Lipscomb on the Urban Poor I

May 25, 2012

In the April 24 1873 issue of the Gospel Advocate, Lipscomb reprinted a piece from the Apostolic Times under the title “Preaching to the Poor” (p. 390).

Here is the article as reproduced by Lipscomb:

In these days of mails, and printing, the newspapers, which go forth from the great cities with their well laden columns of local news sometimes make the impression on their country readers that the scenes occurring in the city are occurring at their own doors. As a consequence, some questions which are of interest only in the city, become absorbing topics to the people in the country. It is so in regard to the subject of preaching the gospel to the poor. The only poor in this broad land who have not equal access with the rich to the blessings of the gospel, are the poor in the great cities. it is also true, that they are about the only class of poor people among whom the gospel does but little good when it does reach them. The great mass of them are besotted by vices of all the baser kinds, that they turn a deaf ear to all the messages of truth and virtue. It was not to this class of the poor that Jesus referred in his celebrated reply to John; it was the poor peasantry of Galilee and Judea, who, though ignorant and often reduced to extreme want, were an industrious, sober, and comparatively poor people. Let us not confound things that greatly differ, and draw unfavorable comparisons between ancient and modern Christianity without sufficient cause.

Lipscomb replied (pp. 390-91):

We regret to see the foregoing from the Apostolic Times. Its tendency is to justify the neglect of a class of people that above all others need the attention and help of Christians, the wicked, depraved poor. We are too willing to neglect them, even with the heaviest sense of responsibility imposed upon us. Remove that sense of responsibility, and the tendency of us preachers to keep away from them and watch after the souls of the rich will greatly increase.

Christ came to save sinners, the worst, lowest, most depraved of sinners. The gospel has power to lift up the lowest, most besotted and debauched of sinners, if it is brought to them in the true spirit of the gospel.

In ancient times Christ and his apostles preached to the poor of the cities, the sinners, the profligates–the adulterers, the humblest and most degraded poor of the towns and cities. It did reach, lift up and and [sic] save the most wicked. At Rome the servants, slaves, poorer classes–received the truth. In Jerusalem there were poor widows both Grecian and Hebrew.

The poor, besotted poor of the cities are not the only poor in this broad land who have not equal access with the rich to the blessings of the gospel, provided hearing preaching be one of those blessings.

There are broad sections of country, where for hundreds and hundreds of miles, the people are poor, a poor peasantry can hardly get a preacher to visit them, because they are too poor to pay him. While in other rich sections the preachers are in each others way, they tread on each others toes, and elbow each other out of their places. The Mountain districts of Ky., large sections of Tennessee, and the large sections of the south where the churches are indigent and the people poor, it is exceedingly difficult to get a preacher to visit them, especially an educated preacher. They are an industrious, sober, and comparatively moral people. But they do not get preaching on equal footing with the rich sections, because they are poor.

The extreme poor of the cities in the days of Christ and the apostles were not the class difficult to reach. The Savior says, “I thank thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.” Paul says, “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.” He hath chosen the foolish things of the world–the weak things–the base things–things which are despised”–&c. To the poor the gospel is preached–the poor possess pre-emptivve rights in the kingdom of God.

If the rich are more easily reached than the poor at this day it is because the religion of Christ is perverted in its spirit–and the poor are not approached in the true Spirit of Christ.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Lipscomb on the Poor V

April 26, 2012

The 1866 Gospel Advocate, the year its rebirth after the Civil War, is filled with notices about sharing resources with the poor and encouragement for churches both north and south to do so. Apparently, the Advocate was accused by some of controlling these resources as they came to Nashville for distribution as if the paper was a functioning benevolent society, but Lipscomb strongly rejected that libel. Rather, the Advocate was only one communication tool among others for churches to connect with each other and while the Advocate was happy to help, it was more important for one church to directly “fellowship” another church.

Lipscomb was concerned to maintain the rightful function of the church. The relief of the poor “is the true, holy, Godlike work of the church. This is the work for which the  church was established, and if it fail to do the work for which it was established, it had as well dissolve its organization and cease to be.”

This work of the church, according to Lipscomb, is the ministry of Jesus Christ. It was the work Jesus did and Jesus “personifie[s] himself in his poor brethren.” If the church does not minister to the poor, then “it can never enjoy the blessings of God.”

Below is the full article entitled “Dispensing Christian Fellowship,” Gospel Advocate 8 (24 July 1866) 478-79.

