20th March 2025

20th March 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 20v12)


Message (Scott Woodburn)


There are very few people in this world who can genuinely say they are answerable to no one. We might act like Kings and Queens but that attitude quickly dissipates when Monday morning arrives. To help us understand our duties under the fifth commandment, the Larger Catechism speaks of superiors, inferiors and equals. What is to be understood by these terms? 


Consider the imaginary “Ballynahinch Spaceship Company”. Tony is the manager and he has an office all to himself which has a lovely view of B&M. Sam is Tony’s deputy and it is his responsibility to manage the nuts and bolts of office life. The ten other staff members all have various responsibilities and work together to help the company succeed. Tony is not a perfect person but everyone in the company is answerable to him. Sam is Tony’s inferior but equally is in a superior position to the majority of the staff. Finally the rest of team are on equal footing but have both Tony and Sam over them in positions of authority. 


All of us will recognise such a scenario and could perhaps speak to our own experience as superiors, inferiors and equals, but let’s consider how we are to act as inferiors. Let me stress that I don’t mean that you are a lesser person, just that sometimes you are not the King of the world. How can we honour our superiors? By treating them with the respect they are due in how we think and speak about them and how we act towards them. We are to pray for those who the Lord who placed in authority over us and we are imitate the best of their actions and behaviours.


When our superior commands us to do something lawful we are to happily obey - understand he has no right to demand we break God’s law or the law of the land. Furthermore, when our superior corrects us we are to receive their guidance gladly and when our superior makes a mistake we are to bear with them and love them all the more.


There is something very human about stamping our feet when someone exercises their authority over us. We see it in workplaces, family homes and in the very beginning we saw it in the garden. Yet as we seek to rightly respond to the Gospel we are to always honour our superiors. We must put aside all arrogance, self righteousness and pride and out of love for Christ we are to gladly take the role of the inferior when required. May the Lord give us the humility to obey. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q36 What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification? The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.