The Vision (8.22.25): Duties of Servants and Masters

 

Image: Zinnias, North Garden, Virginia, August 2025.

Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:5-9.

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh…. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there any respect of persons with him (Ephesians 6:5a, 9).

Paul’s “household code” in Ephesians 5:21—6:9 addresses three key relationships: wives and husbands, children and fathers, and servant and masters. That third pair is the thorniest to understand and interpret in our contemporary context. Some, including R. C. Sproul, have suggested we consider Paul’s instructions as applying to employees and employers (see Ephesians, 146-147). We can also apply all of this teaching, in general, as principles in living the Christian life and especially how we relate to one another as “superior, inferiors, or equals.”

Here are three gleanings:

First, we should consider this passage if we are employees. Do we serve with fear and trembling, with singleness of heart, as to Christ? Or, do we serve only with eyeservice as menpleasers, rather than as slaves of Christ, doing his will? Do we serve with good will, to the Lord and not to men, knowing one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10)?

Second, we should consider this passage if we are employers, managers, or supervisors. How do we treat those who work under our authority? Do we treat them as we would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12)? Do we rely on threatening? Do we understand that we have a Master in heaven?

Third, we are reminded that the church is composed of all kinds of people: women and men, young and old, and people with all kinds of societal standings. And the God we worship is not a respecter of persons.

I’ve been reading again recently through D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s classic book Preaching & Preachers. In a chapter on the congregation, he addresses the folly of ministers who are always trying to adjust their message to fit their audience. He noted once preaching the simple gospel at a church in Oxford attended by many university related people. Later a woman approached and thanked him for not trying to put on some kind of intellectual show, but just reminding them they were sinners who needed Christ.

Lloyd-Jones says the preacher does not need to know the particulars of his congregation, but to know there is a general, common need. He writes:

[The Christian preacher] knows the problem of the factory worker, he knows the problem of the professional man; because it is ultimately precisely the same. One may get drunk on beer and the other on wine, as it were, but the point is that they both get drunk; one may sin in rags and the other in an evening dress but they both sin. ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ ‘There is righteous, no not one.’ ‘The whole world lieth guilty before God’…. The glory of the Church is that she consists of all these types and kinds and all the possibly varieties and variations of humanity; and yet because they all share this common life they are able to participate together and to enjoy the same preaching (Preaching & Preachers, 135).

We might say the gospel is a simple, one size fits all message, and we, as a church, need always to remember this.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Five Reasons to Use a Full Manuscript in Preaching

 

Note: From ,my X post.

Five quick reasons to use a full manuscript in preaching:

1. It requires and motivates careful preparation and detailed structure.

2. It allows careful articulation of difficult or controversial points.

3. It provides guardrails to avoid unhelpful tangents.

4. It allows freedom, however, for in-the-moment alterations, as needed.

5. It provides a resource for future ministry uses, like teaching, books, booklets, articles, blog posts, podcast scripts, etc.

JTR

The Vision (8.15.25): The Duties of Fathers to Children

 

Image: Cardinal Lobelia, Moscow, Michigan, August 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:1-4:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

This teaching comes in the context of Paul’s “household code” in Ephesians. He addresses first here the duties of children to parents, based on the fifth commandment (Ephesians 6:1-3; cf. Exodus 20:12)

The corresponding admonition to parents in Ephesians 6:4 is directed specifically to the father. This tells us, as with the charges to wives and husbands (Ephesians 5:22-33), about the special responsibilities of men, according to the order of creation, within the family.

Notice again that these instructions to fathers is what would have surprised the first readers. They assumed the power and authority of the father as the Pater Familias, the head of the household. In the Roman context a father was an absolute power in the home. He literally had the authority of life and death when an infant was born. What the first hearers would have been struck by is the fact that he had duties to his children to treat them in a responsible and loving manner, seeking especially their spiritual good.

Paul begins with a negative command, “ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath” (v. 4a). Some modern versions read, “Do not exasperate your children.” The father does not exercise discipline and rule so as to crush the spirits of his children, or to make them angry due to his cruelty or indifference or unloving spirit towards them.

R. C. Sproul wrote on this passage:

This doesn’t mean that every time a child becomes angry with a parent, it is because the parents have been guilty of unjust provocation. But there is such a thing as a belligerent, insensitive, harsh, and stentorian type of discipline which so frustrates children that they are filled with hostility and resentment towards their parents which then spills over into the rest of their lives (Ephesians, 145).

Paul then offers two positive commands:

First, but bring them up in the nurture (paideia, a term referring to education and discipleship), and second, in the instruction (nouthesia, counsel or exhortation) of the Lord.

The Puritans described the family as like a “little church.” The father acts as a pastor and as a priest in his household. He is concerned for the spiritual well-being of his children above all, just as his duty to his wife was for her sanctification (cf. Ephesians 5:26-27).

How beautiful it is when these two things work together in harmony: When children honor parents in the Lord and when godly fathers, alongside their wives and the mother of their children, raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Note: In the Practical Application at the close of last Sunday’s sermon on Ephesians 6:1-4, I offered a list of some of the duties of children and parents (fathers) drawn from some teaching from past years. You can review some of this sort of family material previously posted to my blog here:

Five Duties of Children to Parents.

Five Duties of Parents to Children.

