05.06.08
Posted in Bible Study, Tom Gilson at 9:44 pm by Tom Gilson
In a past article I asked,
Is there any significant move of God in all of Scripture in which He did not work through a core of spiritual leaders?
I still haven’t been able to think of an example, unless you count Numbers 16. You could call this chapter a significant move of God, and in a way, it did not involve a core of spiritual leaders. The episode begins,
Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”
This was a challenge against God’s appointed leader. Of course, God’s anointing on Moses was unique. No church that I know of today has a pastor who was called at a burning bush or parted a sea to lead his people across it. Therefore before we draw any application from this passage, we have to determine whether it has any real parallel in today’s church. We’ll look at that question first, then we’ll return to see just what the work of God was in this passage.
We’ll start with whether church leaders today are called by God. Most churches assume so, but does the Bible say? Ephesians 4:11-14 says pastors (shepherds) and teachers are given to the church by God:
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.
1 Corinthians 12:27-28 takes this idea of gifting and extends it to include others are involved in leading God’s people. The meaning of “apostles” and “prophets” is controversial in this post-apostolic era, but virtually all Bible students accept teaching and administrating as leadership gifts/roles for today’s church. Note that they are appointed by God.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
We don’t expect burning bushes to confirm such appointing, of course. God only did that once. Now, instead, he generally uses other qualified people to identify and appoint spiritual leaders. Paul told Titus to appoint elders, having first made sure he knew the proper qualifications:
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—-if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
Once they have been properly recognized and appointed, God pronounces elders and teachers to be worthy of honor:
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
And again,
Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
And then, ten verses later in Hebrews, we see this strong affirmation of spiritual leaders:
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Now, this hardly means that there is no accountability for our leaders. James 3:1-3 says their special honor comes with special responsibility:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
Earlier I quoted from 1 Timothy 5. I need to return to it and add another couple of verses. That passage ends with:
Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.
In addition, I could go into all the very strict, even dire warnings, about false teachers and false prophets throughout Scripture; but I don’t that is necessary to cover in detail. We know that leaders are accountable. Now, how does that accountability take place? Different churches have different answers. There are episcopal structures, where a bishop presides over a large number of churches. There are elder-oriented structures, where accountability comes primarily through an internal body of qualified spiritual leaders. Both of these have their pluses and minuses.
Can an entire church hold its leaders accountable? Certainly any person (or at least one who is spiritual) could initiate the accountability sequence of Matthew 18:15-17, approaching a leader privately, then bringing some along if necessary, and later (if needed) taking the issue before the whole church. The above admonition still holds, though: do not admit an accusation against an elder without definite evidence of their wrongdoing.
But can a church body together stand up and take over the appointed role of a leader? This brings us back to Numbers 16. I encourage you to read the whole chapter, but I’ll highlight the beginning and the end for you here. Remember what the people had said?
For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?
It’s easy to think that any one of us could do what our leaders do, that we’re all qualified for their work. That’s not the issue, though. Moses did not exalt himself above the assembly of the Lord; the Lord called him and placed him there. It was the Lord’s doing. Moses made it clear at the time that the issue was, whom has God sent? God did not call the whole congregation to run the whole. He called the qualified spiritual leaders (also including others to whom leadership was properly delegated–see Exodus 18 and Numbers 11).
So what happened to those who thought they could stand up in place of those leaders? Something we wouldn’t want to happen to anyone around us!
The ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
Of course just as no leader is called by means of a burning bush today, it’s also unlikely that the earth will open up and swallow a rebellious church, or part of a church. Nevertheless the lesson is clear: there are right ways to hold leaders accountable. And there is at least one way that Scripture tells us is a very, very bad idea.
What then does this mean regarding the purpose of our church business meetings? This blog post is getting long, so this is not time to try to answer that in detail. The business meetings certainly have their purpose, but whatever we do there, it should be consistent with following and giving honor to our teachers and leaders; and we dare not try to usurp them as Korah’s group did. We don’t want to end up the way they did.
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05.02.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 4:22 pm by Tom Gilson
Do we really know our faith is true? Can we really be confident of it? How can we know?
The April 23 talk on “Do We Really Know It’s True” was an example of a field of Christian study known as apologetics. Apologetics is not (as it may sound) about being sorry you’re a Christian. And if you’re in a debate with someone, it’s not about making the other guy sorry you’re a Christian!*
The term comes from the Greek word apologia, translated as “defense” in 1 Peter 3:15:
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect
Apologetics, then is the study and practice of how we can know Christianity’s truth can be trusted.
Now, what good does that do us?
