The Gospel Is Declaration, Not Deeds

Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.

- Attributed to Francis of Assisi (incorrectly as it turns out)

There are few hokey quotes that I despise more than that one. Maybe the only one I dislike more is the Gandhi quote about liking Jesus but not Christians that I see all the time, mostly from progressives virtue signaling how terrible their fellow Christians are (I addressed that nonsense here). The reason I don't like that quote, besides it being pompous and demeaning to the work of evangelism, is that it is anti-Biblical. Notice that I say anti-Biblical. It is not just something that is not directly found in Scripture, it is directly contrary to what the Bible teaches by way of command and example. The implication of that false quote is a direction contradiction of the Bible.

The Gospel is Good News, not Good Deeds. Our good works are a critical demonstration of our changed lives and evidence of such and often our good works are a way of opening hearts to hear the Gospel but unless we actually tell people the Good News, it isn't Gospel proclamation at all. For example, in Acts 3:1-10 we read the account of Peter and John and the healing of a man lame from birth. How wonderful! But what happens next is the true miracle. Having performed this wonderful work of healing and mercy which attracts a lot of attention, Peter then takes the opportunity to preach the Gospel, just as he did after the miraculous manifestation of the speaking of foreign tongues a chapter earlier at the day of Pentecost. From Acts 3:12-26 we see Peter preaching the unadulterated Gospel and even though they were arrested for it, we see the fruit of his preaching:

But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. (Acts 4:4)

Healing a man lame from birth is pretty incredible. Seeing 5000 men, absolutely dead in their sins, being brought to new life by the power of the Gospel working with the Holy Spirit? That is the true miracle. Here is the kicker. If Peter had simply healed the lame man and then he and John had left, they would not have been arrested and not a single person would have been saved that day, apart perhaps from the lame man who was told to walk in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 3:6).

You can do all sorts of wonderful works and that is great and we should be doing more works of mercy but if you never get to the point of telling people the Good News of Jesus Christ, you really are only making their life more comfortable until they land in hell. Soup kitchens, food pantries, medical clinics, crisis pregnancy centers, orphanages. Those are all marvelous but if they are not accompanied by the Gospel they are empty, dead works. Check out this short video from John Piper where he addresses this topic and got me fired up this morning, also includes a bonus "The Holy Spirit As An Airplane" impersonation. Vintage Piper.

Don't Talk To Me, Can't You See I Am Fixin' To Minister To You!?

Eric Carpenter linked to a post by Thom Rainer and it was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read (the post by Rainer, not the post from Eric). The post, Six Observations About Speaking to Pastors Right Before They Preach, is a list of things you absolutely, positively must not do because you might distract your pastor from giving a great sermon (that he spent 15-20 hours preparing for you!). Like Eric I find that Thom Rainer writes some decent stuff but I agree that this is not in that category. Here is the critical line:

Many times pastors get very distracted and even discouraged when someone speaks to them right before they preach.

He follows with six observations which boil down to "Don't talk to your pastor before he preaches and if you rudely insist on it only say nice, encouraging things". You can read them for yourself by following the link but here is what I commented (assuming my comments makes it through moderation):

This makes perfect sense if we see the church gathered as primarily a time to observe a performance. We certainly don't want to distract the performer before he goes on stage. Of course if we actually gather for fellowship and mutual edification as we see modeled and commanded in Scripture, this sort of advice makes no sense and in fact seems more designed to treat clergy as celebrity divas who mustn't be disturbed by the petty things like talking to people before they get to show off how well they have prepared. This really gets to the difference between how we understand church in our religious culture and how it is revealed in Scripture.

Are clergy so emotionally fragile and prone to performance anxiety that we have to walk on eggshells around them before their sermon? Speaking from personal past experience I would say yes. The entire post sounds like parenting advice for the parents of an especially temperamental teenager or perhaps a harried venue manager preparing to host a particularly picky rock star (Google "outrageous celebrity demands" to see what I mean).

Don't talk to them. Don't ask them to make an announcement (even one you write out for them!). Don't introduce people to them, they don't have time to meet new people when they are about to go on stage. For crying out loud don't ask them to deal with any issues, fix your own dang toilet lady!

Let me lay it on the line. When the church gathers if you are too self-absorbed and consumed with performance anxiety to be bothered with talking to the people who you are supposed to be ministering to, you aren't a pastor, you are a performer and you need to know the difference. 

This post also reveals a serious problem within the church regarding how we view pastors and "preaching". Eric wrote:

As with so many inside the comfy confines of the institution, Rainer believes that pastors have some sort of exclusive communication connection with God. In particular, he acts as if what a pastor happens to say from a pulpit is a literal special message from God. This is nothing more than mystical mumbo-jumbo and complete nonsense.

I would largely concur. I don't necessarily fault most pastors for this situation. They are simply the products of our religious culture that elevates the act of giving a prepared talk on a topic to hearing the oracles of God. When men enter enter the clergy system they are inundated with people telling them how critical their sermons are and elevating those sermons to a holy act. There is so much emphasis on the sermon that a 45 minute prepared talk has become the focal point for the church gathering while actual, Biblically based reasons for gathering like sharing a meal and encouraging one another are tacked on as special events held a couple of times a year. Little wonder that virtually every pastors sweats over their sermon all week and feels inadequate and discouraged afterward. It is an impossible standard to meet because it has been made into something that was never intended. The failure to understand this is what leads to "multi-campus churches" where tens of thousands of people call a man they have never met and who wouldn't know them by sight, much less by name, "pastor". Biblical pastoral ministry implies and demands interpersonal relationships. If you don't have that, you have something very different from what Scripture shows us about leadership, serving and teaching in the church.

If you really want to pastor people, to minister to them, then encourage them to talk to you. Go out of your way to meet new people. Don't worry if your sermon starts a couple of minutes late or is a little less polished in delivery than you might like, very few people are going to remember it even a few hours later anyway. They will remember if you took the time to talk to them even when you are busy, they will remember that you seemed genuinely glad to meet them instead of giving them an irritated perfunctory greeting while rushing off to deliver your sermon. Better yet remove the religious barriers that make this sort of post by Rainer necessary. Teaching in the church is a brother edifying and equipping his brothers and sisters, not a performance to be enjoyed and then forgotten. 

We have enough divas in the celebrity world, we don't have room or need for them in the church.

Repost: Was Paul preaching a sermon when he met with the church at Troas?

(post in honor of my friend Joe)

There are some cornerstone verses that are used to prop up the traditions we have come to expect in the traditional church, verses like 1 Cor 9:14 as a defense of paid clergy. These verses, taken out of context, are offered up as an unquestionable bulwark that makes cause even the mere suggestion that some of our traditions may not be as defensible as we think to be met with derision, dismissal and often anger.

One of the most frequently cited of these verses is Acts 20: 7-11. It is part of the cultural mythology of organized religion that these verses describe a proto-worship service, the earliest example of the church a) gathering on Sunday and b) listening to a sermon. As I hope to demonstrate in this reposting of Was Paul preaching a sermon when he met with the church at Troas?, this is not only not apparent from the text itself when studied as a whole but in reality what is being described is something quite different, radically so, from what we normally practice on Sunday morning.

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Back to this topic again.

Like a certain canine owned by Dr. Ivan Pavlov, there are people who will reflexively respond to the assertion that there is no command or example regading monologue sermons in the New Testament with “Oh yeah, well what about Acts 20:7?!?!” It never fails. What is also apparent is that this response is based on a knee-jerk reaction. Teacher X that I respect taught that in the account of Paul speaking to the church in Troas in Acts 20, what was going on was a sermon. In fact more often than not it will be accompanied by a joke about not complaining about how long someone "preaches" because when Paul preached to the church in Troas, a young man fell asleep and fell from a window! Hilarity and chuckling ensue but no one asks “is that really what happened or is that just what we were led to believe happened?”. Well I am asking!

I think some of the problem comes from the King James translation. Most Christians are familiar with the language in the KJV (i.e. our Father who art in heaven) and in the King James language from 400 years ago, it certainly sounds to our ears like Paul is "preaching", which of course means a sermon. If you read the King James rendering, this is what you get (emphasis mine in all three examples):

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.

