Truth Magazine

By Brooks Cochran

“Then Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priest and elders, saying I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood” (Matt. 27:3-4a).

None will doubt the importance of repentance. The Bible repeatedly states that one cannot obtain forgiveness of his sins unless he repents (Lk. 13:3; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:20-24; 17:30-31). The word translated “repent” or “repentance” in these verses is metanoeb. W.E. Vine defines this word as “to change one’s mind or purpose, always, in the New Testament, involving a change for the better” (Expository Dictionary of N. T. Words).

However, there is another word translated “repent” in the New Testament. It is a synonym of metanoeb. It is the word metamelomai. Vine defines this word as “to regret, to repent oneself. . . ” Though both words appear to have the same meaning, there is an important distinction between the two that should be noted.

Both words include the idea of sorrow for sin. But metamelomai stops at this point. It is not the repentance that leads to a change of one’s life. It is this word that is used by Matthew to describe Judas’ emotional reaction to his betrayal of Christ. Judas was sorry for what happened to Christ; but that is all he felt. He felt no guilt of sin! “Mere sorrow avails nothing unless it leads to change of mind and life (metanoed), the sorrow according to God (2 Cor. 7:9). This sorrow Peter had when he wept bitterly. It led Peter back to Christ. But Judas had only remorse that led to suicide” (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament Vol. 1, pp. 222-223). “Judas repented of the consequences, not of the sin itself. Already that shows the spurious nature of his repentance. Many a criminal is exceedingly sorry when the consequences of his sin catch up with him, but the sin itself does not frighten him” (R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of Matthew, pp. 107-1078).

I am afraid that many are like Judas. They are sorry that things have turned out bad; but they have no sorrow for the sin which they have committed and brought them to their sinful condition. We need to make certain that we have repented of our sins; i.e. have changed our attitude and heart, and resolved not to continue in sin and/or commit the same sin(s). It is true that we should have sorrow over sins; but be certain that such sorrow is over the sin and not the fact that we were caught and/or unhappy with the consequences of our sinful actions. If we do not genuinely repent we will not be forgiven, and if we are not forgiven, we will be lost! Let’s make certain that we do repent and bring “forth fruits worthy of repentance” (Lk. 3:8).

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, p. 517
September 3, 1992

By Anonymous

A few years ago a preacher’s daughter won the Miss Universe bathing beauty contest. A newspaper reporter asked the girls’ mother concerning the bathing suit competition, “How do you reconcile your daughter’s being in the bathing suit contest with the religion which her father preaches?” The mother looked him straight in the eye and said, “I think that anyone who would think wrong simply has a wicked mind.”

I would not attempt for a minute to justify the lustful look, but the men are certainly not getting any help from women these days! In fact, many of the clothes are designed and worn to make men look! If you don’t believe me, just look at the descriptive phrases and adjectives used for women’s fashions today in the advertisements of your local newspaper. There’s where the story is told in plain language. It leaves no room for doubt or quibbles.

Mary Quant, London fashion designer, who designed and introduced the miniskirt in 1964, is on record as having said, “It is designed to seduce a man” (believe it or not, it didn’t take me long to figure that out). Yet, it would appear that most of the women’s fashions today are designed for similar purposes – if we can believe the advertisements!

The following phrases are taken from one issue of Butterick Patterns’ Fashion News (several years ago).

“Season of Exposure,” “The Looks Are Cool and Vampish,” “These New Skin-Showing Dresses,” “Let’s You Show Off a Long Stretch of Leg,” “Fun and Flirty,” “New Sensuous Dresses, ” ” Snug on Top, ” “New Bare Dresses, ” “Bathing Suits Are Bitsy,” Suits Are Bitsy,” “A Bit of Bra Top,” “Bare and Scooped Down to the Waist,” “Baring the Shoulders and a Lot of Back,” “Torsos Are Super Close to the Body,” “Long Lengths of Leg Dart Out From Under Short Shorts,” “Season of Sensuous, Skin Baring Looks,” “Barest Little Halter Dress,” “A Skimpy Bit of Dress That’s Scooped Out Deeply at the Neckline,” “Two Skinny Straps,” “Deeply Split Neckline,” “Shows a Lot of Skin,’ , “Brief Little Short Shorts,” “Midriff . . Bare and Bold,” “Legs Feel Long and Free,” “Skirt That Stops Short to Show off a Long Stretch of Leg.”

