Hello again

Well, I don’t know if anyone stops by here anymore. But in case you do, here’s a brief update. I’m tired again. The fatigue started coming back over a year ago. I thought it would go away after a month or two, as it has in the past. It didn’t.

Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to be an interim pastor at the church where we were members. And I candidated to be the new pastor. That didn’t work out. And the way it didn’t work out made it impossible for us to stay at that church.

We looked around at other churches in the area. But they are all so … suburban. I’m tired of the suburban church. If I could find a church in the suburbs that was interested in shedding its suburban character, I might be interested. But for the most part they’re not only in the suburbs, they’re of the suburbs. (The one exception was Pathway CRC in Olathe, KS. There at least they’re struggling against their suburban identity a bit. That’s not the church we’ve ended up at, but we respect what they’re doing.)

I doubt any church sets out to be an upper middle class white church. But that’s where most Reformed churches end up. We all make choices.

So as I say, I’m looking to make a break from the suburban church. And it has become apparent that the suburban church does not have a great deal of zeal to use my ministerial gifts.

Putting all that together, it seems to add up to this. The Reformed and Presbyterian churches do not, for the most part, have a place where they feel they can use my gifts. We may be coming to a parting of the ways. I have other thoughts and concerns that may be tending to the same conclusion. I’ll talk about those if I have time and energy, and if there’s anyone out there still interested and listening.

Meanwhile, as I regroup and rethink, the time has come to pay for another year for my web site http://bettercovenant.org/. I have decided not to spend the money. If you want any of that material, grab it before March 5, 2008. If you didn’t read this in time, I apologize.

That’s all for now.

 

That Picture

A while back I posted this picture just for fun and said I’d explain later how it came about.

The photo was taken by Thuy Dang, then registrar at Westminster Seminary in California. (She is now sadly deceased.) Here’s the context in which that picture was taken.

It was spring semester, 1995, and I saw Professor Kline and Lee and Misty Irons (front right) eating lunch. So I went over to join them. Kline looked up as I came over and teasingly said, “Only like-minded people are allowed at this table.”

“I’m like-minded,” I said, sitting down. “Only I’ve become a postmillenialist.”

“What?!” roared Kline, leaping from the bench to assume the position pictured. Thuy Dang, who happened to be on the spot with a camera, snapped the shot.

Once the drama had concluded, Thuy explained that she was taking photos to be included in brochures and other promotional material for the seminary. “You can put that picture in the section on Nouthetic Counseling,” I quipped. We all laughed.

We chatted for a bit through lunch. I don’t recall what about. When it was time to go, I said, “I just want to make sure you know I was kidding about what I said earlier.” (I was referring of course to my claim that I’d become postmillenial.)

“Except for the part about nouthetic counseling!” Kline replied.

 

Meredith G. Kline (1922-2007)

Meredith G. Kline, my teacher and friend, died peacefully on Friday night, April 13, 2007. How can I sum up what I learned from this fellow bondservant of the Lord? There is too much to say.

In 1996 I was serving a year-long internship at an OPC in Orange County, CA preparatory to entering the ministry. One day, I drove down to Westminster Seminary to do some research and to see Kline. He and I and Lee Irons chatted in his office for a bit. He asked how my internship was going.

I told him that the pastor overseeing my internship did not care for my preaching. The pastor told me I was not offering the congregation practical solutions to their problems and practical hopes. I was just giving them “pie in the sky when you die.” (That was not my own phrasing but what the pastor actually and repeatedly said.)

Kline smiled a beatific smile and said, “Give me more of that pie in the sky.”

It was a sweet moment. He knew that there was nothing more important, nothing better, nothing more glorious in ministry than to hold out that heavenly hope. In one way or another, he had spent all our class time and all our conversations holding out that hope to me, teaching me to hold it out to others.

Kline did this because the heavenly hope was his own food and drink. He did not say “Give them more of that pie in the sky” though that sentiment was obviously implied. He said “Give me more.” He taught this hope to us because it was the only hope he had. And nothing distracted him from it.

