I was listening to a podcast on Issues Etc. earlier this week and I was struck by a profound thought. The title of the podcast was “The Vocation of Minister.” I’d normally link directly to it but the site appears to be down as I’m writing this, nothing will load.

The guest speaker was talking about how the word minister means “servant,” but most churches today prefer to look to ministers as leaders or CEO’s, and ministers are all too happy to accept this role. The proper role of a minister is that of a servant, and his chief task is to “administer” what God has given, His gifts.

The guest speaker then said this:

“We approach [the vocation of the minister] as a social issue, we look at what the people want. Let’s look at the word ministry. There’s an old saying… ‘The customer is always right.’ The customer knows what he wants and if you’re going to serve the customer, you better give him what he wants or you’re not going to do business with him. That’s precisely wrong when it comes to the church, because the customer is always wrong. And God is always right.

In other words, we must approach the vocation of the minister theologically (not socially). A minister of God must often preach God’s Law and His Gospel to people who don’t want any part of it. Often people don’t realize the depth of their sinfulness (including me), and they must hear God’s Law. Other times the Law has done its work and people have been cut to the heart, then they need to hear the Gospel. The customer (not a good term but I’m using it simply to make a point) is always wrong. He doesn’t want what he really needs. I am so often guilty of this. I often want authenticity, community, and whatever – but what I really need is the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. These other things are secondary to this primary need.

It is too easy to lose sight of Christ as the focal point of our churches when we operate with the assumption that the folks in the pews are right. That’s how we get mega-churches that acquiesce to, rather than transform, culture. Give the people what they want and you will grow numerically, but that’s not how ministry progress ought to be measured.

I saw these quotes at Justin Taylor’s blog. They are from John Stott’s book, Christ the Controversialist (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1970):

On what Christians should do when they disagree with each other:

The proper activity of professing Christians who disagree with one another is neither to ignore, nor to conceal, nor even to minimize their differences, but to debate them. (p. 22)

On why we should speak the truth in love, not being truthless in love or loveless in truth:

We seem in our generation to have moved a long way from this vehement zeal for the truth which Christ and his apostles displayed. But if we loved the glory of God more, and if we cared more for the eternal good of the souls of men, we would not refuse to engage in necessary controversy, when the truth of the gospel is at stake. The apostolic command is clear. We are “to maintain the truth in love,” being neither truthless in our love, nor loveless in our truth, but holding the two in balance. (p. 19)

Read more at Justin Taylor’s blog.

It seems that Christophobia is rampant these days. Nothing causes such a stir as two simple words: “Jesus Christ.” Have you ever noticed that if a chaplain closes a prayer “in Jesus’ name,” it makes headlines, but if a religious leader prays to Allah, Benevolent Spirit, Jehovah, etc. no one bats an eye? Why is it that when people hit their thumb with a hammer they yell “JESUS CHRIST!” They don’t yell “BUDDHA” or “ALLAH!” It just doesn’t happen very often. It makes one wonder….

The folks who seem to fear the most when the politically incorrect name of Jesus is invoked are Christians. That’s the ironic part. I know lots of Christians who almost cringe at the mention of Jesus’ name in so-called “secular” realms.

And we seem to excuse this behavior. We seem to empathize when people hide their affiliation with Christ for job security, or to maintain a “normal” social image. Aside from DC Talk, no one wants to be labeled a “Jesus freak.”

[Jesus said,] “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

I sometimes wonder if those who fear the name of Jesus really understand the profoundness of the Gospel. I wonder if they really know the depths of His love.

Sometimes they are unable to know the depths of His love because they do not know the depths of their sin. If your sin is small, then your Savior will also be small. But when we recognize how depraved we really are, we can only exclaim with St. Paul,

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

“Everyone” includes you and me. Everyone includes your coworkers, the media, your students, your teachers, your boss, your family, your friends, and your neighbors. How can we pray for the Gospel to be spread when we are ashamed of it? Political correctness is part of our (fallen) culture. We are called to remain “aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Peter 2:11), to be in the world but not of it (John 17:13-18). At times this will involve breaking cultural taboos. Even if it costs us our jobs or our very lives.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).

But take heart, we have a great and loving God. Be thankful.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (1 Timothy 1:7-14).

Happy New Year! A new year is upon us, and resolutions have already been made – and broken. Why do we often fail at our resolutions? Why do we continually make more resolutions despite how often we fail at bringing them into fruition? I was reading my new devotional book yesterday and ran across this interesting quote:

Because you have been made a new person in Christ, the old Adam in you is not to be indulged, tolerated, or even reformed. The baptismal life calls for the mortification of your old Adam through daily contrition and repentance and the living of that new life that clings to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. (Treasury of Daily Prayer, p. 1445, emphasis mine).