The English Standard renders it slightly differently but in an important way.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, "Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him." And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

The same is true with the NASB. The New American Standard renders it:

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, "Do not be troubled, for his life is in him." When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. They took away the boy alive, and were greatly comforted.

What is the difference? In the King James translation, the word “preach” is used twice and that word has a connotation of a monologue sermon because of our cultural understanding of what “preaching” involves. But both the NASB and the ESV strongly suggest that Paul was involved in a conversation with the assembled body by rendering it “talked with” and “conversed with”. So which is correct? I am not a Greek expert but I think we can draw some conclusions from what we have been presented with that support my contention that Paul was involved in a conversation, not a sermon.

First, there is the ESV/NASB translations which imply that Paul was involved at least partially in conversation with the church, that he was interacting with the people there and not merely “preaching unto them” a sermon. Certainly Paul would have been leading the conversation as an apostle but there is nothing to suggest that the gathered church sat mutely while he spoke. Given what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 14, he definitely would have expected all of the brothers to bring something to the meeting (a hymn, a prayer, a teaching, etc.) and not just sit quietly and listen politely. 

Second, does it make any sense at all to assume that Paul was preaching a sermon for perhaps eight hours? At least twice the church was eating so he certainly wouldn’t have been preaching then. Just from a practical standpoint, there is no way he was the only one speaking. If you have ever spoken to a group you know that it is draining and hard on your voice. An hour is a long time to speak, two hours is pretty extreme. By contrast I can talk with friends for hours on end because I am not the only one talking.

Third, trying to draw a parallel between Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ entrusted with writing large swaths of the New Testament as an authoritative text and your local church pastor delivering a spiritual lecture is foolhardy. I think it is ironic that many people will embrace Paul as their role model when they think he is supporting their traditions, like sermon preaching, but not when he exhorts church leaders to earn a living by working rather than coveting money from the church, something that happens a few verses after Paul allegedly was preaching a sermon in Acts 20:7.

Fourth, the purpose of the church gathering is important to look at. The church was gathered together to “break bread”. This was not a worship service where the expectation was that they were going to get a sermon, they were there as the church for a meal specifically as a going away meal with Paul (and they met on Sunday not because Sunday is the "sabbath" but because Paul was leaving the next day but that is a post for a different day). Certainly there were important conversation about matters of theological importance and certainly there likely was prayer going on (based on Acts 2:42) but the gathering was for a meal. Paul spent a lot of time speaking with the church because he was leaving the next day and apparently he had lots to talk about. Keep in mind that he was there for a week and during that time was no doubt also engaged in teaching and laboring alongside the believers in Troas.

What seems apparent from Paul’s time with the church in Troas in Acts 20 is that he was talking with the church in Troas while they were gathered to share a meal. Paul likely was leading the conversation because of his unique position in the church as an apostle but the church was engaged in conversation with him, an assertion I base on the text (“talked with” and “conversed with”) and on the sheer implausibility of Paul preaching a monologue sermon all night. Those who claim that Acts 20:7 is an example of monologue sermons in the New Testament have a difficult task because a) it is the only place they can even try to turn to and b) the actual text itself doesn’t support their contention unless you read Acts 20:7 convinced that your tradition is correct before you even start to read. If you base your notion of the centrality of sermons in the life of the church on Acts 20:7 you are on pretty shaky ground indeed.

Pondering Pulpits

I was part of a pretty intense conversation this week regarding pulpits. It was actually "in person" rather than online which is kind of unusual. Pulpits are such a common part of the church experience in the West that they are not given much thought at all. We assume that the most important messages in the church come from pulpits and often we see people bemoaning that this is not heard from the pulpit or that is not heard from the pulpit. A church without a pulpit is unthinkable. Needless to say, I disagree and at  minimum think we need to talk about this unique piece of furniture.


There are three schools of thought when it comes to pulpits in the church.

1) Pulpits are a sacred, reserved space for the “preaching of the Word” by those in the proper ordained position of authority. Only pastors or perhaps elders are permitted to use pulpits. When a man steps up to the pulpit, he is tasked with proclaiming the oracles of God in a unique sense and it is in a very real sense a sacred space.

2) The pulpit as practical piece of furniture. Pulpits and the platform they typically are set on, elevating the speaker above the audience, are little more than a pragmatic solution allowing the audience to better see and hear the speaker and in turn providing the speaker a place to lay out notes, a glass of water perhaps and providing a comfortable place to speak.

3) The pulpit as symbol of hierarchy. The pulpit serves as a barrier between the speaker and the rest of the church, creating a very real perception of hierarchical structure in the church and making a mockery of the notion of leaders as servants. Pulpits are a hold over from Roman Catholicism and have no place in the church. Pulpits imply a superior-inferior relationship within the church.

The first school of thought is to me the most dangerous and unbiblical. The notion of a physical space reserved for a particular class of men smacks of the Old Covenant priesthood which has been made obsolete and inappropriate in the New Covenant church. It is an ugly left over unreformed from the Reformation period and a remnant of the medieval Roman church and therefore has no place in a one-anothering church.

The second position might seem to make sense but only if we assume that a primary function of the gathered church is to listen to a speaker. That is perfectly within the cultural conditioning most of us have received for what it means to be “the church” but it is without command or example in the Scriptures. While most of the church just assumes that a monologue talk, generally called a sermon and described as the act of “preaching’, is the focus of the gathered church, I believe that the New Testament describes something more akin to a family gathering, a group of friends, brothers and sisters in fact, meeting to encourage and exhort one another rather than a weekly meeting to listen to a speaker. In such a meeting a pulpit becomes at best superfluous and at worst an impediment.

No surprise, I fall into the third category although I once was in the first. For me, pulpits and pews go hand in hand and neither has precedence or command from the New Testament. Not only is the Bible silent on the issue but the perception of the pulpit and pew is of one man over the rest. Look at the picture to the left. The picture is of the pulpit where John Calvin regularly delivered sermons, an ornate perch that he would ascend to before speaking, looking down on the masses below. We rarely see pulpits like this anymore but merely moving them down from the wall and onto a raised platform does little to change the connotation. Pulpits are one and the same with other distinctive trappings of clericalism like grandiose titles (“Right Reverend”), clerical garb like vestments and collars and demands of privilege and deference based on education and ordination. A cleric without a collar is still a cleric.

I am curious what readers think. I assume not many people that might read this fall into the first school of thought (but I would like to hear from you) but many likely fall into the second and third. Is this a big issue or not? Does the presence of the pulpit carry a connotation of authoritarianism and hierarchy or is it just a convenient piece of furniture that enhances the ability of the speaker to convey a message and the audience to receive it? Are pulpits necessary in the church, healthy for the church, even appropriate at all in the church?

As a fun aside, check out Spurgeon’s thoughts on pulpits, no one could turn a phrase quite like CHS!

Assumptions

Among those who make a virtual living by hunting down any whiff of error, real or imagined, the appearance by T.D. Jakes at the “Elephant Room 2” conference was like manna from heaven. Preceded by a lot of controversy, the resignation of Gospel Coalition member James McDonald and the alleged threatened arrest of a blogger who had his credentials revoked, the Elephant Room lived up to its name by being a circus (not the content, which I haven’t seen, just the controversy surrounding it). The kerfuffle was driven by one of the speakers, T.D. Jakes, who is well known for his unorthodox modalism and his adherence to the “prosperity gospel”. A lot of people have taken umbrage at this and even when Jakes sort of declared that he was actually a more or less orthodox Trinitarian (using some ambiguous language to be sure), it still was not good enough. Lots of my fellow bloggers have joined the fray. Was it wrong to invite Jakes and engage him, however gently? Was his statement on the Trinity sincere? What about the prosperity gospel? Some bloggers on the other side have leveled charges of racism because the critics are all "middle aged white guys" and Jakes. The whole thing has taken on a fever pitch that only theological "tempests in a teapot" can generate.

One post from yesterday caught my eye. In appears at Credo Magazine, written by Tim Raymond of Trinity Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana. Tim’s concern about Jakes, at least in his post How the Elephant Room is Redefining the Pastoral Office, is that it sets a bad precedent to lift someone like T.D. Jakes up as a model for others in the “pastoral office”. His statement is blunt:

By lifting up men with minimal theological commitments as examples to pastors, the Elephant Room is proclaiming, perhaps unwittingly, that a rigorous concern for sound doctrine is not essential to the pastoral office.

