Christian Women – Page 90 – Michelle Lesley

mailbag

I’m part of the women’s ministry leadership at my church. We did a Beth Moore study last year. A lot of things bothered me about it, but I kept my mouth shut because all of the women who participated loved the study. Now that I have read your article, and others, on the theological problems with Beth Moore, I understand why I had so many issues with the study. Today, I was given a copy of another Beth Moore book so that I could prepare to teach it in the fall. I can’t do it, and I feel like I’m the only one in my church who sees a problem with Beth Moore studies. How should I handle this situation?

I always want to be very careful about making definitive statements about how people should or shouldn’t handle specific scenarios with people I don’t know and circumstances I’m not familiar with. Instead, I’d like to share with you what I would do in a similar situation. I encourage you to think and pray about it and ask God to help you decide if this would be the wisest approach for your situation.

First, I would spend some serious time in prayer. I would pray for the the other members of the women’s ministry leadership, as well as my pastor and elders, and ask God to open their eyes to see, their minds to understand, and their hearts to embrace and desire biblical truth. I’d ask God to give me the wisdom to know how best to approach this situation and the right words to say. I would ask Him to make my motives pure, biblical, and loving.

Next, I’d gather the leaders group, or the main leader, or whichever people I felt were appropriate, and kindly, gently, and biblically explain the problems with Beth Moore. At some point before or after this meeting, the pastor or appropriate associate pastor or elders would need to be given a heads up as to what was going on.

Finally, I can’t tell you how often I hear from women who say things like, “My church is offering six small group Bible studies right now and they’re all using book studies (Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, etc.). I just want to study the Bible itself, but they won’t offer a class that just studies the Bible.” I would express that to the women’s ministry leadership during the meeting and, if they continued to insist on using a Beth Moore book, offer to teach a class on a book of the Bible as an alternative for women who might prefer studying the Bible itself. Churches usually like to be able to offer various options to their members.

I would also be prepared for strong opposition. While I would be hopeful that the women of my church would love Christ and His word more than they love Beth Moore, this, sadly, has not been my experience when dealing with diehard Beth Moore disciples. My experience has been that when you topple an idol, her worshipers will defend her at almost any cost.

If you have a question about: a well known Christian author/leader, a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected

Church

Is It Really All Our Fault?

July 15, 2016July 15, 2016 Michelle Lesley

all our fault

“If the church would just _________,
the world would flock to us.”

“The world is in the state it’s in because
the church has fallen down on the job.”

Over the past few years, I’ve been hearing and reading statements like these more and more frequently. But are they true? Is the world really in such sad shape as a result of the failings of the church?

Yes!…and…no.

It is absolutely true that the visible church – everything that wears the label “church” or “Christian,” whether or not it’s biblical Christianity – has a lot to be ashamed of. Westboro. TBN. Homosexual church leaders and members. Pastors caught in adultery. Child molestation scandals. Female “pastors.” All manner of demonic behavior masquerading as “worship,” blasphemously attributed to the “Holy Spirit.”

Even churches with an orthodox statement of faith – which, to onlookers, seem to be doing fine, biblically – water down the gospel in the name of being seeker sensitive, use materials produced by false teachers, invite false teachers to speak at their conferences, fail to evangelize, place women in unbiblical positions of leadership, have pastors and teachers whose main form of teaching is eisegesis and pandering to felt needs, fail to provide for the needs of their members and their surrounding community, focus on fun and silliness in their youth and children’s ministries instead of Scripture and holiness, allow members to gossip, backbite, and exercise selfishness, fail to practice church discipline, make their worship services into irreverent entertainment-fests, have “pastors” who are little more than stand up comedians, and have largely biblically ignorant congregations.

Some churches are spiritually healthier than others, but nobody’s getting out of this one with clean hands. Even the healthiest church is doing something wrong in some little nook or cranny. And as Christ’s bride, it is incumbent upon us, whenever we discover those nooks and crannies, to repent, set things right, and do things biblically as we move forward.

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:25b-27

That’s Christ’s vision of the church. A vision all churches fall woefully short of. And when the church fails in any area, it does contribute to the downhill slide of the world, because it is not being the city on the hill Christ wants it to be, and it is producing individual Christians (or false converts) who aren’t being the salt and light Christ wants them to be.

