church – Page 2

Church Has a Purpose, Part 2: The Long Range

September 1, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

When you were learning to drive, you tended to focus on the road immediately in front of you—a tactic that made you basically a reactionary, jerking the wheel in response to whatever suddenly popped into your field of vision. As you gained experience, you began to look farther down the road, your peripheral vision taking in pretty much everything from here to the horizon. It’s much less jarring to make tiny corrections with long-range significance than to react to every little thing as if it’s a crisis.

So we start with the long view, the big map, with the little tiny star that says “You are here.”

That’s what Paul does in this passage.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Ep 4.13).

God’s goal for us as his people is that by the end of the story we will be grown up—mature. That’s what “perfect” here means.

Mature in what?

In unity.

We need to be united, inseparable, fiercely attached to one another, a band of brothers.

What’s the basis of our unity? Some people are united by their love for motorcycles, or quilts, or cocker spaniels, or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

We’re united by our faith, and by our knowledge of the Son of God.

That statement needs some clarification, some delimitation.

In the Bible the term “the faith,” with the article, refers not so much to the fact that we believe as to the content of what we believe. To put it more bluntly, it refers to doctrine.

Isn’t that interesting. In Paul’s mind, doctrine isn’t something that divides. It’s something that unites. Because we believe the same things, we are pulled together and become inseparable.

I should note that this doesn’t mean that we agree on everything. The Scripture elsewhere urges each one to “be fully persuaded in his own mind” while extending grace to those with other convictions (Ro 14.5). No, “the faith” is the most important stuff, the doctrines that define Christianity, beginning with the gospel, which is “of first importance” (I Co 15.3-5).

That’s reinforced by the next phrase, “the knowledge of the Son of God.” The doctrines that are most central, our unifying principles, are those that have to do with the Son—who he is (person), what he is like (attributes), what he has done (work). It’s a truism that the easiest way to spot a false teacher is to ask him who he thinks Jesus is.

But I think Paul is saying more here than just that our Christology has to be right.

The word translated “knowledge” is epignosis, with a prepositional prefix that functions as an intensifier. Greek lexicons often render this word as “full knowledge,” “true knowledge,” “recognition.” I’d suggest that it means what we mean when we say, “Now I get it!”

A look at some other biblical passages that use the word reinforces this idea—

Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Ro 3.20).
They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Ro 10.2).
… with knowledge and all discernment (Php 1.9)
That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Co 1.9)
Ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth (2Ti 3.7).
… the full knowledge of everything that is in us for the sake of Christ (Phm 6)

So what is “unity of the knowledge of the Son of God”?

I’d suggest that when people know who Christ is, through his revelation of himself through the Word, and when through that knowledge they come to know him as Creator, Savior, Lord, Shepherd, Friend, they’re going to be drawn together into a unity that simply cannot be compromised.

And then they grow, united, as a single body, to a spiritual stature that is appropriate for the size of its head, who is Christ (Ep 1.22-23).

Now, how do we get there?

Paul has some very practical observations about that, which we’ll get to in the next post.

Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

Church Has a Purpose, Part 1: And It’s No Secret

August 29, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Experts tell us that we can’t be productive or successful without goals. We should write down our daily, weekly, monthly, and annual goals, and check them off when they’re completed. We should constantly re-evaluate our goals to be sure that they match our priorities.

Makes sense. I make lists and check things off every day, and it works pretty well for me.

The principle works for organizations as well as individuals. My employer, an educational institution, has goals that they communicate constantly to the faculty, the staff, and the students. Right now, at the beginning of the school year, we’re in the season where a few chapel sessions are devoted to informing the new folks, and reminding everybody, of our institutional purpose, past, and plans.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that God has goals for his people. He’s communicated them repeatedly throughout history, even though it sometimes appeared that hardly anybody was listening. In the current slice of history, when the people of God bear the moniker of “church,” he has plans for us too—especially corporately.

In Ephesians 4, among other places, God gives His goals for the church. Church isn’t just something we go to as spectators, a place where we meet people and perform rituals. It’s a living organization with a specific mission. In this passage God lays out the goals for the organization of which He is chief executive officer.

He begins by noting that we can’t succeed without help—particularly his gifting (Ep 4.7). And that gifting, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t supernatural abilities or tricks. It’s people.

Here Paul lists 4 or 5 kinds of people—there are other lists in other places, specifically Romans 12, 1Corinthians 12, and 1Peter 4, as I’ve noted earlier. This list includes apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers (Ep 4.11). They have a job to do: to mature the believers to do the work of service and consequently build up the body of Christ (Ep 4.12)—the church (Ep 1.22-23).

So the church is a body-building enterprise; it’s there to bring people together so that they can build one another up into maturity.

And what, specifically, does it mean to be mature?

For the church, it’s not the color of its hair (assuming it has some), or its height, or its musculature. Paul lays out the specifics in verses 13 through 16. These verses lay out God’s goals for the church.

Why do you go to church? (And what does “go to church” even mean if the church is a fellowship of believers and not a building?)

If you go to church with no purpose, no plan, no goal, but just because that’s what you always do on Sunday mornings, then how likely is it that you’ll play a part in helping the institution accomplish its purpose?

How do you feel about someone who’s working on a group project with you and who isn’t pulling his share of the load?

We hear any number of people complaining about this church or that one.

I wonder what they’re doing to help.

I wonder if they’re focused on a specific goal, and if so, if their goal is the right one.

In this passage Paul is going to describe both the long-term and the short-term goals for the church—my church, your church and all the others—as well as some specific ways we can pursue those goals.

It might be good for us to spend some mental effort thinking through what he has to say.

Next time.

Part 2: The Long Range | Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 3: Maturity in Christ

March 17, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Grow Up | Part 2: No Longer Children

We can’t stop our problems by just gritting our teeth and trying harder not to be bad. We need what Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection,” a love for something good that drives out our earlier affection for what was destroying us.

In Ephesians 4.14, Paul has focused on the negative behaviors, but he doesn’t leave us there. In verse 15 he moves on to the new affection.

“But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ” (Ep 4.15).

The verb here is interesting. Our translation, like most in English, says “speaking the truth.” But the word “speaking” is not technically in the text. The word is a participle, all right, but it’s just the verb form of the noun “truth.” We might woodenly render it “truthing.”

Now, I’m not criticizing the translations. We don’t say “truthing” in English; we say “speaking the truth.” That’s the way the verb ought to be rendered.

But I would suggest that what Paul is commanding here is not just the surface-level, outward conformity that “speaking” might imply. It’s not just saying things that are technically true but (intentionally?) misleading.

It’s truthfulness. A deep, lasting commitment to being genuine all the way down.

If Jesus is the truth (Jn 14.6), then being committed to the truth is the only sensible way to be. Anything short of that is treason.

Note that the contrast in the context is being deceived, the way simple-minded children can be. We’re not supposed to be like that. We’re supposed to be controlled by the truth—to recognize, believe, accept, practice, and, yes, speak it.

How?

Paul gives two simple descriptors—

“in love.” That may mean “with love as our motivation,” and certainly our love for Christ, which issues in love for one another, can help us determine how we live out genuineness and authenticity. But it may also mean “by means of love” (what theorists call “the instrumental use”)—which means that we demonstrate our genuineness outwardly, by actions on behalf of others that serve as evidence of our inward love and compassion.
“into Christ.” Christ is to be our target, our goal. That means, of course, that we measure ourselves by him, that we love as he loves. But I suspect that it goes far beyond simple imitation. Christ is our focus, our aim, our goal; he is the reason we do what we do, so much so that we transcend thinking about our own interests and act sacrificially, as Christ himself “gave himself a ransom for many.” Now, we’re not going to be paying for anybody’s sins, but we can follow his example in thinking of others rather than ourselves.

Study Christ; learn Him; focus on Him; make Him the top priority (that’s what love is). As you then grow up into Him, you’ll be a person of truth rather than a victim of trickery.

If we do this kind of thinking, one person at a time, what kind of churches would we have? What kind of spiritual, mental, and emotional health would we have there?

Interestingly, Paul goes on to describe something almost like critical mass. The church fits together, with each part doing what it’s designed to do, until the body begins to construct itself. It doesn’t have to think about growing, or try harder to grow, or obsess about why it’s not growing. It just grows, because that’s what bodies do when they’re healthy.

And eventually, one great day, the church will be the kind of body that reflects gloriously on its Head.

May that day come soon.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 2: No Longer Children

March 14, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Grow Up

We have some growing to do.

We’re not there yet. Even Paul says that he’s not where he needs to be (Php 3.12), and that he knows “in part” (1Co 13.12).