Is that true? I want to spend a little time on this so I am going to go into a fair amount of detail. This is not to beat up fellow Hoosier Tim Raymond. This understanding of the “office” of the pastor, the role that elders in the church ought to fulfill, is something that is very prevalent in the church and I think that what he wrote would be accepted virtually without question in most of the church, perhaps changing some of the names but the basic point would be the same. My issue has to do with the assumptions we make based on our traditions. See more after the jump....

Repost: Preaching yourself out of a job

A comment on my post earlier this week, Equipped for what? , reminded me of a post from a few years ago, Preaching yourself our of a job. If as an elder/leader in the church you aren't equipping people to be independent of you, you really aren't equipping them or leading the church as you should. A perpetual state of the "laity" on the "clergy" does great violence to the purpose and calling of elders in the church. Read on and let me know what you think....

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One of my prior “Thought for the day” posts said: “The goal of every pastor should be to make himself unnecessary.” I promised to expand on that, so here it goes.

I base that assertion on Ephesians 4. That is, in the ESV at least, the only passage that uses the English word pastor, which seems odd given how prevalent the pastoral office is in the church. The ESV uses shepherd in one place that refers to someone other than Christ Himself, in 1 Peter 5:2 where it is used as a verb, not as a title. Here is the text from Ephesians 4 in question.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph 4: 11-16)

So where does that lead us? It seems that we like to stop at “equip the saints for the work of ministry” but Paul doesn’t stop there. The wording he uses subsequent to that paints a picture not of a perpetual situation where one man teaches, week after week, year after year, going to conferences, taking sabbaticals, reading books and then feeding that information to “his flock”. The goal is not a perpetual dependence on one man to do the work of ministry but seems to be bringing every else up to speed, to maturity so that we all are mature and all are equipped for the work of ministry.

I think before we can take the word “pastor” and create an office of church leadership, we need to figure out what the purpose of pastors/shepherds is. I think it is harmful to assume things about the function of pastors and create whole systems surrounding “pastoral ministry” that allows us to create hierarchies of senior pastors and various sub-pastors (youth pastor, worship pastor, pastor of this and pastor of that) based loosely on a blend of corporate org charts and Roman hierarchies. It encourages the exalting of pastoral ministry as the pinnacle of Christian faithfulness and leads conversely to a rigid distinction between the “clergy” and “laity” to an extreme (see the prior post about “every member evangelism”).

God gave men to the church to equip the rest of the Body of Christ, i.e. the church. Until the last year, I assumed that meant what most people think it means: we “go to church” on Sunday morning and a specially trained and qualified man preaches a sermon that exegetes the text. In other words “equipping” = “preaching to”. If we are good Christians we pay attention to the sermon, if we are really good Christians we take notes. I question now whether that was the intent of what Paul was saying, and this strikes me as another situation where we look at our contemporary situation and build our doctrines backward. Our concern should be what is Biblical, not what is traditional, not what is Reformed, not what is pragmatic. Those concerns can be addressed but only after we discern the Biblical intent. So what does Scripture say? Do we see men holding a pastoral office in the same way we have assumed for the last five hundred years?

A couple of things:

Scripture doesn’t give us an example of the full-time, vocational pastor that is so dominate in the church today and for many hundreds of years. Paul, Timothy and Titus don’t seem to be “pastors” in the sense we normally think of it, i.e. as an office in the local church organization. We call 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the “pastoral epistles” but that is a bit of a misnomer. Timothy is frequently mentioned “coming” and “going”, appointing elders from town to town. Timothy was as much a “Senior Pastor” in a local church as my coffee mug is.

When we examine the role of the pastor in the local church and whether or not we should pay men to be pastors or to teach or preach in the local gathering, the place where we turn is often 1 Corinthians 9. It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 9, where Paul both makes his case for financial aid and also explains his rejection of it, should give us a clue as to how this relationship should work. A couple of things jump out at me about 1 Corinthians 9. The first thing is that Barnabas and Paul strike me as more of church planters and missionaries than what we consider to be a pastoral ministry in a local church. In most Bibles there is a map of Paul’s missionary journeys and he and Barnabas (who was in the nascent church in Antioch before being set apart for more of a traveling missionary role) went all over the place planting churches, equipping men and proclaiming the Gospel.

Paul also takes great pains to point out that he did not make use of the right to be paid. That is so crucial and yet so often missed. I could almost see paid ministers as missionaries to local churches. They would come into a church, minister through equipping the men of the church so that they would then be ready to lead the local gathering through serving them and protecting the local body from false teaching but then these paid ministers would move on to another church.

I just don’t see the perpetual paid minister in the same church for decades as being supportable from Scripture. A man who is a local member of a community should be able to support himself by the work of his own hands. That frees him up to help the poor, emboldens him in his teaching and preaching by not being held hostage by a pay check and demands that the rest of the men of the local gathering step up and lead in the church and in their families in a Scriptural way. If we appointed elders to lead the church from among the local community instead of hiring preachers from hither and yon, they would already have jobs, already know and be known by the local gathering, they would know the area they live in and minister in.

Are there men who have a special talent for teaching? Who are really good at it? That is indisputable. Does that mean that only those select few should do the equipping and teaching? I don’t think so.

If you are doing the work of a pastor, you are working yourself out of a job. There will always be more people who need equipping but there should never be just one guy who does it. If the people in the local gathering never get to the point of being equipped and carrying out the work of ministry, you have failed in your mandate. The sign of spiritual maturity is not the ability to listen attentively to someone else for 45 minutes. It is being equipped for the work of ministry. We are not called to watch ministry being done but to be about the business of ministry ourselves.

A different perspective on sermons

Most of the time we see advocacy or defenses of sermons coming from pastors of traditional churches where the sermon is the focal point of the gathering. I read a post on sermons (and a follow-up post in response to a question about the original post) with interest because the author is part of, for lack of a more precise term, a house church group in the home of the college football team with the more wins than any other program, i.e. Ann Arbor, Michigan.. The author, Van Parunak, is a great guy and his wife is one of the nicest people I know.

Van starts off his post, In Defense of the Sermon, with this:

Traditionally, the sermon has been an important feature of the assemblies of God’s people. The sermon is so central to many groups that its delivery is one of the main duties of a professionally trained and salaried individual, the pastor.

The sermon is coming under attack in many quarters as ineffective and out of date. Yet the practice of delivering material through an extended, carefully prepared verbal presentation has strong biblical precedent. Before abandoning serious expository preaching, let’s think more carefully.

To be clear: what I mean by “sermon” is an extended lecture on a biblical text or theme, prepared in advance by one individual who delivers it orally to a group of people. Unlike a discussion, the presentation is asymmetric (primarily from the teacher to the congregation, though it may be interrupted by questions). Unlike a meditation, it develops its content with an argument that usually takes some time to present. Unlike an extemporaneous address, the teacher devotes effort to preparing it in advance.

I will cautiously say that this stance is something of an outlier among house/simple church folks. That doesn’t mean it is wrong of course just kind of unusual. Also note that in this group, as I understand it, questions are welcome and different brothers often deliver the sermon so it is not like a monologue delivered by the same guy to a mute audience of observers week after week. Again, I haven't had the chance to meet with this group but I do know several people who are part of Washtenaw Independent Bible Church.

I would like you to read both posts, first his post In Defense of the Sermon and then his follow-up to my question regarding Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter’s Planned Presentation. Be warned, they are lengthy and detailed. Let me know what you think!

Was Paul preaching a sermon when he met with the church at Troas?

Back to this topic again.

Like a certain canine owned by Dr. Pavlov, there are people who will reflexively respond to the assertion that there is no command or example regading monologue sermons in the New Testament with “Oh yeah, well what about Acts 20:7?!?!” It never fails. What is also apparent is that this response is based on a knee-jerk reaction. Teacher X that I respect taught that in the account of Paul speaking to the church in Troas in Acts 20, what was going on was a sermon. In fact more often than not it will be accompanied by a joke about not complaining about how long someone preaches because when Paul preached to the church in Troas, a young man fell asleep and fell from a window! Hilarity and chuckling ensure but no one asks “is that really what happened or is that just what we were led to believe happened?”. Well, I am asking!

