Life with the poor (Continued)
4:7 Do not hesitate when you give, and do not grumble when giving, for you will know who is the good Paymaster of the reward.
Matthew 5:12: “Jesus said, ‘Be full of joy and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.’”
Luke 14:14: “[Jesus said,] ‘And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’”
Sirach 12:2: “Do good to a godly man, and you will be repaid—if not by him, certainly by the Most High.”
Tobit 4:14: “Do not hold over until the next day the wages of someone who works for you, but pay him at once; and if you serve God you will receive payment.”
– Does God reward His saints in eternity?
Speaking about what it will be like on the Last Day for Christians, Jesus says:
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.
Then the righteous will answer Him, “Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or without clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visit You?”
And the King will answer them, “I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.” (Matthew 25:35-40)
– What does the Christian’s response, “When did we…” say about the saints doing the good works of faith, which God will reward?
– Discuss: Imagine enjoying another’s reward without your sinful nature being part of your being.
4:8 Do not turn away someone in need.
- Instead, share everything with your brother,
- and do not say that something belongs to you. For, if you [pl] are in communion with what is immortal, how can you not be with what is mortal?
Acts 2:44: “All the believers were together and shared everything in common.”
Acts 4:32: “All the believers were one in heart and soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they shared everything in common.”
– Who is the “someone in need”?
– What is the reason for this sharing of physical possessions?
Life with your children
4:9 Do not withhold your hand from your son or daughter, but from their youth teach them the fear of God.
“Withhold your hand” was an expression meaning “to neglect.” So the meaning of the first part of this verse is “Do not neglect your son or daughter.” Here, the Didache is simply affirming the vocation of parent, with particular focus on teaching the faith.
Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Colossians 3:21: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they won’t become discouraged.”
Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever withholds the rod hates his son, but the one who loves him disciplines him diligently.”
In 1662, Samuel Butler poem “Hudibras” was published, which stated, “Then spare the rod, and spill the child.” That was Butler’s understanding of Proverbs 13:24. However, Butler misunderstood that verse from Proverbs. Proverbs 13:24 neither affirms nor rejects corporal punishment. It simply does not deal with that topic. To understand this verse, we need to understand Israel’s shepherding culture. A shepherd used a rod for two reasons in relation to the flock: to protect a sheep from attack and to tap a sheep to keep it from wandering away.
– Apply this understanding to raising children.
Concerning the instruction of faith, here the Didache focuses on the “fear of the Lord.”
Psalm 34:11: “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.”
Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
– The beginning of wisdom recognizes what about God in relation to us?
– Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding what?
Life if you have slaves
4:10 When angry, do not give orders to your male or female slaves, for they hope in the same God. Otherwise, they might lose the fear of God, who is the master of you both. God does not come to call someone according to status, but those whom the Spirit has prepared.
Colossians 4:1: “Masters, treat your slaves with justice and fairness, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”
Ephesians 6:5-9: “Slaves … [be] slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, for you know that whatever good someone does, slave or free, he will receive this back from the Lord. As for masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, for you know that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.”
Ephesians 4:26: “In your anger do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.”
Matthew 5:22: “[Jesus said,] ‘But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.’”
– What danger can be compounded when an angry master gives his slave an order?
– What does the statement, “for they hope in the same God,” mean the Master will do to the slave’s conscience if he tells him to do something sinful?
– How can we apply this principle in a slave-master relationship to any relationship where one has power or authority over another?
1 Corinthians 10:12: “So, whoever thinks he is standing firm, watch out or else he may fall.”
Philippians 2:12-13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good purposes.”
– Can this conflict between right and wrong coerce the slave to choose between his master and God?
– What can this cause?
In Matthew 9:13, we see Jesus use similar language as the Didache. Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” If we were to combine the verses, since they are related in content, it would read like this: “God does not come to call someone (as if they are righteous according to status), but sinners, those whom the Spirit has prepared.”
1 Corinthians 1:18: Paul to the Christians in Corinthwrote, “For to those who are perishing, the Word of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God!”
– What does this say about God coming to us here and now, in the present tense, with His saving gifts to continue saving His people?
4:11 Slaves, be subject to your masters as the image of God in respect and fear.
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Excursus on the “Image of God” and the Doctrine of Vocation
Someone being the image or face of God to another is nothing strange. However, being in the image of God does include multiple dimensions. For example, some Bible passages affirm that God has created all human beings in His image. Yet, we also see that Christians are the image of God in a way that non-Christians are not. We also see that the saints in eternity are the image of God in a way that the saints on earth are not. And we also see that a man is the image of God in a way that a woman is not.
Yet, being the image of God in one sense does not deny being in the image of God in another. That’s because being the image of God to another is relational. The Bible passages below show how the new man (the new self given to someone in Christ) is relationally the image of God to the old man (the person according to his sinful nature). Yet, this does not deny that we were, at first, created in the image of God.
- Ephesians 4:22-24: “You were taught, about your former way of life, to put off the old man, who is corrupted by the lusts of deceit. Instead, be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new man, the one created in the image of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
- Colossians 3:9-10: “Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off the old man with its practices and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge, according to the image of his Creator.”
In these passages, Paul speaks of the new man as being in “the image of God” when compared with the old man. These verses simply state that when compared with the old man, the new man is in the image of God.
In our everyday lives, a person in his vocations comes as the image of God, as the face of God, to another. That’s why in his vocations, we are not to separate the person and God into two unrelated spheres. This applies to all Christians in their various vocations. Romans 8:29 says that Christians are “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.”
God works through Christians, in their ordinary tasks of life, to help care for others. In this way, God cares for everyone–Christian and non-Christian. On the surface, we see an ordinary human face–our mother, the doctor, the teacher, the restaurant server, our pastor–but, beneath the appearances, God is serving us through them. Each in his vocation is being the “image of God” to another. Each in his vocation is to serve another as the face of God to that person.
With this understanding, all our everyday tasks of service then take on a holy, spiritual reality. With God, each ordinary task becomes extraordinary.
Of course, we sin in and against our vocations. God did not call parents to abuse their children, but to love and serve them. God called doctors to help heal patients, not kill them. Government officials are not called to oppress their citizens, but to protect them.
And yet, even though we sin and fall short in our vocations, God continues to work in and through them, even despite ourselves.
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– Discuss the “image of God” and the doctrine of Vocation with the Didache’s statement: “Slaves, be subject to your masters as the image of God in respect and fear.”
Being the “image of God” to another is simply another way to understand what we went over last week:
To go to Lesson 8, click here.
