Thoughts and questions along the church-size trajectory

by Dan Phillips

Happy new year. I think it's good that we start the year facing some of these questions together.

In my previous post I broached the question of church size and trajectory. Fond as I am not of verbosity, let's cut straight to what I hope are useful guidelines, questions, and answers.

My preface to these is that they are for you and me. I'll either ignore or delete questions like "So are you saying that _____'s church is too big/small?" I want you to apply this directly to your forehead. The happiest results I am aiming at are these:

1. Some leaders of churches that are big enough or oversized will conclude it's time to invest resources and personnel for planting daughter-churches in other locations. Note: "daughter churches," with their own pastoral leadership, preaching, and all.
2. Some attenders of massively oversized churches will conclude that a better stewardship of their gifts would be to find churches that are under-supported, rather than remain in a church where they are redundant by a factor of fifty.
3. People searching for a church will repent of their consumer mentality and look along Biblical guidelines.
4. Some leaders of smaller churches will find their spirits refreshed and be encouraged to stay the course and redouble outreach efforts.
5. Some attenders of smaller churches will repent of their inwardness, complacency, and indulgent laziness, and will catch fire for reaching out with the Gospel and with their church's ministry of the Word, and will permeate their local church with the investment of their gifts and time.

That said, then:

For Larger Church Leaders

1. What is "enough"? You know the Greek word translated "greed" or "covetousness" means simply wanting more. Can a church ministry be greedy? Are you sure that you are not erecting a monument to a gifted speaker, destined to be tomorrow's hollow, dead European cathedral, or compromised by the need to replace your current personality with an equal or greater crowd-drawer/bill-payer? This flows right into:
2. Why do you need more than a total of 217 people? That's a number I've plopped out there for years as the ideal church size, a bit more than half-seriously. But really: at around that number, you're large enough that you have the resources for some serious and worthwhile ministries, and still you're at a size where everyone could know everyone, and pastors could really pastor. Why do you need to be larger? How much larger? And while I'm asking...
3. Is your main talking head a pastor? Do you remember that Jesus describes a good pastor as one who knows his sheep by name, cares personally for them, is personally known by his sheep, and is willing to lay down his life for them (Jn. 10:3-5, 11-14). What percentage of the people he lectures does your speaking head know like that, serve like that? At what point of disparity do you conclude that it is no longer best either for him or them? Is he actually baptizing people he's never met, let alone heard their testimony? Which also flows right into:
4. Is your main talking head amassing, or reproducing? Remember that Paul always took apprentices, and he gave them lots to do. He even "shared billing" with them in writing his epistles (cf. 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Phil. 1:1, etc.). He famously told Timothy, "what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). Who are your head personality's apprentices? Should he go to Jesus or a larger church today, who steps in? Which flows right into:
5. Are you keen on making your church as large as it can be, or on 
   
   spreading the ministry of the Word of God as broadly and deeply as you can? The latter, in my judgment, is the Biblical view (see first post and Acts' refrain). So these men your lead speaker should be apprenticing, are they regularly being sent to found other churches 10, 15, 20 and more miles from you? Are people from your congregation being called on to move and/or otherwise relocate to support these ministries?
6. Are there any passages, Scriptures, subjects, or activities that you are avoiding because of the negative impact it would have on attendance/prestige/cash-flow? Do you even need me to expand on that (Acts 20:27; 1 Tim. 5:21)?

For Larger Church Attenders

1. Are you attending your church primarily for what it does for you, or for what you can do for it? Or perhaps because it actually doesn't need you to do anything because there are already 10, 30, 100 volunteers ready to do what you can do? Can you coast because it's so big? Just go, have a great time watching a famous guy talk about God, select who you spend time with and to what depth, and get back to your schedule? Are you there as a consumer... while probably deriding consumerism when it comes to people like Warren, Hybels, Furtick and so on?
2. How are you investing your "talent"? Using Matthew 25:14ff., are you using yours somewhere where it's really needed and significant, or are you keeping it safe and sound because a dozen others already do it better anyway? Are churches around you struggling and scraping while yours sits atop multiple layers of redundancy? Which spirit more glorifies God and answers to the constant Biblical calls to give, stretch, sacrifice, love, extend?
3. How long would it be before you were even missed?
   
4. Do you care more about the spread of the ministry of the Word, or about you being comforted and coddled by well-stocked easy-reach shelves full o' goodness?

For Smaller Church Leaders

1. What is enough? Is it possible that your equally-faithful, equally-Christ-exalting, equally-Bible-teaching ministry is not being multiplied like Pastor Famoushead simply because that's God's will for your area, or because God sees you would be tempted beyond what you're able, simply because you aren't Pastor Famoushead? Is it possible that he's up to the pressure, and you just aren't, and the size of your charge is a divine kindness to you and to them?
   
2. Do you mistake smallness for purity? (See first post.) You shouldn't.
3. Have you given up? (See first post, and 2 Tim. 1:6-8, Greek.) You mustn't.
4. Have you done all you can to reach the lost in your area? You probably haven't.
5. Are you setting an example of outreach for your people? You should.
6. Are you setting an example of hospitality? You should.
7. Have you tried to teach your folks a Biblical vision of outreach with the Word? You must.
8. Are you investing in finding, encouraging, and cultivating reproducers in your fellowship? (This book is a great help.)
9. While you are still relatively small, are you exploiting that very smallness to build stronger, deeper relationships with those presently under your care? Beware sacrificing the unsatisfying but potential-laden present for the elusive utopian future.
10. Do you thank God that there's anybody who wants to hear you do what you love best? Because you really should.

For Smaller Church Attenders

1. Are you content, or even happy, that your church does not grow despite being surrounded by lost or ill-taught and deceived souls? Would you be just as happy if your church never lost or added one person, or baptized one convert? Because you really shouldn't be (see first post). You should repent, pray earnestly, change.
2. Whose job is it, primarily, to expand the witness and ministry of your church? Would your most candid response to my first question, "No, I really would like to see the pastor and other people bring in more of the right sort of person"? Or perhaps, "No, I really do hope Something does Happen, and more people happen by, wander in, and decide to stay"? After you do answer, read Romans 1 and 1 Thessalonians 1, and see if you need to revise your answer. Then read Ephesians 4:15-16, and reconsider. Leading to:
3. Are you doing your job faithfully? Do you evangelize, at work and while shopping and at home? How many friends have you told about how much you love your church and why, and have you invited, and have you brought? In the last month, the last year, the last five years? Or do you imagine that's someone else's job?
4. Do you look for newcomers when they actually do come, and make it your job to make them welcome and show them love?  Who is Romans 12:13 addressed to, do you think?
   
5. Is it more important to you to sit in "your" pew, or to sit with someone who could use the blessing of being shown love?
6. Do you attend your church prayer meetings, and is your voice heard regularly crying out to God to use your church's ministry to save the lost and disciple the saved? Are you a subscriber to the theories of the importance of corporate prayer and of sovereign grace, while never gathering corporately to beseech God to move in sovereign grace?
7. Do you do what the leaders can't do? Is the Word being preached and taught clearly, deeply, effectively, transformationally, to God's glory? Is Christ exalted in the church's priorities and ministries? Do your leaders follow Christ and love those they care for with integrity? If so, your leaders can't very well go around saying so, can they? ("Come to my church, I really preach the Word deeply and effectively!") So, do you?

