is a word that refers to religious service, to not just obeying his laws as you go about your day.
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We're talking about serving him in worship. And then what is the antithesis of that?
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Put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the
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Lord. Okay, put away the idols that they served. How are they serving the idols? It's not that they're obeying their commandments, right?
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It's that they are bowing down before them. This is what the service is, right? It is worship that they're doing.
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Stop serving, aka worshiping these gods. Start serving, aka worshiping this God. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the
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Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your father served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the
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Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Okay, so Joshua was talking about his house together worshiping the
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Lord, not just obeying his commandments, but worshiping the Lord together. Okay, these are the models of holiness that we have in scripture are ones who are worshiping the
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Lord together as a household. That has implications for us. We should be ones who are worshiping the
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Lord together in our households. Acts 10 .2,
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let's see. Acts 10 .2
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speaks of Cornelius, the centurion, a devout man who feared
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God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. What does it mean to fear
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God, right? It's not just talking about, it's not just talking about the disposition toward God, it's talking about worship.
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That is the quintessential way that one fears him is by worshiping him. And it's talking about giving, it's talking about prayer.
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These are things that he does with all his household. So if we have, yeah, if we have examples of godly men being worshipers with their household, that lets us know that we should, we're going to be godly men, be worshipers with our household.
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Okay, among the patriarchs. Genesis four, in the course of time,
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King brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought the firstborn of the flock and other fat portions.
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Have you ever wondered why they're doing this together? Why are they not just doing this on their own at different times?
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This is something that they are doing together. It seems to be something that they are doing as a family. Genesis 18, 19, for I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the
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Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.
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Okay, so Abraham here is being chosen not just so he would keep the commands and the way of the
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Lord, but that his children would. How do you, if one of the commands of the Lord is to worship them, him, and he's supposed to be teaching his children, and it's not that they've got church so that they're doing this once a week back then, right?
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This is something that's happening regularly where he is leading them how to worship
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God. Genesis 35, two through three. Jacob said to his household and to all who are with him, put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments.
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Then let us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.
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Okay, so he says to his household, put away the false worship, let us go worship.
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Okay, he's telling his household how they're going to worship. And if you consider, they made, there's lots of, every time they go to a new place, there's lots of references for this, they make an altar where they will worship
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God together. All right, and then you have the commands toward household feasts in scripture.
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I'll just read these, Exodus 12, three. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to his father's houses, a lamb for a household.
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Okay, so these feasts in the Bible are religious times, right, they're counted among the
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Sabbaths, et cetera. Like these are times of special religious devotion to God. They are supposed to feast in a solemn and holy way.
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And how are they to do that? Together as families. They're not called to get together as, well, they are sometimes called to get together as larger groups, but here they're being called to get together as a family to observe this form of worship to the
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Lord. Deuteronomy 12, seven. And there you shall eat before the
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Lord your God and you shall rejoice, you and your households and all that you undertake, in which the Lord your
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God has blessed you. Deuteronomy 14, 26.
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And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. Deuteronomy 15, 20.
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You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God, year by year, at the place that the
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Lord will choose. Okay, so these religious feasts are supposed to be done together in households.
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This is the model of worship that we're given in the
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Old Testament. Now, of course, these feasts are not something that continue but the idea of the heads of households leading their households in worship is something that is to continue.
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Yeah, that remains a responsibility to us today. A lot of people might say this is, oh, this is just an
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Old Covenant thing. If you, I think part of the problem with that is that people think of, well, and this is even how the
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Bible is named, right? Old Testament means Old Covenant. A lot of times people think of those a little too synonymously.
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When the Old Covenant, being the Mosaic Covenant, starts under Moses, a lot of this stuff is predating
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Moses. These feasts aren't, but some of these other passages, you know, about the patriarchs, et cetera.
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So, yeah, if you end up using Old Covenant as just a synonym for the first half of the
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Bible, you might be inclined to think that, yeah, that, you know, okay, they're operating under a special set of rules that don't apply to us, but if you realize the stuff that predates
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Moses, the stuff that predates the Old Covenant is stuff that's just embedded in nature.
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This is a responsibility of heads of households to their households, et cetera. Yeah, then you realize this is not just a private thing.
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All right, any questions? Sorry, a little louder.
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Oh, what point was that in reference to? I'm saying that they were worship, if these feasts are worshipful, then they are doing them together as families.
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That's not your question. What's your question? Sorry. Oh, right, if you, okay, so these are things that are happening under Moses, and you might just say, okay, this is all just Old Covenant stuff, but then a lot of people, when they say this is just Old Covenant stuff, what they mean is it's just the
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Old Testament. They're kind of throwing out the whole Old Testament, and they're not reading it in a way that recognizes that some of this, yes, some of this is particular to the covenant made with Moses.
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Some of it's just stuff that's happening back then, and you need to distinguish between something that's actually part of that covenant versus things that are separate from the covenant or predating the covenant.
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Well, these ones about the patriarchs, right, these ones about the patriarchs are things that predate, that predate
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Moses, right, so it's not just, no, I was just bouncing back.
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Yeah, I was just bouncing back. Yeah, so, yeah, and that's common, too.
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Like, you know, Tim's been teaching on, you know, having children and stuff, the stuff given to Adam in the garden, the commands given to Noah.
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A lot of people say, oh, well, there's just Old Covenant commands. What do you mean? There's no Old Covenant at that point.
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How are they Old Covenant? You're just saying they're in the Old Testament. That's not the same thing as Old Covenant, yes.
