I’m going to Mexico today for about a week. I’ll be back in the country on next Tuesday, so that most likely means no posts at least until that Wednesday, maybe even Thursday. Kristi’s Mom and Step-Dad are spending some time with Kristi and the boys, which Miles, Owen and Carson are very excited about! I’ll be traveling as part of a new ministry called For the Fame of His Name (website coming).

For the Fame of His Name specializes in church planting and support in the Hueateca Region of Mexico. I’ll be going to Tamazunchale to speak at a pastor’s conference. Our church has adopted a pastor in Jalpa, Mexico and I’m looking forward to being able to meet him in order to be able to better pray for him, his family and ministry. I will be preaching twice, once on “Leadership Held to a Biblical Standard,” focusing primarily on 1 Timothy 4:16, but drawing heavily on the entire book of 1 Timothy and “The Beautiful Servant Leader,” drawing primarily from Mark 10:41-45 and Philippians 2:1-10.

Please pray that I would be faithful to God’s Word, clear in my thought and speech, that the pastor’s would be edified and that, above all else, God would be glorified.

Go with God.

I am currently preaching through Genesis on Sunday mornings. I was talking with someone the other day about the difficulty of preaching through Old Testament narrative texts and the process of applying the text came up. Many, it seems, struggle with applying such sections.

In making my way through the text, I’ve found that it’s helpful to ask three questions, which then become “three steps” towards applying the ancient text to the modern reader. Granted, there are other aspects to consider, but these three steps seem to provide a good starting point.

1. What does the event/revelation teach the original participants?
2. What does the event/revelation teach the author and his contemporary audience?
3. What does the event/revelation teach the modern reader?

Quite often, the answers to these questions may overlap, but the process of working through them will often help find the thematic elements of the passage in question. For example, as Genesis 15 opens, Abraham and his men have just defeated a coalition of kings to rescue his nephew Lot. Apparently fearing retribution, God appears to Abram in a vision with the powerful words (15:1): “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

The meaning for Abraham was quite clear: he was not to fear because God was for him, therefore, who could be against him (Romans 8:31). Just as God had given him a victory over a seemingly overwhelming foe, God would continue to be faithful to Himself (1 Corinthians 10:13) and protect His chosen servant. Of course this must be taken in the context of God reiterating His covenant blessings and cutting the covenant with Abraham, but these simply underscore and strengthen the already developed theme: God is faithful and will care for His people.

Taking a step back, we ask what the text was teaching the author and his contemporary audience. Most agree that Moses wrote Genesis sometime near the end of his life. The Israelites would have been poised to enter the Promised Land in the conquest and Moses knew that he would not be joining them. As they peered into cities they did not build full of things they did not fill (Deuteronomy 6:10-12), surely they felt a bit of trepidation and even fear as they prepared to face established armies and cities.

The text was teaching them what God had taught Abram so many years prior: He was faithful and to be trusted and obeyed. God had sworn this land to Abraham and his descendents and He would deliver it if the Israelites simply followed in faithful obedience. God’s faithfulness shines through both “planes,” both for Abram and Moses.

Taking the final step in applying the text requires that we take the developing theme and filter it through Christ. Obviously, the theme of God’s faithfulness is going to remain, but it is going to be centralized in the supreme manifestation of God’s faithfulness: Christ. Christ stands, not simply as the apex of God’s faithfulness, but as the interpretive key to all of Scripture.

Christ is the fulfillment of God “passing through the pieces” in the covenant ceremony with Abraham. Christ is the law fulfilled. Christ is the supreme revelation of God’s faithfulness, therefore, we too, ought not fear, because God is faithful. There is much more that could be said, but I think I’ll stop here for today and invite your comments/feedback.

• Read Preaching and Biblical Theology by Edmund Clowney
• Read Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching by Graeme Goldsworthy
• Read Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments by Geerhardus Vos
• Read The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology by Charles H.H. Scobie

Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not looking for sympathy. But I have a hard job. I’m not complaining, but there are times when I am overwhelmingly affected by the weight of the calling that is before me. I am continually convinced that no one can truly pastor God’s people simply by human strength and wisdom. Oftentimes, this reminder is simply enhanced by my own limitations. It is common for pastors such as myself to seek out helpful resources on preaching, counseling and leadership. Yet the truth seems to be that many of these resources, even from “Christian” booksellers often rely more on the wisdom of the world rather than the wisdom of God. As John Piper reminds us in his book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, so much of what pastoring is to be about, when rightly understood, is antithetical to the world’s approach to leadership. Piper writes:

We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake.