There’s an old joke about some preachers that they are “so heavenly minded, they’re no earthly good.” Kline knew that this was impossible. He knew that the only value a pastor had to the sheep was to be utterly heavenly minded. And he knew his own heavenly mindedness was his only value to us, the prospective preachers and teachers who sat in his classes.

Meredith Kline is not ashamed to stand before his Redeemer this day. He has exactly what he wanted, exactly what he hoped for, exactly what he taught. Having attained to this “first resurrection,” he awaits with contentment the fuller and more perfect joys of the second.

 

Implications of the New Ethic

(This post may be considered a follow-up to The Incarnation and Ethics)

Does the new ethic obligate the Christian to a sort of radical pacifism? That’s the question that came up a couple of weeks back in Sunday School when I spoke a little about the new covenant morality. The questioner gave an example. If someone invades my home, can I defend it? Or does the new ethic obligate me to step aside and let the thief take what he wants? What about defending my person or my family? Must I also allow the thief to do us bodily harm?

It’s a good question. I think it’s not quite the right question, but it’s not quite right in an instructive way. If I answer the question yes then the new ethic degenerates into legalism. The call for a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees becomes a crushing demand that we out-Pharisee the Pharisees. But if I answer the question no I’m backing away from the glorious implications of the Incarnation and the Cross. I’m admitting I got a little carried away with rhetoric but when push comes to shove (ha ha) I’ll sober up and back down. Not back down. Whatever.

So instead I want to answer the question yes and no, or “not exactly, but let me explain.”

Let’s get away from the question of obligation for a moment. Let’s evaluate the act being proposed as though someone’s already done it. Suppose you hear of a Christian man who encounters a thief in his home. He stands aside and says, “Friend, take what you need freely. I will not have your soul stained with this sin.” Suppose the thief attacks and the man refuses to strike a blow in return. Instead he pleads with the attacker not to proceed further down this path of corruption. If the attack extends to the man’s family, he shields them with his body but still refuses to strike a blow.

Wouldn’t we say that such a man had behaved in a Christlike manner? Wouldn’t we find in this story the echoes of the cross? I hope we would not say that the man had somehow failed in his duty to defend his home from being plundered or his body from harm. (I think some might have difficulty with the “failure” to defend family, but I think even that could come from grace and be a taking up of the cross.) We would rather say that he had acted according to the grace given to him. And the result was a moving testimony to the love of Christ.

So far so good. Now let’s bring back the question of obligation. Was the man required to behave this way? Was he, after all, only doing his duty in not fighting back? I don’t think so. I think he was going above and beyond, just as Christ went above and beyond to die on the cross.

Now here’s where it gets tricky and we have to think carefully. Don’t we have an “obligation” to go above and beyond? Aren’t we “required” to take up the cross? Yes we are. But I cannot prescribe for you nor you for me how that will work itself out. Only the grace of God, only the Spirit of Christ working from within can make that prescription. If I make the requirement from without it will become a heavier burden even than the Law of Moses. It will crush you. But if the requirement comes from Christ in you, then his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Think of another example. Right now there are plenty of people who need kidney transplants. You’ve got two good kidneys. Go give one away. To give your kidney to a stranger would be (or could be) a Christlike action. Therefore you must be obligated to do it.

You see how, looked at the wrong way, the new ethic can become a terrifying new legalism. If I go out and give a kidney, great. Hopefully I’d be doing it out of Christlike love and it would be a testimony to the power of the cross. But if I come back and tell you that now it’s your turn and the love of Christ compels you to give a kidney as well, I’ve taken a wrong turn. I’m trying to take the role of the Spirit in speaking to your conscience.

An example from Scripture can help us sort this out. Consider the early Church. The book of Acts tells us the first believers were selling their possessions and holding the proceeds in common to be given to each according to their need (Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-37). It’s a beautiful and moving testimony to the work of the Spirit and of grace in their lives.

Now we can have two wrong reactions to that story. The first wrong view is to say that those early Christians over-reacted. They shouldn’t have been so careless with their money. People who take this view (and sadly, there are some) point to the fact that Paul later speaks of taking monetary gifts to Jerusalem from other churches (Romans 15:25-27, 1 Cor 16:1-3). Obviously, they say, the Jerusalem church wasn’t prudent with their money. They hadn’t saved some for a rainy day and now other churches had to help them out. That’s a ludicrous view. Clearly, the point of those gifts is that, just as the Jerusalem church had provided for others who had need, so now other believers were providing for them. It’s a beautiful example of the cross at work.