Paul now gives us our response—the medicine we’re supposed to take. In verse 14, he begins with the negative—“Stop this practice”; and then, in verse 15, he gives us the positive—“Here’s what you can do about it.” Today’s post focuses on verse 14.

^“As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ep 4.14).

God’s people are supposed to stop being children.

Now, I should note that there’s nothing defective about a child’s being a child. We all start out as children, and for a time that’s the right and natural place to be. We love children’s simplicity, and joy, and insight. Social media is filled with videos of children’s delightfulness.

Jesus even said that we grownups need to become like children, in some sense, before we can enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18.3-4; 19.14). The simple trust of a child for his parent is a powerful thing.

But children aren’t supposed to stay children. They’re supposed to grow up.

Specifically, they’re supposed to outgrow

Inconsistency

Paul describes a boat, “tossed here and there by waves,” at the mercy of its circumstances. Children can be like that. We all know that if one child in the church nursery starts to cry, we need to get him out of there fast, or else before long every child will be crying, and the more part will know not wherefore they are come together.

We’re supposed to get over our childlike tendency to be governed by what’s going on around us.

I think of that when I see my friends on social media given over to the Outrage of the Day. Somebody somewhere decides what we’re all going to be upset about this time, and we follow like sheep, sharing posts on issues about which we know nothing but immediately have an opinion. I saw a meme the other day that said something to the effect of, “And just like that everybody went from being expert epidemiologists to being experts in international relations.”

Yeah.

Paul’s context is more specific than just general inconsistency; he’s speaking specifically about “every wind of doctrine,” or teaching, specifically teaching about the faith. I have known people—and still do—who take up every half-witted heresy that comes down the pike. It’s like distortions of Scripture get all knotted up in their brains and just hang out together like they’re the last great hope of mankind.

We need to do better. We need to develop adult judgment—wisdom—that prevents us from being tossed around like that.

Naivete

Paul changes his image in the middle of the verse. He moves from natural forces—waves and winds—to moral ones—“by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

The fact is that in a morally influenced world, the things calling for our attention are not always neutral distractions. Often they’re the schemes of people with evil intent. The distractors are up to something.

I’ve mentioned the delightfulness of a child’s naivete. Decades ago Johnny Carson was interviewing a boy, and the child pretty much took over the interview. He asked Johnny to do a magic trick for him, and Johnny obliged. The look of wonder on the boy’s face was pure innocence, just delightful. He really thought that quarter had come out of his own ear.

But again, children should grow up. Naivete is not a virtue in adults. We shouldn’t be buying what the ne’er-do-wells are selling. We should know the Scripture—and the world—better than that.

This post has been pretty negative, because this verse is negative. Next time we’ll look at the positive side.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 1: Grow Up

March 10, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

“Experts” tell us that we can’t be productive or successful without goals. We should write down our daily, weekly, monthly, and annual goals, and check them off when they’re completed. We should constantly re-evaluate our goals to be sure that they match our priorities.

In Ephesians 4 God gives His goals for the church. Church isn’t just something we go to as spectators, a place where we meet people and perform rituals. It’s a living organization with a specific mission. In this passage God lays out his goals for the organization of which He is chief executive officer.

He says first that he has given to the church all different kinds of people (Ep 4.11), who by their diversity, and consequent interdependence, will enable one another to minister effectively (Ep 4.12), which in turn will bring the whole body to maturity.

His first goal is pretty straightforward: he wants us to grow up. He measures that growth in two ways (Ep 4.13).

First, he says, we “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” “The faith” is the doctrinal teaching of the Scripture; the church should be a teaching institution, and while some of us should be there to teach, all of us should be there to learn. Do you arrive at the services of the church each Sunday with that goal in mind? Do you lean into the teaching and preaching (and conversations in the hallways) with the intention of hearing and learning what the Bible says and how you should apply it?

But Paul doesn’t leave this merely an academic exercise; we also need to grow in our knowledge of Christ. Of course that means learning facts; you interact with friends and loved ones based on facts you have come to know about them over the years. But we all know that relationship is about more than facts. There’s a personal side, and an emotional side, and a volitional side; you want to be with the person, and you love being there.

And that changes how you live. Over the years I’ve learned that there are certain things my wife doesn’t like—things that I used to do comfortably and routinely before I knew her. I don’t do those things anymore. And I don’t miss them. I value my relationship with my wife more than I value those things.

Similarly I learn about Christ from the teaching and preaching at church, and from conversations with other believers. But I also learn about him by being around my fellow travelers and watching them, consciously or subconsciously. We share our relationships with Christ with one another, and we all grow closer to him.

