CRITICAL CONCERNS FOR PASTORAL MINISTRIES = (PART TWO)

Fifth Critical Concern: Impure Motives (1:7a)

1:7a They want to be teachers of the law, …

In this statement, the impure and selfish motives of the false teachers clearly surface, which demonstrates their failure in love for others. Literally, the text says, “desiring to be teachers of the law…” “Desiring” is an adverbial participle (thelontes from thelo„, “to wish for, desire, want”) that is dependent on and modifies the main verb, “turned away.” It points us to a false objective or goal that had caused them to turn aside from the biblical goals the apostle had just discussed. In the context here, this was a problem of ego and impure motives. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a teacher of the Word; the problem is with the why, the reason, or the motives. In New Testament times, to be a teacher of the law meant to have a position of respect, authority, and often, significant financial reward as in the case of the religious Pharisees. And I am afraid that today, we see the same thing happening. Many go into full-time ministry, but for all the wrong reasons. These false teachers were not called and gifted by God; they simply went without being sent. Like Simon the sorcerer of Acts 8 and Gehazi of 2 Kings 5, they were coveting money, position, power, and prestige. Rather than being motivated by love for God, His glory, and for people and their needs, they were coveting the praise of men (cf. 1 Thess. 2:1ff) or were hucksters peddling the Word of God for personal gain (cf. 2 Cor. 2:17). By contrast, they were men with an impure heart, an evil conscience, and an insincere faith.

Perhaps nothing is so deadly and destructive to a man’s ministry as what Ralph Turnbull described as the dry rot of covetousness. “Dry rot in timber is a disease which occasions the destruction of the fibers and reduces timber eventually to a mass of dry dust.”[1] And so covetousness in a man’s heart eats away at the very fiber of his character and at the very nature and heart of his ministry, which is having a servant’s heart. As the servants of Jesus, we have been called to be servants of men, to minister to the needs of others, and to bring to them the healing power of the message of the Saviour and His Word. For it is only this message and its truth which can sanctify lives (John 17:17).

When we operate from a spirit of covetousness whether for position, praise, or for money, we are involved in that which is contradictory to the very heart of Christian ministry. Such is hypocritical and destructive to both us and to our ministries. It shows we are failing to take heed to our own lives and are preaching a message we do not really understand or believe as we should. Not only are we not practicing what we preach or teach, but we are not experiencing the healing, life-changing power of the Saviour ourselves. Like the disciples who were often seen coveting position in the kingdom, believers can be around the Word, yet, by virtue of covetousness for a position, praise, power, or possessions, they can become closed to and robbed of the very truth they are sent out to proclaim (see 1 Tim. 6:5, 10).

The world and the people of our churches are crying for authenticity; they want to see Christians with whom Jesus Christ is real, who are role models and whose lives are living proofs of the very doctrine they proclaim (see Heb. 13:7). Too often, as we have seen with some of the television evangelists, they are served the opposite.

In view of this, we should compare 1 Timothy 4:15-16. “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that everyone will see your progress. 16 Be conscientious about how you live and what you teach. Persevere in this, because by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you.” Contextually, Paul was telling Timothy how to be a good servant of Jesus Christ.  He is one who faithfully feeds others after he feeds himself (see 4:6, 11). The basic principle is this: to be an effective servant in public, one must be effective and faithful in private. A vital public ministry is dependent upon a vital private life.

We should note the order of the first words of verse 16. It is extremely significant. First and literally, “Pay close attention to yourself” and then “to your teaching.” The verb here, epecho„, “hold toward, aim at,” with an emphasis on the object held. It means “to fix one’s attention upon something.” Epecho„ refers to concentrated mental processes and again draws our attention to having and keeping focused on biblical goals, the things that keep us from straying off course.

So, those who wanted to be teachers of the law were those who were ego-oriented and motivated by selfish desires. They were those who had failed to have the right goals and had thereby strayed off course. Rather than ministering for God and others, they were serving themselves. They were occupied with things like, Appearance, “How do I look to people?” Status, “How am I doing?” Performance, “How am I doing?” Gain, “What can I get out of it?”  Wrong goals and straying off the path of faithful servanthood leads to other prominent and obvious critical concerns.

Sixth Critical Concern:
Little or No Understanding of the Word
(1:7b)

The Problem Explained

1:7b but they do not understand what they are saying or the things they insist on so confidently.

Here we see an illustration of cause and effect, of root and fruit, or sowing and reaping. “Desiring to be teachers of the law,” which stemmed from impure motives, was part of the cause, the root of straying from right biblical goals. On the other hand, failing to understand what they were saying points us to one of the results, the fruit. When one’s desire to teach the Word is not motivated by the desire to know God more intimately, His truth more accurately, and minister to the needs of others more effectively, then one will naturally be poorly motivated to truly know God’s truth. In their desire to be “teachers” they were not real students of the Word, which is a crucial requirement and an awesome responsibility for biblical ministry. They were sloppy students if they were even students at all. They were relying on such things as their ability to articulate what little they knew, on acting as authorities, on personal charisma, and on a spirit of dogmatism. So, as these and other verses in the pastoral epistles show, they were misconstruing Scripture, using it for their own ends; they were both adding to it and misrepresenting it.

Surely, one of the greatest blights on the church today is the shallowness we find in relation to what is being taught. Someone has said the evangelical movement spreading across most countries and claiming dynamic things for God is 3000 miles in length, 2000 miles in width, but only two inches deep.

The Challenge and the Cure

1 Timothy 4:5, 13-16; 5:17; 2 Timothy 2:15; 3:14-4:3

The term crisis is becoming ever more common since we are treated to some crises almost daily, but it is a term that is being used more and more regarding what is going on in Christianity today. For instance, in his book, Toward An Exegetical Theology, a well-known Old Testament Scholar, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., begins his book with the first chapter devoted to this issue. The chapter is entitled “Current Crises in Exegetical Theology” and is devoted to the sad situation we are in today regarding the preaching of the Word. Listen to a couple of his comments.

To be sure, the Church has had more than her rightful share of “meditation” or “topical sermons” which are loosely connected with a Biblical phrase, clause, sentence, verse, or scattered assortment thereof.…

Those sermons whose alleged strength is that they speak to contemporary issues, needs, and aspirations often exhibit the weakness of a subjective approach. In the hands of many practitioners, the Biblical text has been of no real help either in clarifying the questions posed by modern man or in offering solutions.… What is so lacking in this case is exactly what needs to be kept in mind with respect to every sermon which aspires to be at once both Biblical and practical; it must be derived from an honest exegesis of the text, and it must constantly be kept close to the text.[2]

Another excellent book concerned with the crisis we are facing today, especially in conservative or evangelical Christianity, is a book entitled, The Coming Evangelical Crisis. This book is concerned with the way we have turned away from the Bible as our authority in faith and practice and turned to the methods and ideas of the world even while claiming allegiance to the Scripture, especially in relation to our moral values, priorities, the way, and reason we gather for worship and our spiritual lives in general. In this book, there is also an entire chapter devoted to the issue of preaching entitled, “Preaching: God’s Word to the Church Today.”

Why are we hearing this cry by so many concerned conservative evangelicals today? Because clearly, the Bible teaches us that the preaching/teaching process in heralding the Scripture is vital to the church’s ability to hold to the Bible so that its message accomplishes its God-ordained work to both forms and reform the church.

Plainly, effective pastoral ministry is a call to accurately study the Bible first with a view to one’s own life and then with a view to ministering its powerful truth to others. In his excellent book, Between Two Worlds, John Stott wrote,

There is no doubt that the best teachers in any field of knowledge are those who remain students all their lives.  It is particularly true of the ministry of the Word. “None will ever be a good minister of the Word of God unless he is first of all a scholar.” (Calvin) Spurgeon had the same conviction. “He who has ceased to learn has ceased to teach. He who no longer sows in the study will no longer reap in the pulpit.”