Still, I guess you can have a little sympathy for what drives some people to that view. They’re intimidated by what the Spirit did in the Jerusalem church. And they wonder, does that mean that the pastor and elders of my church need to start telling everyone to pool their resources and stop having any private goods?

That’s the other wrong reaction to the story–as though Scripture is telling us we must become communistic. In fact, the Bible goes right on to speak against that error. Remember Ananias and Sapphira. They sold a plot of land and gave part of the proceeds to the church but claimed they gave it all. How does Peter rebuke them? Does he say, “You really should have given everything to the church. Don’t you know we have no private property here?”

No. Peter says, “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?” (Acts 5:4). Peter clearly affirms that the property belonged to them and that, for his part, he had no designs on it and the Church had no claim to it. The problem isn’t that they had private property. The problem is that they were trying to fake the work of the Holy Spirit in order to gain approval. If the Spirit had truly moved them to sell the property and give all the proceeds, everyone would have rejoiced with them. If the Spirit did not so move, no one would have a right to judge them.

That’s the only way this new ethic can work. Otherwise, it’s time for the elders of the church to come audit your finances and take whatever you don’t need (and then some, really) and give it to the poor. That’s what will happen if we turn this new ethic into a set of regulations where I can define for you exactly how far above and beyond God requires you to go.

So, yes. Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Give to the one who asks of you. Bear the cross. Everything you have and everything you are belongs to God, to the body of Christ, and to every stranger you meet. Give as much of it as you can according to the grace and the strength you are given. Seek to hear the Gospel that you may be moved to give even more. And leave your brother’s conscience to the Spirit of Christ who alone can command in a way that is not burdensome.

 

The Incarnation and Ethics

(This post may be considered a follow-up to This Holy Tide of Christmas which I posted on December 25, 2006.)

Once the Incarnation occurred, it should have been obvious that Old Testament ethics were insufficient. It’s not that there’s anything actually wrong with the morality God gave his people under Moses. I’m not saying a word against the 10 Commandments (any more than Lee Irons was, but that’s a post for another time). But the ethical substance of the Decalogue tells us only of our duty. It outlines our obligations–the good deeds that God requires–and leaves the matter there.

The Incarnation introduces a new element to the discussion. And this new element makes it impossible to discuss the ethics of God’s people in terms of mere obligation.

The ethical core of the 10 Commandments expresses God’s unchanging character. The rules could not be otherwise. Worshiping other gods is something God must condemn. If he did not, he would not be God. Nor could God make creatures in his image and then tell them–contrary to that very image–that it is ok to murder or commit adultery or steal or lie. The Decalogue is one summary (there are others) of what the rules must be because of who God is and what he must require. God himself is obligated by these rules. And that statement does not compromise God’s freedom. It simply means that God is who he is and does not change. God who is supreme, always just, faithful, and true cannot suddenly become God who is one among many, unjust, breaking his oath, a liar. Nor can he permit his creatures to behave in that way without retribution.

In short, God must be good.

But the Incarnation involves a whole different sort of goodness–a goodness to which God was not obligated. He didn’t have to do it. Of course, if the eternal son of God had not become man, we could never be saved. But then God had no ethical duty to save us.

Consider the angels. Some angels rebelled against God so he ejected them from heaven. Now the fallen angels await their final judgment with dread. For them, there is no Savior. And that reflects no injustice on God’s part. God did with the angels what was right and good. He did, in a manner of speaking, his duty. For God must punish sin or be unjust. He who is holy cannot dwell with those who are unholy. That is contrary to his nature.

That much we can learn from the ethics of the 10 Commandments.

If God had treated us according to those ethics (as he did the fallen angels) we would have no cause for complaint. When Adam and his wife sinned, God could have judged them then and there with a final, irreversible judgment. Or he could have ejected them from the garden to await, without hope, their final condemnation. Just as he ejected the angels from heaven.