But is it fair to lay all the world’s woes and sinfulness at the doorstep of the church? Is it really true that if we would just clean up our act in this area or on that issue that we’d magically see an influx of pagans begging, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

No, it isn’t.

The world isn’t steeped in sin because of the failings of the church. The world is steeped in sin because of the Fall.

Look back over history. The world was vicious and depraved long before the church ever came on the scene. And, for that matter, long before God set apart and established Israel as His chosen people. (Hello? The ante-diluvian world? Sodom and Gomorrah? Ancient Egypt? Baal and Molech worship?)

Examine any era in the last two millenia when you think the church was doing a better job than it is now and take a look at the society that church was situated in. The New Testament church? It was surrounded by a world of war, oppression, torture, debauchery, sexual deviance, slavery, misogyny, poverty, famine, and child abuse.

The head of the church, Jesus Christ, spent over thirty years physically present on this earth. We know He conducted His ministry perfectly. Not once did He fail to preach the gospel or provide for people’s needs or fall short in any other way. He even went so far as to lay His life down for the sin of the world. And what impact did that have on His immediate society? Did all the Pharisees repent and temple worship was restored to godliness? No. Did Rome stop ruling the world with an iron fist? No. Did acts of sedition and perversion and persecution suddenly disappear? No. In fact, some of those things actually got worse during and after Jesus’ time.

Just like He prophesied.

You see, Jesus didn’t say, “Be more like Me and the world will come running,” or “The church can solve the ills of the world.” He said:

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:19

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2 Timothy 3:12-13

The more the church and individual Christians look and act like Christ, the more world will hate, persecute, and ostracize us.

The church is not going to fix all the evils of society. And it’s not fair to lay that burden of responsibility – one that even Jesus’ earthly ministry didn’t accomplish – on believers who genuinely love their Savior and want to serve Him. Holding out the stick and carrot of a utopian world to the church – if only we’ll get our act together – does nothing but breed hopelessness, despair, and futility in the pews.

Does the church have a lot of repenting to do? Yes. Are there right hands we need to chop off and right eyes we need to gouge out in order to facilitate obedience to Christ? You bet. Should we be exponentially more proactive and passionate about preaching the gospel and meeting the needs of a lost and dying world? Absolutely.

But we do not do those things because we’re failing the world. We do those things out of love for and faithfulness to Christ. Christ is our goal, not a changed world. Christ is the prize we’re to fix our eyes on, not a society that behaves itself. Christ is the finish line we press toward, not domestic tranquility and morality.

Christ.

Because if it’s the church’s job to set the world right, we’re doomed. The world sins because the world is made up of sinners. And the world will continue to sin – even if every church on the planet suddenly becomes perfect – because the world is made up of sinners. But if the church’s highest attainment is love for Christ, faithfulness to Christ, and obedience to Christ, then we are successful in God’s eyes regardless of what the world around us looks like.

Let’s be faithful and trust God to handle changing the world.

Ezra Bible Study

Ezra: Lesson 5

July 13, 2016April 3, 2019 Michelle Lesley

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Previous Lessons: 1, 2, 3, 4

The layout of Ezra 4 is a bit tricky due to a writing technique Ezra used. The first part of chapter 4 (verses 1-5) is a continuation of chapter 3. Chapter 3 closes with the people celebrating the laying of the foundation of the temple (during Cyrus’ reign, under Zerubbabel- this was the first wave of returning exiles {538 B.C.}). Chapter 4:1-5 describes the opposition immediately following the laying of the temple’s foundation.

In order to emphasize the ongoing nature of the opposition God’s people faced from their hostile neighbors over the ensuing decades, Ezra then inserts (verses 6-23) descriptions of opposition which took place much later, during the reign of Ahasuerus (486-464 B.C.) in verse 6, and again during the reign of Artaxerxes (464-423 B.C.). It was during Artaxerxes’ reign that Ezra returned with the second wave of exiles (458 B.C.) and Nehemiah returned with the third and final wave of exiles (445 B.C.).