There is a freshness and a vitality about every sermon which is born of study; without study, however, our eyes become glazed, our breath stale and our touch clumsy.[3]

Certainly, this is part of Paul’s emphasis when he told Timothy, “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress may be evident to all” (1 Tim. 4:15). Bishop Phillips Brooks in his 1877 Yale Lectures said:

He must not be always trying to make sermons, but always seeking truth, and out of the truth which he has won, sermons will make themselves… Here is the need of broad and generous culture. Learn to study for the sake of truth, learn to think for the profit and joy of thinking. Then your sermons shall be like the leaping of a fountain, and not like the pumping of a pump.[4]

Truly, the higher one’s view of the Bible, the more committed we ought to be too careful and consistent in the study, and the more we should recognize our need for its truth both for our own life as well as for our ministry to others.

Many evangelical pastors and churches claim to believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible, that it is inerrant and infallible and God’s authoritative Word. But too often, by their approach to ministry, by their neglect of study, and the emphasis on programs and activity, by the way, some of these pastors use their time, one wonders just how sincere and strong this belief in the Bible as God’s Holy Word is.

But what about the claims of many pastors? I do not have time, and I have too many demands on my time! First, one needs to be sure this is not an excuse because of an aversion to the hard work of study or a dislike for it. Second, it could be a problem of letting others plan one’s time, and a failure to set priorities and to allot time accordingly (see Acts 6). If we do not plan our time and allot it according to biblical priorities and convictions, we can be sure others will plan our time for us. The devil himself will see to that. Finally, such could be a matter of having a very defective philosophy of ministry and one that needs a careful overhaul in the light of the Word, or the emphasis seen in the pastoral epistles.

Conclusion

Several critical concerns have been shared from 1 Timothy 1:3-7, but at the heart of these is a deep concern for both the communication of the truth of Scripture and the right motives in proclaiming that truth for we cannot separate the two without serious detriment to our ability to care for the church of the Lord Jesus. In his book, The Great Evangelical Disaster, the late Francis Schaeffer warned about some of the crucial or watershed issues facing evangelicalism, but he especially bemoaned the fact that, because many have failed to have a sufficiently high view of the Bible as God’s inerrant and inspired Word, the evangelical church has failed to maintain a concern for truth or sound biblical theology.[5]

Theology is tremendously important. The apostle Paul’s emphasis in the pastorals for sound doctrine shows all his concern for theology. It also mattered to Jesus (John 17:17) and it mattered to the reformers, but how much does it matter to the church today? Unfortunately, not enough. The church today has become caught up in the thinking and agendas of a popular culture that thinks in terms of being politically correct and being accepted by the crowd rather than biblically correct and honouring God. As Schaeffer pointed out,

It is comfortable to accommodate that which is in vogue about us, to the forms of the world spirit in our age. This accommodation has been deadly—in the loss of twelve million human lives over the last ten years by abortion. But it does not stop with questions of life; it is just as evident in virtually every other issue which has been made fashionable by the secularist mentality of the day.[6]

Theology should matter to teachers of the Word because people have a theology whether they know it or not. It may be good (biblical) or bad (worldly), conscious or unconscious, but regardless, people will act from what they believe about God and man and the world in which they live. Their theology will protect them from falsehood or allow them to believe a lie (see 2 Thess. 2:9f). Plainly, there can be no true spirituality or a healthy and effective church apart from sound theology. Speaking of the persuasive power of the future Antichrist and his ability to lead people astray, Daniel wrote, “And by smooth words, he will turn to godlessness those who act wickedly toward the covenant” (Dan. 11:32a) But the prophet was also confident that not all would fall for his propaganda for he then added, “but the people who know their God will display strength and take action” (Dan. 11:32b).

This is where the leadership of the church has such a grave responsibility in teaching and training the flock of God in the truth of the Bible. Naturally then, this becomes a critical concern and an area where we can expect the evil one to be hard at work.

Writing the foreword to R. C. Sproul’s Book, Knowing Scripture, J. I. Packer writes,

If I were the devil (please, no comment), one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible. Knowing that it is the Word of God, teaching men to know and love and serve the God of the Word, I should do all I could to surround it with the spiritual equivalent of pits, thorn hedges, and man traps, to frighten people off.…

How? Well, I should try to distract all clergy from preaching and teaching the Bible and spread the feeling that to study this ancient book directly is a burdensome extra that modern Christians can forgo without loss. I should broadcast doubts about the truth and relevance and good sense and straightforwardness of the Bible, and if any still insisted on reading it I should lure them into if the benefit of the practice lies in the noble and tranquil feelings evoked by it rather than in noting what Scripture says. At all costs, I should want to keep them from using their minds in a disciplined way to get the measure of its messages.