I hope you find equal measures of help, head-scratching, and challenge in those thoughts. And by next Monday, everything will be different!

(Riiight.) 

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Small and static versus larger and growing: opening thoughts

by Dan Phillips

Is a small church inherently virtuous and godly? Is a large church intrinsically venomous and worldly?

I come from a bit of prejudice on the subject, I'll admit. All of my earliest church experiences were small (by which I mean not merely under 100, but under 50), and I liked it. But then I also was part of larger churches (over 200, over 500), and I liked that too. That said, I do tend to see the need to be as large as possible as evil...but also contentment with remaining comfortably small as comfortable no less evil.

Oops, I've given away the conclusion, without so much as a Spoiler Alert. Well, let's back-track. Let's lay some Biblical framework.

First, one definition: for the purpose of these posts, I'll define a "small" church as 100 or fewer, assuming a town of 25000 or more.

One the one hand: small can be glorious

The Bible is literally riddled with stories whose whole point is to glorify God precisely because of the smallness of the beginnings. "Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him" (Isaiah 51:2), for instance. He was one, he was old, and he was married to an infertile woman. All this served to glorify God all the more by what God made of this old believing man with his infertile wife.

Moses did not free Israel from Egypt by amassing a huge army. It was just two little old men, and one great big God. That was part of the point, and the glory, of the story.

Very famously, there's the story of Gideon, raised up to liberate Israel from Midian. Though Gideon surely did not agree, Yahweh thought 32000 troops were far too many (Judges 7:2-3). In fact, he thought 10000 troops was overkill (v. 4). But 300 was just right (v. 7). Just right to reassure Gideon, or the three hundred themselves? Surely not. But just right to glorify God by the deliverance He'd work.

Many other stories make the same point. King Saul's son Jonathan decides to take on a whole Philistine garrison, just by himself and his armor-carrier, explicitly reasoning "It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few" (1 Samuel 14:6b). Then l ater, in the name of the God of Israel, little punk shepherd-boy David knocks down the giant that had a whole king and army trembling (1 Samuel 17). In many ways, the OT warns against despising "the day of small things" (Zechariah 4:10).

The New Testament has many such stories and many such teachings as well. Jesus famously warns that the popular and crowded road is the one that leads to Hell, while its opposite is narrower and vastly less popular (Matthew 7:13-14). He warns his spokesmen to expect rejection and persecution (Matthew 10:21-22), and that whole towns might reject them and their preaching (v. 14).

Jesus was glorified by feeding huge masses by supplies that were paltry and cheap (John 6:9ff.). But he had no problem teaching things that sent people running away in droves (v. 60ff.). When that was their reason for leaving, attrition didn't bother Him a bit (v. 67).

Fast-forwarding, Paul warns that the church age will not be marked by gradual grown and development into a glorious golden age on earth. No, he says that the latter days will be marked by rejection and unpopularity of truth, and love of error (2 Timothy 4:3-4). The man who would be a man of God must be prepared to preach doggedly and persistently and consistently, when it looks like the very worst time for it (vv. 1-2, 5).

On the other hand: explosive can be good, too

First we have to remember the passion to see God glorified.

People who love God as they ought can't be content just to see Him glorified a little, if anything can be done with it. Their vision is God's vision: to see the earth "filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14). Their sigh is, "Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!" (Ps. 107:8 NKJV; cf. vv. 15, 21, 31). They long for God to be known and loved and marveled at and praised from pole to pole (Ps. 148:7, 13; Isaiah 42:10, etc.).

And people who love people as they should cannot be content to see their fellow-man living in darkness and despair, and skipping gaily off to a hopeless eternity under the relentless and endless wrath of God (cf. Matt. 7:12). They can't claim ignorance, and wouldn't dream of it (Proverbs 24:11-12).

So they're like Paul, who knew everything we know from the first section, and yet it was his ambition to preach Christ and His gospel everywhere, particularly where He was not yet known (Romans 15:20-24). You would search long, hard, and utterly fruitlessly to find in Paul any spirit of "Oh well, God's sovereign, I've done what I can, you can't save everyone."

So there are explosively big moments here and there in Scripture. The one that leaps to mind is the birthday of the church, on Pentecost. Growth from maybe the under-200 range to over three thousand, as a result of one sermon, is what most of us pastors would count a "really good day" (Acts 2:41; cf. 4:4 for another leap).

And something like this continues through Acts. There are persecutions and treacheries a-plenty, but there is also the constant refrain:

6:7 — And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

8:4 — Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

12:24 — But the word of God increased and multiplied 

13:44 — The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.

13:48-49 — And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. 49 And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.

17:11 — Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

19:10 — This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

19:20 — So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

So, the combination: eager, inventive, tireless preachers + actual saving Gospel + lost men and woman + saving hand of God = spread of the Word among converts. 

Growth, in other words. Good, sound, holy, God-honoring, healthy, appropriate growth, built and based on the pure word of God. Faithfulness and fruitfulness.

The two problems we're left with

These facts of revelation leave us with two problems. The first is often insoluble.

First question: Why is this happening/not happening to me/him? You look at a work that is plastic, formulaic, and all-wrong. They don't preach the Gospel deeply, they don't teach the Bible very intensively; it's like toy-time for toddlers. But they grow explosively. You've heard the story a thousand times. "We started with three people, and in a year we had 1700." No big budget, just tons of quick and impressive growth. It's years later, and they're still going strong.

Or on the other hand, you're a preacher who preaches the whole counsel of God with everything you've got. Every prayerfully-formed-and-delivered sermon/lesson exalts God, edifies saints, points to Christ, to the best of your God-given ability. And your church has at least some people who evangelize, and show love. And you're in a target-rich location.

And you just. Don't. Grow.

Now, we can make guesses about both. About the former, we can prate on about "itching ears" and Zeitgeist and all — except it's not really a cult or a heresy. They do preach Jesus and gospel, if not very deeply. It's just not what we believe Biblically it should be.

Yet they multiply like bunnies, looking for all the world like a real work of God for explosiveness.

About the latter, we could say there's not enough evangelism, they're too young/too old, their style is too this or not enough that, and yadda yadda yadda.

But none of those items were factors in Acts. If someone's heart is touched by God, if he wants to know and serve God alongside genuine believers, this would be a perfectly fine home for him. In fact, a terrific home. And for such a work to grow would bring great glory to God.

Yet it just doesn't happen.

Why?

I have no idea. Worse, I know of no way to tell until the Judgment.

Well, that's a sucky answer, isn't it? Not what you come to Top Men to hear. Well, I'm not a top man, and I hate the answer too, but it's all I've got. How many followers did Isaiah have? Jeremiah? Ezekiel? What happened with Jonathan Edwards at his church? How wildly popular was he in his lifetime?

Why?

No clue, other than to say something like "because thus it pleased the Lord to deal with His servants."

