Luke 13:10-17 — Who are we most like in this story?

January 28, 2013

At least two theological themes emerge from this pericope. On the one hand, the kingdom of God breaks into the life of a woman who had been bound by her disability for eighteen years. She is healed and experiences redemption. On the other hand, opposition to the kingdom of God arises in response to her healing on the ground that Jesus violated the Sabbath. This provides an opportunity for Jesus to interpret the significance of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the backdrop for both of these stories and functions as the unifying theological root question: what is the meaning of the Sabbath?

The Sabbath is not an incidental referent in this story. There is something incongruous with Sabbath and the fact that a disabled, apparently pious, woman was present in the synagogue. Despite her disability she is present in the synagogue on the Sabbath, but the Sabbath reminds us that God rested within the creation on the seventh day. Originally, Sabbath is the communion between God and humanity in the Garden of Eden. But the “curse” of the “Fall” marred that communion as creation itself was filled with brokenness.

Jesus initiates a reversal of that curse. He makes the first move and through him Sabbath—in a theological sense—is renewed for this woman. She experiences the renewal of creation through the redemptive act of healing. Healings are no mere testimonies of power or ability. Neither are they mere proofs of Jesus’ messianic role. They are ultimately the intrusion of eschatological healing—new creation—into the brokenness of the present creation. Jesus reverses the curse and restores Sabbath for her. He breaks the reign of Satan in her life. He looses what binds her. The eschatological kingdom of God is revealed in this moment. She recognized the “God-moment” and “glorified God.”

The ruler of the synagogue recalls creation’s relation to the Sabbath, but his interest is polemical. Rather than thinking theologically about the implications of Sabbath and creation, he reminds the people of the legalities of Sabbath-keeping. He pours the tradition of the elders into the creation account to protect the Sabbath, but he thereby subverts the intent of the account itself as well as the meaning of the Sabbath. Indeed, the tradition—as Jesus notes—valued the health and wholeness of their domestic livestock more than a daughter of Abraham. The ruler turned the Sabbath into a legality rather than rejoicing over the intrusion of the eschatological Sabbath into the present.

The Sabbath is where humanity rests in the healing and loving presence of the Creator. Sabbath supports healing and redemption. It is an abuse of Sabbath to use it to hinder wholeness in human life and exalt the legalities of the ritual over the mercy the day represents. The Sabbath is itself a gracious gift of God to the creation; it is now a divine mercy in a broken creation. The meaning of the Sabbath is grace and thus mercy in relation to creation’s groans. The Sabbath promotes gracious healing and it is a subversion of the Sabbath to use it to hinder mercy.

This story calls us into the ministry of Jesus as we take up the mission of reversing the curse instead of hindering the renewal of the Sabbath in the lives of people. It cautions us that we should not use legalities to subvert the divine intent. The story asks us whom will we follow. Will we follow the ruler of the synagogue or will we follow Jesus?

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Six Theses on Creation: A Theology for Heralding the Coming Kingdom of God

October 25, 2011

This week I am participating in a wonderful conference on preaching the paradigmatic texts of Scripture. The focus of this particular conference is creation.  Walter Brueggemann is the featured speaker and his presentation last night on Psalm 104 was excellent. Other speakers include Ken Durham, John York, David Fleer and Rhonda Lowry. Everyone has done a wonderful job.

I made a presentation entitled “A Confessional Theology of Creation for Heralding the Coming Kingdom of God.”  For those who are interested, click Lipscomb Creation Lecture for a copy.

The six theses are:

1.    God creates the heavens and the earth as a dwelling place in which God comes to rest.

2.   God creates a telic dynamic reality that is good but not perfect.

3.   God creates humanity as a partner in the dynamic processes of created reality.

4.   God creates a material reality designed to mediate a divine-human communion experienced within and through creation.

5.    God creates amidst a continuing chaos under which the creation itself, along with God’s human partners, groans and yearns for liberation, which is the telos of creation.

6.   God creates, even now though not yet fully, a new heaven and new earth through the ministry of Jesus and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Ecclesiology: Practicing the Kingdom of God (SBD 14)

June 29, 2009

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is--of course--quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.]

