Matthew 19

¹³ Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, ¹⁴ but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” ¹⁵ And he laid his hands on them and went away.

Charles Dickens once wrote, “In the world of little children, the greatest hurt of all is injustice.”[1]

I suspect there might be something to that. And if there is something to that, then the little children mentioned in Matthew 19 risked being very hurt indeed! For an injustice was being perpetrated against them. Namely, they were being kept from Jesus and their parents were being rebuked by Jesus’ closest followers!

This could have gone down as a very ugly episode, but Jesus would have none of it. In fact, Jesus’ reaction to the children and their parents being turned away changed this into something profoundly beautiful!

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On April 6, 1252, a man named Peter of Verona was traveling from Como to Milan. Along the way he met a group of assassins. These men were Manichaeans against whom Peter had been preaching. One of the assassins, a man named Carino, struck Peter with an axe in the head. It knocked him to the ground. Before he died, however, he had just enough strength to rise up on his knees, take his finger, and write in his own blood a form of the first three words of the Apostles’ Creed: “Credo in Deum,” “I believe in God.”[1] Then he was struck down for good.

The painter Fra Angelico has immortalized this amazing moment in his painting of the scene. There, we see the bloodied Peter of Verona on bended knee, his murderer preparing for the final deadly blow, and the words in his own blood: “Credo in Deum.”

That Peter would write the first words of the Apostles’ Creed is telling and moving. In his last moments he wanted to offer an articulation of his heart’s conviction concerning the Christian faith, concerning Jesus. So he wrote “Credo!” It is my sincere prayer that we, too, if we knew that our next breath would be our last, would write or say or sing or shout, “Credo! I believe!”

The Apostles’ Creed is ancient creed, the early forms of which reach back to the 2^nd century, that many churches the world over look to as a helpful and inspiring summary statement of the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

We are Baptist Christians and some Baptists are of the opinion that creeds have no place in our lives together. I would argue that creeds are helpful, historically-grounded, and unifying statements of faith that have been treasured by Baptists. What Baptists reject is (a) the elevation of any human statement to the level of scripture and/or (b) the imposition of man-made statements upon the people of God in an oppressive man. But there is a right use of creeds.

In fact, if you object to something like the Apostles’ Creed you may find it interesting to know that Baptist history does indeed show some Baptists turning to the creeds as helpful tools. For instance, some of the General Baptists of England, in 1678, included in their “Orthodox Creed” the following article:

Article XXXVIII

Of the Three Creeds.

The Three Creeds, (viz.) Nicene Creed, Athanasius his Creed, and the Apostles Creed, (as they are commonly called) ought thoroughly to be received and believed. For we believe they may be proved by most undoubted Authority of holy Scripture, and are necessary to be understood of all Christians; and to be instructed in the knowledge of them, by the Ministers of Christ, according to the Analogie of Faith, recorded in sacred Scriptures (upon which these Creeds are grounded), and Catechistically opened, and expounded in all Christian families, for the edification of Young and Old; which might be a means to prevent Heresy in doctrine and practice, these Creeds containing all things in a brief manner, that are necessary to be known, fundamentally, in order to our Salvation…

Well, that is quite a statement! I believe these earlier Baptists were correct! There is more.

In 1905, the Baptist World Alliance had their inaugural meeting in London. There, under the guidance of the BWA president, they joined together for the recitation of The Apostles’ Creed. The BWA would do so again in 2005 in their meeting in Birmingham, England.[2]

Baptist theologian Steve Harmon, quoting Keith Parker’s Baptists in Europe, has pointed out that “the first paragraph of the confession adopted in 1977 by German-speaking Baptist unions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland ‘presupposes the Apostles’ Creed as a common confession of Christendom’…and the initial paragraph of the confession approved by the Swedish-Speaking Baptist Union of Finland in 1979 ‘accepts the Apostolic Creed as the comprehensive creed for the union.’”[3] James Leo Garrett has further pointed out that the “latest declaration by European Baptists recognizes the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Symbol of Chalcedon.”[4]

On occasion one hears the protest against Baptist use of Creeds that Baptists hold to “no creed but the Bible.” But this statement needs to be rightly understood. Yes, Baptists adhere to the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, the scriptures alone. But Baptist theologian James Leo Garrett has persuasively argued that sola scriptura (scripture alone) does not mean nuda scriptura (naked scripture) but rather means suprema scriptura (the scriptures as supreme).[5] Put another way, Baptists do not believe it is wrong to draft and recite and use confessions and creeds that are summaries of the faith. We simply believe it is always wrong to elevate any such creed or confession to the level of the scriptures. These creeds may serve as helps (thus scripture is not denuded) but they must always be subservient to and judged by the supreme standard of scripture (thus suprema scriptura). We intend to judge the Apostles’ Creed in the light of the scriptures which are our supreme norm and guide.