I think some of the problem comes from the King James translation. Most Christians are familiar with the language in the KJV (i.e. our Father who are in heaven) and in the King James language from 400 years ago, it certainly sounds to our ears like Paul is preaching which of course means a sermon. If you read the King James rendering, this is what you get (emphasis mine in all three examples):

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.

The English Standard renders it slightly differently but in an important way.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, "Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him." And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

The same is true with the NASB. The New American Standard renders it:

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, "Do not be troubled, for his life is in him." When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. They took away the boy alive, and were greatly comforted.

What is the difference? In the King James translation, the word “preach” is used twice and that word has a connotation of a monologue sermon because of our cultural understanding of what “preaching” involves. But both the NASB and the ESV strongly suggest that Paul was involved in a conversation with the assembled body by rendering it “talked with” and “conversed with”. So which is correct? I am not a Greek expert but I think we can draw some conclusions from what we have been presented with that support my contention that Paul was involved in a conversation, not a sermon.

First, there is the ESV/NASB translations which imply that Paul was involved at least partially in conversation with the church, that he was interacting with the people there and not merely “preaching unto them” a sermon. Certainly Paul would have been leading the conversation as an apostle but there is nothing to suggest that the gathered church sat mutely while he spoke. Given what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 14, he certainly would have expected all of the brothers to bring something to the meeting (a hymn, a prayer, a teaching, etc.).

Second, does it make any sense at all to assume that Paul was preaching a sermon for perhaps eight hours? At least twice the church was eating so he certainly wouldn’t have been preaching then. Just from a practical standpoint, there is no way he was the only one speaking. If you have ever spoken to a group you know that it is draining and hard on your voice. An hour is a long time to speak, two hours is pretty extreme. I can talk with friends for hours on end because I am not the only one talking.

Third, trying to draw a parallel between Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ entrusted with writing large swaths of the New Testament as an authoritative text and your local church pastor delivering a spiritual lecture is foolhardy. I think it is ironic that many people will embrace Paul as their role model when they think he is supporting their traditions, like sermon preaching, but not when he exhorts church leaders to earn a living by working rather than coveting money from the church, something that happens a few verses after Paul allegedly was preaching a sermon in Acts 20:7.

Fourth, the purpose of the church gathering is important to look at. The church was gathered together to “break bread”. This was not a worship service where the expectation was that they were going to get a sermon, they were there as the church for a meal. Certainly there were important conversation about matters of theological importance and certainly there likely was prayer going on (based on Acts 2:42) but the gathering was for a meal. Paul spent a lot of time speaking with the church because they were leaving the next day and he apparently had lots to talk about. Keep in mind that he was there for a week and during that time was no doubt also engaged in teaching and laboring alongside the believers in Troas.

What seems apparent from Paul’s time with the church in Troas in Acts 20 is that he was talking with the church in Troas while they were gathered to share a meal. Paul likely was leading the conversation because of his unique position in the church as an apostle but the church was engaged in conversation with him, an assertion I base on the text (“talked with” and “conversed with”) and on the sheer implausibility of Paul preaching a monologue sermon all night. Those who claim that Acts 20:7 is an example of monologue sermons in the New Testament have a difficult task because a) it is the only place they can even try to turn to and b) the actual text itself doesn’t support their contention unless you read Acts 20:7 convinced that your tradition is correct before you even start to read. if you base your notion of the centrality of sermons in the life of the church on Acts 20:7, you are on pretty shaky ground indeed.

Great Tweet!

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God working in our offices on sermon preparation to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom and handy with tools, whom we will appoint to this duty to the office of deacon. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word to the preparation of sermons which we will deliver on Sunday.” (Acts 6:1-4 ESV Re-Mix)

I saw this tweet last night from Steve McCoy and wanted to share it:

Acts 6 isn't about choosing servants so that the Apostles can spend 25 hrs a week in the study to prep for 1 sermon.

That is good stuff!

Many a preacher sees Acts 6 as not only an excuse but a command to spend most of the week preparing for their Sunday sermon(s). I have read many men piously talking about how many hours a week they spend in sermon preparation, as if it is some sort of badge of honor to spend 20, 30 or more hours every week reading about a couple of verses you are going to sermonize about on Sunday. If you read Acts 6 in context, what should be happening if you are not working a regular job and are not engaged in works of mercy is that you should spend all of your time out of the church and preaching the Gospel to the lost. You aren’t likely going to talk to many lost people while sitting at your desk looking through a half dozen commentaries to make sure you get just the right nuance in your sermon. Another great reason to read the Scriptures in context and read them for what they actually say, not what we assume they say.

The Problem With Preaching

Eric Carpenter put out a great post last night, 4 Problematic Defenses of Preaching Monologue Sermons During Church Gatherings, where he looks at the deep problems associated with the four most common defenses of the monologue sermon that dominates church life in much of the evangelical world. I have run into all of these and if you already assume that monologue preaching is proper because that is what we culturally expect, they certainly seem like sound defenses. When you step back and really examine them, they fall apart. Jump over to Eric's post and take a look and leave a comment or three.

Repost: Preaching Yourself Out Of A Job

In light of what I have been writing the last week or so (especially the most recent post Be Like Bob), I thought back to a post I wrote in September of 2009 as I was just starting to reevaluate the traditional notion of the church. I argued that the goal of every preacher should be to preach themselves out of a job, to so equip the Body that the Body no longer is dependent on one man to do the work of ministry. Here is the conclusion of the post:

If you are doing the work of a pastor, you are working yourself out of a job. There will always be more people who need equipping but there should never be just one guy who does it. If the people in the local gathering never get to the point of being equipped and carrying out the work of ministry, you have failed in your mandate. The sign of spiritual maturity is not the ability to listen attentively to someone else for 45 minutes. It is being equipped for the work of ministry. We are not called to watch ministry being done but to be about the business of ministry ourselves.

Here is the whole post Preaching Yourself Out Of A Job

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One of my prior “Thought for the day” posts said: “The goal of every pastor should be to make himself unnecessary.” I promised to expand on that, so here it goes.

I base that assertion on Ephesians 4. That is, in the ESV at least, the only passage that uses the English word pastor, which seems odd given how prevalent the pastoral office is in the church. The ESV uses shepherd in one place that refers to someone other than Christ Himself, in 1 Peter 5:2 where it is used as a verb, not as a title. Here is the text from Ephesians 4 in question.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph 4: 11-16)

So where does that lead us? It seems that we like to stop at “equip the saints for the work of ministry” but Paul doesn’t stop there. The wording he uses subsequent to that paints a picture not of a perpetual situation where one man teaches, week after week, year after year, going to conferences, taking sabbaticals, reading books and then feeding that information to “his flock”. The goal is not a perpetual dependence on one man to do the work of ministry but seems to be bringing every else up to speed, to maturity so that we all are mature and all are equipped for the work of ministry.

I think before we can take the word “pastor” and create an office of church leadership, we need to figure out what the purpose of pastors/shepherds is. I think it is harmful to assume things about the function of pastors and create whole systems surrounding “pastoral ministry” that allows us to create hierarchies of senior pastors and various sub-pastors (youth pastor, worship pastor, pastor of this and pastor of that) based loosely on a blend of corporate org charts and Roman hierarchies. It encourages the exalting of pastoral ministry as the pinnacle of Christian faithfulness and leads conversely to a rigid distinction between the “clergy” and “laity” to an extreme (see the prior post about “every member evangelism”).

God gave men to the church to equip the rest of the Body of Christ, i.e. the church. Until the last year, I assumed that meant what most people think it means: we “go to church” on Sunday morning and a specially trained and qualified man preaches a sermon that exegetes the text. In other words “equipping” = “preaching to”. If we are good Christians we pay attention to the sermon, if we are really good Christians we take notes. I question now whether that was the intent of what Paul was saying, and this strikes me as another situation where we look at our contemporary situation and build our doctrines backward. Our concern should be what is Biblical, not what is traditional, not what is Reformed, not what is pragmatic. Those concerns can be addressed but only after we discern the Biblical intent. So what does Scripture say? Do we see men holding a pastoral office in the same way we have assumed for the last five hundred years?