************

We have received contributions from one church at least, for needy preachers, accompanied by the suggestion that a part of it should be applied to the relief of a brother within reach of that congregation. Now it is eminently proper that that congregation should aid that brother, but there is no sense in sending that aid to the Gospel Advocate. The Gospel Advocate, nor either of its editors, has proposed to become disbursing agents for any church. We being in constant communication with the brethren South, simply proposed to forward the contributions of those not favorably situated for doing so themselves, to those in need. There are brethren in Middle Tennessee in need, and the churches should supply their wants, but do not send the means for so doing to us. We have made no effort to post ourselves in reference to the brethren in Middle Tennessee, and are as little competent to judge of their necessities as any one that could be found. We have confidence the churches will attend to the wants of those in necessity in their midst. Except in a few well known instances we have not ourselves applied what we have sent  South. Our object has been to find the members, elders of the congregations in the different desolate sections  South, best suited to distribute to the needy, and have sent to them. So that it goes as true fellowship should go, as the contribution of the Churches of Christ, to the Churches of Christ in need. Our instruction has been to remember first the wants of the preacher, so as to enable him to preach as much as possible; secondly, the impoverished widow, orphan and poor of the church, and, lastly, the suffering of the world. But in all cases it must be given as the offering of Christian fellowship to the churches South for the relief of their poor widows and orphans, and those of their vicinity. We have the fullest assurance and confidence that every dollar will be faithfully and worthily distributed, and we would earnestly urge Christians to increased activity in administering to the relief of the poor. It is the true, holy, Godlike work of the church. This is the work for which the church was established, and if it fail to do the work for which it was established, it had as well dissolve its organization and cease to be. The church must be educated to the true appreciation of its proper work, and the solemn obligation that rests upon it to perform that work, or it can never enjoy the blessings of God. Jesus Christ personified himself in his poor brethren. He stands to-day personified in the gaunt and hollow face, sunken eye, and half-clad emaciated form of widowed mothers and hungry, starving children in the South. If Christians fail to relieve their wants, no matter whether we or they believe in societies or not, and no matte whether their sympathies were Northern or Southern, the stern truth will one day meet them, “Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.”

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

What Was the Mission of Christ? David Lipscomb Answers

January 29, 2012

I am often amazed at how some contemporary writers–missional and emergent–seem to believe that they have embraced a new vision for the mission of God. It also amazes me that some more traditional writers–some Evangelicals and some New Calvinists–regard the missional emphasis as a new understanding of the gospel.  David Lipscomb (1831-1917) reminds us that such emphases are not new.

Below is an extended section from Lipscomb’s chapter “The Ruin and Redemption of the World” in his 1913 Salvation from Sin (pp. 114-116) which J. W. Shepherd edited from previous writings. As you read, note the emphasis on the physical (material) as well as the spiritual and moral. Particularly important is his focus on the mission of Christ. The mission of Christ is not fundamentally to save the world from suffering in this life or the next. In other words, the mission of Christ is not primarily to save us from pain or hell. That is quite an astounding statement given contemporary versions of the Evangelical and New Calvinist theologies. Lipscomb’s statement is much more in line with Scott McKnight’s King Jesus than John Piper’s Neo-Puritanic, crucicentristic substitutionary atonement theology.

Notice how theocentric his missional vision is. Whatever benefits humanity is secondary to the goal of God’s intent to restore the reign of  God upon the earth.

I will let him speak for himself at this point.  Enjoy, ponder and take up the mission of Christ.

     The object of God’s dealing with man, and especially the mission of Christ to earth, was to rescue the world from the rule and dominion of the evil one, from the ruin into which it had fallen through sin, and to rehabilitate it with the dignity and the glory it had when it came from the hand of God: to restore man–spiritually, mentally, and physically–to the likeness of his Maker, and to reinstate him as a prince and a ruler in this rescued and restored kingdom of God; to displace the barrenness and desolation of the earth with the verdue and beauty of Eden and ‘make the desert blossom as the rose;’ to root out every plant not planted by the Father, and to make this earth again a garden of God’s own planting, every plant planted by a Father’s hand and nurtured by a Father’s love. The mission of Christ is to root up all the briers, thistles, and thorns that grow in the material, moral, and spiritual world, and so restore this home of man to its primitive and pristine relations to God, its Maker and rightful Ruler.  With God as its Ruler, in it God’s Spirit must dwell and God’s blessing and protection abound.