Second question: Is what is happening to me as-should-be? Should I be happy, concerned, or...?

Ah, now, there I might have some help for you. Some help.

Friday, Lord willing.

UPDATE: this way to the Conclusion.

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In praise of small churches — and yet...

by Dan Phillips

I stumbled on an article titled Four Unexpected Benefits of a Small Church, by a church-member named Jonathan Schindler. He develops four "unexpected benefits and opportunities" that are "specifically related" to the smallness of his church, which has shrunk from 150 to the 70-90 range. They are:

1. Being in a small church has forced me to be in community.
2. Being in a small church has forced me to serve.
3. Being in a small church has forced me to reckon with diversity.
4. Being in a small church has offered opportunities I might not otherwise have had.

Most know that I on principle oppose megachurches, though in recent years I've grown a little wobbly. To be specific: Valerie and I got to talk to people serving at Grace Community Church, and were exposed to the many, many ways they leverage their greater resources to serve, disciple, love, care, and reach out. We agreed: "If you're going to be a big church, this is the way to do it."

That perhaps is a topic for another day; now let's get back to the small church, as Schindler describes it, and get to my own points. I would say three things, to get us going:

1. I basically agree with Schindler's enumeration, and could expand it myself. However...
2. If you want to make your pastor's blood run cold, and you want to set him to wondering whether he should move on, tell him you're really happy that your church is staying small, and signal that you'll be just as happy if it never, ever grows.
3. The content-to-stay-small attitude can be every bit as poisonous and God-dishonoring as the we-must-add-numbers-at-all-costs attitude.

Perhaps what I want to say can be best expressed as yet another list:

1. If you think that verses like Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 6:7; 12:24; 13:49; 19:20; Colossians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:2-5, 8-9; 2 Thessalonians 3:1; 2 Tim. 2:9 and others all describe goals and values and events for a distant and fading past, as relevant to us today as tongues and prophecies, feel good about staying small.
2. If there aren't any unbelievers or mis-taught, untaught, immature believers living with ten miles of your church, feel good about staying small.
3. If the Gospel isn't anything you think your neighbors need, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
4. If you feel like you have a note from God excusing you from finding ways to reach out with the Gospel, feel good about staying small.
5. If you haven't learned the Gospel well enough to explain it to anyone else, and you don't want to learn the Gospel well enough to explain it to anyone else, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
6. If you just don't want to have to learn more names and think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
7. If you just don't want to have to accommodate people with different tastes, temperaments, and preferences than you, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
8. If your pastor doesn't really preach anything anyone needs to hear, feel good about staying small.
9. If it doesn't matter to you that your church dies when the current crop of 50-to-80-year-olds dies, feel good about staying small.
10. If the sight of cults and false teachers growing like weeds while the truths you cherish lie unheard and unloved doesn't matter to you, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
    
11. If you just don't want to have to deal with different skin-colors, and cultures, and accents, and ways of dressing, and hair-cuts, and jewelry, and educational level, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
12. If you just don't want to have to deal with babies, and children, and teens, and singles, and people in their 20s and 30s who don't have it all together yet, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.
13. If you've got your church crafted exactly to mirror all your wants and your preferences and your styles and your opinions, and you don't want to risk any of that being challenged, and you think that's okay with God, feel good about staying small.

I want to be as plain as I possibly can be:

• Not one syllable of anything I just wrote should make any pastor or church member feel bad or inferior or self-reproachful about the bare fact of his church's relative smallness. It is perfectly possible for a church to be small precisely because it is being faithful to God (cf. 2 Tim. 4:1-4; cf. John 6:66).
• The only people who should feel a sting from what I just wrote are those content with not growing, not striving, not reaching out, not evangelizing, not making disciples, not penetrating his community, and not being impelled by love for God and man to get out of his comfort-zone — including saints who believe in outreach in theory, and think other people really should be getting on with it.
  
• I do not think a church should grow to be as big as it possibly can.
• Once a church gets beyond the point where shepherds can know sheep and where real fellowship is happening (Jn. 10:3, 11, 14; Galatians 6:2; 1 Thess. 5:11; Heb. 3:13; 10:24-25), they should plant other churches with their own apprenticed in-person on-site flesh-and-blood pastors. Then rinse, and repeat. Multiply Biblically-faithful, Christ-centered, Gospel-preaching, Bible-teaching churches.
• If a church is surrounded by unbelievers, and yet never or seldom baptizes converts, never or seldom takes in and loves and disciples not-there-yet believers, never or seldom grows outside of a narrow age/culture range, then every leader and every member should cry to God day and night for the spread of the Gospel, and that church should leave no legitimate stone unturned in its seeking for effective ways to reach out with the Gospel.

I think this should be the attitude of every member and every leader: If our church does not grow at all, God grant that it be despite our best and unceasing efforts and most earnest and continual prayers — and not ever greeted with smug complacency.

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The right discontentment, the wrong contentment

by Dan Phillips

Too often, professed Christians are both contented and discontented about the wrong things.

God has given His church an absolutely sufficient, living, inerrant revelation of His person, works and will. Yet rather than focus all our prayerful energy on mastering and being mastered by all of its contents, we allow a dangerously unbelieving and ungrateful discontentment to divert our attention and leave us open to harmful substitutes, as well as pastorally-disastrous schemes and mazes.

In that case, we need to re-read the book of Numbers. We need to remind ourselves just what raging death God visited on those who were constantly, repeatedly, whiningly discontented with His provisions. We need to repent of our unbelief and ingratitude. We need to revise our approach to Christian living, by joyfully embracing a robust affirmation of God's own testimony to the sufficiency of His Word.

Then on the other hand (and, as I think on it, relatedly) we are too easily contented in our relationship with God. Let me 'splain.

All of us professed Christians, if asked "Would you like to know God better?", would answer "Yes." But what if we were asked a different question? What if we were asked if we are willing to do what it takes to know God better, know His word better, be better prepared to serve Him, be more immersed in worship and service, be more fruitful and productive and effective in serving Him (see the sermons on Proverbs 3:1-12 in this series)? What if we were asked if we were willing to do what it takes to move ahead in those areas?

In that case, I'm certain that candor would force too many to reply "No thanks, I'm good."

I'm called to consider this by that arresting, alarming verse, Proverbs 1:32 —

For the turning away of the gullible will slay them,
And the complacency of the stupid will destroy them. [DJP]

"The complacency of the stupid," the wise man zings. In context, this complacency would take in everything the stupid man does to quiet, dull, numb, defang, decaffeinate, and otherwise deflect God's call. He refuses, rejects, belittles, doesn't want... in short, he's complacent. He's good. He's A-OK, he's five-by-five.

And that's stupid, God says; and that will destroy them, God says.

Knowing people as I do (I met one once!), I imagine some will say "Well yeah, but that clearly is talking about unbelievers, lost people. Not saved people."

In response to which, rather than going John Owen on you, I'll just leave you with this question:

You really think God likes complacency better in professed believers, and thinks it's smart?

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How God gives us hope

by Dan Phillips

We read this in Romans 15:4 —

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

The end-product is hope. Hope is a vital theme for Paul. He says we were saved in hope, and live in hope (Rom. 8:24-25). But how do we have hope?

