There is some really messed-up stuff going on in our world.
It’s no surprise. Any man in pastoral ministry should know God’s descriptions
of what evils will characterize the end times.[1] We
have a job to do, and it must be done no matter the cycle of good and bad we
are facing.
This morning, I began praying through one of the sections
where Paul exhorted Timothy regarding the way he should handle his
responsibilities towards the church. While the relational setup of the early
church may be lost in our institutionalized denominational settings, every man
who is living in the role of shepherding a congregation must look to the same
qualities of life and ministry as the apostles handed down through men like
Timothy. They expected these same things to continue through the lifetime of
the church on earth, and so should we.
Here is the pastoral job description Paul presented in the
first century. I have only begun considering what it should look like in our
day, so I will present some thoughts on each distinctive component, along with
what the church ought to do in response to the pastor’s efforts to follow this
example.
11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your
youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in
faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of
Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have,
which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on
you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see
your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist
in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (I
Timothy 4)
Pastoral responsibilities:
1. “Command”:
In a day when so many people have been hurt by abusive leadership, and so many
pastors and their families hurt by abusive boards and power-brokers, and so
many church-goers have bought into the pluralism of the world that thinks
everyone is free to do as they see fit, the thought that anyone in the church
is called to command something of anyone else might seem a little strange, even
out of place.
However, since
we are dealing with the church Jesus is building,[2]
a brotherhood of people who live by the same realities of the kingdom through
every age of history,[3]
our marching orders, so to speak, still come from Jesus, and his word, and the
apostolic teachings that make up the foundation of the church.[4]
Paul was instructing Timothy to continue what Jesus began working into church
life through the apostles.
Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments”,[5]
and, “If you keep my commandments, you
will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide
in his love.”[6] He
then added, “You are my friends if you do
what I command you.”[7]
There are many more statements in this regard, assuring our generation of the
church that Jesus’ commands still direct us. We are not saved through the
keeping of commands, but entering into love relationship with Jesus by grace
through faith turns us into God’s workmanship that is created in Christ Jesus to
do the very good works God has planned for us.[8]
Doing these good works revolves around obeying what Jesus commands, and pastors
ought to command what is commanded. Or, perhaps it would be better to say,
pastors must present the New Testament commands as the commands that they are.
Church
response: What should the church do when Jesus’ commands are taught as
commands by their pastors? “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.”[9]
Obviously this is not endorsing the unthinking obedience to a pastor’s personal
whims and wishes. This is not talking about agreeing to a building program or a
budget, or tolerating immorality.
Rather, this is
the way the church is to respond to its pastors who are showing them from the
Scriptures the things Jesus has commanded. As the pastors present the commands
of the New Testament as commands, the church responds with the obedience of
faith, not serving the pastors in place of Christ, but agreeing with the
pastors to serve Christ as God’s own words instruct.
2. “teach”: a
pastor’s teaching is to unpack whatever God has given us in his word. The
textbook has been written, and the pastor’s role includes keeping the whole
counsel of God before the people.[10]
This does not limit the pastor’s role to a Sunday sermon, a Sunday school
class, or a Bible study group. The point is that God has given us his
teachings, and pastors are to teach those things to their generation of the
church.
Jesus set down
the pattern of discipleship for the church by including the requirement of teaching
all his disciples to obey, or observe, everything he commanded.[11]
This requires pastors to teach all these things. The church is to live by every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God,[12]
so the pastors teach every word God has breathed-out into the Scriptures.[13]
The church is to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly,[14]
so the pastors are to feed the word of God to the church in all its richness.
Paul gives a
model for teaching in the church that is aimed at caring for every generation
of the church’s existence. He wrote to Timothy, “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses
entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (II Timothy
2:2). Paul envisioned men like Timothy commanding and teaching the very same
things given to the church by the apostles. He also expected Timothy to find
other faithful men who would be able to continue teaching others, all the way
down through the generations of the church. This model, of men like Timothy
taking the apostolic instructions as words breathed-out by God and entrusting
these same things to faithful men who could teach others, would ensure that
pastors were commanding and teaching the whole counsel of God until the return
of Christ.
Church response:
Jesus said that the wise man was the one who heard Jesus’ words and put them
into practice, while the foolish man was the one who heard Jesus’ words and did
not put them into practice.[15]
When the apostles taught the church, the church was expected to put these
teachings of Christ into practice. When Paul taught the Timothies to teach the
same things to the church, the church was expected to learn and put into
practice whatever they were taught.
