Truth Magazine

By Jeff May

Ephesians 4:17-24 makes for good reading. In only eight verses, the Christian receives a wealth of information on how to conduct his life. A very clear distinction is made here between the world and those who have been taught by Christ. In fact, you could take a pencil and draw a line between verses 19 and 20 and have the dividing line between those in sin and those who are righteous.

In verses 17-19 Paul refers to the common walk of life among the Gentiles. These people pursued vain interests. They removed themselves from the source of eternal life, hardened their hearts so they could feel no regret and then gave themselves over to unbridled lust and uncleanness.

Next, in reference to Christians, Paul says, “But you have not so learned Christ.” He has drawn a dividing line and the message is simple. He is telling these Christians that they did not learn Christ to be of that sort! Those who have been taught by Christ and have heard him and know his truth surely know that he is the opposite of all that.

I believe that Christians still need to learn this vital lesson. We cannot live after the manner of the world. While we must live among sinners, we must stand out as being different. Another preacher once wrote, “Jesus could mix with publicans and sinners but he was never mistaken for one of them.” If we, as Christians, think that we can live like the world, then we have not learned Christ! True disciples realize this world is not our home. We are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” and we are seeking a “heavenly country” (Heb. 11:13-16).

Since reading Ephesians 4:20-21, I have been impressed with its message. The true Christian has learned Christ because he has been taught by him. Someone once said, “Christianity is not bought, caught, or fought but it is taught.” You cannot be a Christian without learning Christ and his doctrine. Students of Christ are sticklers for remaining in his teaching (2 Jn. 9-11; Jn. 8:31-32).

Since Jesus is my Teacher, I am to be like him. Luke 6:40 says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher” (NKJV). My desire is that when people see my ways, they will know my Teacher. If they can’t see my Teacher, then I am not perfectly trained! People could easily see who was the source of motivation to the apostles. Notice what is said of Peter and John as they stood before the Sanhedrin council! “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Did you catch my point? Among these scholarly Jews, Peter and John were regarded as uneducated and untrained but they had no problem at all knowing whose classroom they had been in! They had been taught by Jesus and were very much like their Teacher!

Since Jesus is my Teacher and I have obeyed him, I wear his name. The Scriptures say that the “disciples were called Christians” (Acts 11:26). It is a great honor to wear the name of Christ. It is not something to be looked upon lightly because we were bought with the precious blood of Jesus, God’s Lamb. The name “Christian” is already losing its meaning in our world. People who are not Christians call themselves Christians. It is also used as an adjective to describe a “good” person. Just the other day someone told me about a man and described him as a “Christian person.” This simply meant he was a good man. Cornelius was a good person before he was converted but he wasn’t a Christian (Acts 10).

Saddest of all in our world is when people live any way they wish and still do not hesitate to call themselves Christians. We crucify Christ all over again when we do that! A story has been told about Alexander the Great and one of his soldiers. According to the story, Alexander the Great learned of a young soldier who was not conducting himself properly. The soldier’s name coincidentally was also Alexander. The young soldier was ordered to appear before Alexander the Great who very plainly told him something like this, “Young man, you will either have to change your conduct or change your name. You will not wear my name and act as you are acting.” We can take that story and make application to us. If we intend to live in the ways of sin ‘ then we should never tell anyone that we are Christians. It only hurts the cause of Christ.

Those who have been taught by Christ are controlled by his message and put their trust in Christ and his truth (Eph. 1:13). They are mastered by the word of God. A Christian’s delight “is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night” (Psa. 1:2). He will study his textbook (Bible) daily and desire to come to a full knowledge of the truth and his Teacher. On the other hand, those who have not learned Christ will perish because they did not love the truth (2 Thess. 2:9-12).

In Ephesians 4:22-24, we see the results of being taught by Jesus. Having enrolled ourselves in his class, we do not walk as others walk in life. A transformation occurs when we learn his message. In these verses, the Christian is told to “put off, concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.”

As we ponder the role of baptism, we see all of the above things happening in that act. We crucify and put off the old man of sin (Rom. 6:6), are buried with Christ (Rom. 6:4), and we put on the new man who is free of sin. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). We become like our Teacher. It’s a new life for us now. Having been set free from sin we become slaves of righteousness.

While in college, I observed many people who needed to go back and enroll in high school to learn the basics. They needed to be taught again. I perceive that many who call themselves Christians are in a similar situation. They need to repent for having failed to learn what Jesus taught them and enroll themselves again in the course of eternal life taught by the Master. Once they learned the message they should then go and be like their Teacher. Are you like your Teacher?

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 8, pp. 243-244
April 19, 1990

By William C. Sexton

Here are two sides of a problem. However, one side may never be recognized as a problem – that of riches. The common response, jokingly of course, is: “I’d like to have that kind of a problem for awhile.” Yet, seriously, if one has riches, he is responsible for the proper use of them. The other side, poverty, is not desirable either. One is likely to misbehave on either side, in either case.

First, if one has riches, he is tempted to be satisfied and see no real need for God. Yet, one has the need for God’s guidance, protection, and strength to be fair, just, and caring. The Scriptures warn against such:

1. In the Old Testament. To the children of Israel, Moses exhorted, when you come into the land and have “houses full of all good things, . . . wells digged, . . . vineyards and olive trees, . . .; then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Dent. 6:10-12). The key word here is “forget.”

2. In the New Testament. 1 Timothy 6:17, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all thing to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” The key word here is “trust.”

3. The rich young man (Mk. 10:17-27; Matt. 19:16-22) seemingly wanted to serve God – However, when it came to a test of who or what came first, he chose money and went away sorrowful, “for he had great possessions.”

4. The “love of money” is the downfall of many a person. 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Secondly, if one is feeling the pain of being in poverty, he is tempted to be so dissatisfied that he fails to depend on God and truth him. All his time and effort is spent thinking about how unjustly he is treated, etc. Perhaps, he develops bitterness in his mind which eats away at him and manifests itself toward others in such a way that he harms himself and others, too.

Thus we see that neither riches nor poverty is the ideal state to be in. Responsibility is associated with each. The state of being in either, however, is not necessarily destructive. There is danger associated with each.

If one finds himself in poverty, then let them search for the reason and the key for getting out of that state with integrity, maintaining one’s relationship with God and his Son. If one finds himself with riches, instead of being puffed up, proud, uncaring, and self-sufficient, let him ask how he can use these riches to help others and benefit God’s people.

Beloved, we cannot escape the fact that we are responsible individuals, regardless of the state we are in, relative to riches and socio-economic status. We are responsible for using whatever goods that we are permitted to possess in this life.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 9, pp. 259, 280
May 3, 1990

By Lewis Willis

It would be a blessing if we were able to see the end of a thing at its beginning. This would be especially valuable regarding moral or ethical behavior. For instance, if a person could see at the time he takes his first social drink that he would end up being an alcoholic, he probably would gracefully decline the drink. If he could see himself as the alcoholic losing his job, abusing his wife and family, the break up of his home, the loss of his self-respect and his respect in the community, the loss of his health, perhaps committing a crime or killing someone in an auto accident – I say, if he could see this as the end of the seemingly innocent social drink, he would not imbibe. However, like so many other things, someone else is always the alcoholic.

The same thing could be said of numbers of other things. When a young person first experiments with drugs, he does not think for a moment he might become a drug crazed addict who commits crimes to support his addiction. The person who sees something laying around that can so easily be picked up without anyone knowing, does not consider himself becoming the common convicted and imprisoned thief. If the married man, telling suggestive little jokes to the girl in the office or on the job, could see ultimate adultery and divorce, he would refrain. As I said, if we could only see the end of a thing at its beginning, we would not make so many mistakes and get into the fixes in which we often find ourselves.

But this is not an article about moral issues as such. I intend it as an article on spiritual concerns. I have been teaching a class on Wednesday night, studying the book of Luke. We are now at that point where we have just studied the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. We see him in company with the Lord and the other apostles. Next we see him leading a mob through the darkness of Gethsemane, coming to Jesus, betraying him with a sign of deep affection – a kiss. I read this statement recently: “It is a sad little line that tells us of Judas slipping away from holy company to betray his Lord. No truer statement was every penned than the few words in John 13:30: Judas went out ‘…and it was night.’ It was night and the darkest night of Judas’ life. What was the poor man thinking of? The Lord himself called him a friend; surely Judas loved this wonderful man with whom he had companied for 31/2 years. Was it the money? Was there some sort of personal notoriety he longed for? I doubt that we can know the whole of it; only that he was motivated by the Devil. But his night did not come suddenly. There is always a certain twilight preceding such a dark hour” (Jerry Johnson, The Light [Vol. 20,

No. 2] pg. 15). Judas is the classic example of the point I seek to make. Would he have done what he did had he known the end that would befall him? Would the story have been the same if he could have envisioned his own disgrace and suicide? His fall did not happen in a moment – it happened slowly!

I preached a sermon recently in which I looked at some of the ideas and actions now found in Churches of Christ. It is hard to imagine that these things are the result of a decision several years ago to send $25 a month to some human institution doing what was considered to be such a good thing, or the decision to have an innocent little congregational dinner in the classroom section of the building. How could this possibly lead to some of the things we now see in liberal churches? It happens slowly!

Well, as Christians, most of us could hardly imagine that we might fall away completely from the Lord. We would never consider just getting up and walking out of the assembly, never to return again. However, the sad truth is that some do walk away, never to return. You see, it happens slowly. We may not really know all of the factors that entered into it. Perhaps they seem so small and imperceptible at the time. Perhaps it was the demands of our job, school activities, or, something that needed to be done around the house or on the car. It really does not matter what it was. The sad truth is, the troubles and cares of life were given priority over the things of God so many times that suddenly we realize that God has slipped from our lives. Did we intend it? No! It just happened – slowly. We missed a few Wednesday nights. Then it was all Wednesday nights. Then, a few Sunday nights – then all Sunday nights. Lo and behold, then it was a few Sunday mornings until it became all Sunday mornings. It happens slowly but we wake up one day to realize that we have fallen away from the Lord. Had we seen this end when we started this process months before, we would have stopped it immediately. Now there is not enough faith left to even care. Apostasy is the sad and tragic end to a handful of small, seemingly meaningless little carelessnesses.

One has to remember the words of Paul at all times: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Is it not the course of wisdom to pause occasionally and ask ourselves: “What is more important than God and our service to him?” If anything comes before God, the twilight of ultimate darkness has set in around us. It is time for alarm!

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 9, p. 260
May 3, 1990

By Clinton D. Hamilton

Question: The following question had been received by brother Houchen and passed along to me: What is the “Restoration Principle”? Is it still valid for men today?

Reply: One lives through a generation before he sometimes may realize it. Time passes quickly. One learns something and tends to project that same knowledge to others. Many in the body of Christ hear terms that mean little to them but to older members of the body the terms may be perfectly clear. The “restoration principle” is such a term.

Simply, the restoration principle means that the effort is made to bring back the original condition. It involves putting things back as they were in the beginning. In relation to the religion of Christ, the meaning is to teach and to practice what was revealed to be the teaching and practice of the New Testament.

Several ideas are involved: (1) the gospel is to be taught as it is recorded in the New Testament without addition or subtraction; (2) men are called upon to obey the commands of the Lord as was the case of those who did so as recorded in the New Testament; (3) working together in congregations and individually those who obey the gospel are to practice what is revealed in the New Testament; (4) whatever men may now believe or practice is to be discarded if it cannot be found revealed in the New Testament; (5) one is to be governed only by the testament or will of the Lord as that is revealed in the Scripture and, therefore, no human authority is to be accepted as the binding agent and no human arrangement is to be substituted for the Lord’s to regulate the practice.

Jesus charged the apostles to teach men to observe whatsoever he commanded them (Matt. 28:20). He sent the Holy Spirit to bring to their remembrance what he had said to them in order that there might be no error in their recall and record of what he said (Jn. 14:26). What had not yet been revealed that nevertheless needed to be revealed, the Holy Spirit was to guide them so that they would have all truth (Jn. 16:13). The Holy Spirit was not to speak from himself but was to declare what he heard from Jesus (Jn. 16:13-14; 15:27). It is the New Testament record that the Holy Spirit gave and to which we should give heed (1 Cor. 2:12; 1 Thess. 2:13). What is revealed is what the Lord wants men to know and to do. Wherein men have erred from this, it should be the aim of godly people to reject it and to restore what was in the beginning. This is what is involved in the restoration principle.

Is it valid for men today? Valid has several synonyms such as sound, cogent, convincing, and telling. In a legal sense, it refers to having force or efficacy. The central idea relates to argument which is convincing, based on solid ground and impeccable reasoning. In logic, the argument is valid if the form or structure is correct. No doubt, the meaning of valid in this question means sound. Obviously, the thrust of the question is whether men should now be committed to the restoration principle. In this last decade of the twentieth century, should men concern themselves with restoring New Testament religion?

The answer to the question is an emphatic yes! Jesus promised that he would be with the apostles to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). The idea is that his authority would be as relevant later even to the end of the age as it was when he gave commandment. Going back to the meaning of “restoration principle” as set forth in preceding remarks and in the light of the authority of Jesus, it follows conclusively that the restoration principle is as relevant today as it has ever been. The principle is clearly in complete harmony with the Lord’s instructions.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 9, p. 261
May 3, 1990