“Church”  is not necessarily a popular word in the early 21st century. Whether it is modern individualism, or postmodern personalism/pragmatism, or Evangelical revivalism/theology that stresses personal (private) relationship, or the brokenness of much of what passes for “church” in the West, ecclesiology is often treated as a theological addendum disconnected from soteriology or a recommended but unnecessary dimension of Christian discipleship.

When ecclesiology is framed by post-Pentecost issues of form, polity and liturgy (Acts 2 through Jude), it devolves into denominational hair-splitting about who is right and who is wrong. But when ecclesiology is framed by the theodrama (the story of God in redemptive history), it participates in the history of the kingdom of God in the world. Originating from God’s creative act, typified in the history of Israel, rooted in the ministry of Jesus and anticipating the eschatological community, ecclesiology is rich with Christological and soteriological meaning.

God Creates Community

Ecclesiology lies at the heart of both the intent and goal of the divine project. The Triune God created a community to image its own communal life and participate in God’s care for and development of the cosmos. The divine project draws humanity into the communion of the Triune relationship so that humanity might be one in God and God dwell among them within the creation.

When humanity exalted itself to heavens and decided to make a name for itself, God called Abraham and choose his descendents as his people. They were the assembly (church) of God in the world. Israel was God’s people and Yahweh was their God, and Yahweh dwelt among them (Leviticus 26:11-12). Israel, the new creation of God, was to serve the nations as a light of God’s kingdom—an alternative to the way of the nations—and draw the nations to Yahweh.

When Israel chose the way of the nations rather than living as God’s people, Jesus of Nazareth appeared as the faithful remnant of Israel—the true light among the nations. God became flesh in Jesus and dwelt among humanity. His purpose was not to call individual, isolated disciples into relationship with God, but to gather a people from every language, tribe and nation who would become the one people of God.

Church is the community of believers whom God has called out of darkness into the light of the Christ’s kingdom. On the ground of God’s work in Christ and gathered by God, disciples of Jesus in various localities throughout the creation covenant together to follow Jesus into the world for the sake of the world. The community (church) of Jesus is an alternative community that invites the broken world to embrace a new way of life—the way of life for which God created humanity.

Ultimately and finally God will redeem creation and dwell with the redeemed in a new heaven and new earth. Then the dwelling of God will be with humanity and God will be their God and they will be the people of God. This eschatological community will reflect the diversity of human history (every language, tribe and nation) and the fullness of redemption as both creation and bodies are animated by the Spirit of God.

Theological Definition of the Church

The church is the reality of God’s redemptive presence in the present age. We may summarize this point through three metaphors present in the New Testament documents.

The church is the presence of Christ in the world through the Spirit. The church is the Spirit-filled people of God who represent Christ before the world. It is the body of Christ in whom the Spirit of God dwells. As the body of Christ, it is his presence in the world. Christ is present and fills the earth through the church. Just as God sent Jesus as his presence in the world, so Christ has sent us. As the body of Christ, the church follows Christ into the world and fulfills the ministry of Christ.

The church is a holy fellowship of God’s people on earth—an alternative community. The church is a community of believers—a pilgrim people seeking the fullness of the kingdom of God in the world. The church is the body of people who live together in covenant with God united by the Spirit who dwells within them as they express their love for God in community with each other. This is a community that is in the world, but not of the world; a holy people who belong to God and to each other. It is a koinonia (fellowship) and the shared reality is their communion with the Triune God which is experienced through the indwelling Spirit as they love each other.

The church is a manifestation of God’s kingdom on the earth. The church is, in its intent, heaven on the earth as it anticipates the fullness of God’s kingdom and is a present sign of God’s reign in the world. It is the place where the will of God should be done on earth as it is heaven. God reigns through the presence of his people as they live worthy of the gospel. While a manifestation of the kingdom, but the church also anticipates and prefigures the kingdom’s ultimate unveiling at the second coming of Christ when God’s people will dwell in a new heaven and a new earth. The church, therefore, anticipates and hopes in the future of God’s kingdom which Jesus will bring with him when he comes again.

The Mission of the Church

It is God’s present purpose that the church should proclaim the mystery of Christ to the powers of the world and embody that mystery as a community of faithful disciples.

The mission of the Jesus Christ is the mission of the church. Since the church is the body of Christ and represents the presence of Christ in the world, the mission of Jesus Christ is the mission of the church. The church learns its mission and role in the world from Jesus Christ. He was sent by God into the world, and now the exalted Jesus sends the church into the world. Jesus formed a community of disciples to fulfill the work of God—to continue the work he began.

