Dispensations in Parenting

In my last post on dispensations I promised a follow-up on how this can apply to parenting.  So you will want to be familiar with that list in order to understand this article.  Click the link to read that.  I have inserted numbers here and there to indicate which dispensation I am referencing.


When children are born, they are innocent (1); they do not have a knowledge of good and evil. At some point they do learn of good and evil, right and wrong. This is a different time for every child. Sometimes you can see the 18-month old that knows not to touch the plant, by the look in their eye—you know that look. This is not to be confused with the "age of accountability", I believe that comes at an older age.  That is the age when a child realizes their sinfulness and their need for a Savior.  With the really young child we are talking about the conscience stage (2). At the point we begin to see that the child has a knowledge of right and wrong, we institute rules of the house. This is the government stage (3), family government. We institute consequences to help them choose right, because if left to their own devices, they will inevitably choose wrong.

As our children grow, we should be teaching our children about God’s promises (4)—His blessings, His favor, His grace, His character. We should be teaching our children about God’s principles, His laws (5) and why they were given, His standards and how we cannot measure up, His symbolism showing His plan for a Savior. Don’t present God’s law just as a back-up for your rules. This is manipulation. We should be teaching our children about God’s Spirit (6) and how He indwells us and enables us to meet His standards; how He works in us our whole lives to conform us to the image of Christ. And finally we should be teaching our children about the Kingdom of God (7), how He is returning to rule on the earth, how He is going to judge our works and reward us, and how we can rule and reign with Him. This gives them hope--hope that one day all will be made right in the world, good will triumph over evil.

If we leave any of these categories out, we fall out of balance. If we decide to use family government and God’s law, but leave out the aspects of God’s Spirit enabling us and His promises of blessing that He has for us (separate from our works), this is called legalism. Legalistic families produce children that are full of resentment, rebellion, self-righteousness, and possibly even end up rejecting the faith.

Conversely, some families want to disregard the government (3) and law (5) categories because they know that God loves them unconditionally and makes His grace abound toward us. They know that He does not pour out wrath and punishment on us (He already did that with Christ and He was our substitute). So the tendency is to be lenient with our children. God is merciful with us, so shouldn’t we be merciful with our children? We are no longer under the law, so why are we putting our children under it?  The tendency is not to discipline but just to try to convince kids through reasoning that they should behanve.  But if you leave out government and law, you will produce children with no godly character, and their lives will suffer because of it.

Too many of us just stop at the stage of government. We really just want to keep control of our children. But who are our children anyway? Why did God give them to us?

In this area as well as all others we need to take in the whole counsel of God. I believe that looking at God’s plan for man, these 7 dispensations, will help us parent more completely. The goal should be to teach our children that God loves them unconditionally, even though they are sinners. They need Christ, not only to save them, but to empower them to live their lives the way God planned, to be conformed to the image of Christ, developing godly character. They will never be perfect, but they can press on, as Paul put it. The earlier they learn these principles, the more peace they will have in their lives—with their siblings, with you, with teachers, coaches, with friends, eventually co-workers, a spouse, and their own children. And most importantly, we need to teach them how to know God and hear His voice. If they won’t receive correction from us, how will they receive correction from God’s Word as adults?

Please don’t think I have mastered this. I am learning, too. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp, and Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp.

Dispensations

I'm studying Ephesians right now and have come to verse 10.  In this verse we see the word dispensation.  What is a dispensation?  It is the Greek word is oikonomia.  It means the management of household affairs, or administration.  It's simply the rule of the house, the way things operate for this time.  It is used 4 times as dispensation (I Cor. 9:17, Eph. 1:10, 3:2, & Col. 1:25) and 3 times as stewardship (Luke 16:2-4).  Some translations will use the word stewardship rather than dispensation.  I use the NKJV, which is based on the Textus Receptus.  In Eph. 3:9 there appears a word for fellowship--koinonia.  But some translations are based on the Alexandrian text, which uses the word oikonomia in that verse instead  Just something to be aware of.  The NKJV reads, "fellowship of the mystery", the ESV reads, "plan of the mystery", and NASB reads, "dispensation of the mystery."

