HBC Troubles: What in the world happened to Rod?

Rod did not outright confirm Scott's account. In fact, you have to parse it very carefully just to hope that it could still accord. It was meant to cast doubt on what Scott said, and not reveal any particular reasons beyond what had been said at his last sermon.

Of course, Scott was correct. Rod wasn't going to a paid pastoral position at another church. And he wouldn't be there long either. He wasn't leaving for something.

Revelation 2:8-11 - To the Church at Smyrna

To the Church at Smyrna

Rev 2:8-11

The Preamble

Jesus is the First and Last, and who Died and and came to Life again

The Praise
Jesus knows their afflictions, poverty and that they are rich

The Problem
Jesus knows the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not; they are a synagogue of Satan

The Prescription
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will put some of you in prison to test you; you will suffer persecution for ten days.

The Promise
Be faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.

Revelation 2:1-7 - To the Church at Ephesus

To the Church at Ephesus

Rev 2:1-7

The Preamble
Jesus holds the seven stars in his hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands

The Praise
Jesus knows their deeds, hard work, perseverance, intolerance of wicked men, testing of those who claim to be apostles and are not (correctly finding them false). They have persevered, endured hardships for His name, not grown weary, hate the practice of the Nicolaitans (which He hates).

The Problem
They have forsaken their first love

The Prescription
1) remember the height from which you have fallen
2) repent and do the things you did at first
3) if not, Jesus will come and remove their lampstand from its place

The Promise
To the overcomer, Jesus will give the right to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God

2.01 Reading Notes on Matthew 9

Matthew 9

New International Version (NIV)

The Calling of Matthew

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”


The setting still seems about or in Nazareth.  "As Jesus went on from there" suggests that Matthew's booth was situated on some "way" connected with the town.  Possibly a roadside location on the outskirts of the town or on a thoroughfare in town; presumably in a well trafficked space.

Matthew is apparently the same tax collector as Levi (Mark 2, Luke 5).  Mark names him the son of Alphaeus

Jesus Questioned About Fasting

14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman

18 While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
23 When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, 24 he said,“Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. 25 After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. 26 News of this spread through all that region.

Jesus Heals the Blind and the Mute

27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
29 Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; 30 and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” 31 But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.
32 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
34 But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”

The Workers Are Few

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Revelation 2 and 3: Parsing the Letters to the Churches

Parsing the Letters to the Churches

Rev 2-3

Many years ago I thought I saw a pattern in my reading through the letters to the seven churches. It's not a novel thought.

Five distinct parts of each letter were evident. For the sake of my own memory I called them:

The Preamble -- Jesus' introduction of his words by Himself ("these are the words of...")

The Praise -- What is good in the church

The Problem -- What is bad for the church (usually a problem at least partly within the body)

The Prescription -- What the church needs to do

The Promise -- What the church can expect if they do what is asked

Mostly, the order is the same in each letter.

What was particularly noteworthy was when I started to examine each segment in each letter independently, each segment message dovetails well with the other segments.

What is the relationship of the preamble with the praise? Or with the problems, prescriptions, and promises?

Jesus gives a different introduction of himself to each church, and it is very deliberate.

Simply by asking why is one section worded this way, a number of details present themselves as to what is going on with the church. We can pull out much of the information from the text itself. Outside books may lend more information but are not critical.

The phrasing "he who has ears to hear let him hear what is written to the churches" confirms the suspicion that the order of the churches is important. We see the pattern of an encyclical letter, multiple letters written to the churches, to be read by all as they traverse what is effectively an ancient postal route, from Ephesus to Laodicea.

HBC Troubles: Resignation Letter, given to Tom Leake

I spoke with Henry James, our small group leader, on Thursday, Oct 5th. He and his wife Thelma had been like surrogate parents, of a sort to us, and I didn't want him to find out about our intentions to depart from someone else. I sat with him, outlined our concerns, describing why we could not in good conscience remain at Hope Bible Church and be counted among those who, loudly or quietly, assented to the behavior of our elders. He appeared sympathetic, but unmoved. My concerns were trivial, mountains out of mole-hills. I produced the following letter the next day. Henry had asked to tell Tom Leake, but agreed to only say that Tom should talk to us. But he perhaps forgot so when the following Sunday Tom Leake sought me out, already knowing my intentions to leave. We chatted politely, perhaps kindly, he even hugged me and recommended a church nearer to us. Tom asked if I would be willing to talk about my concerns, and I said yes, and he said they would schedule something. And that was it. I handed my letter, and that was that.