A couple of things:

Scripture doesn’t give us an example of the full-time, vocational pastor that is so dominate in the church today and for many hundreds of years. Paul, Timothy and Titus don’t seem to be “pastors” in the sense we normally think of it, i.e. as an office in the local church organization. We call 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the “pastoral epistles” but that is a bit of a misnomer. Timothy is frequently mentioned “coming” and “going”, appointing elders from town to town. Timothy was as much a “Senior Pastor” in a local church as my coffee mug is.

When we examine the role of the pastor in the local church and whether or not we should pay men to be pastors or to teach or preach in the local gathering, the place where we turn is often 1 Corinthians 9. It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 9, where Paul both makes his case for financial aid and also explains his rejection of it, should give us a clue as to how this relationship should work. A couple of things jump out at me about 1 Corinthians 9. The first thing is that Barnabas and Paul strike me as more of church planters and missionaries than what we consider to be a pastoral ministry in a local church. In most Bibles there is a map of Paul’s missionary journeys and he and Barnabas (who was in the nascent church in Antioch before being set apart for more of a traveling missionary role) went all over the place planting churches, equipping men and proclaiming the Gospel.

Paul also takes great pains to point out that he did not make use of the right to be paid. That is so crucial and yet so often missed. I could almost see paid ministers as missionaries to local churches. They would come into a church, minister through equipping the men of the church so that they would then be ready to lead the local gathering through serving them and protecting the local body from false teaching but then these paid ministers would move on to another church.

I just don’t see the perpetual paid minister in the same church for decades as being supportable from Scripture. A man who is a local member of a community should be able to support himself by the work of his own hands. That frees him up to help the poor, emboldens him in his teaching and preaching by not being held hostage by a pay check and demands that the rest of the men of the local gathering step up and lead in the church and in their families in a Scriptural way. If we appointed elders to lead the church from among the local community instead of hiring preachers from hither and yon, they would already have jobs, already know and be known by the local gathering, they would know the area they live in and minister in.

Are there men who have a special talent for teaching? Who are really good at it? That is indisputable. Does that mean that only those select few should do the equipping and teaching? I don’t think so.

If you are doing the work of a pastor, you are working yourself out of a job. There will always be more people who need equipping but there should never be just one guy who does it. If the people in the local gathering never get to the point of being equipped and carrying out the work of ministry, you have failed in your mandate. The sign of spiritual maturity is not the ability to listen attentively to someone else for 45 minutes. It is being equipped for the work of ministry. We are not called to watch ministry being done but to be about the business of ministry ourselves.

Thoughts on expository preaching

Eric Carpenter has apparently garnered the attention of one of the big guns of the Reformed world, Thabiti Anyabwile. Eric questioned something Thabiti had written in his book on What Is a Healthy Church Member regarding being an “expository listener” and apparently Thabiti read Eric review and responded with his post Who's Doing the Talking in our Church Gatherings?.

Here is the crux of his argument. According to Thabiti and most advocates of expository preaching, what is happening is not one guy talking to a bunch of other people from a platform and behind a pulpit. It is God speaking through His Word, God speaking to His people. According to Thabiti, the structure of the service (something I have railed against many a time) actually facilitates this dialogue between God and man…

The very structure reflects a running dialogue–not between the people gathered, though we “speak to one another in songs,” etc.–but fundamentally between God and His people. We come singing to our God, but He speaks the first word in the “call to worship.” We respond in song. Then God addresses us again by the reading of His word. We then speak to Him in prayer of confession. Following the confession, God speaks to us in the “assurance of pardon” taken from Scripture each week. Hearing His promise of pardon, we then respond in song. God speaks next in the sermon. God gets the bulk of the service to say what’s on His mind, disclosed in the word of God. Following God’s word to us, we respond in praise. We then receive the benediction or words of blessing from God, before sitting in silence (hopefully awe) before the God of the universe.

Here is my problem with that.

From a theological position, we affirm that God is speaking through His Word.

From a practical standpoint, what we get is one guy speaking on behalf of God.

That is a huge difference. Is God’s Word really God speaking to us all the time or only under special circumstances? Is this a dialogue between God and man or is it man telling us what and how to respond to what he has chosen to share from God? From the Scriptures read to the songs we sing to the prayers we listen to, all of it is selected by a few people and imposed on the rest. All of that is done in most churches with the very best of intentions but the reality is that the majority of believers are mute observers of the performance, even when we are permitted to sing along with the songs someone else chose (standing or sitting by their direction of course). In every church we have been involved with up to the gathering we met with in East Lansing, the entire church gathering was focused around one guy, i.e. the pastor, who does virtually all of the speaking. Is there something special, from a Scriptural standpoint, about when a pastor delivers a sermon versus when two brothers are opening the Word over a cup of coffee? Everything we are taught to understand, even the way the church service and building are structured, gives the impression that something special is happening in the pulpit but frankly I have been far more edified by informal conversations with brothers outside of church buildings than I ever have sitting in a pew.

Expository preaching sounds so great. We open the Word of God, study it and then exposit what it is saying. What is not to like about that? Almost everyone I know grew up in a school setting where one person always spoke and the class listened. Many of us had a similar experience in college. That mode of learning is comfortable and familiar to us and that transfer to the church where we are also taught to expect to sit in a pew and listen to the guy in front. Something odd happened as we progressed in college to upper level classes. As I went from a big lecture hall for PoliSci 101 to senior level seminars that dug deeper, there was far less lecturing and far more interaction. Guess what? I needed some basics up front (not as much as the normal college frosh but I digress) but once I had the basics I was able to engage in conversation with my professors and fellow students, in dialogue and not in simply listening. My learning was far deeper and meaningful in those classes. We all know this to be true, but why do we never progress beyond “from the pulpit to the pew” edification?

When we restrict the conversation to talking about expository preaching within the context of our presupposition and culturally attuned preferences, everything is fine but when we take the time to dig into Scripture and ask: what is commanded and what do we see modeled through example, it just isn’t there. It is amazing the more I read through Scripture to find so little of what we take as absolute truth in the church is completely absent and that often the opposite is what we find.

I love a lot of what Thabiti writes and I deeply respect him as a brother in Christ. I just disagree, vehemently, with the idea that being a mute listener is a sign of a healthy Christian. That is a great quality to be desired in a mannequin but not in a fellow follower and disciple of Christ. Certainly there are times to be quiet and listen just as there are times to be active and involved but the determining factor is not whether a preacher gives you permission or not. It is high time that we release Christians from their pews, equip them and exhort them to minister to the world and see what happens!

Believing Bible stories instead of believing the Bible

My wife and I were talking about the prior post, the "If you won't venture out in the snow to go to church, you don't love Jesus" tweet. She pointed out that this is a perfect example of how Protestants are like Roman Catholics in many ways. We believe Bible stories, i.e. the interpretation someone else has told us in Sunday school or a sermon, instead of what the Bible actually says.

Here is a perfect example. When I threw out the challenge "Show me one place in Scripture where Christians gathered to listen to a sermon", I got back the predictable response of Acts 20: 7-11. The Bible story we are taught to believe is that Acts 20: 7-11 describes an event where Paul preached a really long sermon to people who silently listened and then one guy fell asleep, fell from a window, was revived by Paul even though he seemed dead and then they all went and listened to Paul preaching a sermon even longer. John Gill's commentary even says that they had lots of lamps for the purpose of providing sufficient light for the preacher to read and "administer the ordinance of the supper", as if what was going on was indistinguishable from a traditional church service. Heck, it was likely that Paul was wearing vestments while serving the sacraments from a table with "Do This In Remembrance Of Me" carved in the front! This Bible story makes for a cute sermon illustration and is guaranteed to get a chuckle from the audience.