 

Heb. 1:1 – God works in different ways in different times. This does not mean that God tried one thing and it didn’t work so He tried something else. The reason for each of these periods is to lead man to the cross, until the final period where Christ will reign forever.

 

These dispensations help us understand the overall plan of scripture. They help us have a big picture perspective.  Understanding these dispensations particularly helps us understand how we are no longer under the law.

 

So, what are the different dispensations?  There are seven, here is a list.  I interpret them slightly differently than some.  You may ask, "who cares?"  Does this information really do us any good in our day-to-day life?  For one, I will use them to explain the Sheep and the Goats post.  And I see a very practical aspect applied to our parenting.  I will post about that soon.

 

1. Innocence (Gen. 1:28) – from creation to the fall. How long did it last? We don’t really know, but we do know it ended when they sinned. They were no longer innocent at that point.

 

2. Conscience/Moral Responsibility (Gen. 3:7) – from the fall onward. You now know good and evil, I will leave you to your conscience to choose between those. But man tends toward evil, so we get up to Gen. 6:5 and God says that ALL the purposes of man were evil continually.

 

3. Government (Gen. 8:15) – from the flood onward. After the flood there were consequences for evil. Man was still accountable to his conscience to choose between good and evil, but God added an incentive. He says that anyone that takes a human life will have his taken away. We see the value God is placing on human life here. If you can’t govern yourself, someone else will have to. See also Rom. 13.

 

4. Promise (Gen. 12:1) – from the call of Abram onward. This promise was not based on anything Abraham had done; it was unconditional. All Abraham had to do was believe. This promise is still available to us by faith, as well. So this dispensation, too, has not gone away. Gen. 12 & Gal. 3, 4. God is now teaching humans to trust in Him.

 

5. Law (Ex. 19:1) – from Mt. Sinai until Jesus (or specifically John the Baptist—Luke 16:16). Promise does not end and the Law did not bring justification. It brought a picture of the Savior. It brought many, many types and shadows to point us to the cross. You can study everything in the law, from the Sabbath, to the Feasts, to the elements of the Tabernacle, to the Dietary Laws, to the specific instructions to the priests on how to administer offerings, to the laws for declaring leprosy cleansed, and you will see Christ through and through. Beyond all the symbolism, the law was meant to frustrate man and show him he could never make it on his own, even with conscience and human government.

 

6. Church (Acts 2:1) – from Pentecost until the rapture. This is sometimes called the Age of Grace (I do not agree with this title) or the Dispensation of Faith (again, I don’t think this is entirely accurate), or the Dispensation of the Spirit. This is the mystery Paul is talking about, the secret that was hidden, not revealed in the OT, that Gentiles and Jews would be part of the same Body, and that the Spirit would indwell us. These were mind-blowing truths. This is one of the reasons Paul prayed for revelation for the people he was writing to. We need to pray this pray, too, that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes to these profound truths.

 

· Do we still have moral responsibility (#2)? Yes, but now we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, to give us the power to choose right and wrong, and our human spirits have been recreated in the image of Christ—it wants to follow after Him.


· Do we still have human government (#3)? Yes, we do, but if we walk according to the Spirit, we don’t have to be afraid of the government. If they put us to death for righteousness sake, the Bible says we’re supposed to be happy.


· What about the law? Does it still stand? I Tim. 1:8-10 says that the law is not for the righteous—we have been made the righteousness of Christ—but for the lawless, the ungodly, the sinners. The law still stands to point people to Christ, to show them their need. The law still stands as a standard in our world, that if people would follow it, our world would be a better place to live in. The law does not justify us, but it sets the standard and grace gives us the power to live it.

 

7. Kingdom (Rev. 20:4) – from Armageddon onward. The visible rule of the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth. We can see II Sam. 7:12-16, Is. 9:6-7, Luke 1:31-33, Rev. 3:21, and Matt. 25:31. He came once to die, the second to reign.

  

Now, the thread that is common throughout all these dispensations is grace. That is why I do not call the Church Age the Age of Grace. Every single age has been the age of grace. It was God’s grace that blocked Adam and Eve from the Tree of Life. He did not want them to live forever in their fallen state. It was grace that God had on Cain when He marked him and sent him away. It was grace that saved Noah and his family. Grace called Abram out of Ur. Grace redeemed Israel from their bondage to the Egyptians. Grace came and dwelt among us. Grace will rule on a literal throne forever and ever. The other side of this coin is faith. You can read about people of faith throughout all the past in Hebrews 11. Just like them, we are saved by grace, through faith, in whatever age we live.

The Sheep and the Goats

To finish my series on Matthew 25 I have to include the Sheep and the Goats. At first I would have called this the parable of the Sheep and Goats, but I don't know if this qualifies as a parable. It does use some symbolism, though. To read about the first parable in this chapter click here. To read about the second parable click here and here, for part two.

I'm trying to keep my tag list as clutter-free as I can and include mostly books of the Bible, to be more of a cross-reference system. But if I were tagging traditionally, I would tag this blog with words like law, grace, wrath, works, punishment, condemnation, justification, sanctification, heaven, and hell. So think of those things as you read through this.  After you read this, I have a few questions for you.  I will publish a Part 2 to this post to address those questions.

Matthew 25:31-46

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.  And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.  Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?  When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?  Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’  And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

“Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’  Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’  And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Have you ever wondered about this story in the Bible?  Have you ever felt condemned reading it?  Does it make you squirm?  What does it tell us about law and grace?  What about unconditional love?  What about verses like Romans 8:1, I Thessalonians 1:10, I Thessalonians 5:9, II Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:4-6, or Ephesians 2:8-9?  Does this story illustrate verses like Revelation 22:12?
I would love to hear your thoughts and I will post a follow-up soon.  Thanks!

What is Grace?

I listened to a fabulous message the other day by John Bevere. You can listen to it, too, here.

He included a great analogy that has really stuck with me.

Imagine a tribe that lives in the bush, in Africa. They live far from all amenities. They have to travel far for water. They have to travel really, really far for medical supplies. They have to go out and hunt their food and then carry the heavy load back to the village. They have no connection to the outside world--no radios, no TV, no Internet. They have no A/C in their huts. And on and on and on.

We decide to grace them, to show them favor, to give them a great gift. We buy them a Land Rover. We bring it over and explain many of its benefits. We show them the A/C, heater, DVD player, Satellite Radio--really awesome things, that will benefit their lives. They are in awe and ask how they can pay for this. No, no, no, this is a FREE gift. We are giving it to them and expect no payment.

We leave and then come back to visit in 10 years. We find that the Land Rover is still sitting in the same spot! We find the odometer reads 0 miles! Why haven't they used it? Why haven't they taken advantage of the benefit of using it for transporting water, medical supplies, food, and more? Why haven't they used it to make their lives better?

Because we FAILED to explain to them the PRIMARY function of the Land Rover--transportation! We explained other good benefits, but not the primary benefit. They wrote songs about how great this gift was, they wrote books about it being a free gift that they didn't earn, they preached sermons about how it covered them when they climbed in to get out of the rain. But they WASTED our gift!

Is Jesus going to come back and see that we have wasted His gift of grace? We write songs about how amazing His grace is--and it is. We write books about how it's a free gift that we could never possibly earn--and it is. We preach sermons about how it covers all our sin--and it does. BUT, we are not teaching people the primary purpose and that is...

Empowerment!

Grace empowers us to overcome sin, overcome our weaknesses, overcome the world, overcome the devil, to be all that God has planned for us to be!

There is much more to the message and I encourage you to listen to it. The different references that were used were Eph. 3:9-10 Msg, Rom. 5:18 Msg, Gen. 1:27 Msg, II Cor. 12:9 TEV & NLT, II Pet. 1:2-3, John 1:16, I John 4:17, I John 2:6 NLT, II Cor. 7:1 TEV, Heb. 12:14, Heb. 12:28, II Cor. 6:1 TEV, John 20:21, Acts 4:33, Acts 6:8 NLT, Luke 2:40, John 14:12, Rom. 5:17 TEV, Dan. 6:3 NASB, Dan. 1:20. Look all of these up and see what the Holy Spirit wants to teach you. All unmarked references are NKJV.