(Later, after the below letter, and even after a much longer explanation was sent to Tom and Alan, I found out that to at least one respected brother who asked about where we had gone, Tom told him to his face that the Parkinsons didn't leave because of troubles at HBC, just a commute issue, and that we had even hugged when we left. I can't say whether he ever read any of my longer explanation, but hopefully from the letter below it should have been clear that we were not comfortable with where Hope was going. But perhaps I was too vague. If, as I suspect, Tom spoke about us after receiving the longer explanation then... well, I'm glad we're gone.

This was the end of a depressing affair. We were going to feel happy and liberated for a while. Then the loneliness and depression would come. But just to walk out of church free of the dark clouds that had consumed us since February and ruined all good opinion of this church, separated us from what seemed a family in Christ, and given us all manner of skepticism. We were happy the day I gave this and left.

HBC Troubles: Our first day out

Rebecca did not want to come. The girls stayed home too. I went alone, with my letter in hand. I sat through the sermon and when it was over, I got up to find Pastor Leake.

A dear sweet older sister in the faith, Scottish, blunt, came over and asked if we were discourage. I miss the bluntness. I told her yes. Not much. I did mention the building campaign. "Oh sweetie, you should have seen what our last church was like!"

HBC Troubles: Scott's Excommunication

And there it is, not wholly unexpected. They knew Scott was talking to some (an earlier email indicated that he had a very strong conscience about not reaching out to others, but responding to as many as contacted him). Commendable. The apparently divisive figure was most wary about dividing people within the church. That was not lost on us.

HBC Troubles: The Appendix that Took Us Out (Part 2)

In our minds, this was the last, best hope for Tom Leake to bring out the truth and convince us that he was in the right and Scott was categorically wrong. It may not be self-evident that Scott isn't wrong, that Tom and the remaining elders of HBC aren't victims, without more context, but just the wording and style of this writing alone should send up multiple warning signals that something isn't right.

We were really hoping for some great bombshell that would explain the sense of vindictiveness, the need for propaganda-like reassurances, the sense of damage control we got through this process. If there really was something big about Scott they were hiding for his sake, that there really was a Christian need to not address this the way normal people would expect.

HBC Troubles: The Appendix that Took Us Out (Part 1)

At last, the Elders Respond in Force! Our initial thoughts reading this email, which opened to a further Appendix detailing and addressing concerns in a point-by-point email, was that it was far better considered in writing than previous letters. If Scott Barao had truly wrong the elders, we would expect language along these lines and we were willing to extend some benefit of the doubt that we still missed critical details which would restore our confidence in Tom and Alan. Admittedly, we wanted to believe that we hadn't seen a complete 180 turn in character among people we trusted. And, although Scott presented himself consistently and credibly, we did not know him well enough to trust him.

The main body of the email itself did not give us much cause for concern and we really hoped what they would add would give us peace.

HBC Troubles: Reaching out to Rod

After the "Propaganda Letter" I was sufficiently suspicious. I reached out to Scott. Scott sent me a copy of the new letter he send to some people in his old group, addressing allegations made in the Tuesday night meeting. In that he hinted at his departure being connected to Rod's own.

Rebecca and I, disturbed by the building campaign, latched onto a number of phrases in Rod's last general letter, wondering if they indicated Rod had misgivings about how the elders had conducted it and in general about their path. Really, we wanted to believe that someone, someone, in the leadership had not been comfortable, because at least that indicated a conscience we might understand. Maybe this was connected to that? And was Scott's connected to Rod's?

HBC Troubles: Scott's "Note to My Flock"

By now the following is old news and it was sent a number of people in the community group Scott led, at least those who inquired of him following that Tuesday night meeting held in his absence. This was Scott attempting to present his side.

We withheld judgment, but he was a lot more straight with his words than what we got from the elders. He raised some good questions, some of which we hadn't considered. Still, I would have preferred things be presented more directly.It has a feeling of sowing doubts with the hope of provider answers to pry people away. I'm sensitive to that.

This statement sent off a lot of alarm bells:

Even if you knew all the truth and all the facts and saw all the emails, there is nothing you could do about it. You can probably not affect change. Two elders tried and where are they now?

Later I understood he wasn't referring to just the emails specific to this event. He had an archive of his history as an elder, and a fair amount of communication to back up a number of his claims as to how the elder board functions. Including what really happened to the first elder. It would be a month before I saw those, though.

Scott also names names, and gives a timeline of events. Right or wrong, this is how the elders should have addressed it. That they didn't was a big red flag. I couldn't help wonder if this was them hiding, while Scott, the apparent defector, wasn't.