A Puny Pastor and What You Can Do About It!

 I've been very sensitive about my lack of height since I was old enough to understand that I was short. Being taller was a fairly common personal prayer burden during my junior high and high school days of shortness. I wasn't praying for a 6'9'' miracle mind you, but I was praying for a 5'10' or more kind of outpouring of mercy from God. The fact that I loved basketball complicated matters, as did my pervasive thinness of bodily frame. Add to this comments from self-appointed-body-critics: "you're ankles look like tooth pics" or "I bet my sister weighs more than you do," and the psychological damage was done. I must admit to you that after all these years I still feel the sting of a good short joke, and even tend to find a kind of pleasing pain in finding references to smallness in the weighty writings of our church fathers.

John Calvin reminds us of one reason why God has given the task of preaching and teaching to puny men. Ah, there it is. Even Calvin has can't resist talking about me...and then, after I get up off the inner black couch of my un-dealt with insecurities, I actually get what he's saying.

It's often a humbling exercise of grace and maturity to listen to a "puny man" preach the Word  of God. I do not believe that Calvin's word choice here was in any way aimed at those shorter or skinnier pastors among us. I think he is referring to the reality of who ever pastor actually is. At our best, we are all just puny men risen from the dust by the mercy of God. If you're a pastor, well, welcome to the puny club.

‘when a puny man risen from the dust speaks in God’s name, at this point we best evidence our piety and obedience toward God if we show ourselves teachable towards his minister although he excels us in nothing’ 

The danger for people who sit in church and listen to a pastor preach or teach week after week is that they might see a little man with little prestige (or humor, or intellect) and simply right him off as an idiot. The other danger, which in my area seems to be a bigger problem is that  they might see a big man who has some kind of shortcut to godliness. So, they simply right him off as being otherworldly or of the super- spiritual kind and in no way connected to "how real people live."

In both cases the preaching and teaching of God's Word is then lost in the discounting of the man. It should come as no surprise that this not-embracing-biblical-truth is quite pleasing to our very real enemy who would like nothing more that for us to right off all proclaimers of the Word of God.

The danger for a pastor (like myself) is that he might either forget that he is truly "a puny man risen from the dust to speak in God's name" or that he might think being puny in his spiritual maturity (that is his personal relationship with God) is just the way he is...

Week after week those listening to him are left trying to receive biblical encouragement and instruction from a little man who is not overly concerned with his lack of love and knowledge of God and His Word. We as pastors often blame our peoples' tendency to fall asleep in our sermons on their spiritual coldness, but I wonder how much it actually says about our spiritual lethargy and powerlessness(?). Our spiritual pastoral puniness strikes me as a very real, dangerous situation.

Let me encourage those of you who are not pastors then to pray for your pastors. R.A. Torrey comments on this matter based on Ephesians 6:17-20 in his helpful and convicting little book, Power Through Prayer:  

"Here we see the power to bring blessing and boldness and efficiency to ministers of the Gospel. A minister may be made  a man of power by prayer, and he may be unmade and bereft of power by people failing to pray for him" (pg 34-35).

That last little bits scares me.

So, I unashamedly sound an alarm on behalf of all pastors: don't stop praying for your pastors! Maybe this strikes you as selfish coming from a pastor, but I truly believe that pulpits filled week after week with praying, powerful, pure, biblically potent preachers would be like water in the dessert for churches all across the world!

So pray for us, and don't forget that we are just puny men risen from the dust to teach and preach God's Word to you. We need your prayers.

The Gospel, Godly Weave

 In the late eighties, or maybe it was the early nineties, I got caught up in a particular cultural fad for about 2 weeks. Everybody between the ages of seven and seventeen was wearing homemade bracelets and necklaces. These treasured items were sometimes woven together by the loving hands of one's fifth grade girlfriend or often times by one's own skillful and creative hands. Many young people wore a whole slew of these decorative woven thread on their wrists and a few around their neck as well. I recall with amusement making my own share of these bracelets. I would borrow a hardback book from our stash of kids books, as well as a few rolls of thread from my mom's sewing basket and begin  working on my masterpiece. The way I was taught involved taping the three different colored threads to the top of a book and then weaving them together with braiding skill. Do to the fact that I grew up in a family of five boys I hadn't spent very much time braiding much of anything, so the skill had to be learned until I was pretty adept at the basic three strand weave (I don't know if that's the official name for it, but then again, I grew up in the ball, bat, and bug land of five boys).

I do have to admit that there is something captivating about even the three strand weave. Some of the more accomplished bracelet weavers of my day could pull out some pretty sic weaves, but I moved on to other personal fads before I could master the art.

All this to say, I am still fascinated by things that are woven together...different parts pulled together to form a creative, artistic, colorful, unified whole.

This is one reason I love the Bible. The reality is, -- and this phrase, "the reality is", is about three more personal uses away from being a banned phrase in my speech repertoire because my daughter has informed me that I overuse it...and now that I've been alerted to it I find she is right -- understanding the Bible is like tracing the treads of a massive, beautiful tapestry thread by thread in order to discover how they all connect. The unity of the Bible is astounding with over 40 authors involved over a period of thousands of years!And somehow (divine inspiration I would argue), each author's part ties in so deeply, so significantly to all the other parts the result is a beautiful, organic tapestry, a picture, a story of redemption.

So, here is one such biblical weave that I preached on yesterday and am still meditating upon today.

