Holy Helpers!

  A preacher, so the story goes, arrived in a small town on Sunday morning to begin a short gospel meeting. Wanting to mail a post card, he spotted a young boy on a bicycle. He pulled over and told the boy, "I’m new in town and need your help. Can you tell me where the post office is?" The boy told him, "We are on 1^st Street. Go down two blocks and turn right onto Main Street. The post office will be down one block on your right." The preacher was impressed and delighted with the young man’s simple but precise directions. He told the boy, "If you’ll come to church with me this morning, I’ll help you learn how to go to heaven." The boy thought for a second then said, "I don’t think I’ll come. You didn’t even know how to get to the post office."

Let’s get real. There are times when we need to receive help, and times when we need to give help. The Bible tells us about a Christian who excelled at helping others in Romans 16:1-2 where the apostle Paul gives a brief but beautiful cameo of Sister Phoebe. Here is his reference to her in its entirety: "I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also." What a wonderful commendation! I wish we knew more about Sister Phobe, but that single passage of two verses tells us everything the Holy Spirit wanted us to know about her. What we know about her is impressive indeed. Paul refers to her as "our sister" – and his clear meaning is,"our sister in Christ." Somewhere along the way Phoebe heard and believed the gospel of Jesus Christ and was born again of the water and Spirit into the family of God (John 3:3-7). But that wasn’t all. Paul also said she was "a servant of the church in Cenchrea" (a seaport town not far from Corinth). After dying to sin and being buried into Christ’s death, Phoebe "was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father" to "walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4). After she was baptized into Christ, this beautiful lady got busy serving! A lot of theological dust is kicked up as some use this verse to allege that Phoebe was part of a separate order of female deacons in the early church. While true the Greek word for "servant" (diakonos) can be translated "deaconness" (as some modern translations do), the same word is used repeatedly to refer to "servant / minister" in general in many passages. Brad Price, in his commentary on ROMANS, points out that this same word is used by Paul at Romans 13:4 to apply to human governing officials! There simply is no proof or reason to believe Phoebe was anything but a faithful, hard-working, always-serving child of God like so many God-fearing and faithful women (and men) in the church today. That makes them like Christ Himself and a part of the greatest of among us (Mark 10:43-45). And then, not surprisingly, Paul said, Sister Phoebe "has been a helper of many and of myself also." Beautiful! A great Christian lady, active in the church. We might call her a "holy helper" because she was intensely involved in God’s work. Thank God for holy helpers. May their number increase. Are you one of God’s holy helpers?

  Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Your Preacher Needs Help!

Preachers need help! Yes, they do. They are often joked about and laughed at, usually all in fun. I am a preacher! And I have heard / told many preacher jokes! For example– do you know who a preacher is? Answer: A man who talks in other people’s sleep." That is literally true, sometimes. But the preacher’s job is not to keep people awake! His task is to do his homework – that is, to read up, study up, pray up, and then stand up and speak up for Christ and the gospel. Those of us who preach can control and are responsible for being prepared. What we cannot control is if listeners who show up in the pews have played too hard or stayed up too late Saturday night, or are distracted by texting and Facebook and Snapchat while we preach! And we can’t help it if they tune out because they just don’t like us and decide to catch a few Z’s in the pew! But I digress. It does bother me if people doze while I preach, but then I remember – Peter, James and John fell asleep on Jesus at the most intense and critical moment of Jesus’s life in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-41). Jesus’ question to them in Matthew 26:40b is appropriate for a lot of church- goers who have no trouble staying awake through favorite TV shows or two-hour long movies or three- hour-long football games – "What? Could you not watch with me one hour?" And then, in Acts 20:7-10, the Bible said that a young man named Eutychus, bless his heart, sank into a "deep sleep" while the apostle Paul preached at Troas. Paul’s sermon was a long one – "until midnight" – and so overcome was Eutychus with sleep that "he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead." He was fortunate to have a miracle-working apostle there, and Paul raised him up. The only thing that saves some people from a deadly fall while sleeping during sermons is that pews are usually cushioned, and, it’s only a short fall onto the pew or shoulder of the person in front of or beside you! Maybe a good poke from a pew mate will wake them up! And in a few cases, maybe they came from a third shift job, bone-tired, but want to worship God even though weary. Or maybe a doctor’s prescribed medication is affecting them. Whatever the case, all week long, to quote an old preacher from yesteryear – "I read myself full, I think myself clear, I pray myself hot, and I let myself go!" What else can the preacher do? He can talk while you sleep – but that’s your problem! He can’t pay attention and listen for you!

Many Bible students consider the apostle Paul the greatest preacher who ever lived, except Jesus Himself. Paul wrote about half of the books of the New Testament and spread the gospel far and wide. The things God used him to preach and write continue to make a world-wide impact. But this great man realized all preachers, himself included, need help. In Romans 15:24ff he told Christians in Rome he wanted to go to Spain (to preach Christ) and declared, "I hope to see you on my journey, and to be helped on my way there by you." In verse 30 he begged them "to strive together with me in prayers to God for me" that he could be delivered from foes who sought to hurt him. It’s true friends – every gospel preacher you know needs that kind of help. How about it? Will you help your preacher, or hurt him?


Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN