This article is published at 9Marks.org
The key takeaways are:
9 Marks is a great ministry that has helped me immensely. I highly recommend their massive journal on Complementarianism.
As I get older I can’t help noticing who is and who isn’t ageing well. Some look like improved versions of their younger selves. Most look like the same people only with more pounds, wrinkles, grey hair and bare scalp. Some age well others don’t.
The other thing that happens as you get older, is you receive clearer evidence that you are a sinner, not resident in heaven and not utterly sanctified. Although the Christian might look back and see the numerous sins before their conversion, they can also see how each day since would add to their sin ledger.
This becomes more important when we get criticized, confronted, and charged by other people. In accounting terms, we can have the data of our sins inputted on an accrual basis. The ledger gets longer as our age gets higher.
For all of the misunderstandings and false accusations, there will also be many exposures of sin which will be accurate and real. Without any way to deal with the accounting of our sin, our debt would continue to multiply. A record of debt stands against us with “its legal demands” (Col 2:14).
As we age, it would be crippling to have the accrual of our sins piled upon us. For those who ignore this accrual, we can see their utter arrogance as they look at themselves in a purely sunny light. But for the sinner without Christ, there is only the growing despair which the sin ledger brings. Our sins don’t age well.
Justification ages well when our sins don’t. There is an evergreen character to justification that never withers or fades. There is no sin in the believer that remains unatoned for at the cross. There is no failure of obligation that is not satisfied by the active obedience of Christ. There is no accusation from earth or heaven which cancels the verdict of God when he declares a sinner just (Ro 3:26).
If you believe in Jesus Christ alone, relying upon his blood and righteousness for the forgiveness of your sins, you have a right standing before God. Then even if you add pounds and wrinkles, you don’t have to worry about ageing badly. You can even have the accrued sins of a long life reckoned as obsolete because God’s verdict never breaks down.
On another Reformation Day, you can know and announce that your justification is ageing quite well thank you.
In the Draft Order of Visitation of the Country Churches January 11, 1546 [1], there are some points made about what to watch for in assessing the ministries of pastors.
The first order of business was to make sure that the pastor maintained, “proper uniformity of doctrine in the whole body of the Church of Geneva.” This was done by having two Genevan pastors visit the country churches in order to, “enquire whether the Ministry of the place have accepted any doctrine in any sense new and repugnant to the purity of the gospel.” So the churches weren’t little labs where pastors could exercise their speculative experiments. They were expected to be fairly conservative, that is, unchanging in their doctrine.
Not only was the doctrine to be in line with the other Genevan churches, but there was also an expectation that the minister would preach with wise applications. He wasn’t to preach, “anything at all scandalous, or unfitting to the instruction of the people because it is obscure, or treats of superfluous questions, or exercises too great rigour.” In applying his expositions, the pastor wasn’t grinding axes or riding hobby-horses. How many ‘Calvinist’ pastors today are guilty of ‘exercising too much rigour’.
The pastor wasn’t the only one who was held accountable. The congregation was urged to be diligent not only in attending church services, but “to have a liking for it, and to find profit in it for Christian living.” Many congregations need to be reminded of their responsibility to support the pastor’s ministry and to like it.
Pastors were supposed to be engaged in ministry outside of the pulpit, through visitation of the sick and counselling. Specifically, pastors were to confront those who needed it, as well as applying counsel to prevent patterns of sin.
The last element that was examined was whether the pastor had a testimony marked by integrity. Basically, did the pastor live as an example to others, leading “an honest life”? Also, the pastor’s reputation was checked to see if people viewed areas of his life as lacking self-control (“dissoluteness”) or being flaky (“frivolity”). Finally, the pastor needed to have a harmonious relationship with the congregation. And above all of these, he needed to have his family life in order.
These priorities are quite basic. But how often do pastors fail to maintain these basic emphases? May God grant us mercy to fulfill our duties.
[1] JKS Reid, Calvin: Theological Treatises, (SCM Press, 1954), 74
photo credit
Returning from vacation, pastors might be jolted with the reminder that they can’t do their job. Or at least they will see that they can’t do all that their job demands of them. The needs of people are so many and so deep that only God’s supply can meet the demand.
So what is the pastor to do? Does he simply pray that God will enable him with supernatural capacity to meet every need in the church? Prayer for God-given empowerment is good, but if we seek it to meet every need, we will shift from being a servant to being a messiah.
What pastors and congregations need to realize is that God has already answered such prayers by providing gifts, supernatural gifts to the church. I’m not talking about the extra-ordinary apostolic gifts of miracles and prophecy which God sent to vindicate the foundation-laying apostolic message. I’m talking about God giving blood-won sinners who have been Spirit-empowered to serve God and one another. God has given people as supernatural gifts to the church.
In the gift lists of Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, we see that God has given a diversity of gifts to the church by setting individuals in vital union with Jesus Christ and each other.
The marvel of this miraculous union shows God’s practical provision. Each believing person does not merely have a gift but is a gift. That means that no matter who they are, what their background is, or what their personality type might be, a sinner saved by grace is themselves a grace-gift to the church. They have a role to play. As they play it, everyone else will benefit. As Paul told the Ephesians:
“When each part is working properly [Christ]makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love
Eph 4:16
In the modern church, this has come to be known as every member ministry. The description attempts to clarify that church members, all of them, have a role to play in the ministry, not just the clerical class.
One area where every member ministry is critical, but often overlooked is in soul care. Today many people in Protestant churches still think that the only person who can help them is the pastor. It is as if they think that the pastor has a special direct line to God. Or they think that the pastor is the leading expert who alone has the professional expertise. Or they think that the pastor is paid to be on-call for their spiritual needs, so they want to get their money’s worth.
Unfortunately, a lot of bad thinking sounds more like the unbiblical priestly models of Roman Catholicism, or the consumeristic therapy models of modern secular counselling. The two results that such an approach will achieve is either pushing pastors to become more like ‘professionals’ or it will push them to burn out.
The Reformer Martin Bucer addressed this point:
The care of souls makes so many demands that even in small congregation it cannot be properly exercised by just one or a few…there is so much involved in the true care of souls that even those who are the most skilled in this ministry; if they are alone or few in number, will not achieve very much; because all skill and ability comes from God, who desires to carry out this his work in his church by means of many and not by means of few.
Martin Bucer, Concerning the True Care of Souls, 58
To get ‘the many’ involved in ministry, pastors will have to do a number of things which will take effort, but the result will be better soul care for the congregation.
Pastors must start by obeying Ephesians 4:12 and aim to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the body of Christ.” This means teaching the saints the content of the faith, but also equipping them in such a way that they know the work of the ministry they are to do, and that they have the chance to do it. To equip the saints, they need both direction and teaching.
I think pastors can be good at teaching the content of the Christian faith but can assume that people in the church will automatically know how to minister to each other from that doctrinal foundation. I know for myself that I’ve had to be more explicit in helping people make connections between their role in the body of Christ and their responsibilities in the work of the ministry.
To equip people well requires all of the best elements of teaching. People need the content, examples, illustrations, analogies, steps and opportunities to practice. This kind of teaching takes a lot of work on the part of pastors. It is the part of my own experience that I find the most difficult. Teaching doctrine is easier, but it can be harder to help a member become a needs-aware role player in the body of Christ.
If pastors work at equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, the result as Paul argues through the fourth chapter of Ephesians will be unity. A church that “builds itself up in love” will be supernaturally unified through the relationships of its visible members. As Bucer put it:
In this work of building [God] wishes to have and make use of many tools, so that he may raise many of his own to honoour and hold them all the more firmly together…None of his members must be idle, and there must be the highest degree of unity and order among them, each one must depend on and be depended on by the other; thus everything must be one and in common, beginning and continuing by means of common activity.
Martin Bucer, Concerning the True Care of Souls, 58
As pastors (and church members) return from summer vacation, they can be tempted to slip into the thinking that says if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. But if we give in to that, we will burn out. Silo ministry will only expose how dysfunctional we are. Yet when we live according to God’s design, we will rejoice that he has gifted the church with many hands. Many hands make light work.
***affiliate links
