PARENTHOOD
a divine stewardship

When we turn to education, both the Bible and experience have something to say to us. Speaking allegorically we might say that in rejecting Saul and choosing David God was passing over a man distinguished by his head (for he was that much taller than his peers) in favor of the man after His heart! But more seriously, the men such as Joseph and Moses and Daniel, of whose wisdom God made public use, each received in a direct way from God Himself the understanding they needed. They took little account of their secular education. And the apostle Paul clearly placed scholarship among the "all things" that he counted to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord (Philippians 3:8). He draws a clear distinction between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom that comes from God (1 Corinthians 1:21, 30)....

In the early chapters of the Acts we read how a contingency arose which led the Church to institute relief for the poorer saints. That urgent institution of social service was clearly blessed of God, but it was of a temporary nature. Do you exclaim, "How good if it had continued!"? Only one who does not know God would say that. Had those relief measures been prolonged indefinitely they would certainly have veered in the direction of the world, once the spiritual influence at work in their inception was removed. It is inevitable.

For there is a distinction between the Church of God's building, on the one hand, and on the other, those valuable social and charitable by-products that are thrown off by it from time to time through the faith and vision of its members. The latter, for all their origin in spiritual vision, possess in themselves a power of independent survival which the Church of God does not have. They are works which the faith of God's children may initiate and pioneer, but which, once the way has been shown and the professional standard set, can be readily sustained or imitated by men of the world quite apart from that faith.

The Church of God, let me repeat, never ceases to be dependent upon the life of God for its maintenance. Imagine a living church in a city today with its fellowship and prayer and Gospel witness, and its many homes and centers of spiritual activity. Some years hence what do we find? If God's people have followed Him in faith and obedience it may be a place filled more than ever with the life and light of the Lord and the power of His Word; but if in unfaithfulness to Him they have forsaken their vision of Christ, it may equally well have become a place where people preach atheism. By then as a church it will have ceased to exist. For the Church depends for its very existence upon a ceaseless impartation of fresh life from God, and cannot survive one day without it....

Assuming that as a Christian you take me seriously, then you are at once alarmed, and your reaction may even be to wonder if you had not better quit your profession. No, do not cease being a doctor! But walk softly, for you are upon territory that is governed by God's enemy, and unless you are on the watch you are as liable as anyone else to fall a prey to his devices.

How then, you ask, are we to be delivered from his entanglements? Many think that to escape the world is a matter of consecration, of dedicating themselves anew and more wholeheartedly to the things of God. No, it is a matter of salvation. By nature we are all entrapped in that Satanic system, and we have no escape apart from the mercy of the Lord. All our consecration is powerless to deliver us; we are dependent upon His compassion and upon His redemptive work alone to save us out of it. He is well able to do so, and the means whereby He does it will be the theme of our next chapter. God can set us upon a rock and keep our feet from slipping. Helped by Him we may turn our trade or profession to the service of His will for as long as He desires it....
(W. Nee, Love Not The World, Chapter Two, "The Trend Away From God," Printed by Living Stream Ministry in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Set 2, Vol. 39, pp. 67-75.)

APPLICATION

1. "Do we acknowledge that Satan is today the prince of education and science and culture and the arts, and that they, with him, are doomed?"

2. Why will not the rededication of ourselves anew and more wholeheartedly to the things of God be an effective way to escape the dominance of the world in our lives?

3. How will you apply the fellowship concerning the pervasive nature of the world in our environment to the training of your children?