Two things:
- It strengthens our faith as believers. Faith is not (as some have mistakenly said) believing what you can’t know to be true, or believing without evidence. Faith is a personal trust relationship with God, based on what we know about him. The more we learn about him–including how we can be confident about him–the more we’ll trust him. That confidence can grow in many ways, of course; apologetics is just one piece of it. But it can be a very helpful piece.
- It can help us persuade nonbelievers that Christianity is plausible. Apologetics alone will not persuade anybody to follow Christ, for that depends on a spiritual work done in them by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we can see in this 1 Peter passage, and in all the travels and messages of Paul in the book of Acts, that giving reasonable answers is a good thing. It won’t force anyone to believe, but it can break down barriers through showing them that Christianity is reasonable and plausible. This can certainly open the door to belief.
There are two general categories of apologetics, and their names are possibly as misleading as “apologetics” itself: offensive and defensive. Neither one of them is about our mood, or about how we treat the other person. Rather, offensive apologetics includes reasons for faith: how we know the New Testament is reliable and trustworthy, philosophical reasons to believe there must be a God, and so on. Defensive apologetics has to do with answering attacks on the faith, for example, does the existence of evil in the world prove God cannot really exist?
What if I’m not really interested in apologetics?
There are different ways to be convinced of God’s truth. He reveals it to our hearts directly through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and in many senses that should be (and is) sufficient. The study of apologetics is for situations where more is called for: when others try to show that Christianity is false; when we have difficult questions of our own (which we ought to face squarely), or when we’re trying to help a non-Christian overcome doubts and lead him or her to faith.
Every Christian is gifted in different ways, and our interests usually reflect our gifts. Not everyone is equally interested in providing hospitality, not everyone is equally drawn toward ministries of mercy, not everyone is equally as good at sharing their faith. All Christians are called to some measure of hospitality, compassion, and witness, but not equally so. Every church, however, ought to display a wide range of ministries and gifts.
It need not be a deep interest for every person–but it is a ministry for every church.
Not every person needs to be involved in apologetics as a focused area of interest. But just as each church ought to have ministries of giving, missions, visitation, and so on, each church ought also to have a place where people can go for answers to questions about the truth of the faith. Not only that, but it makes great sense for the church to open its doors wide for people to come with these questions, to discuss them and learn from them together.
After all, many of us really do have these questions, and a burning interest in the answers.
*Not my original line–I got it from William Lane Craig.
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04.29.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 10:34 am by Tom Gilson
You can stay updated on Seaford’s Blog a whole lot more easily than you thought!
If you read even one blog regularly, RSS is for you. It will save you time, I promise.
Some of you may be wondering, “Doesn’t everyone use RSS?” The answer is no; less than 6% of internet users take advantage of this extraordinarily helpful technology.
I’ve read lots of posts on what RSS is and how to use it, but they’re limited in their helpfulness. There are just too many options out there to fully explain any one of them in a post that tackles RSS as a whole. So I am going to use the majority of this article to help non-RSS-users get started on Google Reader.
If you follow these instructions, you will be subscribed to your favorite sites and already saving time by the end of this article.
[From What Is RSS? A Step-by-Step Guide to Google Reader « The Pipers]
If you follow the directions there, there will come a step where you’ll need to know the “feed address” for this blog. Here it is:
feed://blog.sbc-va.org/feed
Does this help? If you have any questions, or if the instructions don’t turn out to work for you, please leave a comment here and let me know.
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04.23.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 9:53 pm by Tom Gilson
Research from Lifeway and Barna shows that 70% to 80% of young people in solid Christian churches walk away from the faith when they move into young adulthood. Further research, reported by Josh McDowell, says that when those young adults are asked why they left the faith, the number one set of responses had to do with intellectual difficulties with the faith. They’re just not sure it’s true.
Christianity is under continual attack from atheists and skeptics who insist that the faith just isn’t true. They’re becoming more vocal. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Brown, Phillip Pullman, and Bart Ehrman are all New York Times bestselling authors who argue that religion is false and (most of them would say) positively dangerous. They include all religions in that accusation.
Meanwhile over the past 50 years or so, Western culture has adopted a relativistic view of knowledge regarding religion and ethics. Relativism says there is no objective truth that can be known regarding God or morality. If “objective truth” is defined as truth that can be known through science, this is a correct assessment; and for many people, science is the only trustworthy route to knowledge. (We’ll deal with that issue in a later blog posting. For now, let it be sufficient to say that science is not, and cannot be the only route to knowledge. After all, even the statement, “science is the only reliable route to knowledge,” is not a scientific statement–what lab did it come from?)
Here is better definition of objective truth: truth that would be true even if nobody believed; truth that is true in the mind of God, or in the world as it really is. Francis Schaeffer called it True Truth to distinguish it from relativists’ “truth.”