Many might say we should pray for it, and that's not in itself a bad idea. It could, however, become a bad idea if that's all we do. In fact, it could become a terrible idea if that's all we do, if we then go on to lament how distant and uncaring God is because He does not directly instill hope in our hearts by some mysterious unmediated ministry of the Spirit.

In the text cited above, Paul explains how a Christian comes to have hope. It's pretty simple, though the thought is foreign to too much of professed Christianity. To Paul's mind:

1. In order to have hope, we need Scripture
2. In order to gain hope from Scripture, we must read it
3. In order to gain hope from what we read, we must receive instruction

And there you have it. That is how God plants and cultivates hope in our hearts. We read Scripture, read the stories of the lives of past believers and what they suffered in faith (Hebrews 11). We read God's precious promises, and read of His mighty hand and impeccable character. We read, we think, we analyze, we apply, we memorize, we embrace, we cling, we boast.

We hope.

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"Too many old people"?

by Dan Phillips

Preaching through Titus was eye-opening and encouraging for me in a number of ways. One of those ways was in reflecting on the brute force of the text in 2:1-8 (opened up here, here, here and here). In that passage, Paul casts a net that takes in the whole age-range of the congregation. Pride of place goes to seniors, to older men and older women, who then have a ministry embracing younger women and men.

If we let it, this has real impact on how we will view our local assembly. Think it through with me.

Many folks in their 20s and 30s would walk into a church featuring a lot of people in their 40s and upward, and would be concerned. I understand that, and I don't entirely blame anyone for the reaction. That is, if they see a church predominantly tilted to the senior years, they will wonder if it has lost vision. They'll wonder if it's dying.

They will be concerned that this may be a church "married" to a single point on the calendar, rather than to the word of God — as if the 1950s (or, for that matter, the 1850s, 1750s or 1650s) constituted an especially sacrosanct dot on a timeline, and everything coming after that dot is suspect, or probably even evil. Not sharing that timebound devotion, they'll wonder whether they'd find a home in this family, or whether instead they'd find themselves also suspect and marginalized.

Those are legitimate concerns, in themselves. I'm not writing to challenge anyone for merely having those thoughts. In fact, I would agree that there's no excuse for a congregation to wed itself indissolubly to some imagined Post-Biblical Golden Age in any given culture. Paul reflected no such concern or fancy, nor did he encourage it; nor should we.

What's worse, I know what it is when a congregation has the smell of death about it. It's just very, very sad. It is as if you've stepped into a time machine, in a way. In another, it's as if you've stepped into a funeral parlor. There's a feel of sad resignation and frustration; all is ingrown and cliquish; arms are already closed, not open. What you're seeing is a slow death. They're huddled together waiting for the end... and it's on its way.

So I'm not writing to say that anyone should feel wicked and guilty if he feels a concern at the initial sight of a senior-weighted congregation. But I am writing to urge you not to stop with those first impressions. I am writing to suggest other thoughts you should also have, other questions you should also ask yourself, in forming a decision.

First, I'd suggest the alternative: you should really feel concerned if you don't see many people 40 and up! After all, the leaders are called elders for a reason (cf. Acts 20:17; 1 Tim. 5:17-19). While that term isn't necessarily bound to a certain number of candles on a birthday cake, the least you have to say is that it isn't negative towards the higher numbers! In fact, Scripture (as opposed to our culture) is pretty much univocally positive towards advanced age (see the second sermon linked above). To have walked with the Lord for a great many years is a good thing, it's a blessed thing, it's a valuable thing. In a healthy congregation, younger people will seek out and value their seniors in the Lord.

And if there are few or none to seek out, that isn't a good sign, other things being equal. It really, really isn't. It could mean that this is a ministry that doesn't wear well. It could mean that this is a ministry for the moment, not for the ages. It could mean that the leadership is every bit as tunnel-visioned as the Golden Agers mentioned above. It could mean that seasoned saints who've been a few blocks with the Lord have weighed it, and found it wanting.

The fact that mature folks are not drawn to a ministry is not a selling point to a Biblically-minded man or woman. If you walked into a church in a multi-ethnic neighborhood and found a large group of one skin-hue, you'd wonder. You should also wonder if a congregation has few or no seniors.

Ironic aside: I've no doubt that many yoots who would be (rightly) utterly repelled by any congregation they suspected of racism have no problem at all with one characterized by ageism.

What's more, a church lacking the very folks Paul focuses on first in Titus 2 lacks vital resources. Young men won't have accomplished, seasoned models to look up to, won't have those resources to draw on or be cautioned or matured by (to dangle a preposition). Young women won't have those mature ladies to help them navigate the rocks and corals of their own passions or cultural blinders. Better to set out across the desert without water, than to try to navigate the world without mature, older believers in an assembly.

Look at it Biblically and matured saints aren't a red light, a warning sign, or an obstacle. They're a gold mine.

Second, before you draw a conclusion, inquire. If you're not seeing many under-40s, is it indeed the church's short- or narrow-sightedness? Have they reached out to the younger folks within their number? Have they offered classes, seminars, fellowship opportunities that are sensitive to their needs and concerns? Are they planning any? Are they willing? Or have they just given up?

I'm saying don't assume. What if you were to learn that the pastor had launched a number of initiatives that simply weren't supported at the time — because the younger folks who were present at the time had other things to do, didn't want to commit, didn't like having to show up at a particular time, a dozen other things? Or because there weren't that many of them... yet the church was trying to serve them equally with everyone else? Or what if you learned that other outreaches/inreaches were either in the works, in the planning stages, or held in readiness for when there was actually someone to benefit from them? Would that change your impression? If so, how will you know unless you slow down, take some time, and ask?

Third, again before you draw a conclusion, remember the besetting sins of your own culture. It is a consumer-driven culture. To their great shame, Christians look at the church as they look at retail businesses. They expect to be catered to. They expect to bring nothing but demands and requirements, and they expect those demands to be met and seen-to, now, on their time-table. Of them it could well be said, "I came not to serve, but to be served." They don't expect to commit, give, build, sacrifice, stay. You walk in, a store doesn't have what you want the way you want it, you walk out. As with Wal-Mart, so with church. Same-same.


You know, exactly like the Bible says.

The opposite of.

And so fourth, having remembered that, ask yourself the question: What do you expect? What do you demand? Is it your attitude that you won't stay if you don't already see a bunch of people like you already carrying the burden and doing the work? How would that even happen, if everyone else had your attitude? Really, think it through: what if everyone else who visited that church was unwilling to stay until someone else did the work they're unwilling to do, to provide the ministry they're demanding to receive? Like you're doing?

And how would that even happen? How does that happen? How do you think churches grow, ever? Have you asked yourself that question?

Do you think they drop down out of Heaven, fully-staffed with volunteers committed to doing what you're unwilling to do? Do you think pastors simply pick up the phone, dial 1-800-FLOATER, and order a set of 45 trained, equipped, qualified, committed 25-year-olds to be delivered next Sunday to create the ministry of which you wish to be a passive beneficiary?