Then, just like the fallen angels, we would have no legitimate accusation against God. Adam and all his descendants could have been condemned to hell and the unfallen angels would sing unceasingly in praise of God’s goodness. Indeed the Decalogue–as an insight into God’s moral character–gives us no reason to expect a different outcome.

But we did get a different outcome. The eternal Son of God became a man to save his people from their sins. Truly this even springs from the goodness of God, but it is a goodness beyond any ethical obligation. God did not have to save us, yet he did. The Father owed us nothing but wrath. Yet he gave us his Son.

In doing this, God transcended the old ethics of obligation in a way that puts its stamp on everyone who belongs to him. How can we any longer speak of mere duty when God went so far beyond duty to save us?

If the Incarnation fails to persuade us that a new morality is afoot, surely the Crucifixion will awaken our dead hearts. In the Incarnation, God gave us his Son, humbled more than we can possibly conceive. At the Crucifixion, God put that Son to death.

How can we, who have benefited immeasurably from this extravagant, gratuitous, unrequired goodness speak any more of mere duty?

This is what’s behind Jesus’ teaching in Luke 17:7-10 where the servants who do only what was commanded cry out “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty”. That seems a strange thing to say when judging by the old morality. But looked at in the light of the Incarnation and the Cross, it makes perfect sense.

There’s a new ethic in town. It’s an ethic that calls us to be as extravagant with one another as God has been with us. The Law can tell me to love my neighbor as I love myself. Only the Gospel–far transcending the Law–can move me to esteem you better than myself (Philippians 2:3). Moses commands us not to defraud. Only the Spirit of Christ could have made the churches in Macedonia give “beyond their means” (2 Corinthians 8:3). The Decalogue can order me not to murder. Only the love of Christ can compel me to lay down my life for the brethren (1 John 3:16).

This is the newness of the new commandment that Jesus gives in John 13. We are to love one another in the same way Christ has loved us–humbling ourselves to the utmost as he did at his Incarnation, laying down our lives as he did at the cross. Moses never issued such a command. He couldn’t. The Law lacks that kind of moral authority.

The new commandment isn’t just another commandment to add to the list. The new commandment differs fundamentally, qualitatively, from all the old ones. The old commandments tell us of our obligation, of our duty. They push us to do right. The new commandment draws us forward to do more than mere duty. It calls us by the love of Christ to freely and cheerfully go beyond all commands. Anyone who seeks to fulfill the new commandment will naturally fulfill the old, and more besides. Anyone who pursues the old commandments will not even fulfill those.

(For a follow-up to this post, see Implications of the New Ethic.)

 

Has it really been a month?

I lost track of time since my last post. I’m currently teaching Sunday School at my church and am preaching as well for the next 5 weeks. I’ve also had some car trouble. Beyond that, I wrote up a couple of drafts of things to post and decided that neither one said what I wanted to say.

I started this blog because I liked the idea of posting shorter and less coherent thoughts just to get them out there and bouncing around. Apparently my brain prefers length and precision. I guess I’ll just have to work with that.

If the coming week is less drastic then the last four have been, I’ll try to get something up with some thoughts about what I’ve been preaching and teaching on.

 

This Holy Tide of Christmas

Christmas is over as far as the Western cultural celebration. But in the Church calendar, Christmas doesn’t begin until December 25, and it lasts for 12 days. So let’s take advantage of the season, now that the busy-ness is over, to talk about the Incarnation.

The Christmas carol “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” has a line in one of its verses that goes like this: “This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface”. I think “deface” meant something a little different back then–perhaps “render obsolete” would get closer to the meaning now.

In any event, it’s a bold statement–to privilege the Nativity and its commemoration above all other Christian remembrances. And in one sense the statement is quite false. The Crucifixion and Resurrection have a far greater place in Christian remembrance, celebration, and salvation theology. Without the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Nativity would be of no value to us. It would be a stupendous, marvellous, praiseworthy, and ultimately unhelpful (to us sinners) display of God’s power.

