Seminaries, Churches, and Spiritual Formation

I enjoyed tonight a series of posts dealing with the connections between the church, seminaries, and spiritual formation/development. You'll have to navigate a little bit to get to the first post, but this link will get you started: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/08/seminaries-and-spiritual-forma.php

David's strength and ours

As I prepare for ministry, I am struck by how often I am looking to the Lord for strength. Or to put it another way, I am struck by just how weak I am.

Thankfully, the Lord has much to say in his Word about “strength.” One particular place I have been turning to much lately is Psalm 18, where the opening verse reads: “I love you, O LORD, my strength.” In what sense did David mean that the LORD is his strength? There are three senses in which he means this.

1.     David recognized that all his talents, gifts, and strengths were from his LORD.

David was a mighty warrior, a great king. He won many victories through his prowess, even slaying his ten-thousands versus Saul’s mere thousands, as the local lyric went. But David recognized that anything he possessed by way of might- either of a military kind or of another- was from God. So he says in Psalm 18:32 that God is “the God who equipped me with strength.” God had indeed imparted to David- and has imparted to each of us- strengths and talents. It is not wrong to identify and use these, but we must do so in the knowledge that we did not gain them on our own, but were given them by the one who made us.

2.     David recognized that all his talents, gifts, and strengths were nothing apart from his LORD.

This is, as it were, the next step in acknowledging the Lord as your strength. Not only did David recognize that everything was from the LORD, he also knew that is was only by his God that he would be able to employ his strengths with any success. So, in 18:29, David declares, “by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. Notice, David did not say, “by the gifts and talents God has given me I can do this and that.” No! It was by God that he could do these things. All of our gifts and talents count for nothing unless energized and supported by the LORD who gave them to us.

3.     David recognized that all his talents, abilities, and strengths were not his LORD.

Finally, David understood that at some point it is not about his gifts or talents, even gifts and talents employed using God’s enablement. At some point, we are completely out of the picture, and our gifts are out of it with us. All that is left is the LORD himself. We see this in verses 4-19. The picture is not one in which David wins the victory by using the gifts God has given him in the strength that God supplies. Rather, the picture is one in which David is totally helpless and weak, with “the cords of death encompassed” about him. He is in deep “distress” and in need of being “rescued.” God alone can act in such a time, and indeed he does. Verses 6-15 record a rather terrifying- though somehow comforting- vision of God coming forth from his temple in furious might, a might bent in the direction of the destruction of David’s enemies, a might bent in the direction of the salvation of David himself. In those moments, David’s gifts and talents- even those empowered by God- would not suffice. Only David’s God himself could rescue. The LORD alone was his strength.

And, of course, where does this line of thought ultimately end, biblically-speaking? Surely it leads our eyes through biblical history to that ultimate demonstration of God’s strength and deliverance on our behalf: the cross of Jesus Christ. There our God did what we could not do, cannot do, and will never be able to do. There he won the victory for his people, apart from them completely- we helped him none at all. He alone suffered that day. He alone, “while we were still weak, at the right time…died for the ungodly.” Let us say together, then, as ones this side of Calvary, “I love you, Jesus, my strength.”

Do we need the original languages?

I'm re-reading some portions of John Piper's Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. It's a solid assault on the professionalization of the pastoral office, one that I'm sure I will turn to again and again to beat back the temptations that seek to turn the ministry into mere management.

Of note today was Piper's chapter, "Brothers, Bitzer Was a Banker." In it, Piper makes a plea for pastors to become well-versed in the original languages of Scripture- Greek and Hebrew. He tells of a man named Heinrich Bitzer, who was ardently committed to knowing the original languages of the Bible. And the kicker was this: Bitzer was a banker. Not a pastor. Not an Old Testament professor. A banker. How much more, Piper contends, should pastors be committed to Greek and Hebrew, seeing as it is the nature of their office to expound the Word of God with accuracy and power!

Piper goes on, then, to show some of the reasons pastors need to know the original languages. I thought it perhaps helpful to give them here...

1. Without the original languages, "the confidence of pastors to determine the precise meaning of the Biblical text diminishes" (82).
2. "...the uncertainty of having to depend on differing translations- which always involve much interpretations- will tend to discourage careful textual analysis in sermon preparation" (82).
3. As a result of all of this, "[expository] preaching...falls into disuse and disfavor" (83).
4. "Another result when pastors do not study the Bible in Greek and Hebrew is that they, and their churches with them, tend to become second-handers. The harder it is for us to get at the original meaning of the Bible, the more we will revert to the secondary literature" (83).
5. "Weakness in Greek and Hebrew also gives rise to exegetical imprecision and carelesseness. And exegetical imprecision is the mother of liberal theology."
6. "...when we fail to stress the use of Greek and Hebrew as valuable in the pastoral office, we create an eldership of professional academicians" (84). By this Piper means that it is no longer pastors who are the masters of the Word, but only those outside the church, those in seminaries and universities.
7. As a result of number 7, then, Piper contends there results a "depreciation of the pastoral office" (84).
8. Finally, in quoting Martin Luther, Piper warns that "if we neglect the literature [i.e. the Scriptures in the original languages] we shall eventually lose the gospel" (87).