The reality in the text is completely different. Here is the pertinent text:

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, "Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him." And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. (Act 20:7-11)

So what we have here is Paul, gathering with other Christians in a house and without the benefit of pew or pulpit. First, what is the purpose of the gathering? To listen to Paul deliver a sermon? Nope, they "gathered together to break bread". It was the meal that was the driving factor for gathering. While they were gathered, Paul "talked with them" and after Eutychus was revived we read that Paul "conversed with them a long while", until the morning. If you read that through the lens of Western cultural Christianity and base your understanding of this passage on the Bible story you have heard (and be honest, we have all heard this used in a sermon), what is happening here is that Paul preached from early evening to the next morning. What Scripture teaches us is that Paul talked with the other Christians who were gathered to break bread. Certainly he was leading the conversation but everything about it indicates that this was not a sermon or "preaching", it was a conversation among believers. When you look at what Scripture has to say, it becomes apparent that this event is not a cute story about sermonizing in the early church, it is just the opposite. The church gathered together to break bread in a home and during that time they talked with one another all night. It was a time of close and extended fellowship and a time of mutual edification. It is nothing like the Bible story that tells us we should not complain about long-winded sermons because Paul preached a sermon all night once.

When we replace studying the Scriptures with memorizing Bible stories, we often lose the original intent of what was written. We shouldn't read the Scriptures with an eye toward confirming our traditional Bible stories, we should let the Scriptures speak for themselves even when that makes us uncomfortable and shakes up our understanding of the church and of doctrines.

Preaching the Word is not just for pastors

So what has me on this kick again? Something I read this morning from John MacArthur in his commentary on 2 Timothy 4: 1-5, a section every preacher is familiar with. Here is the passage in question:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4: 1-5)

Amen to that!

Unfortunately, this is one of the most misapplied passages of Scripture in the Bible. Misapplied in the sense of being seen as applying primarily or even exclusively to pastors. At this time, Timothy was not a “pastor” in the sense we assume. He was not hired after an extensive search by a pastor search committee. He didn’t go to seminary. As best I can tell, he didn’t serve in one local church in a given town at the exclusion of any other local gathering of Christians. He was travelling all the time and was more of an itinerant preacher, an evangelist (2 Tim 4:5). If anything he was an assistant to Paul, a noble task but he was constantly coming and going.

I have no problems at applying Paul’s exhortations to Timothy to modern believers. The words of Paul are specific to Timothy but his exhortations are universally sound for all believers. The problem comes when we take directives applied to Timothy and apply them selectively to certain men today. If we are going to take Paul’s exhortations to Timothy and apply them in a contemporary setting (which is OK) we cannot apply them selectively based on a cultural assumption of what Paul was writing about and who Timothy was. That is apparently what MacArthur (and many, many other commentators) is doing.

Although directed first of all to Timothy, Paul’s commission in 2 Timothy 4:1–5 applies to every minister of the gospel in every age, every place, and every circumstance. In a broader way it can be applied to every faithful believer, because it is essential for every congregation to know and understand this charge. Churches are responsible, under God and with God, to hold their pastors accountable to these divine precepts.

The role of the preacher in Christ’s church is vital, and God has ordained that His people be taught and shepherded by Spirit-gifted, Spirit-led, and Spirit-empowered men. The spiritual life and faithfulness of a congregation always is closely related to the spiritual life and faithfulness of its pastor.

This is where things get a little dicey. As near as I can tell, Timothy was not a pastor in the traditional sense anywhere. Wikipedia (always a reliable source!) says: According to later tradition, Paul ordained Timothy as bishop of Ephesus in the year 65, where he served for 15 years. That may or may not be true but there doesn’t appear to be any Scriptural basis to place Timothy as a pastor or even permanent elder in any local churches from what we read in Acts, Paul’s letters to Timothy or anywhere else Timothy is mentioned. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he urges Timothy to stay in Ephesus to counter the false teachers, something that would not have been necessary if he was the elder there (unless you think Timothy was considering a “call” to move to a bigger church that would pay him more and Paul was urging him to stay put).

In taking Paul’s letters to Timothy as applying primarily to pastors, we find a serious problem. As MacArthur tries to explain it, these passages are exhortations for “ministers”, i.e. specially ordained people in the church. The only way this is applied to “regular” church members is to make sure that their pastor is properly preaching each week.

This is why it is dangerous to assume stuff. We assume Timothy was a pastor and we assume that Paul was giving him advice in that role that should apply to pastors (and only pastors). All of this in spite of any evidence that these exhortations were limited to a certain class of Christians (pastors) and if they were aimed at pastors, we see nothing to indicate that Timothy was in that role! I won’t even get into the point that “preaching the Word” does not equal “delivering a sermon each week”.

One final point that sticks in my craw is this statement:

The spiritual life and faithfulness of a congregation always is closely related to the spiritual life and faithfulness of its pastor.

I will make a blunt and blanket statement here (now THAT is unusual). If a gathering of the church is dependent on the spiritual life and faithfulness of one man, then that congregation is inherently going to have a weak spiritual life and faithfulness. You don’t get to shirk your calling as a Christian by relying on a preacher. You don’t grow in the faith by watching someone else tell you about growing in the faith. You can’t blame someone else for “not feeding you”.

Being prepared to preach the Word, in season and out of season, is the responsibility and privilege of all Christians. It is antithetical to the witness of Scripture to restrict something so basic as proclaiming the Good News of Christ to a tiny minority in the church. As a believer in Jesus Christ, bought by His blood and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, I have the same responsibility to declare Christ to the world as Timothy or Paul. If you are His disciples, you have that same responsibility as well. Don’t let anyone tell you that your responsibility is restricted to sitting in your pew and listening to someone else.

What makes a “good” preacher?

Carl Trueman weighs in on what makes a good preacher according to Martin Luther, with some editorial comments thrown in. The post appears at the Reformation 21 blog, Luther on the Marks of a Good Preacher I

While there has been an understandable reaction in parts of the Reformed world against the kind of radical downgrading of ordained ministry which has come to mark much of the evangelical world, this has itself created problems. Perhaps most obvious is the priestly culture it can generate, where the result is that some come to think that, if they are not ordained, they cannot be of real use to the church.

Sounds great, that is a problem in the church (the part about men think that they cannot be useful in the church unless they are ordained)! I am with you brother. Until the next two sentences….

This then leads individuals who simply are not called to the ministry nonetheless to pursue it, often at great cost -- financial and emotional -- to themselves and frequently to their loved ones. Indeed, this probably accounts for part of the high rate of ministerial drop-outs.

Oh.

So the problem is not that the system of ordained professional clergy that we inherited from Roman Catholicism, it is that we have Christians who are not qualified for “the ministry” trying to play at being preachers.

See, I think the problem is that we exalt vocational, professional ministry and restrict so much of the ministry of the church to those who are members of the priestly caste that men who want to serve God understandably are trying to do what the church culture tells them, i.e. go to seminary, get ordained and get hired as a preacher. For many men sitting in a pew and putting a check in the plate is not really getting it done so they want to do more and in our church culture the only way for a man to feel like he is really serving God is to be a minister, church planter or missionary. The culture of the church essentially prohibits men from exercising the “priesthood of all believers” outside of a very limited scope unless they have the proper credentials, skills and ecclesiastical approval in the form of ordination.

Clearly we cannot have “bad” preachers running around preaching Christ, it gives the whole profession a bad name. To avoid this, Mr. Trueman helpfully lists the first five marks that qualify a man as a good preacher according to Martin Luther (apparently there are four more)…

The first five are: ability to teach; possession of a good head; eloquence; clarity of speech; and a good memory. The list is interesting because it focuses first on practicalities, things often lost in the romantic spiritual notions of ministry we often have. In short, the person should be able to think and speak clearly, two traits which are often intimately connected. It seems like common sense, but this basic elements are often neglected by churches, seminaries, sessions, elder boards, presbyteries and classes. To put it bluntly: if you cannot put a decent, clear sentence into English and speak it in a way that others can understand, you are not called to the ministry, no matter how much that inner voice tells you that God is calling you to preach, or your mum tells you you'd make a wonderful pastor.

Amen to that! We never see God using anyone to preach except the best speakers. That is why Jesus held auditions for being an apostle, making sure that those men selected as the Twelve had a sharp memory, eloquence and the ability to speak English coherently. Paul made very clear when writing to the Corinthians that eloquence was a must-have qualification to preaching the Gospel:

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Cor 1:17)

Oh.