Ezra then returns to the “present time” (opposition to the laying of the foundation under Zerubbabel) in verse 24.

You may wish to go back over the introductory material to Ezra and these notes to get more clarity.

Ezra 4

Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, ²they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.” ³But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”

⁴Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build ⁵and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

⁶And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

⁷In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated. ⁸Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows: ⁹Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates, the judges, the governors, the officials, the Persians, the men of Erech, the Babylonians, the men of Susa, that is, the Elamites, ¹⁰and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River. ¹¹(This is a copy of the letter that they sent.) “To Artaxerxes the king: Your servants, the men of the province Beyond the River, send greeting. And now ¹²be it known to the king that the Jews who came up from you to us have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. ¹³Now be it known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be impaired. ¹⁴Now because we eat the salt of the palace and it is not fitting for us to witness the king’s dishonor, therefore we send and inform the king, ¹⁵in order that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers. You will find in the book of the records and learn that this city is a rebellious city, hurtful to kings and provinces, and that sedition was stirred up in it from of old. That was why this city was laid waste. ¹⁶We make known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls finished, you will then have no possession in the province Beyond the River.”

¹⁷The king sent an answer: “To Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe and the rest of their associates who live in Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River, greeting. And now¹⁸the letter that you sent to us has been plainly read before me. ¹⁹And I made a decree, and search has been made, and it has been found that this city from of old has risen against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made in it. ²⁰And mighty kings have been over Jerusalem, who ruled over the whole province Beyond the River, to whom tribute, custom, and toll were paid. ²¹Therefore make a decree that these men be made to cease, and that this city be not rebuilt, until a decree is made by me. ²²And take care not to be slack in this matter. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?”

²³Then, when the copy of King Artaxerxes’ letter was read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their associates, they went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem and by force and power made them cease. ²⁴Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Questions to Consider:

1. How would you state the theme of this chapter in 1-2 sentences? How does Ezra’s insertion of later material reinforce this theme?

2. Why wouldn’t the leaders of Israel let the adversaries help them build the temple? (1-3) Wouldn’t it have been faster and easier to have their help? Did the adversaries really “worship your God as you do“? (2) Think back over Old Testament history. What tended to happen to Israel when they intermarried or partnered with idol worshippers? How might these adversaries have influenced Israel toward idolatry? What was the adversaries’ real motive for offering help? (4-5)

3. Why is it just as important for the church today to reject ecumenism with apostate or idolatrous “churches” or “Christians”? Can you think of any events or situations today in which Christians are partnering with “adversaries” who claim to “worship your God as you do” in order to “rebuild the temple”? How does 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 show that God still doesn’t want His people to partner with pagans and idolators?

4. In verses 4-5, 24, the adversaries are fighting against the rebuilding of which structure? Why would they not want the temple rebuilt? In verses 6-23, later adversaries are opposing the rebuilding of which structures? (12-13) Why would the adversaries not want the city and walls rebuilt? Why would the king not want the city and walls rebuilt? (13,15-16, 19-20)

5. Why do God’s people – in the Old Testament, New Testament, and today – face opposition and persecution? Examine these Scriptures and compare them with the opposition and persecution faced by God’s people in Ezra 4.

Mailbag

The Mailbag: Is it all right for a Christian to get divorced?

July 11, 2016May 25, 2026 Michelle Lesley

Is it all right for a Christian to get divorced? What are the biblical grounds for divorce?

God holds marriage in very high esteem because it is a picture of Christ and His bride, the church (Ephesians 5:22ff). In Matthew 19:1-9, Jesus is clear that marriage is precious and not to be discarded carelessly as it was in the Old Testament under the Mosaic covenant. Here, He also gives us one of two reasons Christians may (but are not required to) biblically divorce: adultery.

The second reason Christians may divorce on biblical grounds is found in 1 Corinthians 7:15. If an unbelieving spouse abandons the believing spouse, the believer is not held to the bonds of marriage and may divorce.

Naturally, divorce is a last resort even in these two situations. There are many beautiful stories of marriages surviving adultery through forgiveness. As well, there are many husbands who have been saved after witnessing their wives’ faithfulness to Christ. God’s desire is always for reconciliation whenever possible.