Book Review: God Loves Me More Than That

I really, really enjoyed this children's book, and so did my 5-year old daughter. It perfectly illustrates Ephesians 3:17-19.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and
deep is the love of Christ,and to know this
love that surpasses knowledge--that you may
be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The author (Dandi Daley Mackall) and delightful illustrations (David Hohn) make it easy for children to see how God loves them higher than the moon in the sky, deeper than a treasure chest in the sea, wider than an open prairie field, and much, much more. Communicating to our children how awesome God's love is for them is so very foundational. Pick up this book to read to your child. You'll be glad you did.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Parable of the Talents pt. 2

This is part two of two posts on the Parable of the Talents. You can read the first part here.

I asked some questions last time, and here I will lay out what I believe the answers are. But remember, do your own study, come to your own conclusions.

Who is the lord? God.

Who are the servants? Christians. Not all believe this. I have heard it preached that the foolish servant was not a believer. I don't agree because in verse 14 you see the lord called his own servants. This reminds me of Romans 8:28. These are the called. These are the lord's servants, the unsaved are not serving God. And God is not lord of the unsaved.

What is a talent? A talent was a measure of weight used back in Bible times. This was a weight of gold or silver given to these servants. This is why I have always heard this passage taught in the context of financial stewardship, but I believe this has a broader application. I believe that the word talent means just that--a talent or a gift. There are many, many passages that refer to gifts God has given us. Some that come to my mind are Romans 12:6, I Corinthians 7:7, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 3:7, Ephesians 6:7-8, I Timothy 4:14, II Timothy 1:6, I Peter 4:10, Proverbs 18:16. God has given you a gift, or gifts. What have you done with them?

What does this parable mean? This parable illustrates the Bema Seat of Christ. The Bema Seat in Roman times was the seat of judgment. Jesus was brought before the Bema Seat to see Pilate (Matthew 27 & John 19), and Paul was brought before the Bema Seat to see Gallio, in Achaia, and Festus, in Caesarea. We will all stand before the Judgment (Bema) Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10 & II Corinthians 5:10). I believe this is what I Corinthians 3:9-15 is referring to. Our works will be judged, but our spirit's will not. That was done when Christ hung on the cross. All sin was judged when He took the penalty. This is about rewards.


What is the outer darkness? I have always heard this referred to as hell. Some will teach that the servant that buried the talent wasn't really saved and is sent to hell. Others will teach that all were saved, but the servant that buried his talent lost his salvation, and thus was sent to hell. But I present a third option to you.

Outer darkness in Greek is exoteros skotos and it means simply the darkness outside. Charles Stanley, Kenneth Wuest, Erwin Lutzer, Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, and Warren Wiersbe all agree this is not hell. Thayer's Greek/English Lexicon says that the outer darkness is "the darkness outside the limits of the lighted palace." Kenneth Wuest in his Expanded Translation of the Greek New Testament said, "The outer darkness is the darkness that is outside of the King's banqueting house." That is very interesting to me, in light of what I presented about the Parable of the Virgins and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. You can read about that in this post.

What does weeping and gnashing of teeth mean? This phrase has always sounded so strange to me. Obviously the weeping part is simple--it is weeping. And gnashing of teeth means profound regret.

So, is the outer darkness a place apart from God's light and joy, where we will weep and feel profound regret? IF...we do not steward the gifts and talents that God has given us? Remember that Revelation 21:4 says that God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. Why are they crying?

Whatever it is, it is not a place of punishment. Remember Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus." Are you in Christ? If so, you have nothing to fear. All sin was judged at the cross. If you have accepted the work that Christ did on your behalf, God has forgiven you of your sin, and therefore you cannot be punished.

Parable of the Talents

This parable follows the Parable of the Virgins, that my last post focused on. I am splitting this post up into two parts, so stay tuned. A few questions to think about--"What does this parable mean? Who is the lord? Who are the servants? What is a talent? What is this outer darkness? What does weeping and gnashing of teeth mean?"

Matthew 25:14-30

14 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. 15 And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.

16 Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. 17 And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. 18 But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.

19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ 21 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

22 He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ 23 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

24 “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ 26 “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. 27 So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. 29 ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’