There has been a surge in the “pastor as CEO” model where many churches are built on the charismatic personalities of certain men and modeled after business structures. Growth, growth, growth is the goal and not necesarilly spiritual growth. I do not strive to be one of those “pastors”. In fact, I do not want people to hear a sermon and say, “I never would have seen that in the text if you hadn’t shown me.” I want to make myself invisible. I know that this is counterintuitive to the world’s approach to leadership, but at the end of the day, I am not striving to point people to myself but to Christ. John describes John the Baptist’s ministry in exactly this way:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light (John 1:6-8).

Later, the Baptist describes himself as not even worthy to untie Jesus’ sandal (John 1:19-28) and he makes it very clear that his ministry is that of pointing to another, pointing to Christ. Though many came out to hear John’s message and receive baptism, his message was that he was not the one they should be listening to! In other words, John wanted to be made less so that Christ might be made more. John didn’t want people looking to him. Instead, he wanted people looking past him to Christ. He wanted to become in a sense, invisible.

This is a hard truth. We, by nature, have a tendency towards pride when part of our job involves being in a spotlight, no matter how dim the spotlight might be. For the most part, people don’t handle public attention well and pastors are certainly prone to pride, to buy into the lie that people have come to hear what I have to say rather than being pointed to Christ through the Word. This is a difficult task to say the least. In a sense, my job requires that, though I stand behind the pulpit, I must ultimately stand behind Christ. Though I must speak publicly, I must strive not to draw attention to myself but the object of my message, which must always be Christ.

In former times, many armies had flag-bearers. These men, as you might imagine, carried the flag into battle. Sometimes they might have a gun or sword in the other hand, but oftentimes, they had a trumpet. A flag and a trumpet marching into battle was often all they had. We immediately assume that these men lagged behind, shying away from the heart of the battle yet the exact opposite is true. The flag-bearer often led the charge, holding the flag high. When the surging soldiers would grow weary, when fatigue began to set in, they would look to that flag leading the way and remember what it is they were fighting for. If the flag-bearer fell in battle, another soldier immediately picked up the colors and surged forward. The flag-bearer was a vital part of battle.

Please pray that I would not only have this heart, but this courage to remind God’s people what they are fighting for, and that I might lead the charge, disappearing all the while. Please pray for your own pastor and every pastor you know.

• Read Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea for Radical Ministry by John Piper
• Read Preaching With Passion by Alex Montoya
• Read A Pastor’s Sketches by Ichabod Spencer

I have been preaching through the book of Genesis on Sunday mornings. We have spent the last two weeks in chapter 19 which recounts the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Our first week in that chapter was spent examining Lot as a case of hardened conscience and we prayed that God would keep our consciences tender. This past Sunday we “zoomed out” to look at the larger picture of God’s wrath and the doctrine of judgment against sin.

To be honest, I was a bit nervous about preaching specifically on judgment and God’s wrath. I wasn’t nervous about doubting the truthfulness of such doctrines, but they are certainly not “comfortable” things to hear, much less to preach. I wondered how they would be received as part of a regular Sunday morning sermon rotation but I preached the sermon because I’m convinced that the Bible speaks about such things and as such, so must I.

Paul tells the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:27 that he declared to them “the whole counsel of God.” It is my goal, should I live and preach long enough, to preach through the entire Bible. I wonder what message so many of our churches really send by neglecting large portions of the inspired Word of God. What’s more, many modern Christians foster a healthy neglect of the entire Old Testament (with the exception of Psalms, Proverbs and perhaps Genesis 1-3 and some OT prophecies if you’re a Dispensationalist). I am convinced that it is my duty to preach “the whole counsel” of God no matter how “uncomfortable” it might initially seem.

What really struck me was the response. Several people thanked me for being willing to preach on such a topic. Many remarked about not hearing many sermons about judgment and/or God’s wrath which disappointed them. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this since Sunday and I’m convinced that God’s people have a hunger for God’s Word.

It seems so fundamental. As a pastor I receive tons of mail about the newest workshops and the latest “programs” (read: “gimmicks”) to grow the church. While these churches may experience large numbers of people attending, I’m not convinced that many of these churches are not the “ear ticklers” that Paul warns Timothy about (2 Timothy 4:3). Whatever your personal opinions about John MacArthur and John Piper might be, each of their ministries serves as a reminder that God’s people have a hunger for God’s Word. Even if you think they might be wrong, you cannot question their commitment to the Word.

As a pastor, I cannot shrink away from God’s Word in order to please men. I will someday have to answer before the Eternal, Holy Creator and give an account. If I can help it, I don’t want one of the questions to be “Why did you not preach all of My Word?” I pray that God would convict my conscience to care more about what He thinks than what people think. I pray that I would indeed declare “the whole counsel of God,” including the uncomfortable doctrines.

• Read Thoughts on Preaching by J.W. Alexander
• Read Preaching With Passion by Alex Montoya
• Read The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Carson

A lightning bolt it was not. Having gone through seminary, I’ve met men who knew in an instant that they were being called to the ministry. Others possessed a sure and steady resolve that had grown over the years. By contrast, I was confused about the idea of a “calling” and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it when I thought that mine had arrived.

Being in the pastorate, it is quite common for people to share with me that they are feeling “called to the ministry.” It’s interesting that so many of us have such different perspectives on what this actually means. The most recent “Acts 29” e-mail newsletter addresses this very topic, and they offer “Ten Ways to Test God’s Calling In Your Life.” This idea of “God’s calling” is an especially one for many to discern. It can be over-emphasized to asking which pair of socks God would have me wear today, or it might be virtually ignored as though God were simply not interested in the details of our lives or active in shaping those details. We must strive above all to be biblical as we seek how most effectively live out these truths.
Though it could apply to many areas of life, it also applies directly to this discussion of ministry. The Acts 29 list is as follows:

Ten ways to test God’s calling in your life:
1. Is it within the principles of Scripture?
2. Does it demand God’s participation?
3. Is it contrary to selfish desires?
4. Will it challenge my faith?
5. Am I pursuing God through it or running from a problem?
6. Am I being patient with it?
7. Does it build up others?
8. Is it within my God-given abilities and spiritual gifts?
9. Has Godly counsel encouraged it?
10. Am I experiencing peace in it?

Scott Thomas
Director
Acts 29 Network

There are several practical helps to a list such as this one. It reminds us to involve others, asking “Has Godly counsel encouraged it.” This is a foreign concept to many of us who forget that the “Lone Ranger” even had companionship and have come to believe that we truly can “pull ourselves up by the bootstraps.” Seeking the counsel of others is either not on the radar for some people, or it is simply uncomfortable.

Scripture repeatedly admonishes us to seek counsel on important decisions, reminding us that “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).This is also a reminder that the “call to ministry” is not simply internal and subjective. Rather, it must be witnessed to and verified by others. This is not to say that if someone dislikes my preaching “style” that I am not called to the ministry, but it is to say that if those whose judgment we trust doubt aour calling, perhaps we should as well. Are we trusted with teaching opportunities and what is the feedback when such opportunities are presented?

I know that in my own calling to ministry, this objective element came very much prior to the subjective, personal grasp of that same call. While I realize that this is not everyone’s experience, I find it helpful to review the process God brought me through to the pastorate. I was given several teaching opportunities which received (for the most part) positive feedback. Others began to question the presence of a call long before I did. In fact, I leaned heavily towards the academic side of things and entered seminary with the plans to continue through to the Ph.D. and to teach in an academic environment.

Somewhere during the seminary experience though, God literally broke my heart for the church. Through a series of events including conducting my grandfather’s funeral and taking “The Doctrine of the Church” with Mark Dever, God literally changed me from the inside out. I remember explicitly that several professors at Southern made the same comment: “If you can picture yourself doing anything other than full-time ministry and being content, then you ought to because ministry must be a calling.”

This last concept has been one that my wife and I have continually returned to, not only while finishing seminary, but throughout the process of finding the right place to serve and even through the first year-and-a-half of that ministry. I won’t lie: ministry is often difficult and if one enters into without a clear sense of calling from the Lord, it will not only be unrewarding but it will quite likely be damaging. We must take the idea of the call to ministry seriously because we take the Church seriously. Not that we want to discourage people, but it is not “one career choice among many,” and it cannot be entered into lightly.

We must not only be thankful for the Acts 29 list and men like John Piper who are willing to “Plea for Radical Ministry,” we must encourage those who feel this call and who serve us. The ministry can be a lonely, even alienating place and if God’s people to not uphold His servants, I know from experience how easy it is to become discouraged. But we can take joy in the fact that with the call, God also provides the equipping because it is His kingdom, His name and His renown that are ultimately at stake and He will not share His glory with another (Isaiah 48:11). For that we can be grateful.

