SharperIron » A “Mansion” over the Hilltop?

Three words: “Powerful illustration” and “Ouch”.

Pyromaniacs: Does “faith” matter?

What Does It Mean “to Me”?

Hallelujah! God expects faithfulness, not ’success’ guaged by numbers. Don’t try to be relevant. Preach… the… Word.

SharperIron » Historic Marks of Fundamentalism

A veeeery brief overview of the history of fundamentalism.

SharperIron » Ecclesiastical Separation

Suppose a young man comes to you and tells you that he feels called to be a pastor. I feel that one of the weaknesses of fundamentalism has been our tendency to look to our youth for leadership instead of developing more mature believers for the pastorate. So here is the advice I would give my son if he came to me before graduating high school and told me that he felt called to be a pastor. There are 5 areas that I believe must be thoroughly developed in a man before he should pastor.

1. Learn doctrine (Titus 1.9)

2. Learn the church (ministry and what must be administered) and see your doctrine fleshed out in life and ministry. It has been said, “Wisdom is truth applied to life”. Learning the church is “Doctrine applied to ministry”.

3. Build a time tested testimony (1 Tim. 3.1-7)

4. Solidify your ministry philosophy to help you administer (this is a fleshing out of #2).

5. Learn tools to help you feed

To see these 5 areas developed properly, I would give the following advice to my son. Go to a good bible college and solidify your doctrine (#1 above) by getting a two year bible degree. After that, get a degree in a secular field where you can earn a living. Find a job related to your degree and find a good fundamental church where you can attend and minister. While you work your secular job and build a testimony amongst the unsaved (#3) you should serve in your local church in whatever ways that you can: children’s worker, youth worker, deacon, finance committee, usher, etc. (#2). Once you are well on your way with a family and have served several years in your church, then hopefully you will have developed a time tested testimony that qualifies you to be a pastor (probably around age 27-33). If you still desire to be a pastor, then go to a good seminary and solidify your ministry philosophy (#4) and learn the tools (#5) to best present God’s word (Greek, Hebrew, Homiletics, Hermeneutics, Sermon prep, etc.).

Concerning the ‘time tested testimony’ that I mentioned previously. As I look at 1 Timothy 3.1-7 (in the ESV), I cannot get away from the fact that these qualifications simply take time to evaluate. How can we be assured that a man is faithful to his wife if he has only been married for a couple of years? How can we tell that he has lived sensibly (sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable) and can communicate that to others (able to teach) if he has only just graduated from bible college? How do we know that he is not excessive in his personality (not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money) when he has not dealt with job responsibilities, ministry responsibilities, finances, and a family for more than a couple of years? How do we know he can manage his home and children when he has no home of his own and his children are small (or yet to be born)? The management of the home is the true testing ground for the man called of God (1Tim.3.5). Time allows for learning doctrine and ministry service that humbles a man and makes him realize that it is God’s work and God’s church, not his ability that will make a church successful (1Tim.3.6). How can a man know how to plant a church when he has never really served in one for any extended period of time? And finally, how can a man have a good testimony among the unsaved (well thought of by outsiders) when he has went from youth group to bible college to a ministry position and never worked among them? A man who is to be a pastor had better know how to work among the unsaved and keep a good testimony for Christ and with the unsaved he works with: his church people are going to be expected to do it every week. This does not mean that everyone he works with will be evangelized, but it does mean that even those who reject the message still respect the man.

There are exceptions to the above: Spurgeon pastoring at age 17 comes to mind. Timothy himself was probably a teenager when he began traveling with Paul. But keep two things in mind: Timothy traveled with Paul for many years before taking a pastorate, and Timothy was probably around 35 years old when Paul wrote “let no man despise your youth”. But we must also remember that Paul wrote to Timothy when he gave these ‘time tested qualifications’ for elders. Let the exceptions be the exceptions, but the norm is going to be more what I have expressed above.

I know that each situation is different and men desire the pastorate at different times of their lives, but the same 5 areas need to be developed regardless of what a man’s station of life may be. Let us make sure that we are putting qualified men into the ministry. It is the biblical thing to do.

SharperIron » Directions in Evangelicalism, Part 6
Kenton Sparks and Biblical Inerrancy.

Good thoughts on Creation, Evolution, and Inerrancy. The previous posts need not be read to enjoy this one.