I recall a man telling a story some years ago that led me to respect (and like) him even more than I already did. He was a black brother, who'd begun attending this predominantly white church. After a time, he felt a bit lonesome and discouraged. It was still pretty much just him and his wife amid a sea of lighter shade of pale, and they sometimes felt like they stuck out. After a while of no change in the collective epidermal hue, he was tempted to leave, to give up.

But then Bill asked himself, "So, if I leave, what does the next black brother find, when he comes? Same thing I found. Someone has to be first, someone has to stay, someone has to build. Why shouldn't it be me?" And he stayed; and in time he was not remain alone. In fact, when the pastor left, the church called a black brother to pastor the church. In part, because Bill asked himself, "Why shouldn't I stay and build?"

Good question, eh?

Bibley, in truth, wouldn't you say?

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Looking to 2013

by Dan Phillips

Happy new year, Pyro readers.

Thanks both to regular and new readers; thanks especially to those who take the words we offer and spread them, through mentions and links and local church ministry.

Last Sunday at CBC I preached a New Year-targeted sermon titled Where to Look in 2013. Though of course it was addressed to our local congregation, the truths are transferable. (Here is the outline.)  I hope it's helpful and useful to you and yours.

We look out on a challenging vista. American government and the public face of "evangelicalism" seem to be treading paths that are balefully similar in more ways than we'd wish. At a time when those who know their God should be doing great exploits, the urge to fit in and be well-liked by those who hate God generally, and despise many aspects of His word specifically, continues to fester and spread.

What to say of the "evangelical" church scene in 2012? Briefly: So many opportunities, so many wiffs. The twin imperatives for leaders sounded forth in Titus 1:9 loom forth as crucial and relevant as ever, yet in some ways the actual pursuit of specific faithfulness seems less popular and than in long memory. "Evangelicals" seek to be soothed, not stirred.

God grant a change of course in 2013. The stakes are high, and the environment target-rich.

If you have resolutions or plans for greater knowledge or service of God in 2013, please share.

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Ways to profit from an expository sermon

by Dan Phillips

From a preacher's perspective, it's our happy task before God to craft and deliver a sermon that's worth listening to, attending to, learning from, and retaining. Any regular reader of this blog probably attends a church whose pastor takes this as a solemn, joyous, exhilarating, devastating, God-given duty.

On that assumption, then, how can you gain the most value from the sermon?

I'll tailor my remarks specifically to profiting from an expository sermon in a book-study series. Some of these suggestions will apply to any Biblical sermon, but I have in mind a series that progresses through a book of the Bible.

1. Pray in advance. Pray for your preacher, because sermon preparation is both a science and a spiritual exercise. It's his part to "consider," but he needs the Lord to "give understanding" (2 Tim. 2:7). Pray for yourself, because you need the work of the Spirit to open your eyes to your riches in Christ (Eph. 1:16-19). Pray for others who come, including unbelievers, that the Lord might open their hearts to respond to the truths of God which your pastor will preach (Acts 16:14).
2. Read the passage in advance, asking yourself questions, or imaging the questions you might be asked. Priming the pump is a terrific way to learn the most. It's always both humbling and a blessing to have read a passage, and then to see it anew when a brother brings out valid insights that had never occurred to us.
3. Use the rest room before the service. Not very spiritual, I know. But the sermon is a piece, prepared to be taken in and enjoyed as a piece. Also, the fewer distractions, the better to others. (At the risk of TMI: as a relatively young Christian, I had a bad habit of drinking too much coffee, and sitting up front...with predictable results. The pastor eventually had a word with me. He was right.)
4. Absolutely do pick up the outline if there is one, and absolutely do use it. My mother-in-law is right:  the faintest ink is better than the best memory. And even if you don't keep the outline, the more of your senses you involve in engaging in what you hear, the better you'll listen, the more you'll learn, and the more you'll retain.

5. If there is no outline, try to make one of your own. Most preachers have one that they follow. The better ones (in my opinion) make it plain with signals such as "I see three things in this text, and the first is..." See if you can't pick it out.
6. Pray as your pastor preaches, for him, for yourself, and for all present. See #1 above. Your encounter with the Word of God -- and others' as well -- is a moment of crisis, a pivotal moment (Heb. 4:12-13). Eternity hangs on it. Don't leave it unprayed-over.
7. Attempt to look up every verse. Remember what you are, what your goal is. You are a disciple of Christ, a pupil for life; and it is your job to stay in and retain His Word (Matt. 28:18-20; Jn. 8:31-32).  Don't be the sort of person who complains that he can't find anything in the Bible, and then sits and watches when your pastor tries to show you where it is in the Bible. And if you don't do it because you don't know the books of the Bible... well, friend, what do you think I'm going to say?
8. After the sermon, read the passage yourself without your notes. See what now leaps out, and what you remember. This is an absolutely splendid way of making what you've learned your own, so that you have it, you own it, you can use it for worship and for life, and you will have it to give to others (cf. 2 Cor. 1:4; Heb. 3:13; 10:25).
9. Then look at the notes, to reinforce.
10. Tell someone what you learned. Take the seed your pastor sowed, and multiply it. Invite the folks you tell to come hear the next one for themselves.

UPDATE: re-reading this, an apposite word from Spurgeon — and, really, isn't there always an apposite word from Spurgeon? — came to mind. I've now shared it over at my place.

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When the Lord seems harsh

by Dan Phillips

The story that opens Matthew 11 is intriguing and instructive from many angles.

First, we shouldn't miss how Matthew frames it in verse 2 — "Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples." It is unique for Matthew to say so baldly "the Christ." He uses the title sixteen times in total, usually on the lips of persons whom he quotes (i.e. 2:4; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 23:10; 24:5, 23, 63, 68; 27:17, 22). He himself (i.e. not in quotation) uses only five times: four times in the genealogy/birth narrative (1:1, 16, 17, 18), and here. It is found without "Jesus" only in 1:17; 2:4; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 23:10; 24:5, 23; 26:63, 28, and of those several are spoken to Jesus or by Jesus.

So Matthew is stressing the point to us that the miracles Jesus was doing are miracles of Messiah, they are Messianic deeds, they are Messianic in character and serve to identify Jesus as the one foretold throughout the pages of the Old Testament. Matthew wants us to have that firmly in mind as we read what follows.

John the Immerser, however — the Messianic forerunner, the Messianic announcer, the King-maker who had identified Messiah to Israel — is languishing in prison. Whether he looks to the right, to the left, upward or downward, no glorious kingdom is in sigh.

Not for the first time, John calls to our mind Elijah, who after a terrific victory (1 Kings 18) knew bitter discouragement and frustration (1 Kings 19; do not fail to hear Ligon Duncan open this up to devastating and glorious effect).

So John sends Jesus some messengers (v. 3) to ask: given that nothing (that, to John's expectation, should happen) is in fact happening, is Jesus really the Messiah? Or is Messiah still to come?

How deep did John's doubt go? We can't know. He may have truly wondered if he had been mistaken in identifying Jesus as the Messiah. Or he may have been wanting to prod Jesus into action. Or he may just have wanted an explanation, a word of encouragement, as he awaited what would be his death, a death that apparently would come before the least glimmer of Messianic kingdom glory.