• Read Brothers, We Are Not Professionals by John Piper

I recently received the following e-mail that I wanted to share with you. Names have been removed to protect the sarcasm of the sender:

Brent,

You might want to check out this article, especially since you’ve been so busy lately — it might be a great time-saver! I hate to see you wasting all that time studying.

Knowing the author of said e-mail, I thought that I had a reasonable idea of what to expect when I arrived at the article. I was wrong. In fact, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I had seen “Rick Warren’s Tool Box” before, a website with article and resources claiming to help equip pastors, but I’ve honestly never spent much time there.

In case you haven’t guessed from the illustration by David Julian, the article essentially advocates plagiarism from the pulpit. The article’s author, Steve Sjogren, introduces the article with these words (I apologize up-front for the large number of block quotes following, but I wanted to very clearly let the article speak for itself):

There has been much talk in recent years on blogs and Web sites about how much of other people’s sermons is appropriate to incorporate into your own messages. When does it get to the point of “plagiarism”?

Sjogren then discusses an interview with Dr. Cho, pastor of “the world’s largest church in Korea” (which must mean he’s doing something right!). Cho was asked how he prepares his weekly sermons because “They’re so powerful.” Sjogren records Cho as responding:

Honestly, I have never given an original message in all my years of ministry here at Yoido Church. Each week, I preach word-for-word messages from either Billy Graham or W.A. Criswell from Dallas First Baptist Church. I can’t afford to not have a home run each weekend when we gather. I don’t trust my own ability to give completely original messages.

Sjogren then notes that he “regularly read(s) the blogs of my favorite communicators from influential churches around the United States.” I find it telling that he doesn’t refer to them as “pastors,” but that’s another point entirely. Sjogren then notes that each of these “communicators” (although at this point de does refer to them as pastors):

has recently come out on their blogging sites and admitted, curiously, the same thing. They get approximately 70 percent of their messages each week from other people – word for word according to them. They fill in their own personal illustrations and stories, of course. Two of the guys that I am thinking of as I write this have churches of more than 10,000 in attendance each weekend” (which, again must mean that they are truly honoring God, right?).

In case there’s any confusion about Sjogren’s own position towards this practice, he says quite clearly:

We need to get over the idea that we have to be completely original with our messages, each and every week. In my mind there is a tremendous amount of pride (let’s call it what it is) when we insist on being completely original as communicators. In our desire to give “killer messages” we are dishing out something far less. Think about it for a second: If you really were giving a killer message each week, would your church be the size that it is right now? Maybe you need to be open to doing things a different way.

I honestly couldn’t believe that I read that. So I re-read it and re-read it and re-read it until I was clear: Sjogren just said that it is prideful to carry the notion that pastors ought to write their own sermons, because we all share a desire to “give “killer messages,” which means “wowing” the “audience” every week! He then asks a very telling question: “If you really were giving a killer message each week, would your church be the size that it is right now?” My heart sank at these words. In Sjogren’s article we have reached the epitome of not only pragmatism, but of elevating numbers to the guage of success or failure in ministry. In applying this message, Sjogren argues that leaders need to

stop all of this nonsense of spending 25 or 30 hours a week preparing to speak on the weekend. The guys I draw encouragement from – the best communicators in the United States – confess they spend a total of about 15 hours preparing for their message. As I have already said, they get 70 percent of their material from someone else. Remember, Solomon wrote that “there is nothing new under the sun …”

He then outright urges that we “Borrow creatively from others in the Church world” and that we need to “forget about originality – which is often a form of pride. Let’s begin to focus on effectiveness, and pray that we will be powerful at connecting with not-yet believers.” He then closes the article by stating:

A wise mentor of mine brought great liberty to me when he was coaching me in the area of how to put messages together. He said, “There once was a man who said, ‘I will be original or nothing;’ in the end he became both.” Dare to step out of the box. Regardless of what you have heard or been taught – hit a homerun this weekend with the help of a message master!

The real issues here are not even about originality, but about respect for the Word and obedience to Christ’s command of making disciples (Matthew 28:18-20) as our principle ends. Sjogren has reduced effective preaching to mere pragmatics and numbers. How do you know when you are preaching “homeruns,” when you have numbers and if you don’t have numbers, then you ought to consider cutting corners and refashioning your product! This is a blatant lack of respect for the Word and the Church and in the end, God will not honor such approaches. Large numbers sometimes mean that more ears are being tickled than souls edified (2 Timothy 4:3), yet such concerns do not seem to appear on Sjogren’s radar.