While all
churches should be like the Bereans who checked out the Scriptures every day to
discern whether what they were hearing was true,[16]
we also need “to respect those who labor
among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them
very highly in love because of their work.”[17]
The pastors teach to instruct in the life of the kingdom, and the church
welcomes these words and puts them into practice in both our beliefs and
activities.
Again, even
though there are so many scenarios of pastors abusing their place of preaching
and teaching, and so many false teachers and churches everywhere we go, and so
many church boards and power-brokers trying to restrict their pastors from
preaching anything that would confront the core group with the will of God, God’s
way of building his church is still through the commanding and teaching of the
men he calls to serve his church as shepherds to the flock.
3. “these things”:
this is the safeguard to both pastors and churches. Churches know that the
things their pastors teach them are the “these
things” given to the church through the apostles and prophets of the first
century. On the other hand, pastors know that they can confidently teach
whatever is in the breathed-out words of God to the church since God’s will is
good, acceptable and perfect in all matters.[18]
Now, Paul does
allude to the fact that there will be times when the word is in season, and
when it is out of season,[19]
and there will be times when people in churches only want their ears tickled
with some new fancy teaching.[20]
However, those who seek to live by the whole counsel of God come back to what the
apostles taught us, and seek to “reprove,
rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”[21]
I won’t
elaborate further on the “these things”
since the whole New Testament gives us the doctrines and commands we must
teach. The point is that we need both the commanding and teaching to go
together, as well as the “these things”
to direct what is commanded and taught. We are also to guard against what Paul
called “going beyond what is written”,[22]
so that we are not puffed up as authorities on things God’s word does not say,
and not leading the church astray with our own thoughts and interpretations of
what we wish God meant. We can remain with what is written, and make sure all
the things given to the church by Christ and his apostles is taught to the
church until Jesus’ return.
Church
response: to treat everything given to us in the Scriptures as the “these things” our pastors must command
and teach in the same way they are already commanded and taught in God’s
breathed-out words. We are not to exaggerate nor deny anything clearly taught
in the New Testament as God’s revealed will for the church. While we may like
to hear these things taught in ways that relate to specific things we are going
through, we must not show preference for one teaching of Scripture over
another, but encourage our pastors to feed us every word that comes from the
mouth of God. There may be times when churches are going through things that
require a specific admonition from God’s word, but the aim of the church is to
receive the whole counsel of God, and encourage our pastors to be faithful to
give us everything God presents in his word.
While this has only processed the first sentence of the
paragraph, we can see that pastors are to command and teach the same things
that the apostles commanded and taught, and the church is to follow and obey
the teachings of God’s word as faithfully presented by the faithful men who
continue to teach us what God has spoken. I don’t have time or means to
consider every possible way pastors and churches can mess this up. I simply
want to begin by identifying the plumbline we are aiming for no matter what
church issues need to be addressed along the way. I believe that a people who
want to know the mind of Christ on all things will not fail to find it, but it
will always include the pastors and teachers faithfully commanding and teaching
what is written in God’s word, and the church faithfully putting everything
into practice, knowing that it is Christ we are following in all things.
© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1]
The end times, or the last days, refers to the last great period of human
history, the building of Jesus’ church between his first and second comings.
God’s description of what will happen during this age includes the description
of evils as listed in places such as Romans 1:18-32 and II Timothy 3:1-9.
[2]
Matthew 16:18
[3]
Note that Jesus spoke of the gospel of the kingdom that would be proclaimed
until the very end (Matthew 24:14). There is one body of Christ that shines the
light of Christ to the world until his return. Everything he gave the first
century church about the realities of his kingdom still guides the church of
our day.
[4]
Ephesians 2:19-22
[5]
John 14:15
[6]
John 15:10
[7]
John 15:14
[8]
Ephesians 2:8-10
[9]
Hebrews 13:17
[10]
Acts 20:27, 31
[11]
Matthew 28:18-20
[12]
Matthew 4:4
[13]
II Timothy 3:16-17
[14]
Colossians 3:16
[15]
Matthew 7:24-27
[16]
Acts 17:11
[17]
I Thessalonians 5:12-13
[18]
Romans 12:2
[19]
II Timothy 4:1-2
[20]
II Timothy 4:3-5
[21]
II Timothy 4:2
[22]
I Corinthians 4:6
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