Given that my church has just finished up our Missions Conference, I have had “missions on my mind” for quite some time. So I thought I would write down some of my thoughts to share. One of the great blessings of an independent Baptist church is that we choose our own missionaries. There is a much greater bond between the people and their missionaries when they have seen and selected them.

In my evaluation of missionaries and their ministries, there seems to be some that need long term support, and others that require only short term support, and some that only need short term but continue to receive support forever.

Let me give you some examples of what I like and dislike…

Missionary A goes to a foreign field and plants a church. Once the church is healthy he trains a national to take it over (with the church supporting him) and then goes to plant another church. He will always need support by outside churches. I personally would support  Missionary A until Jesus comes.

Missionary B goes to a foreign field and plants a church. Once the church has grown he has another missionary take it over (with the church NOT supporting him) and then goes to plant another church. He will always need support by outside churches. I really have a problem with this mentality for two reasons: 1) the ‘church’ planted never learns to support their own pastor, and 2) they are never really an ‘independent’ church because they are reliant upon other ministries for support money. And money can and does come with ’strings attached’ (and they are usually under the thumb of some missions board). Those strings make it impossible to be a truly independent work. I don’t want to support Missionary B.

Missionary C goes to a field and plants a church and essentially becomes the pastor. Even once the church is large enough to support him, he still receives support monies from other churches. His church may even take on missionaries, but they never pay their own pastor. I believe this is wrong as well. I believe the first missionary that a church should support is their own pastor. The same problems with Missionary B apply here. I don’t want to support Missionary C.

Missionaries A, B, & C all planted churches that eventually became large enough to support their pastor. Missionary D may be in an area of the world that is poor and/or sparsely populated. He sees a small church planted, but one that never attains the ability to support their pastor full time. I still believe that church should pay their pastor something, but I understand that the church itself will never truly be independent. It will rely upon outside monies for its entire lifetime in order for their to be a light in that region. I can support Missionary D with one caveat: If the church never grows beyond two to three families, then serious consideration needs to be given to ‘dusting off your shoes’ and moving to a new location that is more receptive to the Gospel (after training the existing families to feed themselves of course).

I’ll stop here. There are other situations that can occur and I may address them in a later post. I don’t want this one to get too long.

Some time ago I was sent a free copy of the first issue of Bible Study Magazine if I would provide a review on my blog. After a busy holiday season, I have finally read most of the magazine articles and can give you my first thoughts on this new magazine.

The magazine’s statement of faith is the Apostle’s Creed. Unfortunately that is too minimal of a statement to determine orthodox belief in our post-modern world. Please understand that I’m fine with the creed, but it says nothing about a substitutionary atonement. But I understand that they wanted to be minimalists with the magazine. I guess my biggest gripe is that there is no statement on the inerrancy of the scriptures. I understand that authors and interviews may be conducted with those that differ, but it would still be nice to see a magazine devoted to the study of the Bible committed as an editorial staff to presenting the scriptures as inerrant.

The ‘About Us’ on page 3 gives us a ‘mission statement’ stating: “dedicated to providing readers with tools and methods for Bible study as well as insights from respected Bible teachers, professors, historians, and archaeologists.” In the first magazine they have tried to provide this, but issue two has a promotion for a free mp3 from “Kutless” (a Christian rock band) as well as a downloadable article about the band’s study habits on the road. I’m not sure what category Kutless falls into: Bible teachers, professors, historians, or archaeologists? I could not care less about how a rock band studies the bible on the road. No connection there. Unfortunately it looks like the editors at Bible Study Magazine went off mission statement by issue two for the sake of promotion. But let’s get back to issue 1 and my review of it.

The article “Finding Time for God” by Jeannine Seery was pretty good. My wife struggled with many of these things when the children were young. On a side note, I now have a new goal for my blogging career: Jeannine is listed as “an expert blogger”. I’m not sure what qualifies one to be an “expert blogger”, but I want to be one.

The interview with Josh McDowell on “Defending the Bible” was excellent. It was great to read some of his tactics when trying to debate the post-modernist mindset. Also surprising was how he developed his speeches. This would be handy for a pastor to look over in situations where you were speaking to a public audience that was not your congregation. This article was well written and structured.

Let’s stop there with part one. I’ll return with a review of the rest of the mag at a later time.

This (Pyromaniacs: Of Course, she says) is an excellent response to this foolishness.