Additional Resources:

Divorce and Remarriage at Grace to You

What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage? at Got Questions

Apologetics, Bible Study, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday ~ 10 Bookmarkable Biblical Resources for Christian Women

June 23, 2016June 26, 2021 Michelle Lesley

Originally published August 1, 2014.

Questions. As Christian women, we’ve all got them: “How can I grow in my walk with the Lord?” “Where can I get some good advice on being a more godly wife?” “What’s a great resource for biblical parenting?” These days, it can be hard to know where to turn for great answers that are also biblically sound. Here are ten biblical resources to get you started.

1. Your Bible.
Remember 2 Timothy 3:16-17?

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

It might sound painfully obvious, but sometimes we go on the hunt for answers that are hidden in plain sight in God’s word. Study your Bible daily: good sized chunks of it, in context, from a good translation. And make some notes as you read.

2. BibleGateway
I can’t recommend this site highly enough. Want to check out a different version of the Bible? BibleGateway has dozens (and in scads of languages besides English), some even available in audio format. It also has a phenomenal concordance, Bible commentaries, dictionaries, and other tools to help you as you study God’s word.

3. GotQuestions.org
Always wondered what a particular verse means? Want to know what the Bible says about a certain topic? GQ answers–from Scripture– your toughest Bible questions. Their articles are brief and easy for even the newest Christian to understand.

4. CARM.org
If you’re new to studying apologetics, theology, or doctrinal issues (or even if you’re not), the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry is an awesome clearinghouse of information. CARM’s articles are informative, yet written in easily understandable vocabulary for those of us who aren’t seminarians. While it covers a massive range of topics, two of its strongest points are its “Religious Groups and Cults” section (explaining what various non-Christian groups believe, how those beliefs are contrary to Scripture, and how to share the gospel with people from these groups), and its new, but growing “Preachers and Teachers” section, which examines the teachings of popular Christian teachers.

5. Answers in Genesis
Don’t let the name fool you– AIG is so much more than a fantastic Creation resource. They have articles on every biblical topic you could imagine, plus great resources and curricula for home school, Sunday school, and Vacation Bible School. And, if you’re ever in the Cincinnati area, be sure to check out the amazing Creation Museum and Ark Encounter!

6. Grace to You
The media ministry of John MacArthur is a godsend to the church. Here, you’ll find sermons on just about every passage in the Bible, a store with all of Dr. MacArthur’s books, Q&A articles, the MacArthur Study Bible introduction to every book of the Bible, and so much more!

7. Berean Research
What in the world is going on in the church these days? Amy and Marsha will keep you up to date on the latest news about well known churches, ministries, Christian personalities, and movements and events inside evangelicalism. Wondering if you’re hearing false doctrine or following a false teacher? Berean Research has the answers.

8. RickThomas.net (aka: Counseling Solutions)
A Fellow with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, Rick Thomas has served as both a counselor and pastor, and currently runs a training program for biblical counselors. His articles deal with a number of discipleship-related topics, but his Scripturally-rooted counsel on marriage, parenting, and other relationship issues is without peer. Articles appearing on the site are rapidly archived, so read them right away, or consider becoming a paid member (only $5 per month, and well worth it in my opinion).

9. Shepherding the Heart Ministries
Tedd Tripp, author of the superb, gospel-centered parenting book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart, provides helpful, biblical information on his web site for moms and dads seeking to be more godly parents. He answers a number of parenting questions via brief videos, and you can even contact him with your own questions.

10. Challies.com
Tim Challies is a Christian blogger and author. I love his daily thoughts on life and the Lord, but his book reviews are another strong feature of his site. Tim reviews dozens of popular Christian books every year. Most of his reviews are of non-fiction books (usually Christian Living and theology), but if a fiction book is making a big impact, he’ll review it. If you want to know how the Christian books you’re reading stack up to Scripture, run the author’s name through the Challies.com search bar and check out Tim’s review. For true bookaholics, Tim sends out a daily list of good books that are on sale (or free!) for Kindle, and his weekly “Free Stuff Friday” is usually a giveaway of more awesome books.

Your turn:
Are you a fan of any of these resources?
Got another doctrinally sound resource you’d like to recommend?