Here’s what relativists consider “truth:” since there is no True Truth out there regarding religion or ethics, but we need meaning and morality anyway, then we all have the freedom to create our own truth. And since every one of us is equally qualified to create our own truth, then every person’s truth about religion or morality is equal. Everybody’s truth is true for him or her, even if it contradicts others’ truth.
Relativists’ great challenge toward Christianity is that we Christians are terribly arrogant and awfully discourteous for saying Christ is the only way to God, that we know this to be true and we know that contradictory beliefs are wrong, and that we desire others to come to this same belief. This breaks all their rules!
But then, what’s wrong with relativism? I can outline only a few things here. For one thing, nobody is a relativist about everything. I picture myself in the doctor’s office asking the nurse, “Is that flu vaccine in that syringe?” She answers, “It is in my truth, what is it in yours?” You get the picture. I suppose there aren’t many relativists who leave the supermarket checkout line without counting their change–they are realists, not relativists, about their money.
Relativism is hopeless self-contradictory. It says there is absolutely no absolute truth regarding ethics and morality; but that’s an absolute statement that purports to be true about ethics and morality. It says that nothing another person holds as true should be treated as wrong, since all truths are on an equal footing, but it won’t hold “Christ is the only way to God” on an equal footing. As I already said, relativism considers Christianity to be incredibly arrogant and rude, even evil, while all the time saying there is no such thing as evil.
There’s an interesting story about this coming out of the 9/11 attacks. This was originally published in the Los Angeles Times just one week after the attacks:
The campuses, once citadels of opposition to military action, generally are quiet, in part, said author and commentator David Rieff, because this generation of students is hamstrung by the “politically correct” education it has received since kindergarten. “The nice kids have been taught that all differences are to be celebrated,” said Rieff, currently a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, “and they’re in full cognitive meltdown. Their homeroom teachers and guidance counselors never told them that there are people in the world who mean them harm.”
“Differences are to be celebrated,” says the relativist, “for all beliefs are equal.” Then came 9/11, and “full cognitive meltdown.” What a descriptive phrase! And what does relativism do with Islamic fundamentalism? It’s a terribly intolerant system, isn’t it? So do we tolerate that intolerance? Mark Steyn concluded, in regard to someone trying to figure out the puzzle that poses,
Lady Kennedy was arguing that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people’s intolerance, which is intolerable.
I can’t read that without grinning. (The whole article is well worthwhile.) Relativism is also absurd in what it will allow as possibly being moral–like the Holocaust. On my Thinking Christian blog, an atheistic/relativistic commenter named Paul said,
I missed one of your questions, Tom. Just to be clear, I think the Holocaust was wrong. From my culture’s morality, from many cultures’ morality, but not from Hitler’s. I would fight against it no less.
Hitler’s morality was not wrong from Hitler’s perspective, he says. That, to me, is just absurd. And why and how would he fight against it? He doesn’t have any higher morality he can appeal to. For Paul, the only available approach is through power:
A relativistic moral law is made when a group of people (family, tribe, culture, country, etc.) decide to do so. There is no absolute or objective foundation for doing so: as I’ve said before, it is merely a question of power what laws are made…. When differing moral cultures clash, it’s up to power to decide the difference. Doesn’t look pretty, but that’s the way it is, assuming there’s no God.
That’s absurd, too: do we really want to agree that power decides morality? Do we really think that the nation with the most guns gets to decide what’s right and wrong for the rest of the world? Or that the gang with the most knives gets to decide for the whole city?
Finally, at least one relativist is unsure it’s really wrong to say that 2+2=5. Jacob thinks that’s illegitimate, but not wrong. It’s purely a cultural convention, he thinks. This is the depths of absurdity.
Do we really know the Christian faith is true? This blog post only gives a very quick answer to just one attack. But it illustrates that there are answers. This illustration could be extended on and on. On ThinkingChristian.net, atheists have been attacking Christianity’s truth for three years now, and I have yet to see one objection raised that could not be met with a sound answer based on an appropriate combination of Biblical revelation, reasoning, and evidences.
But I would not want that answer to have the wrong result. It could cause some people to hold back on asking their questions about the truth of the faith–they might think questions are bad, evil, or embarrassing. No–questions are one of the best things in the world (outside of good, solid answers, of course). Here at Seaford we’re trying to open up the door for good questions, as a route toward figuring out good answers. Do we really know the faith is true? As time goes on, let’s look at the questions together, and see what answers we find!
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04.01.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 9:47 pm by Tom Gilson
My last post ran the risk of sending a wrong message: that it takes one key super-leader to shepherd God’s people. No, it takes a definite leadership structure to lead well. I have very painful personal experience with this–experience that drives me to do my best to help prevent the same kind of thing from ever being repeated.
I was one of a small group that were planting a church in Pasadena, California in the early 1980s. What incredible fellowship we had! It was in many ways the ideal church. I’ve never been in another such tight-knit community of believers. We encountered sudden change, though, change that we thought at first was really good for our church. It happened when another church in the community switched pastors, and several members thought the new man was too liberal. Many of them came and joined us, all at one time.
They actually assimilated into our church quite nicely. But the church outgrew our ability to be just a great fellowship. Where once we could all get together–every one of us–for meaningful discussions about the church’s direction, now we were too many for that. We weren’t large–only about 100 people–but we were too big for our old ways to work.
To keep the story short, the pastor didn’t adjust well. He didn’t succeed in setting up a leadership structure for the next phase of our growth. Small disagreements turned into large dissension. Conflict arose between the pastor and the key elder. We ended up donating away all our assets to other Christian groups, and we closed the church. Be assured that there’s a world of hurting contained in that short summary.
Moses started out with a very poor understanding of how to structure leadership among the Israelites. His father-in-law saw this and counseled him in Exodus 18 (ESV):
13 The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. 14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” 15 And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; 16 when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” 17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. 19 Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, 20 and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. 21 Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”
24 So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. 25 Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 26 And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves.
The idea was to delegate responsibility and authority among a number of leaders. As Jethro pointed out, that was the only way leading a large company like the Israelites could have been remotely possible. Note that this wasn’t just good family advice. It was one of many examples of delegated authority in the Bible. Others may be found in:
Whoa… that list could get really long! Let’s just focus on two more very significant Old Testament passages and three from the New Testament.
Judges 2:16-23. The main message here is that when the people followed God’s appointed leaders they fared well. Otherwise they fell into idolatry and other sin, and “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.” In those days the result was that they were oppressed by neighboring nations. There’s no telling what the result of the Lord’s anger might be in regard to a body of his people today–but you can count on this, it won’t be something pleasant or desirable.
Nehemiah–the entire book. One good test of this is to read the book aloud. Notice how many names are there–or, how many times you have to pause to figure out a pronunciation! Most of these are leaders–”nobles and officials,” many of them heads of households or clans–among the people. Nehemiah did a masterful job of assigning responsibility for different sections of the wall they were rebuilding around Jerusalem. Another great lesson from Nehemiah is the emphasis on prayer–he led spiritually, not just organizationally.
Acts 6:1-7. The apostles recognized it was inappropriate and unworkable for them to be hands-on leaders of administrative tasks. It was not that administration was a lesser calling. The men they chose to fulfill those roles were full of wisdom, faith, and the Holy Spirit, and one of them went on to become the early church’s first martyr.
Acts 15:1-35. On the other hand, when a major, far-reaching decision had to be made, the apostles became very deeply involved, along with an unnamed group of elders. This was the controversy over whether Gentile converts would need to be circumcised and follow other Jewish law. This was decided in council. It was a council of spiritual leaders, however, and not of all the church. The word “elders” (presbytos) in the New Testament seems to be interchangeable with “overseers” (episkopos), by the way. This was not, at the time, a formal office in the same sense it is in some churches today (”episkopos” eventually become transliterated to “bishop”). It seems rather to have been a matter of appointing to leadership those who were recognized as spiritually equipped for it. We get a hint of this in our final passage today:
Acts 14:19-23. Paul re-traced earlier paths on his missionary travels and
when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
This is not just a principle for ancient times. The modern world hasn’t outgrown it, and there’s no reason to think we’ll ever “move beyond” this any more than we would move beyond any other principle of Scripture. Lyle E. Schaller did considerable research on church leadership and structures for his book The Very Large Church. Seaford, with about 800 in regular attendance, fits his description of “a very large church.” He describes the difference between decision-making styles that work well in
- small churches–where 100% approval of new projects is ideal,
- large churches of 450-700 people–where “broad-based support” of about 80% of members is desirable, and
- megachurches in the 3,000 member range–where support should come from “the majority of leaders, plus the volunteers required to implement [a new project]“
Our church falls in the cracks between the second and third group, but this example nevertheless makes clear the importance of a strong structure of spiritual leadership, appropriate to the size of the congregation. It was already clear in Scripture, so it should come as no surprise that it works that way in actual churches still today.
I’ve lived through one church’s experience with a leadership structure that didn’t match its size. I’ve never wanted to go through that again! Thankfully we have both Scripture and other churches’ experience to guide us to wise approaches to this crucial matter.