The mission of Jesus was to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God. “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4:43). His ministry is the “good news of the kingdom of God,” that is, that the kingdom of God has come near and when the kingdom comes near the brokenness of the world is healed. The curse—the brokenness of creation—is reversed.

The “kingdom” is not the structures and organization of an institutionalized church. Rather, the kingdom is the reign of God in the world; when God reigns and overcomes the curse, when God reigns and destroys fallen barriers, when God reigns and overcomes diseases, demons and death, when God reigns and reconciles people groups, when God reigns and the poor and oppressed get justice.

While the “good news” (gospel) of the “kingdom of God” includes the death and resurrection of Jesus, that death and resurrection are the means toward the end of the reality of the kingdom of God. That kingdom reality is “good news.” It is the good news that God intends to redeem, renew, and restore the creation and the human community. God does this through the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus; these are means by which God inaugurates, implements and consumates the kingdom.

The mission of Jesus was to practice the kingdom of God in the world. Just as Jesus declared the message that the “kingdom of God is near” (which is the “good news of the kingdom”) and healed the sick (reversing the curse), his disciples follow him into the world to announce the nearness of the kingdom and to participate in curse reversal. Disciples proclaim the good news of the kingdom and heal the sick (practice the kingdom of God). As instruments of the kingdom, they are a means by which God reigns in the world for peace, healing and reconciliation. Disciples participate in the mission of Jesus to reverse the curse as the kingdom of God grows and fills the earth. Disciples proclaim the reality of God in the world as they work for healing and reconciliation.

Practicing the kingdom of God is a way of talking about a communal discipleship which is a mode of living in the world for the sake of the world. Acts 2:42, for example, is one way of describing what it means to practice the kingdom of God as a community. The description reaches back into the ministry of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and projects forward into the rest of Acts. Acts 2:42 is a practical “hinge” between Luke’s two narratives. Just as the church continued to teach and do what Jesus did concerning the kingdom of God (Acts 1:1), each of the particulars of Acts 2:42 were part of his ministry—teaching, community (fellowship), breaking bread and prayer. The church continues what Jesus began.

Practicing the kingdom of God is a mode of communal spiritual formation, a mode of communal sanctification. These are communal habits by which the people of God are formed and shaped into the image of Jesus—to be like the Jesus who ministered in the Gospel of Luke, that is, to be the body of Christ in the world.

What Jesus began to do, the church continues to do. The church is called to proclaim and pursue a healing and reconciling (including ethnic and gender reconciliation) ministry in the world as witness to the presence of the reign of God in the world. The mission of the church, as the mission of Jesus, is to reverse the curse—to participate in the divine agenda to heal what is broken, reconcile what is divided, and release people from oppression (whether political, sexist, racial, economic, etc.). The disciples of Jesus do this just as Jesus did it—through suffering, peace, serving, forgiveness, and seeking.

Conclusion

The church reflects the life of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. The church is the dynamic organism, the body of Christ, which exists in the world to be Christ in the world, to represent Christ in the world. The church fulfills the mission and ministry of Christ to the world.

The church is the fellowship of God’s people who, having committed themselves to the mission of Jesus, covenant together to love God, each other and the world. Called into the communion of God’s own life, the church lives within that communion as a community rather than as isolated and disconnected individuals. The church as community is not option but the experience of God’s own communal life.

The church is the holy community of God’s people who praise God, serve others and proclaim God’s redeeming message. The church is a community of disciples who follow Jesus into the world for the sake of the world.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

David Lipscomb (1911)

April 13, 2009

Continuing my reading of Lipscomb in the first decades of the 20th century, I have lifted a few more what I regard as illuminating comments by the 80 year old editor of the Gospel Advocate.

Publish Both Sides for Free Discussion. Lipscomb believed that fair, thorough and open discussion of a biblical issue was the best course to follow. Truth would reign in such a situation and evil would be vanquished. Consequently the Gospel Advocate under his editorship published both sides of a discussion (part of the Tennessee Tradition of open discussion).  However, not everyone followed this policy such as Joe S. Warlick of The Gospel Guide (Texas Tradition paper) and Daniel Sommer of the Octographic Review (Indiana Tradition). When B. C. Goodpasture excluded NI (non-institutional) writers from the Gospel Advocate in the 1950s, this was one of the premier articles referenced by the excluded (cf. Fanning Yater Tant, “I Would Cease to Read It,” Gospel Guardian 6.12 [29 July 1954] 5).