Each time I read those five supposed qualifications of a “good preacher” I become more flabbergasted at not only how they don’t appear in Scripture but actually run contrary to Scripture. I guess if you are simply observing a performance and paying for it to boot, you have a right to expect a high quality presentation but when it comes to Biblical preaching, eloquence doesn't count for anything. In fact it actually detracts from Gospel preaching and removes the power of the cross!

The culture we have cultivated in the church says to men: “Unless you are a pastor, your purpose in the church is to bring your family to hear someone else teach for the rest of your life. You might be called on to teach Sunday school if you are a "good" teacher and if you stick around long enough you might be called to be a deacon or elder and get to attend lots of meetings, but the week in and week out reality of your life in the church is showing up, attending and funding. Little wonder so many men seek vocational ministry on the one hand or have no use for “church” on the other. The message I take from this essay is that if you are a Christian man you better not bother to be a preacher of the Gospel unless you meet these qualifications, otherwise you are wasting your time and money. Leave preaching to the professionals, those who are “qualified” by virtue of a good head and eloquence!

I am morbidly curious to see if the other four marks of qualified “good preacher” have any Scriptural basis at all.

Preachers then and now

The Bible tells us about a lot of men who we would call preachers, men who were prophetic voices. They were pretty distinctive men and were rarely very popular. Look at these men and see if they sound like the local preacher in your town.

John the Baptist

He wore animal skins and ate bugs. He lived and preached on the coming Kingdom in the wilderness. No parsonage and suit and tie for him! His preaching was pretty popular and made him well-respected in the community. Or maybe not...

But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter." And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given. He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. (Mat 14:6-11)

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet.

O LORD, you know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors. In your forbearance take me not away; know that for your sake I bear reproach. Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts. I did not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone, because your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? (Jer 15:15-18)

He wasn't really very popular, was he? A sad loner but one who found his delight not in the applause of men but in the words of God.

Paul

He didn't find terribly adoring audiences in most places he went.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. (2Co 11:24-28)

Stephen

"You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it." Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Act 7:51-60)

He didn't get a "great sermon preacher!" when he was done, he got stones.

Those aren't the kind of men we adore as preachers today. Today we want men who can speak clearly, with easy to follow points. We want men who entertain us, even among those who decry entertainment preaching. We expect our preachers to be genteel men, men who are respected members of the community. How many churches would want a pastor who spent lots of time in jail like Paul did? I mean, think of all the committee meetings he would miss, and who would deliver the sermon on Sunday? Instead of him visiting us, we would have to visit him in some icky prison!

Where are the men with prophetic voices, men who are not revered but reviled?

You want to be a full-time preacher of the Gospel? Then do it right. Get rid of the suit and tie. Forget about your standing in the community. Don't fear offending the biggest donors. Don't be concerned about getting the choice speaking engagements. Eschew the titles, the trappings and the honors that come along with being part of the clergy. Let Christ be your audience. You might not be invited to pray at the local prayer breakfast but the true reward will be infinitely greater.

Being word-centered doesn’t mean being sermon-centered

I am lifting a quote from a book I haven’t read, reproduced on someone else’s blog and I ain’t apologizing for it! It is such an excellent quote that it deserves to be widely reproduced and discussed. So with apologies to Alan Knox, here is the quote from “ Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community”.

All too often people equate being word-centered with being sermon-centered. People argue for sermons by arguing for the centrality of God’s word, assuming that the word and the sermon are synonymous in Christian practice. It assumes God’s word can only be taught through sermons. Or people assume that the alternative to sermons is anarchy or relativism with no place for the Spirit-gifted teacher of God’s word, as if Spirit-gifted teachers can only exercise their gift through forty-five-minute monologues.

But our concern is not to reject the sermon. Monologue continues to have its place as one of the ways in which the Bible can and should be taught. It stands alongside other complementary methods such as dialogue and discussion. Being word-centered is not less than being sermon-centered. Our contention is that being word-centered is so much more than being sermon-centered. (pg 114)

How excellent is that!?

I think there is a place for prepared, monologue teaching in the church. Sometimes it is the appropriate method, provided that the same person is not doing the monologue every week, that the monologue is not the only method of teaching utilized and that the entire body gets the chance to discuss what was taught. So I am not “anti-sermon” as much as I am “pro-every member priesthood”. I think the best two sentences from that quote are:

“Being word-centered is not less than being sermon-centered. Our contention is that being word-centered is so much more than being sermon-centered.”

This has been an area of real shift for me. I was a big advocate of more sermons and longer sermons (as long as they were expository sermons). My view now is that the week after week monologue by the same person week after week is unhealthy for the preacher and unhealthy for the congregation. An overemphasis on the sermon leads to pastoral burnout, pastoral pride, apathy in much of the local body and a view of the church that is focused on ritual instead of community. We need more teaching in the church, that is true, but we need not just more but better teaching and that means more people being involved in the teaching beyond listening and more teaching that puts action to the words.

How will they hear without a preacher? Who are "they"?

Albert Mohler posted an essay Thursday lamenting the lack of priority placed on preaching. The title is How will they hear without a preacher? and here is a key excerpt:

Indeed, preaching is the central act of Christian worship, but its great aim reaches far above merely changing the world. The preaching of the Word of God is the chief means by which God conforms Christians to the image of Christ. Rightly understood, true Christian preaching is not aimed only at this earthly life, but is the means whereby God prepares his people for eternity.

Man, that sounds great! A year or two ago, I would have posted this and said “Amen!”. Today I post it and wonder if it is terribly accurate at all.

My first question comes right from the title of the essay: How will they hear without a preacher? . This is a quote from Romans 10:14 and is often quoted to support the need for preaching in the church. I am not sure that the connection is correct. Here is Romans passage in its fullness:

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10: 8-17)

Boy, is there a more often quoted section of Scripture that this one (other than John 3:16)? I don’t think it is saying what we traditionally assume it does. What we are seeing here is not a call for a weekly expository sermon preached in the church. Paul’s point doesn’t seem to be “How will Christians get edified unless someone preaches at them?” This is dealing with the way people are saved, unregenerate people hear the Gospel preached by a Christian and in concert with the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit they come to faith and confess Jesus Christ as Lord. This is a passage about preaching the Gospel to the lost, not the method God uses to prepare His people for eternity or conforming them to Christ. The idea that “preaching is the central act of Christian worship” is similarly nice sounding rhetoric but lacking in Scriptural foundation.

I certainly understand where Dr. Mohler is coming from. He comes from a denomination (the Southern Baptist Convention) that values the monologue sermon. He is the President of an institution (Southern Seminary) that is in the business of training vocational preachers. Dr. Mohler is personally committed to and one of the leading proponents of expository preaching in evangelicalism today. Listen to the talks at Together for the Gospel and you will hear preaching put forth as the weakest link in the church on a regular basis.

What I will say is that while I am in favor of seeing less monologue preaching in the church, I am concerned that what is replacing the sermon in most cases is actually worse. It is easy to cast stones at preaching but when you look at the alternative it is rarely a more inclusive ministry of the entire Body. What is replacing the sermon is entertainment, pure and simple, a mere religious exercise that does even less to engage the Body than mutely listening to a sermon.

The answer is not more preaching. The answer is also not less preaching if that means an even less faithful gathering of the church. The answer is for the church to be the church instead of going to church. The answer is for all of us to minister to one another. Until that happens, all the preaching in the world isn’t going to change the state of spiritual infancy that plagues the church.

(Alan Knox clearly is reading my blog drafts and posted on this very topic on Friday)

One stop shopping

Is what should be going on "out there" going on "in here"?

I know that preaching is supposed to be the focal point of our church gathering based on our Protestant traditions. Especially expository preaching. But (and here I go again) is it Scriptural?

The question unfortunately often gets framed like this: either we have expository preaching or we have cutesy anecdotes and story time. As if there is no other option, as if you cannot have solid Biblical teaching and even exposition without a prepared 45 monologue sermon.

When I prepared a sermon, it was equal parts (more or less) declaring the Gospel and calling for repentance on the one hand and designed to impart teaching to believers on the other hand. I think that is true of most sermons on a given Sunday. If so, that implies that on any given Sunday either:

We are preaching the Gospel of repentance to those who have already been born again.

-OR-

We are teaching the things of God to people with unregenerate hearts to whom such teachings are meaningless.