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03.30.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 11:07 pm by Tom Gilson
Is there any significant move of God in all of Scripture in which He did not work through a core of spiritual leaders?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and the only place I can think of where spiritual leaders were not active was in Judges, where “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” This was not a positive portrait. There was a cycle throughout that book: when God raised up spiritual leaders the nation did well, but between those times they fell into sin and suffered oppression from heathen nations.
The message of the Bible is one of relationship and community from start to finish. Every person is significant. I confess I usually breeze right through the Bible’s long genealogies. There was, however, a Wycliffe Bible Translators missionary in a tribal location–I can’t remember where just now–who saved translating the genealogies in Matthew and Luke for last. When he finished them, the people said, “Why did you save the best for last?” They understood the importance of individuals–people whose contribution might otherwise have been forgotten.
Nevertheless, communities always gather around leaders. Modern business organizations often send potential leaders to “assessment centers,” which include a variety of exercises to test their aptitude. One exercise commonly used is the “leaderless group.” Eight to twelve people, with no one in charge, are given a task to accomplish together. Somebody always emerges as the leader–unless more than one person does, in which there may be conflict over who takes the lead. The point is that every group has a leader.
God has apparently ordained it that way, in view of the witness we have of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the Judges, Saul, David, Solomon, the rest of the kings, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, the prophets, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, James, and most obviously Jesus Christ. The church is designed to operate under leaders. Paul considered it one of his first duties to appoint shepherds (Timothy and Titus are examples) and elders (as in Ephesus). In 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 he laid out the crucial qualifications for church leaders. These are worth quoting here:
I Timothy 3 (ESV)
[Qualifications for Overseers]
1The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
[Qualifications for Deacons]
8 Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. 9 They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. 11 Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. 12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. 13 For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
In Titus 1, note how Paul made it a priority to make sure every church body had proper leaders in place:
[Qualifications for Elders]
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
Acts 6 provides another qualification list, in which men of wisdom, full of the Holy Spirit, are given tasks to help administrate the church. And God calls us to give honor to our spiritual leaders:
Hebrews 13:7: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”
1 Timothy 5:17-19: “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’ Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.”
Do we follow leaders blindly, then? Obviously not. Among the leaders listed above, not all were worthy–especially among the kings of Judah and Israel. The 1 Timothy 5 passage just cited recognizes that some leaders will face accusations. We can all name pastors–famous and not-so-famous–who have fallen.
The passage also warns us not to be rash about entertaining accusations, and to allow leaders some benefit of the doubt unless evidence of their failure is quite clear. This is not because leaders get special privileges, or because they should be allowed more freedom to err. Quite the opposite, in fact. It seems to me the reason Scripture calls us to be slower to accuse leaders is because they are in a uniquely vulnerable position. By virtue of their position, they are targets–targets for disagreement, for complaints, and for accusations. Scripture calls on God’s people to take some of that pressure off our shepherds. If they do succumb to sin, doctrinal error, or other leadership failures, they have further to fall than those who are not leaders. Most business organizations will not dismiss an employee who commits private sin on his or her time off. Churches certainly will–and rightly so, in many instances. Sin in spiritual leaders is very serious–which is all the more reason to be deliberate about how we handle it.
The sum of all this is that God leads through men and women He has uniquely called and positioned for the purpose. This is for the good of each member of the community and for the building up of all God’s people (Eph. 4). We can all grow in the gifts God has given us–and we can all grow in the leadership roles God has called us to, whatever those may be. God provides leaders to help us all get there.
This is not to say that everything depends on just one person. The Bible provides for church structures with leaders functioning at various levels with differing responsibilities. More on that next time…
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03.23.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 4:57 pm by Tom Gilson
The religious and political leaders thought they had Jesus all figured out. I doubt there’s anything in history or literature to match the irony of that.
They expected was the kind of thing they usually saw during a trial and execution: fear, self-protection, defensiveness; or possibly something like guilt, regret, or remorse. They thought they were in control. They thought it was about a political power struggle, in which Jesus was, to some of them, a nuisance, and to others a pawn. They thought they were taking care of themselves.
They had it all wrong.
It started a few days before Jesus’ arrest, when the high priest, no friend of Jesus, was tapped by God to utter an inadvertent prophecy:
“You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. (John 11:49-52)
The context of the whole begins many months earlier, though, when Jesus made it known that he had come for an unexpected purpose:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Matthew 16:21)
When they arrested him they were on his agenda. It was not that he had a death wish; he dreaded his coming ordeal. But he knew his purpose, to stand in through his death for the deaths of many others. The crowd had it in for him; they did not realize they were setting up a perfect illustration of what Jesus’ death was all about: he died so that others might live:
Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” (Matthew 27:15-23)
And Pilate let Barabbas go free, while Jesus was executed in his place.