I emphasized the words “or even reformed.” God calls us to mortify our old Adam, not modify it. The Bible commands us to “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (Colossians 3:5, NIV). “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:13-14, NIV).

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:3-14, NIV, emphasis mine).

I think that the problem with most new years resolutions is that we are trying to reform our old Adam; we are trying to improve our flesh/sinful nature. The Bible tells us that “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7, NIV, emphasis mine). We simply can’t improve our flesh. It will always resist our godly desires (see Romans 7:7-25). Our sinful flesh was crucified with Christ and then drowned in our Baptism. And we are called to daily kill the old Adam and live from our new hearts in Christ, our new nature. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV).

This year don’t set resolutions in an attempt to reform your sinful nature. Set a resolution to live from your new heart in Christ. You are a new creation in Christ, live in that reality in 2010.

Daily prayer is and always has been a struggle for me. I don’t prioritize it like I should. I often neglect His Word and prayer. Lately I’ve taken somewhat of a hiatus from blogging to get in the Word more and to pray (plus many other areas of my life have been busy). If I don’t feed on God’s Word, the content on this blog can get pretty bad. I got a Christmas present that is helping me though, a book called the Treasury of Daily Prayer.

Essentially it’s a book that has daily readings from the bible and orders of prayer, and the entire Psalter (all the Psalms). Every day has an Old and New Testament reading, a psalm (or portion of one), and some general guides for prayer. I like it because everything is contained in one book, I don’t have to switch between my bible, a format, and a devotional (although I do enjoy using Eckardt’s Meditations for the Daily Office in conjunction with it sometimes). It’s all in one place. I’ve never been one to really get into any kind of formal prayer material, preferring spontaneous prayer and scripture over any prescribed format. But the bottom line is that when left to my own devices, I simply don’t pray or read the bible that often. If I do, I’ll most likely read a couple of bible verses then pray a 4-5 minute half-hearted prayer, during which I’ll succumb to my short attention span and begin thinking of something entirely non-related.

Understand that I’m not saying there is anything wrong with short prayers or scripture readings. I’m simply saying that I often resort to this approach out of laziness and a failure to prioritize God and His Word in my life. Perhaps you can relate. I’m not trying to push the Treasury of Daily Prayer or anything, I am just stating that it is really helping me get into the Word and prayer more (plus it was a fun project making my own ribbon bookmark for it).

What helps you pray? How do you make His Word a priority in your daily life?

I have lots of photos on my computer. It’s a tradition for me to regularly look at a photo of my wife if I am separated from her for a period of time (often due to work-related travel).

We all have lots of customs and traditions. Even those who claim to be innovative and spontaneous are often quite predictable and repetitive. It’s human nature to establish traditions. Some traditions are good and some are bad. Some just are – they are neutral. Jesus scolds the teachers of the law for breaking the command of God for the sake of their traditions in Matthew 15:3 and Mark 7:9, yet at the same time we have the disciples’ following the apostles’ teachings and several specific practices (which we carry on to this day) in Acts 2:42. So not all traditions are bad, so long as they don’t go against God’s Word nor interfere with His will for our lives.

People cherish their traditions. I had some teammates in high school basketball that had their own pre-game “rituals.” I’m not so sure that they helped, but they valued them nonetheless. Sometimes our traditions are harmful. If it’s a family tradition to get trashed on New Years Eve, then a recovering alcoholic probably should not attend this family function (or anyone for that matter). Church folks love their traditions. We’ve got a traditional calendar, traditional colors, traditional music, traditional service formats, etc. For some, these traditions really help them connect to Christ and they point them towards Him. This Advent, for instance, the anticipation of Christ’s Second Coming is rekindled for some as they think about His First Coming as a baby in a manger. Or they simply enjoy remembering Christ’s humble beginnings and thanking Him for His Incarnation (becoming a man). For others, these holidays reek of paganism and materialistic consumerism and they can’t see past the Santa Clauses and Christmas trees to focus on the Child swaddled in cloths and lying in a manger. But who is right?

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. ~Colossians 2:16-17, ESV

The answer is that both of them are right. So long as each is focused on Christ, not on being superior because they do or don’t celebrate a particular tradition or holiday. Our traditions are merely shadows of the spiritual realities which will later be fully realized, but they only find their true meaning in Christ.

