Pastoral Position Paper - Ben Alexander

INTRODUCTION

            Hughes Oliphant Old, when commenting on the life of William Perkins (1558-1602) wrote, “Speech is gracious when it comes from a grace-filled heart.”  Perkins exemplified a beautiful symmetry between learning and godliness.  His gracious speech is a model for every pastor.  How can pastors speak the truth in love?  How can we correct and encourage with grace?  That is the subject of this paper.

Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”  In Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary he says of this verse:

            Even what is only carelessness may cause a lasting prejudice against the truth. Let all discourse be discreet and seasonable, as becomes Christians. Though it be not always of grace, it must always be with grace. Though our discourse be of that which is common, yet it must be in a Christian manner. Grace is the salt which seasons our discourse, and keeps it from corrupting. It is not enough to answer what is asked, unless we answer aright also.

            Matthew Henry is saying that even though we may be speaking hard things with someone, it must be done from a heart of love and with a view towards restoration and edification.  Proverbs is rich with instruction on this.

Gracious speech, it tells us, is as apples of gold in settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11).  Right words must be set in the right contexts.  Whatever the context, whatever matter a pastor might find himself addressing, it must be seasoned with salt.  It is to be winsome, healing, attractive and pleasant.  “Though it be not always of grace, it must always be with grace,” Henry says.[1]

SINFUL ANGER IS THE PROBLEM

            One of the challenges of pastoral ministry is the need to address sin from the pulpit without sounding like an angry father.  It can be hard not to rage at people and their sin, especially if that sin is really tracking emotional “mud” in your family’s spiritual living room. But if a man addresses sin with sinful anger, he acts hypocritically and incites disrespect.     On the other hand, a man addressing sin who is only angry at what God is angry with, will usually gain respect.

            I must confess, I wrote out an exhortation to the congregation once that was produced more from annoyance than the grace of the gospel.   Thankfully, I never delivered it!  I wrote on the importance of respecting other people by returning phone calls and e-mails.  I still think this is a very important way to show respect and it is often done in a sloppy manner today, but the problem was, I was annoyed.

A NEGATIVE EXAMPLE FROM CHURCH HISTORY

            There is a time and a place to address sin specifically from the pulpit.  But if you have been counseling someone that week, and you address their sin in a specific way the following Sunday, it may reveal frustration in your heart.  At the least, it could indicate a lack of grace in your heart towards those people and their struggles.  A law-like spirit that is ready to pounce and judge with great enthusiasm and passion in the pulpit is dangerous.  J.H. Merle d’Aubigne, a 19^th Century Reformation historian, told a story of a fiery man named Robert Barnes who preached on one occasion more from a law-like zeal than a grace-empowered zeal.

            But nothing compromises the gospel so much as a disposition turned towards outward things.  The prior, as he went into the pulpit, thought only of Wolsey.  (Wolsey was one of the chief enemies of the English Reformation.) As the representative of the popedom of England , the cardinal was the great obstacle to the Reformation.  Barnes preached from the epistle for the day:  Rejoice in the Lord alway.  But instead of announcing Christ and the joy of the Christian, he imprudently declaimed against the luxury, pride, and diversions of the churchmen, and everybody understood that he aimed at the cardinal.  He described those magnificent palaces, that brilliant suite, those scarlet robes, and pearls, and gold, and precious stones, and all the prelate’s ostentation, so little in keeping (said he) with the stable of Bethlehem .  Two fellows of King’s College, Robert Ridley and Walter Preston, relations of Tunstall, bishop of London , who were intentionally among the congregation, noted down in their tablets the prior’s imprudent expressions.

            It was not hard to prove the ostentation of the servants of the Roman Catholic Church.  The problem was Barne’s spirit.  His message diverted attention from the person of Christ and onto attacking the prelates.

            Shepherds are to mend the sheep, not yank on their disjointed bones.  We should not hold their mistakes over them in harsh judgment.     

            One way to avoid being an abusive shepherd is to remember that ministers, like Christ, do nothing on their own authority.  Rather, they do what the Father tells them.    Jesus always did what his Father told him.  Prophets, also, submitted their lives and words to God.  Jesus said repeatedly in the gospels that He does not speak on His own authority but only as the Father tells Him.  Ultimately, I think this reflects the 2^nd person of the Trinity who always delights in and loves to submit to the Father.  And the Father loves to bestow honor and glory on the Son in return.  Indeed, He declared, “This is My Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).  The Scriptures say that Moses was faithful in all his house, and that he received the law from angels (Acts 7:38).         

Even the Holy Spirit does not speak for himself, but only what he hears.  “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come” (John 16:13).   Trinitarian love and submission is seen here.  So we also live and speak under authority ourselves.  We live under the authority of the Word as the ultimate authority.  But we also live under the authoritative tradition of our forefathers in the faith.  We have forefathers in the faith like the New England Puritans who built their society under God’s Word, after the tradition of Calvin in Geneva .  We also have a great heritage in historic biblical Christianity as expressed by the Magisterial Reformers and the Scots-Irish Presbyterians who all lived under God’s authority, that is, His Word.  Tradition is not the final authority, only Scripture has that place, but godly tradition is an authority.  We and our forefathers live together under the supreme authority of the Word of God.   

WE ARE UNDER AUTHORITY TO USE THE ROD LIKE JESUS

So we are under authority.  We speak nothing to our children or our congregations that really matters in life on our own authority and presumption.  We speak the words of life to them.  When we spank our children we are loving, firm, clear, and judicial like our Father is with us.  We should not emotionally manipulate and threaten, but deal covenantally with them by laying out plainly, “This is the way, walk in it.”  Tell them the specific sin they committed, tell them the verse which describes their disobedience, and name the sin.  The rod and the law will not save.  Nor will any imperfect moral-rules-keeping save your children.  “But rend your heart little child,” we should say.  “Look in faith to Jesus, your covenantal God, who is for you.  Confess your sin and take up God’s promises for you and for all those whom God will call.”  We show to our children that we, like Jesus was to the Father, are people under the Book.  We do not rest on our words and authority but on Jesus the true Prophet.  And then we lead them with integrity by calling them to live under submissive authority as we do.  This model in the family is to be lived out in the flock.

In Ezekiel 34:10 it says, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand My sheep from them and make them cease from feeding sheep.  So the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore, but I will deliver My flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.”  This is a striking passage about how many priests and teachers of Israel (“shepherds”) were “eating” their people instead of actually feeding them.  The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel to say to them of their wantonness and wickedness, “You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock” (Ezekiel 34:3).  A minister who is not interested in “strengthening the sickly,” “healing the diseased,” “binding up the broken,” and “seeking the lost sheep,” (v. 4) is not a shepherd like the ultimate shepherd, the Lord Jesus.  A man who is abusive and angry in the pulpit is like those evil teachers in Israel .  He takes advantage of the fact that he is the only one that gets to yammer up there without anyone to interrupt him.  These shepherds would tread down the green pastures and muddy the clear and fresh waters where the sheep liked to drink.

But Jesus did not do this.  YHWH said that “I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them;  he will feed them himself and be their shepherd”  (Ezekiel 34:23). This is a fulfillment of Jesus’ words in John 6:51:  “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”  Ezekiel 34:14 prophesied of Jesus’ feeding of the five-thousand when it said, “I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel .  There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel .”  Jesus uses the rod as a weapon against wolves, and He also knows how to be gracious and gentle.  He knows the sheep and He knows the wolves.  He knows how to discipline and lead all His own with the perfect balance of both tender and rough grace.  Praise God for Jesus’ ministry to our souls who always leads us “beside quiet waters,” and both His rod and staff are comforts to those who hear His voice.