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That's a good question. Okay, so you're observing that altars seem to be something distinct from the
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Mosaic covenant, and so would those be continual? Well, the altars do exist for those physical sacrifices that are consumed up and burnt, right, and what we see in the new covenant is commands towards generosity as a way of sacrificing to God.
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I do not know of a time when destruction is given as a means of sacrifice to God, even though that was common back then, and in that pattern set by God, even when he kills an animal to make clothing for the people.
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Right, and so, yeah, God is instituting that as part of the fall, but yeah, in the new covenant, you do see an abandonment of that.
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I'm trying to think about specific passages that would address that. I'm lacking them, but yeah,
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I do believe that's something that the new covenant is explicitly going away from without it being, oh, well, this is just Old Covenant, and that's why it goes away.
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I think it's more of a new covenant, and that's why it goes away, right, if that makes sense, like a positive removal as opposed to a negative dropping off.
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Right, yeah, all those things are designed to point to Christ, and so they're, yeah, they're obsoleted for that reason, not obsoleted because the
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Mosaic covenant is obsoleted, but obsoleted just because physical, you know, bloody sacrifices are obsoleted.
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Yeah, I don't, yeah, I did, too. I did, too.
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I try to avoid saying that. I think there have been times when I still said it. The same thing with this, right?
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This is a lot of people, what would people call this room, typically? A sanctuary, right, but it's not holy.
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There's nothing holy about this room. So, yeah, I try to avoid calling it a sanctuary. Just call it, like, meeting room or something.
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Yeah, we need, like, a label so that everybody's synced up on which word we're using, but, yeah, I try not to call this a sanctuary.
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I try not to call that an altar because they're not, right. Yes, yes, that's right.
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Is there a follow -up question there? Right, yeah, but the question is, what is the, okay, so there's memorials.
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Okay, so sometimes there's memorials. Memorials aren't necessarily, like, an act of religious worship, even though they are things that honor
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God. Okay, so in as much as something is a memorial, I think it's appropriate for us to memorialize
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God. At the same time, when we're talking about altars set up for worship, that is in order to destroy something.
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You put something on it and you destroy it, right? Like, either the incense you burn or the grain that you're burning or the animals that you're killing and burning, right?
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And so there are all these destructive sacrifices. The New Testament has told us that these bloody sacrifices cannot take away, cannot produce forgiveness of sins.
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We have a sacrifice once and for all. And so what made those appropriate was not the institution of the
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Mosaic Covenant. It was a recognition that some blood is needed to forgive sins.
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It points forward to Jesus Christ. Now that Jesus Christ is here, that has obsoleted it.
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So there are things that can be, the Mosaic Covenant is not the only thing that is capable of being obsoleted, right?
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Other things can also be obsoleted. I'm just saying that when we look at things, we need to ask, not just is it in the
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Old Testament, we need to ask, what would be the reason for it being obsoleted or not? Hopefully that made sense.
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Okay. Yeah, I'll just say that one more time. Yeah, a lot of people look at the
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Old Testament and they think that there's some rule that, oh, if it's back here in the Old Testament, we can just throw it out now.
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That's not really what it is. Different things have different purposes. Okay, so there are things that are part of the Mosaic Covenant.
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Those are there for the Mosaic Covenant. When the Mosaic Covenant goes away, those things go away. Right, there are some things that are there for eternal reasons.
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They don't go away when other things go away. There's some things there that are for other reasons, like just to point forward to Christ.
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So when Christ arrives, those no longer have their purpose anymore and they are obsoleted.
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There's many different reasons that something can be obsoleted. That it's not just, oh, it was part of the
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Mosaic Institution. All right, yes. Sure, you might be over -interpreting some of this stuff.
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Remember, this is a very polytheist society.
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So the fact that they have other gods is not necessarily to the exclusion of the Lord. Now, we know that someone's bowing to idols.
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That's a really bad sign, right? But remember, Solomon's problem with his foreign wives is that they have led him to serve other gods.
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He's worshiping other gods in addition to the true God. Now, he's still identified as having served the true
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God and being a follower of God, even though he's gone and served other idols. So I don't think you need to see the presence of foreign idols as implying an absence of service to the true
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God. It's something that's intruding. But yes, but as far as the application, yes, certainly you should be concerned for your child's spiritual welfare.
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You cannot make your child regenerate, but you can certainly forbid certain activities, which would include bowing down to an idol or going to a
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Buddhist temple or et cetera. Yes, I believe so.
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Yeah, I think that husbands should require even unbelieving wives to be present for family worship.
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No, yeah, no, this is for heads of households, right? Yeah, yeah, and it might seem like it's very, like, that is contrary to the way a lot of people think of it, because a lot of people tend to over -spiritualize it and they just think about the internals.
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Oh, well, like, that's not even meaningful if they're not worshiping God in sincerity. It's still commanded, you know, that they worship him.
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So yeah, the heads of household should use his authority to require this of those who are members of his household.
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And a lot of people aren't used to heads of households exercising authority like that. But really,
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I mean, they can't. If they are the ones who control the assets, if they decide whether or not, you know, people are fed, et cetera, yeah, it's not that crazy to consider the head of household to be the one who decides what the family's activities will be.
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Any questions? All right, let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your commands in Scripture.
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We ask that we would be followers of your law, that we would love you, and I pray that you would help us to serve
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God together with our homes. As for us and our households, we will serve the Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.