I have found this quote from Chrysostom helpful in describing the serious toil involved in right preaching and the place of the church in aiding such an effort.

“Preaching really entails hard work, and this fact Paul made plain when he said: ‘Let the presbyters who rule well be held worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching.’ But you are responsible for making this toil light or heavy. If you despise my words or, though you do not despise them, do not embody them in your deeds, my toil will be heavy, because I am laboring fruitlessly and in vain.
But if you pay attention and make my words manifest in your deeds, I shall not even be aware of the perspiration, for the fruit produced by my work will not permit me to feel the laboriousness of the toil. And so, if you wish to spur on my zeal and not to extinguish it or make it weaker, show me the fruit of it, I beseech you, in order that, viewing the leafy crops, sustained by hopes of a rich harvest and calculating my wealth, I may not be sluggish in engaging in this promising task.”

Saint John Chrysostom, “Homily 22 (John 2:4-10),” ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, vol. 33, The Fathers of the Church (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1957), 212.

In his book on Reformation spirituality, Spirituality in an Age of Change (a good read), Alister McGrath records the following quote from Martin Luther:

Great scholars who read a lot, and own lots of books, are not the best Christians… The best Christians are those who do from a free and willing heart what the scholars read about in books and teach others to do. We must therefore get worried when, in our own day and age, people become scholars through writing lots of books- but do not have the slightest idea what it means to be a Christian.

Luther clearly is no anti-intellectual, but neither does he have a place for glorying in our knowledge or for thinking that being able to define and explain Christian truth equates actually living out those truths. This is a good reminder for me- so perhaps it is for others as well. In an age when we for so long missed out on good, substantive theology, we now rejoice in truths we have learned. We take great delight in these truths; we enjoy talking them over, thinking them through and sharing them with others. And rightly so. However, let us be reminded that this is not enough. At the end of the day if these truths do not lead to concrete, every day practice they are nothing. If our knowledge does not lead to tangible practice we actually slander the truths themselves. Being a good Christian certainly entails knowing certain things but it also means doing something about it. It is little use to be able to give an informed exegesis of the Lord’s prayer if we are not faithful in prayer. It is dangerously easier to speak in a theologically informed, profound way about the necessity of holiness than it is to really fight against temptation. We must beware the temptation of resting in our reading without the doing.

The true theologian is one who has indeed thought and wrestled with scripture well but he is also one who has experienced in his life these truths. McGrath follows the Luther quote with these words:

Luther may not have foreseen the academic and scholarly explosion of the modern period; nevertheless, he predicted with grim accuracy the problem that has resulted. The word theologian has come to mean an academic professional, one whose credentials are established by his publication record. For Luther, that word was reserved for those who have experienced, and know they have experienced, the grace of the living God.

What a good word. I am tempted to desire more advancement as an academic professional than to desire advancement in actually living these truths out. In fact I can be tempted to wish I could withdraw from actually serving the Church so that I might better establish my credentials with a publishing record. God save me from such narcissistic, self-centered motives that I might truly be of use to the Master.

In her essay, “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” Flannery
O’Connor quoted Wyndham Lewis as saying, “If I write about a hill
that is rotting, it is because I despise rot.” She uses this quote
to explain that when she (and others) write about the ills of society,
it is not because they rejoice in these ills. Rather, it is because
they despise these ills and seek to change them. The same is true for
those of us in leadership in the church. If we love the church we must
speak of the ills and errors within her. But we must also make clear
that we do so not because we want to defame the church, but because we desire the purity of the church- because we, like our Master, are willing to spend and be spent for the purification of the Church (Eph 5:26-27). “Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov 27:5-6a). We must not hide our eyes from error in our midst. But we must speak in love, seeking redemption remembering Whose Bride this is.

(BTW: O’Connor’s essay, “The Fiction Writer and His Country”, can be read with much profit thinking of parallels for the church and its pastors.)