What think you? Is Piper off course? Are the original languages that necessary?

Jesus our Life

Jesus compares his ministry at one point to a doctor working with the sick. It is really a wonderful illustration. But it only goes so far. You see, a doctor gives to his patients something outside of himself- some medicine or something- to make them well. But Jesus - he gives us himself. He himself is our cure, our life.

The Drama of Redemption

The Drama of Redemption in Ephesians 2:11-22

v. 11- The Main Characters: Jews ("the circumcision") and Gentiles ("the uncircumcision").

v. 12- The Conflict: Gentiles are "separated," "alienated," "strangers," "having no hope," and "without God in the world."

v. 13- The Turning Point: "...in Christ Jesus" the Gentiles "have been brought near."

vv. 14-18- The Twist: Jews and Gentiles "both one" in Christ.

vv. 19-20- The Resolution: Gentiles "no longer strangers and aliens," but are "fellow citizens." 

v. 21- The Climax: Jews and Gentiles in Christ together a "holy temple in the Lord"

v. 22- The Moral: "...you also"?

Preaching Christ

"Him we proclaim...." Colossians 1:28

Christ was the continually spotlighted element in Paul's ministry. Even if we did not have an explicit  statement telling us this, as we do here in Colossians (see also 1 Corinthians 2:2; 2 Corinthians 4:5), we would still know it to be true from what is the general tone and content of his many sermons and epistles: Christ is simply everywhere.

But why is this so for him? The Bible is a very large book, much of it not explicitly mentioning our Lord. So why was Paul's life and ministry so explicitly "Christ-focused"?

The answer is this: because the Bible itself is "Christ-focused."

Christ is the centerpiece of all God's revelation. All of salvation history moves toward Christ, and all the parts find themselves tied together in him. The whole of the biblical plot-line (if we understand the big picture), features Jesus of Nazareth as its main character. Whether explicitly (as in the Gospels for example), or implicitly (as in the Prophets for instance), in God's divine redemptive drama, Christ has the lead role.

Tim Keller expresses this truth concisely and draws out the implications of it in such a way that I think Paul would heartily agree with:

"There are two ways to read the Bible. The one way to read the Bible is that it’s basically about you: what you have to do in order to be right with God, in which case you’ll never have a sure and certain hope, because you’ll always know you’re not quite living up. You’ll never be sure about that future. Or you can read it as all about Jesus. Every single thing is not about what you must do in order to make yourself right with God, but what he has done to make you absolutely right with God. And Jesus Christ is saying, “Unless you can read the Bible right, unless you can understand salvation by grace, you’ll never have a sure and certain hope. But once you understand it’s all about me, Jesus Christ, then you can know that you have peace. You can know that you have this future guaranteed, and you can face anything."

So you think you're tough, eh?

Soon I will be making the transition from being a full-time delivery driver to a part-time church staff member. As I said yesterday, I am eager to take hold of this opportunity given me by my church, but I also possess some (I think) healthy fear: it is an awesome thing to minister in and among the flock of God, which he purchased with his own blood, and to stand before both the Almighty and before his people. It is also a difficult thing. Only a fool would think that to wage the good warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil will take little effort, little time, and little suffering.

Because ministry is a difficult thing, then, it is no wonder that the Bible speaks often of the strength needed by the one ministering. We could turn to many places to see this, but the following three references found in First and Second Timothy are my favorite.

1.     1 Timothy 1:12

Here the emphasis is on Christ’s identity: literally, the Lord is “the one who has strengthened” Paul. In the context, the apostle is discussing his appointment to ministry. Not only, then, is Jesus the one who puts a person into ministry, he is also the one who empowers for it.  We learn in this verse, therefore, to see Christ as our strength in ministry.

2.     2 Timothy 2:1

Paul instructs Timothy in this verse to “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” The emphasis is upon Christ as the source of power, in contrast to ourselves, who are weak. Reading on in verse 2 (and indeed in the whole epistle), we see that strength Paul is referring to is strength for Timothy to carry out his ministry. We learn here, then, to seek Christ for our strength.

3.     2 Timothy 4:17

Finally, in this verse Paul reflects upon the fact that Christ met his need for strength at a critical moment in ministry, helping him to persevere when it was most necessary. The emphasis is not so much on Christ’s identity, so much as on the fact that he was faithful to his identity in the given situation. Here, then, we learn to stand in Christ as our strength.