We begin with the first word, “Credo,” “I believe.”

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Adam Harwood of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary has written a very helpful and insightful and good systematic theology that I would like to recommend. I do not normally do this, but I was a bit irritated by one negative review (not, I hasten to add, because it was negative—it’s a free country!—but because of the nature of the reviewer’s arguments) so I posted a bit of a review/response here.  Harwood’s books is a great contribution to Baptist systematics. I’d encourage you to get a copy!

The Fall 2022 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology came out yesterday. The issue is dedicated to the legacy of James Leo Garrett Jr., the late Southwestern Seminary theologian. It consists largely of the papers presented at the 2021 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Forth Worth, Texas. My own presentation is in the journal. Check it out here if you feel so inclined.

Jude

²² And have mercy on those who doubt; ²³ save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. ²⁴ Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, ²⁵ to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Baptists do not have saints…or at least not officially so! In reality, however, we kind of do. Or, at the least, there are figures we have revered and canonized in a sense. For Southern Baptists, one such person would be Lottie Moon, the famed missionary to China in whose name Southern Baptists contribute to the cause of international missions every Christmas through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

Yes, even Southern Baptists who do not know exactly who Lottie Moon was know that her name is revered.

But did you know that Lottie Moon was once in love?!

In a fascinating article entitled “Lottie Moon’s Romance,” Erich Bridges wrote of Lottie Moon’s relationship with Professor Crawford Toy and what appeared to doom it from becoming a marriage.

Years before, during her education at Virginia’s Albemarle Female Institute, Lottie had met Crawford Toy, a young professor who taught there and at the University of Virginia. Toy was a brilliant teacher of English and classical languages, and Lottie was his star student.

“Girls were known to develop serious crushes on the eligible Professor Toy,” who was both single and handsome, writes Catherine Allen in her biography of Lottie, The New Lottie Moon Story, (Broadman). Lottie was charmed by Toy, and the attraction seems to have been mutual.

The two corresponded for years after Lottie left the Institute. Both were interested in missionary service, and they may have discussed marriage before she went to China for the first time. But Lottie had seen other bright, ambitious women like herself rushed into unhappy marriages, and she may have hesitated…

Still, Toy and Lottie kept up a regular correspondence, and their romantic attraction seems to have endured. But Toy’s career took a sad turn. He had become a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, and his views came under fire in the denomination.

“Toy had been educated in the German school of ‘higher criticism’ of the Bible and apparently questioned the authority and reliability of Scripture as accepted by the churches of the denomination,” Rankin writes. “His views became evident when he (later) became a Unitarian. Lottie may have recognized the incompatibility of his teaching with a basic doctrine of her faith: that all who have yet to come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ are lost, whether in China or America.”

Toy was asked to resign from the seminary faculty in 1879. Yet even after he began teaching at Harvard, Toy and Lottie considered marriage. She informed her missionary colleagues that she was leaving the mission field to “take the professor of Hebrew’s chair at Harvard University in connection with Dr. Toy,” according to a September 1881 letter written by China missionary T.P. Crawford.

Harvard would not employ women professors for another 40 years. The “connection with Dr. Toy” was apparently to be marriage. Lottie asked family members in Virginia to prepare for a wedding in the spring.

No wedding ever occurred. Perhaps Lottie could not accept Toy’s liberal theological views. Relatives of Toy understood that the pair broke their engagement because of “religious differences.”[1]

Lottie Moon apparently broke off a relationship with a man she deeply loved over his drift into theological liberalism. It is fascinating to read about this. Love mattered to Lottie, but so did doctrine and truth.

All of this raises an important question: What do you do when a person you know drifts from truth into error, from orthodoxy into heresy?

Jude, who has spent a good bit of his letter cautioning the church about false teachers, concludes his letter by speaking to these believers about how to respond to three different groups of people: (1) believers honestly struggling with doubt, (2) those who have rejected Christ, and (3) heretics and false teachers who not only have rejected Christ but want others to reject Him as well. Consider these three groups.