The key, again, is in verse 2. Where did John hear about "the deeds of the Messiah." Matthew tells us: "in prison." John expected (rightly!) that Messiah would bring political deliverance and victory and vindication, a golden age and an earthly kingdom. But John saw no deliverance for Israel, and no deliverance for himself. So he sent his students to ask the question.

How does Jesus respond?

Not as we'd expect, were we encountering this for the first time.

You have to say that our Lord's response is pretty brusque, even falls a bit harshly on our ears (vv. 4-6). It isn't cruel, but it isn't what some might call gentle and edifying and thoughtful and nuanced and careful and all that.

I mean, honestly, wouldn't you have said something different? I think I would have. I might have said, "Tell John to hang in there. Tell him I feel his suffering and pain, I know and I care. Tell him that the Messianic kingdom will come in all its glory, and he will live and rejoice as a great name in that kingdom. Tell him that he will see that all his suffering was not in vain, but brought great glory to God. Tell him that the present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory to follow. Tell him that, for that kingdom ever to happen, I must first make atonement for sin, and win the crown through the Cross. Tell him that, if he endures, he will eventually understand everything, and will rejoice."

I think that's what I would have said.

And, evidently (as I've noted before), I would have been wrong.

Jesus sees that John needs something different, and of course He is right. As I said, His answer isn't cruel, but it isn't soft, either. He says in effect, "Remind John of what he already knows, but is forgetting in his discouragement. Remind him that he already knows the answer to that question. And remind him that sticking with me solidly and faithfully guarantees blessing."

In no way did He tell John what John wanted to hear. Instead, He told John what John needed to hear.

And then, before I bring this home, note that it even gets worse, in a way. The second John's students leave, Jesus waxes eloquent about what a great man John was! I mean, He goes on and on about it (vv. 7-19). Now, seriously — couldn't He have said a little of that to John? Couldn't He have thrown him a wee little bone? I mean, come on; John's in prison awaiting death for his faithful service to Jesus. Jesus couldn't show a little love in that way?

Again, evidently not. Apparently John himself would never hear those kind words in this life. Evidently, what I think John needed is not what John actually needed.

Perhaps we get another peek in verse 7, where Jesus asks "concerning John: 'What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?'" Even given this question, which the crowds evidently overheard, Jesus does not see John as "shaken." Oh, you'd think so, and I'd think so. But Jesus doesn't need anyone to tell Him the heart of man, because He knows what's in there (Jn. 2:25; Rev. 2:23).

So what Jesus sees John as needing (and what John actually did need), evidently, is a good, bracing shaking. He sees John as needing a splash of cold water in his face. Jesus is less concerned about John's feelings and his emotions and his mood than He is about his faith and his faithfulness.

I bring this up for your reflection, as I've reflected on it myself. Just ask yourself:  if Jesus was this"harsh" (as it seems to us) with such a favored and faithful servant, can it really be that shocking if He at times seems harsh in dealing with us lesser lights? Have there been times when you've thought Him a poor friend because He hasn't "shown up" as you would have done for one of your friends, because He didn't immediately relieve a depression, a distress, a difficulty, as you would have done for one of your loved ones?

Doesn't this give us good reason to re-think, to remember who's who, to remember that while Jesus almost always does give us exactly what we ask for, He reserves the right to give us something better (and therefore other) than what we think we need? Indeed, He does so regularly give us what we ask Him to give us, and does so frequently give us a good word from the Word directly or through others, or lets us get a peek of success or fruitfulness, that we get a bit spoiled, and expect Him to do it all the time. Then when He doesn't, we check in to Doubting Castle or its dark and dank environs.

I'm saying, we should think again. In looking back and making sense of our lives, or if we're there right now, we should think again. Like our Lord told John to do. Remember what you already know, but are forgetting. Think in faith, think with God's word and God's facts in view.

Just remember: it says He works all things together for our good (Rom. 8:28), and not necessarily for our definition of good on our schedule.

Seemingly harsh? Sometimes.

Good?

Always.

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Play to your strengths, but challenge your weaknesses

by Dan Phillips

You may have heard that I wrote a book about Proverbs. True fact! Then in looking at my cred, you might notice that my M. Div. major was OT, and that I taught classes in Hebrew and OT Theology. More true facts!

So naturally you might assume that I did all that study, which resulted in all that teaching and writing, because I was naturally inclined to the OT and to Hebrew, and found those subjects easier and more congenial to study.

Untrue fact!

So why'd I do it?

I'll get there in a second.

I hope we can agree that it's a mistake, whether as a pastor or as any other Christian, not to play to your strengths. If a pastor is terrific in the pulpit but not so great at the one-on-one, he mustn't stop preaching/teaching so he can do vistation instead, just to address his failings. Equally, if a pastor is a terrific people-person but not so great in the pulpit, he can't simply cancel the sermon and hand out counseling numbers like tickets in a butcher's shop. ("Now being discipled... Number 1347!")

Paul tells the Ephesian elders, "I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house" (Acts 20:20). We must do both, though we are stronger in the one than in the other.

At the same time, an exceptional preacher or teacher may do a great deal of preaching and teaching, and an exceptional personal worker may do a great deal of personal work — while not neglecting the other. Meanwhile, we who are exceptional at neither simply work equally on both.

HSAT:

It is good for a pastor to give special effort to (A) get out of his comfort-zone, and (B) push himself in the areas of faithful service where he may be weak. In fact, if he is to grow, he must accept that he must push himself, or else he'll just naturally settle down in Comfy Rut Lane. Paul urges Timothy, "Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress may be evident to all" (1 Tim. 4:15 NAS). Do the hard work, let folks see you progress. Paul also presses Timothy to "do the work of an evangelist" (2 Tim. 4:5), perhaps suggesting that evangelism did not come easily to the timid apprentice (cf. 1 Cor. 16:10-11).

So why did I major in OT? Not because that is where I was strong, but because that's where I was weak. It was because I knew that around 2/3 of the Bible was, in fact, the OT, and I was called to preach the whole Bible, so it made sense to focus on the part I grasped less adeptly. So that led to focusing on the OT in my classes and thesis, which led in turn to teaching Hebrew and OT Theology and that little book-thingie I may have mentioned earlier.

Again, in an early pastorate I was challenged to teach Hebrews, and I did. Why? Partly because it was difficult. Because it didn't come easy to me. And because that meant that it would prod and challenge me to teach out of my comfort-zone, thus going into areas of God's counsel that I might otherwise bypass.

Don't misunderstand me. My point is nothing like "Behold Iron Dan Vs. Wild, as I eat grubs and leap off mountains to prove that I am mas macho!" I have many, many bitter regrets concerning areas where I failed to challenge myself and get out of my comfort-zone, and thus failed to be the faithful pastor I should have been.

My point is to share that challenge with you, pastor and non-pastor alike. Is prophecy hard for you? Then start preparing to teach a prophetic book, pastor; or get a good book and study, non-pastor. Is Proverbs hard? Well, maybe there's some good book that can help you so that you can get it, and dive in. The same applies in any area of theology or Christian practice.