They mocked the king by pretending he was a king:
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. (Matthew 27:27-31)
While he was on the cross, others mocked him further:
And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matthew 27:39-43)
They derided him for not saving himself; they did not know he was saving them. They thought his claim to be the Son of God was dying along with him; they did not know it was about to be proved with unparalleled power.
Pilate and the Jewish leaders got into a squabble about the charge under which he was to be executed.
Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” (John 19:19-22)
This was all political: Pilate was trying to embarrass them, to show that Rome had power over anyone among them who seemed to be someone, and especially over their Establishment. In the process, he got it right: Jesus is king of the Jews and of all creation.
The ultimate irony was revealed on Sunday morning. On Friday, Jesus looked like the weak, despicable loser. He died an agonizing and humiliating death. He was wrapped in thick grave clothes and interred behind a heavy stone in a tomb. He lay there lifeless for two nights.
Then he stood up.
He stood up, and the stone rolled away, and he appeared in his true power and glory as the conqueror of all humiliation and the master over suffering and death.
There’s a lesson for us in all this. Jesus had a plan all along. They thought they were dealing him on their terms, when all along he was dealing with them on his terms. But he was obviously not perpetrating a power play; he was sacrificing himself for their good, and for ours. The lesson for us, then, is that God will deal with us on his terms, too; not for the sake of power but for the sake of our good, and to submit to his terms is very, very good. Or, the next time you think you have God figured out and you can set the terms for him, remember he doesn’t work that way–his way is better.
You see, we live in irony, too: the greatest freedom and life come by submitting to the one who died for us.
(Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version)
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03.21.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 9:35 am by Tom Gilson
From a blog post on Thinking Christian a few weeks ago:
Make no mistake, the cross of Jesus Christ is a drastic solution to a serious problem, and the problem is our fundamental distance from the God who created and loves us. He loves us enough that He was willing (”for the joy set before him”) to sacrifice Himself to solve our problem. There is no other solution for such a deep difficulty as we are in. It was a very costly solution. Do we trivialize our own faults? Do we recognize the sacrifice by which we are freed from them?
Jimmy Fauntleroy, from the band Chasing Elvis that has twice visited our church, sings:
Three crosses on a hill, I had forgotten now I never will
Three crosses on a hill; there’s yours and mine and there’s another still….
This is the medicine that goes deep within your veins
Kills the cancer [but] has a tendency to intensify the pain
This is the marriage of purity and shame
This is a bloody war–it ain’t no game!
Life was won for us by direct confrontation. Purity and shame met on the cross, and purity defeated shame. Life met death, and life won. The result: the cancer is cured! But what is this “tendency intensify the pain” about? Unfortunately we can’t put the full context of Jimmy’s overall message here. He would also say, and many of us in the church saw how he exemplifies, how much this cure intensifies joy and life. The pain, I take it, is what we feel when facing our fallenness, the big and little ways we need the “medicine that goes deep within your veins.” It is one of the ways we all participate in that mighty, direct confrontation.
Jesus’ death led to our life. We die to self, to live the fullest life. The deepest joy comes from overcoming the deepest pains. This is Good Friday, the day of remembering the deepest pains. But God is an overcomer, and Sunday’s coming!
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02.03.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 3:49 pm by Tom Gilson
Christians often pray, “God, let us see you work in power.” We may not understand what it is we ask. God’s best work is resurrection. He does His best work when we need it most–like when a pastor leaves a church. Actually we don’t need God any more now than before, since we’re always entirely dependent on Him, but we are certainly more aware of that need now.
I approach this Resurrection Principle very cautiously, for though there is something important to say here, there is a danger of trivializing it. I spent several hours this week with a very good friend whose mother passed away a few weeks ago. Her passing was very difficult. The pain of my own mother’s death, almost a year and a half ago, is still very real, though not as fresh and strong as my friend’s grief is today. Death is not what God originally intended. It means something is wrong with the world. It is an enemy. In Christ’s resurrection, death was dealt a mortal blow; but it still kicks in its final throes. It is the last enemy yet to be defeated, at the end of the age.
Imagine being one of Christ’s followers in the day when He was taken to trial, to torture, and then to execution. He had told them often in advance that this had to happen. They did not understand; they fought the idea. Nothing, not even His frequent warnings, could prepare them for the loss, the injustice, the massive dashing of their hopes and dreams. Peter denied Him, others deserted Him. The women, more than the men, stayed with Him to the end; yet even for them, what a horrific end it seemed to be. This man had brought them unparalleled hope, healing, and love. He was the one who had words of eternal life. He had proved his supernatural power through repeated miracles. Then He was gone. I don’t know if any other death in history could have produced so much shock and grief.