That brings me back to my basic premise. Are preaching and teaching the same thing? If not, do we see preaching the Gospel as something that happens in the local gathering of the church? It seems that there was a great deal of teaching and edifying and encouraging going on when the church gathered but not preaching as we understand it. There was a lot of preaching going on in the New Testament, but it appears to be something happening toward groups that were clearly unbelievers (out in public, in the synagogues, in the temple, in the homes of unbelievers). I love good preaching but is what we know as preaching Biblical and appropriate in the local gathering of the church?

Heat, light and perceived gender inequality

When it comes to the issue of women in the church and the home, there tends to be a lot more heat than light. I want to take a step back and move beyond dueling prooftexts and look at the issue from a systematic way. When we approach this issue, it is easy to devolve into empty and angry rhetoric. It can be an emotionally charged issue in contemporary culture. One side claims that the other is capitulating to feminism and ignoring Scripture and the other retorts that their opponents are subjugating women and using the Bible to perpetuate an ancient patriarchal system. That isn’t very helpful. Let’s examine what the text says and make note of what the text does not say.

I want to start off in 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35. I think 1 Cor 14: 33-35 should be our baseline when we approach this issue because 1 Cor 14: 33-35 is the most restrictive passage when it comes to the role of women in the church. Let’s look at the verses in question:

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Co 14:33-35)

Lets look at what the text says and doesn't say. Paul says that in all of the churches of the saints (a universal principle), women should keep silent. Not at certain times, not in particular context. To clarify, Paul gives us an alternative. If women have questions, they should ask their husbands at home. It is kind of hard to reconcile that with a nonexistent context that permits them to speak. Paul closes with a similarly hard hitting statement that it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. He doesn't qualify that statement.

Taken at face value, women shouldn’t make a peep in church based on 1 Corinthians 14: 33-25. Silent is a pretty strong word in English and I assume it is similarly unambiguous in the Greek. So is shameful. There is nothing in the text itself or the surrounding context, nothing, that would imply that Paul means anything other than what he says here.

So we are left, taking 1 Cor 14: 33-35 in a vacuum, with women prohibited from so much as clearing their throats in church. When we are faced with a text like 1 Cor 14: 33-35, we have a couple of choices. We can decide it is just too draconian and that Paul must not have meant what the text says and find some way to disprove it or at least find a loophole around it. Or we can do the work of clarifying what Paul meant with the tools we have been given, i.e. the rest of Scripture.

In order to figure out what these passages in 1 Corinthians 14 mean and are intended to convey, we need to examine the context. By that I mean the context that is provided, not assuming a context that isn’t there. If the Scriptures are truly sufficient and inerrant, we must assume that the Holy Spirit led these men to write what was needed and in such a way that it would be clear to those who need to use it in the first century as well as the twenty first century. Fortunately, this is not the only mention of the “silence doctrine”. We also have 1 Tim 2: 11-15 which gives us a more complete picture.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1Ti 2:11-15)

So Paul is clarifying here what is prohibited by giving two specific examples. This is not a complete prohibition on women speaking, but it is a prohibition nonetheless. Women are not to teach men and women are not to be in authority over men. Paul makes no mention of singing, he makes no mention of praying. Teaching and having authority regarding men. So when you take these two passages together, you get a picture and one that has been the standard in conservative Christian circles for a very long time. Something being around a long time never is proof in and of itself, but with passages like these two that are pretty unambiguous that have received pretty consistent treatment throughout the centuries, longevity and universality are excellent supports for the doctrine.

When it comes to women teaching men or being in authority over men in the church or the home, Scripture is unequivocal that this is not to take place. I feel quite comfortable in making that assertion without qualification.

Similarly, when we look at the issue of elders, there is no room for varying interpretation. Every mention of elders where we can draw a conclusion assumes that elders are only men. This makes sense given the above passages. Elders lead and elders should be able to teach. If women are permitted to be elders but not permitted to teach, that quality makes little sense (note: I understand and agree that the Paul’s letters to Timothy are not qualifications for being an elder, but they do contain qualities to be sought in an elder).

So what does that allow women to do? Watch kids in the nursery and prepare potluck meals? Hardly. Women have a cherished and valuable role in the church and in the greater Christian community. It is a patently false notion that because women are not called to lead and teach in the church, they have no value. Dare I say again that this is perhaps the result of the same sort of mindset that exalts clergy over the laity? It is another false dichotomy, either women must be allowed to teach and exert authority over men regardless of what Scripture says or women are unequal and being degraded in a patriarchal system. I say that is rubbish.

How about prophesy? There are several mentions of prophetic utterances by women in the New Testament. We read first of Philip’s four daughters prophesying. That is all we know about them, so we should be cautious to applying doctrine based on that verse. We also read that women should cover their heads when prophesying and praying in 1 Corinthians 11. (As a side note, if you are going to defend women speaking in church by using 1 Corinthians 11, you better have a wife who covers her head. Similarly, if you are going to use 1 Cor 14: 33-35 literally to prohibit women from teaching, you probably should have you wife cover.) This is important to emphasize: women prophesying does not negate the commands of Paul regarding women teaching or holding authority over men. That then raises another question: what do we know about prophesying and does that mesh with what Paul is saying in 1 Cor 14: 33-35 and 1 Tim 2: 11-15? In Acts 2: 17-18 we see a repeating of the prophecy of Joel that when the Holy Spirit comes upon people, men and women will prophesy. In Acts 19:6 we see prophesy being spoken of again in conjunction with the outpouring of the Spirit. In 1 Cor 14 we see prophecy alongside speaking in tongues, again a working of the Holy Spirit. We have the verse in Acts 21:9 about Philip's virgin daughters prophesying, with no detail and no specifics. I think it is safe to say that speaking prophetically is a miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and as such is different than the regular teaching that occurs when the church gathers. It certainly seems that prophesy is not limited to men. It also is equally clear that prophesy is a sovereignly designated event through the power of the Holy Spirit and is not normative in the church.

What about praying? We also know that women prayed when the church gathered. We see this from the depiction in Acts 1:14. We also see that women are involved in prayer in 1 Corinthians 11. What is not specified is if they were in silent prayer or if they audibly prayed. What would be consistent with the overall theme is that they prayed along with the men, but that the men audibly prayed and “led” the prayers in the assembled body. Again, this is seeking consistency in practice and not creating contradictions where none appear. Is a prayer uttered by a woman silently or in her home or in a group of women less authentic than one uttered in public by a man? If it is not, and it is clearly silly to even think so, why the concern? It strikes me that again we see a subconscious reverting to the idea of a clerical superiority.

As a side note, there are several excellent treatments of the prophesy/prayer issue at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood site. Here is one I liked, Gender Based Boundaries for Gathered Congregations: An Interpretive History of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. I don't agree in lockstep with every conclusion but it covers a pretty wide range of topics including several from other viewpoints and even minor quibbles within the complementarian ranks.

Women are not only permitted to teach but are encouraged to teach other women. Titus 2: 3-5 speaks of this. No one ever would assume being a wife and mother is easy work. We have so many wise older sisters in the church and yet we also have a lot of young wives and mothers. Get them together. We don’t need more preachers and we don’t need more Sunday school teachers. We need more intergenerational wisdom being passed on.

There are some ancillary issues that we need to work on regarding the roles of the different genders in the church. When Paul is writing about restrictions of women, he is referencing the home/family and the church. So what does that mean for women in the secular world? What about women witnessing to men who aren’t Christians? There are plenty of issues that still need prayerful consideration. Our approach should always be to prayerfully consider what is in the text and if something is unclear, search the Scriptures for clarification. In our sinful state, the Scriptures are not always as clear as we would like. That is why we have a Bible instead of a pamphlet. We should seek clarification from within the text, not outside the text. I am confident that everything we need to know in this life can be gleaned from the Scriptures and that we should never find ourselves “filling in the blanks”. Our task is a difficult one, working through these issues in the Scriptures takes hard work. But to paraphrase Lionel Woods on an unrelated subject…

“Whenever we come to the bible and something is tough, we must find ourselves surrendering to it, or we find ourselves shaping the God of the bible in our own image.”

Amen to that brother!