     The leading aim and end of Christ’s mission on this earth was not to make man religious. He was religious before Jesus came. Where Christ’s name is not known, man is still religious. The specific object of Christ was not to make man moral or honest; this was a secondary and subsidiary concomitant and a means to the great end. His leading and specific object was not to save man from suffering in this world or in that which is to come. The world, the religious world, errs here; and this error-the failure to appreciate the leading idea of Christ’s mission–leads to grevious mistakes. Under this idea, much labor is done to induce men to be willing to go to heaven in order to be saved from sufferings, and willingness on their part is taken as an indication that they are saved and will be forever happy. The one great purpose of Christ’s mission to earth and the end of the establishment of his kingdom on earth, and of all the provisions he has made and the forces he has put in operation to affect man’s course of life, were and are to rescue this world from the rule and dominion of the evil one, to deliver it from the ruin into which it had fallen through man’s sin, and to bring it back to its original and normal relations with God and the universe, that the will of God shall be done on earth as it is heaven. The will of God, as manifested in his laws, guides and harmonizes the universe and holds it in subject to and in union with the throne of God. Every intelligence that conforms to the will of God is held in harmony with him and with the universe by the workings of his laws, and is guided forward as a factor and helper with god in the accomplishment of the divine purpose. In becoming a helper and coworker with God, he becomes a joint heir of the life, the home, the glory, and the honor of God himself; an heir of the inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, that fades not away, reserved in the heavens for those who are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (See I Pet. 1:4,5.)

  

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 8:1-10 — Table Ministry Among the Gentiles

January 17, 2012

Jesus resumed his kingdom ministry when he returned to the sea of Galilee from the regions of Tyre and Sidon. After some time (“in those days”) Jesus was followed by a large crowd (4,000 people) into a remote place where food was not easily accessible. Mark describes this area as a “wilderness” (8:4) and uses a cognate of the term he has previously employed to describe Jesus’ time in the Judean desert (1:12-13), his moments of solitude (1:35, 45) and the previous feeding of the 5,000 (6:31-32, 35).Israel, following Jesus, once again finds themselves in the wilderness.

It is uncertain where this “wilderness” is. Jesus is probably ministering in the Decapolis on the eastern or northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Whatever the region, at the close of the story Jesus gets into a boat and crosses over to “Dalmanutha.” But this  place name is unknown in any other source. The parallel in Matthew (15:39) names it Magadan (which may be another name for Magdala located on the west side of the sea). Presumably, then, Jesus is still on the eastern/northeastern side of the lake in the Decapolis.

As with the feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6:30-44), the remote location creates a problem. No food is readily accessible for such a large crowd. Many had come from a “long distance” to be with Jesus and they had been there for “three days” without food. These notes may be purely situational in order to describe the desperate situation of the people, but they may also have theological significance about the Gentile mission (“far off”) and typify “three days” in the wilderness just as Jesus was three days in the tomb (cf. Mark 8:31; 14:58; 15:29).

Jesus shares his feelings about the situation with his disciples: “I have compassion on these people.” Loving people entails feeding people as well as teaching them. Compassion moved Jesus to postpone his rest in order to teach the 5,000 (Mark 6:34), but here it moves him to feed them. The missional nature of this event is evident: compassion is part of the motivation for kingdom ministry. We teach and feed people because we love them. To love our neighbor is not only to teach them but to feed them as well.

The disciples, however, are confused by Jesus’ statement. How are they going to feed 4,000 people? Well….duh. One would think that they might remember the previous occasion and trust Jesus. But the disciples can only look at their own resources—they are in the “wilderness.” Food is not available. They only have seven loaves and a “few fish.” But was that not enough previously? And it is enough this time.

The people are asked to “recline”—“sit down” does not give the full impact of this language. This is a festive meal that is characterized by reclining. It is celebratory, relaxed–a meal among friends. Jesus is hosting a banquet for hungry people in the wilderness. Like at the Last Supper (Mark 14:22), as well as the previous feeding of thousands (Mark 6:41), Jesus eucharistically breaks bread at the table with his disciples.

The abundance of the meal is signaled not only by the fact that everyone was satisfied (“filled”) but by the huge amount of leftovers. Seven basketfuls of food remained. But is that not less than in the previous feeding which had twelve basketfuls? Actually, it isn’t. The word for basket in Mark 6:43 refers to something like the size of a lunch box but the word in Mark 8:9 refers to a basket large enough to lift a person over a wall (cf. Acts 9:25). The leftovers could have fed hundreds more. God’s provision is overflowing.

The parallels between the feeding of the 4,000 and the 5,000 raise the question about why the different numbers: twelve “baskets” in Mark 6 and seven “baskets” in Mark 8. Why the difference? It may simply be a factual report, but even then why these “facts”? Are we to suppose the twelve in Mark 6 is a significant symbol for Israel but the number seven has no symbolic meaning? It may be that “seven” symbolizes “wholeness” and inclusiveness and thus symbolizing the Gentile inclusion in this meal.