This good has come from holing the Gospel Advocate open to discuss the evils of introducing into the church things not required by God. Evil has seemed to grow out of this by the failure to treat the subject as God directs. If these evils are not discussed, we disobey God and leave evil to run riot in the churches. Evil will grow up in the churches, and the failure to expose it is to invite the evil…I said: ‘I do not read [Joe S.] Warlick’s paper, because he will not publish both sides of a question.’…Brother [Daniel] Sommer, of the Octographic Review, adopted this policy some years ago, the only example of it I had ever known among disciples. I ceased to read his paper, and we get along so peaceably. The Guide adopts the same plan. I treat both alike…I would like to see all of us get along pleasantly and harmoniously in obeying the commands of God. But if the Gospel Advocate were to adopt this policy of criticizing others and refusing to let them reply, I would cease to read it. [1]

Women and Public Speaking.  If there is any question where Lipscomb reveals his enculturation, it is on the question of women in the church and society.  When he was asked about the practice of some Sommer churches in the north that permitted women to lead prayer, read Scripture and exhort the assembly, his response is quite strict. He extends the prophibition against public speaking to outside the assembly of the church.  To his credit, however, he did publish a response from Silena Moore Holman who was not only an elder’s wife but the president of the Tennessee chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement. This is a woman with whom Lipscomb had significant disagreements–she was a public speaker and politically involved. Nevertheless, he published both sides.

Again, there is no law prohbiting women’s speaking under the Jewish law. So the failure to authorize them to speak under that law amounted to a prohibition to speak. The same rule holds good now. While the language in 1 Cor. 14 certainly embraces the Lord’s-day meeting, it is difficult to say that it is confined to it.

All the reasons given and the facts stated condemn woman’s leadership in other places as well as in the church on Lord’s day…All public teaching and speaking on any subject at any place puts woman out of place, out of her God-given work. She is by nature and disposition suited to a quiet, retiring service. She may use these conditions to teach and develop her abilities and work as a teacher and instructor of all.

God forbids woman to take a leading public part in teaching people at any time; but she may in a quiet, modest way teach the Bible to men, women and children, at home or a place of meeting. God has appointed but one regular, necessary meeting on the Lord’s day, where certain worship is to be performed. He allows other meetings for worship as his children may approve. But woman is not permitted to take a leading part in any of them. She may instruct in a modest way where men fail to do it. All meetings of the church are church meetings. Some are for specific purposes; others to teach, encourage, and help each other. Women ought to be modest at all of them. Men should be active to lead, and all things will work well. [2]

Women Baptizing? In response to a question from a reader, Lipscomb opposed this as a public leadership role. It did not suit the role of woman in both society and church to have such a public face. In his response Lipscomb reveals his prejudice against immigrant Catholics who are proliferating in “northern lands” because progressive women seek careers and public leadership rather than bearing and raising children.

God never called woman to such public works….there is no intimation that they will be saved from it, or blessed in seeking to do man’s work as a leader and guide of man….Some Southern women are following in the steps of these [progressive women, JMH] and are becoming public speakers and business managers, and they are failing to bear children, and in a generation or two the Catholics will take the lead here. [3]

Or, in another place, when he is concerned about how men are retreating from leadership in the church, he wrote:

 There are two causes that lead men to cease to attend the church and take part in the teaching and worship of the church. The first is, the women are forward to take part in the service, and especially to lead and teach….The Bible, taken as a whole, in all its works and institutions, makes woman a home keeper and imposes on her the work of bearing and rearing children. To this work, if not perverted, her tates and inclinations will lead her. Let us all faithfully and truly work as God has appointed, and he will abundantly bless.” [4]

The Work of Jesus is the Work of the Church.  Lipscomb has a consistent emphasis on the relationship of the church to the poor and weak. Here is a succinct but profound statement of his position that one can see in almost every other editorial by Lipscomb in these last years.  I wonder why he sense a deep need to emphasize it–cultural shifts in the church, or at his age he simply emphasized what he thought was most important. In any event, here is a good example:

 How many professed Christians are there that give time and labor to help the poor and needy, the sick and destitute in the world? Are professed Christians more apt to do good in helping others as Christ did than those not Christians? The work of the Christian is to do the work of Jesus. The spiritual body of Christ, the church, should continue the work he did in the fleshly body. So being trained to the same work, we may be fitted to dwell with him in his home. If we cannot and do not the work of Jesus, it is because we are none of his. [5]

In my opinion, Lipscomb is batting .500 for his views in this post.  I’m grateful that both he and I are saved by grace through faith rather by a knowledge that bats 1.000 (or, what batting average is required if it is not by grace?).