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Jude

¹⁷ But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” ¹⁹ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. ²⁰ But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 

The late Dallas Willard once made a very astute observation about the Christian life. He wrote:

If your neighbor is having trouble with his automobile, you might think he just got a lemon.  And you might be right.  But if you found that he was supplementing his gasoline with a quart of water now and then, you would not blame the car or its maker for it not running, or for running in fits and starts.  You would say that the car was not built to work under the conditions imposed by the owner.  And you would certainly advise him to put only the appropriate kind of fuel in the tank.  After some restorative work, perhaps the car would then run fine.

            We must approach current disappointments about the walk with Christ in a similar way.  It too is not meant to run on just anything you may give it.  If it doesn’t work at all, or only in fits and starts, that is because we do not give ourselves to it in a way that allows our lives to be taken over by it.  Perhaps we have never been told what to do.  We are misinformed about “our part” in eternal living.  Or we have just learned the “faith and practice” of some group we have fallen in with, not that of Jesus himself.  Or maybe we have heard something that is right-on with Jesus himself, but misunderstood it…Or perhaps we thought the “Way” we have heard of seemed too costly and we have tried to economize (supplying a quart of moralistic or religious “water” now and then).

            Now we know that the “car” of Christianity can run, and run gloriously, in every kind of external circumstance.  We have seen it – or at least, anyone who wishes to can see it – merely by looking, past the caricatures and partial presentations, at Jesus himself and at the many manifestations of him in events and personalities throughout history and in our world today.[1]

My question to you is quite simple: Are you mixing water with the gasoline?

If you have trusted in Christ, you are saved and redeemed and called to a life of discipleship and follow-ship. You are called to the great and grand adventure of the Christian life. Everything you need to live the Christian life is available to you. The Holy Spirit is within you. Christ is beside and before you. The church is open to you. The power of prayer has been placed before you. The very word of God has been placed in your hands in the scriptures. Truly, if you have accepted Christ, you have what you need!

If you have truly give your life to Christ, let me ask you: Are you moving forward? Are you progressing?

No? Then why not. It cannot be a lack in the provisions of God. As we have just said, He has given you all you need. No, if you are born again and not progressing there is only one answer for it: You are mixing water with the gasoline.

Sixteen of Jude’s twenty-five verses are warnings about false teachers. In verses 17-19 he calls upon the church one last time to beware.

¹⁷ But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” ¹⁹ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

We have been warned, in other words, that these false teachers would come. But now we must ask: How can we follow Christ in such a way that we are prepared to endure false teachers and the lies they try to tell us? How can we progress? How can we move forward? With all these warnings of a false “Christian” life, what does a true Christian life look like?

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Matthew 19

¹ Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. ² And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. ³ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” ¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” ¹¹ But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. ¹² For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

On October 26, 2022, Cara Buckley, writing for The New York Times, wrote:

First it was cake smeared on the Mona Lisa in Paris, then tomato soup splattered across a van Gogh in London, and then, on Sunday, liquefied mashed potatoes hurled at a Monet in a museum in Potsdam.

What these actions shared, aside from involving priceless art and carbs, was the intentions of the protesters behind them. Desperate to end complacency about the climate crisis and to pressure governments to stop the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, they said they had resorted to such high profile tactics because little else has worked.

None of the paintings were harmed, as all were encased in protective glass.[i]

You have perhaps seen the videos of these acts of vandalism occurring in various museums. The images have caused me to catch my breath with each one! In Buckley’s article, two protestors squat beneath a stained and desecrated Monet having superglued their hands to the walls and floors beneath it. Or, at least they appear to have desecrated the Monet. As Buckley points out, “None of the paintings were harmed, as all were encased in protective glass.”

It is a fascinating picture: a priceless work of art befouled and covered by soup or some other substance, and yet the original remains unharmed.

This is as apt a picture of marriage as one is likely to find. We have soiled it, stained it, and sought to cover it up with all manner of distortion and perversion and violence and redefinition. And yet, the original does remain beneath the muck.

In Matthew 19, the Pharisees want to talk about the muck, the ways we ruin marriage, but Jesus wants to talk about the priceless original beneath!