If it's in God's Word, it's important.

And if it doesn't come easily to you, then it may be especially important for you and for those you serve.

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Grow, or crash (Proverbs 19:27)

by Dan Phillips

In our weekly 2-man "Men's Fellowship" last Saturday at Peet's, Josiah and I looked at Proverbs 19:27.

Cease to hear instruction, my son,
and you will stray from the words of knowledge.

Interpretation. In form, this is an ironic command (a concept I develop at length in God's Wisdom in Proverbs, 373ff.; just sayin'). Grammatically Solomon is saying to do something, but semantically he doesn't really mean it. The force is similar to what we do, when we've warned someone not to take a course of action for the thousandth time, and then we give up and say, "Fine, go ahead, do it. Let's see what happens."

In an ironic command such as this, Solomon says, "Tell you what: if you insist on not listening, go ahead, stop listening. And here's exactly what will happen when you do." What will happen? He will stray from the words of knowledge. Period. Sure thing, guaranteed, you can take it to the bank.

Somber backdrop. A factor that saves Proverbs 19:27 from being a bland truism is the grim spectacle of Solomon's own life. The author himself became a wretched illustration of the wisdom and truth of his own words.

It is impossible to read 1 Kings 11 and Proverbs with an engaged heart, and not to ask, "How could this man do that?" Solomon himself answered the question, as if in sad anticipation. We can't read his mind, but we know sin, from wretched and extended experience. How did this happen in Solomon? Inch by inch, probably; neglect by neglect, unchecked pride after unchecked pride.

Pride, I say, because like all believers who sin, Solomon must have thought his sin was different. Otherwise, how could he have read Deuteronomy 17:14-20 and yet gone contrary to it so frontally that some have held that passage to have  been written after Solomon as a polemic against him? But there is no need to reject the Scriptural testimony about Deuteronomy's authorship and time frame. We know too well that awareness of a Scriptural prohibition will not eo ipso prevent the sin itself. (Would that it did.)

What a frightening spectacle. Solomon's horrid choices and foolish sins hang him up like a scarecrow athwart the paths of our own straying — or should do so. Could there be scarier warnings?

As it turns out, yes, there could be. And are.

It gets worse. Of course Judas looms up from the shadows, as someone who stayed with Christ's teaching for all appearances for three solid and difficult years. But he "ceased listening" to Christ's education, and he most certainly strayed... to eternal conscious torment in Hell, according to the only natural reading of Jesus' words (Matt. 26:24; Jn. 17:12).

I don't know if you're getting this yet. Let me try to give you a shake. Think: what do you and I have to do, to run afoul of Solomon's warning, and head in the exact same direction?

Nothing. Not one thing.

It's what we have to stop doing. We have to stop listening, which is to say we have to stop paying attention, stop applying ourselves, thinking, analyzing, breaking down and putting back together, stop making personal application. We have to stop cracking open our Bibles every day and sweating over them, we have to stop attending and attending to Biblical preaching in our local assemblies. Neglect, that's the key. Simply desist.

This isn't a small thing, and I can't stress it enough. Remember what Jesus said is the heart and soul of genuine discipleship:

"So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, 'If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" (Jn. 8:31-32 CSB)

Can't we legitimately turn that on its head? I think so:

"So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, 'If you do not continue in My word, you really are not My disciples. You will not know the truth, and that ignorance will leave you as slaves to sin.'" (Jn. 8:31-32 CSB)

If that hasn't sealed the deal to you, I direct you to Hebrews 5:10—6:8. The subject of Melchizedek comes up. The writer says he'd like to dwell a bit more on that topic, but he can't. Why not? Because they have become such lazy listeners! By now, they should be able to explain Biblical truths to others, but they can't. In fact, so far from being teachers, they need baby food, they need ABCs, they need Dick, Jane and Spot.

Okay, you're with me, great. But did you read my whole reference? If not, please do. I'll wait.

You see, the spectacle of their backwardness did not move the writer to say anything like...

"But that's okay, of course, because you're just baby Christians, and I want to make it easy for you to stay baby Christians. I don't want to offend you. I don't want you to leave your church. I don't want to challenge you. You just go on, and stay in your delusion, and it's all-good. God is gracious and patient. Just go ahead and put your fingers in your ears when you hear some bit of God's truth that you don't like. Just stay where you are. No need to grow. No need to mature. No need to work your senses out so that you can discern good from evil. No need work on meat. Not one thing to worry about. Look! a balloon!"

No, far from it; indeed, the spectacle of their failure to grow and inability to stomach sound teaching moves that writer to pen what has stood as one of the most terrifying passages of Scripture ever to be written. Had you ever noticed that? That's right: Hebrews 6:4ff., the passage that has given countless tender souls countless sleepless nights, was provoked by people who simply refused to grow.

So far from comforting them about their failure to grow, he did his level best to scare the life out of them!

And then he talked about Melchizedek anyway (ch. 7).

Goodness. It's more serious than we thought, isn't it?

Sobering thoughts. Mm, but something's lacking, just one thing, what is it what is it...? Oh! I know!

Spurgeon:

Having said so much, let me now continue to think of the last two kinds of backsliders, and leave out the apostate. Let us first read his name, and then let us read his history—we have both in our text. The first part of his name is, “backslider.” He is not a back runner, nor a back leaper, but a backslider. That is to say he slides back with an easy, effortless motion—softly, quietly—perhaps unsuspected by himself or anybody else. The Christian life is very much like climbing  a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, no, you have to cut every step with an ice axe—only with incessant labor in cutting and  chipping can you make any progress. You need a Guide to help you and you are not safe unless you are fastened to the  Guide, for you may slip into a crevasse.

Nobody ever slides up, and if great care is not taken, they will slide down, slide back, or, in other words, backslide.  This is very easily done. If you want to know how to backslide, the answer is leave off going forward and you will slide backward! Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity, for stand still you never can. To lead us to backslide, Satan acts with us as engineers do with a road down the mountains side. If they desire to carry the road from yonder alp right down into the valley far below, they never think of making the road plunge over a precipice, or straight down the face of the rock, for nobody would ever use such a road. But the road makers wind and twist.

Amen. Hear, fear, and take heed — sheep, and shepherds.

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"Hardened hearts"... in believers?

by Dan Phillips

NOTE: first-ever BibChr book giveaway! Check it out

I am reading through the Gospel of Mark in Greek for my morning Bible time, and a phrase leapt out to me, not for the first time: it is Mark 6, in the Evangelist's depiction of the apostles as having "hardened hearts."

Normally we associate the phrase "hard-hearted" or even more specifically "hardened heart" with an unbeliever, or even with a reprobate. Pharaoh is the example that leaps to mind.

However, in Mark 6:52 we read "for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened." This is the Evangelist's explanation for why the apostles were gobsmacked by Jesus' walking on the water and stilling of the storm. They were unprepared, and nonplussed. They had not made the connection between the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and Jesus' divine nature, because their hearts were hardened.