Yet in another sense, the carol is right. Before the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and Resurrection were more than merely unimaginable. They were inconceivable. How could God, who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, become for his people the perfect sacrifice and the perfected human righteousness without which we must be condemned? How could the changeless change? How could the limitless take on limits? How could the immortal die?

Before the Incarnation there was scarcely a way to frame these questions let alone have any chance of guessing their answer. But once God has appeared in the flesh, his people can conceive of the possibility that he will offer himself up on their behalf and then, taking up his life again, precede them into heaven. Conceiving that, they might have the audacity to hope for what before was inconceivable.

The inconceivableness of the Incarnation weaves itself into Scripture from the very beginning. You will find it in the story of creation. What could be more plainly written into the Genesis account than this–that the distinction between Creator and creature is insurmountable and inviolable?

God creates humankind male and female, not as little gods but as creatures in God’s image. This language emphasizes at once the similarity and difference between man and God. They are like God not as his equals nor as lesser beings of the same sort, but as reflections, as analogies. So man is called to work just as God worked in creation. Yet man’s work is of a different quality. God’s work is simply speaking and seeing things brought into being from nothing by the power of his word.

Man’s work is not of this sort, yet it is similar. It is analogous. It is a reflection. Man’s work, though creaturely, is modeled on the work of his Creator. Yet the nature of this work is easily distinguished. God and his work are on one level, man and his work on another. Though analogous, the two cannot–and must not–be confused.

In the same way, by resting on the seventh day, God implicitly invites man to a similar rest. Yet man’s rest involves ceasing his creaturely activity and refreshing himself. It is like God’s rest but the two could never be confused. (There is a bonus here for those who understand the Framework Interpretation. We see clear notes in the creation account that man’s “days” are not the same as God’s but analogous to them. Even here the distinction between Creator and creature is preserved.)

Notice that this distinction between Creator and creature arises and is insisted on in Paradise, before the Fall. The distinction–even, so to speak, the distance–between man and God does not arise because of God’s holiness and man’s sin. Even before sin entered the world, God was God and man was man. Neither one could be the other.

Yet at the Incarnation, God did become man. The thing is impossible! The Creation story pounded it into our heads that such a thing could never, by any imaginative stretch, happen. Yet it happened! Before it happened, nothing could have been more unthinkable. It was beyond comprehension. After it happened, nothing could have been more amazing. I do not have enough awe in me to meet this event with the amazement it deserves. At times, the clouds part and I catch the merest glimpse of the amount of awe the Incarnation should inspire and I find myself in awe of how much awe that is.

When we add sin into the mix, the thing becomes more awesome still.

It is amazing enough that God the Creator should become, impossibly, a creature. It can only add to our amazement that the Holy One, who cannot dwell with sin, became a creature so he could dwell among sinners.

God made Moses take off his shoes before approaching the burning bush. Even the surrounding ground was holy. When God appeared at Sinai, he told Moses not to let the people approach or they would perish (Exodus 19:21). When the angel of the Lord announced the coming birth of Samson, Samson’s father Manoah said, “We shall surely die for we have seen God” (Judges 13:21). When Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple, high and lifted up, he did not rejoice. He cried, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5). How could this infinitely holy God come and dwell among sinners without consuming them?

And what sort of sinners are we? Go back to the beginning and find out. How does the Serpent tempt the woman? He says, you can be just like God, deciding for yourself what is good and what is evil. In other words, you don’t need to be content with being in the image of God–a mere reflection and analogy. You can become exactly like God. The Creator-creature distinction is a myth.

That’s what Original Sin is–an attempt to surmount the distinction between creature and Creator. Naturally, that is impossible.

To redeem such sinners, God does the impossible. He surmounts the Creator-creature distinction. Man fell because he wanted to become God. God saves by becoming a man. The redemption fits the crime.

What man could not do, what caused man to fall when he tried to do it, God, out of his boundless mercy and infinite love, has done. That’s the glory of the Incarnation, of this Nativity that we celebrate. It is beyond all telling.

Merry Christmas to all,

Bill
Christmas Day 2006

(For a follow-up to this post, see The Incarnation and Ethics posted on March 6, 2007.