The Puritan Thomas Vincent’s list of seven duties for children and parents (1674).

A Summary of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book Raising Children God’s Way.

Book Review: Keith Underhill, Planted by the Providence of God: The Story of Trinity Baptist Church, Nairobi

 

You can find a pdf of the written review here on my academia.edu page.

JTR

The Vision (7.18.25): Instructions on Singing Praise (Ephesians 5:19)

 

Image: Butterfly bush, North Garden, Virginia, July 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:17-21.

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19).

In last Lord’s Day morning’s sermon we noted five essential aspects of wise Christian living as presented in Ephesians 5:17-21, including (1) Understand the Lord’s will (v. 17); (2) Be filled with the Spirit (v. 18); (3) Sing in your heart to the Lord (v. 19); (4) Give thanks always for all things (v. 20); and (5) Be submitted in the fear of God (v. 21).

Regarding v. 19, we noted the exhortation for believers to sing praise. This passage, along with Colossians 3:16, is one of the most important prooftexts in Scripture to justify singing as an element in corporate worship.

Can you believe that there was once a great controversy among early Particular Baptists as to whether singing was part of Scripturally sanctioned worship? Eventually singing was affirmed, in part by appeals to Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16.

We strive to follow the Regulative Principle of worship, meaning we want everything we do in worship to be something God has commanded in his word.

Notice at least four insights in Ephesians 5:19 regarding singing:

First, there is a horizontal aspect to singing:

“Speaking to yourselves….” Congregational singing offers mutual exhortation, comfort, and edification to the saints.

Second, we are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Some say this means, “Psalms, Psalms, and Psalms” (“hymns” means Biblical Psalms and “spiritual songs” means inspired by the Spirit, according to this view).

At the least, it means we should include canonical Psalms (from the book of Psalms) in our singing.

We hold that there can also sing songs drawn from other places in Scripture (beyond the Psalms), and that we can sing uninspired, yet sound, songs of praise, if they are Biblically faithful, just as we can offer prayers and preach sermons whose words are not inspired, but yet, are still edifying. Still, we ought also to sing the Psalms. With singing uninspired texts we always run a risk of saying things in error.

Third, singing must come from the heart.

The standard is not musical excellence, but singing sincerely and faithfully “in your heart.”

Fourth, there is also a predominant vertical aspect to singing.

Although, as noted above, there is a horizontal aspect to singing, in the end, our singing is not merely for man, but it is directed “to the Lord.” As Psalm 96:1 exhorts, “Sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 330: Changes coming to Modern Bibles

 

JTR

Vision (7.11.25): Walking as children of light and walking circumspectly

 

Image: Blueberries, North Garden, Virginia, July 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:8-16.

“Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

“See then that ye walk circumspectly” (Ephesians 5:15).

Paul uses “walking” in Ephesians as a metaphor for conducting the Christian life. This began in Ephesians 4:1 when he exhorted believers to “walk worthy” of their calling and continued in Ephesians 5:2 with the command to “walk in love.”

In Ephesians 5:8 this theme persists as Paul exhorts believers to “walk as children of light,” in other words, to live as Christians.

He adds in 5:15 an exhortation to “walk circumspectly,” which means carefully, intentionally, and deliberately.

At the end of v. 15 we hear the spirit of Solomon. Walk “not as fools but as wise” (cf. Proverbs 3:5-6; 9:10).

He adds in v. 16, “Redeeming the time…” The verb “to redeem” means to purchase out of the marketplace. We usually think of this term as relating to salvation, but here it applies to sanctification. It means, Make the most of your time. Be a good steward of your time. Do not wander about aimlessly in life. Don’t fritter away your time. Make the best use of it for the spiritual good of yourself and of others.

Time is slipping away and soon our days will be gone. How will we have spent them?

R. C. Sproul observed on this passage: “We are called to be productive Christian people, and in order to be productive, we must be careful with our use of time. I have as much time in the day as the President of the United States has. To make the most of every opportunity means to make wise use of it, so that the things we are doing are productive and helpful, not destructive and wasteful” (Ephesians, 129).

It is likely not accidental that a great watch making industry developed in Geneva, Switzerland, the city of John Calvin and a center of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers taught that we were to be good stewards of every minute in our lives, so they wanted carefully to measure it.

Life can indeed be swept away in a moment. I think of those floods that swept through Texas last week. I think of the dear brother in our church whose mortal life was also swept away so unexpectedly last week. Who knows if we will make it through this day, this week, this month, this year. Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in thy hand.”

Paul says, “the days are evil” (5:16) He means we are living in this present evil world (cf. Galatians 1:4). We are living between the times, between the ages. We are awaiting the return or our Lord and the redemption of our bodies at the resurrection. But this does not mean we merely rest in passivity in this life. It means active living of the Christian life, active pursuit of faithfulness and holiness.

It calls for walking as children of light and walking circumspectly.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Sermon: Does the Bible teach the "Rapture"?

Message from last Sunday afternoon (6.29.25) at CRBC in eschatology series:

Outline: 1. Review of three passages suggested by dispensationalists to provide the "biblical basis" for the "Rapture": John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians ; 1 Corinthians -52 (cf. MacArthur's Study Bible). 2. A sober evaluation and interpretation of those passages. 3. Conclusion and practical application.

JTR