 Had I been the devil, taking stock today, I think I might be pleased with the progress I had made…[7]

Effective biblical preaching and teaching have always been a central priority of God for His people as expressed throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. It must be so for it is one of the means His people develop sound theology. We would expect then that all Bible-believing preachers, like the early apostles (see Acts 6:2-4), would make studying and heralding the Word a priority. But that is simply not the case because, as mentioned above, what is popular in the culture in which we live has negatively impacted the expository preaching of the Bible. Many pastors and church leaders have despaired from studying and preaching.

Less and less of their time is devoted to prayer and preparation. Some spend no more than two or three hours in preparation for Sunday. One such pastor makes a habit of preparing his sermon on Saturday night while watching television! Such preaching inevitably makes spare use of Scripture and becomes a series of stories linked around a devotional thought. Some have given up preaching altogether and have shifted to what they call more “hands-on” ministries.

Some have been very candid. “Preaching does not work as they told me in seminary.” “People do not want to hear it.” “Exposition is for a bygone age.” “Exposition is by definition boring.” So, with these, and similar dismissals, the preaching of God’s Word is shelved, and the centerpiece of the Reformation (the pulpit) is moved, in effect, to the back of Bible-believing churches.[8]

A recent survey in Christianity Today gives adequate evidence for concern because the survey shows many pastors simply do not make Bible study and preaching a priority.

… They considered relational skills the top priority, followed by management abilities, communication skills, and then spirituality. Well’s assertion that the Christian ministry is being redefined in terms of the CEO and the psychologist, whose task it is to engineer good relations and warm feelings, is manifestly ratified by this survey. It is difficult to imagine patients or surgeons listing medical knowledge as the least important item in that respective field—or, for that matter, those involved and affected by any vocational endeavour—without massive repercussions.

The thing that most disturbed me about the accompanying Christianity Today article, however, was the way it interpreted the data gleaned from this survey. Because seminary professors put a high priority on theological knowledge, they were considered out of touch with reality and did not have “a good understanding of the needs of local churches or the culture.” The article concludes with this ominous remark: “Something’s got to happen. The church is not going to wait. If the seminaries do not wake up and come along, they will be left in the dust.” … The article implied that less theology (or maybe no theology) in the seminary curriculum is the direction needed…[9]

Through the centuries, people have chosen various symbols to show they are Christians, but the greatest mark of Christianity, as the Lord so clearly taught the disciples, is love.

John 13:33 Children, I am still with you for a little while. You will look for me, and just as I said to the Jewish authorities, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ now I tell you the same. 13:34 “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 13:35 Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”

It is the message of the suffering Saviour who gave His life for us to redeem us from our sin and our self-centered lives that brings us into a vital relationship with God by which we are then able to truly manifest love for others. Thus, Paul has shown us that the aim of our instruction is love, but may we never forget that it is right theology and knowing God in Christ that forms the basis for genuine love as it is so evident in these verses from 1 John 4:7-14

4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is fathered by God and knows God.  4:8 The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 4:9 By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him.  4:10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

4:11 Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. 4:12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us. 4:13 By this we know that we reside in God and he in us: in that, he has given us of his Spirit. 4:14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

Addendum:
The Benefits and Dangers of Knowledge[10]

God would never instruct us to know the Scripture to be spiritually informed if it were not a vital need in every human being. So, what are some of the benefits of knowing God’s truth?

(1) Biblical knowledge gives direction to life. One of the great warnings of Scripture is that apart from God’s truth, man simply cannot know how to direct his life. It was Jeremiah, the prophet, who said, “I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself; Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23).