Fairly recently Tim Ellsworth commented on a news report on a recent Benny Hinn crusade. Watching or hearing about Benny Hinn both angers and saddens me- because of the impact on souls. While much could be said about Hinn, one of the most alarming things in the news story is the comment of a local pastor who was supportive of the Hinn crusade. The final paragraph of the story reads:

“As pastor of a cozy 100-member church in Denver, McHendry harbors no envy for his astonishingly successful counterpart on stage. Sure, he chuckled, “When he lines up the wheelchairs and they’re all shiny, and now the people can walk – c’mon, Benny. But I think that showmanship is necessary to reach some people for God.”

First, whatever was meant by the writer, “cozy” is not a complimentary description of a church in my mind. More significantly, however, I was stunned by the statement that “showmanship is necessary to reach some people for God.” While many evangelical pastors would not support Benny Hinn, many do subscribe to the idea that showmanship is necessary to reach some people for God. We may prefer more acceptable gimmicks than “healings”, but it is evident that we think gimmicks are the way. We expose by our actions that we fail to believe that the gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16). Our infatuation with gimmicks makes us sound like Paul’s opponents in Corinth to whom Paul says, “I know people are asking for signs and wisdom, but we refuse. We simply preach Christ crucified, the wisdom and power of God.” (cf. 1 Cor 1:18-25). Paul says he has nothing to do with crafty techniques or watering down the gospel, but rather “by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:2).

If we seriously desire the salvation of souls, let us be clear: showmanship is not necessary for reaching people for God. What is necessary is clear manifestation of truth, i.e. the gospel.

To follow on from the last post on speaking to our people about suffering, I wanted to mention a helpful resource. Kairos Journal is an online journal exclusively for pastors, and it is free. It is led by Greg Thornbury, who will be known to many of you. You have to register, and a third party referent is required to confirm that you are a pastor. The journal’s mission, in their own words, is:

“Kairos Journal seeks to embolden, educate, equip, and support pastors and church leaders as they strive to transform the moral conscience of the culture and restore the prophetic voice of the Church.”

In recent months KJ has done articles on Aake Green, a Swedish pastor, who in 2004 was convicted of hate speech and sentenced to prison because of his sermon where he simply stated that the Bible declares homosexuality to be sinful. It is an amazing story worthy to be read and told. The courage and conviction of this small church pastor is exemplary. If we love souls we must be willing to speak truth- particularly the truth which is despised and ignored.

As we consider pastoral ministry (as well as what it means to follow Christ in general) in our setting of American evangelicalism one element which is woefully absent from our discussion is suffering. Suffering is as conspicuously absent from the discussion in our churches as it is obviously present in the New Testament. If we are truly going to shepherd souls we must speak to them about suffering. In my first year of teaching New Testament survey I read each NT book ahead of the lecture in order to note the themes I would point out. One thing that surprised me was that suffering showed up prominently in every book- every book! How is it then that it is so little addressed? Of course one reason is that too often our sermons are not derived from scripture. Much more could be said about this but let me point out a recent article in World Magazine written by G E Veith entitled, “Praying for Persecution”.
Pastors would also do well to read the article on suffering in Pastoral ministry by Scott Hafemann, A Call to Pastoral Suffering: The Need for Recovering Paul’s Model of Ministry in 2 Corinthians.
Faithful shepherds must prepare their people for reality.

Eight years ago shortly after the conclusion of my first pastorate, I recorded the following thought:

“The crying need of our day is for holy men of God pastoring the church of God and being diligent in the oversight of souls” (8/7/97)

I don’t remember now exactly the events which prompted the writing down of this thought, but I have kept it with me on a sticky note through the years as I have become increasingly convinced of the point. Of course you could describe the need of our day in various ways, but I am firmly convinced that this statement does get at least to one of the primary needs for the renewal of the church in our day. That the modern Western church is in desperate need of renewal I take as a given. The things needing addressing for such a renewal are manifold; but, this issue, the restoration of a true, biblical understanding of overseeing souls, I think captures many of them under one heading. This has become a consuming passion of mine, and I have started this blog as one part of an effort to address this issue.

I intend to write as a pastor for pastors, addressing various issues from the angle of the pastorate. I think many things impinge on thinking about the pastorate, from literature to poetry to current events to exegetical and theological musings. If this will prove useful to any laboring in the oversight of souls, or to encourage some in the office of the pastor to actually begin to labor in overseeing souls, then this will be worthwhile.