Next, Paul says that we “attain to mature manhood,” and specifically “to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Commentators are divided on just how we should translate this phrase, but I would suggest that it is not “until we measure up to Christ,” or “until we’re as tall as Christ,” but rather, “until we show how tall Christ is.” I take that from later in the passage, where Paul says that the church is the body, and Christ is the head (Ep 4.15-16). If someone’s head is much too large for his body, the image can be grotesque. Our job is to grow as a body until we’re just the right size for the head, so that the overall picture is proportional and graceful.

I would suggest that pretty much every church has a lot of growing to do before it stops making Christ look unattractive. As I watch various people deconstruct their faith these days, I find that the motivating factor is often not something that God did, but something that his people did.

And thus has it ever been.

Next time we’ll continue in this rich passage to see what “mature manhood” looks like more specifically.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

One Body

June 10, 2021 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

This post is going to be a little different. It’s about an experience I had this weekend. I just feel like telling somebody about it.

Every so often I do an internet search on my name, just to see if somebody’s saying something I ought to know about. Some years ago when I did that, I found a web page giving the history of a church. Well, I was interested right away, because I’m interested in churches, and it involved a fellow with my name, and surprisingly, it was a Black church in Hazard, Kentucky.

Apparently back in 1886 a preacher traveled from Virginia over the ridgeline into eastern Kentucky and did some circuit riding, accompanied by a teacher named Dan Olinger. A few years later some of the converts organized a church with 9 charter members, including a guy with my name, who I assume was the same person who had come from Virginia. (Perhaps he came up from Olinger, Virginia?)

Eventually a couple of former slaves gave the church a small piece of land just west of Hazard, up against the side of Town Mountain. The story on the web page stops in the 1990s, when one Dr. John Pray was the pastor. But that story resonates with me, not just because my family name is part of it, but because it tells of a handful of people who had experienced God’s gracious regeneration and who sought to gather regularly for worship in the face of considerable difficulty.

These are my people, in the most significant way possible.

Another family name that shows up repeatedly in the story is Combs. Back when I first encountered the web page, I emailed the address at the bottom of the page and asked about the history. The respondent gave me the name of a member of the Combs family and said, “He knows as much as anybody.” So I emailed him, and we began a brief exchange. My first question was whether the Dan Olinger mentioned in the story was Black. Mr. Combs said he was. I’ll admit to being a little worried at that point; I knew that some of my general line were substantial landowners in the area of Staunton, Virginia, before the Civil War, and I wondered if perhaps they had owned slaves. So I asked, “Do you know where the Black Olingers came from?” Mr. Combs said that he thought there had been an interracial relationship in North Carolina, and that Dan was descended from that.

I don’t know if there was any love involved—we all know that the rape of Black women by white men was not at all uncommon in those days—but it does seem to indicate that the relationship between the white and Black Olingers is biological, not just the legal fiction of a slave taking his owner’s last name.

Hazard isn’t a place you get to by accident; it’s not really on the way to anywhere. So I filed that story away in my memory, thinking, “Boy, I’d sure like to see that place someday.”

This past weekend I was asked to participate in the ordination of a former student in eastern Kentucky, about an hour or so from Hazard. I thought immediately of Town Mountain.

After the ordination service on Sunday morning, I got in the car and headed for Hazard. The trip was complicated by the fact that for most of the drive I had no cell service and thus no GPS; I had to stop at a convenience store and ask directions. (Yes, sometimes we men do that.) But around 2 pm, thanks to directions from a guy with an apricot-sized wad of tobacco in his cheek, I found US 451 heading west out of Hazard, crossed the steel bridge, and saw the road sign: “Dr. John Pray Memorial Highway.” This has to be the right road.

On about the 19^th bend in the road there was a yellow diamond sign: “Church.”

I hadn’t been this excited in a long while.

Rounded the bend, and just past Fred Combs Road (paved) and Olinger Lane (not so much), there she was—a little red-brick church building, with two small white-sided extensions, and a parking lot and picnic area just beyond. She’s snuggled up alongside the road, the drop-off so steep that the entry door is six feet down from the road. Beside the front door is a plaque:

I’ll confess that I was hoping they had scheduled a dinner on the grounds for that day, so someone would be there to talk to. Afraid not. I left a business card and a brief note on the back.