The very notion that we must preach “homeruns” is in itself misguided and borrows more from marketing than Scripture. Not that we do not strive for excellence, we certainly do, but the excellence that we strive for is properly understanding, explaining and applying the Word, not “wowing” our audience. If that happens in the process, that’s fine, but once that “wow” becomes our focus, we’ve lost sight of true preaching. The question of the “communicator/preacher/pastor” as “entertainer is a crucial one. Is it possible that driving a Corvette and pulling things from the trunk while you preach on letting God deal with “your junk in the trunk” is perhaps going too far?

Is it pride for a minister to strive to adequately understand and apply the Word? Is it pride to think that a pastor ought to actually write the words he presents as his own? Is it pride to let our “yes be yes” and our “no be no” (James 5:12)? We cannot tolerate views such as this one that lowers the church from being the “pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) to nothing more than a marketing model and business approach. We would do well to remind Sjogren that “we who teach will be judged with greater strictness,” (James 3:1-2) and that God’s business is never truly accomplished using man’s methods. What works for the world does not work for the church. Oh that we would be a generation that takes the preaching of the Word seriously rather than simply as a pragmatic means to an end…

• Read Steve Sjogren’s article “Don’t Be Original - Be Effective!”

One of the apparent difficulties with preaching expository sermons (verse by verse/section through books of the Bible) is that the preacher will often find himself repeating certain themes. For example, it would be difficult to preach through Genesis 3-6 without heavily emphasizing sin and its universality. In other words, there will be a few weeks with rather sin-heavy messages. In addition, it would seem to me to be nearly impossible for a Christian preacher to preach a sermon without going to the Cross.

Over a period of time, the preacher will find himself hitting many of the same themes. This immediately confronts our need for something always new and our desire to be entertained. We are raised in a culture that extects to be entertained by the newest, the latest and the greatest. Many preachers have lowered themselves to the status of bein entertainers rather than bearers of God’s Word. But listen to how Peter describes at least part of his ministry in 2 Peter 1:12-15:

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

One of the first things that strikes us about this passage is Peter’s earnestness. He obviously cares whether or not these things are not only understood but applied. He loves his readers and the truth he is communicating and he is willing to repeat himself in the process. He even goes so far as to say that as long as he is living, he intends “always” to remind them of these truths so that after his departure they may be able “at any time to recall these things.”

Peter’s approach is quite different from many in our day. It’s no secret that many churches have adopted business models and tried to apply them to ministry. While some pragmatic elements of the business world might be incorporated, we can not bring try to apply everything, perhaps most notably the business model’s measure of success. Yet this is precisely what many churches have done, believing that more people necessarily means more success.

Peter, however, points us to the fact that biblical success, true success in ministry goes much deeper than numbers. He is genuinely concerned with whether or not his readers hear, understand, apply and are changed by the mesage he bears. In other words, he seems to be judging success or failure in the ministry against different standards than many of us. We do well to meditate on exactly what it is that we are called to do. Consider the “Great Commission,” given by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We often turn to this passage merely for its missions emphasis, reminding ourselves that we are to go to “all nations” but the passage has tremendous implications for the life of the local church. Yes, we are to go, but we are ultimately to be making disciples. This is the true measure of success or failure in ministry; how well are we making disciples who then reproduce themselves in making further disciples. Peter was willing to repeat himself in order to make sure the importance of this message was passed on.

How ought modern pastors convey this same intensity and willingness to repeat ourselves? I’ll be honest, this question becomes more difficult for me preaching through a section such as Genesis 3-6 which is quite “sin heavy.” How often is too often to repeat a theme, particularly if the text in question repeats itself thematically?

The more I meditate on questions such as these, the more often I return to passages like this one in Peter’s second letter. As mentioned, his heart for the truth and for his hearers simply bleeds through his words and the fact that he was willing to repeat himself actually emphasizes this. Regardless of your perception of his theology, I think of someone like John Piper who preaches with such passion that no one would question his heart. He is genuinely moved by the truths he is handling and in this context, repetition often becomes a tool of zeal.

Repetition becomes self-defeating when it is used simply because there is nothing else to say, or to nag. The next time you hear a preacher repeat himself, ask yourself why he’s repeating. Lord willing, the answer will be that he has been emphatically changed by the truth he is communicating and he wants the same for you. The next time you hear a pastor repeat himself, listen.

• Buy John Piper’s books
• Read Preaching With Passion by Alex Montoya
• Read my previous post “It’s True, But is it Passionate?”