Let’s go back to my tradition of cherishing a photo of my wife. If I am deployed to war, I will take a picture of my wife with me. Throughout my deployment, I will cherish that photo and devote daily attention to it. But once I return home safely, I will see my wife face to face and the photo will lose its importance in my life. Now I will have the real thing. Our traditions work the same way. They are like the photographs that we have now until Christ returns at His Second Advent. We cherish them now, but they will be fully realized in Christ, and thus no longer needed. Don’t forget to look past the traditions to their greater fulfillment in Jesus Christ this Christmas season.

H/T to Charles Blanco and the LSB

Growing up, there were times my parents and I didn’t get along. I’m sure you can relate. In fact, for a large portion of my adolescence, I was pretty convinced that my parents were idiots. I certainly didn’t respect them very much, and at times I thought I didn’t need them. Later in life, I have now come to appreciate and cherish them both, and I recognize their significant contribution to my life. They have shaped and molded me into the man that I am today, even when I resented and even failed to recognize it.

Despite my feelings and lack of recognition towards them, they have always been my parents since birth. They never ceased to be my parents. Our relationship with our heavenly Father is very similar in this regard. In our spiritual (re)birth we become His children, and He becomes our Father. I failed to acknowledge Him as such throughout much of my life, and I certainly didn’t (and often don’t) appreciate Him enough. But all the while, He was still my Father.

The other day someone mentioned to me that she had a hard time believing that human choice and sincerity plays no role in our salvation. She said that despite being baptized at a young age and being raised in the church, she didn’t feel that she was saved until she began taking her faith seriously as a young adult. Today I was thinking about the analogy above, and how God has been my heavenly Father even when I failed to recognize Him as such. I think we run into trouble when we make our sincerity or choice a part of salvation. God saves us, we respond to that, but only after He has saved us.

“To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” -John 1:12-13 (NIV)

What role did I play in being born into this world? None. But now that I am born, I have the choice of how I will live. Our spiritual rebirth is no different. I played no role in being “born again” (justification), but now I must choose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in order to become more like Jesus each day (sanctification). We run into trouble when we use our feelings as a gauge of our salvation. They can be an indication of reality, but they also can mislead us. As children of God, we will continually grow in grace and in appreciation of what God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ. We will continue to understand more and more of the depth of His love and compassion for us. But as we grow in knowledge and grace, we don’t become “more saved” than when we were first baptized into His death and raised to life through faith with Him (Romans 6:4). We are saved by one thing: Jesus Christ took our place on the cross and died for our sins.

My dad has been my dad since I was born. And my heavenly Dad has been my Dad since I was reborn. The same is true for you.

I’m having my own sort of cognitive dissonance right now with this blog. I’m re-evaluating some of my beliefs and viewpoints and am reading a lot from conflicting perspectives to help sort out my thinking. I apologize for the scarcity of posts during this time, I assure you I’ll make a strong comeback once I get my head together. For now I’m focusing on His Word and prayer and other resources to help me understand some positions and how they have come about historically. I’m also asking a lot of questions, and I’ll post one here for anyone who cares to try to answer it:

Revelation 20:1-3 (NIV) says: “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.” I happen to be amillennial in my eschatological views, but this passage makes it clear that I must then believe that Satan is bound during the millennium and is thus being kept from deceiving the nations. This seems to be cognitively dissonant from what amillenials teach regarding Satan’s activity in the world today, even though this passage makes it clear that Satan is bound in the Abyss during the millennium. How do you reconcile these unscriptural teachings about Satan in light of Revelation 20 from an amillenialist perspective? (I’m not really interested in the premillenialist response, “because you’re end times view is wrong.” I’m just curious to see how someone might explain this from the amillenial perspective). I know it’s not a salvation issue, God will work out the end times in His own way, I’m just curious. . . .

I know I haven’t posted much lately, I’ve been very busy and out of town a lot. I also have been doing a lot of reading, getting into His Word and prayer. It’s hard to write meaningful content if I am not listening to God through His Word. It’s also hard to come up with good posting topics if I’m not continually engaging my mind with good books. That’s one of the reasons I’ve made book recommendations available to you on the resources page, so you can also find some good reads that have helped me.