I think it's interesting how the Apostle Paul weaves the work of Christ (the gospel) and godliness together in I Timothy 3:14-4:10. So that the glory of Christ (3:16 & 4:10) is tied right in with godly christian conduct as a part of church community (3:15), biblical clarity in dealing with issues of false teaching (4:5), and the personal intense pursuit of godliness in a believer's life (4:7-8).

This intrigues me especially because our vision as a local church is to spread a passion for the glory of Christ by making disciples in our communities, Savannah and the world! So in this text I see a connection between lifting high the truth of Jesus Christ (as the truth that is on display on that one big church pillar in 3:15) and the truth of Jesus Christ being lifted high more personally in our own hearts, homes, and churches.

I think it's a temptation to disconnect a noble idea (and gloriously biblical one as well, I might add) like "spreading a passion for the glory of Christ" from pursuing the knowledge of Jesus Christ in our hearts and homes. I think it's also a very real temptation to disconnect the idea of "spreading a passion for the glory of Christ" from zealous discipleship in our local churches. But this is a mistake. In fact, it's a really big mistake.

We must get this through our muddled minds, even if it means making a t-shirt with this forthcoming caption and sleeping in it every night:

We will not spread a passion for the glory of Christ until a passion for the glory of Christ spreads within our own hearts, homes and church. 

Paul tells us that the mystery of godliness is found in the very open and clear life, work, death and resurrection of Christ (3:16). The mystery of God's saving work on behalf of all the peoples of the earth is finally made plain with the coming of King Jesus as Savior and Lord of all!

This reality, this truth is not only the way of salvation for sinners but the way of godliness for saints. If we are in Christ we have been remade, but the remaking is not done until Christ comes back and fixes all that is broken in us. In the meantime, we press onward in the way of godliness or the way of righteousness. But how do we progress, how do we become godly biblical people?

Of course, there are many good biblical ways to answer that, but I am trying to go right to heart of it. Since Jesus did all that was necessary to open the way of godliness for all people who trust in his saving work, it makes good biblical sense to say that he continues to do all that is necessary for our continued progress on this godly way. 

But how does he do this? Or better yet, does this mean that we just sit around and wait for Christ to make us holy, to make us more godly? Here's how Paul might say it, "For to this end we strive, because we have our hope set on the living God..." (I Timothy 4:10) or "For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (Colossians 1:29).

Like Paul we must train, fight and even suffer for personal godliness (I Timothy 4:7-8) and for the godliness of others in the power of hope in God. We hope in God as we fight for godliness in our own hearts and lives. We struggle and suffer for the godliness of our kids, our friends, our neighbors...Why?  Because our hope is in God, that's why, and Jesus is the Savior of all men!

This is what it looks like, what it feels like to have a passion for Christ spreading within our own hearts and homes! So let us pray and persevere for godliness! May the threads of a godly personal passion for Christ's glory and the ongoing spread of this glory in our world be woven together so that all might behold the glory of the One Savior and King of the world!

Amen.

Jonathan Edwards Helps Us Grow Up in Truth

Jonathan Edwards (a great man of God, who had a great mind and ,well, great hair it would seem) gives us a few practical suggestions for making progress in our Christian knowledge....and I believe they are worth noting:

1. "Be assiduous in reading the Holy Scriptures." The fact that he uses one of my favorite words "assiduous" is beside the point. The point is - go after the Word with determination! Or as he puts it, "Therefore, let not this treasure lie by you neglected."

2. "Content not yourselves with only a cursory reading, without regarding the sense." Too many of us are way to content to simply read the Bible without ever really thinking,  much less thinking about what we're reading it in light of the rest of the Bible. This is a huge problem in the average American church. We are Biblicaly simple and naive. But a good dose of "regarding the sense" would go along way toward producing robust  (another one of my favorite words) theological Christians. Edwards reminds us again, "For the Scripture, by the harmony of its different parts, casts great light upon itself." I like how he councils those listening to preaching with this mindset, "When you have it explained in the preaching of the Word, take notice of it; and if at any time a scripture that you did not understand be cleared up to your satisfaction, mark it, lay it up, and if possible remember it." Mark it, lay it up and remember it. I like the ring of that!

3. "Procure, and diligently use, other books which may help you to grow in this knowledge." We have an overwhelming amount of rich biblical literature available to us and ease of access to it with our Ipads, Kindle Fires, Christians bookstores, online libraries, and more. So, there is no good excuse for not having a few good biblical commentaries, books and helps that might aid us in our advance in biblical knowledge. The real challenge is wading through the plethera of options and finding the most helpful tools. (In the future I will be posting some suggestions on getting started or pressing deeper in your biblical studies!)

4. "Improve conversation with others to this end." Talk to your Christian friends about more than football, coupons, ham sandwiches, Downtown Abbey,  Home Depot, garage sales, etc...Improve Christian conversation by talking about Christ, biblical truth, wisdom, what God is teaching you in His Word and how you're adjusting your life to follow Him. This is what small groups in a local church context are all about, or should be all about!

5."Seek not to grow in knowledge chiefly for the sake of applause, and to enable you to dispute with others; but seek it for the benefit of your souls, and in order to practice." Well said, and an appropriate warning for all maturing theologians!

6. Seek to God (pray), that he would direct you, and bless you, in this pursuit after knowledge." One of the best godly grooves you could get into would be to pray before reading your Bible and ask God to "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law" (Psalm 119:18 NIV).

7. "Practice according to what knowledge you have." We are always in danger of learning much about God without loving and obeying God more in light of our deepening understanding. And so we must strive to follow God in the truth that we do understand. In this way God will be pleased to take us deeper in the ocean of his wisdom and wonder! And what a pleasure that will be...