“All At It”

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evangelizing, faith, humor, insanitybytes22, life, Spurgeon, women

First I’m going to plug this book, “Worthy; Celebrating The Value of Women,” by Elyse Fitzpatrick and  Eric Schumacher.

It’s because of their work that I really became aware of this Spurgeon sermon, “All At It.” It is just fabulous. I really enjoy Spurgeon, somewhere around here I have handful of posts about him, but this particular one is so timely, so right on the money, I have to stop and just delight in it.

For anyone who has ever been counted out, silenced, knocked down, devalued, declared unworthy, ahhhh, we have an App for that. “All At It” is about, “THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE WORK OF EVANGELIZING.”

I could just quote this whole thing, but I’ll leave you to read it at the link. Here are just a few highlights, “As in heaven there is no temple because it is all temple, so in the church of God there is no priesthood because it is all priesthood.”

Gosh, I’ve been saying that since forever! Not saying it quite so eloquently, but that’s the essence and a hearty amen! All these churchian hierarchies have just got to go.

I’ve been living in crazy land for far too long. The way we in the Western Christian world build idols to credentials, authority, status, roles, celebrity, can just be so overwhelming, and lead to such complete nuttiness. All in good humor here, but I am still stinging from the rejection of being passed over in favor of an atheist. He had a theological degree, “a credential.” I did not.

The Lord works in mysterious ways and I am sure He has this madness all sorted out, I am just saying that in the modern world we tend to put on so many phony labels, false markers of worth and value, it’s a bit like the numbers on a bathroom scale are supposed to tell you whether or not you are the cools kid’s club today. So often forgotten is the simplicity, the purity of,  “I met the most extraordinary Man, and now I must go and tell the others!”

Spurgeon’s words just fly in the face of John MacArthur and so many of the others still busy trying to keep women out, when he says, “We cannot say to the women, “Go home, there is nothing for you to do in the service of the Lord.” Far from it, we entreat Martha and Mary, Lydia and Dorcas, and all the elect sisterhood, young and old, rich and poor, to instruct others as God instructs them.”

And by the, “modern Western world” I mean, Sept 16, 1888. This rubbish is really as old as dirt, these human hierarchies and arguments about who gets to go first, who is more important, go all the way back to the disciples. Spurgeon is speaking up against  the prevailing thought of the day, his day, our day, the disciple’s day.

Spurgeon’s words are convicting too, because there’s a flipside, there’s a shyness and a fear and a laziness already, and when people are saying, let the pastor do it, let the prayer committee do the praying, let the professionals evangelize, all heaped up with, “woman go home,” one just gets very sleepy, one’s eyes tend to just glaze over. Many of us should very much like to just stay home, stay in bed really, and avoid ever rocking the boat.

So, “All At It.” I met the most extraordinary Man, His name is Jesus, and now I must go tell the others….

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