Footnotes:

[1] David Lipscomb, “Difficulties and Differences Among Christians,” Gospel Advocate 53 (12 January 1911) 44-45

[2] David Lipscomb, “Information Wanted on the ‘Woman Question’,” Gospel Advocate 53 (19 January 1911), 78-79.

[3] David Lipscomb, “Query Department,” Gospel Advocate 53 (26 October 1911), 1222.

[4] David Lipscomb, “Stopping the Leak,” Gospel Advocate 53 (14 December 1911) 1454-5.

[5] David Lipscomb, “Can We Too Rigidly Follow God’s Law,” Gospel Advocate 53 (9 March 1911) 303.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

David Lipscomb (1912)–More Gems

April 9, 2009

The octogenarian David Lipscomb, knowing his last years were upon him, intentionally broached subjects and pressed points that he hoped would shape the future of the church. Here are few examples.

Debates Need to End. Lipscomb thought that debates between “Baptists and disciples” needed to change or cease. They needed to stress the commonalities more than the differences. He believed much more united them than divided them.

It has been a growing thought in my mind for some years that the end or purpose of debates among professing Christians should be changed. Now they debate to see how much and how far they differ. Each tries to make the faith of the other look as bad as possible. That is not a kind and fraternal way of treating each other. Doctor Loftin and Brother [F. W.] Smith have been discussing the differences between the disciples and the Baptists. In doing this they were compelled to observe the points of agreement. Without the knowledge of either of them, I propose that they discuss and show the points of agreement between them. They both believe in the Bible as the word of God; in God, the Father; in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world; in the Hooly Spirit, who came to the world to guide men in the paths of salvation. They both believe in faith, repentance and baptism into Christ….The controversy is as to the point at which, in his mind, God forgives the sins of one coming to him. Does man’s knowledge of the point at which God forgives sin hinder or help God in forgiving when the sinner comes to the place in the path of obedience? [1]

General Booth and the Salvation Army. Lipscomb’s preference for the poor is on full display as he comments on the death of William Booth (1829-1912), the founder of the Salvation Army.

But he was not a man to be laughed out of his work. His work was a much-needed, but neglected, work. It was a God-approved work. God has instructed his children to preach to the poor. They were not, are not, doing it. When the world saw Booth, a man of faith and energy and life, engage in the work, they responded promptly to his call and helped forward his work. He has moved the whole religious world on this point of preaching to the poor. That was a needed work. It is a work, an effort in a direction to which all should respond. All should magnify the work of preaching to the poor and helping the needy by all speaking well of, and encouraging in a right way, the work ordained by God. The work of helping and preaching to the poor should be exalted and magnified by the children of God leading in and exalting that work, by Christians doing it in God’s appointed ways and through the provisions he has made. [2]

Humble Obedience. In his continuing war against rebaptism, Lipscomb constantly stressed the nature of true obedience. It was not a matter of perfect or precise understanding but about trust (faith). This piece goes to the heart of his argument against rebaptism. Saving obedience is not about precision, perfection or even fully accurate understanding. It is about the mercy of God.

The letters to the churches show much weakness and many mistakes and wrongs among Christians in the early ages of the church; but not once do we find a person rejected or required to do his work over again for weakness of faith or misunderstanding requirements. To do this is something new under the sun, and is of man, not of God. I had rather go before God realizing my weakness and liability to sin, trusting him for mercy and pardon, than to go relying upon my good understanding and obedience to the perfect will of God. I hope and trust to be saved, not by the fullness and correctness of my understanding of God’s will, but by his love and mercy to all who want to serve him. [3]

“Poor in Spirit” the Key to Unity. This comment is from 1911 but it dovetails with the previous point. Again in conversation with Rebaptists, he stressed that their sectarianism is destroying not only the unity of God’s people but undermining the priority of faith.