It doesn’t take a Solomon to see where the emphasis is in women’s fashions. But look at the definition of some of the descriptive terms that we found in these advertisements:

“Bold” – “too forward; taking undue liberties; lacking proper modesty or restraint.”

“Snug” – “tight; not loose.”

“Vampish” – from “vamp” – “one who uses her charm or wiles to gain admiration and attention from the opposite sex.”

“Frivolous” — “given to trifling; marked with unbecomed levity.”

“Exposure” – from “expose” – “to lay open to, or set out for, inspection; to exhibit, as goods for sale; to lay or leave bare.”

“Bare” – “baring” – “without clothes or covering, esp. the usual covering; naked; nude; fully revealed; unconcealed; exposed.”

If you will pardon the pun, I would say that those terms are “very revealing.” God’s terms for the dress and demeanor of Christian women are found in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 – “In like manner, also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.”

Now, notice the definition of God’s terms for the dress and demeanor of the Christian woman:

“Modest” – Gr., Kosmois, “orderly, well-arranged, decent, modest” (Vine).

“Shamefacedness” – Gr., aidos, “a sense of shame, modesty” (Vine). “Shamefastness is that modesty which is ‘fast’ or rooted in the character” (Davies, Bible English, p. 12).

Sensuous” – synonym’s t9sensual,” “pert. to, or consisting in, the gratification of the senses, or the indulgence of appetite; fleshly; devoted to the pleasures of sense of appetite; voluptuous; sometimes, lewd.”

“Sobriety” – Gr., sophrosune, “denotes soundness of mind . . . ‘sound judgment’ practically expresses the meaning” (Vine).

“Chaste” – (1 Pet. 3:21) Gr. hagnos, Signifies (a) pure from every fault, immaculate… (b) pure from carnality, modest” (Vine).

Certainly the tenor of these terms is far different from the suggestivity of the advertisements above. God’s terms teach us that the Christian woman must be different in her daily dress – she must be modest and chaste, with shamefastness and sobriety. How, before God can she do so when wearing the popular fashions as described above – which by their own assertions are bold, bare, snug, sensuous, and daring?

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, pp. 524-525
September 3, 1992

By Doug Matlock

One of the problems we face today is permitting ourselves to become too busy. The problem is not that we are too busy working for God, but we are too busy with life, making a living, recreation, family and friends to serve God. We crowd out the real and lasting things from our lives for that which is temporal, transient and fleeting. If a person in torment could relive his life on earth, he would be far more concerned with saving his soul than with pleasing others and simply enjoying himself.

When we become too busy let us see the effect it will have in our lives.

I lose my sense of true values: I emphasize the material rather than the spiritual. In Matthew 16:26 we see that nothing is more important than the soul. Youth and beauty fade into wrinkles and frailties of old age. Worldly wisdom is of no profit when we leave this life. Fortunes can be lost overnight. Friends can become enemies, but through it all the soul lives on.

My children grew up as unbelievers. We not only hurt ourselves when we are disobedient but we to us for examples and direction. In torment you will realize you neglected them, failed to teach them about God and his will. Because we were too busy our children are headed for the same place.

The Lord’s church suffered. I lost my influence for good in the community among the lost. I he church was not helped by my efforts in teaching, working and serving God. I remember one that was too busy with his job to attend services for about six months. How can one claim to put the kingdom of God first and allow himself to be hindered like that?

My soul was lost. Since I lost my sense of values, it was just not important enough for me to give my time and attention to. I was just too busy to go to heaven. Thus my sentence is Matthew 25:41 “Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Do you want this to be the story of your life? This may have been your story also. But you are more fortunate than those already in torment. You can change all that by becoming a Christian if you are not one already and by being faithful to God also starve spiritually and deprive those looking by putting him first in every phrase of your life.

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, p. 513
September 3, 1992

By Steve Wolfgang

Footnote: Richard John Neuhaus, ed. Theological Education and Moral Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Ferdmans Publishing Company, 1992), pp. 211-213.

Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the conservative journal First Things, also edits the Encounter Series of volumes published by Eerdmans, of which this is volume 15. Readers of this journal might also be interested in other volumes in the series, particularly volume 2 (Unsecular America) and volume 5 (The Bible, Politics, and Democracy).

Typically, each volume reports a conference in which four to six featured speakers delivered prepared addresses, following which those speakers and perhaps a dozen others join in a panel discussion of the issues raised in the prepared speeches.

This particular volume reports a conference at Duke University and offers some rare insight into the state of the denominational mentality in America, and I offer excerpts from three different sections of the round-table discussion for your amazement.

George Marsden, Professor of the History of Christianity in America at Duke University Divinity School and author of Fundamentalism in American Culture and Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism in America, speaking of the crisis of authority in many American seminaries today:

George Marsden: “What we need to do,” he said, “is to go back to Christianity. We should start talking about God and the authority of the Bible. We should pray and teach the liturgy. But in most Protestant seminaries, if we went back to that kind of Christianity and came out with it as authoritative, we’d get kicked out. You might be able to get away with it at Duke because of its traditionalist ethos.”

“Is Duke really that different than, say, Union in New York?” Neuhaus asked the group.

Geoffrey Wainwright took up the question: “While teaching at Union in New York, I always felt that the assumption was that Christianity was wrong unless it could be shown to be right. At Duke the assumption is that, on the whole, Christianity is the agreed-upon basic, though there are problems here and there that can be debated.”

“At what point would you get kicked out of the University of Chicago Divinity School for authoritatively teaching orthodox Christianity?” Neuhaus asked.

“When you offended the feminists or the relativists or the gay caucus,” Marsden answered.

“How might you offend the relativists at Chicago?” Neuhaus probed.

Marsden replied, “By implying that Christianity is a religion that has some exclusivism. By implying that relativists weren’t Christians. After all, if you’re talking about traditional Christianity, you’re going to have to isolate and argue against ways of believing that are different from traditional Christianity.”

“George, you’re saying that there is a normative Christianity,” Neuhaus observed. “For example, if someone doesn’t believe in the resurrection of Christ, then he or she isn’t a classical Christian.”

“Yes, and if you say certain people aren’t Christians, you’ll get booted out,” Marsden responded.

“Do you really mean you’d get fired from the faculty?” Richard Hays asked with a note of disbelief.

“Well, you’d get hooted down and eventually called a crank,” guessed Marsden.

“I question that,” said Hays. “I think we’ve allowed ourselves to get buffaloed, to be intimidated into thinking that we could never say anything like that.”

Then Neuhaus continued his line of questioning. “How much could be changed if seminary professors taught more confessionally?”

Marsden attempted an answer. “In today’s seminaries you have pluralistic institutions, and you have to be careful about whom you offend. if you go into a seminary classroom and say, ‘Your problem is that you need to be converted,’ what you’re saying is that some people there aren’t Christians. That might not be an appropriate thing to say in a school that isn’t restricted to one denomination.”

Neuhaus wasn’t so sure. “In a theological faculty,” he said, “it should be inescapable that at some point you’re going to be teaching about the idea of conversion. If you make it clear that your understanding of conversion is that it is constitutive of being a Christian, you’re not browbeating the class. You’re simply making clear what your understanding of the Christian life is. And that includes conversion, in the born-again sense and/or in the baptismal-renewal sense. You wouldn’t be a good teacher of the church if you didn’t teach that.”

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, p. 522
September 3, 1992