Some have suggested that the 4,000 included both Jew and Gentile. This is partly based on the fact that this happened in the Decapolis (a Gentile region but where many Jews lived) and the statement many “came from far” may allude to Joshua 9:6, 9 and Isaiah 60:4. This was a typical way of referring to Gentiles (cf. Acts 2:39). Others also note that Mark substituted “giving thanks” (8:6) for “blessing” (6:41) which is more typical of Gentile audiences than Jewish, and that the number seven rather than twelve may represent an inclusive number in contrast with a typically Jewish numeral. Perhaps Mark intends to paint an inclusive picture here that prefigures the Gentile mission though one wonders if he might not been more explicit about it as he was with the Syro-Phoenician woman (7:26). Allusions to Gentile inclusion seem present and it is difficult to imagine that no Gentiles would be present among the 4,000 on the eastern or northeastern side of the lake.

If this is the case, the meal setting points us toward the inclusive nature of the Lord’s table. Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it, just as he does at the Last Supper (Mark 14:22). Mark’s first readers would not miss the literary and linguistic links as well as the theological linkage. After three days, Jesus rose from the dead to host his table in the kingdom of God. Those who are “afar off” are invited to this table as well as the people of Israel. In his compassion Jesus feeds those who have followed him into the wilderness, and he continues to feed disciples today through the Eucharist. Disciples still sit with Jesus at the table.

Parallels between Mark 6 and Mark 8*

Theme

Feeding 5,000 Males

Feeding 4,000 people
Compassion

6:34

8:2
Wilderness

6:35

8:4
“How many loaves do you have?”

6:38

8:5
Fish

6:38

8:7
Command to Recline

6:39

8:6
Last Supper Formula

6:41

8:6
Satisfied

6:42

8:8
Leftovers

6:43

8:8
Dismissed Crowd

6:45

8:9
Disciples in a Boat

6:45

8:10

*Based on William Lane’s NIC commentary on Mark, p. 271, n. 8.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Handel’s Messiah: A Missional Reading I

December 19, 2011

Handel’s Messiah is a musical proclamation of the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God.

My wife and I, along with my sister-in-law Melanie Crotty, attended the Nashville Symphony’s performance of the Messiah last Friday evening. We used this to celebrate Melanie’s graduation from Lipscomb’s Hazelip School of Theology. We were all enthralled with the presentation.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) composed the Messiah in three weeks and was first performed in Dublin, Ireland in the Spring of 1742. It is an oratorio rather than an opera. The former combines the entertainment value of the latter with moral exhortation. While an opera is musical theatre, an oratorio is a concert piece that is more appropriate for “sacred” settings. The first performance of the Messiah in London was controversial because it was a “sacred” piece offered in a “secular” locale.

It is a musical proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God. Part I moves us from the prophetic anticipation of the coming kingdom through the appearance of the Christ child to a conclusion in the ministry of Jesus. Part II begins with the passion of Jesus through his resurrection to his exaltation as reigning Lord.  Part III, the shortest, is humanity’s response to God’s redemptive act and is focused on the hope of resurrection which leads to a final praise of the Lamb.

The text weaves Scripture quotations into a coherent plot that tells the story of the coming kingdom. The Messiah is King of Kings and Lord of Lords as the “Hallelujah Chorus” announces that the “kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.”

This plot is a missional one, that is, it draws us into the story of God’s intent to shake the kingdoms of this world with God’s own reign.

  • “all flesh shall see [the glory of the Lord] together”
  • “I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall come”
  • “the Gentiles shall come to they light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising”
  • “Prince of Peace”
  • “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, goodwill towards men”
  • “He is the righteous Saviour, and He shall speak peace unto the heathen”
  • “and He will give you rest”
  • “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”
  • “He trusted in God that He would deliver Him”
  • “But Thou didst not leave His soul in hell”
  • “Who is the King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory”
  • “Why do the nations so furiously rage together”
  • “The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed”
  • “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron”
  • “He shall reign for ever and ever. King of Kings. Lord of Lords.”
  • “I know my Redeemer lives”
  • “”yet in my flesh I shall see”
  • “We shall all be changed”
  • “Worthy is the Lamb…to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing”
  • “Blessing and honour, glory and pow’r, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for  ever and ever.

The reign of God means a different allegiance, a different power, a different kind of life–one of peace, rest and healing. The King has come; the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of God.

Over three coming posts I will examine each Part of Handel’s Messiah. 

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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