The first prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom of God is, one should feel ‘poor in spirit.’ He must feel his own lack of spiritual power or resources before he can come to God in an acceptable spirit, in a spirit that God will accept. The spirit that feels its poverty, its helplessnesses, its need of guidance and strength, is the one that God looks on with pity and compassion and is willing to lift up and guide.”

We have pleaded for the union of Christians. Our work has been felt. Are we fit to still lead on in this work? While emphasizing truths connected with this union, have not we become sectarian ourselves? Many have espoused a common sectarianism with the churches around us [the Disciples of Christ, JMH]. Are not many others moving into a sectarianism in opposition to others [the Rebaptists, JMH]? Let us be humble and faithful, looking to God for help and guidance, and not be self-sufficient.

‘For remission,’ or ‘into the remission of sins,’ occupying its God-given place among other blessings leading to obedience, is a wholesome doctrine, full of comfort and blessing; but, taking out of it place and exalted above other blessings and favors promised by God, it becomes a party ensign and hinders rather than helps forward the union of God’s people and the salvation of the world. God makes all of his truths helpful in leading men forward in the work of salvation, yet he demands that his requirements should all be treated alike, each occupying the place assigned it by God himself. To exalt one promise or one duty above another is to mutilate and subvert the plan of salvation and hinder rather than help to save man. Faith in Jesus Christ as the great, leading, far-reaching principle that molds the life and leads to and helps every act of service, God has placed before and above all other services of man. The acts of obedience that grow out of faith, as fruits of faith, come in to complete and finish the character and life of the believer, and to fit it for a home with God. [4]

Overemphasis on Baptism? What does it mean to preach the Word? Lipscomb saw among his contemporaries some dangerous tendencies and he called them back to the fundamentals of Christianity—the Sermon on the Mount. Once again, for Lipscomb, the gospel is not simply the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is the good news of the kingdom breaking into the world to transform lives as into the image of Christ.

Every spiritual system as a standard of excellence to which it proposes to bring man….The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5, 6, 7) gives the theory and rules of life to attain that standard. The principles laid down in the Sremon on the Mount, lived up to as Jesus did, would produce the life he lived….That Sermon is the perfection and consummation of the gospel of God to the world. To teach and preach these truths and principles to man is to bring the gospel in its fullness to man

There is no virtue in believing, repenting, and being baptized unto the remission of sins, and then doing nothing to left up and help men as Jesus labored to help them. Nothing short of the full life of Christ as an example and help to man is the gospel. How few of us realize this truth! When we preach faith, repentance, and baptism, we satisfy ourselves and teach others that we have preached the gospel, and those who act on these teaching think that they have obeyed the gospel. Hence the immense number who come into the church and imagine their salvation is secure and do nothing more. Young men often come to the Bible School and want to get up sermons that will enable them to debate with the sects. To qualify a young man to debate with the sects is nine times out of ten to make him a sectarian. Having truth does not hinder sectarianism. A man may hold the truth, not in the love of it; he may hold it to build up his party, not to honor God and save sinners. Sectarianism is sinful whether it is based on the truth or not. Training young preachers to debate is not to educate them in the needed Bible teaching. Often it is hurtful to a young man’s usefulness and his after life to make a debater of him. The debating spirit is often not the Christian spirit. The spirit that suffers and stands steadfast unto the end is the one that God [5]

The more I read Lipscomb the more I appreciate his heart for the poor, the humility of his spirit, his earnest desire to obey God in every thing, and his hatred of sectarianism. 

Footnotes

[1] David Lipscomb, “A New Discussion Proposed,” Gospel Advocate 54 (19 Dec 1912) 1377.

[2] David Lipscomb, “General Booth,” Gospel Advocate 54 (19 Sept 1912) 1049

[3] David Lipscomb, “God is Best Pleased with the Humblest and Most Obedient Trust in Him,” Gospel Advocate 54 (30 May 1912) 671.

[4] David Lipscomb, “Religious People Hard to Move,” Gospel Advocate 53 (2 March 1911) 268-69.

[5] David Lipscomb, “’Preach the Word,’ Gospel Advocate 53 (25 May 1911) 587, 590.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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