Lexical aside on πωρόω (pōroō), the word used: the Greek translation of the OT (the Septuagint, or LXX) uses other words to denote the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in Exodus. The verb here is only used once in the LXX (Job 17:7). John uses it in what may be his own translation (12:40) of Isaiah 6:10, but the LXX does not. Paul uses it of the hardening of Israel against Christ (Rom. 11:7; 2 Cor. 3:14). The noun πώρωσις (pōrōsis) occurs in the NT (Mk. 3:5; Rom. 11:25; Eph. 4:18), not at all in the LXX. This particular word may not have summoned up the connection with Pharaoh to Peter, Mark, and his first readers. But the idea was of calloused obtuseness, thick-headedness.

It comes up again, this time on Jesus' lips, in Mark 8:17. Jesus had just multiplied bread again to feed thousands, and the lot of them were crossing the lake. Jesus said, "Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod" (v. 15). All the Einsteins in the boat immediately "began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread" (v. 16). Exasperated, Jesus says,

"Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?  18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?  19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"

They said to him, "Twelve."

20 "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"

And they said to him, "Seven."

21 And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" (Mk. 8:17-21)

It was yet another example of the apostles having facts, but not assembling them faithfully, not moving ahead on the basis of the truth that had been arrayed right there in front of them in plain sight.

Now, in 3:5, Mark had used the noun form ("hardness") to describe unbelievers. But in these two instances we've noted above, the subjects by and large are saved men. They are believers, who have left all to follow Christ, and are faithfully following Him to the best of their ability.

But their ability then is not what it would be ultimately. They did not have it all together. They had a great deal of growing to do. Their hearts were, to some degree, "hardened."

Yet in spite of that, they doggedly followed Christ, they clung to Him, they did what they could for Him. They accepted His teaching and His commands and His rebukes. However, their heart-condition prohibited them from putting everything together. Clearly, then, this hardening was both partial and temporary.

From that I draw some observations:

1. Having a partially hardened heart now does not necessarily mean one will always have a hardened heart.
2. Having a partially hardened heart is not a sure sign of eternal reprobation. (I take great comfort from this, as I have had long, long stretches of what I only see as obtuseness in retrospect.)
3. Having a partially hardened heart is not a bar from (nor an excuse to avoid) service.
4. Having a partially hardened heart does not exclude the possibility of fruitful service.

To which I add these practical observations:

1. We should not conclude that, because we are elect and in active, fruitful service, it is impossible that we might have a partially hardened heart. We well might.
2. We should not conclude from the fact that we are not conscious of having a partially-hardened heart that we are not in that condition. The apostles were not aware of their own obtuseness.
3. In fact, on the principle of 1 Cor. 10:12, we should assume it as likely that we may have a partially hardened heart, in the sense that we too are not putting together all the truths we know in the truest and most God-honoring way.
4. As we find in ourselves a partially hardened heart, we should not lose all hope.
5. As we find in ourselves a partially hardened heart, we should not leave off believing and following and obeying and serving to the very best of our ability.
6. We should note, as to our understanding of our relationship with Christ, that while the Lord does not reject His disciples for their obtuseness, He also does not coddle their obtuseness. He confronts it, He upbraids them for it (cf. Lk. 24:25), He continues to press them onward out of it.
7. This should inform both our self-ministry (cf. 1 Tim. 4:16) and our ministry to others (cf. Acts 20:20; 2 Tim. 4:2; Titus 1:13; Heb. 10:24).

The writer to the Hebrews (as most NT writers) was addressing obtuse people. So far from either writing them off as reprobates, or coddling them so as to enable their refusal to add 2 to 2 and find 4, he fiercely upbraids them (Heb. 5:11-14), scares the togas off of them (and me; Heb. 6:1-7), and then lovingly exhorts them (Heb. 6:8-20).

Don't accept current obtuseness as the final word. Do not tolerate it in yourself, or let it crush all hope for other believers. Don't give up praying, hoping, and bringing the Word to bear.

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A bit more thinking on Colossians 3:12-14

by Dan Phillips

Tuesday I mused on the formal clash between a sermon introduction (can't change a drunk by dressing him up) and part of the text it introduced (Colossians 3:12-14 — which tells us to dress up!).

Let's take up with my ad hoc translation of the text itself:

Put on, therefore, as people selected by God, holy and abidingly loved, compassionate affections, kindness, humble-mindedness, gentleness, long-suffering, ¹³bearing with one another and freely forgiving one another if one should have a complaint against someone; just as also the Lord freely forgave you, thus also you should do. ¹⁴And on top of all these things put on love, which is the unifying bond that leads to maturity. (DPUV)

"Put on" these eight virtues / attitudes / graces / practices, the apostle says. But he does not merely say that. He says to put them on:

First, as those "selected by God." This translates ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ (eklektoi tou theou), identifying them as those who in eternity past had been singled out by God from the mass of humanity, and thus made objects of His saving grace, and bequeathed to Christ for salvation (cf. John 17:2, 6; Ephesians 1:3-14). This massive exertion of divine power brought life to the dead and light to the darkened, through sovereign, creative, powerful grace (2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 2:4-10; 5:8).

The next two descriptives may modify this alone, but each will be taken in turn.

Second, they are "holy," which is to say that they are set apart for God's ownership and service. This is accomplished once for all by the offering of the body of Christ (Hebrews 10:10), is also a work of sovereign grace (1 Corinthians 1:30), and is why all Christians without exception are dubbed "saints" — holy ones (ἅγιοι, hagioi). We are not what we were — or, put another way, in Christ  we are what we were not.

Third, they are "abidingly loved," which is my way of trying to catch the perfect passive participle ἠγαπημένοι (ēgapēmenoi). They became objects of God's free love, were objects of God's free love, would remain objects of God's free love. This is not a weak, wimpy love of good intentions, but a mighty powerful love that sees to it that the deepest needs of its objects are met (cf. John 13:1; Romans 8:28-39).

So this is the frame, the setting for the call to "put on" the graces Paul then enumerates.

To go back to the pastor's illustrations, they are not still unreformed drunks, plucked from the street for a merely external makeover. They have been transformed by God's mighty, redeeming love. They are not what they were, could not ever again return to what they were.

So now that they are new, what of their lives? What should characterize their lives? The same smelly, rancid, repellent garments that once suited them perfectly? Never! That was then, this is now (cf. 1 Peter 4:3).

What's the deal here, then? The deal is that we have been fundamentally changed, true. But note how Paul cuts the heart out of all quietism. There is no suggestion that I am to "wait on the Lord" to add these graces to me, or put them on me, or even to work them into me.


The idea is I am different, I have a different wardrobe — and I am both spiritually able and morally obliged to put it on.

This is a command.  It is not a statement of fact or a prediction. It gives me something to do, and tells me to do it.

This command is addressed to me. It is not addressed to the Holy Spirit, it is not addressed to the Lord Jesus. It gives me something to do, and tells me to do it.

So it is not inward transformation from without, it is outward transformation from within. If I were to massage the "drunk" illustration, then, I would say it is taking the drunk out of the gutter and transforming him — then saying, "Look, those clothes don't suit you anymore. These do. Here, put these on."

And so we should, and so we must.

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