We experience the grief of loved ones dying. We each face our own end. Further, we all experience loss and disappointment: being turned down by someone we love, being rejected by family members, losing jobs or opportunities, suffering injury or disease. We face change in our church, the loss of the familiar and the departure of leaders we love. These are lesser deaths.
Yet just as Christ’s death brought unparalleled pain, surely His rising brought His followers unparalleled joy! What could compare to Mary’s elation when she saw Him alive that Sunday morning, or the other disciples’ relief and happiness when He appeared among them? How often and with what unrestrainable smiles do you suppose they spoke of that among themselves, the rest of their lives? What could have been a happier moment than seeing Him alive? And what could have been a greater display of God’s power?
We pray for God to work in power, not always remembering that this is when we see Him most at work: when we most need Him. God does His best work following a death, even if it’s of a death of the lesser, figurative sort.
In 2001 my wife and I realized we ought to leave our positions at the headquarters of Campus Crusade for Christ. I was getting what I call “headquarters disease.” I was a Human Resources director, with national responsibilities, but I was getting disconnected from the field and from the reason I was doing what I was doing. When someone called me on the phone, it felt like an interruption, a bother to me. That was obviously wrong, and we decided the cure had to include leaving headquarters and going back to front-line ministry work.
We ended up in southeast Virginia–and it didn’t turn out to be what we had expected. We experienced some very deep disappointments, unfulfilled expectations, and very difficult conflict (this was with persons who are not now part of the ministry). I was certainly part of the problem; some real changes were needed in my own heart.
For a while it was, well, really awful. We had uprooted our family from one city, and now we were seriously wondering whether we were going to stay in this new one for long. We were living in an apartment at Grafton Station, which we had rented as a base for living while we hunted for a home to buy. It would have been easy, in one sense, just to leave. It would have been terribly wrenching in another sense.
Sara was feeling it as badly as I was. One day she went for a drive down Hudgins Farm Drive, a street that we had visited more than once before, which we thought would be a particularly nice place to live. There were only a few houses on the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. None of them, unfortunately, were for sale. She prayed that day in a kind of desperation for answers and for hope “God, we don’t know if we’re supposed to be here. If you want us to stay, would you please, please, please open up a house here, suitable for us to live in!”
Two days later I was with several co-workers driving north toward a conference in Gettysburg. We hadn’t even reached the Coleman Bridge when my cell phone rang. My wife said, “The real estate agent has a house for us to look at.” I said, “Come on, you know I can’t look at any houses until after the conference!” She said, “It’s on Hudgins Farm, Tom.” I said, “Oh!” (Brilliant, no?) “I guess you’d better go look at it!”
She checked it out that same morning. It was listed for well below market price, and it fit our desired description almost exactly. The seller accepted our bid with a contingency clause, such that we could pull out of it if I disagreed when I came home. That house is where we’re living now. God was starting to do some of his best work, giving us hope and direction in the midst of what seemed like a deathly situation.
Relationships at work did not improve just then; in fact, for a while the situation continued to get worse. It became clear that I was not going to thrive in that position, and that we would have to make a change. We had no clue what that could mean. We had bought the house, we were not interested in moving (nor did we believe God wanted us to move), and yet there was no other position on the horizon for us locally. Around that time we also took a very severe financial loss, and my father-in-law died a very difficult death. Things were not getting easier.
And then another job in Campus Crusade for Christ opened up, virtually out of nowhere, based in Williamsburg. It was going to be what I would have considered to be my dream job, working with some of my favorite people in the organization. (And the office was walking distance from Starbucks!) It started out looking great, but even that dream died, too, when for reasons too complicated to explain, there just wasn’t a lot of work to do. The income was there, but the projects weren’t. Another dream seemed to have been spiked.
But God was doing some of his best work still. I was starting to recognize what I had learned from the rough relationships I had just been in–some extremely important personal leadership and character lessons. I can’t go into them here without sharing more openly than I should about the whole situation. Suffice it to say that I couldn’t be doing what I am now without having been through all of that. I am stronger than I was; and I am unreservedly grateful to God for it all.
Now let me back up a moment to another dream. I had always wanted to write–I just never had a clue how to get published. Now I was in a situation that afforded me time to think, study, and write–and now, too, there was blogging. That was the beginning of this whole adventure; and the dream has borne fruit in a blog and in some published articles. I can’t imagine how this door would have opened without being in a situation that seemed like a dream that died.
And since then, the job projects and opportunities have opened up as well, just as I had thought and hoped they would two years earlier. (The story on that transition is as amazing as others I’ve told here, but to go into it all would make this long post really long.) I believe this new set of responsibilities and opportunities was in the plan all along–but that God also had a plan to fulfill a lifelong dream and vision (writing) along the way.
This has been bought the short version of a long story. I could tell much more about this and other things like it, and so could any follower of Christ. The Bible is full of such tales–Joseph, Moses, and many more. We all have dreams, hopes, plans, relationships; and some of those dreams, hopes, plans, and relationships die.
I look back over the past few years and I see both deaths and resurrections. The resurrections are where God’s hand is most clearly visible. They are where God has been most glorified. They wouldn’t have happened–couldn’t have happened–without the deaths. These experiences are miniatures of his final work yet to come, when both death and resurrection (for His followers) are not metaphorical but very real. Christ was first. He opened the door, so that any who are willing to follow may walk through after Him.
For a follower of Christ, no death, whether figurative or literal, is final. It’s God’s preparation for His best work.
Part of a Series at ThinkingChristian.net:
Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions. This post elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a very long answer in the form of this series.
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01.01.08
Posted in Tom Gilson at 11:20 am by Tom Gilson
Happy New Year!
Can you keep your New Year’s resolutions this year? Have you tried in past years? How did you do? Most of us give up before January ends. It’s surprisingly difficult to make a decision about our personal habits and stick with it, isn’t it? Can we actually improve ourselves?
The answer is no, we can’t. That may come as a surprise to some readers of a church blog, for you may think that Christianity is about improving ourselves: learning to do the right things, being more loving and kind, obeying the Ten Commandments, and so on. It’s not so, actually. People who have followed Christ for any length of time commonly say, “Living the Christian life isn’t hard, it’s impossible!”
More specifically, it’s impossible to improve ourselves on the inside, where it counts. We may be able to set some goals and reach them. We may be able to adjust some behavior, or change some habits. But these changes are on the surface; they don’t get to the heart. And because they’re on the surface, often they are fragile. They break easily. We fail to keep up with our goals and standards. That applies to New Year’s resolutions, certainly, and for that reason some Christian leaders recommend against making them. It even applies to the one standard that is unquestionably, consistently a good one, the Law of God. It even applies to the best of us. The New Testament leader and writer Paul said,
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing…. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members [parts of my body, see more here] another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
This is from the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans (ESV). Even his perfect agreement with the law of God, and his intense desire to follow it, was not enough. It only showed what a failure he was.
This sounds terribly familiar to me–it’s a picture of my own experience at many times. How about you? Have you been made as painfully aware that you can’t live up to whatever standard you have thought was good and right? What then? Are we hopeless? Is there nothing we can do?
Paul goes on to say yes, there is hope! In the next chapter he writes,
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans is a closely reasoned and complex letter, and his point may not be immediately clear, especially since I’m not quoting the whole. I’ll pick out just three main points here that I think will help explain it.
First, we can have freedom from this terrible cycle of sin (our failures) and death (the inevitable result of the cycle). That’s great news! But we do not free ourselves. We are freed by what God has done. He sent his own Son “in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” It’s his doing.
Second, this freedom is founded on Jesus Christ. He “has set you free in Christ Jesus.” Paul writes elsewhere in Romans (and it’s found throughout the New Testament) that we start by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, trusting him to free us from our sin. There’s a great explanation of this here. Here’s the mistake many make: they think they must get their lives straight in order to begin to follow Jesus Christ. No, he accepts us as we are, and he will do the work to free us from our failures.
Third, to experience this freedom day by day, we “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” The Spirit here is not some vague ethereal religious sense, but the Holy Spirit, who is God Himself dwelling with those who have placed their faith in Christ. Again I’m going to rely on another resource to explain how we can experience this daily walk with the Holy Spirit.
What is life like when we follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Paul wrote about this in another letter, too. In Galatians 5 he emphasized freedom again. It’s not a matter of gritting our teeth and going by willpower, but of simple following:
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
And the result is something that grows out of us naturally, like fruit. I don’t know what your New Year’s resolutions might be, but if you were to resolve to be more like this, and if it were really to happen, wouldn’t it be great? God says it’s not a matter of resolving but of walking in the Spirit:
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
We can experience success; we can know freedom from failure and guilt! But we cannot do it on our own resources. Jesus Christ is the foundation for all we do that is right (pleasing to God). The Holy Spirit is God’s provision for our experiencing this. Let your New Year’s resolution be to explore and learn all that this relationship with God through the Holy Spirit can mean. Let the Word of God guide your other decisions. Any other resolutions will take care of themselves from there.
Technorati Tags: Christian Growth, Holy Spirit, New Year’s Resolutions
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