The globe is covered with little groups of believers who gather and worship, who laugh and weep together, who care for one another through hard times, who celebrate weddings and mourn at funerals.

And we are all one. Often biologically, which should be expected in social communities, but more importantly, because we are united in a single body in Christ Jesus.

May it be so for as long as earth endures.

How to Care for Your Pastor, Part 7: Praying for More

June 11, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We’ve looked at several New Testament passages that speak directly of leaders in the church, and how the members of the church should behave toward them. I think there’s material there for all of us to attend to.

I’d like to close the series by going to a passage that doesn’t mention pastors at all, but that points us to a significant step we can take for the days ahead.

³⁵Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. ³⁶Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. ³⁸Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (Mt 9.35-38; see also Lk 10.2).

As was typical for him, Jesus was ministering to the crowds that constantly accompanied him, seeing and addressing their needs, both physical and spiritual. He was ministering. Pastoring.

Why?

Well, he tells us elsewhere that ministering is his mission (Mt 20.28; Mk 10.45), but this passage gives us a more proximate reason—he was moved with compassion for the needs of the people who surrounded him.

This was something that happened often as Jesus walked among us (Mt 14.14; 15.32; 20.34). It’s part of who he is (Ex 34.5-6). And in that moment of agitation, he used the situation as a teaching moment for his disciples.

There are so many, he said. We need more workers, people to care, to minister, to shepherd. Pray for more.

Note the motivation. We need more pastors, not so the theological schools will have more business, or because really godly people become “full-time Christian workers,” or because other work isn’t important, or because you should feel guilty if you don’t.

We should care because the Son of God, walking among us, had his stomach tied up in knots because of the sight of countless images of God who were in perilous need. And he felt this way not because he was helpless to do anything about it, but simply because he cared. It mattered a lot to him.

It should matter a lot to us. It should matter that every community is filled with people in the image of God who are far from him, adrift in a cesspool of existentialism, unable to understand why a universe with them at the center simply doesn’t work and doesn’t satisfy; people who know him but not well enough to function, because they don’t know his Word and don’t know how to learn it; people who are walking through the valley of the shadow of death and need someone to just sit with them and comfort them; people whose marriages aren’t working and they don’t know how to fix them; people who could face the trials of life if they just had a body of believers to provide fellowship and exhortation and encouragement.

We should be moved—the Greek word means essentially to be punched in the gut—by the needs all around us, and, desperate for help, we should pray that God would send forth more laborers into his harvest.

Pray. The word Jesus uses is “beseech”—beg, or plead. It what the leper did when he fell on his face before Jesus and said, “Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Lk 5.12). It’s what the father did when he shouted from the crowd, “Rabbi, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only boy” (Lk 9.38). The son, by the way, was demon possessed.

How desperate was that father? How desperate was that outcast leper?

Pray. Pray for more pastors like yours. Thousands of them, until there are so many that there are some with nothing at all to do.

When we honor our undershepherd, we honor the Great Shepherd. And by doing that, we strengthen the church and our own connection to that Great Shepherd.

Win. Win.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

How to Care for Your Pastor, Part 6: Rewarding

June 8, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Remembering | Part 3: Respecting | Part 4: Hearing | Part 5: Obeying

The fifth biblical command for us in caring for our pastor leads me, as they say, to go from preachin’ to meddlin’.

The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching (1Ti 5.17).

The word translated “honor” here is translated with the sense of “honor” in 30 of its 44 appearances in the New Testament. The other 4 nuances are “compensation” (5x), “price” (5), “value” in the sense of quality (3), and (economic) “value” (1). The verb form is usually translated in the sense of “respect” (17/21), but it also speaks of placing a price on something (Mt 27.9, quoting Zec 11.13).

Anybody see a trend here?

It speaks of honoring someone specifically because you see him as of significant value. And one of the most common ways society does that is by paying him well.

So.

Pay the preacher.

Paul speaks of this concept more explicitly in Corinthians 9, where he’s discussing his ministry in the church at Corinth. He notes that he’s ministered among them at no charge—in fact, supporting himself by making tents (Ac 18.1-4)—even though he has a right, as a minister, to expect them to pay his expenses (1Co 9.4-6). He argues from social custom; soldiers, farmers, and shepherds all have their needs met by their work (1Co 9.7). Even the Law of Moses commands that the ox not be prevented from eating some of the grain that his labor is grinding (1Co 9.8-9)—and, he notes, the Law is not primarily about oxen; this command is intended to teach us something about how God cares for his creatures, and how we consequently should care for those who labor for our benefit (1Co 9.10-12). He observes further that under the Mosaic system the priests were paid for their work (1Co 9.13). Consequently, he deduces, “The Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel” (1Co 9.14).

Pay the preacher.

Back in our original passage, Paul notes that the pastor “work[s] hard at preaching and teaching.” The verb here is usually translated with the sense of “toil” (21/25x) and occasionally with the sense of “tire.” It’s the verb used to describe Jesus’ exhaustion on the long, hot walk from Jerusalem through Samaria toward home, when at midday he collapsed onto a seat by a well and, so tired that he couldn’t draw water for himself, he asked the Samaritan woman to give him a drink (Jn 4.6).

Pastoring is hard work. There’s the part you see, or at least see the results of on Sunday—the sermon preparation, including study, research, meditation, mental analysis; the really hard work of capturing everything the day’s passage says in a single, easily understood sentence; the mental labor of coming up with analogies, comparisons, that capture the difficult ideas involved—often when there is nothing that is really analogous (we’re talking about God, after all); evaluating the specific needs of the congregation to determine how precisely they can best apply these principles; and doing it all in a way that they will find attractive and encouraging rather than demeaning or disheartening.

And then there are the countless things you don’t see:

the private counseling of weak, or discouraged, or angry and uncooperative people, where his mind is confronted with the worst of human behavior, and where he carefully lays out a biblical path and the counselee simply ignores what he says, to his own destruction;
the calls in the middle of the night to minister by presence with those facing unimaginable grief, with the knowledge that there is nothing just or fair about what they are experiencing;
the concern for the sheep that plays as perpetual background to every moment of his waking hours, and some of the sleeping ones as well;
the ongoing, perpetual weariness.

Imagine that this is your life.

And now imagine the relief that would come if you didn’t have to wonder how you were going to afford 4 new tires this week, or a new water heater, or a plane ticket to visit your mother in a nursing home—if those things were simply taken care of by the people you lie awake thinking about.

Pay the preacher.

Part 7: Praying for More

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

How to Care for Your Pastor, Part 5: Obeying

June 4, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Remembering | Part 3: Respecting | Part 4: Hearing

We began this series in Hebrews 13, and we return there for this next step. Hebrews 13.17 reads,

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

I didn’t start off with this one, because I think there are necessary prerequisites to this step. We needed first to think about how we value our pastor and the work he does. Now it’s time for the difficult part.

The writer says we’re to “obey” and to “submit to” our pastors. Before I deal with that, I want to talk about the rest of the verse, because it lays out reasons to do this hard thing, and all of us benefit from knowing the reasons why we’re asked to do a hard thing.

He says that one day our pastors will give an account (to God, obviously, as we all will [2Co 5.10]), and specifically for how they have “kept watch over our souls.”

That’s a tough job. Souls are complicated—and broken by sin, at that—and they’re invisible, which makes them harder to work on than, say, an automobile engine. Diagnosing a problem is difficult enough, but fixing it, when you can’t take a soul apart, replace the defective part, and put it back together again, is unimaginably difficult. Add to that the fact that with souls, you can’t impose a solution, even if you’re demonstrably right; in the end, you have to depend on the individual—who, as we’ve noted, is already broken—to implement the solution to his own problem.

While the job is difficult, it’s not impossible, for God provides solutions in his Word, through his Spirit, and his power to convict and illuminate and empower is never limited. It’s remarkable that even as he holds the pastor accountable for his “keeping watch,” he promises to supply all that is needed for the successful “repair” of the soul. The pastor’s job is not to fix things, but to “keep watch”—to pay attention, to notice when there’s a problem, and to handle the Scripture accurately and appropriately in pointing the “patient” to the cure.

We help our pastors with that job by obeying them and submitting to them. As I’ve noted before, the Scripture doesn’t call for blind obedience to any man; like the Bereans (Ac 17.11), we test what our leaders say against the touchstone of the Scripture. But having done that, when they’re right, we’re told here to submit. This is the idea of surrendering to a superior power.

Back in college, I studied judo. The sport comprises 5 subdisciplines; I studied 3 of them, one of which was shimewaza, or choking. It involves, not cutting off the windpipe (that takes too long), but cutting off the blood supply to the brain, which can render the opponent unconscious in just a few seconds. As you can imagine, that’s a very dangerous technique, and we were taught to take it seriously. In a match, you surrender by tapping out—which you can’t do if you’re unconscious. Our sensei told us very sternly that if we felt the technique applied correctly, we had just seconds to tap out and avoid death. Don’t be a hero, he said. When he’s got you, surrender.