 

Jesus and Church Government

Ask a conservative Presbyterian what Jesus taught about church government and you’ll likely be directed to Matthew 18. That’s where Jesus talks about going to an offending brother in private, then bringing someone with you, and finally, if necessary, telling his offense “to the church.”

I won’t deny that we can derive some principles of church government from Matthew 18, but it seems an odd place to start. We start there, I think, because we’ve predefined “church government” as primarily a matter of structure and procedure. And if we think in these terms, Matthew 18 is about the only place where Jesus addresses the issue. But if we allow Jesus to define the term, he was constantly talking about church government.

In his earthly ministry, Christ offered two major directives for the government of the church, and he offered them over and over: 1) Don’t be like the Pharisees. 2) Be a servant, like me. He elaborated on these directives at considerable length to be sure we wouldn’t miss the point. These two directives are the heart of church government, the sine qua non. But of course we miss the point anyway.

Even when things get so bad that a congregation thinks about leaving the denomination (OPC, PCA, whatever), they ask the wrong question. They don’t say, “Where can we go where the shepherds serve the sheep humbly and don’t lord it over them, just as Jesus commanded?” They say, “What other Presbyterian options do we have?”

We’ve made the form of government our first priority. It’s non-negotiable. Whatever Jesus recommended will have to come in a Presbyterian form or we’ll just do without. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

We reap what we sow. Our obsession with the structure of church government leaves us with lengthy books of church order that spell out the minutiae of every procedure. It surrounds us with lawyer-like men who know how to use that book to stifle debate or railraod motions.

Many true ministers of the Gospel are demoralized like this. (I remember the case of a minister friend who was travelling to General Assembly and reviewing all the upcoming proposals and cases. The person next to him on the plane asked if he was an attorney. The question haunted him all week.) They begin to attend Presbytery only sporadically. They avoid going to General Assembly. This just means that the lawyers, who love those meetings, consolidate their power.

So what should we do? Fight back? Make sure we attend all those meetings filled with caffeine and testosterone so we can argue well into the night? Then the terrorists will have won. (Whoops. Wrong rant, but you get the idea.) Believe me, the lawyer types have far more stamina for such wranglings. The lengthy disputes that demoralize us fill them with energy. We’ll never beat them at their own game. We’ll starve our sheep and wreck our marriages if we try.

Instead, we need to seek the kind of government that Jesus commends. And I am speaking not only to ministers but everyone in the church (especially in a Presbyterian or Reformed denomination) now. I don’t mean we need to leave our denominations to find Biblical government, though that may be the conclusion for some. I mean we need to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and we need to seek out rulers who look like Christ, washing the feet of his disciples, bearing the cross.

What does it mean to beware the leaven of the Pharisees? It means beware those who like to rule and who seek to do so by giving orders rather than providing an example. Beware the man who loves airing his ideas about how the church ought to run and who pays more attention to those who are influential and prominent in the church. Beware the man who elevates human tradition above the Word of God, who knows his Confession and his Book of Church Order better than he knows his Bible.

If you can peaceably prevent it, don’t allow such people to become deacons or elders in your church. Don’t extend a pastoral call to such a man. Don’t waste too many words on people like this who are already in authority. You won’t out-argue them. Rather, take their presence and their behavior as a symptom of sickness in the church and as a warning to seek a more excellent way.

What does it mean to be a servant and bear the cross? It means to consider the needs of others as more important than your own. It means to seek out especially the weakest, least visible sheep and care for them.

Don’t make deacons out of people simple because they have organizational ability and the sort of sympathy that’s common even to many unbelievers. Go ahead and use their organization talent, but don’t confuse that with spirituality. Make them deacons when they love the sheep sacrificially, without drawing attention to themselves, because they have a deep understanding of the mystery of the Gospel.

Ordain as elders only those who love the sheep sacrificially as well. Don’t let the congregation vote them in with a shrug, or with reservations, or out of a desire not to hurt anyone’s feelings. The congregation must be able to say, “Here is a man who would give his life for me. He will always be gentle toward me. He will rule me by example. And that example will not be a matter of outward piety and ‘good works’ for me to attain to if somehow I may. Rather, that example will be a matter of walking alongside me and teaching me not so much how to behave as how to believe–how to know Christ and rely on him.”

