Do You Give the Right Exam?

Posted by Bernard Rosario On 11:11 PM 1 comments




I spent seven years (actually 15 semesters and 4 summer terms) in college to graduate a four-year computer science course. My program curriculum changed three times in my stay. I have much to tell about teachers, classmates, projects, reading assignments, quizzes, exams, and armchairs. And I can relate stories of sleepless nights, exhausted brain cells, and caffeinated bladder all went to waste just because of outside-of-lesson exams. Perhaps, you also have a mastered-chapters-3-4-and-5-while-exam-is-from-chapter-11 similar story (Never mind calculus for I couldn’t tell whether the exam was faithful to lesson or not).

Now, that I am an instructor, I already know well that giving the wrong exams will result to poor evaluation:  letting the passing fail and letting the failing pass. A reliable assessment demands correct assessment measures.
Consciously or not, we are giving examinations to professing Christian leaders. We measure pastors, deacons, deaconesses, and church workers based on a certain scale of criteria. We sometimes gauge their genuineness or falsity based on their knowledge, or whether they are funny preachers, or if they are good musicians, or are they sociable or not. But do we give the right exams?

1 John 4:1-6 outlines a how-to on conducting evaluations on professing (Christian) teachers and their professed (Christian) teaching.

A.      Command for Examination (v. 1a). The opening verse implies that there is a spirit behind every teaching. Every teaching may come from the Spirit of truth or from the spirit of error (v. 6). So GOD, through John, charges us not to believe every spirit but also to test every spirit.

B.      Cause of Examination (v. 1b).  There is a very heavy yet straightforward reason of the exam. It is because you may have a false teacher beside you ready to lead you astray. It is because there are false teachers on the television, over the radio, in your school, in your workplace, or even at you doorsteps.

C.      Channel of Examination (vv. 2-6). There are at least four types of tests that make up the right examination.

1.       Admitted Lord (vv. 2-3). True GOD-sent laborers have a right Christology (view of Christ). False teachers will more probably than not trip over the Person and works of the Lord Jesus Christ. Throughout this book, John has given us meadows of truth concerning Christ. Let me mention four here
a.       1 John 1:1 implies Jesus’ divinity and humanity.
b.      1 John 2:1-2 involve Jesus’ being the only righteous Substitute for the perfection that GOD demands from us sinners.
c.       1 John 2:22-23 demand oneness of essence and equality of Jesus and the Father.
d.      1 John 5:20 states that Jesus is truly God.

2.       Altered Life (v. 4). Genuine believers are overcomers. There is a mark of true Christianity that cannot be counterfeited: victory over the world. If a professing minister is a fraud, the stains of the world will sooner or later be observable in his person. Greed and the love of money, lusts and immoralities, pride and self-exaltation. These are unconquerable apart from the Spirit of life. When one ministers without this Spirit of truth, his attraction to the world reveals his stains.

3.       Attracted Listeners (v. 5). If I am an avid preacher of prosperity gospel, my circle will be crowded with lovers of material wealth. When I become enthusiastic in preaching on the worth of man and the power God has given him, my circle will be crowded by the proud who hunger for authority. But when I preach faithfully GOD’s Word pertaining to His holiness and perfections, and His amazing grace for saving vile sinners, then I will have a congregation of grace-filled GOD lovers. The types of people who listen to you tell a lot of your message.

4.       Acknowledged Law (v. 6). The laborer’s genuineness can also be tested by how much he adheres to the voice of GOD. Since a fake has the spirit of error and lie behind him, he can’t stick well with the words of GOD. GOD has spoken to us most clearly in the Scriptures. False teachers and heretics will point you to psychology or other authorities outside the Bible, or they will insist about the “inadequacies,” “inconsistencies,” or “errors” in the Bible, or at least, they will try their best to let verses mean what they don’t supposedly mean. True shepherds, on the other hand, aim to saturate their ministries with the truths of GOD as revealed in the Holy Scriptures because they have a high view of It.

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An Inexperienced Shepherd's Resolutions

Posted by Bernard Rosario On 12:33 AM 1 comments




On the year’s first day,
Oh, dear Lord, three things I resolve:
       To feed the sheep more sufficiently;
       To starve the goats more unbearably; and,
       To shoot the wolves more vigilantly.

With sheep, I mean the individuals who had truly experience the inward calling of the Holy Spirit, the members of the invisible Church, and those who have been purchased by the blood of Christ (Acts 20:28). These are those whom GOD has appointed me to eagerly exercise my oversight to (1 Peter 5:2).

With to feed, I mean lovingly teaching them the precious doctrines of the Gospel, catering them to the excellencies of Christ, leading them towards Christlikeness, and guiding them towards discovering the glorious attributes of the Triune GOD by a cautious, faithful, and humble exposition of the Word.

With more sufficiently, I mean a pastoral ministry with greater sensitivity to the needs of the flock. To intensify the preaching and teaching on the essential doctrines without downplaying on the non-essentials. I also mean to provide strong meat to the mature, soft food for the weak and feeble, and milk to the newborn babes.

With goats, I mean those who profess Jesus as their Lord yet exemplify a life without transformation. These are those whose characters are not different from the world and there are no obvious acts of love and compassion (Matthew 25:31-46). They are unwilling to put to death the earthly pleasures and evil desires within them (Colossians 3:5).