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Jude

¹² These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; ¹³ wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. ¹⁴ It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, ¹⁵ to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ¹⁶ These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

 In 1997, the Haitian death squad leader and mass murderer Emmanuel “Toto” Constant was interviewed by British journalist and author Jon Ronson. Ronson writes about this interview in his fascinating book, The Psychopath Test. Constant founded a death squad in Haiti called FRAPH that launched a reign of terror against supporters of the former Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. FRAPH, under Toto’s direction, was brutal. Jonson writes:

According to human rights groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch, when FRAPH caught an Aristide supporter, they’d sometimes slice off the person’s face. When a group of Aristide supporters holed up in a shantytown called Cité Soleil, Constant’s men turned up with gasoline—this was December 1993—and burned the place to the ground. At one point that day some children tried to run away from the fire. The men from FRAPH caught them and forced them back inside their burning homes. There were fifty murders that day, and many other bloodbaths during Constant’s reign. In April 1994, for example, FRAPH men raided a harbor town, Raboteau, another center of Aristide support. They arrested and beat and shot and dunked into the open sewers all the residents they could catch. They commandeered fishing boats so they could shoot people fleeing across the sea.

The modus operandi of FRAPH was to team up with members of the Haitian Armed Forces in midnight raids of the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and other cities. In a typical raid, the attackers would invade a house in search of evidence of pro-democracy activity, such as photos of Aristide. The men of the house would frequently be abducted and subjected to torture; many would be summarily executed. The women would frequently be gang-raped, often in front of the remaining family members. The ages of documented victims range from as young as 10 to as old as 80. According to witness reports, sons were forced at gunpoint to rape their own mothers.[1]

Constant was arrested in the United States and imprisoned but, after insinuating that he could prove CIA involvement in his activities, he was released by American authorities, given a green card, and told that his punishment was that he could not leave the burrough of Queens in New York except to check in with immigration services one hour each week in Manhattan.

It was in Queens that Ronson interviewed Toto. He said the interview was strange and surreal. He asked Toto what he did all day and Toto took him to a room in which was something that surprised Jon Ronson a great deal.

We climbed the stairs. I looked apprehensively behind me. We reached a doorway. He opened it. I took in the room.

On every table, every surface, there were the kinds of tiny plastic figures that come free with McDonald’s and Burger King promotions—little Dumbos and Goofys and Muppets from Space and Rugrats and Batmen and Powerpuff Girls and Men in Black and Luke Skywalkers and Bart Simpsons and Fred Flintstones and Jackie Chans and Buzz Lightyears and on and on.

We looked at each other.

“What impresses me most about them is the artistry,” he said.

“Do you arrange them into battalions?” I asked.

“No,” he said. There was a silence.

“Shall we go?” he murmured, I think regretting his decision to show me his army of plastic cartoon figurines.[2]

Throughout the interview, Toto utterly denied that he had ever done anything wrong. He called all of the accusations lies. Then, to Ronson’s surprise, he pretended, badly, to cry. Ronson says the ruse was obvious.

As their time together ended, Ronson and the mass murderer went to the door of the apartment building in Queens. What Ronson writes next is somehow strangely chilling.

Our time together ended soon afterward. He showed me to his door, the epitome of good manners, laughing, giving me a warm handshake, saying we’ll meet again soon. Just as I reached my car I turned around to wave again, and when I saw him, I felt a jolt pass through me—like my amygdala had just shot a signal of fear through to my central nervous system. His face was very different, much colder, suspicious. He was scrutinizing me hard. The instant I caught his eye, he put on that warm look again. He grinned and waved. I waved back, climbed into the car, and drove away.[3]

For some reason, this little scene has frightened me since the first time I read it. Ronson looking back and catching the domesticated, living-in-Queens, friendly, amiable, prone-to-tears, happy-meal-toy-loving Constant Toto staring at him with a contorted and hostile face is very jarring.

For a moment, Toto’s mask slipped, and Ronson caught it!

There is something here we must understand: Some men who like the toys in happy meals also like burning men, women, and children alive. Some men who live in apartment buildings and will sit and laugh with you will also send out death squads to murder and to maim. Some men who pretend to cry will laugh when at unspeakable horrors.

Brothers and sisters, some men wear masks, and, if you are diligent, you can see the horror beneath the smile.

Jude paints a similar picture of heretics. In Jude, he is going to talk about the mask that heretics wear but also about the shocking reality that the mask hides. He is going to do this through a series of metaphors, and it is vitally important that we heed what he says.

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