Finally, call as pastors only those of utmost gentleness and humility toward the weak. Remember what Isaiah prophesied concerning the Christ: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3). Do not accept a pastor who motivates the sheep through guilt or fear, who troubles the assurance of the weaker sheep while giving the self-righteous reason to pat themselves on the back. Rather, find pastors who are utterly gentle with the weak and bold with those who think they are strong.

For those reading this who hold such office, seek always to be conformed to these words of our Savior: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45). If that doesn’t sound like you, don’t be afraid to turn in your resignation. There will be enough time to take up the office again after you have learned more perfectly to bear the cross.

Who knows? Maybe by pursuing these things we’ll change our congregation or denomination for the better. Or maybe we’ll get kicked out or at least feel forced to leave. If that happens, let’s not make the Presbyterian mistake. Governmental structure should not be our first priority. Let us seek instead an affiliation where those who govern the sheep will be allowed and even encouraged to do so by bearing the cross. If that lands us in another Presbyterian denomination, fine and dandy. If not, at least we chose the one thing necessary. It will not be taken from us.

 

Meredith Kline Instructs Student

Meredith Kline was the professor at Westminster Seminary in California who helped and shaped my thinking more than any other. Here’s an example of his hands-on approach to instruction.

Since we’ll be talking a lot about suffering in this blog, I thought I should mention how helpful Kline is on this subject. A picture is worth a thousand words and those rings around my neck will last a lifetime.

 

Suffering and the Christian Life

In 1997 I was preaching through 1 Peter when an elder made an interesting comment. Before the service, he flipped through his Bible to check out that morning’s passage. After skimming it, he said in mock exasperation, “Oh no! Not suffering again!”

Despite the light tone, there was a serious undercurrent to his complaint. He was tired of the theme of suffering. He wanted a change of pace.

His concern continued to fester. More than a year later he gathered together a revolt of the most “successful” (and therefore least suffering) men in the church. They wanted to see changes in my ministry. My overemphasis on suffering was one of the concerns.

But back on that morning in 1997, this elder was not yet aware how deeply he detested the message. He had so far been responding with joy as I preached the Gospel with a clarity he had not previously heard. His lament–“not suffering again!”–was an early sign that all was not well. The Gospel seed had fallen among thorns. Unless those thorns were uprooted, they would strangle his joy with earthly cares.

Meanwhile, notice how he arrived at his protest. It was not a response to the content of my sermon. I hadn’t preached it yet. But he’d read the text and he knew that I would preach what the text said. His unhappiness was occasioned by the Word itself. This elder opened his Bible and saw that Peter had, yet again, chosen to harp on suffering. He was starting to get fed up.

Sometimes we want the minister to “make the Bible relevant” to our lives. We want the Scriptures to meet us “where we are”. We want “application” (which becomes a code word for our desire to talk about our own concerns rather than those of the Word). The Scriptures do not need to be made relevant. They already are relevant. It is our lives that become irrelevant to the Scriptures. When this happens we often perversely demand that the Scriptures should change.

We don’t put it that way of course. It’s the minister’s fault, not the Bible’s. The minister is the one who fails to tailor the message to our circumstances, to shape the Gospel to fit our self-defined “needs”.

Yet it is often the Spirit’s design, working through the Word, to redefine our needs and to alter our circumstances and the way we perceive them. For this to happen, we have to submit to the Scriptures. We can’t force them to submit to us.

The elder’s life had become irrelevant to the Word. He wasn’t suffering for Christ and he didn’t want to be called to do so. Yet the Bible is shot through with this message of suffering. How could it not be? The message of suffering is the message of the cross and of our conformity to that cross. That’s the message this elder and his eventual cohorts rejected.

Let us rather seek to embrace this message. Let us have our lives defined–if necessary redefined–by it. This quest may cause us to ask first an uncomfortable question and then a seemingly ridiculous one. Why aren’t we suffering? And how can we start?

I’ll take up those questions in a later post.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to a nice sermon on suffering from 1 Peter 4:12,13.