So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:1-5
Peter begins chapter five with the subject of elders. He follows with how they should guide others. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being an example to the flock was highlighted in our last Acts 17:11 Bereans Bible study. 1 Timothy 3 also lists the qualifications for epískopos elders (overseers, bishops head pastors, etc.). Epískopos is the word from which supervisor is derived. He must be
above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive… 1 Tim 3:2-4
One thing seems certain. Left to ourselves and the ways that seem right to us Prov 14:12 we simply parent as we were parented and lead the way we were led.
What were the circumstances within which you came to know Jesus? How and by whom were you discipled? Consider that God is the potter. We are the clay. Isaiah 64:8 The circumstances He orchestrates or allows are the potter’s wheel upon which He conforms us. Rom 8:29
The wheel upon which The Potter has and is conforming me includes having been a delinquent teen, in active addiction, being a US Marine, and then a prison inmate. As a Christian, all of that translated to prison/addiction ministry and working with delinquent teens. Rom 8:28 I sometimes wonder how different I would be had I have been subjected to different circumstances. In a time when truth is qualified by its sweetness, Isaiah 30:9-10 I find myself increasingly prone to an abruptness that might be mistaken for apathy or even offense. Truth rooted in love may indeed be sweet. But so is deception. Hence the older I get the more I am convinced that sometimes truth spoken “in love” looks like an allegorical speed bump. Prov 27:5-6
Speed bumps are rough around the edges from years of being misunderstood and overrun. They aim to slow people down and take note of the car they nearly hit. Still, many are offended by speed bumps. Speed bumps have extensive knowledge of and experience with self-sacrifice. They save the lives of people who run them over, then curse them for disrupting their peace. Speed bumps are by nature brutally honest and politically incorrect. Still, they epitomize patience as they take hit after hit and never hit back. Curse them if you must. But speed bumps won’t budge. They are rooted in steel and cemented to rock.
The Diary of a Speed Bump
His name was Jeremy. He was 80 and had been a missionary in Honduras for over 40 years. He looked me up and down and asked, “So what do you do?” then cut me off before I could speak. “You see all these people here? All they talk about is themselves and what they do! No one talks about the Bible!” he said in apparent disgust.
“I’m a speed bump,” he blurted.
I stared not knowing what to say. “You know what? You’re a speed bump too,”
“I can see it in your eyes.”
I was in prison the last time I’d heard that.
It’s been over 25 years since I was arrested and sent to jail. It was the lowest point of my life. Yet it was God’s mercy. It ultimately became a testimony of God’s forgiveness, love, and transformative power. It is an ongoing well of empathy and wisdom in ministry to inmates and addicts. It is a point of connection and qualification with those who have experienced social death otherwise known as incarceration. It’s a source of discernment and authority to call a spade a spade.
The prison experience can be hard to describe to someone who has never been there. I liken it to a movie trailer for Eternity in Hell. As in the Eagle’s song Hotel California, people check out but the majority never really leave. The only way out of the revolving door of recidivism is in the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
To resolve to “live not by lies.”
Rump -Thump – Discordant Bump
No one likes a speed bump.
“Hey, you know – I was thinking?…”
began my three-hundred-pound Samoan bunkie named Paniani, “I wouldn’t wann-ahh…do or say anything that would make someone wanna kill me when I got out…” The implication was clear and made more poignant by the fact that on the previous day, we learned that another Christ-professing inmate friend was found dead, shot in the back of the head execution-style in the parking lot behind his church.
He’d been out less than a week.
A day or two later, a guy who’d already done 20 years for murder stopped me in the passageway and said, “Hey Gray, You know what my favorite part about shooting people is?” “What’s that?” I replied. It’s sticking this finger in the bullet hole.” he pressed his forefinger hard into my chest and laughed. I stared blankly not knowing what to say. “But don’t worry ain’t nobody body gonna mess with you…
…in here.” He grinned.
“I can see it in your eyes.”
But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 1 Peter 4:15
While I went to jail because I was evil. My life was threatened in jail because I changed sides and became a genuine Christian. In a word, I refused to live by lies. That made me a target. I had to watch everyone and everything. That included anticipating when and how I might be set up or trapped into getting sent to maximum security where I’d be “suicided” – strung from the rafters and made to look like I’d hung myself. I learned to depend on Jesus quickly.
Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 1 Pet 4:16
I was three years into a five-year sentence when I finally surrendered to the Way, Truth, and Life. John 14:6 More than anything, I was on fire for Truth. “Deny self, pick up your cross and follow me” meant exactly that. So did the last part of Rev 12:11 that many Christians redact. “…and they loved not their lives onto death” My motto became, “If you want me shut up then kill me.” In my view God gave his only begotten son to remove the body of death that hung around my neck. I’d had a clear view of how wretched I was and a revelation of the hell from which I’d been saved. Why should I fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul? Mat 10:28
Anything beyond the cross was ancillary.
I make no apologies for being a speed bump. That being said, there are times when I have confused a speed bump with a proverbial baseball bat. I must always be willing to consider where, when, and how my background might lead me to extremes in perception, belief, and the resulting behavior. One of my greatest challenges is that my intensity is often mistaken for anger or offense. In my zeal, I can appear domineering or overbearing. That is not my desire or intention and I’m working on that. I give permission to call me on it, and to question my attitude and approach. I need to remember that not everyone came to the Lord with such an intense revelation of their wretchedness and fast-approaching point of no return. That I needed to be hit in the head with a proverbial baseball bat (actually a shotgun blast) for truth to sink in does not mean that everyone does. In fact, the approach God used to save me might destroy another. I make no apologies for the truth that I have spoken. Yet if the tone in which it was or is ever communicated has resulted in anyone being offended then I apologize. I need to do a better job of learning and understanding the Potter’s wheels upon which others are being conformed. That said, I am not writing this out of a desire to gain the approval of man. I am doing so from a place of sincere fear of the Lord.
A great shaking is is upon us.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? 1 Pet 4:1
But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 1 Cor 11:31-32
See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Heb 12:25-27
Exposure is a first step in God’s judgment. God’s judgment is an aspect of His discipline that should lead to repentance. Its purpose is the preparation of a spotless bride. Eph 5:25-33
See that you do not refuse Him when shakes you.