I am currently studying the book of Romans, and I stumbled across a passage that I have read many times. I simply never saw something very profound buried in the middle of the text. I often skim over the introductions to Paul’s books, where he typically greets people and talks about how he is praying for them. But in my current study, I am focusing on only a few verses at a time, getting more in depth with them. The insight is found in Romans 1:11-12, which reads:

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

Having a Pentecostal background, when I hear the words “impart to you some spiritual gift” I immediately begin thinking of something like words of wisdom, prophecy, etc. But in this passage, Paul defines the spiritual gift he is imparting, as well as the reason he is doing so. The text defines the spiritual gift as mutual encouragement “by each other’s faith.” The purpose is in order “to make you strong.”

In other words, by mutually encouraging fellow believers, we are imparting a spiritual gift to them. And it is a gift given and received by grace. In the original Greek language in which this text was written, the words used for “spiritual gift” are charisma pneumatikon. Charis is the Greek word for grace, indicating that this is a “grace-gift.” Pneumatikon simply means “spiritual,” coming from pneuma, the Greek word for breath/spirit. In other words, this is a spiritually gracious gift, or spiritual grace-gift.

I don’t know about you, but I get extremely energized when I am around other authentic believers, and as this text demonstrates, that is because mutual encouragement for the purpose of strengthening each other’s faith is an imparted spiritual grace-gift.

I hope this made sense. It was very exciting to me. I often don’t share little insights like this because I feel like they are meant only for my benefit, or I fear people won’t understand me. But hey, it came up in my personal study of the Bible and I found it profound. I hope you enjoyed it too. Make it a point to encourage other believers and by doing so strengthen their faith.

“Church leadership acting as CEO’s of nonprofit organizations complete with ‘hiring and firing’ abilities, is a relatively novel development in the history of Christianity and is way outside of the Biblical framework.”

Last I checked, no one likes the people who do what God tells them to do. Jesus Himself was abandoned, brutally tortured and crucified. Most of the Old Testament prophets went about alone and destitute. John the Baptist was beheaded. All but one of the apostles were martyred. Yet for some crazy reason church governments are set up in such a way that a man of God can be ‘fired’ if a few people don’t like him. Odd… and unbiblical.

This problem stems from the way that pastors and elders are placed into leadership. In the New Testament leaders were recognized and then appointed (usually from within). They didn’t go through a “hiring process,” instead they went through a “discipleship process” by which leaders were developed, not recruited. So in honesty, the entire approach of the institutional church to professional clergy is jacked up.

So instead of going on that tirade again, let me propose three potential solutions. I’ve promised to stop critiquing if I don’t offer suggestions for improvement, so here are my ideas. The first two are suggestions for institutional models, and the final two are for organic models:

(Institutional) Allow a group of outside church leaders to appoint pastors to your congregation, who can only be removed under strict circumstances (such as sexual misconduct or dereliction of duty). Simply not liking the pastor or having personal conflicts would not be sufficient grounds to remove him. The pastor is to continually pray to God, reevaluating his call through prayer – not by a congregation’s consensus. Those congregants who dislike the pastor are free to leave. The pastor is free to resign at any time if God has lead him to do so in his prayer life.

(Institutional) Pastors must be ordained in order to serve in the pastoral office. The ordained pastor is then “called” by a congregation, and the pastor can either accept or reject that call. Once a pastor accepts a “call,” he is installed as that congregation’s pastor. The pastor is free to resign or to accept a call from another congregation, but he cannot be fired by the congregation. If a pastor commits a serious offense which violates scripture, outside impartial leadership (a district superintendent or bishop, for instance) can step in and revoke the pastor’s ordination. If the pastor is not ordained, he is no longer able to serve in the pastoral office. His call is never retracted, the pastor simply loses his ordination and is no longer eligible to fulfill the call. Only outside leadership would be able to publicly announce that a pastor has lost his ordination.

(Organic) Leaders are organically grown from within, recognized by the local gathered believers, and appointed to positions of leadership within the local assembly. If that leader violates scripture he can be exhorted, and if things don’t get better he can be publicly “demoted.” The local believers only have the authority to challenge the leaders on the basis of scripture, not on personal claims, preferences, or differences in ministry philosophy.

(Organic) Leaders are organically grown from within and then recognized by the local gathered believers. Christ is the Head of the Body, not any man, so all men submit solely to Christ’s leadership and seek Him earnestly in prayer. No one holds authority over another, some are simply shown respect because their leadership ability and wisdom is self-evident. All are free to mutually encourage and exhort one another from the Word of God, and all respectfully consider others’ viewpoints and respond in truth and love. EVERYONE is functioning as a called, full-time minister, so no one is looking to anyone as a “professional” leader.

Perhaps you have a better suggestion? Let me know! Thoughts on any of these?