(2) Biblical knowledge gives substance to one’s faith. Faith is useless unless one’s faith has the right object. “On what do those who do not know the truth rely? On emotion, on feelings, on someone else’s opinion, on a book, on tradition, on some other empty, humanistic hope. And the result? Their faith lacks substance.”[11]

(3) Biblical knowledge gives stability under pressure. When we know that God has spoken (inspiration of Scripture) and we know what God has said (His promises), then we can rest in God’s grace, love, plan, and work in our lives because we have a hope that transcends this life. Through the Scriptures, we have hope, and hope gives stability (see Rom. 5:1f; 15:4).

(4) Biblical knowledge gives the ability to handle the Word accurately. “By knowing the general themes of Scripture, we are better able to handle the Scriptures intelligently and wisely. A working knowledge of the doctrines, for example, gives us confidence in using Scripture.

(5) Biblical knowledge equips us to detect and confront error. One of the important themes of the pastoral epistles is “sound doctrine” because sound doctrine is necessary to detect and confront false teaching and teachers, as Paul exhorts Timothy in 1:3f. Nothing enables us to detect what is counterfeit like knowing what is true.

(6) Biblical knowledge gives confidence in one’s daily walk with God. As the apostle Paul put it in Colossians 2:2, through the knowledge of the truth as it is found in Christ, we can experience “the full assurance which understanding gives” in our daily walk with the Saviour. This means the assurance of salvation, the assurance of security, assurance in prayer, in God’s guidance, and assurance of God’s provision of daily cleansing and provision against the power of sin. As the Psalmist put it, “I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts” (Ps. 119:45).

(7) Biblical knowledge filters out our fears and superstitions which siphon our inner energy and immobilize us. God’s truth becomes a screen, a sieve, that sifts out the superstitions that so many people operate by daily such as seeking direction through their horoscope.

Knowledge alone, however, can be dangerous. Swindoll suggests four dangers:

This leads us to an important question those involved in pastoral ministry need to ask. What is our final authority?  When the chips are down, on what do we rely?  When we seek reasons for what we do, what do we turn to?  What forms the foundation for our action? When we stop and think about it, there are all sorts of sources of authority that people rely on for what they do or do not do in terms of pastoral ministry and personal decisions.

These sources of authority also become crutches we can lean on. Some of the things people lean on rather than the Word of God are (a) Escapism. (b) Cynicism: becoming so occupied with one’s trouble that one grow dark and cynical. They become full of resentment and literally nurse their resentment which expresses itself in revenge tactics (the escape). (c) Secular Humanism (science, empiricism):  Men tend to listen to the council of some other person, rather than God. They get their answers from people or a book. They turn to self-help, people’s opinions, and self-realization. (d) Supernaturalism: This may be mild or maddening. Some will turn to mediums, some to astrology, some to emotionalism, and some to the occult.  But in some way, they seek a sign from God.  Christ said that an evil and adulterous generation seeks after signs. (e) Rationalism. (f) Traditionalism (social, religious, ancestry). (g) Favoritism (the problem of fan clubs): This results in becoming fractional or incomplete in spiritual growth because one refuses to listen to what God is teaching others from the Word. When this occurs, men become our authority and not Scripture (cf. 1 Cor. 3:1ff).

 I pray that the foregoing teaching study will lead you to pattern . . .“A MODEL MINISTRY”.  Remember “A Little Example Can Have  A Big Influence” based on 1 Thess. 2:1-12.

[1] Ralph A. Turnbull, A Minister's Obstacles, p. 26.

[2] Walter C. Kaiser Jr., pp. 18-19.

[3] John R. W. Stott, Between Two Worlds, The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1982, p. 180.

[4] Quoted by Stott, pp. 180-181.

[5] Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, Crossway Books, Westchester, 1984.

[6] Ibid., P. 111.

[7] R. C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1977, Forward.

[8]  R. Kent Hughes, Chapter Five, "Preaching God's Word to the Church Today," The Coming Evangelical Crisis, John H. Armstrong, General Editor, Moody Press, Chicago, 1996, p. 91.

[9] Gary L. W. Johnson, Chapter 3, "Does Theology Still Matter?," The Coming Evangelical Crisis, pp. 59-60.

[10] Part of the following is summarized and taken from Charles R. Swindoll's Book, Growing Deep in Christian Life, Multomah Press, Portland, 1986, pp. 25-32.

[11] Swindoll, p. 25.