Category Archives: Faith and Practice

A Knowable Truth

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“Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth.’”
(John 18:38 (ESV))

What is truth?  Sometimes we really don’t want to know.  “Tell me the truth, honey…”  A guy hears that and he knows he’s in trouble.  We don’t like the truth that the mirror tells us every morning.  We don’t like to hear the truth when the doctor comes in to give us bad news.  We look for truth in reporting and advertising and in government accounting and always come up shy.  “Truth is all a matter of perspective.”  Or as Obi-Wan said, “What I told you was the truth, from a particular point of view.”

And so we’ve become so jaded and burned by the lack of truthfulness in the world.  “Truth” has become a suspect word.  Those who say that know the truth are ridiculed as either simpletons who couldn’t possibly understand the complexity of truth in any given situation, or arrogant know-it-alls who want to impose their way of thinking on everyone else.  “What’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me” so we say, and truth becomes a subjective thing that we define from our own experience. 

This carries over into all aspects of our faith and life.  The Westminster Confession is famous for its often abused principle of the Freedom of Conscience.  The famous quote, “God alone is Lord of the conscience” is heralded by every progressive movement within the church today.  The way it’s used goes something like this, “Only God can tell me what’s right and wrong.  No church council, no pastor or committee, no cultural ethos.  If I am convinced that it is right, I will do it.”  So from the Westminster Standard, “God alone is Lord of the Conscience,” we have deteriorated into the most anarchic of thoughts, “I am Lord of my conscience, I will do what I think is right.”  In this way of thinking, there is no real truth, it’s all open to interpretation.  There is no authority, everything is subject to my understanding, even the very Word of God.

This abuse of the Standard is a result of the neglect (intentional or otherwise) of the rest of the statement.  To quote in full:

“God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship.”

God is the Lord of the conscience.  We are not the lord of our own minds.  Rather, our minds, our consciences, are subject to the authority of God’s Word.  The very last phrase, “in matters of faith and worship” some would say are just the matters that pertain to the church.  In reality, faith and worship, what we believe and what we do with our lives as living sacrifices in spiritual worship (Rom 12), entail every aspect of our being.  Everything that we are – the food we eat, the games we play, the way we dress, and what we say – is subject to, bound by, the Word of God.

The Word of God is authoritative because its author is God.  With God as the giver of the Word, the Word of God is without error, and it will effectively bring about the purpose and will of God.  The wisdom and glory of God are contained and revealed throughout His creation, but never more clearly than in His revealed Word.  To know Him, we turn to the Word.  To know ourselves, we turn to the Word.  The Word of God is the source of all truth. 

As the world continues to ask Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” the church stands ready to show the one who was full of both grace and truth (John 1:14).  We make Christ known, and in Him we find the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  As the maddening crowd clamors for something to believe in, some solid ground on which to stand, holding to the Authority of Scripture gives us a firm foundation. 

There is truth, it is knowable.  We do not define the truth, it defines us.  The truth of God is not subject to our interpretation, it is not relative to our point of view, it is objectively true, unchanging, and powerful.  May you know the truth, and may that truth set you free.

“Cat-Herding” & “Whack-A-Mole” Ministry

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“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season… do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
(2 Timothy 4:1-5 (ESV))

There are a lot of ways to describe pastoral ministry.  Even the Presbyterian Church has spilled a lot of ink to describe this job.  we are “teaching elders” as opposed to “ruling elders.”  The Book of Order for the Presbyterian Church, restoring the language of the 1789 Presbyterian Government, described the role of minister in its various capacities saying:

As he or she has the oversight of the flock of Christ, he or she is termed bishop. As he or she feeds them with spiritual food, he or she is termed pastor.  As a servant of Christ in the Church, the term minister is given. As it is his or her duty to be grave and prudent, and an example to the flock, and to govern well in the house and Kingdom of Christ, he or she is termed presbyter or elder.  As he or she is sent to declare the will of God to sinners, and to beseech them to be reconciled to God, through Christ, he or she is termed ambassador.  And as he or she dispenses the manifold grace of God and the ordinances instituted by Christ, he or she is termed steward of the mysteries of God.

Beautiful, right?!

I, in my 10 years of ministry experience, have come up with two more analogies that I think are helpful in getting sharing the idea of what it’s like be a pastor:

As he is called to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching, he is called “Cat-herder.”  As he is called to confront heresy, he is called “Whack-A-Moler.” (I’m sure these were also considered back in 1789, but accidentally omitted in the final record.)

The greatest exercise in futility is the attempt to train a cat.  People don’t own cats, they share houses with them, they are tolerated by them, they may even call their cats cute names, but they certainly don’t own them.  So the idea of actually training a cat to do anything that it didn’t already want to do is ridiculous. 

Are we the same way with church?  Please know, I do not have the church I’m currently serving in mind, but I think we all have this attitude toward the church now and then.  We come to church with our established ideas about what church should be, what God expects of us, and how long the service should last.  The pastor shares the church, and may even be tolerated for a while, but watch out if he should try to lead in a direction that we don’t already want to go.  The pastor may exhort and encourage in the life of discipleship, but only if we are already inclined to go down that path.

As the pastor is called to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1), he is called the “whack-a-moler.”  You know the game; there you stand, soft mallet in hand, beating down the moles as they keep popping up all over the board.

For a pastor, this seems to be a daily routine.  I have to admit, there are times when you wish the office of minister came with a padded mallet for moments of gentle rebuke and correction – but alas – it’s not to be.  But the moles are definitely there.  One heresy rears its ugly head and you smack it back down, only to have two more spring up elsewhere.  Either it’s a theologically vapid book that captures the attention of your congregation, undoing 5 years of preaching in 2 days reading, or it’s the pastor of the church your congregation member has attended who taught on Sunday that it really doesn’t matter what you believe about Jesus as long as you have a relationship with him. 

Sigh.  There are days when truck driving school seems really enticing.  Then we come across Paul’s encouragement to Timothy.  This is Paul and Timothy here.  These were the All-Stars of Pastoral Ministry, the trailblazers who set the standard; and Paul says, “Listen, Tim, you’ve got to just keep on preaching on.  People aren’t going to listen to you, just like they wouldn’t listen to me, just like they wouldn’t listen to our Lord.  They will keep looking around until they find someone who teaches them what they already know, who says what they like to hear.  You can’t help that.  But you can keep preaching.  Keep teaching.  Keep doing the work that God has called you to, keep doing what the Spirit has given you.”

I don’t know, I guess it’s kind of encouraging.  This struggle against stiff necks and recalcitrant hearts has been going on for a while now.  There are no new heresies under the sun, just a repackaging of the same old stuff.  If Paul and Timothy, Peter and James, and all the rest had to struggle against these things, I’m not alone in the fight.  Even the sin I struggle against in my own life, that old creeper who keeps dragging me down, isn’t that what Romans 7 is all about? 

I don’t have to wage the good warfare or stand firm in my own strength, neither do you.  Rather, we can rest in the power of God’s Spirit, rely on His truth to prevail.  And so we do not lose heart (2 Cor 4:1).  It may be that you’ve begged your husband to come to worship with you, and he just won’t budge; keep praying, be encouraged, stand firm.  It may be that you’ve wrestled with that sin before, and it’s frustrating that it keeps coming back to haunt you; keep praying, be encouraged, stand firm.  It may be that you’re tired of teaching again and again about how freedom in Christ is not freedom to sin and you want to throw in the towel; keep praying, be encouraged, stand firm.

In the famous words of uncle Mordecai, “who knows, but that you were born for such a time as this.”  This is your calling, fulfill your ministry. 

The Lord be with your spirit.  Grace be with you.