Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The believer in Christ is never to go along with the crowd for the crowd's sake. He is to live such a life that every one who knows him will know that the smutty joke will fall flat in his presence. The ugly will be avoided. The ignoble will be spurned.

The thought embedded in this verse is that a true believer in Christ will seek to be outwardly attractive as well as inwardly holy. His love for the Lord Jesus will keep him from being vulgar. Yieldedness to Christ will bring a fullness that will tend to eliminate the cheap, the low, the tawdry.

The believer's tastes in all things will ever change toward higher and higher cultural patterns. Paul wrote to Titus, let our people learn to apply themselves to honorable occupations. Thus, wherever the believer may find himself, he will be a witness for the beauty and goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Especially as the humble grow in wisdom and natural nobility, men will take knowledge of them as they did of the first disciples, that they had been with Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, The Normal Christian. A balloon will continually expand when you fill it with more and more air. The Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit will be able to experience a life of God's constantly expanding love.

In the measure that God fills our hearts, he will be revealed in our every outward motion because he is in all of our inward thinking. Stay with us as Dr. Barnhouse examines six biblical exhortations that will direct us toward a spirit-filled Christian life. The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 12. We're looking at verses 13 through 17. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, The Normal Christian.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ we come unto you our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. How wonderful it is that we can come to you knowing that we will be received in love, knowing that you are more eager to bless us than we are to be blessed. Realizing that you are patient with us, knowing that you knew what we would be before you ever started toward saving us. And now that we have come to trust in you, we need your strength and your wisdom so that our lives shall be lived to the best. Speak to our hearts in this hour. We ask it all in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

In the twelfth chapter of Romans, in verse 13 and then in verses 15 to 17, we have certain phrases that go together: contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited. Take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

The Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit will know what it is to live the life of constantly expanding love. God is love, and in the measure that God fills our hearts, he will be revealed in our every outward motion because he is in all of our inward thinking. Here are several specific actions prescribed as characteristics of the Christian. The first has to do with his giving. The Bible has a great deal to say about the possessions of a believer. They are a trust to him from God and he is to use them as unto the Lord.

There is no legalism about it. Under the Old Testament, a tithe belonged to God. Under the New Testament, ten tithes belong to God. Everything that a believer possesses is God's, and the manner in which we are to spend it is made known to our hearts by the Lord as we draw close to him and let him live his life in us. We have already seen that the believer who gives is to do it with simplicity. The Holy Spirit is never ostentatious. The believer lives moment by moment, and when he sees another believer who is in real need, he does not think a second time. His whole heart moves toward the needy one.

The last chapter of Galatians outlines the doctrine of giving. We are to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. We are not to be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Depending on the amount of our income we are to give, and we are to have a system of priorities whereby we give to the needs of believers before we give to any other cause. In Galatians 6:10, we read as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, but especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Now the rich man may be able to give to the numerous charities which increase beyond measure, but the one who does not have too much to give is to be selective and give first to the needs of fellow Christians. If you have but one slice of bread to give and two people are starving, the Christian gives to the starving Christian. And then the wonder occurs: the starving Christian turns and gives what he has just received to the starving non-Christian, for he knows that famine cannot separate him from the love of God. Perhaps the non-Christian engulfed by such love will find its source, Jesus Christ.

Next, the believer is told that he should practice hospitality. The original language is very picturesque. The verb is found 43 times in the New Testament. Only once is it translated as we have it in our versions: be given to hospitality or practice hospitality. 30 times it is used for persecute or suffer persecution. The original idea in the verb was to run swiftly in order to catch some person or thing. You see, the world is so relentless in its hatreds that the word to run after became the word for persecute. But it also retained its primitive meaning, to seek after eagerly, earnestly endeavor to acquire.

Then the word for hospitality is love to strangers. The whole phrase then shows that the true believer who is filled with the Holy Spirit must diligently and eagerly seek to show Christian love to strangers. In its primary sense, this was a call to believers to entertain other believers who came to their city. There was a great deal of travel in the ancient Roman world, far more than one might imagine in view of the slowness of the means of transportation. Further, there were practically no hotels as we know them today. With the coming of Christianity, a new atmosphere entered society. It was simple Christian love exercising itself to the full and expanding upward and outward to include all who were in any need whatsoever. To the poor, definite contributions were to be made. To the stranger, the doors of the home were to be opened. The traveler was to be received not as an alien, but as a brother in Christ.

Let me suggest how Christians today can exercise hospitality to strangers. There are tens of thousands of students from abroad who are studying in our educational institutions in the United States. Seek them out, invite them into your home. Let them hear you pray before meals. Let them see the openness of your hearts in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then invite them to your church, go with them and sit with them. How wonderful it will be for some of you to meet at close quarters, a Chinese from Hong Kong, a Formosan, a Japanese, an Indian or a Pakistanian, a student from Nigeria or one of the other emerging nations of Africa.

And if someone says, "Oh, we must be careful whom we invite into our homes," I answer that true love does not form estimates or demand letters of recommendation. Love receives the stranger in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our same text is repeated in the epistle to the Hebrews with a significant addition: do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. We recall how Abraham received three strangers who appeared to be men, but who turned out to be messengers of God, one of them even speaking as Jehovah himself before the conversation was finished. And I can testify personally that I have extended hospitality to people completely unknown and in real need, and have seen a look of gratitude in their eyes that told me that the Lord was dwelling within those passing guests and that he would not forget anything done for one of the least of these his brethren and would one day say that it had been done for him.

The third exhortation to believers filled with the Holy Spirit is that they are to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. Now this immediately does away with the long-faced travesty of Christianity, which manifests a sobriety without joy and seriousness without a sense of humor. There is no model for such a life in the word of God. The Lord Jesus loved to be with ordinary people. He was at ease in the taverns and the byplaces that were haunted by the outcasts of the day. He won for himself the sneers of the proud and the haughty who were more afraid of their reputation than they were of their character. The Lord Jesus Christ began his public ministry at a wedding and heightened the joy of those present by contributing to its gaiety. He will always turn the water of natural happiness into the wine of Christian joy.

Nor was it difficult for the Lord Jesus to turn from a scene of joy to a scene of sorrow and mingle his tears with those who mourned. One of the noblest lines of the Bible is its shortest verse: Jesus wept. He was filled with compassion when he saw the poor as sheep without a shepherd. The believer who is filled with the Holy Spirit will find it easy to fit into the mood of those to whom he witnesses. When we are called upon to be with those who sing a glad song, we will take it at their tempo and in their key. When we are called upon to mourn with those in sorrow, we will not find it pretense to mingle our tears with theirs. Has not God come to live within our hearts? Then is he not to go out from us to all with whom we come in contact? Will not his joy overflow to those in joy, and his compassion flow out from us to those in need of comfort?

The fourth exhortation here is that we are not to be haughty, but we're to associate with the lowly. We are taken back to the third verse in this same chapter where the Spirit tells us that we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. If he thinks it worth while to return to this theme so soon, there must be a reason for it. That reason is not far to find. Man is incurably addicted to think of himself as sufficient and worthy to be praised for what he is and does. God knows otherwise, and the Spirit must teach each one of us this most important lesson: mind not high things, do not be haughty.

Our two best known versions give these translations and they place the emphasis in two different directions. The one expresses the idea that the true believer is not to be anxious to be in the midst of worldly affairs and associate with worldly people. He will not be impressed by the position or wealth of those whose company he seeks. This does not mean that if a believer has been equipped with outstanding gifts, he is not to exercise them, for he must do so, even if such exercise leads him to the highest of distinctions in his profession. But in his heart, he will always be God's little man and therefore can never be puffed up and think that what he has done or has become has any root in himself.

He knows the truth revealed in the word of God, that no man has anything except it be given him from heaven. Now while the older translation may exhort the believer against overweening ambition, the more modern translation exhorts him against interior pride. The two go together and we're to avoid both. The older translation then reads: condescend to men of low estate. The newer translation: associate with the lowly. The word condescend has lost its ancient meaning, which means to waive the privilege of rank or dignity and has come to mean to bestow courtesies with some air of superiority. The latter of course is intolerable as a translation and the revision was very necessary.

But the Greek is a beautiful word used only three times in the Bible and contains much more meaning than either of the English translations. When a girl is overwhelmed by a man's attentions, we say that she is carried away with him. And this is how the Greek verb is translated in Galatians where Paul describes Barnabas as being carried away by the insincerity of Peter and the others who lapsed into legalism. Peter himself warns people not to be carried away with the error of the lawless. Now this word that is used in these other places as "carried away" is the one that is used here.

The translators of the revision seem to have been unhappy with their final choice, "associate with the lowly," for they have given a marginal translation: give yourselves to humble tasks. Now whether it refers to persons or things, the thought is evident. The believer is not to give himself airs with people or with work. A man who follows Christ must remember that our Lord demonstrated in his own life that what he taught was true: whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

How he showed it in his own life. He was subject to his parents. His enemies spoke of him as the carpenter. The common people heard him gladly. At the last, he girded himself with a towel and began to wash the disciples' feet. When he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross. Lowly people, lowly pursuits, the follower of the Lord Jesus Christ will indeed find himself carried away with such people and with such things. As he lives and moves among people, as he does his tasks, he will never exhibit an air of snobbery, but all that he does will show the joy and the dignity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some time ago I saw a cartoon. The scene was laid in the personnel office of a corporation and the personnel manager was hiring a man. And the caption of the cartoon was, "How do you enjoy doing those mean and lowly tasks that everybody hates?" Well, of course there are these tasks that everybody wants to shun, but the Christian will be ready to take his share of them and even more.

The exhortation then continues: be not wise in your own conceits. This is an archaic form and the revisers have rendered it merely: never be conceited. But they've missed something. The passage is a quotation of Proverbs 3:7, which says, be not wise in your own eyes. A believer may be as bold as a lion when he is setting forth divine truth, of which there is no possibility of a second opinion. We are then being wise in the eyes of the Lord. We speak as the oracles of God when we declare that Jesus Christ is God, that he came into this world without a human father, that he gave his life on the cross to die in the place and for the sake of sinners, and that on the third day he arose from the dead.

We may also be positive when we know that our course of action involves ourselves alone, but we shall never be smugly infallible on subjects that are not explicitly treated in the word of God. The true believer cannot determine the will of God for another man in any matter that does not involve open sin. The more we are like Christ, the less we shall judge men in their motives and even in their actions. They must stand before God and they will never have to answer to us.

There is yet one more exhortation that we will consider here. The old version reads: provide things honest in the sight of all men. The revision is unquestionably nearer to the Greek: take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. The verb is a combination of a prefix and a verb which gives us literally to consider in advance, to think of beforehand. The idea here seems to be that the true follower of Christ is to face life with definite consideration of all that he must do, to ponder the effects of his movements on other people. So to live his life that the things that are noble, good, pure, true, will mark him.

The noun is *kalos*, which was studied in great detail by the Greek philosophers as they sought to determine the truly good, the truly beautiful. The believer in Christ is to take serious consideration of the kind of music he prefers and listens to. He is to calculate the effect of his literary tastes on others. He is never to go along with the crowd for the crowd's sake. He is to live such a life that every one who knows him will know that the smutty joke will fall flat in his presence. The ugly will be avoided. The ignoble will be spurned.

The thought embedded in this verse is that a true believer in Christ will seek to be outwardly attractive as well as inwardly holy. His love for the Lord Jesus will keep him from being vulgar. Yieldedness to Christ will bring a fullness that will tend to eliminate the cheap, the low, the tawdry. The believer's tastes in all things will ever change toward higher and higher cultural patterns. Paul wrote to Titus, let our people learn to apply themselves to honorable occupations. Thus, wherever the believer may find himself, he will be a witness for the beauty and goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Especially as the humble grow in wisdom and natural nobility, men will take knowledge of them as they did of the first disciples, that they had been with Jesus Christ. And our God and Father, we pray thee that thou shalt bless these truths to each listening heart in this hour. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

Guest (Male): As we grow in Christ and learn to increasingly yield ourselves to his lordship, our lives will be shining testimonies to God's love, grace, and power before a watching world. We hope you've benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled, The Normal Christian. To listen to additional teachings by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled, The Normal Christian, or simply request message number R12-27.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled, Daily Meditations for Family Worship. Perhaps you recognize the value of family worship and desire to introduce this vital spiritual practice into your home. The only problem is, you don't know how to begin. This free booklet will help you establish a fruitful family worship time. The daily scripture readings and meditations are beneficial for adults and children and for personal devotions as well. Ask for your free copy of Daily Meditations for Family Worship when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a complete listing of radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website, alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of our listeners. If you have benefited from this broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to further our work, contact us by calling toll free, 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Write Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Drs. Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.