Lustre News

Lustre News

After a mild week before Christmas, it has turned cold, hovering at -10 degrees at night.

Florence Marie Unrau Chalmers died Dec. 30 in Billings. No services have yet been planned. She graduated from LCHS in the class of 1955. Family includes Gerry (Bonnie) Unrau of Lustre, and Eldon (Elaine) Unrau of Billings and Arden (Darlene) Unrau of Enumclaw, Wash.

Steve Trimble has returned from Spain where he spent a week helping a missionary friend, Brian Dick, paint one of the Springs of Life boys’ dorms. He reported there were decorations all over the country and, in general, “the people know that Jesus came at Christmas. They know the who, where, when and how, but they do not know the ‘why’.”

Looking back 40 years in Lustre history, Robin and Lynette (Trimble) Froilland were married on a very cold Dec. 29 at the Bethel Wolf Point Church. They celebrated their 40th anniversary Sunday.

Dwaine Wall spoke on Colossians 3 at the Lustre house church on the Sunday between Christmas and New Years. He began with reading Genesis 1: 1-2, and verses in John 1 “when time began, The Word that became flesh was already present, creating. He is not created as the angels were.” He said “how quickly time passes if you anticipate a deadline, how slow it goes if you are waiting for time to pass.” He began in Genesis 2:18-25, showing “marriage was instituted before sin entered the world.” and that “the breakdown of the home began in Genesis 3:35,

when the serpent contradicted God’s Word and Eve believed him … God knew before the foundation of the world where the Adam and Eve were hiding.” It would be Eve’s desire to rule over her husband from then on, as part of her consequences. “The breakdown of the family is a sign of the end times, according to II Timothy 3:1-5. It is because we didn’t put off the old things and put on the new things as instructed in Colossians 3 that there are problems.” “Like Colossians 3 begins, II Timothy 3 describes what life looks like focused on self.” “God, through Paul, gave us instructions on relationships: first, ‘wives be submissive to your husbands.’ When you become married, you become one, but you are still yourself. She’s not me. I am not her. We retain our individuality. It’s not ‘do as I say’. Submission is a military term, denoting rank, and providing order. It means “to arrange under rank”. One is not lesser, but a recognition of different responsibilities”. “These commands do not apply to someone not married.”

“The second and third command in this passage is to husbands ‘Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter toward your wife.’ We have a great responsibility. It doesn’t seem fair for husbands to have more commands, but it reflects the gravity of their responsibility. The word Paul uses is agape love: sacrificial love, not romantic love; it’s the kind of love Christ has for His people. Considering the relationship the Church has to Christ, husbands are to be submissive to Him, too. The fourth command is ‘Children, be obedient to your parents in all things.’ But you cannot tell your children to go out and steal your neighbor’s tractor so you can use it, and expect obedience from them.”

The fifth command in Colossians 3 “is to both parents: ‘do not provoke your children to wrath’, because that will cause rebellion. Instead use gentle kindness, listening to them, giving clear instructions as ways to avoid anger and provoking them. The fifth command addresses slavery, as it was common and highly likely that if we lived back then, we would all have been Roman slaves. Paul was not involved in political causes or social change. He was interested in spreading the Gospel expressed in I Corinthians 15:3-4 and gave this command to live in peace, as

Jeremiah 29 says. The church in Paul’s day did not have the influence it had by the time of Wilberforce.

Jeremiah’s letter to the captives in Babylon was to ‘live in peace, take wives, bless the country you are living in, and I will give you peace’. Daniel and his three friends faithfully served the king, until they were asked to worship the king as God. Then they took the consequences of disobeying. In our day, it means to obey our employers with as much integrity and faithfulness as we can without disobeying God’s Word. Who was the Fourth Man in the furnace the king saw? It was Jesus. The same Jesus who created the world, who God said would crush Satan’s heel, and according to Colossians gives us the power through the resurrection of Christ to live out obedience to the commands given wives, husbands, children, employers and employees.

Colossians 3: 23 says to do whatever we do heartily as to the Lord. Headship is Christ’s order. To understand God better, His sacrifice for sin, and how Jesus Christ fulfilled the law, keep studying Bible as you enter this New Year.”