With to starve, I mean creating an environment saturated with heavenly things. It is choking those who are earthly from sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. It is confronting all forms of materialism and greed and self-exaltation. It is taking away from the flesh anything that hints to its desires.

With more unbearably, I mean a fellowship greatly rejoicing on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, on things with excellence, and on things that are worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8) that when someone wants stuffs other than the cross of Christ, he will be forced to leave.

With wolves, I mean those who assume church offices especially teaching positions while propagating doctrines contrary to the gospel of Christ and contrary to the Holy Scriptures (Matthew 7:15). They come from within the church and with great fierce and less shame cause destructions on the flock of GOD (Acts 20:29-30).

With to shoot, I mean to expose their bad fruits (Matthew 7:15-20), to strip them from all their authoritative offices, and to faithfully administer church discipline against them. I will burden myself to warn the sheep to keep a considerable distance or even to run desperately from these false teachers.

With more vigilantly, I mean to utilize all that I have to ensure the safety of the flock under my care. I resolve to use technology, what I believe to be my best tool, to remove these joy-destroying church leaders. I will make sure that voice recorders, pens, and notepads are always close when these wolves are around. I will mention names of those I see to be false teachers to my congregation if needed to ensure they know whom they ought to flee from.

As a young shepherd with the grace of the Master Shepherd, may the Sovereign help me.

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Christmas – Fertilizers to Non-Farmers?

Posted by Bernard Rosario On 10:52 AM 0 comments




Before telenovelas flooded our TV screens, there was a variation of primetime viewing: movies for Mondays, drama for Tuesdays, cartoons on Fridays (which I really loved). Sitcoms were included in the menu. Instead of tears rolling down your cheek, your laugh lines are being carved.

One of these sitcoms was “1 for 3”, a story of a house won by three singles (portrayed by Vic Sotto, Charlene Gonzales, and Rosanna Roces). Rosanna’s character was an attractive yet no-brainer woman. One time, she brought home two large sacks of fertilizers. They asked her if she would do gardening or farming where she negatively answered.  They asked her further, “O, bakit ka bumili niyan (Then why did you buy those)?” Her joyful response, “Buy one – take one eh!”

What makes this hilarious was she celebrates for something she does not need. She needs not to rejoice over fertilizers when she has no plants to nurture. Considering this, aren’t a lot of people funny then? The world is full of individuals celebrating Christmas but denying the need of a Savior. These do not need Christmas.

Jesus is His Name

Matthew 1:21 says that He was born and named Jesus “for he will save his people from their sins.” There is a great need to address. Christmas is needed because there is a great need to counter the enormous gripping and condemning power of sin. The power of sin and our need of a Savior from this sin is the plant for the fertilizer Christmas.

You Do Not Need Christmas if You Deny that...
 
I)           You are disgustingly and massively sinful. People who think that they are doing just fine and sees not enough filth in themselves, therefore, do not need Christmas. They do not need the Savior for they can manage their own sins. They may view themselves as not good enough but not that bad also. I don’t care how good they may feel about themselves. The Bible says that to the unbelieving “nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled (Titus 1:15).” And again in Isaiah 64:6, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

II)         GOD demands perfect righteousness from you. When I say “perfect” I mean just as it means with “perfect scores” in exams. 99 over 100 is not perfect. Perfection leaves no room for the slightest forms of mistakes. GOD demands His own perfection from us (Matthew 5:48). He leaves no room for our least transgression: there is no room for a single breath of pride, none for a millisecond glance of covetousness, none for a single lying letter in a truthful novel. People who deny this demand do not need the Christmas Babe because they are not in a hopeless situation.

III)       Your failure to meet GOD’s perfection arouses His intense wrath against you. A lot of the world sees GOD as an unreliable grandfather who raises up spoiled grandchildren. Experience and reason will confirm that this type of granddads do not deserve our utmost respect. Blessed be the GOD of Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” When individuals deny this wrath, then Christmas has no good to offer for them because GOD can consider them acceptable even in their uncleanness.

IV)      There is an appointed time of serious judgment against you. In ethics, there are certain circumstances that aggravate our guilt when committing acts. I deserve greater punishment when I kick the president than when I kick a beggar. The president’s excellency will dictate that. I will gain lesser condemnation when I box a criminal than when I box a new born baby. The baby’s innocence will demand that. Then how great is the judgment of us who sin against an infinitely majestic and infinitely holy GOD! Every person will give an accounting infront of the Judge who will pronounce judgment according to every deed we have done (Revelation 20:11-15). If people think that they can run away from all their transgressions then they don’t need Christmas.

V)        Your only hope is the Baby from the manger to the cross. The virgin’s boy is not just celebrated as being a boy. He grew, taught, healed, preached, was despised, died, and resurrected. He carried all my disgusting sins, bore every drop of GOD’s wrath for you and me. The infinite pain to be inflicted upon me for an infinite time, something that I deserve, was all directed exhaustively upon Him for just a few hours so that I may gain His perfect righteousness. Now, I become acceptable to GOD because of the great Substitute (2 Corinthians 5:21). His Name is Jesus indeed!

I am a disgusting sinner who is unable to meet GOD’s perfect standards, therefore, I am only good to swallow GOD’s fiery wrath in His righteous judgment. Yet, blessed be GOD who provided the salvation that I need in Christ. I need a Savior. I need Christmas. Do you?

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