When your pastor is speaking biblical truth, and you know he’s got you, you’d be a fool to try to outlast him—not because he’s such a tough guy, but because if you’re dealing with the Scripture, you’re dealing with God himself, and as the founder of my school said, “Your arm’s too short to box with God.” When he’s got you, surrender.

This passage ends with good news. In the martial arts, nobody likes to surrender; Asian cultures place great importance on not losing face. But in this case, surrender is delightful; all kinds of good ensues from it. The pastor’s faithful work is successful; that encouragement empowers him for the next round; the entire body, the church, is more healthy; and you are set up for more success down the road. To paraphrase our passage, obeying your pastor turns out to be profitable for you.

How about that. The way down is the way up.

Part 6: Rewarding | Part 7: Praying for More

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

How to Care for Your Pastor, Part 4: Hearing

June 1, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Remembering | Part 3: Respecting

Earlier in the same epistle that tells us to respect our pastor, Paul writes,

For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe (1Th 2.13).

It’s worth noting, in the interest of precise hermeneutics, that this is not a command; it’s a description of a historical practice. But since Paul is clearly commending it, we as readers ought to take it as exemplary. Scholars would say that it’s “an indicative with imperative force.”

We ought to listen to what the pastor brings us from the Word, and we ought to hear it. We ought to recognize it as biblical truth, and because it is, we ought to receive it, accept it, and we ought to open ourselves up to let it do its work in us by the power of the Spirit.

Let me throw a little personal word in here. As a teacher, I face groups of “hearers” pretty much every workday. Every experienced speaker learns to read his audience—to recognize and respond to visual feedback. Every time I speak, I find my eyes moving from face to face and quickly identifying those who are telling me something by their expressions—eye contact, nodding, raising an eyebrow, all kinds of expressions. In every session I find myself going back to the half-dozen or so faces that are telling me things, ensuring that my message is getting across, that I’m not missing something. In that moment those people are my greatest asset.

When your pastor is speaking, talk back to him with your face. Look up from your phone, and look him in the eye. Sure, he won’t stare at you every minute, but his eyes will come back to you repeatedly. Let him know if you understand, or agree, or wonder what on earth he’s talking about. Communicate with him. He’ll be grateful.

And when you are informed, challenged, moved by what he says, show him that. Show him that he’s making a connection, a difference.

Another thought.

Pastors aren’t apostles. Their preaching isn’t inerrant, and it’s not authoritative. Think about what your pastor says; compare it with Scripture, as the Bereans did (Ac 17.11). If it doesn’t seem right, talk to him about it. Maybe you’re wrong; maybe he is; maybe you both are. But he’ll be invigorated by genuine, humble conversation.

This is thinking, not blind obedience. Thinking students make good teachers happy.

Some years ago my family and I were driving from Dallas to El Paso. West Texas is pretty boring, even with Van Horn out there in the middle. All was quiet, and to break the boredom, I said to my older daughter, who was about 6, I guess, “Well, how do you like the prairie? Does it remind you of Little House on the Prairie?”

She thought for a moment and asked, “Dad, was Little House in the Prairie in Texas?”

“I don’t think so, babe,” I said. “Maybe Kansas.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been in Kansas.”

I thought she sounded pretty sure of herself for a 6-year-old. “Why, babe?”

“Because it’s in color.”

That, my friends, is what Bloom’s taxonomy calls “synthesis”—taking unrelated pieces of information and putting them together in a new way. From Little House in the Prairie—the TV show—she knew it was in color, and from The Wizard of Oz—the movie—she knew that Kansas was in black and white. Ergo, QED.

In this case, her conclusion was factually correct, and her logic was completely valid. Those don’t necessarily coincide. Syllogisms will do that to you.

Boy, was I delighted that she was thinking. So delighted, in fact, that I almost drove right off the road.

Which, in West Texas, would have made no difference at all.

What do you think it does to the heart of your pastor, your teaching elder, when he sees you hearing, and thinking, and drawing conclusions? How do you think it affects his motivation when he knows that you’ll do that?

Do that.

Part 5: Obeying | Part 6: Rewarding | Part 7: Praying for More

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash